This is just a note on how I feel Agency, the capacity for a person to act, is made. These are what I feel contribute to Agency.
**Condition
Environment
Emotion
Awareness
Volition**
Condition
Sleep
Protect it. The body takes it seriously.
Consistent wake-up time, go to bed when actually tired.
Treat bed as a place to sleep, not a place for wakeful rest.
Light from any source before sleep makes you think its still day, the body won’t think its time for sleep. Light in the morning signals to the body its a new day.
Morning: Get direct sunlight (or other bright lights) within a half hour to an hour of waking, cloudy days count.
Wind Down at Night: Dimmer, warmer lights a couple hours before sleeping. Lamps > overhead. Less stimulation before sleep.
A sleep schedule, the more different it is than your previous, may take up to weeks to settle into.
Nerves
Tired but wired because the nervous system never shuts off:
Constant stimulation
Notifications
Caffeine
Screens late at night
The body believes it’s under threat constantly, we need fewer perceived threats.
Back off of the stimulation. When under fight or flight, it shuts off many thinking processes.
Before bed: Low novelty, Low decision-making, Low stakes, High predictability.
Diet & Exercise
Destroys energy and cognition:
Ultra processed foods
Blood sugar swings
Low nutrient density meals
Eat like humans were evolved to eat:
Whole foods
High quality proteins
Fruits and vegetables
Lots of water
This doesn’t need to be all or nothing, maybe 80% of your diet can be this way.
Exercise on a regular basis, the basics:
Lift heavy 2-4x/week.
Walk daily.
Find a sport, it’s enjoyable cardio.
---
Environment
Shape your environment for you, not against you.
Let it do some of the work. Get rid of cues for your worst habits.
External (social) structures help with accountability. Let people help you, especially when you start out. Be around or in a space with people you want to be like.
Humans are much better at adapting than changing on their own.
If you put yourself in an environment that changes you whether you like it or not, you’re taking advantage of human’s natural ability to adapt rather than their discomfort for change.
Keep it Simple, Focused, & Precise
Complexity feels productive, but real progress is usually in simplicity.
Competing priorities overload a persons capacity for focus and self-regulation.
Doing everything at once, especially when you haven’t done those things before, is unlikely to work.
Don’t be vague either, as decision-making in the moment can add friction.
Emotion
Emotions are signals—read them.
Most issues you face with Agency are going to be emotional problems.
Someone might fail to read their signals because they internally resist (through suppression or avoidance) or are distracted externally. Feel the body and you’ll feel what these signals are telling you.
Emotions have two parts to be aware of:
Pleasant or unpleasant - one pulls you toward something, the other pushes you away.
Energizing or draining—one activates you, the other slows you down.
Emotions are not the same as nerves. A dysregulated nervous system will color your emotions, making neutral things feel threatening and small things overwhelming.
To read and process emotions clearly, you’ll need to be calm.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, it’s going to be due to your thoughts. Thoughts that run wild over the things you worry about.
If you feel like its unproductive in the moment and you want to be able to act instead, you may want to drown out the thoughts for now.
To drown out thoughts, simple and predictable noises are the best tool (i.e. loud clock ticking). You still want to be able to think, but due to the overbearing noise only intentional thoughts filter through. Weak, uncontrollable thoughts bear no weight.
You don’t have to do this for long, just enough for you to get out of the crisis in your own head.
Processing emotions means:
Recognizing (naming the emotion).
Accepting it.
Understanding why (cause and effect).
Allowing yourself to experience your feelings rather than avoiding or suppressing them.
Journaling does most of this
Awareness
Noticing, observing, monitoring. Easier to obtain when Emotion is stable, in a less distracting Environment.
Attention is where you point your Awareness to, and you can only point it to one thing at a time. Though you might do several things, your Awareness is only on one, often switching quickly.
Distractions
You’re distracted when you’re doing something other than the thing you were going to do.
Distractions can be visual/auditory (sight, hearing), cognitive (thoughts), or bodily (sensations). Recognize which it is, and find a way to most easily break line of focus from it. Examples:
Occlusion (sight, auditory)
Writing, or loud, simple and predictable noises (thoughts)
Fixing what the body is signaling (bodily)
Your goal, when distracted, is to get your attention back.
Keeping Calm
Notice when your nerves feel wired and your heartbeat is irregular.
It happens a lot more than you might think it does, even in the most mundane of situations and challenges.
Note that it’s best to figure out why you’re feeling this way, in order to prevent suppression or avoidance.
Breathing with a natural inhale and a slow, long exhale helps keep calm.
Slow down.
Slowing Down & Internal Conflicts
Slowing down (your movements) creates more awareness of the moment, giving yourself time to notice internal conflicts.
To be conflicted is to have a fight with yourself, with both sides wanting opposing things.
Monitor that internal conflict. What, if any, side do you know is best?
Reiterate your will, making it clear what you want in that moment. The mind will try to overlap your will with its own desires.
Losing awareness of that will means losing the conflict.
Calm yourself when conflicted. Often desires leave you feeling a bit wired which is what is prompting you to deal with them, so lower it back down.
