Tag: resistance

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Cursing As A Mantra – Getting Through The Lizard Brain and Resistance

I spent 3 hours cursing  and hitting the send button

I didn’t want to do it but I had to. It was January 3rd, and I felt scared. I came up with this proposal to email everyone I talked to over the last year a personal end of the year email. After doing it with the people I correspond with often, I got to the people who I emailed only once or twice.  So, I had to do something to get through it, so I just started cursing.

I think this is an opportune time to talk about resistance and the lizard brain, and why I turned cursing into a mantra to get stuff done.

Resistance and lizard brain, 2 of a kind

  • The “Resistance” – The “resistance“, developed by  Steven Pressfield, is a highway from fear to a state of avoiding work. The “resistance” is the mental gymnastics that we do to avoid hard emotional work.  It takes many forms, but excuses are its forte.  The most dangerous part of the resistance is its initial subtlety. We slip into it at a moments notice, and soon find that we ran through whatever time we had.

It’s late in the day, we are sitting at our desks, paralyzed with fear. It is nearing 3:30 — and you are currently fighting a war with yourself on moving forward with your work — the big picture stuff, the year-end goal, the thing that makes your eyes light up when you are in that state of flow.

A ping comes from your left and an email arrives – it becomes your salvation, because now you have “something to do” — and something that looks very busy, so the people around you know you are working.

While this is happening, you still can’t get rid of that sinking feeling you have, but, if only for a moment, it gets covered in the malaise of busy work.

Resistance has won — for another day.

  • The “Lizard Brain” – Popularized to me by Seth Godin, this is the concept of fight or flight.  We run to it the minute there is discomfort, because it instantly shifts the situation into something we know. Sometimes, there is nothing more comforting then blowing something up or ghosting. The most dangerous part of the lizard brain is its absolutism. We remove context and just jump into “action.”

Unfortunately, due to evolution, it is the strongest part of the brain. It makes sense – for most of our history, fight or flight meant everything.

If you are sitting in a meeting and you feel that uncomfortable “bleh” feeling,  Twitter is just one click away. (FYI: People with the business iPhone or Blackberry – email is the same escape)…Scariest part, it doesn’t get to make any decision of nuance, it has comfortable or this is it.

Why is this important to you writing emails?

Both act as alarms when I push through my anxiety. The emails that I wrote were end of the year emails, and what made me so anxious is that I had to fight through this idea that no one wanted to hear from me.  That factored in the resistance because we live in a world where distraction is simple. On my home PC there are computer games and on my phone there is Twitter and Facebook (my track record on getting lost with Facebook Video is embarrassing). The Lizard Brain worked its way in before i hit the send button, giving me the feeling to run away, and to push through I just started cursing.

It was my version of a mantra. “Send the ***** email.” It blocked it off long enough to get through to the world.

Sometimes you do what you have to do, no one said persistence is pretty. 

This post is a part of a series of posts based on my thoughts on “persistence.” This theme runs through March 2016 to merge my thinking. If you have any ideas or comments, please reach out to me on twitter @TheHonorableAT. 

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I Haven’t Worn A Coat All Winter – And I’m Learning

We aren’t due comfort

I haven’t worn a coat this winter. In fact, I have tried to wear short sleeve shirts when I can. The most I’ve done is a hoodie. No, I am not becoming a shut in staying inside. I am using this idea of removing my comfort to improve my resilience.

The only thing I hate about this is that I haven’t tried it earlier!

The Idea

I stole this idea after listening to Tim Ferriss podcast with Wim Hof.

Here is the discription of the episode:

Wim Hof () is a Dutch world record holder, adventurer and daredevil, commonly nicknamed “The Iceman” for his ability to withstand extreme cold. He is the creator of the Wim Hof Method and holds more than 20 world records. Wim is an outlier of outliers, as he routinely asks scientists to scrutinize and validate his feats. Here are just a few examples:

  • In 2007, he climbed past the “death zone” altitude on Mount Everest (~7,500 meters) wearing nothing but shorts.

  • In 2009, Hof completed a full marathon above the polar circle in Finland, in temperatures close to −20 °C (−4 °F). Dressed in nothing but shorts, Hof finished in 5 hours and 25 minutes.

