Distress vs. Eustress

The story of stress starts with a researcher who was extraordinarily bad at handling rats. Stress as a concept was imported from physics by Walter Cannon into physiology, though the landmark experiments were done by the bad rat-handler, Hans Selye. Selye ran an experiment in which he attempted to inject rats daily with an ovarian extract to determine its function. Unfortunately, he would often try to inject the rats, miss, drop them, spend half the morning chasing the rats around the room, flailing with a broom to get them out from behind a sink, and so on. After a few months of this, the rats had peptic ulcers, greatly enlarged adrenal glands and shrunken immune tissues. Intrigued, he ran another experiment that injected a control group with saline with the same level of finesse. At the end of the experiment, the control group had similar peptic ulcers and other signs of stress. Thus, he discovered some of the effects of prolonged stress. (Selye, 1982).

Selye was also the first person to differentiate stress into eustress and distress (Selye, 1975). Distress is what we are familiar with under the term “stress”, however eustress is a different beast altogether. Eustress is positive stress. They both cause activation of the sympathetic nervous system which causes the heart to beat faster, blood pressure to go up and the body to become ready for fight or flight (though the situation is more complicated than that). Subjectively, distress is perceived as anxiety-producing while eustress is often perceived as exciting. This difference exists despite the fact that the physiological systems are the same, though the activation of the sympathetic nervous system is often lower in eustress than distress for the same level of stressor (Sapolsky, 2004).

Physiologists and endocrinologists have done an extraordinary job of discovering the benefits of eustress and the negatives of distress. Eustress such as excersize, sex, etc, helps increase functioning, prolongs life, increases life satisfaction and is often associated with “being challenged”. Prolonged distress, however, has been linked to a lot of negative consequences, including cardiovascular and heart disease (stressed monkeys had heart attacks, even the ones on low-fat diets), reduced immune function and just feeling terrible all the time (Sapolsky, 2004). However, what is a distressing event or activity and what is a eustressing one? Why will running every day for an hour for ten years increase life span while running from a bear for an hour every day will greatly decrease life span? Why is it that something one person finds distressing (e.g. a roller coaster ride) another person is willing to pay for?

The answer lies in what triggers the stress response. It is in the mind. Since physiologists are averse to anything as touchy-feely as the mind, the role of determining stress triggers falls to psychology. There are some interesting correlates. Some landmark studies have been about the difference between eustress and distress without being named as being about it. Such as the classic Schachter-Singer experiment (Schachter & Singer, 1962) and the “HighBridge” experiment (Dutton & Aron, 1974). What these studies indicated was that there is a dynamic relationship between the physiological response and the emotional-cognitive one, where one may influence the other and feedback to influence the first. This helps provide the basis for the success of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapies involving the technique of reframing. It is thus possible to reframe anxiety and nervousness to become excitement and readiness for action, and distress into eustress (in certain circumstances). A different stress response is activated (one with more glucocorticoids) when a creature has fallen into “learned helplessness” and more of the prolonged negative effects of stress come from glucocorticoid exposure (see Sapolsky, 2004 for review).

Distress into Eustress

A lot of psychological research (and positive psychological research) is focused on how people cope with distress. Concepts such as resilience, trauma-coping, and others are about distress and successfully coping with it without falling into depression or learned helplessness. However, what if events were not interpreted as being distressing but rather eustressing in the first place? What if people pursued positive eustress or even slight distress voluntarily? The positive benefits of pursuing eustress are rarely mentioned by that name. For example, the extensive literature on goal-setting is about eustress—about setting goals that push us out of our comfort zones, but the two terms are rarely mentioned in conjunction with each other (Sheldon, Kasser, Smith & Share, 2002). What if someone decided voluntarily to place themselves in stressful situations and learned to cope with each successively difficult challenge, such as how video game levels are structured? We will return to this question soon.

How does one produce psychological eustress and its benefits? Inspiration to answer this question on this comes from two fronts: the study of myths and Russian psychology. Russian psychology starts with the axiomatic assumption that, anxiety is the basic state of creatures and we learn to be calm, whereas Western psychology starts with the assumption that calmness is the fundamental state and we learn to be afraid or anxious. The Russian view is supported by the simple fact that the amygdala, which generates anxiety, is always on but inhibited (Peterson, 1999).

