J.D. Moyer

sci-fi author, beatmaker

Tag: Tony Robbins

Improve Your Human Operating System — Consciously Reorder Your Values

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On January 12

In Lifestyle Experiments, Metaprogramming, Nonfiction books

Values ... but which ones? What would Mr. Rogers do?

Values … but which ones? What would Mr. Rogers do?

Recently I read Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins. I’d been curious about the book for a long time but I’d been reluctant to buy it … somehow I didn’t want to succumb to the Robbins money-minting self-help machine. On the other hand Robbins has worked for decades to develop and share a complete life system (something I’m also interested in). However when I realized the book was both available for free download and for sale on Amazon.com for $0.01 (used), I realized I didn’t have an excuse. I picked up a used paperback for the cost of shipping.

A Message From the Nineties

Awaken the Giant Within was first published in 1991, and the book shows its age. Many of the heroes and exemplars of the book have either died tragically, fallen into disgrace, and/or committed heinous crimes (Robin Williams, OJ Simpson, Bill Cosby, Donald Trump, Ross Perot). Of course these names leap out with hindsight, but it’s enough to question Robbins’ ability to judge character. Robbins also had trouble thinking of women to either quote or use as positive examples (the book was written before the Oprah/Robbins alliance).

Values as a Decision-Making System

These criticisms aside, the exercises themselves hold up well. The book contains many useful personal development tools*, but one stood out in particular and using it has already changed my behavior and quality of consciousness for the better. The tool (described in Chapter 15) is a series of simple exercises that includes:

  1. Values inventory (listing your values — what’s important to you — in order of most important to least important).
  2. Considering if that order is working for you in terms of what you want out of life, and changing the order as a way of shaping your own decision-making system.

Everyone has values, whether or not we’ve considered them or not. We inherit values from our family (especially our parents), peers, and culture. When we make decisions we consult these values (usually subconsciously) to guide us in one direction or another. Sometimes the values we hold are in active opposition to each other. We might value both earning money and spending time with our family, but these two values can pull us in opposite directions.

In the first version of my values list my top value was creative work (fiction writing, music producing, etc.). Also very high on the list were love/friendship, vitality/health, and kindness/compassion.

The flip-side of the exercise is making a list of what Robbins calls “moving-away from values.” These are the things you actively avoid in life. My initial “moving-away from values” included poor health, depression/hopelessness, boredom/stagnation, and being cheated/taken advantage of.

Both lists included many more values, and the more I thought about it, the more values I added.

Creating these lists, and even more so ordering them, was mentally strenuous. What was more important to me, health or creativity? Where did one value end and the next one begin? What does love as a value mean exactly?

It helped to remember that it was just an exercise, and I didn’t need to make a perfect list. The process was the important part.

After I made the initial lists I reflected on the question Robbins asks on page 363: “In what order do my values need to be to achieve my ultimate destiny?”

Ultimate destiny. Hmm … not sure I have one or want one. Don’t we all have the same ultimate destiny? But I got the point — Robbins pushes the reader to go beyond “What is important to me?” and to consider “What kind of person do I need to be to have the kind of life I want to have?” It’s an important distinction.

After a few days of reflection and list-editing, I ended up with these as my top five “moving towards values”:

  1. love (friendships and family relationships)
  2. quality of consciousness
  3. creative work
  4. vitality/energy
  5. kindness/compassion/empathy

Following these top five were an additional 32 values (loosely prioritized), and the very last value in my list:

  • luxury/being rich

Yes … I admit it, I’d like to be rich and live a more luxurious life (like flying first class once in awhile, traveling without extensive budgeting and cost-optimizing). But it’s the very last value on the list (financial well-being is much higher).

“Creative work” dropped from first to third. Ultimately my relationships and my state of mind are more important. Probably, putting those values ahead of creative work will improve the work itself. For me, inspiration comes when I’m feeling good, and I don’t feel good if my relationships aren’t going well or if I’m not making meditation and other practices that improve my state of mind a priority.

Vitality/energy also dropped a bit as a value. Having experienced poor health, I know the value of taking care of oneself. But excellent health is not that closely associated with happiness and life satisfaction (jump to 2:00).

Life Changes

So what difference did listing and then consciously considering and reordering my values make?

In the weeks following the exercise, I’ve done a few things that I attribute to this exercise, including:

  • Resetting my relationships with my daughter (age 6). I felt like I was too much in the “rules enforcer” role, with not enough fun times. We’ve been enjoying each others’ company much more since the reset.
  • Raising my consulting rates, which has reduced the number of hours I need to work, allowing me to spend more time with family and friends (and also on writing and hobbies).
  • If I find myself in any kind of negative mindset, stopping whatever I’m doing and taking whatever steps I need to get in a better place. Sometimes this is an honest, non-accusatory conversation with a family member, sometimes taking a walk or lifting weights, sometimes meditation, or sometimes doing some work that I’ve been putting off.

In addition to these specific changes, I’ve noticed a sense of clarity in terms of decision-making. Should I do x? It’s easy to evaluate if the activity in question supports or detracts from my top values.

Moving Away From Values

Listing and prioritizing my “negative” values was just as useful and revealing. After the listing and reordering process, my top five anti-values are:

  1. cruelty/evil/maliciousness
  2. depression/hopelessness
  3. loneliness/isolation
  4. chronic pain or disability
  5. poor health/low vitality

Another twenty-five follow. The very last item on the “moving-away-from” list is:

  • brief discomfort/pain

In other words I don’t generally want to be uncomfortable or feel pain, but I’m not going to work hard to avoid it, especially if the benefits are great (like brief discomfort from cold water immersion, which can have positive health benefits). Another item low on the list is waste/inefficiency. I don’t like to waste or be inefficient, but it’s way more important to be a good person, to not be depressed or lonely, etc.

