Week of Optimism

That is one optimistic monkey.
Optimism is a hot topic this week on the intrawebs: some pundits like it and others don't.  Personally, I could use all the optimism I can get (my homunculus gets cranky easily), so this week at The Happy Homunculus we've been filling glasses of water half-way and contemplating just how full they are...  That was an optimisim joke. Uggh.

During the week, we listened to our thoughts following bad events and completed six Daily Mind Games to try to shift our brains from a pessimistic state to an optimistic one. Guided by research summarized in Learned Optimism, we tried to avoid thinking about things in a permanent, pervasive, or personal way.

My homunculus is still cranky, but less so.  Why don't you see how your homunculus responds?

Week of Optimism

Day 1: Hear the Homunculus - Listen to your automatic thinking.
Day 2: Ignore the Homunculus - Put a nasty homunculus in time-out.
Day 3: Temporary - Nothing lasts forever, bad stuff included.
Day 4: External - It's not always about you.
Day 5: Specific - Stop catastrophizing.
Day 6: Take Control - Escape the shock.

Whew!  I'm all tuckered out from all this metacognition and self-improvement that I need to unwind.  Don't you?  Next week, we're going shed our go-go-go mentality and try to relax.  But, worry not, partner-in-metacognition, we'll have our usual Daily Mind Games, but each day we're going to try to relax more and more.  After next week, you might be able to cancel your next vacation.  Another joke! 

An old classic that discusses the science of relaxation is The Relaxation Response.  While the "science of relaxation" may not sound relaxing at all (dramatic pause), the book is a great source of information about how to achieve a state of relaxation and the positive effects this state can have on our health and mood.  The book is a bit out-dated, but the main points still ring true. The Daily Mind Games for next week have been inspired by this book.

What's the point you may ask?  Well, our minds don't exist independently of our bodies.  In fact, our mental state can directly impact our physiology (our brains are an organ, after all) and vice versa.  For me, I'm always wound a bit tight - I'm kind of a nervous dude.  This seems to have given me a touch of the high blood pressures.  But, I'm not nervous about being nervous, the strategies in The Relaxation Response have been shown to reduce both blood pressure and other biomarkers of stress.  Joy!

Links: Check out other Weeks of Metacognition

Take Control

Want to make a dog mad?  Shock the dog.  Want to make a dog depressed?  Shock the dog and don't let it get away.

Dogs take control.
Treating animals in this way may seem cruel, but experiments of this sort have provided researchers with a significant amount of information about what leads to depression.  Specifically, animals that are given a mild shock, but have no way to escape, develop many of the physical symptoms of depression.  In addition, when these animals are moved into a condition where they can escape the shock (they can jump over a barrier and get away), many animals don't even attempt to escape.  This is the learned helplessness model of depression: the animals have learned to be helpless - that nothing they do matters - and that is just demoralizing.  

However, don't worry - these animals are easily rehabilitated.  Researchers simply demonstrate to the dog that they can escape the shock, and the dog realizes that it actually has control over it's situation.  After that, the dog is all good.

What's the point?  Well, when life beats down on you for awhile, it's natural to learn a bit of helplessness - despite our best efforts, things didn't go perfectly.  However, for the dogs described above, after they were trained to be helpless, and were moved to a situation where they could escape, they just assumed that they had no control of the situation.  In life, we very rarely have NO control over what happens to us.  So, today we're going to take control and, hopefully, our feelings of empowerment will improve too.


Take Control

Task: Exert control over some aspect your life.

Info: Pick something small for this challenge.  The idea is to prove to yourself that you have control over many aspects of your life.  Leave work 5 minutes early.  Do something different for your afternoon break.  Change your daily routine in some way.  Take control over something in your life and demonstrate that you can influence the world in a new way.  When you feel more in control, life seems a little more hopeful.  

Goal: Successfully take control of one aspect of your life.

This is an open-ended task because what makes you feel in control is a very personal thing.  Decide on something that makes you feel empowered and do it!

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Specific

Stop catastrophizing, monkey!
This week at The Happy Homunculus, we're working on becoming more optimistic.  Research suggests that optimistic people out-perform pessimists in many areas by persevering in the face of adversity.  Plus, it just feels good to be more optimistic!  So, let's change our thinking, shall we?

