I’ve been fortunate to have started learning psychology during the times when it had been literally on a growth explosion. In 1995 during my first year of university, I was introduced to several key players who influenced my direction in learning about psychology. Among them, Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the two pillars of modern positive psychology.

As a counselor, my main task is to consider what makes an individual mentally healthier. It may include a variety of approaches, but my concern is usually therapeutic. If I am to ensure that my clients get the best out of their time with me, I need to establish a good relationship with them and always be at the top of my game. While this is always useful, it had always been the center of pathological mental health based on the DSM (diagnostics and standards manual) that is frequently being used by researchers in the field of psychology and psychiatry.

The trouble is that the DSM has had major shifts since its inception to the latest versions DSM-IV (TR) and the upcoming DSM-V. The revisions show us a couple of things: first, that psychologists and psychiatrists change their minds based on knowledge and research findings; second, that the diagnoses for psychological problems are getting broader, and some of them are not even clinical problems. In other words, psychologists are beginning to realize that there are many people with problems that are not psychopathic in nature but who still require professional mental health advice.

Positive psychology research reveals at least one very interesting thing. There are people who generally are depressed and pessimistic in their mood, and there are people who are optimistic and resilient in the face of bad times. In his landmark study on dogs, Seligman discovered how most dogs, almost two thirds of his sample, would give up on a task and sit in a corner after being given electrical shocks, waiting for the shocks to be delivered. However, some dogs, about a third of them, would continue on their task in spite of the shocks. This breaks the old idea that we are merely a behaviorally conditioned species. Some of us have the capacity for resilience in our behavior.

Csikszentmihalyi’s model of flow is very powerfully captured in the performance of top notch athletes… and basically anyone who is excellent in what they do. It feels like time just passes by, I feel like I’m riding on a wave.

This begs the question: what makes such people the way they are?

If you truly desire personal excellence and the results that come with it, you have to begin to explore personal development deeply… not just at a surface level anymore. Such qualities like optimism and flow cannot be brushed away as mere personality trait, talent or something that is inborn. It is something that one must spend more time learn from and develop, as long as our focus in observing and modeling it endures.

Although I’m a trained MBTI administrator and have been teaching that stuff for quite a number of years already, I am still surprised by the fact that there are other dynamics.

If you get a chance to do an MBTI test (contact me if you need one official 16 page document) you will begin to notice actual differences in your day-to-day life. For instance, if you had gone on a vacation with a group of friends or family members, you might have observed certain differences in behavior. The introvert focuses more on a single thing, theme or place at a time. Sure, they might go shopping, but it’s within a single location. They tend to go deep. just like in relationships, they would rather spend time chatting over a long period of time with the same person, getting to know them better over time. The extravert doesn’t prefer to do this. They are broad in their social preferences, tend to jump from topic to topic in a social conversation, or location to location (most appear to enjoy guided tour packages), or idea to idea. But I also noticed that between the two, there is a commonality in terms of the way in which the two function.

I think there’s a difference between people who enjoy expending energy (EE) and people who enjoy conserving energy (CE). The difference between these two have certain implications.

Those who are EE oriented enjoy going out there, meeting challenges and using up their energy. These are the people who love feeling the thrill of the exertion, much like a workout. They finish, energy spent, feeling great about it.

Those who are CE oriented enjoy staying inside, reading a book, sipping on a cup of coffee. They are like in permanent standby mode, and exertion of energy is not a desired use of their energy. They do, however, enjoy keeping their energy within them. It makes them secure and pleasant.

Now, when EE’s are unable to expend their energy and when CE’s are unable to conserve their energy, they start to get irritable. EE’s who are forced to do window shopping, for example, may not be able to enjoy it much after a while because it’s literally the same thing over and over. Many EE’s need to explore different variations of shopping in order to expend their energies thoroughly in this activity. EE’s who are expected to keep their focus on a business plan may find it tiring after a while. It keeps them in good spirits when they are out there interacting with people related to their business, possibility giving them more ideas.

Conversely, CE’s who have to talk to business partners constantly may tire of it because throwing ideas back and forth may be problematic for someone who just wants to keep their energy secure. CE’s may be better off dealing with things that are much more single-minded in focus.

A typical introvert would like to conserve energy, as what we might have thought. Keeping to oneself and enjoying inner thoughts and reflections would be a wonderful introvert pastime. However, as an introvert, I might still have a preference to expend my energy. If you see me as a trainer, you’ll probably mistake me for an extravert because I’m enjoying myself and expending energy there.

