Didn’t you talk each other into falling in love? Didn’t you talk each other into the story of your romance? If you can talk to each other at all, you can talk each other into financial security. FIRE could mean “financially independent, retiring early” or it could also mean “fund it: romance everlasting.” It’s a loving, caring way to say, “I want to be with you for the long haul.” Choosing each other means you choose your lifestyle, you choose your livelihoods, and you choose your ultimate destiny as long-term partners. It’s entirely likely that you’re “the saver” and “the planner” and if that’s true, then it’s up to you to take the lead. Come to me, my love, and we’ll be strong together against the whirlwinds of fate. Decide you want to be with this person and decide that you can do this together.
First, let’s avoid the pitfalls: Don’t have ANY financial conversations at night. EVER!!! Willpower is low, everyone is tired, and if you get into a really deep trench you’ll both be up until midnight fighting. Number one priority is that you trust each other. Number two priority is that you can bring a high energy level to your job, and that includes plenty of sleep. Nighttime is cuddle time. Don’t say “we have to talk.” Too scary. One way to approach your first FIRE conversation is to ask for advice. Another is to share a story about someone you know, perhaps an inspiring story of security and independence, or perhaps a gossipy tale of financial folly and destruction. Make this just one of many interesting topics that you discuss, something that’s not totally loaded with emotion. Don’t blame. Guilt and shame are not going to get this conversation anywhere. If you find fault, start with yourself, and stop with yourself. You can say, “I’ve been spending too much on lunches at work” or “I really want to pay off my credit cards” or anything else in which you claim full responsibility. Make it easy to be accountable. Show how it’s done. Don’t criticize. The key here is to give positive feelings for positive actions. Criticism leads to defensiveness. It’s much, much harder to stay motivated when you’re trying to avoid criticism than it is to move forward in the direction of infinite rewards. Celebrate even the most minor victories! Congratulate your partner for every baby step in the right direction. High five and yell, “YAY!” Rehearse for your victory party, right? Now for what TO do. Always be honest. If you keep financial secrets, let it be a surprise investment account. Guess what? My side hustle is paying for our vacation this year. Or maybe, Guess what? I just wiped out the balance on our last credit card. The only surprises and secrets between you should involve parties, celebrations, and gifts. Remember that you can do all of those things on a shoestring budget. Always be accountable. Any time you spend too much or go off plan, you’re dumping responsibilities on your partner. That’s mean. It’s mean! Be nice to each other. Set the example and show your partner how you want to be treated. Hopefully that’s with kindness, affection, respect, and dignity. Compliment your partner on a job well done. You both probably have a long list of traits that will help you in the journey. You’re good at fixing things. You’re a good cook. You’re organized. You have a long attention span. You bring the party everywhere you go. You have a cool and inexpensive hobby. You have a knack for turning side projects into money. You’re ambitious. You’re easy to talk to. It’s fun to be with you doing basically nothing. Pay tons of attention to everything your partner does that could lead toward financial independence. Create a comfortable love nest. Be nice to come home to. Plan around fun and free stuff as often as possible. Go to the park, watch astronomical events, take naps. Hang around your home and yard relaxing, talking, joking around, being casual. It’s possible to forget that you’re “saving” and “paying down debt” and “being frugal” if your default mode is relaxing together at home. When you initiate the conversation, rehearse it ahead of time. Choose your moment. Go slowly. You don’t need to try to dump the whole package on someone or teach the intricate details of the philosophy to someone in fifteen minutes. If you love this person, you know how to do it. Is this person more likely to read an article, watch a documentary, go to a workshop, have a long conversation, play a game, compete, look over spreadsheets or charts or graphs, or what? Are you dealing with someone who is sometimes stubborn, flighty, weepy, distractible, or...? Avoid the obvious triggers. Make it easy to agree with you. When I first met my husband, we were casual work buddies. We talked about money quite a bit, because I had just graduated from college with tons of debt and he was only a year out of an expensive divorce. I told him about Your Money or Your Life, and I brought it up from time to time over the years. It wasn’t until we went to World Domination Summit together and went to a workshop with Mr. Money Mustache and Money Boss J.D. Roth that everything clicked for him. Little did I know, he needed to see more math, more spreadsheets, and more graphs. I’m not strong in that area and my pitch didn’t do the job. Start with the vision. What would financial independence look and feel like? What would you be doing with your time? Approach your partner with what’s in it for them. Express sympathy for their stress level and their persistent problems. Bring up their outrageous dream and some ways you think it might be more attainable. List off some specific ways you are making changes that will help. Like this: “I was thinking about how you said you want to go on sabbatical and ride a motorcycle to Alaska.” Or “Remember when we were talking about moving to Costa Rica?” Or, “What if you actually went back and finished your degree this fall?” Or, “Do you think [your project] could maybe turn into a side hustle?” Starting with your partner’s big dream is a guaranteed way to get their attention. It shows that you were paying attention. It shows that you trust them to find that happiness within the bounds of your relationship. It shows that you’re willing to prioritize their goals just as much as your own. It shows that you’re interested and that this dream makes them more attractive to you. It makes you into the ally and cheerleader they’ve always wanted. It makes them want to please you and impress you. It also creates massive motivation. Most dreams are not mutually exclusive. They can’t always happen at the same moment in time, but that’s fair. It’s easier to pay full attention and really celebrate when there’s only one victory at a time, and then take turns. Otherwise it can start to feel like a three-ring circus. As an example, my parents took turns working while the other one went back to school. Since they had three little kids, it would have been really hard for them both to take classes full time. The shared adversity of being working parents and full-time students helped them to know that they can handle anything together as a couple. They’ve been married now for 43 years. Presenting financial independence as a far-distant goal that involves endless scrimping and sacrifice? That’s a loser of a conversation. If you want it, it’s up to you to make it compelling and find a way to make it attractive to your favorite person. If you’re going to do it together, make sure you’re with someone who is actually open to the idea. If you really trust and desire this person, you can find a way to build your case and make it as captivating to them as it is to you. Remember, this person is your chosen sweetheart, your partner in the zombie apocalypse, your ally as you work toward a better future. The Self-Love Experiment is a story about Shannon Kaiser’s exploration of self-compassion. This is a very raw, immediate, real look at what it’s like to do deep inner work. It will speak to anyone who has body image issues or who struggles with self-loathing. Hence, nearly everybody.
