Paul McCartney woke up from a dream in 1963. In that dream, he heard a melody that would lead him to create the most recorded song in all of history. But you’d never guess that from the original words of the song. The words were “Scrambled eggs, Oh you’ve got such lovely legs, Scrambled eggs. Oh, my baby, how I love your legs.” This is the origin of the song “Yesterday.”
Sometime after he set down the melody and added “Scrambled eggs” as nonsense words, he started putting real words together to make a song.
Here’s how he described his process:
“I remember mulling over the tune ‘Yesterday’, and suddenly getting these little one-word openings to the verse. I started to develop the idea … da-da da, yes-ter-day, sud-den-ly, fun-il-ly, mer-il-ly and Yes-ter-day, that’s good. All my troubles seemed so far away. It’s easy to rhyme those a’s: say, nay, today, away, play, stay, there’s a lot of rhymes and those fall in quite easily, so I gradually pieced it together from that journey. Sud-den-ly, and ‘b’ again, another easy rhyme: e, me, tree, flea, we, and I had the basis of it.”
Eventually, Paul did finish writing the song Yesterday, which has since been recorded by over 4,000 artists. Paul was able to find the words to the melody using a process. He first put nonsense words together, then found rhymes that would work. And finally, put together a song.
This reminds me of how we find beliefs that cause procrastination or any other issue. We go through a process with distinct steps that we call the “Thought-Discovery Technique.”
First, you have to know when you are procrastinating.
You do this by applying a simple rule. What do I avoid doing even though I know it will make things worse? For example, if you keep meaning to exercise but don’t get around to it and you know you will be less healthy as a result. Or if you intend to write a book but you avoid sitting down to write for even five or ten minutes knowing that you won’t be able to take the next step in your career unless you finish it.
Second, you find a procrastination moment in the past.
When was the last time you had the opportunity and the means to take action but you didn’t? Maybe you had planned to go to the gym but decided to relax at home instead. Maybe you had a free moment, and thought about doing some writing but visited Facebook instead.
Third, you imagine having the opportunity to take action again in the future.
Notice the feelings that show up. Notice the thoughts that show up. Give yourself a few moments to do this. Once you have the thoughts and feelings you write them down. You may find feelings of fear, anxiety, doubt. You may have thoughts like “I’ll screw this up” “I can’t do this” “It’s too hard.”
Fourth, you ask “What would I believe to have these thoughts and feelings about that situation?”
Thoughts that assume you will screw it up, or that it’ll be too hard, are often related to beliefs about your ability. If you have low ability, of course you’ll screw it up and of course it would be hard. So you might believe “I’m not good enough” or “I’m not capable.” If you have a feeling of apathy, that it doesn’t seem worth doing, you may have beliefs like “What I do doesn’t matter.”
But how do I get rid of these beliefs?
To get rid of three beliefs, you can try using the free belief program found at www.recreateyourlife.com/free And if you find others, you may want to try Natural Confidence which contains 19 different beliefs all of which I’ve described above. You can get that at www.NaturalConfidenceProgram.com
By using the free program or Natural Confidence you will see how the process of eliminating beliefs works. Once you do that, you may then be able to eliminate some beliefs you find on your own using the Thought Discovery Technique.
Can’t procrastinators just use motivational techniques to overcome their procrastination?
Yes, but in my experience, many of them end up procrastinating on using their anti-procrastination techniques. And this makes sense because if you are putting something off due to your beliefs, then you can even put off the first step which is to motivate yourself to take action.
To sum up:
To find the beliefs that cause you to procrastinate, you follow the steps of the “Thought Discovery Technique.”
- Know when you are procrastinating
- Find a procrastinating moment in the past
- Imagine a moment of procrastination in the future and notice thoughts and feelings
- Ask “What would I believe to have these thoughts and feelings in that situation?”
And finally, to eliminate the beliefs you find, try our free program or Natural Confidence.
When Paul McCartney first dreamed up the melody to Scrambled Eggs, he had no idea what kind of song he would create
He certainly did not know he was about to write the most recorded song in history. And he didn’t need to know. He just knew that if he followed his creative process, he would eventually have a song.
No one knows what you’ll achieve as you discover and eliminate beliefs that cause you to procrastinate but we do know that if you follow a clear process you can become far more confident and productive.
