4 Ways of Staying Inspired and Overcoming Procrastination Through Philosophy...Even when You Feel Drained and Defeated
As I'm sure you know, regardless of how inspired and motivated we may feel at our best, sometimes it can just feel really hard to do what needs to get done. Whether it be getting out of bed in time, eating better, or pursuing your passion project, sometimes the world will drain your energy and inspiration and sap your motivation. When that happens, it is all too easy to fall into procrastination.
How, then, can philosophy help us overcome procrastination?
It can help us by helping us cultivate the habits to live a life full of inspired and inspiring days. By helping us become aware of the habits and patterns that shape our days and so our lives.
1. Realize that your Habits, Practices, and Rituals Largely Organize your Life and so Determine its Quality
How do you get up in the morning?
Do you drag your feet, take hours to get ready to do anything while drinking coffee?
Or do you get up and immediately begin joyfully living out your dreams?
Do you tend to just pass out at night watching TV, or do you have a nightly ritual that allows you two to appreciate every day gone while preparing for the next?
The right habits set you up for success and empowerment. The wrong habits will limit you, sucking you into a hypnotizing rhythm that keeps you busy while your dreams die and your life fades away.
So. How do we begin to build the right habits?
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2. Learn to Recognize Dulling, Oppressing, and Limiting Patterns of Thought, Feeling, and Action
Self-improvement begins with self-knowledge. You can’t know how to get to where you want if you don’t know where you really stand. There is a reason why the words before the Oracle of Delphi, the place where many an ancient Greek leader sought wisdom, were “Know Thyself.”
Let this be an exercise in gaining self-knowledge. Let this also be the beginning of a constant quest to know yourself better so you can live your life better.
Write now five different patterns of thought and action that tend to dull your life or make you feel drained. You probably already know what they are. Deep inside. or not so deep inside. What is not worth your time or energy that you keep giving it to? Think it through. Right now.
It might be things like getting sucked into a negative conversation with a pessimistic friend or getting depressed at reading the latest terrible news. Or maybe spending too much time just reading random articles online.
Once you recognize them, the next step is to learn to break them.
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3. Learn to Break those Patterns by Shocking Yourself into Passion and Action using Philosophical Pattern Breakers
To break a limiting, oppressive, or destructive pattern, you essentially have to interrupt it by shocking yourself into awareness, which can then lead to action. You can do this by using what some people call “pattern interrupts” but I prefer to call "pattern breakers."
Generally, a pattern breaker is something unexpected that shocks our system out of the unconscious patterns that we tend to fall into. It can be anything, so long as it is sudden and unexpected enough to grab your attention: a gesture, a touch, a way of breathing, a phrase you tell yourself, or something that you can visualize.
I find it especially helpful to use philosophical questions and statements that connect me back to the philosophical mindsets that I choose to live by because they express what I take to be best in life.
A particularly powerful set of philosophical pattern breakers comes to use from Epictetus. A Stoic philosopher who was born a slave, but taught many how to live and ultimately gained his freedom. His writings survive in the form of an Enchiridion, literally a "Handbook" (for life). In section 51, Epictetus really lets you have it. Translations vary, but the main points are:
“How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself?”
“If you are careless and lazy now and keep putting things off and always deferring to the day after which you are aware of you must change in yourself, you will unconsciously proceed without making progress, and you will live and die as someone quite ordinary”
“Resolve to live as a grown-up who is making progress, and then make whatever you think best a law that you never set aside”
“And whenever you encounter anything that is difficult or pleasant, highly or lowly regarded, remember that the contest is now. You are at the Olympic Games. You cannot wait any longer”
“Your progressed is wrecked or preserved by a single day and a single event”
Besides these philosophical admonishments, there are some tried and true philosophical questions that I have tested and shared with others who have found them effective as well:
"Don't you want to get more out of this day, to make it more of an epic adventure? Remember, you may not get another one."
“When if not now?”
"Are you really going to let this small thing stop you from living the life of your dreams?"
“Come on, just decide to do it. It won't take THAT long. It won’t be THAT hard, and you know you'll feel SO good once it's done."
“Why don’t you do your future self a favor? You know they’ll be incredibly grateful and will be able to do even greater things because of it.”
So next time you’re not feeling up to the task at hand, whatever it may be, remember what Epictetus taught us. The contest of life is now. You cannot afford to wait any longer. The Flow of the World. The Fight for the Good wait for no one. So do it now. I promise you it will be worth it.
Learn to love yourself enough to give yourself the very best in life.
At the end of the day, you have to make inspiring yourself effectively a habit if you want to live an inspired life. So decide to work on it now. Inspire yourself through these philosophical reflections whenever you can. Time is literally running out. Don’t waste it any longer.
You get the best for yourself the best in life, by giving the best of yourself in life.
A life where you joyfully and consistently realize your full potential.
4. Keep Philosophical Mindset in Daily Consciousness through Gratitude Thought Spirals
It has been said before. But it is always worth repeating. The quality of your thoughts largely determines the quality of your life. So why not fill your life with the right kind of thoughts, empowering, inspiring, motivating thoughts, thoughts that make us feel and act in the ways we deeply yearn to? The concept of Thought Spirals capitalizes on this idea. It is essentially an affirmation that you run in your head repeatedly. A spiral of thoughts that continuously lifts you up and connects you with the best version of yourself. By running it, practicing, developing it, a thought spiral gets you to consistently think like the best version of your self. To consistently feel like the best version of yourself. To consistently act and to live like the best version of yourself.
