I'm sorry, but this is going to be painful for a lot of you...

[Imgal]

@AndrewNC, I don't believe I said they were too long for me so you can hush with that statement! Good answer avoidance too.

Also I'm not trolling Andrew... I actually rather adore the fellow.

 

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[DWX]

Love it man, thank you!

Fear can be a phenomenal motivator.

 

[AndrewNC]

@AndrewNC, I don't believe I said they were too long for me so you can hush with that statement! Good answer avoidance too.

"I don't read long things"
-You

 

[Imgal]

"My name is @AndrewNC and I'm a self confessed troller." - You

 

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[MetalGear]

In my humble opinion, I thought the length was long at first too, but it helps set the scene and embeds the imagery and concepts into my head better that way.

 

[All_In52]

amzing post Andrew. I'm going to apply what you said here into my daily life.

 

[Yashvi Divecha]

@AndrewNC
Superb post!

 

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[Vigilante]

"I don't read long things"
-You

Me

 

[Raoul Duke]

@AndrewNC Maybe the business owner saw the movie Get Out? After I saw that movie I've resolved to never accept any psychotherapy/hypnosis service (and I'm not even black!).

Meditation and the Tao Te Ching are all I need.

 

[jlwilliams]

Harnessing the motivation of pain is a powerful tool.

 

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[Mattie]

I'm not sure if you're ready for what I'm about to ask you to do.
I was just wondering, do you ever try this stuff out on addicts? What experience do you have behind you? Do you have a long list of smokers who have quit on your program? I know you sell the product, but where have you been educated, received your training, what clients have you served? Have you been in smoker addiction forums? Knowledge is one thing, theories are one thing, but the clients you serve are the result and outcome of your methods applied to their lives. You never really say on the forum what is happening behind the scenes. You're just showing the product and copy writing.

 

[KopyKidd]

I did this yesterday and had one of the most productive days I've had in a while.
Thanks for this. Rep+

 

[Flippn]

Thanks a lot man! You've convinced me that my mindset is good, when it comes to procrastination. Imaging myself on a corporate leash till the end and not having time for my future children gives me chills already.

Wysłane z mojego SM-G920F przy użyciu Tapatalka

 

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[Isaac Oh]

Awesome! Can go hand in hand of Robbins' technique of swooshing images in your head

 

[William]

@AndrewNC thanks for the write up. Good stuff.

• If the motivation of pain was a 10/10 to push me out of the comfort of that old tribal village,

• The motivation from the burning fire inside of me was an invinity-out-of-ten.

This made me think. Specifically, I thought of the movie Inception (my favorite movie).

There is a scene where Cobb and his team are planning inception (planting an idea in someones head that eventually becomes their reality) on the heir of an energy conglomerate. They need this idea to convince him of dissolving his father's company.

The team circles around and discuss their strategy for inception. The interaction between Cobb (leader: Dicaprio) and Eames (identity forger: Hardy) is fascinating in regard to Cobb's take on the power of positive emotion.

Cobb opens the floor to ideas on how to execute inception. Eames suggests a negative way to perform inception.
He says, "We can suggest to him breaking up his father's company as a 'screw you' to the old man."

Then Cobb says,
"No, because I think positive emotion trumps negative emotion every single time. We all yearn for reconciliation, for catharsis."

Then Eames suggests a positive way to perform the inception:
"How about...my father accepts that I want to create for myself and not follow in his footsteps."

Here's the exchange:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIXnBBuyDBU&t=65s

 

[G-Man]

Rep+++ Thanks so much for this one. Some of my most productive days are when I re-live the pain of going to work the 2nd day after my son was born, and think about missing every day of his life for the next 20 years.

Maybe I need to re-live it more often.

Also, I think you've already finished writing the book when you get a "must have less than 20k characters" warning.

 

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[William Lapes]

Excellent post.
The only time you have is "Now", because that is the only time there is.

And it's only in the present moment that you create.

So, if your what your thinking, feeling, and doing is creating your future...why would you even attempt to sabatage your future by creating something that may never happen and certainly don't want?
Just my opinion.

 

[Reaqdy]

I'm not sure if you're ready for what I'm about to ask you to do.

It's going to be painful, you're most likely going to cry, and it's going to suck at first. But I can promise you that things are going to be a thousand times more painful in 5 or 10 years if you don't do what I'm asking you to do right now.

The reason why it's so important that you do this right now, today...

Somewhere in the world, a man who smoked cigarettes his entire life was just diagnosed with lung cancer during a routine checkup at his doctor's office. The man has a wife, three children, and financial responsibilities to take care of them all.

The doctor just gave him three months to live.

Sitting there on the table feeling naked in his underwear, the grown man breaks out in tears.

Every emotion you could possibly expect to feel in this dark moment came rushing to the surface. The fear of what might happen to his family when he's gone. Will they be able to afford the expensive mortgage payments? Will they be ok without him? The feeling of regret. Knowing that all of his life, he told himself he should quit smoking; but decades later, he never actually did what he said he was going to do.

He's now in shock and crying uncontrollable tears of remorse and regret.

The nurse in the hallway hears his gasps of pain an stopped in her tracks, as her head went down in despair, knowing the man just got the bad news She lets out a deep breath of sorrow and continues to walk on to her next patient.

As the man leaves the doctor's office shell-shocked, in a trance-like state, he reaches his car and sees the cigarette butt on the ground next to the driver's side door.

That was the last cigarette the man ever would ever smoke in his entire life.

