Radical Mutual-Improvement

Our culture has become highly favorable to the conscious, deliberate, weighed decision as favorable to making “gut decisions” or decisions “on a feeling”, which are left more as anecdotal or possibly superstitious practices for quality decision making. However, we’re slowly finding scientific studies that validate and illuminate techniques for incorporating our subconscious into making decisions regarding complicated problems.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the magical number 7 plus or minus 2 that George A. Miller proposed in 1956 as the limit for the amount of information that we can hold in our short-term memory at a given time. I just read via wikipedia that this has been found to be slightly inaccurate. The real limit may actually be time-based: the amount of sound that we can store in our working memories. Rather than 7 chunks of data, the real limit may be about 2 seconds of sound. For example, the limit for people who speak faster (such as the Chinese) is closer to 9 plus or minus 2, and for the Welsh the number is closer to 6 plus or minus two.

In any case, most cognitive psychologists do believe that the short-term memory (or working memory) that we use to manipulate information with our consciousness differs structurally and functionally from long-term memory. To move information from working memory to long-term memory requires a physical change in the neurons of the brain to occur… something that can occur while awake, but is also strongly linked with the activities of the brain during sleep.

The implications of this are pretty interesting and can be practically applied to your own decision-making. Say that you’re trying to decide whether or not you should move to a new city. Recent studies show that decisions which have fewer than 10 factors or so are better made the old fashioned way: consciously and deliberately. However, for decisions which have more than 10 or so factors, people who “sleep on it” are more likely to make a better choice, and less likely to regret their choice, than people who don’t sleep on it, or even people who make their decision based on a long lists of pros and cons.

However, a key distinction here is that the problem must be introduced before you sleep. So, to try this out, simply review a difficult problem in your life for a few minutes before you go to sleep. Try to conjure up as many of the factors involved as you can, warming them up in a way. Then, fall asleep and when you wake up, check how does your gut feel about the decision?

To read more about the exact studies conducted in this area, check out these additional articles:

• How to solve problems: let your subconscious do the thinking (Email Overloaded)
• Why sleeping on it may just work (CBC News)
• 'Sleeping on it' best for complex decisions (New Scientist)
• Sleep on it, decision-makers told (BBC News)
• Just sleep on it: and empty the brains 'inbox' (Harvard Gazette)

What is the difference between being in a rut and being on vacation? Why do the streets seem different in Paris than they do in your current city? Why do people in Paris have to go somewhere else on vacation? It all comes down to what your mind chooses to filter out and what it chooses to let through. Consciousness only registers change… things that stay the same eventually disappear from your consciousness (even if you liked those things and want them to stick around) and a little subconscious robot stands guard next to that unchanging thing and waits for it to move. As soon as it does (BING!) a little message gets sent to your mind telling you that that sign you walk by every day is now a new color (even though you don't remember what color it was before). This is a subtle point: there is no direct way around this. You can't stare at a dot on the wall forever without it disappearing. This is your brain being efficient… it's a tool that we cannot control that helps us have enough resources to pay attention to things that matter right now.

The twist with this tip is that even when you're on vacation, you're still with yourself. How do you see yourself as if you were visiting yourself for the first time? How can you take that feeling of exploring a new city and focus that feeling on yourself in such a way that you notice all those things about yourself that subconscious robots are standing guard at and keeping from your conscious mind?

The first exercise that is an easy one to do (and which future exercises will be more specific about) is to simply find some way of changing your appearance. Shave that beard. Grow a beard. Dye your hair. Paint your fingernails. Lose 10 pounds.  A simple change like this will send ripples of subconscious robots sending messages to you whenever you see yourself in a reflection as you're walking down the street. Hey, that's me! I look different!

