3 Hard Truths About Procrasti-Learning + How It’s Hurting Your Business Leave a comment
It’s rarely the case that perfectionists don’t know enough or that they don’t have enough strategy.
Perfectionists love to learn. That’s why one of the most common signs your perfectionism handbrake is on, is that you spend most of your time procrasti-learning instead of doing.
Tune into today’s episode because I’m sharing three hard truths about procrasti-learning and how it’s hurting your business. I cover why perfectionists unknowingly fall into the trap of procrasti-learning, and how to turn your love of learning into a successful business.
Find the full episode transcript and show notes at samlaurabrown.com/episode520.
What To Do Next
If you’re ready to get out of your own way in your business, you want to join my productivity program for perfectionists who are building businesses called Perfectionists Getting Shit Done. Click here to find out more about the program and join the waitlist today: samlaurabrown.com/pgsd.
Listen To The Episode
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Introduction
Introduction
Hi, and welcome to another episode of The Perfectionism Project. A podcast full of perfectionism advice for entrepreneurs. My name is Sam Laura Brown, I help entrepreneurs release their perfectionism handbrake, so they can get out of their own way and build a fulfilling and profitable business. I’m the founder of the perfectionist getting shit done group coaching program, which is otherwise known as PGSD. And for even more perfectionism advice to help you with your business, you can follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject.
Sam Laura Brown (Intro to the episode)
[00:00:29] This episode is going to be really helpful. So what I recently did is I read through the answers on the intake form that we have when people sign up for my program, Perfectionists Getting Shit Done. And one thing that kept coming up again and again and again, as I was reading through everyone’s answers, is that something that was really helpful for them to hear about was a concept called procrasti-learning.
[00:00:55] And this is when you are learning as a form of procrastination. This is something that perfectionists are very prone to, especially if you are someone who identifies as smart, you identify as someone who loves learning, and you are someone who, when you’re procrastinating, you prefer to do productive procrastination.
[00:01:15] Rather than sitting on the couch. So this episode is just going to be a little loving reminder, or maybe it’s the first time you’re hearing about this, but a little loving reminder or kick in the pants to be focused this year in 2025 on implementation and executing and applying what you know, rather than just learning more and more and more.
[00:01:39] And with that said, it can be easy to listen to an episode like this and then blame yourself for procrasti-learning. But it’s not that there’s something wrong with you. It’s just that you don’t have the right tools for your perfectionist brain. The same way that if someone doesn’t have 20/20 vision and they need glasses, they need the right prescription for their eyes, they just need the right prescription, the right glasses, and they are able to see.
[00:02:04] And so if you are a perfectionist and if you are having a hard time following through with the plans that you’re making, stay motivated, being disciplined. Like if you were just having a hard time with productivity, even though you’re smart. It’s just because you don’t have the right tools for your perfectionist brain, the right productivity tools.
[00:02:21] If you are wanting further support and help and to learn how to get shit done as a perfectionist entrepreneur without burning yourself out, so I want to invite you inside PGSD as well. So samlaurabrown.com/PGSD is where you can go to find out more about the program. You can sign up for the waitlist so that you don’t miss out finding out when the doors What am I saying that right?
[00:02:45] So you don’t miss out on finding out about when the doors are opening you can get yourself inside and have the most productive year but in a sustainable realistic way that actually feels good. That is just, we are experts in teaching that and taking perfectionist from being procrastinators to being action takers who are taking action in an aligned way, in a way that feels good, doing the things they want to do and building successful businesses. So with that said, I hope you find this episode incredibly helpful. Enjoy.
Sam Laura Brown
[00:03:18] Today, I want to talk to you about procrasti-learning and three hard truths about it because procrasti-learning, which is learning as a form of procrastination. is something that we tend to do when our perfectionism handbrake is on, especially when you consider yourself to be someone who’s smart and intelligent and you love learning new things.
