Is Introspection Useful?

Look within.

I have this intuitive sense that it's useful to think about our thinking, a.k.a to engage in introspection or metacognition.  For me, this intuition has swollen to become even more, a bit of an obsession.  Practical introspection could be considered the founding principle of this blog.  But is my intuitive sense correct?  Is introspection useful?  Or, is it a narcissistic drain on our cognitive resources? 

At the core of my personal philosophy toward introspection is an inherent skepticism.  Essentially, I propose that the goal of introspection is to adopt a stance of skepticism toward our own thinking with the objective of tuning our decision making to improve our mental lives and get better at life.

Skepticism truly is at the heart of this process.  I propose that improvement requires a continuous process of asking "Is this bullshit?" even (or especially) about our own thoughts.  By calling bullshit on our own habitual modes of thinking, we can reach a new understanding about the cognitive traps we might be falling into on a daily basis that cause us stress or hold us back from our goals.  We can then slowly work to discard these destructive patterns of thought with healthier ones.

As I've mentioned, this just makes sense to me.  But I could imagine a scenario where this might get out of hand.  The term "analysis paralysis" comes to mind.  One could introspect his life away, questioning each layer of decision making until he is frozen in inaction.

Of course, nothing in life is inherently good or bad, it's all how something is applied.  Exercise is a great example.  If done responsibly, exercise is beneficial.  You can get healthier and more physically fit. However if one were to exercise to the point of excess, injury or illness may result.  Introspection must be the same way.  There must be a self-analyzing sweet spot.  But what is that balance?

Ironically, my excessive introspection has led me to believe that the sweet spot is far on the side of less thinking.  As I have skeptically analyzed my thoughts as they have floated by over the years, I have come to realize that most of them can be binned as useless "worrying".  I have come to loathe thinking that does not perform a useful service to me and I have found that most thinking is useless thinking.

This line of thinking has led my to another principle.  I propose that thinking is useless unless it results in a decision and, typically, an action.  In other words, thinking is just energy-sapping wheel-spinning unless it actually cause you to do something in the real world that has consequences. Furthermore, by taking action we are essentially performing a mini-experiment about how our actions impact reality.  We can then learn from our actions and plan our next actions based on evidence.  This mode of thinking-while-acting is very close to my personal interpretation of flow and is the default state that I try to achieve.  

Here's how it's playing out right now in my dome...

Me: Well, Homunculus, is introspection useful?  

Homunculus: I think the answer is yes if the objective is to squash negative thinking that impairs our ability to make shit happen.  In other words, I propose that we should be skeptical that all of our thinking is useful and be ruthless in turning those thoughts off that get in our way.

Me: How do I know if it's negative thinking and not a rational weighing of risks?  I shouldn't always charge head first into a situation.  That's risky!

Homunculus: It's hard to know for sure what will happen but start taking some actions in the direction that seems the best and see what happens.  You'll learn more by experimenting in this way then by worrying about abstractions.

Me: But I'm worried about this, that, and the other thing...  What if they happen?

Homunculus: Again, it's all theoretical.  Take some small actions in the direction that looks most promising (test the waters, if you must) and learn/think with some new information at hand.

Me: Homunculus, you're the man.

Homunculus: No, you're the man.  Stay happy!

Is Meditation Self-Help Bullshit?

Are you wasting your time,
meditating monkey?

A recent article by Virginia Heffernan in the New York Time Magazine is excoriating the gradual westernization of mindfulness meditation, demonizing this trend as somehow running counter to the essence of this ancient practice.  I think at the heart of this article is a desire to protect people from self-help snake oil but there is a palpable vibe in the article of an anti-self-help bias that is unfortunate.

As I've discussed before, our attitudes about change influence our ability to change.  So, while I agree with Ms. Heffernan that self-help advice should be evaluated critically, binning the entire self-help movement as bullshit isn't helping anyone either.

In this context, I can't help but reevaluate the purpose of mindfulness meditation (and mindfulness, in general).  Is mindfulness mediation useful? 

As someone who has practiced mindfulness meditation as an attempt to manage stress, I have concluded that meditation is simply a concerted effort to implement a reappraisal of bad thoughts.  Specifically, it has been suggested that rumination, or the endless replay of negative thinking, may contribute to depression.  Cognitive reappraisal is a well-known approach for dealing with a number of negative or disruptive thoughts and meditation is just a practiced form of this.  In the mindfulness meditation style I have tried, namely Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction popularized by Jon Kabat-Zinn, one reappraises negative thoughts as "thoughts", taking a meta-level view of them and partitioning them as something distinct from our experiencing mind.

Personally, this makes sense to me.  Just as I wouldn't accept the self-help advice of some rando, I am not going to trust that my automatic catastrophizing about the world is based on fact.  During mindfulness meditation, I am taking a skeptical stance toward my own worries and recognizing them for what they are: worries, not reality.  Ultimately, the proof is in the pudding when it comes to the value of mindfulness meditation.  If it helps someone cope with the challenges of life, then great.  We should all be active participants in our own mental health, experimenting with approaches until we get results.

