Um. Okay, so take anything that you want to do in life from the biggest dreams you have all the way down to, like, the dumbest little task. That you maybe you do during the day. If you think about that thing that. You want to accomplish, it's kind of. Related to motivation, right? It's like, do you have the desire to do it? Are you encouraged to do it? Are you encouraging yourself? Are other people encouraging you? Are you discouraged? Do you have the impetus?
Do you have the impulse to go ahead and do it? Do you have the incentive? Does it make sense? Is there going to be a return on the investment? Are you inclined to do the thing? Are you interested? Is this really you? Is it your identity? Are you motivated? What are your reasons for doing it? Whatever right? On and on. And this is how we tend to think about a lot of the tasks that we have to do either every day or just the biggest dreams that we want to accomplish.
It's kind of this what is our mindset? What is our motivation? There's always a barrier between where we are now, which is at any given. Time when you're not doing a task, and then between that state and then. Doing the task right, there's always this. Kind of energetic barrier that you have to get over, whether that's because you. Got to get in the mood or you got to contact the right people or you got to get your mindset in the right place. You got to kind of channel that.
Natural energy into your task. And I think that's a way we think about a lot of things that we have to do. They all kind of have different sized. Barriers to them, right? And I think we don't get around to it a lot because of that barrier. Again, I'm not in the mood or I don't have what I need, I don't have the resources, or I'm not in the right place. I got to go to the coffee. Shop at the library. It's got to be quiet. I got to change my environment.
And sometimes these are just downright excuses not to get started. But there's always these kinds of well. They are kind of excuses, right? They're these barriers. And it doesn't mean that we won't eventually get around to it. We probably will, especially for the smaller. Tasks, the bigger, more difficult, more kind of nontrivial, or the challenging the task. I think the more uncertain it is whether or not we will ever get around to it, right?
So if it's like, I want to learn how to speak Mandarin Chinese, well. You may or may not get around to that. That's a bigger thing. How am I going to go about that? What are the resources? Do I need to talk to people? Do I need immerse myself? There's more to kind of just think. About out. As to whether or not you're even going to start, right? Whereas a smaller task would have just. Something that you might do every day or maybe like exercise or something that you kind of do once in a while.
Maybe there's less thinking about that. But we always frame what we want. To do in terms of the barriers, right? Even if you don't call it that, or even if you don't think of them as barriers. It's really what you're doing when you're. Talking about whether or not you've got. The desire, whether or not you're encouraged the impetus, the impulse, the incentive, the inclination, whether or not you're interested. It's all this kind of upfront thinking.
Before you actually just do the d*** thing, right? And look, I'm not saying all of that is bad. I've talked about the importance of motivation. I think it's good to ride the wave of motivation and willpower. I mean, I think that's there for a reason you can tap into that. Energy, and if you do, you're going. To perform whatever you're doing far more effectively. And so I've talked about that kind. Of stuff on other episodes, but there's.
This big difference between all that kind of upfront thinking that we're doing about. A task and something that would be, let's say, a lifestyle, right? So what is a lifestyle? A lifestyle is just something that you. Do usually every day. It's just like part of who you are. It's part of your identity. And really, I would say what makes it a lifestyle is that you don't. Really think about it that much. You just kind of do it. Right? It's not something you really think too much about.
You just kind of do it. I do a lot of walking, okay? And you could kind of step back and say, oh, that's good. Walking is healthy. It's something that more people need to be doing. So you must have thought a lot about it. No, not really. I don't really think about it at all. I just do a lot of walking. I have to go walk whatever it. Is, the coffee shop or drop my kid off or maybe go to the. Mall and walk around, or I just like to walk around and contemplate. It's something that I enjoy.
What whatever the reason is, it's almost. Like the reasons don't really matter, right. In some sense, because I'm just doing it. It's just part of my lifestyle. And I want to talk about that difference in this episode between all this. Upfront thinking that we do about tasks and framing them in terms of like when I say task, I just mean anything you want to do. Again from the biggest dream like building a business, changing the world all the way down to the dumbest little thing.
