Habits are very powerful and very important. One path toward action that effectively supports your goals and passions is the one that I talked about yesterday:

Goals + “Taste” → Inspiration

Inspiration + Energy → Motivation

Motivation + Environment → Action

but there’s an entirely separate path that runs parallel to that one! And it’s very simple!

Habits → Action

And that, my friend, is the power of habits. If you have a habit to do something, you just do it! You don’t need to do any alchemy or tasting or inspiring or energizing or motivating! You just do it.

So, how does one go about acquiring good habits (habits that support our goals and our passions) and breaking bad habits (habits that distract from our goals and our passions)? You’d think that The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People would have a lot to say about that. It has a bit to say about it, but not a lot. So I’ll use my friend Bill as a reference instead of Stephen Covey:

I have only a few hard rules, and they’re extremely rigid and specific. I spell out exactly what I have to do, and under what conditions I must do them. I only change them once a month. Any changes I want to make within that month go into my soft rules until my month is up. This helps me form a consistent habit.

Yesterday’s post was about motivational alchemy — what Bill called “soft self-discipline”, with “soft rules”. But he also talked about “hard self-discipline”, with “hard rules”. Is hard self-discipline completely unnecessary? Is it possible to be effective with just motivational alchemy and never forcing yourself to do things you really aren’t in the mood to do?

Sure, I think it’s possible to be pretty effective with just motivational alchemy. But, if you want to be even more effective, there is one really awesome use for hard self-discipline: creating habits. And get this! It’s possible to do it without resorting to fear-based motivational tactics! (I’ll have more to say about that in the next post.)

So I’ll write down an equation for it, because I’m on an equation kick with all this motivation stuff.

Commitment + Discipline → Habits

By “commitment” I mean making a commitment to yourself. Saying “This is important to me, so I am going to make a plan and be accountable for sticking to this plan.”

By “discipline” I mean the “hard self-discipline” that we’ve been talking about. Forcing yourself to do something even when you don’t feel like it at the moment, sacrificing your short-term desires in service of your long-term desires. Sticking to the plan you’ve committed to, even when you don’t want to at that exact moment.

Commitment and discipline used to have negative connotations for me. I used to associate them with fear-based motivation, and I wanted to avoid them whenever possible. But now I see how to make them positive forces in my life. I’m going to use them to create really excellent habits. And those habits will create actions that support my goals and my passions. It will be awesome!

Just think about one action where motivational alchemy is sluggish for you. Maybe you have a hard time tasting it, maybe you just don’t have enough raw passion about the goal to alchemize into inspiration, or maybe you have a lot of resistance to the action itself. Think about what it would take to create a habit for that action. Imagine how it would feel if you stuck with it long enough for it to become a habit, at which point it would require less of that hard self-discipline, eventually none at all! Feel how good it would feel to reach that goal, to establish a habit that made those actions effortless, or at least a lot less challenging. Then, if that positive feeling outweighs the resistance you feel, make a plan. Make a plan, make a commitment to that plan, and use self-discipline to stick to the plan. You’ll end up with a super awesome habit that will make you feel good all the time because you’re achieving your goal. And plus, you’ll be upping your credit score with yourself, because you will have earned your own trust in making a commitment and sticking to it.

And that is the power of habits. (:

My friend Bill and I have been talking recently about the difference between what he calls “soft self-discipline” and “hard self-discipline”. Hard self-discipline is what most people call “self-discipline”, and is basically forcing yourself to do things even if you don’t feel like doing them at the particular moment. Soft self-discipline is similar, but doesn’t involve forcing, just coaxing, and it’s totally okay to not do it if you really don’t want to do it. It’s mostly just reminding yourself of your enthusiasm, passion, and commitment to your goal, and hoping that that will alchemize into motivation to do the tasks necessary to achieve that goal. And if it doesn’t, that’s okay.

This is super awesome. I’m going to rename “soft self-discipline”, though, because the word “discipline” doesn’t feel right to me. I’ll call it “motivational alchemy”. Because that’s kind of what it’s like. We already have the long-term desire for the goal, and what we want to do is alchemize it, transform it, into the short-term desire to accomplish the steps leading toward the goal. And here are, to the best of my understanding, the fundamental equations of motivational alchemy:

Goals + “Taste” → Inspiration

Inspiration + Energy → Motivation

Motivation + Environment → Action

Isn’t that beautiful? Let’s take them one by one.

