How can we persuade ourselves to do the things we know we should? Find inspiration or motivation? Hmmmm 🤔

I believe that a brilliant solution to this problem is one of the few things I learnt throughout my brief college career that has stayed with me before I left college. It's known as the 6 P's, which stands for Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. On the surface, this catchphrase appears to be simple and self-explanatory, but it contains a great deal of wisdom. To be more exact, the 6 P's teach us three important teachings.

1. Physically preparing for something makes it substantially simpler to actually perform it

Allow me to explain.

So, let's assume we want to make jogging in the morning a habit, but we're having trouble adhering to it. Some days, we wake up tired and unmotivated, and we just can't seem to push ourselves to go for a morning jog. This is when the six P's comes into play. We can mentally handle it if we prepare ahead of time by sleeping in our jogging gear.

Why would we want to do something like this crazy?

Because putting on your jogging gear and walking out the front door to go jogging demands more effort and mental energy. Then there's the workout itself, which takes place at the location where you chose to jog. This is due to the fact that putting on your jogging attire necessitates a decision. Is it appropriate for me to go for a jog today? Isn't it this decision that we find the most difficult?

When we're already where you want to be, we never have a problem jogging there. That is something we do on a regular basis. The problem has always been encouraging our lazy asses to get out of bed, put on their jogging gear, and go for a jog. If we put on our running gear close to bedtime, we're essentially deciding to go jogging the night before. As a result, we don't have to use nearly as much mental energy in the morning, making it much easier to go for a jog.

2. Performing certain things now will help us avoid problems later

Some of you may be thinking, "Well, that makes sense." My problem is that I know I'll have problems down the road, yet I still don't do the things I need to do, and the reason for this is that I don't confront these issues correctly. What exactly do I mean? Well, I have a handful of acquaintances who are often complaining about their lack of financial resources. And the odd thing is, every single one of them has informed me that checking their funds is difficult for.

They will go to any length to avoid seeing how little money they have left. This is due to the fact that staring at their balance makes individuals feel uneasy. This is true for all of us, right? I mean, we also get uneasy every time the market is down and we lose a few dollars. So going back, they don't want to deal with their issue. Why is merely facing your difficulties and having a thorough look at them so effective? My uncle actually told me a tale about how he keeps as little money in his savings as possible so that he always appears to be on the verge of going bankrupt. So he is struck with fear every time he looks at this balance, every time he meets his difficulties. He uses this as motivation to work harder and earn more money. That's one of the most powerful aspects of confronting your issues. It is a source of anxiety. It instills terror in people. And fear is, without a doubt, one of the most powerful motivators. Right? I guarantee that if I put a pistol to your head and told you to stop delaying and finish your work right now, you would.

Now you're undoubtedly wondering, "How can I activate this fear the most effectively?" It's all about envisioning, after all. You should take a moment to sit down and contemplate what it would be like if you didn't stop procrastinating. Be a little pessimistic and imagine the worst-case situation. I get that this sounds hard, so let's go over an example together.

Let's imagine you've been meaning to start an online business for months but have been putting it off. What if you didn't start working on that business right now? The truth is that every day you wait, more and more people will discover success online. This means that the industry you're trying to break into is becoming increasingly overcrowded by the minute, and you're losing ground. This means you'll have to go back to that 9 am -to-5 pm job you despise. Concentrate on how you feel as a result of that. Consider how much you despise your current work and situation. Consider what irritates you the most at work.

Do you feel horrible about yourself since you know you're capable of so much more? Do you notice any bad affects on your diet or health as a result of it? What's the state of your social life? Is it making you a grumpy individual to be around? What would it be like if you had to stay for another five years?

If you're in a position like this and you complete this visualization and exercise effectively for at least 10 minutes, you should start to feel anxious. You should feel compelled to act right now in order to prevent this dreadful scenario from occurring. And that, in a nutshell, is how visualizing your issues works.

3. Laying out the plans for what we want to do, we will be more likely to succeed

What exactly do I mean?

Our brain, on the other hand, is similar to a horse. If no one is riding the horse and you don't give it any instructions, it will roam around and do whatever it wants. You've most likely noticed this in your own life. If you don't have anything planned for the next day, you'll probably just do whatever you want. This raises the question of how we should offer our horse directions in the first place. What is the best way to lay out and play the game ahead of time?

Well, there are a plethora of options, but I'll share with you the ones that I've found to be the most successful. I utilize white boards to organize a major part of my life. One of these boards is the "to do" board, as I like to call it. Basically, this is what I intend to do the next day. And I virtually always finish everything on this board, owing to the fact that I follow a few basic guidelines. The first rule is that I only place three tasks on the board at a time. Sometimes I just do one or two tasks at a time. If I can finish whatever is on the board, I've completed all of the tasks I need to complete.

If I want to do more work, I can relax. That is entirely up to me, and I frequently do so. But the reason I placed so few items on the board is that I want to make it a habit to finish it. You'll find it difficult to complete the full board every day if you have too many tasks. You might be able to do so for a week, but your streak is unlikely to last much longer. You may create this habit much more easily if you lower your expectations and merely put a few things on the board. And once the habit is established, it becomes quite unpleasant. When you consider not finishing the board. You can take advantage of that sensation.

The second rule I follow is to use" chunking," which entails breaking down large jobs into smaller jobs. For example, I won't write "completed article due next Tuesday" on the whiteboard because it would take me roughly 7 hours of nonstop effort simply to do it. When you give your brain such a difficult task, it will not want to complete it. It appears to be far too difficult. So you put it off and say, "Hey, we'll just do it later." Instead, I'll do something like write the rough draft, which I know I'll be able to complete in about an hour. In my mind's eye, this is a far less difficult foe. As a result, it sees no reason to put it off because it knows we can easily finish it right there and then.

Conclusion

So keep in mind, if you're experiencing problems or procrastinating, that Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. The 6 P's encourages us to physically prepare ourselves for tasks we have the next day in order to make them easier to do. It also teaches us to sit down and face our problems head on, visualizing the repercussions of not doing what we know we need to do in order to develop dread and anxiety as motivational factors. Finally, it tells us that writing down exactly what we want to do the next day gives our brain a direction to run in. To make this a habit, we should stick to "chunking"and only aim to hit a small number of goals.

I hope these tips help you :)