"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
—From Shakespeare’s Hamlet
"There can be no question that in both Nietzschean and Confucian thought the human capacity of self-command is of the essence of one’s humanity: self-overcoming is the constitutive principle in the human."
—Lin Kuen Tong
"Purity is something that cannot be attained except by piling effort upon effort."
—Hagakure
Why Making Big Changes is So Hard
What are some better execution strategies for getting things done?
You're suffering from an insidious problem. I know, because I've been there.
Here's the score—most of our day-to-day actions are a result of custom, habit, and environment. There's very little thinking/reflective decision making on a moment to moment basis.
This was kind of a head-trip for me when I first realized it. We've got … a lot less moment-by-moment and day-to-day control over our lives than it appears.
Now, we have a hell of a lot of control over the broad patterns of our life. This is true. But if you've got an established pattern of doing things a certain way, you'll probably default to it.
An example: Let's say a guy starts his day, every day, by surfing the internet and checking the news and checking sports scores. He decides one day that he'd rather start the day with 10-20 minutes of planning the day and working for an hour on his most important thing to do instead of goofing off.
Then he wakes up the next day and—you guessed it—surfs the net and checks the news … and around the time he's checking sports scores, he's cursing because what the hell? This shouldn't be so hard.
Well, things are how they are. That's being human. The lion's share of actions we take are a result of a mix of habit, custom, and environment. To take better actions, you need to gradually establish better habits, new customs, and an environment more conducive to doing what you want to do.
And honestly, it is pretty straightforward, but it's kind of a bitch of a thing to do sometimes. It sucks and it's demoralizing, because this shouldn't be so damn hard … and yet, it is … .
There's 10,000 little hacks and tricks you can use to make a bit of progress, but the fact of the matter is—habit/custom change takes some time and practice. I call the process of getting it down "scratching and clawing forwards"—which I'm aware isn't the most inspiring or glorious way to describe it, but I think it's pretty accurate.
You scratch and claw forward ground on your habits and customs. It takes a while. There'll be lots of little backslides and screw-ups and things like that, and they'll suck and they're not enjoyable. I'm aware of this whole process and I still don't like it, so it's not just you.
You can get big pushes from refining your environment. Do you use Google Chrome? I do. I've found that deleting or moving around my "Most Visited" sites goes a long ways towards changing my internet usage. Crazy as it sounds, just by adding that tiny bit more friction to hopping on an entertainment site, you spend less time on them.
Likewise, back when I wanted to start spending my mornings planning my day instead of just signing online, I'd turn off my laptop, unplug it, and turn it upside down. I did that as a reminder so I couldn't just turn it on and mindlessly surf. I'd see my laptop upside-down in the morning when I was tired, I'd think, "That's weird, why is—oh, right." And then I'd spend the morning in my planner.
I screwed up the planner thing a lot before I got it down. But now I'm starting my day planning it out probably 19 out of 20 days (the other 1 out of 20 I have a very early call or meeting or something, I almost never surf the internet before planning my day now—score).
I found setting my running clothes in my bathroom, right by the shower, helped a lot with going running. I'd get out of the shower, dry off, and then just put my running clothes on. Then I'm in my running clothes and shoes, so I'd go running. Cool.
You will fall off track from time to time though. I've been constantly traveling for the last 15 months, so I get into and out of routines. Actually, because of that I have to be even more disciplined with my environment—I have a set of things I set up everywhere I go quickly, as I described in "Thoughts On Not Going Crazy While Long Term Traveling." Actually, I'm writing this in my "cafe conducive to thinking" in Beijing—Leonard Cohen is playing, the coffee is strong, the chicken is good, and I'm working and thinking well.
Environment matters. A lot. You can get pretty big pushes from moving your environment around to suit your goals and life.
Ramit Sethi wrote a great post about this—"Barriers are your enemy"—worth reading for more examples on eating healthier and managing finances.
The fastest gains are probably from moving your environment around to make it easier to do your tasks. But then you do have to put the time in towards making progress. Scratch and claw forwards to change your habits.
I recommend aiming to get a very small, consistent amount of progress. I aim for 70% success rate on my goals and that works pretty well for me. That means succeeding a little more than 2 out of 3 times you're trying to do something. If you're in a space where you can't succeed at 70%, take the difficulty down until you're over 70%. Adjust difficulty upwards after getting some wins.
