Mental Health Spots

Procrastination impacts of all us! You know, the feeling when your meant to be doing homework or chores around the house, but somehow end up on Netflix, your phone, or playing video games. A simple definition of procrastination is choosing not to do something important when you know you could be. Often, we procrastinate because:

1. The thing that’s important is too hard.

2. The thing that’s important is too scary.  

So obviously the solution to procrastination is just to do the important thing. But it’s hard! So, what can we do? 

My suggestion is to take the first step. Don't focus on getting the whole task or important thing done, just focus on taking the first step.

To help you take the first step- I want to tell you about the 5- minute rule. The 5-minute rule is setting aside just 5 minutes to work on the important task you don't want to do at the time. You can do this by using a timer (e.g. watch, phone, computer) or you can pretend in your mind a clock counting down from 5 minutes. What you're going to do is set a 5-minute time limit and start doing the thing you're putting off. It may be agonizing doing this, but I guarantee most of the time you’ll end those 5 minutes feeling at least a little bit better. Starting a task is usually the hardest part of completing it, so the 5-minute rule will help you overcome the act of starting.  

Give the 5-minute rule a couple of chances and see if it's helpful for you in overcoming your procrastination. 

The 10 10 10 Rule is something we use when we catch ourselves catastrophising over something. When we are catastrophrising our brains make us think of the worst case scenario. 

Here are some examples: 

• "I did so bad on that test. I'm a failure. There is no future for me."

• "What that person said was really mean, but they're right, it's true."  

• "My whole life will change if I make this decision... It's too much for me to handle."  

• "That person doesn't like me... You know what maybe no one likes me."

The 10 10 10 Rule helps us to pause, take a step back, and look at the bigger picture. Maybe things aren’t as bad as they seem.  

The 10 10 10 Rule is done by asking yourself 3 simple questions when you find yourself catastrophising:

• Will this matter in 10 minutes? 

• Will this matter in 10 weeks? 

• Will this matter in 10 years?  

The idea is to ask these 3 questions and to answer them straight away without much thought so that you don't overthink your answer.  

Let's try an example. I fail my mathematics test and my brain tells me, "You're a failure, what was the point of even trying?" Firstly I notice that I am beginning to catastrophise so I tell myself, "Will this maths test result matter to me in 10 minutes?" Well yes, I feel horrible about it right now. I think I should take care of myself after I leave school. Maybe I can talk with a friend or listen to some music on the way home. I then tell myself, "Will it matter to me in 10 weeks?" Well probably not, I may have even forgotten about it and will probably have another test I'll need to study for at the time. Lastly I ask myself, "Will it matter in 10 years." Definitely not, this single maths test will be the last thing on my mind in 10 years time. 

See how the big problem I made in my head is now more reasonable and less scary? 

Have a go at using the 10 10 10 Rule and see if it works for you when you find your mind catastrophising. 

Self-compassion, simply defined, is noticing when you’re not doing well and responding to yourself kindly. Being self-compassion is about being a good friend to yourself, which means being able to speak to yourself in both an honest and caring way.  Suppose you are going through a really hard situation or time in your life. 

What kind of friend would you want with you at this time?  

Would you like a friend who says, ‘Please don't talk to me right now. You always complain and are always whining. Why do you deserve to complain about anything? There are many people worse off than you. Get over it and move on.’ 

Or would you like the sort of friend who says, ‘This all sounds really hard. With what you're going through anyone would struggle. So, I want you to know that I’m here for you and got your back. We’ll get through it together.’ 

We would prefer the second friend over the first – the one who is honest and caring. 

In reality, I think it's fair to say there’s a lot of us who treat ourselves like the first friend- being overly hard on ourselves, beating ourselves up with the negative things, always ready to give out guilt and shame to ourselves.  Instead of responding harshly to yourself all the time I’d like to encourage you to speak more kindly to yourself.  Now some people may be thinking, that’s silly or how is this going to help me? To that I’d ask you, is treating yourself like a harsh, uncaring friend moving you towards the life you want to live? I’m sure many of us would say no, treating myself unkindly is not what I truly want. 

By practicing self-compassion by being a good friend to yourself, you can become more resilient, cope better with stress, and see yourself in more positive way. 

Do you have thoughts hook you? These are the kinds of thoughts that move you away from the life I want to live. These thoughts can dominate your life and become disabling. 

If all these thoughts and feelings were put into a book or movie titled “the something something story,” what would you call it?   

This idea may seem odd, but giving these thoughts a name can actually help you respond to them and cope with them. Let me try to give you a personal example that has helped me.  I have a story called the Incompentent Story. 

It's a story I notice myself doing when my mind tells me: 

• "You're not good enough."

• "No one will listen to you."

• "You don’t know what you're talking about."

