The Unf*ck Your Fitness Podcast

151. Overcoming the Procrastination Cycle: Turning Planning into Action for Fitness Success

• Kristy Castillo

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I am sooo pumped to be chatting with you twice a week on the podcast! To kick off this first FRIDAY episode, I want to dive into a topic I know many of us can relate to: procrastination.



Procrastination can present differently for everyone, but it often shows up as excessive planning and preparation. For me, this is what it looked like as I’ve been wanting to release 2 episodes/week for a while. I kept putting them off, because I thought I needed to have every single detail planned out!



Maybe you’ve experienced this with your fitness journey. You’re planning every freaking detail out and spending SO much time researching macros, tracking apps, journals, workouts, and everything in between. You may *think* you’re being productive and making progress with your goals, but in reality, you’re not doing anything that is moving the needle forward!



Planning feels ‘safe’, but honestly, planning and researching are just subtle forms of procrastination. You NEED to stop holding yourself back, and instead, move forward with messy action!



I don’t want procrastination to keep you from reaching your fitness goals (or even starting in the first place). Planning is important, but ACTION is where progress happens. It’s time to overcome the procrastination cycle, and DO something!!



In this episode, we cover:

  • Why you easily get stuck in the endless ‘planning’ cycle
  • Why planning isn’t *actually* productive or beneficial for you
  • 4 factors that hold you back from taking action
  • What procrastination is REALLY costing you
  • Ways to help you break free from the ‘planning’ trap


Links/Resources:

Send me a text with episode ideas or just to say hi!

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Un-Fuck-Your-Fitness Podcast. I am your host, Christy Castillo, and I'm here to give you real talk and cut the BS so you can actually enjoy building a body you love. I'm a personal trainer obsessed with giving you simple action steps to take you from feeling stuck to feeling sexy. Let's go.

Speaker 2:

Hey guys, what's up, welcome to today's episode. This is the first Friday episode of the Un-Fuck-Your-Fitness podcast and I'm so excited. I've been feeling like I want to talk to you more often and now I can. So these episodes are going to be a little bit shorter, kind of short, sweet spicy, and I'm excited to talk to you today about procrastination. So this is something that I it's kind of like self-sabotage in the way that I talk about it and I struggle with this, and this is something that I was doing the other day and I thought, oh my God, this is a way that I'm holding myself back from taking action and roll into why can't I get started? How do I get started? How do I do the damn thing?

Speaker 2:

So a lot of times we get stuck in this planning cycle and I like to plan things. I'm type A, I like things to be neat and tidy and I want a map in my head. In fact, the reason I kind of thought about this was because I was starting to think about these Friday episodes and I talked to my podcast manager and I'm like, okay, I want to do these Friday episodes, but I have to have it make sense in my brain. I started to overthink it and I thought I needed to have a topic for every Friday. I need to have a theme, I need to have a name. I was going really deep in this planning rabbit hole and finally I was like, christy, just do it. You don't have to have a theme, there doesn't have to be a similar factor on Fridays, you just need to talk to your people. The goal was the whole idea of talking to you guys on Friday and having a Friday episode on the show was to talk to you guys more and to help you more and bring more topics and just literally to talk to you more often. But then, instead of just starting, just literally to talk to you more often, but then, instead of just starting, I got stuck in this action of planning. So I felt like I was taking action, because I have a notepad out and I'm on chat, gpt, trying to think of names and titles, and I'm getting my notes organized and I'm getting new tabs and I've got Google Drive open and I mean I'm a planner. So there was all types of things going on and I do need to make it make sense. So I do have to have clarity. I know myself well enough to know. I have to have clarity, I have to have topics. I have to. When I commit to something, I'm committing to something. So for me, saying I'm gonna start doing Friday episodes is like I'm not gonna stop doing them anytime soon. So I really need to make it make sense in my head. If I'm going to put that out there, that I'm going to start doing these, I need to make it work and I need to make it good and I need to make it worth it. It doesn't have to be perfect, but I need to start planning for it.

