Mind-Manual

Why We Want to Feel In Control

I would like to share some insights about human nature I’ve had recently:

Some people claim that a basic human need is to feel that you are in control. We strive to gain control and try to control our surroundings and freak out if we don’t have control. Say, you do something your boss told you not to do but you knew it was the right thing to do (and others would agree). I believe they’ll freak out because they believed they controlled you (if you had indeed done what they said previously) and now they don’t.

Of course, I don’t literally mean “control” you, though the term “boss” apparently derives from “baas” as in master, in a master-slave relationship. Simply knowing you is a form of control. That is, knowing that you’ll do what the boss wants is a form of control. That’s another reason that if you do something unexpected, the people around you will freak out, because you used to be a known element and you’re not anymore. Now you are unknown and uncontrollable, and there’s no telling what you will do.

That brings me to the reason I believe human beings try to control everything. I believe human beings have a psychological need to control everything around them (even if it is the superficial illusion of control through knowledge) because if you’re in control, you can’t get hurt. I believe that getting hurt, and the fear of getting hurt are a power that moves most human beings.

Being driven by an unsatiable need for control is not a great choice for a conscious human being. There’s a few ways around this: meditation seems to help me let go of my need for control, another way is to realize what you do have control over (such as yourself) and continually remind yourself not to let it extend outwards to trying to believe you control other people or your surroundings, yet another way is to focus on the end fear that is caused by this feeling of control: that something bad will happen. According to Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway, all fear is at it’s basis a fear that you won’t be able to handle it. Think about that, because there is much wisdom in those words. For example, say you fear leaving your job even though it’s unfulfilling because you might not find a better one. The underlying fear there is that you may leave your job, and never be able to find another one and you won’t be able to handle it. I believe that a sense of low self-esteem sets in once you’re at one job for a while, so you underestimate how well you can do outside because you feel down on yourself and question why anyone would want you or want to pay you for something. And perhaps you feel you can’t handle the rejection, or the feeling that you’re not good enough.

I haven’t gotten all the pieces of the puzzle yet, and I certainly find myself trying to control everything around me, or, more often, find myself disappointed because I thought I could control things around me. However, I thought I’d share this insight into the nature of humanity I had.

Main Points:

• To try to control everything around us is a human urge that can lead you to take foolish actions or making unconscious choices you may regret later.
• If you’re in control, nothing bad can happen. That’s the reasoning behind trying to be in control, and that is rooted in a fear of getting hurt or not being able to handle it, like almost all fears. You might get hurt and you won’t be able to handle it, is the key fear.
• This is not a great choice for a conscious individual, to be pushed by a drive to be in control. Rather, a conscious human being would make intelligent, conscious choices about their life, their feelings and their relationship to everything around them.

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The Wisdom of Steve Pavlina

Pavlina’s writings have been scarce lately as he’s been busy with his upcoming book which I’m highly anticipating. He’s just posted an Anatomy of Personal Change. Some key points I feel have to be highlighted:

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.

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How To Identify Your Beliefs

Beliefs come in a few varieties. There’s religious beliefs, obviously, but then there are beliefs that you hold about how the world works. For example, I believe that cause-effect is how things in the world interact. The reason why this is a belief and not a rational “truth” has been expounded in David Hume’s An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. If something as fundamental as that can be brought into question and thought of as customary belief, how many other things may be thought that way?

Some beliefs obviously limit you from achieving your goals, and are appropriately called limiting beliefs. Usually they are pretty obvious when presented in examples such as, “Money is dirty and unspiritual”, which would obviously interfere with a goal of making money. Other beliefs, however, are less obvious.

The way I discover some of my limiting beliefs is like this: I ask myself, “Why have I not achieved this result yet?” The answer is usually in terms of doing, being or having. Sometimes the answer is reasonable. For example, “Why am I not healthier?” has the obvious answer that I do not excersize. On the other hand, there have been studies where one group of people were told that their normal, everyday movements were enough excersize and they subsequently showed muscle growth. So, it’s tricky to figure out what is simply a limiting belief and what is a physical state in reality. As a personal anecdotal example: since I was a kid I’ve believed I have really good reflexes (cause I thought it was cool, all my favourite characters had great reflexes) so I do. I’ve often caught things that were dropping that I only saw out of the corner of my eye and impressed people that way, too. I don’t recall doing a reflex test recently, though, I should try it out. Anyhoo, my belief seems to have translated into an actual quick reflex time even though I do not have any training like that.

