The Feeling Good Handbook Read online

  The following are the types of mind-sets most commonly associated with procrastination and do-nothingism. You may see yourself in one or more of them.

  1. Hopelessness. When you are depressed, you get so frozen in the pain of the present moment that you forget entirely that you ever felt better in the past and find it in-conceivable that you might feel more positive in the future.

  Therefore, any activity will seem pointless because you are absolutely certain your lack of motivation and sense of oppression are unending and irreversible. From this perspective

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  the suggestion that you do something to "help yourself"

  might sound as ludicrous and insensitive as telling a dying man to cheer up.

  2. Helplessness. You can't possibly do anything that will make yourself feel better because you are convinced that your moods are caused by factors beyond your control, such as fate, hormone cycles, dietary factors, luck, and other people's evaluations of you.

  3. Overwhelming Yourself. There are several ways you may overwhelm yourself into doing nothing. You may magnify a task to the degree that it seems impossible to tackle.

  You may assume you must do everything at once instead of breaking each job down into small, discrete, manageable units which you can complete one step at a time. You might also inadvertently distract yourself from the task at hand by obsessing about endless other things you haven't gotten around to doing yet. To illustrate how irrational this is, imagine that every time you sat down to eat, you thought about all the food you would have to eat during your lifetime. Just imagine for a moment that all piled up in front of you are tons of meat, vegetables, ice cream, and thousands of gallons of fluids! And you have to eat every bit of this food before you die! Now, suppose that before every meal you said to yourself, "This meal is just a drop in the bucket. How can I ever get all that food eaten? There's just no point in eating one pitiful hamburger tonight." You'd feel so nauseated and overwhelmed your appetite would vanish and your stomach would turn into a knot. When you think about all the things you are putting off, you do this very same thing without being aware of it.

  4. lumping to Conclusions. You sense that it's not within your power to take effective action that will result in satisfaction because you are in the habit of saying, "I can't," or "I would but . . ." Thus when I suggested that a depressed woman bake an apple pie, she responded, "I can't cook anymore." What she really meant to say was, "I have the feeling I wouldn't enjoy cooking and it seems like it would be awfully difficult." When she tested these assumptions by attempting to bake a pie, she found it surprisingly satisfying and not at all difficult.

  5. Self-labeling. The more you procrastinate, the more you 82

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  condemn yourself as inferior. This saps your self-confidence further. The problem is compounded when you label yourself

  "a procrastinator" or "a lazy person." This causes you to see your lack of effective action as the "real you" so that you automatically expect little or nothing from yourself.

  6. Undervaluing the Rewards. When you are depressed you may fail to initiate any meaningful activity not only because you conceive of any task as terribly difficult, but also because you feel the reward simply wouldn't be worth the effort"Anhedonia" is the technical name for a diminished ability to experience satisfaction and pleasure. A common thinking error—your tendency to "disqualify the positive"—may be at the root of this problem. Do you recall what this thinking error consists of?

  A businessman complained to me that nothing he did all day was satisfying. He explained that in the morning he had attempted to return a call from a client, but found the line was busy. As he hung up, he told himself, "That was a waste of time." Later in the morning he successfully completed an important business negotiation. This time he told himself, "

  Anyone in our firm could have handled it just as well or better. It was an easy problem, and so my role wasn't really important." His lack of satisfaction results from the fact that he always finds a way to discredit his efforts. His bad habit of saying, "It doesn't count" successfully torpedoes any sense of fulfillment.

  7. Perfectionism. You defeat yourself with inappropriate goals and standards. You will settle for nothing short of a magnificent performance in anything you do, so you frequently end up having to settle for just that—nothing.

  8. Fear of Failure. Another mind-set which paralyzes you is the fear of failure. Because you imagine that putting in the effort and not succeeding would be an overwhelin'ng personal defeat, you refuse to try at all. Several thinking errors are involved in the fear of failure. One of the most common is overgeneralization. You reason, "If I fail at this, it means I will fail at anything." This, of course, is impossible. Nobody can fail at everything. We all have our share of victories and defeats. While it is true that victory tastes sweet and defeat is

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  often bitter, failing at any task need not be a fatal poison, and the bad taste will not linger forever.

  A second mind-set that contributes to the fear of defeat is when you evaluate your performance exclusively on the outcome regardless of your individual effort. This is illogical and reflects a "product orientation" rather than a "process orientation." Let me explain this with a personal example. As a psychotherapist I can only control what I say and how I interact with each patient. I cannot control how any particular patient will respond to my efforts during a given therapy session. What I say and how I interact is the process; how each individual reacts is the product. In any given day, several patients will report that they have benefited greatly from that day's session, while a couple of others will tell me that their session was not particularly helpful. If I evaluated my work exclusively on the outcome or product, I would experience a sense of exhilaration whenever a patient did well, and feel defeated and defective whenever a patient reacted negatively. This would make my emotional life a roller coaster, and my self-esteem would go up and down in an exhausting and unpredictable manner all day long. But if I admit to myself that all I can control is the input I provide in the therapeutic process, I can pride myself on good consistent work regardless of the outcome of any particular session. It was a great personal victory when I learned to evaluate my work based on the process rather than on the product. If a patient gives me a negative report, I try to learn from it. If I did make an error, I attempt to correct it, but I don't need to jump out the window.

