Gaining Resilience

This is the second in a series on under-considered keys to success and contentment. The previous one focused on titration: consciously adjusting your level of intensity, effort, and intellectuality depending on the person you’re interacting with.

Today, I turn to resilience. Everyone has setbacks, whether a firing, divorce, unfair accusation, negligent parent, whatever. And everyone tries to bounce back—learn from it and take baby steps forward. But some people are more resilient an others. What is it about them? I offer tactics they use in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

Thought Stopping: A potent tool for getting unstuck

At least with my career counseling clients, among the most potent tactics for keeping them moving forward rather than stayed mired in,  for example, “No one will hire me,” “I’m so angry at...” or “I’m an imposter” is thought stopping: As soon as you become aware of an unproductive thought, literally say “Stop!” and ask yourself, “What constructive task could I turn my attention to? What’s the first one-second baby step on that task?”

I flesh that out in my PsychologyToday.com article today.

A Journal Entry About Rumination: A short-short story

My PsychologyToday.com contribution today is a short-story about a ruminator.

40 Words to Move You To Action

Sometimes, years of psychotherapy and other major interventions are required to move a person to action.

But occasionally, all that’s required to get you unstuck is a trigger word, something that lights a fire under you. 

In my PsychologyToday.com article today, I offer 40 such words.

How to be Resilient

We all know that even successful people fail but that they're more likely to rebound quickly.

How do they get unstuck? And more important, how can you do it?  It may help you answer the eight-question self-assessment that is my PsychologyToday.com post today.

Your First Step Toward Getting Unstuck: A List of Common First Baby Steps

Some people say they’d take action if only they knew what their first step was.  

Well, my PsychologyToday.com article today offers a list of  common first baby steps. 

HERE is the link.

Getting Past Regrets: Woulda Coulda Shoulda

So many people have regrets:  If only I had taken (or not taken) that job. If only I invested (or didn’t invest) in that. If only I had gone (or not gone) to grad school. If only I married (or didn’t marry) that person.

Yes, it’s usually good advice to stop beating yourself up and start moving forward. But  what if you can’t stop yourself from wallowing in regret?  My PsychologyToday.com article today attempts to help. HERE is the link.

Has Life Been Unfair to You? Five tools for getting past the anger and disappointment.

It seems like some people have all the luck. And if that's not you, it's easy to feel sorry for yourself. 

My PsychologyToday.com article today offers a path upward. HERE is the link.

When Both Your Parents are Gone: What’s your parents’ greatest legacy?

My mom died recently, my dad years earlier.

When our second parent dies, it reminds us that we’re getting toward the end of life’s conveyer belt. It also calls for me to look at their legacy not just for me but perhaps for you, my dear readers.

My article in PsychologyToday.com today may help you identify what your parents' greatest contribution was or is.  HERE is the link. 

 

Practical Advice on Procrastination

My latest contribution to AOL.com appeared today and has already been republished on the home page on CNN.com/money and has been selected for publication soon as Editor's Choice on LinkedIn Today.

It's my latest thinking on how to replace procrastination with drive. It's not some panacea piece. I've found that procrastinators can't be "cured." However, like high blood pressure, it can be controlled so it doesn't kill you. The article shares what is working best for my clients.

By the way, a technique for reducing procrastination that I didn't mention in the article is to hire someone to nag you for a week. For example, s/he might phone you to be sure you wake up on time, then call an hour later to be sure you're doing the work you're suppposed to be doing, and then calling throughout the day to dispense praise or strictures, even perhaps such tough strictures as "You're acting like a loser. You said you really want to change. Now do you?"

Three Often-Helpful Procrastination Cures

I've written a lot on overcoming procrastination. Tonight, I feel like writing a short update: what I currently believe to be the most-often-helpful strategies:

• Make it fun. Most procrastinators don't value productivity enough to make them tackle unpleasant tasks. So ask yourself, "What's the fun way to do this?" Ask yourself that when planning how you'll do a task and when you reach a stumbling block,
  
• Make it simple. This is a variant of "make it fun." How could you do the task more easily and still do it well? Perhaps it's deciding you'll do it less perfectly. Perhaps it's restructuring the task to emphasize your strengths. Or asking someone to help you with the tough part. Or the tried-and-true technique of breaking the task down into baby steps.
• Become beholden to someone. More even than most people, procrastinators hate to be embarrassed. So if you take on a partner for the project or tell people you're committed to completing task X by date Y, your fear of having to tell them you didn't do it may motivate you to get it done. A variant on that: Do the task for your child or spouse. You don't want them to see you as a loser or bad role model.

