Limiting Beliefs: The Hidden Reason You Keep Procrastinating

We answer a listener question about setting goals, feeling inspired, then freezing when it is time to start. We explain why procrastination is usually a belief-driven pattern and share a simple process to reframe the story, gather evidence, and take authentic action. 

• procrastination as a habit, not a personality trait 
• why waiting for motivation fails and belief drives action 
• the chain of beliefs shaping thoughts, emotions, and results 
• spotting the “I’m not ___ enough” narrative and rewriting it 
• finding models, tools, and accountability to support change 
• using confirmation bias to your advantage by tracking wins 
• the Invisible Gorilla study as a metaphor for attention and expectation 

If you have a question, leave it at the link in the show notes. It goes to a text directly to us and we will address your question on the next podcast.

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Transcript

Welcome And Listener Questions

Heidi 0:00

Welcome back to the show.

Ryan 0:01

Let's go. What are we talking about today?

Heidi 0:03

So today we got a uh listener question.

Ryan 0:07

And if you um well, first of all, thank you to the listener who sent in a question. It's super exciting. We're loving that, by the way. Yeah. It makes it super easy because then I don't have to think about a topic. Yeah.

Heidi 0:17

So thank you, world.

unknown 0:18

Yeah.

Ryan 0:18

So send in more. We want to hear your questions. We want to answer them.

Heidi 0:21

Yeah, there's a link to text us in the show notes, and so you can find that and send us a question, and we will uh do our best to address your question here on the show.

Ryan 0:30

So, what was

A Listener Asks For Help

Ryan 0:31

the question?

Heidi 0:31

So I wrote it down. Uh it is so this person says, I set goals for myself and I feel sparked to change things, but when it's time to get started, I find myself procrastinating and finding other things to occupy my time. Please help. Any advice on this would be appreciated.

Ryan 0:54

So three or four things come to mind. Legitimately, I didn't see this question until just right now. So I didn't do any prep. So a couple things come

Motivation Fades Belief Drives Action

Ryan 1:02

to mind. We'll see what direction. Obviously, most people would probably think right out of the gate motivation. Oh, this person struggles with motivation. I'm gonna tell you right now, don't wait for motivation. It's fleeting. So maybe that's a conversation we can have. But where does everything start? Where does everything start when it comes to our human experience and what we create in the world and what we take action upon and what we don't take action upon? Uh I mean you tell me what you think. I think it comes from belief.

Heidi 1:32

Yeah, that's what I was just gonna say. I was gonna say belief.

Ryan 1:35

Or or the the absence of. If we don't believe something, we don't take action upon it. If we believe something, we take action upon it.

Heidi 1:46

Yeah, nobody's buying a lotto ticket because they think they're not going to win. Right? You gotta believe.

Ryan 1:53

Right. Right. So limiting beliefs, if you have are familiar with that, like this is something that maybe is uncomfortable for some people to explore, but the reality is uh I've been using this terminology a lot recently with a handful of of my clients of like, let's stare down the wolf, let's look in the mirror and let's recognize where we are limiting ourselves, what things that we're not taking action upon because we just don't believe that X, Y, or Z, we can do it.

Heidi 2:22

So that's what I think this question is about, because that they're talking about procrastinating and a moment of belief, a glimmer of belief to set the goal and then inspiration, I think.

Ryan 2:38

It's like I want to do the thing, but then I but then why don't I take action? Because I don't fundamentally believe I can do it. I don't fundamentally believe that it's gonna work out. Like if I believed wholeheartedly right now that I had a bet a New York Times best-selling book in me, do you think I would write it? Oh, for sure. Absolutely.

Heidi 2:55

Yeah.

Ryan 2:56

What's keeping me, and I have a couple of different book ideas, you know, there's a lot of different things that I'm working on, but like what's keeping me from actually writing it is probably that. So I have to work on the belief first, right? So I think that's a piece, is awareness is everything when it comes to transformation. To taking action upon your goals, we have to first recognize if we're not immediately taking action upon it if we're procrastinating, it's not a personality trait. I can't stand it when people think that all these different well, that's just your personality. My personality is to procrastinate, do things last minute. No, it's a habit.

Heidi 3:31

Yeah, something you've trained through repetition.

