Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, Happiness Lab listeners, Welcome to a new year
Speaker 1: and a new series of this podcast. So many of
Speaker 1: you have gotten in touch to say that what you
Speaker 1: love most about The Happiness Lab is the practical advice
Speaker 1: that you get from the show. So over the next
Speaker 1: few months, we're going to make getting that practical advice
Speaker 1: even easier. Will be bringing you an entire season of
Speaker 1: how to guides, ones that we think will make your
Speaker 1: life much happier in twenty twenty five. I've assembled a
Speaker 1: cast of amazing guests. They're the premier experts in their
Speaker 1: fields on topics ranging from how to live a richer
Speaker 1: life each and every day to how to find valuable
Speaker 1: relationship lessons from watching rom com movies. In each how
Speaker 1: To episode, we'll be breaking down the key takeaways. Each
Speaker 1: show will feature a half a dozen or so tips
Speaker 1: for tackling challenges like stress, navigating negative emotions, finding your purpose,
Speaker 1: and dating better. And today we're kicking off this how
Speaker 1: To season with a topic that I struggle with a lot,
Speaker 1: how to be imperfect. You see, I spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time wanting to do the opposite of this. I
Speaker 1: want everything I do to be perfect. I want to
Speaker 1: throw the best dinner parties and the most effective lab meetings,
Speaker 1: and to be the best friend and wife and podcaster
Speaker 1: and professor. But there's a new book that has really
Speaker 1: helped me gain a better perspective on this. It's called
Speaker 1: Meditations for Mortals Four weeks to embrace your limitations and
Speaker 1: make time for what counts. Its author Oliver Berkman, has
Speaker 1: been on the Happiness Lab before. He helped me find
Speaker 1: ways to fight the stress that comes from constant busyness,
Speaker 1: and Meditations for Mortals tackles a related topic, how can
Speaker 1: we start spending our time on the stuff that really counts?
Speaker 1: And Oliver's book isn't talking about meditations like to clear
Speaker 1: your mind and take deep breath meditations. No, his meditations
Speaker 1: are short philosophical tips for embracing the fact that the
Speaker 1: world is messy, that we're messy, and that striving for
Speaker 1: perfection isn't an achievable or a healthy goal. But you're
Speaker 1: based in New York these days, still right?
Speaker 2: No, I'm in North Yorkshire, so I'm just up the
Speaker 2: East Coast.
Speaker 1: I sat down with Oliver to tease out his top
Speaker 1: five lessons for accepting our imperfection are the.
Speaker 2: Two places where I've spent my life, Brooklyn and Yorkshire,
Speaker 2: so it's not surprising me.
Speaker 1: But I began by asking him about the New Year,
Speaker 1: a time when so many of us hope to turn
Speaker 1: over a new leave shut our bad habits, and become
Speaker 1: the perfect people we've always wanted to be.
Speaker 2: I've often thought that the New Year is in some
Speaker 2: ways it's almost the worst possible time to be trying
Speaker 2: to implement major changes, especially I don't do this much
Speaker 2: these days, but especially if you're spending New Year's Eve
Speaker 2: at a sort of very high octane party, then January
Speaker 2: the first is going to not be the day for wonderful,
Speaker 2: virtuous new plans, whether it's a calendrical thing or not,
Speaker 2: anything that piles on the pressure to kind of make
Speaker 2: a complete fresh start from now forever more. That's a
Speaker 2: problem because I think what's going to work instead is
Speaker 2: the willingness to try things out, to experiment, to do
Speaker 2: things for a little while, even just to do them
Speaker 2: once without forcing them to be part of a very
Speaker 2: very heavy and intimidating system of total transformation something like that.
Speaker 1: And so in some ways your book is a guide
Speaker 1: towards sort of fighting against that total system of transformation.
Speaker 1: You talked about this idea of imperfectionism. What is imperfectionism
Speaker 1: and why should we embrace it?
Speaker 2: Imperfectionism is just my kind of umbrella term, I think
Speaker 2: for the whole approach to life that starts from the
Speaker 2: assumption that we're never going to be able to do
Speaker 2: things as perfectly as we can imagine them, but starts
Speaker 2: from the assumption that there's always going to be too
Speaker 2: much to do, that we're never going to feel completely
Speaker 2: ready for new life stages or for interesting and exciting
Speaker 2: new projects, that we're probably never going to fix all
Speaker 2: our massive personal problems that we have with procrastination or
Speaker 2: distraction or whatever else it is, and then says, well, okay,
Speaker 2: now what and how can we develop the willingness to
Speaker 2: act and to really do the stuff that matters and
Speaker 2: to hopefully most of the time enjoy doing a lot
Speaker 2: of the stuff that matters. Now that that kind of
Speaker 2: tormenting mirage is off the agenda.
Speaker 1: So in your book you talk about some of the
Speaker 1: tenets of imperfectionism, and I have to admit that in
Speaker 1: some of these I felt really called out because they're
Speaker 1: ones that I absolutely struggle with. The first of these
Speaker 1: is this idea that there's never going to be this
Speaker 1: fantasy day when everything is out of the way. What
Speaker 1: do you mean here and why is important to get
Speaker 1: rid of this notion?
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, let me say that I'm confronting
Speaker 2: myself as much as anybody else, that I'm calling out myself.
