the end of chapter five

Okay, so Chapter Five has bogged me down. Trying to describe every little step of things gets tedious, and knowing that there's more to come before the end of the chapter makes me not want to post. So I'm finishing the whole chapter today.

In summary, do-nothingism is caused by different types of irrational thoughts. Just like depression, you fight those irrational thoughts with rational ones. Types of ways to help yourself:

- Make a daily activity schedule
- Make an anti-procrastination sheet
- Make a daily record of dysfunctional thoughts (and their rational replies)
- Make a pleasure predicting sheet (write down how much satisfaction you predict and actually get out of an activity)
- Make a but-rebuttal chart (knocks down all your excuses with rational responses)
- Learn to endorse yourself (with yet another exercise of writing down your "I suck" thoughts and replacing them with "I rock" thoughts.)
- Tic-toc technique (task-interfering cognitions versus task-oriented cognitions, which I don't really feel like explaining, so I won't.)
- Break down tasks into small components or time segments
- Change "should" statements into "want" statements, based on what action would be to your best advantage.
- Tell nags to shove it and then make decisions based on what you want to do as opposed to what people are telling you to do.
- Visualize success by 1) listing all the positive consequences of doing something you're trying to accomplish 2) learn to meditate/relax 3) while relaxed/meditating, go over the things you listed in the first step.
- Count the number of things you do without being prodded or encouraged by anyone.
- Test your "I can't do [fill in blank]" statements by trying to do what you just said you couldn't do.
- Write down the negative consequences you might have to deal with if you fail at something, then show how you can cope with those consequences.

Most importantly the author points out that action comes before motivation. If you don't feel like doing anything, and do something anyway, then your motivation will come. :)