[00:03:44] It is a very easy and tempting form of procrastination to fall into. It doesn’t feel like procrastination. That’s why we like it. It feels productive. It allows us to feel Productive and busy without having to feel vulnerable because when we are learning, we’re not doing, even though the best way to learn something is to learn as little about it as possible and then learn the rest from applying it and seeing what happens.
[00:04:15] And then going back to get any extra info you need, trying again, but we tend to have a very school like approach to learning when it comes to business. Of thinking that we just need the intellectual knowledge, the intellectual understanding. And if we can just get enough of that, we’ll feel confident enough to execute all of our plans perfectly.
[00:04:37] We’ll have the ability to execute all of our plans perfectly. We’ll never make any mistakes. We’ll never mess up. We’ll never get rejected. We’ll succeed. It will finally feel good enough. And I want you to be aware of procrasti-learning is probably if you’re a listener of this podcast, quite often, it’s probably a term you’ve already heard and you might’ve already identified some procrasti-learning tendencies that you have.
[00:04:59] But in this episode, I really want to talk to you about some of the hard truths about procrasti-learning and how it is hurting your. Business and your personal growth and a lot of other things too, but specifically how it is hurting your business to be in this habit of procrasti-learning so that you can get yourself out of that habit.
[00:05:22] And it’s always hard to know exactly where that line is. When does learning bleed over into procrasti-learning? But if you are someone who is always looking for the next bit of information, so you just need to read one more book, listen to one more podcast episode, watch one more YouTube video, you’re always trying to learn, and it could be as well, this is a big way it comes up, is that you might be learning from people who have different strategies for the same thing.
[00:05:54] And so even though you’re learning a lot and you’re like, cool, I just love getting all these different perspectives that you are learning from people who are teaching different strategies. And it means then you’re getting to spend a lot of time having to reconcile their strategies and say, okay, person A recommends this person B recommends that say, for example, with marketing.
[00:06:17] Person C recommends this and I like all of them. They’re all succeeding. And so now I need to figure out what to do. I’m going to take a little bit of this, a little bit of that, or should I do this approach or should I do that approach? And it adds all of this overwhelm and indecision into things. So we can feel like we’re learning so much when yes, we might be intellectually learning a lot.
[00:06:39] But we’re missing out on all the learning that comes from doing. And I really want you to be onto yourself with this. Are you learning from people who teach contradictory methods? And what will happen is usually whatever strategy someone’s teaching, it works, but you need to actually follow the recipe.
[00:07:00] So, if you think about cooking. And there’s a recipe. Once you have a certain amount of skill, you can blend recipes together. You don’t even need a recipe, but if you are following these recipes and they are saying contradictory things, then it means you get to feel like, cool, I’m busy cooking this recipe, but you don’t actually have to.
[00:07:23] Proceed with cooking it because you just get to spend all this time trying to figure out. Okay How do I bring these two recipes together to form my own thing instead of just following recipe a and getting? the blueberry muffin or following recipe B and getting the lasagna instead of trying to be like, okay, here are all these different things.
[00:07:40] I don’t know if that analogy makes any sense whatsoever now that I’ve gotten all the way through it, but I hope you get what I mean, that when we have all of these different teachers, especially if we’re learning from people who teach different things. That it’s a form of procrastination because then we get to spend all this time trying to figure out how to reconcile it all, which keeps us in, in action and stops us from having to do anything.
[00:08:06] So this is one of the reasons I recommend choosing one person as your teacher on a certain topic and executing what they say. It doesn’t matter. If you, um, I mean, sorry, it doesn’t mean that you can’t ever learn from other people, but having a three month period, for example, where you’re like, cool, I’m going to implement what this person teaches.
[00:08:27] And yes, I can listen to others, but I’m implementing what this person is teaching. Do that so that you don’t get into this procrasti-learning because It’s harder to procrasti-learn when there is less content to consume, but when we have too many different teachers at once, it’s very easy. There’s an endless amount of stuff to consume.
