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“You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice.” — Bob Marley
Many articles and books give good advice on procrastination but don’t address the root of the problem. Which means they work only temporarily. This article isn’t about hacking your motivation, it’s about making lasting changes, and is based on research from the High Performance Institute.
How do you find the root of your procrastination problem?
Each action you procrastinate on has its root, but there is one way that works for anything you procrastinate on. I’ve tried many things, and from experience, this is the one thing that helped me consistently fight procrastination off:
Raise your necessity
*See Appendix A at the bottom of the article for a mind map on how to raise necessity.
Picture this:
What does that image tell you? Did that caveman have a choice? Do you think he ever procrastinated hunting?
He hunts or he dies. That’s necessity pushed to the extreme.
In today’s world, it’s hard to imagine something we NEED to do. But the truth is, we do have needs and we all know about them. However, a lot of them are already taken care of because we live in a society.
Remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?
A lot of articles tell you how improving yourself (self-actualization) leads to love, health, wealth and happiness. There’s no denying that it’s true, but have you taken care of your psychological, safety, belonging and esteem needs first?
Without having the bottom tiers of the pyramid taken care of, it’s extremely hard to find the motivation to do things that count towards the higher tiers.
That caveman could, with difficulty, only address the bottom two. Do you think he’d be motivated to focus on the top two?
In High Performance Habits, Brendon Burchard and his team have discovered that “raising necessity” is one of the top six habits to become a high performer. High performers don’t procrastinate when they feel like they need to do something, as opposed to simply wanting to do something.
In the same book, he mentions the four forces of necessity:
1. Identity
When I tell people how I deliberately learn 3 new skills every month, I hold myself up to that standard. I don’t want to be seen as someone who’s all talk and no game. It’s not by accident then that I make this public, both online and amongst my peers.
“When we do what aligns with our future identity, we are more driven and likely to do a great job.” — Brendon Burchard
Self-reflection:
What is your identity?
How do you want to be seen?
How must people see you?
Do your actions match your identity?
How can you make them match?
Think about the following two excerpts from the book:
“Set new standards, self-monitor more frequently, and learn to become comfortable with taking a hard unflinching look at your own performance.”
“Sometimes the fastest way to get back in the game is to expect something from yourself again.”
2. Obsession
“There’s no talent here. This is hard work. This is obsession. Talent does not exist.” — Conor McGregor
“There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it.” — Napoleon Hill
There’s no denying that I obsess over my goals. I tend to have a pretty big list every month. The crazier the deadline, the more necessary it becomes to wake up early and perform.
Decades of research from the High Performance Institute involving over forty thousand participants has shown that people who set difficult and specific goals outperform people who set vague and non-challenging goals.
That’s why I like to aim high! This has been true for me in the past two years. I never procrastinate doing my productive activities anymore.
Start by putting numbers and dates to your goals. Put them in your calendar. Review them daily, or at least weekly. I review them when I do my weekly planning on Friday or Sunday.
Self-reflection:
What are your goals?
Are they specific enough? Are they reasonable?
Do you care enough to obsess with accomplishing them?
Why? Why not?
Do you ever assess your performance on them? How frequently?
“[…] Enjoy doing it so much that [you] don’t feel the need to apologize to others for it. […] Lose hours working at a task or improving a skill, and love it.”
3. Duty
“You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice.” — Bob Marley
Do you procrastinate feeding your baby or pet? No. You need to do it. They depend on you. That is powerful — duty towards external forces.
If I’m not there for members of SkillUp Academy, what’s the point of them even sticking with me. Some members desperately need the change to fulfill their duty. I have to do everything in my power to help them. Not only because they’re paying me, but because I care. I wouldn’t be doing that otherwise.
As Burchard says: “If you ever feel that you are not performing well, start by asking: Who needs me more right now?”.
Research shows that people tend to maintain motivation and give more effort when they are held accountable for their outcomes. It’s how sports teams, music bands, or any organized groups thrive.
Self-reflection:
Who needs you most right now?
Why do they need you?
Do your goals reflect that?
Why? Why not?
4. Urgency
This is one of my favourites and one of the hardest to execute. Real deadlines hardly exist in today’s world. But that caveman from above, he had a real deadline: get food or die.
For example, I had promised a free eBook to members of my accountability program who stuck to the program for 2 months. I wasn’t sure it would happen, but it did — much faster than I anticipated. Last Friday I realized that some members were due to receive the book, but the problem was that it wasn’t even written yet…
Stupid Danny…
That was a real deadline. I had to get that book done because I owed it to my members. So yesterday I sat down at 8:00 am after the gym to put the book together. I worked non-stop for 9 hours and produced a well-formatted 51-pages book. Imagine the motivation I had to do it. I was in flow for 9 hours straight and forgot to eat lunch (I had shakes thankfully).
Don’t be stupid like I was, but do try to set your environment up so that time is of the essence.
Self-reflection:
What are some real deadlines you have currently?
Are they real deadlines? Are you working on them?
Why? Why not?
When you truly believe you HAVE TO do something, procrastination is not even an option.
Conclusion
Raise necessity — that is how you get rid of procrastination.
This works across anything you are procrastinating on. If you continually work towards your burning desire and do things you truly believe are necessary, it’s near-impossible to procrastinate.
To raise necessity, care for your identity, obsess on what matters to you, have a real sense of duty, and make it urgent.
Make sure to do the self-reflections I put in both sections. These very questions were the object of my journaling sessions and have deeply raised my awareness and helped me fight off procrastination. I know they work not only because I’ve tried it for myself, but because research proves it across a wide variety of people.
Apply the principles from this article and be ready to accomplish more than you could ever dream of! Here’s to a procrastination-free 2020!
You can do this.
Check out my deeply actionable Course on 10 Skills to Improve Your Learning in 10 days.
