Recently I’ve given some thought to an issue that has arisen in some of my own friendships. Of course this blog isn’t an advice column, but I wanted to take a look at a particular part of the friendship dynamic. The issue is: How do we talk to someone about a behavior / choice / activity with concern?

The issue is not quite as simple as it may look. Of course it is infinitely more complex when we talk about involving the other individual’s perception – but just in the context of the potential struggle within ourselves, we might see this potential dilemma.

• It wouldn’t be right for us to give commands to the other person in terms of how they should live their lives. We’d like to respect our friend as a responsible, conscious individual who has their own perspective and makes their own best determinations about what to do.
• It wouldn’t be right for us to go against our best judgement and to withhold a real issue or concern with someone we care for – especially if we wish to voice such a concern in order to benefit our friend or prevent them from harm.

So maybe a friend has has been binge drinking a lot lately, or maybe they have been working on career-oriented projects and not spending as much time with friends, or maybe they haven’t seemed as excited or engaged in their lives anymore. How do we approach the situation and talk to them about the issue?

Giving Them Voice

It has to be mentioned that before confronting the friend about potentially questioning one of their practices or about making a change in their lives and behaviors, it is important to get their perspective first.

In other words, before saying “Hey Jeff, I cam here to tell you that you should stop drinking so much,” its probably more appropriate to say “Jeff, you’re drinking concerned me lately, I wanted to bring up the issue with you as a friend and see when you’re coming from.”

Following this procedure respects the other person in the sense that you are not assuming you understand everything that they do or everything thats going on in their lives. This gives them the opportunity (if they choose to take it) to lay out what’s going on in their lives from their own perspective – which we will respect (as we respect our own judgement in our own lives).

Sometimes, understanding where the other person is coming from clears up any potential issues that may have been looming. Sometimes this is not the case, and we still wish to voice our concern… 

Genuinely Expressing Concern

After giving the other person room to open up on the issue themselves, we can now come forward ourselves – given that our own perspective now includes the perspective of the other person. Now we aren’t coming across like a know-it-all, we’ve taken their side of the story into the equation. 

When we come forward, it is more ethically sound that we do so in the spirit of expressing in concern and not instructing or voicing a command. Again, this person will ultimately make their own decisions as a free and responsible individual. We are bringing an issue to light and not aiming to grab the steering wheel of someone else’s life.

We basically express that there are choices or behaviors that we believe might be detrimental to the person themselves, or to others – and we want to bring some points into their awareness and let them know where we are coming from…

The Ball is in Their Court

Again, all we have done here is given the other person additional thoughts to consider. We haven’t forced them down any paths, only framed our concern from a place of caring.

After the concerns are voiced (either right there or over a span of time), the person we are speaking with will filter your input through their reality and come up with their own conclusions as to what is the best path to take from here.

Sometimes, this choice will not jive with someone’s terms of the friendship, or it will not jive with other commitments – such as mutual business responsibilities. 

If that must be the case, then that must be the case, and at least the heart of the matter was struck and those involved were open and understanding. If a separation must be made it will likely be on civil terms.

Other times, however, a voiced concern of this kind, brought up in a way that respects the other person, will bring about an agreement or an alteration in the other person’s behavior or decisions. Again, this is their choice, but if they want to be considerate – or uphold their responsibilities – or do better for themselves – or treat people differently (or whatever the concern had to do with), then they will be able to make the change themselves.

 

_____________

 

What This Might Look Like

Now that some base understanding has been established about an ethical method to bring up concerns, I’m going to run through what this might look like in an actual conversation between two people, Person A and Person B. 

(Obviously such a conversation could go on for hours, and could deal with an infinite number of topics, but here I will provide just enough conversational sustenance to show this kind of communication at work)

A / B: (Small talk blah blah blah)

A: So, B, I wanted to tell you today that I’ve been thinking about how you’ve had the opportunity to go out a lot more with all the money you’ve saved up. I know that you’ve had a lot of fun but I know you’re doing way more drinking, too, and I wanted to talk to you about it.

B: Ah, yeah about that. It has been a lot of fun lately, but yeah what’s got you bothered about drinking?

A: Maybe not bothered, but definitely something I just wanted to voice to you as a friend. I don’t really remember you drinking a few months ago and I don’t know for sure but from what I know you’re drinking almost nightly, and I know you’re driving a lot of the time, too. Its been something I’ve been waiting to bring up because I obviously want to know where you’re coming from. Brian and Steve were upset about it, too, because I think they feel like you treat them a lot differently when you’ve had a few. 

B: Yeah well going out is something I’ve made a point to do more of lately because I love to meet people and with all my working I didn’t have time before. And yeah I have been drinking too, I think it just comes to the territory. I dunno I guess it just happens sometimes, plus it always feels good and helps me just vibe with people. The driving thing is definitely something I could stop doing, but sometimes the guys who were supposed to drive are so much more hammered than me. I had no idea about Brian and Steve, though…

A: I’m not here to boss you around, obviously, but I remember you were always very much against drunk driving and I wasn’t exactly sure if you were doing it or not so I wanted to bring it up. I know it was never something you were cool with, and I think that even though you’re out meeting new people have having a blast you can at least secure a ride or decide not to drink for a night. You need that money to save up for the car, anyway, right? Brian and Steve basically feel like you ignore them and try to talk over them when they’re around you drunk. Its not like they dislike you now, they just don’t know where you’re coming from with all of this. I can see it, too.

B: Yeah I should probably talk to them. The driving issue is something I’ve made a point to work on, too. I have to change that I know…

A: I just wanted to bring these things to the surface in terms of what we were concerned about for your health and for our friendships. Obviously you know driving drunk is ridiculously dangerous, but you might not have known how we’ve been feeling about it and about how we’ve felt when we’re around you drinking.

