Why you procrastinate so often

I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but it seems like sometimes in life the more you want something, the harder it is to get. This seems to be the case with starting a business or writing a book or any of these big life plans we always dream about. It seems like the more we fantasize about these types of things, the more we procrastinate doing anything about them. But there's a very specific reason for this, and it is brilliantly explained in probably one of the best books I have ever read in my life called The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

So, in this book, Steven Pressfield explains that there is a psychological force that is working against you every single day of your life and is intimately involved in every decision that you make, whether you're aware of it or not. The sole purpose of this force is to keep you from reaching your potential. It's called resistance.

Now, whether we've called it resistance or not, we've all definitely felt it, usually in the form of a sort of internal tension that you feel whenever you think about doing something constructive. Whether it's picking up a paintbrush to start painting or opening the word doc to start writing the essay you've been procrastinating forever, resistance will be there to rear its ugly head because resistance prevents progression.

If there were no such thing as resistance, we would all be living according to our highest ideals. If we knew it was our mission to write a book, we would just start writing. If we knew that it was in our best interest to do cardio so you were faster on ice when you played hockey, we would just do cardio whenever we thought of it. We would just do cardio. There would be nothing stopping us.

But, unfortunately, every single time we think about doing something constructive, resistance starts to inject itself into our being without us even realizing it. It's an automatic process, and it happens every single time. So, for example, pretend you're wasting time playing Xbox or something, and you've been playing for a couple of hours. The thought dawns on you to go to the gym because it's Monday and Monday's International Chest Day, a religious holiday, and you really should hit chest. It's the right thing to do.

But since it's the right thing to do and it is integral for your growth as a human being, at least in that area of life, you will encounter resistance first. It usually takes the form of physical discomfort when you think about going to the gym while you're wasting time on Xbox. The thought of going to the gym becomes very physically uncomfortable. You start to tense up; you start to wince at the thought of doing something more uncomfortable than the thing you're currently doing.

Which is interesting because once you're actually at the gym, it's not that bad. In fact, it's pretty fun, and you feel really fulfilled and like you're accomplishing something. But in that moment when you're wasting time, going to the gym seems like a monster. It seems like something you definitely don't want to do. That is resistance.

Since human beings like to stay intellectually consistent, resistance will start to creep into your mind in the form of rationalization. You need any sort of good reason not to encounter this physical pain of going to the gym. Maybe you think about the fact that since it's Monday and International Chess Day, everybody's gonna be doing chest on Monday, so there's gonna be a huge lineup for the bench press. Besides, you went to the gym last week, and it takes a lot longer than one week for you to lose all your gains and for your muscles to deteriorate.

So, it's probably not a big deal if you just skip this week. You've been pretty good up until this point, and you kind of deserve a break. Maybe you're familiar with this type of pattern of thinking, and it's actually really common in its resistance.

But here's something I find a little bit more disturbing: It seems like the more important something is for your growth as a human being, the more powerful resistance will be, stopping you from doing it. A great example of this is me and this channel. When I first started off making these videos, it was just a hobby. But as you guys started watching more and more, and I've started to develop an audience, it has now become my most viable career path.

Sponsors are reaching out; things are happening, the audience is growing, and it's great. But because of that fact, resistance is stronger than ever. For me, resistance takes the form of perfectionism. Whenever I sit down to write a video, I always feel like I have to outdo the last one. It has to be the perfect video with the perfect b-roll, and it really becomes a barrier to uploading as frequently as I would like.

And as I've started to reread The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, I've started to realize that this type of thinking is just resistance. Resistance never goes away. You always hear about famous singers and performers and comedians who still get really nervous before they go on stage. They encounter resistance even though they've been doing it for decades.

Even so, what's their response? So, they just not go on stage? Of course not! Their careers would be over. But what the most successful people do instead is they get really good at automatically breaking past this resistance as it presents itself. And the better you get at doing this, the more efficient you'll be at doing the right thing instead of the comfortable thing.

Because when you just sit down to write or when you just put on the running shoes or when you just hit record, something magical happens. Words start to flow, endorphins start to run, inspiration starts to magically descend upon you, and all the pieces sort of fall together. The proper response to resistance is to just start the thing anyway.

Once you start realizing that whatever rationalizations you have for not doing the thing you know you have to do is just resistance, you can gain the mental clarity to just do the thing anyway. As you become more familiar with resistance and seeing it for what it is, you can really start to use resistance as a guide.

Since resistance is most powerful the more important something is, it's a great compass leading you to where you know you need to go. And as you win these battles with resistance day by day, month by month, and year by year, the life you live will become bigger than the unlived life within you, and you'll eventually start living the kind of life you actually want to be living.

Like I mentioned at the beginning of the video, this entire video was based on The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, the book that I recommend the most to people. The funny thing is I didn't actually read the book physically; I listened to it, using today's video sponsor, Audible.

I remember when I first listened to The War of Art, I was looking on Reddit for book recommendations, and The War of Art came up. So, I downloaded it on Audible. I listened to the audio version while I was starting to clean, but something happened. Whenever I listened to it for like five minutes, I had to take action on the most important things in my life. It completely was a paradigm-shifting book.

The nice thing about Audible is you can listen to books while you're being productive. You can be cleaning the kitchen, you can be driving somewhere, you can be going to the gym, and you can be taking in valuable information while you're already doing something constructive. It's like a double whammy of productivity.

Audible has the largest selection of audiobooks on the entire internet, out of any platform. They have this cool deal where every single month you can download a book of your choice, regardless of price, absolutely free, as well as two Audible Originals. So make sure when you sign up down below for your free trial, you download The War of Art because you absolutely won't regret it.

So, to sign up for your 30-day free trial, either click the link below or visit audible.com slash better ideas or text better ideas to 500 500. If you don't like the book, you can easily exchange it for something else at any time, and if you cancel your Audible membership, you still keep your library of books.

Once again, visit audible.com slash better ideas or text better ideas to 500 500 to sign up for your free 30-day trial. If you like this video, make sure to hit like because when you like it, the algorithm blesses me by shoving this video in front of other people's faces, helping them out.

I feel like this is an important video that people kind of need nowadays. It'll knock them off their YouTube binge and set them on the right path. And, if you're lurking here, consider subscribing and hitting the bell icon, so you don't miss videos like these in the future. Lots of awesome content is coming up, and I'm really excited for some of these future videos.

Make sure to stay tuned for those. Thank you for watching, and we'll catch you in the next video. [Music]