Mental Health

ACTION AND MOTIVATION

Lee ConroyLeave a comment

Here’s a news flash for you:

Action isn’t just the effect of motivation, but also the cause of it.

Most people only commit to action if they feel a certain level of motivation. And they only feel motivation when they feel an emotional inspiration.

People only become motivated to study for the exam when they’re afraid of the consequences. People only pick up and learn that instrument when they feel inspired by the people they can play for.

And we’ve all slacked off for lack of motivation before. Especially in times where we shouldn’t.

We feel lethargic and apathetic towards a certain goal that we’ve set for ourselves because we lack the motivation and we lack the motivation because we don’t feel any overarching emotional desire to accomplish something.

We typically think motivation works something like this:

Emotional Inspiration → Motivation → Desirable Action

But there’s a problem with operating under this framework: often the changes and actions we need in our lives are inspired by negative emotions that simultaneously hinder us from taking action.

If someone wants to fix their relationship with their mother the emotions of the situation (hurt, resentment, avoidance) completely go against the necessary action to fix it (confrontation, honesty, communication).

If someone wants to lose weight but experiences massive amounts of shame about their body, then the act of going to the gym is apt to inspire in them the exact

emotions that kept them at home on the couch in the first place.

Past traumas, negative expectations, and feelings of guilt, shame, and fear often motivate us away from the actions necessary to overcome those very traumas, negative expectations, and negative emotions.

HOW TO GET MOTIVATED: THE “DO SOMETHING” PRINCIPLE

It’s a Catch-22 of sorts. But the thing about the motivation chain is that it’s not only a three-part chain but an endless loop:

Your actions create further emotional reactions and inspirations and move on to motivate your future actions. Taking advantage of this knowledge, we can actually re-orient our mindset in the following way:

Action → Inspiration → Motivation

The conclusion is that if you lack the motivation to make an important change in your life, then do something, anything really, and then harness the reaction to that action as a way to begin motivating yourself.

This is known as The “Do Something” Principle.

It began out of simple pragmatism: you paid me to be here so you might as well do something. I don’t care, do anything!

What I found is that often once they did something, even the smallest of actions, it would soon give them the inspiration and motivation to do something else. They had sent a signal to themselves, “OK, I did that, I guess I can do more.” And slowly we could take it from there.

Over the years, I’ve applied The “Do Something” Principle in my own life as well.

I quickly learned that forcing myself to do something, even the most menial of tasks, quickly made the larger tasks seem much easier.

If I had to redesign an entire website (like this exact one) or project, then I’d force myself to sit down and would say, “OK, I’ll just design the header right now.” But after the header was done, I’d find myself moving on to other parts of it. And before I knew it, I’d be energised and engaged in the project.

If I’m about to tackle a large project that I’m anxious about, or if I’m in a new country and I need to give myself a little push to get out and meet people, I apply the “Do Something” Principle. Instead of expecting the moon, I just decide, “OK, I’ll start on the outline,” or “OK, I’ll just go out and have a beer and see what’s going on.” The mere action of doing this almost always spurs me on.

Inevitably, the appropriate action occurs at some point or another. The motivation is natural. The inspiration is genuine. It’s an overall far more pleasant way of accomplishing my goals

You may recognise this concept among other writings in different guises. I’ve seen it mentioned in terms such as “failing forward” or “ready, fire, aim.”

But no matter how you frame it to yourself, it’s an extremely useful mindset and habit to adopt. The more time goes on, the more I realize that success in anything is tied less to knowledge or talent, and more to action supplemented by knowledge and talent.

You can become successful at something without knowing what you are doing. You can become successful at something without having much particular talent at it. But you can never become successful at anything without taking action. Ever.

A FEW TIPS ON STAYING MOTIVATED

Willpower is finite. Motivation comes and goes. Inspiration can strike when you least expect it and leave you high and dry when you need it the most.

So whatever you call it—motivation, willpower, inspiration, your “muse”—you need to regularly nourish and replenish your supply.

The “Do Something” Principle is one such way to do this since it helps you get the ball rolling over and over again. You focus on starting, and that’s it.

Below are a few more tips on staying motivated in the long run.

1. DEVELOP A RITUAL

You might think that doing the same thing over and over again, day in and day out, sounds not only incredibly boring but incredibly limiting. But you’d be dead wrong.

Rituals put The “Do Something” Principle in overdrive. You designate a behaviour or set of behaviours to perform at a predetermined place or time—or ideally, both—in order to get you moving toward your desired behaviour. It won’t take long until all you have to do is simply set the ritual in motion—using the “Do Something” Principle, of course—and let inertia do the rest.

Then, something magical happens: The ritual soon takes on a life of its own. It becomes a sacred space and time and often just as important as your target behavior itself. Performing the desired action starts to feel empty without performing the ritual and vice versa.

Now, be careful not to get too caught up in exactly what your ritual is. A lot of people see someone who’s successful doing something like eating or wearing the same thing every day or working out at exactly 5:27 AM every morning because some study said it’s the best time to do it and blah blah blah and they think they need to do exactly the same thing as them. 

But you don’t. The important thing is simply having a ritual—any ritual—that gets you started in the right direction.

The rest will follow.

2. RUTHLESSLY CUT DISTRACTIONS OUT OF YOUR LIFE

Instagram memes. Email from the boss. Unread group texts from last night. Nine notifications on Facebook! Snap your oatmeal acai breakfast bowl (but forget that burger and fries you had for lunch yesterday). Odd DM from that weird girl in high school you friended 6 years ago… pyramid scheme. Leave on read—LOL! Group text is heating up again. Stacey and Jared need to break up. What is that kid doing on TikTok? Also, what is TikTok? Shocker: politician says something stupid again. What’s the weather today? And tomorrow… and next Thursday? Oooo, match on Tinder! Oh… dick pic. Guh, Brexit! Am I right?!?!

