On Barack Obama and Teachable Moments

When I look at Barack Obama, I see my children.

Like him, they’re biracial and have a black, African father and a white, North American mother. But more than that, in Barack Obama, I see excellence, achievement, perseverance and a world of possibilities for my girls. I see a “My child goes to Harvard” bumper sticker on the shopping cart that will be both my vehicle and home once I start paying for Harvard.

I also read too many self-help books and articles. It is a problem for which I blame my BFF, Oprah. So far, despite my best efforts, I have not been able to locate a twelve-step program for people who relentlessly research the ‘best practices’ for every mundane fact of life. There is no Researchers Anonymous. Trust me. I’ve researched it.

A child-rearing best practice (or so I’ve read – as evidenced by my ill-behaved children, I can claim no practical experience or expertise in this area) is to find learning moments in everyday life. When your child displays interest in something, jump on that interest, wrestle it to the ground and strangle it into a life lesson.

One day not too long ago, I was having a moment with my new BFF, Barack Obama (Oprah endorsed the relationship and is completely okay with sharing my affections. We’re all cool like that). I was watching the musical paean to him by Will.I.Am and a host of other trendy folk and getting all pumped up on “Yes We Can!”.

Attracted by the music, rather than the message (oh, Will.I.Am, you are crafty!) Miss Sophie came and sat in my lap and we you-tubed democratic p(r)opaganda together. In this moment, I heard the best practices, want-to-be-a-good-mommy voice in my head say “Yes You Can seize this learning moment! Yes You Can impart wisdom! Yes You Can inspire this child to aspire to Harvard!”

So I did. The life lesson was this: Sophie, you are just like Barack Obama. Like Barack Obama, no one can hold you back and you can be anyone or anything you want. You can be a mommy, a teacher, a doctor, a juggler, a firefighter…you just need to work hard and stay focused on your dreams. And go to Harvard.

Naturally, I couldn’t just leave it at that. I needed a little satisfaction, too, a pay-off for my good-mama efforts. I asked her: “Sophie, what do you think you might like to be when you grow up?” while visions of a masked, gowned surgical Sophie danced in my head.

My darling girl completely grasped the lesson: there are no limits to imagination. She replied, with great passion and enthusiasm:

“I want to be a mermaid with red hair and a green tail!”

My not-so-best practices, but silent, reaction was as follows:

  1. Yeah, should be a lot of openings in that.
  2. Effing Disney. Those simpering princesses are patriarchal wet dreams. Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Cinderella and Snow White are all motherless and/or mothered by an evil witch (as are my children). They flutter. They sing. They give up their voices to get their man (literally – that’s the plot of The Little Mermaid!). Little critters do their bidding, but not one of them aspire to do anything of substance beyond rodent-charming. Yet these befrocked and befluttered future fiancées capture the four year old imagination and trump visions of human excellence every time. President Obama, would you consider wearing a ruffled pink dress and sparkles in your hair? Pretty please?
  3. Sophie, darling, you can be any damn thing you’d like after you finish medical school.

But I have not given up. Thanks to the historic choice of millions of Americans one hundred days ago, my beloved Barack will be around to inspire life lessons and learning moments for at least another four years.

Let’s hope that during that time, President Barack Obama gives Princess Ariel a run for her money – or, even better, makes a movie with her. Now that he’s taken on the presidency, maybe he can take on Disney. Now THAT would change the world.

Update 1: now, when she grows up, the child wants to be Barack Obama’s wife. She and I are going to have a briefing on the tenets of feminism very soon.

Update 2: Disney has a new princess, Princess Tiana. She’s black and she has a mother! And that mother is Oprah Winfrey! I normally frown on the overuse of exclamation points but this occasion calls for it! Hallelujah.

April 30, 2009 | filed under: Family, Love, Meaning

2 people have we need you too.

How to Quit Anything (Smoking, Your Man, Junk Food, Smoking Your Man’s Junk Food…)

Want to quit a bad habit? Change your focus from quitting something old and tired to starting something new and impassioned.

Just do it strategically. Time your break with bad habits past to coincide with new and major life events. Get busy, and make sure you are going to stay very, VERY busy for a good long while.

I realize that this is somewhat counterintuitive: it might not be a good idea to try to stop smoking in the midst of moving house or lose weight when starting a new job. Lots of articles and experts tell us that. I’ve even said it: save your will power: don’t spread it out over several causes. Use it strategically and sparingly, preferably after a good snack.

Yet the kind of “quitting” I am talking about doesn’t require will power. It requires passion. It requires a mission.

