Hey there!
How’s the weekend going? Have some unwinding planned? If not, what?!?!?!
On to the 3 things for today.
The critic and the other guy. We all have our inner critic. Why do we pay so much attention to that manifestation?
3 quotes for this week. Featuring Bruce Lee, Nassim Taleb, and Derek Sivers.
What makes you tick? Have you thought about it? Are you playing the game that you think you should be playing because everyone else is? Should you be playing a different game? Do you have the time to find out? Can you afford not to find out?
The critic and the other guy
Lock your hips out more. Squat deeper. You are not bracing hard enough. Your feet are turned out too much. Your feet are not turned out enough. You could've put more power into that rep.
And so on. The inner voice, the critic can and will keep going if you let him.
The technical part of a movement can be broken down into quite a lot of steps and it is impossible to try and nail them. Well, at least for me. But that's what the critic is evaluating against. He has a checklist and is going over it for each and every rep you do.
And here's the kicker - is he being objective and precise about his observation? No. It is his judgment on how he thinks you did. Not impartial. Depends on what side of the bed he woke up on today.
But we all listen to him, and worse, we encourage him.
Think about days when you had a great training session or a gorgeous run where the mind felt refreshed and you came back beaming! I am willing to bet that somehow the critic shut up that day, or was otherwise occupied.
While I am a textbook follower for technical instruction, the "Don't think. Feel!" is my preferred approach. Because I know those days feel magical.
As I analyse my training days, the days I have the most learning are the days the critic took a vacation.
Trying to shut him up does not work, and often backfires. What I do is a combination of
being aware of what I am doing. This works as great proprioception (where your joints are in space) drill, with the added advantage of giving the critic something to observe. Is my back straight? Are my knees going out? Am I gripping the floor?
removing emotion from what did not go well. Criticising myself after a bad rep, or even encouraging myself that I can do better. Because by using the word better, I am judging my previous rep.
Putting more positivity into what I did right. Or rather, if it "felt good", I mentally high-five myself and move on. I don't analyse what felt right or replicate it or whatever. Trying to replicate seems to make things worse.
The critic hovers around not only in my training sessions but all the time. As I write this post. As I read books. As I am talking to people. Hopefully, I am able to transfer these lessons more into those places. Or is that in itself a judgment?
And so we go into over-thinking mode. And that's a good time to stop.
3 quotes
An idea starts to be interesting when you get scared of taking it to its logical conclusion.
– Nassim Taleb
Steven Pressfield talks about this too. While I find Taleb hard to understand, this one's rather straightforward. But only because I've seen it to be true in a few instances in my life.
I am on the verge of taking an idea to its logical conclusion - more on this in a few weeks - and holy shit am I scared.
Only actions give to life its strength, as only moderation gives it its charm.
– Bruce Lee
I've been in a book buying frenzy for a few months. Every time I finish a book, I realise there are 5 more that I absolutely NEED to read RIGHT NOW!!!!
But I've made a more important and obvious realisation. What am I taking out of the book and applying in my life? Because without that, the book is useless and I just wasted my time on it. Putting whatever the author says into context and into action - that's my gap.
Moderation - ah, that's an expert move. It is the solution to "how much should you exercise?" and "how much should I be eating?", except it is not easy.
When people would ask, "What are you doing to grow your company?" I'd say, "Nothing! I'm trying to get it to stop growing! I don't like this. It's too big." They thought that was the weirdest thing. Doesn't every business want to be as big as possible? No. Make sure you know what makes you happy, and don't forget it.
– Derek Sivers
Derek provides a great counterpoint to what is the common approach that most of us take. A company NEEDS to grow. Except must it?
Can we instead take time to understand what growth means? And what fun means?
10 years ago, I had a lot of clarity about what I wanted to do with my life. Today, I am a lot more confused than I was 10 years ago. Patience and introspection, hopefully, will lead to clarity. Or noise reduction.
What makes you tick?
You don't know what you don't know
When I was in the 12th grade, I did not know much about much. I did not know what courses one could do in college (besides Engineering), what career options existed (besides writing code). Unfortunately, I did not know that I did not know. But with the blind naivety of youth, I blundered along. I did what everyone around me was talking about, assuming that would be the right answer. Whatever right meant, I still do not know.
I always assumed that once you made a choice into what your career was, you were locked in. And that was that. You did that for the rest of your life.
And work was something you had to do as an adult. Like taxes. You worked so that you could do other things in life.
None of those was true. Based on my limited worldview, I was constructing flawed assumptions and wrong mental models.
I quit one career to go to grad school. I quit my second career to move back to Madras. And my third career has been a blend of many things, of discovery and re-invention. Of many new experiences even as I do similar things daily.
This sparks one realisation - it is irrelevant whether you want to do the same thing for 50 years or 50 things. As long as you are in the moment, pushing yourself forward, experiencing and learning. But enough morals or what-not.
Assumptions
What other flawed assumptions have I made?
Or forget flawed. What assumptions have I made? Which I can re-make today? It does not have to be flawed. There cannot be only ONE path, right?
Is being successful in coming up with Facebook? But then there's the election rigging, the research that social media usage has increased depression, and whatever.
Is success Bill Bowerman and Phil McKnight, the founders of Nike? But then, what about all the research today that indicates shoes with a serious amount of cushioning and heel lift is causing a lot of upstream problems in our body?
Is success Richard Read? Who lived in a modest home, working a modest job, and left behind $8 million when he died.
The ones we never hear about
What about all the successful people we never hear about? The ones who are genuinely content, who are doing what they are here to do. Who are not playing social media wars? Who has won the money game, and said enough is enough. Who has decided to opt out? Who decided they didn't care about the money game or the fame game or whatever games that are being played.
The ones the media does not portray because it does not sell ads.
Well, it all depends on what you define success as.
Without that, you will be chasing someone else's dreams.
Chase your own
Maybe you are scared to go against the grain. For example, not having enough money in the bank is a scary proposition. But equally scary is not defining what that enough is. What if you keep moving goalposts, once you get there? What if more money does not mean more success but you were too caught up or scared?
The more perspectives, the more stories, the more we can grow our worldview. But more is not the answer. The idea, I think, is to see which strikes a chord deep within us. And to make our own weird concoction out of all that we see, and by listening to us deeply.
What makes you tick? What drives you? What warms your heart? What makes you produce your best?
Not finding that out for yourself, and instead of playing the games that everyone's playing (even if you play it real well) - that's anti-success.
Figure out your own game. Your own dreams. Chase them.
Thanks for reading. I’ll see you next weekend.
