personal development

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Who are You?

Last week, we discussed several methods to construct intelligent environments that automatically encourage good actions and discourage bad actions. 

Building the ideal environment becomes much easier if you really get to know yourself. What inspires you to do good things? What stresses you out and drives you to do bad things?

This kind of self knowledge can help you intelligently shape your little world to suit your natural strengths and nullify your natural weaknesses. 

We all have some idea of who we are, but there is this very cool website that can make this picture much clearer:

Monday 10-minute action Take the 16 Personalities test

 

You can find the test here. It’s free and surprisingly accurate. 

After you go though the test, you’ll get a few free pages describing your personality type’s general strengths and weaknesses and its default behaviors in areas such as the workplace, friendships and romantic relationships. These pages are very insightful indeed. 

If nothing else, this exercise will raise your awareness of why you do what you do.

Tomorrow, we’ll take this journey of self-discovery up a notch. See you then!

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Worry and Excitement

Welcome to the final post of intelligent environment design week! Over the past four days (1, 2, 3, 4), we looked at ways to automatically reduce levels of Craving, Ego, Sloth and Frustration, while boosting levels of Inspiration, Altruism, Flow and Tolerance. 

Today, we’ll finish up by tuning Worry and Excitement to just the right levels.

Worry

If you want to Worry less, start by exposing yourself to less worrying information about things you have no control over. Remove all those worrying digital feeds from your different devices and, if possible, tone down worrying relationships. 

Worry about things that are actually within your control can be very valuable. But only if you use this Worry to drive you to take positive, proactive action.

Do some strategic thinking to determine the action(s) that will diminish your Worry the most. Then be sure to write it down on your to-do list so that it will get done ASAP. 

Also keep in mind that Worry can be a sign that you’re stretching yourself too thin. In this case, the right response is not to do more, but rather to refrain from making too many promises that put you under pressure. 

Excitement

Do you have some stuff going on in your life that gives you a feeling of excitement about the future? Can you see your life five years from now being much better than it is today?

If so, you’re all set. But if not, you really need to do some soul searching. Human beings must grow to be happy. As the old saying goes, if you’re not growing, your’re dying. 

I think everyone should have a long-term master plan for their life – something that, if it works out, will make life totally awesome. Sure, this plan will be flawed in many ways and will change many times over the years, but that’s not the point. 

The point is that an attractive vision of the future creates the Excitement required to keep moving forward. Make sure you have such a vision and Excitement will give you plenty of energy to live life to the fullest 🙂

So, that was that for our week of intelligent environment design.

Remember this principle of adding and removing friction. If you find yourself indulging in a bad habit, ask yourself how you can make this bad action harder for yourself. If you want to do more of something good, do everything in your power to make it as easy and pleasant as possible. 

Have a great weekend!

Schalk
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Frustration and Tolerance

Three down (1, 2, 3), two to go. Today, our mission is to design our environment in such a way that unnecessary Frustration automatically gives way to healthy Tolerance. 

Let’s get going…

Frustration

A good place to start is to limit your exposure to sources of Frustration you can do nothing about. A simple example might be to simply stop watching the news. Try it. I promise the world will keep turning if you’re no longer aware of every bit of bad news flying around. 

Something more challenging, but often even more important, is to extricate yourself from frustrating relationships. Some difficult relationships are worth fighting for, but others are best ended. Trust yourself to know the difference.  

When you start making good progress in life, you’ll start experiencing the Frustration of having too many interesting ideas and too little time. In this case, it’s crucial to write your ideas down in a structured manner. This helps you mind relax, knowing that you’ll eventually get to this idea.  

Tolerance

Inviting Tolerance into your life is not so much about making physical changes. Rather, it’s about a clear and conscious mental shift. 

Start by recalling that the whole idea behind Tolerance is to stop wasting your mental resources on Frustration you can do nothing about. 

Tolerance does not mean you should become a doormat. If your Frustration points out a problem you can address with positive action, run with it. But for everything else, there’s Tolerance. 

This understanding is key to making healthy Tolerance part of your identity. Whenever you are faced with a complex and frustrating problem, decide beforehand which parts you can act on and which parts you need to tolerate. 