Speaker 2: So you can come with this from many different angles,
Speaker 2: but certainly, just when it comes to the volume of
Speaker 2: stuff that we tend in the modern world to feel
Speaker 2: like we need to do, there is always a bigger
Speaker 2: amount that feels like it needs to be done in
Speaker 2: any given time period, you know, by the end of
Speaker 2: the day, by the end of the week. Then we
Speaker 2: have the opportunity to do There are clear reasons of
Speaker 2: technology and economic culture in which we live, and all
Speaker 2: sorts of things that just make that inevitable. So if
Speaker 2: you approach life with this very sort of understandable but
Speaker 2: misleading notion that what you're going to do is first
Speaker 2: of all, get all the little bits of stuff out
Speaker 2: of the way, deal with all the things that are
Speaker 2: kind of cluttering your mental world, and then you will
Speaker 2: find these great expanses of time for the things that
Speaker 2: really matter, the relationships or the projects that really count.
Speaker 2: You're going to end up spending your whole life clearing
Speaker 2: the decks, as it were, and never getting there. I
Speaker 2: think it's really important instead to see that the skill
Speaker 2: we're trying to develop here, I would say, is the
Speaker 2: willingness to act on the important things right now, even
Speaker 2: though the decks are not clear. It's kind of an
Speaker 2: anxiety tolerance skill. I think it's knowing that there are
Speaker 2: emails that will need your attention, but deciding nonetheless, to
Speaker 2: spend the first hour of the day, say on some
Speaker 2: things other than answering them. Of course, this will vary
Speaker 2: massively by people's personal situations, and some people I know
Speaker 2: are in jobs where certain kinds of emails have to
Speaker 2: be responded to immediately or they might get it. I
Speaker 2: think the underlying point here is there isn't this moment
Speaker 2: coming later when you're going to have all the time
Speaker 2: for the things that matter, and so on some level
Speaker 2: you have to claim that time in the present instead.
Speaker 1: I can tell you how important this insight has been
Speaker 1: for me. I feel like my calendar constantly has these
Speaker 1: moments of like, all right, I'm going to get to
Speaker 1: a new month. Right, I'm going to get to January first,
Speaker 1: and then I'll try to get everything done before January first,
Speaker 1: and then I can begin, and January first comes around
Speaker 1: and I have it, and then it's February first, or
Speaker 1: it's my birthday, or it's whatever it is. There's always
Speaker 1: this kind of trying to clear the decks before this
Speaker 1: date with the ideas, and then you know, and then
Speaker 1: dot dot dot dot, and it kind of never gets there.
Speaker 1: I think part of this also is something else that
Speaker 1: you've cautioned against, which is this idea of the spirit
Speaker 1: of optimization that we might need to kind of reject
Speaker 1: to this What is that spirit? And why is it
Speaker 1: so important to.
Speaker 2: Read yeah, or maybe even not say reject, but just
Speaker 2: kind of sort of see through the alluring promise. I
Speaker 2: think that's something that I'm often arguing for. It's just
Speaker 2: a sort of gentle understanding that these things are not
Speaker 2: going where we hope that they're going, and then it's
Speaker 2: a lot easier to let go of them. In the
Speaker 2: case of optimization and efficiency in general, right, there's certainly
Speaker 2: nothing wrong with making a few time savings around the edges,
Speaker 2: thinking about your daily routines, how you organize your house
Speaker 2: or your desk in such a way as to eliminate
Speaker 2: wasted time. You know, if it's taking you an hour
Speaker 2: to find your clothes in the morning, there's probably something
Speaker 2: wrong with how you have your house organized. But it's
Speaker 2: a very low level at which that stops making the difference,
Speaker 2: because I think the illusion, the thing that sort of
Speaker 2: bewitches us is this notion that we might be able
Speaker 2: to optimize ourselves to the point where we didn't have
Speaker 2: to make difficult decisions about what to do with our time,
Speaker 2: where we could say yes to everything that was thrown
Speaker 2: onto our plates. We would never have to disappoint anybody,
Speaker 2: we would never have to put any of our ambitions
Speaker 2: on hold, we would never have to neglect something that
Speaker 2: felt like it was crying out for our attention. I
Speaker 2: want to say that it's just baked in to our
Speaker 2: situation as finite humans, but that's not how it works.
Speaker 2: That you're going to have to disappoint some people, that
Speaker 2: you're going to have to put some ambitions on the
Speaker 2: back burner, that you're going to have to not do
Speaker 2: all the things that feel like they need doing, just
Speaker 2: in order to do any things and to make a
Speaker 2: difference to anybody's lives and to pursue any of your
Speaker 2: most cherished ambitions. So optimization can be a real diversion
Speaker 2: of energy and attention. It also has this very specific
Speaker 2: hidden danger that if you are telling yourself that you're
Speaker 2: going to make time for everything, somehow you stop asking
Speaker 2: serious questions about things that arrive right, somebody asks you,
Speaker 2: could you do this task? Could you meet this demand?
Speaker 2: And say it's one that you are in a position
Speaker 2: where you're allowed to say yes or no to it. Well,
Speaker 2: if you think you're going to get everything done, you're
Speaker 2: just going to say, yeah, sure, throw it in the hopper.
Speaker 2: There's no problem here, I'm going to get everything done.
Speaker 2: And so it's a very alluring thing. But what happens
Speaker 2: is that your life gradually starts filling with more and
Speaker 2: more stuff that you didn't really want to do, other
Speaker 2: people's agendas, things you could have said no to in fact,
Speaker 2: but felt like you were on the path to being
Speaker 2: so powerful that you didn't need to, you know, so
Speaker 2: all all capable, you didn't need to.
