How many of you want to do certain things but just do not seem to do them? Do you procrastinate about doing certain things that you really would love to do? Do you really want the end result but don't seem to muster the action to do it?

Procrastination can be (and in my opinion is) one of the most devastating problems you ever face. Just why is that?

Because when you procrastinate, there is a life you know is waiting to be lived, you may even be yearning to live it, but part of you doesn't seem to want that life, and that part of you seems to prevent you from doing it.

Procrastination commonly happens because part of you believes that you don't deserve the rewards of the actions you need to be taking, though there are of course lots of other possible reasons.

Procrastination often is the most sneaky and subtle form of self-sabotage you will experience.

I used to be a big procrastinator in my early and mid twenties. I always wanted to write books, to have a flourishing career, to travel more and maintain certain friendships, but I kept on setting things aside and diverting my attention to other things.

I worked averagely hard, but was sabotaging my own life by not getting the books into print, not writing the new programmes or making the progress that I desired personally and professionally.

I was sabotaging myself. There was a part of me that believed that it was not possible for me to have success or even that I deserved it. I had not worked as hard as my Dad advised me was necessary to get ahead in life.

He had risen out of very poor beginnings to get where he was against all kinds of adverse conditions. I just had not overcome anything. In fact, I believed that I had been handed everything.

I worked fairly hard, but when it was obvious I could do great things, I would get lazy and stop being productive when I saw the potential for a successful life.

Once I had my own house I would often find myself watching the TV for hours, flicking through the channels. I was flicking away the hours of my life! I know and meet lots of people that do this too. There were other ways I was procrastinating, but that one was most prominent and obvious.

Then I attended a Tony Robbins seminar in London and I remember him talking about having to have a goal. Now, I had lots of my own dreams and goals. What's more, I really did believe I had lots of potential.

The seminar faded from my mind as my mind flashed possible futures. I saw one of being mediocre and unaccomplished and another one was where I was a success on my own terms with all the wonderful things and people in my life that I want, and I decided that I really wanted that more than the other future possibility.

I started to think "What do I need to do to change?"

"I have to stop procrastinating and I must start to get off my backside and not just work, but finish projects and finish them successfully." I could see the end result that I wanted.

I just had not been taking the necessary action to make things happen and make it all work and fit into place for me. I had been procrastinating and flicking the channels.

So I rummaged through all the books and training manuals I had to find the right solution for me to take control of my brain and one of the most powerful ones I ever did I am going to share with you all today. It is known as the swish pattern.

Step One: Firstly, identify what it is that you want to change. Run through that thing in your mind, get all the details of that behaviour in your mind.

Step Two: With your eyes closed, imagine that you are sitting in the most comfortable chair in your own private cinema, and imagine that you are looking up at a huge blank cinema screen. Now up on the screen, play the procrastinating behaviour over in your mind like a film clip.

I used to sit down in front of the TV, so I imagined doing just that, up on that screen was me holding the remote control in my right hand with my thumb over the channel hopping button.

I imagined the TV in front of me and with my right hand holding tightly onto the remote control. I imagined the channels changing as I pressed the buttons.

Step Three: Wash that from your mind for a moment, clear your mind. Now decide what behaviour you want to do instead and see yourself rewarded.

Having established and replayed what you no longer want to experience. That was the repeating loop of procrastination that you were doing time after time in the past. That is what needs to stop. Now you have to figure out what behaviour you want to do instead.

What I wanted was to take action by writing more material for my books, researching for and recording new audio programmes, and studying more.

I wanted to help change people's lives! I wanted to see looks on people's faces that were of happiness and satisfaction and I wanted to get well paid for that!

How could I create a behaviour that I would do instead of flicking through the channels of the TV? How could I turn all of these desires into one simple process in my mind?

I created a film clip in my mind which went something like this: I see my hand flicking the channel on the remote controller and this alerts me to immediately get up and go to the computer. I start typing and I immediately see the rewards that I really want, coming out of the computer.

I see the money, I feel the sense of self-satisfaction, I see things around me that are the rewards of my hard work. It all feels perfect.

That is the new film clip. Do this now and get this really vivid in your mind. Get the sights, sounds and feelings integrated into this film clip, it must be as vivid as possible.

Step Four: Now we need to install the new behaviour.

So now we have two very different film clips of how you want to be and how you were in the past. We need one to be more dominant in your mind in a way that will create lasting change. For me, it meant that as soon I ever saw myself holding the TV remote control, I had to get to work on something that I have been procrastinating about.

So, for this next step, you have to see the old behaviour in your mind, up on the large screen. Then have the new behaviour as a smaller image.

Shrink this image so that it fits into a little tiny picture box in the lower right hand side of the big screen. So basically, you are looking at two screens; the big old, unwanted behaviour and the small new desirable and productive behaviour.

Step Five: On the big screen is the film clip of the procrastinating behaviour that is causing so much sabotage in life. You see yourself watching the film clip of the procrastination and then you "swish!"

When I say "Swish" what I mean is this: Immediately the tiny box in the lower right hand corner explodes onto the big screen. The old film clip is shrunk into the small box. You can't even see what's going on in that tiny picture any more.

Instead you see yourself doing the new behaviour. In my case, I saw myself going to the computer and starting to do work that would be productive, and I saw myself receiving the rewards I wanted.

Step Six: Then you reset things. Let the picture in the small box, the old unwanted behaviour, reset onto the big screen.

With the new behaviour in the small bottom screen and the "swish" them again.

Imagine that as you swish them, you are obliterating and destroying the old behaviour.

Make the new film clip, the new behaviour more and more vivid and sensory rich and make the old behaviour more vague each time you shrink it, have it lose some of it's qualities, losing its colours, sounds and so on, make it more and more vague each and every time you do this.

Like you are erasing its effectiveness from your mind.

The old film clip that was running as a behaviour in your life is being shrunk down and dismantled every time you put it on to the big screen, then replaced with the new productive behaviour with a "Swish."

I even have a special sound that I use in my mind to go with the word swish as I say it in my mind.

Step Seven: Repeat lots of times.

I know therapists who do this with people 3 times and then that is it. I recommend that you do this lots and lots of times.

I did this in excess of 30 times in an hour one day. By the end of that hour, I had a new behaviour. I had a new response to seeing the TV and the remote control. Up until this day, it just keeps on working and as each day has gone by, the new behaviour has become more and more lodged into my brain and my life.

It got to the stage a couple of years ago that I just do not go near the TV any longer, I literally walk straight to the computer to begin and finish projects that richly reward me and those that follow my work.

Every time the TV is on in my home, you can bet that my computer is on and some new valuable work is progress.

Run yourself through those steps lots of times and really see the end to any procrastination.

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Adam Eason is a UK based consultant, speaker and best-selling author - one of his books is The Secrets of Self Hypnosis.

See his website for a vast range of resources from the fields of hypnosis, NLP, personal development and human potential: Adam-Eason.com

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