Working on the negative values list brings up some hard questions. Would you rather experience chronic pain or be lonely and isolated? Neither, obviously, but which one are you going to more vigorously avoid? Don’t want to be broke, humiliated, ugly, and ignored? Neither do I, but I’d rather be all those things than be a cruel, lonely, depressed person.

The result of the negative values listing and ordering was greater clarity in decision making, especially in terms of avoiding behaviors that I know from experience send me into a negative spiral.

 Is Personal Development Narcissistic and/or Another Form of Procrastination?

To some extent, yes to both questions, but that doesn’t mean selected exercises aren’t worth doing. The values listing and prioritizing is a good one.

I chose to do ALL the exercises in the book, and it took a long time. I didn’t get as much done in other life areas while I was spending hours listing and reordering my values, and engaging in the fifty or so other exercises the book recommends. The values prioritization exercise was one of the most helpful; others less so. At times I felt guilty of navel-gazing and over-self-analysis. Would I be better off using my time to be productive or have fun?

There is a definitely a point of diminishing returns in regards to self-help work of this nature. I’m glad I did the values listing/reordering exercise, but it’s not something I would feel a need to repeat more than once a decade or so.

For someone facing difficult decisions, or in the midst of a big life change, a values inventory could potentially serve as a powerful compass to guide decision-making and set a new course.

Expectations vs. Results

I expected that reading Awaken the Giant Within might motivate me to work harder and reach higher in terms of professional and financial goals. While I did end up strengthening my commitment to goals in these areas, the more significant life changes I made were in the areas of emotional processing and family relationships. Working on the values exercises in particular, I could feel my emotional intelligence increasing.

The net result is that I feel more aligned in my intentions and motivations. Now that I’ve explicitly decided which motivational substructures have priority over the others, the “wars within” have subsided.

*Other Tools and Exercises

There are some other techniques and tools in the book worth mentioning:

Neuro-associative Conditioning or NAC
Consciously associate massive pain with behaviors you don’t want to continue (like smoking or eating junk food); associating massive pleasure with behaviors you want to encourage (exercise, meditation, whatever you feel you need to be doing to improve your life).

Control of Attention and Focus, or “Manipulating Submodalities”
Changing the intensity of our emotions by manipulating aspects of our thoughts as if we were editing video or audio (brightness, contrast, color, zoom, amplitude, etc.)

Modulating/Changing Vocabulary and Metaphors used to Describe Feelings/States
For example instead of habitually saying “I’m furious” experiment with saying “I’m miffed.” The more ridiculous your language, the better (in order to break up your habitual emotional reactions).

Asking the Right Questions
Use question-asking as a tool. Don’t indulge in unhelpful questions (“Why me?” “Why do bad things always happen?”) and build a toolkit of helpful questions such as “What is helpful about this problem?”

Changing Habits — 5 Specific Proven Techniques

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On November 10

In Creative Work/Career, Metaprogramming, Writing

What would YOU do for a scrap of bacon?

What would YOU do for a scrap of bacon?

Recently I’ve become fascinated with learning and implementing techniques to replace destructive habits with helpful ones. I’m particularly interested in giving up the habit of aimless web-browsing and other forms of online procrastination in order to become a more prolific writer. I not only want to write more words, but also to increase the intensity of my attention and quality of focus so that I can create higher quality work (I believe the two go together; increased quantity leads to increased quality).

I’ve made some progress over the last two years. I’m regularly reaching my goal of 15,000 words/month on my current novel, in addition to writing 2-3 blog posts a month. I’m curious to see how those numbers will change if I’m able to effectively implement all of the techniques below. Right now, if I were to give myself a grade in regards to how effectively I use my writing time, I’d give myself a C- (barely passing). I know I can do better.

The Problem: I either delay or interrupt my own writing process by distracting myself with email, checking social media feeds, checking link sites like reddit, or reading news and opinion articles.

The Ideal Behavior Pattern: Start writing without delay around 8:45am. Take breaks as needed to stretch, pace, exercise, and think, but don’t go down the internet rabbit hole.

The techniques below can be applied to any kind of desired behavior change, including quitting smoking, eating more healthful food, drinking less alcohol (or none at all), not fighting with your children or partner, etc.

Technique 1: Align Your Emotions with Your Intent by Asking the Hard Questions, then Commit

This is an area that I was neglecting until I read Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins. I bought my copy used for $0.01 on amazon and it’s worth every penny. Just kidding — even though there are many references to events in the nineties, the psychological techniques discussed in the book are as relevant and valuable today as they were fifteen years ago. You can download the eBook for free using the link above.

The basic idea is to associate pain with not changing the behavior and pleasure with changing the behavior. What do you stand to lose if you don’t change? In regards to smoking and other health-destroying habits, the stakes are high; you could lose your good health, and/or twenty-plus years of your life.

Web-browsing might not sound as serious as smoking, alcoholism, or destructive drug-use, but when I asked the hard questions, I realized there was a lot of potential pain associated with NOT establishing good concentration and work habits. Any chance at establishing a new career from scratch (regardless of age) depends on intense focus, productivity, and the ability to resist distractions. I really would like to call myself a novelist one day, and if I don’t take full advantage of the free time, clear mind, abundance of ideas, good eyesight, and otherwise ideal circumstances that I am fortunate enough to be experiencing at this time in my life, I will regret it.