For going to the gym, you might consider only aiming to have a quick 10 minute session, which seems much more doable and much less of a barrier. Once you get there, you might want to do more. But only mandate doing 10 minutes—if you're sick or tired or it's late, go put in 5 minutes on the cardio, hit the free weights for two sets, and go home. That's cool. You went, that's worth a lot.
And then, yeah, failure is part of the game. Habits and customs are difficult to change. They basically rule your life and dictate how you take action. Slow, gradual, incremental progress—scratching and clawing forwards—seems to be the way to make your life into what you want. The upside is that once the habits and customs are built, then you're doing things right automatically and the struggle abates.
Recap:
1.) Most of our day-to-day actions are ruled by habit, custom, and environment.
2.) Reflective thinking/planning goes a long way towards finding new things to do, but it's still very easy to default to habits, custom, and environment.
3.) The process of changing habits and customs takes a while. I call it "scratching and clawing forwards"—that's what it feels like sometimes.
4.) Set small, achievable goals on habit/custom change. I recommend aiming for 70% success rates, and making consistent incremental progress.
5.) The biggest bang for your buck in the short term is moving your environment around. This can be big stuff like finding a new place to hang out after work, or little stuff like setting your gym clothes by your shower the night before. It works.
Guest Essay: Letting Go of Your Ego Enables You to Live Without Limits
A guest essay by Matt Ramos, who talks about exploring and breaking behavior limits on his blog, http://30vanquish.com.
Letting Go of Your Ego Enables You to Live Without Limits
"As soon as you try to step outside of the behavioral limits, it gets scary and nasty and ugly real fast."—Sebastian Marshall
So why should it be so scary, nasty, and ugly?
All you have to do is let go of the ego.
So now you're thinking, how does letting go of your ego enable you go outside of the pre-made boundaries?
First, let's define what the ego is.
Your ego is the core of all your self-esteem and your self-importance. It is what defines you as you.
Your ego makes you feel entitled to get things you deserve. So what do you deserve?
You deserve all the things you ever wanted of course.
The problem is if that thing you want is in conflict with social conditioning.
What's social conditioning?
Social conditioning is all those rules that stop us from taking action.
Example 1: The boss is intimidating and you better not distract him from what he is doing. Besides, asking him anything can seem scary! However, let's say you want a raise. The only way to get it is to either wait for it to come to you (it can happen but rarely) or you ask him/her for one. The latter is risky because it can potentially go against what you've been taught. However, if you execute it in a professional manner, you have the potential for gain.
Example 2: An extremely attractive person passed you by. You know that you'd like to get a date, but you just shake your head or make some excuse about the situation to avoid taking a chance. Deep down you'd like to go for it. The problem is that it doesn't seem acceptable to you to start small talk and potentially get rejected. It isn't so comfortable to talk to a stranger. It's actually really awkward. Well, with that particular person, that's the best shot you have. A few minutes of awkwardness to have a potential chance at something great is worth it.
So you'd let that awkward feeling get in the way of finding those amazing people? A shot in the dark is definitely better than walking away from the chance altogether. Trying can create a percentage chance above zero, whereas walking away guarantees that it is zero.
All our lives, it seems that talking to strangers is the wrong thing to do. It only is the wrong thing to do if you think that. How do you combat years and years of being told it is totally wrong and out of line? You let go of your ego.
Nothing beats first-hand exposure. Even if the first thing you do is just say "Hi" and nothing else, you are now one step closer to breaking the routine of your life.
All you have to do is go up to tons of people, a potential lover, a boss, a cashier, a traveler, a tourist, a friend you haven't seen for years, etc. and accept any outcome. When you let go of your ego (wants, desires, your self identity, etc.) and accept the situation for what it is, then you're able to take as many chances as you'd like. There is no attachment to any expected outcome, therefore there's no resentment, no frustration. There is only looking forward for the next opportunity!
So let's say you do that and you continue to get failures. It all comes back to the 90-9-1 rule. Maybe you'll only click with 10% of the population and only get into the same wavelength of 1%. That's totally fine because those odds are better than zero. The more people you talk to and try to associate with, the better chance those averages will play out. Don't be discouraged when only failures arrive. Continue to make adjustments based on that past exposure. Learn small talk, learn charm, learn confidence. The only way to learn those is by exposure! (Unless you're a natural and in that case, you should already be out there.)
