How a Fake Productivity Persona Causes Procrastination

Hi, in today's video I want to talk about the persona we develop about being this productive person and how unhelpful it is and how understanding that and changing that can actually lead you to being productive. So I'm David and I focus a lot on this issue of procrastination and I have written a book on it. I work with people to help them achieve what they want to do in their lives, to focus on the things that they've maybe been avoiding or procrastinating on. Now I try to do it from a different way to the hustle culture stuff, right? The just force yourself, make a better plan, sort of being proactive and it forces, involves pushing yourself and motivating yourself excessively, right? I think none of that is really necessary. I think what's really missing is insight into why do I tell myself on one hand that I want to do all these things or maybe this one specific important thing and yet when it comes time to engage with it, I delay and I avoid it or I push it forward and it's not happening, right? So it's insight that we need to understand that dynamic and the insight I want to share today is this idea of our persona. So it's a very, very interesting thing where when we procrastinate, right? And that might look to other people maybe, right? As if we're very, we're not interested at all in being productive people when we struggle with procrastination because they look at, well, this person isn't following through. They're not doing the work that's required. So you might assume then that people who procrastinate don't really care that much about productivity. They're not productive. Lots of evidence. Missed our times and they're not following through, right? They're not productive. So you'd say they're not, you know, you would assume then that they don't care about being productive. But that is the paradox here because people who procrastinate care inordinately about being productive. They're almost obsessed about being productive. It's just that it's not happening. And that's telling us that this persona that they're using, I must be productive, I need to be, I should be, is actually the thing that's causing the problem. So what is a persona? A persona is a thing that we develop and we become very attached to. It's an idealized version of how we would like ourselves to be in the world or be perceived by others even. And the problem with these personas is being productive is fine, but now productive, being this productive person has become a core aspect of my identity, right? Not just something that I choose to do or not do or engage with or not, or behavioral thing. It's who I should be fundamentally as a person. Now, when it becomes this, that's a persona. And the problem is when we develop these personas, when we become deeply attached to developing them in the process, we also create their counterpart, which is the shadow aspect, right? And the shadow aspect of being productive is being unproductive or lazy, right? Now the problem is, and we don't like that, that threatens this persona, so we push it out of awareness, but anything that gets repressed, pushed back has a very, very clever way of reasserting itself, coming back in. So you find yourself in this sort of horrible situation of desperately, desperately wanting to be productive, but this counterpart, this shadow aspect keeps on, it's almost like you're driving the car with the handbrake on. So the video I wanted to make today is about that persona. What do we do with it? You see, everybody's trying to get rid of the shadow that develops. It's this lazy thing. You're not going to do it today. You're not a serious person, right? It's very judgmental. Now really what should happen is we should, we can, we can question a lot of that stuff and let it go, right? Bring it out of awareness, bring it into awareness, bring it out of the unconscious and start looking at it. But see, that's only half the work because really that stuff is only there because we have developed this big persona about I need to be productive. And we are deeply attached to that when we procrastinate. So what do we do with that? It, it sounds like I'm saying, well, just tell yourself, forget about this idea about being productive. That's not it either. What it involves is first of all, examining exactly what is this persona that says I need to be productive. What does it really mean by that? So really I call this, this approach the fine print. We look at, okay, I should be productive, dot, dot, dot. What exactly does that mean? That's the fine print. Because we'll get to look at what it really means and how actually dysfunctional it is. Because even that persona is not actually going to be helpful for you being productive. So once we can do that and we realize, okay, this is the thing I've been attached to all along. Then instead of getting rid of this idea of being productive, we could, we just completely repurpose it. We give it an entirely new meaning. So I'll give you an example of what I mean by this, the fine print of this persona concept of being productive, right? I should be productive, dot, dot, dot. What does that mean? Well, really what it means is until I get things done, I should torture myself. I should delay having all fun in my life until I get stuff done. I will tolerate indecision and second guessing myself for days and weeks on end in order to be productive. Can you see what I mean by this? You need to be productive and it's actually saying that at any cost. And that is actually really, really unhelpful and it doesn't facilitate you being productive at all. So what we do is we say, okay, this persona isn't working. I need to totally reinvent or restructure this thing and repurpose it. What happens when we're starting to move in the right direction is that persona gets replaced. I am productive because I have healthy boundaries with work. I no longer see rest and relaxation and