I'm not sure if you're ready for what I'm about to ask you to do.
It's going to be painful, you're most likely going to cry, and it's going to suck at first. But I can promise you that things are going to be a thousand times more painful in 5 or 10 years if you don't do what I'm asking you to do right now.
The reason why it's so important that you do this right now, today...
Somewhere in the world, a man who smoked cigarettes his entire life was just diagnosed with lung cancer during a routine checkup at his doctor's office. The man has a wife, three children, and financial responsibilities to take care of them all.
The doctor just gave him three months to live.
Sitting there on the table feeling naked in his underwear, the grown man breaks out in tears.
Every emotion you could possibly expect to feel in this dark moment came rushing to the surface. The fear of what might happen to his family when he's gone. Will they be able to afford the expensive mortgage payments? Will they be ok without him? The feeling of regret. Knowing that all of his life, he told himself he should quit smoking; but decades later,
he never actually did what he said he was going to do.
He's now in shock and crying uncontrollable tears of remorse and regret.
The nurse in the hallway hears his gasps of pain an stopped in her tracks, as her head went down in despair, knowing the man just got the bad news She lets out a deep breath of sorrow and continues to walk on to her next patient.
As the man leaves the doctor's office shell-shocked, in a trance-like state, he reaches his car and sees the cigarette butt on the ground next to the driver's side door.
That was the last cigarette the man ever would ever smoke in his entire life.
The pack of Marlboros resting on his center console was no longer an instinctual habit where he "reaches over and lights up a smoke" but instead is now a painful reminder of his impending death. The sight that once used to be so normal to him now brings up the pain and agony which twists a knot in his stomach.
What's he going to do now? It's already too late.
If he could only look back in time and scream to himself: "Quit smoking now! It's bad for your health."
But what's the problem with that?
People have been
telling this to him his entire life. He said he was
going to quit smoking on many occasions.
He logically knew that he should have quit smoking decades ago. He saw the pictures of the charred up lungs in health class. All the evidence and reminders were here.
So why, after years of knowing this, did he finally decide to quit now?
Before you answer this question for yourself, I would like you to strip away the
content of the problem (doctor/diagnosis/etc.), and pay attention to the
deeper structure of what is going on inside of his body, primarily with his:
- Thoughts, and
- Emotions
When you strip it down to it's most basic components, the reason why he decided to quit now is because of
the painful emotions he felt
in the present moment.
Pay attention to the part where you feel what I mean about the present moment.
- When his mother yelled at him to quit smoking in high school? The pain was a 1/10.
- When his girlfriend broke up with him during college because he always smelled like smoke? The pain was a 4/10. Well that was until he went out to the bars and met someone else later that night. In between rounds of beers, he went outside to light up a cigarette with his friends and share a good time.
- When he began getting that smokers cough at the age of 40? Maybe a 3/10 on the pain scale.
But the painful emotions he felt were not strong enough to grab ahold of him and change his behavior.
If you put a frog in a boiling pot of water, he's going to instinctively jump away when he feels the pain. But if the water is warm and he is slowing beginning to boil, he's going to swim around until it''s already too late.
Sorry little froggy, you should have read my email
newsletter.
If your favorite delicious treat is on the table in font of you, you're emotions are going to be the force inside of you that drives you to grab it and put it in your mouth.
Imagine as if the emotions you feel are some unseen esoteric force that controls your body. Whatever logic goes on in your head has no defensive power against the emotions that cause you to do what you do. It's like you're possessed.
But what if you could control what emotions you feel, knowing what emotions will cause you to change your behavior?
The moment he
felt the realization about him dying in three months (10/10 emotion), the
fearful emotions of his family being left behind (20/10 emotion), and everything else that exploded at once when the doctor delivered that nuclear bomb of a message: These painful emotions instantly shifted his behavior.
But at that point, it's already too late. What if you can create this change in your life today?
Think about you and what you're looking to take action on and achieve in your life.That ONE
goal you set you for yourself and that you're not taking action towards.
