Effectiveness

You're in a group, a friendship, a romance, and certain things just aren't working. It might be money, it might be scheduled events, it might be communication. You've tried everything you know to try, and everyone involved is doing their best. What's happening? Someone in the situation is incompetent - for example, someone simply can't handle money - and their incompetence dooms any attempts. There's no fixing this with them or for them. They will not improve and they will not learn. Exit this interaction - you can do other things with them, but not what they are incompetent at.

If a thing needs to happen, and the person who needs to make it happen isn't, and you don't think it's the nice thing to require them to correct their behavior, then you are misunderstanding the situation. Necessity and nice aren't opposites. Necessity means that the change has to happen - nice matters only in how you tell them. Tell them nicely and politely what the problem is, and what your first thoughts on a solution are. If they choose not to do what's needed, then you're not in a situation where nice applies, you're in a confrontation with a person who refuses to do what you require.

You may have wanted to be a concert pianist or an astronaut as a child. Now you discover that you have a mind for details and an intuitive grasp of numbers. You are making amazing progress as an accountant. Which should you follow? Your dreams, or your aptitudes? Both, of course! You should do what you're good at, what you're built for, what your life choices makes easy and fun for you. Don't push yourself to be what others over the years told you was right - double down on what you do best, do it even better, and earn more, have more fun, and take better care of those around you.

All work and no play makes for a dull life. But all play works worse, and playing in ways that hurts your productivity (be it work, study, or caring for people in your life) isn't a good alternative. You need to play, and you need to play at times and in ways that don't slow down other parts of your life. To do this, ask yourself what you have to do for those other parts. Do you need to exercise, pack a lunch, pick up children, go to the grocery store, sleep... Once you know the things that can't be moved in your life, such as work, study, and children, and you know what you have to do to be effective at those, you can see where you have time to play. Perhaps you can go partying Saturday night? Perhaps Tuesday evening is your social time? Maybe weekends before your family wakes up you can go birdwatching?

More than letting it go, you have to be happy to see it go. I mean the parts of your life that aren't working - the friendships that have gotten cold or toxic, your love for alcohol and parties that have you hung over and anti-social the rest of the week... You have to change. You have to make space for the new, and to do that you have to prune away the old in your life and in your personality. Do it - and more than that, do it with anticipation. Because on the other side of the pain of loss of those old, familiar friends and behaviors and thinking patterns is the new you that will be better adapted to the life you have, the life you want.

State your goals clearly. Find out your values. Be clear and be honest. World peace is neither a goal you have, nor a value, it's an evasion. Now consider whether your goals and your values are in agreement. Can you reach your goals while acting as your values dictate? If you can, you're great. If your values and your goals disagree, you're going to be stuck in place. Maybe this is already happening to you? Maybe you sabotage yourself constantly, and refuse to do actions contrary to your values that would move you toward your goals? In this is happening to you, you need to change your goals or your values, or both. It won't be easy.

Religion provides a moral compass and an emotional refuge. It's a central part of normalizing our society. When we use some of the lessons and promises of religion to guide our lives, we become confused. The infinite joy that will follow this life, and the other beliefs that underpin many religions, are poor standards to measure and improve this messy, painful existence. It's better to keep some of the assumptions of religion on the religious side of your thinking, and improve life using standards intended to result in the best life you can lead.

You can lower your expectations to become happier. Everyone knows this. But you have to keep your goals high, or your life decays and you have to lower your expectations further and further. The more correct way to think is that you lower your expectations for happiness, but you keep your goals high to progress through a good life.

Drama is anything that isn't discussing a problem, compromising, and then resolving the problem. In other words, drama is a way to have more problems. If you have people in your life who add drama, get them away from you. If it's you... stop.

Pain is a part of life. Do what you can to lessen it, but once you are hurt by someone, divide the pain to get the most out of the experience. Some of the pain was bad luck - you could not have avoided it. Just accept that life contains bad luck. Don't bury how you feel about what happened - acknowledge your emotions. They're real and they matter. Some of the pain was your mistake - learn from it, and do better. Once you've done this and have processed what happened, has the experience opened some doors for you?