Ryan 3:34

It's all patterns. Everything's a pattern, physical, mental, or emotional pattern. You have a certain way that you move, you have a certain way you think, you have a certain way that you emotionally feel, and all of that comes from belief.

Heidi 3:44

I was a terrible procrastinator in school because I didn't really believe it was important.

Ryan 3:49

There you go. Right? So I was like, eh, whatever. So why take action upon it? Yeah, yeah, what's the point? So let's let's pull back and do uh just a little bit of uh uh setting the stage from a like one of these days I really want to do like a YouTube video with a whiteboard and illustrate my mind. Uh illustration, I think that'd be a really fascinating conversation, but it has to be visual, it'd be impossible to understand just from auditory. But let's let's just look at the and then I'm I'm grossly simplifying. So if you're someone out there who study has studied the mind, you're like, well, yeah, but there's this. I I'm keeping it simple. Beliefs create thoughts, thoughts create emotions, emotions is what we then act upon. Right? If we there is never a thought that we take action upon, we only take action upon something that's deeply felt. Like conviction comes from something deeply felt. So again, beliefs, thoughts, emotion, actions, actions, results, right? Outcomes. Okay. So if we're not taking action, how do I need to feel? Right? How do I need to think? Sure, but what do I need to believe to take action upon it? Uh that's that's kind of the first place my mind goes, is just for uh as we listen to this conversation to frame our conversation

A Simple Map From Belief

Ryan 5:11

around it. I think it'd be powerful, Heidi, for you and I to each tell maybe a quick story about how we have done this personally ourselves. To and I can think of, I can I can think of legitimately at least a dozen off the top of my head right now, either in business, in my personal life, relationship, professional life, whatever, of how we recognize the limiting belief, we're able to challenge that limiting belief, rewrite it, take action, and create a different story.

Heidi 5:39

Yes.

Ryan 5:41

Is there something that comes to mind for you if you're feeling comfortable? If you don't, I'm happy to share.

Heidi 5:45

Uh I want to think of I want to think of the right one, so it'll let you go first, and then maybe something will pop up.

Ryan’s Story And The Framework

Ryan 5:51

Well, the first one that comes to my mind um that is has was the most upfront if I was gonna be the most vulnerable right now on this podcast, it was that I used to have a limiting belief that I was stupid. So I'd made in every single uh, and I'm not gonna go back to the origin story of where that came from. We're not doing shadow integration work, we're just trying to make sure that people understand how their limiting beliefs are are keeping them from taking action, and then how we can create the most simplistic process to help them get out of procrastination into action. Yeah. So let me identify the process real fast so then you can hear the process in how this works. Okay. So super simple process. Number one is like every single human being on the face of the planet, in one way, shape, or form or another, operates from some form of I'm not blank enough. Yep, I'm not athletic enough, I'm not, I mean, simply, I'm not good enough, I'm not um pretty enough, I'm not tall enough. Russell Wilson wasn't tall enough. Cooper Cup, who played at Eastern Football, he wasn't fast enough. Samson Abicum, who I recruited and coached at Eastern Football, he wasn't big enough. Well, you know, they have all from an athletic perspective, we talk about athletes alone, like, you know, Samson's been in the league for over 10 years. Obviously, everybody knows Cooper Cup's success. Obviously, everybody knows Russell Wilson's success. Like, is a story that we tell ourselves. So our beliefs create narratives and stories. We tell those stories, we attached and identified to them, we affirm them through action, and that becomes what we experience in life. We have the ability to take control of the reins and be the storyteller of our own lives. We have the ability to tell whatever story that we want. So I had a belief that I was stupid. So when an opportunity was presented to me in the past before I was aware of it, like, for example, had the opportunity in you know, in my college coaching career to be promoted, I actually shied away. I avoided it because I didn't believe I was smart enough to execute that job. Later in life, when I was running my painting company, I had a job pop up where there was a lot of back-end paperwork that was needed to be done, safety inspections, like safety plans, all these things that I was not savvy on doing. And when I saw this huge 40-page document originally to take this, take on this big contract that I was trying to land to grow the painting company. I remember that thought. We were doing this kind of more deeper emotional work, and I remember that thought popping up, like, oh, you're not smart to do this. I'm like, well, who said that? Where did that just come from? Right. So here is how I look at it. Here's the simple framework is we first want to identify our strengths. When we recognize a limiting belief, make a list of your strengths. So I am persistent, I'm consistent, like I am tough, I'm I'm willing, right? I have all these qualities and traits. And then over here, the weakness is that you know, maybe there's some things I I need to work on mentally and emotionally. Like, for example, if I don't feel like I'm smart enough, then I need to work on my ability to read. I need to become a better reader. Well, how do you do that? You read. You want to become a better reader, you read. Another example for me personally was that at one point in my life I realized that I wanted to be a creative person. I wanted to create things, I wanted to write things, I wanted to create programs. But I didn't believe, I didn't have a limiting belief against it necessarily, but I didn't believe that I was creative. So I started to believe the thought, I'm creative, I'm a creative being. Right? Then I started doing things that were, and I started looking around and looking for a model. So that's step two. You gotta be aware of the belief that's either limiting you or that you need to create to take action. Then you need to find the model and/or support and accountability. So who is in my environment that is creative that I can model and that I can learn from? Who can I be mentored by? Who can I go ask questions to? Right? How can I figure out what it looks like? What does a creative person do? Well, they gotta get themselves into a creative state. Hmm. What does that look like? Well, it's this state of wonder. Well, there's brainwave activity attached to that, right? You gotta go from low beta, high beta to alpha for your mind to connect new dots to be in a place of wonder. Okay, well, how do I do that? Right? So that you start to figure out what do creative people do.