[00:08:48] But if you’re just like, cool, I’m just listening to this one podcast. I’m just doing this one course. There’s only so much you can do. And so eventually you’ll be moved over into taking action because you have learned the things. So I hope that makes sense, but just be onto yourself with that because I see it quite often, um, that we’ll do that without even realizing that we are trying to learn from people who are teaching two very different things.
[00:09:13] And they both work if you just chose A or B, but by trying to choose A and B. It creates a whole lot of indecision and confusion that you get to indulge in. And so you feel very productive and busy, like, yes, I’m just trying so hard to build my business and I’m learning all these things. And now I just need to figure out how it all fits together to not do that.
[00:09:31] Just pick a teacher, do what they say, obviously think about it critically, put your own spin on it where it’s appropriate, but just follow one recipe at a time, basically. So let’s talk about the three hard truths about procrasti-learning. The first is that procrasti-learning makes you think you’re doing more than you actually are.
[00:09:54] And therefore it has you expecting things that don’t actually make sense to expect. So when it comes to your business, if you’re procrasti-learning, so say you’re doing online courses, you’re listening to podcasts, you are reading Instagram captions, you’re watching webinars. You’re watching YouTube videos.
[00:10:15] If you are doing that, it makes you think like, cool, I spent the whole day today working on my business. When actually you didn’t, you didn’t spend any time. If that was all you did in a day working on your business. And again, I’m so for learning. This is not about not learning and recommending you don’t learn anything.
[00:10:34] But really recognizing where learning bleeds over into procrasti-learning. And when you start trying to consume too much information, you can judge this by looking at how much action you’re taking and how often you’re implementing the ideas that you learn. But if you are doing that, it has you thinking like, Oh, my business should be more successful by now because I’ve been so busy working on my business for X number of months or years.
[00:11:00] When really you haven’t and I want you to think about this like joining a gym if you join a gym but you don’t go to the gym to work out and maybe you just you join the gym and then you go to the gym but you spend all your time at the gym watching youtube videos on form and technique and how to do how to use each machine or how to like what program you should follow on the treadmill for example And then you’re like, Oh my goodness, it’s a year later.
[00:11:31] And I still look the same and I still have the same amount of strength. Yeah, of course, because you haven’t actually done the workout, you haven’t been doing the things. It might feel like you’ve been busy at the gym. You’ve been learning. You’re trying to get yourself set up with this perfect start. This is a huge part of it.
[00:11:49] We think if I just learn enough. I can start perfectly and I need to start perfectly so I can end perfectly. Like we aren’t in this growth mindset of the beginning. It’s going to be the worst. I’m going to get better over time. We think we have to have this perfect start so we can have this perfect ending.
[00:12:05] So I just need to learn as much as possible. So I don’t make any mistakes. So I don’t make any wrong decisions. I can get this perfect start, this perfect ending. Succeed, feel good enough and all of that kind of thing. So we end up when we’re procrastinating learning, expecting that we should be further along than actually makes sense based on the amount of action that we are taking.
[00:12:28] So really. Be aware of that. I know it might’ve be easy to hear that if you’ve been procrasti-learning, you are not doing as much as you think, especially when you’ve been struggling and really trying so hard to build your business, but it’s so powerful to recognize this, that procrasti-learning.
[00:12:46] Is going to make you feel like you should be further along than you actually are. And it makes it easy to shame yourself for not being further along. But if you’re like, well, I joined the gym three years ago. I haven’t done a workout, but I’m so disappointed. I still don’t have abs. Of course you don’t because you haven’t been doing the workout.
[00:13:04] It’s not joining the gym or starting the business that gets you the result you want. It’s how you actually show up. I’m going to talk about that more in a second, but please be onto yourself with this and just know that procrasti-learning is really going to have you feeling like you are taking more action than you actually.
