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If you struggle with procrastination, this coaching session with Evelyn is a must listen. My name is Evelyn. I’m 27 years old. I came from San Francisco, California. Procrastination is causing me to just build a wall and I can’t go through it. This is killing me inside, is affecting my career choices, is affecting my education and I know I could do amazing things, but for some reason I just can’t get out and just go and do it. I’m in a big hole right now. That’s another reason why I guess I procrastinate cause I already have, I’ve made a big hole in myself, and within my life that I don’t know how to get out of that holy.

Evelyn and I have a profound conversation. That’s gonna shatter everything you’ve ever thought about procrastination. You’re about to learn that chronic procrastination has very deep roots. In this session, it may trigger you if you suffered or witnessed abuse like Evelyn has. There is one time we were upstairs in the house and my dad just body slap my mom and my mom did not get up, so… And ever since that moment, everything else does he brace and I just picture that in my mind.

You’re listening to live coaching sessions with real people. Hi, Mel. I’m Aisha Hamid from Pakistan. Love you Mel. Hi Mel. I wanna be coached by you. Pick me, Mel. Hi, Mel. My name is Lisa. I’m from Brazil. 54321, come on Mel Robbins, please pick me.

Facing real problems. Anxiety of what other people think. Self-acceptance is my biggest thing. Procrastination is causing me to just build a wall. The fear of losing weight. That should stip this fuck.

And experiencing real change. That’s powerful. That was the real talking. Oh, shit. Now I really know what to do and I feel empowered. That is nuts, Mel. You blew my shit away. This is Kick Ass with Mel Robbins.

Well, hi. Hi. Welcome. Thank you, thank you so much. How do you feel? Nervous. Really? Yeah. What’s happening in your body right now? I can’t explain it. I can’t, you know? Cause I’m very nervous and you’re really in front of me. So tell me why you wanted coaching? What are you struggling with? I’m 27 years old and I haven’t finish college. I haven’t even step foot into my career’s plans and goals. Because I’ve been procrastinating my whole life pretty much that I just don’t know what it is and why. Like there’s something that just does not click. And I guess the thing that sucks is I’ve tried everything schedules, to do lists, reading, writing, journaling, meditation, a gratitude journal and exercising and I just, I don’t know, I don’t, I don’t know. And I just hoped I could find out why I’am procrastinating. We’re gonna figure it out today. Oh, yeah. I’m 100% confident. You can stop worrying right now because I know we’ll figure out the answer. Okay.

What did you think your life would look like at the age of 27? I was always as environmental friendly person so I knew I was gonna have toilets that saved water and the showers that saved waters, a house in bay area with my Toyota preas and just like an eco-friendly house and a garden and not a family yet, but traveling. And then I didn’t finish that, dropped out and then you know just been working around. You feel the pressure? Absolutely, yes. I feel the pressure. I’m 27 years old. I don’t have a college degree. I’m not, you know making the income that I want. I am not confident. I have a low self-esteem, you know, I just, I’m 27 years and I feel like I had enough time to figure it by now. Do you have a question about whether or not you’re gonna make it? I want to say no, but the way I’m heading it’s most likely a yes, you know, like… In the morning I’tell myself like I’m going to be successful. I ask God for or the higher power to use me for something, use me for something. I know I could, especially with, you know, the life that I lived, I’ve seen things. I want to help other people, but I don’t know. I just want to be used for something.

I think we all feel this calling to want to be used for something important and we all feel this tension between where we are and what we hope to be doing. And that tension and the space between where you are and that next chapter in that place that you want to get to, that can be either really healthy thing that becomes a path that’s lead, that calls you forward or that distance can start to feel like a sledgehammer that keeps pounding you in place because the distance feels so big. And my concern about where you’re at is that because you had a defined vision about where you thought you would be at the age of 27 and you’re starting to convince yourself that it may never happen and that we’ve got to change immediately. Because it’s very hard to build momentum and to rebuild your confidence if you’re having to fight the sledgehammer that you’re hitting yourself with. It makes a lot of sense.