I apologise if you find it creepy that I just described the first 30 minutes of every day of your life for the past four years or more.

Im writing an article called how to improve your concentration that I feel will strike a chord with a lot of people. And that’s because we’re all collectively coming around to the reality that all this wonderful technology we use has a dark side with very real fucking consequences.

Part of that dark side is distraction. Now, this might seem like a little harmless fun, but distractions like these are rarely harmless.

The distractions of the digital age hack the vulnerabilities of our psychology. They give us little microbursts of dopamine that feel good in the moment, but amount to very little in the grand scheme of things.

Meanwhile, they’re sapping our motivation to do other things that don’t always feel good in the moment but add up to something much grander and more meaningful in the long run.

Calling your friend who’s having a bad day is more uncomfortable than texting them a winky smiley kissy-face with a “thinking of you” tacked on for good measure, but it’s much more helpful for them and your relationship.

Going for a silent walk through the park is much more demanding than scrolling through feeds with your thumb on one hand and mainlining a mocha latte quad shot swirly frappa caramel whip cream with the other, but—well, Jesus Christ, do I have to explain that one?

3. UNCOVER THE REAL REASONS FOR YOUR LACK OF MOTIVATION

If you’re still having trouble staying motivated after all of that, it’s time to take a good, hard look at your life and figure out what might be the proverbial piss in your cornflakes all the time.

If you consistently have no motivation to be productive at work, maybe you hate your job and it’s time to get serious about a new career.

If you’re having a hard time fitting regular exercise into your day, it might be time to examine your beliefs around your body, what you think a healthy lifestyle is, and whether or not you’re doing exercise that you find enjoyable and worthwhile.

If you find it difficult to want to work on your relationship with your partner, maybe it’s time to get brutally honest with each other and figure out a way forward, which could mean breaking up if it’s for the best.

Notice all of these situations require you to address some uncomfortable emotions.

But I’ve argued for years now that facing uncomfortable emotions is precisely what makes us grow as individuals, that traumatic events, as horrible as they are, can spur positive changes in our lives, that being happy all the time isn’t just impossible, it wouldn’t even be good for us, and that the demons we all try to hide are actually just the other side of our better angels.

So these are the moments you have to not only face, but embrace. Rather than turning away from discomfort, you turn towards it as a source of motivation itself.

And that’s when shit gets real, my friend.

And if all else fails in life, never forget, grab a brew, take a seat and take a sip and watch all the worlds problem seem a little less shitty.

DELAYING TODAY FOR A BETTER TOMORROW

Lee ConroyLeave a comment

What do Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Shintoism, and just about any other “ism” that’s survived more than a few Kool-Aid chugging parties have in common?

No, it’s not that they feature old guys dressed up in togas.

No, it’s not that they all rip off each other’s myths and verses.

No, it’s not that they spent thousands of years slaughtering each other in the name of some ethereal deity.

It is this: They each promote delayed gratification as one of the highest human virtues.

Yes, at some point, each culture discovers, in their own way, that eating, drinking, conquering, and fucking anything and everything at a moment’s notice can kinda backfire.

They also discover at some point that saving their resources and not spontaneously killing each other in a vainglorious blood orgy—you know, that whole “resist temptation” thing—can pay off nicely in the long run.

You could therefore say that delayed gratification is the foundation of civilisation. It’s the call to sacrifice a little satisfaction today to greatly increase the quality of life tomorrow.

So, in order to help you all increase your quality of life tomorrow (and do your part for civilisation), I’ve taken the liberty of writing this article on exactly what delayed gratification is and included a few life rules to help you delay your own gratification and live a more fulfilling existence. Also: there are marshmallows.

DELAYING TODAY FOR A BETTER TOMORROW

Delayed gratification works because the benefits compound. When you save food, you aren’t just guaranteeing that you have food in a few months’ time, you are protecting yourself from people dying from famine or drought. You are freeing up people’s time to pursue more useful things than scrounging up food all the time. This leads to further innovations that then make life even better.

The same is true in other areas. We go through the pain of constructing roads or buildings or investing in businesses with the understanding that over the long run, they will produce far more value than we put into them.

We spend years getting educated with the understanding that picking up knowledge while we’re young will pay dividends throughout our lives.

Our entire system of money and trade hinges on the concept of delayed gratification as we assume that people will make prudent decisions now that will pay profits in the future.

So, if delayed gratification is so great, if it’s the bedrock of civilisation and, as I will argue, integral to pretty much every good outcome in life, why is it so fucking hard to practice?

Delaying gratification today for a better future tomorrow is so central to so many of our cultural and religious institutions precisely because it’s so hard to do. We need the constant reminders—not to mention the occasional kick in the ass—in order to overcome our instinctive laziness.

And just like the cultural systems that keep us in check, you can create systems in your own life to practice a little more delayed gratification from time to time. Because delayed gratification didn’t just duct tape human civilisation together—it’s arguably one of the most important traits for achieving health and success in any individual’s life. Therefore, it’s on each of us to learn and practice delayed gratification as much as possible.

So, are you ready to get your act together for the good of humanity?

WHAT IS DELAYED GRATIFICATION?

Imagine you’re four years old. On a plate in front of you is the greatest treasure of all treasures: a white fluffy marshmallow. You’re told you can have that marshmallow when you feel like it, but… there’s a catch. If you can wait a few minutes, you’ll get two marshmallows. Two! Two fluff balls of glory.

What do you do? Do you wait? Or do you say fuck it and YOLO and gobble that shit down with four year old glee?

The above is a simplified version of one of the most famous psychological experiments ever conducted what’s now simply known as “The Marshmallow Study.”

Hundreds of preschoolers were put to the test in this study. The goal of the experiment was to measure their ability to delay gratification. Years later, after the children had grown up, the researchers then went back to see how they were doing in the adult world. What they found was stunning.