The pack of Marlboros resting on his center console was no longer an instinctual habit where he "reaches over and lights up a smoke" but instead is now a painful reminder of his impending death. The sight that once used to be so normal to him now brings up the pain and agony which twists a knot in his stomach.

What's he going to do now? It's already too late.

If he could only look back in time and scream to himself: "Quit smoking now! It's bad for your health."

But what's the problem with that?

People have been telling this to him his entire life. He said he was going to quit smoking on many occasions.

He logically knew that he should have quit smoking decades ago. He saw the pictures of the charred up lungs in health class. All the evidence and reminders were here.

So why, after years of knowing this, did he finally decide to quit now?

Before you answer this question for yourself, I would like you to strip away the content of the problem (doctor/diagnosis/etc.), and pay attention to the deeper structure of what is going on inside of his body, primarily with his:

1. Thoughts, and
2. Emotions

When you strip it down to it's most basic components, the reason why he decided to quit now is because of the painful emotions he felt in the present moment.

Pay attention to the part where you feel what I mean about the present moment.

• When his mother yelled at him to quit smoking in high school? The pain was a 1/10.
• When his girlfriend broke up with him during college because he always smelled like smoke? The pain was a 4/10. Well that was until he went out to the bars and met someone else later that night. In between rounds of beers, he went outside to light up a cigarette with his friends and share a good time.
• When he began getting that smokers cough at the age of 40? Maybe a 3/10 on the pain scale.

But the painful emotions he felt were not strong enough to grab ahold of him and change his behavior.

If you put a frog in a boiling pot of water, he's going to instinctively jump away when he feels the pain. But if the water is warm and he is slowing beginning to boil, he's going to swim around until it''s already too late.

Sorry little froggy, you should have read my email newsletter.

If your favorite delicious treat is on the table in font of you, you're emotions are going to be the force inside of you that drives you to grab it and put it in your mouth.

Imagine as if the emotions you feel are some unseen esoteric force that controls your body. Whatever logic goes on in your head has no defensive power against the emotions that cause you to do what you do. It's like you're possessed.

But what if you could control what emotions you feel, knowing what emotions will cause you to change your behavior?

The moment he felt the realization about him dying in three months (10/10 emotion), the fearful emotions of his family being left behind (20/10 emotion), and everything else that exploded at once when the doctor delivered that nuclear bomb of a message: These painful emotions instantly shifted his behavior.

But at that point, it's already too late. What if you can create this change in your life today?

Think about you and what you're looking to take action on and achieve in your life.That ONE goal you set you for yourself and that you're not taking action towards. You don't feel those emotions of pain that are decades away. It's nothing but a logical thought right now, with no emotional power attached to it.

In 2012, I began learning about mindfulness.

You've probably read The Power of Now where the author famously introduced the concept that it's always the present moment. The past and future are nothing but thoughts in your mind, and it is always the present moment.

Instead of viewing time as something where we "move through time". The time is always the present moment, and we measure things by a movement of energy.

• It's either happening now.
• Or it's not happening now.

• It's either here now.
• Or it's not here now.

If a person says "I'm going to start eating healthy tomorrow." What does that imply? It implies that the unhealthy eating habit is still happening now (problem not solved). When the infamous tomorrow rolls around, let's just eat that chocolate cake one last time (still happening).

If something is not physically happening now, you are pushing it into the indefinite future because you throw it in the category of (not happening).

You have to pull the pain that you'll feel if you continue to procrastinate into your body...right now. Not just the thoughts of what bad things might happen. You need to actually feel the emotions when you look down at your body.

The lesson here: In order to eliminate this procrastination, you have to pull the emotions from the future (not happening), into the present moment (happening now). This way when you think of doing the (bad behavior), you actually feel the emotions of pain. Your emotions you feel in the present moment are what you are going for here...

• When that smoker got dumped by his girlfriend during college and was laughing and partying with his friends at the bar; drinking that beer and "lighting up that smoke" out front...this resulted in him feeling positive emotions when he smokes (in the present moment).
• When you eat that chocolate cake, you feel the positive emotions...in the present moment.

What are you procrastinating towards?

What's the one big goal that you set out for yourself, something that you are not taking action on?

Now is the time where you will learn how to attach so much pain to the thought of not achieving that goal, and pain to the habit of procrastination, that the part of you which procrastinated in the past will be left behind in the doctor's office parking lot next to that man's last cigarette butt and pack of cigarettes which he tossed out the window.

Because when the bad habit is gone, there's no more "Just this one last time."or "I'll do it tomorrow."

If the doctor just warned him that he should quit smoking and he might get cancer from it...that cigarette would be lit up again.

How do you collapse the bad habit of procrastination?

The answer rests in your deepest long-term fear (the complete opposite side of the coin from your successful vision of the future).

On one hand, you achieve your goal (relationship/money/lose weight/etc.) and you have this goal you set out for yourself with these great positive emotions if you achieve it. On the other hand, you have the fear of what life will be like if you don't achieve this goal.

Quit Smoking Example: "Quit smoking - live a long happy life." (Positive emotion).

If you don't quit smoking, what is the worst thing that can happen to you:

• Cancer.
• 3 months to live if you quit now. 3 weeks if you keep smoking.
• Leaving family behind.
• Leaving family in financial ruin because you're the breadwinner.
• How will all this feel if this scenario has already happened? Would you pick up another cigarette? Or would you tack on the extra 2 months to your life and spend it with your loved ones?