Here’s a fabled example of what I mean. William Griffith Wilson, “Bill W”, a stock broker and lifelong alcoholic, was admitted to hospital more than fifty times for his excessive and compulsive drinking. Doctors despaired and declared him a lost cause. One of his doctors even promised him a drink if he would go over to the next room tell his story to a young man who was also battling alcoholism. In essence, Bill W was to serve as the cautionary tale to the younger man and scare him straight. It worked – for both of them. Bill W found such meaning and passion in counseling another person that he quit drinking – and founded Alcoholics Anonymous*.

Okay, now for a more mundane, real-life example. Women often lose weight in the beginning of a new relationship. And what is more all-consuming than new love? If you can lose weight when all hopped up on mind-altering chemicals, well then hats-off to you and yes, you can do just about anything you decide. Including ________________ (you fill in the blank).

This perhaps gives us a clue as to what really works when trying to make changes. Basically, change everything, be passionately focussed on something else, and be busy, busy, busy.

I know that this method works. In my own life, I quit smoking when I moved from Taiwan back to Canada; quit TV and untidiness when I moved house; got over a failed relationship when I moved house, too; lost weight when I went backpacking in Europe; and lost weight when I started a coffee shop.

A profound change in routine – moving from one country to another, from one home to another, starting a business, or traveling – takes your mind off of ‘missing’ that bad habit or bad boyfriend. At the same time, the novelty and demands of a new venture or new environment fill the gap with positive, productive new habits. Cool.

In these circumstances, when you change everything, you only need will power initially and then distraction, novelty and sheer lack of time are the names of the game.

This works because bad habits are initially a function of boredom. Why was I smoking in a teeny-tiny Taiwanese alley between kindergarten classes? (Settle down, I was the teacher, not the student. Actually, that probably does not make it any better.) Because I had nothing better to do. Why was I stroking the bag of potato chips like a lover? Because I didn’t have anything/anyone better to do. Why was I watching hours after hours of soap operas, Divorce Court and Maury Pauvich? Well, I definitely had better things to do, but just did not feel inclined to do them. Boredom.

Passion is the antidote to boredom. Failing that, being busy is a good prescription, too.

Start something new, something time- and mind-space-intensive, and then let go of the bad habit. If no life-altering trips, moves, or business ventures are in your immediate future, then manufacture a set of all-consuming new life circumstances.

  • Enrol in a fitness boot camp.
  • Declutter on an all-consuming, grand scale (ie do you really, really, really need it? Would you stop to grab it during your panicked, naked exit from the house in a housefire? Ask yourself this about every object and person – apart from those whom you are legally obliged to feed and water – in your home beyond running water and electricity. Look at every object as a tax on your breathing space and as a dollar figure that ought to be in your bank account and is not. Resentment will rapidly clear your garage and your life).
  • Volunteer to lead a project.
  • Volunteer to lead a project in Taiwan.
  • Move.
  • Schedule an art show before you’ve even started painting.
  • Have a child (you will have no time for bad habits for at least four years. Unfortunately your good habits like regular bathing and basic grooming will also get that memo and go on leave, too.)

Change everything, including – especially - the little routines that reinforce your habit, whether it be smoke breaks between classes, or a set of friends with whom you drink. When your lifestyle is novel, busy, and exciting, the sting of loss is softened when you notice that ice cream is no longer your best friend.

Distraction, and a new, impassioned routine build and reinforce new habits. It is a lifestyle reboot.

This is why serious issues, like drugs and alchol addictions, benefit from stays in treatment centres. This is why savvy parents over-schedule their teenagers in after-school activities. This is why Mae West said that “the best way to get over a man is to get under a new one.”

( I personally set my moral compass by the teachings of the scandalous Miss Mae West, but that is another post entirely, dear readers. To each her own.)

Although I am a fan of timing your change in habits with huge, sweeping, long-term lifestyle changes, in reality you probably only need six weeks to really, truly, conclusively let a bad habit go. (Heartbreak included.)

Changes of scenery, strategic visits and well-timed visits are not running away from your problems (because wherever you go, there you are), they are just a good, hard, forced page break in the book of life.

Oh, and as for the six weeks – research shows that this is the length of time it takes to start and ingrain a new habit.

Notice I didn’t say break a bad habit – I said start a new and improved one. Starting something new is oh-so-much easier than quitting something. And in your newfound, all-consuming passion for bellydancing/quantum mechanics/casual sex/pick-up-stix (the last two may be the same thing), you might just let go of an old habit. Easily.

* From “The Law of Unselfishness” by Fulton Oursler, in Stephen Covey’s book Everyday Greatness.

April 29, 2009 | filed under: How To, Meaning, Purpose

no people have we need you too.

