Are you procrastinating? Watch this

We are all guilty of this. We invent endless things to do that are completely irrelevant, purely to avoid the one task that actually matters. For a long time I did it without even noticing. Then I figured out why, and how to use it against itself.

The tell, in one example

Say you want to go on a date with a girl. The easy, direct step is to walk up and ask her. That is the thing that actually leads to the date. But most people do not do that. Instead they hit the gym for a few weeks, save up for a new car, buy new clothes, join a club, all in the hope that she walks up to them first. Everything except the one simple thing that works.

Business is exactly the same, and I was the worst offender.

Everything except the thing that mattered

I had a fashion brand called meu. I told myself I tried everything. I designed the perfect logo, built the perfect website, added the products, designed a whole new collection, lined up bulk suppliers for when we scaled, and even did conversion rate optimization on the buttons and funnels. Optimizing conversion when there are no sales to convert. The one thing I was avoiding was sales.

Then I started a social media marketing agency. Same story. Logo, copywriting, a website, which I translated into German just in case, I set up Google My Business and waited a week for the verification letter, ran Google ads, built offers, even built a cancellation flow for clients I did not have yet. Missing ingredient: sales.

What I did to avoid selling

Perfect logo, perfect website, new product collection
Bulk suppliers lined up, conversion optimization with no traffic
Website translated, Google Business set up, ads, offers, a cancellation flow
Everything except the one thing the business actually needed: sales

The fix is to listen, not to push

The secret is not more discipline. It is that your inner voices are constantly pulling you away from what is important, and that pull is a signal. Deep down you already know what matters. So when the urge to do something else shows up, when I suddenly want to go read about the largest animal on the planet instead of working, I stop and ask one question: what is my inner procrastinator pulling me away from right now?

Whatever your procrastination is pulling you away from is almost always the exact thing you should be doing.

Successful people are not built differently here. They get the same procrastinating thoughts you do. The difference is they use those thoughts as a map. The thing the mind is dodging is the thing that moves the business, so they turn around and do exactly that.

The short version

Procrastination is usually pain avoidance, and the pain you avoid points at what matters.
If you are busy with logos, translations, and settings, ask what you are really dodging. It is often sales.
Become aware of the avoidance thoughts instead of obeying them.
Each time one shows up, ask what it is pulling you away from, write it down, and go do that.

Full transcript

hey guys Phil mayford here and I just wanted to shoot a quick video to talk about something where I think we're all kind of guilty of so often times we come up with all kinds of things to do that are completely irrelevant to Simply avoid the important tasks and I was asking myself why am I doing that

at a certain point I figured that out but on that later here's an example let's just say you're a guy and you want to go on a date with a girl what do you do the easy part is you might just have to walk up to the girl and ask her and that basically leads to the date

but do you really do that often times you don't you rather go to the gym for a couple of weeks or whatever you save up some money to buy a new car to you buy new clothes and then basically all in the hopes of her com up coming up to you and be like hey I noticed you

and uh I see that you've worked on yourself or whatever hey I like your car whatever but what do you think is easier to Simply do the easy step of going up to the go and asking or to do all the these these different tasks so you could even add things like I don't know joining a football

club or or all kinds of things probably just asking right so that's basically it and the issue with that is the same is true in business and um I used to be exactly the same I had many of these examples but I'm just going to list off uh two of them so one of them is my fashion

brand I used to have a fashion brand brand called meu and back in the day I basically just tried everything but did I really try everything so I designed the perfect logo I built the perfect website I added all kinds of products I even designed a new collection that we were able to launch later on I had

a huge list of uh future bulk suppliers once we start uh selling a lot and whatever so I mean we have to be fast with with uh already having suppliers I even did like conversion op um conversion rate optimization so that means I I checked the buttons I checked the funnels and all that stuff but what I

had to do is basically just sales and that's it everything else was secondary all these steps right here I could do once I was doing sales especially like for example conversion rate optimization what's there to to optimize if there are no sales and um the same goes with my social media marketing AGC my first social media marketing

agency I did everything I designed a logo I did perfect copywriting designed a website I had all kinds of products Services um all that stuff I even translated the website so I I'm from Germany and so I thought okay why not translate it to German what if people from Germany might come on the website as well and

they want to see it in German I like I even set up Google my business so um there's this letter that you can get to verify your business and to be listed on Google that takes like a week or something to even get that letter and I was waiting for it I set up Google ads I had

all kinds of offers I even put together like a cancellation flow on what if people cancel but if there are no with clients like what's there to cancel and what was I missing with that social media marketing agency sales and that's it and um yeah so if this actually sounds like you then I think you will love

this video and there because there is one way around it and I figured out um it's not my it's not what I found out but I basically just learned it from many other successful and more brighter people than than me um but it's really simple your inner voices are basically pulling you away from what is important so

you deep down you know exactly what your your inner voices are what your um most important things are and your inner voices are basically just trying to distract you trying to pull you away from those things my inner voices for example they often time they some like I try to work on something I try to do this

or that and then they my inner voices look like this where they're just like hey why not learn about whales and then I suddenly learn about the Antarctic blue whale that it is the largest animal on the planet but yeah so you probably know what's going on but there's one secret and um this secret shows you exactly

how you can actually Sol this to control to get take control back of your procrastination and that is basically just to listen to your in a procrastinator you just have to listen so that means you you every single day you have your your voices your inner voices and you basically train yourself to to be more attentive to

those thoughts into to both those feelings and everything that's com on but what you will then do is you will do the exact opposite of that thought and you will just ask yourself what task is my inner procrastinator pulling me away from that's that what you is what you have to ask yourself and because whatever comes out

of that question is the one thing that you should actually be working on and I myself for example now in the morning what I often times just do is I let it happen I let those thoughts and feelings come up I um simply listen to what my inner voice are trying to pull me away from and then

I obviously ask myself hey like what is that task and then I simply do exactly that and that's it because the thing is everybody has those thoughts and also successful people have thoughts and successful people have procrastinating thoughts you might not you might think like hey like Pro successful people are these amazing human beings that have figured

everything out and um they're so if they're so dedicated they don't procrastinate ever whatever well the thing is they listen to their inner voices and they have those inner voices but then they use them they use their inner voices as guidance for the things that are is more most important to them so they have exactly the same

thoughts it's just on how they use those thoughts to their advantage and they simply work against their inner procrastinator to complete their tasks and that's it and so I have one challenge for you this week and that is pretty simple listen to your voices every single time they come up listen listen listen become aware of those thoughts

and simply ask yourself every single time what does your inner procrastinator tell you what is it pulling you away from what is the exact task that it's pulling you away from make a list of it and write it down and like that you will become I'm very clear on what exactly you have to do thanks bye

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