RAIN: Emotion Regulation at the Moment of Resistance
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- —
Pychyl's core claim is that procrastination is an emotion-focused coping strategy: avoidance removes an aversive feeling, which negatively reinforces the avoidance. So the plan in your calendar isn't enough — at the moment of resistance you need emotional work before cognitive work. He borrows Tara Brach's RAIN — Recognise, Allow (accept), Investigate, Nurture (or non-identification) — and pairs it with Parker Palmer's line that you can have an emotion without being that emotion, plus a couple of deep breaths as a portable volitional skill. The output of the sequence is not a better feeling; it's the freedom to act from a different part of your inner landscape and return to the question 'what's the next action?'
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
Breathe before anything else
Pychyl calls the ability to take a few deep breaths one of the most important volitional skills there is — portable, immediate, and enough to shift perspective. Two or three breaths, or a slow body scan, before you attempt any of the analysis.
Pro tip Because it needs no setup, this is the version you'll actually use when you're standing at the fridge instead of the desk.
- 2
Recognise the resistance
Notice that you intended to go to your desk and your body is heading to the fridge. The story ('I'm hungry') is a cover. Naming the avoidance as avoidance is the entry point.
- 3
Allow it, and label the emotion
Accept the feeling rather than arguing with it, and put a word on it: anxious, bored, resentful, frustrated, afraid. Perfectionism often shows up here — especially socially prescribed perfectionism, the internalised standards of others ('it won't be as good as his').
Pro tip Naming often deflates the feeling on its own — as soon as we name things they frequently go poof.
- 4
Investigate where it's coming from
Ask what the emotion means and whether it's the only one available to you. 'Why am I anxious? Because my whole identity is on the line' — probe it and the irrationality usually shows. Often the investigation reveals the task matters enormously, which is an argument for doing it today, not deferring it.
- 5
Nurture: common humanity and self-compassion
Accept that everyone carries light and darkness, strengths and weaknesses, and makes mistakes. From there, the key move is non-identification — Parker Palmer's 'I can have an emotion without being that emotion' — so you can act from another part of your inner landscape, such as a health goal you care about.
Pro tip Pychyl treats this as a personal mantra, not a one-off exercise.
Watch out Self-criticism here restarts the guilt-to-shame spiral you're trying to exit.
- 6
Hand back to the cognitive work
With the emotional work done, return to 'and what's the next action?', layering implementation intentions on top if useful. The two have to dance together: skip the emotional work and you never reach the cognitive work, because you're already gone.
In the wild
Even years into the habit, Pychyl describes tired evenings when the six-year-old in him says he doesn't want to floss. He doesn't argue with the feeling or wait for it to pass. He recognises it, names it — 'I'm having this emotion, I don't want to' — and then applies Parker Palmer's distinction: he can have the emotion without being it. That frees him to act from another part of his inner landscape, the health goal of keeping his gums, and from there the next action is trivially small: just pick up the floss. The feeling is allowed to exist and simply isn't given the vote.
→ The habit survives low-motivation nights because the aversive feeling is acknowledged rather than obeyed.
A man on the other side of the world emailed Pychyl about a book he wanted to write. Asked what was stopping him, the answer surfaced after a little nudging: it had to be a bestseller, on the New York Times list. Pychyl's response was that you can't start there — there's never a guarantee like that in life. The resistance wasn't laziness but an emotional bind, socially prescribed perfectionism attached to an outcome outside his control. Recognising and investigating the fear is what makes the goal workable; the alternative is indefinite avoidance dressed up as high standards.
→ The blocker was reframed from a writing problem into a perfectionism-and-control problem that could actually be worked on.
Common mistakes
Going straight to tactics while the amygdala runs the show
Pychyl describes it as a limbic hijack — the system screaming at you to leave. Implementation intentions and next actions are cognitive tools, and they simply don't land while the emotional work is undone. You're already gone.
Treating the emotion as your identity
'I don't feel like it' quietly becomes 'I am someone who can't do this.' The whole point of non-identification is that you can have the feeling without being it, and act from another part of your inner landscape.
Stopping at recognise
Naming the feeling helps, but skipping investigate and nurture leaves the underlying perfectionism or resentment intact, so the same resistance returns at the same point tomorrow.
From the transcript
“rain is an acronym for recognize accept or allow in investigate interogate and then she says nurture”
“I can have an emotion without being that emotion”
“then that's the emotional work done then I can go back to that wonderful phrase we used earlier which is and what's the next action”
From the episode
World's Leading Expert On How To Solve Procrastination - Dr Tim Pychyl
Dr Tim Pychyl