In this way, stress management is like exercise.  Is one form of exercise better than another?  Is meditation better than a book club?  The answer is: it depends.  It depends on who is doing it, whether they enjoy it and whether they stick with it.  If the answer to these questions is "yes", then the long term outcome is likely to be positive.

The Axiom of Awesomeness

Everything is a skill.

Is intelligence something we are born with? Or, can we become more intelligent with hard work?  The answer is certainly a bit of both but a critical variable is our personal opinion on the matter: if you don't think you can get smarter, you won't.

In classroom settings, if students think intelligence is malleable, they are more motivated, exert greater effort, and outperform students who think intelligence is fixed trait (I'm not compensated for that link, BTW).

Unfortunately, I think the broad implications of these observations are not always appreciated.  Often, the message is that a growth mindset - an attitude that self-improvement is possible - is critical for performance by kids and in school.  However, a growth mindset is really about performance by anyone doing anything.  The real take-home message from studies like these is that a general growth mindset is a critical first step before we can become better at life.

To counter this poor messaging, I propose the following Axiom of Awesomeness.  The Axiom outlines a philosophy of growth that we must accept before we can improve.  I'll enumerate the axiom first and then will expand on each tenet.

The Axiom of Awesomeness

1. Everything we do is a skill.  
2. Every skill can be improved by deliberate practice.
3. Skill improvement through deliberate practice takes time and effort.
4. Every moment is an opportunity to practice a life skill.

OK, so that's the Axiom. Hopefully I will be able to convince you that the axiom is on-target and that it's an important cognitive framework to support becoming a rockstar.

1. Everything we do is a skill.  

While most research studying a growth mindset were focused on school performance, school performance is only one part of life.  As I've discussed before, being good at life goes way beyond an SAT score.  However, everything else we do can be considered as much a skill as test taking.  For example, staying focused on a task is a skill.  Controlling our emotions during stress is a skill.  Managing relationships is a skill.  Speaking is a skill.  Writing is a skill (one I'm struggling with right now).   Skills aren't only limited to those things we traditionally might consider skills, like playing the guitar, drawing, or taking tests.

2. Every skill can be improved by deliberate practice.

No one is born playing the guitar or knowing math or being a great public speaker or being a leader.  Even the masters in fields like these spent countless hours focused on getting better: they practiced (for an in depth analysis of this, check out Mastery by Robert Greene).  Dedicated, focused practice is essential for improvement and success.  For more on the focused part of this tenet, see this article by Cal Newport.

However, let's keep in mind the first tenet of the Axiom: everything we do is a skill.  For example, let's say I'm bad at following through on projects (something most people struggle with, I'm sure).  Well, following-through-on-projects is a skill.  That's the first tenet of the Axiom.  The second tenet of the axiom is that practice improves skills.  Thus, I need to come up with some way to practice this skill.  In my example of "following through on projects", I might select one, small project as a "fail at no cost" test-case which will allow me to work on my issue without getting discouraged.  Once I succeed at the test-case, I can set my sights on something more challenging.

3. Skill improvement through practice takes time and effort.

Ahh, but here is the tricky part: getting better takes real work!  Sorry, I know we all want someone to tell us the secret to being amazing (like this book claims).  But that's not reality and we all know it.  Improvement takes focused effort over long periods of time.  Until one has practiced something for decades one can't assume it's an impossible task.  My homunculus likes to say to me: "Stop whining like a little baby, put your big boy pants on, and get to work".

4. Every moment is an opportunity to practice a life skill.

The good news is that getting smarter, more intelligent, or better at life can happen at any moment.  We don't need to concoct some arbitrary self-improvement program that goes on our calendar.  Every moment of living is a practice opportunity.  Why?  Because life isn't easy and we aren't perfect which is a guarantee that we will always screw something up.  With the Axiom of Awesomeness in mind, these challenges morph from "this sucks and I suck" to chances to get better at life.

Here is a perfect example: preparing for a presentation.  Making and giving a presentation is an opportunity to resist the urge to procrastinate (a skill), focus on a single task (a skill), manage our anxiety (a skill), communicate to a group (a skill), and bounce back if it doesn't go well (a skill).  Every step of preparing for this presentation is a practice opportunity.  My favorites in the list are: managing our anxiety and bouncing back if it doesn't go well.  These are skills that most often trip us up because they are so hard to define and aren't viewed as skills at all.  Frequently, these skills are chalked up to "that's just the way I am."  Wrong.  We must remember the first tenet: everything is a skill.  Next time can be better but we have to keep practicing.

In Summary

Perhaps this is obvious, but a belief that improvement is possible will determine if we improve.  However, a growth mindset is only part of the equation.  As I argue with the above Axiom, a growth mindset must be supplemented by three additional elements: 1) a broad definition of skill to include anything humans do, 2) a willingness to put focused effort into improvement, and 3) an attitude that life's challenges are opportunities to get better at living.  In combination, these four assumptions will not only permit improvement but will also be motivating during periods of difficulty when our resolve is tested.