A typical extravert, on the other hand would be expected to expend energy, going out, talking to people. However, one might be an extravert and prefer to conserve energy. I’ve seen extraverts in a training room and sometimes, they are disgruntled employees. They keep a sour face, and are silent during the entire session, preferring not to share their input but when they interact during tea break, you can immediately tell that they are not introverts.

The point I want to make is that since we are both introvert and extravert, we must also have the ability to Conserve and Expend energy. Generally, we get things done when we expend energy. But why is it that a lot of the time, we hold back or procrastinate?

Reason #1: Fear of failure

When there is emotion or fear, the focus is on self-preservation and security most of the time. In this case, the ability to take action diminishes.

Reason #2: Belief that effort is insufficient

To some people, they even believe that they would need divine intervention and their pure effort is insufficient to achieve their goals. Based on research, though, it is more obvious that effort alone, coupled with the attitude of learning, is sufficient to develop a capacity to reach the end outcome eventually. People who believe this will always put in effort and learn from feedback.

Reason #3: Wanting to be sure, but uncertain of the strategy

This dilemma is common. For instance, you want to be certain of your business success, and yet you lack the business strategy. You want to get married, but not sure if you are going to marry the right person. Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee in many cases. To be sure is to go through the mill and be as prepared as you can be, hopefully having necessary support in your life to keep you afloat during tough times. You can’t always have the perfect plan. Well… sure you can have the perfect plan, but whenever it goes into execution, you always throw that plan away.

Reason #4: Lacking in knowledge

This is different from the above reason in that knowledge is not strategy. Too much knowledge paralyzes. But, too little knowledge can be a very dangerous thing too. It ends up causing people to either make stupid decisions, or, in this case, prevent proper action. Learning is imperative, and I always suggest to people that they need to model the process.

Reason #5: Failure in decision-making

The tussle between head and heart has always been talked about. You have two minds, literally, and cannot make up your mind. Such failure of decision-making is mostly due to either emotional insecurity or the belief that making the most well-thought out decision in a rational and logical manner is the most important. Your decision is flawed because you failed to integrate head and heart. Some experts and researchers believe that the best way to handle this is by trusting your intuition (provided you already have the knowledge to back up the action).

In having said this, however, it is also important for you to know when to conserve energy. A lot of people have used up plenty of energy, feeling drained and unable to expend energy simply because they aren’t aware of when they should begin the conservation process, let alone the ways in which they gain and store energy. Introverts gain energy from withdrawal and individual activity. Extraverts gain energy from going into the external world and interacting with it socially and physically. As you continue to observe yourself and monitor your actions, you might come to greater awareness of your behaviors and begin on a conscious path toward personal transformation.

Perhaps you are one of many millions of people all around the world who want to achieve personal success. Perhaps, you are someone who has set goals and set your mind to achieve these goals. Maybe, you have even been successful. At least for a while. The irony of the pursuit of success is that it begins to feed people in different ways. Some people are fed the success of wealth. Others, the success of love. And still others, the success of wisdom. Whatever the case, the Paradox Principle is what drives ultimate success in the world. Our job is to be able to accept the Paradoxes that occur in our lives, and be able to flexibly maneuver through these apparent obstacles to manage our successes.

Paradox Unleashed

When an individual expresses the desire to achieve something, a chain reaction begins. The intention to reach out causes different kinds of action and reaction. So, you set your target to be wealthy. The moment you do that, the environment begins to feel the pulse of your activity. In some cases, the very act of movement causes the Ripple Effect in consciousness. People who are supportive add to the positive impact of that goal. But others, who may act against it in jealousy and fear, intrude either consciously or unconsciously.

And in addition, our invisible forces within ourselves cause a tremendous flux. You may seek to achieve success but internal beliefs may skew you in a different direction. You know that achieving your goals is a good thing but the reality is very different. It could be an interplay of your emotions, your memories, your beliefs, your values,  your personality and your identity.

The Paradox of Emotion

When moving toward your goals, there might be a tussle. In many cases, the idea is that you need to be highly driven or motivated to achieve your goal. Most people don’t think that there is any other way to achieve. It’s a myth that it’s all hype. Sometimes, it is despair, fear, compassion and love that propel us forward. It requires one to be more focused in seeking out an emotional state that is effective in helping us achieve our desired outcome. The paradox of emotion is simply this: many people think that emotion is ‘natural’, and therefore whatever we ‘fake’ into doing in not real. In reality, you can change your emotional state if you have the appropriate tools. This is not control or faking. It’s simply knowing how emotional states function. In the world of NLP, we talk about solution states and problem states. Problem states lead us to ineffective outcomes. Solution states help us to counteract those problematic states and lead us to more effective outcomes.