You might do in a day. There's that stark contrast between thinking about what it takes to do those things as almost like, well, these barriers. I got to get over a contrast. Between that and something that's a lifestyle which doesn't really have these barriers, right? Something is a lifestyle when it doesn't. Really have those barriers because you don't. Put it up on a pedestal. You don't make it a thing. You know what I'm saying? It's not like you're humming and hawing.
About what it's going to take or what about this and what about that. Something that you do. And I think that's really the goal. In life is when you take the most important things that you want to accomplish, but you make it a lifestyle. And that's kind of the argument. Well, it is. The argument I'm going to make in this episode is that you need to. Make something, a lifestyle. If it's something that's really, really important.
Something you want to accomplish, if you want to go learn that language, it's. Not about, okay, how am I going. To do this and when am I. Going to do it? Where should I do it? That's problematic when you're asking all those questions because I think what you need to do is just make it a lifestyle. Now, how you do that, we'll talk about that in a bit, but that's. What it comes down to. If you want to exercise more, well.
I got to sign up for a gym, or I need this, I need that, all that upfront thinking. Those are all kind of energetic barriers that you're going to have to get. Over to actually make it a reality. And you might do that successfully for a week or two, but what are. The ODS of you staying consistent if. You keep framing the things that you want to accomplish in terms of the. Energetic barrier it takes to get over? It's highly unlikely because you're going to. Have to keep fighting that.
You're going to have to keep climbing that mountain. What I'm saying is that when something. Is a lifestyle, what is so beautiful. About something being a lifestyle is you're not framing things in terms of energetic barriers. You're not thinking, what I'm going to need, what about this? You're just doing it. It's just you. It's just part of your daily routine. And maybe that starts out as kind of I think this is why a. Lot of rituals work, right?
And maybe it did start out as kind of a specific ritual you put in place, and then it just became second nature. And now you don't even think of it as a ritual anymore. You just do it. Or maybe it wasn't anything ritualistic you were trying to set up. It's literally just you like walking? I just do a lot of walking. I probably couldn't do a lot of. Walking if I tried not to. I don't even think about it. I'm just going and I'm walking. I like to walk. I like to think. I like to kind of slow down.
And contemplate stuff, whatever it is, right? And I think you can apply this type of kind of reasoning, this idea. That something should be a lifestyle to. Anything, whether that's building a business, writing. Exercising, public speaking, learning a language, learning. A new skill, learning how to program software. Whatever it is, if you really want. To do it and you want to be effective at it, I'm arguing that. It should be a lifestyle. Get it out of this. What's it going to take?
How do I get the willpower? How do I get the energy, the resources, the people? What's it going to it should just. Be something you do every day. Okay? So there's a big difference that I want. So just up to this point, I. Just want to be clear that I'm. Drawing this distinction between if you look at the things you want to accomplish in life, regardless of how small or. How big, I think we tend to. Think about them in terms of what. It'S going to take to accomplish them.
As though there's this hill you have to get over. And I'm saying there's a real difference. Between that and what you do as a lifestyle. Because the things you do as a. Lifestyle are not you're not framing them. In terms of like, hills to get over. You just do them. You just do them all the time. And it's not, well, are you doing. It right and are you doing it well? And do people like what I'm doing? It's not so much of that. It's just living. It's just life.
And there's this kind of real difference between the two. And what I'm going to argue in. This episode is that if you want. To be really effective at anything, whatever it is, take that off the list and say, how do I make this a lifestyle? How do I make this a lifestyle? So there's this kind of realization that. We keep framing a lot of the things that we want to accomplish in terms of kind of this energetic barrier. I think a good analogy here, and. I would argue it's more than just.
An analogy, is if you think about. The way an enzyme works in biology, right? So an enzyme is really just this biological catalyst. A catalyst is anything that speeds up. The rate of a reaction, right? So if you've got these different chemicals. That are mixing in the air and they're going to, let's say, explode, well, that's a reaction that takes place. And if that explosion is going to. Happen, you need to basically pass some. Energetic barrier in order for it to take place, right?