Stay happy!

7 Free Guided Relaxation Sessions

Just relax.

When work and life stress increases, I tend to get into a state of feeling like I always have to be "on".  It's at these times, when things get really complicated, that I find it hard to know when it's O.K. to relax, unwind and let go of all the worries.

When I'm "on", the last thing I can do is relax.  I'm just too jacked up on an adrenaline-laced need to get shit done that when I sit down and try to unwind, I end up getting more frustrated because I just can't come down.  More frustration and I'm even less likely to relax: the stress goes through the roof.

For me, I've found that relying on guided meditations increases the likelihood that I'll be able to relax successfully, because it takes the pressure off of me to think about how to relax: someone has done all the work for me.  I highly recommend using guided relaxation sessions, especially when you're really having a hard time calming down.

I've personally listened to the following free, guided meditations and can vouch for the quality.  I also selected the following because they promote many of the concepts outlined in The Relaxation Response, a classic in the science of relaxation, especially passiveness and a focus on breathing.

Try them out!  I always feel so relaxed after doing any of these.  Hopefully you'll find they work for you.

From Diana Winston of the UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center:
1. 19 minutes - Mindful meditation with instructions
2. 12 minutes - Body, breath and sound mindfulness
3. 7 minutes - Meditation for working with difficulties
4. 10 minutes - Empathy and compassion

From Duke University's Student Health Resources:
1. 19 minutes - Progressive deep muscle relaxation
2. 20 minutes - Basic meditation exercise
3. 10 minutes - Quick, relaxing meditation

Embrace the Suck

Shit happens.

Having just been to the funeral of a loved-one, I am reminded of a cruel fact of life: shit happens.  Bad shit happens all the time and, often, there is nothing we can do about it.

Actually, that's not quite right.  We can always do one thing when shit happens: react to it.  When bad shit goes down, the one thing we have control over is how we react to the bad stuff.  In fact, that is the thesis of Viktor Frankl's classic Man's Search for Meaning: how we react to adversity defines us.

But, of course, this fact brings up a philosophical and practical question: how should we react when bad things happen? Is there a "best" cognitive strategy for coping with bad shit?

The answer to that question is important for many reasons.  From a performance perspective, how we react (internally and externally) to hardship will impact our ability to "get the job done", whatever that might be. For example, if we let our suffering bubble up as anger, we might alienate our boss or an important client.  Internally, if our suffering distracts us, our quality of work may suffer too.

From a health perspective, how we react to difficulty will influence our well-being.  For example, an extremely negative emotional reaction may trigger a stress response.  Unchecked, such a response turns chronic, and brings with it all the documented health nastiness that we hear about.

So, what should we do, metacognitively speaking, when the shit hits the fan?  One method, which is somewhat intuitive, might be to try to ignore the bad stuff: put it out of your mind.  However, this approach may be counterproductive.

An alternative strategy is to actually face suffering head-on.  In fact, this strategy has been adopted by three very different schools-of-thought that each know a lot about dealing with hardship, and is the approach I like most for dealing with my own shit.

The first example comes from the military and is the source of this post's title.  The military phrase "Embrace the Suck" is a crude way of saying "Face the Music".  The lives of military personnel rival almost any endeavor in a nefarious combination of physical and mental hardship: physical exertion, discomfort, sleep deprivation, isolation, fear, injury.  In other words, war sucks.

But, how do top war-fighters react to the suckiness?  Try to ignore it?  No, instead this common phrase is a reminder to not sugar coat a bad situation but, rather, to look suffering in the eye and embrace it as a part of life and as a part of getting the job done. In fact, it appears that some soldiers actually come to revel in suffering as part of the challenge. For example, this guy.

The second take on this cognitive strategy is from a very different source: Buddhism.  Interestingly, Buddhism, which is a philosophy that strives to maximize joy, identifies suffering a fact of life: it's unavoidable.  Moreover, Buddhist teachings actually suggest that we "touch our suffering" and mindfully explore both the cause and feeling of suffering.  The Buddhist practitioner is often encouraged to "smile at suffering", acknowledging suffering as part of life and recognizing suffering as a complex experience that makes happy moments better by contrast. For more on the details of the Buddhist philosophy, you can check out Thich Nhat Hanh's The Heart of the Buddha's Teachings (FYI: this is a philosophy book, not a book about science).

Finally, in performance psychology, the "mindfulness, acceptance, commitment" approach, which I've discussed before, and is described in detail by Frank Gardner in The Psychology of Enhancing Human Performance, offers a scientific perspective on the "embrace the suck" philosophy.  Proponents of this school-of-thought suggest that top athletes recognize pain and suffering (mindful), accept it as part of athletics (embrace it/accept it), and finally move on and get the job done (commitment) in the face of adversity.  The mindful awareness and acceptance of suffering, though, are the essential first steps. The best athletes embrace the suck.

