How to stop procrastinating and get on with your life

Using common sense as an antidote to procrastination!

I’m John Glanvill, author of The Calmness in Mind Process for Overcoming Anxiety, OCD and Depression.

I’ve called this video – Using common sense as an antidote to procrastination!

Because whether you call it procrastination, distraction, self-sabotage, or not knowing what you want. Or a lack of motivation, skills or knowledge.

The irony is – even though you might not know what to do – face facts, you have unconsciously decided to do nothing or are knowingly (or unknowingly) doing something that distracts you from engaging with a richer life, like lying in bed, staring at a screen all day or being in a job you dislike.

And common sense indicates this to be true – because unless you were feeling some inner desire to take action or change something, you wouldn’t feel bad about procrastinating, would you?

And, if you say, “well, others are guilting me into feeling bad about my inaction”, then realise you have abdicated the power of authority (of your life) to that person rather than just owning and accepting your choice to squander this rarest opportunity to be in a body here in Earth-school.

Where you, the Observer, the immortal and formless rider of the horse, are in the perfect environment to practice learning detachment from pain (and discomfort) on the road to discovering how to love yourself, operate in your own best interest and actualise your innate creativity as I discussed in video 32 part 1.

And even if that’s not true – might it be a good story you might temporarily use to placebo your unconscious mind into believing, so it will take action now – and is not procrastinating until you find a truth you are more comfortable with!

There are a couple of quotes on procrastination I like.

“Remember, it’s more mentally tiring to think about what has to be done and all the things that might go wrong than it is to physically do the job.” – (Jack Camfield)

I’ve usually found that to be true.

And – “Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.” – (M. Scott Peck)

As I’ve said before, time is one of life’s most precious commodities, and have you fully embraced the concept that – what you do with your time will be the expression of your life?

So, if you are wasting time or your procrastination is hiding under other labels such as fear or not knowing what you want.

Or distractions like working too hard in the wrong job, researching (rather than doing) or having a low self-worth story (which tries to talk you out of taking action), then this is the video for you, 

I want to encourage you, not by being friendly and supportive, but with some tough love – by urging you to make yourself honestly accountable for where you are right now and who you would like to become.

Because it’s my experience that about 70% of people who say they wish to be free from anxiety tend to sabotage their recovery by unknowingly playing the game of life in ways that don’t pass the common sense test.

One of my early mentors knew this, and he told me (about becoming a therapist), “John, do it because you desire to do it, not because you want to change people!”

He added, “Make your measure of success your continued growth and happiness, not theirs, because people will only change when they are ready to change.”

And he said, “It’s shocking how much crap some humans will tolerate before they wake up to the fact they don’t need to be horrible to themselves, and everything they wish for is available (to some degree) if they were only to begin behaving in new ways and thinking differently, thus changing their perceived notion of what reality is.

He said, “Show them it’s possible, then the rest is up to them!” 

So, this video is for you to ask yourself.

How am I doing?

What is it I truly desire?

And, where might I be knowingly (or unknowingly) sabotaging my own experience of life?…….

I want to share with you some research by Dr Donald Hoffman, a professor of cognitive science at the University of California who wrote the book – The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hid the Truth from our Eyes.

He offers a theory that organisms which see reality as it is cannot out-compete organisms (of equal complexity), who, instead of exploring (or analysing) what reality might be, focus their time on chasing fitness payoffs.

By fitness payoffs, he means their behaviours focus on the actions required to survive, reproduce, and thrive.

Perhaps another way of saying that is – those who think but don’t do will always be less effective than those who do and then think.

Because one path remains in the inner virtual world of the head, whilst the other makes something happen in the external world of matter, which is far more tangible and creates the opportunity for a chain reaction of different outcomes.

Therefore, common sense says – if you are wasting your perceptual energy on pondering the truth, trying to figure out why things happened, or distracting yourself with social media, tv or computer games – basically (and evolutionarily speaking) you are wasting your time and energy.

