Pod Insights Change Wired How to cancel your procrastination before it cancels your dreams. Manufactured Urgency over Discipline. About this episode Procrastination isn’t ruining your plans because you “lack discipline.” It’s ruining your plans because your brain is doing exactly what it evolved to do: chase what feels urgent right now and ignore what only becomes painful later. I’m Angela Shurina, and I’m walking you through the mindset skill I rely on to finish the work that builds a great life, even when there’s no deadline, no boss, and no one watching. We dig into a simple truth of human behavior: you don’t get done what’s importan...
Transcript 0:09 Speaker 00 Hey guys and welcome back to another episode of Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Shurina, I'm your host, I'm your partner in change, personal and collective transformation, your master health, sleep, stress management and executive coach 360. I'm just someone who's super passionate, optimistic about and pumped about exploring, learning more about human potential, how to unlock it, keep it, create more positive impact in the world with it and at the same time live the most extraordinary life we are capable of. And today, guys, we are talking about one of my most favorite skills, something
0:51 Speaker 00 that I talk a lot about, read a lot about and just curious about, procrastination and specifically procrastinating on things that built our good life, things that when we don't do them, we later regret, like, ah, I should have started this a long time ago, or I should have done this earlier and it wouldn't be such a pain in the ass to solve it today. But at the end of this podcast, guys, you're gonna learn one fundamental skill or how to build this mindset skill that based on recent science and also some centuries long
1:34 Speaker 00 wisdom, fundamental skill to cancel the your own kind of procrastination out of your life and with that a lot of regrets. And it has nothing to do with discipline, but with the skill, what I call learning how to build fire under your ass or manufacturing your own urgencies. So by the end of this podcast, you're gonna have a step-by-step process. It's actually very simple, once you really get it, that will help you to help yourself procrastinate a lot less and eventually not at all on things that are building your long-term
2:15 Speaker 00 dreams, your long-term visions and also help you to resolve small issues, small problems that Very often snowball into big things like, for example, did you know that people get a lot more negative effects when it comes to small injuries compared to big injuries? Why is that? Because when the injury is big, let's say you broke a bone, then you're gonna go somewhere and take care of it because it's painful, you can't function, like you gotta solve it, otherwise it will compromise the quality of your life. And you know, God knows what's gonna happen down the road. But when the issue is small, like some small infection or scratch,
3:00 Speaker 00 or you pulled a muscle somewhere, you know, that small muscle that doesn't really hurt that much, but is nagging and when you exercise might actually lead to bigger injuries. So people will delay and delay and delay that until it becomes a huge thing. And then you, I don't know, either tear another muscle or break something or make it into a big thing. Like, believe it or not, people suffer a lot more negative consequences. And that is based on real world data from smaller things that just pile up and grow into big problems versus big problems that people tend to solve right away. And how the whole idea for this podcast got into my mind
3:42 Speaker 00 is a client of mine asked me to help him to learn how to overcome procrastination on bigger projects like decade-long career and business vision. And then also smaller things, like fixing something around your house or with your computer or with your phone or with your, I don't know, banking or, you know, all this like small issues that we tend to like push back, push back, push back until like we gotta do it now because either something needs to happen in your life and you can't do it because you didn't, you know, fix the small issue or it just, you know, something breaks and you need to now buy a new thing or like your life won't really work. So he asked me to help with that.
4:27 Speaker 00 And I told him, well, we're gonna work on one of my favorite cognitive or metacognitive skills, which I call learning how to build a fire under your ass. And the client at the end of our session said like, okay, I got it. You built a nice visual here. And again, it has nothing to do with the discipline at all. And to start our podcast today, and it's going to be a short one. I wanted to understand the like reflect on human nature. And this is common for all humans, for most of the humans with normal brains, more or less. You know, we all have our unique brains, but a lot of our tendencies are hardwired by evolution and biology.
5:09 Speaker 00 And we share them like a fact or again, a fact of human nature. That you don't get done what's important. You get done what's urgent, what feels urgent, especially if other people keep you accountable. Or you're gonna lose your status or look bad in the eyes of others. Or not necessarily you're gonna look back, but you think that you're gonna look back, back bad at work or in your personal relationships. And that's why accountability works so well. And that's why we're gonna do a lot more for other people or just not to look back bad in front of other people. So you don't get done again, what's important, you get done what's urgent.