  • Hof holds the current Guinness World Record for the longest ice bath, now set at 1 hour 53 minutes and 12 seconds.

It got me thinking. Why do we wear jackets?

I’ve never tested cold before. Since I was young, I learned to put on a coat – “before I catch cold”.  After a certain day, I just threw on a coat, because it was “winter” and didn’t think about it.

I know the people around me meant well, but as I got older, I learned that you don’t catch colds from cold weather – you catch them from disease.

I let that sit in the back of my head for years, until this podcast episode came around. I have thought a lot lately about the ability to test yourself as much as possible when the conditions are favorable, just to see what is the worst that can happen (blame stoicism :-] ).

I have done this for a few weeks now.

 

About 6 Weeks In

I notice my resistance to cold is building up. Going outside used to make me shiver, and now, I am able to walk out fine. What was unbearable a year ago at 37 degrees wasn’t so bad in a tee-shirt. Make no mistake – I am cold (it is winter!) , but I have noticed there hasn’t been too much difference in how cold I am with a coat and how cold I am with no coat.

The only time I really thought about it was earlier this week, when the temperature hit 15 with a below 0 wind chill (too much too soon). Its been interesting, and I still haven’t bought a coat.

 

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Don’t Get Lost – My Morning Of Imaginary Arguments

[bctt tweet=”Anything can get your attention and leave you arguing with yourself (sigh) like a crazy person. “]

Don’t get lost.

I spent 10 minutes this morning building an argument against no one…all about this picture.

The caption on the picture “cop was beating an unarmed black man.”

I spent 10 minutes of head space attacking this picture from different angles. I counted pieces, I looked at positions, and I thought about the awful taste of the caption.

After typing this out, I feel embarrassed.

This picture got my attention while I was on Facebook(strike one) with nothing planned(strike two) and I was nervous about some new work I wanted to get done (strike three).

 

And that was my lesson. I primed myself for distraction. Those three strikes above are good enough for my resistance to win. I had no chance.

As much as I have learned this year, there is a lesson that keeps popping back up, again and again. Without guidance, distractions have a wide berth. Anything can get your attention and leave you arguing with yourself (sigh) like a crazy person.

Having something to do isn’t enough. When I crafted this wonderful argument, I had dishes from breakfast to wash, a bed to make up, and this very post to write. Plenty of things to do, all of them would push my day forward.

I didn’t have focus. I had a map, with no gas in the car.  I was trying to manage and act at the same time, and I just ended up with nothing in front of me. Luckily, I took a second, recognized how stuck I became, and pushed forward again.

Don’t beat yourself up over getting lost. It happens, but just remember that there are several components to living a more disciplined life. When it happens, take a step back, breathe and look. There is still time before you call someone just to argue. ( I’ve been there before :-[ )

 

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The Siren Song of Procrastination

Procrastination is alluring. Just the idea of procrastination is relaxing. There is nothing more pacifying than setting the task into the future.For me, it is a siren song into tomorrows work, keeping me still while I continue being comfortable. For example,I catch the procrastination bug often while sitting and playing a video game. It gives me the opportunity to tell myself that I will take care of a task later. Later can mean many things, although, whether it means next week, tomorrow, or even after this next auto save isn’t of much consequence. The important part is I do not have to do the task now, and I can relax. It is an easy battle to lose.

What makes that battle with procrastination interesting is that it takes different forms. Usually, it is pure procrastination, when the brain decides there isn’t any tricks to play. It just sinks into the procrastination and you get to go on your merry way. Sometimes, however, the brain can get extra tricky. It can purpose tools meant to help us stay on track, such as to-do lists, to aid in the procrastination. I have had a list of to-do items that have made no movement. It is a way for us to confuse action with progress. Marking something as on the to-do list and moving forward is an easy trap to fall for. I can find myself deep in this sometimes,looking at my  past ‘any.do’ experiment is a testament to that. The app is a graveyard, filled with tasks that could have been.

The biggest issue with procrastination is that it relies on a future self. The future self is the trap. It is a trickster meant to keep us comfortable. Procrastination isn’t a passive feeling, it takes constant awareness. It takes an active mind. There are opportunities to make the most of what we have, but it takes us getting through the comfortable and to deal with the now, instead of tomorrow.

