There are big barriers whose purpose is to ensure energy saving, using it to eliminate anything that threatens the stability of life. This is why they push for inertia, in various ways:
- They create expectations about non-existent threats.
- They defend outdated habits as solutions.
- They resist to acknowledging new realities.
- They destroy truly necessary changes by advocating half-truths.
- They only validate like-minded people.
- They disguise cowardice as perfectionism.
- They know that the brain likes to be right more than it likes to be happy.
The Power of Boredom
My friend Norris once told me about the many times when he was struck by boredom: when he completed his courses, when he achieved important goals and finished projects, and even when he won the love of his life.
He always overcame difficulties, although in some cases he was on the brink of collapse.
“And how do you do that?” — I asked.
Allow me to explain: imagine you decide to move to the country of your dreams.
There are villages scattered throughout this country. In these villages there are different things, populations, challenges, which are part of the dreams we all have.
To get to the city you have chosen, you must travel along a difficult path.
Your purpose is to get there, where you will have everything you want in life. You keep going. Your arrival happens as soon as you overcome all the obstacles.
Sometime later, boredom sets in. There comes a feeling of lack of interest, lack of motivation or lack of pleasure in life. And you do not understand it. After all, you already have everything you wished for!
What happened in your brain?
When a goal becomes clear in your mind, you commit to achieving it, and you set off with determination. The reward system gives you pleasure.
During the journey, the expectation of arrival generates pleasure in anticipation, which gives you energy and casts light over your path, giving you the strength to overcome all obstacles.
When you finally reach your goal, the pleasure you feel turns out to be not as great as the pleasure felt in the journey itself.
At this point, there are few alternatives left.
The first alternative is to learn to like what you have achieved, using your imagination, focusing on the good things and taking time to recognise the feelings behind them, fostering gratitude, joy, optimism, trying to see the positive side of situations and people, taking care of your physical and mental health.
The second alternative is to let boredom lead to depression, characterised by deep sadness, hopelessness, lack of energy and loss of interest in everything.
The third alternative is to use boredom as a lever to reinvent yourself and move on towards another purpose, exploring new hobbies, interests and passions, or developing new skills and abilities that make you feel useful.
The Paradigm Effect
Man thinks so that he does not have to think, so that he does not have to act.
Paradigms are psychological patterns, models or maps that we use to navigate life.
They are valuable. But if you do not review and reinvent them, you will not change and you will not improve.
If you have done something right, use that memory to strengthen your self-confidence by setting realistic expectations.
The danger is never in the things that you do not know. It is in the things that you do know and that are no longer true.
Do not forget: doing something the same way every time does not ensure you will get it right every time.
Regardless of the level of satisfaction in our lives, the search for stability strengthens the arguments in favour of inertia, generating habits of thought that support conformity.
We lose our ambition and become short-sighted, failing to see the obvious in order to excuse ourselves out of the effort that the solution requires.
If you wish to keep growing, you must dare, think differently, reinvent and break paradigms.
Certainties and Vanities
Patrick Tyler was the owner of the largest industrial enterprises I have ever known. He made his fortune in the 1960s, when he still sold produce in the countryside. He realised that if he cooked and packaged beans—which, until then, he sold by weight—he could reach a much larger market.
Growth skyrocketed. After a few years, his business was producing 130 different products.
With this disorganised growth, certain practices took hold that made the company ungovernable.
When he invited me to join his team, I realised that he was technically bankrupt.
Patrick already suspected that something was wrong. Hoping to change the situation, I proposed a series of measures. The reaction of complacent staff was not long in coming.
They began to use the argument “we have always done it this way, and it has always worked” as an instrument of resistance.
Patrick was confused.
I then proposed that he take a step back from the company’s executive management and devote himself solely to strategic planning. He agreed. However, a few days later, he could no longer resist going back to full duties.
His vanity almost wiped him out. A few years later, he sold all his operations to avoid going out of business.
All initiatives in learning and creativity have been cancelled out and brought to a standstill by certainties and vanities. At this point, risks are no longer calculated and wrong bets make a decisive contribution to failure.
There is no longer that energy and pleasure felt in overcoming challenges, in moving towards any goal. Thus, the individual easily descends into apathy, boredom and sometimes depression.
This individual creates baseless expectations and fails to see the obvious because they are overwhelmed by such expectations.
People do not resist change. They resist being changed.
The Fears
Most of our fears exist because they arise in unknown scenarios.
In humanity, there are three existential conflicts that create anxiety and fear. They can be observed regardless of culture, religion or language.
From an ontic point of view (referring to the existence of the being), anxiety about one’s destiny is driven by the fear of death.
From a spiritual point of view, anxiety about one’s meaningfulness is driven by the fear of meaninglessness.
From a moral point of view, anxiety about one’s guilt is driven by the fear of shame.
Other fears vary depending on how each individual tries to resolve these conflicts under the influence of their beliefs.
It is known that fear increases when the situation is unknown, and that most of our fears concern things that will never happen.
Careful analysis of each situation, whether real or hypothetical, sets more realistic expectations, increases self-confidence and reduces or eliminates fear.
If you accept the worst, everything you achieve beyond the worst can be considered profit. That way, you feel safer.
Even though fears make us suffer, some of them are necessary to sharpen our survival instinct:
- The fear of pain prevents us from taking too many risks;
- The fear of failure forces us to plan and control;
- The fear of loss forces us to be cautious.
William James said that the greatest discovery of his generation was that “we can change the situation we are in by changing our mental attitude, by changing our focus, by using our imagination”.
Examine your fears, test them in the light of reason.