Today, we're going to work on not making things a big deal.

By discussing strategies for being more optimistic, we've explored the thinking styles that contribute to depression and are doing the opposite.  According to research summarized in Learned Optimism, people at risk for depression tend to think about bad things a lot (ruminate), assume bad events will have permanent consequences, and assume that bad events reflect a personal problem.  A third characteristic of a hardcore pessimist is allowing a bad event to impact all aspects of life: it becomes pervasive.  Today, we're going to try to avoid thinking that results in a pervasive, pessimistic mindset.

Specific

Task: Curtail automatic thinking that allows a bad event to impact all aspects of your life.

Info: For this task, you can either recall a bad event or listen to your automatic thinking after a fresh annoyance.  Argue any thoughts that creep in that make the bad thing become pervasive.  Here's an example, let's say you were passed up for a promotion.  How will you let this road-block affect your home life?  This issue at work has nothing to do with what's going on at home.  What will your thinking be like if your significant other is in a bad mood?  "Everybody in my life is treating me like dirt, I can't escape!"  Or, "She must have had a bad day too - let's comfort each other."  

Goal: Convince yourself that the causes of a bad event are restricted to a single context.

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External

It's not always about you, monkey.
The Week of Optimism rolls on!  So far, we've tuned-in to our automatic thinking, ignored negative self-talk, and re-framed a bad event as being temporary.  These metacognitive skills are essentials in the toolkit of any optimist and, today, we're going to practice another approach to bad events.  Specifically, we're going to try not to take bad things too personally.

A characteristic of people who are at risk for getting depressed is a tendency to view bad events as stemming from a personal issue.  Your boss is in a gruff mood: I must have done something wrong.  No job offer: I must not be qualified.  Good-looking person turns you down: I'm not attractive to them.  In each of these examples, something less-than-ideal happened and the individual blames himself.  In reality, the causes of each event might have nothing to do with the individual.  Your boss might have had a fight with her spouse.  You may be overqualified.  That person at the bar may be in a relationship.

For today's Daily Mind Game, we're going to bring a bad event to mind and try to place blame externally. Of course, if it is clear that you were at fault, then it's important to take responsibility.  But, for this exercise, let's choose an event that has a truly ambiguous cause and look on the bright side.

External

Task: Argue automatic thinking that a bad event was caused by a personal issue.

Info: For this task, you can either recall a bad event or listen to your automatic thinking during a fresh annoyance.  Argue any thoughts that creep in that make the bad thing seem personal.  I think one of the best scenarios to apply this to is after a random fight with a significant other.  One might view the cause of the fight as something personal: I may be less compatible with them than I thought.  Or, we could look to external causes: It was late at night and we were both exhausted.  Think of a bad event and try to find external factors that may have contributed.   

Goal: Convince yourself that the causes of a bad event are external.

People who frequently think of bad events as having personal causes are more likely to be pessimistic and more likely to get depressed.  Want to learn more about the thinking-styles that contribute to depression?  Check out Learned Optimism.

Temporary

When things go badly, the hurt is normally so acute that it's easy to just focus on the badness and let it become your whole world.  However, one way to take a bad situation and make it worse is to start telling yourself that things are going to be bad FOREVER.

Ignore the Homunculus

Ignore your homunculus.
Yes, even if it's a gnome.
This week we're trying to get more optimistic, and I'm optimistic that we'll succeed...  I mean, we have science on our side right?  Learned Optimism has a ton of great information about being more optimistic and I'm eager to translate the science therein into real action.  I want to spend less time listening to a negative, nasty homunculus and more time listening to the supportive words of a homunculus with some mojo.  So what might a metacognitive master do when his homunculus is acting all mean?  Ignore his homunculus.

I've discussed this before, but thinking isn't always a good thing.  This is especially true if your automatic thoughts are tinged with negativity, self-doubt, and doom.  Yesterday, we started listening to our homunculus to learn more about types of things we say to ourselves. Hopefully, most of the stuff going on in your mind was good, but if you're typical, a fraction of your self-talk is likely to be on the negative end of the spectrum.