You don't feel those emotions of pain that are decades away. It's nothing but a logical thought right now, with no emotional power attached to it.
In 2012, I began learning about mindfulness.
You've probably read
The Power of Now where the author famously introduced the concept that it's always the present moment. The past and future are nothing but thoughts in your mind, and it is always the present moment.
Instead of viewing time as something where we "move through time". The time is always the present moment, and we measure things by a movement of energy.
- It's either happening now.
- Or it's not happening now.
- It's either here now.
- Or it's not here now.
If a person says "I'm going to start eating healthy
tomorrow." What does that imply? It implies that the unhealthy eating habit is still happening now (problem not solved). When the infamous
tomorrow rolls around, let's just eat that chocolate cake one last time (still happening).
If something is not physically happening now, you are pushing it into the indefinite future because you throw it in the category of (not happening).
You have to pull the pain that you'll feel if you continue to procrastinate into your body...right now. Not just the thoughts of what bad things might happen. You need to actually feel the emotions when you look down at your body.
The lesson here: In order to eliminate this procrastination, you have to pull the emotions from the future (not happening), into the present moment (happening now). This way when you think of doing the (bad behavior), you
actually feel the emotions of pain. Your emotions you feel
in the present moment are what you are going for here...
- When that smoker got dumped by his girlfriend during college and was laughing and partying with his friends at the bar; drinking that beer and "lighting up that smoke" out front...this resulted in him feeling positive emotions when he smokes (in the present moment).
- When you eat that chocolate cake, you feel the positive emotions...in the present moment.
What are you procrastinating towards?
What's the one big
goal that you set out for yourself, something that you are not taking action on?
Now is the time where you will learn how to
attach so much pain to the thought of not achieving that goal, and pain to the habit of procrastination, that the part of you which procrastinated in the past will be left behind in the doctor's office parking lot next to that man's last cigarette butt and pack of cigarettes which he tossed out the window.
Because when the bad habit is gone, there's no more "Just this one last time."or "I'll do it tomorrow."
If the doctor just warned him that he should quit smoking and he might get cancer from it...that cigarette would be lit up again.
How do you collapse the bad habit of procrastination?
The answer rests in your deepest long-term fear (the complete opposite side of the coin from your successful vision of the future).
On one hand, you achieve your goal (relationship/money/lose weight/etc.) and you have this goal you set out for yourself with these great positive emotions if you achieve it. On the other hand, you have the fear of what life will be like if you don't achieve this goal.
Quit Smoking Example: "Quit smoking - live a long happy life." (Positive emotion).
If you don't quit smoking, what is the worst thing that can happen to you:
- Cancer.
- 3 months to live if you quit now. 3 weeks if you keep smoking.
- Leaving family behind.
- Leaving family in financial ruin because you're the breadwinner.
- How will all this feel if this scenario has already happened? Would you pick up another cigarette? Or would you tack on the extra 2 months to your life and spend it with your loved ones?
Exercise and Eating Healthy: Looking in the mirror being obese, nobody will want to date you, fast forward 20 years, diabetes, having to stab yourself with an insulin needle every day to keep your blood sugar in check
(are you simply reading this or can you actually pretend to feel the emotion of the needle being stuck in your arm?), arteries clog up, heart attack, stroke, you can't speak correctly because of the stroke, and you're forced in a wheel chair. Living a life feeling groggy all the time.
Someone else has to wipe your *** because you can't physically do it anymore.
You are sitting in a wheelchair next to a hospital bed, in this vegetable-like state, barely able to communicate as you look at your loved ones feeling helpless and hopeless while you say to yourself:
"What the hell have you been doing your whole life? Why haven't you been taking care of your health?"
And when you look back on how you
chose to live your life, you are filled with a feeling of regret and despair.
Looking back from this moment of immense pain, what can you choose to eat instead? Does the bag of potato chips make all this worth it?
Answer this to yourself: What is one way you can be healthier today?
I'm going to stop eating potato chips after typing this to you. Not "one last one", but that food craving
already gone. How'd I do it? simply by typing the description above to you, which took me all of two minutes.
