Posts Tagged ‘personal development’

Be Aware of #CognitiveDistortions

Posted: January 15, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Every day I have a reminder of my phone set to go off that says ā€œI am Aware of Cognitive Distortionsā€. It only goes off once per day. I could probably use another two or threeā€¦dozen reminders over the course of the day, as could most people.

Cognitive distortions or perceiving reality inaccurately, is as natural and normal and easy and automatic as breathing. Is it possible for people to not interpret and assign meaning to the things that happen to them? Yes. Is that the normal, commonplace way most humans live? No

Framing what happens to us in a positive way is obviously preferable. But if the majority of people had a positive way at looking at the world, the world we live in would be unrecognizable. Weā€™d be closer to the Garden of Eden than not.

Negativity is natural. Itā€™s part of how we have evolved. Itā€™s how we have survived from hunter gatherers to farmers to the industrial revolution to the information age. Unfortunately the information age has put cognitive distortions on steroids. Social media echo chambers, travel vlog FOMO, influencer sensationalization, hustle culture, face filters and photoshop.

All designed to exploit our tendency towards cognitive distortions; to think less of ourselves, more of the content creators, so that we will spend our time, attention, and emotional reactions on whatever theyā€™re selling.

Being aware of cognitive distortions brings a bit of wisdom to the information age that drowns us collectively and individually. Awareness is the way out after all. No magic pill. Awareness is less than action. But often right action wonā€™t come unless awareness is there.

Positive, productive, beneficial cognitive distortions are preferred to the negative. It is almost always better to frame what is happening to us in a way that is productive as long as it doesnā€™t bring harm to anyone else.

Today however, as an exercise in having our feet on the ground while our headsā€™ are in the clouds, lets try to observe the external reality we live in with objectivity first. This is as it is. Acknowledge the is-ness of the moment. Be aware of what is happening without assigning labels. Then take action from there.

This is Eckhart Tolle 101. Practical. Applicable. Real world helpful.

Separated from the spiritual enlightenment and fulfillment practices that Tolle is synonymous with.

Thereā€™s #Value in Going Through the Motions

Posted: January 12, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Habits are not dependent on enthusiasm.

Forming and cementing habits is about repetition.

Just do it, over and over and over and over and over again.

Does it have to be great every time? NO

Does it have to be good every time? no

Do you still need to do it even when you donā€™t want to? Yes

That is where the mental disconnect is for myself and the majority of people when it comes to establishing and sticking to new habits. When starting something new, itā€™s rarely if ever going to be good at first.

The not wanting to do something different is baked into the human condition. If starting and sticking to new, hard things was easy we would be living in a utopia.

What I have found in my experience is the lack of motivation gets its fuel from the thought of not wanting to be bad, look bad, come across as bad, etc.

Bad meaning inferior, mediocre, amateur, inadequate.

People donā€™t like looking foolish. Thatā€™s human nature. One can notice this in the ratio of creators to critics.

One of the things that has helped me is taking enthusiasm and expectation of quality out of the equation. I have so many journal entries that have the line ā€œIā€™m just going through the motionsā€ written, then list what I did that day, what I ate that day, my current mood, etc. With the end goal being habitual daily journal writing.

Not quality journal writing. Habitual journal writing.

Not quality published essays/articles/blogs (at first). Habitually published essays/articles/blogs.

Itā€™s so natural and so common and so normal to resist doing something because weā€™ll be bad at it at first. I stopped playing video games because my friends all got way better than me and I didnā€™t want to keep losing to them and didnā€™t want to invest the time into getting better.

On the other end of the importance spectrum; after finally following my lifeā€™s dream of becoming a professional wrestler, I resisted practicing and taking low level indy bookings because I didnā€™t want to look foolish or embarrass myself.

Every bar and nightclub in the history of the world has been filled with men and women who donā€™t talk to each other because theyā€™re scared of sounding foolish on approach and/or looking foolish if rejected.

So consider taking positive expectations, excitement, and enthusiasm out of the equation and just go through the motions. Literally saying to yourself internally or out load thatā€™s what youā€™re doing in the process. Or writing it down. Or texting it to yourself. As long as the thing you want to do gets done, today.

Then the next day. Then the next day. Then next week. Then the week after that. Then next month. Then the month after that. Until itā€™s just something you do. Until the thing you want to do is something that you start to do on autopilot. Until you know you are going to do it that day as your default setting when you wake up (and have your morning coffee).

Itā€™s when we reach the point of doing it by default, that we can shift our focus to proficiency, quality, excellence, and hopefully one dayā€¦mastery.

Thereā€™s value in just going through the motions.

#Create One Thing at a Time

Posted: January 10, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Many of my journal entries over the past year or two have ended with me writing the words; one thing at a time.

Getting started can be so, so hard. The internal resistance to putting forth external effort and action if measurable, would go off the charts and break the instruments.