Self-compassion is the antidote to shame. Unfortunately, the first level of defense that comes from toxic shame is to convince the ashamed that they are undeserving of compassion, or anything good in this world. It always boggles my mind when I work with clients who are so convinced that they are terrible people, even though everyone else around them sees them as kind, sensitive, caring friends. Trying to love yourself when you feel unlovable must feel like ripping off your own skin, like a nakedness beyond nakedness. Shannon Kaiser talks openly about her issues with depression, eating disorders, drug addiction, and body dysmorphia. If she could learn to love herself while fighting all of these demons, then surely there’s something here for everyone. Something I found really intriguing in The Self-Love Experiment was the differentiation between the “rebellion self,” the “reward self,” the “protection self,” and the “lonely self.” These are aspects of the personality with different drives, and they explain a lot about coping behaviors. This is a very approachable, yet multi-layered and complex book. There’s enough here that some chapters could keep someone busy for a year. If you’re a Feeler, if you’re dissatisfied with your life, or if you are ever mean to yourself, it would be a self-compassionate act to read this book. Try the Self-Love Experiment for yourself. Favorite quotes: It never occurred to me that trying to change my outside world was a desperate attempt to feel better on the inside. To stop loathing myself is to reduce the negativity and pain in the world. Despite what you might believe about yourself, you are not broken, you are not your problems, there’s nothing to fix, you’re not off track, there isn’t something wrong with you, your insecurities are not hindering you, and your flaws don’t make you weak, unlovable, or unsuccessful. Learning to distinguish between different types of inner and outer voices is a key skill in learning how to think strategically and get better at making decisions. What are these thoughts that bubble up? Whose are these opinions that are floating around in my consciousness? Are these voices actually wise, or even correct? Which voice is truly my own voice?
What’s left of this identity known as “me” if I remove all of the anxiety, worry, received wisdom, memes, quotes, naysaying, and other external opinions? My people tend to be almost unbelievably reluctant to make decisions. Sure, everyone can hesitate over the truly big stuff like whether to marry someone, have a child, or go in for surgery. I’m talking about whether it’s okay to throw away a receipt for a single bottle of water or whether it’s okay to delete a junk email. Utterly trivial non-decisions! This hesitation comes from total lack of trust of one’s own intuition, feeling that making personal choices is not permitted, absence of future vision, and emotional overwhelm. The ability to distinguish between the various types of inner voices can help with this. First, let’s identify some external voices. Family naysayers. The closer someone is, the longer they’ve known you, the more negative they are likely to be and the harder they’ll try to quash your every dream and wish. What makes them experts? What credentials do they have? What outcomes and results are they living? Pop culture. News articles, blog posts, memes, posters, t-shirts, bumper stickers, coffee mugs, fortune cookies, and basically anything with writing on it will peddle generic pedestrian beliefs. Anything that commonplace is probably more valuable as a basis for “Do the Opposite” thinking exercises, because that’s the only way any original thought can be extracted from them. “Authorities.” Interestingly, a Realtor will advise you to buy the house, a stylist will talk you into a shorter haircut that requires more visits, an orthopedist will recommend one more MRI, et cetera. Consider whether the person advising you has a vested financial, professional, or reputational interest in that advice. Get a second opinion, preferably from someone in a different field. Note: Just because advice comes from a parent, authority figure, or a poster with a kitten on it doesn’t necessarily rule it out or make it wrong. Please first spend some time using your powers of discernment before relying on a single source. Now let’s talk about inner voices. Professional expertise. People who work in different fields tend to look at every problem through the lens of their professional expertise, which may be excellent most of the time and disastrous part of the time. Many great jokes are based on this problem. We want to pause and remind ourselves that in any given situation, an engineer, a lawyer, an accountant, and an astrologer will probably give predictably specific advice. It’s important to trust your own professional expertise over that of unqualified outsiders WHEN it’s your own field. When it isn’t, don’t let yourself be distracted by your own feelings of certainty and competence, which may be fallacious. Anxiety. Anxiety correlates with intelligence. This means that the smarter you are, and/or the more educated you are, the more likely you are to talk yourself out of anything that feels risky. Where you identify risk depends on your personal temperament. For some people it’s romance, for others it’s finance, for others it’s physical. For my people, the voice of anxiety very firmly orders them to hoard material objects, avoid leaving the