B: Yeah a appreciate it, I need some time to think…

 

From here, Person A might lean in more strongly in totally preventing the drinking and driving, and Person B will have to take new inputs into consideration and reevaluate some life choices and lifestyle issues. All in all everyone was respected, openness was maintained, but clarity was brought down onto the issues at hand.

Something I wanted to draw out a bit. Better than yelling at people to “****ing change.”

To be honest, its not the method or the order of how these things are brought up or said as much as it is keeping the important principles in place. 

The basic important principles here seem to be:

1. The facilitation of open communication 
2. A respect for one another as our own decision makers.

I find these tenants particularly important, and the ideas put down here – such as getting the person’s perspective on their own issue before assuming things about the issue, or such as “voicing concerns” over “barking commands” – are basically just tools to be used towards those ends.

 

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I’m Excited.

I’ve decided my next Life Experiment is going to involve studying my own efficiency in terms of achieving my desired outcomes.

I plan to sit down and break down where I was most and least effective during my day.

This isn’t a blind view towards some ideal in “productivity” in the sense of making and producing for the sake of doing so. I’d also like to be effective in my workouts, in my teaching style, in how I organize fun things with friends, etc…

Sure some of this involves my implementation of GDT. For the most part, though, I think that I have integrated the GDT system relatively fluently, and now I’m starting to move into other material and my own style (though GDT is still something I study and something I highly revere). 

 

The experiment involves:

• Critically evaluating my day-to-day efficiency 
• Writing about it for 10 – 15 minutes per night
• Recording my adventures in this experiment category
• Editing my way of going about things and making new distinctions in personal effectiveness
• Identifying the 10 biggest new distinctions and sticking to them! (While sharing them with you guys, of course)

 

Pretty cut and dry, I’m excited to figure out where my loopholes are and write them down so that I can consciously move past them and become more effective at achieving what I want to achieve and experiencing what I want to experience.

It starts today…

Look for the first week’s updates next Tuesday (August 11th 2009).

 

 

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(Continued from Part 1)

It is obvious that falling involves many factors outside our control: wind, loud noises, the quality of the rope, etc…

My current hypothesis is that the trapeze artists who focus on things that they can directly control (IE: their arms for balance, their next step) or things that they need to pay attention to (IE: a total, empty focus on the rope ahead) are the one’s who are most successful.

I also pose that if this focus on the rope is out of fear, the individual is more likely to fall because of the hidden focus on falling itself (the origin for the fear).

Our behaviors will mirror the focus of our minds. If that focus is genuinely positive we will generally embody all that we think of as positive. In such instances our minds are geared towards the best next step and we feel a kind of confidence and efficacy in our own faculties.

When our genuine focus (IE: our real focus, what we are truly thinking about – this is reflected in our feelings) is on the negative, then steps to failure are what blast into our minds most readily. Now we have behaviors or things to avoid so that we “don’t mess up,” instead of positive behaviors and things to pursue or focus on so that we get to our desired objective.

 

Hyper-Intention with Conscious and Unconscious Processes: 

As we have stated, hyper-intention stops the thing from happening because behind the wish for the thing to happen is the fear that it won’t happen. That fear is what brings about the desperate wish for the thing, it is the base and the prime influencing force on the mind in instances of hyper-intention.

This is especially the case with phenomena that involve us, but not on a conscious level. For instance, blushing, orgasm, falling asleep, feeling happy, having fun – all of these are things which we cannot intensely wish for in order to get, they are not consciously determined in the same way as lifting our right arm, thinking about a chess game, or yelling loudly – as these are much more directly alterable by our mental and physical faculties.

This might seem odd in that things seem to be quite different in the physical world. If I intensely wish to be the best soccer player in the world, this might help me achieve that goal, even if my intent springs from a fear of not being the best, I can still consciously will myself to train hard and long, and practice constantly in my free time. 

A pitcher who hyper-intends to throw a fastball in the strike zone is probably more likely to do so than a man hyper-intending sleep as he lays down at night. The process is the same, we see a swirl of fear, anxiety, and fear-related thought. The only difference is: the pitcher can consciously will and act in order to bring about the right pitch, while the sleeping man cannot. We do not directly control the mechanisms of sleep and so have little chance of consciously overriding the fear and hyper-intention.

As with the hyper-intending trapeze artist who intends not to fall, the pitcher who hyper-intends not to throw a bad ball will be more likely to fail, to bring his fear of throwing a bad ball into reality. However, he – unlike the man trying to sleep – still has conscious control over his skeletal muscles despite his ineffective thought processes. 

The same tendencies with hyper-intention and sleep likely go for orgasm. If we hone a hyper-intention on finally getting to orgasm, it becomes unlikely that we will attain it. This, again, is because the intention springs from a hidden fear which springs from a hidden mental focus on NOT achieving orgasm – a mostly unconsciously controlled mechanism.

 

Hyper-Intention / Reflection and the Danger / Social Contexts:

It is notable that instances of hyper-intention usually either involve the potential for what one perceives as “social disapproval” or “life endangerment.” Two remarkably common fears for people in American society are the fear of public speaking and the fear of death. 

Hence, it would be rather odd to hyper-intend the act of getting the peanut butter off the shelf if we are home alone (because we are unlikely to see much risk for danger or disapproval). However, it is probably easier to see how one might hyper-intend the act of shooting a 3-point shot in basketball at the buzzer or of stuttering when speaking with one’s boss, or of “performance anxiety” in bed.

The factors of social disapproval and life endangerment are not unique to hyper-intention, they are merely the most blatantly likely candidates for inducing fear – which obviously plays a pivotal role in creating the hyper-intention experience. 