[00:13:28] The second hard truth is that it’s not making you any smarter. more intelligent when you are procrasti-learning. This can be challenging because we really feel like we’re getting smarter. We’re learning so many different things, especially when you get to the point where you’ve done so much procrasti-learning that you feel like you could give all of this amazing advice to everyone else.
[00:13:49] Like, you know, all the marketing strategies and tactics and all the personal development tools and. All the different things like you can take any one of your favorite podcasts and tell a friend exactly what they recommend and what you should do and all of that, but you’re not actually getting smarter or more intelligent and the reason for that relates to number one.
[00:14:13] which is you’re not doing. When you’re procrastinating, you’re not doing, and it’s doing that really increases our intelligence and the results we’re getting. If we’re just learning all the time, we are intellectually on paper becoming more intelligent. We can share more advice with others perhaps, but at the same time we can’t because we haven’t got that lived experience, we aren’t learning by doing.
[00:14:43] So say, for example, with my business, if I started my business in 2013, which I did, and instead of actually learning, and I’ve done my fair share of procrastinating, I’m definitely not saying I haven’t, but if I never got out of that and I just procrasti-learn, and I spent the whole time between then and now, Learning about business and getting myself ready for that perfect start.
[00:15:09] I would not know nearly as much as I do today because what I know about business today has come from learning and applying, learning and applying, learning and applying. When we had this idea that at the beginning we need to know everything, and you might be doing this with your business of like, you need to know what kind of tax obligations you’re going to have when you’re making a million dollars, for example.
[00:15:33] You’ll figure that out once you get there. You don’t need to know that right away. But we had this idea that we need to know everything before we can get started. When really all you need to know is the next step along. What is the next step I need to take? You take that step and then you iterate. You figure out, okay, shit, I didn’t even know I needed to know this.
[00:15:56] Okay, now I’m going to go and learn what I need to learn the bare minimum and then go back, apply it, take that lesson that I learned from having the experience, figure out anything else I need to like, there’s no way I would have learned as much about business if I just procrasti-learn. Because there were so many things I didn’t even know I needed to learn and that it wasn’t until I actually started and began putting myself out there and it began.
[00:16:21] Doing marketing and all these different things that I realized what I didn’t know. But in procrasti-learning, we don’t get that. There are some things we stumble across like, cool. I didn’t even know I needed to know that, but it’s from doing and taking action that we discover that, that we discover the things that we didn’t even know we needed to know.
[00:16:43] That we needed to learn. I hope that makes sense, but it’s not making you any smarter or more intelligent, and you can really just figure out the next step, which right now you probably don’t know what your next step is and be mindful as well of the habit. And I’ve had this habit and I’m still learning how to get out of this of when.
[00:17:03] There’s a question that you have instead of typing it into Google or YouTube as helpful as that is stop and take a minute to reflect on if you didn’t have any resources to help you and you could only give yourself the advice like you couldn’t turn outwards. You couldn’t turn to a friend or mentor.
[00:17:23] You couldn’t turn to the Internet. What would you do in that situation? And really like giving yourself a chance to do that and to see how it goes, that is the best thing to do. And it might mean you make a mistake and that’s totally okay, but I have definitely been in the habit before. And again, I’m still unlearning this anytime I have a question.
[00:17:44] So say for example. If I’m writing the sales page, okay, let me go and look at 20 other sales pages so I can figure out what my thoughts are on the sales page that I want to write instead of getting still getting out my journal and saying, okay, I know some things about sales pages. I’ve written some before, but even when I hadn’t, I have been on sales pages before I’ve bought things before on the internet.
[00:18:10] What about them made me buy if I had to guess. What about them were compelling? What didn’t I like? And going through like the knowledge I already had instead of having to get all this new knowledge all the time. Which is really procrasti-learning a lot of time, especially when I’m like, I’m just going to go and look at one other one.