house, manipulate their emotions with food, and obsess over rejection and criticism. If the message is “stay awake far into the night perseverating” then it’s the voice of Anxiety that you’re hearing. Legacy. “If you can read, you can do anything” is a bit of legacy wisdom that I carry from a great-grandparent. Legacy is neutral. Sometimes it’s incredibly toxic, sometimes it’s obsolete, sometimes it’s harmless, sometimes it’s like rocket fuel that can propel you to the heights of happiness and accomplishment. Sometimes legacy voices can compete and give contrary, mutually exclusive advice. (After all, decisions are choices and strategy is guesswork. There are no correct answers). Conscience. Attending to the voice of conscience will serve to increase conscientiousness, which is one of the Big Five poles of personality. (The others are openness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism). Conscience asks us to be more thoughtful and considerate, to care for others, to contribute, to apologize, to give more than we take, to act with integrity, to avoid regret. My fascination is when someone reports that the voice of conscience is asking more in a certain situation than the voice of legacy would. Desire. Desire, like legacy, is neutral. Following your bliss is usually harmless, totally fair, fun, and ultimately in service of the greater good. Desire, though, does not always lead to bliss in either the short or the long term. An example would be the massive YES that I felt toward a rental house when my husband and I first got engaged. It cost 25% more per month than the house we moved into. But I waaaaaaaaaant it! Inside of many people is a spoiled wannabe celebrity whose demands will lead to chaos and disaster, no bliss in sight. The voice of desire often pops up as “my body wants.” The Id. The voice of the id is selfish, narcissistic, greedy, restless, jealous, and destructive. The id is obsessed with “respect,” attention, and procuring shiny objects. I saw a gannet bird pick up a slice of pizza on the sidewalk in Iceland one day, and try to swallow it whole, pointy end first. That’s a pretty solid image of what happens when the voice of the id takes over. Certainty. Oooh, poison. The inner sense of certainty is what we want the most when we try to foist our decisions onto others. My students, clients, friends, and occasionally family members try to abdicate decisions onto me all the time. Probably half of my text messages and DMs are of this nature. TELL ME THE RIGHT ANSWER! People absolutely stone-cold hate having to make their own decisions and live with the consequences because we hate the idea that we’re choosing our own future outcomes. It’s a rejection of the gift of free will. Certainty tends to equal stubbornness, stasis, stonewalling, fixed mindset, and, well, simply being inaccurate and incorrect. The only way to predict the future is to create it. The Muse. Many artists of different fields talk about being in a creative state in which the work seems to produce itself. The book writes itself, the painting paints itself, the character takes over while the actor is merely the vessel. I suspect that this is the pre-verbal right brain being tapped. It doesn’t speak in text. Sometimes people refer to receiving this voice as “being in the zone” and I think it also relates to System II thinking. Spirit. Here is where I talk a bit about what I call ‘woo-woo.’ The voice of Spirit speaks infrequently and usually in a baffling, unpredictable way. Spirit tends to demand things of us that are uncomfortable, confusing, challenging, and inconvenient. For instance, I knew it wasn’t Spirit encouraging me to pressure my newlywed husband into a house we really couldn’t afford; it was just desire. Spirit has pushed me to befriend people when I wasn’t in the mood, give money when I felt stingy and broke, and go out for errands at odd hours that then led to weirdly serendipitous meetings. The last time this happened, I went for a walk at 10 PM, gave someone directions, and then found a $20 bill in a bush five minutes later. For the curious, there are perhaps other varieties of inner voices out there. The daimon, as referenced by Steven Pressfield. A tulpa. Ancestors reaching out from the other side. Maybe all of those things at once, in the craziest multi-dimensional cocktail party of all time! It could be fun to pretend, anyway. Ultimately, no matter what inner or external voices someone might be hearing, what matters is how we react. What choices do we take? What actions do we make? Just because a random thought crosses your mind doesn’t mean it’s necessarily your thought, or what I refer to as your “final answer.” It’s unlikely that every possible voice will suggest the same course of action. This is why it’s sound policy (see what I did there) to distinguish between them. Give them names, draw pictures of them, assign them theme songs or mental ring tones. With experience and practice, your own true inner voice will start to speak more clearly and project more volume. I’ve always known myself to be a tightly wound, restless, easily bored person. I’ve had chronic sleep problems since I was seven. These are all subjective states. Now it turns out that there’s actually an objective metric that corresponds with these feelings. True to my alpha nature, my first instinct is to go after this metric with the full force of my competitive drive. Blast it! Chase after it! Force it to submit!
