How to Stop Procrastinating (and Start Motivating)

I’ve been procrastinating. Procrastinating writing my blog. Procrastinating posting on social. I don’t like this feeling. This feeling of finding myself at the end of the day having not done the thing I thought I should do. The thing I said I wanted to do. Almost magically, I woke up last night, in the middle of the night, and found myself feeling motivated to do these things. Being a scientist and always curious, I wondered why this hit me at this particular point in time. I laid awake and pondered. I had listened to a Huberman podcast weeks ago about how to leverage dopamine to overcome procrastination. While the concepts made sense, for some reason I hadn’t actively applied the learnings I’d gained and so it is that I was still here weeks later procrastinating. Laying in bed, I deduced that perhaps it was because I had spent time with friends that evening. Real face to face interactions. I had met new people and we had played games. It was fun. And it occurred to me that the genuine social time had raised my dopamine. Dopamine is not the feel good pleasure neurochemical that many of us have been led to believe. It is actually the chemical of motivation. It is the chemical messenger that pushes us to do things. Even things that are hard. I had learned some of this in the Huberman podcast weeks ago. What I had also learned is that many of us, myself included, do things each day that reduce our baseline dopamine. Anytime we get a quick fix from scrolling on social media, or snacking on candy or junk food, we experience a steep spike in dopamine. It feels good in the moment. But these steep spikes result in a similarily steep drop in your baseline dopamine. So once the initial peak subsides, you are left in ‘the trough’ and feeling lower than you were before. So now things that seemed hard are even harder.

So here I am today having just experienced a baseline dopamine raising event the night before, feeling good and riding this out and getting shit done. The question is how do I stay here? How do I ensure I don’t drop into a low dopamine trough, and if I do how do I get out of it quickly? From what I understand from the research, this is a skill we can develop. It can be trained just as you train your muscles at the gym. The trick is to keep doing things that are hard. When something gets easy, change it up and do something else that is different and hard. Recent research suggests that the anterior midcingulate cortex (AMCC) in the brain tends to be larger in high-achievers and super-agers. People with larger AMCC’s have more tenacity and motivation to get things done. Fortunately, we can actually increase the size of this part of the brain by doing hard things, including hard exercise. Fortunately for me, I already have a robust and challenging exercise plan. Being a member at Crossfit HGSC, every day I show up is hard and different. Check. What else can I do to increase my AMCC and my tenacity? The research suggests that cold exposure may be effective. While we are exposed to the cold (cold shower or ice bath), our dopamine drops, then afterward it raises to a new baseline. I know that I can also do other hard things each and every day. Like writing a blog. Like posting on social. Like filming a video of me speaking and putting that out there on the web where everyone can see (and judge).

So I now put this to you. What can you do to stop procrastinating and to start motivating? What can you do if you are struggling to get started on a consistent exercise routine or to achieve your other New Years Resolutions?

Here is my advice. Commit to do 1 hard thing each and every day. That’s it. Do this 1 hard thing for 30 days. Build the habit of doing something hard each and every day. If your goal is to start an exercise routine, start here. Start small. Commit to exercise for 5 minutes every day. Do push-ups, squats, situps. Anything. Just do something. When that isn’t hard anymore. Then add to it.

Take some time to reflect. Ask yourself what you want. Get out a journal and write it down.

Then ask yourself what you really want. Write it down.

Then ask yourself what you really, really want. Be honest.

Then ask yourself what you can do. Find just one thing. What is one step you can take?

Next, ask yourself why you aren’t doing it already. Be honest. My bet is that it isn’t that you don’t have time. You aren’t doing it because the thing is hard. It’s hard because you are afraid you will fail. Or you are afraid you will judged and ridiculed. Those are legitimate reasons.

Next, ask yourself if you know how to do this thing. If your answer is yes, great. Find the next logical step and commit to it. If your answer is no, if you don’t have the skill or need help, ask for it. Ask a coach, a trainer, a partner, a friend.

Motivation comes from the root word ‘to move’. And for practical purposes, procrastination is the opposite of that. It is ‘not moving’. Newtons First Law of Motion states that an object in motion will remain in motion unless compelled to change by an external force. Likewise, an object at rest will remain at rest unless compelled to change. Are you in motion, or are you at rest? If you are at rest, what will compel you to change? Ask yourself the above questions – starting with what you want, what you really, really want, and what you need to do. Tell someone what that is and then commit to taking that first step. Each and every day. These small steps you identify are the force required to start the object (you) moving. Once you are in motion it will be easier to stay in motion. Once this motion gets easy for you, then you make it harder. It is that simple.