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Achieve, Heal and Discover Issue #20

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A biweekly newsletter for dreamers, builders and creators to achieve (get things done), heal (fix what’s broken) and discover (learn something new).​

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How boundless would you feel if you were able to get things done with no friction?

It’s possible but you’ll need grapple with 3 limiters:

• Internal Resistance
• External Pressure
• Time Management

If you search, you’ll find mountains of resources that offer exhaustive solutions to each of these 3 limiters. To get you started here are some principles that have been thinking about a lot lately:

1. Discipline is proactive laziness (Removing internal resistance)
2. Reassurance seeking is a bad coping strategy (Removing external pressure)
3. Focus on velocity, not speed (Focusing time management)

Let’s break it down!

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Achieve (Get things Done)

Discipline is proactive laziness.

And that is good news. The glorified idea of discipline should be worshiped less. At its core, what is discipline? It is simply a system that automates the kinds of behaviors we want.

Systems > Self-control

A disciplined person isn't skilled with high self-control, they are simply more skilled at minimizing temptation. In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear highlights that self control is a short term strategy. It actually costs your body energy the entire duration of resisting a temptation. Eventually, your energy will run out and the bad habit will be reintroduced. Self-control holds space until a new habit can take over.

Discipline should ecourage you to hack your life so the things you want become the only option, no self-control necessary.

Here are examples:

• Instead of limiting yourself to a smaller bowl of ice cream -> Don’t bring Ice cream into your home.
• Instead of trying to get in extra steps on your step counter -> Always park far from the entrance
• Instead of trying to read more books -> No phones are allowed in your room and books must be available on the nightstand.
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Heal (Fix What’s Broken)

Reassurance is a bad coping strategy, you don't need it.

Reassurance seeking is when we outsource the emotional labor of uncertainty management to other people. We seek feedback not to learn and grow but rather to feel better about what we are doing.

Here is the problem: breaking the natural flow of the journey to seek reassurance will cripple your ability to fully embrace progress without second guessing yourself.

Here is what you can do to bypass the next time you feel a need to seek reassurance:

1. Expect that the desire for reassurance seeking will happen, it is not your fault, it's simply automatic
2. Notice the avoidance behind the need, ask yourself, “What feeling am I not wanting to deal with right now?”
3. Resist the temptation to “get rid” of how you feel, instead, sit back and notice it, write about the feeling on a black paper. Ride the wave until the wave becomes still waters.

Remember, you have nothing to prove. In truth, you have something others need. Push through to the end of the journey.

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Discover (Learn Something New)

Focus on velocity, not speed

Velocity and speed are different things. Speed is the time rate at which an object is moving along a path. Essentially, speed is how far you can go within a limited amount of time. Velocity, however, measures displacement. It looks at the rate and direction of an object's movement. Velocity measures a journey by milestones and progress.

In other words, don’t focus on how much you can get done within a day, instead, focus on how each day is contributing towards an ultimate goal.

Here is a story from Oliver Burkeman’s book, “Four Thousand Weeks” that shows how velocity is prioritized over speed.

In the story Warren Buffett’s pilot asks for advice on how to be rich. Buffett tells the man to make a list of the top twenty-five things he wants out of life and then to arrange them in order, from the most important to the least. The top five, Buffett says, should be those around which he organizes his time. But contrary to what the pilot might have been expecting to hear, the remaining twenty, Buffett allegedly explains, aren’t the second-tier priorities to which he should turn when he gets the chance. Far from it. In fact, they’re the ones he should actively avoid at all costs—because they’re the ambitions insufficiently important to him to form the core of his life yet seductive enough to distract him from the ones that matter most.

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I’m grateful for you!

Edvardo Archer

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P.S

I would like to run a townhall discussion on the Teen Mental Health Challenges of our time. It will be something happening within the next 2 weeks. If you would be interested in particpating, hit reply and I'll include you in my planning.

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