The Metaphysics of Procrastination Explained

If you're unfamiliar with my work, I'm going to talk about procrastination, but I'm going to do it in a way that's a little bit different. I'm going to actually depict what it looks like, the metaphysics in it. I'm going to use diagrams and try and depict what's going on internally in the mind around this problem. So we're going to jump into it now. I'm going to use diagrams and typically people stumble upon my work after they've tried everything else. A chronic procrastination problem maybe they've developed over the years. So if that's the case for you and you've struggled with this for a long time and you've tried all the productivity hacks and the self-discipline and the scheduling techniques and the apps and everything else, stay with me because this video will offer you a different explanation and a different solution in terms of how to deal with procrastination. So I hope you find this useful and let's dive in. Let's take a look at some of these diagrams that I'm talking about. So metaphysics of procrastination. We're talking about the invisible, the unseen, the what's happening underneath the surface. What I'm showing you here are basically two mindsets. So this here is our first mindset and this is what I refer to as the distressed mindset. When we have procrastination as a problem, that's the mindset. This here is the mind. The mind gets stuck orbiting or following the underlying rule that upholds that mindset. So it's moving in a counterclockwise direction that depicts that it's following the rule that underlies this mindset. But what is the mindset? What is the rule that undermines it too? Well, effectively, it's moving in this direction. It's adhering to this mindset, always in the same direction, never the different direction. But the rule in this lower mindset, when we're dealing with procrastination, it sounds a bit abstract or a little bit general, but it'll make sense in a moment. The rule when we're in this lower mindset is that we must look outside of ourselves in terms of fixing behavior to find the solution to the problem of procrastination. Always look outside yourself. It's about fixing, etc, etc. What is in the mindset? The mindset is conflicted. It has two opposing parts. This is why there's a conflict in us when we have procrastination. One part feels one type of way. The other part feels a different type of way. And the first of these parts that we'll look at here is what I call the, well, it's labeled as the lazy. This is the judgment that people will have against themselves when they are struggling with procrastination. So this aspect of the mind here is what we call the lazy part. Most people who have procrastination as a problem are convinced at this level that they are lazy. So when the mind is here, it's orbiting around in this phase, that's where you're going to get all those emotions that are associated with this. And what are those emotions typically? Guilt, shame, unworthiness. So disappointment, depression, all sorts of low heavy feelings we'll experience when the mind is stuck in this aspect of this mindset, following this rule of seek outside yourself. The problem is you. It needs to be your behavior. So it's moving in this direction and those are the feelings we will have. Now the opposite, so that would be like Jung's shadow. Nobody wants that. People want to get rid of that. They're desperately trying to lose that aspect. So they push it away, repress it. The other aspect that we'll look at next is kind of the more of a Jungian idea of the persona. I would call this the productive aspect. So this is the part that pretty much everybody wants to be. This aspect of this mindset, this distressed mindset, which is where we're trying to be more productive. We identify this part is attempting to really fix this part. So this part here is attempting to fix this part here. So the mind comes out of this. Now usually when it comes out of this part of the laziness, it's now into implementing self-improvement strategies, still following the same underlying law, but that's what it's doing. And it's trying in attempts to be more productive. I need to be more productive. I'm more deeply attached to that aspect. So the difference here is we're desperately trying to get rid of the idea that we're lazy. And we're doing that by being more productive, identifying with, I got to be more productive. I got to do more, et cetera. The mind at this phase here, well, the emotions that are experienced at that point are going to be all sorts of tension and anxiety here. This is moving in this direction. And we're getting up to this point here. Usually what happens is the person realizes I'm failing to implement all these big intentions and plans, et cetera. And that turns into a self-directed anger typically. Okay. So we start to get the anger gets directed towards the self. We're coming out of the persona. Now we're going back into, because of all that self-directed anger and judgment, I'm not good enough. I'm lazy. And we go around and around and around and around. The mind gets trapped in this mindset, following this rule that says you must fix