How to Break Up Gracefully…Or Not

Dear Readers, I’m breaking a rule here. I had resolved never to write about current events and the ephemera of pop culture. My intention for this blog was to write only timeless pieces of heartbreaking truth.

Yet a morning radio talk show – The Kid Carson Show on The Beat 94.5 – has me all fired up. (I’m deep like that.) Although in writing about it, I’m breaking my own rule, this topic does in fact satisfy one of my criterion: heartbreaking truth. Literally, because the subject at hand is break ups.

Briefly, here is the dilemma, according to man-child Kid Carson. (Kid: love you. Seriously, I do.) When it comes to break ups, men want an easy out, while woman want soul-wrenching, teeth-gnashing, closure-inducing honesty.

Even when the man in question is slightly more evolved, and knows that he ought to give his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend honesty, he still wants honesty-lite. Or, more accurately, honesty that is met with female composure and a brave yet tremulous smile. Men want to tell the truth (maybe) but only if it is consequence-free – i.e. no one throws muffins.

My darlings – Kid and and the legion of confused yet well-intentioned men you represent – let me set you straight. The problem is not that you haven’t discovered the fail-safe method for the feel-good, emotion-free break up. The problem is oh-so-much bigger than that.

First, the win-win break up doesn’t exist. If you could both walk away happy, you wouldn’t walk away.

Second, you are trying to reconcile two conflicting and irreconciliable goals. In girl language, it is like wishing and hoping and praying that you can consume 4,000 extra calories a day and still lose weight. Wishing ain’t gonna make it so.

Let me explain.

Goal 1 of our two irreconciliable break up goals seeks the no muss, no fuss break up (for the breaker upper, and let the pain fall where it may for the recipient of the bad news).

Goal 2, on the other hand, seeks respect, honesty, and trying to do what is best and right for the person who will be hurt.

Goal 1 is self-centred. What is best for me? How can I minimize the unpleasantness of this awkward situation? Which chair in this coffee shop is closest to the exit?

Goal 2 is other-centred. What is best for this person whom I am hurting with my decision? How can I end this relationship in a way that allows this person to retain their dignity AND learn and grow from this experience? How can I ensure that they will not be needlessly fucked up for months on end over this lame-ass break up?

The methods of Goal 1 are as follows: e-mail; voicemail; text message; or any kind of meeting in a public place that ends with pat lines like “I just want to be friends”; “It is not you, it is me”; “I’d rather be a good friend than a bad boyfriend” or so on.

However, should all of those methods be too hard on your delicate and underdeveloped cojones, there is always invisibility. This requires going on vacation and never coming back, and/or ducking calls, and/or blocking messages, and and/or basically avoiding the woman until she realizes “hey, I think we broke up. Motherlover.” This, my darlings, WILL mess with your ex’s head and cause serious trust issues in her next romance. I know. Hello Dexter.

The methods of Goal 2 are simpler, yet more difficult. They involve behaving like an actual, grown-ass man, and having compassion for the other person. It requires a willingness to take responsibility for the pain that your decision causes her. So these scenarios involve **gasp** talking and genuine emotional exchange.

Let’s apply the Campsite rule to break ups. If you are a conscientious camper, you leave the campsite cleaner and in better condition than it was when you arrived (ie no beer cans, garbage, wreckage, debris). Similarly, if you are a conscientious dater (nay, human), insofar as humanly possible by your own efforts, leave the other person in better shape than you found her (no emotional wreckage from a bungled break up, thank you very much).

I’m borrowing this rule from Dan Savage, sex-columnist/educator/pervert wunderkind. According to Dan, these are the parameters for the Campsite rule: leave the other person with no STIs, no fertilized eggs, no restraining orders, no emotional trauma, and with improved sexual skills. Dan uses this rule for as a guideline for relationships where one partner is older and wiser than the other but it applies equally to situations where one person has the power and the other person is vulnerable. Hellooooooo break ups!

Now, while we’re on the sex-ed bent, remember when we were teenagers and adults were telling us that if we couldn’t talk about sex, then we weren’t ready to have sex? Remember how we scoffed at the old people?

Now that we’re in our twenties and thirties…well they were kind of right, weren’t they? If you can’t talk about it, you shouldn’t be doing it.

The same thing holds true for relationships and break ups. If you can’t handle talking about the break up in a real, honest, adult way – and that includes being prepared to deal with real and unpleasant emotions – then you shouldn’t get in a relationship in the first place. Because real, honest adults have real emotions, and they are not always pretty.

So, to recap.