[00:18:29] I’m going to go and look at 20. You have all of these tabs open. So something that’s helped me with procrasti-learning and especially with books, because I was definitely in a big habit of, I’d read a book, I’d feel so inspired, and then I’d do nothing with that knowledge. And then I’d read another book, I’d feel inspired, I’d do nothing with that knowledge.
[00:18:51] And on and on and on it went where I was. Knowing a lot, like I’d read a book, especially about personal development, be like, cool. I quote unquote know all this already, but I wasn’t living it. And it was when I started to change things to 50 50 that I really started to get why books are so powerful. Uh, but also started to see changes in my life.
[00:19:11] I first did this with, uh, Tim Ferris’s. Titans in 2016, where instead of just reading all the things and feeling all inspired and motivated and then not implementing anything, I would, I think I was doing it for an hour. So I’d have half an hour. of reading and then half an hour of doing journaling prompts, like ones that I would pull out myself or that were in there or doing things that he actually recommended.
[00:19:41] So going out into the real world and doing those things, or at least figuring out how I was going to do those things, like making a plan for that. And my life changed from reading that book because I did what was recommended. In the book, I actually took his recommendations and I didn’t just read the whole book and then go back and try and apply it because it can be so tempting to do that of like, cool, I’m going to read this book, then I’m going to write this whole summary.
[00:20:08] And then I’m like making it into this big school project. Instead, it was day by day. The time I spend today, I’m going to spend half as much time reading and half of that time. What was this? I hope this makes sense. So say an hour, 30 minutes reading, and then I’m going to spend 30 minutes figuring out what I could apply that I’ve learned.
[00:20:32] And it doesn’t have to be everything that I’ve read that I apply, but I’m going to take something from that. And so the same, for example, in PGSD or in any kind of program that you’re in. Instead of like, I need to learn all the things and then I’ll do, especially when we’re in this habit of procrastinating, they’re like, cool, there’s something more to listen to and more to read before I have to do things.
[00:20:52] But cool. No, actually I’m going to spend X amount of time learning and X amount of time doing. And so this is why in PGSD and the PGSD process, the modules are one hour long and the workbook is. We give you 60 minutes to do it and say, like, just do as much as you can in 60 minutes and call it a day at that, because it’s that 50 50 that yes, you probably, if we gave you 20 hours of video per module, you’d prefer to watch that.
[00:21:20] And then ideally not do the workbook and just feel inspired. And, but then you wouldn’t actually have the change. We want you to experience releasing your perfectionism handbrake. So you can actually get your done and grow your business. And so that means we give you, we have set up the program. So that it’s challenging to procrasti-learn.
[00:21:39] I mean, there are ways to do it if you want to do it, but you have an hour of learning an hour of application. And so I want you to be thinking about that when it comes to learning new things, instead of waiting until you know everything and then taking action to start taking action and implementing what you learn.
[00:22:00] As you learn it, it’s going to be challenging to do that when you’ve been in the habit of just learning and learning and always telling yourself later, I’ll apply this, but I really want to start getting you into that habit because you’re not getting any smarter or more intelligent by learning all of these things and never actually applying them or trying them.
[00:22:21] Also, this is a side note. But the curse of knowledge, which is something I’ve mentioned on a previous episode, I will link to it in the show notes, but the curse of knowledge is something that is very real. It’s where we don’t even realize how much we know, because we’ve been learning so much that we take it for granted.
[00:22:37] And we think that everyone knows it and procrasti-learning can really contribute to this curse of knowledge and makes you think that what you know. isn’t valuable because everyone knows it and so I’m not saying that the curse of knowledge isn’t going to be there if you don’t procrasti-learn because it will be but it’s contributing to it if you are really spending so much time procrastinating it’s only going to make that curse of knowledge worse and harder to overcome.
[00:23:09] The third hard truth Is that business isn’t about how much potential you have and what you know, it’s not like school. So in school, it’s all about how much potential you have in the future to succeed and what you intellectually know, because you don’t have to do it yet. You just need to learn. The theories and the ideas.
