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Look at what you are actually working for this week. If every item is there to stop someone being cross or something going wrong, you are running on avoidance, and it is exhausting.
Avoidance does get things done, but only at the last moment and only with dread attached, and it leaves behind nothing you wanted. Take one thing off the list and attach a reason of your own to it, something you would still care about if nobody were watching. One is enough to begin with. This is a structure that can be changed, not a personality you are stuck inside.
Qur’an and Sunnah
We shall be sure to guide to Our ways those who strive hard for Our cause: God is with those who do good (Quran 29:69). The striving is towards something, and company is promised on that road.
وَٱلَّذِينَ جَٰهَدُواْ فِينَا لَنَهۡدِيَنَّهُمۡ سُبُلَنَاۚ وَإِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَمَعَ ٱلۡمُحۡسِنِينَ
But We shall be sure to guide to Our ways those who strive hard for Our cause: God is with those who do good
Qur’an 29:69read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A Cochrane review of behavioural activation describes a brief approach that works by changing how a person engages with their surroundings, and notes it may need fewer resources than other therapies. It was reviewed as a treatment for depression in adults, so applying it to a life organised around avoidance is a reasonable extension rather than a tested one.
Uphoff E, Ekers D, Robertson L, Dawson S, Sanger E, South E, Samaan Z, Richards D, Meader N, Churchill R. (2020). Behavioural activation therapy for depression in adults.. The Cochrane database of systematic reviews doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Doing things only to prevent trouble gives you no reason to start until the trouble is near.
When not to
If most days are spent in dread and nothing feels worth moving towards, raise it with a doctor, because low mood does this too.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Take half a minute and see Thursday night in detail, both versions: the one where you did some of this today, and the one where you did not.
Make the first move small enough to be almost silly. Open the document and type the date. Put the trainers by the door. Everything after that is cheaper.
The other way through fog is to walk into it. Start badly, on purpose, and let the shape of the thing appear while you are working on it.