If you do low priority things that distract you, that are unfulfilling, that devalue you, that scatter you, that frustrate you and that you procrastinate on, your self-image and self-worth will decrease. Join Dr John Demartini and learn why you tend to procrastinate, hesitate, and frustrate. Understand how to recognize the signs and the steps you can take to break through procrastination, and become more efficient, effective, and have a greater impact.

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If you can't see how something's helping you get what's most meaningful to you,

you're going to procrastinate, hesitate, frustrate.

You're going to be labeled by other people that think it's important,

probably lazy.

I'm sure you've had a moment in your life where somebody came up to you and

labeled you, and said, God, you're lazy, or,

why don't you do this, why are you just sitting around and doing that?

Or maybe you've even labeled yourself that you keep procrastinating,

not getting around to doing something,

or maybe you've labeled yourself lazy or beat yourself up because somehow you're

not doing what you think you should be doing.

Or you've maybe projected that onto somebody else and thought, God,

they're just lazy, they just procrastinate,

they never get around to doing things or doing what I want them to do.

So I'd like to address that topic because it's time to break and shatter a myth.

So again, make sure you're taking note of this,

because this might be liberating to say the least.

And I rarely do a presentation without discussing the very driving force of

human beings, which is human values, and so I'll start there.

Every human being lives with a set of priorities, a set of values,

things that are most to least important in their life at that moment in their

life. Moment by moment, these can gradually tweak and change.

When I was a young boy,

I loved baseball and I got into surfing as a teenager and I got into academics

and schooling later on. So I had different sets of values as they go along.

And sometimes your values can shift either by cataclysmic events that change

your life or tweaking, slow, gradual changes.

But whatever it is in any moment in your life right now,

you have a set of values, a set of priorities.

And whatever's highest on that list of priorities or values,

thing that's most important to you,

you are spontaneously inspired from within

to go and do it.

It is no extrinsic motivation needed to do it. In my case,

it's teaching. I love teaching. I love researching and writing and teaching.

So nobody has to motivate me to do that or remind me to do it or incentivize me

to do it or punishment if I don't do it or reward me if I do it,

I don't need any form of extrinsic motivation to do that.

And you have something in your life where you are inspired from within to do it,

you intrinsically just do it. And there's no procrastination doing it,

but it may be in an area that you think it shouldn't be in.

Or you may think that other people think it should be somewhere else than what

it is.

So sometimes you're not honoring where you are spontaneous, inspiring.

You're not honoring what your own values are.

You're trying to live in somebody else's. Or trying to get others to live yours.

Anytime you expect other people to live in your values,

your hierarchy of values,

or anytime you expect to live in the hierarchy of values of other people,

you're going to have futility,

because nobody can sustain living in somebody else's values,

because it's going against what's intrinsic for them.

So whatever's high on your value,

you spontaneously inspired from within to fulfill.

And no motivations needed.

It's internally called to do it. It's the calling if you want to call it that.

Whatever's highest on your value is the direction of your most meaningful

pursuit, your purpose in life, your ontological identity,

you literally revolve your identity around what you value most. Mine's teaching.

I'm a teacher.

Somebody else may be raising a family and call themselves a mother,

others maybe an entrepreneur in a business, they'll label it that.

But everybody has something where they spontaneously are inspired to do.

Maybe watching TV.

I had a woman that asked me to consult with her son who was 23 years old,

that wasn't doing much and was lazy and procrastinating, in her label.

When I went over and talked to him in the den in front of the TV,

we found out that he spent on average no less than six hours,

but 8 to 10 is a common thing in front of a TV.

Now the mother wasn't realizing that she was robbing of accountability,

responsibility, productivity, and dignity by not making it where he had to work.

He's 23 years old, but she was paying for everything so he had no need.

She was taking care of him and rescuing him and enabling him if you will.

So she's expecting him to get off his butt when he doesn't need to. But,

at the same time, I was wondering, what is he doing

that's consistent in front of TV? So I asked him,

what's the common things that you watch on TV.

And he was watching these CSI and these forensic

solutions, finding solutions to crimes and things.

And I said, 'You love those shows?' He says, 'I love those shows.' 'What

are your plans for your life? What are you planning on doing?' He says,

'That's what I want to do.

