the-practicing-mind.md

the-practicing-mind.md

This book lays out the benefits of how focusing on practice (as opposed to outcomes) can lead to a good life. It argues that the only (/ most common) way to get irritated, frustrated, bored, impatience. insecrity, etc., about learning a new skill is by judging yourself based on the outcome. The key to living a satisfied and accompished life is to put all attention on the practice, and using the outcome only as a sparse external anchor to guide your practice.

Focus on the process:

• If you want to practice for long periods of time without getting drained, awareness of your thoughts is the key.
• Typical cycle of frustration when learning a new skill: We often lose inspiration after a few sessions of doing something new. And we feel frustrated about that. And we repeat this again with a new skill.
• Why do we get frustrated? The key reason why we get frustrated is if we don't make expected amount of progress on the project. It's because of this focus on the outcome that you exhaust yourself with unrelated thoughts.
• How do we get out of this cycle of frustration? By shifting all our focus onto the practice. Accepting the outcome as is, without any judgment (eg. maybe I'm not smart enough for the math on this paper). The outcome is only a coarse indicator if you're moving in the correct direction, use it sparingly. To reiterate:
  • Don't use the outcome (the grade you get on an exam) to judge your self-worth. It's unproductive. Focus on how good your practice sessions were, and if you're able to get better practice sessions. That's all you need to be blissfully satisfied.
  • Become fully process oriented without any concern regarding the outcome. Focus on learning fewer things deeply, than trying to do everything.
  • The outcome is far less satisfying than the process of working for it.
  • Make the process the goal.
  • Each time you're frustrated or feelign impatient making progress on the goal, remind yourself that you're focusing on the outcome, and gently bring your attention back to the present moment.

Perspective:

• Most of life is the practice. The satisfaction of reaching a desire outcome is short lived.
• Regreting about what you could have been: "I could have broken every record in the book but the injury didn't let me" -- ask yourself "and then?" what's the point of the record, you get fame and money "and then?" it's bad whichever way you look at it. And fame stifles freedom.
  • Mike Tyson said "these belts are garbage, i wanted them badly once, but then you realize that you just want your kids to be happy" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgcHBcQRlpw
• During meditation, each time we have unrelated thoughts, we bring our focus back to our breath. This is a useful skill that transfers well to practicing a skill. Each time you find yourself frustrated, recognize that it's because of your focus on the outcome and gently bring your focus back to the practice. To reiterate:
  • Realize that you're perfect in every moment. Each time you're frustrated, realize that it's because your mind and energy are focused either in the past or in the future. Check yourself at various moments in the day to see if you're in the present. Just be in the present moment and be fully absorbed in what you're doing. This the timeless skill that will enable sustained happiness.
  • When you're fully absorbed in the practice, you don't have the meta awareness that you're fully absorbed. Training in MMA is a good place to be fully aware in the present moment, if you're not in a sparrign session, you'll be punched in the face.
• Video games is a good example of focused practice on the process (and only a mild awareness of the number of points). Chaning your attention to points deteriorates your performance. Why is video games much easier to play than practicing an skill like work? Next time this happens focus on what's going on in your mind. It's generally because of lots of decisions you need to make, or because you're focused (/ worried about) on the outcome / making a mistake. Just focus on doing your best, nothing can ever be boring.
• Challenge: next time you're doing a hard task, do the first 30 minutes as mindfully as possible. after that you can hate the task how much ever you want. don't try to enjoy the work, just focus on being mindful.
  • later, also focus on seeing how your thoughts are poping and what's the root cause of you not enjoying it. this process of curiousliy and mindfully observing your mind can be as rewarding as anything.
  • once you realize that a activity as mundane as mowing the lawn can be a source of blissful satisfaction, your life will change,
  • this also helps you accomplish more in less time

Creating habits:

