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You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast presented by gohighlevel.com for a free 30 day trial of the best all in one digital marketing software tool on the planet. Just go to gohighlevel.com travis what you are avoiding is probably what you need to be doing welcome back to the show. Today we are talking a little bit about the work that you're avoiding because this is typically the thing that is actually probably going to move the needle more than anything else. Now that isn't always the case. Of course this means you should interrogate that thought, that question, because it doesn't always mean that, but it does definitely indicate that you might be onto something. So I this is, this is something that I think is probably the ultimate productivity hack because it's the, it's the idea of the eat the frog. I don't know if you guys have heard this illustration. It's kind of a gross one. I don't know who came up with this, but, but it's widely used in a lot of circles. But essentially the the concept is if every day you had to eat a frog, when would you do it? And most people would wait until the very last possible second of the day to do it. The problem is, is that you live the entire day in constant anxiety and a little bit of fear because you know that there's something uncomfortable coming at some point during this day. And before your head hits the pillow, you know you're going to have to do this thing. So the correct answer is that you should do that thing first. It's to basically take the biggest, scariest, most needle moving thing that you have on your to do list and prioritize that as the number one thing that you to do as soon as you wake up that day. And if you can do that, then it brings you down this path of positive momentum where you start getting more and more and more things done. Most of the time what happens is we have this laundry list of to do items and we start prioritizing them based on the things that we can do quickly because we want to feel that satisfaction of checking off the box. So you have 12 things you need to do. One of them is very important, but it's probably going to take a lot of deep work. It's going to take a lot of time, maybe a lot of research. You know, it's going to be a painful process to do that thing. So you do these other seven things on the list of 12 first that don't really move the needle, but they're also not really difficult, they're easier to do. So you just kind of pop up your computer and start getting to work on those things. You start checking off some boxes. Feels good. Then by the time you get down to the eating the frog piece, you've already used a bunch of your mental energy and capacity for the day. And then, and then by the time you get to it, it's easier just to. Maybe we'll just put this off to tomorrow, you know what I mean? Like maybe we'll, maybe we'll just figure this thing out by next week or something like that. So you, you, the idea is the thing that you're avoiding is probably the thing that you need to be doing and it's probably the thing that you need to be doing first, very first thing when you, when, when you wake up. Like if you know that you gotta make cold calls, if you know that you gotta, you know, send some pitch emails or you know that you gotta take some sales calls, whatever it is, do it first. Just make that the very first thing that you do when you wake up and it'll probably give you a much more productive day. So there's a few thoughts that I had on this. First off, avoidance is information. If you're avoiding it then it's probably an indicator that you should be doing that thing. Second thing I thought about is procrastination is just pain postponed. This is sort of in line with the idea of trying to avoid struggle in life, which is what most people do. And frankly it's, it's engineered into, it's hard.