When one is able to at least temporarily squeeze through or push past perfectionism and create something, regardless of quality, the inner pressure release and sense of relief would be the equivalent of sky diving, while holding and anvil.

One thing at a time

One action at a time

One choice at a time

What is quality? What is good and bad? The gatekeepers have been out to lunch for decades at this point. Just do it.

Spotlight effect often holds people back. I know it held me back. With a little (or a lot) of Imposter Syndrome mixed in.

One thing I realized, after a very, very long time of thinking about it, journaling about it, meditating about it, drinking about itā€¦was that if I really did think what I wanted to create was so bad then I wouldnā€™t be negatively judging otherā€™s so frequently and/or so harshly.

But thatā€™s not what weā€™re doing when weā€™re negatively judging other acts of creation. Weā€™re projecting self hatred. I know I was. It got to the point where I was getting into verbal conflicts with people I hardly knew at bars overā€¦nothing. I think back to what started those verbal tiffs and after I cringe, I slap myself in the forehead and stay there because they never actually said or did anything. I was just projecting my self hatred onto others because I wasnā€™t doing what I wanted to do which was creating.

A creator that doesnā€™t create, otherwise known as a writer or artist sans the word professional prefixed.

Just publishing blogs, articles, essays, and thoughts has changed my mental and emotional state immeasurably. Is my content good? Is it important? Is it impactful? Well all metrics of external success would say no, then to pat me on my head and say at least you tried.

But itā€™s good for me. Itā€™s working for me. Itā€™s helping me. And you canā€™t help others unless you help yourself first. You canā€™t feed others from an empty bowl. You canā€™t put on someone elseā€™s oxygen mask if you are suffocating to death yourself.

One thing at a time

One action at a time

One choice at a time

People Get These #Ideas In Their Heads

Posted: January 9, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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People get these ideas in their heads.

People meaning me, meaning us, meaning everyone, ever.

We get these ideas in our head that we need or should or could or will.

Good ideas, bad ideas, neutral ideas, beneficial ideas, detrimental ideas.

We know we can be our own worst enemy. Yet itā€™s solemnly publicly acknowledged outside of college philosophy, psychology, sociology, and anthropology classes.

Self sabotage. I donā€™t have to explain what that is. We all know it through repeated experience. Both in important and irrelevant things that weā€™ve done to ourselves over the course of our lives regardless of age.

I could ask an 18 year old and an 80 year old to tell me a about a time they self sabotaged something that could have been a really good thing in their life, and theyā€™re likely to reply; ā€œyou just want one example?ā€

People get these ideas in their heads.

Out of nowhere. Like a meteor. It strikes and buries itself in the land.

Accepted as fact that itā€™s always been there.

Thatā€™s just the way it is, theyā€™ll say. They being the voice in our head.

Has it always been this way? Have I always lived this way? Is this helping or hurting me? Well itā€™s how Iā€™m living. Itā€™s how Iā€™m thinking. Itā€™s how Iā€™m perceiving. Itā€™s how Iā€™m feeling. Itā€™s how Iā€™m acting.

I wouldnā€™t think, perceive, feel, and act in ways detrimental to my own existence, surviving, or thriving would I?

People get these ideas in their heads.

#Habit Building is About New Not Old

Posted: January 9, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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It feels like Iā€™ve spent my entire adult life trying to improve my habits.

At least the periods of time I care to remember. Which are the periods of time in which I cared to care and tried to try. I also remember many instances of the internal resistance to trying to build new habits being so strong, it felt like a literal force from within my body pushing me the opposite direction.

In 2023 I read the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. One of the best books Iā€™ve ever read. I strongly recommend it for a host of reasons. While reading the book and after reading the book, one of the concepts that stuck and that I noticed when consuming other material related to habit formation, is the necessity of focusing on and doing the new thing rather than focusing on not doing the old thing.

That was a light bulb moment for me. Reading about that in the book, I knew both in my heart and in my head that I had spent the majority of time when trying to form new habits on what I didnā€™t want to do versus the new action I wanted to cement.

This concept legitimately helped me and is actively helping me now. You reading this blog is a product of me focusing on writing and publishing my work, rather than focusing on the time spent not writing and fixating on the details of what I want to write through the paradigm of perfectionism.

I like writing. I like blogging. I wanted to write again. I wanted to blog again. I posted an article that I liked one day last year. I just wrote it, revised it, and posted it. Then when I sat down to do the next one, the old habits of focusing on the topic, the title, the body, a catchy opener, and a well wrapped up closing line all creeped into my mind and put a writerā€™s block in front of the habit of blogging.

A couple of months later I read Atomic Habits. After finishing the book I read various articles and watched various YouTube videos on habits. The concept I found myself implementing the most in my day to day life was thinking about the new action, rather than thinking about past actions, past mistakes, past failures, etc.

The value of this concept is directly proportional to the action taken. Itā€™s real value that can be measured externally, based on the real action one takes. Iā€™m very grateful to have this paradigm taking hold in me. I hope it can do the same for whoever reads my words.

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