Time for a new Week Challenge – Facing Fears! Yes, let’s get some anxiety flooding. I want to meet a girl, hence I need to be talking to girls. The girl of my dreams won’t magically fall down from the sky – NO! I need to be approaching girls with a smile on my face and try to have fun connecting conversations, and just maybe there will be enough common denominators to make some serious sparks fly! Perhaps going on an instant little date. And then a second one. And a third. And… So – let’s face my fears and throw myself into this!
Facing Fears or Rejection therapy means that you are to expose ourselves to a social situation with a specific question, request or action in mind that puts you out of your comfort zone! For instance, approaching a cute girl asking for a date, randomly ask people for a hug. The great thing with these challenges is that it’s a win-win no matter the outcome, as long as we pull the trigger. You see this very action of approaching & asking, is in fact you taking action towards a defined goal. And if you’ve read the Six pillars of self-esteem by Nathaniel Branden, you’ll see that as long as you do things that aligns with your values, believes or goals – you build self-esteem. This means that you can’t lie or manipulate your way into getting a yes to your request. if you do this, you’ll see that your self-esteem will level up like crazy. I can say this because it’s simply my experience after practicing this actively for over a year.
The secondary result is that you desensitize yourselves from getting turned downed and rejected, and in turn learning to not be controlled by our thoughts and emotions -FEAR. Because rejections will happen, otherwise you’ve designed the challenge a bit too nice (guilty of that). Continues exposure to successfully faced fears, will simply make you conclude that you survived it the last time and felt good about it. You want to create a new association to the feeling you get inside when you’re scared of doing something. A new association that makes the connection of fear being the que for reaching a tremendously good feeling if you just push through that wall of anxiety – again. These feelings being tied to a ton of thrilling, exciting connecting and proud moments that will spice up your life. Make you feel like living, for real. Eventually, you’ll start to shape one of the best Habit Loops you can have, and It will change your life as it starts to become autonomous. But don’t get me wrong, the fear won’t disappear. But you’ll be able to stand in it.
So the Objectives of the week is to daily approach at least one girl to try and flirt with her, create a connection, and perhaps go on an instant date! It’s going to filled with anxiety, joy, laughter – the whole spectra! Especially since I haven’t been talking so much to girls lately… But I’m hungry for the challenge – and I’ll make sure to put in a serious effort! Ill’ also try to see if I can set up a tinder date as a backup alternative, in case i fail the hard way!
NEW WEEK, NEW CHALLENGE! After last week’s miserable state – THE WEEK OF SUFFER – We’re going to compensate with having an a great one this time! Or with the help of the 6 human needs template analyse our days, our life, and see how we can tweak and design things for improvement. Part of last week’s dreadfulness was a state of passivity, I just let life happened and my usual go to things that adds value wasn’t there to share me up (music, entertainment, food & beverages). Honestly, I don’t know when, or if ever, I’ve felt so empty and indifferent to life.
But so this Friday I woke up at 4,30 with a hunger for life again – excitement for the day ahead and how I would go about designing next week’s challenge. And then it hit me, if I feel like this – a sense of curiosity, hunger and uncertainty for the day ahead – ALIVE – then I’m ‘winning’ the game of life. Feelings I had been lacking the entire last week. I realized life doesn’t happen to you – You make life happen. It’s about intention and action – a mindset. Both on a micro and macro perspective. You live in the present, not 2 weeks ago or 2 weeks’ ahead. Today. But just as quickly, that thought expanded;
This is just on one level, uncertainty, which you know you really thrive of Alex. Remember Tony Robbins 6 Human needs you used to look at?
And then I did. I Briefly mention this in the evaluation of last week’s challenge, but that wasn’t enough. The natural follow up is of course to dedicate this entire week to understanding and applying this framework on my life. With the end goal to see if I can have a perfect day!
How much uncertainty awaits you in the morning?
Tony Robbins 6 Human Needs
Certainty: assurance you can avoid pain and gain pleasure
Uncertainty/Variety: the need for the unknown, change, new stimuli
Significance: feeling unique, important, special or needed
Connection/Love: a strong feeling of closeness or union with someone or something
Growth: an expansion of capacity, capability or understanding
Contribution: a sense of service and focus on helping, giving to and supporting others
So the Objectives for this week is:
Evaluate my days Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, through this template. Dividing it up to “workday” and “Free time”. Then on Thursday or Friday – I’m going to try and Schedule out a “Perfect Day” and do a live evaluation Reflectional and Review about it.
But this of course means we need to understand this framework on deeper level, so here follows an extract from Tony Robbins Workbook from his audio program Personal Power – It may be old, but it sure as heck holds up.
All humans have different desires, but they are driven by the exact same needs. So many people in life have achieved their goals only to think, “Is this all there is?” It’s because they never analyzed their true needs or how to meet them. They’ve only pursued the goals that the culture has conditioned them to pursue. An understanding of the Six Human Needs can allow you not only to turn on your driving force and discover all you’re capable of, but also to be truly fulfilled on a consistent basis.
The Six Human Needs
In a moment we will walk through the Six Human Needs that drive all your behavior, but first let’s realize that whatever need we have, we develop ~vehicles,” or strategies, some of which am empowering to our lives, others of which may be fulfilling for the moment but in the long term are quite destructive. For example, to be significant, some people tear others down, some people collect the most toys, some contribute in unique and meaningful ways. The vehicles you select will determine not only your fulfillment in the moment, but also your long-term fulfillment and whether you will truly grow and contribute in a significant way. A good means of measuring this is to think about your life’s experiences and sort them into one of four classes. Let’s take a close look at these four classes.
