Can we be honest for a minute? Everyone procrastinates from time to time. And we all feel guilty about it. But have you ever stopped to listen to what procrastination might actually be telling you?
Last night, I met up with a buddy of mine who runs a startup. I asked him how things were going and he said, “I love so much of what I get to do every day. But then there are other things that I have absolutely zero energy for. I know I need to do them, because they’re important. But I just keep putting them off, even though I know better. What is that about?”
I answered, “Yeah, we all do that. That’s just procrastination. And it’s the biggest clue that you’re doing things that aren’t in your sweet spot. Those activities drain you because they go against how you’re wired.”
“Oh my God. You’re absolutely right,” he responded. “Why didn’t I see that?”
He’s not the only one. We all procrastinate from time to time.
Just imagine a world where we could fill our days with just the activities that we love. The ones that energize us. Make us come alive. Get into that ‘flow state’.
Unfortunately, in the real world, we also have to do lots of activities that are less satisfying. Not rewarding at all. Things that just need to get done. They’re not in our sweet spot. They don’t leverage our strengths.
And in reality, if we had to do those types of activities all day, every day, we’d find ourselves feeling completely drained all the time. String together enough of those days and you’ll find yourself on a quick path to burnout.
The key is to first identify the type of work that does light you up. The activities that leverage your strongest, most innate motivations.
Then, spend a few minutes identifying the activities that drain you and deplete your energy — the ones that require you to dig deep into motivations that are at the bottom for you.
Of course, the quickest way to identify those is to take the MCode assessment at MotivationCode.com. In about 30 minutes, you’ll get a complete map of your motivations — the ones that light you up AND the ones that drain you.
Then, armed with that knowledge, you can reframe those tasks that you procrastinate by changing the nature of the activity so that it leans more fully into your top-most motivations.
For example, if you’re motivated like me to Comprehend And Express but find networking events to be a real drain, you might reframe them as “opportunities to listen and understand what insights people really need to hear.”
Or maybe you’re like me, and dread collaborative brainstorming sessions. So what if you thought of them as “live learning labs where I can test and refine ideas before teaching them to others.”
If you’re driven to Be Key, but find that you avoid those routine requirement-checking tasks, you might reframe the way you look at them as “insights that position me as the go-to person for quality assurance.”
What if the work you’ve been avoiding isn’t actually about the work itself, but about finding what naturally drives you? Let’s explore it together!
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