Exercise and Eating Healthy: Looking in the mirror being obese, nobody will want to date you, fast forward 20 years, diabetes, having to stab yourself with an insulin needle every day to keep your blood sugar in check (are you simply reading this or can you actually pretend to feel the emotion of the needle being stuck in your arm?), arteries clog up, heart attack, stroke, you can't speak correctly because of the stroke, and you're forced in a wheel chair. Living a life feeling groggy all the time.

Someone else has to wipe your *** because you can't physically do it anymore.

You are sitting in a wheelchair next to a hospital bed, in this vegetable-like state, barely able to communicate as you look at your loved ones feeling helpless and hopeless while you say to yourself:

"What the hell have you been doing your whole life? Why haven't you been taking care of your health?"

And when you look back on how you chose to live your life, you are filled with a feeling of regret and despair.

Looking back from this moment of immense pain, what can you choose to eat instead? Does the bag of potato chips make all this worth it?

Answer this to yourself: What is one way you can be healthier today?

I'm going to stop eating potato chips after typing this to you. Not "one last one", but that food craving already gone. How'd I do it? simply by typing the description above to you, which took me all of two minutes.

Building a your dream business/going after your financial goals/etc:
They call me the ghost of Christmas future.
You're going to be 65 years old and laid off from your job with no pension because we outsourced what you do to technology, you're living paycheck to paycheck and you're past due on your rent. You're stuck and (by this point) you have no escape. Nobody is going to hire you with your outdated skills now. The procrastinative actions (I made this word up) you've been taking in the past have finally caught up to you.

The landlord evicts you, you're buried in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. The collectors keep calling you and you eventually have to turn of your phone because you can't stand the sound of your ringtone. As you drag the last bag of belongings from your now-empty apartment to your car, you realize that your car has just been repossessed moments ago as you're now homeless on the street at the age of 65 with one suitcase full of belongings.

No friends, no family, no nothing because you've been playing computer games 12 hours a day.

At this point, there's no coming back from this. It's already too late.

Embarrassed. Ashamed. You should have been building up your business and skill-set decades ago instead of browsing around on social media, watching TV, drinking alcohol, smoking weed, and playing video games.
Or what is it that you like to do instead? What's that one thing you've been doing in your life that has held you back from your dreams?

But it's too late for that now.

Are you just emotionlessly reading these words, or are you actually feeling the emotions in this present moment?

Stop reading. Feel your body. Are the emotions here? Yes or no?

Now here's the real kicker: From this emotional state of already being in this worst fear, looking at the same things that once were joyful (procrastinating) looks a bit different to you, doesn't it?

Keep building them up from this worst fear and then when you imagine that you live it now, look back at all the things you could have shouldn't have done.

All because you didn't commit a few hours a night after work building your future right now.

You get the picture. What is it that you're working on as you read this...Shopping addiction? Gambling too much? Relationships?

I'm still not craving those potato chips. They've been my downfall for six months. Yuck. Now they're gone.

Here is the final test:

When you write out your worst case scenario if you keep procrastinating on the one thing you know you are here to do, go into an exaggerated amount of detail like I did here. It's not enough to just put the words on paper. Let me repeat that. It's not enough to just put the words on paper.

You have to invoke so much pain in what will happen if you don't take action towards achieving your goals; that you feel this pain in the present moment.

But even that's not enough.

Are you sitting around feeling the emotions in despair? Or are you feeling the emotions that drive you to do something? Are you sitting around with your hand in a scorching hot fire? Or are you pulling your hand away?

1. You have to feel the painful emotions (not in the future), but in the present moment. Look down at your body and do you feel them? Are these emotions attached to the thought of procrastinating or that bad habit of yours?
2. You have to make sure the emotions drive you to actually do something right now, today. Yeah, you can sit around in the hot fire and feel the pain, but it means nothing if you don't jump out.

What's one change you've already made in your life by reading what you read today?

Just the simple thought of not doing what you need to do should make you feel as painfully miserable as the man felt in the moment the doctor diagnosed him with cancer that will kill him in three months.

1. Build your dream.
2. Eat that apple and jump on the treadmill.
3. Say hi to your future partner.

All of a sudden, the pain of doing the procrastinative (there's that word again) things you've been doing is so much worse than going out and just doing what you failed to do in the past.

And I say this in all seriousness: If you're not crying or feeling the nuclear-bomb-of-an-emotion with just the thought of not taking action towards your goal; you're not attaching enough pain to it.

I have a challenge for you: Can you invoke the feelings of pain right now?

Are you actually doing something to change because of the feelings?

After reading this, aren't you a little disappointed in the way you've been procrastinating knowing where it led you in this painful life of yours? It's too late to escape now that it's here. But looking back in time, what can you begin to do differently to avoid this trap?
Before you go to sleep tonight, write out your own exaggerated pain story. Can you make it more painful and dramatic than mine?

I hope you cry.

Because that's what causes you to change and you can thank me later.

I told you that it'll be painful at first, but what this does it collapse the habit of procrastination, and these emotions drive you to do what you need to do.

Wow..

What hit me is the wife and kids part of your story. I have one kid and another on the way but I don't smoke cigs.

Life really doesn't know "oops" or "rewinds". It only knows what is and going forward. No retrys or redos.

This really put things into perspective. And because of the length of it and the length you took to write this out shows the seriousness in living your life every minute like it is your last.

Thank you and bless you for your wisdom and perspective. I am new to the fastlane forums but I stubbled upon here for a reason. These words will forever resonate in my life and will resonate in my son and upcoming child.

Have a good day!