Speaker 1: So I get the effectiveness of this approach of kind
Speaker 1: of you know, loosening up on our optimization and recognizing
Speaker 1: that we're never going to get everything under control. I
Speaker 1: get how it might be functional, but I also find
Speaker 1: it quite depressing. But one of the things that's interesting
Speaker 1: in your book is you argue like this should not
Speaker 1: be depressing at all, This should be incredibly liberating. Explain
Speaker 1: it how that works.
Speaker 2: Sure, I mean, I come across this objection. I understand
Speaker 2: it right. There is definitely a kind of a defeat
Speaker 2: that is involved here. I'm trying to argue that it's
Speaker 2: a productive and energizing and empowering kind of defeat, because
Speaker 2: it's the defeat of trying and struggling to do something
Speaker 2: that was never on the cards to begin with. I
Speaker 2: think that what you do, and I certainly don't claim
Speaker 2: to be perfect at this, i'd sort of be under
Speaker 2: reminding my own point if I did. I think, but
Speaker 2: what you do when you get a little bit better
Speaker 2: at this is you spend more of your precious time
Speaker 2: doing things, things that make you feel more alive. I'm
Speaker 2: partly talking about hobbies and recreational activities and meaningful work,
Speaker 2: but even things that feel like duties in your life,
Speaker 2: if you're doing them in this context of having chosen
Speaker 2: them as against other things, they can become imbued with
Speaker 2: greater meaning. There's a British born zen master who I
Speaker 2: quote in the book, and I've always quote because the
Speaker 2: quote means so much to me, whom Ju Kennet was
Speaker 2: her name as she died a while ago now, who
Speaker 2: used to say that her approach to teaching was not
Speaker 2: to lighten the burden of the student, but to make
Speaker 2: it so heavy that he or she would put it down.
Speaker 2: And I still get goosebumps when I think about this quote,
Speaker 2: because it really is the essence of what we're talking
Speaker 2: about her. I think it's like you are struggling under
Speaker 2: this impossible burden of trying to do everything, trying to
Speaker 2: get your arms around it all, trying to make yourself
Speaker 2: be perfect before you take the high stakes actions, and
Speaker 2: it's just a lovely feeling to be able to set
Speaker 2: that down on the ground, and it's a feeling that
Speaker 2: leaves you more energized to go and do things, or
Speaker 2: to keep climbing the mountain, or whatever the metaphor is
Speaker 2: that we're dealing with there.
Speaker 1: So if Oliver's convinced you that rejecting the pursuit of
Speaker 1: perfection is a liberating step, you should stick with us.
Speaker 1: For tip number one, and his guide to how to
Speaker 1: be imperfect It's coming up right after the break. Oliver
Speaker 1: Brickman's simple philosophy is that trying to be perfect and
Speaker 1: do everything is an impossible burden, a burden that weighs
Speaker 1: us down and prevents us from dedicating ourselves to more
Speaker 1: meaningful activities. And the first step on the road to
Speaker 1: embracing imperfectionism is something that a perfectionist like me struggles with.
Speaker 1: It's actually doing things, you know, actually bake that cake
Speaker 1: or write that book, or travel to that destination. And
Speaker 1: this tip kind of feels like being called out. I
Speaker 1: never get around to baking the cake because I spend
Speaker 1: way too much time trying to find the perfect cake recipe.
Speaker 1: I don't take many vacations, but I spend a heck
Speaker 1: of a lot of time researching the perfect travels spot.
Speaker 1: In my attempt to set up everything perfectly, I really
Speaker 1: get around to actually doing stuff. It's like I'm looking
Speaker 1: for a method or a system to get perfect results
Speaker 1: every time, no matter what I'm doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think this is for many of
Speaker 2: us very alluring, right, The idea that there's some set
Speaker 2: of rules or some way of doing things that if
Speaker 2: you could only discover it or perfect it would make
Speaker 2: everything work and actually, on a deeper, kind of a
Speaker 2: subtler level, almost would live life on your behalf. Right,
Speaker 2: It's like the deal is, I will follow all these
Speaker 2: rules every day, and what I get back from it
Speaker 2: is that I don't quite have to show up for
Speaker 2: life and grapple with life in all its kind of messy,
Speaker 2: muddy unpleasantness and difficulty and uncertainty and all the rest
Speaker 2: of it. So I've got nothing against systems and rules
Speaker 2: per se, And in fact, the new book has plenty
Speaker 2: of sort of outlines of ways to build one. But
Speaker 2: I think it's essential that we sort of put them
Speaker 2: in their place. They are tools that we use from
Speaker 2: our position here in the midst of life. They are
Speaker 2: not things that can get us out of that situation.
Speaker 2: So how is this relevant to the idea of just
Speaker 2: doing things? I think that one way in which we
Speaker 2: use systems in a counterproductive way is we want to
Speaker 2: do something. We want to do more of something in
Speaker 2: our lives, physical exercise, meditation, pursuing a creative hobby that
Speaker 2: we've let neglect, or nurturing certain relationships that we've sort
Speaker 2: of allowed to wither on something, and then we immediately
Speaker 2: go to what's the system that's going to change me
Speaker 2: into the kind of person that does this better? Right,
Speaker 2: what are the goals, what's the morning routine I'm going
Speaker 2: to do every day for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2: What's the equipment I need? What are the ten books
Speaker 2: I can read so that I really know how to
Speaker 2: do this thing? Yeah, I'm totally still prone to doing
Speaker 2: this sometimes. Right that. My first thought always like, find
Speaker 2: a book, find a book, find a set of information
Speaker 2: that I can build a system from. But firstly, that
Speaker 2: is not the same as doing the thing. Secondly, it
Speaker 2: can actually be counterproductive, I think, because it becomes a
Speaker 2: much more intimidating or unwieldy thing. The prospect of having
Speaker 2: to do something every day for the rest of your
Speaker 2: life can really put you in the mind of not
Speaker 2: wanting to do it at all, or you feel terrible
Speaker 2: if you fall off the wagon one day, or whatever.
