- Hey this is Mark Black, speaker, author

and founder of Your Best Year Yet

and I want to help you today to conquer procrastination.

Do you procrastinate?

Are you somebody that has a list of things

that they know they need to get to

but you never seem to get to them?

Are you somebody that makes a to-do list

and you have a few items on that list

that just get pushed to the next day

and the next day and the next day?

Are you somebody that files their taxes

the day before they're due?

Are you somebody that waits until the last minute

to decide what they're going to have for supper?

Are you one of those people who waits

until you get a diagnosis at the doctor

before you go for regular checkups?

We all have a tendency to procrastinate here and there

in different areas of our life,

typically the ones that we're most uncomfortable with

or that we'd rather avoid

but some of us are more chronic procrastinators than others

and if that's you, I'm talking to you right now.

How do you avoid that problem?

I want to give you a really simple

but powerful technique to help you avoid procrastination,

it's called What's Next.

What's next, ask yourself that question.

See, what happens when we procrastinate, typically,

is that we see a task in front of us

and it feels like it's really big,

it feels overwhelming,

it may be anything from...

planning a trip or it might be building a house

or it might be paying your taxes,

or it might, it could be anything

but whatever it is, it feels like the project is really big

and you don't know where to start

or you feel like it's gonna take so long

and I don't have time to get it all done right now,

so I'll just wait and put it off,

when if you would just start,

you would be so much further ahead.

How many times have you put something off

and put something off and put something off

and then found yourself having to buckle down

and get a whole lot of work done

in a very short period of time

because the deadline was looming?

I've done that.

You remember your student days,

did you ever cram for an exam?

Like the day before?

You knew the exam was coming for the whole semester,

but for some reason you waited until the last day

or the last couple of days before you got around

to do anything about it.

The reason that we do that

is because we feel like the task is monumental,

we feel like there's so much to get done

that I don't even know where to start.

The solution to that is to just ask what's next.

To not try and complete the entire task all at once,

to understand that you don't need to get it all figured out,

just figure out what's next.

When sometimes I meet people who are

considering starting a business,

and they're overwhelmed by all of the things

that they think they need to do, you know,

I've gotta get a website, and I've gotta figure out

what my business is going to be called

and I need to figure out who my target customer is

and I need to go get a bank account

and I need to do this and I need to do that,

and I need, whoa, no, you don't.

What's the next thing you need to do?

Do that.

Once you've got that done,

then figure out the next thing you need to do.

The saying you've maybe heard before that I love

is how do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.

I like to talk to people about running marathons

cos that's my frame of reference,

I've done it four times now

and a marathon is 26 miles

and if you start at the start line

with the idea that you need to run 26 miles,

well for most of us that's very overwhelming,

even after having trained and prepared,

the thought at the start line

of I've gotta run for 26 miles,

which, when you run at my pace,

is a four or five hour process, it's overwhelming,

so I need to think about, I need to run one kilometer,

and once I get that kilometer done

then I'll run the next one and when I get that one down,

I'll run the next one and so on and so forth.

Life works the same way, business works the same way.

What's the next thing you need to do?

Worry about that.

Once you've completed that then you can move

to the next thing and when we don't get overwhelmed,

because we have a small step that's manageable,

then we won't procrastinate, we'll take action

and that cumulative effect means that you get more done

in less time and you find yourself less often

in situations where you feel overwhelmed

and you feel like you've got way too much to do

and not enough time to do it.

So give that technique a try next time you're tempted

to procrastinate or put something off,

tell yourself I don't need to get it all done

but can I do one thing, can I do the next thing today?

Cos if I do that consistently over time

I'll complete the task in small chunks

and never feel overwhelmed by it.

What's next for you right now?

Answer that in the comments below.

Whatever you're currently working on,

whatever you are worried about, stressed about,

concerned about, whatever your thing is right now,

what's next for you, what's that next step

that you need to take?

Share that in the comments below.

I love hearing your comments

and knowing that you're watching these videos.

I really appreciate it when you share them

with people too, that's wonderful,

seeing the momentum that we're building here

and seeing all the people that are watching these

is really gratifying, makes me want to come back

into the studio here and shoot more videos for you.

So share in the comments below, what's next for you?

I look forward to seeing that

and until next time, remember,

don't live every day like it's your last day,

just be alive every day.

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and I sold thousands of copies of that book,

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