Speaker 2:

Same with your workouts. I think a lot of times you think I'm going to get fit, I'm going to get healthy, I'm going to start tracking my macros, I'm going to start working out, and then we buy a planner and then we buy a journal and then we buy a calendar and then we buy fancy pens and then we get stickers and then we get another journal and then that journal doesn't work and then we need another planner and we get stuck in planning. And then we're meal planning and we're doing our staple foods, no-transcript, like yeah, I just need a little more time. I've almost got it down. I almost have my workouts planned. I almost have. You know, I got my water bottle purchased, I have my weights. I need to get some loops for, you know, my booty bands. I need to get some ankle weights, right. It's like the list goes on and on.

Speaker 2:

When you think about it, or we buy a gym membership and then we think, okay, I bought the gym membership, okay, so now I'm going to go to the gym, let's say, tuesdays and Thursdays. No, I'll go Monday, tuesday, wednesday. No, that won't work, I'll go. You know, okay, I'll go four days a week. I'll go Monday, tuesday, thursday, friday, and I'll do two upper bodies and I'll do two lower body. No, I'll do two full bodies and I'll do two. No, and just like it keeps going and going and going, right. What that is is us feeling like I'm doing the thing. I feel like I'm planning for this podcast. I feel like I'm planning. You feel like you're planning for these workouts. I bought the gym membership, I have new workout clothes, I have a couple things ready, but I have to do a couple more things.

Speaker 2:

Right, planning is procrastination, okay, researching things and these this is what I want to talk about. These are subtle forms of procrastination, excessive planning, like I just talked about Researching. You're researching macros and tracking and apps and foods and workouts and more workouts on YouTube and Pinterest and all the things right. You're buying new planners, your new calendars, all the things. This is a very subtle form of procrastinating. It seems like we're taking action, we think we're taking action, or at least we say we are like, oh, I need to go buy a journal really quick so I can log this and track this, but is it? Is that action? Or are we literally wasting money on more planners and more journals and more shit and time on more shit that we don't need? Because essentially, this is what it is. We're hiding a fear of failure. We're hiding a fear of perfection or overwhelm instead of just taking action. So that is the procrastination planning loop that we can get stuck in.

Speaker 2:

Okay, this is the cycle. We feel motivated to make a change, we're so excited, and then we spend hours and hours and hours, our days and months, planning every little detail that goes into this. This can even happen with, like vacations, buying a new car, researching things. Right, it's just like I have an idea, I'm looking, I'm looking, I'm looking, I'm doing, doing, doing, doing nothing essentially, but I'm doing, doing, doing and then you lose momentum and you never actually start. Right, you feel excited, you want to go to the gym, you spend hours researching workouts, gyms, all the things, and then you're like I'm tired, you lose momentum, you never actually do it. Planning feels productive, but it actually becomes a form of avoiding the task because you're not doing anything that you need to do. You need to just purchase a workout program or hire a trainer and go to the fucking gym and start working out. That's what you need to do, because you're not gonna get any better at it. You're still gonna be scared to start, whether you've researched online or not, because the action of going to the gym and picking up a dumbbell is kind of embarrassing. It's different, it's new. You're putting that off, so just bite the bullet, right. So that's exactly what that looks like. This is a common scenario of spending weeks designing the perfect workout routine but never hitting the gym.

Speaker 2:

Me researching endless business strategies, endless ideas and topics for a podcast, instead of just getting on the microphone and start talking to you. Okay, that's what it is, that's what it looks like and I want you to be aware of that, because we're on fucking fitness here. I want you to be aware of that, because we're on fucking fitness here. I want you to be aware of it because I'm sure that a lot of you do that and I want you to tell me. You can leave me a message now on the app. You can text me. So in the show notes section there's it says text me. So text me and tell me if this is you. Or come over on Christy Castillo fit, or come to the unfuck your fitness podcast on Instagram Both of those are on Instagram and tell me that this is you. I know it is because you're my people and this is me and this is you. So if you spend a shit ton of time talking about it, planning it, telling people, getting excited, you post it on Instagram. You bought a couple of things and then you don't do shit and you're like Christy, why can't I get started? This is why okay, why we get stuck in planning mode.