5:53 Speaker 00 And the mastery of the skill, building fire under us is all about learning to manufacture and choosing your urgencies or emergencies instead of life and other people choosing them for you. And that's how you get done things that are actually important on a bigger scale or larger time horizon in your life, instead of just catching the balls that are falling on you. Right? That's how you finish writing a book in a decade. That's how you built a multimillion dollar business in a decade. That's how you build relationships that last a lifetime.
6:36 Speaker 00 That's how you build health that you get to enjoy when you're 90. So you can run after your dreams even when you're 90 and spend time with people you love in the joyful way. Instead of being bad reading the two, you know, instead of being in pain or just incapable of doing so many things that your mind still wants to do. Like that's how you do all of those things. You manufacture urgency for those long term things. You learn how to do that and it's a skill. Guys, just like a skill of talking, of speaking, believe it or not, but there was time in human history when we didn't speak that well. And we didn't read and we didn't write. It's something that we develop.
7:18 Speaker 00 And these days, of course, it feels like, how is it that you're a human and you don't know how to read or write or speak? But it was a skill that we developed and till this day, if you, there were some cases when humans were left with animals and they were raised by like, I don't know, monkeys or something. There were a couple of cases of wolves. And humans grow up without developing a skill of talking, of speaking. So just because you can do it, it doesn't mean that you're gonna do it. So the conditions and the intention to pursue, to create a skill, to build a skill, it has to be there as well.
8:01 Speaker 00 So the same is with a lot of metacognitive skills. Believe it or not, you can get to a point, like I did with years of mastery of this metacognition skill. You can get to a point that things that are a decade away will feel urgent to you today. And that is a superpower that will help you to build things that most people consider impossible. Because most impossible things, just things that take a really long time to master and work on. And I know that from my experience and watching a lot of people transforming their lives, building fortunes and doing incredible things with their bodies and life.
8:46 Speaker 00 That most of us are capable of extraordinary things, but those extraordinary things require extraordinary commitment for a decade, which we don't do because we are wired to run after our again urgencies and emergencies usually brought up on us by society, other people and the present moment, right? There is a reason why you choose every night to watch Netflix, not read books. Because rest is your fundamental need right now, whereas learning and Improving your skills that you might not need for another, I don't know, week or a decade. That is not what you're wired for. You're wired for survival right now, not what's gonna happen to you
9:29 Speaker 00 or be good for you in ten years or twenty, thirty, forty years, right? Now thirty-eight and I'm gonna be ninety when, what is it, like fifty-two years? So my goal is there, right? And with practice, I learned how to make myself think about that. So I feel urgent to exercise and eat well and recover and sleep well and take care of myself today. A lot of people would comment on this fact that, oh, I exercise every day, I read every day, I do all of these things that are considered to be right. I work on my business idea that might take, you know, another quite a few years.
10:11 Speaker 00 And I work on my writing skills every day, even though probably one of my best books not gonna be written in the next decade. But to get there, I need to be writing every day to develop into the kind of writer who writes the kind of books that millions of people want to read. And the skill that I've developed and I was teaching to my client at the session that we did yesterday, actually, is that skill of building fire under my ass or translation, learning how to make urgent things that are important to me, even though they will not happen or might not have any consequences on my life for the next decade or a few years or months sometimes.
10:57 Speaker 00 So how does it work exactly? Well, let's say I again wanna write that book, really great book, and not one of them, in the next decade. So how do I make it urgent for me to write every day, even though, believe me, I have a full schedule and big relationships and health and like I wanna rest and I wanna do fun stuff, like all of these other things that are sort of urgent right now, I have all of them. But still, I choose. To dedicate one hour every single day, even sometimes when I have to get up like four or even earlier to do that writing.
11:33 Speaker 00 I still choose to do that. And the reason why, so here is my conversation that I learned to have with myself whenever I want to procrastinate. I ask myself, okay, if you don't do this now, the chances are you're gonna skip it the next day or someday in the future. And then probably many more days in the future. And you might even stop doing that at all because, well, if you don't do it today, what's gonna be different tomorrow? You're gonna be the same person, just the person with skipping certain things and thinking that it is okay. So the tendency of not doing the habit that is needed to be done in order to create that outcome, that writing a best seller in a decade from now.