Those things won’t assist you in staying alive, getting money, expanding your physical usefulness, or helping you reproduce or prosper. Therefore, you won’t be able to out-compete those who only spend their time looking for (and acting upon) those payoff points which assist them to thrive and win.

Like in a video game, if some guy is just looking around and enjoying the game, and trying to figure out how it all works, researching everything – he’s going to lose to some other individual who is focused on the fitness payoffs (or you might say getting all the points) and advancing to the next level.

So though it feels intelligent to research, analyse and learn – if you are not taking action (and accessing) fitness payoffs, you’ll ultimately fail (no matter how clever you are!)

Because you’re not playing a common-sense game of life, you’re playing the programmed (duality trap) game of life by seemingly doing the right thing – however, is it the right thing for you?

This trap will cause you to doubt yourself, further fueling procrastination, and as we know, doubt is behind all anxiety, OCD, depression and most self-worth issues!

As I keep saying, optimism, trust and taking action – in line with a clear intention – to see what will happen – then adjusting your next action to suit the first outcome but still in line with your intentions – is a common sense and effective way to play the game of life – but we were never taught that strategy in school.

It’s my belief that most people’s anxiety and depression arise as the natural result of poor lifestyle choices, trauma, exhaustion, maladapted mindset programs, boredom, loneliness, stress, untapped creativity, repressed anger from childhood and from being a ‘too nice’ person – by which I mean, putting others needs before your own!

It’s my belief that – most people experiencing mental health issues – are actually feeling – how they should feel, given how they are worrying and behaving!

They are trying to be thinking creatures who control their emotions – rather than nature’s original design of being – a creative and emotional creature who learned how to think.

Creativity is not about thinking – it is about expressing what you are thinking, through doing, or simply doing what (emotionally) you desire to do without thinking!

Now, from this new perspective, we may view our mental health as malleable, adaptable, and natural rather than an unfortunate genetic occurrence.

However, a person with complex anxiety might focus on (or fight for) their limitations rather than re-orientating their awareness towards what they can do now – and embrace the discomfort of not knowing what might happen – but at least something will happen, and that is the opposite of procrastination!

Plus, by repeatedly ERPing themselves, placebo-ing themselves, hypnotising themselves and setting clear intentions, they will automatically transition from a victim (procrastination) mindset to a change and action-based mindset – which is (surprisingly) an easy and powerful way to live life.

You just take what action is right for you in each moment (in line with your intentions) and let go of your need to control the outcome of those actions.

Dr Hoffman proposes that our brain and senses are the GUI, our Graphical User Interface between our awareness and reality; thus, whether we choose just to accept the original programming of our interface or decide to update and optimise it – will powerfully determine our effectiveness and happiness.

Many people say to me, “The problem is, John, I just don’t know what I want!”

I can understand that; it’s not easy, but you’ll need to start somewhere, so why not start with fitness payoffs, maximise your health, your living environment, your self-love, your courage, your sources of income and expand your social life for connection, support and fun.

And even if you don’t know what you want from life, you can decide who you would like to become regardless of what you finally choose to do, then start immediately thinking and behaving as that person would.

Videos 32 (parts one and two) assist you in asking the right questions, documenting what is important to you, and creating the appropriate intentions for your life.

Have you completed that document yet? If not, why not? Because this stuff works (but only if you do it.)

And know this, if you are waiting for motivation to come before taking action – this is a procrastination trap because motivation arises (as an after-effect) of taking action and feeling that you are doing something worthwhile.

And if you are waiting until you have more energy before taking action, this is yet another procrastination trap!

You are where you are – and it’s from exhaustion that you’ll need to begin this journey up into the higher, more optimistic energy attractor fields – where you’ll then be able to access nature’s higher energetic states, as I discuss in video 37 – and perhaps, rather than doubting me, trust what I am saying and test it out for yourself!

So much procrastination stems from doubt, and doubt often stems from conflict, so a sensible concept to revisit is duality which I first mentioned in video 34 – have you watched that yet?

