TSHP347: How do we tackle procrastination?

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What’s Coming This Episode?

It’s important to take time out. We all know that. But when does taking time out become time wasting, laziness and procrastination? Let’s dig in…

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Procrastination

So here we are in the New Year. The world is all new and starting afresh. We even have a post Brexit Britain to look forward to – or so some people think – we will see. Anyway, I have heard a few people telling me that this year they just can’t seem to get going. These sentiments come with a mix of guilt and the admitting procrastination. I don’t really see the issue. In a world when we seem to be obsessed with doing things and have generally lost the art of simply just being anyone who dares to sit and relax, reflect or even meditate can be accused of procrastination. But, what about if the art of being was what we were really meant to be doing and not physically and practically moving things about to create the illusion that we have value? In the current climate it is so easy to assume that the person who does not need to do and move things about is a waster and of little use. However, procrastination might even be a celebration that might reduce stress, anxiety and even create more happiness?

You see that even when we are doing nothing we are really doing something. To the person who always needs to be busy someone who meditates or simply stops long enough to enjoy the view may be seen as a procrastinator. Yet, perhaps it’s the person who is being still and apparently doing nothing who is seeing the real world and making the breakthroughs in science art or literature, human consciousness and compassion that might just save the world. 

If you break down the word procrastination you get Pro = forward, future… Crastinus = tomorrow. For many procrastination simply means to delay not that the person will not complete the task. To procrastinate does not make the person lazy they may simply be the type who considers before they act. This may give their action more meaning and values than if they simply acted in a quick but meaningless response.

However, laziness does exist. There are people who are really lazy and do as little as possible. In our busyness to keep doing we may no longer be able to tell the differences. Sometimes, if you are feeling like procrastinating and putting things off it maybe an emotional barometer that tells you whether what you are doing is what you really should be doing. It may help you discover what is it that you really want from your life. It is time to reflect.

Imagine that when you wake you are about to go and do something that makes you feel good. Do you have problems getting out of bed?, Well no. Now, imagine that you are waking to a day full of things that you don’t want to do. Do you have problems getting out of bed?, Well yes. Procrastination may not be a bad thing but it might just be that our need to procrastinate is our system trying to tell us something?

The sooner I fall behind, the more time I have to catch up. 

Author Unknown

In the west we tend to be driven by what is termed ‘the Protestant work ethic’. Most people work long hours to the exclusion of family, friends and their own life and fulfilment. Yet very few people really actually like their work life. I work with thousands of people who wake on a Monday with the dread of another week in their workplace. They would rather  be doing anything else. Procrastination does not always mean to do nothing, doing something else instead is often termed displacement.

Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work

the are supposed to be doing at that moment. 

Robert Benchley

Displacement activity is something that you do to avoid doing what you don’t want to do, or a way of dealing with a difficult situation. For example a rabbit that is cornered and is about to be eaten by a fox and knowing there is now escape will displace this energy of fear into the activity of washing itself.

In psychology, procrastination refers to the act of replacing more urgent actions with tasks less urgent, or doing something from which one derives enjoyment, and thus putting off impending tasks to a later time.’

Wikipedia

The  clue in this definition is ‘enjoyment’. The protestant work ethic goes alongside with ideas like ‘life is hard’, ‘life is earnest’ and ‘everyone has their cross to bear’. Well I don’t buy any of that, I am in the school of life should be fun and life should be fulfilling. It seems that we have no problem finding the energy to do things that we do want to do, things that make us feel good. While, those things that we don’t want to do sap our energy and take away our motivation.

My approach to life is that when I feel the need to procrastinate or displace, I look at, and enjoy the process, and at the same time I look at what I need to do with my life so that I feel engaged and connected and restore the balance between what I need to do and what I want to do. This is often described as ‘work life balance’. In the end if you are living the life that you really want the issues of procrastination and displacement do not exist because you are enjoying and fulfilling yourself in the present moment so that getting out off bed on any day, even Monday is never a problem.

The best way to get something done is to begin. 

Author Unknown

That comes back to the live in the present question ‘what do you really, really, really want to do with your life?’ Until you answer this question you will be forever procrastinating and displacing. Becoming aware of when and why you procrastinate will help you answer the question of what do you really want. So there may be times when procrastination is really something we should celebrate, focus on and use effectively.

I’d like to procrastinate but I just can’t seem to be bothered

Take care and live in the present and enjoy your procrastination.

Sean x

TSHP346: Blue Monday – Real or Phoney?

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What’s Coming This Episode?

Blue Monday has been and gone! Hopefully you were completely unaware and are still smashing 2020 with that new year, new decade vibe. But the winter blues are a real, and many be reeling from the post-Christmas blues. Is this a dangerous time of year for the more fragile amongst us? For all of us??