Why might this approach work? The opposite strategy - ignoring bad things - may be counterproductive because it nearly guarantees that bad shit is going to catch us off guard. Then, all the negative emotion can rush forward uncontrolled, like some homunculus back-hand to our amygdala.

Alternatively, embracing pain and bringing it into awareness may act as a pressure release, while also giving us time to craft strategies for coping. In addition, consciously evaluating emotionally charged thoughts and feelings seems to make emotions and sensations less visceral and more intellectual, further reducing their power over us.

The examples I've provided may seem extreme: soldiers, athletes, monks.  However, we all have our own shit to deal with and it never hurts to be a tougher person or to become better at coping with bad shit. Anecdotal and observational evidence suggests that an "embrace the suck" mentally is a decent metacognitive strategy for enhancing our toughness.

Missing gorillas. What?

What gorilla?

Back in my younger days, as an impressionable undergraduate, I was exposed to a now-famous experiment in attention.  Sitting in a lecture hall at Yale University, my Introduction to Cognitive Science professor, Brian Scholl, played the class this video.  Watch the video, do the task, then read on.

The task was simple.  Watch the ball, count the passes.  Don't be distracted by the players in the black uniforms, watch the players in the white uniforms. And, like most of my fellow over-achievers at Yale, I wanted to do this right.  So, I got really focused and did the task.

The task ended, and the results were summarized.  Thankfully, I thought, I did it right - I counted the correct number of passes for the white team.  Hooray!  However, the video soon prompted: "But, did you see the gorilla?" An audible murmur vibrated from the audience: a group equivalent of "WTF"?  Soon, the murmur was followed by gasps and giggles as the video was replayed in slow motion.  There, walking right through the scene, was some dude in a gorilla suit.  Almost everybody in the audience had missed him.

Oh, that gorilla.

In the video, the task was clearly defined: count the passes for the white team.  And, for that task, I did very well - a perfect score.  However, in life, our tasks are usually less well-defined.  In life, picking up new information, being observant and open-minded, is just as valuable as extreme focus.  This relates back to my recent thesis regarding attention: for some tasks, we need to be very focused; but for others, we need to be open-minded.  In other words, if we reframe the task of the video above to "be observant", then I failed miserably.

What does this mean at a practical level?  My interpretation is that we must consciously select a level of intensity for our focus depending on the task.  In addition, since life's challenges are often so poorly defined, we must be sure to get into an open-minded state from time-to-time.  Otherwise, we might miss a gorilla.

Good hands and the Goldilocks zone

Stay focused.

As an amateur molecular biologist, I often wrestle with lapses of concentration.  This can be linked, I speculate, to the simultaneous terror and boredom that molecular work entails.

Picture this: six, clear tubes, labelled in a simple code that belies the complexity of the underlying experiment.  I add liquid, typically clear with no discernible color, hue or other distinguishing features that might signal that this is anything more than water.

I set a timer.  Ten minutes of incubation at room temperature.  I place the tubes in a centrifuge and spin, 15,000 cycles per minute.  I wait fifteen minutes more, remove some clear liquid and add more, but a different kind.  I repeat each step six times, one for each tube.

In between actions, I change the tip of my pipetman - the device that allows microliter control over the liquid added to the evolving biochemical reaction.  Change tip, add liquid, next tube. Repeat.

During these day-long exercises in repetition, I've experienced some failures.  These mistakes fall into one of two broad categories: external or internal.  In the external class, I become distracted by something happening outside my head.  A conversation between colleagues or a conversation I've started.  When these conversations reach some mystical level of distraction, I will realize in a moment of panic that I've skipped a critical step.  Or, I've lost track of the tubes.  Or, I've lost count.  Failure.

Week of Sleep

Week of Sleep? Check!

The Week of Sleep worked for me.  I'm being totally serious.  I followed my own good advice and was blown away by the results.  Setting up a relaxing, circadian-cycle-friendly nighttime ritual (and sticking to it) has wired my brain to sleep on command.  Now, when my old-person bed time rolls around, I start to get all blinky-eyed and fuzzy-headed instantaneously.  How about you?

Did you miss the Week of Sleep?  Do you want to take your sleep routine to the next level?  Here's the summary:

Week of Sleep

Day 1: Bed Time - Set the clock.
Day 2: Dim - Let there be dark.
Day 3: Bedtime Snack - The way to sleep is through the stomach.
Day 4: Low Flow - Do something.
Day 5: Passive - Do nothing.
Day 6: Bright - Re-Set the clock.

I don't know if you noticed this (I didn't and I wrote all the posts), but the bedtime routine we've developed seems like something that would work for putting a toddler to bed.  And, now that I think about it, that's a pretty smart way to approach our own sleep habits.  I mean, if this approach works for the creatures with the least amount of self-control (i.e. little kids), then it should work for our inner children too.  Or, should I say, our inner monkeys!