Who really cares if you follow the social rules given? Strangers around the situation won't really care and if they did, would forget about it relatively quickly. As long it harms no one, there's no other rule for me to really stand by. If you say the wrong thing, move to the next opportunity. If you do the wrong thing, apologize and move on. What if you do the right thing?
You get the date.
You get the promotion.
You get to be more altruistic.
You get to have more fun by breaking the routine.
You create more opportunities for yourself.
You observe situations where you can take chances you wouldn't normally see.
You get farther in life.
A friend of mine set some goals for last week, and failed. His goals were realistic and possible, but he did not do them. He sent me an introspective email analyzing why. We had a good discussion on it, here's an excerpt of what I wrote him:
I understand. This really sucks. By the way, I still do this, myself. I still catch myself making the occasional fundamental mistake. The good thing is, no single mistake kills you (well, usually). Usually you can recover. Don't flip out when you a mistake, damage-control it and move on. How old are you—28? You've got 10-15 years of mediocre societal programming, you don't get that out of yourself in seven days. 30 days, 60 days, you can take a huge chunk out of it. A year or two, absolutely you can almost completely re-wire yourself. But remember how you were saying, "Dude, I can do this so much faster than your timeline!" Well, I've been there. Shit like this happens. You're fighting some of your deepest, instinctual defense mechanisms to keep you alive. You've also got your toolbox of good instinctual mechanisms limited by society, so you're needing to create new tools. Basically, you've got all the disadvantages a caveman had (fear, nervousness, pressure), but you lose a lot of the advantages (unbridled, raw power, no rules, etc). You've got to make new tools—calmness, focus, intent. It takes a while. There's no shame in that—let me say this -
THERE'S NO SHAME IN THIS, IT'S NO REFLECTION OF YOU—WE'RE ALL BUILT WEAK, YOU'RE ONE OF THE FEW WHO ACKNOWLEDGES IT AND TRIES TO BECOME STRONG.
We're all built weak, man. Most people hide from it, deny it. That way they don't have to feel it. But you're diving right in, into your weakness, into your errors, into your unrefined patterns, into your fears… so you feel it. But don't mistake these things—these things are the weakness that everyone feels, there is NO SHAME in feeling it. It's part of being human. You need to feel it to conquer it. This is what I was writing in "Give me strife and suffering":
Your mind—your thoughts—may come into conflict, especially when you're trying to do meaningful things. It's easy to feel the pull of distraction and ease, and to choke up and pause in fear when you look at the mountain you're set to climb. The mind is not in harmony, especially at the beginning. Struggle, strife, conflict, suffering.
I say—give it to me! But not so fast that it will break me. I must be pragmatic. We must be pragmatic. We have our limits. We can expand them over time. It's not brave to go into the gym for the first time and try to lift 400 pounds. It's foolhardy, unrealistic, stupid. Being pragmatic, aware of our limits takes its own sort of courage.
But I want to suffer, I want to be bathed in strife, I want conflict, I want challenge, I want it to be hard—but just barely easy enough that I can make it through.
I set goals every week. I aim for a 70% success rate. That means I fall short on 30% of my goals every week. I figure, if I succeeded at 100% my goals weren't set high enough. If I succeed below 70%, this might be too much to stay on the path. If I succeeded above 70%, I add more for next week. If less, I pare down to the most essential things and try to get my success rate up.
Every week I want strife and struggle. I want challenge. I want to be always falling short of what I could be, and that is the way forwards.
We're all built weak, man. It's hard to confront, so most people hide. Confront it, bathe in conflict and strife, and make it serve you. YES, it's hard. YES, we're weak sometimes. YES, we fail sometimes. GOOD, life would be BORING without strife and conflict. Embrace it, love it, work through it, and come to the other side. The external rewards on the other side are great, but nothing compared to the internal rewards of being strong and steadfast, conquering weakness, becoming the master of strife instead of afraid of it. Great things are in store, many great things. Talk soon.
Give Me Strife and Suffering (but in Manageable Doses)
"Life is suffering," said Buddha. His plan? Release your attachments to this world and end your suffering.