 

Freedom from Hyper-Intention / Reflection:

We have determined that the effects of “H-I” and “H-R” originate from their basis in a subtle mental focus upon some outcome or result which is wither deeply desired or detested.

This subtle mental focus manifests as an anticipatory anxiety because of a fear that what we don’t want will happen (IE: We want to sleep but fear that we won’t get to sleep so we don’t. Or, we don’t want to blush in a social situation and we fear that we will blush so we end up blushing – both of these are due to our mental focus, the origin of our mental and emotional experience). 

Hence, freedom from these conditions merely involves a change in focus. An intense focus on the undesired result will only bring about its manifestation. Similarly, an intense focus on the desired result that has its origin in a fear of the undesired result will instead bring about the undesired result.

Of course this is easier said than done. 

It would seem that alleviating the anticipatory anxiety itself would free us from manifesting the undesired results. We might say that we must eliminate the subtle thought of the undesired outcome in the first place (which we described as the origin of the fear), but this may not be necessary.

For instance, I may be thinking about the potential that I will not get to sleep, but if I do not place heavy weight on it, if I do not run hyper-intention on that thought, I will likely still not manifest the undesired result. Here, then, we have not squashed all thoughts of the undesired result, but we have squashed the anticipatory anxiety by eliminating the kind of hyper-intention to that brings about fear.

For instance, I might lie in bed and realize that I might not fall asleep. If this thought strikes fear in me, then the emotion and the thought will create a loop and draw me into hyper-intention / reflection mode. However, if this thought does not build like a snowball with feeling and thought, then it will simply be another passing thought.

Accomplishing the effect of nullifying fear is its own science, but it leads us to look at one of Frankl’s own strategies: paradoxical intent.

 

The Function of Paradoxical Intent:

What, then, is the function of Frankl’s “paradoxical intent,” given the understanding that we have come to of the other terms and the mental processes and phenomena underlying them?

From what he writes, it appears as though intending exactly what we fear makes it so that our fear itself is hyper-intended and so is not brought to be. Our thoughts shift to a kind of fear turned against itself since we now try to eagerly aim in bringing about our fear (which likely creates a fear that this fear will not manifest). 

Frankl also refers to the humor in such a contradiction, and that in joking with ourselves we may become capable of letting go of fear itself. He seems to think that the ridiculousness of holding such an intention will aide to relieve our minds of the anxiety.

By our model it would seem that anything that would relieve the hyper-intending experience would have to alter one’s focus in one of two important ways:

• Relieve the conscious mind of the thought of the “negative” result or outcome
• Relieve the conscious mind of the resistance to the “negative” outcome 

This is the algorithm for eliminating what we know as “fear” in the first place – for the negatively judged “thing” and resistance to it are the origins of fear (or so this inquiry poses, dive into your own experience).

So how does Frankl’s “paradoxical intent” accomplish this?

It seems to bring a new subtle fear into place where the first was (except this fear facilitates what we genuinely want).

In addition, it frames our entire experience in a way that potentially brings us to focus on the humor and ridiculousness of the situation itself.

 

(Dear Frankl, I hope I’m drawing the right conclusions with my own thinking and yours.)

 

 

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I recently read – and deeply enjoyed – Victor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.” What an astonishing story of survival, what an amazing testament to the power of the human mind. 

The horrors that those men experienced every day was overshadowed in my mind, by the amazing ability of human mind to transform that experience into normality or even transcend it into fulfillment.

In this inquiry, I am going to dive into some of Frankl’s own terminology for Logotherapy technique. Here I will specifically focus on the ideas of:

• Hyper-intention
• Hyper-reflection
• Paradoxical intention

My focus will involve coming up with sensible definitions for the three terms, followed by a segment where I will aim to gain insight into the function and of the terms themselves in our own experience. 

A Defining of Terms______________

Frankl does not provide a precise definition of the terms I am exploring here (unless I am unaware of a source). ‘Paradoxical intent’ is the exception, for which Frankl provides most of an adequate definition. For the other two, I will use context and Frankl’s in-book briefing of the terms in order to construct a definition.

 

Hyper-intention:

An excessive intention to will or force something to be, which in fact ensures that the thing will not be. 

Hyper-reflection:

An intensified attention to something within ourselves which prevents that something from coming to be.

Paradoxical intent:

(“Based on the twofold fact that fear brings about that which one is afraid of, and that hyper-intention makes impossible what one wishes”)

The individual is asked to intend – if only for the moment – precisely what he fears. In doing so, on changes one’s focus and relinquishes one’s fear.

 

Inquiry into Terms______________

I will now proceed to explore the relations, functioning, and application of these ideas presented by Frankl. 

 

Difference between Hyper-intention and Hyper-reflection:

If we intend something intensely, does is not make sense that our attention is on that thing?

It seems as though this would be the case. The difference is, if we intend something, then we have a specific positive or negative focus on that thing. For example, if I had a tendency to blush in social situations, then I might very intensely intend on not blushing.

With attention, however (the factor involved in Hyper-reflection), my focus needn’t be necessarily positive or negative given my concern. My attention could be intensely focused on my blushing itself, or my attention could be intensely focused on my yearning not to blush. My attention can be, but need not be, aligned with my intention.

Hence, Hyper-intention seems to be one’s genuine yearning in a given situation (wishing and wanting not to blush), which leads to the yearning not being fulfilled (one blushes anyway).

Hyper-reflection, then, is one’s intense conscious focus during a period of Hyper-intention (which is aimed at oneself in this example, yearning for a specific end).

 

The Functioning of Hyper-reflection:

It seems possible that if we intend something we can put our attention on that same thing (intending on sleep and putting our attention deeply on sleeping). In Frankl’s work, this will bring about the non-happening of the phenomena. 