 

[Ascension]

Rep++
Thank you Andrew, those posts were absolutely amazing.
You are an NLP-Practitioner right? You reminded me once again how powerful those concepts are and I'll take extra time out of my day
to forge my way of thinking and my self-image step by step into what I want it to be.
Thank you

 

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[AndrewNC]

Rep++
Thank you Andrew, those posts were absolutely amazing.
You are an NLP-Practitioner right? You reminded me once again how powerful those concepts are and I'll take extra time out of my day
to forge my way of thinking and my self-image step by step into what I want it to be.
Thank you

Yupp. First got into NLP in 2013. Took my first training in 2014.

Took me until I wrote this post before I put the pieces together in terms of motivation.

In this sense. Really fun stuff

 

[Nexus]

I cannot thank you enough for this thread, it was a great slap of reality.

What I did was write a letter to myself detailing the life I'll end up with if I don't work towards what I want. I read it whenever I feel a bit unmotivated, and it works wonders. Procrastination no longer feels like a tempting, it feels disgusting.

 

[Nardop01]

Very strong. If only I had a clear direction on how to start preventing this future of suffering from happening. Books and videos help... Maybe college? But then the possible suffering from college debt will be an additional pain I may experience in the future... It sucks but I believe that my thinking (as well as others) is hardwired into our brains by our friends and families, as well as our current neighborhood and surroundings. The only way to get out of this idiotic close-minded thinking has to be to get out of the brainwashed 9x5 gang and go find some people who think how you want to think, or even find somewhere quiet to let your soul show you your desires... That and reading will most definitely guarantee success, not going out once a week with your friends who like to spend their money on designer clothes, expensive food, alcohol, and nice cars. And then besides hanging out with your friends and of course, working your miserable job, you go home to your girlfriend who went to college and has her masters at 23 years old, has a corporate job, but thinks that just because she's out of college and has her degree that she doesn't need to educate herself anymore...Typical. Oh and all you guys do all day is the good ol' "Netflix and chill." Oh wait I do all that. Damn I guess that could be the reason I feel like I'm living in a failed life? Thank God I read The Millionaire Fastlane and am currently reading Unscripted , because without MJ, and without my near death experience that recently happened that gave me a BIG wake up call, I would not be trying to find purpose in my life and instead follow everyone else in their B line of miserableness.

 

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[Iammelissamoore]

Definitely admitting that I love this post, not because it's "nice", but certainly because it's kick-in-the-a$$ truthful.

Procrastination was one of the many reasons I failed myself in life.

I'm enjoying this journey of life where painful truth is of greater importance and necessity to me than comforting lies.

 

[PedroG]

Great post! The key is to associate enough pain with continuing unchanged and linking more pleasure to changing. It needs to become a "must" rather than a "should." Tony Robbins' "Awaken the Giant Within" has great info on this.

 

[garyjsmith]

Just wow. There is a reason this is marked as gold.

I've heard this concept before but never had it explained in such an effective way. Great visual and call to action

 

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[BrooklynHustle]

POWERFUL...

I'm not sure if you're ready for what I'm about to ask you to do.

It's going to be painful, you're most likely going to cry, and it's going to suck at first. But I can promise you that things are going to be a thousand times more painful in 5 or 10 years if you don't do what I'm asking you to do right now.

The reason why it's so important that you do this right now, today...

Somewhere in the world, a man who smoked cigarettes his entire life was just diagnosed with lung cancer during a routine checkup at his doctor's office. The man has a wife, three children, and financial responsibilities to take care of them all.

The doctor just gave him three months to live.

Sitting there on the table feeling naked in his underwear, the grown man breaks out in tears.

Every emotion you could possibly expect to feel in this dark moment came rushing to the surface. The fear of what might happen to his family when he's gone. Will they be able to afford the expensive mortgage payments? Will they be ok without him? The feeling of regret. Knowing that all of his life, he told himself he should quit smoking; but decades later, he never actually did what he said he was going to do.

He's now in shock and crying uncontrollable tears of remorse and regret.

The nurse in the hallway hears his gasps of pain an stopped in her tracks, as her head went down in despair, knowing the man just got the bad news She lets out a deep breath of sorrow and continues to walk on to her next patient.

As the man leaves the doctor's office shell-shocked, in a trance-like state, he reaches his car and sees the cigarette butt on the ground next to the driver's side door.

That was the last cigarette the man ever would ever smoke in his entire life.

The pack of Marlboros resting on his center console was no longer an instinctual habit where he "reaches over and lights up a smoke" but instead is now a painful reminder of his impending death. The sight that once used to be so normal to him now brings up the pain and agony which twists a knot in his stomach.

What's he going to do now? It's already too late.

If he could only look back in time and scream to himself: "Quit smoking now! It's bad for your health."

But what's the problem with that?

People have been telling this to him his entire life. He said he was going to quit smoking on many occasions.

He logically knew that he should have quit smoking decades ago. He saw the pictures of the charred up lungs in health class. All the evidence and reminders were here.

So why, after years of knowing this, did he finally decide to quit now?

Before you answer this question for yourself, I would like you to strip away the content of the problem (doctor/diagnosis/etc.), and pay attention to the deeper structure of what is going on inside of his body, primarily with his:

1. Thoughts, and
2. Emotions

When you strip it down to it's most basic components, the reason why he decided to quit now is because of the painful emotions he felt in the present moment.

Pay attention to the part where you feel what I mean about the present moment.

• When his mother yelled at him to quit smoking in high school? The pain was a 1/10.
• When his girlfriend broke up with him during college because he always smelled like smoke? The pain was a 4/10. Well that was until he went out to the bars and met someone else later that night. In between rounds of beers, he went outside to light up a cigarette with his friends and share a good time.
• When he began getting that smokers cough at the age of 40? Maybe a 3/10 on the pain scale.

