- So I was watching this Woody Allen film
called "Hannah and Her Sisters," and in the movie,
there's this scene where Michael Kane's character, Elliot,
is sitting at the dinner table with his wife, Hannah.
Now, Elliot is completely emotionally detached,
he is disturbed, and that's because he's been having
an affair with his wife's sister.
Shocking stuff, I know.
But this scene really got me thinking
about the way in which a lot of us live our entire lives,
hopefully not by having affairs with our wife's sisters,
but what I mean is that we do certain things
or leave certain things undone in the past
that continue to eat away at us subconsciously
in the present.
And a lot of the time, we do this so compulsively
that we don't even know that we're doing it.
We just see it as normal, we don't know anything else,
yet we're living a lower quality of life because of it.
Every single thing that we do,
every single conversation that we have
is infected by the things that we've left
usually undone in the past.
And I think this is the most insidiously toxic thing
about escapism and procrastination,
and that is because of something
I like to call mental air time.
When we haven't yet done what we know we're supposed to do
and we have a tendency to put these things off
every single day, then we exist in a mental framework
where we are a person who hasn't yet done the thing
that we're supposed to do.
And over a long period of time,
this really changes how we feel about our entire lives,
because no matter what we're doing,
no matter what kind of conversation we're having,
no matter how special the person
we're having that conversation with is,
we are subconsciously tainted by the fact
that we are not where we're supposed to be,
we are not being who we're supposed to be.
And we live our entire lives like this
emotionally disturbed with this feeling of anxiety
that's just always there because of our chronic escapism.
People don't talk about procrastination this way, it's nuts,
because when we procrastinate, it's not just the thing
that we're supposed to do that suffers,
everything else suffers as well
because we're not present with it,
we don't have the mental capacity to enjoy it.
Anything good in our lives is infected with this feeling
like it's not good enough, we're not supposed to be here
because there's that other thing
that we're supposed to be doing.
And the weird thing is,
it's not like we're never going to do that thing,
we usually end up doing it.
Usually the deadline comes closer,
the repercussions for not doing it grows scarier
and more acute,
so we eventually guilt ourselves into eventually doing it
so that we can repeat that cycle every single day
for the rest of our lives.
But what's crazy is since we end up doing it anyways,
there's great utility to just changing the order
in which we do things.
We can escape and do all of the other bullshit later,
but if we could find a way
to do the the most important thing that we need to do
earlier in the day,
then we could change the entire narrative of our lives.
We could change the way we feel about ourselves,
about our capability to solve problems.
And the theme of our lives that's echoing
through our subconscious becomes,
oh yes, I can play video games, I can watch this movie,
I can enjoy this conversation,
because I've already done the thing that I'm supposed to do.
So how do we do it? That's the golden question.
Well, knowing what it's doing to us is great
and I think this will help you get some motivation
to just do the damn thing, but when push comes to shove,
this is an irrational problem.
I can give you all the rationality in the world
but when you're faced with the crossroads
of watching this funny little YouTube video
versus writing a research paper,
something other than logic takes over.
Your monkey brain kind of bullies your rational brain
into coming up with a rationalization
to justify some suboptimal behavior.
So the answer can't be logical.
It has to be an emotional tactic
and I think that tactic is submission.
- Submission.
You know, that's a bit of a problem.
- Nobody talks about this word submission
in a productivity context.
They talk about it in other contexts
but we're not gonna get into those other contexts.
That's not what this channel's about.
What I mean by submission, it is a feeling of melting
into what you're supposed to be doing.
It's not increasing the tension in your body
to try to fight and bully your monkey brain
into doing what your more logical side
of your brain wants it to do.
No, it's acknowledging
that doing what you're supposed to do feels difficult,
it's feeling that tension that's stopping you
from doing that thing, and letting go of it,
and doing the thing anyways.
We need to get good at shutting the brain off,
stopping the chatter of rationalization and escapism,
reduce the tension in our body,
take a deep breath, and just do the thing.
We can think about all the rationalizations afterwards.
But submitting to what you already know
you're supposed to be doing
is less of a psychological feeling,
it's more of a physiological feeling.
And again, this might sound very woo-woo,
but if you've ever tried to take cold showers
or go cliff jumping with your friends,
it's the same feeling.
You almost submit to the discomfort.
If you're standing there at the edge of the cliff
and you don't want to jump,
even though you know it's perfectly safe,
it's a very steep drop off, very deep water,
nothing could happen to you.
You almost need to just submit to the gravity.
Same thing with cold showers.
If you already know you're going to enter
into the cold shower and feel very uncomfortable,
the only way that you're gonna get in there
is if you just walk in.
You stop the chatter, you stop thinking.
The mind is corrosive.
It'll try to figure out all these different little ways
to weasel out of it and you don't end up doing it.
It's like if you already know this is what you must do,
relax your body and submit to it.
And while you're in the cold shower,
it feels so much colder if you maintain this resistance,
if you try to fight the cold,
if you tense up your body
and you try to convince yourself to power through it.
It's so much better if you just concentrate on the cold,
you fully submit to it, you fully focus on it,
and you accept the fact that it's cold,
and then it ceases to be so cold.
You're allowing yourself to relax into this discomfort,
and it actually feels quite euphoric when you do that.
I think this is the key to stop procrastinating.
I think this is the key
to make better decisions in the moment.
You've already heard the logical reasons
as to why you should do the thing
that you're supposed to do.
You know that your life will be dramatically better
if the majority of the time you spend here on this Earth,
you exist in a head space where you have already done
the most important thing that you need to do.
You already know that this is so good for you.
The only step now is when you're confronted
with the crossroads is to just turn the brain off,
to submit to what you're supposed to do.
It's like submitting to the highest version of yourself
and you start to develop trust
that that highest version of yourself
has your best interest in mind.
So if you are now motivated and excited
to submit to your destiny and you want further reading
or other resources that will help you do that,
then I highly recommend the audiobook,
"The ONE Thing" by Gary Keller,
which is an audiobook I frequently revisit
using today's video sponsor, Audible,
because that book really talks about a lot
of the things that I talked about in this video.
It's about distilling down all of these things
that you have to do into this important thing
and it helps you tackle doing this thing
as early as possible
so that you can live the rest of your day
having already done this thing
and having that very narrative change your entire life.
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