The floppy hat and beard theme continues. 
The science suggests that an unending stream of negative thinking (a.k.a rumination), is a major risk factor for depression.  More importantly, one step in combating depression (or enhancing optimism, for that matter) is to distract ourselves when bad thinking creeps in.  That is today's Daily Mind Game:

Ignore the Homunculus

Task: Ignore negative thoughts for one day.

Info: Continue to monitor your thoughts like you did yesterday.  However, today, whenever a thought creeps in that you don't like (i.e. a thought that makes you feel bad about yourself or what you're doing), come up with some way to distract yourself.  You could try saying "NO" in your mind (or "VETO", my personal favorite).  Another suggestion proposed in Learned Optimism is to wear a rubber band on your wrist and give it a gentle snap whenever some negative thinking creeps in. Do whatever it takes, but no negative thinking today.

Goal: An entire day without a negative train of thought lasting more than 1min.

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Hear the Homunculus

Your homunculus must be hungry.
How's your homunculus doing lately?  I've talked a lot about my homunculus over the last few weeks but really haven't spent much time explaining what I mean by "my homunculus".  It's pretty important that we get a good understanding of this whole homunculus concept now, because during this Week of Optimism, we're going to be staring down our homunculus and putting the little dude or dudette in his/her place.  The goal?  Get more optimistic, happier, and healthier.

I've adopted the Homunculus as the mascot of this blog in a tongue-in-cheek reference to the homunculus argument in cognitive science/philosophy.  For centuries, smart, bearded, be-toga'd philosophers have speculated about the nature of the "viewer" when our brain sees the world around us.  During vision, light hits surrounding objects and bounces off, eventually hitting the back of our eyeballs.  This "image" of the world gets transmitted to our brain (in some form) where we then have access to the data in the visual scene.  But who then "sees" the image in our brain?  Well, one possibility would be that a little guy, a homunculus, sees the brain version of the environment and then tells us what to do with it.  Of course, this is a problematic view: how then does the homunculus "see"?  In this case, the homunculus would need his own homunculus! Oy vey.

I see you Homunculus!
We're not going to get into the details of why the homunculus argument stinks.  Instead, let's clarify what "homunculus" means for a blog about metacognition.  To us, our Homunculus is that "little voice inside", our subconscious, our primitive, our emotional, or our immature side.  I think we've all experienced something like this at one point or another.  Occasionally, we may think a certain way that one part of us (the "real" part of us) doesn't like.  For example, I will occasionally get all gloomy and grumpy for no apparent reason.  During these times, I sometimes get so exasperated that I want to yell at myself  "Snap out of it!"  Other times, I will have really low motivation to do work or exercise and I will literally have to convince myself that it's a good idea.

That "other" part of you that you don't always have control over? That's your homunculus.  Maybe you're not even that aware of this "inner voice".  If not, that's what today's challenge is all about.  We're going to monitor our own automatic thoughts for a day.  Eventually, we're going to start to control our homunculus.  Oh yeah. 

Hear the Homunculus

Task: Monitor your automatic thoughts for one day.

Angels and Devils? Your inner voice is a monkey. 
Info: What kinds of thoughts do you have during the day?  Are they positive? Are they negative?  The point of this exercise is simply to increase our awareness of our own thoughts.  Don't get worried about "thinking the right way" yet.  Just observe your thoughts with interest.  Perhaps put little, mental tags on each thought.  Try not to control your thoughts, just think in your normal, natural way.  If you don't like the way you're thinking, don't worry.  You can change how you think and we'll be working on some strategies over the next week to do just that.

Goal: Get a sense of the quality and quantity of your thoughts in a normal day.

Whether you like it or not, your homunculus is there, chattering away.  Start listening: this is a critical metacognitive skill that will enable us to modify our thoughts during future challenges.

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Week of Motivation

You can do it!
We're intrinsically motivated here at The Happy Homunculus.  We're so intrinsically motivated, that we were able to make ourselves more motivated.  Dios mio!

During the last week, we started arguing with our own mind with the goal of increasing our intrinsic motivation.  We completed six Daily Mind Games, inspired by the book Motivational Interviewing, that were carefully engineered to re-frame our internal biases and make us more open to changing our behavior.

