S9E10: What are you waiting for ? stop procrastinating your survival

0:00 Are you kidding me? You haven't listened to Stroke Surviving the odds of the podcast? What are you waiting for? It's a show created for stroke survivors by a stroke survivor. Top 2 podcast over 220 episodes. Come on guys, stop waiting and do it. You guessed it guys, today we are talking about what are you waiting for? Stop procrastinating.

0:27 That is the subject today. Welcome. I'm Karina, your host, creator and fellow stroke survivor. I survived A brainstem dissection 27 years ago. It led me to coma and a locked in syndrome. And as you can see, guys, I'm here with you. The show is designed to empower and inspire you and give you hope that there is so much more life after stroke.

0:54 It's also about moving forward and I show you systems and tactics and all my how to's of how I got to survive this world as a stroke survivor. So again, what are you waiting for? Grab a drink, pen and paper. The faint is of ink is better than the best memory. Come and join me here as we're recording today's show.

1:17 Before we start, well, I'm going to do a little bit of clean house. Make sure you like and follow on any platforms that you're listening to your podcast. You can also subscribe for $4.99 only. You can get 41 of my very best episodes. Those are the ones with the actions that I have taken and the mindsets that I have taken in the last 27 years that helped me become who I am today. So I'm very proud of myself and I want you to be proud of yourself.

1:49 What you can do is also share the podcast. Yep, share with Sugar Bear. I'm very big on paying it forward. And you know what, Listening is free if you get Spotify for free. And sharing the podcast is also free. So again, what are you waiting for? Guys? Do it. One hand rubs the other. You do something for me, I do something for you. I do something for you, now you can do something for me. That's the way the world turns, isn't it lovely? I'm going to give you the episode plan. This is how we're going to be doing it today. We're going to talk about why we do, why we procrastinate, what it means to procrastinate, and how to go about and fix it. I'm going to give you, I think it's six different scenarios that I have.

2:46 We're going to run through this. Of course, I'm going to leave you all my coordinates that you can reach me if you have any questions or if you'd like to have an episode dedicated to you with a specific topic, you go ahead and reach out to me. Sounds good. Well, it's only fair to say that the very first reason why people procrastinate is fear of failure. Fear of not measuring up and having people tell you I told you so.

3:19 The person that has that fear is usually a perfectionist where things are never good enough. There's always something else that can be done. Anything to delay. It's basically a delaying tactic. Well, in order to fix that type of fear, well guess what, You have to practice self forgiveness and self compassion.

3:45 The second reason why people procrastinate is very often because they get overwhelmed. They feel like they're being bombolated by too many choices or too many tasks at hand and it's just too much. It's much easier to not do anything and just stay immobile and fix. And as stroke survivors, we have a lot to do, but we can't do everything at once. Guys, you can only take one bite at a time. Those people are usually people that have a lack of motivation. Many stroke survivors find themselves in this category, feel overwhelmed by their own thoughts, their own feelings. Add on the thoughts and feelings of each and every other person in their lives.

4:40 It just becomes too much, creates a lot of resentment, and again creates a lack of motivation. Well, the positive of this and how to fix it is to create less anxiety. How? By doing the thing one thing, even if it's a bad thing. You will be more satisfied and less anxious by doing something than by doing nothing. Does that make sense?

5:17 I have a question for you guys. Is there a part of your recuperation of all your different therapies, whether you're going to therapies or not? Maybe you're doing it at home by choice or because you don't have a choice. Is there something you absolutely don't like? Do you do it or do you not do it? Also, many people have a task aversion. They I they so don't want to do the thing. They would rather eat dirt than do what they got to do. They would rather stay on their couch and or play on their video games or do anything else.

6:14 But those type of people simply need to have a more straightforward goal. I know that I talk very, how can I say generically about stroke survival? Because I know, I know how huge it is at the beginning to tie your shoes or to tie your buttons or to put a pillowcase or to fold the pair of a towel. These are very, very big things for a stroke survivor. And as an adult, you might see it as a very minus thing, something that you should have been able to do. Now that you've had the stroke, you've kind of regressed and you're starting at the starting line, you have to realize that it's OK, Don't feel guilty about that. Don't ever feel guilty because you have to start over again. So when you have task aversion

7:24 and you avoid doing what you got to do is like I said, you don't have a goal in mind. You don't have a set goal is to you could do this, you could do that, you could get this, you could get that. It becomes too much. Well, if you have one goal, I'll give you the Tiger Woods example because I love Tiger Woods. Well, when he started the golfing at a very young age, his goal and his dad's goal was for him to become one of the greatest golfers out there.

