For the finale of my visualization experiment, my plan was to look at the various activities throughout this Life Experiment and show how they correlated with different levels of intensity for the experience.
The results were not as expected, and before I go into WHY that might me, I’ll lay them out here:
Teaching Brazilian Jiu Jitsu:
Overall instances: 13
Total points for intensity of experience: 104
Average intensity of experience: 8
Beach:
Overall instances: 7
Total points for intensity of experience: 56.5
Average intensity of experience: 8.07
Internship:
Overall instances: 7
Total points for intensity of experience: 56
Average intensity of experience: 8
Night Life:
Overall instances: 9
Total points for intensity of experience: 74
Average intensity of experience: 8.22
What seemed “off” about these results? Well, they’re all so damn similar! What is up with the 8s being all over the place? Two activities had an average experience intensity of 8. Strange…
Why is this? These activities are so very different, and to me there is a clear experienced difference in enjoyment, growth, etc… In my mind I would expect teaching Jiu Jitsu to exceed internship activity by a long shot. Here are some potential reasons why we see this alignment with 8s (none of these might be a factor or all might be a factor):
- I might have rated the activities in terms of that activity itself, and not in reference to some rough ideal of objective enjoyment and intensity. In other words, I might have measured my experience up to my expectations of that context. So, a day that was an “8″ in my internship was not in fact the same intensity of “8″ that I experienced teaching Jiu Jitsu or out dancing and meeting people.
- I am terrible at gauging my own experience and put down random numbers that related to how I thought I felt but in fact was not accurate. I don’t think this is the case but its possible.
- My experiences in any given context tend to be as enjoyable as the rest of my general life experience. In other words, I may believe that I enjoy some activities and contexts more than others in general, but in fact all my activities may relate to one baseline of enjoyment. Again I doubt this but its possible.
To be honest, I think that it was hard to be precisely accurate with these subjective measures of enjoyment in my life, but I believe that given the number of posts, I would have seen some kind of trend to differentiate the activities a bit.
I believe that this equilibrium was due to my measuring of experience next to expectations, and so my ratings were relevant to the context.
What DOES the data tell me?
Well, if nothing else it shows me that there seems to be some kind of consistent overall baseline to the enjoyment I experience in different contexts, wether these levels of enjoyment are specific to the context or in reference to a general baseline of life enjoyment.
Again this evidence is by no means conclusive, as I have stated before, but its able to be taken into some considerations, and opens up a bunch of other fun doors in self-understanding.
________
For about the last week of my experiment, I wrote down what my mental / emotional experience was like during the activity itself. Based on these results, I came up with some trends that I expected… but the evidence is important in that it SO INGRAINS my ideas about what separates a peak experience from a “poor” one.
Analysis of experience within activity (peak or poor?):
From what I can tell, the difference between a “good” (pleasurable, socially un-stifled, purpose-driven) experience and a “poor” (unpleasant, socially stifled, seemingly purposeless) experience boils down to one thing:
Focus.
On my experiences of glory, the times when I felt my best and performed my best, I noticed the following about my focus:
- My awareness was generally merged with my activity
- My thoughts were focused on how awesome my present experience was, and all the great opportunities for fun and learning were all around me, and what kinds of results can come from them
- (Occasionally) How well other things are going in my life, things I appreciate or am excited about
Literally thats it.
When I was in these peak emotional states, my mind was very very limited in its conscious focus. It was focused on the best things in life, and usually was completely occupied with thoughts of the present.
Every now and again I’ll have an awesome experience but it will mainly be because my mind is focused on pleasurable anticipation or on appreciation for certain things or circumstances in my life – this is like “carry-over” positive state.
Even in these times when my focus was not so much on the present, I was able to enjoy the present and bring a kind of ease, fun and spontaneity to the present because my I just felt good and that was communicated in all that I did.
On the other hand, during my experiences of “bleh,” my focus gravitated towards the following:
- My awareness and action were separated in my mind
- The ramifications of my current actions in terms of other people’s opinions
- Other areas of my life that I was concerned about or felt dissatisfied with
All of these focuses serve no purpose in my experience. Its not like I had any terrible soul-crushing experiences, but some of them just weren’t of the same great quality as others, and this “focus” factor played the greatest role in that – in my opinion.
When these thoughts swirled in my mind, I was not focused on how to have a better time, but on how to avoid a bad one. Thinking of a “bad” time is silliness, as it takes my mind away from what a “good” time is about – the glory to be had in the present, given the opportunities around me.
The Origins of Focus:
So where does focus come from? The obvious answer is “your mind, stupid!”
I believe that conscious channeling of thought is a major determinant of our focus, but I think there are other deterministic (bit not unable to be overridden) factors at work. Here I’ll briefly run through some of the major aspects determining focus:
- Conscious direction of thought. In my opinion, this is the single most important factor, as it is more or less the only controllable factor. This involves where we will our minds to focus in any given experience.
- Previous associations. This has to do with the kind of focus that has been ingrained in our psyche in similar circumstances. For instance, if every time you speak publicly you associate it with pain and rejection, you mind will guide you strongly toward such areas of focus the next time you get on stage.
- External circumstance. As an optimist I’d like to say that this factor exhibits the least amount of control over our emotional state. I might even say that “external circumstance” is merely a fraction of our conscious direction of thought, since we are able o determine what about our circumstances we focus upon (and so are able to direct our experience). However, I will concede that there do seem to be times when our automatic evaluation of externals is so favorable that we are nudged strongly toward peak emotional state, while other times our automatic evaluation seems to be so “negative” that we are nudged strongly toward a less favorable state. It is certain that complete control over our state regardless of circumstance is not achievable.
The fact of the matter is that conscious free will is king, as it is what we are able to affect. If it is not king, then I will live as though it is anyway. We must live as though our will is free. (Thank you William James)
However, it might be useful to keep some of these other factors in mind. For instance, we might be careful of what kind of associations we habitually make because we understand that our minds will take us in that direction automatically once it is programmed.
Conlude:
Being extra conscious of my mental focus during experiences has further cemented the importance of focusing on positive outcomes.
In fact, being more aware of my focus has seemed to generally have had a positive effect on my focus day to day because I’m used to monitoring it and gauging it.
This experiment will definitely bubble over into other posts and studies of focus and peak experience.
___
If you enjoyed this post and the material on this site, consider signing up for my RSS feed or bumping this material only StumbleUpon or Digg. Thanks a lot!
I read a few topics. I respect your work and added blog to favorites.