⛩️Overcoming Procrastination with Optimism: New Study. Strategies for Success.

TUNE IN TO LEARN: 
 
 😁 Can a positive outlook on life truly help you beat procrastination❓ 
 
(Spoiler Alert - YES!) 
 
Discover the compelling connection between optimism and productivity in this enlightening episode of your Brain's Coach podcast! 
 
Join me, Angela Shurina as I share the latest research from Tokyo University, revealing how a bright future perspective can significantly reduce your tendency to procrastinate and help you achieve your goals✅ 
 
Drawing from my own experiences and inspiring client success stories, I offer practical strategies to cultivate and sustain optimism and confidence, empowering you to stay optimistic, motivated to conquer the challenges that stand in your way.  
 
Curing that 👣"dragging feet" bug we all catch sometimes.  
 
Tune in, put your optimist hat on and get it done!  

Transcript

Boosting Confidence and Beating Procrastination

Speaker 1 0:00

Hey, guys, and welcome back to another episode of your Brain's Coach podcast. My name is Angela Shurina, I'm your host, I'm your Brain's Coach and it is my job here to bring to you, discover with you and share all the best, most cutting-edge, useful, effective and, like today, with a bit of optimism and fun, brain-body tools so you could take better control of your thoughts, of your emotions and, most importantly, of your actions, so you can create the life experience that you absolutely love living Today. Guys, I'm very excited about to share with you this new study that just came out of the university, tokyo University, out of Japan, and fresh into your ears, and I'm very excited to share it with you because it will make you feel better and it will help you to do better. And it's such a powerful tool. And we so often underestimate the importance of this tool the importance of our state of mind, of our positive, optimistic state of mind on all areas of our life, on the quality of our life, on how we experience our day-to-day life, and not only that, but also on our ability and our consistency with getting things done that ultimately lead to success.

Speaker 1 1:38

So, how confident? First the question how confident are you in your ability to figure shit out. Sorry for my French, sorry, not sorry. I realized some time ago that the ultimate test of our confidence is how much effort, how much daily effort, we put into our projects. Like how confident are you that you are able to make this thing, whatever you're thinking about, that big, eerie, audacious goal, how confident are you that you can actually make it happen? Because if you answer this question honestly and you have almost 100% confidence that you can make it happen, what would be the reason for you to not get up every morning and not get running after your dreams and goals with a smile on your face, no matter how much your life will have you to endure?

Speaker 1 2:38

So the study on procrastination and optimism, the first of its kind, and I absolutely love it how the author connected the dots in this beautiful way and how they even thought about measuring those things when it comes to procrastination. So they did this study with about 300 young adults in their 20s and they noticed this high correlation, higher than with any other things like thoughts on well-being or perceived well-being. So they measured the correlation between severe cases of procrastination and people being optimistic about their future, like if they believe that the future is going to be better than the past or the present, and so what they learned is that people who believed that their future is brighter is better than their past or their present, those people suffered of procrastination a lot less, and that was the only correlation they found. Now you know, correlation is not causation blah, blah, blah but my personal story and what I also found with all of my clients that we work with when we believe, when people believe, when my clients believe, and we work on that belief as well. So stay tuned, folks, because you're also going to get practical strategy. It's not just about thinking. You should be optimistic. There are actual strategies that can help you to develop the confidence and optimism and ultimately beat your procrastination.

Speaker 1 4:14

So what I noticed is I will lose my energy whenever I lose my confidence in figuring things out, whenever I start believing that this is pointless. It's like my feet lose walking ability. I get this dragging feet syndrome. I don't want to get out of bed. I don't want to learn new things, I don't want to work with my clients. It feels like I don't want to leave. I just feel like staying in bed, watching Netflix and eating. Why bother? My efforts won't pay off anyhow, I believe that this is an evolutionary hack Mother Nature designed into our brain to, I suppose, prevent waste of resources like energy, time, and ultimately prevent us from dying prematurely.

Speaker 1 5:07

And, you know, transferring our genes for the next generations Makes sense, like the nature doesn't want you to waste your energy, your resources, your ability to be alive and make things happen, pursuing a path that has no value, that has no rewards, that has a dead end. Nature is the best economist. The more I learn about our brain, about neuroscience and how we function and our motivations, the more I start appreciating this fact Nature does not like waste, it hates waste. And it's the best economist, creating the best, most economical, the simplest way to get things done, make things happen and make progress. Keep moving forward, keep moving all of us forward, keep moving forward, keep moving all of us forward. So let's change gears here a little bit, change perspective Now, at the moment, I know that this feeling, this feeling of not wanting to do stuff, it's fueled by my confidence.

