Kick-ass quote
The hardest part of learning something new is not embracing new ideas, but letting go of old ones. – Todd Rose, The End of Average
Wisdom from me
This is going to sound crazy, but maybe, just maybe, the reason you are doing certain things is because you are avoiding feeling something. I know that couldn’t possibly be the case, right? No, no way. Not you. Or could it?
Something I’m thinking about
How I thought about skills in the beginning
I’m interested in skills. Skills allow us to do things we otherwise couldn’t. Skills make us more capable, provide us with opportunities, and can greatly enrich our lives.
Great! So, go skills!
Yes, but which ones? We can’t learn all the skills. How do we know which ones to pick?
I don’t know.
But I have noticed a trend.
When I first started trying to answer questions like, “How should I be spending my time?” or “Where should I point my attention?” The answers were often something like: Do whatever will get me result x.
And then I went from there. I started with what I wanted to happen, and then I tried to figure out how to get it.
For example: When I first started going to the gym, I was intimidated. I wanted the people around me to think that I belonged. So, I thought to myself, “Alright, how can I impress them?” and the answer I came up with was, “All the big guys are moving tons of weight. So, let me try to move a ton of weight too.”
Which led to me jerking around too much weight with bad form and not really getting anywhere.
The tree analogy – treenalogy?
You could probably think about it like this: Let’s say how I’m spending my time is a tree.
Then the results of my actions would be the leaves on that tree.
By focusing on the outcome, I started with a single leave and worked my way back. Which led me to some wrong branches.
Instead, I could have thought to myself, “What actions in the gym would help me the most in three years if I did them now?”
Then I might have focused on learning the basics, being consistent, and enjoying the process.
And that’s how I’ve been approaching things for the last couple of years. That would probably be like starting with a big branch.
How I want to think about skills
However, recently I’ve been learning more and more about an even more fundamental approach: Trying to find the roots. Really trying to figure out what is at the bottom of things.
In our example, this could be asking questions like: Why am I going to the gym?
It could be that I’m just looking for a way to challenge myself. Or I might enjoy going there with buddies and trying to get healthier together.
But it also might be because I want validation from other people because then (I hope) I won’t feel so bad about myself.
If I can get to the bottom of things, I can address that issue instead of its manifestations.
Doing so kind of feels like easing up on the brakes instead of just pushing the gas harder.
Before, I was often trying to achieve things externally, hoping that that would fix things internally. And it didn’t. Now I’m starting to work on things internally. And the cool thing is that takes care of a lot of external things as well.
Concrete examples
For me, I’ve found a lot of benefit in focusing more and more on the following points:
Doing the basic things I already know I should be doing but have been neglecting because “they’re too simple.”
This would be things like: Getting up early, eating healthy food, exercising, spending time with people I care about, getting out into nature, and avoiding being on my phone or watching YouTube so much.
Dealing with pain I’ve been carrying with me for a long time.
Not trying to push it away anymore, but instead letting it come up and feeling it fully.
Seek out things that will help me shift my perspective and, in doing so, hopefully allow me to break free from patterns I’ve been stuck in for too long.
I think traveling is a great tool for this. And in general, trying new things and being open to new experiences can broaden your horizons too.
Facing some fears & getting out of my comfort zone.
Exposure therapy seems to be one of the most effective ways of overcoming anxiety and fear. I personally have found great benefit in voluntarily exposing myself to things that make me uncomfortable (little steps at a time) and plan on continuing to do so.
Challenge
If you can, try to recognize where impulses you might have are coming from:
You want to smoke? Did the urge to light up a cigarette coincidentally arise at the same moment an uncomfortable feeling came up? Yes, smoking might dull that pain for now. But it won’t fix the issue. And neither will you have gotten rid of the pain forever. You just forced future you to deal with it. Which will eventually be you.
You can basically exchange smoking with most (or possibly all) other vices in this example.
PS - I can't close them; they're important!