Speaker 2: It might be. The really powerful skill to develop, I
Speaker 2: think is the willingness to say, Okay, that might have
Speaker 2: some role later. But what if I just meditative a
Speaker 2: ten minutes. What if I just went for a brisk walk,
Speaker 2: What if I just picked up the phone and talked
Speaker 2: to the long lost friend. With no confidence that I
Speaker 2: would do it well, no certainty that I'll do it
Speaker 2: every day for the rest of my life, no guarantee
Speaker 2: that it's going to turn me into the kind of
Speaker 2: person who does that kind of thing all the time.
Speaker 2: But it's still worth more than all those things combined
Speaker 2: because it actually happened in reality.
Speaker 1: Okay, can I share my experience that like fits with
Speaker 1: this to a t. When I was reading your book,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, he's literally in my
Speaker 1: head right now. So sometime last year I was watching
Speaker 1: these documentaries about DJs and I was like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm going to learn to do some turntablism stuff, like
Speaker 1: I love records and so on. I immediately went to look.
Speaker 1: I started researching books. I didn't even just buy books.
Speaker 1: I spent like weeks researching like what's the best way
Speaker 1: to learn about turntablism and stuff? And I bought these
Speaker 1: books and I went to the what's the best possible way?
Speaker 1: So I downloaded this syllabus from Berkeley College of Music
Speaker 1: of the best ways to do this, and I spent
Speaker 1: hours and hours researching how to how to learn dough
Speaker 1: turntablism and then bought these resources and then completely intimidated
Speaker 1: myself because I was reading from the best DJs and
Speaker 1: people who are in music school, and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: a professor and podcaster and have like four minutes a
Speaker 1: week to do, and then I never picked up a
Speaker 1: record or did anything, right, I just reading your book
Speaker 1: is like I could have just like downloaded some app
Speaker 1: and started playing some music and just kind of pretending
Speaker 1: and messing around. And it wouldn't have been the perfect system,
Speaker 1: but at least I would have done something and it
Speaker 1: would have been fun rather than kind of make me
Speaker 1: feel ashamed and like I'm never going to do it
Speaker 1: in a huge waste of times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that resonates a lot. I think it's so interesting.
Speaker 2: It's like we can learn a lot from young kids
Speaker 2: in this regard. I think the DJ example is interesting
Speaker 2: to me because our son often professes a desire to
Speaker 2: be a DJ when he's older. I don't know, but
Speaker 2: like and he just like dive into like assembling playlists
Speaker 2: and setting up disco lights and whatever. Like you just
Speaker 2: do it, and like you do it for twenty five
Speaker 2: minutes one day after school and then you've done it,
Speaker 2: you know, and then maybe you do it again and again,
Speaker 2: and maybe you don't. Something about becoming an adult seems
Speaker 2: to be associated with this idea that it's got to
Speaker 2: be done in a very controlled sort of a scheme.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's idea number one. You just need to
Speaker 1: do it, and the advice is really just like, whatever
Speaker 1: you can do in ten minutes today, just do that
Speaker 1: and it's probably good enough. The second tip that I
Speaker 1: also struggle with a lot is you've argued that we
Speaker 1: need to fight back against this idea of productivity debt.
Speaker 1: Something I I'll pray to all the time. What is
Speaker 1: productivity debt?
Speaker 2: Productivity debt is my label for this sense that so
Speaker 2: many of us have that we sort of wake up
Speaker 2: in the morning in a kind of a debt right
Speaker 2: that unless we produce a certain amount or do a
Speaker 2: certain amount of things, we haven't quite justified our existence
Speaker 2: as humans, we haven't quite earned the right to be
Speaker 2: here on the planet. There's an important caveat which, obviously,
Speaker 2: if you do any kind of work for money, there
Speaker 2: is a sense in which you're in productivity debt. Right,
Speaker 2: if you get paid at salary, you have to do
Speaker 2: the things that you're job entails in order to get
Speaker 2: the salary. I'm talking about this much deeper existential notion
Speaker 2: that we don't get to feel okay as human beings
Speaker 2: unless we have paid off this debt during the day.
Speaker 2: And it's very depressing because obviously, to continue the analogy
Speaker 2: with a sort of a debt in a bank account
Speaker 2: or something, the very best thing that can happen is
Speaker 2: that you get back to zero by the end of
Speaker 2: the day, right Like, that is literally the very best
Speaker 2: thing that can happen if you work in this kind
Speaker 2: of deficit based mindset, And obviously most of the time
Speaker 2: you're not going to feel that you even get there,
Speaker 2: and then you're going to wake up the next morning
Speaker 2: and it's all back again. You've got to like push
Speaker 2: the rock up the hill for another day. So I think,
Speaker 2: you know, just seeing that can be very powerful for
Speaker 2: a lot of people because on some level we know
Speaker 2: that that isn't how it is right. We don't really
Speaker 2: believe that we sort of don't get to qualify as
Speaker 2: adequate human beings if we haven't done a certain amount.
Speaker 2: And then beyond that, I think you know, there are
Speaker 2: all sorts of tactics like the very simple idea of
Speaker 2: keeping a done list, keeping a list of things that
Speaker 2: you have completed through the day as you complete them,
Speaker 2: that can help us sort of, you know, to continue
Speaker 2: that metaphor, what if you started each day at zero
Speaker 2: and everything that you did was paying in and you
Speaker 2: ended up like building your credit, and then the next
Speaker 2: day you built your credit some more? Right? Is it
Speaker 2: possible to think of the things that we do as
Speaker 2: expressions of the fact that we already are adequate instead
Speaker 2: of ways that we're struggling to try to achieve a
Speaker 2: sense of valticalcy.