• We need to be aware of "what we are doing", "what we are thinking" and "what we are intending to accomplish" to enjoy life.
• Detach from and observe your thoughts. Each time you find your thoughts irrelevant, gently full focus back to the present.
• Train your system 1 with repeated practice so that it becomes a habit.
• We want awareness to be a natural part of us, not a struggle. This needs repeated focused practice.
  • know what you want to acheive
  • know what motions you need to make that a habit
  • execute those motions without emotions / judgements
  • just like MMA. apply this to everything.
• relax, stay in the moment and practice. Yes, it is appling effort, but you'll see that there's no sense of struggle.
• breaking bad habits: (i) visualize your response when you feel the urge to give into the habit, (ii) have a trigger before you switch behaviors (say when it's the hardest is when you need to do it the most, 3 breaths + smile, just the first emotion as the trigger, picking the remote, "here's where the fun begins")
• frustration happens when you feel like you're not where you should be. you are precisely where you should be right now. smile and be satisfied, you're the flower.

Patience:

• we need to practice these ideas continously. we need to keep reviewing them if we want to stay on path.
• patience: "quiet pperseverance without struggle". if you're experiencing impatience, it means that you're not in the present moment or being process oriented.
• worrying: mind anticipating circumstances that haven't happened and trying to answer questions that haven't been asked repeatedly and compulsively. this never helps. if you have to think about something deeply, allot a focused time for it and do it. Not during your shower.
• when picking up a new skill, the only goal we should have is to pursue the activity with focus. it shouldn't matter how quickly we get good at it.
• the race is never over, you will never reach an end point. there's always more things to learn. keeping the focus on the outcome makes us impatient. reframe: the race is over, you are where you should be. have joy continuing the process. stop look "at" and "for" progress.
• compare yourself to your external goal only occasioanlly. each time you do that, you might be draining you energy, increasing impatience.
• a lot of enjoyment of reaching the goal is based upon how much effort you exerted into it. so it's good if things are harder because you'll enjoy them more.

Four S words:

• simplify, small, short, slow
  • simplify: break skill down into it's components.
  • small: break goal into smaller sections. (I'm just going to clean this little corner of the house, I'll only continue if I feel like)
  • short: do it only for a fixed short period of time (eg. 10 mins)
  • slow: work at a pace slow enough to allow you to observe the activity. you'll accomplish more because there's no wasted energy. paradox. makes it blissful.
• practice by brushing slowly every morning.

Quiet mind:

• We tend to judge everything that's happening to us. i like the breakfast. i didn't like eating salmon yesterday. i'm feeling sleepy, that's bad. etc., these judgments come with emotional baggage, sometimes subtle, sometimes bigger. nothing is right or wrong. everything is good.
• there are two people in your head: one who says things and continously talks, the other who just observes. attach yourself with the observer, and keep away the ego driven mentality of having the best life possible.

Children:

• "hey, how do you feel about being upset at school last week?" it can be an opportunity to teach them that things are short lived.
• "that thing you asked me for two weeks back, do you still feel like having it?" helps them recognize how emotions are.

Progress:

• with deliberate and repeated effort, progress is inevitable. And progress is all that matters.

TWitter:

• Conveying an idea through a story is much more powerful than just stating it. It helps you internalize the idea more easily. This is why reading fulls books is much more effective than reading summaries of them.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgcHBcQRlpw

Deleted sentences:

• You need to be in control of your thoughts if you have to practice with the least amount of effort. Awareness of your thoughts is the key.
• Practicing anything is a way to let go of all worries and focus on the present moment. Completely give away the goal, and focus on being mindful and enjoying the process of achieving it. The moment you focus on the product is when you experience frustration; you exhaust yourself with unrelated thoughts. Thinking about how well we're accomplishing the goal only distracts.
• Accept the outcome as it is, without judgment. Only use it as an indicator to tune your practice.
• The core of disappointment during practice is the same phenomenon that happens at the core of meditation. We focus on the outcome and judge ourselves. The only way to be disappointed during practice is by changing your focus to the outcome.