Now I don’t want to yak on about myself, but I have been told that telling your story helps inspire other people to overcome the challenges that you have faced. <3 Hi I’m Antony Sammeroff, host of the Be Yourself and Love It Podcast (subscribe on iTunes or Android) and author of 20 incomplete books, all of which are scheduled to come out sometime over the next decade (stay tuned.) Jokes aside, I’m very happy with how my writing is progressing these days – I must have written a million words in 2017 – but it wasn’t always so. For the entirety of my 20s procrastination racked my self-confidence and undermined my self-esteem. All the people I knew who were productive had ALWAYS been like that so there was not much they could do to help or advise me. What’s more – everyone I knew who was a chronic procrastinator had always been like that too!... Was it just luck of the draw? Did we have no choice but to accept our fate? My procrastination didn’t just have me chronically depressed at the worst of times, it also cost me big opportunities! Here are just a few of the things I cringe to remember: - In my early teens I went to audition for a TV program and got a call back with very few other candidates. They gave me a script to learn but I procrastinated on learning the lines for so long that I was not confident in the audition and the part went to someone else, even though I knew that I could have done a great job. - When I was 18 I took a Demo CD to a club where they played the sort of dark electronic music that I was really into in my teens. I asked one of the DJs to put on one of my songs, and while it was playing the other one asked him what it was. When he told her that it was my demo she was so impressed that she said she could get me a slot at a musical festival. Despite the excitement I felt in that moment, I let myself down by putting off finishing my demo and never got to play my electronic stuff live. - I started college at 22 and had to study for my four-year honours degree over five years. Although I gave everything to my assignments and my marks were excellent, I often could not discipline myself to get them in on time! I was on the road to getting a first-class degree but missed by one or two marks partly because of this problem. - When I was 24 I was suffering from back pain and went to a chiropractor. He pointed out that my chest muscles were too short and my hamstrings exceptionally tight. He corrected my spine and gave me some exercises to fix the problem. I did them half-heartedly until the pain went away and then stopped. As a consequence, I am only now correcting my posture which would have been fixed years ago if I had persevered. - By the time I was 28 I had slightly managed to improve my output but not in a disciplined way. I got a coach to help me with my own coaching business. He taught me how to create and sell an online program. I was all set to host a webinar to pre-sell the course, but right as I was reaching the finish line my procrastination kicked in. My coach and I parted ways and it took two years before I finally finished my online course - Surviving to Thriving. Even though these challenges were seriously depressing, I never lost hope. I always believed that one day I would find the right solution to my procrastination problem, but where? I kept on trying things and trying things. I read books, most of which were completely useless, and watched YouTube videos which were not much better. No matter where I looked I could not find someone who had actually gone from being a reluctant procrastinator to a productivity machine! Only people philosophising about how to mitigate the effects of procrastination slightly. No one seemed to have a profound solution. I saw a variety of therapists over the years and they helped me offload some of my frustration, but after a while I got tired of telling the same story about my feelings of futility over and over again. I had understanding. What I needed was practical help. Well, no spoilers, but eventually I found a method that worked for me. Nowadays I wake up early. I meditate, do some yoga stretches and then some breathing exercises to get energised for the day. I floss my teeth and make a healthy smoothie – a couple things I could never manage to do regularly before. I do my first writing session next, then practise the piano for a half hour or so, then do some reading. After lunch I will usually do at least one more writing session, whenever it suits me. On Monday and Thursday nights I do a Facebook live stream for 10 minutes on a self-help topic of my choosing. Many have reached tens of thousands of hits. (You can find the previous live feeds on my YouTube.) On Wednesdays I put out the Be Yourself and L ove I t P odcast. Thursday, the Scottish Liberty Podcast. On Sundays I run two personal development events in person. Before bed, I journal for 15 minutes about what’s on my mind and how I’ve been feeling. I also find time to go to the gym, write theatre reviews, see the lady, hang out with my buddies, and most importantly I feel like every day is a success! Did I mention I also work? During the week I run events, coach others and offer counselling services, in person and internationally over Skype. How did I do it? Little Keys Open Huge Doors I found the right method and applied it consistently until I was used to it. That might sound blindingly obvious but at least I’m not selling any snake- oil. I went out and weeded my garden, then planted seeds until it was full of flowers. It took a little persistence – and persistence is a very scary word for procrastinators. Often, we feel like we can’t trust our moods for tomorrow so how can we commit to being persistent today? Half the time we are scared to even start an exciting new project in case it ends up being another unfinished responsibility hanging over our head. Just another discarded possibility on the heap of unmet dreams. The thing is, I found a way of making it easier and easier to be persistent. You may be wondering how long this “quick fix” took. After 30 years of experimenting with dead-ends, unable to change my work ethic, I was seeing tangible results from this method in a few weeks. In less than a year I had transformed my life completely. I had routines. This book will help you design a three-month course of action for yourself and make it as easy