Building a your dream business/going after your financial goals/etc:
They call me the ghost of Christmas future.
You're going to be 65 years old and laid off from your job with no pension because we outsourced what you do to technology, you're living paycheck to paycheck and you're past due on your rent. You're stuck and (by this point) you have no escape. Nobody is going to hire you with your outdated skills now. The procrastinative actions (I made this word up) you've been taking in the past have finally caught up to you.
The landlord evicts you, you're buried in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. The collectors keep calling you and you eventually have to turn of your phone because you can't stand the sound of your ringtone. As you drag the last bag of belongings from your now-empty apartment to your car, you realize that your car has just been repossessed moments ago as you're now homeless on the street at the age of 65 with one suitcase full of belongings.
No friends, no family, no nothing because you've been playing computer games 12 hours a day.
At this point, there's no coming back from this. It's already too late.
Embarrassed. Ashamed. You should have been building up your business and skill-set decades ago instead of browsing around on social media, watching TV, drinking alcohol, smoking weed, and playing video games.
Or what is it that you like to do instead? What's that one thing you've been doing in your life that has held you back from your dreams?
But it's too late for that now.
Are you just emotionlessly reading these words, or are you
actually feeling the emotions in this present moment?
Stop reading. Feel your body. Are the emotions here? Yes or no?
Now here's the real kicker: From this emotional state of already being in this worst fear, looking at the same things that once were joyful (procrastinating) looks a bit different to you, doesn't it?
Keep building them up from this worst fear and then when you imagine that you live it now, look back at all the things you could have shouldn't have done.
All because you didn't commit a few hours a night after work building your future right now.
You get the picture. What is it that
you're working on as you read this...Shopping addiction? Gambling too much? Relationships?
I'm still not craving those potato chips. They've been my downfall for six months. Yuck. Now they're gone.
Here is the final test:
When you write out your worst case scenario if you keep procrastinating on the one thing you know you are here to do, go into an
exaggerated amount of detail like I did here. It's not enough to just put the words on paper. Let me repeat that. It's not enough to just put the words on paper.
You have to invoke so much pain in what will happen if you
don't take action towards achieving your goals; that you
feel this pain in the present moment.
But even that's not enough.
Are you sitting around feeling the emotions in despair? Or are you
feeling the emotions that drive you to do something? Are you sitting around with your hand in a scorching hot fire? Or are you pulling your hand away?
- You have to feel the painful emotions (not in the future), but in the present moment. Look down at your body and do you feel them? Are these emotions attached to the thought of procrastinating or that bad habit of yours?
- You have to make sure the emotions drive you to actually do something right now, today. Yeah, you can sit around in the hot fire and feel the pain, but it means nothing if you don't jump out.
What's one change you've already made in your life by reading what you read today?
Just the simple thought of not doing what you need to do should make you feel as painfully miserable as the man felt in the moment the doctor diagnosed him with cancer that will kill him in three months.
- Build your dream.
- Eat that apple and jump on the treadmill.
- Say hi to your future partner.
All of a sudden, the pain of doing the procrastinative (there's that word again) things you've been doing is so much worse than going out and just doing what you failed to do in the past.
And I say this in all seriousness: If you're not crying or feeling the nuclear-bomb-of-an-emotion with just the thought of not taking action towards your goal; you're not attaching enough pain to it.
I have a challenge for you: Can you invoke the
feelings of pain right now?
Are you actually
doing something to change because of the feelings?
After reading this, aren't you a little disappointed in the way you've been procrastinating knowing where it led you in this painful life of yours? It's too late to escape now that it's here. But looking back in time, what can you begin to do differently to avoid this trap?
Before you go to sleep tonight, write out your own exaggerated pain story. Can you make it more painful and dramatic than mine?
I hope you cry.
Because that's what causes you to change and you can thank me later.
I told you that it'll be painful at first, but what this does it collapse the habit of procrastination, and these emotions drive you to do what you need to do.
