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Ass-Kicking Email – Self-Knowledge is the Key to Accomplishment

Hey,

Last week I briefly talked about how you can “invent” your own
learning tactics (or also, how I’ve been able to write all these
books and course material).

This week, I’m going to tell you about a much broader application
of the same idea–how self-knowledge is essential to fixing any
problem with accomplishing anything. More, I’m going to tell you
how you can build that self-knowledge.

—

Self-Knowledge is the Key

What do I mean by self-knowledge?

Well think to a really common problem: procrastination.

The difficulty with finding an answer to this problem is that
procrastination, as a symptom, can have any one of a number of
underlying diseases as a root cause:

– Being too tired
– Lack of focus
– Lack of organization
– Feeling lazy (the so-called “bootstrapping” problem)
– No goals
– Wrong goals
– etc.

The reason solving procrastination is difficult for most people
isn’t that “curing” these afflictions is particularly hard.

It’s not.

If your problem was simply being too tired, then a good night of
sleep and some exercise would probably cure you.

If your problem was lack of organization, plug in weekly/daily goals
and you can get back on track.

If your problem was “feeling” lazy, then going through a motivation
ritual I’ve described in past emails can often be the fix.

No, the reason that curing procrastination is difficult is that you
may not know the root cause. Like a doctor who doesn’t know the
affliction of the patient, you’re prescribing random drugs to
possibly combat diseases that don’t even exist.

—

This is where self-knowledge comes in. If you know yourself well,
in a realistic and not just an idealistic way, you can identify
what the root cause of your problems is and put in real action plans
to fix it.

Self-knowledge is knowing the difference from procrastinating due
to lack of focus and procrastinating due to subconscious sabotage
from setting the wrong goals.

—

How Do You Build Self-Knowledge?

Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer. But there have been two
practices in my life that when used jointly have made it much easier
for me to self-diagnose and cure my own problems.

The first is keeping a journal. The second is record-keeping of
experiments.

—

Keeping a Journal

The point of a journal isn’t to have some permanent record of your
daily life for future civilizations or when you enter senility. The
purpose is expressed in the present:

Having a journal allows you to “think through” issues on paper,
which allows you to organize your thoughts much more cohesively
than if you just speak aloud in your head.

So if I were faced with a particularly long bout of procrastination,
I could start with the header, “Why am I procrastinating?” I could
then go through a bunch of different root causes and explore them
to see if they applied to my situation.

Obviously for a simple case like procrastination this may be
unnecessary. Self-knowledge doesn’t require lengthy introspective
sessions to work, although regular journaling can help.

The point is that if you get in the habit of doing this, you notice
patterns more quickly and respond to them in time.

—

Record-Keeping of Experiments

We all work through problems by trial-and-error. The tragedy is that
most of us forget our lessons learned and make the same mistakes.

By journaling down what you try to do to solve problems, what works
and what doesn’t, you have a physical record of your past successes.
This allows you to scroll back through time and consult your past
thinking when finding new solutions to problems.

By using record-keeping with journaling, you can generalize
solutions from problems and answer your difficulties before they
come up again.