4 Things Your Procrastination is Trying to Tell You

So many multi-passionates that I meet struggle with procrastination. Or at least that’s what they think is happening on the surface, but if we look a little deeper your procrastination can offer tons of insight about what’s missing in order for you to take action on whatever Big Idea you’re working on right now. 

In today’s episode, we’re going to explore four hidden reasons you aren't taking action and how getting curious about your procrastination can help. Get ready to embrace this empowering new perspective.

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Related episode: Time Management is NOT the Solution to Your Problems as a Multi-Passionate

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Transcript

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So many multi-passionate it's that I meet struggle with procrastination, or at least that's what they think is happening on the surface. But if we look a little deeper at what procrastination is. It can be a source of wisdom about what's missing in order for you to take action on whatever big idea you're working on right now. In today's episode, we're going to talk about four reasons to trust you procrastination as a form of wisdom. Welcome to the multi-passionate mastery podcast. If you are a longtime listener, welcome back my friend. I'm your host, D'Ana Joi life coach from multi-passionate and founder. Of prioritize and thrive. The flagship coaching experience that helps multi-passionate creatives transform their ability to follow through on anything that is meaningful to them. On this podcast, you're going to find a treasure trove of holistic solutions to common problems that multi-passionate face, like not knowing what project to start with first ping-ponging back and forth between various ideas and never gaining any momentum on anything and staying focused after that initial spark fades. That's just a little sneak peek of what you can expect here. Thank you for listening. I love that you're here and I'm so excited about today's topic. We are going to talk about procrastination as a form of wisdom. Whenever I mentioned this to my clients, there are always so many aha moments and light bulbs that are going off on those coaching calls. And so I wanted to bring this concept over to the podcast so that we can talk about it more and you can start to implement this different way of thinking. But one of the prerequisites of being able to trust your procrastination as a form of wisdom. Is to embrace curiosity.. So let's start there. My personal philosophy, is to choose curiosity over frustration whenever possible. When you choose curiosity over frustration, it unlocks the possibility to see pass some of the scenarios that could be leaving you feeling defeated. Such as procrastination. So I'm about to read you a list of four reasons to trust your procrastination as a form of wisdom. I came up with this list from asking myself why I was procrastinating and having similar conversations with my clients. So instead of just being frustrated that I was procrastinating and going. What's wrong with me and I keep procrastinating. And going in that direction. I started to pause and go. Interesting. I have not been able to bring myself to complete that task. I wonder why that is. And I started to get curious. When my clients would say, I'm procrastinating on doing X, Y, or Z. I would start to say, well, I wonder why that is. If we could think of your procrastination as a form of wisdom. Are there any elements that are coming together for you that you hadn't thought of before? And that's when the light bulbs start to go off. So to start off, let's talk about four reasons to trust your procrastination. And actually before we go there, I want to invite you to join my free community, the multi-passionate mastery club, where we will be having an ongoing conversation about this episode. When you join the community, you will see this episode. Listed under podcast chats and we will be able to go deeper. You can ask more questions and we can uncover even more about this topic. I would love to see you in there. It's the best place on the internet to be a multi-passionate and you can even unlock premium content simply by engaging. So definitely click the link in the show notes or head over to multi-passionate mastery.com/club. To join our brand new free community. All right. No more procrastinating. Let's get into this list. The first reason to trust your procrastination. Is because you don't have all the information that you need in order to do whatever it is. You've been avoiding in the most enjoyable way possible and your procrastination is buying you more time for all of the information to come together. Let's say you've been wanting to launch a podcast and you keep putting it off. You've maybe created your cover art, but you just cannot sit down to record an episode. And you don't know why you keep procrastinating and maybe you're feeling frustrated. Then a couple of weeks later, someone tells you about this amazing software. I'm just going to plug the software that I use. I use a software called descript and it is absolutely amazing. I record directly into it. It transcribes my voice while I am recording. And then when I go to edit it, I just edit the text. So if I want to take out a sentence or move something around, I don't even have to play with the wave files and like those visual audio files. I only have to edit the text. And as a writer, that's already so intuitive to me. So. It's really, really easy to edit my own podcast. So let's say that you're in a scenario where you'd be wanting