#12: Why High Achievers Can't Stop Procrastinating

Procrastination isn't a discipline problem. For high achievers, it's almost always a fear problem — and your brain is really good at hiding that from you.

In this episode, I break down the two root causes of procrastination, why perfectionism is the most sophisticated form of avoidance, and what's actually keeping ambitious people stuck in the same loops year after year.

In this episode you'll learn:

• Why 80% of procrastination comes from fear and how your brain covers it up with logic that sounds completely reasonable
• The two beliefs that keep high achievers stuck — and why neither one has anything to do with laziness
• Why perfectionism feels productive but is actually just fear with a strategy wrapped around it
• How borrowed certainty keeps you from betting on yourself and what to replace it with
• The spotlight effect — why the judgment you're afraid of almost never exists the way you think it does
• The one question to ask yourself when you can't figure out why you keep putting something off
• Why you have to clear the inner resistance before any tactic will actually stick

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Transcript

Welcome And The High Achiever Pattern

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to another episode of Whole Man. We're going to be talking about procrastination today. More specifically, what causes high achievers to procrastinate? I know for me, I've really struggled with procrastination in my life. I've yet to meet somebody who has not struggled with procrastination in their life. And it's an interesting dynamic for high achievers because a lot of times their procrastination isn't necessarily in their work because they love what they do or because they're really good at being ambitious. It typically stems from things in their personal life. So typically it's really hard for high achievers to take care of themselves, to do things that's going to help with their well-being. And so let's talk about it. Let's talk about why procrastination happens. So with the work that I've done on myself and then also with the work I've done with clients, I see that procrastination typically has two main reasons. There's two root causes to procrastination. I would say 20% of the time, the reason why we procrastinate is because of lack of clarity. It means that we don't know the actual next step to do the thing that we want to do. And so we feel overwhelmed. Our brain tries to figure out 20 steps ahead as opposed to the next possible step. So a good example of this is let's say that I have a goal that I want to run a marathon. That's a heart-led desire, that's something I've truly wanted to do. Okay, well, our brain may try to figure out 50,000 different things at once. Maybe our nervous system starts to feel dysregulated and we just kind of shut down or we feel overwhelmed. So we don't dive into what exactly we need to do to run that marathon, right? So here, what we need to do is we need to really narrow our focus. So we have to figure out, okay, I want to run a marathon. What's the next easiest step that I can take in order to start making that my reality? So when it comes to running a marathon, maybe it's let me look up marathons that are going on in my area. So that's the first step, right? And we don't make ourselves try to figure out any other step other than that first step. So we take that step and then we ask ourselves the question, okay, what's the next step? Right? We've all heard the saying that take life one step at a time. This is really effective, especially if the reason why you're procrastinating is lack of clarity. And this is really important too, because if we allow ourselves to take one step at a time, action dispels overwhelm. So the more we stay in our brain and the less that we take actual action, the less clarity we're gonna have and the more anxiety we're gonna have. So, really important. So I would say 20% of the time, procrastination happens from lack of clarity. And I think that that's the root cause that a lot of people talk about. But there's another one that I want to talk about that's less common, I think, when people are talking about procrastination, and that is fear. 80% of the reason why we procrastinate, from my perspective, based on my experience, is fear. And here's exactly what I mean because maybe logically, consciously, it's like, what do you mean, Brandon? That doesn't make sense. Let's say that a goal of yours is you want to start working out and going to the gym, and you've been procrastinating on it. You always say, I'm gonna start tomorrow, or I'm gonna start next week, or I'm gonna start once this busy season is over. Consciously, you probably have a ton of different stories to justify why it's not important for you right now to start going to the gym. Our brain is really, really good at creating stories in our head based off of what beliefs we have to be true about ourselves on an unconscious level. So if you are trying to go to the gym consciously, but then you keep putting it off, it's a form of avoidance. And it's because the thing that you're trying to do, which is going to the gym, contradicts a belief that you have about yourself. So our brain is very good at protecting our current state of identity, meaning that if we have a belief that says that I have to be good at everything that I do, for example, unconsciously in the background, and you're not really used to going to the gym, well, you're not going to go to the gym, not because you're not capable, but it's because you don't want to suck at something. You're avoiding the feeling of being a fool. You're avoiding the feeling of sucking at something because it threatens a certain part of your identity. So what happens is our brain creates a bunch of stories in our head to avoid doing the thing that would be uncomfortable but good for us to protect you from having to confront the fact that maybe you have a fear of being incompetent, right? So procrastination a lot of times comes from avoiding the feeling of the thing that we want to do. And sometimes it also just comes from just not liking the thing, right? So if I am procrastinating on doing the dishes, it's because I don't like to do them and I don't enjoy it. So sometimes procrastination is also, I would say like maybe a really small percentage is just, I just don't like