If you don't pass that energetic barrier, then nothing happens. So catalysts are absolutely critical to life itself, right? I mean, enzymes play a critical role. In many biological functions. They have to be there because if they weren't, then the reaction wouldn't happen. And if the reaction didn't happen, you wouldn't have life, right? So enzymes are proteins that speed up.
The chemical reactions in our body, and they speed them up because they basically form these kind of transition complexes with the substrate. We don't need to get into all the details. The point is that there's this chemical reaction, and the only way the reaction. Is going to happen is if you supply enough energy. And that's because there's this energetic barrier. To making the reaction go. So the way nature works is instead of trying to actually climb that mountain.
It just finds a way to lower that energy. That energy barrier is called the activation energy. Okay? So these enzymes have the right kind of conformation at the molecular level so. That they are able to lower that energetic barrier. They shrink the mountain and so that it's much easier for the reaction to go ahead. So it's a much more efficient way. Right. If you have the right chemical structure, you don't need all this energy to. Get these crazy, awesome reactions going.
You just need to be able to. Lower that activation energy so it's much more efficient. It doesn't take as much energy to get going. So that's the point of an enzyme. So I think that's a really good. Analogy and in some sense, not really. Just an analogy, because this is the way nature works, right? Nature is not choosing to climb the mountain. Nature is choosing to shrink the mountain. Right.
So when you think about the tasks that you're doing in life, what is so beautiful about something being a lifestyle. Is, again, it's like the enzyme, right, is you found a way, I would argue, to really shrink the energetic barrier. To getting it done. And that's what a lifestyle does. It kind of acts almost like an enzyme, right? It doesn't frame tasks as though there's. This big mountain to climb. It just gets rid of the mountain. Altogether, or at least to a great degree, right.
It shrinks the mountains of trying to go over it. And so I think that's a really good distinction because I think so many of the things that we want to accomplish in life, we think about it as, okay, here's the mountain. It is what it is, and there's. Nothing you can do about it. You have to climb it. Right? We don't really tend to kind of step back and say, well, wait a. Second, maybe this mountain, it doesn't need. To be so big. Maybe it's kind of like work smart, not hard, right?
Maybe there's a smarter way around this. And I'm arguing that the smarter way. Around this or through this or over. This is to shrink the mountain to begin with. And the way that you do that. Is to recast the things that you. Want to accomplish in terms of a. Lifestyle as opposed to just having this obvious barrier that you need to climb up. A lot of the stress and I think in our lives is very much invented. We do this all the time, right?
Because again, you kind of think about all these possible scenarios. This is what humans do. We come up with these what if scenarios. What if this happens? What if this happens? What about this? And we kind of invent the mountain out of nothing, right? It's like the mountain out of a molehill, right? And it's so contrived, it's so unreal, it's so synthetic. It's not really the barrier, right? You're thinking about a barrier to what. You want to accomplish, but that's not really the barrier.
Often what we want to do is far easier than we realize. Not easy as in it's all of a sudden not going to take a lot of work. Everything still takes a lot of work, but often nowhere near what you were envisioning or imagining. And there's also all these kind of cool surprises in life where maybe something starts slow and then all of a sudden there's this inflection point and it. Totally takes off and goes rapid. And you never knew that was going to happen. And so there's kind of these beautiful.
Nonlinearities that happen with what we do. We just don't know, right? And so instead of framing things in terms of what it's going to take or this big energetic barrier, the smarter. Way is to just shrink that mountain. Down to begin with. And the way you do that is to make it a lifestyle. I think that's what a lifestyle is, is it doesn't put things on a pedestal. It doesn't say, oh, I've got to learn another language. Oh, and now it's like you make.
It a thing and like, oh, this is going to be a lot of work. This is going to involve this and this and boom and boom. And you're just inventing all these scenarios in your mind, and you're giving it this big energetic barrier, which it doesn't. Need to have, whereas a lifestyle says, no, this is just what I do. This is just what I do. I just do this. I get up every day and I just do this. Whatever. If it's the language, I get up. Every day and I'm just kind of. Speaking it to who?