I want to be in forensic science and I want to solve crime and mysteries.' I

said, 'Have you told your mom that?' He says, 'Yeah,

but she's got me being a lawyer and man that's boring.

And I go to school and I really don't want to do that.

And so I make sure I don't do well that so I can finally get on do what I want

to do.' And your mom doesn't get that? 'No.

No.' 'I'll talk to your mom.' So I basically sat

you talk some sense to him and get him where he is not going to be lazy? I said,

'He's not lazy.

He spends eight to 10 hours a day focusing on what he really wants to do.

And somehow that's being overlooked and the label you put on people is not

real truth necessarily.

It's just a label you put on him according to your values and what you think he

should be doing, ought to be doing, supposed to be doing, got to be doing,

et cetera, according to what you think in your values,

as if your values are more important than his values.

And so what was interesting she said, 'Well,

what do you suggest?' I said,

let's go look online and see if we can't find a curriculum and find out what it

takes to be a forensic specialist in solving crimes.

And she turned to him and says,

'that's really what you want to do?' And he said, 'Mom,

what do you think I do every day?

I'm watching those shows and I'm trying to anticipate and trying to solve the

problems before we even get to the end of it.' And she says,

'That's what you want to do?' And he goes,

'yeah.' 'I thought you wanted to be a lawyer.' He says, 'No,

that's what you want me to be mom.'

'Oh.' And so we looked online and found out a pathway,

a curriculum of what that is,

partly in schooling and partly a specialized school.

And he was just inspired by the idea that he could go back and study what he

really wanted to study.Because he didn't see the classes he was taking,

help him fulfill what he wants.

My personal feeling is that every teacher ideally would have a responsibility of

making sure that they communicate the importance of what the class they're

teaching in terms of the child's individual values

Children aren't going to be engaged in something they don't see how it's going

to serve them. And they're not going to make those links.

The teacher can make those links for them unless somebody teaches both of them

how to do it. So anyway,

once she saw that he was really sincerely wanting to do that,

and finally got over the idea that he's going to be a lawyer, she

liberate him. And now the label procrastination,

hesitation, frustration, lazy, gone.

Because now she realized what he was doing and this guy was now putting in 10

hours a day towards this,

because he was doing something he really loved to do that was meaningful,

fulfilling to him and inspiring to him.

We have an intrinsic calling to do something,

but sometimes people don't understand what it is and we try to fit in

instead of stand out, and we're afraid all of a sudden, you know,

I've seen people label themselves. I watched a woman in London,

label herself as lazy and she was working eight

hours a day, working with kids. She wasn't lazy in what was important to her,

but she was comparing herself to other people and think, well,

I don't have a business so,

I can't seem to get that off the ground because well,

things that are low on your values,

you need motivation to do and nobody's getting up and motivating me to go into

work every day to do what I,

everybody expects me to do or what I was thinking I was supposed to do.

Anytime you hear yourself saying, I should, I ought to, supposed to, I got to,

I have to, I must, and I need to, that is not you inside talking.

That's some internalization of some outer authority's value system or collective

authority's value system, as Kohlberg says,

that you're inculcating into your life thinking and comparing your life to those

individuals and thinking 'I should be' like that,

instead of honoring what you are.

The magnificence of who you are is far greater than the fantasies you impose on

yourself and inject into yourself. I remember when I was in my twenties,

I had grown my practice. I was almost 30 years old, 28, 27, 8, 9.

I was growing this practice,

but I heard about doctors that were growing massive practices.

And I had a big practice, but not a massive practice.

And I was sitting there going, I should be doing that. And I thought, wait,

my values are different.

Who I am and what my commitment is is not really that.

But I would have peer pressure sometimes make me think I should.

And then I would beat myself up.

And I always say depression is a comparison of your

about how life's supposed to be.

And anytime you expect yourself to be living in somebody else's values or others

to live in your values, then come the labels. You label yourself,

you label other people. I saw a whole bunch of school teachers,

I saw counselors, I saw

psychologists label a child ADHD.

