I got some positive change out of therapy, although I suspect I’m conflating therapy with some other positive stuff that happened to me around that time.
Going through almost exactly the same routine every week with respect to dealing with my negative emotions made troubleshooting negative states a habitual exercise rather than something to be occasionally stumbled over or only done with external help. Essentially, I view most of my time in therapy as training in how to be my own therapist. When I find myself frustrated/sad/demotivated/etc I can seldom stay that way for more than 15 minutes without automatically entering troubleshooting mode and asking myself why exactly I’m feeling that way, what can I do to deal with it, and so on. Prior to this particular therapist I knew all of the techniques but had trouble convincing myself to apply them consistently (or at all most of the time, since I’d already convinced myself that I was a lost cause and the techniques wouldn’t work for me).
Oh and she also helped me defuse some particularly irrational and damaging beliefs that I was holding onto despite abundant evidence to the contrary, mostly by forcing me to acknowledge that the evidence existed. Before that I’d been very good at rationalising it away, but when led through it step by step by an outside source I had to choose between defying the data and updating my beliefs at least slightly.
Other things that have made me more effective include:
Making sure I’m taking care of life maintenance stuff such as getting enough sleep and socialising on a semi-regular basis. Makes me more emotionally stable, which means that I don’t waste as much time or energy fighting myself to get things done.
Irrevocably locking myself into tight schedules, with consequences should I fail to stick to them, (eg. when I was writing my undergrad thesis I sent my list of deadlines to my supervisor so that he could harass me when I hadn’t turned in a chapter on time. And if I don’t re-learn programming before I start grad school I won’t have time to do so later and I’ll have serious trouble doing the research I would like to do which will then impact my ability to continue on the career path I’ve chosen) It’s the only reliable way I’ve found so far to get really motivated, and this approach has led me to do huge amounts of high-quality work in relatively short periods of time.
Keeping a private blog where I record large chunks of my life and thoughts in text form. Helps me by providing a safe space for me to work through my issues, and by helping me to notice cause and effect relationships between various parts of my life and my happiness/effectiveness.
I got some positive change out of therapy, although I suspect I’m conflating therapy with some other positive stuff that happened to me around that time.
Going through almost exactly the same routine every week with respect to dealing with my negative emotions made troubleshooting negative states a habitual exercise rather than something to be occasionally stumbled over or only done with external help. Essentially, I view most of my time in therapy as training in how to be my own therapist. When I find myself frustrated/sad/demotivated/etc I can seldom stay that way for more than 15 minutes without automatically entering troubleshooting mode and asking myself why exactly I’m feeling that way, what can I do to deal with it, and so on. Prior to this particular therapist I knew all of the techniques but had trouble convincing myself to apply them consistently (or at all most of the time, since I’d already convinced myself that I was a lost cause and the techniques wouldn’t work for me).
Oh and she also helped me defuse some particularly irrational and damaging beliefs that I was holding onto despite abundant evidence to the contrary, mostly by forcing me to acknowledge that the evidence existed. Before that I’d been very good at rationalising it away, but when led through it step by step by an outside source I had to choose between defying the data and updating my beliefs at least slightly.
Other things that have made me more effective include:
Making sure I’m taking care of life maintenance stuff such as getting enough sleep and socialising on a semi-regular basis. Makes me more emotionally stable, which means that I don’t waste as much time or energy fighting myself to get things done.
Irrevocably locking myself into tight schedules, with consequences should I fail to stick to them, (eg. when I was writing my undergrad thesis I sent my list of deadlines to my supervisor so that he could harass me when I hadn’t turned in a chapter on time. And if I don’t re-learn programming before I start grad school I won’t have time to do so later and I’ll have serious trouble doing the research I would like to do which will then impact my ability to continue on the career path I’ve chosen) It’s the only reliable way I’ve found so far to get really motivated, and this approach has led me to do huge amounts of high-quality work in relatively short periods of time.
Keeping a private blog where I record large chunks of my life and thoughts in text form. Helps me by providing a safe space for me to work through my issues, and by helping me to notice cause and effect relationships between various parts of my life and my happiness/effectiveness.
Thanks, helpful.