Please find a collection of insights from Dr Giotta below:
C Suite coaching
What is the relevance of C-Suite training?“The more you learn, the more you earn”, said Warren Buffett. It is my view that this starts from learning about oneself, which is why the most important and the greatest investment one could ever make in life is to invest in oneself, i.e. to study oneself, to get to know oneself extremely well and to engage in continued personal development such that one can be in the position of taking the best right step in each given moment from the most effective stance, being informed by awareness of thoughts, feelings and emotions, their meaning and the ability to decipher and discriminate effectively what is the now and what was the past. These are all learnable skills. I provide and facilitate such an education and empowerment for my clients (click here for more: C-Suite)
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Stop procrastinating!
How many times have we heard ourselves or other people say things like: “I haven’t got time”, or: “I am too busy”, or: “Oh… I am just lazy”, or “I have got plenty time!” or: “this assignment is just too difficult”? We can easily find the most creative and brilliant excuses when it comes to avoiding certain tasks. Such an avoidance is what, in jargon, we, psychologists, call procrastination.
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What is procrastination?
Procrastination is a coping behaviour characterised by the action of delaying or postponing emotionally triggering tasks, despite their relevance or burning deadlines. Its function is to avoid uncomfortable feelings underpinned by negative core beliefs.
In other words, people procrastinate due to their inability to regulate negative feelings around a – triggering – task (Fuschia, 2016), therefore effectively delaying the time to deal with uncomfortable feelings – such as shame, fear of failure, boredom, fear of being punished for being “imperfect”, fear of exposing oneself and being “found out” as a fraud/impostor – all driven by underpinning learned beliefs about oneself and/or trapped memories formed within the context of past experiences and conditioning.
Taking our inspiration from the start of the Lunar New Year and new decade, let us make sense of this disempowering pattern of behaviour in greater detail and see how we can understand, tackle and transform it, with the goal of thriving and flourishing in our lives (Recommended reading: Procrastination, health and wellbeing by M. S. Fuschia).
The other face of perfectionism?
When we feel we can’t meet our internal – perhaps unrelenting or unrealistic – standards and expectations (generally an internal expectation to deliver perfection linked to some form of ideal self, possibly underpinned by shame of the real self thus the consequent drive to atone, fix and perfect oneself) we may avoid and procrastinate. In so doing, anxiety increases progressively and opportunities are often lost. This is why procrastination has also been understood as a self-harming behaviour in literature (Steel, 2012).
The perfectionistic part can be reduced through self-compassion, self-acceptance, increased leisure time and activities, as well as by accepting that there is no such thing as perfection (Recommended reading: The Gifts of Imperfection, Brene Brown).
Impulsiveness and lack of discipline
Procrastination could be underpinned by the inability to tolerate discomfort and frustration, to delay immediate or short-term gratification, to persevere and tolerate the boredom of undertaking mundane tasks. Such a habit can also lead to significant lost opportunities in life and may result from lack of competent guidance, limit setting, structure, holding and boundaries growing up or from the internalisation of maladaptive coping behaviours displayed by relevant others (e.g. parents/caregivers) during the developmental age.
The lack of a regular, gentle routine and compassionate self-discipline, paired with a lack of tolerance to frustration and/or a wish for immediate gratification is a habit that can be transformed with perseverance and commitment by responding to one’s needs, in this case, the need for limit setting and progressive increases in one’s tolerance of discomfort and frustration (Recommended reading: Do/breathe/calm your mind. Find focus. Get stuff done by Michael Townsend Williams).
Fear of success?
A more hidden aspect underpinning procrastination may be an unconscious fear of success and the fear of other’s retaliation, or may be driven by an invisible loyalty to one – or more – relevant other/s (e.g. a parent/s or caregiver/s). If this is your case, be mindful and try to break through these invisible forces (tips below).
Transforming to thrive
Here are some helpful tips to tackle procrastination, whether driven by perfectionism, lack of self-discipline, low tolerance to frustration or other forces. Just choose the tips that you find helpful in your particular circumstances:
Procrastination is a coping behaviour characterised by the action of delaying or postponing emotionally triggering tasks, despite their relevance or burning deadlines. Its function is to avoid uncomfortable feelings underpinned by negative core beliefs.
In other words, people procrastinate due to their inability to regulate negative feelings around a – triggering – task (Fuschia, 2016), therefore effectively delaying the time to deal with uncomfortable feelings – such as shame, fear of failure, boredom, fear of being punished for being “imperfect”, fear of exposing oneself and being “found out” as a fraud/impostor – all driven by underpinning learned beliefs about oneself and/or trapped memories formed within the context of past experiences and conditioning.
Taking our inspiration from the start of the Lunar New Year and new decade, let us make sense of this disempowering pattern of behaviour in greater detail and see how we can understand, tackle and transform it, with the goal of thriving and flourishing in our lives (Recommended reading: Procrastination, health and wellbeing by M. S. Fuschia).
The other face of perfectionism?