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That's why you rack hardwired into us biologically. Like we as humans are constantly looking for the path of least resistance. That's what we're doing. Psychologically, it's a survival tactic. It's to put in the least amount of effort possible because we want to conserve energy so that we can keep that energy. If, you know, a lion shows up and we, we need to escape the lion and the tribe. So these sort of, these biological traits are hardwired into us and if we're not careful, then they can run our entire lives. So you cannot avoid the struggle of life. Life will always have struggle. It's always going to have pain. So the classic example of this would be something like your health. If you, you know, going to the gym a lot of times is not fun. It's hard, it's painful, it's, it's annoying to have to push that last rep that you don't think that you can do, but you gotta try it. And everything in you is telling you not to do it. And you're pushing that weight up and, and it's really difficult and you're struggling and you can choose to not do that. That is totally within your free will. You have, you are totally fine to just skip going to the gym. You know what? I don't like walking. I don't like running, I don't like biking, I don't like lifting weights. I don't like doing this thing, therefore I am to do it. But then what happens is you're just postponing the struggle because at some point it's going to catch up to you. Meaning that your physical health will be a priority at some point. It just depends on whether or not you are the one who's deciding to make it the priority or if life is going to be the one that says that you have to make this a priority. Because the, you know, what do they say that the, the healthy person has 99 problems, the unhealthy person only has one. It's the only thing that you're going to focus on at some point. So you can't avoid the struggle of taking care of your physical health. It's just, it's just which struggle are going to choose? Are you going to choose the struggle that happens in 15, 20, 30 years from now or 10 years from now because you are not willing to put in the work now, or you're not willing to engage in the struggle now, or are you going to choose the struggle now so the later life isn't. Life has a much lower odds, I, I guess I should say, of throwing health struggles your way because you get diabetes and you have heart medication because of your high blood pressure and you, you, you, you know, get one of these terrible doctor sits down, gives you the news type of a scenario. You know that these types of things are what's going to happen ultimately if you postpone the struggle with your health. And that's the same thing that happens on a daily basis with even just simple thing like your task list. The things that you just have to get accomplished is that procrastination is just pain postponed. So you can choose to engage in, in that pain immediately now and have that be somewhat within your control to experience that pain or that struggle, or you can just keep putting it off, putting it off, putting it, putting it off, putting it. And then you go through the struggle of not having done the most important things and then you just, it's, you're basically choosing a little bit of pain all the time rather than just choosing a higher degree of pain siloed into a shorter period of time. And if you think about it logically, only one of them is within your control and only one of them will alleviate some of that pain later on, right? So the total volume of pain that you'll experience by just continuing to push off this thing that you know you need to do is going to be way worse than if you just decided, I'm going to go ahead and engage in the struggle in this and just do it right away and get it done. So procrastination is pain postponed. The project needs to get done, right? You can either work on it for 30 minutes, 30 minutes a day every day this week, or you can make yourself stay up for four hours cramming it in the day before the deadline, you know. And by the way, which one do you think is going to get a yield a better result, right? It's like, it's like, it's like studying for, for tests in school. You know, like, you can study a little bit here, study a little bit here, pay attention in class, do a little bit of reading, do a little extra, and then by the time the test comes the night before, you're not, you're not worried about it, you're not stressed, you're not anxious, or you can just put it all off until the day before. Stay up till 3am cramming and studying as much as you possibly can. And it's like, will you pass the test? Yeah, probably. Like you probably cram and, and pass the test, but you probably didn't actually learn the majority of the material or at least didn't understand the material, which means the learning process didn't take place, which means the end result of having learned the material, the goal of having learned the material is not actually going to be the goal that's reached. It's more just became the goal of passing the test. So procrastination is just pain postponed. You cannot avoid it. You're going to have to do it. So just do it. And then lastly, the last thing I wrote down is discomfort is growth. So train yourself to move toward discomfort rather than to move away from discomfort. And I know again, this is difficult because it's biologically hard, hardwired in us to try to avoid the struggle. It's hard, it's hard, it's difficult. And we don't want to be uncomfortable. That's why our entire society seeks comfort. That's why everything from your house to your car to your office to the gym, it's all climate controlled. We don't want to be in the cold, we don't want to be in the heat. Everything is built for us to get more and more and more comfortable. So try your hardest to engineer a lifestyle that trains you to move toward that discomfort, because that is where growth is. Growth always lies in discomfort. If you're constantly comfortable, you're living in the comfort zone. It might feel good right now, but later on it's going to cause more struggle than if you would've just chosen a little bit