It is possible that we intend something but put our attention on the opposite of that something (intending for sleeping but putting our attention on our inability to actually fall asleep). I would argue that this, too, would bring about the non-happening of the event. 

How can both of these hyper-reflections, which focus attention on opposite targets (getting to sleep and the inability to sleep) have the same effect? I believe that it is because their origin is the same. The hyper-intention and either hyper-reflections, I pose, are triggered by the same “anticipatory anxiety” – term Frankl uses himself. 

This anxiety is that we will not fall asleep, and the fear of not sleeping is the origin of the intent to sleep and the attention on sleeping or not sleeping. All have their origins in fear.

In order to have this fear one must think about not sleeping, one must imagine that one will not fall asleep – one’s mental focus must be on the inability to sleep – which by itself makes sleep difficult (especially because sleep is not something we have direct conscious control over).

Hence, our intention is on sleep because we fear not sleeping, and our attention has something to do with sleep (either our wish to sleep or our inability to sleep) all because of the seed of fear.

This fear keeps a portion of our minds focused on not allowing the desired outcome to take place. Why? Not because it is the fear in and of itself, but because the perpetuated thought that stirs the fear and lies behind the fear is “I won’t be able to get to sleep.” Hence, the mind – even if in a subtle way – holds the thought of not sleeping and remains focused on it, and so does not allow sleep to occur.

 

Applying Hyper-Intention / Reflection- 

I have posed thus far that “anticipatory anxiety” holds something back from happening because it focuses part of the mind on that thing not happening (the origin of the fear / anxiety in the first place).

What if our anticipatory anxiety had to do with something that was much more underneath or conscious control? For instance, what if we had anticipatory anxiety about crashing a car into trees or telephone poles. 

This would bring about a hyper-intention to stay on the road, a hyper-reflection would occur which would bring attention to either crashing or not crashing. 

It would be my guess that a frightened driver (with the above thought processes) would be more likely to get into an accident than a driver whose thoughts were not on crashing. Having this subtle focus in one’s mind would likely make one more likely to manifest the feared behaviors and bring about the feared events (again, not because they are feared, per say, but I pose that it is because the origin of the fear is the mental focus on crashing in the first place). 

What about trapeze artists who choose to brave perils on a daily basis? Surely they have to think about falling and dying constantly. So how do they stay up?

I would actually argue that the best trapeze artists are those who think of peril and death the least. It may be that those who think of their next step forward or the rope itself are the most successful. It might also be said that the best trapeze artists are those who have the clearest mind – void of any potentially corrupting content…

(Continued in Part 2)

 

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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. 

 

 

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I spend much longer on this project than I had anticipated, but I think I drew a lot from it and I am pretty pumped to write up a finale about the entire process.

As a review, I made a point to visualize before major activities throughout my day. Sometimes this involved my internship, teaching grappling class, preparing a dinner, reading and writing personal development material, or anything else that occupied a block of time.

I gauged the activities with three figures: the number of minutes I visualized for, the intensity and “juice” of that visualization (0 to 10), and my rating of the overall experience of the event itself (0 to 10).

(X, Y – Z). X = minutes spent visualizing, Y = intensity of visualization, Z = intensity of experience.

The rating system was mostly to keep tabs on how I felt generally – its specific relevance and validity is looked at more closely at the bottom of this post.

Here’s a list of all that I recorded, including activities from July 8th to July 27th. In the actual writings I did, I included detail about each event, but the amount of typing I’d have to do in order to get that done would be astounding and carple tunnel-inducing. Enjoy:

1, 5 – 9 (Teaching a private lesson in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu)

2, 5 – 8.5 (Internship)

2, 5.5 – 4 (Writing a Time Management Presentation)

2, 4 – 7.5 (Internship)

0, 0 – 7.5 (Teaching Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Class)

3, 6 – 5 (Writing a Time Management Presentation)

0, 0 – 8.5 (Beach with Friends)

0, 0 – 10 (Friend’s House at Night)

1, 5 – 7.5 (Teaching Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Class)

1, 4 – 8.5 (Beach with Friends)

2, 8 – 7.5 (Weekly Review of my Files and Projects)

2, 5 – 8 (Internship)

0, 0 – 9 (Friend’s Party)

2, 8 – 7.5 (Writing a Time Management Presentation)

2, 5 – 8 (Teaching a Private Lesson in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu)

5, 7.5 – 9.5 (Teaching a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Class)

2, 5 – 7.5 (Internship)

1, 6 – 8.5 (University Seminar)

0, 0 – 8 (Writing a Time Management Seminar)

2, 7 – 9.5 (Internship)

2, 6 – 9 (Teaching a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Class)

0, 0 – 8 (Beach at Night)

10, 7 – 7 (Internship)

0, 0 – 7 (Gym)

1, 7.5 – 8.5 (Club in Newport)

1, 5 – 7.5 (Beach)

2, 6 – 7 (Writing)

2, 8.5 – 9 (Night in Providence)

0, 0 – 7 (Water Skiing)

1, 6 – 8 (Teaching a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Class)

0, 0 – 6.5 (Beach)

0, 0 – 5 (Picnic with Family)

1, 6 – 7.5 (Weekly Update on Files and Projects)

3, 8 – 8 (Business Consulting Meeting)

2, 7 – 7 (Business Meeting)

0, 0 – 7 (Teaching a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Class)

3, 7.5 – 9 (Club in Narragansett)

2, 6 – 8 (Internship)

1, 7 – 8.5 (University Seminar)

2, 7 – 9 (Toastmasters)

2, 5 – 7.5 (Teaching a Private Lesson in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu)

0, 0 – 8 (Writing a Time Management Presentation)

1, 5 – 8 (Teaching Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Class)

0, 0 – 6 (Business Meeting)

1, 5 – 8.5 (Sales Class)

