Welcome to Favors Mentoring School!
Favors Mentoring School offers life tips and learning materials to help you overcome struggles with academic, professional, and/or personal procrastination. The mentoring tips are designed for both high school and adult individuals who have struggled with procrastination, who have struggled to manage their lives because of procrastination, and who have struggled to overcome procrastination without strategies.
Mission
The mission of Favors Mentoring School is to help individuals address and overcome procrastination to build academic, professional, and personal capacity.
Purpose
The purpose of Favors Mentoring School is two-part: 1) to create a launching pad for high school students preparing to exit and enter adult life and thinking, i.e., offering prevention tips, and 2) to serve as an intervention tool for adults who have struggled with life’s little choices involving procrastination and who are now ready to address their issues and move forward.
Book Titles
The titles that fall under the Favors Mentoring School include both main texts and related series that encourage life planning and preparation:
The two referenced titles in print form are available on Amazon.com for purchase. Click the links for more information.
The Pre-Singles Counseling Coaching Curriculum is available on YouTube as audio lectures and can be accessed under the “Pre-Singles” tab on this website. You may view those lectures either on the channel or this website.
Favors Mentoring School is expected to create additional titles and programming as capacity and volume changes.
Audio Lessons
Wear the Dress that Fits You
We Cannot Learn Lessons for People
Cultivate Your Signature
Do Not Wear out Your Welcome
Detach Makeshift Handicaps
Do Not Wait for Perfect Conditions
U-Haul Your Own Load
Mentoring Snippets
The following mentoring snippets derive from the Overcoming Setback Series. However, the following videos do not represent the depth of content needed for the Favors Mentoring School. Therefore, development of content for this product is ongoing.
Mentoring as Tricky
Mentoring as Tricky is the video lesson that helps you to understand how you might encounter a mentor or teacher who deems you unworthy to mentor, teach, and/or learn. Maybe the person feels offended that you are on their path and that he or she must now teach you.
Regardless, the mentor or teacher is not operating in his or her gift or talent if the person is refusing to operate in their gift or talent. In other words, if their gift or talent is to teach you, then it should be obvious what is important and how to carry it out: you teach!
Think about these ideas as you consider mentoring and what it means to you.
While some mentors may be tricky and you may struggle to learn anything from the person, there are mentors who will catch you up. The next audio lesson focuses on those mentors who see gaps in your knowledge base and work towards closing those gaps using mentoring as a tool.
Mentors Catch You Up
This video lesson repairs the gap felt when dealing with a mentor who thinks you are unworthy of mentoring and mentorship. This is the mentor who fully operates in his or her gift or talent. This person is unbiased in his or her thinking about your learning ability. This person desires to mentor and/or to teach.
It is not about gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other social category that might create hindrance in the mind of the person assigned to mentor. Assignment is the keyword because taking on that assignment requires understanding that it is an assignment. Here is the video.
The mentor who catches you up will use his or her resources to close out any gaps in your knowledge base, teach you how to be disciplined, and advance you forward to the next level with guidance.
Pre-Key Video Discussions
The following videos address the topic of procrastination directly and mentoring. There are also related videos that offer some insight, indirectly, to the topic of mentoring. Those video discussions are integrated throughout the keys referenced below. The video discussions derive from various series accessible on this site. Development of mentoring-specific video lessons are being considered.
Life Talk Topic: Procrastination 101, A Survey
Procrastination is a type of setback. When you procrastinate, you inconvenience the people around you. People have to stop their lives to make your life convenient because you struggle with self-discipline and lack of focus.
Therefore, it is important to care enough about yourself and what you need to do and care enough not to wear out your welcome with other people to begin the journey of addressing and resolving your own procrastination. You must close out this gap in your academic, professional, and personal development. Here is a quick lesson on this topic.
Just remember that “your procrastination” will hinder “your progress.”
Life Talk Topic: Take Inventory of You
At various seasons in your life you want to conduct a self-assessment or inventory of what you are, where you are, and why you are doing the things that you are doing. This is not an easy task because it requires an awareness about your capacity, capability, and conscientiousness for long-term problem-solving.
Life is all about problem-solving and when you decide to procrastinate, it is a form of cutting off the process of problem-solving. People oftentimes do not understand that very truth. When you procrastinate, you are stopping the flow of a process, and when you return to that process, you still must learn all the stuff you stopped and all the stuff you need to learn going forward. Consider the following video lesson as integral to overcoming procrastination.