It was more fun to consider the pleasure side of the equation. Writing prolifically is a key part of fulfilling a major childhood dream of being a novelist. There’s also the immediate, daily satisfaction of completing a great writing session (I’m on top of the world for hours). When I write well I feel like I’m fulfilling my potential as a human being. Whether it’s blog posts that might inspire other people, or science-fiction that could entertain, inspire, or even add to the collective imagination of what humanity might become, writing lifts me up and expands my mental horizons.

I don’t get that feeling when I fritter away valuable hours and only manage to get a few anemic sentences down.

So those are the stakes. The last step of this technique is committing. Was I ready to commit to being a prolific writer? To raise the bar from should to must? Yes, absolutely. Carefully considering the stakes made that decision easy.

Is there a change you’re gearing up to make in your own life? A habit you’re ready to change, permanently? Do the exercise above and you’ll be ready now.

Go ahead. Bookmark this post, stop reading, and do the exercise above. What pain is associated with not changing? What pleasure is associated with changing? Do what it takes to gain the emotional resolve, then commit.

Committing isn’t the end of the process, of course …

Technique 2: Make the Good Habit Easy and the Bad Habit Difficult

This is the part where we use our natural laziness as human beings to our own advantage. Making a bad habit even slightly less convenient (or the converse, making a good habit more convenient) is hugely effective. Google demonstrated this principle by putting candy in opaque jars and healthier snacks in clear ones. Over a seven-week period Google employees consumed 3.1 million calories fewer of M&Ms.

Before I start writing, I disable the WiFi on my computer (unless I’m working on the blog — then I need the internet in order to create links within posts). At other times I’ve used site-blocking software like RescueTime and Freedom to curb my internet use. These tools work pretty well.

On the “more convenient” side I always keep a shortcut to my current manuscript right on my desktop, so I don’t have to dig around in folders to open it.

Other examples that could apply to other habits:

The “make bad habits harder” strategy works pretty well, but I’ve run into limitations. If I’m not fully committed to behavior change, I can always find a way around these “soft” restrictions. Maybe you have a friend who has halfheartedly decided to “smoke less” and therefore only bums cigarettes instead of buying them?

Other issues arise when your family or cohabitators aren’t on board. Maybe you’re ready to give up chocolate but your wife isn’t. Maybe unplugging the internet router would be great for you, but would through a wrench in your roommate’s workflow. In that case you need to support your behavior change with other techniques.

Technique 3: Understand the Cues, and Disrupt the Habitual Behavior

These days, when I catch myself going to a website or checking email or Twitter when I should be working, I make a loud siren noise with my mouth, like a fire alarm going off. Then, out loud, I describe the exact details of the offending behavior, and coach myself back to a more productive mode.

Good thing I work from home, right?

Let me explain how I arrived at the above technique …

Earlier this year I realized I had fallen into a less-than-ideal morning ritual. The experience of turning on my computer, drinking coffee, checking email, and looking at Facebook, reddit, nytimes.com, and other sites (I’m sure you have your own list) had become comfortable, easy, and habitual. This wouldn’t have been a problem if the web-browsing only lasted for five or ten minutes, but I often found it difficult to break out of this “easy web-browsing mode” into the more mentally strenuous work of writing, revising, etc. Major time wasted! I might still cram in some work before lunch, but many mornings I would end up frustrated with myself, even angry at myself for wasting so much time. Yet I felt powerless to stop it.

My first attempt at breaking up this pattern was to NOT start my day with turning on my computer. Instead, I used a pen and notebook to sketch out my ideas, plans, and thoughts about the day. This resulted in a more conscious start. It’s a good habit and I’ve easily maintained it since I wrote that post back in April.

My second attempt at breaking the pattern was to manipulate the cue of drinking coffee. I recognized that drinking coffee had become a cue for web-browsing, so I experimented with not drinking coffee until I was actually working on fiction-writing. This worked reasonably well and increased my word count, but it wasn’t the ideal strategy. Coffee drinking was a trigger, but it was also a reward, and sometimes I just delayed coffee drinking until I got a minor caffeine headache. The process started to feel too convoluted and unpleasant, so I abandoned it and went back to studying how habits are constructed from cues, behaviors, and rewards.

Charles Duhigg, in his book The Power of Habit, explains that a habit is constructed of a cue (or trigger), a behavior, and a reward. If we can develop an awareness of what sensory inputs trigger the behavior we want to change, we can modify our response to the cue.

So far I’ve noticed several cues that precede my habit of internet browsing, including:

  • turning on the computer
  • finishing a chunk of work (a scene or even a paragraph)
  • hitting a mental block … not sure how to proceed

Now, if I find myself starting to go down the internet rabbit hole, I use what Tony Robbins calls a “pattern interrupt” to disrupt the behavior (thus the siren noises and out-loud verbal self-coaching).

So far this has been very effective. But it only addresses part of the habit — the cue or trigger. What about the reward?

Technique 4: Understand and Reprogram the Reward

For lasting habit change I knew I needed to identify the reward I was getting from self-distraction, and find an alternate means of getting it.

Getting a better understanding of the triggers helped me understand the reward. I think the reward I get from self-distraction is a break in intensity, a rest for my brain.

The problem with using the infinite entertainment and distraction potential of the internet is that a five minute break can turn into a twenty or sixty minute break all too easily. Also, I don’t get the full benefits of a break, like moving around, looking at something besides a screen, doing a quick household chore, or even briefly exercising.

A household chore as a reward? Really? If you don’t understand this, you’re not a writer. 😉

Even worse, if I check email there’s a good chance my brain won’t get any rest at all, but will be pulled into a different problem. Too many times I’ve lost writing momentum because I read a client email, and my brain got sucked into how to solve that problem. It’s not fair either to my creative process or to my client to give each half my attention.