Fair enough, but what causes anxiety? Anxiety and the stress-response is a sort of “catch-all” phenomena that seems to occur often in cases of uncertainty, and especially uncertainty about negative events (uncertainty about positive events is often anticipation and excitement—such as a lottery ticket). The class of things or situations or states or consequences that generate anxiety might be referred to as “chaos”, which is a central theme in many myths. Chaos refers to change, the generative principle that creates, the uncertain, the unknown, and the multi-faceted. Many of the most popular myths are about the interplay between chaos, order, and the thing that mediates between the two (often referred to as the hero—or the virtual governor in dynamical systems theory). “Order” is the state or situation where calmness reigns. “Chaos” and “order” map easily onto the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system respectively, which are setup in an opponent processing manner much like order and chaos.

Well, what does the hero do in myths? The hero decides to go out to face chaos voluntarily and face the things that cause the hero anxiety and fear. However, the hero cannot go and face the greatest anxiety-provoking thing out there immediately and must instead fight lesser monsters to work up to fighting and defeating the greatest monster of them all. Sometimes the hero will foolishly attempt to attack the strongest monster immediately, but run away when the challenge appears too great, but returns to fight eventually. This is often referred to as a “first flight of the hero”.

There are a few key things about this archetypal story. The first is that this process must be engaged in voluntarily. The second is this has to be done in stages, where the first action is just outside the comfort zone of the hero and after successfully confronting the first monster, the hero’s comfort zone expands and can now comfortably face monsters of the same difficulty. This is, in some way, boring, so the hero must next fight a monster that was previously too far out of his comfort zone but after the first monster, is just outside the new, expanded comfort zone. Why else do sequels to movies always up the stakes, that is, first the hero saves theUnited States, and then the world? (Peterson, 1999)

We know these two key things to be true from treatment of phobias using exposure therapy. If you take someone with a fear of elevators and throw them into an elevator, they will likely have a nervous breakdown. However, if they decide they want to get over this fear and voluntarily face chaos, then they are much more likely to overcome the phobia. Thus, exposing yourself to what you fear voluntarily is important for eustress and also growth as a person. Another stream of research which provides validity for this idea of voluntary exposure to chaos comes from the work of James Pennebaker (Pennebaker & Beall, 1986), which involves facing trauma and converting it to order by expressing it in words. This has shown great effectiveness in terms of increasing both physical and mental health.

It appears that human beings may even be built to seek a certain amount of chaos in the form of novelty. A bit of chaos or change is interesting and too much order is boring. It appears that physiologically, excitement and anxiety or nervousness seem to be very similar. What is the difference between the two? It appears that the difference arises from how the situation is assessed. Schachter & Singer (1962)’s experiment indicates this, as do the challenge/threat appraisal experiments (Tomaka, Blascovich, Kelsey & Leitten, 1993).

This is where this discussion parts ways with Richard Lazarus (1984) and most modern psychology textbooks. Lazarus envisioned eustress and distress being along the same dimension, where a little bit of stress is perceived as beneficial and more than that point is perceived as distressing. This is very similar to the Yerkes–Dodson law (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908). However, this is a simplistic understanding of the issue in which other factors are important for perceiving a situation or activity as exciting or distressing and at least one of them is cognitive appraisal of the situation as demonstrated by the challenge/threat appraisal experiments (Tomakaa, Blascovicha, Kelseyb & Leitten, 1993). Personality factors are also important which includes a personal tolerance for uncertainty and chaos (often measured by sensation-seeking, risk-seeking, tolerance of ambiguity or tolerance of uncertainty scales). This personal tolerance is likely based on two things: a person’s optimal ratio of certainty to uncertainty (order to chaos) in their life, and the current balance of certainty to uncertainty in their life. Too much certainty (order) and life becomes boring and stale without much growth, so a bit of uncertainty brings excitement back into life. Too much uncertainty (chaos) and life becomes stressful and overwhelming. Chaos carries an additional problem: it is not only the unknown but also that which is without pattern and predictability. As pattern seeking machines, most creatures abhor being in situations without any predictability, where cause-effect relations are inconsistent (a good way to destroy a child is to punish and reward them unpredictably) and no stories can be made. In extreme cases, too much uncertainty and inability to discern any patterns in an environment can lead to “experimental neurosis” or Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, which is often treated through exposure therapy (Rothbaum & Schwartz, 2002).

So, we have a new prescription: a life well-lived involves eustress and voluntarily exposing ourselves to small amounts of distress and anxiety over time. Colloquially this referred to as “challenging yourself” or “pushing yourself out of your comfort zone”. By exposing oneself to one level of difficulty of trauma and learning to cope, perhaps in the future, an unintentional trauma of the same difficulty will be dealt with more effectively. Thus, a lifestyle of exposing oneself to controlled doses of ever increasing stress (though it is not necessarily increasing from a personal perspective) may have a preventative role towards future trauma by increasing one’s coping resources.

