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The Discipline of Mastering Mental States : zen habits
Moving Into a Mental State
- Recognize that you’re in the wrong mental state. It’s not likely to lead to a calm focus. It will lead to you doing busywork or seeking distraction.
- Experiment to find a set of actions that can help you move into the right mental state. This is going to be different for each person, but with some experimentation, you can discover things that work for you.
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Key Ideas
Mental States
It’s really important to monitor mental states. They will usually affect whether we do our exercise, eat healthy, binge watch TV shows, drink alcohol, eat junk food, or are open-hearted (or rude) with the people we love.
It’s also an incredible skill to be able to move into the proper mental state to do focused work, to create, to meditate, to exercise, or do whatever you find meaningful.
Moving Into a Mental State
- Recognize that you’re in the wrong mental state. It’s not likely to lead to a calm focus. It will lead to you doing busywork or seeking distraction.
- Experiment to find a set of actions that can help you move into the right mental state. This is going to be different for each person, but with some experimentation, you can discover things that work for you.
Activities For A Better Mental State
- Meditation
- Go for a walk
- Get up and move around
- Talk to someone (if you’re worried about something)
- Having a cup of tea
- Taking a power nap
- Having a cup of coffee (differs for each person)
- Getting into a quiet, uncluttered environment
- Turning off your wifi router
- Using full-screen writing apps
- Playing calming music
- Reading an inspirational quote or article
- Talking to someone (including a therapist, if needed)
- Bringing playfulness to the task
The Advanced Antifragile Skill
Learn that you don’t need to change your mental state to do what you’re committed to doing.
If you need the perfect mental state and a perfect set of circumstances to do your commitments, this is a fragile system. Anything that keeps you from doing the actions you need to do to get into the right mental state … throws you off and prevents you from doing your meaningful work.
Training for Antifragility
- Recognize that you're not in the ideal mental state to do the thing you need to do.
- Ask yourself if you're committed to this or not. If it’s not that important, you can put it off until I get into the right state. If you’re very committed, you'll do it if at all possible.
- Make it happen, despite the mental state.
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Key Ideas
Obstacles to Getting Stuff Done
- The habit of putting off starting, because it’s uncomfortable.
- Maybe you get started, but then constantly switch to other tasks.
- You put off starting (or finishing) because con...
Picking one important thing
If you focus on getting the small stuff done but not the big stuff, or switch between tasks all the time, you’ll be less effective.
Pick one important thing to focus on at a time and learn to evaluate what tasks and projects are of higher value to you.
Starting
It's best done by focusing on the smallest first step and practicing just launching into that.
Pick the tiniest first step, and launch into it.
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Finding Motivation
... to develop self-discipline:
- Start taking small actions to make things better
- Do the things that hurt you less
- Push yourself into discomfort a little bit, so you can g...
Other Types of Motivation
- Wanting to help others: If you get better at not procrastinating on your life’s work, for example, you can help more people with that meaningful work.
- Appreciating life: We have a short time on Earth, and the life we have is a gift. When we procrastinate and give in to endless distraction, and don’t make the most of our time, we are not fully appreciating the gift we have.
Small Actions
One of the most important things you can do to get better at self-discipline is to take small actions.
It can seem overwhelming to start big, intimidating projects. Instead, start with easy actions, things so small you can’t say no.
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Our Monkey Mind
We are constantly distracted throughout the day. Without focusing on anything with a calm, relaxed mind, we keep jumping from messages, to-do lists, social media, and email.
Constantly jumpin...
A Calm State of Mind
- The Mind is not an enemy, which needs to be killed, but something to befriend.
- Creating a calm space inside us can help calm the monkey down. Like a toddler throwing tantrums, you need to calm down the surroundings and minimize activity to keep the noise down.
- Reducing distractions can help calm our Mind. We normally have a thousand things to check or look after throughout the day, be it email, notifications, etc. all of which keep the Monkey Mind jumping.
- We are rushing too fast, most of the day. We need to slow down, pause and get quieter in between our never-ending daily routine.
Prescription For The Distracted Mind
- Meditate in the morning, starting with just 2 minutes.
- Provide yourself intentional space for your focused activities, blocking the time slots.
- Turn off as many distractions from your entire day, while turning on your awareness towards them.
- Do not judge or condemn your mind, and keep witnessing what it is doing.
- Slow down, relax your muscles, and take some deep breaths to calm yourself.
- Take frequent short breaks, putting space between two activities.