Heidi 10:27

Yeah, success leaps clues. 100%.

Ryan 10:29

So then I begin to practice, and then I take action towards it. So the awareness of the limiting belief, finding the information, the knowledge, the mentorship, the accountability to create that. In this case, I'm talking about my creativity, and then and then taking action. Like, okay, I'm gonna start to actually time block my day in a way where there's gonna be these 90-minute windows where I have nothing to do but to put myself into a place of curiosity, to a place of wonder. I'm just going to allow for my mind to connect dots because in an alpha brainwave, your brain begins to connect dots. So I'm gonna practice that. And guess what? I got an idea. Oh, and then an idea turned into two. And now today, you know you live with me.

Heidi 11:15

I am oh yeah, you're a creation machine.

Ryan 11:18

I'm always creating something. I'm always working on refining content and my mental models and and all these things. And in no way, shape, or form, 10-15 years ago was did my mind work that way. So uh that's the that's the framework of awareness and then kind of some insight, right? And then taking action.

Heidi 11:48

Yeah.

Ryan 11:49

To work on limiting beliefs, right? Because what is keeping you from taking action upon your goals is not a personality trait of procrastination, right? You've created a pattern of procrastination because of a limiting belief about yourself.

Heidi 12:02

Yeah, because you're avoiding the feeling of thinking that you failed.

Ryan 12:08

Yeah, 100%.

Heidi Reframes Discipline And Security

Ryan 12:10

Yeah.

Heidi 12:10

I was thinking about when I was working in a corporate job and you had started our other business, and I was I had been coaching for a few years, and having that limiting belief that if we were totally self-employed.

Ryan 12:26

Oh, yeah. I remember this conversation.

Heidi 12:28

We needed that safety net of the benefits and the salaried position, like having that the guaranteed money. Yeah, having that limited which nothing in life is guaranteed, but that's a whole different conversation. But yeah, uh thinking, can I really do it? And can we be self-sufficient as a fully fully self-employed family? Um that took some shifting of beliefs for me to make that move.

Ryan 12:59

So, what was the limiting belief originally? If you can remember, I kind of dig back into that. It was about six or seven years ago when you left your job. And well, I was talking about like, let's just go, let's just go be entrepreneurs, let's build help me build these businesses. I have all these ideas, like help me put them into action, help me integrate. I remember that conversation exactly. Do you remember what the limiting belief was?

Heidi 13:22

I don't I wasn't fully aware of it at the time, but as I reflect back on it, I think it was that I wasn't disciplined enough. That if I didn't have somebody telling me what needed to be done, that I would struggle to, you know, prioritize or or figure it out. And and what if I didn't know all the answers? Um now I see myself as a person who's willing to do whatever it takes to figure it out. But that's the shift, right?