The children who were able to resist the temptation of the marshmallow were doing better in life by almost any metric—they went to better schools, got better grades, had better relationships made more money and were happier and healthier.

Delayed gratification is when you skip the cake because you promised yourself to only have a dessert once a week. Delayed gratification is when you stop splurging on kitchenware so you can save up for your dream house. It’s when you deny having just that one cigarette now so you can stay on course to quitting and salvage your lungs.

Delayed gratification is being able to trade your present happiness for a greater amount of so called future happiness two marshmallows instead of one and if you’re anything like the rest of humanity, you’re probably terrible at it. We live in a world with soaring consumer debt, rising rates of drug addiction, worsening mental health and worrying obesity levels… all outcomes associated with failures of delayed gratification.

So the question is, how do we develop delayed gratification? How can we get better at it? Because if you’re like me, you’ve tried the whole willpower thing—and let me tell you, it sucks.

There’s got to be a better way…

.

IT’S NOT ABOUT SELF-CONTROL

The inability to delay gratification is most commonly thought of as a self-control problem. And, unfortunately, we tend to morally judge self-control problems. You can’t resist the temptation of that chocolate cake? “Interesting,” people think, “You must definitely suck at life.”

Though self-control certainly plays a part in delaying gratification, using it to completely explain why people can’t stop themselves from face-planting into chocolate fun-time is both misguided and unhelpful.

Thankfully, we have dozens of studies from torturing children with offers of marshmallows to help us understand what can help us delay gratification more effectively and more often.

For example, researchers found that if they broke the children’s trust—i.e., promised something and then didn’t follow through—the kids were far less likely to wait for the second marshmallow.

This makes sense: it’s only rational to delay gratification if and only if you believe you will receive that long-term reward. When you’re unsure of getting the results you’re holding out for, it can be rational to not wait and instead indulge. In these cases, immediate gratification isn’t so much a failure of willpower, it can also be a calculated choice—habituated over years and years of shitty, lying adults.

If you lived in a country with 500% inflation, would you save for your nest egg or go for the tequila fountain instead? If you lived in a downtrodden neighbourhood with drug dealers threatening you at every street corner, would it be easier or harder to say “no” to a free hit?

Having self-control helps, but in these situations where your environment threatens you and causes you to feel insecure or uncertain, most of us go YOLO.

But there are other factors that fuck with delayed gratification. Emotions, as you might expect, can do a number on our ability to resist temptation.

Research shows that when in emotional distress, our desire to feel better overrides our decision making , resulting in immediate gratification and engaging in dumb shit, like calling your ex-girlfriend at 3 AM or buying a Maserati on finance. This is why I have long argued that developing strong self discipline is less a question of willpower and more about developing the ability to manage your own emotions.

Believing the ability to delay gratification is all about self-control is misguided. It ignores the powerful roles of situational context and emotions which are often the ones responsible for our choice.

But worse, ascribing the failure to delay gratification to self-control is unhelpful. It leads us to point the finger and blame the individual for their apparent failure. You have poor self-control. You are at fault. You are bad. Most people will internalise this narrative. Then they will come to believe that they are somehow inherently deficient and fucked up and, oh, what’s the point?

A much better way to frame the issue is to look at the failure to delay gratification as resulting from the interplay of different factors: self-control is one, but also the context—what situation the individual is in, how they’re feeling at that moment, what is their relationship with the action or people around them, what’s their history of issues, etc.

Empathy, as usual, can go a long way.

HOW TO DELAY GRATIFICATION

While we are not always at fault for succumbing to immediate gratification, we are still  responsible for our actions. Luckily, there are some simple rules we can implement to become better at delaying gratification and save humanity from certain marshmallowy doom.

RULE #1: OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND

There’s an old saying, “out of sight, out of mind.” And it’s true.

Marshmallow research shows that covering the treat helps children resist the temptation of eating it. With some creativity, this lesson can be applied to many of the vices you struggle with in your own life. On a diet? Don’t buy junk. Period. If someone else in your house buys junk, ask them to put it somewhere you cannot see it. The easiest way to resist temptation is to simply not be tempted in the first place.

RULE #2: REMIND YOURSELF OF WHAT YOU’RE GIVING UP

I had a friend who smoked cigarettes for much of their teens and early 20s. Like most smokers, they grew to hate it. And like most smokers, they tried to quit dozens of times with no success.

Eventually, they made a list of everything smoking was costing them in their life—everything from health, to the financial cost, to the social stigma, to the time wasted, to the embarrassment around friends and family, and so on. Then, each time they lit another cigarette, they would quietly remind themselves of all of the things they were giving up at that moment.

Along with a few other strategies, it worked, and they quit smoking in 2014.

When we crave immediate gratification, we tend to only consider the benefits of the immediate action. But if we stop and remind ourselves of the costs, it can quickly affect how we feel at that moment. Highlighting the losses associated with choosing immediate over delayed gratification can work.

RULE #3: HAVE REALISTIC, TIME-BOUND GOALS

As I mentioned earlier, trust is necessary to delay gratification. We have to believe the bank is going to hold our money to be willing to save. We need to believe the government’s not going to fuck us over to pay our taxes.

For this reason, when motivating yourself to delay gratification for a future outcome, it’s important to be realistic about that future outcome. Sure, it’s nice to imagine being a billionaire. But how about you start by focusing on getting a raise? Being realistic about what you can achieve will help get you there.

If you want to lose weight, set a time-bound and realistic goal. Don’t say you’ll fit into those jeans one day or sign up to that gym when you’ve got time. That’s bullshit and will get you nowhere. You won’t trust it. And because you don’t trust it, you won’t do anything.

How much weight do you want to lose? How many months will that take? How will you go about losing that weight? When will you go to the gym?

Write that shit down and stick to it.