There are only two good options to any frustrating situation: positive action or Tolerance. From this day forth, pent-up Frustration is off limits 🙂 

Our world would surely be a happier and more productive place if we stopped wasting our precious mental energy on Frustrations beyond our control. Tolerance can help us all to redeploy our mental resources to more valuable ends. 

See you tomorrow for our final pairing: Worry and Excitement. 

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Sloth and Flow

Welcome to post number 100 on Supermorning 🙂

By now you know the drill with intelligent environment design: maximize friction related to bad actions and remove all friction from good actions. 

Over the past two days, we’ve covered Craving and Inspiration and Ego and Altruism. Our next targets are Sloth and Flow.

Sloth

There are several ways to tame your Sloth. The most common way is to make a public commitment to get something big done by a certain deadline, In this way, you get Ego and Worry to team up against Sloth, forcing it to give way. 

If the experience of meeting the deadline is very unpleasant, however, Sloth will become stronger. A great overgrown Sloth is best avoided, so this tactic should be used carefully. Don’t make promises you can’t keep and avoid making new promises before you’ve delivered on existing ones. 

A safer method is to rid your environment of any bait for your Sloth. For example, digital distractions can be very effectively blocked during working hours with apps like RescueTime. On your phone, turn off notifications from distracting apps and move them away from your home screen.

But the best way to keep your Sloth under control is to build a positive relationship with your work. Such a relationship is excellent bait for Flow. 

Flow

Reaching a point where your work is the reward in and of itself is one of the best things you can do in life. I think anyone should have a plan for making this happen. 

What productive labor would you be willing to do for free? What skills, contacts and other resources do you need? Could you gather all the necessary ingredients over a period of five years?

Yes, reaching a point where Flow becomes your default productive state will probably take years of careful planning and patient strategic execution. But this mission by itself can already start to bring Flow into your life.

Get started on such a mission. It’s so worth it!

Aside from this holy mission to find your purpose in life, you’ll do well to make your working environment as comfortable and efficient as possible.

Really do everything in your power to enhance the experience of adding value. For example, I’m writing this from a comfortable chair under a warm blanket in front of my TV (which serves as a big computer screen). It’s a genuinely pleasant experience 🙂

I really hope these environmental design tips can help you to shrink your Sloth and find you Flow. Effortless productivity truly is the gift that keeps on giving!

See you tomorrow when we tackle Frustration and Tolerance! 

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Ego and Altruism

So, let’s continue our mission to build intelligent environments where good things happen automatically. 

As discussed yesterday, it’s all about adding friction to bad actions and removing friction from good actions. 

Yesterday’s post covered Craving and Inspiration. Next up: Ego and Altruism. 

Ego

Adding friction to Ego is not quite as simple as it is for Craving, but it certainly can be done. 

The most destructive effect of Ego in today’s world is our fear of failure – the fear of looking foolish in front of others. 

Hence, we need to add friction to the act of avoiding failure. A good way to do this is to make a formal commitment to repeatedly show up in a challenging environment. 

This could be some practical course or program. It could also be any kind of productive collaboration where you are clearly the weakest link. 

Possibly the best solution is to get yourself a good mentor who continuously drives you through the cycle of learn-try-fail-adjust-succeed. This cycle is key to success in today’s world, but far too many people avoid it for a fear of failure. 

Finding a good mentor can be difficult, but it sure is worth the effort. Do it well and you’ll walk away with a downsized Ego and some valuable new skills. 

Altruism

The best way I know to automatically open your mind to Altruism is to commit to a project where the health and happiness of other people is the main objective. 

This could be some kind of charity or any kind of free work on important societal or environmental problems. Just don’t let Ego spoil this plan by getting you to act charitably just so you can look good. 

As you become older and smarter, becoming a mentor is another great way to train Altruism. Sharing knowledge and expertise to genuinely help others to make the world a better place is a very special feeling. 

So, that was it for Ego and Altruism. Tomorrow, we’ll turn our sights towards Sloth and Flow. 

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Craving and Inspiration

This week we’ll delve into the interesting topic of intelligent environment design: the practice of making good actions easy and bad actions hard. 

In general, the Big Five primitive emotions drive us to take bad actions, while the Great Five positive emotions drive us to take good actions. 