On the other hand, if you believe in IM, then its all limiting beliefs and you can just change your beliefs, even those that seem reasonable and do whatever you want. However, there are some beliefs may be limiting you from achieving some goals, but they are not really beliefs, but values. That is, your conscience says that they’re not good things.

Some examples:

Question: “Why do I not have an A+ in all my courses?”

Answer: Because I do not spend enough time or energy studying. I believe that there is a certain amount of time or studying I need to do to achieve this goal. On the other hand, I could find a way around this belief by becoming a more efficient student.

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Mental Structure: Levels of Analysis

This is another mental knowledge-structure. It may seem obvious to you or it may not. In either case, I feel making knowledge-structures conscious is important.

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.

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Why People Don’t Manage Their Money

Sometimes someone puts something in such a clear and simple way that you’re struck by the truth of it. For example:

Why People Don’t Manage Money

It has been my experience that people believe managing money will take away their freedom. They believe that managing their money will not allow them to be free and enjoy life to the fullest. I’ve been using the JARS for over a year and can honestly say that I feel I’m in a better position now to achieve financial freedom than I have been in years. In my opinion this is true freedom.

Stephen Martile on Managing Money

I’ve written about this sort of thing recently, where we feel that something is restrictive while it really provides structure. People want to feel in control of their money, not the other way around, which they may feel if they have to feel that they can’t spend a certain amount of money because of some plan. People in general don’t like to feel their freedom is being taken from them. This is where reactance theory comes from, which is when people feel their freedom to make a choice is being threatened.

So, if you’ve been procrastinating on setting up a system to manage your money, now is the time to make the mental flip from a restrictive mold to a tree which can grow leaves and more branches out, out, out forever! Now’s the time. Two good systems are the JARS system Martile is talking about, and a Zero-Based budget from Getting Finances Done.

If neither of those systems work for you, you can always setup an automatic transfer from whatever account you get paid into to a savings account of about 10% of your income. Then invest it from the savings account. This is the 2% of the actions you can take to managing your money that will give you probably 80-95% of the results. Do it. Now.

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What Brings You Real Joy?

What things brings you real joy and excitement?  Add it to the comments and let us know!

I mean real joy, like time disappears and you’re completely engaged, sorta like flow. You’re fully in the moment doing whatever it is that you’re doing. Be specific. If it’s kids, what about kids?

By defining what brings you real joy, you can then start to add more of it to your life.

For myself, I get real joy from solving mechanical problems and building mechanical things. I get totally energized and start thinking super-clearly. I’m totally wired up and in the moment. Lately, for example, I’ve been thinking about how to build a crane/jib for a camera and how the design would work and I’m really excited about it.

Another thing that brings me great joy is hanging out with someone or people where I’m constantly making them laugh. There is usually another person of my wit-level around and we just sorta play off each other. Super fun and gets me totally in the moment and gives me lots of energy.

Two other things that give me joy is an idea in implementation, whether that’s a technical challenge or a funny post or whatever. I also love the kick of solving a problem. I get really excited and joyful when I solve a problem. For example, I jumped out of bed this morning because I figured out a problem related to this site, my sense of value and making money.

So, what brings you joy and excitement to the point you forget the world exists? Rock-climbing? Or just hanging out with a few good friends?

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How To Learn About Yourself

I’ve been writing about new discoveries I’ve made about myself lately, so I thought I’d make a post on how I figure things out and why its important.

I believe developing self-awareness is really important because you and I have a large number of subconscious beliefs and patterns which we never consciously chose, but they are affecting us in our day-to-day lives and in our attempts to reach our goals. These unconscious beliefs that incongruent with your goals form resistance that can prevent you from achieving your goals. You see, when something is unconscious, you have no choice about it. But when it has become conscious, you can choose to accept it consciously, or simply accept it as something unchangeable. Some good tips on that here, even if you don’t believe in IM. The other reason I like learning more about myself is because I really enjoy it. I love figuring out how people work and I love figuring out how I work, too. It feels like a problem solved and that feels good.

