It has been quite some time since my last post here on LE. I’ve been traveling to compete, teach seminars, and train Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I’ve been writing performance psychology seminars for local sports teams, I’ve been applying to graduate schools (UPenn’s program for positive psychology is totally for me), and I have managed to keep and active social life.

Recently, however, I’ve decided to get into another bout of tinkering with human potential, and what better way to manage progress and ensure follow-through than to post it up on this site?

The Gist

Here’s what’s going on with this particular experiment:

Each day I’m going to make some challenging decision to either Do Something or Not Do Something, and either way I will follow through ruthlessly. For instance, today I’ve decided to not eat until after I’m done teaching grappling class after 9:00pm tonight. Tomorrow I might randomly drop and do 50 pushups while hopping in circles, or I might commit to only getting 3 hours of sleep.

Why would I ever want to challenge myself do following through on at least one random, out-of-the-blue thing that I determine for no reason?

To develop my will.

To develop my efficacy in my decisions ruling over my actions.

Think about it like this: When you tell yourself you’ll follow through on something, and you don’t follow through, you will usually come up with some rational construct as to why you didn’t follow through on your intentions. What I am doing is basically recognizing that I have no reason for doing an action other than demonstrating my will.

I am acting for the sake of developing the ability to act. Period.

My mind will say “Wait, don’t take this difficult action, there is no reason to do it!” and I will act anyway, developing my capacity to blow through any kind of hinderance to my intention.

My actions will not be random simple actions, they will be challenging and/or uncomfortable, such as talking to strangers, karaoke, limiting my sleep or food, limiting my phone use, etc… I do this because it is “uncomfortable” actions that my mind will be quickest to resist, and I’ve determined that “uncomfortable” is not a criterion for my mind to NOT follow through on my intentions.

But… why?

I think about it this way:

Often times when we set challenges for ourselves that are uncomfortable or unusual our mind will bring up enough rationalization to prevent us from following through.

Often times, this is because our present mind state (flooded with fear or with discomfort) is inferior to our mind state when we made the commitment to change or act (presumably, this was a state unfettered by silly fears and doubt, a state connected to our bold intentions).

If one is able to turn off fears and doubts as much as possible by placing action on following through in and of itself, one may be able to develop a will that is more and more powerful at directly effecting behavior - as opposed to a weak will.

That’s the theory anyway!

Getting Started

So today is day 1, the challenge came to me as I unwrapped a delicious granola bar. I thought “Hey, I want to eat this so bad, how about I don’t eat anything until way later tonight?” Hurray, something uncomfortable – something to push through and develop the will.

We’ll see how it works out, there will be at least another 2 weeks worth of these posts coming.

Disclaimer

I’m not a cognitive behavioral therapist, and frankly this experiment might not develop the kind of inner efficacy and strength of mental fortitude that I’d hope for it to develop, but either way I’m pushing forward into it, leaning into my edge, and I know for a fact that I will draw something valuable from it.

Until next time…