But the painful emotions he felt were not strong enough to grab ahold of him and change his behavior.

If you put a frog in a boiling pot of water, he's going to instinctively jump away when he feels the pain. But if the water is warm and he is slowing beginning to boil, he's going to swim around until it''s already too late.

Sorry little froggy, you should have read my email newsletter.

If your favorite delicious treat is on the table in font of you, you're emotions are going to be the force inside of you that drives you to grab it and put it in your mouth.

Imagine as if the emotions you feel are some unseen esoteric force that controls your body. Whatever logic goes on in your head has no defensive power against the emotions that cause you to do what you do. It's like you're possessed.

But what if you could control what emotions you feel, knowing what emotions will cause you to change your behavior?

The moment he felt the realization about him dying in three months (10/10 emotion), the fearful emotions of his family being left behind (20/10 emotion), and everything else that exploded at once when the doctor delivered that nuclear bomb of a message: These painful emotions instantly shifted his behavior.

But at that point, it's already too late. What if you can create this change in your life today?

Think about you and what you're looking to take action on and achieve in your life.That ONE goal you set you for yourself and that you're not taking action towards. You don't feel those emotions of pain that are decades away. It's nothing but a logical thought right now, with no emotional power attached to it.

In 2012, I began learning about mindfulness.

You've probably read The Power of Now where the author famously introduced the concept that it's always the present moment. The past and future are nothing but thoughts in your mind, and it is always the present moment.

Instead of viewing time as something where we "move through time". The time is always the present moment, and we measure things by a movement of energy.

• It's either happening now.
• Or it's not happening now.

• It's either here now.
• Or it's not here now.

If a person says "I'm going to start eating healthy tomorrow." What does that imply? It implies that the unhealthy eating habit is still happening now (problem not solved). When the infamous tomorrow rolls around, let's just eat that chocolate cake one last time (still happening).

If something is not physically happening now, you are pushing it into the indefinite future because you throw it in the category of (not happening).

You have to pull the pain that you'll feel if you continue to procrastinate into your body...right now. Not just the thoughts of what bad things might happen. You need to actually feel the emotions when you look down at your body.

The lesson here: In order to eliminate this procrastination, you have to pull the emotions from the future (not happening), into the present moment (happening now). This way when you think of doing the (bad behavior), you actually feel the emotions of pain. Your emotions you feel in the present moment are what you are going for here...

• When that smoker got dumped by his girlfriend during college and was laughing and partying with his friends at the bar; drinking that beer and "lighting up that smoke" out front...this resulted in him feeling positive emotions when he smokes (in the present moment).
• When you eat that chocolate cake, you feel the positive emotions...in the present moment.

What are you procrastinating towards?

What's the one big goal that you set out for yourself, something that you are not taking action on?

Now is the time where you will learn how to attach so much pain to the thought of not achieving that goal, and pain to the habit of procrastination, that the part of you which procrastinated in the past will be left behind in the doctor's office parking lot next to that man's last cigarette butt and pack of cigarettes which he tossed out the window.

Because when the bad habit is gone, there's no more "Just this one last time."or "I'll do it tomorrow."

If the doctor just warned him that he should quit smoking and he might get cancer from it...that cigarette would be lit up again.

How do you collapse the bad habit of procrastination?

The answer rests in your deepest long-term fear (the complete opposite side of the coin from your successful vision of the future).

On one hand, you achieve your goal (relationship/money/lose weight/etc.) and you have this goal you set out for yourself with these great positive emotions if you achieve it. On the other hand, you have the fear of what life will be like if you don't achieve this goal.

Quit Smoking Example: "Quit smoking - live a long happy life." (Positive emotion).

If you don't quit smoking, what is the worst thing that can happen to you:

• Cancer.
• 3 months to live if you quit now. 3 weeks if you keep smoking.
• Leaving family behind.
• Leaving family in financial ruin because you're the breadwinner.
• How will all this feel if this scenario has already happened? Would you pick up another cigarette? Or would you tack on the extra 2 months to your life and spend it with your loved ones?

Exercise and Eating Healthy: Looking in the mirror being obese, nobody will want to date you, fast forward 20 years, diabetes, having to stab yourself with an insulin needle every day to keep your blood sugar in check (are you simply reading this or can you actually pretend to feel the emotion of the needle being stuck in your arm?), arteries clog up, heart attack, stroke, you can't speak correctly because of the stroke, and you're forced in a wheel chair. Living a life feeling groggy all the time.

Someone else has to wipe your *** because you can't physically do it anymore.

You are sitting in a wheelchair next to a hospital bed, in this vegetable-like state, barely able to communicate as you look at your loved ones feeling helpless and hopeless while you say to yourself:

"What the hell have you been doing your whole life? Why haven't you been taking care of your health?"

And when you look back on how you chose to live your life, you are filled with a feeling of regret and despair.

Looking back from this moment of immense pain, what can you choose to eat instead? Does the bag of potato chips make all this worth it?

Answer this to yourself: What is one way you can be healthier today?

I'm going to stop eating potato chips after typing this to you. Not "one last one", but that food craving already gone. How'd I do it? simply by typing the description above to you, which took me all of two minutes.

Building a your dream business/going after your financial goals/etc:
They call me the ghost of Christmas future.
You're going to be 65 years old and laid off from your job with no pension because we outsourced what you do to technology, you're living paycheck to paycheck and you're past due on your rent. You're stuck and (by this point) you have no escape. Nobody is going to hire you with your outdated skills now. The procrastinative actions (I made this word up) you've been taking in the past have finally caught up to you.

