Whenever I struggle to make progress on an important goal, I feel bad. I get feelings of frustration, impatience, and apathy. I think to myself, “I have wasted all this time, and I will never get it back.” The resulting behavior during these moments does not help either; my impatience makes it hard to concentrate, so I often work on more engaging tasks rather than the essential ones I ideally want to focus on. I also tend to push through; even if I feel tired, I want to make progress at all costs. I force myself to work, which results in decreased motivation, making it hard to make actual progress.

Thanks to a practice called HEAL, introduced in the book Hardwiring Happiness by Rick Hanson, I now deal much better with this situation. HEAL stands for Having a beneficial experience, Enriching it, Absorbing it, and optionally Linking it to [...]

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Outline:

(02:56) How I applied the HEAL method

(05:49) The importance of internalizing positive experiences

(07:45) The HEAL method in detail

(07:57) Have a positive experience

(08:15) Enrich it

(08:52) Absorb it

(09:19) Linking positive and negative material

(10:44) Summary and Conclusion

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.