photo credit: Firesam!

I thought about it for some time, and I began to reflect on certain situations that people tend to leave themselves in.  For example, it was fascinating to see how someone would be interested in an article on stomping procrastination and found that might advice was common sense.  It just didn’t compute.  If it was common sense, you wouldn’t have to read it.  If one did need to read it, then most obviously one would continue to be procrastinating up to a point where you accept and utilized the advice.

So I had an internal arguments with myself to figure out what was going on.  Upon reviewing “How To Stop Procrastinating #1″, I discovered that it was true that most of the information there appears to be quite straightforward and a whole bunch of common sense.  It therefore dawned on me that there are individuals who will read it, but can’t use it.

The concept of vicious cycles tells us that there is far more than meets the eye from the behavior standpoint.  You want something, but the more you want it, the further away from it you get. For example, it is highly likely that someone who needs a set of behavioral interventions will read the first article and find it useful.  they will go out and execute the behaviors.  However, several people who have a deeper rooted issues beyond the ‘behavior’ level may find that a behavioral intervention will be insufficient, hence, “common sense “.

As much as I’d like to avoid diving into two large detail, which Watzlawick mentioned in his book “The Language of Change”, and is the cause of many interventions going wild, and being seemingly without end, I believe that for the raw knowledge of people reading this could be beneficial.

Suppose someone is procrastinating.  It could be that he wants to invite a girl  out on a date, and he stops short. There are a number of things that we logically knows he should do.  For example, he’s got to simply ask.  And if he gets rejected, he should ask again, preferably in a different way.  However, we know that there must be something else that’s preventing him from accomplishing his goal.  One such invisible force could be his hidden understanding of rejection.  For example, he might believe that rejection is the end of the world.  This, indicates the need for a deeper rooted intervention dealing with the reframing of his belief patterns.  Alternatively, it might have to do with his inability to come to terms with his parents’ divorce when he was five years old.  This might indicate an issue with his self concept, or identity.  In this instance, it would be possible to institute a Change Personal History session to help him reconfigure his identity.

However, before we get ahead of ourselves, it is essential that such strategies are implemented by someone who is well versed in interventions.  A lot of the time deeper rooted issues may have a backlash – if we attempt to push against it in usually pushes back , causing even more procrastination.

most of the time therefore, we need to find the right kinds of emotional triggers.  For example, the reader who sent me this irate message probably did not realize that he was able to procrastinate getting certain things done, but didn’t hesitate sending me and irate message.  It is the ability to control and manage our emotional states that enables us to shift from state to state.

One of the ways to do this is by understanding anchoring.  Anchoring, which is a behavioral process of association, and literally eliminate your feelings of procrastination.  In the context where you are procrastinating, you can use that environmental stimulus to trigger off facilitative negative emotions such as frustration, anxiety, and fear. Or these could be facilitative positive emotions like enthusiasm, motivation and drive.

It takes a little bit of practice to know where these emotions reside. Reliving these emotions can set one on the pathway to realizing that emotions are our achievement joystick. Test it – whenever you don’t get something done, use an appropriate emotional state and link with it by intensifying the image, sounds and feelings of negative faciliation. You might see yourself failing or hear people mocking you. When you get closer toward your goal, associate it with positive emotions by viewing the images and intensifying those. You could possibly  view yourself as happier, and hear sounds of cheering or acknolwedgement.

Do note that these are only possibilities, and the best way for you to really take charge of these emotional states is to learn the skills that are taught in NLP. Some readings to learn NLP are here. My detailed Practitioner training program can also be taken up online by staying tune to that website.

After all, some of our barriers are mere excuses: no time, no energy, no support, no confidence…

If you have already overcome these barriers, that’s awesome. If you haven’t, when will it end? When will you stop listening to such voices and keep moving forward?

To do well in any business, or endeavor (even a relationship) one must first begin from changing the “you” inside. Do this in simple steps.

First, make a choice you want to do it.

Second, surround yourself with people who are doing it and learn from their experiences.

Third, build small results to further grease your achievement engine. Keep these in mind and never let up.

Guy Brown asked:

“Why do certain people have the ability to engage and entice people when they talk, regardless of the topic of conversation?”

In my 16 years of training and speaking, I’ve found that there are an extremely large number of people who are constantly fascinated by the charisma of leaders, people who have that “X” factor, and most of these people are under the spotlight very frequently.

photo credit: bisgovuk

When you watch a leader or a charismatic speaker on stage, you are wowed and you are all ears. So why is it that these people have the ability to draw you in?

After analyzing speakers in competitive settings, I’ve realized the following.

#1 – Dynamic and enticing speakers know how to move on stage.

Yes, I’m talking about physical motions and movements. In 2001, I spent a large portion of my time in the Toastmasters movement learning what makes good body language on stage. By 2002, I had developed a model now known as “SomaSemantics” which I premiered at NLP University in 2004 with Robert Dilts and Judith DeLozier in my audience.

This model basically identifies the stance, posture and body language that people take on in order to convey certain kinds of meaning, and emotion congruently. If I have the time, I’d share some of this in a video or something later.

#2 – Enticing speakers know how to initiate and sustain a conversation.