Considering that the metric in question is “resting heart rate,” I’m willing to consider the possibility that this project will require a different approach. What happened? My husband went in for a routine physical. I asked to see his lab results, and he cordially agreed, because he has reason to be smug. He just turned fifty, but his blood work would be on track for an 18-year-old. His doctor asked what medications he was taking. Answer: None. Among all the other numbers, one stood out to me. My husband’s resting heart rate is 55 beats per minute. That is considered athletic at any age. Nice work, babe! I looked at a chart showing target heart rates for various age brackets. Because I wear a smart watch, I had easy access to my own health metrics, dating back a couple of years. I was distressed to see that my own resting heart rate averages about 77 beats per minute. While my husband’s data put him in the Athletic category, mine is... Below Average for someone over age 65. Part of what is funny about this is that we do have a chronological age difference, and it works in my favor. I’m seven years younger, and it looks like more. People are still routinely surprised to find that I’m in my early forties, rather than my early thirties, while my hubby is more, um, distinguished. From some of the looks we get, I suspect people think I’m more like twenty years younger than he is. If these casual bystanders were looking at our medical records instead, they’d probably think I was his mom. Or his grandma! The difference between us is that my hubby started in athletics as a preschooler. His mom put him on the swim team when he was just four. The picture of him in his tiny little trunks crushes my heart. He kept swimming until he was old enough to make the football team, which he continued through junior college. As an adult, he switched to roller hockey, followed by ice hockey, followed by armored combat. In between, there was basketball and wrestling and who knows what else. While he was doing all of that, I was, well, I was reading. Sitting on my butt and reading, unless I was lying on my side and reading. He was already winning before I even knew there was a game. Granted, I’m competitive. I always want that A grade. Not only that, I want extra credit, I want to test into the advanced class, I want to be on the Dean’s List, and I want some sort of award at the end of the year. That’s just as true of my health metrics as it is of anything else in my life, from the amount of my retirement savings to how low I can get my electric bill. The first thing I do when I’m confronted with poor test results is to research. These days I think they call it a “rubric.” What does it take to get that A grade in this class? What are the inputs that make a difference? Can I debunk it or, rather, replace it with a more valuable metric? For my thyroid disease, I found that the key was strenuous exercise. For my parasomnia disorder, I found that the key variable was blood sugar, particularly how late I ate before bedtime. For migraines, I found that the two main factors were my body weight and micronutrient consumption. I’ve beat health issues that were far more pernicious than a high resting heart rate, and I’m fully confident that I can make measurable progress here, too. What am I going after? According to mainstream information, which is where I always start, because I believe in a measurable empirical reality, I’ll be best off if I focus on: Exercise Weight loss Avoiding tobacco Lowering stress When I still suffered from an Unfit Mindset, I would have locked onto that ‘stress’ item and completely ignored everything else on the list. Well, at least I don’t smoke, but that’s because I’m a cheapskate and I’d rather spend that money on vacations. To be honest, I don’t believe in “stress” as a concept. I don’t think stress causes things, I think stress is a byproduct of underlying physical conditions. I think this for two reasons; one, I’ve felt it as I’ve improved my own baseline state of health, and two, I’ve observed that the three most laid-back people I’ve ever met were a Zen Buddhist monk, a competitive all-natural body builder, and a CrossFit dude. I met two of the three when they were just regular people, before they committed to their chosen sports, and the difference was quite noticeable. They... blink less than other people. They seem to exist in this permanent state of slow-mo, where they could plausibly catch a housefly with chopsticks, or dodge bullets, or pause time and prevent automobile collisions. I want that for myself. Going back to the inputs that I can control, I already know that losing weight and exercising are effective. My resting heart rate used to be even worse, if you can believe that, in the low eighties. I remember a big wake-up call for me at age 29, when I walked up a single flight of stairs and started seeing black spots. I knew there were people in their sixties and seventies who were more fit than I was, because I’d met them. I even worked with a few every day. I’m much more fit now than I was as a teenager, which is partly very sad and partly really exciting and hopeful. I don’t have much weight to lose, as far as that goes, so I’ll focus on trying to add muscle. For a restless alpha type, I need to have something tangible, a target, so I don’t simply pace a path into my carpet. Being a stress case is not fun. It’s not fun under the hood, but it’s also not fun for other people. I’m not good at things like relaxing, having fun, taking naps, sitting through a two-hour movie, or, honestly, even sitting at all. I feel constantly driven to be up and doing something. Accomplishing something. Finishing something. Getting completion on something. Now that I’m looking at these tables of resting heart rates, I’m starting to realize that maybe that endlessly restless feeling comes from my high heart rate. I’ve never had much success in talking myself into a different mindset. Maybe I can go at it from the other angle, and see what happens as a result of physical change. A moment of truth is a realization, an epiphany, a moment of clarity. In business and marketing, it’s the moment the customer decides to make a purchase. I like to think there’s more to life than deciding to buy things, but maybe that’s just me. In some situations, all we need is one moment of truth. With others, it takes several. Sometimes, maybe no amount of information is enough to get us to change what we’re doing.
Example: When I’m giving myself a paper cut, and all I can seem to do is to watch it happen in slow motion rather than drop the paper What are some common moments of truth? Realizing these leftovers are past the point of no return Looking at the clock and realizing you’re going to be late Not being able to button those pants The thing about clutter is that it’s not a single object. Generally, any one thing has its reasons for being there. There’s a long list of reasons to keep every single thing, or explanations for how it got to be where it is. It’s hard to single out particular items from a cluttered space and eject them. How do you know what to pick? This is why clutter tends to lead to multiple moments of truth.
