He spent 25 minutes making bougie coffee this morning.
French press. Grass-fed butter. Coconut oil. Frothed creamer.
But he couldn’t find the time to hit record on a 60-second video.
A fund manager I talked to last week was studying LinkedIn strategy for months. He had an avatar, content pillars, and things to say.
But when it came time to actually create content…....a blank screen.
He convinced himself he needed to tweak the strategy (we’ve all been there).
Maybe the avatar needs more refinement. Maybe you need to learn more frameworks. Maybe you should take another course.
When you keep perfecting the strategy instead of taking action, you're avoiding something. And that something lives deep in your brain.
Your brain at work
Research shows procrastination isn't a time management problem. It's an emotional problem.
When you’re doing something that triggers uncomfortable feelings, your amygdala thinks it's a threat. Not physical. Emotional. Fear of judgment. Fear of looking unprepared. Fear of being exposed.
So your brain protects you by soothing your emotions - steering you toward something that feels productive but doesn't trigger those emotions. More strategy. More planning. Bingo!
According to Carleton University psychologist Tim Pychyl, procrastination is about prioritizing short-term mood regulation over long-term goals. You choose "feeling comfortable now" over "building your business."
That’s why tweaking the strategy feels oh so cozy.
Time management hacks that don’t work
Most syndicators think the solution is more preparation. If I just get the strategy perfect, then I'll feel ready.
But that feeling never arrives. You’ve been operating from that playbook for decades.
The root cause has nothing to do with strategy. The cause is that you're trying to avoid an uncomfortable feeling of being judged.
The 3-Step process that works
Research shows that training people to tame their emotions drastically lowers procrastination.
Three skills matter most: 1) naming the emotion 2) taming bad emotions and 2) reframing them.
Step 1: NAME IT
When you’re procrastinating, stop and ask: "What am I actually fearing right now?"
Not "I'm not ready yet." That's a thought, not a feeling.
Get specific: "I'm afraid of looking unprepared on camera" or "I feel exposed putting myself out there."
Research shows that simply naming the emotion reduces its intensity. When you label what you're feeling, you shift brain processing from your amygdala to your prefrontal cortex.
Step 2: TAME IT
This is where most people bail. They think the goal is to eliminate the uncomfortable feeling before taking action.
Wrong goal.
The goal is to take action while the uncomfortable feeling is still there.
Tell yourself: "I can sit with this fear for 60 seconds." Then open the camera app anyway.
The discomfort doesn't have to go away for you to act. Research shows that building your capacity to tolerate uncomfortable emotions directly reduces procrastination. Every time you act while feeling the discomfort, you're training your nervous system that this feeling isn't dangerous.
Step 3: REFRAME IT
Change your relationship to the discomfort.
Instead of "This uncomfortable feeling means I shouldn't do this" → "This discomfort is the price of growth."
Instead of "I need to feel confident first" → "This is what becoming the next version of myself feels like."
The discomfort isn't a stop sign. It's a growth signal.
The Results
The fund manager I mentioned? He did this 3-step process of naming, taming, and reframing.
He recorded his first video while feeling the fear. It wasn't perfect. But he did it.
And he made a commitment to posting consistently. Not because his fear vanished. Because he learned he could act while feeling it.
If you've been perfecting your plan for weeks and still haven't hit record, you're not working on strategy anymore.
You're managing an emotion.
Name it. Tolerate it. Reframe it.
Then hit record anyway.
Chris
P.S. I'm giving away a mastermind-level workshop on Tuesday.
Here's why:
You know what you need to do in 2026. The question is: will you actually do it?
Most goal-setting frameworks set you up to fail. They ignore the identity blocks that stop action before it starts.
Tuesday, January 6th at 11am CST, I'm teaching The Psychology of Massive Action—the framework our mastermind members use to raise $36M a year and double their acquisitions
. This workshop is normally reserved for paying members. I'm opening it up because I want your 2026 to be different.
Works Cited
Eckert, M., Ebert, D. D., Lehr, D., Sieland, B., & Berking, M. (2016). Overcome procrastination: Enhancing emotion regulation skills reduce procrastination. Learning and Individual Differences, 52, 10-18.
Pychyl, T. A. (Carleton University). Research on procrastination as emotion regulation failure and the intention-action gap.
Sirois, F. M., & Pychyl, T. A. (2013). Procrastination and the priority of short-term mood regulation: Consequences for future self. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(2), 115-127.
Schuenemann, E., Scherenberg, V., von Salisch, M., & Eckert, M. (2022). "I'll worry about it tomorrow" – Fostering emotion regulation skills to overcome procrastination. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 780675.