Solopreneur Tips: The BEST way to get over procrastination

How do you do those things that feel so massive (and maybe scary), when they feel so, well… massive and scary?

I wrote a post a few weeks ago about how I was having a hard time adjusting to being back home after a bit of a hectic summer. This was NOT a good time to be in a funk – I have a big program opening soon (one that I only run twice a year… one that about 80% of my income relies on).

Not a good time to be cuddling with Rhubarb watching Netflix in my underwear, with a thousand takeout containers sitting around gathering fruit flies.

ESPECIALLY when the work I have to do is record videos in my home.

Ugh, right!?

The funny thing was, I was actually psyched to make the videos. The content I wanted to share was practical, easy to implement, and going to shave hours (ok months!) off people’s time in their new businesses. I was excited to get these videos made and share them with the world (Spoiler alert – I made them! Click here to get them!)

However….

Making videos? NOT MY FORTE. Especially when my house is a shit show and I’m filming them in my house. 

What is important to note here too, is that I don’t have a whole fancy crew to film me when I make videos – I do them myself, with my webcam and iPhone headphones, in my living room. My brand here at Uncaged is super down to earth an relatable (because that’s how I am in real life). Having super polished videos would just be weird to me (you can sign up here to get the unpolished video series!)

 

There are pros and cons to this DIY approach:

Pros being :

• It’s cheaper
• It’s more on-brand
• I can make videos on the fly without a whole lot of planning

But the cons are:

• There is no accountability and it’s all on ME to actually get them done

^^ And this is what was challenging for me. Getting my ass in gear.

Because even though I make simple videos, I still have to shower (ugh), make myself look half decent (brush my hair and put on some makeup), create a space in my home to actually record (where the dirty takeout containers are out of view), write scripts or at least outlines, and sit down and hit “record”, which always makes me freeze up because I hate being on video and don’t think it comes naturally to me. Then I start to overthink how I look and how I sound and the more I think about it, the more I mess up while recording.

So I procrastinate. A lot.

Sound familiar?

Anytime there is something we want to do for our business that feels big and scary, it’s SO easy to get overwhelmed by the whole thing and just NOT do it.

It happens to me with making videos. And creating new courses. And writing sales copy.

It probably happens to you with:

• starting your business
• creating new packages
• making your website
• writing your sales page
• creating new packages
• emailing potential customers
• or any other of the thousand things you need to do when you’re starting your business

Because when we think of those things, they feel so BIG. They can feel like overwhelmingly large tasks that are going to take a lot of time and effort… so we just don’t wanna do them.

An object at rest stays at rest. A object in motion stays in motion. And I can tell you, I was HELLA at rest this summer.

 

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How to get over it

I am so NOT into productivity hacking and I don’t have any amazing tips for increasing your productivity by X amount or anything like that.  I don’t use any pomodoro timers, or make a to-do list at the start of each day. All in all I’d say I’m a pretty unproductive business owner (yep – and my business is still successful. You don’t have to be perfect!).

But I have found that there is one thing that helps me get over this hump of procrastinating and actually start DOING the work.

And that is breaking it down into the tiniest possible action. And then doing just that ONE thing.

What always happens to me when I do that ONE thing, is that I start to realize that the whole IDEA of the thing I had to do was actually way more overwhelming than actually just sitting down and doing the thing.

• So for example, I put off making my videos for literally WEEKS…. but then once I sat down and wrote an outline, I was able to plan, record, and upload the videos within about an hour.
• Same goes when I create a new program or course – it feels like a ridiculously big job… but once I sit down and write even just a list of topics I want to cover, it starts to feel WAY more do-able. In fact, it often makes me laugh at how long I put it off.

The idea of something is usually WAY harder than the doing of the thing.

This is why I am ALWAYS telling my students in Uncage Your Business to get into action. Everything becomes less overwhelming once you actually START.

The best thing you can do if you’re suffering from Procrastination, is to look at the thing you need to do, and break it down into the tiniest possible steps. If you were to start doing it, what would be the smallest first thing you would need to do?

Then just fucking do it. Don’t make any commitment to yourself beyond that. And see what happens.

I can almost guarantee that once you start, you’ll become an object in motion and the thing you need to do will get done… finally.

xx becca