  9. Fear of Success. Because of your lack of confidence, success may seem even more risky than failure because you are certain it is based on chance. Therefore, you are convinced you couldn't keep it up, and you feel your accomplishments will falsely raise the expectations of others. Then when the awful truth that you are basically "a loser" ultimately comes out, the disappointment, rejection, and pain will be all the more bitter. Since you feel sure you will eventually fall off the cliff, it seems safer not to go mountain climbing at all.

  You may also fear success because you anticipate that people will make even greater demands on you. Because you 84

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  are convinced you must and can't meet their expectations, success would put you into a dangerous and impossible situation. Therefore, you try to maintain control by avoiding any commitment or involvement.

  10. Fear of Disapproval or Criticism. You imagine that if you try something new, any mistake or flub will be met with strong disapproval and criticism because the people you care about won't accept you if you are human and imperfect.

  The risk of rejection seems so dangerous that to protect yourself you adopt as low a profile as possible. If you don't make any effort, you can't goof up!

  11. Coercion and Resentment. A deadly enemy of motivation is a sense of coercion. You feel under intense pressure to perform—generated from within and without.

  This happens when you try to motivate yourself with moralistic "shoulds" and "oughts." You tell yourself, "I shou
ld do this" and "I have to do that." Then you feel obliged, burdened, tense, resentful, and guilty. You feel like a delinquent child under the discipline of a tyrannical probation officer.

  Every task becomes colored with such unpleasantness that you can't stand to face it. Then as you procrastinate, you condemn yourself as a lazy, no-good bum. This further drains your energies.

  12. Low Frustration Tolerance. You assume that you should be able to solve your problems and reach your goals rapidly and easily, so you go into a frenzied state of panic and rage when life presents you with obstacles. Rather than persist patiently over a period of time, you may retaliate against the "unfairness" of it all when things get tough, so you give up completely. I also call this the "entitlement syndrome" because you feel and act as if you were entitled to success, love, approval, perfect health, happiness, etc.

  Your frustration results from your habit of comparing reality with an ideal in your head. When the two don't match, you condemn reality. It doesn't occur to you that it might be infinitely easier simply to change your expectations than to bend and twist reality.

  This frustration is frequently generated by should statements. While jogging, you might complain, "For all the miles I've gone, I should be in better shape by now." Indeed? Why should you? You may have the illusion that such punishing, 85

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  demanding statements will help you by driving you on to tr harder and to put out more effort. It rarely works this wa:, The frustration just adds to your sense of futility and increases your urge to give up and do nothing.

  13. Guilt and Self-blame. If you are frozen in the conviction you are bad or have let others down, you naturally feel unmotivated to pursue your daily life. I recently treated a lonely elderly woman who spent her days in bed in spite of the fact that she felt better when she shopped.

  cooked, and socialized with her friends. Why? This sweet woman was holding herself responsible for her daughter's divorce five years earlier. She explained, "When I visited them. I should have sat down and talked things over with my son-in-law. I should have asked him how things were going. Maybe I could have helped. I wanted to and yet I didn't take the opportunity. Now I feel I failed them."

  After we reviewed the illogic in her thinking, she felt better immediately and became active again. Because she was human and not God, she could not have been expected to predict the future or to know precisely how to intervene.

  By now you may be thinking, "So what? I know that my do-nothingism is in a way illogical and self-defeating. I can see myself in several of the mental sets you've described.

  But I feel like I'm trying to wade through a pool of molasses. I just can't get myself going. You may say all this oppression just results from my attitudes, but it feels like a ton of bricks. So what can I do about it?"

  Do you know why virtually any meaningful activity has a decent chance of brightening your mood? If you do nothing, you will become preoccupied with the flood of negative, destructive thoughts. If you do something, you will be temporarily distracted from that internal dialogue of self-denigration. What is even more important, the sense of mastery you will experience will disprove many of the distorted thoughts that slowed you down in the first place.

  As you review the following self-activation techniques, choose a couple that appeal most to you and work at them for a week or two. Remember you don't have to master them all! One man's salvation can be another's curse. Use the methods that seem the most tailored to your particular brand of procrastination.