And then we found out what the child's love was,

which happened to be trains and zeroed him over onto trains and let him go and

absorb and focus on trains and he could sit for 11 hours straight, nonstop,

working with trains,

had no signs of ADHD when he was doing something he was engaged in.

But he was procrastinating, hesitating, frustrated,

and can't stay focused and everything else, which is designed.

You're designed to have a short term you know,

attention span on things that are absolutely not important to you.

If you can't see how something's helping you get what's most meaningful to you,

you're going to procrastinate, hesitate, frustrate.

You're going to be labeled by other people that think it's important,

probably lazy, but look carefully,

look carefully of what you spontaneously love doing and don't judge

it. You may discover something that's extremely meaningful to you,

but you've never honored it and appreciated who you are.

And remember the magnificence of who you are is far greater than all the

fantasies you keep imposing on yourself.

If you kept having a fantasy you're supposed to be like

envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide.

You're not here to live in the shadows of others and be second at being somebody

else, you're here to be you and you want to make a difference,

but you can't make a difference fitting in. You make a difference standing out.

So you want to give yourself permission to be you.

And that's where you find your tribe.

I'm, like I say, I am spontaneously inspired to teach, research and write.

Nobody has had, in fact, I've given people an opportunity, I said,

if you can find somebody that's had to motivate me to research,

teach and write in the last 50 years, you got a free seminar,

and nobody will find that because it doesn't exist.

Because I spontaneously love doing this, what we're doing right now.

And what's interesting is I don't need to be it, and nobody will label me that,

that no one says you're a lazy teacher, you never get around to teaching, but,

I've had hundreds of people over the years,

I've had a sports enthusiast that thought I ought to be out there working out

more and said, you know, you're just lazy, you're not driven,

you just don't have the drive to go out and do the exercise you should be doing.

And they're projecting their values onto me.

Everybody's projecting their values onto you and labeling you.

And if you can sit there and if you subordinate to that, you'll lose yourself.

I'd rather have the whole world against me than my own soul, as they say.

So I had that, that lady who was projecting that.

well, why don't you have grandkids? And why don't you have great grandkids?

You know, you should be doing this.

And they were projecting their idea that I should have more kids.

Another person said, well, I should be more, doing more with entrepreneurship.

And somebody said, you should be out there voting for politics. I mean,

I've had lots of people project their values onto me and label me and say, well,

you just don't have the drive, you're lazy or whatever, in their values,

but not in mine, and not where I want to do it.

That boy was not wrong for his pursuit of forensic science.

That's what he's doing today. Had another boy, the same thing,

16 years old in Brisbane, Australia. And it was quite interesting.

The mother was saying, all he does is sit on that computer all day long.

And you know, he's 16. He should have a job,

go to McDonald's or go and have a paper route or whatever. In her era

that's what they did and said, he's lazy, he's not doing it. Of course again,

that was happening and she was taking care of all the costs so he'd had no

drive, if he had no money, he'd have to go out to work, he'd want his money,

he didn't have it, everything was taken care of.

Sometimes we rob people of accountability by taking care of them,

make them dependent on us.

And that drives them to do only what's really what they, you know,

what's high in their values and not what's on interesting to ours,

and we won't have a financial value or a business drive value if we don't have a

need for it. So what's interesting is she said, well,

he is lazy and everything else.

And I went in and talked to him and found out he was incredible on the computer.

He could create code. He was developing you know,

software and he was doing things, he was a genius on computer.

His mother was illiterate on computer.

So she was projecting what she thought was important for him. And again,

he stood and he says, yeah, she's on my case.

She's always on my case because I'm I, but this is what I want to do.

I want to develop software. I want to be in the computer world.

That's where it's going. And I don't want to be living in the dark ages,

don't want to be living a dinosaur. I want to be living in the future.

And I came out and the mother said, you talk some sense into the son?

The same as the last one. And I said, no, I hired him.

He's developing some software for me that I need. And she goes,

he's developing software? You hired him? I said, yeah,

he's quite a genius kid and can do a lot with code. You can do all that?

And he goes, mom. And so, sometimes we project,

we think that somehow we are knowing better than sometimes our kids.

And I'm not saying we don't in some areas,

but we don't always know what is really valuable to them.

And sometimes we try to force them. And the question is, is it their dream?

