Taming Monkeys Aftermath

It’s the first day of 2012 and I think it’s time to review my taming monkeys experiment. It all started a year ago, when I decided to ditch my new year resolutions. Instead, I replaced them with twelve monthly challenges, in which I wanted to tame an inner monkey. Very shortly, an inner monkey is an unfulfilled promise I made to myself, or a thing I really wanted to do but never really had the time to make it happen. If you want to know more about my definition of an inner monkey, go ahead and read this post. If you want to know more about the entire taming monkey process, go ahead and read the introductory post.

The Twelfth Monkey

This was the December monkey. If you followed my blog or social media presence, you may have noticed that I was extremely quiet during the month of December. I hardly wrote 3 blog posts and had very few social media interactions. It was almost like October, when the monkey was “talk less and do more”. But it was also different from October.

In other words, I didn’t pick up a monkey for December. Or, if you like it this way, the December monkey was to have no monkey at all. So, not much to write about it. Other than living a regular life and doing my stuff each and every day, there’s nothing more to tell. Sometimes, writing about stuff can make it obsolete, up to the point you’re not into it anymore. Keeping a log, a personal journal, even a public blog, can definitely help you achieve more and stay on course. I know I was a very strong advocate of this and I still am. But for every up there’s a down. For every peak there’s a valley and for every explosion there must be an implosion.

Writing too much, like I did on this blog for the last three years, may be alienating. It’s like projecting your desired life into writing, instead or living it. Blogging, like every other part of our existence, needs balance. It needs a sense of reality and equilibrium. I know many of you are visiting this blog almost daily, looking for inspiration. Creating inspiring texts is easy for me. I can do it the same way they build cars, ten per day. But at the same time, I need my own life, with its own boundaries and personal challenges. With its secrets and concealed spots. I don’t know if this is a universal fact, but for me, having a personal space proved to be extremely important. So, sharing too much, about too much, for too much time, it’s not a good thing. At least for me. And when it comes to inspiration, I’d rather create it on the spot, if there’s a real, internal need for it. From my part, that is. Not forced from external circumstances.

The Taming Monkey Experiment Results

I think the hardest part in evaluating an experiment, any type of experiment, is in the metrics. What exactly are you measuring? What are the “in” values and what are the “out” values? Since this was by definition a very foggy experiment, in which the actual elasticity was more important than its precision, I think I’m just gonna give a bird eye view of what happened. In other words, there won’t be a recap of all the experiments and an exact evaluation of each of them. You can just go ahead and read all of them, if you’re interested in a more exact evaluation.

It Worked

First of all, the experiment was a success. The mere fact that I gave up the quantitative part of my life (do “more” stuff) had a huge effect. I stopped blaming myself every time something didn’t go as expected. I stopped beating myself up every time I wasn’t up to something. And that is something I did constantly, at least for the last 20 years of my life. By replacing my goals with a pack of monkeys, I shifted from a one-two-three evaluation of my life, to a more playful and guilt free approach. I may not have accomplished more, but I lived more.

Fears And Liabilities

Second, I finally faced some of my deepest fears and liabilities. You know, when you surround yourself with “stuff” you did, you tend to forgot that you have an imperfect nature. You even start to think that you’re ok, just because you did all that stuff. Which, of course, is nothing but stuff. You still have your unfinished businesses from childhood, your apprehensions, your taboos. So, when I finally gave up the “look how much I accomplished this year” approach, which was like some sort of pressure on top of my hidden fears, keeping them deep inside, they finally exploded.

So, I had to face the fact that sometimes relationships are going to disappear, to melt away. And that moment, the second they’re gone, is the best moment for you and you should just accept and move on. Don’t cling to the past. It’s gone. It’s like a rock going down in the ocean. If you keep clinging yourself to that precious rock, you’ll always be with it but you’ll eventually die. This year was about my last long term personal relationship, which ended up with a divorce, but also the relationship with my son, which entered a “no man’s land”. Both were meant to go like this. But I kinda desperately cling on to what I thought it was something worth to preserve, only to find myself choking on my own memories. A good thing to mention though, was the fact that I kept all my promises involved in these relationships. Which were completely useless for the other part and only meaningful for me, but I still kept it. Good for my morale, anyway.

