28 Sep 2023 - James Wiles

You are the problem

You are the only person that can cause yourself to be unsuccessful.

If there is a problem with you, first realise that you are the problem, and then realise that all problems have solutions. Approach solving the you problem as you would any other challenge that you would naturally.

• Treat your lack of motivation as problem to be solved

Physiology

(💪🏼 arm emoji represents motivation because it is a physical action)

Understand that feelings are generated physiologically, that means happiness, sadness, depression, passion and every other emotion is a neuro chemical response generated by your body and, most importantly to understand, not your brain! You are not able to think yourself happy, you can not convince yourself to be motivated, these are all physical responses generated from a contract between your conscious mind your deep lizard brain. Your can use logic to change frames of reference and generate mental images for your subconscious to process, but you need to put yourself in a position to let your body give you the happy chemicals only it can produce naturally.

• Connect eat, sleep, exercise, and socialise to your motivation

Machine Like any machine that does work, your brain is beholden to certain fundamental mechanical principles too. Consider a battery powered vacuum cleaner, you need to clean it out regularly else it will get stuffed and cease to function. You need to keep it charged up, if something get’s stuck you need to remove it first, if you over run for too long it could get hot and burn out. Why do you treat your brain as an ethereal thing that does not need time off or cleaning every so often. If you don’t keep your tools in perfect order the quality of your work will degrade and eventually come to a complete stop. Everything needs service, repair, and maintenance, including your mind.

• Take strategic rest, listen to your body and mind

Complexity

Internal simplification allows for greater external complexity handling. If your mind if filled with too many thoughts and ideas bumping around all day, then it will be limited in it’s ability to handle external issues, which are never ending. When you have a lot to do, simplify your life dramatically so that all you think about day and night are the challenges your grappling with. Do you let social media or trivial matters distract you. When you are ready to engage with new ideas then deliberately expose yourself in a phase of external exposure. When you need to build, insolate yourself so that you can protect the interactions that are required to manifest something new.

• turn off all distractions, and insolate yourself when going through deep work