Do you remember one of the first times that you procrastinated? Yes, I can go back to elementary school. Okay. I member there is a scholarship, right? I used to do a lot of volunteer work since elementary school, high school, etc. And I had the most hours out of all the students in my whole elementary school, the most hours. And there is a scholarship for students who , right? Like there is a $5000 scholarship. And it was the only person that applied was this other girl who volunteered at the library probably like 3 hours, like not even nowhere near amount of hours I put into. How many hours do you think you had done? I’ve done at least 500. 500 hours? Or more, yes. I’ve done, yes, a lot of hours. Okay, so you’ve got this scholarship. No, I didn’t apply to it and… Did you want to apply? I did. And I knew like I was gonna win, but I never submitted it and she won. And I knew like, I knew that it was my scholarship but I didn’t do it. I did not submitted.

Well, let’s go back, let’s go back. You have the application. Yeah. And was there any issue with you being able to fill it out? I think I just got nervous. Was there a part of you think that didn’t feel that you deserved it? Or did you not want the attention? I definitely do not like attention. What do you mean? I don’t want to, I just, you know, kind of like sit in the corner. Like for example when I got interested by NASA, all my friends were super excited and I wouldn’t know tell people. And my friends were like you’re interning in NASA girl, like say it, you know? You know, like you’re a girl from, you know, you grew up in North Richmond where there is not, not a lot of people get the opportunity. And North Richmond is a very bad neighborhood by the way. And not a lot of people have done especially from where I grew up what I’ve done and you know, I mean I just, I don’t like the attention. I like tip toeing people things.

Well, I think that it’s a problem if the fact that you don’t like attention means that A you don’t celebrate what you do, B you don’t talk about what you do this and C that you don’t actually go for opportunities where you get celebrated or where you become more visible because of it. So not seeking attention isn’t about, it’s not a bad thing if it’s not limiting your life. The problem is, I think that your discomfort with having the attention on you is severely limiting your aspirations and your ability to achieve your goals. You know what it would just happen, you just started like something went off in your head. I just never thought this that was me. Subconsciously I never knew that me not wanting the attention affected me. I just I would never, I’ve read like I said, I read dozens a lot of books and this is never been brought up against…

You see I think there’s a really interesting thing in your story that we’re to explore. So one is that you’ve raised now, where you came from, your neighborhood this stuff that you’ve achieved versus where you’ve come from. So that’s a huge piece of this. The second thing is that you talked a little bit about how your confidences is shrinking. Absolutely. And I see you as somebody who is trapped in this cycle of having huge dreams and aspirations, and this desire for a super big fulfilling life and you’re like in quicksand. And with every day that passes your sinking deeper and deeper into it and getting further and further away from actually achieving what you want. Yes, absolutely. That sounds exactly how I feel. I don’t look down on no one but the other day I went to the store and there were this older lady working at attic as a cash register and she just looked really tired and I looked at her and I was like if I don’t change my life that could be me in the future. I’m not trying to talk bad about her, you know, I don’t want to put her down, but I just got extremely scared and I was like, I don’t want to be a cash register at a store, but the way, where I’m going, that’s where my life looks like it’s gonna end up.

Well, you know it’s interesting, is that you’re gonna make it end up like that. And instead of being the one that got out of the neighborhood, you’re gonna prove that nobody does. Exactly and I always told myself I never want to be part of statistics and I never want to be part of… I think I read a while ago at the preacher, CNN, and they said like 70% of the people don’t get out of their social, economic… What ever group of class that you’re in. Exactly, and I was like I’m not going to be part of that 70%. There’s no way but you know the way I’m heading, the way I’m procrastinating, the way I’m not doing the things I need to do to get out of the cycle is, this is… I don’t want to say it. It’s hard to say it. I could end up being part of that 70%. And if you are, it’s because you actually made yourself.

