Yesterday I talked about being “lifeless.”
It is imperative we don’t confuse that with being silent.
When we are silent, it is a proactive motion to resolve our issues.
When we are lifeless, it is reactive to protect ourselves.
Silence is good. It heals.
I think one of the largest barriers to entry to meditation is the visualization people have for it.
They think of the monk in front of the river, crossing his legs, chanting some Buddhist scripture. He is devout. His concentration is keen. Nothing effects him.
That level of discipline scares people, especially me.
But what I’ve come to learn is that isn’t the only form of meditation at all.
Mediation is a nice walk in the park, sitting in a room, or even working out. Meditation comes in a lot of forms.
All it requires is enough mindfulness to concentrate on your breathing.
Once you do that, you’ll notice thoughts.
Once you begin to notice, don’t act, just watch.
Breathe. Let Go. Watch those thoughts go away, more will come. Just Breathe. Let Go.
Read that sentence slowly, and you could accidentally start meditating.
No river, nature, or chant required.
I think everyone knows what I know. When someone talks, I assume that they have more information than me, and it can cripple me in conversation. I spend time trying to think of something else, and sometimes this means I am 7 steps down a road of conversation that no one wanted to join me on. They have moved on, and I am still stuck thinking about the last topic.
It sucks.
Especially when I know that relationships are critical, and how I communicate ultimately determines how much impact I have.
One thing I’ve realized through writing this blog, and connecting with the newsletter, is that my problems are not unique. I am betting that this affects another person who reads this. If so, I would love to share the exercises I do to fight this feeling.
As we walk into a new calendar year, I want to take the time to lay out what went well, what happened unexpectedly, and what went wrong. Each of these things have a lesson in them, especially the failures, and documenting them helps not only me, but anyone who reads them know that there are lessons in anything.
The end of December is a great time to deal with clean slate thinking (since everyone else is) and work out what didn’t go well and what did go well over the last year. It was both exhilarating and painful to write this, but so is anything else that’s good.
I spent the last few days sitting over and thinking about the goals I set in 2015, and what they mean for me. Usually when I do this, I try to pull a bunch of notebooks out and crawl over the notes, hoping to find some nugget of wisdom to move into the next year, but having this blog, and forcing myself to go through that process every month, made me sharper in dealing with whats important and knowing what to write.
So, my process got better. But what did I do that got better over the last year?
The future is interesting because it isn’t set. If you would have told me that I would spend a quarter of my year in a courthouse last December I wouldn’t believe you. Life changes, and to try to plot it out in on big chunk isn’t the way to go.
Sadly, I did that in 2014, and I fear I missed something because our limited energy, and when we focus on something, we miss out on another thing.
So, its time to experiment, and go for something newer that gives me direction, while letting my mind roam. I am going for big themes and little milestones.
By doing it this way, I am going to learn a ton and make some mistakes, but the plan is to have my 2016 process get bigger. I spent 2015 looking at what was in front of me instead of the big picture planning that introduces huge reward.
My biggest failures are failures of execution. It’s also where I find the most opportunities. This year, some places I executed well (this blog) and some places I executed badly (brand expansion). One of the things I want to focus on in 2016 is how to expand on executing not just for myself, but for the community around me.
Some of the greatest lessons come from cutting things away. I learned that in 2015. I want to expand on it in 2016. What can I remove in my life, a physical or emotional object, that will let me know that everything is OK – that life goes on. I did it with my cell phone for a month and if I handled that, I know I can handle much more.
I read over 100 books. This was great, but only a first step. I never plan on reading 100 books again. My plan going forward, is to pick a great choice of books that I read through last year, and study them fully. I did this on accident with Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World , but now I plan on doing it on purpose with several books I read this year. I will still take in a new book and read it, but I want to put my energy in the books that have the most to share, because often you don’t get everything out of it on the first read.
Communication was always scary to me. In my past,I dealt with a ton of shoot the messenger (i.e. getting in trouble for bringing bad news) so I learned how to avoid saying things. What I thought was a strength turned out as a weakness. Vulnerability is critical here, because often the reason I don’t make the first move is fear that the other person won’t like it.
Around September this year I had a frightening observation. When I looked around me, I only saw what was in front, I never looked down the road. I rarely pursued my legacy.I am not going to repeat this mistake. Now its time to take a swing at big ideas, and I will keep up time to work on just that. Clean up time is over, now its time to bat for the win.
This was a good year. I ended up fixing a lot of the problems I had. It led to huge development, not just in my self, but network and community.
I think the 5 themes for 2016 only help building those three things and in a year, I will be back here, revisiting how that worked, and how it makes me work. If you have any questions, please tweet me and lets discuss your goals and plans.
If there is one thing I am bad at, it is temper management. I often find myself in a bad mood and like most things in life, the mood tends to gain steam the more I think about it. I have gotten calmer over the last few weeks, and I’ve been asked why this happened. For me it was meditation. I think that meditation is a key competent to anger management, so I have decided to pursue it every day. Like most habits, it needs support with environment as well as consistency.
