Hello, I’m Cord! I just attended the minicamp, have been running a meetup in Mountain View (the last one I’m leading is today :’( ), and this is my first post too!
As per Andrew Critch’s instructions, I’ve been mentally rewarding myself with excitement and noting that I’m taking correct action when I do anything that gets me at all closer to things I want, including just remembering that they’re things I want that I haven’t done yet, and including remembering that I’m using this procedure.
This morning I was tired and annoyed about “having” to get up and write up my notes from the minicamp and not just rest. I started to feel mentally fuzzy and angry, as I often do in this situation. Then I remembered that I was rewarding myself for even remembering that there’s something I wanted to do. So I did that, and that felt pretty cool, and then I wanted more, so I got up and started consolidating my notes. That was pretty cool too.
Similar to Cord, when I notice an action or thought that brings me closer to my goals, I smile. Before, I would usually groan or feel bad for realizing that I had not taken an action, which I now realize was creating the opposite impact than what I wanted!
Just out of curiosity, how do you ‘reward yourself with excitement’? Just a procedure of remembering a time you felt excited and trying to attach that feeling to the new thought?
I’ve mostly been saying in my mind “hey, I just did that, and that means I’m closer to doing X, that’s pretty cool!” There’s kindof a mental feeling that goes along with that for me, which I seem to be able to feel without actually saying anything in my mind, so I’ve been doing that too, and it seems to be working to move me towards my end goal.
People have suggested a lot of things to me, like physically high fiving myself or jumping up and down for a bit. I’d be curious to hear what other people do.
I have a roster of people who I imagine smiling at me, which I use to reward myself with: when I do something clever, I imagine a friend of mine whose intelligence I respect smiling at me. When I need comfort, I imagine my parents or my most accepting friend smiling at me. When I need excitement, I imagine a particular crush smiling at me.
I found Valentine’s point about self-rewarding ‘feeling like bullshit’ to be true in much the same way that you can’t tickle yourself. But then, I used his ‘simulate an event; feel the emotions’ method to simulate someone else rewarding me, and it seemed to work.
Caveat: I have only been using this for the few days since minicamp. It may have medium or long-term effects on my relationships with the people I imagine, although I predict they will be positive effects.
Slight Tangent:
One thing I’ve found that helps me in my relationships, is when I see a friend of mine, I mentally recall all the feelings of happiness and shared bonds and good times with that person, and try and put that into my face and smile, and send that at them.
I’ve also tried to explicitly compliment people (before, I had a bad habit of thinking positive things, but never actually sharing it with the people who I was thinking about!)
I had a bad habit of thinking positive things, but never actually sharing it with the people who I was thinking about!
It took me until very recently to realise that this habit is actually bad: it creates situations where I act like I’ve complimented people (because I thought of it) and they act like I haven’t (because I haven’t verbalised).
Something less; people risk their status when they say or do or display some praise-worthy thing, and they need affirmation that they gained status (via compliment). I act as if I’ve already affirmed their status (going on to the next topic, bringing up a compliment-worthy thing of my own), which looks to them like I’m denying their status (because they don’t see the praise that’s in my head).
Hello, I’m Cord! I just attended the minicamp, have been running a meetup in Mountain View (the last one I’m leading is today :’( ), and this is my first post too!
As per Andrew Critch’s instructions, I’ve been mentally rewarding myself with excitement and noting that I’m taking correct action when I do anything that gets me at all closer to things I want, including just remembering that they’re things I want that I haven’t done yet, and including remembering that I’m using this procedure.
This morning I was tired and annoyed about “having” to get up and write up my notes from the minicamp and not just rest. I started to feel mentally fuzzy and angry, as I often do in this situation. Then I remembered that I was rewarding myself for even remembering that there’s something I wanted to do. So I did that, and that felt pretty cool, and then I wanted more, so I got up and started consolidating my notes. That was pretty cool too.
Similar to Cord, when I notice an action or thought that brings me closer to my goals, I smile. Before, I would usually groan or feel bad for realizing that I had not taken an action, which I now realize was creating the opposite impact than what I wanted!
I think everyone agrees that Cord’s pretty cool too.
Just out of curiosity, how do you ‘reward yourself with excitement’? Just a procedure of remembering a time you felt excited and trying to attach that feeling to the new thought?
I’ve mostly been saying in my mind “hey, I just did that, and that means I’m closer to doing X, that’s pretty cool!” There’s kindof a mental feeling that goes along with that for me, which I seem to be able to feel without actually saying anything in my mind, so I’ve been doing that too, and it seems to be working to move me towards my end goal.
People have suggested a lot of things to me, like physically high fiving myself or jumping up and down for a bit. I’d be curious to hear what other people do.
I have a roster of people who I imagine smiling at me, which I use to reward myself with: when I do something clever, I imagine a friend of mine whose intelligence I respect smiling at me. When I need comfort, I imagine my parents or my most accepting friend smiling at me. When I need excitement, I imagine a particular crush smiling at me.
I found Valentine’s point about self-rewarding ‘feeling like bullshit’ to be true in much the same way that you can’t tickle yourself. But then, I used his ‘simulate an event; feel the emotions’ method to simulate someone else rewarding me, and it seemed to work.
Caveat: I have only been using this for the few days since minicamp. It may have medium or long-term effects on my relationships with the people I imagine, although I predict they will be positive effects.
Slight Tangent: One thing I’ve found that helps me in my relationships, is when I see a friend of mine, I mentally recall all the feelings of happiness and shared bonds and good times with that person, and try and put that into my face and smile, and send that at them.
I’ve also tried to explicitly compliment people (before, I had a bad habit of thinking positive things, but never actually sharing it with the people who I was thinking about!)
It took me until very recently to realise that this habit is actually bad: it creates situations where I act like I’ve complimented people (because I thought of it) and they act like I haven’t (because I haven’t verbalised).
What does “acting like you complimented someone” entail? Expecting them to show gratitude? Or is it something more?
Something less; people risk their status when they say or do or display some praise-worthy thing, and they need affirmation that they gained status (via compliment). I act as if I’ve already affirmed their status (going on to the next topic, bringing up a compliment-worthy thing of my own), which looks to them like I’m denying their status (because they don’t see the praise that’s in my head).
This seems like a brilliant add-on!