So were you told, when you were growing up, were you told that you’re smart all the time? Yes, I was told I was smart all the top. I know exactly what happened to you, by the way now. I do. I actually do. We’re gonna fix this. Okay, so I will… So you went to a special school? No, I went to, I was in San Francisco and it was completely different. Did you grow up in like a really rough neighborhood? When I was in San Francisco, I wasn’t in the city, then I went to get school and then I moved to Richmond, California. Okay. And that’s when everything changed. How old were you? I was nine and I remember I was late two or three grades above math, English, and in all that and then so would have classes with the older students. What happened to you when you started to see that you’re the youngest in the classes and that you weren’t getting challenged or pushed away that you had in the better school? I slowly started just kinda just given up just like okay well this is this is how it is. I just pretty much, I remember looking to my class. I was sitting down looking my class and I was like I could predict everyone’s future. Pretty much all the girls were teen moms. Two the guys went to prison. Two of them are dead, if not more dead. So I guess I just being around the environment. Coming from a great San Francisco, great education, great school, great teachers, loving teacher, supporting teachers to teachers that don’t care, parents that don’t care. I guess that was a shift for me. It was different. I think that you’re still there. I’m still there. I do. Okay. I think you never recovered from the feeling of what it’s like to have hopes and dreams and people to push you. And to feel your potential getting tapped and to feel yourself growing. And to then go into an environment where all of that disappears and it’s up to you to push yourself. Yes.

You know, tell me a little bit more about your family. It’s okay. It’s okay. Tell me more about your family. So my mom and my dad, just my whole life they were cats and dogs, just biting. I’ve seen my dad beat up my mom and I saw the angry woman, my mom, because of that my whole life. I would say I never enjoyed my childhood. I’ve never been happy and then in 2008 when the whole economy crush, my parents split. We lost the house. My dad left my mom. We were pretty much homeless. And if it wasn’t for me, like my mom couldn’t use a credit, her credit because her credit was messed up but everything was on me. I got us a renter home with my credit. That’s one thing I’ve always take care of my bills just because I’ve seen my parents live paycheck to paycheck and I never wanted to live that lifestyle. Then I had to go to school. I was still volunteering. I was taking care of my little sisters and I just, I guess I wouldn’t really call my mom and my dad a family. Don’t get me wrong, as much damage my dad has caused, I do love my dad. And I love my mom. If you tell me what’s the happiest moment in your life, I couldn’t think much of it. I was a little, there’s very little things that I enjoy about my family. Just my mom, you know, she used to save up, she’s used to save up all month and she’ll go buy me some tacos and burritos in San Francisco and then take me to twin peak and look at the view and we would eat the burritos and look at San Francisco. I would say those are one of the few, just few moment that I was, that made me happy. What made you happy about that moment? What was it? Just not seeing hate, anger, pain, just not seeing that. And those that there’s not a lot of moments like that so…

Well. I’m sorry. Thank you. I’m sorry that that was your experience. I mean that fucking sucks. And it’s a lot, it’s a lot for a kid. It’s a lot to watch your dad beat up your mom. That was, that’s, that’s… Did it happen all the time? It did. It did. It happened. They were very different. My dad, my mom would would say horrible things, horrible horrible things. It was horrible things and my dad just hit her. I think the way, I can’t, I can’t really answer it, he did it a lot just because, I just, I get kind of numb and know there’s a lot of times I just numbed it out and I just could replay this one time like I just there’s just time we were upstairs in the house and my dad just body slap my mom and my mom did not get up. So and ever since that moment everything just erase, I just picture that in my mind. Do you find yourself kind of going numb a lot, as an adult? I was, yes I would say so. I would, you know like I would say when I procrastinated when I procrastinate I go numb.

