How to Stop Procrastinating and Finally Take Action

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you love this podcast, please do me a favor, give us a rating and review however you listen to us. The reason why is because those platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts, the more positive ratings and reviews that we get, the more they actually show this podcast to people who've never listened to it before, which allows us to grow and impact more people's lives. So if you've been listening for a while, you've never given us a rating review, please do so, I would greatly appreciate it.

0:41Today, we're gonna be talking about how to stop procrastinating and finally take action. I'm gonna be talking to you about traps that your ego creates, that you probably don't even realize that it's doing, that keeps you self-sabotaging. And I wanna start with the bold truth. Your ego is the thing that is holding you back the most. And we're gonna talk about what the ego is if you don't know exactly what that is. But your ego, it's not your job to help, it's not its job to help you grow. Its job more than anything else is to prove itself right, to keep you the same. And that means that it has to keep you in the exact same place.

1:21It doesn't want you to get better. It doesn't want you to get wiser. It doesn't want you to get richer. It just wants you to be safe. The ego wants to keep you in the exact same place because the exact same place that you're in right now unconsciously means safe. Even if it's miserable, it knows that you're alive. And if you're alive, that means that you're safe. And so the ego will pull out all of the stops to trick you so that you don't take action. All of the fears, the limiting beliefs, the doubts, the excuses, everything so that you stay in the exact same place. And it lays out all of these psychological and emotional booby traps that you just call being realistic.

2:05But in turn, what happens is you don't take the action that you've wanted to take and you're in the exact same place. Have you ever done that before? That you wanted to take action towards something in your life and then for some reason you held yourself back? If that's the case, it was 100 % your ego doing it. It created what I call a trap door. Boom. It got you. So instead of taking action, it creates this fear or limiting belief or story that keeps you too busy thinking about that and too afraid of what could possibly come down the road so you don't take any action or you just completely give up on your dreams because of some fear that could possibly be happening later on down the road.

2:46It's a trap door. And the thing that you have to realize about your brain is your subconscious is usually about 15 steps ahead of you. So you're thinking to yourself like, I want to build my business. And then you're like, but I'm so terrified of fear and what if this happens, this happens, this happens, this happens, this happens. Oh my God, that seems so bad. I don't want to take any action. Your ego is the thing that's holding all of that back. And so when you look at the ego, what is the ego really? I want you to understand this because people always say stuff like ego is the enemy and ego is the problem.

3:21I want you to understand this. Your ego is not evil. It's not trying to destroy you.

3:29It's not simply trying to protect you. Its job is to protect your identity. Even if that identity is stuck, broke, insecure, unlovable. Because identity that we have built of ourselves is such a frail construct in everyone's mind that anything outside of what you think of yourself means that you're going to have to change the way that you think of yourself. And so your ego doesn't want that to happen. And so, you know, it doesn't want to have to change even if you've always seen yourself as not enough. Well, guess what? Your ego will defend that story of not enough to the death. Not smart enough, not good enough, not pretty enough, never going to succeed, unlovable.

4:16What if I fail? What if I run out of money? What if my wife leaves me? All of those things. Your ego will defend your crappy story to the death. Because if you change, your ego has to let go of staying the same. And so it traps you. Boom, gotcha. With fear, with doubt, with really convincing internal arguments. And then you don't even notice all of this happening. You just sit and you're like, I don't know why I'm procrastinating. I don't know why I'm not taking action. I don't know why I'm not doing the things that I want to do. Well, because your subconscious is 15 steps ahead of you. So I'll give you a couple of examples, right?

5:00The traps that will kind of pop up in front of you. Let's say that you want to start a business. You feel that excitement. You feel that spark. You feel the inspiration, that pull towards trying to do something new and exciting, towards making yourself better, making your life better. And then boom, fear swoops in with a PowerPoint presentation on your financial doom and how you're going to fail and how you're going to be a loser. And then what pops up in your head? Man, well, it would be really cool to run a business, but what if I run out of money? Trapdoor. But what if I put two years into running this and it fails anyways?

5:41Trapdoor. all the time, all the money, all the energy wasted. You know, it's better to do nothing and be in the exact same place than to work your ass off and fail and then be the exact same place. Boom, trap door. Do you see how it does this? It's, you have this, I always say the inspiration, I've heard this quote before and I love it, is inspiration whispers and your fears will scream at you. So you have this feeling of, I want to grow a business. It'd be so amazing. Oh my gosh, my life could be so great. But what if I run out of money? Fear. What if I put two years into it and end up running out of money and business fails and all of this wasted energy?