When deciding how to break up with someone, use the Campsite rule. Leave the person better than you found them. Presumably, when you hooked up, your partner was not a raving, raging mess fraught with insecurity over the dirt done to her by the last guy. (If she was, my darling, then you have bigger issues than simply how to break up. Your choosing process needs a little help, too.)

Then, when applying the Campsite rule, and leaving the person better than you found them – ie with some dignity and closure – choose your method of break up from the one of three zones.

In a break up, there is the no-go zone, the grey zone, and the Good Camper Zone. (Hint: the Good Camper leaves a campsite how? Yes! Better than he found it!). Here’s how the break up zones break down:

  1. No-Go Zone – Email, Voicemail, Text message, no communication at all
  2. Grey Zone – Phone
  3. Good Camper Zone – Face to face. Bonus points if you do it face-to-face in a private – not public – place. Hey, you made love sweet love in private, right? Make the act of un-loving equally private.

Remember, if you are not mature enough to handle a mature, honest, adult break up, you are not mature enough to be in a mature, honest adult relationship. So break up with both your girlfriends now and start a new relationship with a clean slate.

Final question: yegads, why are men so afraid of women? Tears, tantrums and flying food can’t kill you. Trust me. I know. I have toddlers.

April 28, 2009 | filed under: How To, Love, Purpose, Sex

no people have we need you too.

Eff Multi-Tasking (Or: How to Do More By Doing Less)

If you want to create, stop multitasking and start single-tasking. (In other words, focus, dammit.)

I admit it. I am a single-tasker. Not necessarily by choice, just by sheer natural limitation. Hand on heart, I can only focus on one – maybe two – things at a time. When I am reading, I literally cannot hear you if you speak. I know, deep and surely to the depths of my soul, that I cannot drive safely and talk on my phone at the same time. If the TV is on, you can be certain that I am not listening to what you say even if I pretend otherwise.

This often makes me feel like an atheist at a baptism. Friends are evangelical task jugglers bragging about how many plates they have in the air. Job interviewers ask if you’re a strong multi-tasker. (A good – and true – response to that is “I know how to manage interruptions.” No need to mention that your chief tool in that endeavour is the stink-eye followed closely by blocks of judicious call screening.) Dates take cell phone calls while at dinner (but do not get dessert).

The Downside of Multi-tasking
An article in the NY Times by writer Steve Lohr says that I am not in fact “challenged” but realistic. Lohr writes that according to neuroscientist René Marois, a “core limitation” of our brain is “an inability to concentrate on two things at once”.

Lohr goes on to write that
“In a recent study, a group of Microsoft workers took, on average, 15 minutes to return to serious mental tasks, like writing reports or computer code, after responding to incoming e-mail or instant messages. They strayed off to reply to other messages or browse news, sports or entertainment Web sites.”

Well, I am no neuroscientist but that does not sound very productive, does it?

It is not. Multitasking fragments our attention and stalls the momentum necessary for deep thinking. We’re not doing more with less; we’re doing more and achieving less – and, as evidenced by our jam-packed schedules and work hour ‘creep’, we’re taking longer to do it.

Madness. Multitasking madness, I tell you.

The Upside of Single-Tasking
All right kids. The experts say multitasking is bollocks. I am not ‘special’ because I cannot multitask effectively. We are all idiots if we think that multitasking will help us generate and create and do ‘more’ and do it better. Eff multi-tasking. If you want results, focus and flow.

When I talk about ‘flow’, I’m not talking about some mystical force that sweeps you up and inspires you to dance naked in a field of daisies (feel free to do that if you like, and send me the photos). Flow is not a trance. Well, okay, it is, but not in a hippy-dippy, peyote-enhanced sense of the word.

Flow, to me, is right brain thinking. I learned about right-brain thinking years ago when I was learning to draw, but the theory explains so much more than just “Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain”.

The website for the book quotes neurosurgeon Richard Bergland, who says that
“You have two brains: a left and a right. Modern brain scientists now know that your left brain is your verbal and rational brain; it thinks serially and reduces its thoughts to numbers, letters and words… Your right brain is your nonverbal and intuitive brain; it thinks in patterns, or pictures, composed of ‘whole things,’ and does not comprehend reductions, either numbers, letters, or words.”

The fact that your right brain does not use numbers, letters, or words means that when deep in thought, being called back to the left side of your brain is literally a jarring experience. Your brain has to switch gears.

In my experience, the right brain also does not experience time in a linear way. When I am immersed in a right-brain activity, I lose all sense of time. The only thing at hand is the pleasure and joyous work of creating. Being interrupted and called back to reality – back to the linear, rational left brain – is a jarring, and irritable experience, and it takes time for my inflamed and now ornery brain to switch gears. The immediate momentum I had for the creative process is lost. The flame goes out.