Goals + “Taste” → Inspiration

So, you have some goals. These are your long-term desires. Stuff you want that isn’t immediately achievable. You may even say you’re passionate about these things, but the passion isn’t always burning, sometimes it’s a passive passion. It’s something you can say “I’m passionate about this” about without necessarily getting up and doing something about it.

Those goals can alchemize into inspiration, but you need a catalyst to make that happen. This is the trickiest step for me. I thought for a long time about what to call this catalyst, and I finally settled on “taste”. It’s experiencing something that takes your goal out of your head and puts it back in your heart. It’s like, you remember you much you like chocolate, but then you actually taste a little bit and suddenly you’re inspired to get some more. Or you think about you much you care about being healthy, but then you have a really exciting and interesting conversation about it, it’s like tasting your goal, and that taste inspires you. Here are some examples of what I mean by “taste”:

• having a good conversation about it
• reading something interesting or exciting about it
• doing a teeny little bit of it just for a minute or two
• seeing someone else do it
• experiencing something that I associate with it (e.g. the smell of a video arcade reminds me of how much I love to play DDR/ITG)
• and sometimes, just remembering how much I care about the goal and thinking about how much I want it.

All these things are examples of re-tasting the sweet, yummy taste of your goal, the delicious flavour of what you’re passionate about. This step is very important, because if our goals and long-term desires are abstract concepts, we can attach all sorts of baggage to them. We can resent them, avoid them, and tack on all sorts of extraneous judgments and issues to them. But you can bypass all of that if you just taste them. And that taste alchemizes your goals into inspiration. Now on to the next equation:

Inspiration + Energy → Motivation

It’s not enough to be inspired. If you’re inspired and sleepy, or inspired and just feeling like a lump today, you won’t get up and do anything about it. Because inspiration isn’t enough; you also need energy. I was stumbling toward this in my post entitled “motivation = energy” in 2006. In that situation, I already had the inspiration, and what I was lacking was the energy needed to turn that inspiration into motivation. For me, I find that a judicious use of caffeine and good health habits (eating well and often, exercising in the mornings) increase my energy level.

So, now we got to motivation. Yay! Are we done? Not quite. There’s still one more important equation left:

Motivation + Environment → Action

There are plenty of times when I’ve felt motivated to do something but didn’t have the opportunity, and the motivation went to waste. For example if I’m motivated to work on the Usual Error while I’m at Cyc, I can’t act on that motivation because I’m not in the right environment; I have other things to do during that time. I have motivation but not environment.

Environment is on a scale, too: if I have a little bit of motivation to play Stepmania, but it takes 15 minutes to set up all the equipment, that motivation is a lot less likely to alchemize into action. If instead I set up a dedicated corner of a room for Stepmania, then it takes less motivation because my environment is tuned toward my passions instead of tuned against them. This is an example of environment helping turn motivation into action.

And distraction takes away from your environment. If you’re feeling motivated to do something but someone else is watching TV, it’ll be a lot harder to turn that motivation into action. If you’ve got StumbleUpon installed in Firefox, that’s part of your environment. Then, when you’re motivated to do research online, you may end up acting in a way that feeds your short-term whims instead of your long-term goals and desires. This is an example of environment making it harder to turn motivation into action.

There you go. I think those three beautiful equations encapsulate much of what I’ve been seeking for the past few years. I will, of course, post updates on how well it’s working for me and Kyeli. (: But before that, there are an entire two more posts in this motivation marathon! Off to write the next one… (:

A conversation with Megan about used car salesmen got me thinking about the ethics of communication.

Where do you draw the line between ethical communication and unethical manipulation?