I used to have a problem with this and that’s why I started to study it. There’s always an entry point to a conversation, and it begins with getting someone to answer a question about themselves. Call it cheesy, but it’s the idea that to be interesting to others, you have to be interested in others.

#3 – Attractive speakers know how to vary emotional states.

You’ll realize how powerful some speakers are when they can shift you from emotion to emotion, making you feel certain things that you are aligned to. It is the essence of persuasion and you’ll see evidence of this in Presidential Debates (hint hint), church leaders and pastors and motivational speakers. The charisma did not just come out of the blue. It was deliberate, structured and planned. Even if someone were to be a “natural” at it, you can literally model the capabilities and then test it yourself, if you are able to understand the principles of modeling in NLP.

It’s a pretty fascinating area of study, and I’ve dedicated lots of my time to investigating and testing models out by modeling and applying them as practically as I can.

Charisma is a powerful trait that can be developed, and probably the best secret weapon you can have if you want to build a business as a starlet.

Hm.

Procrastination is habit, and I know that there are times we need to build a habit to save time. However, it’s also important for you to recognize the fact that if you were to ‘hypnotize’ yourself, you might as well do it right.

photo credit: ~ Maryam ~

Here’s what I might suggest:

• hypnotize yourself to make a to-do list everyday when you are at the breakfast table and spend 5-10 minutes reflecting on the top 3 things you need to get done for the day.
• Check your to-do checklist regularly and if possible, get it to remind you. Maybe you have an alarm in your PDA or phone. Set it and check it so you know you’re on track.
• Get the easiest things done first. This builds a greater level of confidence for the day, and you can recognize your ability to get things done. After all, looking at one thing you can get done today fuels the habit.

A lot of this seems like common sense, but I would recommend that if you really want to learn how to stop procrastinating, you really need to pick up the skills taught in NLP.

NLP is the skill set I use to take charge of my own patterns of behavior. I figure out what I need to change or a new skill I need to adopt, then program myself to get it done.

photo credit: AdamKR

It’s a common disease. But it’s not in any medical journal ever. I believe, however, that chronic procrastination is a disease, and it is something that everyone experiences at some time or another.

So why do we procrastinate?

There are so many reasons behind procrastination. Who knows, it might be due to some traumatic experience you had as a child. A fear or a sense of self-doubt. Maybe the desire for a sense of freedom? A desire to just laze around? Maybe, ironically, a supreme level of (over)confidence?

The fact is, human inertia is probably one of the strongest forces of all, and if we succumb to it, we stop, and we might just stagnate.

I took a look at my on and off exercise routine recently and I discovered how easy it is to get distracted away from exercise simply because some other work was more pressing. So I decided to stop thinking so much and start doing it. Unfortunately, that was not going to work either. The best way would have been to focus on getting the exercise into some schedule or routine, where it becomes a part of life. When you plan it in, you start to make it happen and you have to battle inertia for some time before you realize that you’re doing it regularly.

Have there been simple things you had to do or decisions you had to make which made you get ’stuck’, or you ended sleeping on it for countless numbers of nights to shove it under the carpet?

I think the first step to stop procrastinating is actually acknowledging that we are wasting time and adding to our problems when taking things at the last minute. I’m not saying that we must always do things in advance and keep ourselves busy for the sake of finishing all of our work because I know work never ends. But I do know the difference between leading by example versus leading from the ivory tower, and a lot of the time, procrastination may not affect us as much as it affects the people around us.

Once we know that there could be consequences for this, then we have to build in our mind the benefits of really working toward the goals that we desire and make sure they carry a strong enough meaning beyond just the achievement of the result.

Then, get a good scheduler or planner and work that into your routine.

Once you complete the sequence, do it again. Finish something else. Get things done, and you’ll find that this cycle is even easier to complete.

Stay tuned for more… cos I gotta go for my run before I head off for dinner… xD

To me, that’s a great number to look forward to. I’m intending to break the record of the total number of books an individual can write in a lifetime, because I think there’s lots of stuff in my head that’s waiting to come out into a written form. (hence the blog, heh)

I recently started stepping up on writing my peak performance books (I’ll keep it a secret as to what they are, but suffice to say that one of them is 80% done, and the other two are 20% complete), and I realized there are a lot of people who tell me how amazing my books have been

Well, personally, I don’t think I’ve achieved anything great, but when I tell others that they also have a book in them, they tell me all sorts of things.

photo credit: AlishaV

“Oh, I can’t do it. My English isn’t good enough”

“I don’t have time to write”

“I want to write but I get the mental block all the time”

The trouble is not that they don’t have skills in writing, but they don’t have the pre-requisite skills to be able to be a writer in the first place .You have to have world experience. You need to learn how to use words to affect, influence and capture the imagination of others.

And the most important thing is that writing a good book merely requires you to provide information that is useful in an appetizing way. This is an art that can be learnt.

The way I started was through the process of persuasive language. There’s always something that enables people to buy into whatever you say or sell. In reality, good authors are able to affect the hearts and minds of their readers. After all, they appeal to a specific segment of readers.