as possible to apply so that you can do as I have done. I have decided on that amount of time because it is a realistic period to see significant changes in your life and is relatively unscary. Three months is usually the minimum amount of time I work with a private client, and it is enough time for you to judge whether my method is right for you or not. If you are hungry for more you will naturally continue to apply the method for another three months, and then long after those three months are done! This book teaches the genuine method that I used to overcome procrastination and change my life, one step at a time. I hold nothing back. There is no woo-woo or funny stuff. It’s a pragmatic, sensible approach. It’s simple and effective. All you need to do is follow in my footsteps and get results. Then write me a little email detailing your experiences. (Don’t put it off too long.) We will start off with addressing a few changes you might have to make to your mindset if you really want this method to work for you. Come with me. The Five-Headed Dragon Between You and Your Goals. (and how to slay it) All or Nothing Thinking. ‘It’s all or nothing – and nothing’s all I ever get.’ - Meatloaf and Jim Steinman When you’re stuck in a rut it’s easy to imagine that everything must change at once or else it’s pointless. The truth is that victory is not actually achieved by getting things done – but by making little changes in the way you operate day to day that add up over time. Think of changing the pieces of hardware in your desktop computer one by one until it’s a brand-new machine internally. The weakest links may slow it down in the short term, but ultimately when the transformation is complete it will effortlessly be able to do things that it can’t do now. You can continue to upgrade the machine indefinitely as new advances become available – and you will soon get pretty handy with a screwdriver too! The problem right now may be that: You are Expecting a Miracle! You want to have a healing experience. Maybe you will go to a motivational seminar one weekend. You will feel great and get really juiced up hanging around all of these other people who understand you and are going through similar problems... but nothing deep can fundamentally change from one workshop – or a therapy session, or seeing a guru or shaman, or taking a psychedelic – and when your old patterns reassert themselves you might end up feeling worse than ever! “Now I’ve swung back down again it’s worse than it was before – If I hadn’t seen such riches, I could live with being poor.” - James (English rock band) How to Slay this Dragon: Change your goal from getting things done to getting a little better each day, based on the understanding that simply getting things done is not the actual goal. Becoming the kind of person who can get things done is the goal. Once you become that person – the person you’ve always known you have the potential to be – getting things done will come naturally to you. Perfectionism “I’m a man of simple tastes. I’m always completely satisfied with the best.”- Oscar Wilde Many procrastinators place such high standards on themselves and their work that they intimidate themselves out of even getting started. Sometimes the goal that they have set themselves really is too demanding for their current skill level, especially if it’s a big project. No one would go to the gym for the first time and expect to be able to bench press their own weight, so why would you expect to be able to start and complete a big ambitious project like write a novel, record a solo album, launch a product, or climb Everest without first getting the relevant experience under your belt? How to Slay this Dragon: No one else will tell you this but the cure to perfectionism is not lowering your standards. It’s gaining confidence in your ability to meet them. We always feel confident operating in a situation that we have command of. You never feel a lack of confidence walking, but this was not always the case. You were once a toddler. Right now, you might be a goal- achievement toddler. Confidence will be gained, but only by experience. Build your confidence by gaining experience working on smaller, less ambitious tasks than the ones you are persistently avoiding. If you have been putting off that great thesis for years start by writing short pieces on related subjects that are 60-500 words long. Write them as uncritically as possible ‘just for experience.’ You may be able to use some of your ideas in your final work once you’re ready to get back to it! If you dream of having a successful podcast start making little recordings explaining things you find interesting in five to ten minutes. If you want to run a business start by getting a job in something like sales and use it as an opportunity to learn. Find the most successful people in the company and offer to buy them lunch or a coffee and pick their brains to learn how they achieve their standards. Most people are so flattered by having their accomplishments acknowledged that they will gladly tell you everything! Some people feel like it’s too late and they should have already done all their training years ago... As though now that they’re older they need to get straight into the big project if they’re ever going to make it happen for themselves. That view is pure poison, and if you are taking it to heart you are basically fating yourself to being in the same position in five or ten, or even 20 years’ time. Except you’ll be even older then than you are now. I look back on all the things I thought it was too late for me to do and realise how good I would have been at them by now if I had just started then – making learning my priority instead of trying to “punch above my weight.” IF YOU THINK YOU DON’T HAVE TIME TO DO IT, THE TRUTH IS YOU DON’T HAVE TIME NOT TO DO IT. True, you ARE older and wiser, but that means you can learn faster than when you were younger and naïve. I used to teach adults piano, as well as children. Most of them came in believing you had to have taken up piano as a child to ever be truly competent at it. As it turned out they learned much faster than the kids did, so that idea turned out to be an empty cliché. It’s never too late to learn. And what’s more, you can’t afford not to learn. It’s the essential step of becoming competent to accomplish your goals.