Word Count: 1100
Read Time: 10 – 15 min.
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Gal Shapira is an Israeli National Judo Champion. She wields 12,000+ followers on her Twitter account @galjudo, and speaks about Mindset, Positive Psychology, and (re)programming your mind.
Why does she talk about this?
She and I had conversations, in length. She told me that through her career as a Judo Athlete, she spoke with top neuroscientists and habit coaches. People who know what they speak of. She took the provided knowledge and instilled it in her.
Her content is catered to those wanting to Grow, or better yet, excel. In all things in life. And all things in life, start with the mind. Therefore here content pinpoints the slightest troubles we have with our monkey minds, yanking us here and there, where we don’t necessarily want to go, and do things we don’t actually want to do.
One of the big things she talks about is Procrastination. And specifically, how to Overcome it.
That’s what this post is going to be about. This is a review of the Guide Overcome Procrastination she has put out. Now I had a chance to read it – as most people send me over their work, for feedback, or as a gift – and it was a great read.
Let’s get into the Guide!
The Prose
The prose, the way of writing, is clear and concise. An excellent method to deliver information. It is without fluff, or extravagant metaphors or stories. It cuts straight through the bullshit and delivers you what you NEED to know. That’s it. It is the perfect way to communicate to us, the audience, in a guide like this.
Psychology
For most of you, who read a LOT – and fans of pop psychology, neuroscience, positive psychology, mental models, and all that – some or perhaps most terms will be familiar for you.
So, for the very adept readers, this guide will be more of a refresher of principles.
That said, if you’re a complete noob, then this guide is the Perfect Psychology Primer, to get you started on Overcoming Procrastination, which is actually one of the easiest demons to overcome in this day and age.
The Why
Now if you’re on any kind of social media platform you get bombarded with THE WHY – your raison d’etre – your purpose – why do you do the things you do
Here Follows an Excerpt of her Book:
Why is it important to overcome procrastination?
Procrastination is one of the main enemies of success.
Many people all around the world struggle with this problem. They have
goals, they know what they need to do and yet don’t get things done.
When you procrastinate it stops you from achieving your goals, wastes
your time, ruins your focus, destroys your happiness and self-esteem.
It keeps you stuck in your comfort zone and doesn’t allow you to achieve
your biggest desires. It should be taken seriously and has to be
overcome.
Different Types of Procrastination
One of my personal favorite sections in the guide, as to we WILL recognize ourselves in the types she sketches. It’s hard not to. We all procrastinate – and it’s just funny to see the dumb shit we do to avoid working.
-being busy on meaningless bullshit
-wanting things to be perfect
-indulging in instant gratifications
-etc.
Why do We Procrastinate?
Like I said, the why Questions are very important. And this is perhaps the biggest one to ask regarding this post and guide we’re reviewing. In the future, I will go into this deeper, but for now Gal’s Answer suffices:
Procrastination is a subconscious mechanism that is meant to protect
you from real or imagined danger.
So the brain always asks: “Is there a potential pain?”
Here’s an example: A man wants to start a business. The moment
he thinks “I want to start a business”, his brain analyzes the potential
risks:
– What if I lose money? (Financial pain)
– What if the people around me will judge me? (emotional pain)
– What if I won’t have enough time for myself? (mental pain)
Immediately, the stress response system and fear signal are activated, it
deactivates the motivation circuits and a freeze response known as
procrastination kicks in to protect the man from the potential danger of
starting a business.
The primary goals of the brain are first protection, then energy
conservation.
Procrastination is a protection mechanism from real or imagined danger and also a mechanism for energy conservation.
So if there’s a goal that requires effort and energy, that’s like a negative
checkmark in your brain.
Beliefs
She then goes through a journey, to our subconscious mind. In the guide she says Procrastination in fact started with a negative self-image of ourselves.
Thing is, you don’t want to do something, because deep down, you don’t believe it’s going to work. You don’t believe in yourself. You have a negative-self image.
This journey leads us to identifying limiting beliefs about ourselves, and then challenging them, and then finally, replacing them with healthy, positive beliefs. Beliefs that will make you stop procrastinating, and win.
Excerpt:
Most of your beliefs are likely false, illogical and irrelevant. However,
Your subconscious mind doesn’t know that yet. You still feel like the
beliefs are true and you have a very strong emotional attachment to
them.
What you need to do is challenge each belief, use your logic and find
evidence why your old belief is false. Look at it from different
perspectives, doubt it, laugh at it and detach yourself from this belief.
The goal of this process is to reduce the strength of your limiting beliefs
and the power that they have over you as much as possible.
Fear, Visualization, and Inner Dialogue
What I said earlier about not thinking you’ll succeed is also the fear of failing. The belief that you can’t do it, is tied to your emotional inner map, which generate plural negative emotions, but mostly fear.
Gal gives you very specific tools to combat very specific scenarios that occur when you enter a state of procrastination. Optimize your breathing, visualize, and speak with logic to yourself mentally.
Summary
The rest you will have to read for yourself, as to not give too much away.
The guide is not long, but full of very specific useful content.
If you’re an expert on habit forming and psychology this guide is probably not for you, but then again, you wouldn’t be reading this post, probably.
Why read it from Gal? Well she is a professional athlete, with championships under her belt, where mindset is everything. (She loves Scotch, and Glenlivet is her favorite…ssst)
For most of you long term procrastinators it’s going to cost work. Not beating around the bush. But you need a foot in the door. That first step. Then this is perfect for you.
You already know you should procrastinate less, or you wouldn’t be here.
Check out the guide.
