Stop avoiding bad news

Question

I have a problem that hinders me in several places in life where, when I believe that bad news is imminent, I take up sometimes outrageous levels of inconvenience and anti-productive behavior to avoid hearing the bad news. The reason for this is that bad news seems to impact me more negatively than other people -- I seem to have a harder time shaking it, and it seems to impact my productivity more drastically than I see in other people, once you control for how bad the news is.

How can I train myself to firstly not be so avoidant, and secondly, learn to bounce back from things better? Does anyone have experience with therapy in this area? If so, could it realistically lead to better outcomes?

Answer 1

I would suggest reading How to stop worrying and start living before going for something as heavy as a full blown therapy. It helped me worry less about a lot of things. It may not be the magic bullet that will makes you confront everything (procrastination will always come into play, even though what you are talking about is already a form of procrastination), but at least you will stress less.

Answer 2

bad news seems to impact me more negatively than other people -- I seem to have a harder time shaking it, and it seems to impact my productivity more drastically than I see in other people, once you control for how bad the news is.

This is, almost literally, the definition of a person of the introverted type. I recommend you take the Myers-Briggs test of personality types (you can do it online; just don't get too obsessed with the results-it is not written in stone, the results change along your life, it just shows tendencies). As an introverted-intuitive myself, the simple becoming aware that my problems were typified and common to a lot of people brought me a lot of relief.

Answer 3

Where does one start? Cognitive behavioral therapy .