Speaker 2:

Fear of failure. Planning feels safe, it feels like we're doing something. So we're like patting ourselves on the back because I took some action today about a journal and I wrote down a couple of workouts. Good for me. We're afraid of failing, overthinking. We overcomplicate tasks by thinking, thinking, thinking worst case scenarios we're overthinking it.

Speaker 2:

Perfectionism we're waiting for it to be perfect before we start, and it's not going to be. It's not going to be perfect. We'll never start if we wait for it to be perfect. We have to just do it and we have to fuck it up and we have to fix it and start over. That's it. And then there's also decision paralysis, which, oh my God, this is so me, with paint colors, with anything that I'm doing around the house, anything, food options. If you give me too many options, it will lead to inaction. Well, I could do this workout, or I could do this workout, or I could do this set. I could do this. There's too many options, too many options, okay, do this. There's too many options, too many options, okay. So those are the reasons why Fear of failure, overthinking, perfectionism and decision paralysis. You could suffer from one of those or all four if you are like me.

Speaker 2:

The cost of procrastination is, honestly, the emotional cost is huge. There is a cost to this. There is a price that we pay when we don't actually take action Because we think, yes, that good for me, I'm taking action, I bought a journal and I'm researching things on Pinterest right, all the things I've talked about. We think that's good. We tell ourselves like good, good job. But deep down we know that that's just us taking our sweet time and not doing anything. We're not fooling ourselves. We might be fooling other people for a minute, we might even be fooling ourselves for a minute, but the time we shut that journal we're like bitch, you didn't do anything today. You didn't do anything again, right. So the emotional cost it's stressing you out, it's making you feel guilty because you're stuck in this cycle again. And then you have self-doubt of like I'm never gonna do this again. I said I was gonna start this workout program. I even bought the journal this time and I'm still not doing anything. Right, opportunity, you could be growing the body that you want. You could be growing confidence, you could be becoming a new person, and instead we're stuck planning and planning and planning and overthinking and doubting ourselves.

Speaker 2:

And it also does waste time. It does waste our time to sit down and plan and plan and plan. The time that you spend looking on Pinterest or YouTube for a workout to go do is literally it will take you 20 to 30 minutes to search on Pinterest and then you're like, well, that was the whole time I had to work out. I had 40 minutes set aside to work out and I spent 20 minutes of that looking for a workout on Pinterest. And now I don't have time. Yeah, exactly. So hire someone to do that for you, or just pick a freaking workout to do. Call someone, text someone that you know who goes to the gym, and say hey, what workout did you do today? Can you send it to me? I need to do a workout real quick. Who cares if it's perfect? Right, you do waste time.

Speaker 2:

The more you do that, the more time you waste, the more thoughts you have. It's really, really frustrating, okay, and it just keeps you stuck. And then you are in self doubt, then you're in procrastination. It's hard. It becomes harder. The more time you spend doing nothing, the harder it is.

Speaker 2:

The more time you spend doing something, even if it's messy, even if it sucks, you're like well, I went to the gym today and all I did was walk on the treadmill because I got scared. Who cares? At least you went to the gym and you didn't sit in your car and look at workouts, or you didn't sit at your house and look at workouts, right? So how do we break free from this planning trap. Take messy action. Like I just said, go Done is better than perfect.

Speaker 2:

Set little goals. Or going to the gym every single day this week for 10 minutes, even if it's just to walk inside and walk on the treadmill and leave right. Or do a 10-minute workout rather than a 40-minute workout every single day, or hire someone to create them for you even better as far as workouts go, because then you'll feel like you're doing something and you'll feel very, very productive. I cannot tell you how many messages I get weekly saying Christy, I love this app, I love your app, I love the workouts, I love that I don't have to think, I love that I'm like Tuesday, here's the workout. Walk into the gym or go downstairs into my workout area and I get it done and I cross it off my list. That's it. Done is better than perfect.