Suffering as transformative is an ancient idea as summed up beautifully by Tedeschi & Calhoun (2004):

The general understanding that suffering and distress can be possible sources of positive change is thousands of years old. For example, some of the early ideas and writings  of the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and early Christians, as well as some of the teachings of Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam contain elements of the potentially transformative power of suffering. A major theme of Christian traditions, for example, are the narratives about the transformative effect of the execution of Jesus. His suffering is viewed as having the power to transform others. In some Islamic traditions, suffering is seen as instrumental to the purposes of Allah. A central theme of much philosophical inquiry, and the work of novelists, dramatists, and poets, has included attempts to understand and discover the meaning of human suffering.

            Doing something simply because it is challenging or fear-inducing or requires courage is valid for doing it for its own sake, or for the sake of increasing courage. If you take someone through a “why?” activity whereby you ask them repeatedly their reason for doing something such as attending a class, you often arrive at the final “to be happy” answer in the West. Happiness is seen as a fundamental axiom of living life which is rested upon and does not (or cannot) be justified further. Perhaps to seek challenge, courage and excitement should be another such axiom.

References

Dutton, D. G., & Aron, A. P. (1974). Some evidence for heightened sexual attraction under conditions of high anxiety. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30, 510–517.

Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping Springer Publishing Company.

Pennebaker, J. W., & Beall, S. K. (1986). Confronting a traumatic event: Toward an understanding of inhibition and disease. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 95(3), 274-281.

Peterson, J. B. (1999). Maps of meaning: The architecture of belief Psychology Press.

Rothbaum, B. O., & Schwartz, A. C. (2002). Exposure therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 56(1), 59-75.

Sapolsky, R. M. (2004). Why zebras don’t get ulcers Owl Books.

Schachter, S., & Singer, J. E. (2000). Cognitive, social and physiological determinants of emotional state. Emotions in Social Psychology: Essential Readings, 76

Selye, H. (1975). Confusion and controversy in the stress field. Journal of Human Stress, 1(2), 37-44.

Sheldon, K. M., Kasser, T., Smith, K., & Share, T. (2002). Personal goals and psychological growth:  Testing an intervention to enhance goal attainment and personality integration. Journal of Personality, 70(1), 5-31.

Selye, H. (1982). History and present status of the stress concept. Handbook of Stress: Theoretical and Clinical Aspects, , 7-17.

Tedeschi, R. G., & Calhoun, L. G. (2004). Posttraumatic growth:  Conceptual foundations and empirical evidence. Psychological Inquiry, 15(1), 1-18.

Tomaka, J., Blascovich, J., Kelsey, R. M., & Leitten, C. L. (1993). Subjective, physiological, and behavioral effects of threat and challenge appraisal. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65(2), 248-260.

Yerkes, R. M., & Dodson, J. D. (1908). The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit formation. Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology, 18(5), 459-482.

The key to making this change was something I wrote about in the very first article I posted on this site, The Courage to Live Consciously. I had to remain aware of the change I wanted to make while accepting that I wasn’t yet strong enough to make it. By keeping myself out of denial, I was able to progressively train myself to reach my goal, even though it would take many years to finally reach it.

30-day trials are a terrific vehicle for achieving readiness. Even if your first trial doesn’t result in permanent change, you’ll learn and grow from the experience. This will put you in a position to kick off additional trials in preparation for an eventual permanent change. My previous raw trials were essential stepping stones for me.

…

Five years ago if you asked me if I’d eventually become a raw foodist, I’d probably have said, “Yes, I expect I will at some point.” I didn’t know how long it would take, but I thought I’d eventually discover how to make it work.

Why do I think the above is so important? Because it gives you an immense sense of security when you know you’re going to continue growing. You can look at something that scares the hell out of you square in the face and say, yea, I’ll be able to handle this someday. Even if you can’t see the path to how you’re going to do it.

As an example, I know I’ll be a millionaire someday. It’s not even a question anymore, because by saving as little as 4 dollars a day from the age of 20-65 at 10% will give you over 1 million dollars and I’ve started to do that. The question is when and how I’ll become a millionaire. I may become a millionaire or enjoy a financially independent life style way before then. In fact, its starting to look like I will even though I have plenty of obstacles to fight through, including those that I cannot see. But I know I can handle them because I will keep growing and become stronger. I expect to have 1000 dollars a month from passive income in 5 years although I want it sooner. I know that the current path of growth I’m on will lead me there in all likelihood.

That is not all, though. I also feel that in terms of spiritual beliefs, I will probably end up with the ones that work the best for me.