A Class 1 experience is something that 1. feels good 2. is good for you 3. is good for others 4. serves the greater good
When we find these four criteria in an experience, we usually call it a ~~peak life experience.”
A Class 2 experience is something that 1. does not feel good 2. but is good for you 3. is good for others 4. serves the greater good
These are experiences we often want to avoid in life but ultimately give us the most joy because they cause us to grow as human beings, and as we master them we become much more fulfilled.
A great secret to being fulfilled is learning how to convert Class 2 experiences into Class 1 experiences, i.e., learning how to take things that don’t feel good but are good for you, good for others, and serve the greater good, and make the process of doing them feel good as well.
This is when the tools you’ll be learning in this program on conditioning are worth their weight in gold. When you learn to love to do those things that improve your life and improve the lives of others, you develop a level of pride, strength, and confidence very few human beings ever experience.
A Class 3 experience is something that 1. feels good 2. is not good for you 3. is not good for others 4. does not serve the greater good
These are those non-productive experiences that we all too often allow ourselves to indulge in. Drinking excess alcohol, for example, could fit into this category. Class 3 experiences provide for the immediate pleasure which, in the long term, destroys people’s quality of life and gives them ultimate pain.
A Class 4 experience is something that 1. does not feel good 2. is not good for you 3. is not good for others 4. does not serve the greater good
Why would someone continually indulge in a Class 4 experience? Smoking cigarettes the first time, for example, was not a pleasurable feeling. But people often will indulge in Class 4 experiences simply because of peer pressure or because of conditioning and old belief systems. You must free yourself of Class 4 experiences to be fulfilled.
THE SIX HUMAN NEEDS YOU MUST MEET CONSISTENTLY TO BE FULFILLED ARE THE FOLLOWING:
certainty/comfort
uncertainty/variety
Significance
connection/love
Growth
contribution
All people have the same problems because they all have the same six human needs and these needs are paradoxical; i.e, they seem to be in conflict with one another. Serious problems can arise when we choose destructive “vehicles” to try to satisfy these needs. Yet we can choose to establish new patterns of fulfilling these needs that will move us rapidly toward life mastery.
All human beings have the need for:
Certainty/Comfort
For most people, certainty equals survival. We all need a sense of certainty that we can avoid pain and gain pleasure. Some people try to achieve certainty by trying to control everything around them. This is usually a Class 3 experience; i.e., it may feel good for the moment but it’s not good for them, it’s not good for those around them, and it doesn’t serve the greater good. On the other hand, using your internal courage or faith to achieve certainty would be a Class 1 vehicle. When you’re feeling courageous, when you’re really using your faith, you feel good, what you’re doing is good for you, and in a courageous and faith-filled state you tend also to do those things that serve the greater good. Here’s the paradox, though. When a person becomes totally certain, when things are completely predictable, when you satiate this need, you become b-o-r-e-d. And so while we want certainty, we simultaneously want a certain amount of.
Uncertainty/Variety
Everyone needs variety, a surprise, a challenge to feel fully alive and to experience fulfillment. With too much certainty, we’re bored. Likewise, with too much variety, we become extremely fearful and concerned. We need a degree of certainty in our lives to appreciate the variety. There’s a delicate balance between these two needs that must be struck for us to feel truly fulfilled. Some people choose to get variety, to feel a change in their states or the way they feel, by doing drugs or alcohol. Some people do it by watching movies. Others use stimulating conversation and opportunities to learn.
Significance
We all have a need for significance, a sense that we am unique in some way, that we have a special purpose or meaning for our lives. Again, we can try to meet this need through destructive vehicles—making ourselves unique by, for example, manufacturing a belief that we’re better than everyone else. Some people become unique by developing extreme problems that set them apart from others. Medical science now shows that some people have developed the subconscious ability to make themselves ill in order to gain the caring attention of others. This would clearly be a Class 4 experience. Some people develop uniqueness by earning more money, having more toys, going to school and achieving more degrees. Or by dressing in a unique way, having a certain sense of style. Or we can choose to live a life of extraordinary service. This is clearly a Class 1 experience, although it may feel like Class 2 at times. Just remember, we all need to feel unique. But, paradoxically, in order to feel unique we have to separate ourselves. If we feel totally unique, we feel different and separate, and this violates our need for…
Connection and Love
This includes feeling connected with yourself as well as others with whom you can share your love. To meet this need, you can join a group or a club that has a positive purpose. Some individuals join a gang for negative purposes but they still achieve the feeling of connection. By aligning with your Creator, and feeling like you’re being guided, you can feel immediate connection. Again, sometimes individuals become ill in order to feel connected and loved. Some people will steal, do drugs, drink excessive amounts of alcohol, to be part of a group and to feel a sense of connection. Others will perform at extraordinary levels in order to be accepted, loved, or connected to a high performance team. A simple thing to remember is, as with all other human needs, if you give consistently that which you wish to receive, you tend to get it back from others.
Growth
Growth equals life. On this planet, everything that is alive is either growing or dying. Growth is one of the two primary needs in life. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, how many people acknowledge you, what you’ve achieved in life. Unless you feel like you’re growing, you will be unhappy and unfulfilled. But in addition, you must also experience the euphoria of meaningful…
Contribution
We all have a deep need to go beyond ourselves and to live a life that serves the greater good. It is in the moments that we do this that we experience true joy and fulfillment. Contributions are not only made to others but contributing to ourselves is a meaningful action as well, for we cannot give to others that which we do not have. A balance of contribution to oneself and to others, especially unselfish contribution, is the ultimate secret to the joy that so many people wish to have in their lives.