Speaker 1 6:19

My confidence is a matter of perspective, folks, by my confidence, by confidence is a matter of perspective, folks. I want you to really step and think about that, your belief about things, about your ability to make things happen is a matter of perspective, of exactly of where you focus on, like, for example. Ask yourself to change that perspective, to change where you focus. Ask yourself what resources do I have to make this happen? I'm alive, I have a place to live, I have food to eat, I have some money in my bank account, I have friends, I have co-workers, peers, relatives. There is internet. There are so many people literally very often hundreds at your fingerprints that you can ask advice, very often people, very successful people like Simon Sinek or a lot of other successful people who you can reach out either personally to them or you can look at their work and ask for their advice remotely right. So resources are plenty folks. We are living in the most resource-rich era of all the times.

Speaker 1 7:30

If you were to ask me, the second thing is reflect on your progress, on the things that you did, on the lessons that you learned, or where you are compared to where you started, and more often than not, you're like years ahead of where you started. Reflect on that Gain versus gap. As one of the the most successful coaching companies founders, dan Sullivan, the founder of Strategic Coach he has this book Gain Versus Gap when do you focus? Focus on what you've done, on the progress, on what you've learned, not on how far you have to go and all the failures and all the things that you still don't know. Gain versus gap and then take stock. Think about all the times you thought it was a dead end, but then you decided to push through and you figured it out anyway. That's how, every time I get into this powerless, weak, procrastinating state, that's how I regain my confidence, optimism and energy to get things done. I change my mind like this and it's a skill that you can learn.

Speaker 1 8:47

How optimism fuels action. Optimism makes you want to do more because it's a belief that you can create a brighter future. And it's a belief that you can be stuck right now in this painful situation or you can get things done and create a brighter future. So what would you rather do and have? So optimism is that belief that collectively, we can make a brighter future happen. This belief is based on our confidence, collective confidence to figure things out. Work on that first, with the tools that we've just discussed and a couple that we're going to discuss in a second. Work on that confidence first and you'll see how your procrastination will fade away.

Speaker 1 9:33

Another exercise that you can use to boost your confidence and your optimism for figuring things out create what I call confidence stock. Every single day, start creating your confidence stock that you will fall back on everything In those moments of despair when you're like, oh, it's pointless. Create your confidence stock. What does it mean? It means start building up your library of success stories, of your personal success stories. Remember times when you were about to give up, but you didn't. You saw it through and you succeeded. And build up those stories. Don't give up. Figure things out, and the more you do and the more you record that and the more you remember of that, the easier it's going to connect to that feeling of empowered optimism, the takeaway guys, feeling procrastination creeping in. Look at your confidence. Do you believe you can make a better future happen? And if you don't at this moment, then work on start believing. Work on remembering the times when you didn't give up and you figure it out. Ask yourself what resources you have, reflect on the progress you've made and, as I often tell my clients, start small. Start now. Make your bed, do some exercise. Spend the first four hours of your day on the task you've been avoiding. Doing creates motivation, fuels confidence and empowers optimism by the way they call it behavioral activation in psychology All of which leads to more things done and an actual brighter future a self-fueling prophecy. And that's about it for today.

Speaker 1 11:25

Guys, optimism is a highly productive state of mind and, by the way, have you thought about that? When people go through depression, like the worst of the worst moods, they want to do things. That's the actual definition. I don't remember the actual definition, but I do remember that depression has a lot to do with a person's inability of wanting or manifesting the drive to get things done, and just being passive and not wanting to engage with life, other people or anything productive. So that's what depression is. So optimism is a highly productive state of mind and you don't have to fake it. You can make it based on your actual life evidence, based on your actual life experience.

Speaker 1 12:23

And if that's not enough at times, read biographies, look at other people's inspiring stories and get fuel from them and realize that you are also a member of human race that has this ability to figure things out when we put our mind to it Out and over.

Speaker 1 12:45

Guys, that is all for today. I hope this puts a smile on your face. If not, then start doing. Start remembering how far you've come, all the things that you figured out and all of the resources that you have at your fingerprints not like any other generation before. Realize the possibility, limitless possibilities at your fingerprints and your ability that you already have to figure it out when you decide to not give up. That's it for today, folks. I hope you are driven to start things, get going and staying committing to manifesting, to creating, to cultivating a positive state of mind. Now we even start having research about how being an optimist, cultivating your belief about brighter future, can help you to get things done and build that brighter, better future Out and over. Talk to you very soon. Keep smiling, keep building your optimism, muscle up and till next time, get up and get going. Start building that confidence stock and your ultimate belief to figure things out.