Here are some ways I learn things about myself. Not all of these will work for you and you might have others, but I do feel it’s important to know:

• Journaling. I have a journal in Google Docs (so I can access it anywhere with the internet) where I write down things I’ve learned, ideas and so forth.
• Talking to people. I often talk a lot about myself to try to figure myself out. Bless my friends who put up with it.
• This blog. For some reason, I have difficulty being really detailed or clear when I’m just journaling by myself and I have to feel like someone is reading it. The process of writing gives me greater clarity, too, as it does other writers, too.
• Reading books and articles. As I read, I will go by how I feel inside, and sometimes something will really resonate with me. Like my recent post: Got me again! As another example, while reading “Is Becoming Wealthy Inherently Evil?” This sentence stood out: “Are you giving your best value to the world or trying to get a free ride on the value creation of others?” This might explain why I feel bad about writing ebooks about things I know about, but are not my original ideas, like personal finance or academic success. On the other hand, Pavlina has done that, too, so I have to think more about this to reconcile the two ideas. Sometimes rereading the same thing a few months later will cause different things to stick out, so if you have some really good PD material (like Pavlina’s posts), I really recommend browsing around the material and reading what draws you in.
• Out of the blue or random insights.
• Intuitive analysis. The name was coined by Acting Like Godot, but I believe we are both referring to a similar process. Essentially, I think about a subject and ask myself questions or tell myself some statements and then wait to see how I feel about it. I will feel an internal harmony when the answer is either “yes” or the statement is true, and a sort of disharmony and feeling of fulfillment if it is not. This might be what Pavlina is talking about in Consulting Your Intuition. This is probably the biggest way I figure things out about myself. I go by this feeling of resonance or harmony quite a bit to let me know what is congruent with the rest of me.

Hope this helps in learning more about yourself.

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More on Restrictive Structures

As I suggested at the end of my post about structures called, “Formulas“, the concept of resistance to oppressive structures as an unconscious force in my life does have more far reaching implications than just to writing. I was able to write more clearly using a three-part structure for my blogs after I figured that out without any resistance, so there has been an effect of this inner change. In this post, I’d like to talk more about other areas I’ve seen a pattern of resisting structures. I don’t generally get a breakthrough that is so applicable across a variety of areas in my life, so this is a treat. I’d like to get more breakthroughs like this, though.

I can think of this pattern working unconsciously earlier in my life, too. For example, I had a lot of trouble with what I call the SML, or Standard Model of Life, which is basically, you go to school to go get a job, then you get a job so you can have kids, get married and retire, you retire so you can die. That’s not to say I’m ok with this way of living, now, because there just seems to be so little meaning there, but I have lost a sort of irrational resistance to it, and can now consciously choose with my rational mind (or what I have of it) either to follow this path or not to. It is a suggested path, not a constriction to one way and it is just one path out of many.

As I wrote recently, the idea of a life purpose also seemed restrictive to me. This is miles away from writing now, isn’t it?

I also feel this way about PhotoReading. One of the keys to PRing is to choose a specific purpose that you want to fulfill and is why you are reading this book. Similar to how I feel about life purposes, I felt one purpose for reading too constricting and would rather prefer to read the whole thing.

To-do lists or NextAction lists are a tricky thing. David Allen once said that everything on your list is either pulling you or pushing you; there is no neutral territory. A lot of times, I’ll put something on the list that I think is a good idea at one time, and then it’ll feel like its set in stone. I’ll do everything that I want to do (or want to do more than I don’t want to do the other items) but then I’ll simply have just the things I don’t want to do left, and thus to-do lists become oppressive rather than just a guide to structure your day.

Over-structured lives in general seem restrictive. I like having lots of flexibility in time, so I don’t really like a full schedule. I guess that gives me the illusion of freedom.

Another, potentially very important shift from this new belief has to do with why I never pursued any sort of technical studies in school. I did not want to be “just another” coder or “just another” engineer. Engineering is a bit of a tradition in my family, and among my ethnic background, so I supposed I wanted to feel unique, even though I am very well suited for these sort of technical things and really enjoy it, too.

About figuring out why I may dislike restriction of structures so much. I have two ideas, and th first is that I simply value freedom highly. However, having a preference does not translate into resistance. Usually resistance is caused by something under the surface that you are not aware of, because once you become aware of it, you can accept the choice and whichever option you choose, even if it is negative. I prefer organic solutions rather than forced ones for some reason, too, and I mean an irrational sort of resistance.

Another possible reason may be that I feel on some level that if I follow a structure too much I will become that structure. I have felt this sort of identity crisis a few months ago when I started wondering if I was just a “conduit” for PD or Steve Pavlina, rather than my own person. This particular fear may come from the feeling that I will be dismissed by people as “just another PD geek” or so forth. I have a particular dislike for this sort of dismissal, as I mentioned above to do with doing something with technology. I suppose I would feel this sort of dismissal as a rejection of my personness as uninteresting, unidimensional and probably useless. This is a useful and important thing to work, I think, because I am still having trouble getting myself to optimize this site and do things which will bring in more income. That might be because I genuinely don’t feel like I am delivering enough value to feel good about monetizing it, or it may be there is another limiting belief in there somewhere. I’d like to know what it is soon, though.