If there’s anything you do that others find difficult but that you love to do (and that you could do for hours), I can promise you it’s because you get a tremendous amount of certainty, variety, significance or uniqueness, connection, growth and/or contribution from this. When we perceive that an action will meet many of our needs, we are driven to take that action. Likewise, if there’s something you avoid doing or are constantly putting off, it’s because your current strategy of approaching it causes you to feel a lack of certainty that it will have pleasure (maybe you actually have a sense of certainty that it will be painful) or you don’t believe it meets many of your other needs.
Anything human beings do can meet all six needs if they simply change their perception (what they notice, appreciate, or believe) or their strategy (how they approach getting the job done).
If you’ll find just a few vehicles to meet all six of your needs, you’ll find yourself full of drive and you’ll know what to do to achieve your goals. And it all starts with awareness—you must become aware of why you’re doing what you’re doing now so that you can find a new pattern for fulfillment!
YOUR ASSIGNMENT:
What’s something you love to do? Something you feel compelled to do? Something that’s effortless and totally fulfilling? Something you could do 24 hours a day? Describe it in the space below, then complete the Human Needs Analysis Chart #1 to see why you feel that way about it.
What’s something you hate to do? Something that you should do? Something that you never get done because you hate it so much? Describe it in the space below, then use the Human Needs Analysis Chart #2 to see why you feel that way about it.
Choose something you don’t like to do, something that doesn’t feel good, but that you know is good for you and others, and serves the greater good. Turn this Class 2 experience into a Class 1 experience by asking yourself, What could I choose to believe about this that will make it fulfill each of my six human need at the highest possible level? Write down your answers in this journal as they come to you. Then go out an(l apply them immediately!
I DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO THIS MATERIAL, I JUST WANT TO SHARE WHAT CAN HELP OTHERS. I MAKE NO MONEY OUT OF THIS. LISTEN TO TONY’S PODCAST HERE FOR A MORE DETAILED EXPLANATION: https://youtu.be/fEwpisUYWG0
My lord. No, I’m not religious, but at times this week I prayed to unknown forces above to give me strength. It’s actually Thursday evening as I’m starting to write this piece. Breathing out a deep sigh of relief, as it feels like the worst part has passed. Even though I’m in the middle of my last little 24 hour fast challenge leading up to the finishing line. But honest to God, this week has been one of the worst, yet most insight full, weeks of my life. Going into this, I thought it would be a quite straight forward and an ‘easy’ challenge. But the flood wave of emotional junk it opened up to – I could never in my life have anticipated for. Disclaimer: I’m not proclaiming to have any right answers, I’m just sharing the insights I’ve gained after this one week.
First, let me just give you a brief reminder of why I sat out to have a week of suffer. As I spoke of in the introduction video/blogg, I’ve recently found myself fascinated by the ancient philosophy Stoicism.
“The goal of Stoicism is to attain inner peace by overcoming adversity, practicing self-control, being conscious of our impulses, realizing our ephemeral nature and the short time allotted—these were all meditative practices that helped them live with their nature and not against it. It’s important that we understand the obstacles that we face and not run from them; it’s vital that we learn to transmute them into fuel to feed our fire.” (source)
Stoicism comes with a lot of practical exercises, one of them being simulating misfortune and suffer. Which has been the aim of this week – suffer that is. So, what haven’t I been allowed to do this week? Well the list was long; no music, no internet, no social media, no phone, no mail, no tasty food (mainly focusing on no sweet stuff including fruit, or warm food), no beverages (no tea, herbs, lemon water or the like), no ginger (love it), no favourite clothes, no audiobooks, podcast, YouTube, no books, etc., putting myself through long cold bike rides to work (~10 hours over 4 days) a 24 hour fast. Basically, I’ve cut out all external sources that usually brings me pleasure.
BORING LIFE?
So how did I do? It was F*** hard. So, so hard. I’ve never looked at my watch so much, and I’ve never craved for good food as much. Everything kind of went grey. My usual intense workouts lacked energy and motivation. Knowing that there wasn’t any tasty rewarding food waiting on the other side, totally made me lose my edge. Although, partly due to the bigger questions that has been given time and space to float around in my head -‘What’s the point of all this?’. With the exceptions of my cold bike rides – they did bring a ton of joy and value, despite freezing my as of. A sense of higher connection to nature.
The emotional turmoil going through my head thursday morning when my bike broke down 12 kilometers away from work was intense.
But perhaps above all, this feeling of pointlessness and emptiness fundamentally changed my relationship to work the most. As a starter, when I threw the music out the window the focus decided to tag a long – I haven’t been able to concentrate for shit this week. Now, it doesn’t help that I’m working in an open office environment. As soon as someone started speaking, I unintentionally eavesdropped. There was no way around it, my brains pick up on a conversation and just must listen. Although this have had its upside with me socializing more with colleagues, both intentionally and unintentionally. Which resulted in lots of connecting moments with laughter and nice conversations.
But besides that, when I took away all those things that usually spice up my days; music, good food, fruit, tea, ginger, audiobooks when the work task allows for it, I realized what was left – unsatisfying work. I’ve had to face the fact that my work just doesn’t stimulate me enough on its own. I doesn’t make me feel fulfilled. An incredibly heavy, but important realization of tremendous value, making this insight itself worth all the suffer I’ve been through this week. But it also awoke some heavy emotions to plague my mind. This led me to declining a very good work offer; shifting me from being a consultant to going fulltime at the place I’m assigned to.
You see, when there’s no external sources like music, podcasts, YouTube videos or audiobooks constantly occupying your mind, it opens space and time for you to dwell and be mindful about things that you otherwise wouldn’t. Never before have my thoughts been allowed to go so deep for such a long period of time. ‘What am I really doing here, how does this align with my dreams and goals in life?’ But this can also be dangerous if you’re properly set up for it. Handling what easily can turn to just unhelpful negative thoughts isn’t easy. Being a bit surprised by the whole work-realization state, it kind of put me in a negative thought spiral making me somewhat depressed. Not instantly being able to find any answer to my question for how to approach my newfound awareness left me lost.