Where from childhood, we were conditioned to see the world from the mind’s duality of what is right or wrong, good or bad, loving or hating, legal or illegal, possible or impossible.

We were taught (through our domestication and schooling) to see one of the pairs as right and the opposing as wrong. But I want you to consider that this is simply a language trap, and duality is not necessarily a common sense perspective to live from.

One example of reversing that program and moving to a more common-sense non-duality (meaning no conflict) mindset might be to decide to simply befriend laziness and hedonism – thus removing the duality conflict!

Stop demonising it. If you like doing it, why not enjoy it?

Or (as I proposed in video 16) allow the selfish nomadic side of you out to play more. I think a good question to ask yourself is… Am I playful? Do you know how to be playful? Or are others around you restricting your natural playfulness? Or are you all stuffy and serious?

I say this because everybody is born playful (like every puppy is born playful), and if it isn’t there, then you weren’t given the chance to develop it during childhood, or people trained it out of you with the story that life is serious and you must behave in certain ways.

Playfulness seems to be part of our nomadic nature; it doesn’t like taking responsibility for making decisions and acting upon them; it just wants to feel good at this moment – or have something distract us from our noisy imaginations, which (if not used creatively) will run amock in our heads.

I think that playfulness, cheekiness and spontaneity are some of the best forms of ERP (exposure and response prevention therapy) known to man, and it’s never too late to learn how to be more playful.

Children (unknowingly) know – that role-play, feedback loops, pretending, asking questions, using imagination, laughing at themselves, having a dream and expressing emotions are the natural manifestation of the remarkable animal we are.

Our first seven years were ERP in action; it was human nature in action, it was magical, and it was very effective if we were granted the freedom to play. 

But from the age of seven, this natural concept was interrupted by the (man-made) schooling process, which did its best to program us towards being sensible, rules-based and right – which clashed quite fundamentally with our natural state of being creative, free and happy.

As I keep saying, do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy? Do you want to be controlled, or do you wish to make your own choices?

Now, when that nomadic side of our nature is in the procrastination driving seat, the settler aspect will be upset and feel guilty about what everybody else is thinking, and (it’s likely) your warrior aspect will feel angry and frustrated as he can’t see any clear path forward as he likes taking action.

So, from this perspective, it’s easy to see the tug of war all that duality causes, flipping you between opposing views that take you nowhere yet emotionally exhaust you!

But there is nothing wrong with choosing a path of inactivity; some people sit in caves meditating for years; others go surfing or lounge around, this is your life, and you can live it any way you wish.

Or, you can choose to take the path of choosing to be active and enjoy living that way, and though it might be more difficult, it’s usually very rewarding and gives life more meaning.

Personally, I try to consciously alternate between the two options as I wish, but only one at a time; when I choose to be lazy, that is fine, and when I choose to be active, that is fine too. I don’t beat myself up, and I don’t worry about what others think, thus avoiding those duality conflicts.

Where I still struggle (but I’m feverishly working on it) is to accept that the external world will always be out of my control, with various entities vying for my attention, my money and my energy, and that will always be there, and though I can’t control it, I can learn to ignore it.

It took me quite a while to untrain my brain from its draconian (schoolroom indoctrination) that X is right and Y is wrong, that rules must be followed, that I should trust science – and that governments, banks and authority provided security and always acted in my best interest.

It was quite a challenge reeling in my old conditioned external locus of control to become more internal as I developed new strategies for my self-governance and self-responsibility for my life as best I could.

These days I have mastered the ability to placebo (or trick) my unconscious brain into running the very optimistic stories that I wish it to offer back to me.

Whereas my unconscious mind used to talk me out of taking action or challenging life – it now talks me into taking action, challenging life, pushing buttons to see what will happen; it dares me to try new things and positively affirms my actions and just smiles when I mess up as that was just a lesson in learning!

It took a while, but it was certainly worth the effort to retrain it, and video 43 details that powerful process.