Or is it your dream? You know,

I've seen parents force kids to do something and then

certain age and then they're not driven to do it anymore,

because their parents are, die or something and they don't want to do it.

They want to go off and do something really want to do.

You got to give yourself permission to yourself to be yourself and you don't

procrastinate on what's important to you, but don't expect if you're,

if you have a high value on something social don't expect necessarily to be

financially viable or business savvy, you have to be honest about what it was.

Because if you have an expectation on yourself that doesn't match what you

value, you got two choices, either go and shift your values,

which is a science to that, which is a whole nother talk sometime, or,

take whatever the action steps that you know would help you go in that area and

become viable, how's it helping you fulfill what you're doing today?

Either go and do what you love through delegating or love what you do through

linking I call it. Because if not,

you're not going to be engaged and you're only engaged when you can see how what

you're doing is fulfilling what you value most. And if you're not valuing it,

don't expect it. See I have a low value on cooking.

I haven't cooked since I was 24,

bout the only thing I ever did is did a spiralizer one time and did a carrot and

made a spiral carrot because my girlfriend told me I needed to do that for her.

That was about the only time I've done anything in the kitchen for,

since I was 24 and I'm 68 now, so you can guess the, 44 years there.

So in the process of doing that, it's interesting,

I would be considered according to somebody who may be a cook as

disinterested, lazy, procrastinating, not learning how to do what's important.

How can you get by in life without cooking? That's how they would think.

But I have specialists to cook. I hire people that take care of the cooking.

I don't cook. The same thing for driving. I haven't driven a car in 32 years.

I don't drive. I have a specialist that drives. I do what I love doing.

I found out that if I'm doing what I love doing and delegating the rest away to

people who love doing it, I surround myself with experts,

surround myself with them and they love doing it.

I'm free to do what I love doing. And everybody gets a job and an opportunity.

And if I do it in a way that's engaging and serves people, then I flourish.

That's why I say I'm not procrastinating in my highest value,

but I'll procrastinate, hesitate, frustrate in my lowest.

And when you're doing something that's high on your value,

your self worth goes up and your blood glucose and oxygen goes in the forebrain

and you become an executive function. You have self-governance, self-mastery,

you expand your space and time horizons.

You do amazing things with your life if you just live congruently with what you

value,

but the second you try to live in other people's values and try to be forced to

do something that's not true and you need outside extrinsic motivation and

reward and punishment mentalities, well,

you're going to be in your amygdala and your amygdala's going to want to avoid

pain and seek pleasure.

And it's going to want look for immediate gratification and it's going to be

procrastinating,

hesitating and frustrating if it's challenging and

and not want to do things.

And that's a symptom of trying to be something you're not.

And really that's a feedback to let you know, that's not you.

And a lot of reasons you beat yourself up and self depreciate is actually a

healthy response because it's trying to let you know that you're going in a

direction that's not you. And it's trying to get back.

And the second you go back to you, boy, your self worth goes back up again.

Your self image goes up. My self image is fine when I'm doing what I love doing.

But if I was forced to deontologically be living by duty according

to what I should be doing all the time, I'd

have a quiet life of desperation as Theroux said,

instead of life of inspiration, as I dreamed about.

I want people to live an inspired life,

and they're not going to have an inspired life living under somebody else's

value system. So you have to do it.

That's why I have on my website the Dr Demartini Value Determination process.

And if you haven't gone there,

go to drdemartini.com go to determine your values. Take a moment,

go through this Value Determination process. It's free. It's private.

Do it any day of the week, any time of the week, do it again.

Make sure you're honest about the answers.

Make sure you really listen and pay close attention to the questions and answer

them and get a look at what's really important to you

life according and give yourself permission to live

in a way that's inspiring to you.

And then find a way of doing what you really love to do and getting paid for it.

So your vocation and vacation are the same. There's a science to it.

I teach people it for God for 50 years almost. There's there's,

it's not that difficult. It's not rocket science.

It's just prioritizing your life and learning to live by priority.

Prioritize who you hang out with, prioritize what you read,

prioritize what you do, prioritize your spending.