to launch a podcast, but you are procrastinating. And then a couple of weeks later, someone says, well, Hey, have you heard about this? This software called descript. It's really great. It makes editing super easy. And you thinking, oh my goodness. I'm so glad that I didn't start yet because now I can start with this amazing software. That's going to make my process super easy. And I'm so glad I waited because I did not have that information. Before. Then when you think about that retrospectively, you're going to say, you know what? Me procrastinating was actually a form of wisdom. It was my project, the spirit of my project, speaking to me and saying, we're going to procrastinate until you get that information. That's one of the things that can happen for you. I'll link to Descript. If you're like, that's actually my scenario. I will link my affiliate link to descript in the show notes. So right now I want you to pause and I want you to think. I want you to think about a time where you thought you were procrastinating? But as, you waited a little bit longer, you realize that your procrastination. Was buying you time for all of the information to come together. Pause and have a think on that. After you come up with your own example, press play and let's continue. Okay. Now here's the second reason to trust. Your procrastination as a form of wisdom. There's an easier way to do whatever it is that you're procrastinating on. In your subconscious is saving you from doing it the hard way. Once you realize that easier way you're going to spring right into action. So this is similar to reason. Number one, where your procrastination is buying you more time for it to come together and be more enjoyable. But this one is specifically. Positioning your procrastination as kind of a hero who saving you from doing something the hard way. Let's say, for example, you want to build your own website and you've been procrastinating and procrastinating because you just, I don't know, you just keep putting it off. Right. You don't know why. And then you come across a website online. That is absolutely gorgeous. You're looking through it and you're thinking, oh my goodness, I love this layer. I just wish that my website could look like this. Then you scroll down to the bottom and you see there's a link that says site credit and you go, oh, I wonder what this is. You click that link and it takes you to a website template shop. That has that exact template. Ready to go plug and play. Then you're thinking, well, I don't want to use coding. I don't want to be coding everything. I don't know code, but as you look at these templates, you figure out that they're actually drag and drop. You don't have to do any coding. You can just slide things around. You don't even have to use those little box editors. It would have been so hard for you to have to code or only be able to make edits in a little sidebar of the website design and then refresh to see the preview every time. But it's so much easier to design a website when you use drag and drop. Um, I'm describing this because this is my experience. I use a website designer called show it, and it is drag and drop. So I can make updates to my website super quickly. I can build new pages for my website really quickly. And I use templates from a site shop called tonic site shop. Okay. I did not expect this episode to start being like, I'm going to drop you some resources that I actually love and that I use, but here we are. Um, because I'm using examples from my own life. So. It's looking like I'm going to need to list out some of these in the show notes. Just check on that. After you listened to the episode, but tonic site shop, they have amazing west website templates that will have your website looking like you hired a graphic designer and paid thousands upon thousands of dollars. But you can do it yourself for a fraction of the price. So in this example, you were going to create a website, the harder way you are ready to learn a little bit of basic coding. You were ready to have to deal with those little sidebar boxes, where you have to edit the content and then constantly refresh. And you were like, okay, I guess this is what, you know what it's going to be. But you kept putting it off. You kept procrastinating, you kept procrastinating. And during that time, Your procrastination. Came through for you because you found out about a way easier way to design a website with drag and drop templates. And so now that you have that easier way, you're ready to go. You can't be pulled away from the computer because you're too busy building your website. It's finally happening and it's really easier than you ever thought it could be. Thank goodness you procrastinated. So now I want you to pause and try to think of an example. Of a time when you were going to do something the hard way. But you procrastinated. And during that time where you were procrastinating, an easier way was brought to mind, try to think of an example. If you don't come up with anything that's okay. But keep this in mind for future reference, because this is very likely to happen to you. Once you stop resisting your procrastination. Let's go to number three. This one is a little bit more nuanced. Your procrastination is something that you can trust as a form of wisdom, because you might need a greater feeling. Of internal safety before you take action. So I often think about folks who have been sitting on the sidelines who want to work with me inside of my coaching program, but they keep making excuses or they want to wait until later to join. And there are a lot of reasons that that could happen. But one of the