Latest / College Is Fine, Everything's Fine / #68 Lost, Stuck, or Stalling? How the R.E.A.C.H. Toolkit Helps You Get Back on Target

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#68 Lost, Stuck, or Stalling? How the R.E.A.C.H. Toolkit Helps You Get Back on Target · College Is Fine, Everything's Fine

Act with Purpose[00:00:00] Hey there, and welcome to College is Fine. Everything's Fine. The podcast that helps you keep your head above campus chaos without losing your sense of self or your sense of humor. I'm Dr. Sarah Olivo. And I'm Dr. Liz Seidler. We're clinical psychologists who help students navigate everything from friendship, drama, and academic pressure to figuring out who they are when nobody and everybody is watching.We take real stories from college life and turn them into simple science back tips. You can actually use no fluff, just what works. Think of it as your mental health toolkit for thriving, not just surviving college life. Alright, Sarah, are you ready? Yep, I'm ready. Let's get into it.Alright. Acting with purpose. , So this is gonna come back to those values a little bit because what ends up happening is once you've identified your values, and by the way, raise your hand if you [00:01:00] act on your values a hundred percent of the time.I mean, I'm, sometimes I'm like, I'm not gonna act on that value today. Like, I know per, I'm like, I'm gonna yell at my kids right now. You know? So this is not to say we all do this, we all need to take a break from it. And there are times where. We can look and say, am I acting in a way that is ultimately also paying attention to my long-term goals?You know, if I was screaming at my friends or loved ones every single time I got upset, that might be different, right? I wouldn't be acting on my values then, but if occasionally I'm just like, I just gotta let you know. Okay, that's fine. We don't need to always walk around and, you know, acting so perfectly.Um, so the idea behind acting with purpose is to say once you've labeled those values and you know what they are and you've decided to have a little flop time, right? That might be a good thing. 'cause you need to do some self-care, you need a break and that's okay. That's acting on the value of self-care and kind of re [00:02:00] reenergizing yourself.However, you've said there are a lot of times when the flop time isn't so productive and it could be a little bit more efficient and maybe I'm just engaging in some procrastination. So that would not be something that acts on your goals. So. This is an area where we think, once you know those goals, think about what are my long-term values?What are the things I wanna get out of this? Sometimes I'll say to the students going to school, I'm like, all right, just imagine you're on. Uh, you're, you're getting on the road and you know, the end of this journey is what you wanna do is to what? Graduate with a certain grade point average or with a sort of academic goal in mind.And do you wanna have some friends in that process? Yes. I wanna have those, you know, I wanna have some good relationships. Okay, great. So we know that that is the road that we're going towards, or most of our values are gonna be about self-discipline around studying, making good connections, which we'll talk about in a little bit.And I'm gonna say, and sometimes we're gonna decide when to go off the road, [00:03:00] right? Like, when is it okay to take an exit from that? Because we do not expect for that to be happening all the time. And so, but if you know you're taking the exit and you're like, I wanna take the exit, alright, and then I can get back on the road at some point, then that's fine.So this is a way for saying, okay, what are my goals? What are my behaviors? And then if you do a little exercise, sometimes, like I'll say, okay, let's look at academics. Let's look at socializing. Let's look at your physical health, et cetera. And we'll say, how close are you to acting on these goals? Are you hitting the bullseye?How far away are you? And then we just talk about what are some ways to get you back on track? Or maybe this one's okay to take a back seat for now 'cause we can focus on another area, but at least you're doing it with awareness. Um, and so we just wanted to give you that option. Um, so for you guys, not to put you on the spot, but were, are there times when you acted against your values?And again, that's okay. And we all do it. And then did you [00:04:00] realize it at the time or, or later? Yeah. Any, any thoughts? I mean, I'd say definitely, um, the most common occurrence is when I'm actively laying in bed, looking at my phone, knowing that I should be doing an assignments. Mm-hmm. Um, and continuing to lay in my bed.But also deliberately, uh, not responding to emails and the like, um, kind of afraid to get a response, I suppose. