The procrastination cure you don't want to hear

i think one of the most common problems that people have is not that they don't know what to do to dramatically move their life forward in a substantial way like you know exactly what you need to do right now there's probably something that you've been avoiding like the plague but the problem is not that you don't know what that is the problem is that you just can't bring yourself to do it and that's the common theme every single day is that when you sit down to do this thing you feel a feeling and it almost

seems unfair how potent this feeling of resistance is because it's usually only present when you think about doing things that are genuinely good for you so it's it's like what's the deal with that why does it seem like life is set up that way wouldn't it be better if you just actually enjoyed doing difficult things wouldn't it be better if you actually had the motivation to be creative or to write a paper or to do your taxes like you probably want nothing more than to be someone who genuinely enjoys and looks forward to doing the

things that are good for you doing the things that empower you recently i've been thinking there is one strategy that i have that works every single time it always makes me do the thing that i need to do it's not very flattering it's not very sexy we don't want to believe that this is the answer and i feel like there's so much self-improvement advice out there that kind of ignores this fundamental not even tactic it's almost a fact of life and when we ignore this fact we'll try to do little tips and tricks like oh

set a timer for five minutes and just really try try really hard to do the work or try to think more positive thoughts about your work but all those strategies like they're kind of throwaway strategies yeah they might work here or there but they get old really quick this strategy is nuclear so if you need to do one particular thing then if you do this you will do it like you will have no choice the solution is boredom ironically that's also the problem the solution and the problem are the same thing you don't want to

do that work because it's so boring to your brain you want to gouge your eyes out all of these distractions that you have around sound so much more entertaining than doing that thing so you always have a back door why in hell would you write an essay when you could be checking instagram when you could be watching youtube videos like this one but the key realization is that your brain doesn't see objective entertainment values it's always relative a good analogy for this is when you're spending all day outside in the sun it's a super bright

day and then you walk into a dim room or a store that indoor space feels super dark you're like man i can't see anything what is this and then you see that weird like fake sun in your periphery that starts to fade everything looks like weird and purpley and in a very similar way if you've been asleep for a couple hours and you have to get up and go to the bathroom you turn the lights on and it's just blinding it's not that that bathroom is any more bright than it was before you went to

bed when you were brushing your teeth it's just that your brain interprets things using contrasts it uses comparison so the key is to utterly delete the back doors the key is to strip away every single option to sit in a blank room with nothing in it no phone nothing eliminate your ability to do anything other than the thing that you need to do and you will do it and now you might be thinking oh it's not that simple i can just do nothing well you actually won't do nothing and there's studies to prove it there

was a really weird study published in science in 2014 that was a mouthful it's not one of my freaking neanderthal that's not a mouthful that was really hard to say so in this study they got a bunch of undergraduate students to sit in a empty room by themselves with absolutely nothing to do and be alone with their own thoughts but they had one other option and that was to electrocute themselves with a shocky button and it turns out 67 of the men and 25 percent of the women decided that electrocution was better than boredom and

some of the students electrocuted themselves multiple times even the ones that didn't electrocute themselves either strongly considered it or at least lamented as to how miserable the quiet time was and how boring it was you might have heard about this study before but i think it's a great example as to how much human beings dislike being bored it's the reason why solitary confinement is considered one of the least humane forms of torture imaginable there's this ancient torture method where they basically just throw somebody down a hole under the castle and forget about them like for

their entire lives number 15 the oobliet the last thing you'd want after stealing a cup of buckwheat is to end up in one of these isn't that that sounds terrible because it's so boring if you are put in an empty room with nothing to do except one thing unless that thing is like chop off your hand you're probably gonna do that thing and while you're doing that thing that thing will feel so much more entertaining than doing nothing so you have to ask yourself what are you constructing your life around how are you structuring things

are the things that you're supposed to do entertaining in comparison to the things that you use as distractions because the larger the disparity the more agonizing that thing will be and you'll find very quickly that if you delete distractions as an option it works right away it's insane this isn't like some dopamine detox that you got to do over weeks and months and years although that will help you get used to finding the entertainment value in difficult things this is something that works right away because your brain needs to to survive it hates feeling bored

so it will make whatever your only option is as entertaining as it needs to i even have personal evidence for this one of the most productive social and energetic times in my entire life is when i was living in a little 900 square foot basement suite in the middle of suburbia with absolutely nothing to do except edit videos okay so here's alex looking in the pantry for stuff to eat um these guys are cooked us our only good meal that we've had in several days and basically this whole video is uh is basically just to

show off what we have going on in our fridge right now ketchup a little bit of milk some korean honey three pickles salsa and water i was absolutely broke and to edit these videos that i had to do for my very few corporate freelance videography clients i was sitting on an upside down laundry hamper because i couldn't afford a uh office chair but this was deeply motivating to me although i did live with my friend alex he was hardly ever around so i had these long periods of loneliness but that sting of loneliness made me

social it made me make plans it made me seek opportunities my lack of money made me seek money and most importantly the lack of things to do in there the lack of distractions that i surrounded myself with made me extremely bored bored enough that editing videos and being highly creative and doing what i love actually felt entertaining as well so there's a perfect example of my environmental conditioning helping facilitate a mindset of creativity and attitude of productivity it's because i had very few other options so in summary if you have something you need to do

right now then eliminate all your back doors turn off your phone remove your gaming pc from your room remove your xbox auto hide the toolbar so when you're thinking of the next word to write you don't look at safari and automatically click on it and in living life this way and treating productivity this way it's not that you're going to live a less entertaining life in fact you might find it far more entertaining and fulfilling and empowering than you ever knew possible and if you're looking for an excellent way to have more stamina throughout the

day so that when you are actually doing the things that you need to do you can do it for longer it will probably help to feel good mentally and physically using today's video's sponsor athletic greens you guys already know that ag-1 is by far my favorite supplement on the planet it is an integral part of my morning routine and it makes me feel so good throughout the day i almost can't believe it ag-1 supports your energy focus gut health immunity mental clarity without the need to take multiple products or pills and i think the reason

i feel so good while i'm taking it is because there's almost no competing with the amount of vitamins and nutrients in just one scoop of this stuff and the fact that it's sourced from real food real superfoods condensed down into a bioavailable form means that your body can actually use it it absorbs it really well so you're not just urinating it out so if you guys are interested in joining me in participating in this very simple health optimization habit that i've been doing for around two years now then use my link in the description below

and you'll also get a year's supply of their vitamin d3 and k2 complex which i also have every single morning as well as five ag-1 travel packs with your first purchase so take advantage of that link below optimize your health feel fantastic and as usual have a great time if you liked this video then if you actually hit the like button that's a huge help because the video will rank better shoving my bald head into other people's homepages helping them out which also helps me out so it is a win-win for everybody involved if you've

seen my face a couple of times and you like my videos consider subscribing and hitting up the instagram sometimes i post some memey silly on there um and it's just fun other than that though thank you so much for watching and we'll catch you in the next video you