Another liability was my attachment to my public image. Without even noticing, I was convinced that there must be a link between what I do and my public image. Which is completely wrong, of course. What I do is something that I can control myself, whereas what others are thinking or writing about me, is something that I have no control over it. So, the link is inexistent. For the last 5-6 years I’ve had a fair share of violent attacks on the blogosphere and, lately, even from my own son. My public image was seriously hit. Well, it may safely stay hit, if you’re asking me now. I finally understood that there’s nothing of value in keeping a balanced public image. After all, people are free to say whatever they want about whoever they want. If somebody thinks I’m an idiot, he’s right. If somebody thinks I’m a genius, he’s also right. Do I agree with both? Nope. I agree only with what I think about myself, and I leave the public image to those who have enough time to build me one. As good or as bad they want it to be.

There were many other fears and inner liabilities that were revealed during this year, but I’ll just stick to those two above for the time being.

Slashing Away Chimeras

Third, I realized that some things I started but never finished, well, they never worth finish. One of the monkeys was about finishing a fiction book. Never finished it, of course. I applied all my internal discipline (and, oh, I know I can be freakin’ disciplined when I want to) but nothing really happened. Another internal chimera. Just because we are linking this unfinished thing to a positive context in our mind, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good thing to do. Finishing a fiction ebook was something that was very positive inside my head. But it was also just an image, a positive context in which I was projecting myself. The moment I actually started to write it, I realized it was shallow, thin and ego-driven. So, I stopped the whole process.

Back To Curiosity

Another subtle effect of this experiment was that it allowed me to resort to curiosity again. I said it many times and I will say it again, I don’t consider myself a very skilled individual in any area, although I do know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff, but I do consider myself almost pathologically curious. I’m attracted to many apparently unrelated areas, and, in the process, I learn and achieve a lot.

By stepping away from the traditional fixed goal structure, and replacing it with a “monkey taming” approach, I allowed myself to just be curious again. If I really look back to last year, it was probably one of the best years in terms of new stuff that I tried. I went paragliding in New Zealand, I entered a new business partnership in a wordpress related area, I visited Hong Kong, I met dozens of new people, I self-published myself, got translated and published in Korean, and a lot, a lot more.

I think curiosity is closely linked to our desire to live. Without curiosity, we barely survive.

What About 2012?

I don’t have any measurable goals for 2012 right now. I don’t even want to tame monkeys anymore. But I’ll keep my curiosity awake and just stay put. If there’s something worth pursuing, I’ll just do it.

Action versus Reaction

Acting is what makes you happy, reacting is what makes you miserable.

Whenever you act, you perform a conscious choice, you decide you’re going to do that thing. You become responsible. But when you react, you follow somebody else’s choice, you’re responding to an external stimulus. You’re not responsible anymore, you leave the responsibility to the stimulus. When you act, you’re the pupeteeer, when you react, you’re the puppet.

Choice versus Context

Acting is independent of the context, reacting is totally dependent of the context.

You may be in favorable contexts at times. When you’re a kid, most of the time you’re in a continuous favorable context. The problem is that context is artificial, you are protected by your parents. While you’re a kid, in a favorable context, acting or reacting are basically the same: whatever you do the context will remain favorable. Your parents will love and protect you no matter what. But once you get out from their protection, you may hit some very unfriendly contexts. And here you’ll learn the real difference between conscious action and powerless reaction.

If you consciously chose success, you don’t really care about context. You’re going to be successful no matter what. You act, you’re consciously building your own way. You chose to get there no matter what. But if you don’t make this choice, and your life is just a reaction to a chaotic flow of stimulus, then anything in the surroundings will help you fail. It’s you who let the context do that, and you did this by resigning from your own command, by reacting instead of acting.

For instance, being miserable after losing your job it’s a reaction. The context was really hard for you and you lost something. The “normal” reaction is to be sad, worried, discouraged and miserable. On the other hand, being confident, manifesting hope and starting to look for another job (or even starting your own business) it’s a conscious choice. Losing your job it’s just a fact. What you do about this fact is what really matters.

Reward And Frustration

Acting is rewarding, reacting is frustrating.

Every time you act on something, you are rewarded in some way. Not every conscious action will be successful. You may fail at times. Maybe many times. But you still get your reward. When you fail, the reward is in learning. You made a choice, you acted in a specific way and you learned something, even if the action was a complete failure.

If you react, all you get is frustration. You didn’t make a choice, you just responded to a stimulus. Maybe you wanted something else, but instead of choosing an action, you automatically reacted to that stimulus. There is no way you can get a reward if you’re reacting to something. Even if the initial stimulus was positive.