This is just basic goal-setting hygiene, but it will work wonders for strengthening your motivation and helping you delay gratification. When you’re committed to a realistic, time-bound goal, it becomes that much easier to not gobble down that leftover cake (which you will have hidden behind a mountain of bananas in the fridge).

RULE #4: LEARN TO WORK WITH YOUR EMOTIONS, NOT AGAINST THEM

If people who succumb to their emotions tend to indulge in the moment, then it makes sense that developing the ability to identify and manage our emotions will help prevent that indulgence.

RULE #5: HANG OUT WITH THE RIGHT PEOPLE

If you want to get better at delaying gratification, surround yourself with people who delay gratification. Put yourself in a community where this is the expected behaviour, where delaying gratification is common practice. Join a weight loss group. Become an AA member. Seek out fellow marshmallow denouncers.

Social cues can be a powerful tool when it comes to delaying gratification. Two separate studies have found that children delay gratification better when they’ve engaged in ritualistic behaviour that primes them to see delaying gratification as “what everyone else does,”and when witnessing someone doing similar behaviours.

Obviously, these five rules are a starting point. They are not a cure-all. You will not magically fix all of your problems and make all the right decisions tomorrow. Or the next day. But they are fundamental principles to delaying gratification consistently and should help you approach the problems in your life with better strategies.

Sure, you’ll fail a bunch of times. But that’s to be expected. Don’t feel bad about it. Here, have a marshmallow… or two.

Or if you can’t have a marshmallow, grab yourself a fresh brew, because as we know at Tactical Psychology life is much easier with coffee 😏

The Backwards Law

Lee ConroyLeave a comment

There’s a part of Navy SEAL training called “drown-proofing” where they bind your hands behind your back, tie your feet together, and dump you into a 9-foot-deep pool.

Your job is to survive for five minutes.

Like most of SEAL training, the vast majority of sailors who attempt drown-proofing fail. Upon being tossed into the water, many of them panic and scream to be lifted back out. Some struggle until they slip underwater where they proceed to lose consciousness and have to be fished out and resuscitated. Over the years, a number of trainees have even died during the exercise.

But some people make it. And they do so because they understand two counterintuitive lessons.

The first lesson of drown-proofing is paradoxical: the more you struggle to keep your head above water, the more likely you are to sink.

With your arms and legs bound, it’s impossible to maintain yourself at the surface for the full five minutes. Even worse, your limited attempts to keep your body afloat will only cause you to sink faster. The trick to drown-proofing is to actually let yourself sink to the bottom of the pool. From there, you lightly push yourself off the pool floor and let your momentum carry you back to the surface. Once there, you can grab a quick breath of air and start the whole process over again.

Strangely, surviving drown-proofing requires no superhuman strength or endurance. It doesn’t even require that you know how to swim. On the contrary, it requires the ability to not swim. Instead of resisting the physics that would normally kill you, you must surrender to them and use them to save your own life.

The second lesson of drown-proofing is a bit more obvious, but also paradoxical: the more you panic, the more oxygen you will burn and the more likely you are to fall unconscious and drown. In a sick and twisted way, the exercise turns your survival instinct against you: the more intense your desire to breathe, the less you will be able to breathe. The more intense your will to live, the greater the chance you will die.

More than a test of physical will, drown-proofing is a test of each sailors emotional control in situations of extreme danger. Can he control his own impulses? Can he relax in the face of potential death? Can he willingly risk his life in the service of some higher value or goal?

These skills are far more important than any cadet’s ability to swim. They’re more important than his resilience, his physical toughness, or his ambition. They’re more important than how smart he is, what school he went to, or how damn good he looks in a crisp Italian suit.

This skill the ability to let go of control when one wants it most is one of the most important skills anyone can develop. And not just for SEAL training. For life.

Most people assume the relationship between effort and reward is one-to-one. We think that working twice as long will produce twice the result. That caring about a relationship twice as much will make everyone feel twice as loved. That yelling your point twice as loud will make you twice as right.

The assumption here is that most of life exists on a linear curve, that there’s a one-to-one ratio between effort and reward with everything:

But allow me to inform you as someone who just tried drinking twice the normal amount of coffee so he could finish editing this damn thing—this is almost never true. Most of the world does not exist on a linear curve. Linear relationships only exist for mindless, rote, repetitive tasks—driving a car, filling out reams of paperwork, cleaning the bathroom, etc. In all of these cases, doing something for two hours will double the output of doing it for one hour. But that’s simply because they require no thought or ingenuity.

Most activities in life do not operate along the linear effort/reward curve because most activities in life are not basic nor mindless. Most activities are complex, mentally and/or emotionally taxing, and require adaptation.

Therefore, most activities produce a diminishing returns curve:

Diminishing returns means that the more you experience something, the less rewarding it becomes. The classic example is money. The difference between earning €20,000 and €40,000 is huge and life-changing. The difference between earning €120,000 and €140,000 means your car has slightly nicer seat heaters. The difference between earning €127,020,000 and €127,040,000 is basically a rounding error on your tax return.

The concept of diminishing returns applies to most experiences that are complex and novel, and even many of the mundane ones. The number of showers you take in a day, the number of chicken wings you inhale during happy hour, the number of trips home to visit your mother in a year—these are all experiences that start out highly valuable at first but then diminish in value the more frequently you do them (sorry, Mum).

Another example: studies on work productivity show that we’re really only productive for the first four to five hours of each day. Everything after that suffers severely diminished returns, to the point where the difference between working for 12 hours and 16 hours is basically nothing (not counting sleep deprivation).

Friendships operate on a diminishing returns curve. Having one friend is vital. Having two is clearly better than one. But having 10 instead of 9 changes little in your life. And having 21 instead of 20 just makes remembering people’s names that much more difficult.