So if I feel the need for a break, I give myself a break. I might sit in a chair in my yard and soak up some sun, or do some pullups on the plum tree, or sit and meditate for a few minutes, or get a water or coffee refill. Ideally I try to keep it physical and short, then get back to work.

When I took a break from drinking, I found I was able to achieve many of the associated rewards without actually consuming any alcohol. San Pellegrino in a wine glass went a long way: something a little fancy, treating myself well, hydrating, mouth sensation, etc. Sometimes I found the craving for wine was actually a craving for sugar … adding a little juice to the carbonated water helped satisfy that need. The substitutions I used for wine, beer, and scotch help me understand that when I thought I was craving a drink, at times I was craving something else (water, sugar, being nice to myself, relaxing, time with family or friends). I probably drink about half as much now as compared to before I took the break.

Technique 5: Repeat and Reinforce Good Behavior

Eventually a good habit rewards itself. When I changed my eating and supplementation habits and eventually was able to breathe normally, the idea of going back to my old lifestyle habits held zero appeal. Nothing beats breathing.

But when you’re just starting to change a bad habit and/or establish a new one, it’s important to reward yourself immediately when you do something right.

The rewards don’t have to be big. But at least pat yourself on the back. I use out-loud verbal coaching to this effect, congratulating myself when I take a minor step in the right direction. When I reach a major milestone I usually treat myself to something … a small purchase or a nice meal.

It’s important to keep rewards simple and immediate. A complicated reward (like a trip to a foreign country) requires a great deal of work to implement. Your mind might not perceive it as positive reinforcement by the time it happens.

The most effective reward schedules are intermittent and variable. Don’t always reward yourself for good behavior, and mix it up both in terms of the kind and size of the reward. After a good writing session I’ll sometimes reward myself with dark chocolate, a walk around the neighborhood (sometimes I’ll stop by the local record store). If I finish a draft I’m going to splurge on something. My brain is going to know I did something right.

I guess there’s some possibility of creating a new bad habit by reinforcing a new good habit. You’re not going to replace smoking with candy bars, or drinking beer with drinking soda, are you?

Line ‘Em Up, Knock ‘Em Down

It’s not a bad way to approach life change. Line up the bad habits and turn them into good habits, one by one. After I kick the aimless web-browsing habit I have a few more in the queue.

What habit are you committed to changing in your own life? Step up and comment below.

How To Trigger Super-Momentum

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On October 22

In Health/Body-hacking, Life Purpose & Goals, Lifestyle Experiments, Mental Health, Metaprogramming, Problem Solving, Writing

Super-momentum: life in the productivity fast lane

Super-momentum: life in the productivity fast lane

No more than a dozen times in my life, I have experienced a state of what I call “super-momentum.” For days, sometimes weeks at a time, I operated at a extremely high level of energy, excitement, and creativity. I became so absorbed in my work that becoming distracted wasn’t an issue; I was distraction proof. I slept less and ate less, but had more energy. At times ideas came so quickly that I struggled to capture them, getting up in the middle of the night or pulling over in traffic to write them down.

There’s a clinical word that describes aspects of this psychological state: hypomania. But whereas hypomania is often associated with distractibility and thrill-seeking behavior (gambling, shopping sprees, sexual promiscuity, etc.), I associate super-momentum with extreme focus in a single work area, and the application of 100% of the excess energy to the work in question.

There are multiple advantages to having a singular focus. With project immersion, the subconscious mind is always engaged with the material (though other life areas may suffer from lack of attention and processing power). Project progress increases because there is less “loading” time; since the mind is continually engaged, you don’t have to “remember where you were” when you start working. You already know! This also reduces initial resistance/willpower expenditure for starting each work session. Instead of knowing and dreading the mentally strenuous work of reviewing your work for half an hour (or longer) to “get back in the groove,” you just pick up right where you left off the night before. You’re already in the groove — you never left.

Super-momentum is similar to Csikszentmihalyi’s flow, but I consider super-momentum to be more agitated, more based on heightened physiology (dopamine, sex hormones), and less reliably triggered. And while flow is characterized as “enjoyment in the process of the activity,” I would describe super-momentum as an ecstatic, near-frantic, inspired, completely focused work hustle.

It’s a great drug, and I’d like more of it. But it’s not something money can buy.

So, the questions:

  • Is super-momentum worth triggering? Does it actually result in value being created? Or is it just another high to be chased?
  • Is it possible to trigger super-momentum, and if so, how? What circumstances lead to this explosive burst of energy, enthusiasm, motivation, and productivity?
  • Are there negative effects of super-momentum, in terms of psychological strain, physical stress, and general wear-and-tear? Is the comedown painful? Is “project completion letdown” inevitable?

Is Super-Momentum Worth Triggering?

Absolutely yes. While not every period of super-momentum in my own life has paid off in every way, all have paid off in some way. To list just a few examples:

  • I spent weeks in a state of super-momentum writing an artificial life emulation program that took my programming skills to the next level. I still sometimes reference the source code of this application when solving similar problems.
  • For at least a full month I became complete absorbed in Minecraft, sleeping very little and thinking about the game constantly. My brain was so “activated” that I made major breakthroughs on completely unrelated problems (client work) during this period of time.
  • Momu and Grayarea collaborated during a very short window of opportunity. A sixteen-hour work session led to a week of very intense follow-up work, resulting in the track “One” which has generated thousands of dollars in royalty income.

In the long-run, these brief periods of super-momentum are mere blips when compared to productivity and results from consistent daily disciplined work. But still, these blips interest me. Not only are they fun when you’re in them, but many artists and writers I respect and admire seem to be able to consistently generate super-momentum, dramatically increasing their productivity during focused periods of being completely ON.

