Whenever I used to postpone a task and say to myself that I’ll do it later, I’d label myself as a ‘procrastinator’. I looked at myself as someone who lacked focus… Someone who’s just lazy. But these weren’t really the root cause. And I kept looking for the root cause for a long time. And it is only recently that I stumbled upon something strangely effective. Something that completely went under my radar. (how can I be so dumb?) I realized that the real root cause turned out to be something that I completely neglected. Which was indecision. Simply put, I was always super indecisive. I just could not make a freaking decision, for God’s sake. Amd what did I do instead: I would let my environment dictate what’ll happen. I would let other people decide how things will go. And I would literally do nothing and waited to see “how things will go.” This was my way of making a decision. Letting things happen and seeing where life takes me. It was nothing short of a coin flip to decide my next action. No wonder I couldn’t keep a promise to myself. But I’m super grateful that I’ve discovered the law of decisiveness. What I’ve realized is that…procrastination stems from not taking a decision. Every time we procrastinate or put things off… we have a few options to choose and we’re literally not deciding to pick either one of them. So, what do we instead of making a decision? We DON’T do that task at all. And then we say to ourselves: “Why does this keep happening to us?” And this is why we tend to spiral into a series of procrastination. So, the solution is shockingly simple. It is to literally DECIDE. And the easiest part about it is that…. Even if you decide NOT to do a task…that is still a decision. If you’re stuck in a rut and in a loop of endless procrastination (and endless guilt)... chances are that there are so many pending decisions that are waiting for your order. You’re literally the emperor sitting on a throne, and your butler (tasks) comes to ask you for your permission.

We’re all operated by patterns. Some people are really fortunate enough to realize what their bad patterns are. While the rest are just wasting their lives, not realizing that their patterns are controlling them. Despite being a coach, I am still not a super-human. I have fallen for many bad patterns. 3 years ago, I joined the gym. But I had realized that I had a pattern for skipping workouts and the gym. And I had made so many compelling arguments in my brain as to why I don’t need to hit the gym. I had thoughts like: Why do people get fit for other people’s validation? Why do some people just go to the gym to lift their egos? Why do people even put themselves through intentional hardship? Even though some of my thoughts were pretty valid… But I had used them just as excuses to feel good for not going to the gym. And surprisingly enough, my body confirmed that by doing something strange. By making me sick. Literally (i kid you not), I had gotten severe fever after hitting the gym for a few weeks. And whenever I tried to go to the gym after recovering from the fever…I got sick again. Now there are many factors as to why that happened (eg: lack of protein intake, too intensive workouts, less time for recovery or whatever) But that’s besides the point. My point is that patterns have an incredible grip on our lives. And the bad patterns are the reasons why some people seem to be stuck in their lives forever. In my case, I had believed gym = bad And my brain said: “Roger that, sir. Shutting down body shortly.” And it did. I know it sounds absurd now when I lay it out like that, but it’s so true. I’ll leave you with one more example that I have caught from my own experience. I know a guy who always does things twice. Because he almost always messes up things the first time. And ends up doing them twice. For instance, once he had to put up a new mirror in his bathroom. And I saw him working really hard, drilling the wall, and putting up the mirror, only to realize…

For years, I’ve been watching educational videos on YouTube thinking that I’m at least utilising my time the right way. Learning things about business, psychology, spirituality, and the likes thereof. But refrained from watching ‘fun videos’ because that’s not productive, right? At least I’m not wasting any time watching educational videos, right? Little did I know that I was actually draining all of my time watching these so-called educational videos. Because whenever I watched these videos for motivation, I only got motivated to watch another video instead of doing the work. Whenever I tried to watch them in my free time where I needed to relax, they had so much information that I used to get a headache. And I was just stacking more knowledge and information in my brain without taking action which led me to a severe analysis paralysis state. It wasn’t that I didn’t know what to do. In fact, I knew exactly what actions or steps I needed to take that would propel me towards my goals. But I just couldn’t take the first step. Sometimes delaying those actions for weeks even. This made me so guilty and made things worse. And the only way to numb myself from this guilt was to watch more videos because I wanna learn more, right? This is the never-ending loop most people are stuck in. (and I was surely guilty of it too) And most people won’t tell you to drop the habit of watching educational videos. Why? Because most people have to sell you something with those educational videos. And if your favourite guru starts telling you to stop doing that, how can they profit off of you? Another terrible t thing I’ve noticed from my own experience is that whenever I watched educational content without taking much action… I always believed that there was something missing from me. That I lacked some sort of life-changing knowledge. That I needed to learn a little more. And maybe the next video might contain the knowledge that would finally change my life for good.

2025 has just left us and transitioned into 2026. With a new year, we usually take some time to reflect back on the memories, think about the mistakes, and focus on how we can improve ourselves. And it’s typically only a few habits or patterns (1-5) that occurred frequently throughout the year, which ended up holding us back from making progress. For some, it’s knowing exactly what to do but putting it off. For others, it’s spending too much time on things that feel productive but don’t actually move anything forward. What are the top three habits/patterns in your life that you know that, once changed, would drastically improve your growth? (more brownie points if you identify 5 of them 🍫)

What picks you up when you're down?