At the end of this video lesson was the writing assignment that required you to journal burnout. Many times if you are suffering burnout in one area, it is likely because you are procrastinating in another area. You lack balance. You are giving too much time in one area and racing against time in another while also falling flat on the commitment. Taking inventory of where you are procrastinating will help you to resolve those gaps in your thinking.
These two Life Talk Topics can be found under the “Workshops” tab on this site as well as on the YouTube channel Regina Y. Favors.
Sample Keys
The content below derives from the new title Favors Mentoring School: 12 Keys to Help You Overcome Procrastination to Build Capacity. These are excerpts from the upcoming book. The keys are numbered differently within the book.
Key #1: Write the vision down.
Every decision, or indecision, leads to somewhere. Write the vision down. Envision its completion. Establish a vision by setting, enduring, and completing goals. This will require you to create a plan, make a list of deliverables, and manage your progress.
Goals Begin as Dreams
Goals begin as dreams. We often fantasize about where we have been, but more importantly, where we would like to be in the upcoming years. Some people fantasize about accumulating a nice car, wealth and riches; and others dream about building skyscrapers and hotels, forming companies and becoming great within their fields.
However, as most businessmen will tell you, unless you have a plan of action, what you want to accomplish and how you will go about fulfilling this plan, you will never attain the levels you desire.
The following video is a snippet from a larger social psychology topic. It has application here because it encourages the listener to guard against distractions. When you know your vision and purpose in life, you are less likely to engage in anything that is going to distract you.
However, it is very easy to take for granted the fact that you know who you are and what you want to accomplish. This means you are more likely to procrastinate whatever learning process necessary for you to endure. Think about these ideas as you listen to quick video.
You must write the goal down. You must write down the vision.
Tend Your Garden
Although you can climb mountains, be the president, and form the greatest company in the world, nothing gets fulfilled only in the mind. Yes, the seed has been planted, but it needs soil and fertilizer and water to grow. Your goals are like gardens; they must be firmly PLANTED, daily NURTURED, and fully DEVELOPED. They cannot fulfill themselves.
Nurture With Daily Attention
Never place your goals on the backburner or on the bookshelf, or even back in your subconsciousness, which are the recesses of your mind. Unlike soup in the crockpot that can cook all day, a pot on the stovetop needs your attention because without it, the soup could burn or lack water.
Likewise, without constant and daily activity associated with completing your goal, you will never achieve your desires.
Always Read Your Book
Never put a book you have not finished reading back on the shelf!
Seeing a goal to its full development and completing that goal work hand in hand. Complete the goal. Do not be a starter and never a finisher. Prepare to finish the goal.
Inspiration
Here are some key biblical references that address the concept of procrastination.
Proverbs 21:5: “The plans of the diligent lead surely to plenty, but those of everyone who is hasty, surely to poverty.”
Proverbs 22:13: “The lazy man says, ‘There is a lion outside! I shall be slain in the streets.’”
Proverbs 24:10: “If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.”
Proverbs 29:20: “Do you see a man hasty in his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him.”
Ecclesiastes 7:8: “The end of a thing is better than its beginning.” (“Finishing is better than starting,” New Living Translation)
The following video addresses Ecclesiastes 7:8. View it to gain insight into the importance of development required for you to operate as an individual with a gift and/or talent. Here is the video.
One of the hardest things to do is to be patient with the process. Anything choice you make requires a process. You may not know the full length of the process, but you can control it with your procrastination, thereby extending that process possibly into setback. It is always better to stay the course even when you feel inconvenienced.
What happens with people, however, is they will stop because the process is inconvenient. They will assume that they can simply return to the process and advance. However, when you stop the general process connected with the goal you set, you stop the learning process that is part of that goal. This means that the thing you did not learn while enduring the process, you will have to learn when you restart the process.
The video titled “Stagnancy Leads to Failure” best exemplifies the referenced scriptures, the problem with procrastination, and the need to adopt patience with process. The video focuses on procrastination. If you fail to develop, you increase your inclination to stagnation. Here is the video for insight.
Think about these biblical references as well as the video snippet when you are struggling to reconcile your procrastination in an area of academic, professional, and/or personal development.
Key #2: Set personal and professional boundaries.
Meditate on priorities when setting boundaries.
Time-management and extracurricular activities deserve recognition, but when you are setting boundaries, the goal should be not to make procrastination an art!
When you make procrastination an art form, it delays discovery of your life or divine assignment. The following video is about assignment and how important it is to discover it and begin developing in that gift and/or talent. Here is the video.
Be ready in and out of season. This means knowing your assignment, which will require you to set boundaries, academic, professional, personal, and financial.
