Go sit in a church. Not for the religion unless that’s your thing. Meditate. Enjoy the silence. Feel safe.
Listen to an album. Listen to it, stop everything else. See where it takes you. Make some notes on the feelings you feel, plus anything else that pops up in your head.
A smell in the place you work. Coffee maybe, a candle, incense sticks. It gives you a sense that you’re in your space.
Buy something for yourself. A piece of clothing you like (rather than need). A t-shirt, maybe. A pen or a notebook. Don’t go crazy on price; it’s just a small token.
Watch a favourite movie. Spend the couple of hours totally into it. No other distractions.
Exercise. Even a dozen squats while you make a coffee is something. The more you can do, the better. Do whatever you can.
Treating yourself like someone special, someone who deserves to be treated well, will make you stronger.
I started writing in early 2020 in simple lined notebooks as a way of straightening out my thinking. By June of that year I had started my fifth book.
There was a lot coming out. I was 48 years old. Life was a struggle. I couldn’t seem to make anything stick.
I had been working on my own small business for about 4 years. It was making money and a small team was supporting me but there was little satisfaction coming from the work I was putting in.
The writing stopped me in my tracks.
From my writing, I could see that things had to change. I could map out ideas for the future, make sense of the lack of fun, the lack of progress, and the breakdown in my self-belief.
It did a couple of important things that I needed at the time – it put it all there in front of me, and it set me on a new path.
One of the by-products of continually writing these notes has been the ability to revisit them. The progress I’ve made since those dark days is clear.
I took time to listen to what was going on inside myself, and being real about my attitude to life. I hadn’t done this before, and I’m glad I began to. It’s unlocked much more than I thought it would.
The words I wrote are hard to look back on but they needed to be said. I had to have this kind of talk to myself, being honest about where my life was at.
It all came out on the page once I committed to the process, the practice, of writing things out.
When I think back on how powerful a tool it has been (and still is), it’s up there with the best things that I’ve ever done for myself.
Surround yourself with positive people and the right kind of influences.
The ones that take you somewhere new, to a different level.
The ones who lift you when you’re feeling down.
Loneliness can be a powerful force, dampening many dreams.
It takes effort on your part to join a group, especially if you’re an introvert, but the more groups that you’re part of, the lower the likelihood you’ll find yourself alone.
Book groups, study groups, sports teams and clubs, school groups, work social committees – there are plenty to choose from.
Get involved.
From these groups long-lasting friendships will form and develop over time.
You’ll go further, faster, surrounded by the right people.
I ran 31km yesterday as training for the Sydney marathon (49 days to go). It was a miserable day; cold, wet, and windy – very un-Sydney-like.
I had three and a half hours to think about why we should all push ourselves to do difficult things.
When we take on tough tasks, we grow stronger in our minds. The muscle grows the more we challenge it.
Doing hard things also makes us feel more sure of ourselves. We prove that we can overcome obstacles, making us more confident in other areas of life.
Mental toughness increases. These long runs are small victories on the path to the big day in front of large crowds on the streets of the city. I know I can do it on the day if I’ve put the work in week to week – it all compounds.
Want to set your own challenges? Start small and work your way up. Set clear goals and keep track of your progress. Remember, the hardest things often bring the best rewards in the end.
I’m creating a dumb laptop, connected to nothing, that I can write and journal on. It’s solely for writing, to be used anywhere I want to take it.
Writing will be done with no distractions or temptations from the rest of the online world.
I will have to use a USB drive to transfer files to Obsidian or elsewhere, but having a dumb device is the way to focus.
My phone has been placed inside a faraday bag for most of the last two hours. I’ve not pulled it out or been tempted to once. It’s forgotten when it’s not looking at you.
This is the way it works. The notifications, the bright screens, the dings, pings, and the vibrations in your pocket – it’s a conspiracy against our ability to focus, to deliver our best work, to ship.
A shiny phone you spend your life caring about more than the humans who live and breathe around you is reducing your ability to create, evolve, grow, and become more than you were yesterday.
Take it away for a few minutes, hours, and even days, and watch what happens to your life in the process. Start with a faraday bag, maybe, and see what you come up with.
To-do lists are killers. We pile up task after task, creating this list that never ends.
Ever created a list with just a couple of things on it, like a shopping list of stuff you pick up from the store? The satisfaction when you tick everything off is a dopamine hit.
When we make a massive list, never getting to the end of it, we never get that hit. The nervousness builds knowing we have a pile of stuff that’s growing instead of reducing.
I try and get three things done a day. I get the biggest thing done first, and then the next biggest, and so on. If I clear the three things, I’ve achieved something small but normally meaningful to me based on what I have on my plate.