When we feel we can’t meet our internal – perhaps unrelenting or unrealistic – standards and expectations (generally an internal expectation to deliver perfection linked to some form of ideal self, possibly underpinned by shame of the real self thus the consequent drive to atone, fix and perfect oneself) we may avoid and procrastinate. In so doing, anxiety increases progressively and opportunities are often lost. This is why procrastination has also been understood as a self-harming behaviour in literature (Steel, 2012).
The perfectionistic part can be reduced through self-compassion, self-acceptance, increased leisure time and activities, as well as by accepting that there is no such thing as perfection (Recommended reading: The Gifts of Imperfection, Brene Brown).
Impulsiveness and lack of discipline
Procrastination could be underpinned by the inability to tolerate discomfort and frustration, to delay immediate or short-term gratification, to persevere and tolerate the boredom of undertaking mundane tasks. Such a habit can also lead to significant lost opportunities in life and may result from lack of competent guidance, limit setting, structure, holding and boundaries growing up or from the internalisation of maladaptive coping behaviours displayed by relevant others (e.g. parents/caregivers) during the developmental age.
The lack of a regular, gentle routine and compassionate self-discipline, paired with a lack of tolerance to frustration and/or a wish for immediate gratification is a habit that can be transformed with perseverance and commitment by responding to one’s needs, in this case, the need for limit setting and progressive increases in one’s tolerance of discomfort and frustration (Recommended reading: Do/breathe/calm your mind. Find focus. Get stuff done by Michael Townsend Williams).
Fear of success?
A more hidden aspect underpinning procrastination may be an unconscious fear of success and the fear of other’s retaliation, or may be driven by an invisible loyalty to one – or more – relevant other/s (e.g. a parent/s or caregiver/s). If this is your case, be mindful and try to break through these invisible forces (tips below).
Transforming to thrive
Here are some helpful tips to tackle procrastination, whether driven by perfectionism, lack of self-discipline, low tolerance to frustration or other forces. Just choose the tips that you find helpful in your particular circumstances:
- Be a curious explorer of the negative feelings triggered by the task
- Remember these uncomfortable feelings will pass like clouds in the sky. Indeed they contain relevant information for you to know what is happening to you and assess what you actually need in the present moment
- Do the tasks you hate first – literally first thing in the morning – and get them out of the way
- Learn to tolerate discomfort and meet your challenges with total acceptance and kindness towards yourself
- Remind yourself it’s ok to make mistakes as from them, you can learn and grow
- Remember you only have to produce work that’s good enough. It doesn’t have to be perfect!
- Reassure yourself that you are OK and lovable, regardless of your performance
- Remind yourself that your worthiness does not depend on your achievements
- Learn to discriminate between constructive and destructive criticism
- Be open to – and learn from – constructive criticism whilst not letting destructive criticism in
- Explore whether your fear is stemming from past experiences (e.g. being scolded or disapproved for a low grade) and, if so, do some tapping combined with positive affirmation (e.g. TFT Tapping http://tfttapping.com)
- Place 100% of your attention and effort on performing a given task, being fully absorbed. Each time you catch yourself drifting away, take a deep breath and gently bring your attention back to the task in hand fully absorbed. Repeat this again and again, as many times as you find yourself drifting away. This is a practice and it will get better through repetition and perseverance (albeit you will never be perfect!)
- By doing the task, you will soon discover it’s not as difficult or dreadful as you thought (what’s dreadful is the anxiety that progressively increases, whether consciously aware or not, as a result of procrastination itself, and the consequent guilt and lack of control/failure to achieve) so you will actually feel empowered
- If you slip (and procrastinate) – and you can indeed, as this is all new – forgive yourself and carry on. Keep going. When forging new habits, every baby step counts so don’t give up!
Why feelings matter
Feelings, especially the unpleasant ones, are often misunderstood and stigmatised, being perceived as something negative, to be avoided, suffocated, numbed dismissed or eliminated. In fact, feelings make us human (Hauke, 2005). Furthermore, they contain precious information about the world as we perceive it and about ourselves, thus offer us opportunities to respond effectively to our emotional needs and to life situations. It is therefore important to develop the skill of understanding and making sense of feelings, what they intend to communicate to us about ourselves and life events.
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As children growing up, the relevant caregivers act as a mirror; in so doing, through such foundational relationships, children begin to develop the language of emotions. In certain cases, this process is hindered or does not take place effectively for multiple reasons, including misattunements and misunderstandings, or a “basic fault” (Balint, 1968, p. p. 16) with the relevant caregiver/s during the developmental phase, as a result, the fundamental language of emotions and the ability to relate/attune to self and others become impaired.
When people do not know what they suffer from – aka they cannot name their feelings – and do not know the paths to exit from their sufferance, they are left without tools. What can be done?
REFERENCES: Balint, M. (1968). The basic fault: Therapeutic aspects of regression. London and New York: Routledge.
Hauke, C. (2005). Human being human: Culture and the soul. New York, NY; London: Routledge.
van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind and body in the healing of trauma. New York: Penguin.
