Do you ever get derailed from a project by a quick Facebook or e-mail check?
Could be you're looking for a mood boost - but in all the wrong places.
Procrastination researchers suggest that more enduring ways of boosting mood can keep you plugging away rather than shoving you off the track.
They suggest four strategies:
- Face Forward. Project into the future how great you'll feel when the project is done.
- Just Start. Action can help defeat worries that you'll fail, so go ahead and do those first 1-2 steps.
- Forgive yourself. Stop beating yourself up over the procrastination and "just do it." Beating yourself up just creates more negative emotion and therefore...more procrastination.
- Do easiest first. By diving into the easiest tasks first, you can build momentum and keep on going.
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Five-Minute Favors
It's easy to put off doing favors for others, even though helping increase positive mood all around.
What's the hang-up? We perceive that giving can take up lots of time.
Enter the five-minute favor, popularized by screenwriter Adam Rifkin. The idea is to perform favors for others, but limit them to five minutes.
Five-minute favors are especially suited for sharing knowledge with others and introducing individuals who might benefit from knowing each other.
Specific examples might be sharing something useful on Facebook, writing a helpful online review, or writing a virtual introduction.
Wharton professor Adam Grant credits five-minute favors as the single most important thing he learned in writing his business book Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success..
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Empathy, Not Sympathy
When we talk about positive mood, it's easy to fall into the "silver lining" trap.
It's helpful to be aware of what's going well and why. In fact, it's foundational to the study of positive psychology. But denying the negative is not required or even helpful.
It can be especially destructive in our interactions with others who are in distress to bypass what they are feeling and instead go hunting for a silver lining.
This video narrated by author/researcher
Brene
Brown is one of the best illustrations of how positive empathy works, as opposed to sympathy.
 | | RSA Shorts - The Power of Empathy |
Copyright 2014 Pat Snyder
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