Basically, as long as you keep trying, you’ll get there.

Essentially, a level of analysis is what it says, depending on what level you are looking at the same thing can mean different things. In Getting Things Done, one of the most powerful models Allen describes is the “altitude” model. It is this:

• 50,000 + feet: Life (Purpose)
• 40,000 feet: Three- to five-year visions
• 30,000 feet: One-to two-year goals
• 20,000 feet: Areas of responsibility (3-6 months)
• 10,000 feet: Current projects (weekly)
• Runway: Current actions (daily, max)

Here’s an example: Say I’m calling a prospect and that works right at the runway, current projects and areas of responsibility levels, but when I hit the 30,000 foot level I get snagged. Maybe the snag is that I don’t want to be doing whatever I’m doing; maybe I want to be a lumberjack! Alignment on all these levels of analysis is one of the things that Steve Pavlina stresses.

Another example of levels of analysis is this blog entry. For example, you can go to the level of syntax and make sure all the sentences make sense. You could go to the level of words and make sure all the words are spelled correctly. You could jump to the paragraph level and check the argument put forward and its proof. You could even jump to the level of the blog and check out how this entry fits into the whole thing.

Another very important place where this model is helpful is in resolving conflict in relationships. Usually, if everybody involved in the conflict is getting emotional, they are probably looking at the wrong level of analysis in the relationship. Odds are that the conflict is not at the level of what actually happened, but at the level of expectations and/or values.

• Above all, trust your own experience. I recommend a week-long media fast to help you to figure out whether this is a change you want to make.
• You waste a ridiculous amount of time watching ads or channel surfing through ads. At one estimate it was at about 20 minutes of every hour of TV watching is ads. That’s a third of your time that you are giving over to people who want to sell you things. And even unconscious exposure can increase liking, so they are likely succeeding.
• Watching TV violence does increase aggressiveness, and that does not necessarily mean physical aggression. Do you really want to submit those who you care about to aggression of any kind, including verbal, emotional or the obvious physical?
• Television is fear-inducing. TV can influence you to be more afraid for your personal safety than you need to be. Watching violence on TV can influence how much violence you believe is in the real world, due to the availability heuristic. The availability heuristic is basically how we use the ease with which we can remember or imagine events to judge how likely or frequent they are. For example, estimate how many homicides will be committed in New York in 2008, a city of 19 million people? Do it. Unless you do it, we’re not moving this train. Ok? One estimate suggests 500 people. Were you off? Another thing is that it can affect how you feel about being personally assaulted. That is, more television violence can increase your own fear of being personally assaulted because you feel it is more likely to happen than it actually is (depending on where you live).
• TV is not without ideologies as are most things and the constant messages about how to live your life may well be counter to what you might actually want to do. As an example, there’s an episode of Family Guy where Joe Swanson the paraplegic gets his legs back and promptly starts excersizing and becomes uber healthy. He also acts like a real jerk to his friends as if he’s better than them. He then ditches his friends and finds some new friends that like to excersize and enjoy life instead of sitting around drinking beer and watching TV. His friends, in retaliation (and understanding that their lives suck, it is alluded to in the show there), try to break his legs and eventually his wife ends up shooting him a bunch of times and at the end of the episode everything is back to normal. If that doesn’t sound like its promoting values antithetical to conscious development, I dunno what does. As soon as Joe does become better than the guys, he starts to act like a jerk? And even though he outgrows his friends, they drag him back down to their level, which they admit is a crappy level. It’s almost as if they can’t stand to be reminded that they do nothing with their lives and have to drag another person down to their level. Don’t worry, I don’t brutalize most TV shows like this, but this episode really struck me. Ask what your favourite shows stand for and what your favourite characters represent.

All that said, there are a few shows I love to watch, including House, MD, the Office, and Avatar: The Last Airbender.

First we have to define what hard work and then clarify the relationship between hard work and goal achievement, I will focus more on money in this post, although I feel this idea can be generalized. My unconscious definition of hard work was essentially suffering, and I didn’t feel right getting money for something if I did not feel it was difficult for me. This is clearly stupid because that means I’d have to half-kill myself to become a millionaire. I needed a more empowering and accurate belief.

Eventually what I realized is that there are at least three different kinds of effort: physical, emotional and cognitive. Of those three kinds of efforts, anything that pushes your abilities to do something is what I would call hard work. Thus hard work is a sort of optimum level of difficulty. Too easy and its obviously not hard work; too hard and you’re just not getting anywhere and I would call this futility. I discovered this difference when I thought about why people couldn’t get themselves to go excersize for as little as 10 minutes. Its not that their bodies can’t handle walking or jogging for a few minutes. I realized that people probably saw it more as an emotional effort than a physical one. They might be afraid of how they’ll feel: out of shape, slow and perhaps in pain.