3, 7 – 7.5 (Writing a Presentation on Time Management)

2, 5 – 8.5 (Teaching a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Class)

2, 7 – 6 (Club in Providence)

o, o – 9 (Reading “StrengthsFinder 2.0″)

1, 6 – 9 (Coaching for Time Management)

0, 0 – 7.5 (Meal with Mom)

1, 6 – 7.5 (Club in Narragansett)

1, 5 – 9.5 (Beach with Friends)

0, 0 – 8.5 (Carpentry with my Father)

2, 7 – 8 (House Parties)

2, 5 – 8 (Weekly Review of Files and Projects)

1, 7 – 8 (Running an In-House Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Tournament)

0, 0 – 6 (Hanging with Friends)

2, 8 – 7 (Friend’s House)

1, 6 – 7 (Business Consulting Class)

1, 6 – 8 (Visit Friend on the Beach)

0, 0 – 6.5 (Teaching a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Class)

 

Whoa thats a lot of stuff… 

Keep in mind that this doesn’t include all events that took a block of my time, but this is probably the majority of them – its everything I recorded.

The rankings themselves are rough and subjective, and many factors could have contributed to the scored of “intensity” for those various activities. 

Of course, it is very, very likely that one’s thoughts during an activity is the main determinant of one’s quality of experience.

The rankings may still be relevant in terms of referring to them to see basic trends.

 

The finale to this Life Experiment will be composed shortly. It contains personal insights from the experiment, trends in my own experience, and information recorded over the last week involving my mental focus during specific activities and how that might have contributed to the experience itself (I pose, after all, that the activity of one’s focus and thoughts during an activity is the main determinant factor in one’s quality of experience).

Don’t miss it.

 

As I stated in my first post, I have begun a Life Experiment involving a focus on positive outcomes. 

For well over a week I’ve taken time before the majority of my day’s major activities and focused on what I wanted to do, what I wanted to get done, and how I wanted to experience and move through the activity or event itself.

Some of the times I felt as though I was wasting my own time (part of my mind was saying “let me just DO things, come on!”), while other times I felt as though I had benefitted myself through the habit.

After a short while of practice and reflection, I think I’ve come to understand visualization and imagining positive outcomes a little bit better, and here’s the breakdown:

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Reticular Activator System:

Before getting into this project, I was already aware of positive visualization (imagining ideal scenes, imaging ideal outcomes, etc…) as a tool that would gear our mind towards that which we desired most.

The portion of the brain called the reticular activator system is generally thought to be the place in our minds that determines what we pay attention at any given time. If we focus on hair styles and think of nothing but styling hair, we will notice hair styles everywhere, we will pick up on details about the styles of hair that we see on anyone we meet or even everyone we see. That’s what we focus on, and so our reticular activator system shows us that information in as many ways as possible.

The idea is, if you focus on failure, your mind will only notice the millions of ways to fail and will not open your mind to methods of success. It will keep you trapped in behaviors and thoughts which bring about what you think about – failure. 

Hence, if you think success and your mind is geared towards what you actually want in your life, your filters will align to let you see all those factors which will lead to your success – it will bring you to manifest behaviors and notice new perspectives that will further your objectives.

That’s the premise.

 

The Value of Visualization:

During my personal experimentation, I noticed that positive visualization is useless unless it serves one of two functions:

• Enhances the experience you feel (brings about happiness or charisma or compassion, or whatever emotional resource you deem to be best)

For instance, sometimes my visualization was not very specific or even particularly sharp, but I only thought of positive outcomes while listening to some fun music. This might not give me a clue as to what I should actually do during the event or activity, but it would bring me into an energetic and outgoing emotional state, which I would experience along with my visualization of the event – and also with the event itself.

Essentially, this is about involving feeling into the visualization process. Wether that involves getting pumped about an outcome you really want, or moving around energetically, or listening to some good music tracks.

• Enhances your meaningful objectives (clarifies what needs to actually get done, brings you to follow through on actions towards your goals)

For instance, a few times I barely visualized at all but wrote down different tasks to accomplish in a certain context or during a certain activity. This by itself was able to structure my experience of the event and make it more enjoyable and more geared towards my purpose.

I find that a simple check involving the question “what is my purpose?” will often yield steps towards that purpose. I did this at meetings, before teaching Jiu Jitsu class, or before going to the beach – all to just make note of exactly why I was going there and what I could do there in terms of my highest aims. This might be talking to someone in private, or asking a specific question, or buying something at the store, or dropping something off to someone I thought I was going to see. 

The Habit of Success-Thinking:

Additional future value of positive visualization is the fact that it aids in developing the habit of thinking about positive outcomes.

If we are able to gear our minds towards imagining absolute success in terms of any activity or event, we are on the track of getting towards those desired outcomes. We will help to gear our senses, our emotions, and our intellect towards what is best for the achievement of our ideal future.

We are what we think. We bring what we think into the world in far more ways than we are consciously aware of. Imagine if that entire process worked FOR us!

However, visualization needn’t be done during a pause before an activity in the way I did during this activity. It can be done far ahead of the activity, and most importantly during the event or activity. For this reason, my experiment (which I will provide the result for in a different post) isn’t an accurate measure of how much I “positively visualized” about a particular situation.

This brings us too:

 

An Ever-Present Function:

So long as we alive, our mind filters information to some degree. Wether we are walking on the beach, working on the job, or going to a social event, we are almost always thinking – at least to a slight degree, but often to a very noticeable one. 

If these thoughts swirl around failure, it will be difficult for us to achieve success (and if we do achieve it, it will be harder to notice). 

For example:

You plan to attend a social event with the goal of having fun and sharing stories and adventures with new people.

Before even leaving your house you think of how awkward you will feel trying to have fun with new people. You think about how people might react to you, you think about how that might feel. Your mind flashes with mental pictures of you off in a corner by yourself. 

