Boring Victories, Let Them & The Gift of Inconvenience

Amigos and amigas...

The big 3 newsletter is here!

- 1 mental health tip

- 1 social skills tip

- 1 personal reflection

Let's begin with this week's mental health tip...

1.) Boring victories

Most of your accomplishments in life will go unnoticed.

There won't be a marching band at the end of the finish line to give you a victory song, strangers on the street won't look at you with pride for your achievements nor could most of your loved ones care less for what you've done.

A harsh reality right?

Of course it is.

Harsh enough to make you question who's chopping onions in the room (😭 "I'm fine, seriously, I'm fine.")

But when I say "accomplishments in life" I'm not talking about the big ones. I'm talking about the small, boring, micro victories you achieve each day.

Why this matters...

Your brain is wired to look for the negative.

There are hundreds of cognitive biases your brain engages in (a way your brain creates its own subjective reality) but the most potent bias is something called 'disqualifying the positive'.

As you can guess, this is when your brain dismisses positive experiences, thoughts, or achievements, leading you to adopt a negative view of yourself and the world.

For example:

• "I woke up late today which means my workout and healthy eating doesn't count."
• *You get good feedback for your work* "that feedback is useless because I did ___ wrong."
• Or your brain reasons "even though Wednesday was a good day I'm going to overlook that because Monday and Tuesday were terrible."

Evolutionary this makes sense.

By being biased to look for the negative in situations our ancestors stood a better chance at surviving.

For example:

• Instead of basking in the bliss of the horizon in the distance, it made sense for your ancestors to focus on the fact there's only 7 berries and a slab of meat left to share between their family of 19. So their anxiety gave them the necessary push to go hunting tomorrow.
• Wondering if that rustling in the bushes was their caveman friend Gork playing a trick on them instead of sprinting to safety would've likely resulted in them being a snack for a sabretooth tiger. Better to trust your brains negative judgement and save your life ay?

So your brain isn't wired for accuracy, it's wired for survival.

But here's the problem...

Our brain is primed to detect threats that were present for our ancestors but it exists in a world where those threats no longer exist (or exist a lot less). For example, instead of sabretooth tigers the greatest threat to my existence is a fox (the UK's most dangerous animal besides the humans).

Evolutionary psychologists called this "biological mismatch".

The solution...

To counteract your brain's inherent bias towards negativity, there are two things I'd suggest...

1.) Understanding is king.

Now you understand your brain is primed to look for the negative, this will hopefully give you some distance from the situation the next time you catch yourself being pessimistic.

You can reason "oh! Lol. I see what's going on here. My brain is trying to help me survive. Well brain, I've got some news for you because Lewis told me to..."

2.) Look for the positive.

In the same way as a lawyer would stand up for you in court and argue your case, or a boxing coach would wipe the sweat off your brow in between rounds, tell you to keep your guard up and counter with a hook combination of your own, you need to become a keen counter arguer to your brain's subjective pessimism.

You can do so by creating a "well done list" each day.

At the end of each day, you note down all the small things you did which you see as positive. These are the "boring victories" we was referring to earlier.

For example:

• Today I avoided eating 3 cookies.
• Today I had an argument with my mum and kept my cool and empathised with her.
• Today I had a rough start to the day but reclaimed victory by going for a walk to "reset".

Not the biggest of victories right?

Well, it depends what you mean by "big". They're "big" considering the quality of your life is made from these micro victories. So regardless of size, they all add up.

In fact, the whole point is; if you want to make real improvements to the quality of your life (your mental and physical health, your finances, relationships etc.) make these "small victories" more important than any so called "big victory" in your life.

Got out of bed and had a shower instead of sleeping in > got married & earned £50,000.

Go deeper...

I got this concept of "boring victories" from Chris Williamson's podcast with 6x Mr. Olympia Chris Bumstead.

Chris Bumstead was mentioning the small things he had to do repeatedly in preparation for his competition. He said many of these small things would seem laughable to mention to other people in the hopes for recognition.

• "I ate well today."
• "I did an extra rep."
• "I weighed my meals correctly today."

So the next time you find yourself overlooking a boring victory, take a moment. Soak it in. And realise these are the "big victories" your life is made of.

Now let's cover this week's social skills tip...

2.) Let them.

The hardest thing about socialising is the urge to change other people's behaviour.

It's devilishly easy to convince yourself you know best and if only, IF ONLY, other people did what you told them to everything would be fine. ALL THE TIME.

But this desire to change other people is exactly what makes our social lives hell.

Because as you know all too well, people rarely change when forced to do so. (If anything they do the exact opposite!).

The big picture...

One of the best ways to get someone to change their behaviour is to deliver an assertion message.

When you (action), I feel (emotion) because (effect).

Then you call up every bit of empathy and emotional intelligence you have to explore the issue further (after you clear the obstacle of the other person's resistance out of the way first).

But although this process works and I made a whole video about it, you need to practice the gut-wrenching vulnerability to deliver the message in the first place, not to mention solving conflict in this way, although effective, takes time.

So here's an easier alternative...