Sex has diminishing returns, as does eating, sleeping, drinking alcohol, working out at the gym, reading books, taking vacations, hiring employees, consuming caffeine, saving for retirement, scheduling business meetings, studying for an exam, masturbating, staying up late to play video games, the examples are endless. All give back less the more you do them, the more you try, or the more you have. All operate on a diminishing returns curve.

But there’s another curve, one that you’ve probably never seen or heard of before and that’s largely because I make a lot of this fucking shit up. That’s the inverted curve (yes I know, sounds sexy right):

The inverted curve is the bizarro “Twilight Zone” curve, where effort and reward have a negative correlation—that is, the more effort you put into doing something, the more you will fail to do it.

Drown proofing exists on an inverted curve. The more effort you put into rising to the surface, the more likely you will be to fail at it. Similarly, the more you want to breathe, the more likely you are to choke on a bunch of chlorinated piss water.

But I know you’re thinking, “So what, Lee? I’ve usually had too many piña coladas to even find the deep end of the pool, much less bind my arms and legs and try to survive in it. Who gives a shit about inverted curves?”

It’s true, few things in life function on an inverted curve. But the few things that do are extremely important. In fact, I will argue that the most important experiences and goals in life all exist on an inverted curve.

Effort and reward have a linear relationship when the action is mindless and simple. Effort and reward have a diminishing returns relationship when the action is complex and multivariate.

But when the action becomes purely psychological, an experience that exists solely within our own consciousness, the relationship between effort and reward becomes inverted.

Pursuing happiness takes you further away from it. Attempts at greater emotional control only remove us from it. The desire for greater freedom is often what causes us to feel trapped. The need to be loved prevents us from loving and accepting ourselves.

Aldous Huxley once wrote, “The harder we try with the conscious will to do something, the less we shall succeed. Proficiency and results come only to those who have learned the paradoxical art of doing and not doing, or combining relaxation with activity.”

The most fundamental components of our psychology are paradoxial. This is because when we consciously try to create a state of mind, the desire for that state of mind creates a different and often opposite state of mind from the one we’re trying to create.

This is “The Backwards Law” I explained in earlier blogs, but in a nutshell for all you shitheads who didn’t read it is this: desiring a positive experience is itself a negative experience, accepting a negative experience is a positive experience.

But this extends to most–if not all–aspects of our mental health and relationships:

• Control – The more we strive to control our emotions and impulses, the more powerless we will feel. Our emotional life is unruly and often uncontrollable, and it’s the desire to control it that makes it worse. Conversely, the more we accept our feelings and impulses, the more we’re able to direct and process them.

• Freedom – The constant desire for freedom ironically limits us in a number of ways. Similarly, it’s only by limiting ourselves–by choosing and committing to certain things in life–that we truly exercise our freedom.

• Happiness – trying to be happy, makes us less happy. Accepting unhappiness makes us happy.

• Security – Trying to make ourselves feel as secure as possible generates more insecurity. Being comfortable with uncertainty is what allows us to feel secure.

• Love – The more we try to make others love and accept us, the less they will, and more importantly, the less we will love and accept ourselves.

• Respect – The more we demand respect from others, the less they will respect us. The more we ourselves respect others, the more they will come to respect us.

• Trust – The more we try to make people trust us, the less inclined they will be to do so. The more we trust others, the more they will trust us in return.

• Confidence – The more we try to feel confident, the more insecurity and anxiety we will create. The more we accept our faults, the more comfortable we will feel in our own skin.

• Change – The more we desperately want to change ourselves, the more we will always feel as though we are not enough. Whereas, the more we accept ourselves, the more we will grow and evolve because we’ll be too busy actually doing cool shit to notice.

• Meaning – The more we pursue a deeper meaning or purpose of our lives, the more self-obsessed and shallow we will become. The more we try to add meaning to others’ lives, the more profound impact we will feel.

These internal, psychological experiences exist on an inverted curve because they are both the cause and the effect of the same thing: our minds. When you desire happiness, your mind is simultaneously the thing that is desiring and the target of its own desires.

When it comes to these lofty, abstract, existential goals, our minds are like a dog who, after a lifetime of successfully chasing and catching various small creatures, has turned and decided to exact that same strategy on its own tail. To the dog, this seems logical. After all, chasing has led her to catch everything else in her doggy life. Why not her tail, too?

But a dog can never catch her own tail. The more she chases, the more her tail seems to run away. That’s because the dog lacks the perspective to realise that she and the tail are the exact same thing.

The goal is to take your mind—a wonderful thing that has spent its life learning to chase various creatures and teach it to stop chasing its own tail. To stop chasing meaning and freedom and happiness because those only serve to move it further away from itself. To teach it to achieve what it desires by giving up what it desires. To show it how the only way to reach the surface is to let itself sink.

And how do we do this? By letting go. By giving up. By surrendering. Not out of weakness. But out of a respect that the world is beyond our grasp. By recognising that we are fragile and limited and but temporary specks in the infinite reaches of time. You do it by relinquishing control, not because you feel powerless, but because you are powerful. Because you decide to let go of things that are beyond your control. You decide to accept that sometimes, people won’t like you, that often you will fail, that usually you have no fucking clue what you’re doing.

You lean into the fear and uncertainty, and just when you think you’re going to drown, just as you reach the bottom, it will launch you back to your salvation. When it does launch you back, make sure its to your closest coffee shop to grab the sweet nectar of the gods, a freshly brewed coffee, life seems a hell of a lot simpler then.

Mental Health Pt 2

Lee Conroy1 Comment

Everyone has heard of therapy in some form or another, but a lot of people don’t have a clear idea of what it is or what they’re getting into. One stereotype is that you lay on a couch and cry like a child. Another is that it’s just some guy who prescribes you pills. Another is that it’s some guy who shows you ink blots and asks you what you see (boobs, I always see boobs). As with many things, these are caricatures created by pop culture for entertainment purposes. Most therapy is far duller and far more personal than this.

