The Framework For Changing Your Life
Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste
Have you ever stopped and thought to yourself how you would actually go about changing your life? What does the process of changing your life look like other than defining the change in terms of end goals or outcome. Most people when they decide they need to change they will start by saying something like, “ I need to lose weight.” Which then leads them to need to work out more, and then some might go to the gym for a week or two but then like most of us will slip back into their old routine. Some people might also actually lose weight but once reaching a goal will fall back into their routines they had before attempting to lose weight. If the old saying, “ The only thing that stays the same is the fact that everything changes” is true. Then why do so many of us find it so hard to enact simple daily changes that can impact our lives.
I have been on an almost two year quest trying to understand this simple fact as I struggle just like everyone else in this department. This quest of mine started with the upcoming birth of my son. My son's coming birth was the triggering event which sent me into an existential identity crisis. This crisis created the quest to understand what I believe, why I believed what I did, and how I decided to believe that. At the time I began looking for what I characterized as an universal decision algorithm that all humans must use. While seeking to understand myself I began to study behavior sciences, philosophy, neuroscience, quantum physics, and ancient religions. I became addicted to learning in order to glimpse a thread of truth that might be running through what all these subjects had to say. The internet, and audio books have made accessing this wide array of knowledge surprisingly easy nowadays. During the pandemic working as a travel nurse I began to consume a lot of audio books. At the end of this exhaustive search culminating in this article I’m putting forth a simple framework of how to change your life. All of these ideas are not new but my hope is that the re-framing of these idea in this manner will make it easier for people to grasp. This framework is based on my understanding of how humans integrate information in order to make decisions/predictions to simulate their reality, coupled with understanding how neurological connections are made during this process via our daily habits. This process gives rise to a rudimentary description of our mind body interaction that each of us uses to interact with our environment, construct our experiences via our emotions, and give rise to our constructed selves.
Homo Nosce Te Ipsum
There was a phrase at the entrance of the Temple of Delphi which read, "Homo Nosce Te Ipsum," which means, "Man, know yourself, and you will know the universe, and its gods." While undertaking the work of changing your life you must also do the work of introspection, or knowing yourself. This is critical because by adding the knowledge of what my framework is based on it will provide the willpower to keep striving towards change as you begin to experience the pain that is associated with the evolution of yourself. Through knowing ourselves maybe we can begin to know the universe as we are composed of the same matter and governed by the same laws. Understanding how we work we can then apply these same ideas to the world around us as well.
Step One: Proving it to Yourself
My simple description of what I have learned, and believe will not be enough to accomplish changing your life in the long term. In fact the purpose of me writing this is my attempt to prove what I have learned, and believe at the time of writing this to myself. Sharing my journey with you is my way of keeping myself accountable, and on the path of change based on my framework for change. The three books that I believe are critical for understanding ourselves and human nature are, How Emotions Are Made, The Power of Habit, and Atomic Habit. Supplemental understanding should be focused on gaining knowledge on the physical universe. I suggest seeking an understanding of our physical universe via developing knowledge in the process of entropy, The Schrodinger cat experiment, The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, and Information Theory. A good overview of a lot of these topics once you have some knowledge in these areas is The Big Picture by Sean Carroll. In later articles I will explore why all these things work together to give rise to our natural universe, and why this evolution is why we interact with our environment via the mind-body connection. But for now, start with the first three books in the order they are listed. Lastly, what is also critically important is the willingness to challenge your current understanding of how the world works. We need to develop the humility to admit that some of our assumptions about how reality works could be wrong. This willingness to challenge ourselves, and our current internal models of reality, is what will give rise to the ability to self edit these internal decision/prediction making models. This ability to self edit our internal models and make conscious choices is the very essence of exercising what we call free will. When we don’t spend time on introspection, and challenging our own views on how reality works, we only get the illusion of free will at best. Finally please know that in order to continue to develop my own humility about being wrong I will continue to update my own understanding as I learn new things. This framework for change is only my current understanding at this point in time in my journey through life. Put another way, I'm working on developing the practice of being a good Bayesian. Finally the work of step one can be done while working on the other three steps in the framework for change.