to do this thing and it sucks. It's like paying a traffic ticket, right? It's nobody likes to do that, but it's necessary. So we're talking about, I think, more of the most common examples of procrastination. So again, 20% of it is a lack of clarity, meaning I just don't know the next step that I need to take. 80% of it is fear, meaning that I'm avoiding the feeling of doing the thing that I need to do. And our brain is really good, again, at covering up that fear with logic. So I'm gonna get really specific on what are some of the fears and things that I've seen specifically in high achievers that cause them to procrastinate on doing things for themselves that typically would make their life better or improve their quality of life. So one thing to understand is I guess one fear would be fear of incompetency. So if you're a high achiever, you tie your self-worth, not everybody, but if you're the high achiever that I'm speaking to, the wounded high achiever, there's a part of you that probably ties your self-worth to how good you are at something. So when you try to go do things that you enjoy that you're not good at, there's gonna be a lot of resistance within you to do that thing because it's gonna require a certain level of ignorance and incompetence when you first start doing the new thing in order for you to get good at it. It's like when you first try to ride a bike, it's you feel like you suck at it at first because you don't know what you're doing. But then the more you allow yourself to fail and to do the reps and get better, eventually you're gonna feel more confident and you're gonna do it because you know that you're capable of it. So when you have a fear of incompetency that prevents you from actually trying things that potentially you could be bad at, but then our brain justifies it in ways such as it's not important right now. Uh I shouldn't feel like I have to do this, I'll just do it later. So again, our brain tries to suppress the fear with stories that make logical sense. And those stories always align with whatever you believe to be true about yourself. So, fear of incompetency is one. The second one is fear of judgment. A really good example of this in my own personal life, and I think I've told you guys this. For me, whenever I started my business, I started out helping the unfulfilled high achiever enjoy their life again. I called myself a burnout prevention coach. Don't call myself that anymore, but the name's not as important as the mission. My mission is to help people stop surviving and start living. And that's a super untraditional, unique niche. And as I was getting deeper and deeper into my business, as I started to move in with my girlfriend, as I started to have more overhead expenses, as things started to get really real for me, I started to have a huge fear of being judged by other people because what I was doing was so unorthodox. I'm kind of the person that people either love or people hate. There's really no in between, I've noticed. And so instead of really leaning into my niche of helping high achievers enjoy their life again, I gave into peer pressure because people were giving me their opinions on how my business model was not sustainable or people wouldn't have like what I have to offer. And so I just watered myself down and I started doing business coaching and consulting because that was the more logical thing to do. I was in a BI group, and everybody in my BI group were business owners. It was an easier sell to tell business owners, hey, I help people with daily firefighting and get into confident leadership. That was a lot easier in those rooms to sell than saying, hey, I helped the unfulfilled high achiever enjoy their life again. Those rooms tend to be performative. A lot of the people in those rooms tend to be workaholics, and a lot of people tend to be in denial. I'm not saying it's everybody just based off my own experience. So it was a little bit more initially difficult. It required more vulnerability for me to actually lean into my true niche, the thing that truly lit me up. So for a long time I avoided it. And that was fear of incompetence, meaning I was scared that people weren't gonna buy my stuff. And then it was fear of judgment, meaning that I was scared that people would judge me for the work that I was doing. And I had to face the reality that in order for me to actually provide services within the niche of helping people enjoy their life again, it was gonna take more work than me just giving a 60-second pitch in a BI meeting. And because I wasn't willing to be vulnerable and really play the long game and build relationships the right way, I gave into the quick dopamine hit of making instant cash, even though I didn't like what I was doing. And so finally I woke up and I realized, all right, if I'm gonna be the person who wants to help high achievers enjoy their life again, I need to revolve my business around the stuff that truly lights me up. So what I started to do was instead of talking about my coaching, I started to talk about my speaking engagements in these groups. And I started to put on talks. And with these talks, I now have 45 minutes to an hour to really speak on my story, how I help people, and then give people a ton of value to make them feel seen, heard, and understood. And then those talks would always convert to business because I'm actually being vulnerable. Because that's what my work is, is it helps empower people to confront the parts of themselves that they need to deal with that they've been using work to avoid. And so, how am I gonna actually give people the opportunity, invite them into that deeper work if I'm not willing to be vulnerable myself? So that's a really practical example for my own life. But I literally spent six or seven months acting like I was a business coach and consultant, and that's the thing I wanted to do, even though it was killing me inside, just because I was scared of being incompetent, which is crazy. So many people repeat the same six months in their life over and over and over again. They stay stuck in loops of a lack of fulfillment and exhaustion and burnout because they are so terrified of being judged. Imagine being 80 years old on your deathbed and looking back at your life and realizing you've repeated the same six months over and over and over again and stayed stuck in a life you hated because you were