The landlord evicts you, you're buried in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. The collectors keep calling you and you eventually have to turn of your phone because you can't stand the sound of your ringtone. As you drag the last bag of belongings from your now-empty apartment to your car, you realize that your car has just been repossessed moments ago as you're now homeless on the street at the age of 65 with one suitcase full of belongings.

No friends, no family, no nothing because you've been playing computer games 12 hours a day.

At this point, there's no coming back from this. It's already too late.

Embarrassed. Ashamed. You should have been building up your business and skill-set decades ago instead of browsing around on social media, watching TV, drinking alcohol, smoking weed, and playing video games.
Or what is it that you like to do instead? What's that one thing you've been doing in your life that has held you back from your dreams?

But it's too late for that now.

Are you just emotionlessly reading these words, or are you actually feeling the emotions in this present moment?

Stop reading. Feel your body. Are the emotions here? Yes or no?

Now here's the real kicker: From this emotional state of already being in this worst fear, looking at the same things that once were joyful (procrastinating) looks a bit different to you, doesn't it?

Keep building them up from this worst fear and then when you imagine that you live it now, look back at all the things you could have shouldn't have done.

All because you didn't commit a few hours a night after work building your future right now.

You get the picture. What is it that you're working on as you read this...Shopping addiction? Gambling too much? Relationships?

I'm still not craving those potato chips. They've been my downfall for six months. Yuck. Now they're gone.

Here is the final test:

When you write out your worst case scenario if you keep procrastinating on the one thing you know you are here to do, go into an exaggerated amount of detail like I did here. It's not enough to just put the words on paper. Let me repeat that. It's not enough to just put the words on paper.

You have to invoke so much pain in what will happen if you don't take action towards achieving your goals; that you feel this pain in the present moment.

But even that's not enough.

Are you sitting around feeling the emotions in despair? Or are you feeling the emotions that drive you to do something? Are you sitting around with your hand in a scorching hot fire? Or are you pulling your hand away?

1. You have to feel the painful emotions (not in the future), but in the present moment. Look down at your body and do you feel them? Are these emotions attached to the thought of procrastinating or that bad habit of yours?
2. You have to make sure the emotions drive you to actually do something right now, today. Yeah, you can sit around in the hot fire and feel the pain, but it means nothing if you don't jump out.

What's one change you've already made in your life by reading what you read today?

Just the simple thought of not doing what you need to do should make you feel as painfully miserable as the man felt in the moment the doctor diagnosed him with cancer that will kill him in three months.

1. Build your dream.
2. Eat that apple and jump on the treadmill.
3. Say hi to your future partner.

All of a sudden, the pain of doing the procrastinative (there's that word again) things you've been doing is so much worse than going out and just doing what you failed to do in the past.

And I say this in all seriousness: If you're not crying or feeling the nuclear-bomb-of-an-emotion with just the thought of not taking action towards your goal; you're not attaching enough pain to it.

I have a challenge for you: Can you invoke the feelings of pain right now?

Are you actually doing something to change because of the feelings?

After reading this, aren't you a little disappointed in the way you've been procrastinating knowing where it led you in this painful life of yours? It's too late to escape now that it's here. But looking back in time, what can you begin to do differently to avoid this trap?
Before you go to sleep tonight, write out your own exaggerated pain story. Can you make it more painful and dramatic than mine?

I hope you cry.

Because that's what causes you to change and you can thank me later.

I told you that it'll be painful at first, but what this does it collapse the habit of procrastination, and these emotions drive you to do what you need to do.

 

[Liz Be]

I'm not sure if you're ready for what I'm about to ask you to do.

It's going to be painful, you're most likely going to cry, and it's going to suck at first. But I can promise you that things are going to be a thousand times more painful in 5 or 10 years if you don't do what I'm asking you to do right now.

The reason why it's so important that you do this right now, today...

Somewhere in the world, a man who smoked cigarettes his entire life was just diagnosed with lung cancer during a routine checkup at his doctor's office. The man has a wife, three children, and financial responsibilities to take care of them all.

The doctor just gave him three months to live.

Sitting there on the table feeling naked in his underwear, the grown man breaks out in tears.

Every emotion you could possibly expect to feel in this dark moment came rushing to the surface. The fear of what might happen to his family when he's gone. Will they be able to afford the expensive mortgage payments? Will they be ok without him? The feeling of regret. Knowing that all of his life, he told himself he should quit smoking; but decades later, he never actually did what he said he was going to do.

He's now in shock and crying uncontrollable tears of remorse and regret.

The nurse in the hallway hears his gasps of pain an stopped in her tracks, as her head went down in despair, knowing the man just got the bad news She lets out a deep breath of sorrow and continues to walk on to her next patient.

As the man leaves the doctor's office shell-shocked, in a trance-like state, he reaches his car and sees the cigarette butt on the ground next to the driver's side door.

That was the last cigarette the man ever would ever smoke in his entire life.

The pack of Marlboros resting on his center console was no longer an instinctual habit where he "reaches over and lights up a smoke" but instead is now a painful reminder of his impending death. The sight that once used to be so normal to him now brings up the pain and agony which twists a knot in his stomach.

What's he going to do now? It's already too late.

If he could only look back in time and scream to himself: "Quit smoking now! It's bad for your health."

But what's the problem with that?

People have been telling this to him his entire life. He said he was going to quit smoking on many occasions.

