Blog Posts Tagged "Happiness Skills".

Here are some questions you can ask yourself if you are feeling anxious about an upcoming social interaction.

Let’s for example imagine you want to ask someone out on a date.

Question 1: What do you fear might happen?

Your answer might be – “I fear that the person will say no”

Question 2: What do you think the probability is of the feared thing happening? Your answer should be between 0 and 100%

Your might answer might be – “85%”

People who are anxious tend to overestimate the probability of their fears coming true. For example, people who are scared of driving tend to overestimate the chances being killed in a fatal crash. People who are scared of spiders tend to overestimate the chances of being killed by a spider bite. The same applies to social anxiety.

Question 3: Is your estimate too high?

Your answer might be – “Well, maybe it might be more like 50%”

Question 4: What would it mean if the feared thing happened?

Your answer might be – “It would be proof that people see me as undesirable, and that I’m never going to achieve a long term relationship with a desirable partner.”

Question 5: Would it really mean that?

Your answer might be – “Well, no, maybe that particular person isn’t interested in me but other people might be.”

Question 6: What are some alternative explanations?

Try to come up with about 3.

Aim for alternative explanations that are balanced thoughts that accurately reflect reality. Your alternative explanations do not need to be more positive than is warranted by reality, but should not be more negative than is warranted by reality.

Your answers might include –

- “The person might say yes”

- “If the person I ask says no, their reasons could be related to their preferences and situation rather than my inherent worth/worthlessness. For example, they might be involved, or looking to be involved, in another relationship. Or, they might be looking for something particular in a potential partner that is not me (e.g. they want a partner who is 6 ft tall and I am 5’8.). Or, they might have a rule against dating someone they have a business relationship with. These are all preferences that they own and are not really to do with me.”

- “Most people who end up having long term relationships with desirable partners first have experiences with other partners that don’t work out (including experiences of desiring a relationship with someone who doesn’t desire a relationship with them).”

- “I have to ask to be in with a chance. Its disappointing to get rejected. But, its not the end of the world. I can be proud of having asked.”

- “In the past, other people who I have asked out have said yes, so I know I am not completely undesirable”.

What if even writing answers to these questions makes me feel anxious?

It might. Your anxiety hump might’ve gotten really big (click here for more info). Facing your fears in this type of objective way is likely to help shrink down your anxiety hump. You can try it and see. You can always go back to your current way of doing things.

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I read some research awhile back (I can’t remember where sorry!) that said that people’s spare time usually occurs in chunks of 40 minutes or less.

The time I have to work on admin tasks tends to occur in very small chunks – 10-15 minutes here and there. For example, when I come home from seeing clients at the office, I might have a little bit of energy left to do an admin task but not more than around 15 mins of energy.

The solution I’ve found to this is to have lists of the individual steps involved in larger repeated tasks.

Here’s an example of part of my list of the steps involved in recording my monthly business expenses. The actual list is much longer than this but I’m not posting all of it for privacy reasons. At least you’ll get the idea from what I’ve written below. I keep both dead tree copies of bills and electronic copies. So, bills that come in electronically need printing, and bills that come in as paper need scanning.

- Go through VISA statement and input transactions into spreadsheet
- Go through EFTPOS statement and input transactions into spreadsheet
- Print Skype Bill
- Print Jungle Disk Bill
- Scan Telecom Bill
- Scan Power Bill
- Scan Credit Card Bill
- Scan Petrol Receipt/s
- Name scanned files and file in correct electronic folder.
- Print off monthly bank account statement for each of work accounts and personal account. File in filing cabinet.
- File electronic files of bank statements in the appropriate electronic files.

My tax year starts April 1st. I have a little system of Xs, where XX before the item means I have done it already for both April and May, and X means so far done for April only. By the end of the year, there should be 12 Xs next to each item.

Prior to developing this list, I was spending a ton of time working out what I’d done already and what I hadn’t done yet. I can now take advantage of scraps of time to tick one or two things off the list and not have that effort negated by later needing to check what I’ve done so far.

Common advice is to chunk similar tasks together and do them in batches because batching tasks (e.g. doing all scanning at once) tends to be much faster than task switching. That is great in theory. But, I find that for many tasks it doesn’t work in practice because my spare time/energy only occurs in short windows.

Having the list of each specific action that needs to be done also gives me a realistic perception of how much I need to get done in order to keep up to date with the task. I learned that the reason this task feels like it takes a long time is because there are a LOT of steps involved. It might seem like confronting this reality would be depressing. In some respects it is depressing but I find that having a realistic perception also helps me feel calmer. I can allow and plan for the reality of the situation rather than deluding myself that I can get the task done in a short amount of time.

Another benefit of having identified tasks that are important but short and not at all cognitive demanding ,is that I can do these tasks when I’m feeling like my brain isn’t up to doing anything cognitively demanding. This might be when I’m tired after seeing clients, or sometimes in the mornings if I wake up feeling still cognitively tired and need to do some brainless tasks to wake up into the day, and get activated and energized.

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If you have a “B” task that you have been putting off (read here to find out what a “B” task is) try asking yourself what the “next action” required is.

Your answer should be one small, specific action. For example, if you have been putting off completing your tax return, you might identify that the “next action” you need to do is to print off your bank statements from your internet banking.

You can then elevate that next action to “A” task status – something that needs to be done today or in the next few days.

Sometimes its too overwhelming to think about all the steps involved in a task. If this is the case, just identify the next action.

You may realize that what you think is the next action required, is not in fact the next action required. For example, you realize that you have forgotten your internet banking password so calling the bank for a temporary password is the actual next action required. If this happens, just edit your next action to reflect your new thought.

Sometimes people find it useful to go through all of their procrastinated tasks, and identify the next action required for each of them. You could do this once a week as part of a weekly review. But, I usually just identify the next action required for whatever “B” task I am making a priority on a particular day.

Note that your “B” tasks are likely to be bigger/more important tasks than your “A” tasks, because, by definition, your “B” tasks are the things that are going to take a longer period of time than your “A” tasks, which are just what you need to get done in the next few days. “A” tasks will include things like “get petrol” and “put new lightbulb in the dining room” whereas “B” tasks tend to be bigger projects.

It can be tempting to put whole “B” tasks on your “A” tasks list to try to create a sense of urgency, but if you do that you’re likely to end up with too many “A” tasks, and tasks that you can’t realistically get done in the next few days. If you have been putting something off, put the next action required for that task on your “A tasks” list.

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