The Real Reason You Never Follow Through (And How to Fix It)

Join us today for a discussion on mastering the art of follow-through. In this video, we'll explore effective strategies and insights aimed at improving consistency and commitment to our goals, regardless of our current level of discipline.

Follow-through, often associated with discipline, is a skill that can be cultivated and honed by anyone. Our conversation aims to debunk the misconception that only naturally disciplined individuals succeed in staying committed to their objectives.

▼ Timestamps ▼
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00:00 - Introduction
01:04 - A War with your Mind
02:59 - The mind is Very Curious
04:43 - Urge Surfing
06:17 - Notice your Desires
09:19 - "My urges are too powerful"
09:58 - Don't start with the Biggest Craving
10:38 - Conclusion

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DISCLAIMER

Healthy Gamer is an online community and resource platform for gamers and their families. It does not provide medical services or professional counseling, and it is not a substitute for professional medical care. Our coaches are peer supporters, not professionally trained experts, and they cannot provide medical service. If you or a loved one are experiencing an emergency, please call your nation's emergency telephone number.

All guests of Healthy Gamer are informed of the public, non-medical nature of the content and have expressly agreed to share their story.

#healthygamergg #lifeadvice #willpower

[Afrowhizkid]

I actually did something like this when I was in college, and my grades were the best they had ever been. I would basically "procrastinate fun" and tell myself that I would "check my phone/play Dota/watch Netflix" later. Because I already was super good at procrastinating schoolwork, when I aimed those skills towards dopaminergic activities I would stay on task waaay longer

[skiptomylou]

I indirectly learned this "urge surfing" while meditating. I have gotten decent at it——been meditating for about two years now consistently. I normally look forward to it, except my sits are 15-20 or 25 minutes at most.

One day I decided to try an hour just to see what would happen. Well, I would put it off. I'd procrastinate and wouldn't do it. After a few tries I finally decided to sit through it and do it. It was excruciating for a while. My mind was so adamant in wanting to convince me that I needed to quit.

"my leg is cramping, so I should stop"
"I didn't set an alarm, I might sit longer—I should stop"
"I might fall asleep and this will be a waste"

You get the idea. Then something unexpected happened. My mind shut off. All those thoughts began to fade away. It was as if I was able to see my thoughts outside of myself for the first time. I had experienced that fleetingly while meditating through the time, but this time it was like I saw the Matrix.

I now do one hour sits once a week, and my mind still tries to talk me out of it. The difference is that I don't give in to what my mind says. So if I want to read a book, my mind has to follow suit because I won't listen to it. That has helped me pick up reading again after nearly a decade of not reading books. I've been journaling every single day—same thing, I'd always try to do it and I'd wind up browsing reddit, twitter, YT—whatever that would get my mind off it.

TL;DR urge surfing works. Try it out.

[RoelBaardman]

The most soothing thing that I realized during urge surfing, was notice that the more intense the urge is, the sooner is passes. It's as if the mind exhausts itself.

[laja]

I feel like "urge surfing" is just another way of saying, "be present." It's amazing to me how many ills of the mind can be resolved or (simply pass by) by being present.

[TMichelle]

"No cravings last forever" what a relief. I'm trying to quit drinking and i keep relapsing once a month, I'm really struggling to get to 3 months consecutively. I can go a month easy but then the cravings kick in something fierce. I try to spend all my money so I don't have any but seems like i always find my way to alcohol. Thank you Dr K. That sentence gives me hope

[zaldare]

Great reminder to all of us that we don't HAVE TO be slaves to our urges. I'm speaking as someone who has ADHD and my concentration was in rock bottom. Whenever a new thought or craving would rise up I would delve right into it without trying to steer my concentration and maintain my focus on what I was doing at the time.

This became extremely evident whenever I would work or try to study. Mind you that I became aware of this disorder in young adulthood so my entire schoollife was constantly filled of me trying actively to do other things I tricked myself to enjoy. Escapism to the fullest. Video games, porn, ignoring exercise, eating constantly even though I wasn't actually hungry. Just a massive mess which constantly got in the way of me getting dedicated in any area. Wherever the wind blew that day was where I was going.

But as you said, try becoming aware of the moments when your mind is trying to escape from it's task and instead set down the foot saying "No, I'm gonna follow through!" has helped me immensely and it's been the difference between sticking to the task or essentialy failing - doing 10 other things before returning (if you ever do so) to what you should be doing.

[impishfou]

I literally stopped meditating, journaling and started smoking again like yesterday. Felt guilty i couldnt be consistent Thank you for this Dr.K.

[imSovi]

I indirectly discovered this when I was 17 (I am 21 now) when I was decided to quit nicotine and stop vaping. It occurred to me that if I would simply sit through the impulse of needing that hit, no matter how strong it came on, it would eventually pass. You’ve put what I organically figured out into words - the brain gets tired of itself. Side note: I’ve been free of nicotine since then. I vaped heavily every day for a year and a half straight, and it took me around 2 weeks to see a decrease in my urges. For my fellas and ladies struggling with addiction to whatever it may be, you’re going to be alright. Take that first step, try to put this into practice. Key word is *TRY*. If you don’t start, you will go nowhere.

[Voltaic]

One thing I always tell people about being disciplined as well is that you don't have to become some gigachad overnight. Like when it comes to losing weight & going to the gym... you don't have to completely change your entire diet and start spending 3 hours at the gym every day power lifting with a personal trainer just to lose weight. Just go for 10 minutes and walk on a treadmill and leave, lift some easy weights for a while. Maybe go just to socialize with your friend. Have a good conversation with your buddy while you're doing curls... the point is... you don't have to become a gigachad overnight.