Your thoughts?

A Very Short Guide to Overcoming Procrastination

As we start the New Year, so many people say, "I'm going to stop being a procrastinator."

I've written widely on overcoming procrastination, most recently this. But readers have said its comprehensiveness is overwhelming.

So here's a highly abridged version. These are the strategies that have worked the best for the most people. Perhaps you'll find one or, dare I hope, all of them useful.

Be aware of the moment of truth. There's a moment when, consciously or unconsciously, you decide whether to do the task or go do something more fun. If doing the task is in your interest, steel your will and make yourself get started.

Accept uncomfortability. To be even modestly successful in life, you must accept that life often requires you to do the uncomfortable, tasks that require effort and aren't as fun as what you'd enjoy more.

Value accomplishment. Your worth is heavily dependent on what you accomplish. Once you believe that, you won't even think about whether to do the task. You'll do it automatically. Contributory people think, "How much can I accomplish." Societal takers think, "What's the least work I can get by with." Decide you'll be as big a contributor as possible.

Recognize that you can survive failure. Yes, if you fail at the task, it will be evidence that you're not that competent. But not trying ensures that you fail and perhaps that you'll be perceived as a loser. The good news is that probably, if you follow the advice in this blog post, you 'll succeed, at least succeed often enough that you're not perceived as a loser. If you're failing at work tasks too often, perhaps it's a sign you need a better-suited job.

See yourself as a follow-through person. A number of my clients have said, "I just can't picture myself as a follow-through person." It may help to retrain your brain neurons: Even though it sounds touchy-feely, frequent affirmations like, "I will be a follow-through person" may help and certainly can't hurt.

Divide the task into baby steps. Write them down. Don't know how to divide it? Ask someone for help.

What's the fun way? Every step of the way, ask yourself, "What's the fun way to do this task? Do it half-baked? Alter the task so it uses more of your strengths? Find a partner to work alongside you? Listen to music while you work? Whatever.

Get started. Ask yourself, "What's my first one-minute task?" Do it. Take a low-risk action.

Make yourself stay focused. Take your mind off everything else: other problems you're facing, the fun activity you'd rather be doing, etc. Stay focused on the task at hand. Perhaps remind yourself how good it will feel when you've gotten it done.

Use the One-Minute Struggle. When you reach a hard part, struggle to figure it out for no more than one minute. After that, chances are you won't solve it. You'll just get frustrated and stop doing the task. At the one-minute mark, decide if you could complete the task without doing that hard part, or get help.

What task should you be getting done? Should you force yourself to get started now? Do you want to use one or more of the techniques above?

Getting Motivated, Unstuck, Overcoming Procrastination

I've just written an article on getting motivated, overcoming procrastination. It's perhaps too cutesily called Light Your Fire: A Matchbox of Ways to Get Motivated.

It will appear in Mensa's national magazine in November but HERE's an advance look.

I'd appreciate your feedback. This is a draft and I hope to make revisions based on your input before I submit it for publication.

"Show Time:" A Fast Way to Gain Confidence

By nature, I'm an introverted, mildly sad person. Of course, if I were to behave that way at work, I'd be less helpful to my career coaching clients and to listeners to my radio shows.

So before starting work, I literally say to myself, "Show Time:" I pretend I'm my most energetic, upbeat self. Forcing myself into that mode actually makes me feel more upbeat. Yes, fake it 'til you make it. It really is like that old song, "Whistle a Happy Tune:" When I fool the people...I fool myself as well." All that song's lyrics are instructive, so here's a link to them. At that site, you also can make that song a ringtone on your cell phone.

Also helping to keep me upbeat is my recognizing that even world-class experts are often wrong. CEOs lose millions of shareholder dollars, graduates of top medical schools kill patients, Al Gore predicted rapid, devastating global warming, after which there has been a decade of flat or declining average global temperatures with many experts predicting no increase for another 10 to 15 years. Indeed Nicholas Kristof in a New York Times article summarized research that finds that expert predictions are little better than a chimpanzee's. So while I do my best to be smart and I acknowledge my extent of ambiguity on an issue, my awareness of humans' great fallibility, enables me to sally forth without undue hesitation.