your behavior. That's the rule. It's a behavioral problem. Nothing you get fixed until you tweak your behavior. So it's the, the productive persona versus the lazy aspect of the shadow. There is no solution to this. The solution I'll come to now is basically the mind is the solution. The mind gets to this point here and it needs to make a choice to break out of it and go into this new mindset up here. What is the entry fee to get into this new higher mindset, this lower mindset down here, I would refer to it as the distressed mindset where nothing works. This mindset up here, it's actually a transitory transitional mindset to move into an even higher mindset. Our goal in all of this inner work is to just get to this mindset and stay there. That's where things work. But the admission fee to get into it at this point here is effectively, you must accept that you don't have a behavioral problem. It's not about fixing your behavior. The rule here at this level, this mindset, and you may notice now that the mind is moving in completely opposite direction to the one that used to move in. The rule or the admission fee is that you must accept that you have a perceptual problem and that you're not seeing things clearly. The only problem you've had is that you have a perceptual issue. So it's no longer going to be about purely behavioral tweaks. Now, when we're at this level and we're following that rule of I'm looking at my perception, that's the key to all of this. Something very, very interesting happens at this point here. What was seen as two different parts previously are brought into awareness and they are both seen as the same thing. The persona and the shadow at this lower level of consciousness are actually seen now in full light as both contributing to the issue. Down here, in this level of consciousness, this is one we identify. We want this. We trust this one and we despise and resent this one. Up here, we're realizing that both of those aspects are actually problematic, not just the shadow part, not just this lazy thing that you're labeling yourself as. It's the attempts to make yourself being productive by tweaking behavior, etc., etc., that are contributing to your problem. But when you're at this level, in this mindset, you're beginning to realize here, well, actually, they are actually both contributors to the problem and it's able to bring you out of this into a completely different... The first phase here is what I would call awareness, where you're basically at this point here, in this phase, you're bringing awareness. I'll write it in there. You're bringing awareness. You're seeing. Now, you're seeing the perceptual problem for what it is. That's a big deal. It's almost as if at this level of consciousness or this mindset, you're able to look down at this entire scenario and see it for what it is. It's a Chinese finger trap. The harder you try to tweak behavior and force yourself, the worse it gets. We start to really understand what these two things are. At the level of awareness, there's just watching, there's awareness, understanding how it all works, there's also a process of questioning that goes on. A big part of the work at this level here is, first of all, we actually address both the shadow and the persona, the lazy and the productive aspects differently. What happens with the laziness stuff and the shadow, the judgmental, you're lazy, you're not good enough, that gets questioned and let go of. At this level of consciousness, it's about letting go of all those judgments and realizing they don't actually explain anything. Now, it's a little different for the persona. At this level of consciousness, what we're doing is we're seeing that as certainly part of the problem, but we're not letting it go. What we're doing with it is we are actually reinterpreting it. You're still allowed to refer to yourself at this level up here as being productive, but what being productive means is it no longer means this, which now I'll write it in here because this is important. The reinterpretation, you realize that at this level down here, what productive really meant, which we were attached to for a very long time, is that you bully yourself. You start to see that productive persona for what it is, which is demanding, yelling, criticizing, bullying, coercing yourself. You realize, oh, that was part of the problem too with that higher level of awareness. Now, so we're at this. We've accepted we have a perceptual problem. We're beginning to see how it all works and the trap we got caught in. When we're in this level, so we're coming through here and we're doing all this awareness and we're questioning, we're seeing how it all works. When we get into this part here, something very, very interesting happens. The first thing that happens is something I refer to as the free spirit comes online. The second thing that happens, something I call your builder comes online. These are actually alternatives, alternative ways to live and proceed with your productivity to the persona of productive and the shadow of laziness. Those are the two things that we're letting go of. At this level, when we're here, what's coming