Hypnotherapist Takes Action Against Procrastination

Hypnotherapist Takes Action Against Procrastination

In October 2010, Registered Hypnotherapist and internet entrepreneur Mike Reeves-McMillan asked the members of his email list, “What would you like me to make for you next?” He gave them some example topics that had been emailed to him by people struggling with various issues.

The vote in response was conclusive: They wanted something to help them stop procrastinating and take action towards achieving their dreams.

“This wasn't just about financial success, though that was in there,” Mr Reeves-McMillan says. “Financial success, by itself, can be quite harmful, as celebrities keep demonstrating. This was about becoming different people, people who were free and energised to take action in service of their highest goals.”

Six weeks later, he had assembled a 23,000-word ebook and 20 audio tracks on topics like building courage, discovering creativity, resourcefulness, commitment and motivation. “I looked at the commonest causes of procrastination,” he says, “things like not knowing how to get started, feeling afraid, being trapped by perfectionism. Then I wrote about how to get the opposite of those things.”

Conventionally, procrastinators are advised to “just get started” or “break down the task”. Fine advice as far as it goes, but not really very helpful. Mr Reeves-McMillan's course, which he calls Stop Procrastinating, Start Succeeding, concentrates on using specific mental techniques to shift patterns of thinking, feeling and behavior which lead to procrastination.

“These are very simple, fun techniques,” he says. “I enjoyed giving them evocative names like the Huck and Tom Technique or the Dinosaur Comics Win. If it's like a school assignment, guess what - it'll just trigger off all the procrastination behaviors again.”

Accompanying the course is a series of emails to coach the user through the course, one achievable step at a time. Although there's a total of over two and a half hours of audio, most of it is in chunks of less than 10 minutes, and the ebook is similarly broken down into short chapters of a few hundred words.

“I want people to succeed at this,” Reeves-McMillan says. “They've had enough failure. And by succeeding in taking action in small ways, they can start to move towards taking the massive action that's going to change their lives and the lives of the people around them.”

About Mike Reeves-McMillan:

Mike Reeves-McMillan is a Registered Hypnotherapist and a health and personal development coach based in Auckland, New Zealand. He creates online courses for ordinary people to help them live life more gloriously.

ENDS

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