Is it Possible to Trigger Super-Momentum? If So, How?

Since flow is a possible subset of super-momentum, what have psychologists already determined are the prerequisites for the former?

In order to achieve flow, Csikszentmihalyi lays out the following three conditions:

  1. Goals are clear
  2. Feedback is immediate
  3. A balance between opportunity and capacity (the task is sufficiently challenging but not overwhelmingly difficult)

On most days I can enter a flow state (as characterized here) for at least a few hours. But I don’t know if I can consistently generate the heightened physiological state I associate with super-momentum. As a start, in terms of reverse-engineering, here are the factors (in addition to the above) that I associate with super-momentum:

  • a great idea
  • competition (personal, not abstract)
  • a crush/a muse
  • hunger for success and recognition
  • decent tools and working environment
  • an inflexible deadline
  • powerful collaborators or helpers
  • creating something that will really help or inspire other people
  • breaking new ground (in terms of knowledge, style, or genre)
  • some drugs (modafinil, bromocriptine, caffeine, etc.)
  • being in good physical shape and generally healthy
  • incremental success (power-ups)
  • emotional intensity (including heartbreak, joy, grief, love)
  • working hard, playing hard
  • terrible consequences if I don’t succeed
  • a big payoff if I do succeed
  • getting “amped” because of excitement around an activity or an upcoming event or release (anticipation)
  • extended hyperfocus (for example videogame immersion)
  • an extended period of quiet solitude or near-solitude, time and space to completely relax, decompress, reflect, and even become bored

I have personal experience with all of these factors except for modafinil (which I am curious about, but wary of). Some of these factors are within personal control, but just as many aren’t. Part of super-momentum might simply be utilizing the enormous energy that comes with momentous life events (births, deaths, falling in love, getting dumped, etc.).

Drugs are within one’s personal control, but to me that seems a dangerous route (for example, I could imagine quickly and efficiently writing an absolutely worthless one-thousand page novel under the influence of modafinal).  I once tried bromocriptine (which increases dopamine levels) as an experiment, and  once was enough. I consume a moderate amount of caffeine from dark roast coffee, but medium roasts leave me dehydrated and jittery — I’m not interested in increasing my caffeine intake.

What other factors are controllable?

  •  Setting an ambitious but achievable goal
  • Agreeing to a tight, inflexible deadline, such that other people are depending on you to deliver
  • Choosing subject matter than can potentially have a real impact or break new ground
  • Maintaining and optimizing your infrastructure and work environment so that when inspiration and energy do strike, you are not slowed down with mundane “fixit” tasks and distractions
  • Underscheduling and undercommitting, so that you end up with “empty space” in your life (and not filling that space with distractions like television — get bored enough so that your mind starts racing for its own entertainment — see Oates tweet above)
  • Engaging in a rich social life (ideally centered on or related to your work area) so that you increase your potential exposure to mentors, muses/crushes, rivals, and collaborators, all who can dramatically spur your motivation and amp up your nervous system.

This is the first time I’ve thought about this analytically. I’m surprised by how many super-momentum associated factors are potentially controllable. Maybe super-momentum can be engineered.

Can you Create Your Own Motivation and Excitement?

According to Neil deGrasse Tyson, yes.

“The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation. For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.

– Neil deGrasse Tyson’s response on Reddit when asked “What can you tell a young man looking for motivation in life itself?”

What Tyson doesn’t explain is how. How do you go from sitting on the couch feeling blah to firing on all cylinders?

Well first, get off the couch. As Tony Robbins likes to say, “emotion is created by motion.” [Tony Robbins “Ultimate Edge — Hour of Power” mp3, link borrowed from this Tim Ferriss post]

Exercise generally stimulates dopaminergic systems, which generally increases motivation (though the neuroscience is complex; higher dopamine in some brain areas increases motivation, while higher dopamine in other brain areas increases awareness of the costs of certain behaviors).

So daily exercise is a must if you want to boost your “get up and go,” with the caveat being that you don’t want to overdo it and end up in a state of chronic inflammation. Lifting heavy weights or going on long runs every day will just exhaust most people. Walking or bicycling or yoga everyday plus short bursts of more intense exercise (sprints, weights) is probably a good balance.

But brisk walks won’t get you to super-momentum. You need to be excited about your work.

Well, what if you aren’t excited? Can this be changed?

Author Rachel Aaron has a good perspective on this. In this blog post she describes how she went from writing 2000 words a day to 10,000 words a day. She breaks her approach into three core requirements:

  1. Time (track productivity and evaluate)
  2. Knowledge (know what you’re writing before you write it)
  3. Enthusiasm (get excited about what you’re writing)

She has valuable insight into all three areas. I’d recommend her post to all writers. But for the more general purposes of this post, her insights into generating enthusiasm are the most relevant. From Aaron’s post:

The answer was head-slappingly obvious. Those days I broke 10k were the days I was writing scenes I’d been dying to write since I planned the book. They were the candy bar scenes, the scenes I wrote all that other stuff to get to. By contrast, my slow days (days where I was struggling to break 5k) corresponded to the scenes I wasn’t that crazy about.

This was a duh moment for me, but it also brought up a troubling new problem. If I had scenes that were boring enough that I didn’t want to write them, then there was no way in hell anyone would want to read them. This was my novel, after all. If I didn’t love it, no one would.

Fortunately, the solution turned out to be, yet again, stupidly simple. Every day, while I was writing out my little description of what I was going to write for the knowledge component of the triangle, I would play the scene through in my mind and try to get excited about it. I’d look for all the cool little hooks, the parts that interested me most, and focus on those since they were obviously what made the scene cool. If I couldn’t find anything to get excited over, then I would change the scene, or get rid of it entirely. I decided then and there that, no matter how useful a scene might be for my plot, boring scenes had no place in my novels.