Isn’t this sad that my work is built on external inputs? Yes and no. It’s what happens in the society we life in today when we’re not conscious and mindful enough. And it didn’t happen instantaneously, I’ve gained tons of value and joy from my work, but the time to move on has perhaps come. For change to happen, we need to get real with ourselves. That’s when motivation for real transformation is born. Because what’s been so awful about this week is not the lack of external sources of happiness, but the realisation of what I’m really missing. And how I covered that up with all the small things I enjoy.
When we do that, it makes our days good enough for us to not do something about the things that have the deepest impact. Doing something that fulfils us, which can be very simple and straight forward and is 100% individual. It’s just that I have a vision of what that should look like, and the way I’m currently living makes me be unfaithful to that vision. And that hurts within, which is the main reason for why I suffered so hard this week. But as long as we are being true to ourselves, enjoying life on a daily basis really doesn’t need to be hard!
This week has made me realize that if you hand me a nice cup of green tea, a piece of ginger, and some good music, and I can max out on the happy scale. Blowing it up if you serve me a nice dinner with some good company. Or heck, I can eat alone and be just as happy too! In theory, we don’t need much to be happy. Friends, family, food, music, these cheap sources that we take for granted gives us so much in return. I mean these things is hardly related to a high salary. I firmly believe that many of the poorer countries are the happiest. Not neglecting there problems.
I try to live by never letting money dictate my choice of career. Never. Sure, luxury things are nice, but it’s just an increasing standard you get used to. It’s fluff. Even if I would quit my job and pursue some longshot of a crazy idea, ending up going to pieces and losing everything – I could always move home to my family for a whole before getting back up on my feet again. And enjoying that experience too.
But so, after many hours of thinking this week, today at the gym training fasted and feeling really low, I finally came to realize that life can be simple and yet be enough. You decide what to make of it, and you decide what fills you with purpose and fulfilment. But it requires asking yourself the right – hard – questions, and then taking action in alignment with the answers you get out of that. And the small things in life do have so much to offer, so much value to give you, so cherish that, be grateful for the food you have on your plate, and the beautiful music vibrating on your ear drum. Everything in life won’t be that jolly fun, and it’s okay to spice things up with the small things. In fact, one has a responsibility to design life in a way that makes is as enjoyable as possible.
And to not leave you with too fluffy advices, let me introduce a very good tool to make you solve this life puzzle easier (which obviously I haven’t). It’s a model I used as a filter when reflecting upon my days when journaling. And I’ll start doing that again as I know it helped me a lot.
It’s Tony Robbins 6 human needs and it’s an incredibly powerful yet simple model for how to think about the things we do in life on a micro and micro level. It’s a model from his old tape-recorded audio program personal power, which is just the shit. I’ve already written too much, so instead I’ll link a video explaining it. Although it doesn’t make it total justice – find the audiotape!
Tony Robbins 6 Human Needs
Certainty: assurance you can avoid pain and gain pleasure
Uncertainty/Variety: the need for the unknown, change, new stimuli
Significance: feeling unique, important, special or needed
Connection/Love: a strong feeling of closeness or union with someone or something
Growth: an expansion of capacity, capability or understanding
Contribution: a sense of service and focus on helping, giving to and supporting others
Short version:
Below follows some of the other reflections and take away from this week of suffer
SLEEP
Another effect of this week was tiredness. Even though I’ve worked less than I usually do, I can’t remember when I last slept this much. I’ve been exhausted. All the heavy thinking? I don’t know. I’ve being going to bed around eight every day, haven’t been able to keep myself awake any longer. But also, the drive to stay up totally vanished when I wasn’t allowed to entertain myself with my usual information consumption or eating tasty food. Life just became boring and pointless. Trying to socialize with my brother wasn’t much help either – barley getting anything in return as he, as always, was deep into his gaming. Nor was I allowed to call any friends or even read a book. Better go to sleep and kick the day of early! As I’m writing this line right now, constantly nodding off, I’m realizing I can’t stay up any more. I have to go to bed. It’s 19.37…
9 hours of sleep later, and I’m continuing to write this text. It amazes me how deeply relaxed my sleep has been this week. It’s a totally new relationship to sleeping. Falling asleep like a little baby, but also sleeping long and hard. I theorise it has some to with the fact that I’ve have given myself so much time to think and process thoughts throughout the days, that I’m ‘done’ thinking when I hit the bed. Perhaps also the exclusion of all sorts of caffeine has some to do with it. Now I usually only drink green tea or herb tea, and it’s only some of the green tea’s that contains caffeine depending on when it’s harvested. However I do drink a lot, so I’m factoring this into a plausible scenario.
Future actions: Allocating daily time to think and process thoughts. Removing even small amount of caffeine no later than lunch.
FOOD
Have I executed on this week perfectly? No. Doing all these things totally drained me on willpower, and by the end of the day I was just crushed with resisting all the temptations. It’s interesting how the brain does everything in its power to find loopholes to convince me it’s alright to do. So when I haven’t been allowed to eat sweet stuff or fruit, I’ve plunged rice cakes. I wasn’t allowed to use any spices, but I just couldn’t stand good food going to waste with at least using some pepper and salt. Nor was I allowed to eat any warm food, but as I ‘had’ to heat my frozen vegetables it may have got a little bit warm. And as I write this, I’m zipping on a glass of water with a splash of apple cider vinegar and some lemon juice – I said only plain water! Now is this the end of the world? No, but the reflection is that when you decide to cut out something, you need to replace it with something else. And decide before what that better alternative is, and you’ll free yourself of illogical decision fatigue making.