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Good examples. Yep.Um, I would say similarly, uh, sitting in bed, you know, scrolling on TikTok or something and I know I should be studying or, uh, I know I need to finish this homework assignment and then it's late and I'm like, shoot, I, I have to do this right now. Mm-hmm. As I know I'm not waking up in the morning to do it if it's due in the morning.So, um, definitely that acted against my [00:05:00] values. And same with like socializing with my roommates, um, having a common space. This year we had a living room, um, and you know, we'd all just be hanging out and I knew I had stuff to do, but again, I just prioritized kind of the social aspect over, um, that, and I don't think I realized it in the moment, but then once I.Started to do my work, I was like, okay, I probably shouldn't have saved it to this point, but yeah. Um, yeah, I would say procrastination's a good one. Um, especially with social media, um, you can kind of fall into like this never ending cycle of like, oh, just 20 more minutes and 20 more minutes go by. And you're like, well, 10 more minutes won't hurt, and then it's like three hours later and you haven't really done anything.Um, so that's a big one. And then I think a good one too, um, for me personally is sometimes it can be hard in social circles [00:06:00] to always kind of be the person you wanna be. Um, like there can be pressure to act a certain way or, um, to like talk about people a certain way or, or, um. Yeah, just in general, like have this general consensus when you're in, uh, a social group.So I'd say sometimes I struggled with kind of standing my ground and mm-hmm. Um, leading a conversation or, or interjecting in a conversation in the way I would've wanted to. Yeah. Out of fear. Those are all great examples. Great examples, and very common. Um, I think that the big, if, you know, you said thoughts are not facts.Um, the big takeaway here is that sometimes you have to do motivated, you can't feel motivated. And so a big part of this skillset is how do you start to use actions to help you feel [00:07:00] motivated? For instance, how do you. Act in a brave way socially, to help you actually feel more confident socially, that a lot of times people wait to have the right thought or the right situation, but we, you know, to be true is there are a lot of times where actions can start that process, but shockingly, we use procrastination as our example here.Um, to say that a lot of times you, you all describe various things that we're pulling at you. So, um, just the actual dopamine hits of social media or just kind of the brain fry that's allowed, it sort of cuts out some of the noise, which can feel really relaxing in a stressful world. So I get it. Um, emotions, anxiety, social anxiety, a willingness I want, I wish to connect to friends.I mean, these are all understandable reasons, but, um, pulling at you. And so for instance, with procrastination, we know that oftentimes what happens is there's an anxiety trigger. Okay? And then. The question is, I [00:08:00] think I might fail. Another thought might be like, oh my gosh, this is gonna be so atrocious.It's more dread. Mm-hmm. Um, or I don't know where to get started. There's a lot of different thoughts that might lead to this. And then you start to feel that maybe the pit in your stomach or you feel a little flushed or the tightness in your chest, right? So your body and brain are starting to say, Ooh, heads up.This isn't a good situation. And so what do you do you avoid? So when we feel anxious or we feel a sense of dread, those are emotions that lead us to kind of pull back, avoid, um, or escape situations that make us feel that way. So procrastination is primarily an emotion regulation technique for managing dread and anxiety.And so what happens when you procrastinate is anxiety actually does lower in the moment. So unfortunately you have way too many ways to feel fine about procrastination 'cause our attention can go elsewhere. We've got those great friends to hang out with. But once you're done with that and that runs out, what do you know?The only thing that's gonna [00:09:00] happen is you're gonna feel that anxiety again. And so it, it's just like this rollercoaster. And if we had more time, what I would do is show you the opposite. To be true that this cycle can work backwards. Where if you say to yourself, I'm only gonna study, but I'm gonna study honestly for five minutes.Where do you think you're gonna be more likely to actually feel motivated to study? Is it while you're looking on your phone in your comfy bed or is after five minutes of just doing a opening up a book? Right? It's after doing the action, then you actually can start to feel motivated. And so it's a hard sell.Um, but it's also the, one of the more effective ways to change your emotions and your thoughts is to practice behaviors that are purposeful for you. By the way, does anyone listen to outros? Should we do one? Anyway, thanks for tuning in to. College is fine. Everything's fine. We hope you're walking away with skills you can use right now, whether you're just beginning to think about college, [00:10:00] starting your first semester, or counting down to graduation.If you like today's episode, you know what to do, subscribe, believe a, review, and share it with a friend or your roommate or your parents, or that random person you keep seeing on the quad. Please don't be shy. Want more tools, tip sheets, or courses? Head to colleges, find podcast.com or follow us on Instagram and TikTok at colleges Find podcast.We'll catch you next time with more real talk, more skills, and more of what actually works on campus. Until then, remember that we are rooting for you.