This applies to all creative/innovative pursuits — not just fiction writing. If it’s boring, why are you working on it? Skip ahead to the good part or the interesting part.

You may need to come back to the “boring bits” of the project later, but if you’re already in a state of super-momentum, you’ll blast through them effortlessly.

Are There Negative Effects of Super-Momentum?

Obviously, being amped up physically and mentally for an extended period of time (even if drug free) is going to take its toll. More free radicals, more stress hormones, and accelerated aging are probably inevitable to some extent.

Super-momentum is not the fountain of youth. It’s burning the candle at both ends. Even if the high is natural, all highs are followed by a low.

In addition to physical and mental stress, focusing all your energy and attention on a single life area means that other parts of your life (household, relationships, children, eating well, sleeping well, other work areas) are going to be temporarily neglected.

In addition, when you come down (and you will eventually come down), you won’t have the energy to energetically deal with these neglected areas. You’ll be drained. After expending an enormous amount of energy and delivering or otherwise completing your project (or possibly abandoning it), you’ll experience letdown. While life coaches and therapists might distinguish physiological depression from post-project depletion, they feel about the same.

The advantage of going through the latter is that you know why (you just pushed yourself like a maniac, and now you’re out of gas), and you know that with rest and recuperation, you’ll bounce back and regain that life spark.

So pursue super-momentum at your own risk. There will be downsides. A near constant state of super-momentum without corresponding periods of rest and recuperation might lead to gigantic leaps in terms of career success, but long-term health life effects might include:

  • obesity, from sleep deprivation and circadian disruption
  • insulin resistance, see above
  • chronic inflammation, manifesting in joint pain, back pain
  • chronic depression
  • drug and alcohol abuse
  • damage to personal relationships, from neglect and/or volatile emotions
  • self-doubt, loss of sense of purpose, “Why am I doing this?”

To these risks you might say “So what?” In the famous words of a super-momentum enthusiast:

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”

– Hunter S. Thompson

He was a man true to his word.

On the other hand, there are equal or even greater risks to not pushing yourself, to eating and resting too much, to not discovering and stoking your inner fire. These risks are both physical and psychological. Chronic stress is terrible for health, but acute stress is necessary. A sedentary life devoid of all challenges is a fast track to obesity, heart disease, cancer, and dementia. Consider:

Work “sprints” (via super-momentum) are not necessarily bad for your health as long as you take some downtime to recover. Here are some basic life and health precautions to take if you are chasing the dragon of super-momentum:

  • stay super-hydrated
  • get at least five hours of sleep a night
  • eat at least one healthy meal a day
  • don’t use stimulants stronger than tea or coffee
  • rely on “natural” sources of motivation (see above) instead of drugs (including all so-called “smart drugs”)
  • start with “money in the bank” (literally, but also in terms of relationships, core infrastructure, etc.)
  • take extra care to be polite, patient, respectful, and considerate to your loved ones (your agitated, hypersensitive, hyperactive state will make you prone to snapping and snap judgements)
  • when its time to come down, come down gracefully (sleep more, eat well, decompress, pamper yourself, recuperate, thank everybody who supported you during your sprint, return the favor)

This cautionary tale from author-turned-cocaine-and-videogame-addict Tom Bissell is worth reading. It’s possible to amp yourself up into a state of hypomania and hyperfocus that feels like super-momentum, but moves your life backwards instead of forwards. While I’ve never gotten into recreational drugs, I can relate to the lure of videogames. These days I have a simple rule of “no entertainment during the workday” (including web browsing) that keeps me from falling into false “feeling productive while doing nothing productive” traps.

So Who Wins, The Tortoise or the Hare?

Well, we all know that slow and steady wins the race. There is no substitute for establishing rock-solid daily habits that inch you closer to your goals, day by day.

But there is a place for sprints, for extremes. Especially to reach the heights of artistic or innovative greatness, these sprints might be required.

So the tortoise wins the horizontal race, but the hare gets more air.

Or maybe, once in awhile, the tortoise bursts into a sprint.

The Pursuit of Happiness Is Meaningless Without the Pursuit of Justice

By

On December 16

In Culture Rants/Shares, Metaprogramming, Utopian Speculations

Where’s the Justice League when you need ’em?

Ambushed By An Article

Yesterday morning I was happily drinking coffee and reading the New York Times, when I came across this disturbing article by conservative think tanker Arthur Brooks.

The piece starts off as a bland rehash of “the latest” happiness research (trotting out studies from the seventies). Nothing new, but nothing offensive either. Towards the end, the piece takes a sharp right turn as Brooks champions free enterprise as the solution to both personal happiness and global poverty. The bogeymen of socialism and collectivism are trotted out as the usual enemies. Perhaps as an apologetic concession to liberal NYT readers, Brooks does acknowledge that social mobility and economic opportunity are on the decline in the United States (at least as compared to Canada and the Scandinavian countries — ironically all collectivist social democracies). The whole piece is a confused mess.

Personal Development Hijacked by Corporate Ideology

So why am I writing about it?

This blog is subtitled “Systems for Living Well.” I agree with many of Arthur Brooks’ conclusions about personal happiness (a spiritual life, strong relationships, meaningful work, and connection to community are all important). But I want to distance myself from Brooks (as well as bloggers like Steve Pavlina, Gretchen Rubin, Tony Robbins, and Tim Ferriss) who approach personal happiness and life satisfaction in a “bubble” context, ignoring social and political issues as if they didn’t exist.