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Blue Monday & Depression

We can all feel lower in mood during the winter. Well that is a relative statement. At the end of October the clocks in the UK and most of Europe go back one hour. This has the effect of making it feel like the world just got a whole lot darker. However the effect of the diminishing sunlight at this time of year means that everyone’s serotonin level, the wellbeing endorphin in the brain, drops and we all feel less up and at it and have less get up and go. Though, this is also a relative statement.

How down any individual feels in the darker winter months will be dictated by their level of vitamin D when the winter begins. Vitamin D is the precursor of serotonin. It created by sunlight in the skin and the lack of light in the winter predisposes us to higher levels of depression. Those with higher levels of VIt D in October will be affected less than those with low levels. When people get sad in the winter we call it SAD – seasonally affected disorder.

The saddest day of the year is said to be the Monday in January in the third week. This years Blue Monday, as it is known came from research carried out by the holiday company Sky Travel. This may have been an advertising ploy to get people to take a sunny break during the winter months but either way the idea that people are unhappier in the winter is real.

The reasons for our increased unhappiness begin with our level of vitamin D. We should all be checked and may need to take a supplement. So, if we look at all the casual factors of our unhappiness I would say, from those that I deal with, that it goes something like this.

1: Low vitamin D

2: Difficult Christmas.  This includes financial stress, social stress, bereavement, as it can be the first Christmas without someone important, relationship stress. January sees an increase in divorce applications.

3: Reactive depression. Despite our experience we believe that Christmas ‘should be’ a time of great joy and when it isn’t we can feel that we are a failure.

4: New Year. When we look forward to the year ahead many people say to me ‘oh no not again’. When we are stuck in negative cycles it can feel like the popping of corks and cries of ‘Happy New Year’ are simply taking the mick and rubbing our noses in it.

5: Then there are the New Years resolutions that we, kind of, know we will not keep. This is a form of self sabotage.

6: The post holiday slump and the fact that we have to go back to work with a general lack of motivation is depressing.

7: The weather. When the sun is shining we all feel much better. If it has been dull, overcast or wet and windy day after day we can all begin to feel down and unhappy anyway.

When people use the phrase Blue Monday they are not suggesting that this is a twenty four hour depression that you will be over on the Tuesday, they are describing the time of year and the general feeling that we all get. Blue Monday, like any other annual day is a way of focusing on it, reminding ourselves that it is normal to feel down at this time of year and giving us the opportunity to do something about it. That may include therapy, visiting the GP for the VIt D test or to get some antidepressants, getting some exercise or simply looking after ourselves such as dry January, we know that alcohol is a depressant.

Actually I am not so sure about January, I think that often February brings out the worst depression in people. In the dim distant past when I worked as a performing musician and singer in clubs and bars I found that the flattest most depressing months were first November, when the clocks had gone back and people were saving for Christmas. Then second, especially if it had been a dull overcast winter, February brought out the most miserable, moaning and depressive behaviour in people.

There was a Japanese study in 2009 that indicated that the most likely day for suicide in men of all ages is on a Monday. With the many suicides that I have dealt with over the years, I could not say Monday was any different to any other day. I do note however that, rather than the early hours of the morning, which I thought would have been the obvious time, most people have taken their lives in the afternoon between 3 and 6. Many people have a low ebb at this time of day and struggle to keep going. In the Mediterranean this problem was helped by having a siesta, and having a good afternoon nap.

If we can accept that everyone gets flatter in the darker months than in the lighter months, then the next step is being responsible for it and doing something about it. Make sure you are fit and healthy. Do things that make you feel good. Maybe Sky Holidays are right and it should be this time of year that you head off for your annual holiday in the sun so that you can get a brain boost and more serotonin when you need it.

Take care

Sean x

 

Look after yourself and if you do feel down please talk and seek support from your GP. Below are the details of other services and organisations who can offer help & support.

Samaritans 116 123 – samaritans.org

Calm (for men) 0800 58 58 58 – thecalmzone.net

Rethink Mental illness (for practical advice on therapy, medications, money, your rights under the mental health act) 0300 50 00 927 rethink.org

Befrienders – for support outside of the UK – befrienders.org

Papyrus (prevention of young suicide) 0800 068 41 41 – papyrus-uk.org

Mind 0300 12 33 393 – mind.org.uk

Sane 0300 304 7000 – sane.org.uk

Shout uk – crisis support in the UK – text SHOUT to 85258 – giveusashout.org

TSHP345: Fractured Families

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What’s Coming This Episode?

Harry and Meghan have hit the news in recent weeks as they seek to blaze a new trail as independent, care free citizens of Planet Earth. Theirs is quite a unique case but there are lessons to be learnt for us ere mortals. How do we solve family feuds?

Enjoy the show and take care, it’s The Self Help Podcast!

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Fractured Families

This week the British Royal Family went public on the apparent rift that exists between Harry and Meghan and the rest of the family. Whatever the realities of what it really going on there appears to be a fracture in the fratricidal of the family. I guess the same would have been true when Charles and Diana split, or the more recent issues with Andrew. When it comes down to it they are simply a family trying to work things through. So, join the club, we are all doing the same thing. I do not know, and have never known, any family that has not at some time has issues to deal with.