And this, dear reader is why we must immediately rise up and overthrow the hegemony of multitasking. Just as our brethren at Microsoft take an average of fifteen minutes to get back to ‘serious mental tasks’ (umm, like effective security? Just asking), you and I lose our momentum and intensity of focus when we try to do many things at once instead of one or two things well.
Give Yourself Time
If you want to create, give yourself to time to focus and flow.

I realize that for many of us, this is not a highly practical solution. There are kids to shoo off the back of the sofa, dogs to walk, demanding jobs and relationships, gyms and telemarketers to avoid, facebook addictions to feed, twitters to tweet, and just not enough time in the day.

But I swear to you, up, down, sideways and doggy-style, that multi-tasking is the culprit stealing our time. Focusing on one thing at a time will actually increase the intensity of your focus and allow you to accomplish more in less time.

I use the alternating weekends when my children are with their father to be creative. Or after they go to bed, which is a pale second choice, however. The end of the day is the worst time to tap into will power. I am still living a life that requires a degree of muscling through, so my will power reserves are depleted long before bedtime (hell, by lunchtime! Often even before breakfast!).

For example, when I decided – really decided – to launch this blog, I chose a Saturday when the children were not at home, when I had no commitments and no distractions. I took care of all my pesky Saturday tasks (shopping, cleaning, errands) first thing in the morning, and then sat down to make the magic happen (ahem).

While high on will power, I also took on and completed all the tasks that I do not like and would usually find a way to avoid or delay. Figuring out domains and software and hosting and all the mundane infrastructure of blogging is not what gets me all a-tingle. Case in point: my microwave clock is still blinking 00:00. Only steroid-enhanced will power or an act of God will make that change.

Boring infrastructure in place, kids and distractions contained, I wrote. And wrote. And wrote. When my energy waned, I ate an orange and turned my attention to researching points that needed flesh. Then, when that flash of citrus-powered glucose re-ignited my brain, I wrote some more.

When I was ‘done’, I had a functioning website, five complete posts, as well as outlines, research, notes and titles for several more pieces. Go, right brain, go!

Give Yourself Tools that Work
In the process of starting this blog, I did two things right: I carved out uninterrupted time to single-task, and I rode the wave of will power (hard).

I harnessed the power of will power to build myself a delivery system that will keep churning even once the fuel runs out. In other words, I planned and wrote ahead.

For example, my goal is to publish five entries per week. Knowing that I will do this while juggling all of my regular responsibilities – working a fulltime job, mothering two small girls and keeping up on my social networking habit – and that will power inevitably abandons me in a day or two, I took my own advice.

Realizing – and accepting – that on Thursday night I might not feel like writing, or that inspiration would take a holiday and I would have nothing to write about, I wrote several ‘extra’ posts. I manufactured a little inventory, if you will.

Now, I feel confident that I can achieve my goal (five posts), am less anxious about failing which in turns frees my mind to focus on achieving. I avoid the self-flagellation that comes with not meeting my goals – and there is nothing that stalls action and accomplishment as effectively as self-abuse. In addition, now everything I write this week is gravy. Not only am I meeting my goal, but I am exceeding it. Kill me now. It does not get better than this.

This brings us to the next observation. The exaltation of accomplishment rolls in just as will power rolls out.

Like will power, accomplishment is a fuel. Time your plans so that just as will power is running out, accomplishment kicks in. And the amazing thing is this: accomplishment generates more will power.

If you use will power and accomplishment as fuel, and assemble the right tools for the job – including single-tasking – you will be able to accomplish your objectives with greater ease, and faster, than if you drag your ass through life enslaved to the demands of your crackberry.

What are these tools? When you set out to make a change, or achieve a goal, or create something of value, your tool box looks like this:

  • Will Power (fuel)
  • Time
  • Single-tasking
  • Right brain thinking
  • Plan
  • Action
  • Accomplishment (fuel)

In essence, I achieve a simple goal this week (actually two, because I also lost five pounds this week) by assembling and using the right tools. You can do the same.

The Get ‘Er Done Methodology
Once you’ve got your tools and know how to use them, here’s what you do:

  1. Single-task. Focus. No interruptions. Give yourself time to tap into your right brain.
  2. Accept and accomodate reality. Acknowledge your constraints and the solutions up-front. No magical thinking around reality.
  3. Harness will power (initially). Use the fuel of will power to build and kick-start a self-perpetuating delivery system that both acknowledges your constraints and does an end-run around them to produce your goals.
  4. Refuel. Time it so that the fuel of accomplishment kicks in just as the fuel of will power is petering out.
  5. Repeat. Often.