Too often, self-help philosophies function as a justification for right-wing ideology. Ignore the bad cards life has dealt you, and pull yourself up by your own bootstraps! Pursue your passion and beat the economic odds! Be a winner not a loser! A credo of personal accountability ties in neatly to ideals of free enterprise and anti-welfare sentiments.

In a similar vein, advocating gratitude and forgiveness as spiritual practices is usually good advice (in terms of emotional health and personal empowerment). But the same philosophy can be twisted to imply that workers should be happy with (and feel grateful for) whatever is doled out by their employers, instead of negotiating for better wages, benefits, and working conditions, or fighting against corporate crime and corruption. It’s one thing to forgive the CEO of a Wall Street company that swindled tax-payers, so you don’t have to live with hate in your heart. But it’s another thing to lie down and let them do it again.

I believe in personal accountability, the value of hard work, establishing effective habits, practicing gratitude — all the same things that the Pavlina/Rubin/Robbins/Ferriss types are pushing. But I also believe that if we truly want to live well, we should fight against the injustices that prevent others from living well.

So what are the injustices we should be fighting against? Well, for starters:

Maybe, if I’m not happy, it’s because my conscience isn’t clear. Maybe I’m not working hard enough for the right for others to get a fair shot at the pursuit of happiness. Yes, we’re all responsible for our own happiness and sense of meaning in life. But if we ignore injustice, others may not even get the chance to pursue happiness.

Call To Action

To writers, bloggers, economists, psychologists, and social scientists who are exploring the topic of happiness, here’s what I’m suggesting:

  • Don’t be a tool for corporate ideology. In the discussion of personal happiness and life meaning, don’t ignore oppression and injustice, wherever you see it.
  • Allow for the possibility that the concepts of personal accountability and social inequity/injustice can co-exist.
  • Don’t only look at happiness and life satisfaction on a personal level, but consider social and economic factors that affect us collectively, and call people to action to fight against injustice, greed, corruption, oppression, and other realities that hurt all of us.

I do understand why self-help writers want to steer clear of these topics. If you write about political issues, you potentially lose half your audience (or more). And I want to give credit to Ferriss and Robbins especially for raising money for schools, fighting poverty, etc.

But it’s delusional to think that we can *all* pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and visualize (or optimize) our way to an ideal life, when income inequality is so high, and social mobility so low, and we live in an age of rampant unchecked corporate irresponsibility.

Please share your thoughts below.

What is Metaprogramming?

By

On June 8

In Metaprogramming

John C. Lilly, the only scientist to have two horror films based on his life.

For a number of decades I’ve been interested in self-improvement via a method I like to call metaprogramming.  I was first exposed to the term via John C. Lilly’s Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer (a summary report to Lilly’s employer at the time, The National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH]).  Lilly explored the idea that all human behavior is controlled by genetic and neurological programs, and that via intense introspection, psychedelic drugs, and isolation tanks, human beings can learn to reprogram their own computers.  Far out, man.

As the fields of psychology, neurophysiology, cognitive science have progressed, we’ve learned that the computer/brain analogy has its limitations.  As for psychedelics, they have their limitations as well; they are so effective at disrupting rigid mental structures (opening up minds), that they can leave their heavy users a bit lacking in structure.  From my own observations, what the heavy user of psychedelics stands to gain in creativity, he may lose in productivity, or stability, or coherence.

Those issues aside, I still love the term metaprogramming.  We are creatures of habit (programs), and one of the most effective (if not only) way we can modify our own behavior is by hacking our own habits.  We can program our programs, thus, metaprogramming.  This is a slightly different use of the term than Lilly’s; what I call metaprogramming he probably would have called selfmetaprogramming (he used metaprograms to refer to higher level programs in the human biocomputer; habits and learned knowledge and cultural norms as opposed to instincts and other “hardwired” behaviors).

Effective Metaprogramming

Effective metaprogramming requires a degree of self-awareness and self-observation.  It also requires a forgiving attitude towards oneself; we can more clearly observe and take responsibility for our own behaviors (including the destructive ones), if we refrain from unnecessary self-flagellation.

Most importantly, effective metaprogramming requires clear targets for behavior.  In my experience, coming up with these targets takes an enormous amount of time and energy.  It’s hard to decide how you want to behave, in every area of your life.  It’s much easier to just continue on cruise control, relying on your current set of habits to carry you towards whatever fate you’re currently pointed at.

And what if you pick a target for your own behavior, implement it, and don’t like the results?  Course corrections are part of the territory.

Religion (Do It Our Way)

If you don’t want to come up with your own set of behavioral guidelines, there’s always someone willing to offer (or sell) you theirs.  Moses, lugging around his ten commandments, or Tony Robbins, with his DVDs.

Looks like we might be down to five commandments.

Religion has historically offered various sets of metaprogramming tools; rules for how to behave, and in some cases, techniques and practices to help you out (like Buddhist meditation). If you decide to follow or join a religion, you have to watch out for the extra baggage.  Some religions come with threats if you don’t follow the rules.  The threats can be real (banishment from the group), or made up (banishment to Hell).  Judaism is perhaps the exception; there are lots of rules but the main punishment for not following them (as far as I can tell) is that you simply become a less observant Jew.

I’m an atheist, more or less, and a fan of the scientific method and scientific inquiry.  I also appreciate the work the philosopher/evolutionary biologists Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins, both of whom have taken up strong stands against organized religion.  These stands are excusable, insofar as they attack outmoded religious beliefs (creationism, the afterlife, inferiority of women, and so forth) or crime (like the abuse of children by priests — Dawkins is actually trying to arrest the Pope).  But religion offers much more than belief, and in some religions (like Judaism) belief matters very little.  Religions offer behavioral systems, practices, rituals, myths, stories, and traditions, all of which are tremendous, irreplaceable cultural resources.