Compulsive distractions or habits are that way because of a lack of internal conflict.
A sign to slow down is when inconveniences hit harder than they should, when you’re impatient.
Volition
Forming an intention, choosing a direction, creating a will. Awareness is what makes this possible.
Being Patient with Change
Some people are very healthy, or good with finances, or great with relationships. Those people stand out a lot. If even that’s impressive, what about two, or three, or more strong traits in a single person?
Take your time, and don’t be impatient. Just doing one at a time is good, maybe even preferred. Don’t mistake that making something more complicated than it needs to be will help you act.
Your Identity
If you believe yourself to be a certain way, that is how you will act.
Most people dabble with change. But they often backtrack, and under stress they completely revert. Not because they’re weak, but because a partial identity doesn’t survive under pressure.
The mind predicts, and depending on your identity, the mind will act according to the prediction that suits you best.
Create a single-minded identity to help you focus on what’s most important:
Ask yourself what is the identity that is most important for you to focus on, right now?
Remove behaviors or factors where you can that contradict or inhibit you from embodying that identity fully.
Add only a few behaviors that reinforce the identity and are doable under stress. Embody that identity.
Note that one likely won’t feel they are what they’re trying to newly identify with until they act, which gives evidence of their new identity in a concrete way. The reason to identify as something in the first place is to further help this connection, it is deliberate.
Commit a number of days to prioritizing that new identity (i.e 30), with no expanding the plan or excessive optimization (can be very distracting and is busy work instead of real work).
When your direction is clear, it requires less attention to stay on track.
Pre-deciding reduces the mental cost of volition in the moment—the choice is already made when you were in a better state to make it.
---
Agency
The overall capacity to act in the world. The product of everything above it working together.
Everything above decides your Agency:
Protect your conditions
Shape your environment
Read and process your emotions
Sharpen your awareness
Decide your direction (before you need to act on it)
A note on Willpower: The force that executes your will against resistance—the “power” behind your will.
It’s not the starting point.
I think its mostly emotional in nature; a compelling enough reason, in a stable enough state, produces it. But it’ll be difficult for anyone to find that compelling reason in the moment, even (or especially) when you need it the most.
It doesn’t appear to be something you can improve directly/immediately, however, you feel as though willpower is increasing as you act against resistance more and more. You’re becoming a doer, instead of just a thinker. But that requires doing something first.
The biggest motivation behind this note was to provide a foundation for agency, without excess complication. Hope I accomplished that. Please leave a review so I can get different perspectives, and improve both myself and this note. Thank you.
A Note on Agency
A Note on Agency
This is just a note on how I feel Agency, the capacity for a person to act, is made. These are what I feel contribute to Agency.
**Condition
Environment
Emotion
Awareness
Volition**
Condition
Sleep
Protect it. The body takes it seriously. Consistent wake-up time, go to bed when actually tired.
Treat bed as a place to sleep, not a place for wakeful rest.
Light from any source before sleep makes you think its still day, the body won’t think its time for sleep. Light in the morning signals to the body its a new day.
Morning: Get direct sunlight (or other bright lights) within a half hour to an hour of waking, cloudy days count.
Wind Down at Night: Dimmer, warmer lights a couple hours before sleeping. Lamps > overhead. Less stimulation before sleep. A sleep schedule, the more different it is than your previous, may take up to weeks to settle into.
Nerves
Tired but wired because the nervous system never shuts off:
Constant stimulation
Notifications
Caffeine
Screens late at night The body believes it’s under threat constantly, we need fewer perceived threats.
Back off of the stimulation. When under fight or flight, it shuts off many thinking processes.
Before bed: Low novelty, Low decision-making, Low stakes, High predictability.
Diet & Exercise
Destroys energy and cognition:
Ultra processed foods
Blood sugar swings
Low nutrient density meals
Eat like humans were evolved to eat:
Whole foods
High quality proteins
Fruits and vegetables
Lots of water This doesn’t need to be all or nothing, maybe 80% of your diet can be this way.
Exercise on a regular basis, the basics:
Lift heavy 2-4x/week.
Walk daily.
Find a sport, it’s enjoyable cardio.
---
Environment
Shape your environment for you, not against you. Let it do some of the work. Get rid of cues for your worst habits.
External (social) structures help with accountability. Let people help you, especially when you start out. Be around or in a space with people you want to be like.
Humans are much better at adapting than changing on their own. If you put yourself in an environment that changes you whether you like it or not, you’re taking advantage of human’s natural ability to adapt rather than their discomfort for change.
Keep it Simple, Focused, & Precise
Complexity feels productive, but real progress is usually in simplicity.
Competing priorities overload a persons capacity for focus and self-regulation. Doing everything at once, especially when you haven’t done those things before, is unlikely to work.
Don’t be vague either, as decision-making in the moment can add friction.
Emotion
Emotions are signals—read them.
Most issues you face with Agency are going to be emotional problems.
Someone might fail to read their signals because they internally resist (through suppression or avoidance) or are distracted externally. Feel the body and you’ll feel what these signals are telling you.