I have a long to-do list, but I see it more as a stockpile of possibles for my three task list that I attack every day. This way, the stress is reduced. I know I’m ok if those three things are done. Tomorrow is another day to attack the rest.
I don’t know why the reaction to anything is usually a negative one before a positive.
Maybe a cute baby gets a smile, or you see someone you know and like, and the safe feeling you associate with them makes you smile. These are times when there’s no downside, no bad feeling.
At work, that first thought is often one of negativity. It’s a battle to turn on the ‘can-do’ mindset, offering to help and solve a problem rather than highlight one. The questions come to the surface – why this, what that, why me???
I know it’s a choice in most cases – a choice to accept the bad thoughts and feelings.
Those times when I decide not to accept the bad and take the chance saying yes frequently lead to something good.
And, even if the immediate reward isn’t clear, there’s normally some kind of silver lining a little further into the future based on those good intentions being made real.
The planets align somehow. Don’t ask me how or why, but we’ve all had instances of these happy accidents.
For some, this is the norm. Why can’t it be for us, too?
Attempting to white-knuckle the task of beating the algorithms to stop or slow down your use of social media is doomed to failure.
The facts are clear if you think about it.
These mammoth tech businesses have armies of the brightest minds working against you as their business model.
Their job is to hijack your attention and keep you coming back for more, over and over again. And they do it so well.
The attention on Instagram, for example, and the seemingly non-stop growth of that attention, transcending age, gender, and social barriers, is off the chain.
Willpower alone is not enough. The algorithms are too strong, too smart, too skilled at keeping you fixated. Our psychological weaknesses as humans are being exploited.
To overcome the alogorithms and move on with a full life, cut them out.
Delete the apps from your device to eliminate that instant fix from your phone.
Reclaim that 2 to 5 to 15 to 50 minute block that you’d spend scrolling inside the app, using it for something practical instead.
Challenge yourself to make this change work. Your mental health and your ability to be productive will thank you later.
Who you see, the tools you use, where you work, the position of your desk in your home, the stuff you experience every day – it all has to support you in the daily journey towards achievement of your goals.
How can you improve your environment along these lines?
Think in terms of people, process, and technology.
Do you need to be around a more supportive crew on a daily basis?
Is your bedtime routine making it hard for you to get up on time, and therefore start the day on time, and in a good frame of mind?
Do you use software tools that help you day-to-day, or are you the kind of person who signs up for everything but uses very little functionality of each app after the initial flurry of activity once the novelty has worn off?
It could be time to move your desk towards the window for more light, or even move to somewhere new.
Are you warm in the winter, and cool in the summer, or do you need to get warmer in the winter months, for example?
Could a new picture in a frame on your desk of someone you care about make a difference to how long you spend sat there, and the quality of work you produce?
Ponder on this topic for a while.
Understanding the impact of this overarching statement can have a big impact over time. That’s our shared goal, right?
The hard work is ahead. I’m running a final marathon this year before my knees break down.
I got through the hurdle of a half marathon last week. Training now steps up to distances much further, staying on my feet for longer.
It’s always harder in my head than it is to do the actual running.
The running is the fun part. The pain comes and I grind through it. One foot in front of the other, over and over.
Thinking about it – letting my brain get in the way – makes the task more difficult.
When we run, pushing towards our physical limits, we get a look at how we react to pain and stress. We hear our brain telling us to slow down, take shortcuts, or simply stop.
The challenge is laid down – easy or hard path? Which one do you want? Growth or stagnation? Settle for what you have, for who you are right now, or grow into someone else? Someone you don’t know yet. Someone you’ve never met.
The action gives us the answers.
The act of not doing what my brain says, and doing what my plan says – following my process – is where the growth comes from.
The act of ‘less thought, more action’ doesn’t apply universally, but the more I take action without the ‘what if…?’ thoughts that let the brain get the upper hand, the better the results.
Nice quote from Phil Jackson’s book, ‘Eleven Rings’ (beginning of chapter 19):
“Forget mistakes, forget failures, forget everything, except what you’re going to do now and do it.
Today is your lucky day.”
The mess our brains can make of getting through each day is real.
Competing interests, pressure from all sides, the desire to be perfect, all that nonsense.
If you can get into the ‘chop wood, carry water’ mindset, the noise in our brains quietens.
Find the focus in the next task you want to do and go do it. Then the next, over and over.
Sports books and metaphors from sport, or Buddhist philosophies for quieting a noisy mind, don’t sit well with everyone, but they can help you put the pieces together that work for you.
Ian Mountford 