Thus, we’ll construct intelligent environments for each pairing of the Big Five and the Great Five, starting with Craving and Inspiration. 

Craving

Craving comes in many different shapes and sizes, but its most challenging form is the one responsible for the global obesity epidemic. 

The core action we want to prevent is the act of stuffing our faces with hyper-palatable nutrient-free foods. So, let’s start with a simple question: how can I maximize the friction involved in this self-destructive action?

The simplest solution is to never allow these foods into your home. Thus, if Craving hits, you’ll have to go all the way to the store just for one little calorie bomb. This puts Craving up against Sloth in a fight it will often lose. 

Another fight that Craving will often lose is one against Ego. Try making a deal with your accountability buddy that you can only buy something unhealthy after you have let them know why you need to do this. The “justification” for spending money on self-destruct foods is often so stupid and embarrassing that Ego sends Craving packing then and there.  

A similar philosophy can be followed to add friction to other varieties of Craving. For example, it’s best to avoid signing up to dedicated binge-watching platforms like Netflix. 

But I think you get the idea. The next time you get a self-destructive Craving, think of ways to maximize friction and take action right away. 

Inspiration

Minimizing negative actions is all about adding friction. So, naturally, maximizing positive actions is all about removing friction.  

As we discussed earlier, getting more inspiration in your life requires a healthy blend of knowledge and passion. Thus, your mission here is to remove any friction involved in gaining knowledge and doing things you’re passionate about. 

Making some kind of commitment to knowledge is a good place to start. Maybe you can sign up for a course or, if you’ve cemented your morning reading habit, invest in a couple of books. 

Getting yourself to actually practice your passion can be trickier, but the same principles apply. For example, I was losing touch with my music until I decided to move my piano and guitar into my living room. Following this friction-reducing move, I’ve played every day for the past 5 months! 

So, how can you tweak your environment to lure more Inspiration into your life? Systematically remove all friction from learning and practice and I guarantee you Inspiration will come 🙂

That’s it for today. Join me again tomorrow when we put Ego and Altruism through their paces. 

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Recap: Emotional Balance

Humans will never be robots. It can be a blessing or a curse, but we’re stuck with a complex system of instinctive emotional responses that drives us to act in certain ways, often against our conscious wishes. 

The bad news is that many of these instincts and emotions are totally outdated in today’s world, causing great heartache and misery. But the good news is that, with the right awareness and technique, we can restore balance to the system. 

The past month covered this idea in quite some detail. In fact, it could really be useful to quickly revisit the recap posts from the three previous weeks on primitive emotions, the emotion safari, and positive emotions. 

The checklist

If you do that, this week’s checklist will have the best chance to restore emotional balance in your life:

  1. Recognize the value of the Big Five primitive emotions.
    • Craving, Ego, Sloth, Frustration and Worry all have good intentions.
    • But it’s up to us to keep them under control in our modern world. 
  2. Be aware that we can have too much positive emotion.
    • This issue will only become relevant when you have trimmed the Big Five herds.
  3. Develop the habit of taking emotion safaris as a ranger.
    • Accept responsibility for early identification of imbalances in you mental ecosystem.  
    • Take strong proactive action to restore balance like a good wildlife ranger.

Next week, we’ll be designing environments that automatically weaken the Big Five and strengthen the Great Five. This will give you another effective tool to maintain balance in your mental ecosystem. 

But before that, I’ll see you tomorrow for another edition of Getting 1% Better. 

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The Emotion Ranger

This week is all about achieving balance in our mental ecosystem. We don’t want to eliminate the Big Five primitive emotions. Neither do we want to be overrun by the Great Five positive emotions. 

Balance is everything. Just enough of the Big Five to keep us safe. And just enough of the Great Five to keep us happy and productive. 

In this sense, each of us is a wildlife ranger responsible for ensuring balance in our own mental ecosystem. Whenever the system gets out of balance, we must identify the problem quickly and act to restore balance. 

Thus, we get to this week’s…

Special Wednesday 5-minute action Take an emotion safari from the perspective of a ranger

 

Previous safaris were always taken from the perspective of a passive observer: First just looking for the Big Five, and later also trying to spot the Great Five.

We were just training awareness of these interesting creatures inhabiting our minds. But now, after we got to know them pretty well, we’re ready to take on more responsibility.