12:18 Speaker 00 So that thing might never happen. And I'm gonna be killing that dream that I have by not doing it it today. And I don't fool myself. I know there is gonna be something urgent, something more pleasant, something that feels like it has to happen right now. Instead of writing, there always gonna be that thing. And so I gotta make the choice once and for all, whether I prioritize it or not, and why? And then I start feeling, yeah, if I don't do this today and tomorrow, like, I don't get to get better one percent or even less than one percent. And I'm gonna be pushing that dream further and further and further away. It might not even happen.
13:00 Speaker 00 So I start feeling this agitation, this like anxiety, I gotta do it, like I can't miss it. Otherwise, I might be, again, killing my own dream. Why would I do that to myself? So I get to freaking writing because of that. Or when I need to do these calls, for example, for the business coaching program that I'm going through. And those calls are not urgent. I can set my own schedule, like whether I do five of them a week or ten of them a week. Or maybe I'll decide to postpone it for the next two, three months, right? Nobody's gonna be running after me and telling me, Angela, you gotta do it. I understand that if I don't do it sooner than later, then I'm gonna be pushing my dream of having great business,
13:44 Speaker 00 impacting millions of people, taking care of my family, going on all of these adventures that require more money than I have now, right? I'm gonna be pushing my dream further and further away, but not only that, that tendency of pushing things back and delaying things and procrastinating, that's gonna be, might become my own habit. And so my dream might never happen. And you know, they say like the best day to, the planted tree was ten years ago, the next best time is now. So I remember about that. I remember that big things, relationships, health, your business vision, writing that book.
14:24 Speaker 00 It takes years of work to actually make it happen into this great vision that you have in your head. And if you don't do that today, what's gonna change tomorrow? What's gonna change a day after that, a week after that? Nothing, you know, nothing. You're still not gonna wanna do it and there is never gonna be a perfect moment. You're never gonna have all the time, all the energy and all the desire to do that. So you might as well start now. Because again, the best time to plant a tree was ten years ago, the next best time is right freaking now. So get your ass, get your ass on fire and get things done. Go after it, girl. And the same was like, for example,
15:07 Speaker 00 uh, scheduling, seeing my parents every single summer. One might say, well, you know, you can delay it, you can do it, I don't know, in a few months or another year. But I make myself think about this uncomfortable thing that I'm not gonna have my parents forever. It might be, you know, ten, twenty, thirty years if I'm lucky, and that's sad. So ten, twenty, like thirty, you know, years at max that I have with my parents.
15:42 Speaker 00 And it's gonna be usually, you know, worse, like, nobody's getting any younger. So I make myself think about those things. So I remind myself why it's freaking important to do it now and to have those moments and to build those memories and to act on that. Instead of feeling, well, you know, you need to save money and you need to build business and you have more work to do, dah dah dah dah dah. But I make myself think to think about the uncomfortable things that a life will eventually bring into my life. So that I get to feel fire under my ma- my ass and act now.
16:19 Speaker 00 And the same for small things, guys, like the client was talking about, you know, fixing something around the house or doing, you know, small things around the work. So the work works better. And the same thing about those small things. I remind myself of all of these moments when I didn't fix my banking or my phone or my computer, that was quite recent. And I would delay, delay, delay, and then it would break in the most inconvenient moment. And then I had to figure out how to fix it right then in there. Or you delay your recovery, working on your sleep, working on your health, on your fitness, and you think you're gonna last forever. Or you're gonna have that moment when you have all the resources, time, and it's gonna be that perfect moment to take care of yourself.
17:01 Speaker 00 And then bam, something happens and you get sick and you get injured and your phone breaks and your computer breaks. And you need your banking exactly when it stops functioning because you couldn't fix this small issue, bring this document to the bank. And bam, you have to fix it right now, eh? And those kind of things, I remind myself of them. Whenever there is a small thing that can grow into a big problem or potentially can grow into a big problem, I remind myself. Hey, you never know when tha- when you actually need it. So while you have capacity to choose and plan, do that. Because otherwise, things might come not in a perfect moment and you will have to fix it and you're gonna suffer a lot more. So that's how I build this urgency.