A curious side effect is that other people will see you as well. Some people say that doing things like this is "merely for attention" and in a way they're right. Attention is the primary currency of the consciousness… it's more valuable than money and can't be saved in a bank. People who fight for attention are simply addicts for the rush that attention brings… attention is what creates revelation and analysis and change. Most people aren't attention whores… and I would only advise this tip to someone that typically resists or is afraid of attention. But for the right person, mixing up your appearance and getting a little attention could be just the thing that makes you realize that there are a lot of things about yourself that you've stopped noticing. Sweep out those subconscious robots and maybe you'll catch a glimpse of what's actually going on with your appearance, your presentation, your body language, your tone of voice, and your approach to life.

Why is it that nobody likes to hear their voice when recorded? Because it sounds strange, as if we were speaking through somebody else's body: our words, their voice. And for some reason the voice usually sounds particularly idiotic, not the articulate, insightful voice that we hear in our own heads.

It's rather jarring, actually. It makes you realize that other people hear you completely different than you hear yourself. The next question to ask is, "Do I want to know what I sound like?" It's a difficult question to answer, actually… because most likely it will involve some kind of dreaded "coming to terms with reality" that is never really a great time a first. But what can be a great time is knowing exactly how you sound around others, especially after you've given it a bit of conscious attention and are a little more happy with it than you originally were. Knowing that you have an accurate picture of yourself is rewarding (not to mention useful).

I meet up with friends once a week to drink and hang out. The last couple weeks I've brought a digital voice recorder and have conducted short friend interviews. They're fun in the sense that you can laugh about the stupid things you were talking about the next day, but they're also useful in the sense that everyone gets to hear how they sound and it's a friendly environment so nobody has to feel too self-conscious or awkward about it. Everyone sounds like a dork. It can actually be a bonding experience.

Even by simply carrying one around with me everywhere, it makes constantly aware of the possibility of having the conversation recorded and also makes me pay a little more attention to the quality, tone, and content of random conversations through the day.

There's no reason anymore to wear a watch other than to complement a fashion choice.  And if you're wearing a watch for appearances, there's no need for the watch to work.  So, wear a watch only if it's broken.

Watches are training wheels for learning how to live within a world demarkated by timed periods.  And yet, they are addictive.  People with watches, when you suggest they stop wearing one, will look longingly at their wrist, perhaps cup the watch and their wrist in their other hand, and say, "But I like wearing a watch."  It's an emotional decision, but if you ask them why they like wearing their watch, most likely they will confabulate a logical reason for their literal attachment.  Usually: I need to know what time it is in order to keep my appointments.

Though I've conducted no scientific studies on the matter, I am fairly confident that there is no correllation between people who wear watches and people who are punctual.  In fact, wearing a watch may give you a false sense of control over time… even if you're going to be late you'll know exactly how late you are when you arrive.  Being punctual is  an important trait to try and adopt, and is much better addressed directly.  In order to be on time, do not get a watch.  Instead, make a conscious effort to be realistic about time.  Study your own time predictions and see where your instinct is off.  Ask your friends if you are punctual and if you aren't then ask them how late you usually are.  I can categorize my friends into buckets based on how late they usually are: people who are on time, people who are 5 minutes late, people who are 15 minutes late, and people who are 30 minutes late.  People become consistent on this metric and subconsciously know how late they usually are and feel pressured to maintain that punctuality because that is what they have trained friends and family to expect from them.  But, one single adjustment of somewhere between 5 and 30 minutes could solve the punctuality problem forever.  It's not a watch thing.

So, I encourage everyone that wears a watch to stop wearing one for 30 days.  Your wrist will adjust.  You will find other ways to figure out the time (for example, you probably already have a cell phone with the time on it).  You will learn that understanding time can become an instinct and precision will not matter as much as the spirit with which you engage the time-driven world.  Ride ahead of it, don't be its bitch. 