• "You have no idea what you're doing." 

These kinds of thoughts can be dominating and can make me feel horrible if I let them rule my life.  So, I named the story of these thoughts, the Incompetent Story, one that acknowledges my difficulties and doesn’t make them seem trivial. When these thoughts or feelings come up, I think to myself, "Right, here it is again, the Incompetent Story."  

I found that when I give these thoughts a name: 

• It makes the thoughts less scary. 

• It helps me keep a healthy distance between my thoughts and who I am as a person. 

• It helps me stop these thoughts from dominating my life in an unhealthy way.  

• It reminds me that life can be hard, but there is another more important story. God’s story. That even though life is hard, and I can feel incompetent, God is completely competent and has a plan for my life. 

So, here's how you can do this for yourself:

• Firstly, notice what thoughts are hooking you. What thoughts are moving you away from the life you want to live?

• Second, give those thoughts that hook you a name. (E.g. the Incompetent Story)

• Thirdly, remind yourself of that story when those thoughts come up. 

With practice these thoughts that hook you can become less dominating and less disabling in your life. 

Values are your deepest desires for how you want to behave, including how you treat yourself, others, and the world around you.  Or a simpler definition: values are words that describe how we want to live.  

Being able to identify your values is so important because they help guide your life. You can use them for inspiration, motivation, and guidance. And in moments of hardship, we need to be able to remind ourselves of what is most important in life to keep us going.  

Defining our values can be a difficult tasks. We know as Christians that Jesus should be the most valuable thing to us. But what does that mean for me and for the way I live my life? 

Here’s a question that can help give our answers some more depth: If someone wrote a story about you, what would you hope they would say? 

What would you love to hear the person say about: 

• The sort of person you were? 

• Your greatest strengths and qualities? 

• The way you treated them? 

Being able to identify your values and live in line with them can lead to many benefits. One of these benefits is that values is to help us not to live an outcome-based life. An outcome-based life means that person bases how there is life is going by the good or bad things happening in the moment. If something bad happens life is miserable. If something good happens life is happy, but only until something bad happens. A values-based life is much better, because whether life is going good or bad, you can still live by your values. 

Life may be hard, but I can still follow my value of perseverance to get me through it with God’s help. I can fail a test, but I can still follow my value of hard work and give the test my best attempt on the day. I can be hurt by someone, but still follow my values of honesty and love, by telling them what they did was wrong, without retaliating against them in an aggressive way. This life is not based on outcomes, but on what is most important to you. And if this is Christ, you can celebrate values like perseverance, hard work, honesty and love if used to God's glory.  

So give it a go for yourself: If someone wrote a story about you, what would you hope they would say? Try to write down your answer in a few sentences so that you can remember it. This will help you to name your values so that you can start living in line with them.  

I think I can safely say that all of us have had times where we struggle to focus. This can look like so many different things because all of us find it hard to live in the present moment. Our mind can take us to the past- like when you're in class and your mind keeps reminding you of a conversation or event that happened a while ago and how you could have approached it differently. But the problem is we can’t change the past.  Or our mind can take us to the future- like when you're at home trying to do an assignment or study for exam and you think- I can’t do this, this exam is going to be too hard. But the problem is we don’t 100% know what will happen in the future.  

So imagine this: You're in a boat that is sailing into a harbour and you notice a massive storm is approaching. In this moment the first thing you should be doing is to drop an anchor as fast possible.  It’s the same with us. When an emotional storm blows up and makes it hard for us to focus by throwing our minds into the past and present, the first thing we need to do is drop anchor. Anchors don't control the weather; but they will hold us steady until the storm passes. So, I want to talk with you about a simple yet powerful technique that can help you stay focused in the present moment- it's called Dropping Anchor.  

Dropping Anchor can be particularly helpful for people struggling with controlling their emotions, big feelings, impulsive behaviour, panic attacks, flashbacks, or zoning out. 

Dropping anchor is a three-part process that can be done by NOTICING- noticing your mind, noticing your body, and noticing the present.  

• Noticing your mind can done by putting your thoughts into words. For example, "I'm noticing hurtful memories right now",  OR "I'm experiencing feelings of sadness." This can be done in your head silently, or verbally out loud.  

• Noticing your body can be done by focusing on what you have control over in the moment. This can be your own bodily physical actions- so stretch, change your posture, straighten up your back, push your feet into the floor, or alter your breathing. These help people to rapidly gain control back over other parts of their body and improves focus.  

• Noticing the present moment is done by expanding your awareness by noticing where you are and what you’re doing. This is not to distract you from your thoughts, but to help notice what else is there in addition to them. 

Using this technique in your day-to-day life will help you be more present, engage better in what you are doing now, help you regain control over your actions, and focus your attention on what is important.’