scared of what other people were going to think. And the crazy part about this is nobody's thinking about you. That's what I've realized. One of the things that helps me get over this fear that creates procrastination on the things I've truly wanted to do is realizing that 99% of the time, everybody's stuck in their own world. Everybody's thinking about themselves. They're dealing with all the same insecurities and fears that I'm dealing with. And so, me preventing myself from taking action because my ego is telling me that everybody's thinking about me all the time, it's just not true. Uh, and this is actually, there's a phenomenon this is called, it's called the spotlight effect, meaning we drastically overestimate the amount of time other people think about us and we underestimate how much people don't think about us. And so it's really, really, really important to not allow the fear of being, the fear of sucking at something, the fear of judgment, maybe it's a fear of being seen for me for a while. I have this deep feeling, if I allowed myself to go speak and be a thought leader in the space, that I would be watched a lot. And it would it would require of me to actually be consistent and show up the more people watched me. So there's a lot of different reasons that cause procrastination. And I would say there's there's always going to be unconscious beliefs that we've adopted that prevent us from doing stuff in our life that fulfills us or helps us enjoy our life more or that sustains us. Again, I'm speaking to the high achiever who is not living a sustainable life, who's unfulfilled, who is burned out, or just somebody who knows that they're stuck in certain patterns of behavior they don't prefer and they're aware of those patterns of behavior, but they're not really sure how to break free from it. So if you feel stuck in loops, this is relevant for you as well. Some common beliefs that I've seen that cause these loops is one, I have to be good at everything that I do. And this stems from, okay, I learned as a kid it's not safe to suck at something. Maybe I got ridiculed for it. Maybe I had really domineering parents who expected perfection from me. Maybe I had teachers who had high expectations. Maybe I was in sports and I had coaches who were really hard on me. So for some reason, we learned that it's not safe to suck at something. And because of that, we don't allow ourselves to do things we potentially could suck at, meaning we don't do things that we would probably enjoy because of the fact that we don't think we're gonna be good at it. And so our identity is now wrapped into if I'm not gonna be good at something, there's no point in doing it. That's a huge limiter for high achievers, especially when it comes to doing shit for fun. For me, video games is an example of this. I recently got back into playing video games, which I'm so happy about. And I didn't allow myself to do that for such a long time because one, it wasn't quote unquote productive. And two, I was scared I was gonna suck at it because I hadn't played for five years. So when you give yourself permission to suck at something, and when you understand that failure is the process of learning something new, and you're able to reframe your mindset around failure, and you understand that being incompetent at something at first has nothing to do with your worth as a human being, that's how you can actually start moving forward. And then once you reframe your mindset over doing something new, then you can ask yourself the question: what is the next step that I can take to start doing this thing? So after you overcome the fear and the inner stuff, then you can get really clear tactically on, all right, this is the next thing I need to do. But it's really important to understand you're not gonna stop procrastinating if you just try to go straight to tactics. If you go to straight to just, this is the next thing I need to do, if there's a fear that contradicts the thing that you want to do deep in your subconscious mind, then you may do the thing temporarily. You may go to the gym for a week or post for a day. You may temporarily be able to do the thing and be consistent, but your identity and your unconscious mind will pull you back into not doing the thing. So, sustainably, how you stop procrastinating, how you stop procrastinating sustainably is you have to get rid of the stuff within you. You have to clear the resistance, you have to rewire the part of your identity that's holding you back from doing the thing. And then you have to get clear on what the next tactical step is. A lot of people do this backwards. A lot of people just take the tactical step and then they stop doing it, and then they're like, Well, if I suck at this, I'm not gonna do it anymore. And then they give up. So, really important, go in and clear the resistance first and then do the thing. So, another common belief is I don't deserve the thing that I want. So, this again, consciously and logically, you're not gonna probably think this. You're not gonna think, I don't deserve to be healthy and fit and go to the gym. But deep down, there's a part of you that does believe that, which is why there's stories in your head, there's always an excuse that you can come up with for not going to the gym. It's not because there's anything wrong with you, it's because there's a part of you that doesn't believe that you are somebody who is capable of going to the gym. And the crazy part about that is if you never give yourself an opportunity to go to the gym, you will never prove to yourself in your reality that you are able to go to the gym. So it's this weird paradox where you have to allow yourself to try something that is uncertain in order for you to become more certain. And this is also part of where procrastination comes from. I call it borrowed certainty. So a lot of high achievers, a lot of people that I meet, something that I've struggled with in my life, is we only allow ourselves to take the next step if it feels certain. Because we haven't yet built a relationship with uncertainty. The mind and the ego love to know what's going to happen next. It's a predicting machine. So, what happens when the next step, when an outcome in our life is uncertain, we freak out because we have not yes yet built self-trust within ourselves to actually be able to deal with the uncertain thing that