Daniel Dennett, aka Santa Claus.

Some religions are attempting the leap into modernity.  The Dalai Lama has taken an active interest in neuroscience.  My wife’s rabbi is a self-proclaimed atheist.  The Vatican has put out a statement suggesting that Darwinian evolution is not in conflict with the official doctrines of the Catholicism (a nice PR move, but in my opinion it’s only because they don’t fully understand the principles of Darwinian evolution — Daniel Dennett called Darwin’s idea “dangerous” for good reason).  In the long-run, religions are institutions, and they’ll do what they have to in order to survive.  The term “God” will be redefined, as necessary, to keep the pews warm and the tithing buckets full.  Evolutionary biologists (with their logical, literal thinking) are tilting at windmills when they attack religion; they are no match for the nimble, poetic minds of theologians.

As much as I value religions in the abstract, I haven’t yet found one I can deal with personally.  My wife finds the endless rules of Judaism to be invigorating; following them gives her real spiritual satisfaction.  I find them to be bizarre and confusing (maybe this is because I’m not Jewish, but I suspect some Jews would agree with me).

Still, I have liberally borrowed from the world’s religions while devising my own metaprogramming system.  Jesus’s Golden Rule.  Islam’s dislike of debt.  A good chunk of the Buddha’s Eightfold Path.  And at least a few of the Ten Commandments.

Help Yourself

Want to win friends and influence people? Change the spelling of your last name to match that of a world-famous captain of industry!

The self-help movement has been around at least as long as Dale Carnegie.  Decades later, the psychedelic and cross-cultural explorations of the 60’s (Richard Alpert hanging out and dropping acid with Indian gurus, Timothy Leary dropping acid and reading The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Werner Erhard experimenting with Zen Buddhism) added fuel to the fire of the self-help movement.  East meets West meets L.S.D. = Total Transformation of the Human Psyche!  We all know how that turned out.

The modern self-help movement has had its share of both inspired individuals (like Tony Robbins) and charismatic but ultimately abusive (like the late Frederick Lenz).

I’m a fan of Robbins, for example, because his teachings are open (he does sell products and seminars, but he also gives away an enormous amount of content).  Same goes for Steve Pavlina, Les Brown, and even Timothy Ferriss.  All offer up their own insights and behavioral modification (metaprogramming) systems with a “try this and see if it works for you” attitude.  It’s clear they are interested in spreading their message first, in making a living second, and not at all interested in controlling people or accumulating subjugates.

I’m also fascinated by the late anti-guru U.G. Krishnamurti (not to be confused with the more popular J. Krishnamurti).  U.G., by all accounts, was unequivocally an enlightened being.  The interesting bit was his absolute refusal to attempt to teach, pass on, or even recommend his own higher state of consciousness.  Throughout his life, he refused to take on any followers or officially publish any of his writings.  I’ll write about U.G. in more detail in another post.

Frederick Lenz -- charismatic but mad as a hatter.


Sinister Intentions

At the unfortunate intersection between religion and self-help lies the world of cults.  Cult leaders and cult organizations can be spotted by the following attributes.  Stay away!

  • secret, often bizarre teachings
  • brainwashing techniques (sleep deprivation, emotional trauma, isolation, sensory overload)
  • enormous fees required for membership and/or access to teachings
  • requirement to cut off contact from family and/or friends (nonmembers)
  • use coercive methods to control their members (intimidation, blackmail, even violence)

NEVER challenge a hack sci-fi writer to invent a religion -- he might succeed!

Cults often seduce new members by offering up simple, effective metaprogramming techniques.  Scientology offers “clearing,” a method of reliving painful emotional experiences and thus removing their negative subconscious influence.  There’s nothing wrong with clearing — the problems come later, when you’re maxing out your credit cards and babbling on about “operating thetans.”  Frederick Lenz instructed his followers in chakra meditation.  The young, impressionable, and idealistic are especially vulnerable to seduction by cults, but these dangerous organizations are easy to spot if you know what to look for.  They’re not looking to spread a message of truth, love, and higher consciousness; they’re looking for subjugates.

There’s nothing wrong with using somebody else’s self-improvement/behavioral modification/metaprogramming system, either ancient or modern, in whole or in part, as long as you shop around carefully.  Or, you can invent your own.  As a third alternative, if you are already happy with the current state of your habits (and where they are steering you in life), you may not feel compelled to bother with changing yourself.

Baby with the Bathwater

The field of self-improvement is full of half-truths, hucksters, pseudoscience, charlatans, snake oil and snake oil salesmen, bizarre beliefs, true believers, smelly hippies, narcissistic baby boomers, pitiful cases, get-rich-quick schemers, crystal wavers, cult leaders, and weird dieters, and is thus always ripe for parody (my favorite is this video parody of The Secret).  A down-to-earth, rational person could be excused for steering clear of the self-improvement realm altogether.

On the other hand, energy we invest in improving our own habits (programs), including habits of thought and perception, is probably one of the best investments we can make in our own lives.  Even minor improvements can yield enormous dividends in the long-run.

I’ll continue to share my thoughts about metaprogramming in this blog, including my core metaprogramming principles (not as a prescriptive, but rather in the spirit of open-source code sharing).  As a quick preview, I’ll offer that my own principles involve the following areas:

  1. Maintaining a High Quality of Consciousness
  2. Taking Radical Responsibility for All Your Actions, and Every Aspect Of Your Life
  3. Creating a System of Functional Vitality

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