reasons. Is that once you finally solve the problem of knowing which projects to start with first. Being able to follow through being able to manage your projects and having clarity about what you're working on. You're no longer going to have the excuse that you just don't know where to start. And you're going to start taking action. The pockets that you want to launch is going to come out. You're going to start that coaching program. You're going to finally declutter your home and open up a whole new aspect of that. This is what happens with my clients. So they joined, prioritize and thrive because they want the life skill. Of being able to clarify their goals at any given time. Filter their ideas follow through on what they start on. Create dedicated seasons of focus for their various projects. And have a process for managing more than one project in a way that does not leave them overwhelmed. Once they learn those skills, there's nothing holding them back from taking action. And so they start to put their ideas out into the world. They go on tour with their band, they launch podcasts, they become practitioners. I mean, the list goes on. If you have a subconscious fear. Of what it would look like to actually take that action. Your procrastination will hold you back until that feeling of internal safety has been met. So, what can you do about that? Well, this is going to be something that if you have a coach, so if you're working with a coach, this is something you can absolutely bring to your coach. They should be able to help you with this. This is a very. Um, coachable topic. If you join, prioritize and thrive in, you're ready to stop procrastinating on that. I will be your coach and I will help you with this, but if you already have a coach. This is something you can bring to them. However, you could also do this as a journaling process, or just go on a walk and think. Out loud to yourself or think to yourself. Um, if you're not into journaling, But here are a few questions that I would ask my client if they came to me and said, I'm procrastinating. And I think it's because I need a more, I need to feel more safe before I take action. I would ask. What would happen if everything did go as planned? What a new set of problems arise that will call for you to expand your capacity. Are you willing to trust that as you into your next level, you will be resourced with the support that you need. So I would ask those questions. We would enter into a dialogue about Uh, those are the questions that you can start to ask to incrementally increase your feelings of internal safety. Avoiding the topic altogether. Does not help. I'm going to be straight up with you. It's easy to say. I don't even want to think about that. Like, oh, I want to make a ton more money. But I know that that's going to change how I pay my taxes and I just don't even want to think about that. Right. It's easy to go that route, but if you could instead say. I want to make a lot more money. What if that goes as planned is a new set of problems going to arise. Well, yeah, I'm going to have to figure out like my financial planning and how to pay my taxes differently. And then are you willing to trust that as you into that next level, you'll be resourced with the support that you need. Yeah. You know what? A, hire someone to do my bookkeeping and I'll hire someone who has experience with doing taxes for entrepreneurs. Okay. Now I feel a bit more safe to welcome in my next financial level. So that's just one example. So that's a big one. Don't skip that one. I know that, you know, it's easy. You're so conscious might even be like, I don't want to listen to this step.'cause, I don't want to feel safe because then I don't have to take action. So definitely hear me. When I say that sometimes your procrastination is giving you the wisdom that you need a greater feeling of internal safety. And that is something that you can create for yourself. If you have a coach, bring this to them, allowed them to support you. If not, please do some journaling or some pondering, some thinking about what this would look like for you. So that you're not putting off your big ideas, just because you're afraid that you might be successful and afraid of what that could look like. Okay. There's one more example. Of your procrastination being a form of wisdom let's take a quick break and then we'll talk about why your projects probably want to mingle. Now let's talk about the fourth reason. To trust your procrastination as a form of wisdom. And that is your projects. Want to mingle? So sometimes when you're procrastinating, yout procrastination is coming through for you as a source of wisdom saying, wait a second. Remember that other idea that you had. This is a chance to integrate. This is a chance for those two projects to mingle. Here's an example. I have a free digital magazine called thrive guide. If you've been listening to the podcast for awhile, you may have heard me talk about it in previous episodes. I have been dragging my feet on getting the final issue out. It's supposed to be delivered every 30 days until we reached the final installment. And it has been multiple months. And I have not been able to finish that last magazine. I'm like, what is going on? Why do I keep procrastinating? Well, as I was writing the notes for this episode, I realized that my projects want to mingle. We just launched our brand new free community, the multi-passionate mastery club, where I want to invite every multi-passionate who wants to be in community with fellow multi-passionate creatives. People who are listening to the podcast and want to dive deeper into these topics. I