You know there’s so much that you’re carrying. The experience that I have listening to you is first of all I’m really moved by just how courageous you are and by how successful you are. How old were you 18? I was like, yeah. Based on your credit, you were able to rescue your mom and get her housing. I mean that is un fucking believable. I was, I mean, its… I’m not really tell people this just I think I don’t, it’s just… This idea of the discomfort that you feel with being seen. And so the things that I think really started to cement, this trap that you’re in mentally and you call it procrastination, and it’s very clear that the form of procrastination that you have is one where you know exactly what you need to be doing. You know exactly what your aspirations are and then you get trapped in your head thinking about what you need to do. And then as the time ticks away you start to become numb about your ability to get it done. Yes, absolutely.

I think there are two massive things that happen to you that have never been properly put in the past or properly explained so that you as an adult can understand what you survived as a kid. And the first one is, you went from a school in San Francisco where people saw potential in you and you were motivated and you were inspired and you were the kid that was going to be the first in your family. Yes, yes, I remember one time I said I was gonna be the first female president. Fantastic, can you run right now. We need You. But I like you had all of this inside of you in an environment that was really coaching you to grow how you think. And then you get to a place in Richmond where all of a sudden, you were in a place where nobody saw you. Was the abuse happening at this point? Definitely when we moved to Richmond, there is a lot of fights and… Did your grades start to drop when you went to Richmond? That’s when I noticed that everything just, you know, went down. Did the fighting and all the stuff with your parents ramp-up at same time? Absolutely yes. Especially, I just remember 08 like, I don’t know why but I just remember 08. This is pretty shitty year for a lot of us. Yes, and… How old were you at 08? 18 for my birthday’s in February, so…

So you were a great student, you end up you’re top of the class, super pumped, going to be the first female president, you moved to a shitty in a neighborhood, your parents marriage starts to fall apart. Yes. Your dad started beating up your mom. Yes. You start numbing out, you start withdrawing a little bit from school and this is the moment, this is where you start to become invisible. Yes, that sums up my life. And maybe you didn’t want attention because it meant something would happen at home. As your grades slipped did you get more trouble at home? See the thing is, I wouldn’t tell my parents. So in addition to your grades dropping and your own self-esteem about it dropping you now have a giant lie going on. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And the abuse and the violence and the financial pressure. Yes. Have you ever stopped to consider how much you’ve survived? No, no, not at all. I feel like it’s just, I kinda see, you know, it’s just life and I’m surviving. But the one thing I do hate is because I remember I would beg my mom to leave my dad. I would beg her. There was always an excuse so I try not to say excuses. I know procrastination is excuse but I just, I hate saying excuses. Because I saw that what, that would whrer my mom ended up, excuses.

I’m asking you all these questions because I don’t think that the core issue is procrastination. One of the things about witnessing abuse like that is you went numb. So any moment in your life the way that this can play out is that any moment where you’re about to have to do something that’s kinda scary or you’re going to you know put yourself out there, it can trigger these feelings of fear. Yes. And the thing that you have trained yourself to do is to go numb. And so I think one of the issues may be that you are in a pattern where you are getting triggered in your life because of stress and you go back to responding to it like you did when you were nine years old. You need to go talk to somebody about the fact that you may suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. That witnessing what you witnessed as a kid has given you PTSD. Does that make sense? Does that feel like it could be true, does it feel? I kinda, I kinda wanna say, I wanna say no because I don’t want to accept it. I love your honesty. But it sounds right.

What are the things that you procrastinate about? All school just you know I wanted to learn how to do calligraphy. About a year ago I said I was. I never, I’m still in letter B, I just.. At least you did two of them. Yeah but everything you did just say it’s true. So I just I think there’s some denial, maybe. My business partner and my best friend had a upbringing where she witnessed and experienced a lot of abuse. Okay. And it wasn’t, it was only recently that a very skilled therapist connected the dots and made her realized it’s not depression, it’s not anxiety, it’s not procrastination, it’s not bipolar, it’s not all this other shit you think it is. You suffer from PTSD and there are triggers that happens to you in your day-to-day life like the moment you think you’re going to get in trouble, the moment somebody’s gonna call you out, the moment that you’re sitting in a class and the teacher’s gonna call on you and you don’t know the answer and oh, shit. That triggers something innate in you and you immediately go numb like that’s your go to. The thing that we know about procrastination is that, it is not has nothing to do with the school. It has nothing to do with calligraphy. It has nothing to do with completing things. Okay.