Another thing I realized is that there are at least two levels of hard work. There is what is subjectively hard for you and what is hard for the general population. For example, cold-calling may be really difficult for you, emotionally (it’s obviously not very difficult physically: you just pick up the phone and yap a bit) but it might be super easy for someone else with a higher level of courage. However, while something may be hard for you, it also may not be hard for the general working population. As an example, assume I have a lot of difficulty talking on the phone so I would not make an effective secretary, even though many people can qualify to be secretaries (although being good ones is a different issue). I’ll come back to why this dichotomy of hard work is important in a bit.

There is the question of the end results that you are looking for, such as money. Effort does not necessarily translate into results, sometimes you need a different kind of effort (such as working on your beliefs rather than just within them). When talking about money, Warren Buffett suggested something wonderful which is that money is a ticket on social value. Human consciousness is necessary to recognize its value, otherwise it is just some paper and metal. Having a dollar basically says that you have the right to withdraw one dollar’s worth of value from society whether that be in the form of goods or services. So, to get money from people, you have to give them something that they value. In general, they would probably something they value more than the money they are exchanging for it, otherwise they may as well keep the money. The more you can give, the more you can get.

So, you get paid for doing socially valuable work that has an impact. Generally, the more people you can provide value for and/or how much value you provide, is how you get paid more. Pavlina talks about this issue here: What is Your Value? and Purpose = Permanent Message + Temporary Medium.

Having defined hard work and creating some form of social value are two independent and not always causally related things, let’s see how they’re linked. Social value also follows a sort of law of supply and demand, and when there is less supply and more demand, you can charge more for your service. You want to charge in accordance with the value you create, as well. There is not just a monetary cost that you charge, though, there is also an attentional cost, too. Steve Pavlina‘s site, for example, doesn’t charge money to view the articles, but it does require attention, and he has to give enough value to make it worth people’s attention and time that they’ll stick around and potentially click on ads or buy his affiliated products.

Because social value follows a sort of supply and demand law, something might be really hard for you but easy for many people and thus the price of that thing will be lower. On the other hand, if something is easy for you and hard for the general population, you have less competition and potentially more demand for it, if it is socially valuable. The social value is an important distinction. As an example: you may be fantastic at making buggy whips, but you likely won’t get rich just making buggy whips simply because there isn’t much demand for it.

Imagine two overlapping circles. Socially valuable work is not necessarily hard work and hard work is not necessarily socially valuable. Hard work is important, yes, but hard work which is effective and gets you closer to your goals is important. As Seth Godin suggested, you could work 100 hours a day and do nothing, and you cannot claim that you are working hard.

Another excellent perspective on hard work by Seth Godin is here. I feel he is talking about emotional effort: taking risks, going against what other people are saying and so forth.

Some general notes related to this theory: people who get fired after working for a long time may say something along the lines of, “I worked so hard”. They might have been working hard indeed, however they might not have been creating much social value. The value that you create has to be perceived as such by the other person, and especially by whoever you are working with or for. Thinking about is, I would say that this is where marketing comes in.

The monetary value of something in our society is not defined by what is “right” or “wrong”. Top movie stars, for example, can make millions of dollars in a given year while top doctors (depending on where you are) who save lives every day may make as much as a million dollars. I feel that this has little to do with society’s “values” being skewed but more to do with the nature of their businesses. Top movie stars get paid out of the 8-13 dollars many millions of movie goers and DVD buyers will pay in perhaps a year. In a way, they have a larger impact. On the other hand, top doctors may only have a few hundred-thousand life-saving operations over the course of their careers. The doctor’s results are linked to their time and attention and there’s really no way around that because there are only so many hours in a day. A movie star, however, is working on a more scalable model which doesn’t require their attention to generate the actual income.

Main Points:

• Working hard will not always give you the results you desire.
• What is hard for you and what is hard for the general population can lead to your results being different because if it’s easy to do something, a lot of people will be doing it and thus drive down the relative value (ie price) of that thing.
• Hard work has at least three types: physical work, emotional work and cognitive work.