Most of what you do in your life is your routine. Brushing your teeth, watching television, eating dinner. Anything that repeats, is disproportionately important in your life. If it repeats every work day, such as a commute or breakfast, it's massively important. A simple first step to improving your life is to make these routines better - a shorter commute, a healthier breakfast, some time before school to hug and enjoy your children. Over time the repetition will make the effect of these improvements massive.

You've tried resolution, win-win, and diplomacy. You've tried avoiding the conflict, and exiting the situation. Nothing has worked. The person you have conflict does not want resolution, and does not want the conflict to end. They either enjoy subjecting you to the conflict, or want you to give them something you don't owe them just to stop the pressure. There's no relationship left to protect. You don't want a person like this in your life. All that's left is the conflict - do you give in, knowing that you will be giving in again soon, because they will know that they can pressure you for more? Do you endure this unpleasant conflict forever? The problem is the conflict. To end it, and ensure this person doesn't do this again, you must make the conflict so unpleasant for them that they will not do it again. You must go at them in the nastiest ways that you can, and you must continue after they have asked for resolution or an end to conflict. In other words, mirror them. Be even worse than them. And do it until they cannot bear it any longer. This way, they will not start conflict with you again.

We're emotional beings, but most communication we experience is rational. Rational communication fails to connect with the emotional side of us, and fails to convince and reassure us. When a friend, co-worker, or person you love is communicating with you, have both conversations: The rational one in which you respond to their concerns, and the emotional one in which you acknowledge their fear, loneliness, and uncertainty. The emotional conversation is the one they need more.

Some decisions are urgent. You must get out of the way of a truck, or die. You are taking all other decisions too quickly. You probably aren't even giving the decisions enough rational thought; but you're definitely not giving yourself time to check your emotional feedback, and you haven't discussed the decision with the people in your life who will be affected by it. Take at least one night. Better yet, take until you are ready. Decisions that are made slower, if there is no deadline, are most often better decisions.

Someone has done you wrong. Defend yourself, and make what changes need to be made to prevent it from happening again. Then, let it go. Put it from your mind. Forgive, or not - but stop paying the person, and their actions, attention. Your resentment is hurting you, not them. It's costing you attention and happiness. However you can do it, move your focus somewhere else. And move your focus away as many times as you need, until your resentment fades.

You're listening to this podcast, so you want to explore more possibilities in this time of abundance. How can you store all the tasks, notes, and appointments you make in your limited brain? Like a car externalizes transportation and your cell phone extends the reach of your voice, a to-do list, a calendar, and a list of goals externalize your mind and allow you to remember more. Even better: When you put your todo list and calendar in a trusted place, you can focus on this moment now with all your attention. Your pets, children, friends, and loved ones will enjoy your complete attention.

From time to time we get overwhelmed. It's a combination of our wanting to do more, and life being unpredictable. Sometimes, it's life being more than we can handle. We shut down. We try to make sense, internally, of the chaos and fear. While we are sorting ourselves out, what do you do to keep your life moving? You do... anything. Don't pick a task. Don't think. Just do... something.

When should you ask for what you want? Always! If you're not asking for what you want, there might be some reasons, and some ways that you can learn to start asking.

Only one can be the best, and it most likely won't be you - and the investment of effort into being the best is too large. Instead set your sights lower. Second best is still great! And it will take less effort, which you can put into reaching other goals. There's more happiness in being good at several things than the best at one.

Pain is inevitable in life. Some pain, like a fire, you must avoid. Some, like physical exercise, you must seek out (in moderation, under the supervision of a doctor). Emotional pain is inevitable. It comes during and at the end of almost every relationship we have. Trying to avoid it can only be done by limiting our relationships. Since you want those relationships, you want the pain. The best way you can handle it is to accept that you are going to hurt, and you are going to have to endure it. Face the pain. Spend the day, week, or month in emotional agony. But know that the pain will pass, and your life will find new balance.

Complex situations overwhelm us, so we avoid them. They overwhelm everyone else. Size and strength, and then ruthlessness in business used to be what life rewarded. Nowadays, those who are comfortable in complex situations get the best rewards in life. Accept that you will never understand everything about a situation. Do as much thinking as you can, to understand what's really happening. With this, you can outdo others and, over time, become comfortable with complexity.