17:46 Speaker 00 I'm like, yeah, if it's, you know, breaks when I, exactly when I need it, when like, I don't know, a client wants to pay and I'm miles away from my bank and I need to fix it now. And there is no possibility and now I'm really screwed. Do I wanna be in that situation? And I was in those situations, no, so. You know, I wanna work on it right now. The same thing is, you know, getting in the best shape for summer. At some point, I realized, you know, I wanna be in the best shape for whatever day of the week, month or year it is. Because I never know when there's gonna be a perfect moment to go for a swing or to go and do, I don't know, dancing or wear my best dress. I didn't know when those moments, moments gonna come. And I would wanna look my best without having to think about my body, diet or something else.
18:31 Speaker 00 And I'm like, what if that day tomorrow and I'll meet the person of my life and I wanna look my best? What if that day is tomorrow? How would I wanna feel, look about myself, about my life? And that's what I'm working on. You know, they say if you wanna have a perfect partner, define what kind of person you need to be for that partner and work on that every day. And so when that moment comes, you are all ready. Because you've been working it all along. Because you felt like it might happen any day. And that's the skill that you gotta start practicing. It's a metacognition skill. Metacognition is thinking about thinking. That's how you shape your own internal conversation.
19:12 Speaker 00 So then you start feeling urgency about your long-term projects or small things that you need to fix so they don't accumulate into something big and really urgent. So that is the skill that you need to practice and practice and practice until like for myself and becomes the second nature. And so when I don't wanna work out, I'm like, well, if you don't wanna work out today, uh, you might not wanna work out tomorrow and the day after. And then what? You're gonna, you know, when you're ninety, you're gonna be frail because you developed a habit of not doing things that you knew were good for you. The same is like recovery and sleep and all of that. You know, they say that sleep, good quality sleep that you cultivate for decades of your life
19:55 Speaker 00 will ensure that you don't have some sort of like dementia or Parkinson's when you're sixty, seventy and eighty. And you, I don't wanna lose my mind to you. But they say it accumulates over the course of twenty, thirty years and it doesn't really show much until it's too late. So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna do that, right? Like, it is urgent. Because one day it will become that. So that is the kind of conversation that I learned how to have with myself. So I don't delay and I don't say things like, well, you know, I don't wanna speak to that person. It's a difficult conversation or it's awkward. And then I remind myself, you might never have this frigging chance again. And you might miss the, I don't know, friendship of your life or love of your life or something else.
20:38 Speaker 00 And so I, I did all of these things procrastinated and delayed. And I missed a lot of chances that, well, you know, life always brings you a lot of other chances. But I did regret a lot of those things. And at some point I realized, hey, yeah, those things passed. And the hope is that I learned and that from now on I will do things even when they are awkward and difficult. So I don't get those regrets anymore. And so I do the thing that feels right, however awkward and imperfect. So I don't kill my own dreams and best moments by delaying certain things, right? Big dreams are not killed by some dramatic moments.
21:19 Speaker 00 They are actually killed and in thousands of moments that you delay till later. So that is the skill. That is my pitch for learning how to create your urgency to fire up your ass. So you feel that urgency to act right now on your decade long project and small things that can grow big, like those injuries. And again, it's a practice, it's a habit. And the more you practice it, the better you're gonna get. And you're gonna get to the point that procrastination on the wrong things or procrastination on the right things is not gonna be a thing in your life. That's it for today, guys.
21:58 Speaker 00 If you have any questions, if you wanna do a meta cognition mindset work kind of session, coaching session, then find the link in the show notes to schedule your hour with your high performance master health, sleep and stress management coach.
22:18 Speaker 00 Yours truly Angela Shurina. So the link is in the show notes. Also, do please share this podcast episode with as many people as you can. So they too act on their important goals and dreams instead of being, instead of allowing themselves to drown into the emergencies that the world and other people can put on you. So share, rate, review. Let's reach more ears around the globe. We are already in 11,000 cities plus. So let's reach more people. So together we get to change the world one person at a time. Your help matters as your actions do. And thank you guys for listening. Thank you for tuning in.
23:01 Speaker 00 And till next time, keep growing and keep learning how to build up that fire under your ass that gets you moving and gets you going.
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