The Essentialness of Constructionism
Step Two: Construct Your Ideal Future Self.
In book one that you will need to read, How Emotions Are Made. This book will argue that our current misguided understanding of emotions is based on essentialism. Essentialism as it applies to emotions is basically that humans are born with essential emotions like happiness, fear, sadness, love etc. These essential emotions are also believed to be universal to humans across all cultures. Essentialism also holds that these emotions also have corresponding essential neurological pathways. However, the author quickly shows over and over again, that if this idea of essential emotions being universal were true. We would then expect to see a universal neurological finger print for the essential emotions as well. Spoiler alert, these universal neurological finger prints corresponding to their essential emotional states have not been found.
At this point is where the author begins to share the true nature of how emotions are actually made. Emotions are made through our own construction, and conceptualization of emotions. This understanding explains why we can see what appears to be universal emotions, and why each emotional expression will have its own unique neurological pathway based on a persons culture, environments, emotional concepts, and control they have over this emotional construction process. In order for us to begin to exercise control over the construction process we must first understand how the process works which the author describes in great detail. At the end of this text you should have heard a very compelling argument of how humans construct, and simulate their own emotions and reality. Now at this point you might be shouting that reality is objective, and the existence of the universe is not dependent upon human construction of it. At this point I would also agree with you that the universe's existence is not dependent upon human construction of it and would continue without us humans in it. However, I would like to challenge you to think why that might be and how. Think of a universe without humans. Then try to define what is the fundamental function of consciousness, memory formation, and how it applies to the act of observation. Currently we have no good definition for consciousness, and this is why I argue that consciousness must be defined in terms of function. Once we understand consciousness in this manner I think it will change our paradigm on consciousness, and its role in the universe. The article that changed my view is called On The Decoherence of Quantum Gravity.
My goal here is to offer proof of the power of your mind, so that you will see the critical importance of spending time understanding it. Only by spending time on understanding is how we begin to gain the ability to deconstruct our own experiences and ourselves. This framework is dependent upon learning the skills of deconstruction of oneself, and learning how to re-conceptualize our self, and emotions. The only way to do this is through introspection, and learning the skills of meditation. The best starting place is to build the daily habit of mindfulness meditation.
The Definition of Insanity
I’m sure you have heard the old saying about what the definition of insanity is, and how it's about doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. Well this directly relates to how we work as humans. Especially if we are at a place in our lives where we are not happy with the direction it's taking. How many times have you heard people say, “ why does this always happen to me?” Many people who say this feel like victims to life, and feel a loss of control or agency over their own life. This feeling of having no control many times will manifest itself due to people failing to understand that their thoughts coupled with their system of habits is what is creating their helplessness or feeling of no control. Understanding this idea is why the second required reading is called The Power of Habit. In this book the author details how powerful our daily habits are in controlling our daily choices and our outcomes. Page after page is filled with research and stories telling the reader that who we are, what we become and how we view ourselves and the world is dependent on our habits. This may seem counterintuitive at this point, but once you begin to look at your daily habits, ask yourself are those the habits of the future self you want to be?
Step Three: Construct the Habit System Of Your Future Self
Our system of habits is one half of what determines who we become. So if you want to begin to create the future vision of yourself who you have imagined. You need to begin to create the system of habits that future self would do each day. Begin by simply writing different attributes of your future like health and wellness, spirituality, creativity, relationships, employment, etc. We get to define this future self based on whatever terms we desire. My attributes or categories are some I employed to get started. Once your new habit system is designed, that's when the hard work of implementing starts and where we need to discuss the idea of pain as it relates to your evolving self.
