**Procrastination (#100DaysToOffload Post_4)** This post is dedicated to people who feel as if they are stuck. Procrastination, a familiar term to a lot of us or at least some of us. I have been procrastinating a lot in the recent days. I thought I started too many things at once, thus I am overwhelmed and ended up procrastinating. Which is partly true, but there were other aspects that I didn't know that were contributing to it. Before getting into the topic I want to explain something. **1.Our present is the result of the past actions we took. 2.Our future will be the result of the actions we are taking now.** So by changing the actions we take now we can change our future, right? Simple right! Many of us know that simple and easy are not the same and it is very true in this case. **So, lets zoom in a bit to see the details and understand why is it hard.** It is true that the best way to get out of the rut and achieve what you want is to do things differently so you get different a result. so what stops you from doing things differently? So whenever we start doing something new our brain looks up our past for reference and it looks at all the things, and if it finds negative things associated with it then it will stop you from doing it. Looks like a safety mechanism to me. For example, when you get hurt when playing with fire in your childhood, your brain takes a note of that and will help you from getting hurt from fire again. This means our brain keeps us facing discomfort/getting hurt. Lets see how this safety mechanism can stop us from doing things differently. So you understand that the best way to get out of rut is to do different things and you want to loose weight. Lets say you have tried multiple times in the past but all went to wain. Your brain takes note of your emotion, feeling and the fact you failed to achieve the goal you set for yourself. So when you try to go to gym to loose weight your brain tries to stop you from doing it because you have already failed to complete it in the past and the brain's logic is this, if you try to do it, you will fail again, therefore talks you out of it. It is said that a lot of time this is not conscious and all you feel is that you can't do something you wanted to. This is how procrastination builds up. **So how can we get out of procrastination?** I found two ways and I have tried the first one and experimenting with the second one. Both the methods are based on the same principle, so, try whichever you want to. **Principle: See -> Believe -> Action** **Senario: **You want to be an early riser but you are not one and not being an early riser is affecting your health/Job. **Method 1:** In order for you to wake up early you have to believe you are an early riser and for you to believe you are an early riser you have to see yourself waking up early on a daily basis. So the solution is simple, you put systems in place to wake up @5:00 am everyday for the next month. It can be your Multiple Alarm/ Friend kicking you out of the bed/ Family member waking you up with a cup of coffee. It can be anything, all that counts is that you have to be up by 5:00am and you have to see yourself doing other things after waking up like walking, light exercise, and productive stuff (why not?). After a month of this you will start to believe that you are an early riser and will then wake up early because you changed your belief/ self-identity and now you see yourself as someone who wakes up @5:00 in the morning and goes by his/her day. **Method 2:** There were some studies mentioned in the articles I read and I still find it hard to believe. I'll give you two links you can study if you don't trust me and want to read it for your self. **(Not trusting anyone is good thing for your online privacy, so just go ahead and read if you like)** Link 1: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/12/181210144943.htm Link 2: https://www.silentmotivations.com/2018/09/30/does-our-brain-understand-the-difference-between-reality-and-imagination/ The theory is that our brain can't differentiate between reality and imagination. So the plan is to use this bug to our advantage (just like a hacker) you imagine yourself waking up every day @5:00am and the perk with this is you can imagine/ visualize multiple times a day to achieve the same result as the method 1. Link : https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/flourish/200912/seeing-is-believing-the-power-visualization Gota see to believe right?