WHAT IS THERAPY?

The idea behind therapy is that most of our decision making comes from unconscious aspects of our mind. As long as these parts of our mind are unconscious, we’re unable to exercise control over them.

The primary purpose of therapy is to help us become aware of these sections of our unconscious, accept them, and then begin exerting control over them. This is how you generally learn to take care of your daily mental health.

The primary purpose of therapy is to help us become aware of the unconscious parts of our mind, accept them, and then begin exerting control over them.

This form of therapy where the therapist helps you uncover the unconscious is common and looks something like this in real life:

You get uncontrollably angry when your significant other doesn’t call back. The culprit is something buried within your unconscious which is causing you to react in such an irrational manner.

By attending therapy, you can start digging into the past, your emotional development, traumas, life problems, childhood, and find the trigger. Maybe your mother made a habit of leaving you behind when you were most vulnerable. Perhaps your past relationships involved someone cheating on you repeatedly or they were rarely available. Whatever.

Once uncovered, then you can process the anger and the hurt in a safe environment. This will then allow you to become more aware of the anger and therefore not feel so powerless when these outbursts occur. Eventually, you should be able to exert enough control over your emotion to modify your behaviour.

Another popular form of therapy is Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT). CBT is useful for changing specific habits or thought patterns, particularly those related to anxiety and depression. CBT focuses more on observing your thoughts and how they lead to behaviours rather than unconscious emotions.

Both forms of therapy have their own strengths and weaknesses. Both are quite effective depending on the issue.

PROBLEMS WITH THERAPY

There are a lot of criticisms of therapy, and although most of them are made by people who have never actually attended therapy, some of them are legitimate. If you are considering therapy or are already in therapy, here are some things to watch out for:

PROFESSIONAL PILL PRESCRIBERS

People often mistake psychologists/therapists for psychiatrists. Psychiatrists prescribe medications and specialise in mental illnesses. Psychologists (generally) do not. Unfortunately, the reputation has developed that ALL therapy consists of, whether by a psychologist or psychiatrist, is a queue to get easy drugs.

Unfortunately, this is true for some practitioners. Unless you believe you suffer from a mental illness, I would recommend you see a therapist/psychologist and only pursue medication if therapy seems ineffective over an extended period of time. Many people go straight to a psychiatrist who then hands them anti-depressants or some other pill like it’s candy.

BECOMING A COUCH POTATO

Many people attend therapy with the expectation that they go sit in a comfy chair and the therapist will magically fix them. Sometimes they even get frustrated when

“nothing happens” in their therapy sessions, when in actuality they’re hardly participating in them.

Therapy is a participatory activity. In fact, I would argue that if therapy is going well, it’s because you are doing 80% of the work.

You should approach it with the attitude that you are there to work on yourself and the therapist is there to facilitate and give you a push in the right direction. See them as a personal trainer for your mind and emotions. You’re still doing all of the heavy lifting, but they’re there to spot, encourage, and direct you. If you aren’t willing to do the work, then they can’t do anything to help.

THE NEVER-ENDING THERAPY

Therapy is still subject to the Law of self help: You can judge the usefulness of any self-help tool by how many people are leaving it. If people are leaving it, it works. If people are staying, then it’s not working.

Many people leave therapy with success stories (myself included), but many people stay for years and years with little to show for it.

Many people fall into comfortable patterns with their therapists. In the beginning, they may uncover some major issues and make some big changes, but eventually, the therapist won’t be able to offer a new perspective, the patient will come in every week or month for years on end, they will discuss the same topics, and they will enter into a loop of patient shares problems, therapist validates problems, patient feels better about problems and leaves, comes back later with similar (or the same) problems.

Don’t fall into the trap of paying someone to validate your issues. It’s tempting and it’s easy to do, both for you and for your therapist. But don’t do it.

Therapy should feel a little uncomfortable. It should challenge you. It should make you think about your life from new perspectives. It shouldn’t feel good all the time. If it ever becomes repetitive, then it may be time to get out and find a new therapist or try something else.

THE EASY HIRE

Another problem people have is that they are not selective with the therapist they hire. You should treat this step of the process seriously, as if you’re interviewing people for a job opening in your life.

Most therapists offer free consultation sessions where you can meet them, get to know them, and describe your problems to them. There will be some therapists you naturally click with and others you don’t. Some therapists will be able to relate to your problems personally, others won’t.

When I sought out a therapist, I purposefully found a younger male who used to party a lot and was a musician. I felt like he could relate to me and where I was in my life. Things went really well.

Maybe you need someone who will make you feel uncomfortable, someone who will challenge you and won’t put up with your bullshit. Whatever your case may be, take a moment to consider what type of therapist could best relate to your issues and help you, and seek them out.

Hiring a therapist is a large commitment, so take it seriously.

SIX SIGNS THAT YOU NEED THERAPY

I’ve actually referred a lot of people to therapy over the years. Many have ignored it (especially men…). Some have gone. A few have come back and thanked me for recommending it to them. It’s hard to say for sure who needs it and who doesn’t.

Therapy is one of those tricky things, like most self-development tools, because it’s rarely ever a bad thing to do. One could argue that everyone needs therapy in some form or another or for some period of time.

But I would only recommend it if you feel you aren’t able to handle your emotional issues and have tried on your own for a while.

Here are six signs that you may need therapy:

SIGN 1: IMPULSES

All of us struggle with impulses from time to time (that chocolate cake is just begging to be devoured). Some of us are more successful than others at resisting them. If you find  yourself regularly succumbing to impulses, you may want to consider therapy.

The most common impulses people succumb to are emotional—angry outbursts, bouts of depression, etc.—and sexual—fear of intimacy, sexual anxiety, etc. Having little to no control over these impulses can be a major obstacle to living a functional life, not to mention a happy and healthy one.