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My Salve For Publishing

“Who wants to hear from me anyway?”

That question ferociously pounds the back of my head the minute I start to create any type of output. I hear it whispered in the back of the ear when I start typing.I don’t want to bother. I have something to say but I get worried when I hit the save and publish button. The tides are turning, whoever is reading this is one post away from hating my guts… I just know it.

To salve this, I remember that while people matter, ultimately being quiet, fitting in, not having a voice leaves me in a worse place. When I don’t express myself and I question the world, I quickly realize that I haven’t done anything to change it. I spent a lot of my life being out of the game, judging from the stands. I recently realized that it isn’t a place to grow, and for a high value person, the motto is grow or die.

“You are doing too much – they are going to block you!”

This charming sentence takes a spot in my mind when I send the work that I make out to people, especially if it is direct. If I have ever sent you an email, I heard this before I sent it to you. As ridiculous as it sounds when I read that sentence out loud, it sounds that much more convincing when it rattles inside the echo chambers in my head.

To salve this I remember that email as a one way communication. I can choose email as a two-way if I like, and if I do that, I have to make sure that what I send is an absolute value add to the person I send it to. The best way for me to feel better about email is to get away from the transactional approach I learned with, and to a simpler place where I am getting generous.

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99U & Executing

This week, I attended the 99U Conference in New York City. It is an amazing festival, where some of the sharpest creative minds in tech and design meet and discuss executing their inspiration. It features themed talks, workshops, exhibitions along with many other helpful tools to help push the attendee to start making, and to start making with purpose.

The entire event was engaging, and getting to meet people from all over the world( 3 different continents ) , doing all types of things, is very energizing. I didn’t get much sleep through the entire thing, connecting with people of that caliber was a shock to the system and I couldn’t get enough. Executing small ideas during the two and a half days came off easy.

All well and good, except now I find myself back in my same apartment, around the same habits, and the same people in my normal life. The magic source has gone, and one thing I painfully learned last year is that the magic will follow right along with it if you don’t make changes to support it.

How do I continue the momentum? I have come up with 3 ideas.

  • Emailing everyone I met from the conference – If we met there and you are reading this, expect to hear from me often. I want to help push you towards your goals and I want you to force me to answer some uncomfortable answers about mine.
  • Being More Transparent – This blog will catalog more of my work, and who I am. I have tried to compartmentalized a ton in my life, but I am seeing the flaws in that. So, if you see me slipping, feel free to just tweet me WHAT ARE YOU DOING,ADAM! First, that will freak me out :-)…but then it will get me to the right state of mind – uncomfortable and ready to execute.
  • Accountability Partners – I found 2 during the conference. I now have I have 3 total. It will be an interesting experiment seeing how those three sessions go each week. Watching other people do what they need to do will get me going.

I would like to build on everything I got from that conference. Execution is the hardest hurdle to get over. But, as I learned this week – “Execution is the start of the idea.” Now we are off to the races

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Garbage In Garbage Out (GIGO)

Garbage in garbage out is a computer science principle that states if you give garbage input to a process, no matter how well designed the process is, you will receive garbage out.We are the total of our fuel plus our desire for change.

I knew about garbage in garbage out (GIGO) but I never thought it effected my daily life. I have come to realize this affects our lives as a whole, no matter who we are, or how much prestige we have.

In fact, I thought I was above it.  We over-estimate ourselves, and I am sure of it by my behavior.  I looked at my behavior today, I have already taken care of 5 things on a random day off, things I would have avoided like the plague, and put off, simply by taking these last few weeks and slowly removing the garbage in my life. It has been a hard journey, one that I will eventually share, but through it I becomes a real believer in the GIGO principle.

One such example.

I used to love morning time crap TV.

Absolutely love it. Set my watch to it. If I were off work, then nothing set my day off right quite like an episode of Maury. For those who lived life on a higher plane – Maury – a show ran by its host, Maury Povich, was a circus of banality headlined by paternity cases and lie detectors. An hour of “gotcha” with badly shot daytime commercials showcasing horrible “for profit colleges” (and as a person who doesn’t care for the standard college, it is concerning, anyone who would engage in its outright disastrous cousin – for profit colleges)

In short, it was absolute garbage for me to enjoy . Garbage in.