The Paradox Of Memory

When was the last time you had an argument? In that argument, did you feel your point of view was correct? Ironically, when I ask that question, there are many people who will vehemently say they were in the right. But you can put the same arguing parties in the same room and they both will raise their hands to say they were correct in their argument. What gives?

Interestingly, it is not the accuracy of their memories that is the problem. The issue is the acceptance of that point of view that is the problem. In many cases, there have been instances where people may actually develop experiences that are not real, but fantasized.

Memories may not serve a person well because of a simple fact – we do not re-investigate our memories. When you were a very young child, you would have remembered a house as much bigger than today. The main problem is not that the house became smaller, but you became bigger physically. I remember clearly, the days I spent at my grandmother’s house in Malacca. As a 7-year old child, I definitely remember the room as really big and spacious. After many years not visiting and I returned as an adult, the room was familiar but felt much smaller and crammed. I was 21 years old, and my mind was reconciling the ‘space’ difference… in my mind.

If the brain has to keep updating this information through time, and we can recognize this for physical changes, will we be able to recognize these changes in our beliefs and values? For instance, why is it that sometimes, you get upset by someone without realizing why it was so important that you got upset? She could have made a passing remark, and you got irritated. Could it be that the memory you used to have has yet to be updated?

I remember I used to get irritated by the phrase “you’re too young to do xyz” because I felt it was not fair to judge my capabilities based on my age alone. I also heard this being used on others sometimes, and the feeling of unfair judgement crept in once again. It was all too familiar, and until I investigated it, I didn’t know where it came from, how it was related to me and why it was taking up a lot of decision-making processing speed psychologically, when working in teams. Perhaps back then, hiring a young team (and not wanting to admit that they were really not mature enough to handle certain things in a business) was my way of making things work for me… until it (paradoxically) didn’t.

The Paradox Of Beliefs And Values

There will be situations where you strive to achieve success. On one hand it gives you great satisfaction to reach out to get your success. You may sense the initial euphoria of achievement. At the same time, that kind of success will bring additional new challenges. Sure, you reach for wealth and attain it, but the challenges come  along with that. The temptation to flaunt it. The haunting thought if the friends you have are genuine. The ability to control and manage it. The ability to use it wisely. When your wealth creates more problems for you, it creates a split in your soul. How can it be that something you have worked so hard to achieve have such disappointing results?

Well, to be frank, it’s not the result that is the problem. The issue stems from the fact that you are blaming the outcome in the first place. Let’s suppose you are walking (action) toward your house (goal). In the process, you fell into a hole and broke your ankle (obstacle). Somehow you overcame that obstacle (change strategy). However, you did not go back to the root cause of the problem (broken ankle). You continued to execute your original plan of working toward your outcome. It now hurts to walk toward your house, when it was so easy before. Now, because of the simplistic “cause and effect” thinking of our chronological mind, we associate the pain with the outcome rather than figuring out how to heal the ankle!

So, you end up with two minds. The outcome is exciting for you, but it hurts to move toward it. The value of achievement conflicts with the value of love. The feeling of intimacy conflicts with the fear of betrayal. All these are commonplace conflicts but many of us don’t understand the psychological impact it can have on goals – you literally freeze and don’t do anything! Unfortunately, then it’s taken as ‘procrastination’ when in reality, you might have a psychological gap that stops you from proceeding.

This is the manifestation of a conflict within you, and will require some form of healing and inner therapy to resolve. Hey, if Windows needs updating due to patch fixes, I don’t see why a human wouldn’t need one of these once in a while too.

The Paradox Of Personality

It is said that personality is fixed at our true core, according to Jung. While this is true, finding this true core personality is very difficult because we change different environments and therefore shift our behavior accordingly. There have been countless situations where I have been deemed an extravert by many people. But I don’t derive energy from interacting with people always. There are good friends whom I would expend my energy with, but extraversion activities mostly drain me (yes, that includes training in a seminar).  It doesn’t mean that Jung wasn’t correct. It merely means we need to learn how to hit a moving target.

Imagine I met someone whom at face value took me to be an extravert and we started to work with each other on projects. In no time, you would find that this creates tension in me because this is not my typical mode of work. Ironically, that which got me this project contact also drains me further!

I like to put this in the context of the dating. We all know that we behave differently in times of stress. Imagine you met your life partner when you were performing at your best, and vice versa. You’d know when there was a ‘dip’ and your partner required support. However, imagine if you met your life partner when both of you were at your worst. You’d still be attracted to each other, it’s just that you’d be attracted to their ‘shadow’ self.