Three techniques helped me enormously were; firstly, (outside of my work), I stopped giving anybody any advice (or feedback) on how they should live their lives (unless they asked me directly) because their life was their responsibility, not mine – I focused on making my life as I wished my life to be.

Secondly, though I played lip service to authority, I learned how to become braver and to do what was right for me, not them. I stopped listening to mainstream media news and government rhetoric – and endeavoured to arrange my life in ways where I might be more self-responsible and self-sufficient.

And finally, I observed my day in terms of energy.

How much energy did I have?

Where was it going?

How could I get more?

Was I using more energy than was biologically sensible?

Was I using my energy wisely on my intentions?

Or was I squandering it or having it leeched out of me by others, or listening to my mind distract me, bugging me for more reassurance, knowledge, accreditation, experience, money, resources or whatever its story was that day?

Therefore, learning how to become non-dual – is a powerful tool which neutralises stress, which we may define as the difference between what is happening in the outer world and what our brain (in our inner world) wants to be happening!

Common sense says it’s much easier to change the story in your head; than to change the world outside, though (ironically) as you change within, the world without often looks very different!

Now, I’m not telling you what you should do; I’m just sharing the techniques that I found worked for me.

The stupidity of the human condition used to make me so angry and frustrated, but these days it makes me laugh.

I can now see that people are just doing what they were programmed to do – the way they were programmed to do it – and their awareness – of how self-aware they are – will dictate how much inner conflict they experience.

Perhaps I need a better way of saying that.

 A dumb man, whose aware he’s dumb – and can laugh at his own folly – remains out of internal conflict, and if he can love himself for all the other strengths he possesses (or has developed) and is confident in his abilities to which they pertain, I would say is an intelligent and appealing man.

But a dumb man who berates himself for being dumb and stays home because he thinks dumb and doesn’t try to learn because he’s dumb – and ties himself in anxiety knots because he’s dumb – is being dumb – and, therefore, will be less appealing to others and his experience of life will reflect that.

And the difference between those two cases is self-worth, self-acceptance and self-awareness, all of which can be developed through learning how to be nice to yourself, retraining your brain and interfacing with life more sensibly.

So, as we explore how to stop procrastinating or wasting our time and energy on non-fitness payoff activities, two questions need answering.

Firstly, are we becoming accountable (to ourselves) for what we want from life and who we wish to become?

And secondly, where are we knowingly (or unknowingly) self-sabotaging our progress in that direction?

Have you taken full accountability for watching all the videos, reading the books, and deciding who you wish to become? Have you started speaking your new authentic truth? And by treating yourself with respect, have you courageously retrained those around you to treat you more respectfully?

And, can you recognise (and stop) any self-sabotaging behaviours – like not getting quality sleep, distracting yourself with social media, remaining stuck in OCD compulsion loops, not learning new things or letting others control your life?

These are life-changing perspectives.

Now, another place where procrastination is often concealed is beneath feelings of low self-esteem or low self-worth.  

I see it all the time when people stay in the same job for many years because they feel safe with what they know; they doubt their ability to learn new things and often are afraid to attend interviews or ask for more money.

They silently suppress their anger as everybody else gets pay raises, promotions and new jobs. Then, rather than asking themselves, “What are they doing that works, and how can I copy them?”

They say, “What’s wrong with me? Why don’t I get the breaks they get? Why am I being taken for granted?

But I have to tell you – ‘yes’, you will be taken for granted as it was you who trained them to treat you like that by silently (and diligently) doing as you were told and then working harder and harder trying to get their respect – when it was your own lack of self-respect that allowed them to treat you that way in the first place.

Do you remember back in video 22 when I introduced you to virtual reality stories, where I said that it is how we interact with others that sets up a virtual reality story in their brain of who we are and how we like to be treated, and then, that program just unconsciously runs in their head, and will be the way they treat us without them even realising.