Ryan 13:52

Listen to that story turnaround, you guys. Say that again. What was the first one? I'm not disciplined enough.

Heidi 13:58

Yeah.

Ryan 13:59

Okay, now wait a minute. Let's pause. Do you mind if I cut you?

Heidi 14:02

Go ahead.

Ryan 14:04

I'm not blank enough. Okay, so I put in I'm not smart enough, I'm not creative enough. Were my two examples? You just said, I'm not disciplined enough. Everybody operates this way. I'm not enough. It's the foundation of everything that we avoid or approach.

Heidi 14:27

Yeah.

Ryan 14:27

And we can talk about avoid and approach strategies in a way that like we're trying to even overcome. Rather than trying to overcome that limiting belief, work to create the limiting belief that is constructive. So if I was gonna overcome, I'm not disciplined enough, versus the awareness that that is running in my mind, a level of compassion, first of all, right? And then a curiosity piece that says, how can we reframe that in a neutral and constructive way? Doesn't necessarily need to be positive, right?

Heidi 15:00

It's not, hey, I'm the most disciplined person in the world because it's a huge jump.

Ryan 15:04

And that's not believable because you're because you weren't, right? And still not, right? But you're 10 times more disciplined than you were seven years ago. Um so what would be a neutral yet constructive thought or belief about yourself to go from I'm not disciplined to be able to have a belief that's gonna be taking action. And this could be just a progressive type of belief.

Heidi 15:30

Taking consistent action helps me to become more disciplined.

Ryan 15:34

Okay, so let's simplify that even more. I'm becoming more disciplined, a process of evolving.

Heidi 15:41

I love using I'm learning to also, and it's a yet conversation as well.

Ryan 15:46

Yeah, right. So I think the piece about this is is we gotta take this limiting belief that feels fixed. It feels like an identity, right? And it's unchangeable. I'm not disciplined enough. There's there's no hope in that, versus a progressive belief that says, I'm becoming more disciplined, I'm learning to be more disciplined. Okay, so then so then the next step is that's the free frame, that's the awareness and the reframe into a constructive and new it's way easier to coach somebody else than yourself on this stuff, right? So true. Yeah. So then where where would you the next step would be to look around your environment or to the world somewhere to collect like how does a disciplined person operate? What do they do? Like how would that look for you?

Heidi 16:36

Uh well, they use tools to stay organized.

Ryan 16:40

So things like checklists, planners, um, so daily planners of of intention and reflection and these type of things and whatever.

Heidi 16:50

That's been one of the biggest things for me, but actually I disconnected a dot.

Ryan 16:54

Uh oh.

Heidi 16:54

You know how I said when I was in school, I'm thinking like middle school, high school. Okay. I was a procrastinator on schoolwork. That completely came from the belief that I'm not I'm it also fed into and made that loop stronger that I'm not disciplined. Even though it was a choice, it had to do with the belief that school wasn't really that important. But I could see how that actually feeds into, you know, what like seven years ago what I was still believing.

Ryan 17:28

Yeah. One of the things, you know, obviously that we have done is is a lot of deep shadow integration where we got certified in a process called the Q process. Quantum living process is what it's called that helps to become aware of and rewrite those limiting beliefs at the earliest possible memory of it, the origin of it, as far as back as you can't remember all the way back. But yeah. Um, but we're keeping it simple, we're not going down the quantum.

Heidi 17:57

It's just kind of interesting, right? Like, you know, there's always so many clues as you kind of look back, you can connect the dots looking backwards.

Ryan 18:04

So you look around your environment, you see people who are disciplined, and they they organize, they plan, they uh they set intention, they journal, they use some sort of a journal or planner, which we happen to create at that point in time, about the same time frame. And and then they reflect on like, how did I do? Did I do the things I said I was gonna do? And so they keep promises to themselves by just but without that intention, without that guidance, right? So okay, awesome. That so then now we just went from awareness to reframe to some form of what's this called mentorship, right? To the most important piece, people. Are you ready? Authentic action. Okay, so if everything's a pattern and we have taken action based upon our previous emotions and thoughts and belief, when we're working to create the new belief and attach the new emotion to it, right? Which, if you were disciplined, how does that feel? And all those type of things, and then now take action towards it. That is going to fortify that, that's going to affirm the new belief. Without affirmation of the new belief, it just becomes an idea, and most people stop at ideas. Most people stop at information that don't use the next steps.