You can deliver a similar assertion message without getting emotionally involved in the issue or explicitly demanding the other person change their behaviour, simply by highlighting the "logical consequences" of this person's actions.

This concept was popularised by an Austrian psychiatrist Rudolf Dreikurs as a method of helping children develop self directed behaviour change.

Let me explain the logic behind this by highlighting how this plays out with kids...

To change a child's behaviour most people use 1 of 3 options.

1.) Punishment

2.) Reward

3.) Convincing through logic

But here are the problems with these approaches...

1.) If you overly punish a kid, they just become submissive.

2.) If you reward a kid this can harm their personality and show a lack of respect to their autonomy (their choice to freely contribute without reward). Also, if you continue to reward a kid and the rewards run out, the kid will stop that behaviour because it'll reason "well if I'm not getting rewarded what's the point of continuing? What's in it for me?".

3.) Thirdly, if you try to convince a kid to do or not do something through "logic" they'll switch off and ignore you (a term known as becoming "mother deaf").

So the better alternative is to let nature take its course...

• 1.) After observing the behaviour you'd ideally like this person to change, ask: what would happen if I didn't interfere? Search for the consequence.
• 2.) Use: when/if you (behaviour) then (consequence) to communicate this to the other person.
• 3.) Detach yourself emotionally from the issue, if others realise you're not emotionally involved, they realise its all their ball game.

For example, staying with the context of kids for a moment, if you've just bought your child a bike but he keeps forgetting to lock it up outside, the natural consequence of his actions is his bike will get stolen. So you don't have to go round in circles trying to get him to lock it up, you simply let nature take its course and highlight to him...

"When you don't lock your bike up outside, there's a high chance it might get stolen. And if it does get stolen you'll have to wait until your next birthday to get a new one."

Now let's cover how to apply this to adults...

Scheduled a call with someone but they arrive late?

• The natural consequence is you start the call without them, leave or have less time during the meeting.
• Communicate the natural consequence to them like this: "if you arrive more than 10 minutes late, I won't join the call."
• Or simply leave the call after 10 minutes then make it clear to them why you left when they reach out.

Someone you know disrespects you in public?

• The natural consequence is you stop wanting to spend time with them.
• "If you bring up the story I told you to not mention, I'm going to leave the conversation."

Someone keeps interrupting you while you talk?

• The natural consequence is you'll become disinterested and want to stop talking to them.
• "If you keep interrupting me I'm not going to continue the conversation. I'd like to talk to you but I only want to do so when we both listen to each other."

Your boss keeps piling more work on you even after you've stated you're already too busy?

• The natural consequence is you'll begin feeling overwhelmed and your performance on your other projects will decrease.
• "If you keep increasing my workload before I'm ready to handle new projects, I'll have to abandon the old projects you've already assigned me."

Someone doesn't pay you back in time after you lend them money?

• The natural consequence is you'll lose trust for them and won't offer to help again.
• "If you don't pay me back the money, I won't lend you anything else in the future."

Note: when you deliver your assertion message with "if you (action) then (consequence)" you're delivering an ultimatum. And there's a fine line between healthy and unhealthy ultimatums.

Unhealthy ultimatums:

• "We need to have kids or else."
• "If you go out with your friends I'm not talking to you for the rest of the week."
• "If you don't work late tonight, I'm not giving you the time off you requested."

Healthy ultimatums:

• "If you aren't ready to leave by 7, I will take a taxi without you."
• "If I find out you're drinking again I won't loan you money."
• "If you don't tell me what you want for dinner, I'll decide in the next hour."

Final note: of course some of these situations might require more context and conflict management. However, the logical consequences technique is a great way to assert your boundaries quickly and without too much emotional involvement. It's up to you, after delivering it, if you want to resolve the conflict further with open and honest communication or just let the consequence plan out.

Now let's finalise with this week's personal realisation...

3.) The gift of inconvenience.

This week I went to a barbers to get my haircut for the first time in 2 years.

Not because I have dreadlocks (as you know) but because I've been cutting it myself to save time and avoid the inconvenience of walking to a barber shop, waiting, talking to a stranger and then getting my haircut.

But when I went to the barbers this week, I was reminded of how streamlining your life for convenience can rob you of certain joys and opportunities.

When I was there, I had a great time. I spoke to the barber, a young Kurdish man who's been living in the UK for a few years, he gave me a crash course about his country and we spoke about the many cultural differences between his culture and mine.

I left the barbers with a haircut, a new friend and having had a refreshing conversation that changed my outlook on life.

So I implore you to ask yourself...

In what areas of your life and you trading meaning for convenience?

As the writer Oliver Burkeman says:

"When you render the process more convenient, you drain it of its meaning."

Let me know if you find anything.

Thank you for reading,

Until next week!

Lew

P.s. storm Bert has gone from UK, icy mornings are here ☃️. Kinda liking it. It's chill. Social skills course material is coming along nicely, just typed up all my analogue notes to digital. Still got 15ish books left to read. Currently reading: never split the difference (re-read) and 7 and a half lessons about the brain. Stay tuned!

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