The reason why you procrastinate is because procrastination is a form of relieving stress. It is definitely. It is, this is, it is. What are all the stresses that you have right now in your life? Just list them. Finance, okay, my mom. She’s a single mom, my dad, my little family, me not accomplishing the things I need to just enough school. Just graduating from college is always in the back of my mind. That’s always in the back of my mind and not being happy, you know, just having a really low self-esteem, like all these things are just there every day. Well that’s a shit load. Anything else that you want to add to the list of stresses that you carry around with you? I do but I don’t want to talk it. Keep going. That one. Not loving myself. What else? I feel I can’t love other people. I want to love them. I feel like I’m an anger bitter person. You? Yes. You are? Yes, I feel like it, like I feel like I’m just sometimes negative. I think you have a good reason to be pissed off at your dad and your mom. Yeah and that’s why take the anger out. Is there any smidge of this that is motivated by your anger at your parents. I’m not gonna give you the satisfaction of watching me succeed. I do want to prove them wrong. Not that they ever was like no you can do it but I just, and I don’t want to make them proud just I feel like they don’t deserve that, but… That’s what I’m talking about.

I think that there’s a part of that is subconsciously working against you, that you’re so pissed at your parents and actually completing college would make them proud. I know it’s weird but I do think that that’s a small piece of this. If you’re worried about finances and your mother and your father and your family and whether or not you ever gonna finish college and your low self-esteem, you got a ton of stress. So you’ve got your check board and if you check off all the easy stuff cause your already hold non to all the hard stuff and then you’re supposed to turn your attention to history and history requires your brain to turn on and focus and your brain looks at you and says girl, you see all this shit that I’m worried about? I don’t wanna think about history right now. I want to zone out. I wanna watch cat videos, I don’t wanna, like get on social media, I don’t wanna re-detect, what, I need a break. I need a break from worrying about mom. I need a break from worry about dad. I need a break from beating myself up. Can we just zone out on social media? And you’re like… That sounds like exactly how I feel, like that sounds, like that’s a lot you like there.

That is procrastination. It’s a way to relieve stress. You zone out on social media and you zone out on Facebook and you zone out and watch cat Videos and viral videos as a way to A avoid doing anything that makes your brain work and B as a way to combat the general stress that you feel. Does that make sense? Yes, it’s kind of like a getting to the root of it, and then what I never saw, I always saw, the stump. Everything you have just told me I can never I’ve never done the roots. I’ve never seen it, never felt it, I just, maybe I tried numbing it but I never felt it or, I’ve only seen the stump. Right, the stump is procrastination. Yes. Yes, you know, see here’s the thing that I love about you is that you’re so relatable and I mean even though I don’t have the exact same story as you, I can relate to everything that you’re talking about. And the fact is, we’re all working on the stump. We’re trying to like knock the stump down and the truth is, you gotta dig out the roots because it’s never about procrastination. It’s about the stress that’s causing you to procrastinate. It’s about the unresolved bullshit from your past that is still with you right now. And in order for you to get all those things that you want and there’s no doubt in my mind, Evelyn, that you can get everything that you want that you will be a very successful and a very happy woman. And you will get all the things that you dream about, but you will not be able to do it until you free yourself of all of the burden from your past that you are still carrying forward right now.

The reason why you can’t get your history homework done is because of what you witnessed as a nine-year-old. The reason why you cannot complete school is because of the pressure you felt as a highschooler to take care of your mother. The reason why you don’t seem to be able to break through this habit of procrastinating all the time in this numbness that you feel is because of the fear that you felt in that school and in your household. What are you as a 27-year-old right now need to go back and tell the nine-year-old? What did no adult tell you that you wish somebody had? As simple as it sounds, I just wanna say, I would tell, I hug myself and tell myself it’s going to be okay. It wasn’t okay. It wasn’t. Did you feel invisible in that school? Yes.