Next week, the Daily Mind Games are going to be paused while your humble author heads to an awesome, geeky conference.  While I'm away, I'd love to get some feedback about future Weeks of Metacognition.  What kinds of topics would you like to see?  I've been thinking about Weeks of: Feedback, Creativity, Interaction, Toughness, or Open-Mindedness.  If you have any preference, please let me know in the comments.  Also, if you have any ideas of your own, I'd love to hear them.  I would love some feedback from my readers about topics of interest.  So, please!  Where we should go from here?

Until then, here's some fun/interesting stuff that's come my way over the last week, enjoy!

Homunky's Hot Hits:

To start, here's a retelling of an allegory/experiment about learned anxiety that I've encountered before.  Does anyone know the source of this?  Is it a real experiment?

Next, we've talked about Flow a lot here at The Happy Homunculus, but here is a great Intro to Flow if you'd like a fresh point of view on the topic.  And, of course, if you haven't read the original, you should do it.  Click the link and buy the book to support Homunky!

As someone interested in improving my performance and, as part of that, my pain tolerance, here is a great summary linking meditation, mindfulness, and improved pain tolerance.  This seems to be totally in line with the Mindfulness, Acceptance, and Commitment model for peak human performance: avoiding negative emotions and sensations is the sign of a beginner, while accepting the negative consequences of a task allows full engagement and eventual mastery.

Finally, on a more serious note, HelpForDepression.com is running a fundraiser in support of the non-profit To Write Love On Her Arms, a group dedicated to improving the lives of people struggling with depression and other mental health challenges.  They would appreciate any form of support. Thanks!

Passive

I can't sleep!

OK, today's the day: we've dedicated a whole week to crafting the ultimate pre-sleep routine.  We've got all the elements we need to get to sleep faster and stay asleep longer.  However, we actually haven't talked about the most critical step of all: falling asleep.  Our routine prepares us to sleep, but what do we do in that final, critical moment when it's just us and our thoughts?  Well, we actually want to do nothing at all; but that can sometimes be very hard.

Previously on The Happy Homunculus, we tried a series of relaxation challenges during the Week of Relaxation.  On the second day, we went through the exercise of being as "Passive" as possible.  In that post, I argued that the last thing we should try to do when we're trying to relax is to, well, try at all. Phew.  Trying is the most counter-productive thing we can do during relaxation.  Similarly, trying to sleep is a contradiction - trying requires energy, effort and focus.  To sleep, we must let go.

So, today, let's revisit the Passive challenge and apply that mindset in the minutes leading up to sleep.

Passive

Task: Lie passively in bed in the moments leading up to sleep.

Info: Close your eyes and let go. Thoughts will come in and out of your mind - this is fine! But, whenever you find yourself wandering, gently return to a more passive state. The key is to not try but to let go.  If your problem is too much thinking, gently label the process "thinking" and move slowly to observing your breathing or the smoothness of the sheets.  Be mindful of your surroundings as an alternative to thought.  If thoughts keep creeping in, be patient and continue to return to a more passive state.  Finally, if you start to get frustrated with your lack of sleepiness, get up and start your bedtime routine again.  Return to bed when you feel sleepy again.

Goal: Maximize the feeling of passivity.

I find that practicing mindfulness meditations help me develop the state of mind needed to let go.  Check out these great guided meditations from UCLA's Mindfulness Education Program for some tips on how to approach passivity.  Good luck!

Further Reading
- Who needs The Happy Homunculus when we have Yahoo Answers' guide to sleep?
- Listen to the Mayo Clinic: Don't try too hard!
- It's not just me: other people think thinking is over-rated.
- Finally, thinking: bad for sleep and feeling good!

Feast of Flow

Picture unrelated.

Almost any activity can become more of a "flow experience", simply by changing how we think about it.  Previously, we talked about the conditions that get us into the zone; so, today, let's modify our thinking to make a flow experience out of what might normally be an ordinary chore: making dinner.

If you're anything like me, and I bet you are, you often take what could be a perfectly enjoyable task and turn it into a bear with crappy thinking.  "I wish this were done, I'd rather be doing anything else, this is so boring."  Such a happiness-robbing approach to life! Why not make the day-to-day into opportunities for flow?

Making dinner is the perfect example of an activity that is ripe for producing flow, but for many of us is just another thing to deal with.  Why do many professional chefs consider themselves artists, relishing (pun intended) the act of preparing meals while the rest of us consider the process work?  I would argue that the chefs who enjoy their job now look at cooking as a source of flow.

When you think about it, cooking has all the ingredients (zing!) for good flow:

1. Well-defined goals: Make a meal quickly, make it taste good, make it look good, have left-overs.

2. Feedback: Taste the food as you cook.  Good? Bad?  You know immediately.  Burning smell?  Bad.  Feedback? Good.

3. Appropriate challenge: Should you tackle steamed lobster for the first time on a Tuesday after a 12-hour workday?  Probably not.  Pick something you can handle that isn't boring.

