Productivity Genius Podcast_ How to Stay Motivated and Overcome Obstacles
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[00:00:00] Hello, welcome to the Productivity Genius Podcast. I'm your host, Kelly Fifield, and if you're watching this on the video, yes, I'm in my bathing suit coverup because I just recorded this entire podcast and I was using the wrong microphone. So I was going to just go to the beach and be annoyed,
but instead, I decided to see how quickly can I record a podcast? Let's use my productivity skills to see if I can knock this thing out. Anyway, let's see if this sounds familiar. You have a project that you're dying to get done, and all of a sudden you find this free time. You're so excited. You're like, yes, I'm gonna have time to get this thing done.
And you're thinking, oh my gosh, it's gonna be so great. I'm so excited to finally have time. I'm psyched. This is gonna be such a relief. Fast forward to the day when it's time to actually do the thing. And where the heck did that motivation go? You don't even feel like doing it anymore. But this actually totally makes sense.
Your emotions, and you actually always make sense. Let's look at why it makes sense that you're no longer motivated. See, while you were planning, you were [00:01:00] using your prefrontal cortex. In fact, you're probably using the left side of your brain, that part of your brain.
specifically loves planning and loves accomplishing things so that part of your brain was all fired up and excited when you were creating this plan. In fact, you are feeling the feelings in advance of how amazing it's going to be when the thing is done. When you use your imagination, you can actually experience exact emotions you'd feel if this imaginary thing were to happen.
So you're imagining the accomplishment being finished and you're feeling fantastic. But the next day or whenever the time comes that you're supposed to do the thing. Now your primitive brain is online and most likely not excited about it.
When the time comes to do the thing, there's going to be obstacles. Here's a few obstacles that are likely to show up. One, your thoughts about whatever the project is. If you're so excited to get this thing done, there's probably a reason why you haven't done it yet. Maybe it's a long project, maybe you imagine it's a little bit hard, maybe there's some things you're unsure about.[00:02:00]
or maybe there's other things that were a bigger priority than this in the past. You also are contending with your primitive brain, which its job is to keep you alive by seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, and conserving energy,
most likely. The thing that you're planning isn't the most fun thing your brain can think of at this moment. Another thing you're always contending with are your beliefs. And this can be a tricky one because it's often hard to even see those at work.
When I say these things, see if any of these resonate with you. If you think these are true, I'm not really that good at following through. It's not a huge deal. If I don't do what I say I am gonna do at the time, I'm gonna do it When I have an appointment with someone else, that's more important than an appointment. that just includes me.
I need to feel motivated to get things done. It takes me longer to do things if I'm not motivated. Other people's requests are more important than what I had planned. My plans are flexible. I'm not good at following through. I'm a procrastinator.
I never have enough time. Working is easier on a full stomach. I can only work in certain [00:03:00] conditions. Most of these statements and beliefs will bring up negative emotion. And so your brain's gonna say, oh, oh, negative emotion. That doesn't seem fun. Let's not do this thing that's bringing up negative emotion.
And then your primitive brain does exactly what it was designed to do. Comes in and saves the day. So it might say something like, Hey, you know what? It'd be better if we do this next week. There's no time to finish it now. I can't do it now. I don't feel motivated. I'm too hungry to do this.
And once you make that decision not to do the thing, most likely, the thing you're going to feel is immediate relief because now you're not feeling maybe confused or anxious or tired, or whatever the emotion was that was coming up when you were thinking those thoughts,
But you wanna follow through. So how can you do it? There's five steps to make following through easier. Let me just read them off real quick and then I'll quickly explain each one. One, decide you're never gonna beat yourself up. Two, expect to not want to do the things. Three, plan for obstacles. Four, decide in [00:04:00] advance what your acceptable excuses are.
And five micro step, the start at least. So the first one, decide not to beat yourself up
Instead of beating yourself up when you don't follow through, instead be curious. We think that when we beat ourselves up, maybe we can like beat ourselves into submission and not doing this thing the next time. Or maybe if we're so mean to ourselves, we'll teach ourselves a lesson. It just doesn't work that way.
In an overwhelming majority of cases, negative emotion doesn't fuel positive action, so we don't want to indulge in negative emotions. The second one, expect to not want to. One of the least helpful things we do to ourselves is tell ourselves that we should want to do the thing.
Just expect that a lot of times you're not actually gonna wanna do the thing.
The third step plan for obstacles. When you're making your plan, ask yourself, what's gonna get in the way of me doing this? What can I imagine might slow me down or take me off track, step forward, decide on your acceptable [00:05:00] excuses. You're not a robot. There are things that are going to come up. That you want to not follow through on the planned item.
Like for example, if my kid's throwing up, I'm not going to write that email.
And step five, micro step start. This is a really good hack. Very often if we don't know, the very first step, confusion feels terrible, and so our brain says, uh, we still have to decide on this. Let's do it later. If instead you make the first few steps very easy on your brain, it gets to accomplish these little tasks in the beginning.
something like step one, open my laptop. Step two, open up a Word doc. Step three, write the title. Step four, write the first five sentences, something simple like that. Opening your laptop is very easy and you can literally check that off your list. Your brain will be happy to do that.
And then once it's in the flow of doing the thing, it's usually not as resistant. Will this work immediately? Absolutely not. I really don't think it will, but it will get easier and you'll make [00:06:00] incremental improvements. And along the way, you're gonna know why it's a little bit challenging, and that will help you not beat yourself up.
This is just a habit that you're trying to change. Habits often take repeated. Attempts before we can really master them, but it is worth the effort. Building trust in yourself is the foundation for self-confidence. Imagine how it would feel if you knew that every time you put something on your calendar, you always got it done.
Like if you could take that mile long to-do list. And put everything on your calendar, take the list and throw it out knowing that you're gonna follow through on every single one. Can you imagine how amazing that would be for your brain and how calm you'd feel? It is absolutely amazing. I speak from experience, But what if you have very little control over your schedule and your day is really spent just trying to do all of the things for all of your responsibilities, and as soon as you get one done, it's just like five more come in.
[00:07:00] Maybe you find yourself just rushing through your day trying to knock out as many things as you can and squeezing things into all these tiny pockets of time.
If you have very little control over your schedule, then my next podcast is for you, my friend. But until then, I hope you have an amazing week.