I'm also made more confident by maintaining a sense of perspective. My advice is unlikely to make that much difference: The recipients may not follow it or they may follow it and it won't improve their life much. Too, I remember that I'm but one of seven billion people on the planet, in a tiny slice of the infinity of time. Yes, I try, absolutely, to give the best counsel I can, and I spend much reading, studying, learning so that my advice is the best possible. But I don't overinflate my advice's import.

Other techniques that may help you be your most confident self when it's Show Time:

• For some people, clothes indeed make the man (or woman.) Dress in the way that makes you feel most confident. Chris, the client, who I just finished a videoskype session with, said that wearing his father's watch makes him act more confidently.
  

• Join Toastmasters. It's a supportive way to gain poise and public speaking skills. It's also a terrific networking opportunity.
  

Finding the Willpower

The cure for your lack of willpower depends on what causes it:

Many previous failures. If you too often fail, eventually you understandably figure it's not worth trying. In other words, you lose willpower.

The usually most successful solution: Choose more attainable goals: an job better suited to your strengths, a more attainable romantic partner, etc.

Hedonism. Here, you fail to realize that to the extent you prioritize pleasure over productivity, you are a drain on your family and on society. The wise person realizes that productivity is key to the life well-led, and that requires frequent impulse control and sacrificing of pleasure for the greater good of accomplishing something.

Genetically low energy. Some people emerge from the womb driven while others are laid back. That is very difficult to compensate for. It may help to pair up for work and avocationally with someone with moderately higher energy. It may rub off.

If you have long been depressed (not just because of a specific situation you're facing,) drugs such as Prozac or Wellbutrin may help, especially if combined with regular exercise and short-term cognitive therapy.

Drug or alcohol problems. The stereotype of the lazy pot smoker is true. To find willpower you must find the--well--willpower to stop doing drugs and alcohol. You are fooling yourself if you think it isn't hurting your work and personal life, not to mention your health.

People of faith are often best helped with a 12-step program such as Alcoholics Anonymous. More purely rational people are often helped with cognitive therapy. Some people are helped by a physician-prescribed drug that reduces cravings or makes you feel nauseous if you drink or do drugs. For some people, a combination works best. Here is a review of alcoholism treatments.

You're pampered or have been. For example, you were too often indulged by your parents, you're a trust fund baby, welfare recipient, or have a spouse or parent who pays your bills. Unless you're an intrinsically motivated person, if you're taken care of, you lose much willpower. The following may be unrealistic but it may be wise: Cut the purse strings and try to make it on your own. Much easier said than done, I'm sure.

Unearned high self-esteem. Many people have been led to believe they deserve high self-esteem merely because all people are worthy or because they're "The Chosen People," "Black is beautiful," etc. That mindset is likely to reduce your willpower. True self-esteem comes only from accomplishment. If you think otherwise, you're deluding yourself.

Misinterpreted theology. Some religious and otherwise spiritually oriented people believe canards like, "The world is abundant. It will provide" or "If it's meant to happen, it will," Many people misinterpret the Christian precept "Do not be willful" as "God will provide," rather than "Make all reasonable effort but at some point realize it's out of your control."

Along with intelligence and ethics, nothing is more key to the life well-led than willpower. I hope you might find at least one of the above suggestions helpful in improving yours.

Reactions to this article, including other suggestions on how to build willpower are, of course, welcome.

Top 10 Ways to Gain Willpower

Updated: Mar. 6, 2014

So many people can't motivate themselves to do what they know they should. Here are my top ten ways to gain willpower. Might one or more help you?

10. Embrace work. Work can feel as or more rewarding than play. Even though I enjoy, for example, watching movies, I feel better about working with a client and yes, writing this blog post. Because my work isn't too hard or too easy, it is pleasurable, and I feel I'm making a contribution--unlike when I'm watching a movie.

For my dad, work was a wonderful healer. After surviving the Holocaust, he was dumped from a cargo ship into the Bronx. He took the first job he could find--sewing shirts in a Harlem factory. It distracted him from his past and gave him hope for a better future. He finally saved up enough to open a tiny retail store in a bad neighborhood. While I can't say he loved his work, it avoided his living in the past, and made him feel purposeful, providing a decent life for his wife, my sister, and me.

It may be easier to embrace work if you always ask yourself, "What's the fun way to do this?" Even resume writing, cold calling, and interviewing can be reframed to be more fun. View resume writing as a way to figure out all the good things about yourself. Think of cold-calling as a treasure hunt, a backdoor into a crowded employment front door. Instead of an interrogation, think of a job interview as a first date, in which you're both trying to figure out if you should become more involved.