I know it worked for me.  My homunculus said it worked for him.  So, why wouldn't it work for you?

Week of Motivation

Day 1: Benefits of Change - talk up the good reasons to change.
Day 2: No to the Status Quo - remind yourself why not changing is uncool.
Day 3: Characteristics for Change - note your skillz.
Day 4: Expertise for Change - get more skillz.
Day 5: Intention to Change - make a promise to yourself.
Day 6: Small Change - Make a change, a small change.

Next week, our goal will be to improve our moods (and our performance) by working on being more optimistic. I recently read a great book entitled Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman that reviews the current science about optimism and how we can change our thinking to be more optimistic.  The Daily Mind Games for next week have been inspired by this book.

What's the point you may ask?  Well, an optimistic style of thinking has been linked to improved mood, better health, longer life, and greater success.  Neat-O!  Sounds like something my homunculus could use...

Links: Check out other Weeks of Metacognition

Small Change

Thank you, internet, for this
breakdancing ninja monkey!
Are you so totally jazzed up about making a big change in your life that you've been chest-bumping yourself in the mirror?  You're not alone.  Even my homunculus is starting to believe that a positive change is possible.  He was break-dancing in my dome into the wee hours of the night.

I alluded to this earlier, but let me remind you that by thinking differently about how we might motivate ourselves, we have made a change already - in our thinking.  That is no small thing.  Being able to change how we think is a major metacognitive skill.  So, pat your homunculus on the back... With your mind!

Today, we're going to add a +1 to our "things we've changed" list.  Specifically, the goal of this Daily Mind Game, is to make one small change today that gets you a little closer to that goal you've been staring down.

Small Change

Task: Make one small change.

Info: Choose one tiny thing to change today that moves you toward your goal.  It can be a very, very small change!  Walk for 5 minutes. Drink one fewer can of soda.  Smoke one less cigarette. Do one nagging unfinished task.  The point of this exercise is not to make a huge number of changes.  Resist the temptation to do that.  Instead, pick one, atomic-level thing from your plan and make sure you stick to it.  If you do, then you have proven to yourself that you can change your own behavior.  That is the bee's knees.

Goal: Change your behavior in some way.  Pick something you will not fail at!

Congrats, you've changed: rinse and repeat and you're a different person. Seriously.

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New to The Happy Homunculus?

You must be new here.
Welcome to the Happy Homunculus!  You might be wondering what the heck is going on here?  Fair question: we're talking about some funky stuff after all.

Simply, our mission is to improve our thinking via metacognition (thinking about our thinking) - essentially, we want to understand what science can tell us about the most effective thinking strategies and apply those principles to our own thinking.  The goal?  Better performance and improved mood.

To that end, we've been conducting a little experiment in applied metacognition: each day we are attempting a different Daily Mind Game that is designed to improve some aspect of our thinking.  In addition, we've been grouping these challenges into week-long themes in order to maintain some focus and make some lasting changes in how we think.

So far, we've completed a Week of Focus and a Week of Empathy.  Currently, we've been trying to improve our own motivation to change during this Week of Motivation.  So far, we've tried the following challenges:

Day 1: Benefits of Change
Day 2: No to the Status Quo
Day 3: Characteristics for Change
Day 4: Expertise for Change
Day 5: Intention to Change

We have one more challenge to go for the week (then one day off).  Hopefully, you'll follow along as I put my own homunculus through his paces.  Also, please comment on the articles.  My homunculus would love some feedback about how these challenges work for you!

Intention to Change

I think I know what you're thinking, and I'm thinking the same thing: I am ready to make it happen.  I'm ready to change my life for the better.  This week, we've already done so much to get our brains ready to make a big change.  Now we know: 1) that a change will be awesome, 2) not changing would be dumb, 3) we're able to make a change, and 4) the facts about changing.  Guess what my friend-in-metacogntion?  We already have made a change: in the way we think!  So cool.

Expertise for Change

Good work this week!  Oh, I was talking to myself, but I'm sure you're doing well too.  You do realize that I can't see you right..?  Wait, what was I talking about?  Oh yes, motivation!