If you prioritize things according to higher value, I guarantee you,

your life is way more empowered and you don't go around labeling yourself, Oh,

I keep being lazy and people going, you know,

they don't call you that unless they're projecting their values onto you.

And if they do you just say, thank you. Thank you for your feedback.

I appreciate it. But if for some reason you see me not following that feedback,

please feel that I'm unworthy of further comment. In other words, bug off,

because I'm not here to live in everybody else's values.

There's no way you can live in everybody else's values that are being projected

onto you. Your mother and father, everybody's got different sets of values,

they're all going to project,

they're going to all do what they think is going to be helpful to you,

which also makes their life easier.

But the reality is you have to be true to yourself and honor yourself and give

yourself permission to be true. And so procrastination, hesitation, frustration,

laziness, and labels may not be the true you.

It may just be feedback to let you know, go back to being who you are.

Go look carefully, do the value determination process.

I teach in the Breakthrough Experience program,

which is my signature program every single week tools and science, a science,

and a series of methods on how to transform a life that's distracted that's

basically being labeled and onto doing something that's inspiring.

So I'm absolutely certain that can be done.

You can live more prioritized in your life. It's not like I say, rocket science.

It is something, every human being can do,

been teaching it for decades in the Breakthrough Experience,

taken thousands of people through the process.

If they go and do the Value Determination,

start prioritizing their life and start making links to the things to help them

have more fulfillment life,

they're not going to be labeled lazy except by people that have the illusion

and righteousness of projecting their values onto you.

And then they get humbled and eventually frustrated and eventually back off and

then you get on with your life. So if you would like to go and expand your game,

then I can tell you,

come to the Breakthrough Experience where I can show you how to actually

determine the values.

I can show you how to dissolve the emotional baggage and reactions to people.

I can show you how to not sit in the shadows of anyone,

but to stand on the shoulders of people and give yourself permission to go out

and do what's true for you.

And that's why I tell people to go to the Breakthrough Experience because it's a

place where I can spend 24,

25 hours with people and giving them great insights and methodologies and hold

them accountable to go do something amazing with their life so they can be

authentic. I'm not a motivational speaker.

I'm not here to persuade you to do something you don't love to do.

I'm here to find out what it is that you intrinsically are called to do that,

you feel is your mission in life and help navigate the and show you the science

of navigation through all the obstacles to get there.

There's no reason why you can't have an inspired life in life.

Absolutely no reason.

So that's why I tell people to come to the Breakthrough Experience.

The Breakthrough Experience is my signature program that helps people break

through the limitations.

It helps them see the hidden order in their apparent chaos.

It helps them break through the labels they've given themselves or other people

have given them. It helps them master their mind and master life.

So if you want to master your mind and master your life,

and you want some proven personal development tools

join me at the Breakthrough Experience.

I'm absolutely certain I can make a difference in your life in that program.

I've done that.

I've got thousands of thousands of testimonials from around the world from

people that have changed their lives, unbelievable amount of change,

transformation.

And the change is something where people are going back to being themselves.

Like I say,

the magnificence who you are is far greater than any fantasies you'll imposing

on yourself. So join me the Breakthrough Experience,

come and let me help you master your mind and make sure you have self-governance

and have the courage to be yourself.

The real courage is not walking on fire or jumping bungee jumps and stuff like

that. Those are nice little metaphors.

The real courage is to be you in a world that's trying to get you to not be you

and be able to be inspired by your life spontaneously from within,

instead of having to be motivated from without,

and to be able to go do something you feel like's a contribution to getting paid

handsomely to do what you love so your vacation and vocation are the same.

That's what's possible in the world.

So come to the Breakthrough Experience and let me help you do something

extraordinary with your life.

So you don't get labeled procrastinating or labeled lazy or those

things, and you give yourself permission to shine, not shrink.

So this is my presentation for the week.

I look forward to seeing at the Breakthrough Experience

our next little presentation, have an absolutely inspiring week in between.

And if you need to listen to this more than once, because I speak fast,

that's understandable. Some people tune it down slower.

Some people just listen more than once. Some people talk and say,

you speak too fast,

but I'm inspired by what I do and I get enthusiastic about it.

And I hope that you're that way about your life.

So come and join me at the Breakthrough Experience and I'll see you next week.