The video addresses the common, yet detrimental habit of procrastination. It highlights how procrastination often masks itself behind excuses like waiting for the perfect time, which never truly arrives. The video cautions against allowing procrastination to let valuable time slip away, explaining how fear, lack of clear goals, and an improper understanding of discipline contribute to this habit.

The speaker proposes strategies for overcoming procrastination by advocating for breaking tasks into manageable pieces and maintaining a positive attitude. perseverance is described as crucial to success, just as fuel is to a car, contrasting it with procrastination, which is seen as the opposing force. Through practical advice, individuals are encouraged to focus on the present and take consistent action rather than waiting for ideal conditions.

Main takeaways from the video:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. procrastination [prəˌkræstəˈneɪʃən] - (noun) - The action of delaying or postponing something. - Synonyms: (delay, deferment, stalling)

procrastination, my friends, is one of the most dangerous habits we can fall into.

2. perseverance [ˌpɜːrsəˈvɪrəns] - (noun) - Steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. - Synonyms: (persistence, tenacity, determination)

perseverance is as critical to success as gasoline is to running a car.

3. perfectionism [pərˈfɛkʃənɪzəm] - (noun) - Refusal to accept any standard short of perfection. - Synonyms: (fastidiousness, meticulousness, exactitude)

That's the excuse for never getting started. But let me tell you, perfectionism is just a fancy word for fear.

4. discipline [ˈdɪsəplɪn] - (noun) - The practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience. - Synonyms: (control, regulation, training)

The pain of regret is far heavier than the discipline of action.

5. visualization [ˌvɪʒuəlaɪˈzeɪʃən] - (noun) - The formation of mental visual images. - Synonyms: (imagining, foreseeing, envisioning)

Substitute real time positive thinking for negative future visualization.

6. perception [pərˈsɛpʃən] - (noun) - The ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses. - Synonyms: (awareness, recognition, discernment)

Your attitude determines the state of the world you live in. It is the foundation for every success and every failure you have had and will have.

7. self-motivation [ˌself ˌmoʊtɪˈveɪʃən] - (noun) - Ability to do what needs to be done, without influence from other people or situations. - Synonyms: (self-drive, initiative, determination)

We can choose an inner dialogue of self encouragement and self motivation.

8. subconscious [ˌsʌbˈkɑːnʃəs] - (adjective) - Of or concerning the part of the mind of which one is not fully aware but which influences one's actions and feelings. - Synonyms: (unconscious, latent, deep-seated)

Negative attitudes come from thinking negative thoughts over and over until they become part of your subconscious, part of your personality.

9. segmentation [ˌseɡmənˈteɪʃən] - (noun) - The division of something into parts. - Synonyms: (division, partition, subdivision)

We're breaking down the 400 page book into bite sized pieces.

10. affirmation [ˌæfərˈmeɪʃən] - (noun) - The action or process of affirming something or being affirmed. - Synonyms: (assertion, declaration, proclamation)

Your inner dialogue is the software that programs your attitude, which determines how you present yourself to the world around you.

The Best Way to Overcome Procrastination and Succeed - Jim Rohn Motivational Speech

procrastination, my friends, is one of the most dangerous habits we can fall into. It's subtle and deceptive because it hides behind phrases like, I'll get to it tomorrow, or, there's always time. But you see, tomorrow never quite arrives for the procrastinator. You put off doing what you know needs to be done today, and soon, a day turns into a week, a week into a month. And before you know it, you've let precious years slip through your fingers. Time is the most valuable resource we have, and yet procrastination is the silent thief that robs us of it.

Now, why do we procrastinate? Often it's because of fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, or sometimes even fear of success. Other times, it's because we lack clear goals or don't understand the value of small daily disciplines. But here's the truth. You can either spend your life avoiding what's difficult or embrace it and grow. procrastination is not about being lazy. It's a failure to see the price we pay for inaction. The pain of regret is far heavier than the discipline of action.

If you want to become more, do more, and have more, you must break the cycle of procrastination. And how do we do that? By becoming more conscious of our habits, by setting firm goals, and by building the discipline to follow through on even the smallest tasks. The smallest action taken today is infinitely more valuable than the greatest intention left for tomorrow. Act now, because success is attracted by activity, not by idleness. As I've always said, success is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well. So start now. Don't wait for the perfect moment. It will never come.

The key is to make progress every day because small steps taken consistently will take you to heights you never imagined. Well, perseverance is as critical to success as gasoline is to running a car. Without it, you're not going anywhere. Sure, there will be moments when you feel stuck, when the wheels seem to spin and the progress is slow. But here's the key. True perseverance will always get you out of the rut. It's what turns obstacles into stepping stones. Think of it as the fuel for your journey toward achievement.