Characteristics for Change

Better get your change ready.
The head of the homunculus in my head is spinning!  Maybe it's because of all the self-referential jokes I've been making, but I'm pretty sure it's because I finally called the little jerk out on his resistance to change.  He's been arguing for awhile that we really want to turn our lives around, but that it's just not possible:  "Sorry, chief, we've done everything we can...  Guess it's time to relax."

"Not so fast!" Says I to myself.  "I'm smarter than you [talking to myself, again], and I know that the real reason we haven't made that big change is because we're ambivalent about changing."  I hope you've been having similar conversations with yourself (although, not out loud).  Today, we're going to continue think about motivation and add one more layer to our growing sense that change is inevitable.

The goal for this Daily Mind Challenge is to get pumped up about changing by thinking about how we have what it takes to change.  We've been writing a lot of lists this week in order to focus on the reasons change is good.  Hate to say it, but we're writing another list today, but this time it's about ourselves.

Characteristics for Change

Task: Bring that main goal to mind that will require you to change your behavior. Brainstorm a list of all the characteristics you possess that make you suited to change.

Info: This is a bit of an awkward challenge since we're forced to get all sweet and syrupy with ourselves.  If you're modest, this can be one of the more difficult types of challenges.  But, remember, you're not trying to lie to yourself here, or be cocky.  Simply identify some facts about yourself, or remember some examples in the past, that provide evidence for why you would be able to make a change if you decided to.  Examples you could use might include: "I'm open to the possibility that change is feasible", "I'm smart enough to trick myself into changing", "I've completed long-term projects in other contexts", etc.

Goal: Create a list of at least 5 characteristics about yourself that make you suited to handling a change.  It's ok to use the three examples I provided above if you feel stuck.  Don't give up!  And remember to show yourself compassion...

Author's note: Are the challenges during this Week of Motivation inspiring you? Well, these posts have been inspired by the book Motivational Interviewing, Second Edition: Preparing People for Change.  Buy the book  via the link and you'll be supporting the Happy Homunculus.  We have no affiliation with the authors!

No to the Status Quo

Yesterday, you, me, and our homunculi came to the conclusion that we aren't as motivated to change our lives as we thought.  Instead, we're pretty ambivalent about the whole thing.  One the one hand, we want the rewards that come with carrying out change; yet, on the other hand, change is HARD, yo!  Do the benefits outweigh the costs?  Today, we're going to stick with more change-focused metacognition to convince ourselves that changing is the only option.

Benefits of Change

1986 David Bowie from the movie
Labyrinth wants you to get motivated. 
Are you motivated to get motivated?  I sure hope you are, because by the end of this Week of Motivation, you'll be so motivated to accomplish that one goal that has been torturing you, there will be no turning back.  If you really don't want to change your life, leave the intrawebs now.  You have been warned.


I'm about to say something that you don't want to hear, but if you come to terms with this fact, you'll be one step closer to understanding the secret state-of-mind that is critical to achieving tough, long-term goals.  Here it is: if you really wanted to change your behavior, you would have changed already.

Let me put this more gently: you are ambivalent about changing.  We've all been in this state. It is characterized by the "I want to, but..." type of thinking that tricks our own brain into thinking that it really is motivated when it isn't.  Our homunculi hear "I want to" and instantly assume that we're motivated.  But, the problem is the "but".  The things that come after the "but" are all the reasons we don't want to change: it's painful, it's hard, it's embarrassing, it's scary, etc.  The fact is, until we convince ourselves that the benefits of changes outweigh all the sacrifices after the "but", we're going to stick with the status-quo.

Today, we're going to outsmart our own ambivalence by ignoring all the negatives of changing.  We're going to consciously focus on all the incredible benefits that will come if we make a change in our life.  But, just as importantly, we're going to ignore all the negatives of change.  No "buts", dudes and dudettes.

Benefits of Change

Task: Pick something about your life you want to change and brainstorm as many benefits as possible that will come from making the change.

Info: Choose any goal that you have been putting off.  It can be anything: quitting smoking, exercising, stop procrastinating (my main problem), whatevs.  Write down a list of all the benefits you can think of that would come from making the change.  Make it your goal to convince yourself that this change is a no-brainer by the shear length of the list.

