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DR JOHN DEMARTINI - Updated 2 years ago
Do you experience times in your life where even though you tell yourself and others that you want to do some particular action, you find that you continue to procrastinate when it comes to initiating or following through on that very action?
Despite how important and urgent you may claim the action to be, or have been told by others that it is to do, you continue to find every possible excuse or opportunity not to initiate or complete the action?
You may even berate yourself for being undisciplined and lazy, or have others tell you that you’re undisciplined and lazy.
Perhaps it is you who behaves this way with others, judging them for not doing something you perceive to be important, and label them accordingly.
If so, you may be surprised to hear the reason people tend to procrastinate, hesitate, and frustrate on certain tasks, - mostly because it has very little to do with laziness and more to do with what it is they truly value and what they perceive to be priority in their lives.
Let’s begin with your highest values.
Every human being, including yourself lives with a set of priorities, a set of values, things that are most to least important in life. These unique set of values can become gradually tweaked and changed through the various stages in life, or even within a few months.
Whatever is highest or most important on this unique list of priorities or values is what you are most likely to be spontaneously inspired from within to do or fulfill.
In other words, you are highly unlikely to require any extrinsic motivation such as the promise of reward or fear of punishment to get it done.
In my case, my highest values are researching, writing, and teaching. I love researching, writing, and teaching so no-one has to externally motivate, remind, or incentivize me to do them.
However, when it comes to driving or cooking, which are lower on my values, I have little inclination to do them and will instead outsource or delegate them.
It’s the same in your life – you will have actions that you are spontaneously inspired from within to do, actions that you tend not to procrastinate on and instead find a way to make time for. Those are likely your highest values.
Some individuals find identifying what their highest values actually are to be challenging because they perceive that they “should” be different from what they truly are.
For example, you may perceive that you “should” have FAMILY as your highest value instead of WORK. Or perhaps you perceive you “should” have SPIRITUALITY as your highest value instead of PHYSICAL WELLBEING.
Or you may have individuals in your life trying to tell you what your highest values and priorities “should” be, and you are allowing their voices to cloud the clarity of your own true value hierarchy.
As such, you may not honor your own true highest values and areas where you are your most spontaneously acting and inspired. You may also try to live in someone else's values or get others to live in your values.
Anytime you expect other individuals to live by your set of values, or expect yourself to live by someone else’s set of values, you're likely to have futility. No-one can sustain living in someone else's values because it goes against what's intrinsic for them.
So, whatever's highest on your unique set of values, you are spontaneously inspired from within to fulfill, and no motivation tends to be needed.
In a sense, you are internally called to do it, which is why some individuals refer to their highest value as their calling in life, or their matière, or their telos.
Your highest value is the direction of your most meaningful pursuit, your purpose in life, and your ontological identity. You literally revolve your identity around what you value most.
As I mentioned, my highest value is teaching, so I tend to refer to myself as a teacher.
Someone else’s highest value may be raising a family and they’ll call themselves a parent, while yet others may be a journalist, entrepreneur, diversity specialist, or golfer.
I have sometimes had individuals attend my signature two-day program, the Breakthrough Experience, and try to convince me that they don’t have a highest value and that there is absolutely nothing they feel spontaneously inspired from within to do.
I love to tell them that everyone has something they are spontaneously inspired to do, even if it is watching TV, YouTube, TikTok or playing video games. Because some of these individuals are often comparing themselves to others that they admire and because do not find themselves driven in the same way they think these admired individuals are that they do not have an inspiring highest value, But in the program I am able to show them in what form it is being revealed.
I once had a wonderful consultation with a 23-year-old man who spent all day every day watching TV. He had no interest in studying general college or getting a common job that someone that age pursues, and just wanted to spend every spare moment he had watching his favorite shows.
His mother asked me to meet with him, partly out of concern for his social and emotional wellbeing and partly because she was financially supporting her 23-year-old son with very little indication that he would become a self-supporting and independent adult any time soon.
When chatting with him, I asked him what in particular he loved watching on TV. He spoke about how much he loved watching CSI-type shows that involved the solving of crimes. In fact, the majority of shows he watched centered around real-life crime and the solving of cases using forensic science.
After spending more time with him and going through the Demartini Value Determination Process with him. I was certain that forensic science was one of his highest values. Once he made the connection in his mind, he became engaged and inspired about looking online for classes that would help him become a forensic scientist.
His life clearly showed what was most important to him, he just hadn’t yet made the link or connection as to how he could align his life with it. Primarily because of the parental pressure to be something he did not want to be.
I also spent quite a bit of time with his mother who had spent years telling her son that he “should” (there’s that word again) become a lawyer and who had labeled his lack of enthusiasm in that area as an example of his laziness. Once she realized what his life was already demonstrating as being important to him, and saw the change in him once he became proactive and inspired in the pursuit of a career that was congruent with his highest values, she became far more supportive.
Children, in particular, are highly unlikely to be engaged in something if they don't see how it will serve them in the areas that they value most.
My personal feeling is that every teacher is wise to ensure that they communicate the importance of the class they're teaching in terms of each child's individual highest values to help them become more engaged.