I'm not with Buddha on this one. Give me strife and suffering. And once I have grown stronger, tempered, hardened by the strife, give me MORE.
Life is strife, suffering, struggle. Your body and mind are kept alive by a series of violent chemical reactions, your heartbeat, the acid in your stomach, the cells constantly breaking apart and dying as new ones are created, the battle towards homeostasis with different bacteria and cells combating each other, all inside your body.
Your mind—your thoughts—may come into conflict, especially when you're trying to do meaningful things. It's easy to feel the pull of distraction and ease, and to choke up and pause in fear when you look at the mountain you're set to climb. The mind is not in harmony, especially at the beginning. Struggle, strife, conflict, suffering.
I say—give it to me! But not so fast that it will break me. I must be pragmatic. We must be pragmatic. We have our limits. We can expand them over time. It's not brave to go into the gym for the first time and try to lift 400 pounds. It's foolhardy, unrealistic, stupid. Being pragmatic, aware of our limits takes its own sort of courage.
But I want to suffer, I want to be bathed in strife, I want conflict, I want challenge, I want it to be hard—but just barely easy enough that I can make it through.
I set goals every week. I aim for a 70% success rate. That means I fall short on 30% of my goals every week. I figure, if I succeeded at 100% my goals weren't set high enough. If I succeed below 70%, this might be too much to stay on the path. If I succeeded above 70%, I add more for next week. If less, I pare down to the most essential things and try to get my success rate up.
Every week I want strife and struggle. I want challenge. I want to be always falling short of what I could be, and that is the way forwards.
I took an oath at one point, and I tell you, I do not recommend this to you. If you listen to me, listen carefully to all my words. I do not recommend this, it might even be reckless of me to share this. But it's true. I took an oath—I said, "I would rather die than be average." It almost killed me. When you close off all the normal paths in front of you, and burn your boats behind you, you are suddenly left in uncharted places. Striving is at first lonely. I don't know anyone who aspires as high as I do.
Not for myself. I wasn't able to commit to doing this for myself. I was shy when I was thinking of doing great things as me. No, I've given myself over to higher causes, to the things I believe in most, to building things that matter. Me? I'm nobody in particular. But I'm working on great things. This is no guarantee of success, but it's how I spend my days in strife and struggle.
It's lonely at times. Very few people understand. Even among people geared for achievement, how many wish to change the fundamental nature of things for the better? And mind you, I am not saying this the way the dreamer idealists say it. Many of my virtues are not morally fashionable in the mainstream. I believe in STRENGTH, and I might be one of the last people who is willing to say so. I believe in EXCELLENCE, and IMPROVING, and if you believe in excellence and improving, you're going to wind up better than people who do not. I don't believe in equality. What sort of cowardice would you need to feel to wish for everyone to be the same? Isn't it obvious that 4 out of 5 don't even bother trying to improve the world and themselves? If so, isn't it obvious that if you try you'll wind up better than 4 out of 5 people, almost automatically? No, the believers in equality don't want to pull those 4 out of 5 up, they don't say, "Embrace strife, and suffering, and challenge, and live on the edge of your capabilities. Suffer for your ethics, and enjoy suffering, and grow stronger and become excellent." No, they try to tear down the 1 man in 5 who tries to be better.
I believe in excellence.
I believe in strength.
Not for myself. For the world. The world needs strength and excellence.
But the way there is through suffering and strife. I do not recommend this course of thinking to anyone. I don't, really. It's hard. It's brutal at times. It almost broke me. But I think I've made it through to the other side. I wouldn't wish the path I'm on for anyone, not for a good friend, nor for a worst enemy.
Is it reckless of me to share this? My philosophy is dangerous. It's neurosis-inducing. I almost went crazy at times. Knowing that I was on a path I didn't want, and saying I'd rather have nothing than be mediocre. Maybe it will break me later.