Spotting imbalances early on is very important because it’s much easier to correct a small imbalance than a big one. This emotion safari habit can therefore become a very effective early warning system.  

Most people will find that their mental ecosystem has too many of the Big Five and too few of the Great Five. Thus, next week will be dedicated to building environments that automatically repel the Big Five and attract the Great Five.   

In preparation, please take a couple of safaris from the perspective of the emotion ranger. Assess the balance in your mental ecosystem and identify your most important imbalances.

See you tomorrow for the wrap-up of this week’s topic. 

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Too Much of a Good Thing?

Today’s post asks an interesting question: Can we have too much good emotion? 

Yesterday, we discussed how the Big Five primitive emotions causing so much pain in today’s world are actually useful in smaller doses.

Does something similar apply to the Great Five positive emotions? Let’s take a look…

Inspiration

When Inspiration is taken too far, it turns into something called Obsession. This is a tricky situation because Obsession can lead to extraordinary results, but it can also do serious harm to health and family life. 

Not many people manage to really cultivate a creative obsession, so it’s probably not necessary to get all philosophical about it. But if you ever find yourself in this position, just be aware that excessive inspiration can be dangerous. 

Altruism

It can certainly be problematic to become so selfless that we forget to look after ourselves. In fact, we can only reach the position of strength needed to really help others if we help ourselves first.

Altruism therefore also requires a healthy balance. Enough to get that healthy motivation to really contribute to the lives of those around you (or even society as a whole), but not so much that you neglect yourself. 

Flow

This wonderful state of effortless productivity is very hard to criticize. But too much Flow can lead to an unbalanced life in terms of health and social interactions. 

Personally, I tend to operate quite close to that edge, so I had to put in some conscious planning to ensure that my life does not go too far out of balance. This awareness is all that’s needed to guard against too much Flow.   

Tolerance

As discussed yesterday, life will be no good if you allow yourself to become a doormat. It’s therefore not good to tolerate bad things you can actually do something about. 

However, Tolerance of things outside of your control and Tolerance of the time and effort required to solve important problems in today’s complex world are all good. 

Excitement

Excitement is the positive emotion we should be most careful of. An excessive positive bias can lead us to take risks that end up exploding spectacularly in our faces. And when this happens, we can easily swing the other way and become excessively pessimistic.

As always, a balance is key: enough Excitement to generate the motivation to move forward, but enough Worry to remain sensible. 

So ultimately, I do think that one can have too much good emotion. But this is not a very common problem today. 

Even so, this post illustrates the importance of balance in our mental wildlife reserve. We don’t want the Big Five to overrun our ecosystem, but we don’t want the Great Five to take over completely either. 

We need balance – something we’ll talk about more tomorrow. See you then! 

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Recap: Positive Emotions

Over the past couple of weeks, you’ve heard a lot about the Big Five primitive emotions responsible for so much pain and suffering in today’s world. The Big Five include Craving, Ego, Sloth, Frustration, and Worry.  

This week, we introduced some positive emotions that can help bring balance to the system. I like to call these guys the Great Five: Inspiration, Altruism, Flow, Tolerance, and Excitement. 

This post summarizes some useful techniques for inviting the Great Five into your life. 

The checklist

Here are three simple steps to experiencing more positive emotions:

  1. Get to know the Great Five by heart.
    • It’s also very valuable to learn the Big Five equivalent to each member of the Great Five.
  2. Open up your awareness to the Great Five in your emotion safaris.
    • Every time you encounter a member of the Big Five, just bring your awareness to it’s Great Five equivalent. 
    • No need to overthink – just become mindful and observe what happens.
  3. Gradually introduce more members of the Great Five into your life.
    • Create some strategies for increasing Inspiration, Flow and Excitement.
    • Commit to lots of practice and repetition for Altruism and Tolerance.  

The Great Five positive emotions are natural predators to the Big Five primitive emotions. If you manage to introduce more of them in your mental wildlife reserve, you’ll create a more balanced and harmonious ecosystem. 

Such emotional balance is crucial for effective living in the modern world. Next week, we’ll delve deeper into this interesting topic of balance. 

But before that, I’ll see you tomorrow for another bit of Amateur Creativity 🙂

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