The question is so obvious: do you really know your personality? Do you know when it wavers? Are you even aware that when you interact with people under different situations and levels of stress, that you behave differently and create impressions of yourself differently with the people around you? What kind of impact is that likely to have on your desired goals and direction? What if… the fact that you set the goal affects your personality? The systemic repercussions are going to be important to consider, and a high level of self awareness would be a requirement as you progress toward your outcomes.

The Paradox Of Identity

I mentioned in my last article on Identity that certain conflicts may occur. I didn’t offer solutions related to the consequences arising from those conflicts largely because it would take quite a long time to explain. However, I think it warrants a short answer at least.

When you are stuck between your idea of yourself and others’ expectations of you, you end up being driven toward stagnation. It is happening almost everywhere: when parents drive their children to choose careers they did not want; when employees expect certain things of their employers; when a man expects unrealistic things of his spouse or children.

These expectations themselves are not ‘bad’. But as an analogy, have you ever loaded a PS3 CD into a PC or Mac? I mean, they are all running on completely different platforms and you can hardly expect them to work. Likewise, your expectations are definitely different from your parents’/employers’/spouse… but what is your ‘why’ behind it? It is easier for them to buy into the reason why because if it is meaningful, there will be consensus. If it isn’t meaningful, then there will be dissent.

Coming back to your own idea of identity, imagine that one side of you feels that you should be a winner in life. You’ve experienced that in life. But at the same time, there might be another side that expects you to fail, and that was also a past experience. Rather than resolving this inner conflict, you suppressed it. So, left forgotten, it manifests itself in procrastination and not wanting to take action on things unless some kind of awareness is built around this issue.

So is it really serious? Well, many of the conflicts stem from past interpretations of situations. All it requires is an update to be downloaded. Into your brain. Such a process is known as reimprinting in NLP. I’ve used the process (of course modified to suit each individual’s differences) to help them gain clarify in life purpose and direction, resolve inner conflicts and problems, and come to terms with difficulties in their life.

The Paradoxical Conclusion… It’s Just The Beginning!

Okay, so ironically, such difficulties don’t just stop there. They are simply the beginning of the future. Who knows what other issues we might face, real or imagined. The most important thing is to realize that just as we need to brush and floss our teeth on a regular basis to prevent cavities, we need to grow to achieve success. That growing never ends.

It’s quite intriguing to pick up on this topic after an absence of a couple of weeks.  Someone dropped me a message and said that the content that I had mentioned in a previous  procrastination post had too much common sense and the reader demanded that I put up information that doesn’t contain such motherhood statements.

photo credit: Firesam!

I thought about it for some time, and I began to reflect on certain situations that people tend to leave themselves in.  For example, it was fascinating to see how someone would be interested in an article on stomping procrastination and found that might advice was common sense.  It just didn’t compute.  If it was common sense, you wouldn’t have to read it.  If one did need to read it, then most obviously one would continue to be procrastinating up to a point where you accept and utilized the advice.

So I had an internal arguments with myself to figure out what was going on.  Upon reviewing “How To Stop Procrastinating #1″, I discovered that it was true that most of the information there appears to be quite straightforward and a whole bunch of common sense.  It therefore dawned on me that there are individuals who will read it, but can’t use it.

The concept of vicious cycles tells us that there is far more than meets the eye from the behavior standpoint.  You want something, but the more you want it, the further away from it you get. For example, it is highly likely that someone who needs a set of behavioral interventions will read the first article and find it useful.  they will go out and execute the behaviors.  However, several people who have a deeper rooted issues beyond the ‘behavior’ level may find that a behavioral intervention will be insufficient, hence, “common sense “.

As much as I’d like to avoid diving into two large detail, which Watzlawick mentioned in his book “The Language of Change”, and is the cause of many interventions going wild, and being seemingly without end, I believe that for the raw knowledge of people reading this could be beneficial.

Suppose someone is procrastinating.  It could be that he wants to invite a girl  out on a date, and he stops short. There are a number of things that we logically knows he should do.  For example, he’s got to simply ask.  And if he gets rejected, he should ask again, preferably in a different way.  However, we know that there must be something else that’s preventing him from accomplishing his goal.  One such invisible force could be his hidden understanding of rejection.  For example, he might believe that rejection is the end of the world.  This, indicates the need for a deeper rooted intervention dealing with the reframing of his belief patterns.  Alternatively, it might have to do with his inability to come to terms with his parents’ divorce when he was five years old.  This might indicate an issue with his self concept, or identity.  In this instance, it would be possible to institute a Change Personal History session to help him reconfigure his identity.

