“Adopt the pace of nature. Her secret is patience.” – Unknown
(This blog was originally posted on January 7, 2016)
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| Photo by Sara Fogan |
When I studied
in London during my junior year at college, one of my friends was fond of
saying, “You have ages, yet,” to
reassure me that I had plenty of time to complete an essay or project. She was
right, of course: I typically started and completed essays as soon as the
lecturer had assigned them. (That strategy was all the better for allowing
enough time to do countless rewrites and edits, but that’s a topic for another
essay.) Somehow, the deep timbre of her voice and calm way of delivering the
statement always helped to take the pressure off. I knew that the only real pressure on me was what I was
putting on myself. Without explicitly saying so, the statement reminded me that
the more stressed-out and worked up I allowed myself to become about the assignment,
the more “stuck” I became in my worrying—time would be better spent actually doing the work. Depending on the value
of the assignment—weekly essay versus a term project—sometimes I had to repeat
the mantra to myself (“I have ages, yet”) while I worked. But I always finished
and turned in the essay on time and a little less stressed.
As I look back
on those days, I can identify the different stages of repeated and learned
behaviors that were going on, based on John
Kappas, Ph.D.’s model for the Theory of Mind. Throughout our lifetime,
starting from birth, we create and follow a subconscious
mental script that dictates how we are likely to feel about and react to
different situations. According to the Hypnosis
Motivation Institute founder, these responses are based first on what we
have modeled and learned from our primary caretaker(s); later, we start to
model friends’ and colleagues’ behaviors. For example, I “learned” or model my
behavior of taking copious notes during a class and re-copying (hopefully,
neatly) them into a separate notebook, from watching my mother do this when she
worked on her degree when I was a teenager. I also followed her example of
further organizing the relevant information into a structured outline before I wrote
the assignment. This process was followed with several edits and rewrites up
until the morning the essay or project was due. That may have been my way of
“flirting” with procrastination: During high school, one of the girls in my
class was well-known for procrastination. Somehow, she was able to put off
studying for a test or completing an assignment until the very last minute and still earned very good grades. Her
behavior was drastically different from my (known) way of being a student and
it ultimately proved too emotionally and physically stressful (e.g., procrastination=pain) for me to successfully imitate. I
quickly returned to my own ways of studying.
However, my
friend’s perception of time to complete an assignment was an epiphany for me. Perhaps
she was able to influence my attitude and study behaviors because we were
friends, which increased my suggestibility to her. I knew she worked very hard and
was very good student; but she seemed to be better at balancing fun/relaxation
with getting down to doing her work when an assignment was due or a test was
looming. I envied and admired that talent, so I decided to adopt her
perspective about time to see if it would help me relax a little more. I was
sick of making myself sick and sleep-deprived as I rushed to complete a
deadline I had actually met, several drafts ago.
It worked. Just
the act of repeating her words—“You have ages, yet”—reminded me that I did have enough time to complete the
project seemed to stretch time out a little bit. Without yet knowing the term
“chunking it down” I was able to mentally prioritize what I needed to do to
finish my work so I could get a good night’s sleep and go for a meal or to a movie with my friends. I could give
myself permission to enjoy my time and experiences in a different country while
I learned and achieved academic success there.
After all, I
had ages to be able to do it all.
Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in
Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation
Institute in 2005. For more
information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an
appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.
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