Well, well, well. Lookie here. I set out to write a short and simple post on why multi-tasking is a bad idea, and ended up writing that and a step-by-step plan for achieving goals. Thank you very much, single-tasking right brain. (Have I made my point, darlings?)

In Case You Missed It, Here’s My Point: Multi-tasking is Dumb
We all can do more with less time – but multitasking is not the method, it is madness.

Focus your time and energy on the process of creating, and allow yourself to do that uninterrupted. Your productivity, and your pleasure in producing, will increase exponentially. I had an amazing time this week creating this blog and getting skinny (or, more accurately, less fat), and I want that for you, too. Let’s be better people together.

And if you do make it out to that meadow…I’m still waiting for the pictures.

April 25, 2009 | filed under: How To, Purpose, Work

1 person has we need you too.

On Bald Men

Bald is beautiful – and I don’t mean that in a “baby it is ok/ it happens to everybody/ there are other ways to please me” kind of way.

I mean bald men are freaking sexy and I want to do every last one of you.

Bald is extravagantly masculine – much like women with big breasts are wrenchingly and jaw-droppingly feminine. I’m not just talking out of my posterior here. Baldness in men is caused by one enzyme’s “particularly overzealous conversion of testosterone into (DHT) or dihydrotestosterone“. Female pattern baldness is linked to high testosterone levels coupled with a loss of estrogen. Testosterone, and lots of it, says “manly” to me.

I especially love the balding guys who choose to shave all the stubborn stragglers off rather than rocking the comb-over or the Friar Tuck. That is bold. Confident. Shiny. Hot. Even – especially – if he wept while doing it.

So yes, my Star Trek captain of choice is Jean-Luc Picard (stardate: any time, baby).

What has this got to do with personal development?

Well, if I believed in this sort of thing – and I emphatically do not – maybe this would be my law-of-attraction way of manifesting myself a hot bald boyfriend.

In actuality, much like a spike in blood glucose bolsters will power, this post is the shot of sugar needed to strengthen our resolve (okay, my resolve) to tackle more meaningful topics.

Bald men are my three o’clock snack. I’m such a man-eater.

April 24, 2009 | filed under: Bodies, Love, Sex

3 people have we need you too.

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice: That’s What Will Power is Made Of

So my darlings, it turns out that my instincts about will power were spot-on.

I wrote that will power is a precious, fleeting and unsustainable resource. (I also wrote ‘eff will power’ but that is entirely beside my current point.)

Turns out…it is! My folk wisdom (ahem) has been validated by new (to me) research.

According to Roy F. Baumeister, PhD (and summarized handily by Kelly McGonigal),

  • will power is NOT a personality trait that you either have or sadly lack;
  • will power is a physiological ‘mind-body’ response to challenge that is much like your fight or fight instincts (visceral and temporary); and
  • will power is limited and, like a vampire, drains your body’s physical energy resources.

In fact, will power literally tires you out. Exerting will power requires glucose – and lots of it – which triggers a drop in blood sugar, which in turn causes whole body fatigue.

What does all of this mean? It goes like this, dear reader:

First, dieters are hooped. Need to bolster your resolve not to eat sweets? Eat a sugary snack. Son of a biscuit, how unfair is that?

Second, when trying to accomplish your goals, it helps to get your diet right. Dips in blood sugar sap your ability to summon will power. Complex carbs, protein, lots of small meals keep your blood sugar stable so that when you need a hit of will power, your glucose resources are ready and willing.

Third, conserve your will power resources. Set up your life so that you do not need to muscle through it – that way when you really need it, you can tap into it and the sweet syrup of will power will flow.

Fourth, and most importantly, I was right! I was right ! I was right!

Told you so.

April 23, 2009 | filed under: Bodies, Purpose, Will Power Series

3 people have we need you too.

Why You (and I) Should Stop Complaining

When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation or accept it.  All else is madness. - Eckhart Tolle

Want to change your miserable life?  Stop complaining.  You will be amazed at what happens next.

In the October 2007 issue of O magazine, Martha Beck wrote a life-changing article about complaining.  This article was part of a larger ’Anti-Complain Campaign’ but that unfortunately that campaign completely slipped under my radar, as I only discovered this article many moons later.   I am trying not complain about it.

I was at an awful diner trying to distract myself from an equally awful rice bowl by reading through lunch.  The magazine choices were as aged as the defeated lettuce garnishing my side plate.  At hand were antiquated National Geographics or an Oprah that, while outdated, was a relative infant compared to its companions.