online, what's coming into our consciousness now is these aspects of the self. The free spirit is about recognizing that there is no coercion. I am absolutely free to do a thing, to not do it. There's no coercion involved with it. The builder aspect is all about having boundaries with things, saying no to things, protecting the free spirit, no longer using personal productivity to torture yourself, dare I say. These two aspects, it's like the masculine and feminine. The free spirit aspect, when it comes online, is really all about spontaneity or desire or your yes, your strong yes to things. This is actually what I want. There's no more have to's, need to do's, should do's that stuff. It's I want this. It's about identifying that and actually going after the things that you really want in life from a genuine heart feeling place rather than obligation or pressure. The builder aspect is about implementation. It's about decisiveness. It's not about big plans or big massive schemes. That's where all this stuff comes in down here when we develop covert contracts around how can I stop being lazy? I have to do a lot. This is all about boundaries, boundaries with yourself, boundaries with your goals, right, et cetera, et cetera. So when we're at this level, and again, our goal is to get out of this mindset and just get to this by recognizing we have a perceptual problem and stay in there as long as we possibly can. When the mind is there, you will be going through phases now of okay, I'm becoming aware and bringing awareness that an old pattern of coercing myself and judging myself. And now you're doing things in this phase where you're practicing guilt-free play, et cetera, et cetera, non-conditional play. And you're doing things like you're becoming decisive, right? You're having boundaries with yourself and you're able to see very clearly the way you used to relate to yourself and the new way you're relating to yourself. And you notice too, by the way, that you're getting a lot more done without any pressure, anxiety, stress. Okay. So this is about the mind. You've heard it a million times. The mind is powerful. We're getting out with the idea that this is a behavioral problem and we're getting into the idea that this is all a perceptual, this is an inner work issue where we can start to do the things we want, to go after the things we want without any pressure, self-judgment, berating ourselves, admonishing ourselves, pressuring ourselves. None of that's necessary. This is a completely new, dare I say, the word paradigm, right? Where we're realizing there's actually a different way to do this. And it's very effective. It's extremely effective. It doesn't have the same bravado and bullying yourself as we used to have because that's really what you'll come to see is that the old way of doing it is a lot about bullying yourself. There's no bullying required. There's also no laziness. Laziness is just a judgment. What happens to that part, it becomes this free spirit where it realizes I'm totally free and I'm allowed to want things, admit the things that I want to myself. That's the healthier, feminine aspect of the psyche. So this is the feminine aspect and this is the masculine aspect. And after a while of inhabiting this mindset where you're adhering to that law, you will actually break out of even that mindset and there's higher mindsets to go to, where there's no even doing this inner work of questioning. You've integrated it now and you're basically in the next level, you're totally living from that just as a natural way of being. So I hope this is useful. The metaphysics of personal productivity, if you like, or procrastination is what we're focusing on here. A lot of the stuff and the insights that you will get in this mindset here are in my book, my new book, it's called After You Don't Show Up. But it's about how you bring those two aspects of yourself online, escaping this trap that we're caught in for years sometimes. There is no fixing this. This doesn't get better. If your mind is stuck down here at this level, nothing changes. You're literally, quite literally going in circles. You're going through phases, repeating the same old patterns. But up here at this level of consciousness, something new is possible, which relates yourself and your goals without any guilt or pressure or anxiety. So if you want to learn more, some of the details and the types of insights that are in it, you can get my book, the link is below. Another thing I would encourage you to consider doing is to join our group. We have a group on Tuesdays, the link for it is below, you can find out more, where we talk about this type of stuff. We're talking about breaking out of this and no longer having that be the way that we relate to ourselves and our personal productivity and our goals. And basically our job is to just get to this and stay there and no more progressing down to this level. So those are the resources, they're there if you want to check them out. Hope this is useful and hopefully there's food for thought. There may be a new way of thinking about a lot of this stuff. Take care of yourself and I'll see you guys very soon.