nudge

There Are Two Kinds of Cravings: Only One Matters

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[In the spirit of my affinity for alliteration, today’s post is brought to you by the letter “C”.]

To balance our lives we are constantly told to pay attention to our cravings, for they tell us something about what we really want. Maybe about what we really need, even if we can’t admit it out loud.

It took some time but I realized that there can be a hard line drawn between what I see as two fundamental types of cravings: Core and Common. Choosing one on which to spend your limited life energy and time is crucial.

Let’s start with the cravings that many of us think of when we think of cravings – the common, everyday desires and flights of fancy, regardless their source.

Common

Common cravings are everywhere. So prevalent are they in our lives that they are almost not worth mentioning, or they are clichés: chocolate, coffee, cute clothes, crispy crunchy cookies, consumer goodies, cat photos, et cetera.

But the common cravings are not all about sugar and products. There’s another side, the cravings that can prove counterproductive or even caustic when honored above other pursuits or investigated too deeply: competition, comfort, closure, compliance, control, …..

Core

Now, plumb the well and get some depth. Cravings that belong to the core group are the ones that deserve attention, time, and a sense of curiosity (itself a kind of craving). These include connection, contemplation, creation, communion, and more.

It is by spending a minimal amount of time accepting, acknowledging, and letting go of those Common cravings that we are freed to spend time on the Core. Realize that external closure and the sense of control is elusive at best, but that you can create your own embodiment of calm through a new connection with life, spirit, or another human.

Renting Your Job Is Easier Than Buying

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Rent vs Own Image from IBM

Weirdly, from an IBM article about “renting” labor as consultants vs “buying” as full-time workers. But hey, it works for my purposes.

If you rent an apartment, you can pack up and move pretty much whenever. There’s no hassle to sell, no investment to recoup, no lawn to maintain or walls to paint. You. Just. Go.

So it is with employment, though it took the awesome James Altucher to point it out in an email:

“Oh, one [more] good thing about a job: you RENT the company, you don’t OWN the company.

In other words, you can leave any time you want. You don’t have to care about customers, shareholders, colleagues.” – James Altucher

Consider that your license to consider your daily life. If you are a business owner, you have responsibilities, which you likely took on willingly when you started the company. However, if you are NOT a business owner, you have SO MUCH FREEDOM you can barely comprehend. If you think you have no freedom, you are wrong. You have personal responsibilities, but you as an employee have zero working obligations. And in the state of New Mexico, that’s even more true as we have what’s called a “voluntary employment” law.

This means that every moment of every day that you work is completely voluntary, and every moment that you are being paid to come to work is completely voluntary by your employer. You can quit literally any time. And you can be fired anytime. There are no repercussions to this legally. It is liberating because you have only a sense of politeness forcing you to give those two weeks of notice. And if you are STILL employed, it probably means that the company likes you and they want to keep paying you rather than needing to hold on to you for some inconvenient red tape reason.

Rejoice, employees. Be free, if you want to be free.

How To Nudge Yourself, Part One

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complimentMany people encounter speed bumps that slow us down, or could even stop us if we are already moving slowly, and nudging ourselves over that bump into forward motion is essential.

Here is one little tiny thing, the first of a series, that I’ve learned from many mentors in my personal life and out on the interwebs that will help the vault over that bump. Each tiny thing takes a few minutes or less, and could involve getting over some fear to execute. But each are worth it and if you have any of that niggling fear, just tell it to STFU and get the thing done.

ONE. Contact someone in your medium-celebrity list to tell them how much they mean to you.

Your ‘medium celebrity’ list is someone that you admire in a field you are learning, but not necessarily the top of the pile. Let’s say you’re an aspiring chef. Don’t contact Gordon Ramsey or Nobu or Thomas Keller, especially if you are very nervous. (Note – in some circumstances, you could contact the top tier, but that’s another topic…)

Contact a “four star” chef near you – if you live in Austin, it could be one of the Top Chef contestants that was eliminated in the middle of the show. Make sure it’s a chef that you have some personal experience with, like eating at their restaurant, or cooking one of their published recipes. Let them know you appreciate their effort thus far and you’ve really been enjoying their recipe for XX and you hope that they are having a wonderful season full of ideas and customers. Don’t ask for anything. Just drop a genuine compliment that contains a nugget of your own experience.

Do this every day for a week and just bask in the glow that seems to come from dishing out respect.

Nudging The Ones You Love

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idea generation

Effecting change is a wish of many of us. But usually it remains a wish, and often it can become a burden, an annoyance, an irritating behavior, and a pestilence. Why? In the way-smarter-than-me words of Seth Godin (from his book Tribes, and from his blog):

People don’t believe what you tell them.  They rarely believe what you show them.  They often believe what their friends tell them.  They always believe what they tell themselves. 

I think the biggest long term impact is to somehow change their behaviors without forcing the issue. Nudge-like stuff. Change is hard. Really freaking  hard – James Altucher says so. And I like James. Because he writes silly and interesting things about dead bodies, sometimes.

In the realm of changes toward more physical activity, especially in the evening, here are some ideas I’ve had recently. Start by setting positive context for behaviors that will lead to better health, happiness, mobility, and on (which doesn’t have to mean weight loss, but could):

  • after a meal, “I feel like a short walk – want to come with me?”
  • at the end of a meal (regardless how you actually feel), “Wow, that was filling. Definitely no dessert for me.”
  • walking the dog, “want to come with me?” If NO, then other nudge-like methods, “I’m taking the dog out, want to come and talk about that house project we are working on / that crap that happened to you at work / your parents’ upcoming visit / what we want to do on vacation?”
  • either all at once or gradually, get rid of or fix visual reminders of unwanted behavior: messy environment, snack foods, dirty exercise clothes
  • YOU DO the habits that they will need to do. Set a visual, rather than verbal, example.
  • start training for something. Warrior dash, office arm-wrestling, whatever.
  • don’t personally do the bad habits they should not do: popcorn at movies, extra appetizers, watching TV all night, saying you will workout or do something physical and then bailing out. If you say you are going to work out, fucking go work out.

For lasting change, they really do have to want to drink even if you’ve led them to the water. I don’t think there is much way around this. Again, see Seth’s quote above. Robb freaking Wolf could not change members of his family who had chronic and very uncomfortable diseases that might have been reversed with lifestyle changes. That should not be depressing, per se, but rather help all of us to understand that folks need to come into knowledge from their own divination.

It has to be their idea.

Even if it’s your idea. It has to be their idea.

Let them steal it, and honestly, you BOTH will win. Honestly, isn’t what you wanted for them to change –  not for them to bow before you as a fountain of lifehacker knowledge?