Speaker 1: You use this term in the book that I resonate with,
Speaker 1: you know a psychologists sort of have a word for
Speaker 1: people who fall prey to this idea, this idea of
Speaker 1: insecure overachievers. I think I know what this term means.
Speaker 1: What I'm going to have your articulate what it is
Speaker 1: and how you've seen it in yourself maybe.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean I'm always struck whenever I
Speaker 2: use this term, like in a public event or something,
Speaker 2: the ripples of recognition are there. I don't know about
Speaker 2: sort of very formal definition, but for me, what it
Speaker 2: means is, you know, we're talking about people who do
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff, who are very driven, as a
Speaker 2: word that might get used right, who probably have a
Speaker 2: lot of accomplishments under their belt and maybe are to
Speaker 2: some degree celebrated by their friends or admired by people
Speaker 2: for doing it, but ultimately are doing it to kind
Speaker 2: of shore up this in a sense of not being
Speaker 2: adequate or okay unless they do enough. And this certainly
Speaker 2: can take very toxic forms, but I think it's very
Speaker 2: normal really for a lot of us who sort of
Speaker 2: do a lot of things and get things done and
Speaker 2: feel proud of that, to realize with a start that actually,
Speaker 2: on some level we wouldn't do them, or we might
Speaker 2: do different things. We certainly might do them in a
Speaker 2: less grim faced way if we weren't starting from the
Speaker 2: idea that there was some deficit that needed to be
Speaker 2: filled or paid off or whatever before we could enjoy
Speaker 2: ourselves in life. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The reason I really loved this point is that for me,
Speaker 1: it wasn't so much that I need to stop doing things.
Speaker 1: It was kind of the way I do things right
Speaker 1: Like even now, just before this, before I sat down
Speaker 1: to record the podcast, I kind of was done my
Speaker 1: other meetings ten minutes early, and it was like, well,
Speaker 1: I have ten minutes. What can I do? I'm going
Speaker 1: to water the plants, like, oh, the plants need watering,
Speaker 1: Like oh, I'm to the dishwasher. And it was like
Speaker 1: and I had this just moment of noticing what was
Speaker 1: happening where it was like, my whole goal is to
Speaker 1: tick as many things off as possible, and that's just
Speaker 1: kind of a a miserable way to live.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I could have spent that ten meetings ten minutes just
Speaker 1: being or noticing the world or relaxing.
Speaker 2: Or doing something productive and constructive, but you would have
Speaker 2: chosen it with some eye to enjoyment as well. Right,
Speaker 2: Otherwise what happens is you end up living. We talk
Speaker 2: a lot about living in the future in terms of
Speaker 2: living for years from now, but it's very easy to
Speaker 2: spend your whole life living about two hours in the future,
Speaker 2: right that sense that like just when I've done that,
Speaker 2: it's just when I've done that, it's the end of
Speaker 2: the day. And when I get to bed and go
Speaker 2: to sleep, there's always another thing, and it just it
Speaker 2: almost makes whatever's happening in your life into a sort
Speaker 2: of an unwelcome obstacle to getting to the end of
Speaker 2: the day or whatever. And sometimes things are like that,
Speaker 2: but other times they're not unless you make them, unless
Speaker 2: you turn them into them.
Speaker 1: So another tip that I think is especially relevant for
Speaker 1: we insecure overachievers has to do with the information overload
Speaker 1: that we all face. I imagine there were insecure overachievers
Speaker 1: in the seventies and eighties, but they didn't face the
Speaker 1: kind of fire hose of information and things to care
Speaker 1: about that so many of us face these days. And
Speaker 1: another tip that you've suggested is just to recognize that
Speaker 1: we can't care about or find out about everything. You know,
Speaker 1: why is this so essential to kind of give up
Speaker 1: one trying to bring in as much information as possible?
Speaker 2: On some level, it's the same reason that sort of
Speaker 2: underpins everything we've been talking about here and that I've
Speaker 2: written about, which is that if the supply is effectively infinite,
Speaker 2: then attempts to get through the supply faster or to
Speaker 2: get your arms around the supply completely are doomed to fail,
Speaker 2: and they're going to lead to all sorts of sort
Speaker 2: of unintended consequences. So yeah, just in that simple issue
Speaker 2: of too many things to read too many articles in
Speaker 2: your read it later app that feel like they're probably
Speaker 2: essential in some way, or could give you a really
Speaker 2: good idea for your work, or could make you healthier
Speaker 2: or calm or something. There's nothing wrong with collecting those,
Speaker 2: but I think it's really important to treat them, as
Speaker 2: I say in the book, as a like a river
Speaker 2: rather than a bucket. In other words, not as some
Speaker 2: sort of place where they all collect and your job
Speaker 2: is to deal with them all until the bucket is
Speaker 2: empty again, but just as a of a stream that
Speaker 2: flows past you, and that you pick things out and
Speaker 2: focus on them without feeling guilty about all the ones
Speaker 2: that you let go by. And the point you alluded
Speaker 2: to at the end of your question. More difficult, I
Speaker 2: think for many people who feel committed to making the
Speaker 2: world a better place is that this does ultimately have
Speaker 2: to apply to good causes and the suffering of the
Speaker 2: world as well. Right, if there is more of this
Speaker 2: stuff than you can hope to address, even collectively, even
Speaker 2: in groups, because they're still finite too, they are groups
Speaker 2: of finite people. Then to make any difference to a
Speaker 2: given cause or something like that, you're going to have
Speaker 2: to be willing to neglect some others, not because you've
Speaker 2: convinced yourself they don't matter, but just because that's how
Speaker 2: it is for us. And you know that might mean
Speaker 2: taking some instance of a cause, an important issue that
Speaker 2: you feel drawn to giving your attention to, and saying,
Speaker 2: I'm going to pick my battles and I'm not going
Speaker 2: to choose that one. And it's not because it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: It's because I want to have some effect in what I.