Speaker 2:

Hiring someone or doing something simple, small is going to always, always win. Show up for 10 minutes of the workout. I've heard this a million times. Show up and do 10 minutes, and if you still want to quit after 10 minutes of the workout, then quit, but at least you started and chances are you'll keep going.

Speaker 2:

Accountability, share your goals with someone and say, hey, sis, call up your sister, call up your best friend, whatever, I need to go to the freaking gym. I keep saying I need to go and I'm not going and I'm really sick of myself. So please go with me. Or please call me and make me go, or whatever right. Or Hire a coach again. Hire an accountability partner, pay your friend, I don't know. Do what you have to do. Right, get yourself some accountability. A community of women who are doing this with you and say do you want to do this with me? I need to go to the gym. Do you need to go to the gym? Are you freaking out and scared to death and you feel like an idiot? Cool, let's walk in there together. Let's look like idiots together on our first day. There's nothing better than walking into somewhere looking like an idiot with your best friend. It makes you feel so good, right, and also reward yourself. So these are small things taking messy action, hiring someone, having a plan and then rewarding yourself. No matter how small it is, it doesn't matter. Reward yourself after if you have to.

Speaker 2:

Also, lastly, if you are a procrastinator, I want you to just admit it. This is something that really does help me is just admitting it. I am a procrastinator, and here's the frustrating thing for me. I will do the thing. If I have a deadline or if I say I'm going to do something, I will do it. So the fact that I can't start it sooner, I will even seriously say to myself Christy, you're going to have less time to do it. You're going to get it done because you put it out there in the world or you told so-and-so, you're going to have this done, you're going to do it. So start it earlier.

Speaker 2:

Do it messy, it doesn't matter. You don't have to be perfect. I still have to walk myself through this. You're a procrastinator. You're going to overthink this. You're going to overcomplicate it. You need to stop right now and do the action steps that are going to actually get this thing created. Or you're going to be up until midnight, three o'clock in the morning, whatever it is, these next few days to getting this done. If you don't just do it now, spend 10 minutes on messy action of it. Spend 10 minutes at the gym, get in your car and drive there and figure it out when you get there instead of opening your phone. And, for God's sake, actually don't open your phone. That's like the worst thing you can do is open your phone when you're trying to do something right. Take one action toward completing it in the next 24 hours.

Speaker 2:

This is something, too, that I want to leave you with is, if you are a procrastinator, seriously look at yourself in the mirror and say you are a procrastinator. You have got to stop doing this. It's going to be messy, it's not going to be fun, you're not going to love it, but you have got to stop planning it. You know enough and you've got to start doing it. Planning it. You know enough and you've got to start doing it. Take one action in this next day, this next 24-hour timeframe. Take one action, step toward whatever it is, toward the project I'm creating, toward the workout that I'm going to be doing, whatever it is. Do something very, very small. So these are my tips for you if you are a procrastinator, because you can be stuck in this planning stage forever and ever and ever.

Speaker 2:

Two last thoughts. Number one shut up and do it. Just shut up and do the thing. You don't have to plan it, it doesn't have to be perfect. Shut up and do it. So, if you ever are wondering what Christy would say about this. If you're ever stuck planning and planning and planning and you're on your phone, you're like I don't know what workout to do, shut up and do it. Pick one and do it. It doesn't matter If it sucks. It sucks. I've been there, it's fine. Done is better than perfect. Also, fear can be excitement. You feel like you're afraid, but that fear in your body also is so much excitement. Fear and excitement feel the same. Okay, so planning is important, but action is where progress happens. Have a great weekend. I will talk to you next week.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to today's show. Go ahead and leave a rating and a review and, of course, follow the podcast so you don't miss out on any future episodes. And I would love it so much if you came to connect with me over on Instagram at Christy Castillo Fit. I will see you next time. Bye.