want everyone to come and hang out and I want this to be the best place on the internet to be a multi-passionate. And as I was writing the notes for this episode, I realized it's a really good thing that I have not put together. The closing magazine for that series, because now at the end of that issue, I can say, thank you so much for subscribing. Your next step is to come join the free community. The free community did not exist until very recently. So if I had finished that magazine sooner than I wouldn't have been able to plug it, I wouldn't have been able to say, Hey, now that you're done with this experience, come and be in conversation. Let's talk about some of these articles that you read. Let's talk about, you know, the concepts that we went over in this digital magazine, let's be in community together, come and join the multi-passionate mastery club. I would've had to go back and edit old issues and hope that new people subscribe to it so that they would see it. It would have created more work for me. If I had already done this, but because I was procrastinating. On getting that final issue completed I'm able to have my projects mingle. And now that that's clicked into place, I feel ready to take action on wrapping up that project on getting that final magazine issue done and sending it out as the closing one. So sometimes this will be why you're procrastinating. Your projects want to mingle. You have one thing that you've been working on. But you can't seem to bring it to the finish line. And as you give yourself more time, you realize that another idea of yours can be integrated and it will make it all make so much more sense. And sometimes our ideas and our projects literally want to mingle. You are multi passionate. You are someone who sees a lot of connections. That's one of your gifts. And letting your projects mingle feels really good and fulfilling to you as a multi-passionate. You don't have to compartmentalize everything. That's not going to feel intuitive for you in a lot of cases. So your procrastination could be. Wisdom telling you, wait, wait, wait, wait. Because I need you to realize that your projects want to mingle. And as soon as you realize it, you'll be able to take action. So to recap, here are four reasons to trust your procrastination as a form of wisdom. Number one, you don't have all the information that you need in order to do whatever it is you've been avoiding in the most enjoyable way possible and your procrastination is buying you more time for all of the information to come together. Number two, there's an easier way to do whatever it is that you've been procrastinating on. And your subconscious is saving you from doing it the hard way. Once you realize that you can skip a few steps, you'll spring, right into action. Number three, you need a greater feeling of internal safety before you can take action. So this is where you're going to ask yourself those questions. What would happen if everything went as planned? Are you willing to trust that you will be resourced as you go to the next level? And number four, your projects want to mingle your procrastination is buying you more time to see. Uh, connection that you were so close to. Totally over looking. So those are four reasons to trust your procrastination. I hope that you are convinced. One thing that I want to say as we close it, this episode. Is, there's a difference between. Procrastinating. And letting amazing opportunities pass you by. So procrastinating is where you are putting things off that you want to do. When you're letting opportunities pass you by, it could be something like hearing about early enrollment for a program that you've been looking at. And seeing, wow, there's a cool bonus. I could enroll early. I could get started sooner. But, uh, I'm just going to wait and then you let that opportunity pass you by sometimes when you let opportunities pass you by, it might be because you don't trust that you're worth it. And I want to let you know that you are worth. Every investment that you'd want to make in yourself, you are worth it. It is okay to take a chance. It is okay to invest in yourself. So don't let amazing opportunities pass you by if you've been thinking about joining prioritize and thrive and you miss the early enrollment opportunity, get on the wait list ASAP so that you can be alerted if anything like that comes back up again, because you do deserve it. And that's a little bit different than procrastination. Learning the life skill of being able to know what project to start with first, having a ton of clarity about which order to do your projects and so that you don't have to constantly second guess all of that. That is worth your investment and it's trusting that to be true. That's the difference between taking advantage of an opportunity like that versus letting it pass you by. So just wanted to make that clarification. All right. I'm so excited for you to continue to ponder these ideas, to come up with your own examples. And I will see you over in the multi-passionate mastery club, where we can talk about this. I want to hear your examples over there. Let's talk about procrastination being a form of wisdom. You can join the multi-passionate mastery club by clicking the link in the show notes. Or you can go to multi-passionate mastery.com/club. It is free to join. I can't wait to see you in there to continue the conversation. And as a reminder, you will be able to unlock premium content. Just by engaging. So come hang out on the coolest place on the internet to be a multi-passionate and I'll see you over there. All right. That is it for today. See you in the next episode.