When you set boundaries, this helps you to understand the importance of your assignment and why it requires your pursuit of mastery. This video best conveys this idea. People who often procrastinate think they have all the time in the world to do the thing they are supposed to do. They also think they have all the time in the world to develop. Review the video.
Pursuit of mastery must be a consistent exercise. You must be diligent in your ability to learn about your assignment, adopt a learning goal orientation, and encourage an intrinsic motivation to sustain learning. This is not a performative exercise. This is a long-term, life development that requires persistence, conscientiousness, and a growth mindset.
Playing Around With Time
Below is a key biblical reference that is appropriate for understanding how we struggle to value time and make use of it when we have it. It is the Parable of the Ten Virgins, but it should be the parable of the five foolish virgins who did not make good use of their time. Read the reference and gain insight where you can.
Matthew 25:1-13
Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept.
And at midnight a cry was heard: Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him! Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out. But the wise answered, saying, No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.
And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut.
Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us! But he answered and said, Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.
Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.
Explanation
It bears repeating: Always be ready in and out of season.
The foolish virgins had all the time in the world to have oil before the arrival of the bridegroom. Remember, he was delayed, but they did not seize the opportunity.
The wise virgins were perceptive of time, and before they even considered sleep, they “took oil in their vessels with their lamps.” They prepared and were deemed ready for the bridegroom. In the end, even though the foolish virgins were able to get the oil, they were not fit or suitable for the bridegroom.
One sign that you are making procrastination an art is that at the end you are scrambling, and you are frustrated with yourself.
When You Procrastinate
When you do not procrastinate, you do not allow enough time to check all the facts. You are not aware of all deadline dates or the implication of these dates. You operate with the assumption that you can take one more inch of lateness and be okay; the last minute becomes your friend. You are immature and inconsiderate. You inconvenience others with your lack of personal discipline.
Key #3: Cultivate your signature.
The gift you bring to the table should reflect some thought and practice. Nothing you present to anyone should be borderline mediocre. Only the greatest gifts are brought before men. The implication here is that your gift will require time and quality. Establish credibility.
Do Not Neglect the Gift
All of us are given time and chance to do what we can on this earth. There are many leaders in this world and there are many people who do great things, but only the greatest leaders, those who make excellence a number one priority, are the ones who are remembered.
The following video lesson focuses on how gifts and talents work, aptly titled. Before you can operate in your gift and/or talent, you must understand what you have in your hands, in your mind, in your heart, and in your soul. You must know what they are to know what your assignment is and how you will fulfill that assignment in the appropriate environment. View this video to gain insight into how gifts and talents work.
People who neglect their gift are often criticized, mocked, and ridiculed. As much as people may love that person’s gift and the person as well, when people do not take their gifts seriously, it will garner disdain. Think about these ideas as you listen to this video lesson on operating in your gift and talent.
It is considered a life planning topic deriving from the Pre-Singles Counseling Coaching Curriculum. Click the tab on this website for more information. Here is the video.
Whatever gift you are equipped with, do not neglect it. Do not neglect the gift(s) that God has entrusted to you.
What Have You Learned?
Think about the gifts and talents you possess and/or have discovered to date. What have you learned about your gifts and talents? What do you need to do to move yourself forward? Think about these questions as you create a response.
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Key #4: Uproot seeds you did not plant.
Knowing that you can plant weeds in your life is important, especially if you are dreaming. You cannot entertain distractions and be effective too. You must choose a path on which you can be focused and conscientious about tasks you must complete on the way to achieving your dream.
Parable of the Wheat and Tares
Here is a biblical reference about the nature of weeds and how if you are not attentive to your own garden, you provide an opportunity for someone to come along and plant weeds in your garden. Those weeds may represent distractions, opposition, financial mismanagement, depression, chaos, and anything that opposes the vision you have created and managed. It is important to tend your garden daily, so you do not lose control of the vision.
Matthew 13:24-30
Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, ‘First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.‘”
Here is the explanation.
While Men Slept
The explanation begins with a question:
How was the enemy able to come in and sow tares among the wheat?
While the farmer slept, or was not looking, someone observed him resting and proceeded to plant a seed that would destroy his crop. In other words, the farmer who “slept” did not take heed to the possibility that a weed could be sown within his seeds. He was oblivious to care and worry, unaware of the nature of tares. There are reasonable conclusions, or suggestions, we can make about “slept.” They are considered tips.
Tip #1: Diligence Must Be Consistent
You should never make the planting of the seed the end of the activity. The entire sowing and reaping activity require diligence. The farmer rested. He was not diligent in the nurturing of this seed. If he was, he would have been able to detect the difference between the wheat and the tare seeds in the beginning since he is the farmer.