You know there’s something else that I think it’s really important for you to understand so there’s a professor that teaches at Stanford. Her name is Carol Dweck and she’s written this incredible book called mindset. And she is the bad ass PhD, that about 20 years ago discovered that there are two kinds of mindsets the people have. So there’s a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. And one of the things that I want you to understand is that when you have a growth mindset, what a growth mindset means is that there’s really no limit to what you can learn. There’s no limit to your potential, that you’re the kind of person that knows deep in your bones that if you try, if you work a little bit harder, if you keep at it that you will succeed, that you will get the hang of it, that you will learn, that history will get easier, you know that it’ll all work out. That’s a growth mindset, okay? Through hard work you can achieve what you want. A fixed mindset is when you think that your potential has a limit. One of the reasons why I asked you if you were constantly told that you’re smart is because if you’re told that you’re smart, early on, and you are praised, when you get good grades, what can happen is you can develop a fixed mindset. And what that means is, through no fault of anybody you’re told that you’re smart, you first, second, third and fourth and fifth and sixth grade and suddenly you moved and suddenly things get hard and suddenly your grade start to plummet and suddenly you now don’t think you’re smart enough to succeed. That’s exactly how I feel. I told myself that, secretly. Do not do that anymore. You’re no longer allowed to do that.

There’s a number of things going on that we’re breaking apart because I want you to understand that there’re some simple things and there’re some deeper things that require you to talk to somebody professionally. The simple things is fixed for this growth. So you have been suffering from having a fixed mindset. This is a very simple thing to change, by the way. A fixed mindset means you’re stupid or you’re smart and if you get a bad grade, it means that you’re not smart enough, right? If you get a good grade, it means well, I’m smart enough for that. It’ll be life-changing for you if you get away from saying you’re smart or you’re dumb or you’re stupid or you’re not good enough and you switch into having the kind of mindset where you say to yourself well if I didn’t succeed, it’s because I didn’t work hard enough. Right. And when you do well, when you do well, this is really important whether you do something great by your mom or you do something good at work or you do something good in a class that you say to yourself I worked so hard, I deserved that. I’ve always wanted to say that. I want to say that. I played it in my mind, in my vision. So that’s one thing that I want you to walk out of this with. Okay.

When you tell a kid that they’re smart and then suddenly they start to fail, they think that they’re not smart enough. And then it becomes stressful to be in academics because you think that you’re gonna be found out and you think that you’re not smart enough and no. Actually, it’s a very simple fix. We just have to teach you to realize it’s all about how much work you put in. That’s it. That’s, it’s exactly how I feel. I mean I understand that it’s bigger problems, but you, this right here is, the stump. Yes, yes. One of the reasons why you don’t go back to school is because you don’t think that you’re gonna succeed? Yes and that and I just feel like just dug myself in a big hole, like how am I gonna get myself out.

And the thing I want you to know is while you’ve done it for 27 years, you don’t have to do it a day longer. You can be happy. You can finish college. You can have a toilet that’s eco-friendly. That just made my day. When do I present you right now? Just everything, I am trying to soak it in. I’m enjoying it and it feels like, hey Evelyn, you’re not stupid, you’re not, you know, like, I can’t explain it. It does feel like there’s a little free. So a lot of what the show is about is helping people figure out the next chapter, and in order to start the next chapter you have to complete the chapter you’re in. And until you get the lessons from the chapter that you’re in, you ain’t going forward. The interesting thing about you is that if we can get you to start to describe who was Evelyn at the age of seven and eight before you moved, those are the characteristics that will define the next chapter. And then all the work that you really need to do with the professional because you are a victim of abuse. You witnessed abuse. You move to a very toxic environment. You became the adult in your family. You are a survivor and you need to process this stuff with somebody, okay? So that you can really own it and be proud of what you survived. But what I want you to talk about right now is describe Evelyn at the age of five, six, seven, the kid that was in that school. What were you like?