play as secondary to work. I see it as something that helps me work. This is now the new fine print that we're developing in. Yes, I am productive under these conditions and this is why. The old one is I need to be productive. Therefore, could I all play? I should have consequences if I don't follow through. I should withhold things from myself if I don't follow through. I should judge myself harshly if I don't follow through. That's the persona we have been attached to and it creates this thing, this laziness shadow that comes back in, right? There is no such thing as laziness. The thing about the shadow is it doesn't actually really, it's never based in anything real, but it becomes very real for us because we're repressing it all the time and we don't want to look at it. Therefore, we never get to debunk it. So the invitation in today's video is, okay, how can I look at what being productive means? Does it involve withholding things? Does it involve threatening myself? Does it involve harsh judgments? Does it involve delaying my life? Does it involve never being allowed to relax fully? If that's the case, we don't need to get rid of this idea of being productive. Being productive is a beautiful thing. It's a great value, right? You can do it, put it up, put it away. It doesn't have to become the core part of who you are as a person. It doesn't have to define you. That's the thing about the persona and another piece of the fine brand. I am defined by being productive or not. My self-worth is completely contingent on how productive I am. If I'm not productive, I am a bad person, et cetera, et cetera. So being productive is fine, but it doesn't have to be this high stakes thing. In fact, you become natural. You are productive. Everybody is naturally productive. Children are productive. Babies even want to be productive. They want to do things, want to engage with things. They even want responsibilities. But it's just this conditioning we have in our culture, which is force yourself, push yourself, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. You're not in a big enough rush. It's another thing I tell people. If you're in a rush, something has gone wrong already. You should never feel rushed in your productivity. It should be relaxed, relaxed, relaxed. You should feel like, okay, I'm moving in the right direction. There's no rush. Let's just slow down. This is a long road here. I'm moving towards this in a way that I want to maintain over a long period of time. It's much more important to have daily progress rather than massive spikes in productivity. That's another aspect of the fine print. I must make huge progress every day. I must do really impressive things now. That's another aspect that's completely unhelpful, and that is not going to facilitate you being productive. So a healthy alternative. I'm productive. I make small progress every day. I'm allowed to show up and try to do stuff and not have it work out. In fact, that's a healthy part of what it means to be productive and creative. So really what I'm talking about here, this is why I love talking about this issue because people think, well, David's talking about personal productivity. I'm talking about deep ego dynamics here. I'm talking about self-actualization. I'm talking about doing shadow work on yourself, and procrastination is one of those things that has a great way of bringing up that shadow, that self-attack, that judgment. Oh, see, you didn't do it again. Look at you. You didn't do it. That's your shadow coming up. You don't want to do it. You never wanted to do this. You're not a serious person. You're not productive. That's shadow. So this stuff is incredible. You can change fundamentally as a person if you can just slow down and ask yourself, okay, what is going on here with this? You can radically grow as a person. By the way, you can also become massively productive with this. Here's an invitation. If you're willing to just question the idea that your problems are you're not organized enough, you're not responsible enough, you're not productive enough, you're too lazy. If that's the way you're framing your current problems with productivity, if you're willing to question the idea that your problem is that you're lazy, even just slightly, you will be on a new path, because it has nothing to do with laziness. Laziness doesn't mean anything. It's a completely subjective attack judgment. It means different things to different people anyway, but you get anyone to define exactly what that means, and they won't be able to tell you. It's not helpful. But if you can say, well, maybe this has nothing to do with that. Maybe this is much more about understanding myself and how my mind works and the relationship I have with myself. That's how we move forward. And yes, you will become more productive, but you'll also be doing self-actualization work. Getting rid of these personas is making room for the authentic self to step in and just have a relationship with your productivity, be more creative, express yourself through whatever it is you're doing in life. So I'll leave it there. As always, if you want to work with me, you can. There's a link below. It'll take you to my site, and you can either message me or you can set up a session. And I really appreciate it if you can like these videos and share them with people you think it might benefit and subscribe to the channel. Also, that's a huge help and that's something free that you can do. It really helps me when you subscribe to the channel because it means more people will see these videos. And I think what I'm talking about is a little bit different to how most people talk about it. So I think there's a space for this, and I think it will resonate with some people who really need to hear it. So you can help with that too. I'll try and make more of these videos. And as always, thanks for being with me, and I will see you again very soon. Take care. Bye-bye.