Do you ever find yourself sitting at your desk, telling yourself you should be working… but not getting anything done? Do you judge yourself for not being productive enough time and time again, but don’t see anything different happening as a result? Have you tried a variety of systems over the years, each one working temporarily or not at all? Here at Positive Vector, we believe that real growth means behavior change. Using our Internal Family Systems coaching method, you can address the root cause of your resistance and never suffer from it again.
That’s all well and good, you say, but what happens when I am already at work and I can’t slip away to do a full IFS session and the boss is breathing down my neck about that presentation due within hours?! For just that very occasion, I carry around a checklist full of techniques I can use to generate behavior change right there in that moment – and now I am going to share my ten very best tips with you, so that you can do what you need to do when you need to do it.
For the purposes of exposition, I have applied all of these techniques to a specific issue that almost everyone can identify with – procrastination. In the end, these can really be used for any case of resistance: for example, a direct analogy would be cravings, where part of you desperately wants something but another part of you thinks you shouldn’t have it. Everything applies just the same. And now, without further ado…
- Take a Deep Breath
- Cultivate Positive Mind-States
- Connect with your Reasons
- Change Context
- Use Curiosity
- Turn it into a Game!
- Be Mindful
- Break it into Sub-Steps
- Commit to One Minute
- Actively Recover and Try Again
If You Want More Lasting Change
The list above is great for when you need something that will change your state immediately. However, sometimes it makes sense to get to the root of the problem, instead of hacking it over and over again. If there’s a particular task that you’re using these techniques on almost every time, while you sail through other tasks with ease, schedule a free 30-minute consultation and look into what’s going on around that task! There must be some reason you keep coming up against resistance.