6:26So it starts to scream at you and you forget about the reason why you wanted to start it in the first place. Here's the ego's game, okay? It drags your attention into a future that hasn't happened yet, but it is never good. You failing, you running out of money, you embarrassing yourself, you looking like an idiot, and it freezes you into inaction now. Why? So that you don't change and so that nothing changes. Why? Because if nothing changes, the ego gets to stay the same. It gets to feel safe. It gets to feel right. So that's why you self-sabotage. What's another example. The trap of I'm not ready yet.

7:11Oh, you know, now's not the right time. I'm not qualified. Maybe I need to get some certifications for doing this thing. Oh, you know what? I'm just so busy recently. Maybe I'll look at this next quarter. Oh, maybe when the kids get older. This one's real subtle because it sounds wise. Oh my God, look at you. You're being so responsible planning ahead, right? But what it really is, is the ego reinforcing the belief that you're not allowed to begin some imaginary, until some imaginary perfect moment comes up. You can't start yet. You're not good enough yet. You don't have enough time yet. You've got to wait for this perfect moment.

7:55Boom. Trap door. Gotcha. You're stuck again. It got you. It's 15 steps ahead of you. And so what does it do? Inaction, inaction, inaction. You're running, oh my God, I've got this inspiration. I want to do this thing. Fall on the trap door. You don't go anywhere. So the moment when you're quote unquote ready is the moment when you start, not the other way around. It's not that you wait for this perfect moment. It's that you start and that is the perfect moment because then you start figuring things out. Think about it. How do you get qualified for something? You start working on it. How do you get experience?

8:31You take action. When's the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago. When's the second best time? Right now. So when's the best time for you to start something that's going to take time? Right now. Like it makes so much sense when you actually break it down, doesn't it? So you have to stop waiting. You have to stop delaying. It's like people who are like, oh, well, you know what? I need to work on myself more. I need to get more qualifications. I need to go to more conferences. I need to read more books. It's like the way the example I always give is if you want to become a really good basketball player, you will never become a good basketball player by watching other people play basketball.

9:12Oh, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to watch every NBA game and then maybe I'll get better. No, get your ass on the court. That's the only way to do it. So if you need to build up a skill set, it's not about reading. It's about actually doing the thing in the faster that you start doing the thing, the faster that you become better at it. So stop waiting and stop delaying. You want a cold, hard truth? Each day that passes is one day closer to death. Are you getting any better? You don't become something great by waiting. Nobody ever just became great or did something amazing in this world by waiting for the perfect moment.

9:49And I want you to understand this and I I want you to hopefully it really hits home, okay? Time is a construct that humans create as an excuse to stay the same. Think about that for a second. Time is a construct that humans create as an excuse to stay the same. What do I mean by that? Well, you know, when you really zoom out, we can go really kind of wild here and say time doesn't exist. It's just, you know, the earth is spinning. and you know it's just the sun going up and down is really just the the sun's going to what just us spinning around the sun and each time the sun goes up it's just a spin and each time the you know the seasons go around and we have a new season and we have four seasons that go by it's just the earth that's going around the sun so it's this construct that we create though of like i throw time in the mix and i start to blame time for the reason why i'm not where i want to be yet i'll give it some time i'll start in the future oh i'm progressing i'm slowly getting better It's like, no, I don't want to use time as an excuse anymore.

10:53I need to go, I'm only going to get better by doing the thing, so I might as well start doing the thing. The best version of you doesn't just happen on some random day in the future. It's built every second that you're alive. So whatever skill set, whatever knowledge you need to learn to make yourself better or more valuable in the market needs to be learned now, not sometime when you have quote unquote time. That's a trap door. And we will be right back. And now, back to the show. What's another trap door? The imposter syndrome. Oh, who do you think you are? It's your ego's favorite little line when you want to do something amazing.

11:33This imposter syndrome. This popped up for me, and I've said this before many times in the podcast. When I first had the idea to start the podcast in January of 2015, I thought to myself, like, you're 29 years old. Who's going to listen to you? Like, why would they listen to you and not, they could just listen to Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins had been in self-development longer than I had been alive. Nobody's going to listen to you. Some 29-year-old kid. That's stupid. Boom, trap door. So what happened? I didn't start the podcast. I had the idea in January of 2015. I didn't actually launch my first episode until August of 2015.

12:12Why? Because I kept trapping myself until I became aware of it. And we do this all the time with the imposter syndrome. But here's the twist around it. This whole imposter syndrome is not the truth. It's self-preservation. Your ego is scared that if you succeed, it will have to change its entire story about who you are. Once again, your ego does not want to have to change. It does not want to be wrong. Because if it were wrong, it must be destroyed. It would rather have you be predictably miserable than unpredictably successful. And so what does it do? You're not good enough. You're not smart enough.