When you enter the party, you remind yourself that you are here to meet fun new people and have a blast with them, but you can’t seem to achieve that end.

We might not consider what happened here to be formal “visualization,” but nonetheless, the reticular activator system was responding constantly to your thoughts. 

Since the inner pictures and dialogue were about failure in the given situation, you would have worked against yourself in two separate ways:

 

1. You would have brought your mind to notice mostly the information that would be related to your thoughts – and since your thoughts were about social “failure,” your lenses of perception would be likely to let through just that information to bring you to social “failure.”
2. You would have associated socializing – or that social scene in particular – with “failure,” with “rejection,” with pain. Doing this continually will bring you to generally fear these experiences in those given context, hence permanently keeping you from the attainment of your ideals in that realm.

Now let us imagine you think and feel a bit differently:

You plan to attend a social event with the goal of having fun and sharing stories and adventures with new people.

Before you even walk into the event, your mind spins with excitement around who you will meet there and all the fun you’ll have. You see yourself walking around and talking to everyone, spreading the party out and having a blast.

When you’re at the party itself, you feelings and thoughts are 100% aligned with your objective to have fun and meet new exciting people. You’re living your ideals because your mind contains no thoughts that aren’t congruent to the ideals themselves.

We might not consider this to be formal “visualization,” either, but the fact of the matter is that our emotional state and perception lenses were completely on “success,” and so we found it effortlessly.

Here you are aligning our thoughts with our ideals and so living out our ideals as an extension of your mental activity (which in this case is an excited, charismatic expression). You are also coming to associate social scenarios with pleasure, since that is the emotion that swirls in your body as our mind swirls with pleasurable thoughts.

To conclude, I have decided to slightly alter my Life Experiment to adjust for the details of how I believe the reticular activator system to genuinely function.

In my opinion, the most important thing about “visualization” is its effect on our perceptual lenses – which in turn affect our intellect, thought, and action. The subtle stream of thought before, during, and after an activity is likely to be far more important a determiner of our experience than a few minutes of visualization beforehand.

Hence, in addition to recording the duration and intensity of my visualization before an activity, followed by a rundown of my experience of the activity itself – I will do something different.

For at least one activity a day, I will also record something about the state of my mind during the activity. I will write about my focus during the activity, the inner dialogue I experience, and how I take control (or don’t take control) of it.

This might be a challenging task, since I will intentionally getting in my own head – which might bring about negative consequences since the most positive “flow” states (from my experience and from evidence in my psychology research) involve a certain letting go of self-awareness, a certain out-of-your-head-ness. 

This experiment will be longer than expected, but I’m sure it will be worth it in terms of insight and experience. I’m excited to dive into the understanding of the reticular activator and gain a better understanding of how we can come to control our perception and our experience!

 

 

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We’ve all had times when we were completely compelled to dive into our productive work, and we’ve all had times when a part of us would do anything within reason to avoid it. I’m willing to bet that anyone reading this can think of at least 3 examples of both.

Understanding why this is implies an understanding of meaning, and of the factors that drive us to action.

 

On the job, striving for and creating compelling work usually implies:

• Having clarity in terms of what’s going on in the company and where it’s going (based off the company’s objectives and vision, as well as an understanding of what the company does to sustain itself)
• Knowing what it is you are doing, why you’re doing it, and what we are responsible for (involving our actionable plans, our reasons why we are doing the activity and its relevance to the company vision and core business, as well as what specifically we must accomplish and by when)

When we don’t know what’s going on in the company in the first place, if it often hard for us as workers to know that our actions are in alignment with that.

Consequently, we are not clear on why it is that we are doing what we are doing, and so we feel less compelled to completion.

Similarly, if we are not sure as to exactly what is expected of us, and what exactly we will do as an individual, we likely will not feel compelled to act.

If you’re boss runs into your office and quickly blurts out – “Hey, I need you to market our new whatchamacallit,” you’d probably want to ask him a few more questions before you followed his command.

Why? Because such a command is so vague as to be non-actionable. You need to know who you’re marketing to, you need to know how you should place the product. You need to know where this new thing fits into the company’s objectives in the first place.

Until you figure those things out (either from your boss directly, or by coming to a confident conclusion on your own), you will likely not feel driven to finish the project because you do not have what you need to confidently move it forward (meaning, actionable items, specifics as to what needs to be done, etc…)

I argue that the same can be said about our lives in general. In order to move forward in any life change, project or desired outcome, we need to have made determinations about our own highest objectives, our reasons for doing things in the first place, the specifics of the task involved, etc… It needs to make enough grand scene sense for us to be able to wrap our minds fully around it without feeling weird about it.

 

In life, feeling great while moving forward and making real progress on a desired outcome usually requires us to understand:

• Where we are in our entire life, and where we want to be (based off of our own ideals and purpose, as well as our values and what excites or compels us)
• What we need to do, why we’re doing it, and what we hold ourselves accountable for (involving our actionable plans, our reasons why as connected to our values, purpose, etc…, and a personal decision to bring about an outcome)

If you’ll notice, these criterion are more or less identical to those involved in getting productive work done on the job. 

These criterion apply far outside the realm of work (as ideas, or course they can be applied wherever and in whatever way you imagine, this is important to imagine). 

 

If you are putting an activity off, or if you feel down about something you are doing, be sure to have these criterion available. 

Recently I wrote about “Modeling a Fulfilling Life,” where I outline a process for understanding and recording a draft of important self understandings, visions, and objectives. It serves as a fine guide in this analysis of activities – which will help to streamline your priorities.

To refer to that article, click here.