The Primordial Emotion Pain
Before we get started on discussing the next step of implementing your new habit system, I think it would be helpful to talk about what I think is the universal or primordial emotion of pain. I believe that pain is universal/primordial because we can all experience it, and recognize it in any culture or species. Pain also has a dualistic quality as well. By this I describe pain as being both an objective and subjective experience. Pain is objective meaning we can measure the intensity of a pain source or the activation energy required for pain neurological pathways. Pain's secondary quality while objective is also subjective to the person who is experiencing pain. Pain can also be purely subjective in nature when applied to the concept of psychological pain. The dualistic nature of pain is a very unique construct, and the old other thing that I have found that is similar is the concept of light. Light is also described to have a dualistic nature in that light can be both a wave or particle. My goal in pointing out the dualistic nature of pain is twofold. First we need to understand pain's subjective nature. The subjective nature of pain is where we can begin to exercise control over pain, and begin to re-conceptualize it in order to lessen pains effect. The effect of pain is so ingrained in us, many times we don’t even realize this effect when it is occurring. That primary effect pain has on us is avoidance. So anytime we experience a painful stimulus we will naturally want to avoid that stimulus again. This primal pain avoidance mechanism is the reason we have such a hard time changing our lives or evolving. The pain avoidance mechanism is why we “get struck in a rut” or feel stuck with our unhelpful system of habits.
The second goal of understanding the true nature of pain is due to the fact that pain is unavoidable. Pain is unavoidable simply based on the natural laws of our universe. I want to emphasize this fact because as we undertake the task of changing ourselves we are moving from a state of low energy to a state of higher energy utilization. This low energy state or ground state is our current well established system of habits. The laws of physics and thermodynamics are what I refer to as the natural laws of the universe. These natural laws push us towards maintaining our ground state. The simple act of changing ourselves requires moving from our ground state into a newer higher energy state as we establish a new system of habits. The very act of attempting this changes us mentally and physically which requires the use of energy. The byproduct of utilizing energy is perceived by us as pain. This perception of pain will trigger the pain avoidance mechanism in us, and will cause us to want to stop. This is how the pain avoid loop can cause us to stay stuck and maintain our ground state. With so many forces conspiring against us it is crucial that we understand why we are feeling the pain when we attempt to change. My hope is gaining an understanding of pain will help you endure until you are able to reach the tipping point of when this pain begins to fade, and your new system of habits begins to take hold. This tipping point can be thought of us moving from one ground state to a higher level ground state as we begin to form our new neurological connections, and begin to re-code our brains. Now let's move on to the final step of implementation.
Step Four: Implementation of New Habits To Construct The Future You.
The final book on the required reading list is called Atomic Habit. Unlike the previous book The Power of Habit which is a 10,000 foot view of how habit affects us. Atomic Habit is a deep dive into the habit loop formation. Understanding how to use habit loop formation is how we start new habits or stop old habits. This book details helpful tricks like habit stacking, environment modifications, and the effect habit friction can have on the adoption of new habits or stopping old habits. Understanding the principles of behavior modification via habit formation or de-formation is crucial in the creation of our new selves. However, keeping in mind that behavior modification is just a stop gap if we don’t undertake the rehabilitation of our minds at the same time. True change comes by understanding the mind body interaction, and we must tend to both while attempting change.
While this framework for change seems simple. Undertaking the task or truly changing is no small feat on its own, and the work required should not be underestimated. This understanding alone is what has created the desire in myself to share my journey with you in order to hopefully prove the validity of this framework. I also help by sharing my experiences it help to keep myself accountable, and motivated in order to truly bring about the change I want in myself
Step One: Proving it to Yourself.
Step Two: Construct Your Ideal Future Self.
Step Three: Construct the Habit System Of Your Future Self.
Step Four: Implementation of New Habits To Construct The Future You.
Key points for step one are knowledge building and meditation practice
Did Jason post more to this? He recently passed away and it would be a shame if he didn't. This piece was excellent and I would have loved to read more.