1. Having goals is super important for your psychological health. The field of Positive Psychology has found strong correlations with having goals and being happy, as well as psychologically healthy. Human beings are intensely goal-driven creatures. You have to be to survive in the natural world.
2. Pursuing goals. I’m sure you’ve heard that the journey is more important than the destination. Similarly, modern psychology has found that we get a bigger kick out of making progress on goals than the short-lived feeling of accomplishment before we have to set another goal. Note, I’m not advocating consumerism as a substitute to personal fulfillment (the hedonism treadmill, or pleonexia), rather that goals on which you’re making progress are an important part of an enjoyable life.
3. The change that going after and achieving those goals creates in you. Steve Pavlina likes to say that goals improve your level of consciousness and since you are simply a part of a larger single consciousness, you improve the level of consciousness in general by pursuing consciousness-raising goals. I realized that the change that happens because of goals is more important when I read this interview with Ze Frank:

What’s really interesting to me is that, as anyone knows who’s gone into a creative discipline, the second that you start doing those things, the world around you changes. If you draw, you start seeing the edges of things, and you start seeing the deformities of their shape when you move around them. When you start playing guitar, you start noticing notes in all the music you play, and in fact, the music that you listen to never sounds the same from that point on. I think that a lot of people are focusing on the content that’s being produced right now. And I think it’s the wrong thing to look at. It’s actually the pursuit and the perception change that I think a lot of people are experiencing about the world — that’s the thing to focus on and the thing to celebrate.

Marcel Proust said something similar when he said, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”

I’ve experienced a nice shift in the way I look at things now. Before, I used to think that some goals or doing some things wasn’t important because the final result will be useless or unimportant. I generally believe that the things I do should have an impact and I refrain from doing something that does not seem to have an impact on my goal (which is logical), but I take it to an extreme. For example, I don’t like to spend time preparing, preferring to wing it because no one really sees the preparation. This new model of goal achievement gives me a new perspective on preparation and how it changes ME, not just as a useful aid to getting goals. Not preparing is very much like trying to harvest in the fall without having planted in the spring.

However, recently I’ve started to think about how similar children are to parents. Its almost a cliche at this point out the stubbornness of both parent and child. For example, I’ve discovered that a number of my cute neuroses come from my mother. I wash my hands a number of times, for example, and my mother is likewise a germaphone. I used to have problems with procrastination–I always wanted to wait until I had a really good idea and was in a really good mood to write something before I wrote it, and my mother did that, too. She is also a very nice and ethical person and that’s something important that we’ve inherited, too.

We project our feelings and expectations on other people, and a lot of times those expectations come from other people, as well, and usually our families. Which is important, considering how important a role families have in shaping our personalities. That means that your communication style is probably very familiar to your family’s. As an example, say your family did not talk about feelings. Odds are you don’t talk about your feelings much either. Think about things that your family does, particularly people who do specific things that you dislike. You just might do those things, too.

But think about this for a moment: You’re probably going to someday have, or already have, kids. Who you are is what kids learn. They do as you do, not what you say. The only way to teach kids is to be that way. If your kids are going to be very similar to you, would you be proud of them? Is who you are right now something you’d like to pass onto another person? If not, then what would you like to change? What are you doing well that you’d be proud of to see in your child?

You see, its easy to become attached to our expectations when we try something new, or just do anything. I want to become a black belt at Getting Things Done, and its really easy for me to start beating myself up over not doing one part of the system well enough, or just gush over myself doing really well. That doesn’t work so well, because I then get into a stuck state. The real key to tackling this issue is to remember that I’m just playing with it.

Ever seen children play with something? It doesn’t matter if they’re not doing it “right”, they’re just trying to enjoy themselves. Even if you show them the “right” way, they’ll just go on doing it the way that feels the best to them and is the most enjoyable to them.

Another challenge I have right now is with Photoreading. I’m still evaluating the system. You see? I sound like I’m in a business meeting. Truth is, I’ve tried to let go of my expectations for the system and started just playing with it. And its really helped. When I’m just playing with it, I’m not trying to force anything, and I’m helping keep my conscious mind out of it. And if I don’t do it as effectively as I could a few times, I can just say, I’m playing with it.

This is also a strategy I find personally effective. I learn new software programs very quickly, and that’s because I just start playing with it.

I’m also applying this strategy (it amuses me to call playing-like-a-child a strategy) to this blog. I was originally very obsessed with providing the best articles, but, the truth is, I could spend my entire life on one article, making it better and better. I’m finding it more helpful to relax and let go of those expectations and focus on delivering the best content I can in a certain time frame.

Remember rule number 6: Don’t take yourself so goddamned seriously. Here’s another take on this from XKCD.

For another perspective on this strategy being the only viable way to learn anything in this rapidly changing world is from the god-like Ze Frank, here.