Without it, you can't even start the engine. Now, what's the opposite of perseverance? procrastination. While perseverance pushes you forward, procrastination holds you back, sometimes even before you start. It's that hesitation, that delay in action. People often don't realize. procrastination comes in two forms. The inability to get started and the inability to finish. And let me tell you, both are equally dangerous.

Ask people why they procrastinate, and you'll often hear this. I'm a perfectionist. Everything has to be just right before I can start. No distractions, no noise. And I've got to be in the perfect mood. I can't work if I have a headache. That's the excuse for never getting started. But let me tell you, perfectionism is just a fancy word for fear. Fear of failure, fear of imperfection, fear of criticism. And the truth is, conditions will never be perfect.

Life doesn't wait for you to feel ready. As I always say, don't wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect. The other form of procrastination, not finishing what you start, also hides behind perfectionism. People say, I'm never satisfied. If every detail isn't perfect, I can't call it finished. But here's a thought. The real problem isn't perfectionism. It's a fear of putting yourself out there, of being judged.

And here's the thing. It's better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly. The truth is that procrastination is the thief of time. Every moment you delay, you lose an opportunity to move forward, to make progress. But perseverance, the willingness to keep moving, that's what separates the achievers from the dreamers. It doesn't matter how slowly you go, as long as you don't stop.

Remember, success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out. So what will it be? Will you keep putting off until tomorrow? Or will you fuel your journey today with perseverance? Because the road to success is not crowded. It's just filled with people who never quit. Do you see what's going on here? A fault is being turned into a virtue. The perfectionist is saying their standards are just too high for this world.

This fault into virtue syndrome is a common defense when people are called upon to discuss their weaknesses. But in the end, it's just a very pious kind of excuse-making. It certainly doesn't have anything to do with what's really behind procrastination. Remember, the basis of procrastination could be fear of failure. That's what perfectionism is. Once you take a hard look at it.

What's the difference between being afraid of being less than perfect or afraid of anything else? You're still paralyzed by fear. What's the difference between never starting and never finishing? You're still stuck. You're still going nowhere. You're still overwhelmed by whatever task is before you. You're still allowing yourself to be dominated by a negative vision of the future in which you see yourself being criticized, laughed at, or punished.

This negative vision of the future is a mechanism that allows you to do nothing. It's a very convenient mental tool. I'm going to tell you how to beat procrastination. I'm going to show you how to turn procrastination into perseverance. And if you do what I suggest, the process will be virtually painless. It involves using two very powerful principles that foster productivity and perseverance instead of passivity and procrastination.

Break it down. No matter what you're trying to accomplish, whether it's writing a book, climbing a mountain, or painting a house, the key to achievement is your ability to break down the task into manageable pieces and knock them off one at a time. Focus on accomplishing what's right in front of you at this moment. Ignore what's off in the distance someplace. Substitute real-time positive thinking for negative future visualization.

Your attitude determines the state of the world you live in. It is the foundation for every success and every failure you have had and will have. It will make you or break you. I generally start my workshops and seminars by asking a fundamental question. What attitude did you bring to this meeting? Often this brings puzzled looks. In truth, people generally don't have a high level of attitude awareness. They'll know if they are hungry or if their feet hurt. But they usually don't have a good handle on their attitude.

That is a mistake because attitude is everything. It governs the way you perceive the world and the way the world perceives you. We all have a choice. We can choose an inner dialogue of self-encouragement and self-motivation. Or we can choose one of self-defeat and self-pity. It's a power we all have. Each of us encounters hard times, hurt feelings, heartache, and physical and emotional pain. The key is to realize it's not what happens to you that matters, it's how you choose to respond.

Your mind is a computer that can be programmed. You can choose whether the software installed is productive or unproductive. Your inner dialogue is the software that programs your attitude, which determines how you present yourself to the world around you. You have control over the programming. Whatever you put into it is reflected in what comes out.

Many of us have behavior patterns today that were programmed into our brains at a very tender age. The information that was recorded by our brains could have been completely inaccurate or cruel. The sad reality of life is that we will continue to hear negative information, but we don't have to program it into our brains. The loudest and most influential voice you hear is your own inner voice, your self-critic.

It can work for or against you, depending on the messages you allow. It can be optimistic or pessimistic. It can wear you down or cheer you on. You control the sender and the receiver, but only if you consciously take responsibility for and control over your inner conversation. Habitual bad attitudes are often the product of past experiences and events. Common causes include low self-esteem, stress, fear, resentment, anger, and an inability to handle change.