comes. So, very practical example for me. Whenever I got to a point in my life where I was ready to go all in on my business, I was lift driving early morning and late nights. And I was so exhausted from doing this, my body and my spirit were screaming at me, Brennan, you have to stop lift driving. It is time for you to take the leap on yourself. And obviously, up to this point in my life, I always had a safety net. I always had a way to make easy income. I always had a certain way to make money that I knew no matter what was happening in my life, I could make money that way. But at this point in my life, it was very uncertain for me that I could make money sustainably in my business. And so I had to make a decision. I had to choose in that moment to value self-trust more so than borrowed certainty. I think a lot of us don't understand, and something I didn't know at the time, we can choose to not value certainty, but do value self-trust. And that's how you start moving in faith in your life is you stop valuing certainty. You stop valuing, you stop believing you need to know what's gonna happen next in order for things to work out. Because that's one of the main ways that our ego and our mind keep us trapped in loops is we believe that in order for us to move forward, we have to know exactly what's gonna happen once we take the next step, which is a lie, because our brain only knows what's gonna happen next based off of what's happened in the past. So, my example, in the past, when I went all into my business, I failed. So, what my brain was doing when I was gonna try to take the leap of my business again was recalling from my past experiences the failure that I experienced. So, because my brain was recalling the past failure, if I was gonna rely on my brain to make the next step, it would never work because my brain was just telling me, hey, the last time you did this, you failed, you went broke, and you lost everything. So at that point, I have to decide, okay, I know my brain is telling me that this is not logical, but my heart and my soul is telling me to take the leap. Courage is taking the leap when you are uncertain of the outcome. And that was one of the most important decisions that I ever made in my entire life. When I finally decided to stop valuing certainty, knowing what was gonna happen next, and just learn to trust myself, that's when stuff started to truly transform for me. So procrastination is the same way. You can't expect yourself to be confident and certain when you're doing something that you've never done before. Having a perfectionist expectation, thinking that you're gonna feel competent, confident and certain when you're trying something new is just not a realistic expectation. And you need to stop telling yourself the story that because you're not confident and certain, there's something wrong with you. That actually is a sign that you're about to expand because your soul loves uncertainty, your mind loves certainty. So you need to learn to trust yourself. I guess that's the summary of what I'm saying. A really good practical way that you can figure out where your procrastination is coming from is just ask yourself this question. What am I scared is gonna happen if the if I do the thing I want to do? So again, if you're scared, my bad. If you're procrastinating on something, I want you to ask yourself the question, what am I scared is gonna happen if I do the thing I want to do? And really sit with that. And if you have some fears, if you have stuff within you that's holding you back, it'll bubble to the surface. Another good question to ask yourself is what do I want that I'm scared to let myself have? Just another way to phrase the same question. So if there's a part of you that feels like you don't deserve what you want, you won't even allow yourself to see the thing that you want. Which, of course, if you don't let yourself see the thing that you want, you're not gonna do the thing. So understand procrastination does not come from laziness. It comes from either a lack of clarity or it comes from fear. And one thing for the high achievers out there that's so important this is something if you're gonna write anything down. I want you to write this down. Perfectionism is the highest form of procrastination. The way that our brain wraps up fear for the high achiever a lot of times is perfectionism. So it's over planning, it's over critiquing, it's overthinking. And what happens is perfectionism feels really good because we're always strategizing and planning, but it's a mask to cover up the inevitable uncomfortable feeling that's going to happen whenever you go to do the thing that you're not certain about. You're never going to feel fully ready. There's no amount of planning or analytical thinking or goal setting. There's nothing that you can do mentally that is going to make it so you avoid the feeling of uncertainty and the discomfort of trying something new. And the more that you try to avoid the feeling, the more that that shit's going to control you. Okay. Perfectionism is a form of avoidance. And that is what causes a ton of procrastination. But it's wrapped up in something super strategic and logical, right? So it's fear masquerading a strategy. I'm here to tell you a snap out of it. Clarity, the clarity that you're looking for and the certainty that you want comes from taking action when you don't know the outcome. It comes from taking going all in, but then detaching yourself from the outcome. It comes from taking the next step without needing to know what's going to happen next. And when you start to learn to master that, you're going to notice that you're going to trust yourself more, you're going to have less anxiety, and you're going to procrastinate way less. So I hope this episode was helpful for you. Again, procrastination is not because you're lazy. It's because either you're scared to do the thing or you don't know the next step to do the thing. Perfectionism is the highest form of procrastination. So the high achievers out there that are really good at planning and strategizing, but aren't good at following through, just know your brain is trying to manufacture certainty when it ultimately doesn't exist. Thanks, guys. If you like this episode, share it to somebody who needs to hear it. Follow along, subscribe if you're on YouTube, leave a review, and I'll talk to you guys next time.