Tip #2: Assess the Root
Someone observed him sleeping. The sentiment the passage evokes is that this invader needed only the opportunity and open door to come in and wreak havoc at the root. What you do at the root or to the root will determine the result.
Oftentimes, to get rid of a bad seed, you must return to the root of the issue. In other words, when was the seed (of procrastination) first planted? Once you can determine the first planting of the seed, it follows that the difference between good and bad seeds becomes clear.
Tip #3: Recognize the Nature of a Tare
How do you determine if a seed is bad, or for a better word, unproductive?
The tare is a seed planted for a specific purpose. It represents hindrance. Its objective, after taking root, is to halt the process of maturation.
This world is designed to keep you entangled in the cares of this life, whether it is with work or your love of money. Your vision calls for perseverance. Stop the maturation of bad seeds.
Sowing in Fear
If you have sown fear in whatever you have put your hands to, you will reap a crop indicative of fear. It just depends on what you have feared. If you have feared loss of crop, then this fear will be reflected in the actual loss. Process stoppers are much easier to get entangled with. They are familiar. Fear is familiar. Procrastination is a type of fear, a fear of success.
Key Points
Be careful of the seeds you plant in life.
Do not nurture bad seeds.
Do not let bad seeds reach full maturation.
Unforgiveness, procrastination, and fear are considered bad seeds.
In continuing to sow the wrong seeds you will not get the harvest of your expectation.
Uproot the bad seeds of procrastination.
What Did You Learn?
Based on the discussion within this key, what are some concepts and/or ideas you learned? How useful those concepts and/or ideas to your current academic, professional, and personal development. Use the space below to add a response.
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Key #5: U-Haul your own load.
It is always important that you haul your own load. This means that you must know your own capacity, i.e., what you can and cannot hold. You cannot hold everyone’s problems. You cannot take responsibility for everyone’s issues.
People who create their own issues must be equally capable of resolving those issues. A person who cheats on his wife or her husband should have the capacity to deal with the consequences. This is not always the case, but it speaks to one’s ability to recognize whether they can solve their own problems.
The following video is part of the Rebound Relationship Special Topics series. It focuses on the reasons why “Some People Will Get You Killed.” One reason why a person’s contribution to your life might cause your death is simply that the person is not a problem-solver.
People would rather jump over issues and learning to get to the thing they want faster and hastily. In the process, when you go along with someone who is not a problem-solver or who will not seek ways to resolve their own issues, and you bear their loads, then doing so might get you killed.
Listen to the video and gain insight. Then continue on with this key. If you want to listen to more videos, click the “Rebounding” tab on this website.
It is important to conduct a self-assessment of areas in which you are carrying loads that are too big for you to determine when it is necessary to unload and let someone carry his or her own load. Think about these ideas as you explore the rest of this key.
You must be willing to detach makeshift crutches. One of those crutches is the rides we accept.
Can I Hitch a Ride?
A hitchhiker is simply, by definition, one who makes his or her way by hitching. We often encounter hitchhikers on the highway or on the side of the road holding out their thumbs, hoping for anyone to stop and pick them up. They oftentimes travel with just the clothes on their backs and with their bags.
The bags usually contain the essentials, a little bit of cash, and other toiletries. We can safely assume that hitchhikers are never en route to a destination because they mostly live to see the world and to experience life without the daily demands and responsibilities that we normal, law-abiding citizens face.
Enabling
Most of the hitchhikers we pick up (myself not included) we do not know. It is highly unlikely that we have had a prior relationship with him or her, but we still pick up this person. It is a type of enabling.
Why?
Why do we continue to allow people to draw us back?
Oftentimes you are going forward on the road, but you must back up to pick up the hitchhiker. We back up for a person we do not even know. We stop what we are doing to continue what someone else is not doing. In other words, we are enablers. Enabling leads us to hindering our own progress.
“I Just Need a Ride”
We would rather halt the progress of our own goals to tend to a person who does not care one bit about life.
All he or she needs is a ride!
It does not matter where you are going. He or she will go wherever you go and influence you in whatever capacity you allow. How do we allow people to hitchhike into our lives? What motivates us to hitch their wagon to our car? Think about these questions as you review the concepts within this key.
Before continuing with the rest of the key, I want you to listen to this video titled “Why People Are Angry.” When people hitch a ride to you, your life, and your progress, they often project their own emotional insecurities onto you, forcing you to take on their emotional loads, i.e., their anger. However, when you understand why they are angry, it might help you to realize that hitching their anger to your life is going to prevent you from moving forward. Listen to this audio lesson to gain insight.