INFORMATION DIET
Avoiding information overload when banning external sources of inputs has opened up to process previous intel I’ve acquired, but also think and plan about life and how to go about it. Being intentionally about what to consume and actively saying no to things that may be interesting. There’s a pay of to choose specific things to go deeper on and apply, instead of directly move on to the next thing, and the next thing. Information junkie just consuming, not really learning.
Future actions: Again, allocate daily processing time. It’s your own protection mechanism to of railing – and practice mindfulness to be able to do this in an efficient way. Focus more on less, allocate specific time to consuming, or at least stop to questions yourself for why your about to go on a 2 hour YouTube rant ( as if you’d ever planned that – but perhaps the question will stop you from doing so)
STRESS
I’ve been so relaxed this week and not stressed at all. I usually go overboard with wanting to consume so much, so much to learn, never leave a moment unused. Always be efficient. Now when that hasn’t been an option, I’ve had nothing to stress out about. But the payoff has been pointlessness. Never being stressed can also corelate to a boring life, we should have some of the good exciting stress – it’s key to a good life! For more on this, read The Upside of Stress by Kelly McGonigal.
“People look for retreats for themselves, in the country, by the coast, ora in the hills. There is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in his own mind…So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.” – Marcus Aurelius
The internet, Mail & Social Media
This one was way simpler than I thought. Perhaps because it was black and white, no computer or phone made it all non-accessible. And it freed up so much time, which instead mostly was filled with thinking. But also relived me from a bunch of stress and uneasiness. Not having to feel bad about falling victim for the dopamine craving brain constantly checking mail or Facebook notifications. Or the whole social media game, making me feel anxious when unconsciously comparing myself to everyone’s perfect lives.
Hey You, what’s up? It’s Sunday and it’s about that time to throw ourselves into a new week challenge! This time I’m having so much mixed emotions for what lies ahead. Thrilled because I know it’s going to be a real challenge, which is always exciting. But equally fearful because I know it’s probably going to suck as bad as opening the fridge, realizing it’s as empty as your stomach. Yes, that is among other things on far out on the suffer scale.
You see this week I will be practicing suffering, and I’m of course inviting you to join. Removing a bunch of those ‘good’ things I take for granted. In practicality, this means I will be eating cold none tasting food, no nice beverages like tea or lemon water, expose myself to cold by biking 2 hours daily to work in the snow, not allow any music, podcast, audiobooks or whatever, banning the usage of internet, social media and all electronic devices – except for when it’s really needed for work or posting a video. Basically, all the things I love will be excluded from my life, Monday through Friday at lunch.
Now why the heck would I go on and do somethings stupid like this? I’ve for a long time said that booth good and bad changes in life serves you, as it makes you reflect on what you truly value but also opens you up to new perspectives. However, recently I stumbled upon stoicism through Tim Ferris. Stoicism is a ‘teaching’ or a ‘practice’ that many great leaders have embraced through history. And as Tim says, it can be a bit dray and is by far perfect. But it has some good practices that could be integrated with great pay off. One of these things being practicing suffering and misfortune.
Stoicism has just a few central teachings. It sets out to remind us of how unpredictable the world can be. How brief our moment of life is. How to be steadfast, and strong, and in control of yourself. And finally, that the source of our dissatisfaction lies in our impulsive dependency on our reflexive senses rather than logic.
Stoicism doesn’t concern itself with complicated theories about the world, but with helping us overcome destructive emotions and act on what can be acted upon. It’s built for action, not endless debate.
Stoicism differs from most existing schools in one important sense: its purpose is practical application. It is not a purely intellectual enterprise. It’s a tool that we can use to become better in our craft, better friends and better people.
PRACTICE MISFORTUNE
“It is in times of security that the spirit should be preparing itself for difficult times; while fortune is bestowing favors on it is then is the time for it to be strengthened against her rebuffs.” -Seneca
Seneca, who enjoyed great wealth as the adviser of Nero, suggested that we ought to set aside a certain number of days each month to practice poverty. Take a little food, wear your worst clothes, get away from the comfort of your home and bed. Put yourself face to face with want, he said, you’ll ask yourself “Is this what I used to dread?” ( Source )
So by putting ourselves through some suffering, the idea is to make us realize that perhaps the worst cases we so dread aren’t that bad. In Tim’s best selling book the 4-hour work week, he talks a whole lot about asking yourself this question; if you quit your job and lose all your money, would it really be that bad? And even if that happen, would it be that hard to get back to a base level? More to it, at least for me, I see it as an opportunity to distance myself from the things I love, so that I to a greater extent can appreciate all the things I take for granted.
Ask yourself -what do you love the most? And then, at least consider, remove some of those things this week! As I started out with saying, I’m really having mixed emotions for this one. But once I’ve dared myself – there’s no going back!
So I welcome you to join me in this EPIC WEEK OF SUFFER!
You know what? It’s time for a new week challenge to be put lose in this world! Five days of actions to make me (you?) become an el grandé deluxe edition of yourself. Yepp, I’m telling you – that’s what’s going to happen!
The focus of the week is our old dear friend “Rejection Therapy” a thing I started doing like a year ago, inspired by Jia Jiang. A guy that did 100 days of these types of challenges and put it on YouTube. It kind of went viral, check out his nice Ted talk here: What I learned from 100 days of rejection. I’ve explained my take on it numerous of times, but if you missed out, here’s the simple genius basics of it:
Rejection therapy or Facing Fears, as I’ve also called it at times, means that we are to expose ourselves to a social situation with a specific question, request or action in mind that puts you out of your comfort zone! For instance, approaching a cute girl asking for a date, randomly ask people for a hug, or as in part of this week’s challenge; asking people for an video interview (which all Swedish people seem to hate).