See what I mean?  Dinner should serve up (wink) some perfectly prepared flow.  Try it yourself:

Feast of Flow

Task: Change your thinking to turn "making dinner" into a flow experience.

Info: Use the principles of flow above to alter your thinking about the process of making dinner.  Set some goals (what to make, how quickly, quick clean-up), look for feedback (focus on how the food looks, smells, tastes), and pick an appropriate recipe (something fun and new, but at your level).

Goal: Increase enjoyment during dinner.

Post your thoughts in the comments!

Three Principles of Greatness

Three principles, not three monkeys.

Some people are successful and just seem to rise to the top.  Others achieve more modest goals.  Still more live without purpose, or enjoyment, or passion.  Many harm themselves, or others, through ignorance or impulse.  This is the spectrum of human performance, and the age-old questions spring to mind: is it destiny, strength of will, or chance that propels some people to greatness while others remain mediocre, or fail?

A modern take on this issue is the Nature vs. Nurture debate.  Originally, the question was posed as either-or: are we a product of our genes, or a product of our environment?  For things as complex as human biology, health, and performance, either-or just doesn't cut it, so the goalposts moved.  The question became: how much do genes and environment each contribute to who we are?

My response: who cares?  To improve our quality of life, even considering things that are out of our control - our biology, the environment - wastes precious time and energy.  Instead, why not focus on what we can control and work hard to influence those things?  Really, we must focus on the one thing that we can control: ourselves.

At the end of the day, we are defined by what we do - how we behave - and humans are really good at learning tricks from other people about how to do stuff.  This is culture, and we are built to communicate and acquire culture.  Because of this, we can watch and learn from those people who achieve greatness and change ourselves by adopting the behaviors and thinking strategies that foster peak performance.  If we want to achieve greatness, we must think, and behave, like great people.

The science is always evolving, but three thinking approaches are clearly necessary for incredible performance.  Apply these to your own thinking to be your best, and don't let your genes or environment define who you are:

1. Mindfulness - Great performers are focused, completely, on the task at hand.  To be great, we must live in reality, attending to the challenges of the here and now.   Only with our attention focused on the present can we do things well.  If our mind wanders to distraction, or if we fixate on our own worry, anxiety, or frustrations, then we are not thinking about what we should be doing, right now, to achieve our goals.

2. Acceptance - Bad things happen.  That's life.  There is nothing we can do about it, so we should accept it and move on.  Peak performers don't try to avoid bad things, or change the past, they continue to work despite the bad things that happen.  This principle doesn't just apply to external stuff out of our control, it also applies to uncomfortable things we must go through to be great.  Want to get in shape?  You will have to accept some amount of discomfort.  Want to be the best at your job?  You're going to have to push yourself into new intellectual territory.  Being amazing requires a willingness to endure discomfort and frustration.  We must accept the sacrifices needed to achieve our goals.

3. Commitment - The final characteristic of peak performers is commitment.  For people to become great at something, they must commit to that something, and continue to pursue greatness again and again.  By "buying in" to an endeavor - athletic, professional, or personal - the peak performer will keep going, doggedly pursuing greatness no matter what obstacles emerge.  

When most people think about peak performance, they think of athletics, but these three principles are not exclusive to sports.  Whether your goal is to be the best in your career, improve your health, or maintain a strong relationship, these concepts are critical for maximizing your potential.  Of course, actually practicing these thinking strategies isn't always easy.  I know this first-hand.  All of us succumb to periods of self-doubt, low motivation, or frustration,  but these principles can apply to our own failings.  By being mindful of our emotions, accepting negative emotions as a part of life, and maintaining commitment to self-improvement, we will continue to grow stronger.

If you enjoyed this article, please take some time to promote The Happy Homunculus.  Also, you can learn more about the above topics by reading The Psychology of Enhancing Human Performance. Thanks, and Stay happy!

Reset

Bring it down a notch.

Welcome to the Week of Self-Control at The Happy Homunculus!  Last week, we sampled six Daily Mind Games that tested our self-awareness.  This week, the DMGs are going to push us a bit more: now we're going to attempt to control the same behaviors we audited last week.  Can you control yourself, or does your homunculus run the show?

As I discussed yesterday, our level of cognitive self-mastery is defined by two parameters: monitoring and control.  In other words, do you know what's going on in your own head, and can you choose what's going on in your own head?  These are important questions, and hopefully you answered a tentative "sorta" to both of them.  If not, practice makes perfect, which is the whole point of this blog... POW!

An important behavior to be aware of is how our body reacts physiologically to emotion.  For me, I have palpable body-sensations that accompany anxiety: tightness in the chest, panicky-feelings, a "rushed" feeling.  Ultimately, my goal is to achieve some control over how I respond to this physiological response to stress.  In the past, feeling anxious only made me more anxious.  But, recently, by being more mindful of the sensation of anxiety, I've managed to be able to better control my response to it, and this has reduced the amount of time I have to deal with the unpleasant sensations.  Your mission today is to observe a similar nasty body sensation and exert some control over it.