One of the reasons that it’s so common to clean up a space and then clutter it up again is that each of these steps needs more examination and introspection. If all we do is Step 4 and Step 8, we’re not pausing to consider why the space got this way.
Sorting clutter is a “bottom up” process. That means we’re starting with what’s already there and trying to impose order on it. The “top down” way to do it is to start with the function and appearance of the space, what needs to be there, and then remove everything that doesn’t work. Most American homes could shed half the stuff from every room. My people, the chronically disorganized and the compulsive accumulators, can usually get rid of 80% or more. Sleep in the bedroom, cook in the kitchen, eat at the table, sit on the couch, work at the desk, go places on time, find everything on demand. Or, if you’re one of mine: share your bed with laundry, books, papers, and food packaging; cook nowhere and never; pile the table with food, dishes, and shopping bags; bury the couch under a pile of laundry; which desk?; be late everywhere; search for stuff endlessly. The longer I do this work, the harder it is for me to understand why so many people prioritize inanimate objects over and above their quality of life. They’ll shed genuine, bitter tears over a cracked figurine or a keepsake with water damage. But they don’t even seem to notice how cramped they are in their own homes, how their stuff interferes with their daily routine. There are other realizations that can happen, moments of truth that allow for a new perspective:
Mercenary? Nah. Starry-eyed romantic. I believe in marriage, I believe in soulmates, I believe in love at first sight, even. How awful when what could have been a lifelong love is spoiled by fights about money. Frugality: so much cheaper than divorce! Financial literacy is a superpower that can keep couples together. Financial security is an attractive trait for singles. Constant anxiety, worry, disappointment, and frustration around money can destroy any relationship, not just romance, but also friendships and family bonds. This is why I say there’s no romance without finance.
We’re primed on a million cultural images of what dating and engagements and weddings and marriages are supposed to look like. How do you know you’re in love? When you look like a fashion plate, eat in the finest restaurants, drive around in the most expensive vehicles, stay in the most exclusive resorts, wear the heaviest engagement ring, have the most extravagant wedding, buy the hugest and fanciest house with the biggest kitchen, and have the thickest credit card statements. Anything less would be... cause for disappointment. I truly believe that lurking deep inside most of us is a vision of marriage perfectly correlated with “endless lifestyle upgrades.” Conspicuous consumption, conspicuous leisure, conspicuous confusion and dissatisfaction, conspicuous divorces. The marriage I wanted was with the man I talked to for three hours a night. We basically got married because I moved and the phone reception was so patchy at my new house. No matter how old you are when you fall in love, if it lasts, one day you’ll look different. Looks don’t last. What does? Conversation, cooking, and, if you do it wrong, consumer debt. I had zero consumer debt for a couple of years before my wedding day, and I’ve kept it that way. It’s pretty straightforward when your relationship revolves around hanging out and talking every night. Real marriage is based on affection, trust, respect, and communication. Avoiding conversations about money, debt, cash flow, career paths, and lifestyle inflation is a great way to blast a huge hole in that marriage. How can you trust each other if you won’t communicate about your financial vulnerabilities? How can you respect each other if you don’t share values around earning and spending? How can you even relax and enjoy each other if you’re drowning in debt and you have no retirement plans? Refusing to get your finances in order is abdicating. That means you dump it off on someone else. If it isn’t your romantic partner, who is it? Your parents? Your kids? The Red Cross? Future You? A talking pony? Being married to someone who spends without limit and earns the bare minimum is really stressful. It’s not fair to treat your spouse like an opponent. If you yourself aren’t financially secure, and you have no plans to deal with it, then that means anyone who loves you has to do double the work. To be with you is to double the effort, double the savings, double the planning, double the stress, double the burnout. If you think you deserve this, you’d better be double-cute, double-nice, and double-affectionate just to get to zero. Couples who are in it for the long haul need to plan together. We have to share the load. We have to look out for each other. We have to care about each other’s well-being. Our long, busy days are directly tied to the financial necessity of having to go to work. That stress is only increased when we feel trapped in jobs we hate, working for bosses we can’t stand, with unbearable commutes, annoying coworkers, and impossible customers and clients. Debt can make those feelings last forever. How can love last in that environment? Financial freedom takes the pressure off. When you have plenty of savings instead of debt, it creates a buffer. That “F.U. money” makes such a huge difference! You find yourselves able to pick and choose what type of job you’ll take and what kind of commute you’ll tolerate. You start to feel like you have the power to determine your own destiny, to choose what your average day is like. That’s when you realize that you really have the power to choose your love. I choose you, honey, over and over and over again. Choose the person. Choose the conversation. Choose the love story you tell about each other. Just don’t choose the debt, the bags of material objects, the unaffordable homes and vehicles. Say no to the stupid marketing messages that destroy loves and hearts and families. Say no to the rings, the dresses, the poisons that make basic long-term affection impossible. I married my husband in part because he understood I would never want a diamond engagement ring. He got me a temporary silver ring with rhinestones. I took it off and quit wearing it on our wedding day. When I walked up to meet him, I wore a $34 dress. I paid for my half of our wedding in cash. This summer will mark our ninth anniversary, together for twelve years. What does this mean? It means we both care more about being married than we cared about the wedding. Which is the more romantic fantasy? Still actually liking each other and wanting to be together after your hair turns gray? Or one extremely expensive photo opportunity that costs thousands of dollars per hour? Wedding cake isn’t even that good. The really great stuff about being in love doesn’t cost anything. Talking for hours, laughing until you snort, looking for shapes in the clouds, learning each other’s life story, the inside jokes you could never explain to anyone else. This is your one irreplaceable person, your sweetheart, the love that money couldn’t buy anyway. Your best reason, if you allow it, to fight the dragon of debt and then ride off into the sunset together. High Performance Habits is destined to be one of the ten best self-improvement books of all time. I’m not saying this lightly. This book is really amazing. It’s based on years of research and input from thousands of people. Even if you’re already a high achiever, you’ll learn something from this book. For the rest of us who still struggle with stress, low energy, lack of focus, or anything else holding us back, there’s even more to be gained.