I’m quite privileged to have been able to write several books with great co-authors. But I can tell you that the first one is always the toughest one. It’s like building a muscle. You have to strain and stretch and sometimes stumble before you get to a point of being able to make your next book easier and more effective.

What I can say for the first lesson is this – you really have to start off with a sense of excitement in what you want to share. That will be your first point of exploration. And, uh, if you don’t have much exciting stuff in your life, perhaps it’s time to explore yourself and figure out the reason why. That itself is going to be pretty interesting already.

The rest of it are just mere details.

A process of risk assessment is usually in order, and you have to make sure anyone whom you remotely think is going to commit suicide be referred to a trained specialist who can deal with such isses.

Most of the time, suicidal people say they want to do it not because they want to die but because they are looking for another opinion. I think your friends will deserve at least a second opinion when coming to this kind of a decision.

Suicidal thoughts are aplenty, but best friends are not. Get yourself trained in basic counseling skills and Google the numbers of professional counselors and the Samaritans Of Singapore. You’ll never know when you’ll need them!

In my limited time in business, I have found a few truths. Firstly, the whole idea that successful business is about relationships alone is a whole load of B.S.. Relationships matter period, regardless of business or not. After all, you will want to retain some kind of relationship with people who are nice, who are willing to help some time or other.

Secondly, people who merely rely on relationships will find that when they run out of relationships, or when their “network” can’t or won’t help out, they will find themselves stranded, being unable to establish success on their own steam.

Let me give you an analogy. Do you remember the time when you were back in school and had a really tough time with an assignment? If you merely rely on relationships, you are going to do this: since you know your teacher is a nice guy/friend of a relative, you can stop studying and not improve your grades through doing your homework. You simply turn up 7 days later saying it’s really hard to do and you couldn’t do it, and s/he might just show you how to do it.

Conversely, if you’re the sort that bashes his/her head on the wall in order to get to a solution, but can’t find the answer, your teacher is going to know. Whether or not s/he likes you, s/he probably can find evidence that you really did your best. You might actually have proof of work that is incomplete. Then, you might have distilled it to one thing that you need clarification about. You ask the questions to your teacher, you get an answer, and you actually can find a solution. This time, you have achieved success. You did 99% of the work, and needed 1% (you would have gotten there eventually on your own steam) of help. Ultimately, compare this with the previous scenario where you only did an amazing 0% of the work.

Who controls his destiny now?

It’s of utmost importance to everyone to know that, yes, relationships are important, but you need to be someone worth building a relationship with in the first place.

What successes do you have that are worth respecting?

What ways have you helped people in ways that help them to stand on their feet rather than give them pure handouts?

So, make sure you develop yourself first. Then, you can really contribute to others in a positive relationship.

I got a little surprised myself because I thought about what makes me want to do something versus what I don’t like to do, and what struck me was that I really enjoyed working with people and seeing them learn, but seriously dislike it when people aren’t able to learn. And I don’t mean this intellectually – I mean it viscerally in my gut. It’s a reaction to their reaction of the inability to grasp information.

So as I thought about the implications of this, it could mean two things. First, it could mean that it might force me to be a better trainer. Second, it could mean that it might make me ignore certain things in an audience simply because I might want to have the illusion that I’m doing a great training. Ultimately, I don’t just want to do good training or pretend that it was, I want to make sure that the people around me “get it” regardless of how I feel, the participant must be more competent to take action.

This is the kind of awareness I tell people to partake in regularly because I find that it is so illuminating. Without this kind of insight, we can never learn to improve. It is self-awareness of things that propel you and the forces that repel you that make you discover more about who you are and what you do.

For example, do you know what you believe? And, do you know that your beliefs could damage you? One idea behind the Law of Attraction (that many people have mistakenly thought originates from the documentary ‘The Secret) is that whatever your beliefs are shape you and attract like things.

photo credit: myuibe

Now, I don’t want to me mystical and tell you that it’s about universal reverberations. Let’s just focus on your thoughts. What happens when you have a negative or disempowering belief? If you have always feared going up on stage, the prospect of doing it actually creates a physiological chain reaction. Not only does it prevent you from being your confident best, it also prevents you from opening yourself to a different interpretation to on-stage success. The stress leads to a release of a neuro-chemical known as cortisol, which, if in your system for the long term, causes bodily aches and pains. What now happens is that the thing you fear, is literally causing you more pain, and becomes cyclical. The more pain you feel, the more you associate it with other negative beliefs about your life, your age, etc. The result: a nervous breakdown.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell you that this is bad for your future, and it has really nothing to do with universal vibrations. All it is, is your reduction of strength from a very real, physical limitation placed on yourself through your beliefs.

photo credit: Lazurite

Until someone points out to you “hey – in the past you were just nervous but nowadays you seem to have gotten really frustrated and angry when told you have to do a presentation” do you realize that something has to change.

I believe that self-awareness comes with practice. Not everyone is able to gain self-awareness because we keep getting caught up in the day-to-day, getting distracted, and missing time for ourselves. Maybe it’s time to re-prioritize. Maybe it’s time to make time to listen to our inner thoughts, reflecting on why we do the things we do, and re-calibrating ourselves toward our success.