RESOURCES: List of emotions: https://www.healthline.com/health/list-of-emotions
When people do not know what they suffer from – aka they cannot name their feelings – and do not know the paths to exit from their sufferance, they are left without tools. What can be done?
- A paradigm shift: be willing to feel your feelings.
- “Befriending the body” (Van der Kolk, 2014): begin to observe your body sensations with curiosity as if you are undertaking a body scan. Name each and every sensation with an emotion. Be willing to observe them with curiosity as if to capture the information they carry about what is going on inside you and what you may need in the moment.
- Be patient with yourself. This is a new skill. Give yourself time to practice.
- Develop a personalised emotional dictionary based on your body sensations and their emotional parallels (for a list of emotions see link below in the resources section).
- Practice, practice, practice.
- Lastly: you may wish to read some of the great novels of the 1900s (eg. Kafka; Tolstoy; Mann) to learn more about the entire range of feelings including love, sufferance, boredom, desperation and agony. By identifying with the novels’ characters, you may learn more about your experiences and emotions.
REFERENCES: Balint, M. (1968). The basic fault: Therapeutic aspects of regression. London and New York: Routledge.
Hauke, C. (2005). Human being human: Culture and the soul. New York, NY; London: Routledge.
van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind and body in the healing of trauma. New York: Penguin.
RESOURCES: List of emotions: https://www.healthline.com/health/list-of-emotions
Healing from Depression
1. What is “Depression”?
Depression is an impairing low mood that can last weeks, months or even years. A sense of isolation, disconnection and alienation resulting from a lack of safe attachment, attunement, emotional nurturance, care, sense of belonging, connectedness and unconditional acceptance during the developmental age underpin depression. Also, an underdeveloped self and enmeshment with relevant others deriving from an environment whilst growing up that engendered dependency, did not foster belief in self, free self-expression and hindered the development of self-confidence represent dimensions correlating with depression. Developmental trauma – including neglect – often also result in depressive symptoms. |
2. How does one tell if they’ve got it? What symptoms should they be aware of? Depressive symptoms manifest along a continuum, from the more mild to severe. A sense of meaninglessness, low self-esteem, apathy and hopelessness, often alongside suicidality, are common symptoms.
3. How can therapy/speaking to a psychologist help someone suffering from depression, especially as a first step towards getting better? The focus of therapy is on identifying maladaptive coping behaviours, on developing a strong and caring healthy adult that can meet core emotional needs such as those for self-acceptance, self-kindness, meaningful and authentic connection with self and others. The therapist also supports these processes and aids the processing of traumatic past experiences to eventually break negative life patterns and facilitate the befriending of the body such that the client can feel safe therein.
4. Do you think people in Singapore are more open to talking about mental health, in particular, depression? Or are we still a long way from de-stigmatising it? I see Singaporeans are becoming more welcoming to psychological support, especially the younger generation. We do have more access to information today, as such the historic stigma is progressively diminishing.
5. What advice do you have for those who may be suffering from depression but are afraid to ask for help, or don’t know how to? Joining a support group or a support system of caring and competent people, even online, could help to break the initial hesitation and developing familiarity with the idea of being worthy of help and happiness in life. We are all worthy of thriving in life, therefore we all worthy of a sound therapeutic process.
6. What is one thing we can do for ourselves as an everyday tool in managing/overcoming depressive thoughts/moods? I would say unconditional service and support for other people, planet Earth and/or animals, physical activity and exercise, especially yoga, pranayama breathing exercises, mindfulness and meditation. Developing one’s spiritual dimension is paramount as an integration with psychotherapy in order to experience stillness and peace from within.
3. How can therapy/speaking to a psychologist help someone suffering from depression, especially as a first step towards getting better? The focus of therapy is on identifying maladaptive coping behaviours, on developing a strong and caring healthy adult that can meet core emotional needs such as those for self-acceptance, self-kindness, meaningful and authentic connection with self and others. The therapist also supports these processes and aids the processing of traumatic past experiences to eventually break negative life patterns and facilitate the befriending of the body such that the client can feel safe therein.
4. Do you think people in Singapore are more open to talking about mental health, in particular, depression? Or are we still a long way from de-stigmatising it? I see Singaporeans are becoming more welcoming to psychological support, especially the younger generation. We do have more access to information today, as such the historic stigma is progressively diminishing.
5. What advice do you have for those who may be suffering from depression but are afraid to ask for help, or don’t know how to? Joining a support group or a support system of caring and competent people, even online, could help to break the initial hesitation and developing familiarity with the idea of being worthy of help and happiness in life. We are all worthy of thriving in life, therefore we all worthy of a sound therapeutic process.
6. What is one thing we can do for ourselves as an everyday tool in managing/overcoming depressive thoughts/moods? I would say unconditional service and support for other people, planet Earth and/or animals, physical activity and exercise, especially yoga, pranayama breathing exercises, mindfulness and meditation. Developing one’s spiritual dimension is paramount as an integration with psychotherapy in order to experience stillness and peace from within.
© 2024 Adriana Giotta