Reset

Task: Observe an uncomfortable body sensation and manage your reaction.

Info: A great trick I use to deal with an unpleasant sensation is to really observe the heck out of it, like I'm staring straight at it with my jedi-like-mind.  The goal is to filter the feeling through the rational part of my mind and to repackage it by labeling the feeling: "tightness, panic-feeling" etc.  I also remind myself that the body sensation isn't "real".  In other words, nothing in the environment caused the feeling: it is a product of my own mind.  These two tricks normally suffice to make me calm down, and often cause the bad sensation to go away entirely.

Goal: Eliminate a bad body sensation that accompanies a negative emotion via mindful awareness, positive self-talk, or both.

So far so good, right?  Why don't you exert some more self-control and share The Happy Homunculus with a friend?

Playing

All work and no play may
make your homunculus cranky.

Man, isn't The Happy Homunculus turning into one downer of a blog?  Seriously! I revealed that I'm basically a lazy, do-nothing and earlier we focused on the most onerous of subjects: our eating habits.  Hissss! My homunculus is ready to disown me.  But, please don't go, fearless reader!  Today, we're going to focus on having fun.

I don't have any awesome studies or new articles to reference for today's challenge. Instead, I'm operating on my own little hypothesis: having fun is good for your brain.  Now, there is evidence that vacations are beneficial to general health, probably because of the stress-reduction.  However, I'm not personally up-to-date on the literature regarding daily leisure and mental health, but there has to be a connection!  If you know of some solid studies that examine this, please post some links in the comments.

In any case, as part of this Week of Self-Awareness, we're going to use today's Daily Mind Game to get a sense of how much time we spend having fun each day.  For me, since I waste so much time planning to work instead of working, I have less fun time than I would like.  On the bright side, when I made a conscious effort to track my leisure-time, I realized that I spend a decent amount of time doing fun stuff every day.  That mental shift immediately made my homunculus less irritable. Score!   

Playing

Task: Track your leisure time.

Info: Fun is in the eye of the beholder, so I'll let you decide what you consider fun.  No matter your definition, how much of your day is spent having fun?  Are there ways you might increase the amount of leisure time in your day?  Don't have much time for fun?  No worries, this challenge is just about observing our behavior, not passing judgement.  By enhancing self-awareness you'll be better able to add more fun to your life when you have the chance.

Goal: Have fun getting a general sense of your leisure time and brainstorm three strategies for adding even more fun to your day.

Personally, just engaging in esoteric metacognitive exercises is pretty fun...  Perhaps you could include this Daily Mind Game in your fun tally, too :)  Rock on!

Working

I did not photoshop this. It's real.

Recently, I've been both literally and figuratively sitting on my arse.  Yesterday, I revealed that I don't do enough physical activity and my homunculus wept with guilt.  Today, I must reveal another vice: not accomplishing anything.

Yes, I love to procrastinate.  Also, I love to procrastinate by pretending I'm not procrastinating by doing a lot of planning and organization.  I especially love to try out new day-planners and list-making software and rewrite my entire to-do list using different colored sharpies on monkey-shaped post-it-notes. Ok, not the last thing, but I'm pretty bad.  Thusly, today's challenge resonates with Yours Truly.  We're going to observe how much time we spend actually doing real work.  Not thinking about work.  Not planning to work. Working. 

Working

Task: Observe time spent gettin' things done.

Info: As I said before, I think of work-related tasks as either planning or actually working.  Sometimes planning is useful, so as before, the point of today's challenge is to not change our behavior so that we spend less time planning.  Instead, we want to simply observe, or become self-aware of, how much time is spent actually accomplishing things vs. planning to accomplish things.  For example, when I write a to-do list that includes "Make appointment for homunculus", that's planning.  When I pick up the phone and schedule the meeting for my homunculus, that's working.  How much time do you spend in either mode?

Goal: Generate a rough estimate of the ratio of time spent planning to time spent working.

Do you pity me and my homunculus for our procrastination predilection?  If so, cheer us up by clicking one of the social buttons at the bottom of the page!  Gracias!

Moving

My homunculus at work.

The Week of Self-Awareness is zooming along, and I've got another challenge all lined up.  I tried this Daily Mind Game earlier, and I must say, I don't like what I'm seeing.  An overview of my self-observations from yesterday: bed, table, car, desk, table, desk, car, sofa, table, sofa, bed.  Unfortunately, that isn't a stream-of-consciousness gone wrong.  No, that is an account of my sedentary lifestyle.