Speaker 1: Do, strategies for kind of staying sane and self compassionate.
Speaker 1: When you do that, when you say important thing, don't
Speaker 1: got time for that?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think above all it comes from
Speaker 2: seeing and reminding yourself again and again that the reason
Speaker 2: you are neglecting some things that maybe other reasons, but
Speaker 2: one core reason that you will be neglecting some things
Speaker 2: is because being human means neglecting some things. And there
Speaker 2: are sort of ways of handling this in a more
Speaker 2: practical sense. I've written in the past about this idea
Speaker 2: of keeping two lists, one that is kind of endless
Speaker 2: and has as many items on it as you like,
Speaker 2: and then one which has a very fixed number of slots,
Speaker 2: and you feed them through so that you've only ever
Speaker 2: got sort of say, five or ten items on your plate,
Speaker 2: but you're very well aware that there are five hundred
Speaker 2: items calling out for your attention and just sort of
Speaker 2: acclimatizing to that situation of that being more to do
Speaker 2: than you ever could do. Another metaphor that works for
Speaker 2: me is to understand that these kinds of lists are menus,
Speaker 2: and in a strange way, the list of all the
Speaker 2: suffering going on in the world, the list of all
Speaker 2: the critical causes needing our attention or our activism or
Speaker 2: our donations or anything else, are also a menu, because
Speaker 2: a menu is any list that you're going to have
Speaker 2: to pick from instead of get through. And there is
Speaker 2: a possibility when you see it in that way of
Speaker 2: approaching it with a lighter spirit, You know that sense
Speaker 2: that you're doing something that counts, and you actually wouldn't
Speaker 2: be doing more or better if you run around in
Speaker 2: a frenzy trying to sort of make sure you touched
Speaker 2: every single one of those items.
Speaker 1: So that's sort of trying to make sure you don't
Speaker 1: do everything. But another tip is about how you deal
Speaker 1: with the things that you have chosen to do. And
Speaker 1: you've argued that we need to be much more comfortable
Speaker 1: choosing not to whole ass stuff. As you put it,
Speaker 1: I think I know what this means. But what is
Speaker 1: whole assing things? And why should we maybe be gentler
Speaker 1: with ourselves about that.
Speaker 2: This is a quotation I stumbled across in the comments
Speaker 2: of a Washington Post article from a woman who says
Speaker 2: that her parents always used to get on her case
Speaker 2: about half assing things, but actually, now, as an adult
Speaker 2: woman with an accomplished career, she realizes there are very
Speaker 2: very few things in life that really require her to
Speaker 2: invest her whole ass. Quite often half fasting them is fine.
Speaker 2: This applies in lots of different contexts, right, because it's
Speaker 2: all about the amount of attention, the amount of energy
Speaker 2: that you're willing to give something, and being okay with
Speaker 2: giving something less of your energy, less of your attention.
Speaker 2: It's also to do with dropping that assumption that everything
Speaker 2: we encounter in our lives that is important has to
Speaker 2: feel difficult, has to feel very effortful. It's about allowing
Speaker 2: the possibility that maybe there are some things that you
Speaker 2: could sort of glide through and coast through. And even
Speaker 2: this is a subtle point it's tricky to express. I
Speaker 2: think but like even genuinely very difficult things can be
Speaker 2: approached in the spirit of their being easy. I know
Speaker 2: what I mean by this. I don't know that I've
Speaker 2: conveyed it perfectly, But you can bring ease to a
Speaker 2: process that is almost guaranteed to be at the very
Speaker 2: least frustrating, Like you know, filing your taxes is the
Speaker 2: classic ciche. And I think you can bring ease, ultimately
Speaker 2: me to situations that are much worse and you know,
Speaker 2: fraught and involve grief or sadness or conflict. You can
Speaker 2: still not assume that it's got to be a question
Speaker 2: of furrowing your brow, bracing your muscles and going in
Speaker 2: for a fight. And you can absolutely assume that when
Speaker 2: it comes to sort of creative work, for example, all
Speaker 2: these context where we think like, okay, this is worth doing,
Speaker 2: I'm going to come up against a lot of resistance,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to have to punch that resistance in
Speaker 2: the face. It's like if you walk up to someone
Speaker 2: in the bar ready to punch them in the face. Right,
Speaker 2: they may have had no plan to be in conflict
Speaker 2: with you, but they soon will be. If that's the
Speaker 2: attitude that you take to what you're doing.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're mentioning trying not to always whole ass
Speaker 1: things in the context of things that are really hard.
