How to stop mentally escaping

So I was watching this Woody Allen film called Hannah and Her Sisters, and in the movie, there's this scene where Michael Caine's character, Elliot, is sitting at the dinner table with his wife, Hannah. Now, Elliot is completely emotionally detached; he is disturbed. That's because he's been having an affair with his wife's sister. Shocking stuff, I know.

But this scene really got me thinking about the way in which a lot of us live our entire lives. Hopefully not by having affairs with our wives' sisters, but what I mean is that we do certain things or leave certain things undone in the past that continue to eat away at us subconsciously in the present. A lot of the time, we do this so compulsively that we don't even know that we're doing it.

We just see it as normal. We don't know anything else. Yet we're living a lower quality of life because of it. Every single thing that we do, every single conversation that we have, is infected by the things that we've left usually really undone in the past. I think this is the most insidiously toxic thing about escapism and procrastination, and that is because of something I like to call mental air time.

When we haven't yet done what we know we're supposed to do and we have a tendency to put these things off every single day, then we exist in a mental framework where we are a person who hasn't yet done the thing that we're supposed to do. Over a long period of time, this really changes how we feel about our entire lives. Because no matter what we're doing, no matter what kind of conversation we're having, no matter how special the person we're having that conversation with is, we are subconsciously tainted by the fact that we are not where we're supposed to be.

We are not being who we're supposed to be, and we live our entire lives like this—emotionally disturbed—with this feeling of anxiety that's just always there because of our chronic escapism. People don't talk about procrastination this way; it's nuts. Because when we procrastinate, it's not just the thing that we're supposed to do that suffers; everything else suffers as well, because we're not present with it.

We don't have the mental capacity to enjoy it. Anything good in our lives is infected with this feeling like it's not good enough; we’re not supposed to be here because there's that other thing that we're supposed to be doing.

The weird thing is, it's not like we're never going to do that thing. We usually end up doing it. Usually, the deadline comes closer, the repercussions for not doing it grow scarier and more acute. So, we eventually guilt ourselves into doing it so that we can repeat that cycle every single day for the rest of our lives.

But what's crazy is, since we end up doing it anyway, there's great utility in just changing the order in which we do things. We can escape and do all of the other [ __ ] later, but if we could find a way to do the most important thing that we need to do earlier in the day, then we could change the entire narrative of our lives.

We could change the way we feel about ourselves and about our capability to solve problems. The theme of our lives that's echoing through our subconscious becomes, "Oh yes, I can play video games; I can watch this movie; I can enjoy this conversation because I've already done the thing that I'm supposed to do."

So how do we do it? That's the golden question. Well, knowing what it's doing to us is great, and I think this will help you get some motivation to just do the damn thing. But when push comes to shove, this is an irrational problem. I can give you all the rationality in the world, but when you're faced with the crossroads of watching this funny little YouTube video versus writing a research paper, something other than logic takes over.

Your monkey brain kind of bullies your rational brain into coming up with a rationalization to justify some sub-optimal behavior. So the answer can't be logical; it has to be an emotional tactic. I think that tactic is submission.

Nobody talks about this word "submission" in a productivity context. They talk about it in other contexts, but we're not going to get into those other contexts; that's not what this channel is about. What I mean by submission is it is a feeling of melting into what you're supposed to be doing.

It's not increasing the tension in your body to try to fight and bully your monkey brain into doing what your more logical side of your brain wants it to do. No, it's acknowledging that doing what you're supposed to do feels difficult.

It's feeling that tension that's stopping you from doing that thing and letting go of it and doing the thing anyway. We need to get good at shutting the brain off, stopping the chatter of rationalization and escapism, reducing the tension in our body, taking a deep breath, and just doing the thing.

We can think about all the rationalizations afterward, but submitting to what you already know you're supposed to be doing is less of a psychological feeling; it's more of a physiological feeling. And again, this might sound very woo-woo, but if you've ever tried to take cold showers or go cliff jumping with your friends, it's the same feeling.

You almost submit to the discomfort. If you're standing there at the edge of the cliff and you don't want to jump, even though you know it's perfectly safe—a very steep drop-off, very deep water, nothing could happen to you—you almost need to just submit to the gravity.

The same thing with cold showers: if you already know you're going to enter into the cold shower and feel very uncomfortable, the only way that you're going to get in there is if you just walk in. You stop the chatter, you stop thinking; the mind is corrosive.

It'll try to figure out all these different little ways to weasel out of it, and you don't end up doing it. It's like, if you already know this is what you must do, relax your body and submit to it.

While you're in the cold shower, it feels so much colder if you maintain this resistance. If you try to fight the cold—if you tense up your body and you try to convince yourself to power through it—it's so much better if you just concentrate on the cold. You fully submit to it; you fully focus on it and accept the fact that it's cold, and then it ceases to be so cold.

You're allowing yourself to relax into this discomfort; it actually feels quite euphoric when you do that. I think this is the key to stop procrastinating. I think this is the key to make better decisions in the moment.

You've already heard the logical reasons as to why you should do the thing that you're supposed to do. You know that your life will be dramatically better if the majority of the time you spend here on this Earth, you exist in a headspace where you have already done the most important thing that you need to do. You already know that this is so good for you.

The only step now is, when you're confronted with the crossroads, is to just turn the brain off to submit to what you're supposed to do. It's like submitting to the highest version of yourself, and you start to develop trust that that highest version of yourself has your best interest in mind.

So if you are now motivated and excited to submit to your destiny and you want further reading or other resources that will help you do that, then I highly recommend the audiobook The One Thing by Gary Keller, which is an audiobook I frequently revisit using today's video sponsor, Audible.

Because that book really talks about a lot of the things that I talked about in this video. It's about distilling down all of these things that you have to do into this important thing, and it helps you tackle doing this thing as early as possible so that you can live the rest of your day having already done this thing and having that very narrative change your entire life.

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