Confirmation Bias And Building Evidence

Ryan 19:26

Because I'm actually going to add a step real fast. So I was just going to add a step. Oh, go, you do it. You do it. You do it. We'll see if it's the same.

Heidi 19:32

So here's something that I'm thinking about is our brain's always looking for evidence of what we believe is true. So when we think that we're a person who procrastinates, like this person who wrote the question and says, Hey, I have a goal, I feel sparked, but I procrastinate when it's time to take action.

Ryan 19:48

Um Let's call this person Tom.

Heidi 19:50

Okay. So if Tom feels like uh feels like that's true, then he's gonna be looking for evidence that that's true. Uh-oh. Right?

Ryan 19:58

Don't do that. So But you do that without knowing.

Heidi 20:02

We do that without knowing. We never have to look for ways that we don't measure up our brain, just looks for it automatically. Uh what we do need to do is call it's called confirmation bias. Yeah, what we do need to do is pay attention to the wins column and not just the the losses or the quote unquote failures that we're having. Um, so can we look for evidence of ways that we did do something within that realm? So I think about this idea, okay, I'm not disciplined. Do I brush my teeth every morning and every night? Yeah, I do. Huh. Interesting. Okay. Uh what is it, what else do I do that I'm consistent and disciplined in? And there's tons of things that I can think of that are very, very simple things. Right? So we can look at that wins column and create evidence for ourselves that we actually are a person who follows through. If you're somebody who thinks I never could finish anything, like, well, you finished doing the dishes at some point.

Ryan 21:06

Or whatever. Or whatever. Yeah, whatever it is.

Heidi 21:08

Like something really, really simple. You did finish a lot of things probably throughout the course of the day that were small. So we could start to kind of poke holes in that belief and saying, No, there's actually a lot of evidence that I am disciplined in many ways and and consistent and following through. Yeah. So that's something for the person, Tom, who wrote the question, that's something to consider is are you always procrastinating, or are there ways that you have actually proven to yourself that you can follow through on small goals or actions that you can do?

Ryan 21:46

Or you're where you're not procrastinating, yeah. Where you're taking action immediately. Like in the middle of the year.

Heidi 21:49

I mean they wrote the question. They wrote in. So Okay.

Ryan 21:57

So awareness. So sort of a reframe, then looking for the information that supports the reframe. Right? That is already in your life, no matter how small or simple, that that challenges the old belief, that that helps to already affirm without even taking action the new belief. Then kind of get emotionally involved with that new narrative based upon credibility from the past. Figuring out what your environment or the model that you're looking for, what they do, how they operate, what tools do they use. Like what does what do disciplined people do? They go to bed on time, they whatever, right?

Heidi 22:43

Yeah, if you have a health goal, like what is somebody who's super healthy, what kinds of you know, they're probably drinking a lot of water throughout the day. Yeah, so maybe I should try that. They're exercising, like what are the things?

Ryan 22:53

Yeah. And then and then taking authentic action towards the new the new belief to rewrite, to reframe, to affirm.

The Invisible Gorilla And Attention

Ryan 23:03

You know, an interesting thing that you just brought up that popped in my mind about this book that I'm reading right now called The Invisible Gorilla, is we see what we expect to see. So they had these they had these examples of why um motorcycles get hit on the road. And there's like the four or five different examples of the illustrated. One of them was the car example. That one stuck out in my mind the most. And it's not necessarily because they're hard to see, because then people put on like bright colors, but they still like the the the studies show that the percentage of motorcycles get hit, even if they're wearing like bright yellow or whatever, is the same. And it's it's legitimately because you don't expect to see them. And so you don't actually your brain doesn't process what it doesn't expect to see, it sees what it expects to see.

Heidi 23:55

Interesting.

Ryan 23:56

So if it expects to see in the old gorilla thing, if you pulled up the video, right, and that's a ruin it for you, but you're you're you're not expecting to see the gorilla in the video, so you don't see it. That's why you don't see it. It's not because necessarily, and also that our attention can only be focused in one place at a time.