of struggle right now. So avoidance is information. Procrastination is pain postponed. Discomfort is growth. So train yourself to move toward it. So if you're avoiding something, ask yourself the question, am I avoiding this because it needs to get done, or am I avoiding this because somebody else should be doing this? Because that's why I say at the very beginning of this is like, doesn't necessarily mean that you are the one that needs to be doing it, but it does mean that it should be addressed. And if you're avoiding it, there's probably an indicator that it means that you should engage in this to some degree. Now, probably the majority of the time it means that you should be doing it. But sometimes it means, okay, well I just need to outsource this. But either way, it needs to be addressed. And I want to finish off by saying this is not just about tasks. This is not just about completing the projects that are on your plate for your work or for your business or whatever it is that you're working on. This also applies across, you know, conversations. It applies across decision making. You know, it's wild. It's wild to think that people will live their entire lives in a constant state of a little bit of pain just to avoid the deep pain of a difficult conversation. Everything you want in life, almost, man, is on the other side of a difficult conversation that you're not willing to have. Whether it's firing an employee that, you know you need to fire, it's like, man, but I really like that person. It's like, look, I get it, okay? But that does not mean that that person can just remain in your business getting a salary and not actually delivering results. And it's like, you know, like, but they're good, you know, they, they, they, they show up, they, they have a good attitude about it. And it's like, okay, but are they performing to the standard that you set for the company? If they're not performing to that standard, then it's time to have the difficult conversation. And difficult conversation, by the way, does not mean you have to fire them immediately. It means you might need to put them on performance plan, you might need to help and get your hands dirty a little bit and, and have the difficult conversation. But it's like, you're going to avoid this difficult conversation so that you can be in pain every day for the, you know, infinite period of time that you're going to own this business because you just don't want to have the difficult conversation with this one person, even though their involvement in the company means that you're going to have to, whatever, do, do more of their work. You know what I mean? Like, just doesn't make any sense. You need to have the difficult, difficult conversation. And this happens a lot of times, especially in, like, marriages and interpersonal relationships where, you know, you, it seem it's seemingly something small. So you don't want to make it a big deal. You know, it's just, it's something that happened. You're like, man, I wish that whatever. I wish you would put your dishes in the dishwasher. You know what I mean? And it's like, you, you, you. It's a little bit of pain because not that big of a deal. So instead of engaging into a conversation and making it A big deal and turning into this blow up that you think might happen. You just let it go, but you let it go for two years, and then five years, and then 10 years, and then 15 years, and then you're all of a sudden harboring this, this bank of bitterness that you've built over the last decade, two decades of your life because you're just never willing to have a conversation, be like, hey, it really bothers me for some reason that you are leaving your dishes in the sink. This one, a conversation that my wife and I have had several times where it's just like, look, we'll both just say this just to say something, like, I know this sounds silly, and I've tried to like, not think about it that much, and I've tried to let it go, but I don't know what it is. This just, it bothers me. And I feel like you should just know that it bothers me. And if you have that conversation, then at that point you can, you can move forward with a different plan of action. But at least you've spoken your mind, you've gotten it off your chest, and you can actually maybe build a plan that works. Cause you might say something like that and then it might prompt something from your spouse that's like, well, I wish that you would turn off the lights when you leave a room. Okay, well, now it's sort of like a. Okay, well, now I understand that you also have this little thing and I have this little thing. So maybe it's just a matter of, of we both get over it and I put your dishes in the dishwasher and you turn off the lights for me, and this is something that we are going to do for the rest of our lives. Or maybe it just turns into something like, okay, you know what? I'm going to work on the lights, you work on putting your dishes in the dishwasher, and then we can move forward from there. But if you just are, if you, if you spend your entire life just avoiding all the difficult conversations, you spend your life avoiding the difficult decisions, you spend your life avoiding the difficult tasks and projects, then you're inevitably going to get the pain that is out of your control that comes later on by not engaging in those things now. So stop avoiding the thing that you know that you need to do. Put it on the list and do it first thing, as soon as, as soon as your eyes open in the morning, you know, get up, get a cup of coffee, get rolling, and then just dive into the first thing that you've been avoiding because I promise you you'll find better results and you'll find better momentum in your day and then you'll have better relationships if you apply this across, you know, conversations and decisions and things like that as well. Just remember your biggest leap forward is usually hiding behind the work that you're avoiding. So stop avoiding that work, start engaging in that work and have a great day. That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for tuning in. Catch you guys next time. Peace.
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