It was a tough choice.  I am a lover of both Africa and Oprah, but here Oprah triumphed over the beautifully bejeweled Masaai.  Thank goodness she did, because if not, I would still be married.

In the article, Martha Beck calls complaining ‘venting’ and says that

The effect of emotional venting is to sustain an unsatisfactory status quo. Most people think the opposite, that complaining is part of an effort to change an unsatisfying situation. Nope. Complaining lets off pressure so that we neither explode with frustration nor feel compelled to take the often risky steps of openly opposing a difficult person or situation. Keeping emotional pressure tolerably low doesn’t change problematic circumstances but rather perpetuates them.

So…stop complaining and you will either explode or take action (or both; the first may precede the second).

This truth resonated with me.  In eighties era feminist lingo of my toddler years (ahem), ‘CLICK’.  Or, in contemporary Oprah-speak, I had an ‘a-ha moment’.

For eighteen months, I had been incessantly whining, complaining, whingeing, moaning, bemoaning, suffering out loud, shaking my fist at the heavens and raging at the machine over the state of my relationship.

We went back and forth.  I begged him to leave.  He stayed.  I changed my mind.   Repeatedly.  Nothing changed – which is to say, I did nothing except complain.

Moments after I read this article,  I stopped complaining about my relationship.  Within six weeks the path was clear and within two months we finally and irrevocably parted ways.

Now, by no means am I suggesting that the end of a relationship is a success story.

My point is that I was in a miserable situation and complaining allowed me stay in it.  Complaining allows the steam to escape.  When you stop complaining, or as Martha Beck calls it ‘going on a vent-fast’,  there is no release.  All of that misery builds up until the situation is truly, madly, deeply intolerable and you are forced to take action.

Or explode.  The choice is yours.

April 22, 2009 | filed under: Purpose

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Eff Will Power

In my last post on will power, I suggested – nay, shouted to the heavens – that will power is not a necessary ingredient in the recipe for success.

Will power is a casual boyfriend – fun when he’s around but temporary, fickle, and mercilessly short-term. Trying to build your longterm plans on this kind of foundation is a bad, bad, BAD idea. (We can talk about dating in another post, my darlings.)

However you can harness the energy of will power, when it deigns to pay you a visit, and use that energy to set up systems that will serve your purpose and help you achieve your goals. Automate will power, if you will.

Steve Pavlina (he’s the male, online Oprah of personal development) writes much the same thing in his blog, Personal Development for Smart People:

“Don’t try to tackle your problems and challenges in such a way that a high level of willpower is required every day. Willpower is unsustainable. If you attempt to use it for too long, you’ll burn out. It requires a level of energy that you can maintain only for a short period of time… in most cases the fuel is spent within a matter of days.”

He uses losing weight as his example (I now worship you, Steve Pavlina). When will power pays you a visit and sings his siren song of potential achievement, use that moment of motivation to make a plan, and execute. Now. Right now. I said NOW, soldier.
This is what Steve Pavlina says, and he says it so perfectly that I’m just going to quote directly:

“So you sit down and make a plan. This doesn’t require much energy, and you can spread the work out over many days…

Then you execute — hard and fast. You can probably implement the whole plan in one day. Attend your first Weight Watchers meeting and get all the materials. Purge the unhealthy food from the kitchen. Buy the new groceries, the new cookbook, and the new scale. Post the weight chart and the sample meals list. Select recipes and cook a batch of food for the week. Whew!

By the end of the day, you’ve used your willpower not to diet directly but to establish the conditions that will make your diet easier to follow.”

Yes! Yes! YES! (I’m channeling Meg Ryan here.) Use will power to set up a self-perpetuating, sustainable lifestyle ecosystem. You’ll grow into your goals organically, because you’ve designed your environment for success.

Think about it this way. If, like me, you’re carrying around a whole whack of extra weight, it is because you designed your life to make you fat. Not consciously, maybe, but we’re not talking about intentions, we’re talking about results. If you habitually eat fast food, processed food, think potato chips are a main course and that walking is for people who cannot afford cars, then yes, darling, you’ve designed your environment so that you will be fat.

You don’t require will power to be fat, do you? H-E-double-hockey-sticks to the no. You just engineered your life so that on a daily basis you have no choice but to be overweight. (Hellooooo North America!)

You don’t need will power to achieve your goals. Will power is useful to fuel your initial plan, but ultimately it exhausts itself quickly. Instead of relying on fuel that is only temporarily available, build yourself a self-fueling system of daily habits that will move you towards your goals automatically.

I know, I know – this is not a sexy prescription. But think of it like software: good software, the kind you like to use, just works. No bells, no whistles, no drama, no random error messages (Yo! Bill!). It is just a boring system that does what you want, when you want, and helps you produce what you choose.