As time passes we are less and less the person we used to be. We take on new identities and discard the old ones. Other than a few things, like traits of those close to us, the past doesn't offer us much that is useful. Put it in your photo album, in your diary, and live forward.

You're frustrated, again and again, because your cherished friends make horrible choices. You explain, you show, you lead them toward better decisions. They nod their heads, listen carefully, agree... and then make the exact same horrible choices. Give up. The mountain they have to climb to choose better is too high. All you are doing is frustrating yourself. Accept and love your friends the way they are, bad decisions and all.

Shame is pressure on your decisions, learned from childhood. It's undefined. What it urges you to avoid may not hurt you. Consider what you are ashamed of - and then decide that you should avoid doing it, or that the shame is wrong, and you're fine with it. But be careful - if those who you care about speak against something, listen.

Part of why smokers have difficulty quitting is that they are also erasing a familiar identity - that of a smoker. They are saying goodbye to a cluster of habits, associations, and memories that are a part of them. You become identities - a parent, an employee, a bicycle rider. But why not choose these identities? As with so much else, you can choose and change your identities, and start to build new clusters of habits and associations around the new identities that more closely match the person you will become.

Fear is an ancient signal of danger. In the stone ages we survived by respecting our fear. In a physical situation your fear needs that respect. You can be hurt or killed. In a social, financial, or romantic situation progress has shrunk bad consequences down to some shame and some ego pain. If you can take these, then fear is no longer a reason to stay away. If you fear a thing, it's because it's important. If you can take the consequences, you should go straight at the thing you fear instead of away from it.

Pride in an accomplishment is great - it's one of the rewards of committed work. But pride that makes you irrational, makes you refuse to compromise, costs you solutions that you have taken off the table. Afterward, you've lost a friend, and you didn't get what they were suggesting... but you kept your pride. Put this bad pride aside and work toward solutions in a practical and friendly way.

It's the journey, not the destination. But you must stop the journey, and savor the now - play with children and pets, enjoy the sunsets and the first sip of coffee in the mornings. The journey gets you to your destinations. On the way, stop and savor the now.

It's useful to compare yourself with others - you can learn what they are doing right, and copy it. But you can also feel envy. Others buy positional goods - fancy cars, shiny watches - for this exact reason. They want you to feel bad, so they can feel good. Status matters, but feeling bad isn't necessary. Show status only when it matters - when it doesn't, don't compare. Be mindful when others are trying to establish status, and let them compete with anyone but you.

How do you enter social circles you aren't qualified for? How do you acquire traits and skill sets you don't have? There are three parts - confidence, always; the specific skills; and the knowledge. You must build the knowledge on your own time. You'll get the skills by joining the social circle, doing the thing you can't yet do. Fake the confidence, until you have the skills and knowledge - the confidence will grow.

As we live longer and longer, exercise serves to extend that life, and to improve our quality of life for the entire span. Two hundred years ago we got more exercise and lived shorter lives - today, in this time of abundance, we need exercise for the energy and physical condition to explore more of the joys this rich time offers.

Some effects in our lives are multiplied by the long term we live. When we think of fitness, smoking, staying within a budget, and over-eating we have a hard time remembering that some of the effects will be felt day after day for the rest of our long lives. We eat a delicious dessert and are completely aware of the pleasure we get. But we are dimly, or not at all, aware of what obesity will do to us, because evolution and culture have never before had to deal with the long lives we now have. Some choices have no long-term consequences. For those that do, stop and consider those consequences, as well as the short term.

Life is going to deal you setbacks and cause you pain. How do you deal with this? One way is to cast yourself as helpless in the face of others' actions, to be a victim. This allows you to accept bad events, lower your expectations from life, and feel good about yourself as an underdog. It also means that your outcomes will not be as good, but you will have a reason to invest less effort. Is victimism for you?

The News and Facebook contain distortions. The news has to grab your attention to sell ads, and Facebook users show only the best moments in their normal lives to make themselves feel better. These distortions mean you are giving your time and getting anxiety and sadness in return. Why make this trade? Don't watch the news, and stop giving Facebook your attention. Spend that time on your own life, and the people you love.