SIGN 2: DIFFICULT CHILDHOOD

The influence of childhood experiences on our thoughts, emotions, and actions as an adult cannot be overstated. What makes it worse is that we’re usually not aware of them—they reside in the unconscious parts of our mind.

Many people, including myself in the past, go about their lives completely unaware of attachment issues that result from not receiving enough love and affection from their parents as a child. You may know someone who just can’t seem to get their finances in control, unaware that they’ve been influenced by their parents’ reckless ways with money all those years ago.

Unfortunately, when it comes to mental inclinations, the apple rarely falls far from the tree unless you’ve developed the ability to self-reflect and act against your tendencies. And few people do.

So if you come from a difficult childhood, if you had absent parents or a poor relationship with them, you may be suffering the after-effects without knowing.

SIGN 3: MAJOR TRAUMAS

I probably don’t have to convince you that traumas are a big deal, and it never hurts to get help to deal with them. Major traumas in life could be the death of loved ones, abuse, major health problems, etc.

Even if you think you’re perfectly fine, chances are you’re psychologically suffering in one way or another without knowing it. Getting therapy could help you uncover these blind spots and truly turn the page.

SIGN 4: COMPULSIVE BEHAVIOURS

We all succumb to vices from time to time. These vices in moderate amounts on occasion don’t necessarily hurt—that ice cold beer at the end of a long working day, that chocolate cake we finally devour.

However, in some cases the vices become compulsive behaviours and begin to interfere with other areas of your life, the most common ones being alcohol and drug abuse.Similarly to the emotional and sexual impulses I mentioned above, these compulsive behaviours do you no favours and will thoroughly derail your life. Seek help.

SIGN 5: DYSFUNCTIONAL RELATIONSHIPS

Humans are social animals, so it should come as no surprise that having dysfunctionalrelationships has an outsized impact on your quality of life.

The sad truth is that many, if not the majority, of us have at least one dysfunctional relationship and are simply putting up with it, thinking it’s part and parcel of life. This is the wrong approach.

Always fighting with your other half over pointless things like duvet sets or pillow cases? Always guilt-tripped into visiting your aging parents? Always getting blamed for mistakes at work? Always saying “yes” to your best friend’s never-ending requests? These are tell-tale signs of unhealthy and, in some cases, dysfunctional relationships.

Tolerate them, you should not.

SIGN 6: OBSESSION

Some of us are overly pre-occupied with one aspect of our lives. Joe next door is obsessed with being “cool” or popular. Your aunt is obsessed with impressing everyone at family gatherings. Your partner has a constant need for approval from others and is always looking for that pat on the back from you for every little thing they do. Hell, maybe even you yourself are obsessing about improving yourself (you are reading this article after all). Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for self improvement But sometimes this devolves into feeling like you’re never good enough and mindlessly executing self help hacks which you can probably tell is not a bueno idea.

In the end, therapy is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, it could be the difference between a healthy and happy life and a life full of agonising crapfests. I prefer the former myself.

WHAT IS MENTAL HEALTH?

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For the vast majority of modern medical history, “health” was basically defined as the absence of disease. If you weren’t sick, you were healthy. Mental health was treated the same way: if you weren’t a fucking crazy loon, then you were considered mentally healthy.

But as medicine and psychology advanced, it became clear that our mental health included a wider range of emotional and social factors that don’t necessarily have much to do with mental illness. Mental health became more closely associated with well-being across all domains of our lives—both personally (psychological, emotional, cognitive, etc.) and interpersonally (community and family, romantic relationships, professional fulfilment, etc.).

Our mental health affects our everyday lives, influencing how we respond to stress, how we make decisions, how we interact with others, our sense of fulfillments and purpose in the world, and on and on.

It’s important, then, that we take a step back and really think about our mental health in holistic terms like this, not just as a lack of mental disorder.

FACTORS THAT AFFECT YOUR MENTAL HEALTH

GENETICS

Studies have found that our genes play a significant role in our mental health and well-being. Your baseline level of happiness, for instance, is about 50% determined by your genes. If mom and dad were grumpy assholes, well you’ll probably have a tendency to be a grumpy asshole too.

And, of course, if a close relative of yours has a mental disorder, then you’re also at a higher risk for mental illness as well.

Now, before you start thinking that this sounds a bit too fatalistic, a significant portion of your mental health is also influenced by environmental factors that you can control.

You might be predisposed to anxiety, but you can take steps to lessen the impact of your anxiety on your life. You can work with a therapist to identify the things that make you anxious and learn coping strategies that help you deal with your anxiety on a day-to-day basis. You can read books and meditate and tap your forehead and chant mantras, or whatever the fuck the kids do these days. The point is: you can actively minimise your anxiety despite your genetics.3

LIFE EXPERIENCES AND TRAUMA

Here’s a shocker: intense negative experiences and trauma can mess you up.

Having nice things like a job you like, friends and family you can count on, and your health intact, you’re more likely to have good mental health. If you hate yourself, your life and the people in it, well, then your mental health is going to suffer.

Some degree of trauma is unavoidable. We all get screwed in one way or another. Research suggests that virtually everyone experiences at least four or five traumatic experiences in their life. This could include everything from losing a job, to losing a loved one, health scares, or, in severe cases, physical and psychological abuse.

The time at which we experience trauma can also influence how big of an impact it has on us. Trauma experienced early in life has a bigger chance of causing problems throughout our lives.5 But trauma as an adult can have a severe effect as well.

But here’s the thing: trauma, while terrible, doesn’t have to fuck us up so bad for so long. In fact, most people don’t see their mental health suffer due to trauma. In fact, for most people, it turns out trauma can give us an opportunity to grow as individuals.