Eff will power. Design your life. Build a boring system that works.

____________

The Will Power Series:

How to Make Will Power Last

Eff Will Power

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice: That’s What Will Power is Made Of

April 19, 2009 | filed under: Purpose, Will Power Series

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How to Make Will Power Last

Who knows how to make love stay
Help before it gets away
That’s the question of the day
Who knows how to make love stay…

- Doug and the Slugs, “Who Knows How to Make Love Stay” from Music for the Hard of Hearing, 1983

In 1983, a dignified gentleman by the name of Doug, who consorted with slugs, lyrically pondered one of life’s grand questions: how do we make love stay?

I think the answer to this question parallels the answer to my big question of the day/week/month/lifetime: how do we make will power last?

Ah will power, my frenemy.  You get me all excited and hopped up on plans and potential and then desert me me when I am faced with dessert.

The way we think about will power sets us up for failure.  We wonder how to make will power last because we think that will power will help us achieve our goals.  Will power is not an end, but a means to an end.

We think that the answer to a problem that requires personal discipline to solve (weight loss, smoking, overspending) is to simply muster up our will power and muscle through it.  Then, when our weak, underdeveloped will power muscle fails to lift the elephant in the room, or wanders off into the bushes to pee long before the race is over, we feel like failures.  We blame ourselves.  We blame will power.  We blame our mothers.  And none of those things are at fault (well, except maybe your mother.  I’m so sorry).

Yet will power is compelling.  We’ve all had those moments when we are absolutely lit from within, on fire for a project, passion, or cause.  There is magic and force in that moment when desire, motivation and action collide.

Will power is a lightning flash.  It is fleeting.  Temporary.  Evanescent.  Damn it.

Now, cursing aside, let’s not bemoan the fleeting nature of will power, but simply accept it and embrace it.  If humans can turn rushing water into electricity, you and I can transform the momentary thunder and clash of will power into a sustainable source of productive action.

Embrace the energy of will power and launch yourself into a flurry of action.

Make your action plan, make a list of all the resources and tools you need to execute the plan, and gather each and every one of them.  Now.  While you’re still motivated.

Make a list of the risks to your plan and figure out how to contain each and every one of them.

Failure-proof your environment.  If you want to write a novel but TV owns your ass, haul it out to the curb.  Call the cable company, wait your requisite fourteen minutes on hold, and cancel all the channels you like.  When you’re in the grip of will power, it does not hurt as much (kind of like sex and pain, but that’s another post) and by the time you will power wanes, your TV will be bathing your neighbour’s basement in blue light.  (Do not stand outside the window and weep.  That is just bad form.)

On the upside, you won’t whine about your lack of will power anymore.  If anything, you’ll be kvetching that you have too much will power and that it makes you take radical, transformative action.  Crap.

In essence, use will power as the inspiration to build a little lifestyle machine that will keep functioning long after will power has gone for a nap.  Be mercenary.  Use will power when it presents itself but do not depend on it to fuel your success.  You don’t need will power.  You just need a boring system that works whether you are inspired to tend it or not.

So, back to Doug and his 1983 question, “who knows how to make love stay”?

We all do.

If we want something in our lives, we create the environmental conditions necessary to sustain it.  Sunflowers need sun.  Children need love.  Weight loss needs a padlocked fridge, a food diary, a publicly embarassing blog and a passle of distractions.  Success does not require will power, it needs boring systems of small habits performed every day.  Love needs happy people.

And dear reader, if all of that fails, novelist Tom Robbins knows how to make love stay:

Tell love you are going to the Junior’s Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half.  It will stay.

It might work for will power too.  And if you have cheesecake, do not call me.  We all know I don’t have the will power to say no.

_________________

This post was the first of a series on will power. Here are the two that followed:

Eff Will Power

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice: That’s What Will Power is Made Of

| filed under: How To, Purpose, Will Power Series

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Welcome (or How Not to Write a First Blog Post)

Apparently there are rules to blogging and first blog posts. I’m supposed to tell you who I am, why I am blogging, what I will be blogging about, how you can leave feedback – and do it in 500 words or less, because we’re all too lazy to read anything more.

In essence, this post is the text version of an elevator pitch.

Well, dear readers, here it is.

This blog is a personal and social experiment. What happens when an overweight, broke, semi-lost but pretty smart single mom decides to rewrite her life in 18 months or less?

In short, my plan is to write, reflect and act my way into a life of purpose and passion. I’d love it if you would join me on the journey.

April 17, 2009 | filed under: Bodies, Family, How To, Language, Meaning, Purpose, Work

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