Just so you know, this strategy of just playing with it allows you to let go of expectations and emotions about failure. It might even allow you to eventually laugh at how seriously you might take everything. This helps you become less egoic. So, if you’ve been trying to become less egoic, try laughing at yourself and becoming more playful. Relax, life’s a game and about 99% of the things you do won’t matter in a week and a half.

Getting Things Done by David Allen is like the Escalade of time management systems. Its practically overkill! However, if you follow the system faithfully, you really can find yourself getting lots more done in a lot less time and with a lot less energy, getting more great ideas and keeping things out of your head so you worry less about everything. The following is simply an overview of my system and my experience with GTD and I’m putting it here for two reasons: 1. I couldn’t find examples of a GTD system in motion online which I think would have helped me immensely when I was getting into to it, and 2. It might give you some ideas. Plus, it’ll help me think the whole thing through.

The following headings are the five steps of the GTD workflow processes and you can find out more info about each step at one of the links at the top:

1. Collect – This step is simple. Collect everything and anything that you have any attention on. One of the loftier goals is that you should not have the same thought twice, unless you like having that thought. You need collection tools and buckets for things to be collected in and mine are:

• a physical inbox,
• I have a stack of little notepads that are about three inch squares that I can write short stuff on when I’m at home and throw them into my inbox,
• a little paper notepad I always have in my pocket where I rip out full pages and throw them into the aforementioned inbox,
• a plastic file folder that serves as a portable inbox that I carry with me in my bag everywhere I go,
• email inbox,
• and voice mail.

The real improvement opportunity for me here has been using a journal to collect and organize my thoughts and merge journaling with the natural planning model.

A 4.5 out of 5 here.

2. Process – This is where I process what I have collected and organize into discrete categories until your inboxes are at zero. The getting-to-zero part is what’s been a bit of a problem for me, partially because of the weird, ambiguous nature of the “stuff” that’s left in there cause it’s hard to deal with. I am making significant headway on it, though and intend to have all inboxes at zero by the end of this week.

Sometimes I’ll grab a bunch of stuff from my inbox and take it with me to process it while I’m in the subway or waiting or something. This is especially good for places where I can’t really concentrate a lot on reading or doing some work.

I have a source of ambiguity here. There is some stuff I want to remind myself to do (such as be more grateful) but I’m not entirely sure how to do it effectively. I’ve considered running 30-day trials on these sorts of things, but I’m wondering if there might be a more effective solution. Another problem I have is that there’s some stuff I want to remember to do or when I have a similar project in the future, but it slips my mind. Please comment if you have any ideas on this.

A 3.5 out of 5 here.

3. Organize – This is where the results of processing are separated out into categories and put into a system that can be used for reminding you. My system is a Palm M125 that I picked up from the local flea market for 30 dollars. It’s my brand new, 6-year-old Palm. The nice thing about this is that the little notepad (as in, just write what you want onto the screen) feature can be used as a portable inbox. I can also access my lists really, really fast, and that’s ESSENTIAL for implementing GTD. I originally used to use a folder, but the seconds it took to access it were too long and became a source of subconscious friction for me to access them, so I never really opened my folder. Now, the Palm works FAST.

One issue I am having here is with a digital filing system. My first problem is because I’m in between computers quite a bit, I have my files scattered among them, but this I will be fixing soon, because I got a laptop and will be consolidating my files on it. My last solution was going to be to put all my files on a memory stick and just carry that around, but I guess I don’t need to do that.

The other issue is how to organizing project research. A lot of times I’ll put links down as important for a particular project, but I either won’t or will forget to check the links when I need to. One way around this might be to copy-paste the relevant parts of take notes on the webpages. Yet another issue I’m having is that I have used Google Documents for some of my lists and so forth, but they haven’t been very effective. Yet another problem is that in lieu of a better system, I just started sending emails to myself with the information and now they’re embedded in my email reference system (Gmail with lots of labels). I suppose I’ll just consolidate all my digital based stuff in either a word file and put it in the relevant folder or something like that.

About 70-80% of your stuff will go into reference system, so its important to have a good one.

A 4 out of 5 here. Lose that point only because my digital reference system isn’t nearly as effective as it could be.

4. Review – Review the next actions when you are in the physical contexts to do them, and the weekly review, are the two main parts here.