8:01 So he was, that was the goal. He could have done anything. He could have been anybody, but that was the goal. So what did he do for that? He hit balls and he practiced and he got the best shoes and he did every single thing that he had to. So if your goal is as a stroke survivor to cut your meat in your plate, aren't you going to do everything in your power and aren't you going to get every tool on Amazon that is going to help you reach that goal?

8:41 People that have a task aversion, they, that they, they, they, they, they really don't want to do it. They avoid it. They're easily distracted. So one way to fix this is to avoid distraction. Don't avoid the task, avoid distractions. Put your phone on mute. Not on vibration, on mute. Or maybe close the TV because then you're going to stop dusting your middle table because you're going to be focusing on the show on the TV instead of on the task at hand.

9:23 Maybe you want to wipe the table with your affected hand and damp cloth and there's something on the radio and whoop, your ears are going. It'll do anything to avoid this. Well, avoid distractions. There you go. Uh huh. Next one is fear altogether. Never mind fear, fear of failure, fear altogether.

9:51 So people that feel fear, false evidence appearing real, that's the acronym. People that fear fear are very easily overwhelmed. And like I said before, when you're overwhelmed, you feel bomb elated. You just don't know what to think. There's so many choices and you're so afraid of maybe doing the wrong choice, so you decide not to do any choice.

10:22 That's not the way to go about it. Indecisiveness is the problem of the person that's fearful of everything. Indecisiveness is the thing that you need to stop in order to fix it. And one thing that I do, and I so understand that because I would get, and I still do actually get very easily when there's too many choices in front of me.

10:53 I, I, I don't know where to put my head. So I will ask. OK, Just give me two or three options. That's it. Yeah, but there's AI. Don't want it. I don't want it now, 27 years down the road. I know what works for me and what doesn't. I know that I don't want to be afraid. I don't want to get overwhelmed, and I don't want to get pissed off. Just give me the freaking two or three choices, you know, and, and and and then my life can go on. And I know that within those three choices, I'm gonna pick the one that's best for me.

11:34 And even if I don't, hey, I'll pick another one. Last but not least, lack of skills. Example, I'm not techie for two sets. I can do a podcast, I can press play, I can press send, but that's it. So all this AI shit that's going on right now that is overwhelming me because I'm not like that. So I don't feel like I'm skillful for that. Now, if I wanted to be a kitchen chef, if you wanted to be a chef, could you be?

12:16 And you have no experience whatsoever, but that's what you want to do now that you're a stroke survivor, you might say, no, I'm never going to do it because I don't have the skills. I don't have the knife skills, I don't have the nose for things. I don't like fish, all these things. Lack of skills often make people procrastinate because and I know I know first hand man, there's so many wonderful features offered to me by Spotify, but because I'm afraid of doing something wrong, I would rather not do and keep doing the thing that I've been doing. Does that make sense?

12:55 I'm guilty of this and lack of skill also effects effects stroke survivors. Why people that suffer from lack of skill have poor time management. I know you guys have heard me say tomorrow starts tonight. Now if you know that you take 5 minutes to put your shoes on with the shoehorn and you try to Velcro it or tie it and it's time consuming and you wait until the last minute before you leave the door and you're going to be late because we can't control traffic and the red lights and this and that, had you have better time management? Had you planned, you would probably not be in the predicament you're in and you would give yourself sufficient time.

13:54 So people that have these, this lack of skill, this poor time management, they also have unrealistic expectations. Oh, it's going to take two minutes to go to the corner store and buy some milk? Honey, nothing in life takes 2 minutes. Not even taking a freaking break in the bathroom. Nothing takes 2 minutes.

14:19 So expect the unexpected. And the way to fix this is to maybe have better time management. Get yourself an agenda, a clock, allow yourself plenty of time. Give yourself a 15 minute heads up to arrive at an appointment. So if your appointment's at 2:15, say in your mind, my appointment's at 2:00. That way you're not going to be late. You're always going to be early.

14:47 These are little things that add up guys, as stroke survivors pick, you got the pick a little litter, pick the one you want and justice. Keep your eye on the ball. Just focus on that guys. That's what I had for you today. I hope this was useful. I hope that you enjoyed today's show. Know that I love you immensely.

15:11 Make sure you like, follow and subscribe on any and all platforms that you listen to and I will be leaving you all my credentials in the description. Have a good one.