Brendon Burchard has personal credibility. He survived a near-fatal car collision. As if that weren’t enough, he also got a concussion in another accident, and he mentions in passing that, oh, he had a spinal birth defect. If the habits that he teaches have been any help to him, then there must be something to them. The core message of High Performance Habits is that we can direct our behavior by priming our own emotional state and acting in accord with our values. High performers are happy instead of stressed. They’re able to sustain their results over the long term without burnout because they manage their emotions and their energy level. Burchard studies how people are able to do this, and his claim is that anyone can adopt these habits and this high-achieving mindset. Reading this book made me realize that while a lot of things I’m doing are on track, there is so much more I could be contributing and accomplishing. I like that the message is strong on personal ethics. I highly recommend High Performance Habits and I believe it’s Brendon Burchard’s best book so far. Favorite quotes: “I’m scared to go to the next level... because I’m barely surviving this one.” What’s achievable is not always what’s important. ...only you are in charge of your enduring emotional experience. “What’s the positive thing I can focus on and the next right action of integrity I should take now?” ...no one credits fatigue and a bad mood for their world-class performance. Whenever I hear the phrase “that’s not realistic,” I roll my eyes. Mainstream opinion gets mainstream results, and another way to say that is, no results. Change in its nature is radical, not moderate. Moderation is the way to keep from rocking the boat. Moderation is maintenance. Unless you want to maintain what you have right now, what good is moderation going to do you?
Examples: Having a baby. Where is the moderation in “zero to new human in nine months”? Labor, delivery, sleepless nights? Remodeling a house. Do you really want to go the moderate, incremental route? House-training a pet. Stop thinking outside the box! When we’re sure about exactly what we want, it’s obvious that we’d rather get it done and get our results quickly. Waiting at the DMV - get it done and get out of there. The dentist. Again, please let’s just get this done so I no longer have five instruments and a fist crammed into my mouth. Travel. Four hours in an airport or stuck on the freeway is clearly not the same as a four-hour visit to a monument or landmark. When we genuinely want change, we’ll do it as quickly as we can. As long as we understand what to do, nothing will stop us. See this in action every time a new movie, game, or consumer product comes out and the mega-fans camp out overnight in the parking lot. Watch how long people will hold still for tattoo artwork. Desire is powerful. We’ve all felt this overwhelming desire for something, at least once in our lives. When we want it badly enough, whatever it is, we will go after it. We will persevere until we’ve got it. Why can’t we seem to harness this power of desire for all our goals? It’s always going to be either one of two things. Either we don’t know exactly how to do it, or we don’t really want it. When there’s a situational obstacle, that falls under knowledge. We don’t know how to continue to go after the goal when something gets in the way. How do I do it when my schedule has changed? How do I do it when my location has changed? How do I do it when I suddenly have more demands on my time? How do I do it when the rules have changed? Nothing about the desirability of the goal itself has changed - it’s simply an unforeseen detour that temporarily blocks our path and obscures the view. Persistence will eventually find a way around every obstacle. Asking for help is one form of persistence. Simply find someone who has the results you want, and ask, “How did you do it? What’s your secret?” This is where the paradox comes in. Most of us actually do know everything we need to know in order to get what we want. We just aren’t willing to do anything unless it’s “moderate.” We don’t want to have to concentrate, or focus, or stop doing other things we like doing, even temporarily. We don’t want to suffer. I CAN’T DEPRIVE MYSELF. How can you deprive yourself of your goal? Why would you do that to yourself? The truth is, we like our comforts more than we like our goals. We’ll give all our focus and attention, all our time, all our desire and all our money to certain treasured goals. A phone upgrade! A signature beverage at least once a day! Pets ‘n’ vets, that is, emergency veterinary expenses. A trip, a cable package. Some things our kids begged for, but not others. There are at least a few special things that we will never cut from our budgets or our schedules under any circumstances. Where are the areas we’ll always quit on? Where are the areas where we insist on moderation and nothing more? Where are the areas where we allow for the most exceptions? Cleaning the garage, perhaps? Turning in overdue library books? Tolerating chronic issues like neck pain or sleep deprivation? Everyone knows at least one person who is one semester or one term away from a college degree. Only a little over half of college students graduate within six years. Completion rates seem to be a bit higher for master’s programs, but fall back to a little over half for doctorates. One message we can take from this is that we should forgive ourselves for not going farther than we did. There’s another message we could take away, though. Those completion rates could jump much higher. What if everyone with only one term to go somehow found a way to finish? The two most commonly procrastinated tasks are planning for retirement and dealing with health issues, the latter of which is mostly a euphemism for burning off excess body fat. Fully 70% of Americans over age 20 are overweight now. We’ve collectively shrugged and decided that 25 pounds overweight is now dangerously thin. Let’s not even talk about our savings habits. About half of American households have no retirement savings at all. Nearly two-thirds say they couldn’t handle an emergency expenditure of $1000. This is what all our talk of moderation gets us. MODERATION IS FRUSTRATION What are we moderating? What are we maintaining? At least we’re all in it together, but what is it that we’ve collectively agreed to tolerate? Constant financial dread, chronic low energy, and poor body image. That’s what moderation gets us. Radical change is possible, and it’s not even unimaginable, much less unrealistic. People clean out their garages over a weekend, and it happens all the time! That delayed college degree could be completed in three months. It’s possible to lose a hundred pounds in a year, or