 

Could it be said that some activity do not require these criterion? It could, yes, and I never intend to say out my opinions and thoughts as concrete laws of the gods. However, having these specific understandings under wraps helps us to look at an activity, process, or decision completely and not experience resistance.

It helps give us a sense of congruence in the idealistic and physical world, and aides in eliminating the kind of mental entropy that arises from not finding that congruence.

Thats worthwhile for me.

 

Recently I have modeled my own life and pursuits in an interesting format that I hadn’t ever thought of before.

I was listening to “Getting Things Done” on audio and I remember David Allen talking about “org charts.” I had no ideal what this meant, so I looked it up on Wikipedia (which – when combined with Google – can provide all the knowledge and wisdom any human will ever need).

Once I saw an “org chart” (short for “organizational chart”), I thought of its applications and how the hierarchical model would work in different contexts.

I thought about the purpose of my own life, and how the different facets of my life path naturally flowed from there. I then thought about the major pursuits I’m involved in, and the projects I am building currently. All of these aspects build off of each other.

I figured that an org chart might be a solid reference point where new activities and pursuits could be cross referenced, and where purpose could be reviewed, aligned with, or tweaked.

For me, this tool is nice to get a clear idea on structuring the way we make priorities – which basically boils down to:

• What do you value?
• What do you live for?
• What do you yearn to develop, create, experience?
• …What are you doing right now?

Thats what this is about on my end. That’s the kind of integrity and congruence that I believe to be immensely fulfilling.

I’ll run you through how I went about assembling an “org chart” for myself:

(Note: I am writing this as though its a kind of instructional, but of course its just the way I went about it. If you want to recreate an org chart like this for yourself I think you’ll find it useful, but this isn’t the best “method” or anything. To me, this chart is all about what works for me in terms of keeping my highest aims and priorities in line with what I’m doing with my life. If this idea resonates with you, roll with it. I’m not a Guru, I’m just a guy who doesn’t sleep because he reads and writes this stuff constantly.)

 

 

 

1) Highest Purpose

Come to a basic conclusion as to your highest reason for living, your purpose and most high objective.

Be warned, this will be a vague statement. Mine looks something like this “Maximal enjoyment, growth, and experience of richness for myself, with maximal benefit incurred to the world through me.“ I would like this to be my reasoning behind all action, my highest purpose. I aim to align myself with this purpose through my actions and choices.

You might want to emphasize your family or yourself, or you might want to de-emphasize yourself. Its really your own bag, here. 

Think about if you had one sentence that would be the base reason for everything you did. Write a bunch of them until one hits you in the chest. For now, use that one (you might tweak any of this stuff as soon as you feel the genuine pull to do so).

No matter what, make sure that your purpose is as boiled down as possible. In other words, do not mention your job unless your job has some form of immense, innate value in and of itself and serves no higher end. 

This statement will not be something very easily actionable – and by itself this broad statement of higher purpose will not provide you with any plans. However, it will be the basis for any planning you’ll ever make. Think about it, would you ever conscious plan out anything that wasn’t channeled towards your own highest purpose for living?

 

2) Core Pursuits

Determine the core pursuits and areas of focus that constitute the attainment of your highest purpose.

This involves understanding what actually achieves your highest objective. Again, these areas will also be relatively vague, but they will put some kind of form or context to the method in which you will attain and live through your higher purpose. 

For me, these areas include “Enriching Relationships,” “Innovation in Self Development,” and “Logistics / Health.”

For me, relationships of all kinds are the magnifiers of the human experience, and understanding how to manage, form, and cultivate relationships that are ideally enriching is a huge component in general fulfillment.

In terms of a purpose in work and creative endeavor, dedication to understanding and innovating in self development is something that will provide me with an outlet to produce presentations, understandings, and techniques to seriously better their own lives – while at the same time I will learn more about maximizing my own potential and living my life to the fullest on my terms.

The rest has to do with the factors that are required in the attainment of my other two branches off my highest purpose – anything that will help me experience more awesome mutual relationships / friendships / etc…, or anything that will aide in my continued, fulfilling innovation in the field of self development. This includes health, organization, and getting things done in general (which entails delegating tasks, 

You might have many more categories than I do, or you might have the same amount as I. I Would recommend that you group them in a manageable way. If you have kayaking, mountain climbing, water skiing, and snowboarding as 4 separate “core pursuits,” you might think about classifying  then together with “Health,” “Athletics,” or “Adventure.” Keep in mind that even these categories might fit well into other broader categories. 

 

3) Channels of Your Pursuits

Determine individual branches from your core pursuit that are central to you ideally maximizing them in terms of your highest purpose. 

A little wordy, huh? What I’m trying to get across is that each of these broach pursuits will have numerous branches to it, numerous sub-pursuits that are aligned with your highest purpose. If one of you’re core pursuits is Spiritual Development, then maybe your branches involve meditation, living the virtues of your faith, and studying spirituality.

For me, I can say that in terms of “Health / Logistics“, for example, I have three categories: “Health + Function” (includes all details on keeping myself physically and mentally sharp in order to live longer and experience more in terms of enjoyment and be able to contribute more), “Getting Things Done” (this isn’t a reference to the book GTD, it involves the broad category of moving projects and pursuits along with planned, organized grace so that I am able to do as much as I can in an optimally efficient way).

 

4) Ideals to Work Towards

Identify what ideal or set of ideals it is you want to be striving towards with your core pursuits – ensure that this relates to your highest purpose.

This is the base of the org chart diagram. If you look at my example org chart, you’ll see 3 large boxes on the bottom of the image correlating this the 3 core pursuits. I didn’t include text because it would be messy, but you get the point.