Siddhartha said, all is suffering. I say—indeed it is, and I will have it all. I will have as much suffering as I can handle, because it is life. Life is suffering, and it is joyful when you look at it from the correct angle. Right now, there is violence and combat running through our veins, from cells and bacteria to our respiration and the chemical and electrical reactions that are our thoughts. Right now, you have in your mind images of what is possible, and a counteracting force that says take it easy and relax. This is strife. This is conflict. If you embrace the strife and conflict, it will be hard and terrible at first. I do not recommend it, for the cost is great. But on the other side, when you have joined with strife, when you have embraced it, when you have embraced life—excellence awaits. STRENGTH awaits. Not strength of muscles, nor controls. Strength of character, strength of purpose. STRENGTH, the virtue that makes all other virtues possible. But first, suffering is necessary. I don't recommend it. Not at all. But it's what I chose, and what I continue to choose. Give me suffering and strife, slowly enough to conquer each aspect of it, and I grow stronger. I grow excellent. Life is suffering. I embrace life. I embrace suffering.
Bad Stuff That's Happened to You = Expensive Lessons You've Already Paid For
Most people start feeling bad for themselves when something goes wrong in their life. The way I see it, something going wrong is an expensive lesson I already paid for—might as well take it.
A few years ago, I was doing squats in the gym with bad form and a fairly large amount of weight. I had two plates on each side and the bar… that's 4×45 + 35 lbs if I remember correctly = 205 lbs. That was fine, I had legs like tree trunks back then. But I had slightly bad form—when you do squats, you're supposed to push your ass backwards, not bend your knees forwards. Slight difference, but it wears on the cartilage.
One day my right leg started to buckle. I was in a power rack, and what you're supposed to do is drop the weight. But y'know, you don't necessarily think about that when your leg starts to buckle. So I threw all the weight onto my other leg and pushed up hard to re-rack the bar. Ripped some of the cartilage in my knee. Rehab, massive amounts of anti-inflammatories, and I have to stretch 5-10 minutes each day or my leg starts to hurt. Doctor said knees never fully heal, so it'll cause problems on and off forever. Ouch, kind of a bad thing to have happen in your 20′s.
Last year, I was doing some Krav Maga. We were doing dry run drills of where you'd aim if you were hitting the other guy. These were common, but my shadow sparring partner was a little bit too macho and going really hard and fast and pretty close to me. Whish. A fast elbow uppercut, almost connecting. Whish. Close again. But I didn't want to speak up, y'know, we're training martial arts here, not being soft.
Whis- cr-CRRACK!
His elbow-uppercut (hard, fast) connects with my jaw. I hit the ground. "Oh my God, sorry, are you okay?"—"rrrm, yeah, I'm okay." My jaw was hurtin' a lot that day and a fair bit for the next two weeks, but that wasn't the real problem—I didn't realize I'd chipped the bottom of my right incisor tooth until later.
So things like this suck, but I figure they're lessons I already paid for. What can I get out of them?
I still lift weights, but now I do it slowly, with low-ish weight and perfect form. Three seconds up, three seconds down. I try to specifically feel the force coming from the muscle group that should be working the weight. I also started health programs for my teeth, gums, skin, immune system, digestive system, back, and general stretching and cardio—I figure it's unpleasant to not have full mobility and have nagging injuries. So, okay, I learned this lesson early. Can I use it to make less mistakes for later? Maybe this one injury can teach me a lesson so I don't get 20 other common injuries later.
The chipped tooth? Yeah, that sucks. But that was actually a great lesson, if I could go back and undo that day I wouldn't, because that experience taught me something—I'm responsible for my health and safety, and no one else cares about it as much as I do. I was thinking, "This guy will be careful, he wouldn't want to hit me." But, it was my jaw/face/teeth on the line, not his. I should've said, "Easy man, slow down, you almost hit me that time." Not macho? Pfft. Before, I figured he'd watch himself. Now I realize—I've got to watch myself. I've got to look out for my health, my money, my safety, my career, my family, my life.
I know that sounds simple and obvious, but I think a lot of people don't realize that. I didn't fully realize it. Your broker or money manager recommends a purchase to you—look into it, he doesn't care about your money as much as you do. No matter how good he is. No matter how loyal. You care more about your life than he does. When someone recommends a drug or food to you, look into it. No one cares about your life as much as you do. That lesson was precious, taking an elbow uppercut and dinging up a tooth was worth it.
And heck, even if it wasn't worth it—the price was already paid. There's usually a lesson to be learned from that sort of experience. You already paid for it. Might as well claim it now, it'll probably be useful later.