So I would say, I’m just love singing, dancing, enjoy going to school. My mom couldn’t afford a car so she would walk me to school but I loved it. I loved every step of the way. You know just being in the safe environment and it feel like there is an area drive-by. Believe it or not there is drive-by in my elementary school in Richmond. I mean I didn’t know what drugs was. I didn’t know, When I moved to Richmond, I knew what drugs look like. I knew what a dead body look like. I knew what a gun look like and I never before, I was safe. I was safe and going from a safe environment to a scary environment, I guess I guess I could say that I was happy when I was younger. So Richmond Evelyn versus Daily Evelyn. Oh, Gosh. Okay so Richmond Evelyn, very angry and doesn’t love herself. Now, Daily. Daily city, I just remember spending hours and hours in that park. I called it my park. I just remember, just I was very independent. That was a light. Making Me.. Yeah, it’s hard when you’re light when somebody or something dims that light. You’re really hard on yourself. Yes.

And so any time you catch yourself procrastinating I want you to number one stop and forgive yourself for a minute. Okay. So if you’re being light and if you’re being curious and if you are being, you know, happy, and if you’re willing to try anything, what are the things that you’re going to do when you get back home? I do know exactly where I need to start Where’s that? The roots. Yeah. I didn’t realize how much damage that caused and I feel like that’s the first thing I need to focus on. So you’re gonna go to a therapist? You need to go talk to somebody professionally about this. This is bigger than trying to sort it out yourself. I can’t diagnose you truly. I mean you are a survivor of abuse and you have never actually properly addressed it.

A year form now, you’ve gone to see somebody and you’ve really dug at these roots. Tell me what are you doing? What’s your life look like, one year from now? Yes, I love myself and everyone around me, and I’m happy because I’m getting closer to finishing my bachelors at UC Berkeley. UC Berkeley, holy shit. Girl, you must work hard. I’ve been using Richmond-Daily, but I want you to put a label on the next chapter. I’m gonna call it my glow up. That’s fucking hot. My glow up. Let’s say that you catch yourself procrastinating, what do you do if you’re in your glow up chapter? 54321 blast off this party time, but sometimes I procrastinate. That’s fantastic. Yes. And what else has changed about your life in the glow up. I’ve accepted my past. I forgave myself to know that it was not okay. How do you feel? I can’t even explain how I feel. I feel I feel bad for beating myself up. I feel amazing that I know why I procrastinated when this whole time I thought I was just a loser. 54321, dispatch. And I’m just excited. I am really excited.

I’m so excited for her too. And you know what, Evelyn is on fire. She wrote to us, the very next day. She’s already signed up for sliding scale therapy and registered for an information session about returning to Berkeley. The key take away, I want you to understand and embrace is that procrastination has nothing to do with your ability to get things done. It’s just a form of stress relief. And if you suffer from procrastination, too, you gotta understand that stress is the problem, and you’ve got to go to the root.

And the second take away reinforces something we talked about in the first coaching session with Kim and that is the power of focusing on what happened, rather than on what’s wrong with you. What’s wrong with you is the stump. You gotta go to the root and that’s what happened. And when you go on this kind of deep inquiry, it might be dark, it might be painful and it’s really important to do it with a professional. The final thing I want to say is you know when you hear the word PTSD, it’s easy to think that PTSD is limited to people who have experienced trauma during war. But what we’re discovering is that childhood trauma creates PTSD, too. And you know who can do a much better job summarizing all of this up for you than me? Evelyn.

Guys try to find the deep problem, the root, whatever that is. Go back, you know as a young age, or whatever the problem is in, figure that out first because I feel once Mel talked to me about like my family, Richmond, Daily city, it just all clicked. It just all clicked. Like, it is like okay that’s the problem, not my procrastination. And just know that you’re not a procrastinator, there’s something else out there. If I could get through this because I honestly felt like I can never get through this, is that they could also get through this.