If there is one thing I've learned over the course of my life... It's that small but consistent progress gives better gains over a long period of time compared to short sporadic but high gains for very short periods of time. Short and sporadic gains are more likely going to lead to burn out. Discipline & consistency will lead to much better gains as time goes on. :)

[MythiKira]

Might just be doc's biggest banger of a video yet. I absolutely love the fact that you use the viewers attention and thought process to guide them into realizing that they're doing exactly what they set out to do in the first place. Ggwp

[Socsob]

I swear Dr. K is watching my life and making videos specified to me, they are always so relevant

[trashbag]

This is a very important topic, thank you Dr. K :) The therapist i saw for CBT (for OCD) referred to this as a bell curve as the anxiety rises, peaks, and lowers instead of rising forever. It has to end because you have limited energy & neurotransmitters, making it physiologically impossible for it to not end. So as long as you: 1) Start small (so you're not overwhelmed or retraumatized); 2) Keep reminding yourself it has an end point; and 3) let yourself ride the wave / bell curve, it shouldn't get worse. In fact the bell curve / wave peaks lower and becomes shorter as you continue doing this. You just Have to see it through.

[ryanfindley]

I recently started realizing that my ADHD is a disorder that really permeates everything in my life. I have been missing almost every deadline I have made with myself and others and I feel like I can’t be trusted and I feel like an awful person for missing my deadlines (or getting extremely close to missing it) .

I just started treating my adhd with medication, exercise and eating better and I definitely see a difference, but it isn’t a completed solution, and I definitely need to become more comfortable with being bored, the information in this video is super helpful.

Thanks for this video Dr. K!

[Krnw]

Never felt an urge to switch off this video while I was watching it. You are teaching a very essential skill. You taught it so well. You are brilliant! Thank you!

[poelogan]

This video is the biggest help but also genius because the actual concept of talking about urge surfing breeds better watch time. Since anyone who wants to urge surf off the video then immediately discovers what it is, then goes back, like I did lol

You’re a genius Dr. K

[CHRISPARVISMAGNAGAMING]

This really couldn't have been uploaded with better timing. Last Monday I spent most of the day thinking about the fact that I genuinely feel like there have been several moments in my life where success has been at my fingertips; and maybe I come across a speedbump. A minor inconvenience, or self belittling thought. In those situations my immediate response was always to switch lanes. I gave up on soccer, theater, music, and content creation. I found success in dog training and I've been doing that for a few years now, but I just feel like I regret so much and I failed myself so much.

[flynnoflenniken]

I've noticed meditation can help with building up this kind of skill. Like, when you meditate you're focusing on something (breathing, sounds, a point on the wall, etc.), and throughout the meditation you have "monkey mind" thoughts that creep into your head while you're trying to maintain focus. Stuff like what you're going to do later with your day or ruminating on something that happened. Random thoughts creep into your mind, and you have to practice acknowledging the thought and brushing it away so you can go back to what you were focusing on. Over time, the more you do this the better you get at recognizing when you've become distracted, and you can go back to what you were focusing on more quickly. For me this translates over to when I'm trying to work on something too. I constantly have random distracting thoughts creeping into my mind, and because of all the meditation I've done, I'm able to recognize what's going on, acknowledge the thought, then toss it aside so I can refocus on what I'm currently doing.

Of course some days I completely fail and backtrack, but over the long term I've become a lot more able to focus on a task and power through it as I need to.

[classyjohn]

I understand that “urge surfing” is a phrase he labeled this process which he has already mentioned several times on stream before. But, to me, this is the first time he’s described the idea that our mind will have urges when we’re bored and that these urges are temporary. For me, the biggest contributor of my “laziness” is that my urges don’t feel temporary so i end up giving into the urge and hence, every “habit” I’ve developed tends to be bad

[AlixKRex]

1st off, gotta say a huge thank you to this channel. You’ve saved so many years of heartache and headaches. We aren’t broken we aren’t worthless we can do what we want. I believe in all of us fighting for that.
2nd - Ever since finding your channel shortly after learning about how bad social media has been shortening attention spans, I’ve been evaluating everything I put time and energy into. Sometimes I need to do some mindless media content surfing still I won’t lie but I tell ya, when you focus on unlearning this for a long time you’ll suddenly realize it’s way less and it keeps decreasing. You’ll even start hating the feeling and recognizing it for what it is. Wasting valuable time that you could just as easily be using for things that will enrich your life. Now, I work to hold myself accountable when I get distracted and check myself.

Go have fun outside of the internet if you can or at least off social medias. Immerse yourself in learning something new, a dance routine/style, a workout style, music, maths, sciences, work on writing something, read something (even something small like fanfic or a comics!), learn some arts, go for a walk or run, go lay in the grass while doing one of these things. Dare I say, indulge in making it special. Make yourself some coffee or tea or fav drink of choice and start having positive associations with cultivating space of loving new things and things that bring something more to your life rather than suck it into the void. Light some incense or a candle, put some mellow music on in the background if it helps, and surf through yourself to find what you really want to devote yourself to!

The internet and social medias aren’t going anywhere, they’ll still be there if you hate it but I really doubt you will! Plus, you can find communities for the interests on discord or YouTube to self teach! My channel, for starters, had a huge repository of free learning resources I’ve spent ages finding and will only keep adding to as I have time to make sure the others I’ve bookmarked are good resources. There’s so much of the world left to see, don’t let social media and what it’s done to our brains make you forget the beauty out here in even the most mundane of things. Simply going for a walk or just sitting there lookin at nature can do a mind some wonders!

I wish you all the best of luck but I know you don’t need it. 🫶🏻🤓💕you got this

[CowJangles]

"Using willpower is hard. So instead of using willpower to follow through with activities your mind is fighting against, use willpower to resist urges by urge surfing."