I don't know, to whoever or to myself. Or maybe I'm watching movies that are in Mandarin, whatever. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Stop thinking about it. Just do it. That's what's so beautiful about a lifestyle. So I think it's very much analogous to a catalyst in a reaction. It doesn't try to climb the mountain. It doesn't make the mountain to begin with, right? It doesn't put things up on pedestals. And I think that's what we do with so many of our tasks is.
We make it a thing, we invent it in our mind and we put. It up on this big thing, oh. This is going be so great to achieve. And because you've made it such a. Thing, you know what I mean? When I say a thing. I just mean like you make it. Almost too important, right? It's not that it's not important. Obviously it would be good to accomplish, but you put it up on this pedestal and now you make it impossible. You're never going to consistently have the. Energy to keep climbing that mountain.
You got to not have the mountain. I'm going to talk about in a bit how I think you can do. That with any task. Let's use just really quickly some examples here. So, I mean, exercise, it's always a good example, right? It's something that most of us always want to be doing more of. But what does it mean? Well, I guess it means going to the gym, right? You got to go to the gym. You got to get that membership and. Then you got to be consistent. You got to show up.
It's kind of like the New Year's thing. New Year's comes around, people make their resolutions and that's when it's easy for the first few weeks because says, yeah, this is going to be different this time. And of course it never is. January goes by, February hits and then. Nobody goes to the gym anymore, right. Or a lot of people don't. It's really hard to stick with it unless the gym just happens to really be your thing and that's the environment. That drives you and that is more power to it.
But another way to think about exercise. Is to stop trying to define it so specifically. It doesn't have to necessarily be the gym. Maybe sometimes it's the gym. Maybe sometimes you're taking your kid to. The playground and you're playing and there's. The monkey is there and it's just you two. And so you're going to do some chin ups on the monkey bar while you guys are playing around. And then you go do some push.
Ups and then you go do a. Few stretches and maybe you almost kind of do it together. If it's a lifestyle, then exercise can technically be done anywhere. It doesn't have some specific definition, right? And you might say, yeah, but is that really going to be exercise? Am I really going to meet my goals if I do that? Arguably, yes, probably a lot more effectively. Because in the other scenario where you. Be super specific about it with a specific definition, well, it means I go.
To the gym and I've got this. Routine that I'm going to follow and I'm going to mark it off with my check marks. And now you've made it this big thing. It's got this big definition wrapped around it. It's got this huge energetic barrier you. Might do successfully for a week or two, but you're going to drop off. Because you can't consistently have the energy required to go over that mountain, right?
In this particular case, for some people for exercise, this does work because that's just you and you like the gym and you like following a schedule. If it's already working, more power to you. But for a lot of us, the. Majority of tasks don't fit into that. Category because we define them so specifically. We think they need to be a specific thing. And so we've invented our own mountain, and now we just can't get over it consistently. Instead, take away the mountain.
Like you don't need the energetic barrier. Exercise could technically happen anywhere. And if you do that, I would. Argue you're going to be exercising way. More than you would otherwise, and then maybe discover a more specific definition of. Exercise that actually works for you. The point is, it doesn't matter. It should just be a lifestyle. Anywhere you are, you could technically jump. On something, do a chin up, do a push up, go for a jog. Go for a run, do some stretches, jump on a treadmill.
Stop trying to define it if it's. A lifestyle going to be so much better off and far more effectively reach your goals. Take something else like writing. Maybe a lot of people want to do writing. Maybe it's a book, maybe it's a blog post. And again, people wrap these definitions around it, like, okay, what does it mean to write? Where should I write? I've got to have got to be. On my computer, then I got to be at a coffee shop. I want it to be silent.
I don't want to have a lot of noise and blah, blah, blah. And you invent all this stupid energetic. Barriers that you're never going to address. And then you don't write on a regular basis. What if you just wrote anywhere at any time? Anywhere at any time? Let's say you just always had your laptop on you, and then anytime you can kind of pick it up. Maybe it's five minutes, maybe it's 20 minutes. Maybe sometimes you write for an hour. It doesn't matter. Stop trying to define it.