• Reviewing relevant lists in context has been a bit of a problem for me. I do consistently check the calender. I think an improvement opportunity here might be to set aside certain blocks of time which are “work” time. Another might be to review what I’ll be doing on a particular day and pick out the next actions I want to finish in advance, to remind myself of them. Another might be to just whip out the palm every time I do anything.
• Week reviews have also been a bit of a problem for me. I’ve been very inconsistent with them, however they are extremely important. One way is to link my feeling of ennui to lack of weekly reviews. Another way is to reward myself for doing a weekly review. Yet another is to create a routine, perhaps a Saturday routine when I do some stuff which leads me easily into the weekly review. I’ll find a way to do this. If you’ve got any tips, let’s hear ‘em.

A 2 out of 5 here. Could use some real work.
5. Do – Yay. One thing I’ve realized is that the stuff on your next actions list is stuff you actually want to get done. If you just think you “should” do it and are just procrastinating, throw it onto your someday/maybe list, DON’T clutter up your next action list. Everything on that list should PULL you to do it.

Another thing I’m starting to learn here is that there is more to do out there than I have the ability to do. Ever. So I’m starting to become more selective in what I choose to do. This is something I’m still starting to integrate into myself. There are women doing some weird totally choreographed hopping around and punching and weird dancing outside my window.

A 3 out of 5 here. I’m just not motivated to get a lot of stuff done lately. That might be because the goals I have don’t compel me anymore and I have to essentially go back to the drawing board.

Natural Planning Model – Thought I’d mention this here, too. I love the NPM. I would like to apply it a bit more in a less formal way, but its been really helpful to me so far to get things off my mind. Really read up on this part if there’s nothing else out of GTD you’re going to do.

Another one the nice things I’ve learned from GTD is about the power of tiny bits of resistance can add up. You can use this principle to add tiny bits of pain to doing something. For example, say you tend to impulse-click shortcuts to video games or webpages. You can create another profile, perhaps called “Work” where those shortcuts don’t exist. You can still access them, but that’ll require a bit more effort and you’ll more easily remember that you actually want to work.

In closing, let us pray:

The GTD Prayer

Our lifehacks, which art in contexts,
Inbox zero be thy aim.
Thy Kinkless done.
Thy Mind Sweep fun, in @work as it is in @honeydo.
Give us this day our next action.
And forgive us our open loops, as we forgive those who delete our email.
And lead us not into web surfing.
Deliver us from IM.
For thine is the Moleskine, the Project and the Due Date
For someday/maybe,
Allen.

Note: I’d really appreciate any kind of feedback in the comments, good or bad. I’m still trying to figure out what kind of stuff people are most interested in, and that’s why there’s a bit more variety of material that I’m posting about. I’d like to know what really rings a bell with folks, though, so if it does, please let me know in the comments. Thanks for reading.

A little while ago, Steve Pavlina wrote a short series of articles on Polarization into Lightworking or Darkworking, and soon after, the forums were abuzz with questions about which way to polarize by people who had not even clarified what their life values are. Or perhaps they simply did not choose critical thinking or thinking for themselves as a value, instead preferring to let other people tell them how to make their decisions. As could be expected, the amount of times those terms are used has dropped drastically as more time has passed since the article was first published.

I believe that there is a sort of natural progression in personal development. Essentially, you walk before you can run.

Unfortunately, by its very nature, the internet is not setup as a series of steps so that you can tell what’s walking and what’s running. If you go back and look at Steve Pavlina‘s archives, you’ll find articles for every level of personal developer in every area. From the beginner to the advanced; from spirituality to better time management, but not necessarily organized as such. I certainly believe his article on courage and series on self-discipline is especially foundational for the other areas of personal development. So, if you’ve you been reading his site for a while, I would strongly recommend going back to read those articles and ask yourself how you’re doing on courage and self-discipline. If you’re new to the site, you might get some tips on improving those by reading those articles.

This means two things for the PDer:

1. Have a focus and find ways to encourage that focus. Focus on developing goals and remind yourself of them a lot. It’s easy to go off track from your goals. I have a short list of current short-term(monthly) goals that I read right after I get up to keep them in the forefront of my mind.

2. It might be best to ignore stuff from other levels or areas of personal development, as you choose to focus on reading stuff that’s about your chosen area for a short time period (say 30-90 days). Chosen spirituality as a focus for the next ninety days? Start meditating and reading about meditation, instead of jumping into the stuff about chakras and how to open the seventh one now. Ignore the articles on time management and productivity; you can catch up on them later. You can pick time management and personal effectiveness next month. I highly recommend switching these things up so one area doesn’t get boring.

Patience is still a virtue, even if you’re talking about being part of god.

Main Points:

• Patience is a virtue.
• Manage your own journey in personal development with goals and triage. Remind yourself of your goals often however you need to.
• Walk before you can run.
• Enjoy life!

 Thanks to Mark of The Winding Path for his help making this entry better.