9. If possible, set an exciting goal. Goethe said, "Small dreams motivate no one." Worried about the risk of a trying for a big goal? You can usually control the risk. For example, use the time-honored approach of having a stable mundane job to fund your ability to pursue your dream. 

For example, Wallace Stegner waited tables at night and wrote during the day. He ended up winning a Pulitzer for his writing and founded Stanford's creative writing program, where his students included Sandra Day O' Connor, Ken Kesey, and Larry McMurtry. Remember too that even if you don't achieve your goal--for example, you never get published--your life is richer for having tried-- and you didn't, in the process, risk destitution.

8. Tell your goal to your loved ones--To avoid the embarrassment of admitting to your loved ones that you failed, you'll be more motivated to complete the task.

7. Don't think, act. The famous psychologist, William James, wrote, "The more we struggle and debate, the more we reconsider and delay, the less likely we are to act." Don't wait until you feel better to start the task, for example, looking for a job. Start and you're more likely to feel better.

6. The 6-step procrastination cure I teach my clients:

1. Decide if the task is worth doing: Picture the benefit. Picture the downside. If it is worth doing, do you love yourself enough to delay the short-term pleasure of avoiding the task for the long-term rewards from accomplishing it? Is it worth getting comfortable being uncomfortable?

2. Be aware of the moment you decide whether to start the task. Being conscious of that moment makes you more likely to choose to do the task.

3. Break the task down to baby steps. Don't know how? Get help.

4. Overwhelmed by the task? Try asking yourself, "What's my next one-second task?" Do that a few times and you may have jump-started yourself.

5. Be aware of your crisis points: when you're likely to procrastinate, for example, cooking when it would be wisest to work on your resume.

6. The one-minute struggle: After a minute of struggle, you're unlikely to make more progress. You are likely to get frustrated and quit the task. So after a minute, get help or see if you can do the task without doing that hard part.

5. Make it a ritual. If you're a job seeker, every day, be at your desk at 9 and take a five-minute break only after you've worked for at least a half-hour.

4. Keep your goal top-of-mind. It's easy to forget that you need to work on that project. Memotome.com will send you a reminder email twice a day. I'm trying to lose 15 pounds so I get emails saying, "Reasons to lose weight: live longer, fit in clothes better, look better. And remember, 'a moment of the lips; a lifetime on the hips.'" Update: Candidly, while this sounded good to me. It hasn't worked for me.

3. Go all the way: Instead of tackling your task in drips and drabs, totally immerse yourself in it. When it was time to start writing my first book, I moved out of my house for a week. I rented a cabin in Bolinas, just took my laptop (and my portable music synthesizer for recreation) and wrote for eight hours a day for a week. I got so into writing the book that it was easy for me to continue writing when I got home.

Another example of my going all the way: The only time I lost weight was when I was on a strict diet in which every day, I ate the same foods adding up to 1200 calories a day. That took the choice out of the matter.

2. Try affirmations. Some experts believe that repeating positive affirmations (for example, "I am going to do this!)-and visualizing your succeeding change your brain's neuronal structure, leading to more positive behavior. Viktor Frankl claims that his positive thinking helped him survive the Holocaust. Sports psychologists use visualization with pro athletes.

1. Have a cheerleader or slave-driver cheering, jeering, and/or guilt-tripping you into action.

BONUS: Don't let setbacks stop you prematurely. When you screw up, remember that winners err often. But winners don't get depressed about it--They ask themselves whether there's anything to learn from the setback, and they move on. Of course, if you fail and fail and fail again at something, perhaps the world is telling you you need a different goal. As Kenny Rogers says, "You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em.

Okay, are any of those strategies likely to help you get unstuck?

Getting Unstuck

So many people know what they should do but can't motivate themselves to get started.

Getting unstuck is alchemy, an often irrational combination of one or more of these:

• Some confidence-building wins, even if in a seemingly irrelevant arena. For example, an IT guy who liked his field but couldn't make himself look for a job got motivated by winning a ping-pong tournament, writing a song he liked, and getting a second date from a woman he liked.
  
