How do you stop procrastinating as an entrepreneur? Well, that's what I'm going to cover in today's video. And if you like videos like this, don't forget to subscribe as I release them each and every week.
Hey everybody, Dan Henry here, author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling book, Digital Millionaire Secrets, founder of getclients.com. And yes, I, just like anybody, and every single entrepreneur out there have dealt with the procrastination demons. In my journey to creating an eight-figure business, I did absolutely get slowed down, especially in the beginning by procrastination. I understand you have big goals, you have big dreams, but there are small tasks required to achieve those big dreams. A lot of times, we will procrastinate and put them off and put them off, and things don't get done. Well, I'm going to talk about in this video what procrastination actually is and how to change it so that you can get more done and achieve your dreams and goals. So, by the way, if you constantly procrastinate, let me know in the comments if it is a problem. I'd like to know how many people in my audience do you have procrastination problems. Just say I procrastinate in the comments just to let me know.
So what is procrastination? Well, procrastination is a behavior. It's a habit. It's something that we do to relieve stress. And I'll explain more of that in a minute, but ultimately, if it is behavior and a habit, it can be changed, and I'll go into how to change it as well.
So, first of all, you have to understand that when you procrastinate, it is a response to stress. So this usually comes in three parts. There is a trigger, there is a behavior, and then there is a reward. So let's say we sit down to do a task, and that task is daunting. That task is remedial even, that task is boring, that task is hard. Whatever that task is that causes us stress, it's causing us stress, right? And when a human being has stress, our natural instinct is to exhibit a behavior or a habit to relieve said stress.
We don't like stress. So when you sit down to do a task that you don't like, it's hard, it's remedial, it's boring. It's, it's daunting, whatever it is, you feel stressed, you feel stressed, okay? So you can either do the hard thing and do it anyway. Or you can do the easy thing. And that's where we move to the second thing to behavior and procrastinate. Well, I'll do it in five minutes. Well, I'll do it later today. Well, I'm not feeling good today. I'll do it tomorrow. Well, and you come up with all these excuses and why you can do it later so that you don't have to do it now because if you do it now, you have to feel the stress, and you don't want to feel the stress now. And so, the behavior is to procrastinate. Now you get a reward, remember trigger behavior reward.
So when you exhibit that behavior of procrastinating, and again, that could be just doing something else, checking your phone, doing a different task that you like more, that doesn't have as much stress or no stress watching, "Oh, I'll destress. I'll watch a quick show, real quick." Whatever it is, you then get a reward, and that reward is stress relief, right? So I got this thing to do that gives me stress. That's the trigger; the stress is the trigger. I'm going to put it off. I'm gonna procrastinate. I'm going to watch the show real quick, or I'm going to do something else that I like to do. That's the behavior procrastination. And then the reward is, I don't feel stressed because I'm not doing it right now. So that's how that happens in your mind. So here is how that's, how to understand it.
Here's how to actually deal with it. You see, most of the time when we have stress about a particular thing, it's because of the initial doing. It is the first couple of minutes of doing it. Once you actually start doing something, you get into the zone, you get into a flow, the stress goes away, and you start actually getting things done. And so one thing you can do is you can curb that initial reaction or response to the stress by simply taking two minutes and just doing the task. Just saying, "Okay, I feel stressed, but instead of putting it off, I'm going to go ahead, and for two minutes, I'm going to do the task. And if I still feel stressed, I'll procrastinate." Allow yourself to procrastinate. Say, look, if I still feel stressed after two minutes, I'll put it off, right? But let me at least get two minutes on the books on this. And if you can do five minutes, do five minutes, and here's, what's going to happen. Most of the time, when you just begin, and you put in those two minutes, you will start that stress level will start to go down, and you'll start to get into the zone. That two minutes will turn into 10 minutes, which will turn into 20 minutes, which will turn into 40 minutes. And next thing you know, you're done. I do it all the time. I call it the two-minute challenge. The more you do the two-minute challenge on various things that you would normally procrastinate on, the more you will find that those things get done, and your dreams and goals happen a lot faster.
Now, if you like this tip, I am going to be putting together a full productivity, a free productivity class, where I have just a ton of productivity tips and really talking about the root cause of why we're not productive. That class is not ready yet, but when it is ready, I'm going to be releasing it for free. We're going to do it, the first class we do is going to be live, it'll be totally free to attend. I'll put a link in the description where you can sign up for the waiting list for that class. And so you can click that and, and get on the waiting list.
But the point I'm trying to make here is that you have to understand that in order to and be productive in order to stop procrastinating, you have to understand that it's a behavior. It's a pattern. You can do task techniques, you can download apps, and you can try to use tricks to be more productive, but ultimately being productive is a lifestyle, not a trick. So by changing the habit, you're essentially starting to change who you are, your reaction to stress, and your lifestyle, and that's what's going to make you more productive.
So try that two-minute challenge. Next time you feel stressed, instead of exhibiting procrastination, as behavior commit to the task for two minutes, five minutes, if you can, and you'll start to realize that the stress goes away and you actually get things done because you've already started. You've already got it into it. It's really just getting over that initial, who I don't want to do this. So try that. And if you would like more productive tips from me, I will be releasing, as I said earlier, a brand new free productivity masterclass. You can get on the waiting list for that. I'll leave a link for that in the description. And by the time you watch this video, perhaps I will have already done it. And if so, I'll leave a link where you can go and watch it immediately, but for now, get on the waiting list.
And again, if you like videos like this, don't forget to subscribe. We'll be releasing new ones every week, and you don't want to miss them. I'll see you in the next one.