Back then, I would be angrier. I had a shorter fuse. I was lazier – in fact, if I did a single other thing outside of my apartment on those days it would be a miracle. My output would crawl to a stop, with none of my goals really done (even superficial ones, like getting through a boss on a video game, seemed like a huge challenge).  Garbage out.

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Doing Something

I don’t know what to write here.

Monday morning with heavy rain going on behind me. I sat down, cracked my knuckles, and nothing is coming out. This feels odd, because generally, the idea baked and ready to go by the time I sit down. The hard part is wrapping it up and saying something coherent. Today, there isn’t even an idea.

This is usually the part I quit and start sliding into something else. I recognize it. Steven Pressfield calls it resistance. It works in mysterious ways. It teases you, tells you about yourself, knows your flaws, and knows just how to sit in the background until needed. Most of my life, I would succumb.It is easy, as easy as laying in bed for an extra hour, going to get fast food, or texting random people to get away from the fact that you have nothing.

I hate nothing. I hate confusion. I hate looking at something and knowing not what to do.

With that said, I just realized I have typed almost 200 words. Sitting in the saddle produced this. Even if it means nothing, I did something.

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Just Pull the Trigger

Just pull the trigger.

Just pull the trigger.

No one is going to care, just pull the trigger.

These are words jumping up and down in my acting class as I play the repetition game. It is my struggle, anytime I am in front of people, to trust that voice inside of me that wants honesty. I dismiss it, because it I’ve been taught to tamp it down, be polite, be prompt, and think about what you say. But that is the exact opposite of how great art exists. You can’t unring that bell, and that is what makes it powerful. Knowing that, you better make sure you rang that bell with conviction.

I often feel the same with my projects. All my projects, my day job(mainframes), my night job(comedy), my side gig(business development) and anything else. It is very easy to over think, and avoid shooting. Anything that comes up is a valid excuse not to execute.

What about last time?

What will people think?

What will happen that will ruin everything?

Everything – I think of everything before i make a leap into anything. Even something as small as repeating something that someone has said to me in a controlled classroom.

This used is a place of fear for me. The rocky ledge where we put our foot down is often scary. Especially since most of us, those of us who are choosing to traverse interesting territory, often find it unmapped. But maybe it isn’t something to fear. Maybe its something to relish. Everyone must feel it, and maybe that means I am getting to something real. Something authentic. If I have to tamp down my voice that means it is there right?

It is better to think who,when,and how internally and nail those down instead of thinking of the what and why externally. If I tie myself to those three things, pulling the trigger becomes a lot easier.

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Depression Diary

Work is stressful. I don’t feel appreciated.I have spiraled that off to being colder, harsher, and blaming others. I don’t like this feeling, because when it happens I spiral right into depression. Work doesn’t get done at all. I lose friendships and opportunities. My enemy is me.

I sit at my desk as I type this, ready to work a weekend, and the next week, while everyone else gets off. I feel no one cares. My mind wanders about and looks for excuses on how I can get out. I know that I am responsible for my feelings, but my depression wants me to hold on to the worst of things.

I want things to crash and burn – even though I know it will ultimately make things worse. I want to quit with nothing else lined up. I feel like that will show them my worth. I know it won’t, I know life will go on, but its a gripe I want people to feel.

The most odd thing about this post is when I started to write it I was angry, and I feel the depression leaving me. It’s a wonder what this blog can do. My depression won’t leave me, it is a part of me, but I have to work with it.

I wonder what the method to this madness is, I want to figure things out. That is the interesting thing with depression, it dances with you. It takes different forms. When  I call it out, and admit that it exists, it starts to work with me, it gives me the power to write,talk, and create with some depth. This post was 30 words and I started with “Freedom” as if this post was a resignation letter. As I write it, I realize this is a depression diary.

This is an interesting insight. I enjoy knowing it, playing with it, seeing it. Maybe it will lead me to better work. I want the best.  Thanks for reading.

 

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