Just have a lifestyle where you're writing. Now, some people might not like this because they're like, oh, well, now you're kind of mixing the work world with the rest, right? And what about work life balance? I kind of take issue with work life balance because I think if you feel you need to balance work and. Life, it's because you're defining work in kind of a stressful way, as though. It sits in stark contrast to your life. I don't know that it really should.
I think there's a certain beauty to blending those together. As long as you don't take anything. You'Re doing too seriously at any given. Time, you can ultimately take it seriously, but at any given time, it shouldn't be taken that seriously. And I'll get into that a bit. Why not be able to write at any given time? And again, this might depend whether you're kind of going to an actual office and you're expected to show up versus being able someone maybe who works remote. Or does their own thing.
But I think there's always a version. Of this where you can kind of. Because even when you go to the office, if you go to an eight hour workday, you're really only working 3 hours or less. I mean, this is been shown with studies. Nobody actually clocks 8 hours, right? In terms of actual sit down work. There'S lunch and there's snacks and there's. Water cooler conversations and there's walking and this and that. The actual clockable time is much less.
So there's still a lot of life even in the office space, right. If that kind of gets blended together. I think that's a good thing. So in the case of writing, yeah, maybe if you can pick it up. At any time, you can also put. It down at any time. It doesn't have to be a big thing. Stop putting it on a pedestal. And if you do that, writing will be more like a lifestyle. And I think that's what will make you more effectively at it. Just like exercising or whatever it is.
Building the business, learning a language. Take a look at your list of things you want to accomplish. How can you make it a lifestyle? Don't invent this big mountain that you. Have to get over every time because you have some specific definition on it. Don't have a mountain. Just have it be life. Okay, now how do we do this? Okay, hopefully that all made sense. I'll do a quick recap and then I'll give you what I think is. The lever you can pull.
The actual thing you can do in life to make this a reality. At the beginning I said, look, if. You think about the things that you want to do in life, we typically. Frame them kind of in terms of. The desire to do it. Whether or not we're encouraged the impetus, the impulse, the incentive, the inclination. We're interested. Do we have the motivation? What's the reason? What do we wish to do? What are the resources necessary? Where should I be?
There's all this kind of thinking that we put into it and it's like. Look, you have to just move, right? And that's the difference between what I. Just said and a lifestyle. A lifestyle is you're not putting things on pedestals. It's just something you do every day. You don't attach a big definition to it. It doesn't have those qualifiers. It doesn't get measured in terms of efficiency or whether it's good or whether it's bad. It doesn't matter. It's just the doing that matters.
It's a lifestyle. And everything else tends to fall in place far more effectively than if you. Put big definitions around things and you try to get over those energetic barriers. And I use that kind of enzyme as an analogy. Nature works like this. It doesn't build mountains. It shrinks mountains so that the energy.
Required is far less and you need to kind of create the structure in your life so that things are a. Lifestyle, so that there's very low energetic barriers to getting them done because you. Just do them, okay? Use the exercise, use the writing as an example. You can use anything as an example. Okay, so what is the lever you. Can pull for this? What can you tangibly do in your life? Well, I think what it comes down. To is not seeing any attempt you.
Make as being particularly important or having to work out. No attempt you make has to work. It doesn't have to be good, be well. It doesn't even have to happen, okay? So it's like you're in the playground. With your kid and you think, oh, I should work out. Then you go to do it and then it doesn't work out. You're not in the mood. Okay, don't, okay? That's it. You don't. If you're going to go do a. Podcast, you go jump on the mic and you're 20 seconds in, you're like, oh, I'm not in the mood.
I don't know, it's not working. Okay? It doesn't work. Next, go do something else, right? If you want to write all the. Time, just go write and start writing. Whatever it is. It might look like crap, might sound like crap, doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It never matters if it's good or bad because you're always doing it. Okay? Think about the lifestyle again, right?