Speaker 1: But my own experience sometimes comes up for me, even
Speaker 1: in things that should be easy, right, you know, friends
Speaker 1: are like, oh, you know, should we get dinner? Like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, come over the house for dinner, and then
Speaker 1: I'll be like, Okay, I'm going to make a really
Speaker 1: great entree and there has to be deserted. I got
Speaker 1: to like go to the wine shop to figure out
Speaker 1: the perfect why. And now this thing that was supposed
Speaker 1: to be kind of fun for me has turned into
Speaker 1: this like stressful choice overloaded situation that in my brain
Speaker 1: I have four different ideas about how to do perfectly,
Speaker 1: and whichever one I picked, it's not going to be perfect.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Specifically, in the dinner party contacts, you've I argued that
Speaker 1: we need to embrace this idea of scruffy hospitality, which
Speaker 1: is one that I love. What do you mean by
Speaker 1: this here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this phrase comes from an Anglican pastor in the
Speaker 2: Tennessee called Jack King, and what he's talking about is
Speaker 2: based on his own personal experience, which is precisely this
Speaker 2: sense that when you make a big deal out of
Speaker 2: it in the way that you describe being tempted to
Speaker 2: do apart from anything else, in a very subtle way,
Speaker 2: it slightly puts you off doing it again in the future,
Speaker 2: right because it's like some part of your mind knows
Speaker 2: it's going to be a whole thing, and even in
Speaker 2: the doing of it, just that once you know, there's
Speaker 2: a certain sense of being distracted by making sure that
Speaker 2: the beautiful facade you are putting on for your guest
Speaker 2: is intact and it's all going well. Jack King makes
Speaker 2: this point. He talks in going through this himself and
Speaker 2: deciding with his wife that they were going to just
Speaker 2: start inviting people around in the mesha that the house
Speaker 2: was in, to eat whatever they could cook with what
Speaker 2: was in the cupboards, and finding firstly obviously that it's
Speaker 2: a lot easier to have people around for dinner more
Speaker 2: often if you allow yourself to do that. But also
Speaker 2: there's a sort of depth of connection that comes from that,
Speaker 2: and there is something about not just in the case
Speaker 2: of dinner parties, but in life in general. There's something
Speaker 2: about dropping the facade, owning up to the faults and
Speaker 2: the imperfections that is very powerful in terms of forging
Speaker 2: bonds with people. And I write in the book about how,
Speaker 2: you know, even before I encounter Jackking's work, if we
Speaker 2: were going to have friends around for dinner and I
Speaker 2: saw like crumbs underneath the fridge or kind of mail
Speaker 2: stacked on the toaster for no reason or something, I'd
Speaker 2: be like, oh my goodness, like clean this up. It's awful.
Speaker 2: We live in a pig style. But if I ever
Speaker 2: saw that at somebody else's house, I wouldn't have that
Speaker 2: reaction at all, and in fact, I would feel kind
Speaker 2: of privileged to have been let in to their real lives,
Speaker 2: just briefly. One of the things that it also always
Speaker 2: reminds me of is when I'm writing my email newsletter.
Speaker 2: You know, I try to offer insights and thoughts and
Speaker 2: sometimes tips on how to do things in a certain way.
Speaker 2: Times I get the most positive feedback is when I
Speaker 2: sort of admit very openly to still struggling with some
Speaker 2: issue and that I'm offering advice about. Because there is
Speaker 2: a connection in just knowing that we're all in this
Speaker 2: boat together, and nobody believes that the people who are
Speaker 2: writing to dinner don't also have messy houses. Half the time,
Speaker 2: we all know this stuff, and so there's a kind
Speaker 2: of a barrier that we're putting up in a thing
Speaker 2: we all have to go on believing and if we
Speaker 2: just dropped it, we might actually connect better to each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, psychologists talk about this bias. That's called the beautiful
Speaker 1: mess effect. Right, So we have this sense that, like
Speaker 1: somebody comes over our house and they see the crumbs
Speaker 1: on the floor. If we vulnerable you know in our professions,
Speaker 1: that people will not like us or judge us, or
Speaker 1: that will distance people from us. People will kind of
Speaker 1: think we're too messy or something. But all the research
Speaker 1: suggests that the recipients of that kind of crumbs on
Speaker 1: the floor or a little bit of vulnerble, right, they
Speaker 1: really like it. They feel much more connected to us,
Speaker 1: They like us better. Right. Fascinating, This is the beautiful
Speaker 1: mess effect, is that when we're messy, people actually like it.
Speaker 1: They find it beautiful, they find it connecting. Like our
Speaker 1: minds assumed that that we don't have to do this.
Speaker 1: This came up really recently for me. My friend just
Speaker 1: had a newborn baby, two week old baby, and I
Speaker 1: was coming by to drop off food, and you know,
Speaker 1: and I showed up and they have a two week
Speaker 1: old baby, and you know, she was trying to nurse
Speaker 1: and like somebody just trying to put and there's kind
Speaker 1: of stuff all over the place, and they were really
Speaker 1: embarrassed by this. But I'm like, no, this is cool, right,
Speaker 1: Like I'm seeing like, you know, like what the nappies
Speaker 1: are and getting like a real glimpse into what your
Speaker 1: life is actually like. Like it felt I felt more
Speaker 1: connected to him than when I kind of saw his
Speaker 1: real life. Then I might have if you know, it
Speaker 1: was all polished and perfect and pretend, or if I
Speaker 1: just had to drop the food off at the door
Speaker 1: because they were, you know, too embarrassed to let me.
Speaker 2: In, right right, And as someone with a very tidy
Speaker 2: house in the week softer a newborn baby has arrived,
Speaker 2: as is possibly callt wrong priorities right right, exactly, something's.
Speaker 1: Really messed up. Yeah, thanks to Oliver, I now don't
Speaker 1: mind admitting that my office can be a bit messy.
Speaker 1: Don't even get me started about the inside of my car.