If they say to you, “Is everything fine?” And if you lie by saying, “Yes,” then their virtual reality story of you will be that you are fine, even if silently in your head you are angry – but it’s only you who hears those words and turns them into a big emotional drama, not the other person.

So many people fail to recognise that self-worth has nothing to do with anybody else; it starts and ends with ourselves!

It’s your behaviours that define how others will treat you! So, do you have a plan to retrain their virtual reality story of you – that you inadvertently installed in them – to one that is more appropriate for this new you?

Most people allow others to treat them as badly as they treat themselves, And why would you treat yourself badly? That just does not pass any common sense test!

It’s not easy to change as the programs run deep, but they can be changed, and deciding to be nice to yourself by just being honest with everybody (including yourself) is the first step.

You stop looking for external validation and start lovingly being nice to yourself by stopping being horrible to yourself!

Another great tool to end procrastination is to become more gently dominant and to use that power constructively to begin truthfully saying what you mean and asking for what you want.

And I’ll tell you why – because the world seems to offer more opportunities to those individuals who are prepared to try new things, who don’t take things personally, who grab opportunities, who ask for what they want, who make the effort to be social and who are more optimistic and playful.

It’s just how nature works, so how can you begin to think and behave in these more natural ways?

And don’t use not having the right education or qualifications as an excuse; go and get them – or realise that you only need them if you wish to work for large rules-based (and red tape) corporations like the government, hospitals, civil service and local councils.

Because to start your own company, you often don’t need qualifications, and many start-up companies or forward-thinking organisations, don’t care about stupid university degrees; because they want a person with the right attitude or an optimistic mindset and the confidence to be able to think on their feet and develop to suit the conditions that arise.

So, don’t let your inner stories of lack talk you out of taking action; I am asking you to become braver, to ask for what you want and to find ways of becoming the type of person who adds value to themselves and life.

Another (common sense) realisation that took me until I was forty to learn – was – the simple fact that happiness is a choice. It is the decision to choose to be happy.

It’s the ability to let go, to forgive, to see the bright side, to smile, to be optimistic, to encourage others rather than criticising them, and the ability to accept what is…

And I’m asking you, can you make the dream inside your head beautiful – regardless of what happens in that outer world?

Now that’s a really powerful skill to learn.

Think about it – how is it that other people living in the same world as you are happy? How come they are not anxious? How might you copy what they do?

This might mean you go to the happiest person you know and ask them how they see the world, how they talk to themselves, and how they maintain optimism.

It might surprise you how simply they look at life – which may reveal to you how (unnecessarily) hard you may be making yours!

Do you remember back in video 10 – where I said the only reality is what is happening right now, and you can accept it, change it or move away from it?

How are you getting on with mastering those three options?

They work for procrastination, too – accept it, change it or move away from which is being used to distract you.

 Now because this is a duff-you-up, tough-love video – I want to challenge you to ask yourself if your food diet is conducive to the changes you wish to see within yourself.

How’s your weight? Your fitness and your energy levels?

And I would suggest cutting out all sugars and limiting carbohydrates for 90 days, as this will increase your energy levels, reduce your anxiety, sharpen a foggy brain and assist in weight loss.

Personally, I like the Ketogenic and Carnivore diets – especially for those who have chronic fatigue, brain fog, type 2 diabetes or neurological issues.

But I am not a nutritionist; I’m just saying try new stuff – can you take some common sense actions to explore what your body might need, not what your mind thinks your body needs?

Now, I wouldn’t be doing my job properly if I weren’t asking you – how you are getting on with becoming an ERP specialist and using every old fear as a chance to retrain your mind and body to accept (and normalise) those old fearful responses into calmer reactions.

Can you adopt a mindset that says, “I will always walk towards my intentions, not away from my fears?”

Fears are just emotions; thoughts are just stories – but an action, towards an intention, with a positive outcome pictured in mind – and the feeling it had already happened in your heart, – then regardless of the outcome – you have movement in your life, and there is nothing more powerful than a person with a dream and an intention.