It takes serious work to examine the roots of a harmful attitude, but the rewards of ridding ourselves of this heavy baggage can last a lifetime. Your attitude controls your life, but the good news, you control your attitude. Attitude creates the way you feel about people and situations. Your actions are a result of your attitude, which in turn creates a reaction from others. It is your attitude toward others and the universe that determines the resulting attitude toward you.

Have a positive, joyful attitude, and you'll have positive joyful results. Put out a bad negative attitude, and you've failed. Before you begin, what you think is what you get. I know it sounds simple, but the truth is, it is. Where do negative attitudes come from? Negative attitudes come from thinking negative thoughts over and over until they become part of your subconscious, part of your personality.

They become habitual. You may not even realize you have a negative attitude because it's been with you for so long. Once you have a bad attitude, you expect failure and disaster. And that expectation turns you into a magnet for failure and disaster. Then it becomes a vicious cycle. You expect the worst, so you get the worst. Your negative beliefs are reinforced, so you expect the worst and you get the worst.

So how do you shift your thoughts and create a positive attitude? It takes work. But creating anything of value takes work. To have a new attitude, you have to change your subconscious thinking. How? By analyzing every thought you have until positive thinking becomes a habit. You're merely replacing an old habit with a healthy habit, much like replacing smoking with exercise. You can't just stop being negative. You have to replace those negative thoughts with positive ones.

Some people would say, but negative situations are a reality. They just show up in everyday life. This is not true. Situations are a reality. Yes, they do show up. Yes, it is your attitude that makes a situation positive or negative.

It's time for you to realize that you are in control of how you think and feel. No one else on earth has this power unless you give it away. Take control of your attitude and your state of mind, and you take control of your results. Suppose I ask you if you could write a 400-page novel. Sounds impossible, right? But suppose I ask you a different question. Suppose I ask if you can write a page and a quarter a day for one year. Do you think you could do it? Now the task is starting to seem more manageable.

We're breaking down the 400-page book into bite-sized pieces. Even so, I suspect many people would still find the prospect intimidating. Do you know why? Writing a page and a quarter may not seem so bad, but you're being asked to look ahead one whole year. When people start to look that far ahead, many of them automatically go into a negative mode.

So let me formulate the idea of writing a book in yet another way. Let me break it down even more. Suppose I ask you if you can fill up a page and a quarter with words. Not for a year, not for a month, not even for a week, but just today. Don't look any further ahead than that. I believe most people would confidently declare that they could accomplish that.

These are the same people who feel incapable of writing a whole book. If I said the same thing to those people tomorrow, if I told them, I don't want you to look back, and I don't want you to look ahead, I just want you to fill up a page and a quarter this very day, do you think they could do it one day at a time?

We've all heard that phrase. That's what we're doing here. We're breaking down the time required for a major task into one-day segments, and we're breaking down the work involved in writing a 400-page book into page-and-quarter increments. Keep this up for one year and you'll write the book. discipline yourself to look neither forward nor backward, and you can accomplish things you never thought you could do.

And it all begins with those three words. Break it down. Write it down. We know how important writing is to goal setting. Goal setting is a fantastic skill to develop and how you design your own future. A life best lived is a life by design, not by accident, and not by just walking through the day, careening from wall to wall and managing to survive. If you can start giving your life dimensions and design and color and objectives and purpose, the results can be absolutely staggering.

The writing you'll do to beat procrastination is very similar. Instead of focusing on the future, you're going to be writing about the present just as you experience it every day. Instead of describing the things you want to do or the places you want to go, you're going to describe what you do with your time, and you're going to keep a written record of the places you go.

In other words, you're going to keep a diary of your activities. And you're going to be amazed by the distractions, detours, and downright wastes of time you engage in during the day. All of these get in the way of achieving your goals. For many people, it's almost like they planned it that way, and maybe at some unconscious level, they did. The great thing about keeping a time diary is that it brings all this out in the open.

It forces you to see what you're doing and what you're not doing. Your time diary doesn't have to be anything elaborate. Just buy a little spiral notebook that you can easily carry in your pocket when you go to lunch, when you drive across town, when you go to the dry cleaners, when you spend some time shooting the breeze at the copying machine. Make a quick note of the time you began the activity and the time it ends.

Try to make this notation as soon as possible. If it's inconvenient to do it immediately, you can do it later. But you should make an entry in your time diary at least once every 30 minutes, and you should keep this up for at least a week. Break it down. Write it down. These two techniques are very straightforward, but don't let that fool you.

These are powerful and effective productivity techniques. This is how you beat procrastination. This is how you get yourself started.

Motivation, Success, Perseverance, Education, Leadership, Self-Improvement, Daily Wisdom