For instance, you blindly fall in love with somebody.That’s a positive stimulus and you reacted to it. After the initial, unconscious chemistry phase, you have a choice: to love and accept no matter what. If you don’t consciously chose to love no matter what, you’ll get hurt. Instead of accepting the other one, you’ll start to control him. In love, jealousy is a reaction, unconditional acceptance is a conscious action.

Choosing versus Enduring

The difference between action and reaction is not always simple. Most of the time we’re acting by habit, and habits are just safe reactions. We know how to ride a bike, we learned how to do it, when we’re on the bike, we’re just reacting to it. It’s a safe reaction. Many of our habits are safe reactions. But some of them are just stupid.

Some of the most dangerous safe reactions are related to money. We tend to react to economic stimulus and news, rather then act upon them. For instance, if there’s news about a bad economic context, we’re starting to protect our investments. That’s a safe reaction. The bad economic context may or may not hurt us directly, we never really know that. But the pre-programmed reaction to cover our savings will emerge without any control from our part.

A much better approach would be to directly act upon our finances. For instance, it’s not uncommon that investment is much more profitable during hard economic conditions. A lot of stuff, including real estate, is getting cheaper. Running to protect our money, by reaction, instead of investing it, by conscious action, will be stupid. Again, the economic context it’s a fact, everybody will feel it, what really matters is our attitude towards it, our choices.

Results versus Excuses

Action creates results, reaction creates excuses.

Every time you consciously chose something, you are producing results. You are the one who started everything, hence the reality obeyed you. Again, even if the action was, by any standard, a failure. Reality responded to your stimulus and created a result. Maybe it wasn’t the result you wanted, but it’s still a result.

If you’re reacting to something or somebody else, you are producing excuses. Your reactions to external stimulus will seldom be aligned with your internal values. If you chose to react to stimulus, you’re already giving up your values and empower the stimulus. You’re not acting, you are giving out control.

Most of the time, your reactions will try to protect yourself from apparently bad things: somebody yelling at you, losing your job, being left by your partner. A typical reaction to all of these will be frustration. And perhaps sadness, lack of hope, misery. So, after the yelling is gone, after the job is gone, after the partner is gone and after your miserable reaction, all you will be left with are excuses. It could have been the other way around, but it isn’t. Sorry.

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A typical reaction after reading this post will be to think a little bit, to identify possible matches with your own behavioral patterns and then to forget it while gazing at the next funny cat picture on the web. A conscious action will be to bookmark it, to share it with as many friends as you can and to comment on it.

I’m joking, of course. But I’m consciously choosing to joke with you by writing this blog post, instead of gazing at the wall in my office and thinking life sucks. And this action will certainly create some great results.

How about you?

Training Your Focus

How is your focus? Do you find it easy to concentrate for longer chunks of time or are you easily distracted? Do you enjoy doing the same thing at the same focus level over and over again, or are you easily bored?

I used to think that focus is a function of pleasure: I can concentrate on this because I like it. I do some stuff better than other because I like it. While loving what you do can keep your concentration high, at least in the beginning, maintaining a constant, high focus is not a function of pleasure at all. It’s a function of will.

Focus can be trained. It can be enhanced, it can be shaped the way you want. It can serve you well, if you treat it well. In today’s post I’ll share some of my observations regarding focus and how one can work this tool the same way you work your muscles in your daily workout.

Detach From Pleasure

To like something is a great “do” igniter. It really puts you on the road. Starting something you don’t like is usually slower and less energizing. But after the initial thrill, even if you do like what you’re doing, keeping yourself in the flow requires a lot of effort. Your focus will start to weaken.

The best way to ensure a constant flow of focus is to detach from pleasure. To treat every single task emotionally equal. Might sounds “robotish” and totally not fun, but in fact it’s just a way to trick your focus into a better approaching method.

If you’re constantly doing only things you like, your focus will develop a sort of addiction. It will unconsciously start looking for nice stuff, and will ignore difficult, or boring things. It will not discard it and put it aside for later, the boring stuff will simply disappear from the radar. You’ll end up as a hedonistic prisoner of “only nice stuff, please”.

Detaching from pleasure doesn’t mean you will refrain from enjoying what you’re doing. Detaching from pleasure means you’ll start doing things regardless of their niceness level. You’ll just do them. Detaching from pleasure means you’re also detaching from boredom. If you can observe yourself doing stuff, pleasure and boredom are just choices. You’re doing that thing anyway, so you can chose how you feel about it.