• Hitting rock bottom. Another client hated his job for years but did nothing to try to find a better one. Then he got fired and immediately started looking. Other people have to fall even further--One client became homeless and was drinking a half bottle of vodka every night. Only then, utterly sick of herself, she started to look for a job.
• Rigidly scheduling the task. Let's say the task would probably require 10 sessions of work. Think of it as though it were ten sessions of a class--Chances are, you'd go to all (well most) of the ten sessions. Love yourself enough to keep those appointments with yourself.
• Having a cheerleader to encourage you on.
• Having a slavedriver, yelling and guilt-tripping you into action.
• Going all the way: Instead of tackling the task as an add-on, in drips and drabs, totally immerse yourself in it. When it was time for me to start writing one of my books, I moved out of my house for a week. I rented a cabin in Bolinas, just took my laptop (and my portable music synthesizer for recreation), and wrote for eight hours a day for a week. At that point, I was so into writing the book that it wasn't hard for me to keep writing when I got home.
• Someone telling you "You can't" or "You're a loser!" Your anger fuels you to prove them wrong.
• Prayer. Many people are motivated by the thought that a higher power is watching over them.
• Stress reduction: via exercise, staying in the moment, minimizing stress-causing activities or interaction with stress-causing people.
• Adversity: for example, an illness, a car accident, losing a loved one
• Affirmations: Some experts believe that repeating positive affirmations changes the brain's neuronal structure, leading to more positive behavior.
• Falling in love.

Okay, what's going to get YOU unstuck?

Advice to a Procrastinating Choreographer

A young client said he'd like to be a fight choreographer but that he tends to be lazy and a procrastinator. Here's the essence of what I said to him:

In a field as competitive as choreography, unless you're amazingly talented, you are going to have to cure your procrastination and become absolutely driven to be the best because there are many, many people willing to do whatever it takes to land that rare choreography work that pays enough fto support yourself even modestly.

That means, for example, even before starting choreography school, reading the best books and articles about fight choreography, watching dozens of choreographed fights (writing in a journal what you loved and didn't love about each), asking world-class fight choreographers questions and begging to meet them and/or to have them review the many choreographed fights you will have developed, then going to the choreography school, working harder than any student in the program, building relationships with the best fight choreographers in Hollywood so you can land a job as an assistant to one of them. Then, on the job, you must be hard working, a great guy, and ask counsel of your boss. You must also network relentlessly with the people with the power to hire you to be a choreographer.

I am not exaggerating: that is what it will likely take to give you even a reasonable chance of making a living as a fight choreographer. So, still want to do it?

Dear reader, are you attempting a long-shot career with a half-baked effort?

Getting Motivated

Here's a list of ideas that I derived from one of today's career counseling sessions. I've written about most of these ideas before, but feel it might be useful for you if I list them here:

• Figure out how you can make each task as fun as possible.
• Break the task down into little bites and feel good when you get a bite done.
• Don't be perfectionistic. That way, tasks will be less painful to do.
• Do a crappy first version. It's easier to revise your way into excellence than to come up with it out of thin air.
• When you reach a hard part, don't struggle long with it. Usually, if you can't make progress within 15-60 seconds, chances are you won't make enough progress to justify taking any more time on it. Go on, maybe come back to it later, or get help with it.
• Feel grateful for your situation. Instead of resenting having to work, adopt the approach so common among the World War II generation: Accept that you have to work, no questions asked: You have an almost a spiritual obligation to not be a parasite on the world, and more positively, to use your abilities and training to make the world better, even if it's just to dig a drainage ditch.
  

A Cure for Perfectionism

A number of my clients are so perfectionistic that they make every task painful to complete. So, they procrastinate until they must get it done, when usually it's, ironically, too late to do a good job.

I suggest that for every major task, they set a timer for 3 minutes and, in that time, list all the steps needed to complete the task. Then tackle each step sloppily, perhaps in just three minutes each. Then keep revising each step until it's done well enough.

So, for example, today alone, I used a variation of that technique with two clients:

An epidemiologist at one of the nation's most prestigious universities had been procrastinating writing a megaproposal. I said, "You have three minutes to list all the steps to getting that proposal done." After the three minutes, he had a complete list of bite-size tasks and said he now feels more motivated to get the proposal done.

An architect has trouble creating designs in a timely manner. Indeed, the longer his deadline the more trouble he has getting it done. We set a timer for 3 minutes and I said, "Draw the most brilliant design for that home addition that you can sketch in 3 minutes." He said that his three-minute design was better and less painful to create than if he had taken a month.