This is ERP in action, and each day it gets easier and easier as you learn that the outcome is not under your control, but taking the action is.

It’s actually ridiculously easy – but nobody ever told you!

And has it dawned on you yet – the magnitude of the fact that anybody who has ever done anything new – always started from the positionality of never having done it before and not knowing how to do it?

They stepped into their discomfort, felt a bit silly, and allowed those emotions to come up; they kept their focus on their learning a new thing rather than worrying what others thought of them; they repeatedly practised until they got better, they mastered that skill, and it made them feel good about themselves.

Exposure and response prevention therapy, ERP, is the secret to becoming a calm and well-rounded person who can engage with life no matter what situation arises.

There is always a lot of resistance to ERP, and it’s my experience that three patterns emerge amongst the generally anxious or depressed population.

One-third of them see immediately that ERP is just a process; they suck it up and apply it, and usually (if they do it right) become amazed at how quickly their life changes as they become comfortable with discomfort and not knowing what may happen next.

The second group ‘kind of’ gets it and ‘kind of’ applies it, but very half-heartedly, and they keep forgetting to apply the techniques or failing to repeat them so they don’t become new habits.

The final group are those who just refuse to try it as they are too scared or don’t believe it works or whose anxiety is hijacking them by unconsciously sabotaging all attempts to run ERP routines.

Now, if this is you, my advice is this.

Embrace it and try harder, or hire a specialist to help you do it, don’t let past experiences with bad therapists put you off working with a new one who knows what they are doing.

Or, just accept that you have chosen to remain with your anxiety rather than address your fears – and live your life accordingly until such a time that you can wake up to the fact that ERP (done well) changes your life!

ERP is your friend. And if, after all I’ve said about ERP, placebo, hypnosis, and positive self-talk in the last forty-three videos, you still don’t believe me, or you refuse to do ERP – let me throw some more common sense at this problem.

I’ll explain this by discussing one of the more difficult phobias for a therapist to treat, which is emetophobia (the fear of vomiting).

This phobia is very common and interestingly occurs predominantly in dominant individuals who (for some reason) had their naturally dominant personality repressed in childhood by certain events or a dominant (or controlling) parent or caregiver – and often, there is a past trauma based in disgust or shame, which may or may not be consciously remembered.

The person often has an overwhelming fear of vomiting or catching some bug that will make them (or others) sick, which is completely overwhelming and causes them to avoid anything or (anybody) who might trigger that fear.

They won’t drink too much alcohol in case they get sick, and they hate to collect children from school if bugs are circulating and often have excessive needs for hygiene.

To them, these irrational behaviours become their normal, but to others, it’s not normal; it’s a nuisance and very restrictive.

Obviously, this fear is based in disgust and control – or, more accurately, a fear of being out of control and is (often) a subset of hypochondria.

These days, I mostly refuse to work with people who have emetophobia because they are just too controlling, and they won’t do the ERP I ask them to do.

Therefore, out of respect for myself, I won’t waste my time working with someone who asks for help but won’t do what is needed.

Common sense says that vomiting is natural; in fact, it is one of nature’s most wonderful tools for our survival – and even though vomiting is horrible (and nobody likes it), consciously choosing to fight nature doesn’t pass the common sense test.

Yes, you don’t like it! Yes, your amygdala fires off with a huge warning! Yes, you have learned avoidance behaviours! However, the big thing to point out is they are still clinging to a ‘story’ that vomiting is bad rather than vomiting is life-saving, though briefly uncomfortable and yukky.

Now, I’m not trying to belittle anybody here – I know it’s tough, but you have to be honest and accountable to yourself if you refuse to do ERP work; you are a very controlling person, and this is self-sabotage.

A few years back, Jen and I took a trip to go deep into the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest to spend some time with some indigenous shamanic healers and to experiment with a medicine called Ayahuasca.

This plant-based medicine is incredible for finding and releasing trapped traumas from within the body – and I’ll be making a video about that experience soon.