I want you to stop for a second at this point. Brace your self. This may seem like a relatively small thing. I thought so when I first encountered this concept. If there is one thing that you take home from reading this, let it be that, when properly used, thought spirals are a powerful tool that ignites massive change in your emotions and actions by stoking the fire of the very best parts inside you. So, whatever you do, DO NOT LET THIS BE A THING THAT YOU READ AND THEN FORGET ABOUT. This is something that IF YOU TAKE SERIOUSLY, then it WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE.
I know this may sound exaggerated, but trust me, I wouldn't be saying if I did not fully believe it.
It is, of course, recognized that saying affirmations, often said daily, are a powerful tool for self-improvement. This is especially true if you say them with feeling, with passion, if you really live the words out, saying them loudly and proudly, with passion!
Thought Spirals are like affirmations in doing this. But they have the advantage over affirmations that they can be used anywhere (since they happen in your head). You can't always shout out awesome affirmations in life (though perhaps the world would be a better if we could!). Sometimes you're in the middle of a meeting and yet need to connect with words that inspire and ignite your soul! Here is where thought spirals can help.
At this point, you may find yourself thinking, “well hang on, man. If you don’t REALLY say it, then even if it is more convenient than affirmations, it’s less powerful.” I hear you. And I once thought this. But I think if you do the thought spiral right, really saying the words in your mind with passion, yelling them if you have to in your mind’s ear, then it should capture that same emotional force as actually saying it.
Let’s make this concrete now. Here’s a powerful thought spiral I have developed, tested, and daily apply in my life that embodies and connects me to the philosophical mindset above:
Try it out for yourself now:
I’m So Incredibly Grateful to the World!
For Giving Me the Unique Path it Has
Every Moment I Get is a Miracle I Love
Every Obstacle I Face, an Opportunity I Take
Every Day, an Epic Odyssey I Undertake.
Rehearse this in your head. Do it with passion. Don’t hold back. Imagine yourself yelling it. If you want, start by actually saying the words with passion, focus while doing it, capture that emotion, then imagine yourself repeating that action. That should get you to capture the emotion with the thought spiral. You want to build a truly impassioned thought spiral that makes you feel gratitude and excitement at the very fact that you’re alive, that you get to live, love, and grow!
I recommend you start by practicing this thought spiral for five minutes in the morning. And five minutes in the evening. But really, you can practice it whenever you have downtime. Do it in the shower. Do it while brushing your teeth. Do it while cleaning. While commuting. While waiting in line. Like any skill, the more you practice it with focus and concentration, the more it develops, and the more results it will deliver. Think of using Thought Spirals to shape your thinking, your emotions, and actions, as training a new muscle. Except this muscle has the power to instantly transform your life. So exercise it whenever you get a chance, for it is something concrete you can always use to make your life better.
The great Roman philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius rightly noted that there is a fountain of goodness always ready to gush forth within each of us if we will always dig for it. A thought spiral is a concrete and powerful way to dig for that fountain of goodness and let it gush forth so as to inspire you to make the best of everything.
If you succeed in developing this key muscle with a gratitude thought spiral, you should find yourself feeling better. More excited. more grateful. More than that, if you do it right, you should find yourself finding things to be grateful and excited about even as you do mundane tasks like cleaning and wait in line. Even if it is just that you can move and dance as you clean. Even if it’s just that you can think of dear ones and rehearse your achievements, hopes, and dreams when you’re standing in line.
The more you do a thought spiral, the stronger it should become. If you do it right, this thought spiral will become a weapon you can use to feel grateful and find excitement regardless of what is happening around you. It will be a powerful tool you can use every day to overcome obstacles in your epic journey to make your dreams come true.
Start Getting Inspired and Overcoming Procrastination Right Now
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Conclusion
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No matter how inspired we may feel and be at our best, life tends to push you into a hypnotizing rhythm.
Philosophy can be a powerful weapon in fighting back and staying inspired enough to fight for our dreams every day.
Here I shared four ways philosophy can help us stay inspired through the daily grind and overcome procrastination. But this is something that we have to keep up consistently. Especially when the going gets tough. In order to help empower you in this essential and noble endeavor, I have created a Cheatsheet of Philosophical Question/Exhortations to Help you Power Through the Tough Times. Starting Right Now. To get it, just click below and subscribe.
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When you get this resource, I will also include some other resources to shape your life for the better! These include
(1) Core Philosophical Mindsets that will liberate and empower you to live at a new level of joy, meaning, and success when you adopt them.
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AND
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(2) Other Philosophical Thought Spirals to keep those Philosophical Mindsets alive in daily consciousness and stop life's hypnotic rhythm from sucking you back into complacency.
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Subscribe To Download The Cheatsheet of Philosophical Questions and Other Philosophical Tools
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Now go forth, friend. Use this information. Take action. Make Philosophy Shape Your Life for the Better. It is those who act on information who transform their lives for the better, not those who merely gather it.