Self sabotage? In this economy?

A video about how to back yourself in 12 different strategies

Notes:

1. But what will ___ think?
   When you are about to do something, you might have a voice of resistance where you ask what someone would think? So you give it a lable to break yourself out of that.

Examples he gives:

• What will the most chronically online sociopaths think?
• What will my judgey co-worker think?
• What will the dumbest people alive think?
  When you think of it in those terms are less inclined to care what these kinds of people think of what you are about to do, because why should you care what people you don't respect and don't respect you think about what you are doing? Why does the opinion of someone who doesn't respect you matter?

Ask yourself instead: What would you think?

2. The Arena

• The only people who count are the people who are actually putting in the effort (people in the area). People who are not putting in the effort and only watching from the side-lines (the spectators of the aerna) are not worth listening to.
• If you wouldn't take advice from them, don't take criticism from them either.
• Are they giving constructive or destructive feedback? If it's destructive, it's not worth listening to.
• Ask yourself; 'Are they in the Arena?' (are the putting in the same work you are, and do they understand what they are talking about), 'Are they in an arena that I care about?', and 'Would I take advice from them?'.

2. Comment Bingo
   Play bingo with negative comments

Types of people you might get unhelpful feedback from:

• People with no curiosity: E.g 'Humans are NOT a rich tapestry' and 'My gut reaction is 100% correct' These people who make up their mind who lack nuance or attempt to understand other people's point of views. People who think they are the main character and anything out of their experience is wrong.

• People with no boundaries: E.g 'Who do you think you are? A human I can't control?' Who get angry about you not listening to them or who want to have control over the things you create. These people put things onto you, they try to know things about you that you don't want to share, they push you to talk about things you don't want to etc, people who tell you to kill yourself in comments, pick stupid fights with you etc.

• People with no agency: E.g 'I am impossibly dump and impossibly angry'. People who make up stupid arguments, for example if you criticize a part of society, then they turn around and tell you that you are still participating in it without understand the nuance of your argument.

I personally find flaws with this particular suggestion, but maybe some people will find it helpful!

The point of those categories is to realize that these people have no original thoughts and no personality, and therefore have pretty worthless opinions that you should not take to heart, nor waste your time engaging with.

4. Kakonomics
   The preference people have for low quality outcomes or a social contract that people have with each other to be mediocre.
   "Kakonomic worlds are worlds in which people not only live with each others laxness, but expect it: I trust you not to keep your promises in full because I want to be free not to keep mind and not feel bad about it." - Gloria Origgi

He gives an example of Netflix making shitty '2nd screen' 'content' and how your attention then become low quality.

"Each low quality exchange erodes the overall system in the long run." - Gloria Origgi

He says this is what has happened to the art and entertainment that is created now.

But when all content is slop, you miss out on the purposeful, interesting things. If you make slop and consume slop, you are less likely to back yourself. (my opinions here:) This is because you care so little what is put into your brain or the purpose behind the content your are consuming. When you outsource your thinking to slop, you are no longer backing yourself, you a consumeristic slave who watches whatever is put in front of them and can no longer think deeply about anything. Back yourself by thinking.

5. YOLO (I'm serious)
   You literally only live once.

This is about extrapolating all the limiting stories you have about yourself and seeing what they might look like on your tombstone.

• Limiting beliefs
• excuses
• stories that hold you back "I'll start next week when things clear up and are easier"

Then do a pre-mortem and ask yourself why you fail or stop chasing your dreams? E.g self consciousness and excuses

then come back to the present and ask how you pre-solve these problems? E.g finding someone to keep you accountable

6. Optimize for other outcomes
   The idea of questioning what you are told to want, then think about other things it is possible to want

E.g people say to make things for money, views or praise, but maybe you can make it to skill up, are bored, want to post something out of spite, to make friends, as a time capsule for the future, to try something new, for fun, for your own self respect etc

7. The Utterfly Effect
   Change the butterfly for 'Utterfly'
   What if a phrase you put out into the world could have a chain reaction on the world (positively).

About not feeling hopeless, and try to make some small changes in the world! Empower yourself by remembering that you can do something small that can change the world.

And, a quote that I really like from the Farseer Trilogy that is perfect for this:

8. Rig the game
   You might have this idea that it's win or lose, black and white, that you either make something amazing and people love it, or you make something that people hate and it's terrible.

The idea is to flip the switch and make both outcomes a win, using a 'Win/Learn' mentality rather than a 'Win/Lose' mentality.

He suggests getting a notebook and at the end of each day or project, ask 'what did I learn?', 'what did I get done today?' and 'what was the biggest lesson?'

9. There are stakes either way.
   It can be easy to compare fear to comfort when it comes to doing something. It's more helpful to look at it as 'Either way, there are stakes to this'. Because if you don't do the thing, there are also stakes.

You compare the stakes of backing yourself or not backing yourself and staying comfortable, and take the worst case scenario of both and then pick.

E.g You face criticism, ridicule, and wilful misinterpretation (others don't like you) etc, or you die sad and bitter and leave no contribution to the world (you don't like you).

10. Call it an experiment!
    Frame what you want to do as an experiment instead of something that 100% needs to be successful. It helps you get out of your own way

Constraints might help too

E.g: 30 days of -, 24 hour project, doing - until -, testing a hypothesis (If I pretend to back myself for 1 year, will it become my natural state?)

11. LARP it until your learn it
    What would you do vs what would you in a cool hat and sunglasses would you do? I'm going to pretend to be this until I internalise this or 'What would you do, VS, What would a confident you do?'

12. Feed your mind, mind your feed
    "You are the average of the 5 people you hang out with the most." If you spend a lot of time consuming a lot of kinds of content, that will become part of you as well as just the people you hang out with.

You can reverse engineer it and say "I want to be like these content creators, so I will watch them more than anyone else."

If you had to consume without the algorithm, who would you pick to watch?

Think about the things you consume as ingredients for a meal, if you wouldn't put poison in your food, why would you stick it in your head?