Compare what you earn with what you spend. If you earn more than you spend, you are building savings, worrying less, and have a cushion against risks. If you're spending more than you earn you're building debt, on which you are paying interest, meaning that you will build debt faster and faster. Eventually you will be forced to lower your spending and start paying that debt down. When that happens your lifestyle will be reduced for years... or you could limit your lifestyle now, and get all the benefits of saving, now and for the rest of your life.

If a person in your life pushes you, and you've offered to compromise or discuss, then they want to win, and they want you to lose. You are no longer in a friendly discussion. They are preferring a hostile resolution. Tell them no. Once they take a hostile position, you must not give in - and if you fear that they will become upset, you must accept this possibility. Because, once a person wants to win and wants you to lose, the worst thing you can do is give in.

The future can be known to some small extent - but specific outcomes may be good or bad, and there are always wild cards like natural disasters and accidents that can change everything. How to do you stop worrying about the future? Worrying is a waste of time, but the future is unknowable. Categorize what you don't know, limit sources of worry, and then put all that may come into the not knowing.

Simple ideas are seductive because of how strong and clear they are. Government is corrupt and incompetent. Everyone is a thief. Food should taste good. These ideas make life simple and give clarity. They are, however, wrong. Using these simplifications as a guide in your life leaves out crucial details, even if the idea is mostly, or most often, right. You can't go through life with ideas this simple. Life is not, ever, this simple, and your mental map has got to at least accept this.

It's simpler and more efficient to be one person, have one set of values, treat people one way. But it doesn't work. People and situations are best treated differently - ideally, every person and situation must be treated in its own individual optimum way. This is silly - who can spend that much time thinking? Neither a single approach, nor a multitude of approaches are best - perhaps merely being aware when your single approach has failed, and you should not use it, or at least modify it, is enough?

How to live effectively changes depending on where we are in our lives, and on the obligations we have to others, and to ourselves. Some goals, such as fitness and financial stability, never change except in their details - but some goals are proper and necessary at one stage in our lives, and not useful at others.

Everyone only does something when it furthers their own interests. How can you cooperate with them, and live well with them?

We all fail. It's what happens next that matters. Do you accept your part in the failure, assess what needs to change, and set about growing your skills so that you can succeed? Or do you blame others and let the failure, all failure, become a wall of fear and denial against which you will never again test yourself?

Can you replace unreliable drama-filled people with reliable things? Can you simplify your life into toys, things, and games? We're social animals - is satisfying, or partially satisfying, your social needs with computers and objects at least some solution?

The results in your life are proportional to the effort that you put in. Once you accept this, you can rethink the dream of sitting on a couch and having food brought to you, and accept with pleasure that effort improves your life, and the life of those you care about

We cherish the idea that we're completely free. And we are... but some choices are self-destructive, and others limit or prohibit futures that we may prefer. Instead of grappling constantly with a wealth of choices in this world of abundance, consider the future you intend to live and take choices off the table that limit or preclude that future. Don't even consider them.

Complaining isn't free. It's not like watching a sunset - pointless, but fun. Complaining prevents you from squaring off with the problems that you face. You may not be in a position to solve your problems, accept them, or change the situation, but complaining prevents you from defining them and being clear in your mind about them.

Long-term changes to your life can't be made by willpower. Make incremental change into habits, and then do it again and again. Before you can do this you must comprehend that large shifts in your choices will take time, and will be made in steps.

Should you specialize or stay general? How deeply should you focus in your interests and your career. Like Sheepism, both specializing and staying general are good solutions to the abundance we experience in modern life. But both solutions exclude the deep focus, or the broad variety, of the other. Difficult as it is, to experience more you have to challenge yourself, and be both.

Know what big things you are accomplishing. Understand how you make the world, and the lives of those you love, better. This is your purpose. Once you know this, your day-to-day tasks gain meaning, because doing them gives you progress toward your purpose. Meaning isn't external - it's inside you, in doing tasks that connect to your purpose.

You spend time and resources trying to make others believe that you are better than you are. This episode discusses what you gain from doing so, what you give up, and how you can allocate your attention and resources for a better long term.

Sheepism is an answer to our challenge of choosing a life in the overwhelming possibilities offered in modern times. Most people in our society have chosen this solution - are you able to find happiness using this limited formula? If you reject Sheepism for whatever reason, you'll have to consider your own personality and what you hope for and expect out of life, because your way is certain to take more effort and be more challenging.