Heidi 24:17

The idea of multitasking is a complete our brain works off of predictive algorithms, so it's looking for exactly what it the past has shown it.

Ryan 24:25

Yeah, so if this is the story that is from the past, this is this takes me to like think about like placebo too, right? My past conditioning and expectations and the meaning I place on things, that's placebo, right? So if I expect to see something, that's what I look for, that's what I find, that's what I affirm, that's what the confirmation bias, that's what I create more of. If I believe that I'm not disciplined, I expect to not be disciplined, then I confirm. I take things I do things that are not disciplined, and then that's my confirmation bias. See, told you, because that's what I'm looking for. If we begin to reframe the limiting belief with a different narrative, we look to see how the opposite or at least neutral is true. We begin to expect to see uh you know things that are in alignment with the new belief that we're creating that I'm making progress to be coming, I'm learning to become more disciplined, is what you said. Awesome. Then now I expect to see that because I've actually primed my attentional, this is called attentional mechanisms, and I prime my awareness, my beam of awareness to actually pick up and see if I expect to see the motorcycle, I see it. Right? Why you expect to see someone crossing the street at a crosswalk is because there's the bright yellow flashing lights that have a big old crosswalks place, and then so you're primed to see it. So it's safer to cross a street, people, at a crosswalk than it is a jaywalk. Oh god. Well, that's I mean, complete rabbit hole for just two seconds. Like everybody out here riding these electric bikes around, right? I the other day, one like did not expect to see it, couldn't hear it.

Heidi 26:12

Yeah, they're hard, they're so quiet, they're quiet, right?

Ryan 26:15

Like it just freaks me out, these kids riding around town like they're gonna get hit, right? And because it's and especially because it's so new, we don't expect to see a 13-year-old, you know, flying down 16th Avenue uh on an e-bike. Like it's just not, you know what I mean? It's like it's just not normal. So you don't expect to see it, you don't your awareness doesn't pick up on it. You even though you're looking right at it. Legitimately, this is what's scary, even though you're looking right at it. The studies show in that gorilla video, Heidi. In the gorilla video, they actually said that even the people who didn't see it as they tracked their eyes looked at it for at least a second.

Heidi 26:58

Do you have a link or something to that video?

Ryan 27:00

I think it's just uh the invisible gorilla.com. I think it's what it is.

Heidi 27:04

Okay, I'll try to find it and put it in the show notes so people can watch that.

Ryan 27:08

Well, you know, but now you're gonna be looking for the gorilla, so it's gonna completely it's gonna completely destroy the study.

Heidi 27:12

Okay.

Ryan 27:13

But here's what if you're listening to this, take the video, show it to a group of people, do the prompts of telling them to count the amount of passes of the basketball people, uh, of the basketball passes of the white team, right? Because there's, I think there's two different teams passing a basketball back, and you're supposed to count how many passes. I think they do like 35 or 36 passes in this video, it's a couple minute video. At some point, a gorilla comes in, like dances. You thought it was a bear, it was a gorilla. A gorilla comes in and like dances, like stands there for a moment and then like dances out of the video. Half the people, they have they have done this study over and over and over. Half the people consistently do not see the gorilla.

Heidi 27:53

Yeah. I've seen a similar one with it, did have a bear. Oh, maybe yeah, yeah.

Ryan 27:58

So I think the same is true when it comes to like our awareness is primed to see what we believe.

Heidi 28:06

Yeah, and what you're what you're uh looking for. You know, what what you're pointing your attention at. Yeah. Are you focused more on the things that you're not measuring up at and the ways that you're failing, or the ways that you're actually winning, making progress and and doing well.

Key Takeaways And Send Questions

Ryan 28:27

So let's wrap this one up. Any last final thoughts, takeaways?

Heidi 28:33

I just love this process. I hope that the person um that we're calling Tom that wrote the question is able to find some value in what we shared and and hopefully that's helpful. So if you have a question, leave it at the link in the show notes. It goes to a text directly to us and we will address your question on the next podcast.

Ryan 28:53

Awesome. We thank you for your time and we'll see you next week and looking forward to answering your questions.