Goal: Try to create a list of at least 10 reasons why making a change will be super cool.  For each extra reason, you get one extra Metacognition Point.  I just made that up, Metacognition Points don't really exist.

If you're feeling social, post your list in the comments!

Author's note: the concept of ambivalence as being an obstacle to change is a central tenet of Motivational Interviewing.  Buy the book, it's awesome and you'll support The Happy Homunculus.

Week of Empathy

Empathize, yo.
It's official: empathy is a hot topic!  Just ask Dan Pink.  Good thing we're ahead of the curve here at The Happy Homunculus.  Last week, we pumped some cognitive iron with a focus on making our compassion-muscles as big as possible.  During this homunculus-sanctioned "Week of Empathy", we engaged in six Daily Mind Games designed to test and improve our ability to think about other people.  The Homunculus knows that if he thinks about thinking, he can change the way he thinks: so why not think about thinking about other people?  Say whuh?

In case you missed it, why not catch up?

Week of Empathy

Day 1: Simple Relationship - Think about someone who makes you happy
Day 2: Complex Relationship - Direct compassion at a complex someone
Day 3: Subordinate - Show empathy to an employee
Day 4: Superior - Show empathy to your boss
Day 5: Dependent - Give support to a loved-one
Day 6: Self-Empathy - Be nice to yourself

Last week's final challenge, "Self-Empathy" may have been the hardest of all for some us; however, being patient with our own shortcomings is going to be a critical skill to take into next week when we work on self-motivation.  During the upcoming Week of Motivation, we're going to be applying strategies outlined in an awesome book - Motivational Interviewing: Preparing People for Change.  The approaches described in Motivational Interviewing were formulated (and tested) to help people deal with substance abuse problems, but are applicable to any situation where an increase in motivation is needed before an change in behavior can occur.  While Motivational Interviewing was written for counselors (not a general audience), we're smart cookies and are going to try to extend the framework to our self-motivation goals.  Let's do this.

FYI - If you buy the book via the above link, you'll be supporting The Happy Homunculus - thanks for the help!

Links: View other Weeks of Metacognition

Self Empathy

Show yourself some love.
Can you feel the love?  Our Week of Empathy is coming to a close and I've saved the best (and most difficult) challenge for last.  Today, we'll be empathizing with ourselves.  POW!

Yes, we're going to get a bit funky today and really play some jedi-mind-tricks with our homunculus until it/he/she doesn't know what happened.  If you are anything like me, you frequently do things in a way that is, to put it gently, less than ideal.  And, if you're anything like me, when I don't do things "right", my first reaction is to get mad: "Myself!  You cat-hair sandwich, I told you to stop procrastinating and there you go.  You spend all day deciding on a computer wallpaper and playing online poker!  You are worthless!"  Ouch.

Now, on the one hand, I don't want to be self-deluded and convince myself that I'm perfect or that if I do nothing but think happy thoughts, my life will improve.  No, I know I have to change my behavior to change my life.  But, I found guilt to be a terrible motivator.  I messed up, but guess what?  Everyone does, so who cares?  This is self-empathy in a nutshell.  You are not approving of your mistakes (it's still bad homunculus).  Instead, you are acknowledging that mistakes happen and that it's time to move on and try again.

Self-Empathy

Task: Show yourself empathy for 15min

Info: This can be a hard challenge, especially if you are accustomed to viewing yourself in a bad light.  But, we've practiced compassion all week.  Let's direct a bit of that at ourselves.  No one is perfect.  All that matters is we keep trying to make things better.  Getting mad does nothing but make yourself feel like dirt.  Uggh.  How would an employee respond to the things you say to yourself?  If the answer is "not well", then try something different.

Goal: Try to show real self-empathy: don't say things you don't believe but remain supportive and positive.
For reasons I'll get into later, this challenge is a perfect transition into next week's theme: motivation!  Subscribe to follow along...