1. I ask you politely to please give me five dollars.
2. I ask you to give me five dollars, and whine about it endlessly if you won’t.
3. I ask you to give me five dollars, and if you don’t, I say “Jesus would have given me five dollars,” attempting to manipulate you because I know you’re a Christian and this argument will get to you.
4. I ask you to give me five dollars, and if you don’t, I say “Well, you gave Bob five dollars last week…”
5. I ask you to give me five dollars, and if you don’t, I say “Well, you gave Bob five dollars last week, do you love Bob more than me?”
6. I try to convince you to eat only salad for an entire month. I explain to you why I think it would be a good idea.
7. I try to convince you to eat only salad for an entire month. I explain to you why I think it would be a good idea, using words, phrases, and explanations that I think will move you.
8. I create a YouTube video about a cause I feel passionate about, trying to convince others to join the cause.
9. I create a YouTube video about a cause I feel passionate about, trying to convince others to join the cause. I purposely add an emotionally manipulative soundtrack to add to its influencing power.
10. I paint my bedroom red, because that makes anyone I bring home 10% more likely to have sex with me.^[1]
11. I sell a product online. The site uses colours statistically proven to increase sales but contains only truthful, dry facts.
12. I sell a product online. The site is visually bland but contains words and phrases that are truthful but phrased in a way that is proven to increase sales.
13. I sell a product online. The site contains words and phrases that exaggerate a little bit, but we offer a money-back guarantee.

Which of these examples are ethical and which are unethical? More importantly, why? Every single one is me attempting to make you do something I want you to do. But is it making you, convincing you, or just talking to you? All communication influences the recipient. Where do you draw the line between influence and manipulation?

Intent can certainly be a factor, but even if the manipulation is accidental, you’re still left with the “Honest Hal” effect.

What about the boundaries of the person you’re communicating with, if it’s a one-on-one conversation? If you’re talking to a child, or someone who is easily manipulable, does that affect the ethics of communicating in certain ways? What about whether the other person is aware that you may be trying to influence or manipulate them?

[1] I made this statistic up, but I do recall a study I read once that said that the colour red does increase arousal.

Most of the role models in my life have been anti-role models. There have been several people who I loved and/or admired, but I came to know aspects of them that repulsed me. I took these experiences to heart as object lessons in What Not To Do, and they’ve had a profound impact on me. Sometimes I’ve even joked about getting “Don’t be like X” tattooed on my hand, for various X. So, without further ado, here are the nine things I’ve learned from the anti-role models in my life.

1. Don’t be lazy
2. Don’t watch TV
3. Don’t lie
4. Don’t cheat on your partner
5. Don’t live your life in fear
6. Don’t whip yourself to be productive
7. Don’t be heartless
8. Don’t stay in a relationship that’s making you unhappy
9. Don’t manipulate or use people

There are other things I’ve learned from my own self, like “Don’t change your emotions to please others”, but I’m not counting those, I’m just counting the things I’ve learned from others.

During my last Psych-K session, I realized what a powerful negative impact it’s having on my life that all my role models are anti-role models instead of positive role models. It’s no wonder I feel adrift and directionless when all I’ve internalized is a list of nine things not to do.

So, where are all the positive role models? Where do I find them? Who are some of your heroes and role models? Maybe we can share. (:

Kyeli and I were talking about philosophy and the underlying nature of the universe the other day, and she told me her beautiful beliefs about what she thinks is the underlying nature of the universe. I said, “That’s really beautiful, it’s a shame that the fact that it would make us happy to believe it makes it a priori less likely to be true.” “What?!” she replied.

“People are more likely to believe something that makes them happy. So if someone has a belief about the nature of the universe that makes them unhappy, then a likely explanation is that it’s true. But it someone has a belief about the nature of the universe that makes them happy, then there are two likely explanations: one, that it’s true, and two, that they just made it up to make themself feel happy, safe and secure.

“Imagine an experiment, where each person goes into a room to listen to a radio signal, and they’re supposed to write down the instructions given on the radio and then hand them to the experimenter to carry out. The radio voice is going to tell you how much you will be paid for your participation in this experiment, between $1 and $100. So first you do a control experiment just to figure out how many people lie, and then you do the real experiment, where half of the radio signals are unintelligibly garbled. The subjects are told that if they can’t hear the signal clearly, to just make something up, it’s fine. So I bet what we would find is that people who heard the garbled signals would write down higher numbers than people who heard the clear signals. Therefore the conditional probability of ClearSignal given LowNumber is relatively high, whereas the conditional probability of ClearSignal given HighNumber is relatively low. It’s more likely that the HighNumber was due to GarbledSignal. This is a metaphor for people trying to understand the true nature of the universe. Most of us probably get garbled signals, some of us may get clear signals, but all things being equal, a high number (a belief that makes us happy) is less likely to be true (clear signal) than a low number.