For years, I have seen school teachers, counsellors, psychologists and psychiatrists label children as having ADHD. In every case that I have consulted in, once I have uncovered what the child is spontaneously inspired from within to do, he or she would show little to no signs of ADHD in that area.
One example that comes to mind is a child who had been labeled as having ADHD, and who I discovered loved to play with trains. In fact, he could play with trains for an entire day without a lapse in concentration, but would procrastinate, hesitate, and frustrate and become hyperactive on everything else that didn’t relate to trains.
Once his teachers began linking learning and activities to trains, his engagement level increased, as did his concentration. Why? Because he could see how each lesson helped him get what was most meaningful to him – specialized knowledge about trains.
Identifying your highest values can be a complete gamechanger when it comes to transforming and mastering your life, regardless of your age.
When identifying your highest values, you’ll discover something that's extremely meaningful to you, but that you've possibly not yet fully honored or appreciated.
You may have a fantasy that you are “supposed” to be like someone else.
I often say that envy is ignorance and imitation is suicide.
You're not here to live in the shadows of others or be second at being somebody else, you're here to be you. You are less likely to make a difference fitting in, but you can make a difference standing out.
Identifying your highest values and priorities is integral if you would love to live an inspired, vitalized and authentic life. In fact, I am certain that the magnificence of who you are is far greater than all the fantasies you keep imposing on yourself.
Something that few individuals appear to know, is what happens inside your brain when you live congruently with your highest values.
What you might not know is that when you live according to your highest values or top priorities, blood, glucose and oxygen goes into your forebrain, which is the executive center of your brain. So, anytime you fill your day with your highest priority actions and do what is most important, meaningful and inspiring in your life; you wake up the part of your brain that is involved in inspired vision, strategic planning, objectivity, execution of plans, and self-governance.
You are also more likely to wake up your leadership capacities because you will tend to be more effective and efficient in your actions and have more resilience and stamina in life.
On the other hand, when you fill your day with low priority actions, the blood glucose and oxygen goes into your subcortical brain which includes your amygdala. So, instead of waking up your executive center for inspired vision, you wake up your lower functioning part of your brain responsible for fight or flight, which deals with survival reflexes, and impulses for immediate gratification and the avoiding of pain.
As a result, you are most likely to avoid challenges and seek an easy less meaningful or productive path, while also taking on the role of follower.
You can do amazing things with your life if you live congruently with what you value most. However, the second you try to live in other individuals’ values and need outside extrinsic motivation and reward and punishment incentives, then you’re likely to want to look for immediate gratification while also procrastinating, hesitating, and frustrating on anything that’s challenging or something you don’t want to do.
The value of procrastination as valuable feedback.
Procrastination is often a symptom of trying to be someone you're not and do some action that is not most important. As such, it’s valuable feedback to let you know that you’re not being you.
Beating yourself up and self-depreciating is actually an essential feedback response because it’s letting you know that you're going in a direction of actions that's not necessarily your authentic self.
When you take cognizance of that feedback, align your life with your highest values and begin living by priority again, your self-worth tends to increase, your self-image tends to go up, and you are most likely to begin feeling inspired, energized and vitalized.
How to identify your highest values
If you haven’t yet gone through the Demartini Value Determination Process, then I would love you to take 15 or more minutes to work through the process on my website.
And when you do, it is wise to be completely honest so you can discover what's really important to you, start structuring your life according, and giving yourself permission to live congruently, integrally, and in a way that's inspiring to you.
Then, you can find a way of doing what you really love to do and getting paid for it, because your vocation and vacation are the same.
To sum up
- When you procrastinate, hesitate, and frustrate, you’re likely to be attempting to achieve some goal that is lower on your list of values.
- Like the majority of individuals, you may tend to set up so-called goals or fantasies in your life that are not deeply meaningful to you but which you perceive you “need” to or “should” get done.
- You may also tend to compare yourself to others, put individuals on pedestals, and inject values from others so that you lose sight of what is deeply meaningful and truly most important to you.
- As a result, you may tend to fill your life with low priority actions that you would be wise to delegate to others and end up trapped performing tasks you have resistance to, as a result.
- In my experience, this is the key reason why so many individuals have a “vocation / vacation split” and spend their days longing for the weekend or their next break from work instead of doing something they love so that their vocation and vacation are the same.
- Procrastination, hesitation, frustration, laziness, and other similar labels indicate you may not be the true you. Instead, they may be feedback to let you know that you are wise to go back to being who you are – getting back on priority.
- Knowing your unique hierarchy of values, or highest priorities, is the most important place to start if you would love to break through procrastination and begin living a life of prioritized, self-mastery.
- The Demartini’s Online Value Determination Tool is a free, online, 13-step process to help you determine your unique set of highest values that are fingerprint-specific to you. The only cost is your time.
Are you ready for the NEXT STEP?
If you’re seriously committed to your own growth, if you’re ready to make a change now and you’d love some help doing so, then book a FREE Discovery call with a member of the Demartini Team so we can take you through your mini power assessment session.
You’ll come away with a 3-step action plan and the foundation to empower your life.
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Today is the day you step into your power and value yourself by investing in your inspired life when you sign up for Dr Demartini’s signature seminar the Breakthrough Experience:
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