The great thing with these challenges is that it’s a win-win no matter the outcome, as long as we pull the trigger. You see this very action of approaching & asking, is in fact us taking action towards a defined goal. And if you’ve read the Six pillars of self-esteem by Nathaniel Branden, you’ll see that as long as we do things that aligns with ours values, beliefs or goals – we build self-esteem. And if we are to follow these rules, it also means that we can’t lie or manipulate our way into getting a yes on our question or request. But that’s it, that’s the only rules we must play by. However if we do this, we’ll see our self-esteem level up like crazy. I can say this because it’s simply my experience after spending a bunch of ours practicing this.
The secondary result is that we desensitize ourselves from getting turned downed, rejected and controlled by our thoughts and emotions. FEAR. Because rejections will happen, otherwise you’ve designed the challenge a bit too nice (guilty at times). We want to create a new association to the feeling we get inside of us when we are scared of doing something. A new association that makes us connect the fear, to being a necessity for us to go through, if we are to reach our goals and grow. AND with the added benefits of getting a ton of thrilling, exciting moments to spice up our lives with.
If you do this over and over again, you’ll start to shape one of the best Habit Loops you can have.
It will change your life. But don’t get me wrong, the fear won’t disappear. But you’ll be able to stand in it, and it will act as a trigger (the cue) for you to act on, making your dopamine craving brain shine up like a night sky on new year’s eve. It will push you through the fear and throw you into taking action (the routine) so that your mind will get that reward it so badly seeks. The reward of proudness for doing what you sat out to do, a sense of accomplishment. An explosion of adrenaline and good feeling hormones we all love. In this case you just don’t have to get drunk or do drugs to get it.
So, the challenge for me this week is to set out on a quest to see if I can find a new apartment for me and my brother to rent. I’ll be asking random people with, and without the camera. But I’ll also try to come up with other creative ideas. Let me know if you’ve got some tips!
What’s the challenge for you? Well, sit down and think a few minutes about what you’d like to see happen in your life. Or just design a question that will serve you some niice rejections – it’s up to you! But either way, I do wish you good luck.
Just got back to a rainy Sweden, punctuating my three day long Italien work trip. As a coindence, it also happens to end my blog-every-day-for-entire-january-challenge. It’s been an interessting little journey, which I’ve both loved and hated. Hated all those moments when I’ve just craved nothing else but food or sleep, dying from exhaustion after a long work day.
“No alex, now you need to sit down and write something”
Like right nlow, it’s two o’ clock at night, and I have to get up working early in the morning (yet I wrote a blogpost celebrating sleep the other day – hypocrite!) But then it’s also the part of accomplishing something that I sat out to do, and getting that win daily. More to it, I’ve discovered someting greater – a whole new relationship to writing that has given me a new way of expressing thoughts, reflections and ideas. For this I’m very gratefull, and I feel it’s something that will benefit me greatly in the future. But so this also means I’m not going to be postaing daily from now on. Instead the Youtube channel will once more get most of the attention.
But the major point I want to make in this blog post, is to constantly push yourself to do the things that’s hard and uncomfortable. Those things that you know on some gut feeling will benefit you, even if it feels idiotic at times. I was so close to quitting my blog post challenge after 6 days. Soo close. But I stuck with it, beacuse it just felt like someting I needed to do. And as I spoke about in yesterdays blog post, variety is good. When we push ourselves out of that comfortable little place of ours, that’s when we experience how much more life has to offer. And I’m not saying all the things we do will work out great, of course not. But as long as we make sure to learn from those moments too – then there’s value to be extracted!
I mean, I’m quite comfortbale in my nature, and I could defently say that I’m satisifed with the way I’m living my life right now. The same thing could however have been said a few years ago too. And if i then would have seattled for that… All he things I would have missed out on! Makes me cry just hinking about it. And with that logic, the same scenario could be equally true right now. I need to keep experiencing new things, but never forgett to enjoy the process. Not chasing the win of tomorrow. Because it’s at this very moment when life happens.
For instance all my work my develpoing my social side is really starting to pay of. Going from having a real hard time enjoying conversations, constantly judgning my self too hard, to having quite an easy time to get to know new people and just enjoy the crap out of all these moments! A great example is this evening’s flight home to Stockholm, where I sat next to these two great crazy girls named Tara and Nataile. I just had a blast getting to know them as we spoke continuously from start to landing.
This is something that only has been possible as a result of me constantly pushing myself to improve my ability to connect with people. Sitting here smiling thinking of this great evening, I feel so proud for not giving up on myself and settling for how I once thought a good life was. And the best thing is that once you’ve got a taste of the ‘developing life’, you’ll always be hungry for more. You start seeing life as this organic thing that happens continuously, and it’s up to you to keep that fire going.
Thanks for stopping my, and see you when I see you:)
P.S. I might have been a bit repetitive.. but it’s emotioanl writing right now since I’m so tiered I don’t know squat.. Legg day? No, that’s not until sunday,, Nighty!
Me and my German work colleague Daniel’s back head
Ah Italy, I haven’t really seen too much of you, yet I’m very much enjoying myself. Even though it’s an intense business trip. Now, I won’t be long this evening – got an early morning. Plus, to say I’m brain dead is quite the understatement as I’m lying here in bed trying to digest the 4000+ kcal 4 course dinner I just had. Allowed myself some breathing room after a couple of strict controlled food weeks. But you don’t care about that, neither do you care that I’m staying at some five star hotel, with an huge outdoors/indoors thermal pool and Spa. Fancy place indeed. Yet I keep going. Why?