The Royals have brought people in from out side, Diana, Fergie, Kate and Meghan, and attempted to create a “Blended Family”. They have then tried to back track and make it work in reality for the new comers. To date, in three of the four cases it seems that they were not able to make this happen. Charlie’s and Diana, Andrew and Fergie had to divorce and now Harry and Meghan are seeking to renegotiate their royal roles and connections.

When our kids get married we inherit an extended family. We have no choice over who they are and we either have to accept them or not. Do we lose a son or gain a daughter, or the other way around.

I deal with couples and families and their attendant issues and problems. Over and over again I see that it is never what happens in the family that is the issue it is how they respond to it and deal with it that counts. When counselling couples and family therapy this raises the issues of tolerance and compromise. It is unlikely that we will really be able to change the other people in our family. All that we can really do is change ourself.

Family support is not now as it was. We live in a world where families no longer stay together as they once did. The time when people remained living close to each other or even in the same dwelling have long since gone. We choose to live in smaller nuclear units that often comprise of a couple and two kids that live a long way from other relatives. This can put both stress and strain the family bonds that once held our society together. As the informal stress management function of the extended family has diminished we have seen a rise in the mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. This is especially true with children who once had grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and siblings that they could use to talk problems through. These day many of us have to go to the GP and book to see a therapist or counsellor.

Being both a parent or a partner is not an easy job unless of course we can learn to bend a little. Families work well when they talk and communicate together in a civil manner. Not forgetting that the most important part of communication is listening not transmitting. This is followed by acceptance, tolerance and good old compromise. Those three things alone would solve most of the world problems at every level from families to countries.

I assume that this will also be true for the Royal Family as they attempt to resolve their current problems. If they do, they will have negotiated what will happen next in a way that works for all of them. If they are not able to do this then the fracture will deepen. This is no different to any family. I wish them luck.

Take care and be happy

Sean x

TSHP344: Youth vs Age – Would you vote for a 34 year old Prime Minister?

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What’s Coming This Episode?

Would you trust you country in the hands of a 34 year old? Finlanders have! Sean and Ed got to thinking about the age old question around youth vs experience. Do you need a certain number of years to lead people? Are you ever too long in the tooth to take a certain job? Let’s dive in…

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Youth Does Not Need To Lack Wisdom

Finland’s new prime minister, Santa Marin, is just 34 years of age. Is this too young for a leader. My answer is ‘No’ of course not. Wisdom does not come with age it comes with psychological and spiritual maturity.

This touches a point that is often controversial. It is to do with life and what happens after you die. If life is a one off event then the issues of success and failure, happiness and sadness, maturity and immaturity are limited to this lifetime. If life is continuous then issues of maturity may be more to do with the amount of lifetimes someone has experienced rather than the amount of years they have been alive in this one. People will often describe another person as an ‘old soul’, even if they are a baby. I have met eleven year olds that I would describe as mature adults and sixty five year olds that I would describe as immature children.

Putting the question of reincarnation to one side we can look at the individual as maturing in three ways. These are physical, as our bodies grow, mature and finally age. There is the cognitive functions that as they grow develop our ability to reason and make sense of things. When the cognitive mind matures we see the beginnings of wisdom. Then, as they age we see forgetfulness and eventually dementia. With emotional immaturity we see the egotistical narcissistic behaviours of the demanding child. As they grow and mature people become a caring empathic, insightful and sensitive adult.

That would all be fine but we see some people who have old bodies even when they are children and some old people who maintain a young supple body well into old age. We see the people who have no power of reasoning at any age and see everything emotionally and are completely unable to rationalise. These people are unable to take responsibility for who they are, how they got like it or what they will do from here on. We also see the adults who have never gone beyond their narcissistic self centred need to be recognised as a special individual and believe that the world should revolve around them.

It can be hard when we see a grown person who is physically mature, who has a seemingly good reasonable mind but at the same time acts like a spoilt child. Names like, Johnson, Farage, Corbyn and Trump et al come to mind at this point. As I observe these personalities exercising extreme power over defenceless innocent people using the minds of children I fear for the future of humanity. Over all I realise that maturity has nothing to do with physical age and that maturity and wisdom go together as opposed to the immaturity and knowledge that I see all around me.

For us all the easiest path to wisdom is through mindfulness, self reflection and inner observation. Wisdom requires insight. If we lack insight we cannot develop wisdom. Mindfulness allows to develop insight.

Take care and be happy.

Sean x

TSHP343: Looking Ahead With Hope

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What’s Coming This Episode?

Last week we talked about how you can use the past as a positive resource. This week we look ahead to the new decade and give advice on how to stick to your guns. Happy new year!

Enjoy the show and take care, it’s The Self Help Podcast!

Show Notes and Links

Resource of the Week

  • Sean invited listeners to write a speech about how their year will go

Stay in Touch

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