pay off tens of thousands of dollars in debt. It’s even possible to retire in eleven years (or fewer), and there are many examples of that as well. Radical change is simply the “rip off the bandage” method. Decide that you want it, make a plan, and then launch. Do it as quickly as possible and get it over with. Moderation is maintenance, and you should only maintain the results you want to keep. Radical change is what gets things done. As a nerdy, awkward, book-oriented person, I have to use a certain amount of strategy to convince myself to do physical things. For my personal challenge this year, I’ve taken on martial arts, because it was the scariest and most demanding thing I could imagine. It didn’t occur to me that there’s a built-in gamification aspect. Every time you level up, you get a different color of belt, which is amazing because I love rainbows. In between color upgrades, there are also stripes. I’ve earned one stripe each on two belts, one in Muay Thai kickboxing and the other in Krav Maga. It’s like a badge that actually means something. These stripes represent not just extremely hard work, but also real-world skills. Wouldn’t it be nice if everything were that clear and simple?
The reason we wear belts is just like why chefs wear weird hats. Anyone in the room can tell at a glance how much you know and what you’re there to do. It’s not like it wouldn’t be immediately obvious how uncoordinated and clueless I am as a newbie. It protects me somewhat, though, in case I somehow accidentally look more experienced for a few seconds. Going the other direction, it helps me when I look at other students. If someone wearing an orange belt corrects my position, I can swallow my irritation at being told what to do and recognize that this person has advanced knowledge compared to me. I have to show the same respect that I would wish to have. People talk a lot about how “kids these days” get trophies and ribbons just for participating. That was after my time. I’ve still never won a trophy to this day. I don’t have any plaques either. I do have two race medals, and I’m stupidly proud of them, because I didn’t make an attempt at athletics until I was 35. I know precisely how much work went into the acquisition of these symbols, as measured in sweat, blisters, bruises, and tears. I’m only competing against myself. When I first walked into my martial arts academy, I was a bit petrified. I was committing to something specifically because I wanted to work more on humility and self-discipline. I wanted to choose something I was bad at, maybe even so bad that people would question what on earth I was even doing there. Well, I chose well. I’m almost always last in class. We do a lot of push-ups, sit-ups, and jump squats, and everyone is supposed to do the same amount. We don’t move on to the next drill until everyone is done. Imagine jumping up and down alone in the middle of the room and that’s me. At least everyone has plenty of time to get a drink of water while they wait! The thing about fitness that unfit people like myself often don’t understand is that most or all of the fitter people in the room... STARTED OUT WHERE WE ARE. They WERE us. We look at them and see lean muscle definition. It’s not like they’re going to get custom t-shirts printed with their ‘before’ photos, right? Almost all the athletes that I have met are genuinely happy and proud when beginners commit and start to make progress. (The others are just more focused on other stuff). It’s exciting in the same way it’s exciting to teach a little kid to ride a bike. You did it! Good for you! As a rank beginner, I’m terrible at a lot of things. With one stripe, I know what several of them are, but I’m still so new that I know I’m not even aware of some of my failings. On my first day in class, I couldn’t really do one sit-up. I had to sort of grab my thigh and pull myself up. By the time I had done ten jump squats, I thought I might fall over. I thought I was reasonably fit, because I walk an average of six miles a day, I can carry a fifty-pound backpack, I’m pretty competent at yoga, and I consider myself fairly active. I didn’t realize just how much I was missing by not doing HIIT workouts or resistance training. It was just something I planned to get around to one day. (That day: 1/5/2018). Not testing my physical limits meant I could maintain this unrealistically positive image and protect my ego. Once I understood how unfit I really am in this area, I knew I could only recover my pride by working hard to improve. I’m not very good at watching what someone is doing and then physically copying it. I’m a pretty good mimic, and I can do voice impressions and sound effects, but none of that seems to transfer when it’s time to imitate someone’s motions. I have trouble telling my left from my right. I’m having a really hard time untraining all the body memory from ballroom dancing and marching band, two things that have basically nothing in common with martial arts. The center of gravity is different, neutral stance is different, balance is different. For the first several weeks I would consistently want to move backward when I was supposed to move forward, or keep my feet together when they’re supposed to be apart. I struggle with remembering what I’m supposed to do with all of my limbs at the same time. Say I’m being reminded to keep my hands up to protect my face while I practice a new kick. I will then totally forget that I’m supposed to step forward with my foot at an angle instead of straight. When I correct my foot position, I drop my hands. Suddenly I feel like I have eight arms and legs. Now that I have my first stripes, all of this is gradually starting to come together. I’m still comparatively weak and slow and clumsy, sure. That’s why I’m there. If I’d wanted to feel like the top of my class, I would have signed up for water aerobics. Being last and worst means that I’m genuinely challenged. It also means that when I eventually start to catch up with the more experienced people in class, I’ll appreciate how much it means. When I get my next stripe, when I finally level up and get a new belt in a new color, I’ll wear it with justifiable pride. I’ll keep going, knowing I have it within me to work hard, to learn, and to accept the struggle. Then I’ll probably have to pick something else that I’m bad at. Relief is the best feeling you could have right now. Am I right? If you’re like most people, you have a secret shame, something you’ve been putting off. You dread facing it. Even thinking about it makes you cringe. You’ve been procrastinating and delaying and foot-dragging, and the longer you wait, the worse it feels. Let today be the day that you free yourself from that horrible, yucky feeling. Start with a stuck list.