It's not like if I put this big definition around going for a walk, like, maybe it's got to be a. Certain amount of steps and there's got to be paces, a certain pace that I do, and am I going up. A hill, am I going down a hill? And you put this definition around it. Then there's always going to be a reason not to do it, because you've created that energetic barrier. But if it's a lifestyle, it's like, I'm not thinking about any of that. I just sometimes walk.
Sometimes I have a really good walk, sometimes it's a long walk, sometimes it's a short walk. Sometimes I get distracted. Sometimes I have to turn around because my wife sends me a text and says, oh, you forgot something. It doesn't matter. It never matters if it's a lifestyle. It never matters if any particular attempt. Or iteration that you're doing works out. And I think that's kind of how you be the catalyst, like the enzyme. That's how you reduce that energetic barrier.
Because the barrier is being caused by the anticipation. It's being caused by the apprehension that. You have, which is so artificial to begin with about the task. That's the energetic barrier that you have. It'S the apprehension that's just totally invented. It's like you're inventing your own stress. Around it, whereas if it's a lifestyle, you just do it. There's no energetic barrier. So the way that you go about this, in my opinion, is to stop. Caring if any of your attempts work, right?
It doesn't. Mean you don't care about the high. Level goal that you have in place. Of course I want to build a business. I want to learn a language, I want to be fit. Of course you care about those things. But any given attempt at any given. Time, quite frankly, you shouldn't really care about it just like a lifestyle. When something is a lifestyle, you don't care about any given attempt. It's just what you do. It's not about thinking. It's kind of beautifully mindless, right?
It's mindless in a good way. It's just a behavior because that's really. What it comes down to, is just moving. We're not in control of like, 99%. Of the things that go into a project. We're really not. You can have all kinds of narrative. Fallacy around that if you want. At the end of the day, it's moving and letting the natural complexities of life converge and settle and precipitate out.
And then grabbing onto the things that precipitate out, then orienting your direction a little bit and then continuing to move. But it's all about the movement. It's just the movement. You're not really in that much control. What you need to do is to move, not think, not rationalize, not plan. Not try to design it, not try to define. It not all that kind of anticipation and apprehension that goes into making this. Mountain that you're then going to have to find a way to climb every.
Day or every week. That's not what it's about. It's about not having the mountain in the first place. Get rid of the apprehension, reduce it. Be the catalyst in your life by just making something a lifestyle. Okay? And I think the way that you. Do that tangibly is to not care about any specific attempt that you make. Just do it right? Just pick up the thing and start writing. It sounds like crap. Cool. And then the next day you do the same thing. Oh, now it sounds amazing. Cool. Why?
I don't know. You're never going to know why. You're not going to know why something sounds good and something doesn't. Not that you don't learn patterns over time. And you should definitely be using some level of structure, right? As I've argued before, a minimal level of structure. But it just comes down to the movement, right? Just comes down to the movement. And as you do that, you're going. To have more specific structures that you.
Put in place because it's being revealed to you what works. I mean, you'd have to be an idiot not to grab onto that. Of course you're going to grab onto. What works, but it's still pretty mindless. You're just looking at what works. You gravitate towards that, and then that's. The next set of movements, right? It's just movement. It's behavior. You have to take on the behavior that will, over time, result in good things. If you picked apart all the attempts.
That you made over the last year for something that ended being really successful. It would be all over the place. It would be, oh, here's where I was doing this, and that didn't make any sense, and here's where I did this, and that made a lot of sense. This is what it good. This is when it went bad. This is when it was slow. This is when it was fast. It would just be this absolute, intricate, beautifully chaotic mess of behavior. But what was consistent through it all was you just did it.
You just did it all the time. So stop caring about any particular attempt that you make. And that's how you turn something into lifestyle. That's how you don't have a big mountain that you have to climb every time. You don't have the anxiety. You don't have the apprehension about getting it done. You're just doing it. And I think that's what it takes to be successful at anything that you want to accomplish in life. Okay, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time.
Take care. You sam. Sam, it sh.