Dr Julie Smith: The Reason You’re Not Doing the Thing You Know You Should

By Chris Cook | August 27, 2026

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Why do you know exactly what you should be doing, and still not do it? Dr Julie Smith breaks down the psychology of procrastination, fear and self-sabotage, and reveals how she went from an NHS psychologist to building a mental health platform with millions of followers and a Sunday Times #1 bestseller.

Dr Julie Smith is a Chartered Clinical Psychologist who spent a decade in the NHS before building one of the world’s largest mental health education platforms, reaching an audience of over 10 million people across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. She is the Sunday Times #1 bestselling author of Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?, which has sold nearly 2 million copies and was the UK’s top-selling nonfiction book of 2022.

She explains:

  • Why the fear you feel before doing something new is just your brain’s stress response, and how to work with it instead of against it
  • Why she’s never once used a call to action, and how giving everything away for free built a following of millions
  • The real psychological reason behind procrastination, and the simple weekly framework she uses to beat it

Chapters

  • 00:00:00 Intro
  • 00:02:06 Leaving The NHS To Build A Private Practice
  • 00:05:07 The First Viral TikTok Video
  • 00:06:34 Fear Of What Colleagues Would Think
  • 00:09:29 Overcoming Fear Of Being On Camera
  • 00:11:25 Understanding The Stress Response
  • 00:12:38 Building A Healthy Relationship With Failure
  • 00:14:22 How Lockdown Accelerated Her Content Growth
  • 00:16:27 Getting A Book Deal
  • 00:18:29 Becoming The UK’s Top-Selling Nonfiction Author Of 2022
  • 00:21:52 Handling Fame And Millions Of Followers
  • 00:24:11 Her Content Creation Process With Husband Matt
  • 00:29:04 When A Video Goes Viral For The Wrong Reasons
  • 00:31:19 You Don’t Have To Go Viral To Build A Business
  • 00:32:42 The Unsustainable Early Years Of Content Creation
  • 00:34:35 Raising Entrepreneurial Kids
  • 00:39:19 Making An Unsexy Topic Engaging
  • 00:40:05 The Power Of A Visual Hook
  • 00:45:06 Why Content Creation Is Harder Than It Looks
  • 00:47:09 Why She Never Uses A Call To Action
  • 00:51:37 Using A Teleprompter Without Losing Personality
  • 00:54:23 Overcoming Fear When Starting A Business
  • 00:56:37 Why Word Of Mouth Still Works
  • 00:57:31 A Step-By-Step Framework For Facing Fear
  • 00:59:57 Handling Unsupportive Family And Friends
  • 01:03:36 Beating Procrastination
  • 01:07:03 Closing Thoughts
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