He logically knew that he should have quit smoking decades ago. He saw the pictures of the charred up lungs in health class. All the evidence and reminders were here.

So why, after years of knowing this, did he finally decide to quit now?

Before you answer this question for yourself, I would like you to strip away the content of the problem (doctor/diagnosis/etc.), and pay attention to the deeper structure of what is going on inside of his body, primarily with his:

1. Thoughts, and
2. Emotions

When you strip it down to it's most basic components, the reason why he decided to quit now is because of the painful emotions he felt in the present moment.

Pay attention to the part where you feel what I mean about the present moment.

• When his mother yelled at him to quit smoking in high school? The pain was a 1/10.
• When his girlfriend broke up with him during college because he always smelled like smoke? The pain was a 4/10. Well that was until he went out to the bars and met someone else later that night. In between rounds of beers, he went outside to light up a cigarette with his friends and share a good time.
• When he began getting that smokers cough at the age of 40? Maybe a 3/10 on the pain scale.

But the painful emotions he felt were not strong enough to grab ahold of him and change his behavior.

If you put a frog in a boiling pot of water, he's going to instinctively jump away when he feels the pain. But if the water is warm and he is slowing beginning to boil, he's going to swim around until it''s already too late.

Sorry little froggy, you should have read my email newsletter.

If your favorite delicious treat is on the table in font of you, you're emotions are going to be the force inside of you that drives you to grab it and put it in your mouth.

Imagine as if the emotions you feel are some unseen esoteric force that controls your body. Whatever logic goes on in your head has no defensive power against the emotions that cause you to do what you do. It's like you're possessed.

But what if you could control what emotions you feel, knowing what emotions will cause you to change your behavior?

The moment he felt the realization about him dying in three months (10/10 emotion), the fearful emotions of his family being left behind (20/10 emotion), and everything else that exploded at once when the doctor delivered that nuclear bomb of a message: These painful emotions instantly shifted his behavior.

But at that point, it's already too late. What if you can create this change in your life today?

Think about you and what you're looking to take action on and achieve in your life.That ONE goal you set you for yourself and that you're not taking action towards. You don't feel those emotions of pain that are decades away. It's nothing but a logical thought right now, with no emotional power attached to it.

In 2012, I began learning about mindfulness.

You've probably read The Power of Now where the author famously introduced the concept that it's always the present moment. The past and future are nothing but thoughts in your mind, and it is always the present moment.

Instead of viewing time as something where we "move through time". The time is always the present moment, and we measure things by a movement of energy.

• It's either happening now.
• Or it's not happening now.

• It's either here now.
• Or it's not here now.

If a person says "I'm going to start eating healthy tomorrow." What does that imply? It implies that the unhealthy eating habit is still happening now (problem not solved). When the infamous tomorrow rolls around, let's just eat that chocolate cake one last time (still happening).

If something is not physically happening now, you are pushing it into the indefinite future because you throw it in the category of (not happening).

You have to pull the pain that you'll feel if you continue to procrastinate into your body...right now. Not just the thoughts of what bad things might happen. You need to actually feel the emotions when you look down at your body.

The lesson here: In order to eliminate this procrastination, you have to pull the emotions from the future (not happening), into the present moment (happening now). This way when you think of doing the (bad behavior), you actually feel the emotions of pain. Your emotions you feel in the present moment are what you are going for here...

• When that smoker got dumped by his girlfriend during college and was laughing and partying with his friends at the bar; drinking that beer and "lighting up that smoke" out front...this resulted in him feeling positive emotions when he smokes (in the present moment).
• When you eat that chocolate cake, you feel the positive emotions...in the present moment.

What are you procrastinating towards?

What's the one big goal that you set out for yourself, something that you are not taking action on?

Now is the time where you will learn how to attach so much pain to the thought of not achieving that goal, and pain to the habit of procrastination, that the part of you which procrastinated in the past will be left behind in the doctor's office parking lot next to that man's last cigarette butt and pack of cigarettes which he tossed out the window.

Because when the bad habit is gone, there's no more "Just this one last time."or "I'll do it tomorrow."

If the doctor just warned him that he should quit smoking and he might get cancer from it...that cigarette would be lit up again.

How do you collapse the bad habit of procrastination?

The answer rests in your deepest long-term fear (the complete opposite side of the coin from your successful vision of the future).

On one hand, you achieve your goal (relationship/money/lose weight/etc.) and you have this goal you set out for yourself with these great positive emotions if you achieve it. On the other hand, you have the fear of what life will be like if you don't achieve this goal.

Quit Smoking Example: "Quit smoking - live a long happy life." (Positive emotion).

If you don't quit smoking, what is the worst thing that can happen to you:

• Cancer.
• 3 months to live if you quit now. 3 weeks if you keep smoking.
• Leaving family behind.
• Leaving family in financial ruin because you're the breadwinner.
• How will all this feel if this scenario has already happened? Would you pick up another cigarette? Or would you tack on the extra 2 months to your life and spend it with your loved ones?

Exercise and Eating Healthy: Looking in the mirror being obese, nobody will want to date you, fast forward 20 years, diabetes, having to stab yourself with an insulin needle every day to keep your blood sugar in check (are you simply reading this or can you actually pretend to feel the emotion of the needle being stuck in your arm?), arteries clog up, heart attack, stroke, you can't speak correctly because of the stroke, and you're forced in a wheel chair. Living a life feeling groggy all the time.

Someone else has to wipe your *** because you can't physically do it anymore.