Even though it has only been a few days since I had that epiphany about joy possibly being my life purpose, I have been in this deep state of calm. It’s been a stressful few days, so while I did have other emotions such as anger, it was easier to put them aside and just focus on what needed to get done. As if the surface of a deep ocean is tumultuous but the depths are calm. So, I definitely feel there is some value to this line of inquiry. I hope you are enjoying reading so much about me, too. :-p

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Discovering My Life Purpose

I have a feeling that this period in my life will probably be seen as crucial when I look back on it. This is the period when I am seeking my life purpose, to step out of my old context of need (a powerful idea, I highly recommend reading the link) and into a new context of purpose. I’ve been reading Pavlina’s site for years now, and I’m aware of his emphasis on purpose.

Even though Pavlina claimed Purpose = Freedom, I never really felt that way, however I had faith that if I pursued personal growth, I would eventually find my purpose, if it was something worth finding. It seems that that faith is working out. Over the last few months I had inklings of what my life purpose might be, including helping people fix their finances, learning and sharing ideas and just making people happy. None of these resonated that well with me although I knew I was getting closer to my purpose. The first two examples were not really life purposes, anyway, they would be more like missions. Being happy and making people happy is the closest to the level of abstraction that a life purpose is supposed to be at, but the wording seemed awkward. “My life purpose is to be happy and make others happy” just doesn’t resonate with me at the level it should.

I also realized that I felt purposes were restrictive. That is, you were restricted to one or two things for the rest of your life. However, as I made the switch from thinking of three-part essay structures as molds to be filled to skeletons to be covered, I was able to make that switch for life purposes, too, as I suggested at the end of my recent entry on Formulas. If you feel that purposes are like molds, you would clearly prefer to have the larger space of goals open to you than the smaller, restricted space, which is how I felt. I didn’t want everything, nor necessarily to keep my options open, but simply to have a larger goal-space available to me.

However, yesterday while trying out the new “Random Article” link on Pavlina’s site (which he added to use IM to find solutions to problems…and I found the answer to a big one the first time I used it, chew on that for a bit), I stumbled across an article called, Purpose = Permanent Message + Temporary Medium and it really struck home with me. If you notice, the first line of the above article has to do with the question of whether you just have one purpose for the rest of your life, an important question for me. At the end of the article, he suggests that:

Your message is undoubtedly simple, probably something you can reduce to a single word: joy, connection, love, forgiveness, acceptance, peace, reason, honor, sensuality, passion, relaxation, nonviolence, curiosity, synergy, justice… whatever.

That first one, joy, really resonates with me. I am not 100% sure joy is really it, but it really does seem like joy is a thread in my life, looking back on it (though this could simply be an example of information-seeking bias). I love to create and share joy. I love being happy. I dunno why but “joy” feels better than “happiness” in this context. Other words that resonate with me are peace and freedom, but I think it is the joy of freedom that I enjoy, and I seek peaceful joy, with joy again being at the top. My life purpose is to be peacefully joyous, enjoy freedom and encourage peaceful joy in others. Sounds kinda awkward so I’ll have to play around with the wording and so forth, but the meaning of that feels almost completely right.

So, what does this mean? This means that now that I have a message, I can find a medium. I could be a stand-up comedian, or I could write amusing blog entries, or I could share my love of ideas with others, or help people get in control of their finances so they can also enjoy peaceful joy. I realized that I really admired Ze Frank, and he does the same: share ideas he really loves and creates joy through humour. This will help me to figure out what to do in life.

I don’t know how many people enjoy my narcissism as I write incessantly about myself, but I hope something here is of use to you. If so, I always appreciate comments.

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Why I Dislike Forced Solutions

I don’t actually know. I was hoping that you might be able to help me out. I dislike anything that seems overly “forced”, inauthentic or inorganic. That becomes a bit of a problem because some aspects of conscious living are somewhat “forced”. By forced, I mean something like a setup-punchline structure of a joke, it can just seem forced and formulaic. For example, forcing myself to ask for people’s names just because some book says its a good idea seems forced, too, and inauthentic because I don’t really care (I do care, but imagine if I did not).

I have an inkling it has something to do with my desire to be original and unique, however I don’t really know. I’d really appreciate any help and comments.

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