Links: Return to the Week of Empathy

Dependent

During this Week of Empathy, we've been sowing the seeds of positive relationships.  We've cultivated compassion, re-framed a complex relationship, treated an employee nicely, and even treated our boss nicely (OMGod).  For today's Daily Mind Game, we're going to show someone who loves us and depends on us that we love them and depend on them too.

Superior

In the Complex Relationship challenge, we did some heavy thinking about a complex relationship: one that isn't simply good or bad, but has a lot of dimension...  You know, like a fine cheese.

Subordinate

If you're lucky enough to have someone working for you, it's a slippery slope.  You want schtuff to get done and the pecking order is clear, so why waste time with pleasantries?  In fact, no need to even converse with your subordinates...  Just push them in the direction of the task to be completed and grunt one-word instructions.  You're the boss right?

Complex Relationship

We all have a number of relationships that don't fall neatly into a category: "good" or "bad".  Frequently, a relationship can be quite complex, a back-and-forth of good, bad, and ugly.

Simple Relationship

My homunculus is a self-centered, egotistical jerk.  He doesn't give a crap about anyone but himself.  He wants to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants.  If you happen to anger my homunculus, it's not because my homunculus is short-tempered, irritable, self-conscious or at fault.  No, it's something wrong with you.  How dare you piss off my homunculus!  Essentially, my homunculus is an angry monkey that throws poo.

Week of Focus

More! More focus!
Today marks the conclusion of the first week of Daily Mind Games (DMGs) here at the Happy Homunculus!  Thanks for following along this far.  As we've discussed previously, our mission is to engage in metacognition, or thinking about our thinking, with the aim of changing the way we think.  Just like physical exercise can lead to adaptations in our body that allow it to handle the work demanded, these daily, mental challenges are consciously designed activities that, with time, will change how our minds function - hopefully for the better.

During the Week of Focus, our goal was to test the limits of our attention span, and then to apply the skills we acquired to our daily lives to try to be more effective.  In case you missed the Week of Focus, follow along from the beginning:

Week of Focus

Day 1: 100 Breaths - Count 100 consecutive breaths
Day 2: One Object - Maintain attention on a single object
Day 3: Zone of 100 - Use breath counting to enter, and stay in, the zone
Day 4: Every Object - Examine each object with curiosity
Day 5: One Task - Focus on a single concept that matters to you
Day 6: One Person - Focus on a single person that matters to you

The final challenge of last week, "One Person", required that we observe one individual we care about.  This challenge, in addition to testing focus, also transitions us nicely into the DMG theme for next week: empathy.  Next week, we will conduct some thought experiments that challenge us to infer the thoughts and feelings of other people, to practice compassion, and to start to push ourselves to remain open-minded to the opinions of others.  Research is beginning to suggest that aspects of social intelligence, including empathy, are critical to the success of a group.  We will take these results at face value and attempt to develop this aspect of our thinking next week.

See you tomorrow!

Links: Check out other Weeks of Metacognition

One Person

The weekend is finally here and my homunculus is worn out and confused.  Normally, I allow him to do whatever he wants, pay attention to whatever he wants, and say whatever he wants.  But not this week!  My homunculus has started boot camp, and the focus of this first week of training has been, yes, focus.


One Task

You can only pick one.
TGIF! The work week is coming to an end and our "Week of Focus" is going swimmingly.  To recap, we've been playing some Mind Games with our homunculi each day in an attempt to get them to calm down and be more focused.

But, for me and my homunculus, yesterday's challenge didn't go so well...  My inner voice was whispering: "Surf the web...  Don't work....  Work is sooooo HARD.  Let's just relax!"  And instead of focusing on the objects around me to ignore these suggestions, I gave in a bit.  But that wasn't fun either, because I felt guilty the whole time for not working and didn't enjoy it!  Damn homunculus.

Today will be different.  I'm refocusing on focusing on focusing and am proposing this productivity-centric challenge:

One Task

Task: Focus your attention on one task, and only one task, for 30min.