Assess Results

Whenever you keep your focus on something for longer chunks, take your time to assess results every once in a while. Take your time to see how were you at the beginning of the task and how are you now. Especially in difficult tasks, assessing results is a great focus enhancer.

It does this by progress showing. If you’re caught in solving a longer problem, you might forget where you started. You start circling and stumbling. You get caught in a pattern of “I’m getting nowhere with this” and your focus will start weaken. The hedonistic part of you will ask for something nice to hang on, and you’ll step away form the problem and go grab a cookie, for instance.

If after the cookie your focus will be higher, it would be great, but your focus is usually thinner. You didn’t assess any results, you just tried to escape a difficult task. Your focus will want again to the cookie.

Assessing results is easy, is a matter of saying: “I started this journey 15 minutes ago, and I’m doing ok, regardless of the fact I’ve done only one single step. I’m ok. I’m on it.”. Your focus will be forced to stay there until you solve the problem. You assessed your position, you acknowledged the fact that you’re making progress.

This works regardless of the focus time span. You can assess results of a 15 minutes cooking session, or of a 5 years goal. Maintaining your focus is equally important in both.

One More Second

I took this habit from my fitness session. Whenever I do pushups or abs, I establish some goal, let’s say 50 abs. When I’m close to 49, I stretch myself out and go over 50, usually 51, or 52. I do the this all the time. The goal is clear but I always try to stay in there for one more second.

I also did this in business. Whenever I was close to finish a project, I did something extra, a feature or an addition of some kind. It was not in the specs from the beginning but I felt the need to put it there.

Staying “one more second” in a project, in a workout, or in a relationship is a fantastic focus enhancer. I always know that I can do more abs after that second and I always know that my project will be a success, after that last feature. I am in there, I know it, I stay focused.

“One more second” is also good for assessing wrong paths. Even if you feel it’s wrong, take one more second to assess that and let your focus decide. If it’s a bad relationship, stay one more second in it and make sure it’s really bad for you. Next time, your focus will warn you from the beginning, and you won’t have to go through tough times again.

Balance Your Senses

Your focus is channeling the reality by using your senses. Each person have a specific distribution of these senses in their focus. Some are visual, some are functioning well by really touching stuff, some are reacting better to voices. Your senses are the gates and your focus is the gate opener.

Focus likes diversity. If you’re a visual guy, try using some sounds in the next working session. Put some music on, tap the table from time to time. If you’re doing something related to sounds (you’re a musician for instance, or working on a movie soundtrack) try to balance this by using some new lights around you. Change your seat, light a candle. It will instantly make you focus better.

Your focus will always appreciate a new balance in your senses. It’s not about boredom, we talked about that already. What you’re doing is sending a complementary signal that will make your focus trying to recompose the big picture. And that will keep it on the current task.

Your Focus Is Your Reality

Ok, I cheated a bit. I started with all those tips about focus enhancement and kept the focus definition aside. And I did this for a reason.

I strongly believe that your focus is in fact your reality. You cannot experience something outside your focus. Everything you do is driven by focus, it’s like a handle to keep and master your environment. It’s the only way you actively experience your life: whenever you’re not focused, you’re drifting away, whenever you’re focused you’re sailing.

Let’s make a short experiment now. Take a look at the wall in front of you. Yes, like right now. Take a look, I said, don’t cheat. After several seconds come back here and read on.

Where was your focus while you looked at the wall? Outside this blog post, of course, what a silly question. But where was the blog post during this period? You’ll answer that it was there, right in front of you, waiting for your to get back. It was in your mind. But I will say this blog post was completely outside your reality.

You might have think it was there, but it was on a virtual space and time. Your real space and time was filled with the wall. You were focused on the wall, and the wall took precedence of everything else in your life, including your thoughts. You might have think you were thinking at the post, but instead you were focused on the wall.

Everything in your life works like this. You might think you’re doing something, but your real focus is somewhere else. You think you’re happy, but instead of real happiness, your focus is in useless, shallow thoughts. You give to your thinking mind the benefit of reality, instead to give this to your focus. You might spend your entire life thinking you’re doing just fine, but your focus will be on a wall. You’ll be in fact experiencing a wall, not a happy life.

This is why training your focus is far more than a productivity technique. At a certain level, focus mastering is a magical endeavor, is an esoteric, almost secret art.

The one who masters his focus will master his own world.

Are you with me here? Or are your drifting away?