However, before we get ahead of ourselves, it is essential that such strategies are implemented by someone who is well versed in interventions.  A lot of the time deeper rooted issues may have a backlash – if we attempt to push against it in usually pushes back , causing even more procrastination.

most of the time therefore, we need to find the right kinds of emotional triggers.  For example, the reader who sent me this irate message probably did not realize that he was able to procrastinate getting certain things done, but didn’t hesitate sending me and irate message.  It is the ability to control and manage our emotional states that enables us to shift from state to state.

One of the ways to do this is by understanding anchoring.  Anchoring, which is a behavioral process of association, and literally eliminate your feelings of procrastination.  In the context where you are procrastinating, you can use that environmental stimulus to trigger off facilitative negative emotions such as frustration, anxiety, and fear. Or these could be facilitative positive emotions like enthusiasm, motivation and drive.

It takes a little bit of practice to know where these emotions reside. Reliving these emotions can set one on the pathway to realizing that emotions are our achievement joystick. Test it – whenever you don’t get something done, use an appropriate emotional state and link with it by intensifying the image, sounds and feelings of negative faciliation. You might see yourself failing or hear people mocking you. When you get closer toward your goal, associate it with positive emotions by viewing the images and intensifying those. You could possibly  view yourself as happier, and hear sounds of cheering or acknolwedgement.

Do note that these are only possibilities, and the best way for you to really take charge of these emotional states is to learn the skills that are taught in NLP. Some readings to learn NLP are here. My detailed Practitioner training program can also be taken up online by staying tune to that website.

So I surfed the net and I found some people who are dishing out weird and odd ideas for beating procrastination. For example, someone suggested that if you hypnotize yourself, you will cause irreparable damage and prevent you from really taking control of yourself and your habits.

Hm.

Procrastination is habit, and I know that there are times we need to build a habit to save time. However, it’s also important for you to recognize the fact that if you were to ‘hypnotize’ yourself, you might as well do it right.

photo credit: ~ Maryam ~

Here’s what I might suggest:

• hypnotize yourself to make a to-do list everyday when you are at the breakfast table and spend 5-10 minutes reflecting on the top 3 things you need to get done for the day.
• Check your to-do checklist regularly and if possible, get it to remind you. Maybe you have an alarm in your PDA or phone. Set it and check it so you know you’re on track.
• Get the easiest things done first. This builds a greater level of confidence for the day, and you can recognize your ability to get things done. After all, looking at one thing you can get done today fuels the habit.

A lot of this seems like common sense, but I would recommend that if you really want to learn how to stop procrastinating, you really need to pick up the skills taught in NLP.

NLP is the skill set I use to take charge of my own patterns of behavior. I figure out what I need to change or a new skill I need to adopt, then program myself to get it done.

It took me about a year to write this post (just kidding).

photo credit: AdamKR

It’s a common disease. But it’s not in any medical journal ever. I believe, however, that chronic procrastination is a disease, and it is something that everyone experiences at some time or another.

So why do we procrastinate?

There are so many reasons behind procrastination. Who knows, it might be due to some traumatic experience you had as a child. A fear or a sense of self-doubt. Maybe the desire for a sense of freedom? A desire to just laze around? Maybe, ironically, a supreme level of (over)confidence?

The fact is, human inertia is probably one of the strongest forces of all, and if we succumb to it, we stop, and we might just stagnate.

I took a look at my on and off exercise routine recently and I discovered how easy it is to get distracted away from exercise simply because some other work was more pressing. So I decided to stop thinking so much and start doing it. Unfortunately, that was not going to work either. The best way would have been to focus on getting the exercise into some schedule or routine, where it becomes a part of life. When you plan it in, you start to make it happen and you have to battle inertia for some time before you realize that you’re doing it regularly.

Have there been simple things you had to do or decisions you had to make which made you get ‘stuck’, or you ended sleeping on it for countless numbers of nights to shove it under the carpet?

I think the first step to stop procrastinating is actually acknowledging that we are wasting time and adding to our problems when taking things at the last minute. I’m not saying that we must always do things in advance and keep ourselves busy for the sake of finishing all of our work because I know work never ends. But I do know the difference between leading by example versus leading from the ivory tower, and a lot of the time, procrastination may not affect us as much as it affects the people around us.

Once we know that there could be consequences for this, then we have to build in our mind the benefits of really working toward the goals that we desire and make sure they carry a strong enough meaning beyond just the achievement of the result.

Then, get a good scheduler or planner and work that into your routine.

Once you complete the sequence, do it again. Finish something else. Get things done, and you’ll find that this cycle is even easier to complete.

Stay tuned for more… cos I gotta go for my run before I head off for dinner… xD