These boxes serve to be references to the ideals towards which your projects and pursuits aim. For instance, below the sub-pursuits of my “Logistics / Health” (in my actual diagram) I have a few bullet points that read:

• Increased efficiency and ability to delegate tasks and finish projects
• Spending as little time as possible on tasks that are not ideally enriching on my own terms
• Working towards holistic physical wellness

This is what the “Logistics / Health” category is about. I want to basically be as swift as possible in the processed and tasks that I will be heavily involved in, while looking to more and more channel my life towards the fulfilling experiences and activities that I most want to be enveloped in.

 

Adding Projects

Determine individual projects for your core pursuits, each of which will involve plans and next actions.

Here I’m going to cover the topic of “projects” in brief. If you really want to get into this, check out David Allen’s book “Getting Things Done.” Here goes:

It should be noted that “projects” are not on my sample diagram near the top of this post. I have a “project list” in a text file that I use for this purpose, the org chart itself is just a reference for me to keep myself reminded of and aligned with my purpose.

Once you’ve determined your highest purpose, as well as the branches that will be your pathway to that purpose, determine individual projects (long and short term) that will serve to maximize your efforts in those pursuits towards your purpose.

For instance, in my branch for “Innovation in Self Development,” I have individual projects for establishing a club for Self Development at my university, and a project for developing a presentation on productivity that I plan on giving to students at my school, and many more. Each of these projects relates directly to my ideals and purpose.

 

What its About

I find that if catch more people in the midst of most of their daily actions, you can ask them “Why are you doing this?” and they will not be able to provide any sort of informed response. In my opinion, being purpose-confused is no way to live our lives.

Like I’ve said before, this entire model – for me, anyways – is about being able to reference a system to make my decisions clean and in line with what I’m all about.

Again:

• What do you value?
• What do you live for?
• What do you yearn to develop, create, experience?
• …What are you doing right now?

Those 4 questions might be the most simple breakdown of what this whole idea of modeling is about for me in the first place. Once the purpose, pursuits, and projects are aligned they tend to promote compelling, meaningful action.

This look at self understanding, combined with plan / action / purpose understanding is described in more detail in my article “Principle of Universal Motivation.”

 

Extra tips for doing it yourself:

Q: How many core pursuits and sub-pursuits should I include here?

A: Whatever is manageable and functional for you. You might end up with only 2 core pursuits that you channel your life towards in order to achieve your highest purpose. You might also have 12 sub-pursuits under one core pursuit. Mine might have some categories that are vague, but thats because I like this model to be clean and workable.

Q: What if I want to use categories other than the 4 categories that you included here?

A: By all means, go for it. Highest Purpose, Core Pursuits, Sub-Pursuits, and Ideals are just what I found most useful – it wasn’t sent to me from the heavens on a stone slab. If you want to include your biggest projects into this mix – do it! If you’d rather look at contexts of your life (IE: home, work, etc…) and not pursuits – do it! Do whatever seems to work best in terms of organizing our purpose in a graphic form – or whatever serves as the best reference to keep you on point with your greatest goals and ideals.

 

In order to actually get the most out of this as a model, you will ideally analyze each segment by cross-referencing your ideals and your life. Are your day to day activities aligned with your highest purpose? 

How can you channel yourself more fully into the core pursuits that will enable you to live your purpose? How can you turn your subjective desire for something into a real, finish-able project?

You will likely find times when you would like to edit your model. Projects will always be changing and should be updated weekly at least – but even your highest purpose and core pursuits may need revision over time, and it will be your genuine creativity that will mold them into something you can follow.

Have fun.

 

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To be honest, I didn’t even think about how long this post would take or how long it would be. I didn’t even plan on having the kind of alliteration (P-oignant P-oint for P-roductivity) that showed up in the title. I had an idea, a general principal, and I want to just put it up:

 

In any context, achieve your pre-set, present objectives before going onto anything else. 

 

Thats the idea plain and simple. What does it mean in laymen’s terms? It means that if you have anything that you know is “on your list,” and is “highest priority,” then conquer that first. 

Another awesome way to put this is: Accomplish your “musts” like they are “musts.”

If something must get done while you’re at work that day, or before you leave for the gym, or while you’re online – then do those things absolutely first.

So, lets say you go to work with a little list of “musts.” Lets say that this includes:

• Talking to your boss about a new marketing strategy
• Send off 20 important emails to clients
• Set a concrete time for a meeting with the department, and
• Recycle your trash bin. 

These are the blatantly obvious things that you made a note to get done, your priority tasks that you’ll surely knock off for the day. Maybe you want to get it off your mind. Maybe they’re so easy and in your face you feel that its best to get them done now. Either way, they made to the top of your priority list.

..How would you FEEL if you got all of those tasks completed as soon as possible? 

• You see your boss – BAM you talk to him (assuming the timing is fine)
• You sit down on your computer – BAM you smoke those 20 emails
• You see your trash bin – BAM to recycle its contents
• You see the other heads of the department – BAM you find a time that works for all of them to meet

What would that FEEL like?

I’ll bet that if you honestly went through with that kind of rare diligence, you’d feel full of energy, confident, efficacious, productive, and even flat-out happy.

 

Give this exercise a test on your own terms – find a context to work with, and cover all the “musts” first – instead of doing what most of us (including myself) do, which is rationalize that we’ll get it done in a bit, and then end up rushing.

Maybe begin with an easy context, something like your morning routine. 

You might have as a “must” to brush your teeth, find a good outfit, eat breakfast, check your email, and do 10 minutes of yoga.

Instead of dilly-dallying at the breakfast table, or surfing the web – get all of your “musts” done swiftly and see that you don’t have to rush! 

The principal is beautiful, and it applies to any context that involves priorities (I can’t think of one that doesn’t). It has just as much to do with writing papers and working on creative projects as it does with meditation or spending time catching up with friends – its LIFE management by PRIORITIES, and this little tip is one tool towards that higher ideal.

 

 

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