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  The Daily Activity Schedule. The Daily Activity Schedule (see Figure 5-2, page 88) is simple but effective, and can help you get organized in your fight against lethargy and apathy. The schedule consists of two parts. In the Prospective column, write out an hour-by-hour plan for what you would like to accomplish each day. Even though you may actually carry out only a portion of your plan, the simple act of creating a method of action every day can be immensely helpful. Your plans need not be elaborate. Just put one or two words in each time slot to indicate what you'd like to do, such as "dress," "eat lunch," "prepare résumé," etc. It should not require more than five minutes to do this.

  At the end of the day, fill out the Retrospective column.

  Record hi each time slot what you actually did during the day. This may be the same as or different from what you as planned; nevertheless, even if it was just staring at the wall, write it down. In addition, label each activity with the letter M for mastery or the letter P for pleasure. Mastery activities are those which represent some accomplishment, such as brushing your teeth, cooking dinner, driving to work, etc.

  Pleasure might include reading a book, eating, going to a movie, etc. After you have written M or P for each activity, estimate the actual amount of pleasure, or the degree of difficulty in the task by using a zero to five rating. For example, you could give yourself a score of M-1 for particularly easy tasks like getting dressed, while M-4 or M-5 would indicate you did something more difficult and challenging, such as not eating too much or applying for a job. You can rate the pleasure activities in a similar manner. If any activity was pleasurable in the past when you were not depressed, but today it was nearly or totally devoid of plesaure, put a P-1/2

  or a P-0. Some activities, such as cooking dinner, can be labeled M and P.

  Why is this simple activity schedule likely to be helpful?

  First, it will undercut your tendency to obsess endlessly about the value of various activities and to debate counterproductively about whether or not to do something. Accomplishing even a part of your scheduled activities will in all probability give you some satisfaction and will combat your depression.

  As you plan your day, develop a balanced program that provides for enjoyable leisure activities as well as work. If 87

  Figure 5-2. Daily Activity Schedule.

  PROSPECTIVE:

  RETROSPECTIVE:

  Plan your activities on an

  At the end of the day,

  hour-by-hour basis at the

  record what you actually

  start of the day.

  did and rate each activity

  with an M for mastery or

  a P for pleasure.*

  Date

  TIME

  8-9

  9-10

  10-11

  11-12

  12-1

  1-2

  2-3

  3-4

  4-3

  5-6

  6-7

  7-8

  8-9

  9-12

  • Mastery and pleasure activities must be rated from 0 to 5: The higher the number, the greater the sense of satisfaction.

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  you are feeling blue, you may want to put a special emphasis on fun, even if you doubt you can enjoy things as much as usual. You may be depleted from having asked to much of yourself, causing an imbalance in your "give-and-get" system.

  If so, take a fine days of "vacation" and schedule only those things you want to do.

  If you adhen to the schedule, you will find your motivation increasing As you start doing thing you will begin to disprove your belief that you are incapable of functioning effectively As one procrastinator reported "Be scheduling my day and comparing the results, I have become aware of how I spend my time This hay helped me take charge of my life once again I realize that I can be in control if I want to."

  Keep this Daily Activity Schedule for at least a week. As you review the activities in which you participated during the previous wed you will see that some have giver you a greater sense of mastery and pleasure. as indicated by higher scores As you continue planning each upcoming dm use this information to schedule more of those activities and avoid other!, which are associated with lower satisfactior levels.

  The Daily Activity Schedule can be esper 'alb helpful for a common syndrome I call the "weekend/holidas blues" This is a pattern of depress
ion most often reflected it people who are single and have their greatest emotional difficulties when alone. If you fit this description. you probably assume these periods are bound to be unbearable, so you do very little to care for yourself creatively. You stare at the walls and mope, or lie in bed all day Saturday and Sunday: or, for good times, you watch a boring TV show and eat a meager dinner of a peanut-butter sandwich and a cup of instant coffee. No wonder your weekends are tough! Not only are you depressed and alone but you treat yourself in a way that can only inflict pain. Would you treat someone else in such a sadistic manner?

  These weekend blues can be overcome by using the Daily Activity Schedule. On Friday night, schedule some plans for Saturday on an hourly basis. You may resist this, saying, "

  What's the point? I'm all alone." The fact that you are all alone is the very reason for using the schedule. Why assume you're bound to be miserable? This prediction can only function as a self-fulfilling prophecy! Put it to the test by adopting 89

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  a productive approach. Your plans need not be elaborate in order to be helpful. You can schedule going to the hair-dresser, shopping, visiting an art museum, reading a book, or walking through the park. You will discover that laying out and adhering to a simple plan for the day can go a long way toward lifting your mood. And who knows—if you are willing to care for yourself, you may suddenly notice that others will act more interested in you as well!

  At the end of the day before you go to bed, write down what you actually did each hour and rate each activity for Mastery and Pleasure. Then make out a new schedule for the following day. This simple procedure may be the first step toward a sense of self-respect and genuine self-reliance.

  The Antiprocrastination Sheet. In Figure 5 3 is a form I

  -

  have found effective in breaking the habit of procrastination.