You are sitting in a wheelchair next to a hospital bed, in this vegetable-like state, barely able to communicate as you look at your loved ones feeling helpless and hopeless while you say to yourself:

"What the hell have you been doing your whole life? Why haven't you been taking care of your health?"

And when you look back on how you chose to live your life, you are filled with a feeling of regret and despair.

Looking back from this moment of immense pain, what can you choose to eat instead? Does the bag of potato chips make all this worth it?

Answer this to yourself: What is one way you can be healthier today?

I'm going to stop eating potato chips after typing this to you. Not "one last one", but that food craving already gone. How'd I do it? simply by typing the description above to you, which took me all of two minutes.

Building a your dream business/going after your financial goals/etc:
They call me the ghost of Christmas future.
You're going to be 65 years old and laid off from your job with no pension because we outsourced what you do to technology, you're living paycheck to paycheck and you're past due on your rent. You're stuck and (by this point) you have no escape. Nobody is going to hire you with your outdated skills now. The procrastinative actions (I made this word up) you've been taking in the past have finally caught up to you.

The landlord evicts you, you're buried in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. The collectors keep calling you and you eventually have to turn of your phone because you can't stand the sound of your ringtone. As you drag the last bag of belongings from your now-empty apartment to your car, you realize that your car has just been repossessed moments ago as you're now homeless on the street at the age of 65 with one suitcase full of belongings.

No friends, no family, no nothing because you've been playing computer games 12 hours a day.

At this point, there's no coming back from this. It's already too late.

Embarrassed. Ashamed. You should have been building up your business and skill-set decades ago instead of browsing around on social media, watching TV, drinking alcohol, smoking weed, and playing video games.
Or what is it that you like to do instead? What's that one thing you've been doing in your life that has held you back from your dreams?

But it's too late for that now.

Are you just emotionlessly reading these words, or are you actually feeling the emotions in this present moment?

Stop reading. Feel your body. Are the emotions here? Yes or no?

Now here's the real kicker: From this emotional state of already being in this worst fear, looking at the same things that once were joyful (procrastinating) looks a bit different to you, doesn't it?

Keep building them up from this worst fear and then when you imagine that you live it now, look back at all the things you could have shouldn't have done.

All because you didn't commit a few hours a night after work building your future right now.

You get the picture. What is it that you're working on as you read this...Shopping addiction? Gambling too much? Relationships?

I'm still not craving those potato chips. They've been my downfall for six months. Yuck. Now they're gone.

Here is the final test:

When you write out your worst case scenario if you keep procrastinating on the one thing you know you are here to do, go into an exaggerated amount of detail like I did here. It's not enough to just put the words on paper. Let me repeat that. It's not enough to just put the words on paper.

You have to invoke so much pain in what will happen if you don't take action towards achieving your goals; that you feel this pain in the present moment.

But even that's not enough.

Are you sitting around feeling the emotions in despair? Or are you feeling the emotions that drive you to do something? Are you sitting around with your hand in a scorching hot fire? Or are you pulling your hand away?

1. You have to feel the painful emotions (not in the future), but in the present moment. Look down at your body and do you feel them? Are these emotions attached to the thought of procrastinating or that bad habit of yours?
2. You have to make sure the emotions drive you to actually do something right now, today. Yeah, you can sit around in the hot fire and feel the pain, but it means nothing if you don't jump out.

What's one change you've already made in your life by reading what you read today?

Just the simple thought of not doing what you need to do should make you feel as painfully miserable as the man felt in the moment the doctor diagnosed him with cancer that will kill him in three months.

1. Build your dream.
2. Eat that apple and jump on the treadmill.
3. Say hi to your future partner.

All of a sudden, the pain of doing the procrastinative (there's that word again) things you've been doing is so much worse than going out and just doing what you failed to do in the past.

And I say this in all seriousness: If you're not crying or feeling the nuclear-bomb-of-an-emotion with just the thought of not taking action towards your goal; you're not attaching enough pain to it.

I have a challenge for you: Can you invoke the feelings of pain right now?

Are you actually doing something to change because of the feelings?

After reading this, aren't you a little disappointed in the way you've been procrastinating knowing where it led you in this painful life of yours? It's too late to escape now that it's here. But looking back in time, what can you begin to do differently to avoid this trap?
Before you go to sleep tonight, write out your own exaggerated pain story. Can you make it more painful and dramatic than mine?

I hope you cry.

Because that's what causes you to change and you can thank me later.

I told you that it'll be painful at first, but what this does it collapse the habit of procrastination, and these emotions drive you to do what you need to do.

As a huge fan of mindfulness meditation, I LOVE LOVE LOVE this thread. Well done.

 

[Grok]

@AndrewNC

very,very helpful and motivating! Only disagree when you said ".....over at 65".
I am 70, not over yet !
I take to heart and emotion all that you wrote. THANKS !

 

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[AndrewNC]

@AndrewNC

very,very helpful and motivating! Only disagree when you said ".....over at 65".
I am 70, not over yet !
I take to heart and emotion all that you wrote. THANKS !

I once had a landlord in Port Jefferson New York. The guy was 98 and had more energy and stamina than a teenage athlete! Age is just a number!

 

[PickOcean]

Man its late, 1:30am..... I should get some sleep...naw...I'll read some Fastlane....here's an interesting head line....now to see if it is Basement Dweller Self Promoter or good advice.......Dam, I am glad I don't smoke..harsh..Yes i procrastinate everything...2/10.........
Pitch Black...Lights out in whole neighborhood......Okay...only thing I can see is this article....I get it..I will do this...No lighting bolt please...