Emotions have two parts to be aware of:
Pleasant or unpleasant - one pulls you toward something, the other pushes you away.
Energizing or draining—one activates you, the other slows you down.
Emotions are not the same as nerves. A dysregulated nervous system will color your emotions, making neutral things feel threatening and small things overwhelming.
To read and process emotions clearly, you’ll need to be calm.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, it’s going to be due to your thoughts. Thoughts that run wild over the things you worry about.
If you feel like its unproductive in the moment and you want to be able to act instead, you may want to drown out the thoughts for now. To drown out thoughts, simple and predictable noises are the best tool (i.e. loud clock ticking). You still want to be able to think, but due to the overbearing noise only intentional thoughts filter through. Weak, uncontrollable thoughts bear no weight.
You don’t have to do this for long, just enough for you to get out of the crisis in your own head.
Processing emotions means:
Recognizing (naming the emotion).
Accepting it.
Understanding why (cause and effect).
Allowing yourself to experience your feelings rather than avoiding or suppressing them. Journaling does most of this
Awareness
Noticing, observing, monitoring. Easier to obtain when Emotion is stable, in a less distracting Environment.
Attention is where you point your Awareness to, and you can only point it to one thing at a time. Though you might do several things, your Awareness is only on one, often switching quickly.
Distractions
You’re distracted when you’re doing something other than the thing you were going to do.
Distractions can be visual/auditory (sight, hearing), cognitive (thoughts), or bodily (sensations). Recognize which it is, and find a way to most easily break line of focus from it. Examples:
Occlusion (sight, auditory)
Writing, or loud, simple and predictable noises (thoughts)
Fixing what the body is signaling (bodily) Your goal, when distracted, is to get your attention back.
Keeping Calm
Notice when your nerves feel wired and your heartbeat is irregular. It happens a lot more than you might think it does, even in the most mundane of situations and challenges.
Note that it’s best to figure out why you’re feeling this way, in order to prevent suppression or avoidance.
Breathing with a natural inhale and a slow, long exhale helps keep calm.
Slow down.
Slowing Down & Internal Conflicts
Slowing down (your movements) creates more awareness of the moment, giving yourself time to notice internal conflicts.
To be conflicted is to have a fight with yourself, with both sides wanting opposing things.
Monitor that internal conflict. What, if any, side do you know is best?
Reiterate your will, making it clear what you want in that moment. The mind will try to overlap your will with its own desires.
Losing awareness of that will means losing the conflict.
Calm yourself when conflicted. Often desires leave you feeling a bit wired which is what is prompting you to deal with them, so lower it back down.
Compulsive distractions or habits are that way because of a lack of internal conflict.
A sign to slow down is when inconveniences hit harder than they should, when you’re impatient.
Volition
Forming an intention, choosing a direction, creating a will. Awareness is what makes this possible.
Being Patient with Change
Some people are very healthy, or good with finances, or great with relationships. Those people stand out a lot. If even that’s impressive, what about two, or three, or more strong traits in a single person?
Take your time, and don’t be impatient. Just doing one at a time is good, maybe even preferred. Don’t mistake that making something more complicated than it needs to be will help you act.
Your Identity
If you believe yourself to be a certain way, that is how you will act.
Most people dabble with change. But they often backtrack, and under stress they completely revert. Not because they’re weak, but because a partial identity doesn’t survive under pressure.
The mind predicts, and depending on your identity, the mind will act according to the prediction that suits you best.
Create a single-minded identity to help you focus on what’s most important:
Ask yourself what is the identity that is most important for you to focus on, right now?
Remove behaviors or factors where you can that contradict or inhibit you from embodying that identity fully.
Add only a few behaviors that reinforce the identity and are doable under stress. Embody that identity.
Note that one likely won’t feel they are what they’re trying to newly identify with until they act, which gives evidence of their new identity in a concrete way. The reason to identify as something in the first place is to further help this connection, it is deliberate.
Commit a number of days to prioritizing that new identity (i.e 30), with no expanding the plan or excessive optimization (can be very distracting and is busy work instead of real work).
When your direction is clear, it requires less attention to stay on track. Pre-deciding reduces the mental cost of volition in the moment—the choice is already made when you were in a better state to make it.
---
Agency
The overall capacity to act in the world. The product of everything above it working together.
Everything above decides your Agency:
Protect your conditions
Shape your environment
Read and process your emotions
Sharpen your awareness
Decide your direction (before you need to act on it)
A note on Willpower: The force that executes your will against resistance—the “power” behind your will.
It’s not the starting point.
I think its mostly emotional in nature; a compelling enough reason, in a stable enough state, produces it. But it’ll be difficult for anyone to find that compelling reason in the moment, even (or especially) when you need it the most.
It doesn’t appear to be something you can improve directly/immediately, however, you feel as though willpower is increasing as you act against resistance more and more. You’re becoming a doer, instead of just a thinker. But that requires doing something first.
The biggest motivation behind this note was to provide a foundation for agency, without excess complication. Hope I accomplished that. Please leave a review so I can get different perspectives, and improve both myself and this note. Thank you.