My definition of a nemisis isn't quite straight from the dictionary.  To me, a nemesis is someone whose life you envy and who you can use as a vision with a name and a face in order to try and catch up to them.  Adopting a nemesis is a great way to visualize the future because you can idealize their good qualities, ignore their bad ones, and use the neutral qualities simply as filler that help you better imagine your own future.  I've had nemeses my whole life and when I look back on them I realize that each subsequent nemesis is a bit further ahead, and that, in many ways, each one represents a particular part of my life that I was interested in working on at the time.  When that part of my life was figured out, I stopped thinking of them as my nemesis and moved on to the next one.  Another funny coincidence is that I generally became good friends with my nemeses… this type of nemesis relationship doesn't have to be one of hatred or bitter jealousy, but rather appreciation for their strengths and a desire to learn from them and absorb as many of the traits as possible.

Traits you want to look for in a good nemesis:

1. Someone that is experiencing some aspect of live that you wish you were experiencing.  Whether it's that they are a published writer, or seem to have great friends, or own a bar… it can be anything as long as it's something that you want for yourself.
2. Someone that you can research.  Whether it's because they've had biographies or that they have a blog or that you know where they hang out regularly, it's good to have some exposure to them so you can watch them and plot and plan against.
3. Someone who's name you can invoke in a state of wrath or jealousy.  We all have weaker moments and those moments are easier to handle if you can treat your nemesis as a bit of a scapegoat and egger-on.  If something is proving difficult, just imagine your nemisis's smug face doing that task with ease and usually this will help spurn you on a bit longer, if only to show them that you are someone to reckon with.

Of course, you don't want to take this too far and actually go about sabotaging your nemesis.  A good nemesis is all in you mind.  And, like I said, can sometimes even be a good friend in "real life".

Here are a few tricks for improving your mornings whether or not you are a morning person:

1. Set your alarm clock to the real time. That old trick of trying to trick yourself only works for a few days and it's just silly anyway.
2. Set your alarm to the actual time you want to wake up. Trying to give yourself time to hit the snooze button only means you get less actual sleep and end up more tired than simply waking up when you have to wake up.
3. Wake up half an hour earlier than you usually do. Most people procrastinate until the last minute before waking up, creating a cycle of having to hurry, being late, being less than ready for the day. All that can be fixed by waking up a half hour earlier.
4. Wake up at the same time every day. Even weekends. Steve Pavlina explains the benefits of this well in his posts, "How to become and early riser" and "How to become an early riser part 2".
5. Try it for 30 days, and quit, double down, or revise at that point.

These few simple tricks can turn a morning from a drag to something to look forward to.

“In a healthy and happy way, I am becoming a millionaire.”
“In its own perfect timing, I am becoming a millionaire.”
“For the greatest good of all, I am becoming a millionaire.”

(inspired by combining advice in this interview with Marc Allen with this post on remembering your dreams)

Replace “becoming a millionaire” with anything that you’d like. Other possibilities include “becoming famous”, “becoming ridiculously powerful”, “becoming one with the universe”, “becoming the CEO of my own business”, and “becoming the funniest person alive”. Feel free to improvise, but once you choose one, stick with it for a while.

The key to this is to create a vision for yourself in the future. Once you convince your subconscious that this is going to happen, it will put its resources towards pointing out opportunities that lead in this direction. The subconscious has to filter through about 40 million sensory inputs per second and only passes about 10,000 of them to your subconscious. By activating this possibility in your subconscious, it will remember to pass on information it might otherwise have filtered out, and you'll begin noticing things that you hadn't noticed before. This change usually happens, according to Steve Pavlina, with 24 and 48 hours of starting the mantra.

Every day, say your mantra 20 times out loud when you wake up and then 20 times to yourself. Say it out loud 20 times and to yourself 20 times right before you go to bed. Say it every time you walk through a doorway, start eating, or finish eating. Put the mantra in weird corners of your life that you want to expose or change. By having a vision for what you want to become, and training your subconscious into taking on that vision, you will begin to see opportunities open up towards that road. Be ready for them and take any small step that you see. Be thankful for even the smallest step in that direction, and slowly the steps will become more solid, steady, and obvious.