Let’s make a list of everything that’s bothering you. Category by category, we’ll figure out your aversive tasks and why they feel so sticky and hard to do. An aversive task is something that makes you want to run away. You just don’t want to do it. The funny thing is, that type of odious chore is different for everyone. Some people hate making phone calls, others don’t mind. Some people hate filing, others think it’s fun. Pick a chore and someone hates it, someone doesn’t think twice about doing it, and someone else actually enjoys it. Tell yourself that the thing itself isn’t really that bad, it’s just the emotions that it brings up for you. What is on your stuck list?
Chances are, most stuff on your list can be done in under five minutes. Isn’t that great? Also, just thinking about it makes you a little nauseated. Wouldn’t it be better to put it all behind you? Take a deep breath and imagine your victory. Look at your list. Categorize each item by how it gets done. Is it: A phone call? An email? An errand? A physical task? Something waiting on someone else? A conversation you need to have face to face with someone? Secretly a major project that you don’t know how to do? Now write down the thoughts and feelings you have when you think about doing each of these things. Boredom Confusion Panic Nausea Stubborn refusal Annoyance Sadness Guilt Shame Rebellion Dread Reluctance Physical pain A blank space of not knowing what to do or how to do it Now write down why you aren’t doing each item. Don’t know how Don’t like So-and-So Hate doing this Need more information Believe it will take HOURS AND HOURS Need to make a decision Overwhelmed and overcommitted Do you notice any patterns? Overcommitting, never saying ‘no,’ feeling indecisive, or avoiding confrontations are the types of patterns that affect everything, all the time. Looking at the root emotional cause and figuring out some strategies can eventually help you to free yourself from the icky, heavy feeling of procrastination. I tend to procrastinate business calls until I absolutely can’t avoid them because I hate talking on the phone. I always put housework and exercise first. That’s my task pattern. I’m quick to research things when I don’t know much about them, because it makes me feel curious, but I’m slow to open an email if I think it will trigger a bunch of bureaucratic nonsense. The things I procrastinate the most are clothes shopping and getting my hair cut. Another person might procrastinate sorting mail or cleaning out the car, and maybe always put personal phone calls first. It all depends on what you think is fun versus what you think is dreadful, boring, annoying, or loaded with emotion. Here’s my stuck list. An email to my screenwriting mentor - guilt, don’t know what to do Redesign of a product that can’t be manufactured according to current specs - frustration, don’t know what to do Jeans shopping - annoyance, hate doing this, believe it will take hours and hours Finding a new avian vet since apparently there isn’t one within ten miles - need more information, need to make a decision The first two items could trigger weeks or months of demanding work. Since I don’t have a clear image of what that looks like, I feel stuck. Jeans shopping will probably take two hours. Finding a new bird vet might be impossible; I might have to take half a day to bring her to her old vet. I don’t really “feel like” doing any of these things right now, so I’ll fake myself out. I’ll pick one, which will immediately make one of the other items on the list feel less difficult in comparison. I’ll feel like I’m getting away with something. Trick yourself, if that’ll work for you. Ask someone for help or advice, because admitting your secret shame and exposing it to daylight helps to rebuild your dignity and pride. Set a timer and race against it. Play music and keep working until the playlist is up. Set aside one weekend day as a Get Stuff Done Day. Keep your list somewhere you can look at it. Try to complete one item every day until the list is gone. Every time you look at, think about, or handle the list, remind yourself of how amazing it will feel when all that stuff is done. Soon you’ll never have to think about it again. You can be free of the dread and frustration and guilt and shame that comes from procrastinating. You can start today. Just get started. |
AuthorI've been working with chronic disorganization, squalor, and hoarding for over 20 years. I'm also a marathon runner who was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and thyroid disease 17 years ago. This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies. Opt Out of CookiesArchives
January 2022
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