Info: This challenge is about focus, not about doing anything, per-se.  With that in mind, the aim is to simply attend to a task, like we've attended to our breath or external objects.  Let's really focus on the subject matter related to that task.  Be patient, let ideas come and go, but really try to understand the task and what it requires of you.  You could also visualize what the world will look like after the task is completed.  What will completion of the task feel like?  What will completion of the task require?  What will starting the task feel like?  You don't have to actually do anything if you don't want to; but, of course, you could focus on the task while doing it, and that would be pretty great too :)

Goal: Do not break focus on a selected task until 30min is complete.  After 30min, feel free to switch to a new task or collapse from exhaustion.

Good luck!

Links: Return to the Week of Empathy - Move to the next Daily Mind Game

Every Object

Today for our Daily Mind Game, we will continue to focus on focusing; and, like previously, our task will attempt to integrate a mind game we practiced before into our daily routine.  In the one object challenge, we tried to maintain attention on a single object and observe that object in excruciating detail.  Today, we're going to apply that mentality to every object as a mental strategy for increasing our interest in the simple things that make up our experience.  Prepare yourself for a cliche: we're stopping to smell the roses...

Zone of 100

My homunculus is being naughty today: whining, angry, complaining.  But, I am not going to let him get me down!  Instead, I'm going to apply some of what we learned previously to block out the sounds of my obnoxious homunculus.  In the 100 Breaths challenge, we attempted to focus on our breathing and count 100 consecutive breaths.  This wasn't easy for me, but it did make me feel more focused and calm.  So today, for our daily mind workout we will live the 100 breaths challenge:

One Object

For the today's Daily Mind Game, we will continue our focus on focusing (meta-focusing, if you will) from yesterday.  The challenge today is entitled "One Object" and the goal is simple (but not easy): maintain focus on a single object for 15 minutes.

100 Breaths

Breath normally.
The other day, I was in the gym pumping iron, doing rep after rep of curls with the hope of trying to make my biceps as large as possible (likely a futile activity for me), when a thought occurred to me...  "Methinks," I thought, "A lot of people exercise day-in and day-out trying to be health-conscious."  My biceps were on fire, but I kept performing curls, 38... 39.... 40... 41... I also kept thinking: "But, I can't help but think about all of the minds out there that aren't getting some daily exercise.  What about our minds? We should be exercising our minds!"  A light-bulb appeared over my head, I dropped the dumbbells, and ran out of the gym.

With that thought, the Daily Mind Game was born.

Normal, physical exercise is great for our bodies and our brains.  However, normal exercise doesn't necessarily train our MIND: the software that runs on our brains.  The Daily Mind Game (DMG) will hope to fill that void by providing a small, daily mental work-out designed to test and improve some aspect of our thinking.  These fun challenges won't be traditional brain-teasers, instead they will be meta-cognitive exercises designed to target some aspect of our higher-order thinking with the goal of improving that type of thought.  Meditation-like challenges will be a frequent component of the DMG, but the sessions will include any task that develops our meta-cognitive-ninja-skillz: self-control, relaxation, empathy, motivation, etc.  The DMG will always be science-inspired and I will provide some "additional reading" if you are interested in learning more about why the DMG of the day is useful.  Should be fun!

Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I introduce the first Daily Mind Game...

100 Breaths:

The goal: count 100 breaths.

Info:  Find a quiet spot where you will have some privacy.  Just breath normally and easily.  Don't try to slow down or speed up your breathing (although, I found myself speeding up my breathing out of impatience!).  Instead, just try to observe your breathing, don't change it.  At the conclusion of each breath, increase your count.  Don't lose count, or you must start over!

Estimated time: 5-10minutes

Purpose: Build self-control, patience and control over our attention.

More and more, meditation is being recognized as a form of mental training that can lead to improvement in attention.  In this DMG, we work on focus, patience, and self-control (i.e. not giving in to boredom!).  If you want to learn more about the brain-benefits of meditation, check out these links:

http://www.pnas.org/content/104/43/17152.abstract
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100714121737.htm
http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/05/how-meditation-improves-attention.php
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/health/psychology/08medi.html

On a side note, my wife pointed out that in pilates, a session will often open with a count to 100 (called "the hundred" actually) while holding your legs in the air and pumping your arms up and down. SOOO, if someone can do that, we should be able to sit in a chair and count to 100, albeit slowly.

Links: Return to the Week of Empathy - Move to the next Daily Mind Game