It’s simple – variety or change, is good for you and it could be a lifesaver when it comes in the right moments. That goes for the bad changes as well, preferably only short term though. It lies some huge possibility for you to get some perspective on things – on life! Or easily accessible insights is perhaps a better way of putting it. You appreciate what you have – had – to a whole new level. and you just start thinking about how you really live your life. At least this is my experience.
When you stay at one place or position for too long; work, school, routines, place of living, life design; the everyday tends to get taken for granted. And don’t get my wrong, I’m the routine-habit guy and loves that! It has so many benefits and gives me energy to do those extra things that makes my days stand out; try new things and connect with random people, etc. But once and a while those big safety net, our comfort places like work or place we live at holds us back from letting go and leveling up. And sometimes a get a way trip and just breaking all those regular life patterns, makes you distance yourself far enough to realize that what you hold the dearest, might also be what holds you back the most. comfort, security, or just plain laziness.
So as I was lying in the thermal outside pool tonight, looking at a fulmoon through the water vaporizing, I had one of those moments when I knew something big had to change. New time. Scarry times. But that’s when you know you’re on to something good.
So do me a favour will ya? Think about what changes that you would like to happen in your life, and then think about what really is the worst that could happen if you went for it and failed. Would it be impossible to go back o what you had previously? But also, what it would mean if it actually played out well?
Sleep tight,
/Alexander
P.S. and Yeah, here’s an inspirational video for you by a favorutie guy of mine, brendon:
What’s up guys? Me? I’m good, thanks for asking. I’m actually mid-air somewhere over the Netherlands. You see I’m on my first ever business trip as an engineer (only been at it for 1.5 years). And me and my college Mattias are heading for Italy, a cosy village (by rumour) a 1 hour taxi drive from Venice airport. However, considering how this morning started, I’m not taking anything for granted until I’m lying in my hotel bed having wet dreams about tomorrows hotel breakfast!
You see, I have a history of notoriously messing up my traveling somehow, weather I forget something crucial or just stress out way too much over an overly optimistic time approach. But this time I had decided it would be different. I was determined! So yesterday I prepared the trip perfectly! I wrote an extensive well thought out packing list, collected all the things and crossed them of one by one as I neatly packed them into my new virgin weekend bag I’d been dying to use.
But so as the morning came – I woke up with a bit stressed out and with a gut feeling telling me something was bound to go wrong. But I ignored it and hurried on; took out my lunchbox while simultaneously brushing my teeth. It was all prepared and the bag was standing by the door, just needed to get dressed. Nothing could go wrong
The only problem was that I got such craving for jogging – which Is my usual way of getting to work. But I had mentally accepted that it wasn’t going to happen due to the close to impossible task of running with a weekend bag. The instant urge to run did however overthrow all sense of rationality and detailed plan for how this morning was going to play out.
“We can do this Alex” I thought to myself proudly for making a decision that would add some workout to my day. I shouldn’t have been. Never change your plans spontaneously 6 A.M in the morning
I throw myself in the wardrobe looking for alternatives. “Ah there you are my dear Thailand backpacking old friend”. I reached for the worn backpack, which by the look of it was half the size of the weekend bag I’d already packed. “We can make this work, we have to.”
Getting increasingly more stressed out due to the extra time this repacking takes. I know everything in the already packed bag has to come, so it’s risk free. Right? *Zhiit..*. Somehow, I manage to fit it all in and magically close it. I swear I could hear it cry for help.
Then I remember – the Passport! in the hidden pocket on the inside! “Puh, almost had me there.” Filled with a tremendous sense of success for winning over the usual travel-failing-alex, I jumped in the jogging shoes and were on my way out the door quicker than I could think. Great success!
3,5 kilometers later I arrive at the train station, realizing that something feels off with my bag. The big zipper had unzipped, and all my clothes were exposed. “Did I dropped something? I don’t know and It’s too late to do anything about it anyways. At least I got the passport.” I sat down do meditate. BAM – it hits me “The lunch box at the table! Damn… At least I got the passport.”
50 minutes later, standing naked in the shower room at the gym, looking down a totally empty bag. Feeling a sense of equal emptiness within when accepting that I forgot to empty one of the pockets in the weekend bag.
“I Guess I won’t be needing my phone charger, headphone charger or my watch charger. At least I got the passport… Never change your plans at 6 A.M alex. Never.“
See what I did there? This week’s challenge is all about practicing storytelling, and i just sneaked in a practice run! The idea was to follow a three-part structure that was introduced in the weekly challenge video (link). How do you think I did? Just shared an every day event that happened this morning, and that’s the idea. Share more stories, but do it in an captivating way! Not saying this happens to me every morning, but still?.
See you tomorrow guys, now I’m going to dream about my coming break fast.
/Alexander
P.S it’s late at the hotel room and I need to get up in a couple of hours, so I haven’t really had time to check what I wrote for shitty grammatical mistakes. Just sayin’.
Hungry for some personal development this week? I know I am. Because it’s Sunday and that means it’s time for a new weekly challenge! And this week we’ll continue in the path of developing our social skills, in fact, we’ll practice our story telling abilities. So, in my video I’ll share the most straight to the point expert’s tips I’ve found on how to become a better story teller. I then outline a simple challenge for us to execute on this week, Monday through Friday. Hurray!
