steven kotler

Habits and Procrastination

Energy, Flow, Habits, Human Brain, peak Performance, procrastination, Thinking

I have written earlier about the book Tiny Habits by B. J. Fogg PhD. This is one classic book and it eliminates the ideas of doing heroic things to achieve Peak Performance. I have been deeply impressed with the book and the results it has helped me get.

The logic of the book is very simple, yet profound.  Actually most profound things have simple explanations. Here the simple explanation is that if there’s something which requires a lot of ability (also known as hard work for the brain) then chances are, that if motivation is not high, then it won’t happen. So you may have the best intentions, but your brain won’t let you achieve it. This is what I was talking about yesterday .

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, the brain has only 2% of the mass of the body but consumes about 25% of the energy, so its always trying to conserve energy as per Steven Kotter in his book The Art of Impossible.

As per Steven to achieve the impossible one of the key ingredients is motivation. He also looks at the various chemicals like dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin etc., which when layered give the brain the power of feeling good and hence the motivation to perform at peak.

Where I think the intersection takes place is that if you make something into a habit, then the brain does not use so much energy and you don’t procrastinate even for tasks where the motivation is low and the amount of ability needed is high.

On the other hand when your motivation levels are high and you’re at your creative best, you can get into a “flow” state and achieve massive outcomes.

I would think you should read both the books because both can help you grow your abilities to perform at your peak.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Procrastination – is it your brain playing games

Energy, Fear, Human Brain, procrastination, Productivity

Your brain occupies about 2% of body mass but uses upto 25% of the energy. Nothing new here. These facts are more or less known for a very long time. What was new to me when I was reading Steven Kotler’s book The Art of Impossible was the fact that the brain tries to conserve energy, so it tries to do tasks which require less energy and creates a resistance to anything new, novel, unknown etc.

I have been a big procrastinator all my life. And till now I used to feel the biggest reason for me to be like this was that I was scared, I had a fear – of just about anything. I have tried a lot of things to get out of this habit of procrastination and over the years have improved tremendously. One of the best things that I learnt was identifying the task which can have the most impact on my day and then finishing that one task, before moving to anything else.

When you have a team and you also have to coordinate with peers, you may not be able to close all things that you plan in advance.However for that I use my electronic calendar and shift the dates to follow-up with my colleagues and they remain on my calendar till completely closed. So in that sense I have become more action oriented, but there are still a huge amount of areas where I can be many times better, except for my procrastination.

Dan Sullivan has different take on procrastination, and he and Dean Jackson have a podcast called the “joyofprocrastination”. where they talk extensively about how procrastination is actually your friend. I have used some of their concepts also in my journey to improve my productivity.

However after I read the above facts in Steven’s book, it kind of made an “aha” situation for me. My brain resists my doing something new or unknown because it will have to spend more energy. Since the new or novel thing could also hurt me, it will have to do even more work to protect me.The more work it has to do, the more energy it will need to spend. Since the brain is also a pattern recognition system, it tries to keep predicting how things could shape up and therefore predicts the amount of energy it may end up spending. So it suggests avoiding the task altogether as an easy way out to conserve energy.

So now I know, I won’t blame myself for my procrastination habit. I will blame it on my brain for playing games with me. You could also check out and see if this logic holds good for you as well.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Autotelic – Have you read about it before?

Flow, Focus, Human Brain, Thinking

This is a new word I read about recently. It came about in the book The Art of Impossible by Steven Kotler. Today was the third time I read this word. The first two times also I read it in this book itself, but didn’t quite get it.

For those of you who read my blogs regularly, first of all thanks for doing so, you would have noticed that I like to see the nuances between words, the way they are used by different authors.

This word was however unique. Its kind of tongue twisting, but its a little scientific in nature so can be excused.

So coming back to the book where I read this word. This word has been used in context to getting into a “flow” state where the activity is its own reward. As Steven says – “the thing we are doing is so pleasurable and meaningful, that we will go to great lengths to do it……”

I have written earlier how just before I start to write I have a big lock on what I will write today. And then I put my hands to the keyboard on my tablet or computer and then just start typing. Soon I get into the flow and create something. Sometimes there are portions of topics, which may have been written by me earlier also but generally most of the content written everyday is fresh.

The key is that 1) when I start writing – I kind of forget about what’s happening outside, 2) after finishing my post I feel a deep sense of achievement. Now I am not an author – at least not yet. But writing helps me recover from the stresses of the day and feel rejuvenated.

So this word kind of resonated with me. I went and searched out for it on the internet. As per the “meriam-webster” “autotelic,” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/autotelic. Accessed 7/31/2021. dictionary it is an adjective – meaning having a purpose in and not apart form itself. with its first known use in 1900. Which means its not a very old word even though it has its oringins in the Greek language.

As per Steven, Autotelic is one of the six core psychological characteristics and if all six show up, we call the experience “flow”. In the flow state time just passes, without you thinking about it. While I don’t always reach flow state as the author talks about while writing, it does help me concentrate to what I am doing at the moment without thinking about the past or future , without getting judgemental about what I am writing, and helps me put thoughts in a matter of minutes.

Let me know in which situations you get into a flow state.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Human Evolution

Brain size, Evolution, Human Brain

If you want to see the evolution of humans, one of the best places to observe that is in Madhya Pradesh. Madhya Pradesh is a state in Central India. It is a less publicised state with a lot of unique places to visit. One of relatives was in Madhya Pradesh Tourism and he asked me to invest time to visit places since he knew my interest in seeing nature and historical places.

So I visited Madhya Pradesh 3 times and he used to make my itinerary such that I got a good view of both nature and history. The best time I found to visit the state was from October to March, but if you intend to visit the state its best to visit the website of Madhya Pradesh Tourism.

Now in Madhya Pradesh, near the capital Bhopal, there is a set of caves call the Bhim Betka caves. The uniqueness of these caves is that you can see carvings/paintings made by humans who lived 100000 years ago …yes that’s not a typo, some of these caves were inhabited then. And then there are caves which were also inhabited 10000 years ago. Its a large area, I think its a UNESCO site one of the few where you can see the actual evolution of human beings who lived in India.

If you see the carvings/paintings of the different time maps you can actually make out how the humans evolved in this part of the world. In the carvings which are about 10000 years old, you can see in the carvings that they are using tools. Which means they had learnt by then how to use tools. You also get to see horses and other animals meaning, they had domesticated these animals by then.

The other thing to note is that even a hundred thousand years ago, the humans who lived in those caves had a thought process of trying to depict something on rock even if it was just line figures.

In hundred thousand years, humans have changed so much. The evolution of the species is so amazing.

Which brings me to why have zebras or tigers or sharks or lizards not evolved so much. They still hunt for food and their daily routine is still based on instinct flight or fight responses. This is something which I tried to see even in the Smithsonian museums and other museums around the world.

Two things which I have been able to figure out and my search is still on, is that the motor functions in the fingers of the hand and the space that our brain has to expand in our head has been the two main causes of the rapid evolution of the human race. The space for the brain in animals is virtually non-existent.

Now as per Steven Kotler, the space that exists for our brain to expand has given us humans the ability to keep learning and keep growing further. Now the pertinent question that I keep having is, why did the apes and monkeys not have the space when supposedly we have evolved from the same common platform. I will keep you posted as I learn more because knowing where we came from can help us to know how to go forward.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!