This Life Talk Topic is most useful for you when you are dealing with people who struggle to manage their emotions and expect you to mange their emotions for them.
Convenient Drawbacks
Something that is convenient is always the last resort, the backup plan, the substitute or alternative, the contingency.
We never plan for success, but we thoroughly plan for failure. No matter what if one thing does not work in our favor, Plan B is always available.
Using anger is one of those convenient drawbacks that we use to guide our lives and make life work. However, using anger to take vengeance will create a setback and prevent you from moving forward. Review the video lesson titled Overcoming Setback Inspiration: Be Angry, Yet Do Not Sin to gain further insight into anger.
It is those convenient drawbacks like anger that keep us entangled.
Fear of Failure
The hitchhiker and the hitched wagon reflect our fear of failure. We plan to move across the country, but we take someone else along “just in case” something goes wrong. Two people failing at something is better than one.
Misery still loves and needs company. We live in the “this for that” mindset. We say out loud to ourselves, confirming fear, “Even though I would rather have this job and know I would be good at it, I believe that this one is better suited for me. It is safe. I will have benefits. Anyway, it’s a good job. I really want that one over there, but this one is right here now.” We give up on the one for the other.
We live in bitterville.
Struggle with Value
Although we are aware of our abilities to accomplish a goal, we do not believe that we have added value. We do not possess the confidence needed for follow through.
Instead, we never apply for a job, never apply to college, never say what we mean, never set the right kind of social and personal boundaries, or we never distance ourselves from unproductive people.
The struggle with discovering and accepting our value is one of those life issues that point to the importance of understanding that life is a marathon and not a sprint. The following video lesson encourages the listener to understand that planning will always take time. There is no need to hurry the process. When you hurry the learning process, you will find yourself skipping and missing out on important lessons you need for the journey ahead. Think about these ideas as you review “Life is a Marathon, Not a Sprint.”
Understanding your value is a marathon and not a sprint. The more time you spend developing your gifts and talents and less time in distractions, the easier it becomes to recognize the value you bring to an environment.
However, because we do not believe in ourselves, we “conveniently” hitch wagons emotionally to a non-committal boyfriend, a dependent girlfriend, a needy friend, another job, a flood of activities, another child, another husband, or re-enrollment in school as projects.
We do everything but what we should do because we struggle with understanding our value. Think about the person you are and what you want to become as an opportunity to develop and not as an opportunity to skip development. Skipping development is essentially creating hurry, and you never reach completion of anything you put your hands to with hurry.
For Homework:
Think at length about your hitched wagons.
What are your motivations?
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How might you either resolve the problem or turn it to your advantage?
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How might you continue to address your struggle with procrastination and all that it entails?
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Using these questions will help you address your hitched wagons.
The U-Haul Philosophy
Every living, breathing individual should adopt the company philosophy of U-Haul.
Haul your own load!
Everybody has a load to bear and to carry. Consider the example of two men walking along a dirt road that goes on for miles, a road typically found in rural areas. Two men have two different loads. One person’s load may be heavier than his friend’s; nonetheless, each person’s load is heavy enough to prevent either from taking the other person’s load.
However, one of the men voluntarily carries the load of his friend without asking him. The friend gladly gives it to him. In essence, the man who takes on this load carries not only his friend’s load, but his also.
Therefore, while the friend walks along the road with no load on his back, footloose and fancy free, the man walks hunched over, looking only down at the road, unable to see forward, wearing both loads. The loads are noticeably heavy to the friend, but he never asks for his load back, nor does the man consider asking his friend to take back his load. He believes it is his duty to carry his friend’s load.
Here is the explanation.
Carrying Someone’s Load
If you are paying your brother’s phone bill every month, this is your load. If you bail out your boyfriend every other weekend, this is your load. If you run around town for people who have cars and you do not, this is your load.
If you do your boyfriend’s homework, this is your load. If you give too much of yourself to people, this is your load. If you continue to enable someone in their silliness, this is your load.
If you are dealing with a person who takes offense to every little thing and you feel as though you are always walking on eggshells around them, then this is your load.
Tip: We Cannot Learn Lessons for People
Each person must live his or her own life. We cannot learn lessons for people. We cannot experience life for people.
Yes, people can learn from our mistakes. However, we cannot take away from them what they need to do for themselves. People need to carry their own loads.
Quit hitching wagons to your life!
What Did You Learn?
Based on the discussion within this key, what are some concepts and/or ideas you learned? How useful those concepts and/or ideas to your current academic, professional, and personal development. Use the space below to add a response.
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