First off, why do we need to be good at telling stories? Well, we don’t need to, but if you want to be a likeable and charismatic person – then it’s a safe bet! I think we all know how spellbinding it can be to listen to captivating story teller. But more to it, we are human beings that constantly interact and connect with each other – at least we used to – and mastering storytelling is one of the fundamentals to do that. Not only does a good social life make us happier and live longer (research – how’s that for a reference! Seriously, check out Susan Pinker or Brené Brown), but it’s also shortcut to getting what we want. Getting new friends, keeping old friends, finding the love of your life, getting a job – they won’t happen unless you can carry yourself socially! Unless you’re a fortunate, rich, handsome son of a.. – good for you!
But telling stories doesn’t only mean epic Thailand adventure, being offered cocaine from a Thailander’s long dirty fingernail in the middle of the night in some remote fishy place (not saying that happened) – no, it can be way less! There are so many potentially good mini-stories that happens in your life. In the right context, and with some thought through storytelling techniques & structure, it can elevate you to a storytelling guru.
“Oh you should have seen the girl I talked to this morning on the train. She was absolutely stunning with golden hair and a voice like your mother! How’s your mother doing by the way? Anyways, you’ll never believe what happened when I sat down next to her and told her that…”.
Now, I’m no expert. But I listen to experts, and I’ve been putting quite some hours into studying the theory of storytelling. So, here’s a video that I’ve found that delivers an easily understood approach on how to improve your storytelling skills. I recommend you check out the full video, where you’ll be guided through some examples were the theory is applied. This makes it much more digestible. In my video I cut that out due to keeping it shorter (I know you have an attention span as bad as.. as mine), but also so that you’d go watch his video.
But so, how will we structure this week’s challenge? It’s simple we pick at least one story from our lives, we then sit down and write it down while applying what we’ve just learnt. My recommendation – chose a short one, that will increase the likelihood of you actually doing this. My experience is telling me. I’m going to aim for around 1-3 minutes. Being able to shorten and prolong a story is another skill in itself, but we can talk more about that another time.
I know many of you won’t write it out, then fine – don’t. Keep it in your head. But for maximum development – I say do! We’ll then try to tell this story as many times as possible throughout the week. Remember not to forcefully squeeze in your story in all situations, the context for telling one is just as important. Hence, you’d perhaps pick something that could have a broader applicability. Like a funny thing that happened – that always work.
“You won’t believe what happened to me the other day..”
The Objectives:
Choose at least one story from your life write it out using the 3-act story structure presented in the video. Pick a short one.
Practice telling the stories to different persons at least one time a day, Monday through Friday.
Level 2 bonus Challenge:
Approach a random person, start a conversation and find an opening to tell your story.
This challenge may feel weird, but it gives us the clarity and specificity of improving on a skill. Learning from last week’s challenge when I aimed to broad and just got overwhelmed – tried to improve 3 charismatic traits all at the same time. It’s a win-fail if you apply your learnings!
Now I’m going to Italy this week, and my plan is (if there’s time, and if I actually get my own room) to do a live stream and tell you a story from my life. If you have any suggestions on what you want to hear, let me know in the comments. Also, if you’re doing this challenge – let me know that as well! Social commitment is POWERFUL.
See you in the week guys, and good luck.
?
/Alexander
Hungry for more on storytelling, here’s a playlist from Charisma On Command on storytelling:
Today I’m going to be lazy. After all, it’s Saturday. Then you’re allowed to give yourself some slack (can you hear how I’m trying to convince myself?). So instead of rambling on about my life, I’m going to contribute this post to celebrate SLEEP. Zzz… BORING!
Ah, dear, wonderful, amazing, snoring sleep. Thank you for returning. This past week I slept like shit, too many big questions floating around on the inside of my blond hairy covered scull (didn’t I just say I wasn’t going to talk about my life?!). But so finally last night I had a good 8,5 hours of lovely sleep. And it was like my whole system had rebooted when I woke up. Freshly scanned for virus, malware, spyware – all my shit had been removed. I could even play out 4k visions. And it was all covered in the free version, didn’t even need to sign up for an email list! Everything is so clear and stunning, and I’m filled to the top with joy and happiness. Life IS effortless. Even my other much needed daily powernaps were skipped (practically do that every day at work).
Enough said, remember – dare to be lazy! That’s all the time I’m going to take from you, and instead share the best video I’ve seen so far on why we need to sleep properly (and I’ve seen a lot as the self-help/wellbeing YouTube junkie that I am).
The worst part about this blog post is that I’m a big of a hypocrite, because I rarely get more than 6 hours during weekdays. HOWEVER, since watching this video 2 weeks ago, I’ve at least made sure to be lying in the bed for 7 hours ( 80% true ). Unfortunately that didn’t help this week..
So here goes, 14 minutes of amazing sleep facts to make you understand that prioritizing more sleep makes life much, much better. And yeah, it’s beautifully edited together and super nicely narrated, enjoy:
“70% of the articles and books I’ve read on sleep will say something like “Sleep is one of the big mysteries of biology” at least once. While it is not 100% understood, there is a lot that is known about the impressive health, fitness and anti-aging effects of sleep. Sleep is particularly important for memory, mental flexibility, creativity and the development of novel insights. If you’re someone who’s staying up to get more done, you may be sacrificing your chance at sparking that big idea that takes you to the next level. Even for the body, if you’re aiming to gain muscle or just sleep, you’re shooting yourself in the foot by not getting enough sleep.”
WHY Sleep is critical for the Body and Brain | Science of Sleep
And yeah, it’s a part two as well which gives you pratcial tips for HOW to sleep more!
Thanks for being you, since you read my blog, and that I very much appreciate. I guess it feeds my ego, anyways – thanks:)
Today I’m going to be lazy. After all, it’s Saturday. Then you’re allowed to give yourself some slack (can you hear how I’m trying to convince myself?). So instead of rambling on about my life, I’m going to contribute this post to celebrate SLEEP. Zzz… BORING!