How physically active are you?  The reason I ask is that our brains are organs.  In our bodies.  Sooo, when things happen (or don't happen, in the case of exercise) to our bodies, our brains feel a piece of it.  Oh yeah, and in case you forgot, our brains are pretty important for lots of things.  Anyway, back to physical activity: more and more evidence is piling up that physical activity may protect our brains from many age-related diseases and enhance general cognitive health at all ages.  Importantly, very small changes in activity level, like walking or standing more, can have a big effect.  So, massive changes in behavior aren't necessary to reap the benefits.

Don't I sound like I know what I'm talking about? Well, guess what? I'm a hypocrite: I spend a lot of my day sitting on my rear end.  So, do as I say, not as I do! And, please don't feel badly if you're in the same boat as me.  I empathize with your guilt through the intrawebs.  Nonetheless, we all have a general sense that more activity is usually better, so for today's challenge, we're going to observe our physical activity level in order to increase our self-awareness in this area.  Maybe we'll see simple ways we can increase our activity a smidge.

Moving

Task: Observe your physical activity for the day.

Info: Questions we'd like to answer today include: how much time is spent sitting, standing, walking, running, swinging kettlebells etc.  When sittting, do we fidget or sit still?  Are there opportunities to integrate more moving-about into our day?  Again, as in previous posts, the focus of the challenge isn't to actually move more.  The focus is on observing our behavior.  After we're informed, finding ways to improve should be easier.  Finally, try to brainstorm a few simple ways you might increase you activity level.

Goal: Determine how much physical activity you engage in, and think of three simple ways to increase it.

One thing I like to do is to try standing up while I work on my laptop - I stack a bunch of books on a counter-top to bring the laptop to the right height and get my geek on.  I often feel much more energetic, for longer, working that way.  My coworkers say I'm strange, but I just howl like a monkey at them until they let me be.  Just kidding :)

Eating

It's a touchy subject, I know.  But, today, we're going to be paying attention to what we eat.  Yesterday, we discussed the concept of mindfulness as an approach to improving performance in any area.  This can be especially useful when trying to make new habits of eating stick.  Mindful eating has been getting more and more attention in the last few years, and there seems to be some evidence that it works for many dietary goals.  I mean, they even have a Center for Mindful Eating....

Feeling

Just chillin'... Mindfully.

An important concept in applied psychology and performance science is the notion of "mindfulness", which is just a fancy way of referring to attention.  In other words, a mindful approach is one where our attention is focused on the task at hand, rather than other, unrelated stimuli (including our own, distracting thoughts).  This week, we're going to adopt a mindful approach to our behavior with the goal of increasing self-awareness.

Since a large fraction of the posts on this blog deal with thinking about our own thinking, we're not going to spend much time focused on our thoughts this week.  In fact, when adopting a mindful approach, thoughts just distract us from everything else, in a way.  Instead, we are going to start the week off by observing one internal behavior, our feelings.

Wait, hold up!  How can I simultaneously say that we are going to be observing our feelings while ignoring our thinking?  Aren't those the same thing?  No, no, my friend.  I'm defining "thinking" in this context as the internal, verbal dialogue that we have with ourselves in our head; I guess that would be our homunculus, maybe.  However, feelings are different.  Feelings are physical sensations that accompany emotions.  For example, anxiety for me feels like a tightness in my chest and jaw.  It has a sort of "panic" type feeling to it.  Whereas, relaxation feels sort of warmish and fuzzy in my head.  You know what I'm sayin'?

The challenge for today is to be gently aware of how you physically feel during the day.  What are the body sensations that you experience?  The goal is to simply be "mindful" (aware) of the sensations without judging the significance of the sensations.  We want to simply observe the feelings; even when uncomfortable (such as in the case of anxiety).

One way I like to think about feelings is this: our feelings are not reality.  Just because we may have the physical sensation of anxiety doesn't change anything about the world.  It's just this internal construct that we may be experiencing. Sometimes, feelings are there for no apparent reason, right?  At least that happens to me.  Personally, thinking about feelings as these "imaginary" events makes them seem less significant and I can actually have some fun experiencing the sensations.  I can then observe my feelings as interesting phenomena.  It's a cool experience, and it's your challenge for today to try to get to this point.

Feeling


Task: Be mindful of physical sensations.

Info: Again, I am defining "feeling" for this challenge as any physical sensation that accompanies an emotion.  This can include things like anger, anxiety, pumped-uppedness, sadness, happiness, boredom, etc.  How do these mental states feel?  Don't describe them to yourself in words, simply experience the feelings fully.  For difficult feelings, remember that it's "just" a feeling.  Your life isn't really any different because you are experiencing that sensation.  So, get curious about the feeling and try to enjoy each and every sensation (even tough ones).  Finally, no need to obsess over this, just go about your day and take note of new sensations as they grab your attention. 

Goal: Enjoy observing your feelings, including difficult sensations.

Welcome to the Week of Self-Awareness at The Happy Homunculus!  Today's challenge and the accompanying discussion was inspired by The Psychology of Enhancing Human Performance.  It's a great (but technical) book about peak performance.  If you have a background in psychology, it's an interesting read.

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...