Now, during the event, trapped energies tend to come out of the body in the form of purges like vomiting or screaming, and because most people hate vomiting by themselves, let alone puking in front of others, on day one of the retreat, everybody had to go through an initiation ritual of visiting the vomitorium.

And yes, it was as horrible as it sounds!

We all had to line up and, one by one, drank pints and pints of salty warm water until our belly was full, then we had to slide our fingers down our throats until we gaged and vomited out all that water.

And this step of the process was compulsory, non-negotiable and very public.

Obviously, nobody there wanted to do that task, and two or three people (initially) absolutely refused to do it and became quite panicky and distressed.

But, what interested me was – the smart people stepped up immediately and said, “I’ll go first,” they detachedly did what was asked of them.

You might say they disconnected from the feelings of the body and the thoughts of the brain – to their calm, silent, formless, energetic Observer perspective – they were the calm rider of the uncomfortable horse, and that detached state was obviously very common sense for that situation!

Whereas anxious people were emotionally attached to their stories and feared their body’s emotional responses.

I guess my point is – anxiety and OCD generate drama, and when doing ERP, we must minimise drama, we detach, we become functional, we drop the stories, we unclench and ignore the body, and we focus on our purpose – which is to walk towards our intentions and not run from our fears.

So it was a bitter-sweet balance between disgust and intrigue as we watched people drink all that water until they puked and then repeated it a few times.

However, after a while, a funny thing happened – it became strangely normal and even funny, with people cheering each other on and supporting each other and even making it playful to see who could puke the quickest or the furthest.

Now, because there were twenty-two of us, it took quite a while to process everybody, and gradually, even those with the biggest resistance calmed down and normalised to that situation and slowly realised that nobody was there to reassure them, in fact, everybody was cheering them on to try something new.

And I remember thinking how clever that process was; it was intense ERP delivered with peer pressure but also with loving peer support, and it cleverly bonded the group together and levelled out everybody’s egos.

By the end, everybody had participated, even the ones with the biggest phobic responses.

Thereafter, nobody felt bad about vomiting, and many people said they couldn’t believe they had done it and they were proud of themselves to normalise that which had previously been such a profound fear.

We really can break fears very quickly (and the stories we use to support those fears) if we immerse ourselves in them rather than worrying about how to avoid them!

Use stepping into life as your best form of ERP; it just makes sense.

And finally, I’d like to remind you that videos one to twelve are about understanding anxiety.

Videos thirteen to twenty are about moving to a more detached perspective, understanding your personality and separating thoughts from emotions.

Videos twenty to thirty are about strategies for self-realisation, communication and health.

From thirty to forty are the advanced videos where we explore energy, purpose, nature and becoming a new person.

Then, the forties are how to re-engage with life with as that new person.

And know this if change were easy, everybody would be doing it; therefore, it’s probably quite a complex process.

And if something is complex, it will take a lot of study and repetition until that complexity might be fully understood and the new strategies for change installed.

And I can almost guarantee that if you were to watch one video per day, every day (especially from 19 onwards) right up to the most current video, then repeat that loop (in full) a few times – you will be shocked at what happens as together we reprogram your unconscious mind and install those new strategies.

Remember, you can multitask too; you can listen to them as you nod off to sleep, or if you awake in the night, you can listen when you are walking, driving or on the bus, or you can make sitting with them your relaxing meditation for the day.

However, as I said earlier, about seventy per cent of people’s anxiety will sabotage them from doing this quite simple task – and the degree that you can consciously overwrite that sabotage with action (rather than procrastination) will be the degree that you can escape the clutches of anxiety, OCD and depression.

I guess what I am saying is – it seems to be human nature to start watching a self-help video, but not human nature to finish it, then make the required time (and effort) to practically apply all its techniques, but that will be the difference between those who play the game of life through research and procrastination and those who succeed through taking action and chasing fitness payoffs.

And all I am asking you to consider is – are you knowingly (or unknowingly) sabotaging your own path to calmness, emotional self-mastery and life direction?