12:52You're not ready. No one's going to listen to you. Who do you think you are to become XYZ? Boom. Trapdoor. Got you again. And you've got to start becoming aware of these things. What's another one? One of my favorite ones? Identity. Oh, it's just the way I am. Which that translation, I'm just unwilling to change. Boom, trapdoor, got you. Oh, yeah, it's just the way I am. I can't do this. I don't think I'm ever gonna really improve at that thing. Your ego loves the identity. Even if that identity is stressed and angry and insecure. Because if you stay the same, the ego feels safe because it doesn't have to change.

13:31But real growth means saying, this is who I've been in the past, but I'm not gonna stay that person. I'm going to change. I'm going to evolve. Like, think about that. How boring would that be to be the exact same person? Not even boring. How disappointing would it be to be the exact same person 12 months from today? That's not what I want. And so if you're thinking to yourself, oh, it's just the way that I am. It's just the ego trapping you to stay exactly how you are. That's a fixed mindset. I want a growth mindset. I want to think to myself, I'm constantly evolving every single second. And so when you start to look at this, the natural question is, oh my God, okay, this all makes sense.

14:13I see how I'm procrastinating. I see how this is causing me to be in an action. I see how this is holding me back. So what do I do? Well, the first thing we need to do is become more aware of ourselves. If you want to be taking action towards something, if you want to be going to the gym and you're not going to the gym, if you want to be building your business, you're not building your business. If you want to be asking that person out and you're not asking that person out, notice yourself not taking the action that you want to. The self-sabotaging, the procrastination. And then try to identify the trap door.

14:47Realize, okay, this is interesting. I really want to do this thing. I'm not doing this thing. What's behind all this? What fear is behind all of it? What limiting belief is behind all of it? What story is behind all of this? And challenge yourself to identify what that thing is. Like actually start to notice, okay, so my conscious mind wants to do this thing. My subconscious is 15 steps ahead. Let me see if I can start to trace the subconscious to see what it's doing here. What is this thing doing? and then what I want you to do is I want you to challenge yourself to see the other side of the coin so if you're sitting there and you think to yourself oh I don't have any time yeah I just I don't have any time maybe I'll do it in the future ask yourself the question is it possible for me to find some time is it possible but there might be some time maybe I don't have 40 hours a week but do I have two do I have five do I have 10 hours a week is it possible for me to do this after the kids go to bed?

15:47If it is, then you're full of shit. If you said to yourself, you don't have any time. Okay, that's good. That's what I want. I want to prove to myself that I'm full of shit because then it shows me, oh, the ego's just lying to me. If you think, oh, I'm not good enough and whatever flavor of I'm not good enough, you ask yourself a question, you want to challenge it. Is it possible that I might be good enough? Is it possible that I can build myself to be way better? If it's true, then you're full of it again. That's what you're trying to do. You're trying to prove that this perspective that I have based off of my ego is actually not true, that it is false.

16:24If I can find that it's false, it's like a house of cards. It's like one good flick and the entire thing comes falling down. Oh, you're not going to be a successful business owner. You're not smart enough. You're too ugly. You're not pretty enough. You are dyslexic. You have ADHD, whatever whatever stuff that you're saying to yourself as to why you can't build a business. Challenge that. Is it possible that I could succeed at building a business? It's possible. What would it look like? And you challenge it because you want to find holes in the ego, in the perspective that you have. Because if you do, once again, the house of cards comes crumbling down.

17:06I want you to get better at challenging yourself and calling yourself out on your own bullshit. If you can start doing that, well, that is how you start working through the ego. Because the ego creates this false narrative that if you're just unconsciously living your life, you're not paying attention to it. But if you're the type of person who's listening to this podcast says, I want to be better, you need to find and identify what that ego trap is that is causing you to procrastinate and not take action towards the dreams that you want to create. and then challenge those egoic narratives in the future and say, what is it?

17:40Is it possible? Is it possible that I could be successful? Is it possible that I could be good enough? Is it possible that maybe I don't have all the knowledge yet, but I'm not an imposter and I could get better? As you start challenging it, you start seeing the holes in it. As you start seeing the holes in it, you start to see, all right, I think I actually can take action towards this thing. And you develop a new narrative, a new story around what is it you're trying to do. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please do me a favor. Share it on your Instagram stories.

18:08Tag me at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. When you guys share this, this podcast grows. And so if you've ever gotten any value from anything we've ever put out, I would greatly, greatly appreciate if you would share it. And with that, I'm going to leave it the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you, and I hope that you have an amazing day.