[00:23:32] And the idea is once you leave school, you’re going to be putting all of that into practice, but business is not like that. You don’t get points for knowing things that you’re not implementing. You don’t get points for having potential. This can be so hard when we’re like, Oh, I just know I have so much potential.
[00:23:53] And you start to think that you should be more successful than you already are because of how much potential you have. But we really want to get you away from that. That’s how we think when we have that perfectionism handbrake on and we’re in that. Fixed mindset where we think that our potential is what matters most rather than what we actually do with it.
[00:24:13] And it makes sense to think this way. We get praised for having so much potential, especially throughout school. My guess is you did well in school, you succeeded in that environment and it’s very easy. To take that school mindset and transfer it to business and think, cool, I just need to learn the things, get the A, pass the test, and then I’ll succeed because that’s the message we’re given in school.
[00:24:34] Do all of that and then you’ll succeed in life. But in business, it’s not about how much potential you have. It’s not about what you know, it’s about what you do with your potential and when you are procrastinating, you were not doing so nothing is happening with your potential and then you’re going to get so frustrated because what you know isn’t reflected in your actions.
[00:25:00] It’s not reflected in your business. So again, like looping back to that first point. You will think that you’re doing more than you actually are and that you should be further along than you actually are because this procrasti-learning is creating a misconception that you’re doing more than you actually are and that you should be further along.
[00:25:23] So we don’t want to take that approach. I want you to not think about business like school. Yes, you succeeded in school and you followed that formula. Business is different. You don’t get points for how much you know. You only get points For what you apply and what you do with your potential. So it doesn’t matter that you have so much potential.
[00:25:46] What matters is that you pursue your potential. I have done an episode on protecting versus pursuing your potential and how, when we have that handbrake on, we want to protect our potential. And when we do that. Is procrasti-learning because we never then have to find out that we don’t have as much potential as we think because we’re not doing anything.
[00:26:04] So we get to keep being in this fairy tale land of I just have so much potential and I’m going to succeed in the future and we get to stay in that place. It’s scary to go into pursuing your potential where you’re actually. learning, you’re doing things that you don’t fully know how to do. And of course you don’t know fully how to do them.
[00:26:21] You haven’t done them before, but you’re going through that messy middle. You’re on that learning curve. You’re figuring things out. That is when you’re pursuing your potential. It feels scarier. So of course we’d rather protect our potential and just learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, and never do, and get to stay in this idea of what would be possible.
[00:26:41] I really with this episode want to get you out of This habit of procrastinating to just be paying attention to when are you turning to Google instead of turning inwards? When are you going to the next book or the next podcast episode or the next webinar, instead of taking all those things you already know and putting them into practice, PGSD was created to help you take all the things you already know and put them into practice because it’s your perfectionism handbrake that is stopping you.
[00:27:13] From doing all the things like you’re smart, you know what you need to do. If you’re willing to admit that to yourself, a lot of times like, no, I don’t, I need to learn more, but really, you know, that next step and what you need help with is releasing your handbrake. So you can actually show up confidently, put yourself out there, get shit done, get out of your own way.
[00:27:32] So PGSD, the whole thing was created to help you with this, but I want you to be paying attention to is procrasti-learning something that you are doing. And to just, Do a little more application, do a little more doing. So I hope this episode has helped you. It’s given you a little kick in the pants.
[00:27:49] If it has, please take a screenshot of this on your phone and tag me on Instagram. I’m @perfectionismproject. I hope you’re having a beautiful day and I’ll talk to you in the next episode.
Outro
If you are ready to get out of your own way in your business, I want to invite you inside my productivity program for perfectionist entrepreneurs called Perfectionist Getting Shit Done. Our next enrollment is happening for one week only beginning on the 4th of April 2025. To find out more about the program and join the waitlist, go to samlaurabrown.com/pgsd.