Meditation isn’t a mystical thing that is out of touch. It is a habit, and like all habits, it needs consistency. Whenever I try something, I notice I can’t stick to it if I don’t do it everyday. I find that it easy to let go. When aiming to do it everyday, you don’t need to make it complicated. As a matter of fact, I often do my best work when I keep it simple. I allow my brain to ratchet up the difficulty, because after a while, it will get bored. If you force yourself to do it everyday, the brain will have no choice but to improve, because there would be no way to quit.
To help that process along, you have to make sure you have the right environment. Put some thought into where you will meditate and then do it there consistently. I find a nice seat, in an air-conditioned room that is very sparse helps. In the kung fu movies, you see them meditating in a room that is uncomfortable. I would avoid that, because who wants to sit in a torture chamber when just starting out. If you make it comfortable, then it becomes easier to do everyday, and you will begin to look forward to it.
Meditation is hard work and doing it everyday has done wonders for my mood. Dealing with my anger felt like falling through a sink hole, and I didn’t like the aftermath. After working with meditation on a daily basis, I have seen the benefits, and recommend them to anyone reading this post.
I am a natural skeptic, especially when it comes to change. I push away anything that has to do with me changing my routine or how I think. It hurts to admit I am wrong. I lean on confirmation bias as much as possible. In short, I am human. If you are reading this, I assume you are human too. If not, this is pretty awesome and confirms my and most Americans suspicion that English is universal, and we can dump all those other language programs immediately.
I am a slave to default. I don’t want to fight that. To do something different cost cognitive energy that I do not like to give up. In fact, flipping that switch cost so much I would rather spend energy on excuses than real action. I hate that, but that is just how it goes, and there is no changing that. I hate that I have to live that way, but again, since I am human, I cannot change that. To fight that is a waste of time, and time is something I can ill afford to waste.
So, why write hose two paragraphs? Well, to point out that although I am a slave to the default, and I don’t like change, the only thing worth changing is the default.
Everything I do comes from a decision that checks the default. It is as if I have a huge log book that counts those defaults and references them with each decision I make. They are not based on an individual action either, the spread out to cover multiple fronts.
It is tough to look at this book because to reference it takes time. It requires me to take a hard look at what I am doing, and find patterns. It isn’t laid out to you in “plain English” either. It is in a language that you understand, but it takes time to decipher. It is almost as if you are reading french when you understand Spanish. You will get the gist of what it is, but it takes time to really understand it.
I think meditation can help you understand this language a bit better. I plan on take it on in earnest this week, and each week afterwards. To understand brings awareness, and awareness allows change. If you can change the defaults, then anything is possible.
Some thoughts on meditation
Hopefully I can revisit this with some answers. Even more questions would be helpful as well. Feel free to drop me a note here, on twitter or anywhere else you want to find me.
I rush things – all the time. Every day is an experiment on how I can push through something faster.
My handwriting is a mess, I never show my work, my documentation of processes leave a lot to be desired, and I end up with a lot of “eureka” moments that either infuriate or amaze people.
It doesn’t leave a lot of stability – which is good for your ego (I wasn’t trying that hard, see, it was just off the top of your head) but bad for getting things done and finishing them or anything that is solid.
Through my recent meditation, among the many things I have discovered, my restlessness pops up a lot. I always seem to be a rush somewhere, even when I have no where to go.
There are a lot of instances where I have messed up the product I want to present, simply by rushing through the draft process, the editing, or even the submission.
For example – I worked hard at a paper in college. I had an A average in the class, which was difficult because I was just starting my freelance writing career, had a full time job at Walmart, and did student security. This paper had a heavy weight , and I spent a lot of time tightening it up.
When it was time to submit – I submitted a version of the paper that was half done, because I didn’t bother to:
a) Organize my version based writing system (RED CARD!!!)
b) Check what I submitted
I ended up getting a D on the paper, and that effected my final grade. I finished with a C in the class for the semester all because I didn’t bother to take some time, slow down, and verify my work.
Rushing things can effect you and cut you off at the knees. The amount of stories that are similar to that one above are legion, but it took meditation to bring it out of me.
My solution – slow down and be more deliberate. If you have any suggestions on how to help me along in that process, feel free to share them with me in the comments.
Meditation happens to be the most difficult challenge I face in my creative life right now.
Even though I feel the effects, it still seems like a struggle to start – and like exercise, even though I feel better when I do it after, my brain soon gets amnesia to the effects.
Headspace has helped – giving me exercises to do and keeping a chart of progress – but I am curious, what could I do to push myself forward in the “want” category – meaning how can I make myself enthusiastic about meditation…or exercising, or whatever positive actions that are better for me than video games and junk food.
From the desk of Adam Thomas 