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR MENTAL HEALTH

Below are just a few guidelines to get you to a place where you can manage your mental health more confidently if you often feel out of place, unfulfilled, or like something is “missing” and it causes you some degree of distress at times.

Note, however, that I’m not a therapist and if you or someone you know is struggling with a mental illness, you need to seek help from a licensed healthcare professional (more on that later).

CREATE DEEPER SOCIAL CONNECTIONS

One of the best predictors of good mental health is having a solid social network. Money, sex, prestige, status—all of that will only give your mood a short-lived boost. Soon enough, you’ll be back to being the miserable fuck you were. Trust me: do not chase sources of external validation to fill some sort of void you’re feeling. Been there, done that. Got the vomit stains to prove it.

Instead, knowing that you have just a few people—or even one person—you can turn to when shit gets real gives you a social and psychological safety net. The thing is, relationships like these have to be cultivated and fostered over time.

You do this by sharing yourself with others honestly and with vulnerability, This will turn some people off, but that’s okay. You don’t need to make friends with everyone. When it comes to relationships, always strive for quality over quantity.

The people who do respond positively to your honest expression are the people you can start to build your “tribe” with.

DEVELOP HEALTHY LIFESTYLE HABITS

Look, I know everyone “knows” they should take better care of their bodies, but most of us (myself included) are still pretty terrible about it. And it’s arguably even more important if you’re trying to improve your mental health.

Your mental health will almost always benefit from incorporating healthy lifestyle habits into your day. The whole “mind-body” connection, after all, is only a thing because the brain is a part of the body. So taking care of your body means you’re taking care of your brain too.

The big areas to really, actually, like for real focus on are:

GET SOME SLEEP

Seriously. The medical field has finally woken up (pun intended) to the fact that it’s not just a “good idea” to get a solid eight hours of sleep—it’s absolutely critical for your health.

Sleep-deprived people who regularly get less than 7-8 hours of sleep per night are not only more irritable and less focused, they also show a lot of the hallmark signs of depression and anxiety. A few nights of bad sleep here and there are inevitable, but if you haven’t slept well in years or even a decade or more, it will have outsized effects across your entire life.

Get into a regular sleep routine, limit/eliminate your caffeine and alcohol consumption, and turn the screens off at night.

If you have real trouble sleeping, see a doctor. It might be as simple as figuring out a new routine or you might need more intervention. Either way, it’s worth it.

Solid sleep will also make all the following healthy habits that much easier because, well, you won’t be so damn tired and burnt out when it comes time to do them.

So onward.

EXERCISE

I probably don’t need to tell you that regular exercise has all sorts of health benefits and makes you feel better and blah blah blah… I’m not going to tell you that exercise is a cure-all for any mental health issues you might be having, but it can definitely start to push your body and mind in the right direction.

A short walk can boost your energy levels when you’re dragging a bit, giving you the extra nudge you need to get some work done or get through a setback in your day. Nearly all forms of exercise help relieve stress, especially things like martial arts.

The key is to find exercise that 1) you enjoy and 2) fits into your life. You don’t have to spend hours in a gym to get the benefits of exercise and you don’t have to go completely out of your way to do it either. Daily walks/jogs or simple stretches and calisthenics are often enough to get you the boost you need to work on your mental health.

Once you get into a habit of exercising, you can optimise from there.

HEALTHY EATING

Good sleep and regular exercise provide your mind and body a better starting point from which to manage your mental health on a day-to-day basis. Healthy eating habits will help fuel you from there.

Honestly, I’m not the best person to ask for nutritional information, but I will say this: whenever I’ve been on a streak of indulgent eating and drinking, my mental health takes a hit. I’m more tired, I start to feel uneasy, and I find it way easier to slide into bad habits from there, starting a vicious cycle that gets harder and harder to get out of.

There is no need to get complicated with this. In fact, keeping it dead simple and sticking to the basics will make it way more likely that you maintain a healthy diet. So, lean meats (if you eat meat), fruits, and vegetables should make up the vast majority of your diet. Limit fat and carbs, including sugar.

MEDITATE

Briefly, in terms of helping your mental health, meditation can help you identify toxic thought patterns and examine them more closely. It gets you more in tune with your body as well as your self-talk. It can help you slow down and think—really think—and be more present while being less attached to the daily ups and downs of life.

There are literally millions of resources to help you meditate. A few I like are apps like calm and headspace. The neuroscientist and famous podcaster Sam Harris also offers a guided course on his app, Waking Up, as well.

SPEND TIME IN NATURE

Outdoor enthusiasts have long touted the health benefits of being in nature, both physical and mental. But scientists—being scientists—thought they needed to run fancy studies with control groups and write really nerdy articles with graphs and tables and overly complicated English.

Their conclusion: yep, the enthusiasts were right. Spending time in nature does benefit your mental and physical well-being.

Thanks, scientists.

Seriously though, they’ve found that about two hours per week in nature produced measurably better reports of health and well-being. It doesn’t have to be all at once either. It could be as simple as going on a walk through a park near your house (double gold star for combining with exercise) a few times a week.

Whatever it is, nature just has a calming effect on people, especially those of us who spend all of our time in bustling, noisy city environments.

For me, it gives me a better sense of the scale of everything—my life, my problems, etc. You realise you’re a part of something that’s much bigger than yourself, something that will be here long after you’re gone. For a few moments, when I’m in nature, I feel like I can connect with whatever that something is. And it has a way of making all my problems seem smaller.

GET PROFESSIONAL HELP

There is no magical cure-all for your mental health. But even small changes in the areas I’ve outlined so far can help tremendously.

Even then, you might still feel like you need some outside help. If so, I encourage you to give therapy a try while you continue to develop a healthier lifestyle.

Therapy, too, is not a cure-all for whatever you’re going through, but it can be an effective tool in getting you to a place where you can better manage your mental health.

With all that being said, one thing I cannot stress enough is, drink your damn coffee 😏