“Here’s another analogy. You have two big bags full of stones. Call them the Bag Of Truth and the Bag Of Bullshit. The Bag of Bullshit contains almost all white stones, and the Bag Of Truth, nobody knows what colour stones it contains. So if someone comes out with a white stone in their hand, chances are they got it from the Bag Of Bullshit. Sure, they may have gotten it from the Bag Of Truth, but it’s just as likely, maybe even more likely, that they got it from the Bag Of Bullshit. Whereas if someone comes out with a black stone in their hand, it’s much more likely that they got it from the Bag Of Truth, because there aren’t many non-white stones in the Bag Of Bullshit. So the white stones are beliefs that make you happy, and the bags, well the bags are pretty obvious.”

“So what you’re saying is that the universe probably sucks, because if you believe anything good, it’s probably bullshit!”

“Not probably. It’s just a priori less likely to be true. It’s Ockham’s Razor. If there are two possible explanations for a bunch of people having a belief, and one of them requires a bunch of things you consider to be improbable and the other one is simply ‘they made it up so they could feel happy, safe, and secure’, then the simplest explanation is probably best. Now of course ’simplest’ is a matter of opinion, for instance the ancient Greeks would have probably said ‘The Gods made everything’ was the simplest explanation. So any of these beliefs has to compete with ‘they made it up to be happy’, which is a pretty darn simple explanation.”

We went round and round like this for two days, me talking about science and conditional probability, and Kyeli wondering at how much it must suck to live in a world where nothing beautiful could possibly be true. (”Not possibly, just a priori less likely.”)

But suddenly this morning when I woke up, I realized that Kyeli was right and that I was wrong. The problem with my argument is similar to the problem with Pascal’s Wager — it’s making bogus quantifications of the unknown. Who knows what the underlying nature of the universe is? It could be such that it causes us to believe things that are true, even if we just make them up! It could be such that true beliefs about such things tend to make us happy! It could be something else entirely that we can’t really comprehend, and if so, it makes absolutely no sense to impose any sort of probability distribution on it.

I feel like a weight has been lifted from me. I’ve been unconsciously feeling bogged down by this belief, which has subtly influenced me toward believing that the true nature of the universe probably sucks. But now, I know that I do not know, and I am free.

Trembling with anticipation, my fingers manage on the third attempt to get the tiny key in the lock. There, under the unimportant leaflets vying for my attention is the small white square I so fervently hoped to find - a package awaits me in the office.

Detoxing has taken a lot from me; I am weak and tired, and the day is hot. The sun beats on my skin like hot metal hammers. Even so, I make the walk, going the long route to avoid as much of the sun’s rays as possible. Steps match my heartbeat, both filled with hope and happy nerves.

A new face in the office greets me, slowing my quest. I’m not permitted to rifle through the packages to find mine; she takes the slip from me and makes slow work of what I could do so quickly. Twice, with increasing impatience, I must remind her of my name; finally, I crouch down and point to the one on top with my name bold on the label.

She hands it to me. I instinctively wrap my hand around it and put it to my heart. She makes pleasantries with me and I go through the motions, but my mind is noting the size of the box - perfect for a CD. It is, it’s here, I’m holding it in my hand.

A moment later, outside, walking again toward home. I run my key through the tape and release the contents of the box. Her face on the cover, trees and birds and water and her gorgeous face, and time slows to give me ample chance to savor the moment.

I move slowly, remove the CD from the box, running my fingers over the plastic. I had no idea at the start of the year that she was producing another CD this year, no clue that I would have her lyrics to guide me through this turbulence and sharp rapid change. My heart soars with this gift from my soul sister, knowing that her songs, her music, her words are here in my hands, a moment’s stop from my heart.

Every set has been a gift, every CD finds me in similar places with similar feelings. What this one will bring, I can only imagine. Tears spill down my face as my heart fills with the knowledge that this will be our greatest journey yet.

A gift from the universe with perfect timing for this month of emptying, now I have music to further guide my soul to the places from which I will refill.