Speaker 1: But Oliver's next tip really hits home. Why is it
Speaker 1: that I can't stop worrying about the future. We'll find
Speaker 1: out after the break here on the Happiness Lab, we
Speaker 1: often extol the happiness virtues of mindfulness. Since making the show,
Speaker 1: I've gotten better at nipping rumination in the bud and
Speaker 1: taking my mind off worries from the past. But I
Speaker 1: still struggle a bit with what's around the corner, because
Speaker 1: let's face it, the future is really scary. It's full
Speaker 1: of things I can't control and events I may not
Speaker 1: be prepared to deal with. On days when my mind
Speaker 1: gets going, it can feel like it's all going to
Speaker 1: be a total disaster. Author Oliver Berkman dedicates a decent
Speaker 1: chunk of his new book, Meditations for Mortals to our
Speaker 1: fears about the future, and his tip for dealing with
Speaker 1: that dread can be summed up by a saying that
Speaker 1: he was taught as a child.
Speaker 2: The phrase I think you're referring to is just that
Speaker 2: we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, right,
Speaker 2: which I feel like has been said to me probably
Speaker 2: thousands of times. By the time that I felt like
Speaker 2: I really understood what a powerful thought it is, because
Speaker 2: of course, you know, it's total logical in some sense.
Speaker 2: You can only cross a bridge when you come to it.
Speaker 2: I think any of us who are prone to anxiety
Speaker 2: or worry. I think what worry is, you could even say,
Speaker 2: is the attempt to sort of think our way over
Speaker 2: every possible bridge that we could come up to and
Speaker 2: reassure ourselves that we can successfully traverse it. But of
Speaker 2: course you can't ever find that kind of security about
Speaker 2: things that are in the future, because they are in
Speaker 2: the future. And so I think that explains the sort
Speaker 2: of compulsive quality of worry. Right. You go around and
Speaker 2: around and around, hoping this time you'll get the reassurance,
Speaker 2: and you never do because you can't be reassured in
Speaker 2: that way about the future. And when you start to
Speaker 2: really feel into how absolutely inevitable and unavoidable this situation is,
Speaker 2: I think there is where you can actually let the
Speaker 2: future be the future a bit more. If you think
Speaker 2: it's very difficult to cross bridges before you come to them,
Speaker 2: then you'll keep doing it and struggling. If you think
Speaker 2: it's impossible, you might unclench a bit, and you might
Speaker 2: rely in the present about the future. And there's a
Speaker 2: quote I mentioned there from Marcus Aurelius, a great Stoic
Speaker 2: philosopher and emperor, who says, basically, don't worry so much
Speaker 2: about things in the future, because you'll meet them with
Speaker 2: the same in the resources that you meet the things
Speaker 2: within the present. And I often want to say this
Speaker 2: to people and to myself as well. Right, it's like
Speaker 2: you got to this point. Every single time you thought
Speaker 2: you couldn't handle something in your life, turns out you could.
Speaker 2: So there's at least a reason to err on the
Speaker 2: side of thinking that the future things you think you
Speaker 2: won't be able to handle you actually will.
Speaker 1: But also jumping into the future now also messes up
Speaker 1: these times when like you're really worried or horrified about
Speaker 1: some future event that's like not even going to happen
Speaker 1: in the way you think. This came up for me recently.
Speaker 1: I just recovered from COVID about a couple weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and I had this new variant where I completely lost
Speaker 1: my sense of smell. And on day one of losing
Speaker 1: my sense of smell, I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: my smell is gone forever. I'm never going to be
Speaker 1: able to cook. What can I do with this? I
Speaker 1: ordered these like smell kids online so I could start
Speaker 1: training my smell. I read all these neuroscience papers on
Speaker 1: like how do you get your smell back? If it's
Speaker 1: gone and blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I complained to my poor producer who's listening right now,
Speaker 1: but I was never gonna get my smell back, and
Speaker 1: how could I deal with this? And then like two
Speaker 1: days or three days after my stuff he knows, cleared up,
Speaker 1: it kind of just came back. But like those three
Speaker 1: days were spent in utter horror, like complete planning, Like
Speaker 1: my whole life was built around like what can I
Speaker 1: do to live life normally given that I'm just never
Speaker 1: going to be able to smell again? And that was
Speaker 1: like utterly futile because like it kind of just came
Speaker 1: back in a way. But at the time, it felt
Speaker 1: like the only thing I could do would be to
Speaker 1: anxiously try to plan and for this terrible future. Yea,
Speaker 1: And so any advice for how to stop the rumination
Speaker 1: and stop the worrying and future planning when it feels
Speaker 1: like like how do we take the sort of marcus
Speaker 1: orreliest breath and be like it's got to be all right?
Speaker 2: Well, I find a lot of the benefit to me
Speaker 2: comes from encounter, and I know exactly where you talked about,
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of the benefit does come from
Speaker 2: pondering these kinds of phrases, and part of idea for
Speaker 2: this new book of mine is to kind of create
Speaker 2: a structure in which those kind of perspective shifts can
Speaker 2: sink under your skin, as it were. There's another lovely
Speaker 2: insight from the spiritual writer Michael Singer who says reality
Speaker 2: doesn't need you to help operate it, which I think
Speaker 2: is a very powerful insight.
Speaker 1: Now one resonates with me too. Feel really called out,
Speaker 1: thanks Mike Singer.
Speaker 2: In terms of something more practical, I mean, one thing
Speaker 2: that I think can be surprisingly useful in the context
Speaker 2: like you talk about there is sort of I expect
Speaker 2: this is called something like worry postponement, but I don't
Speaker 2: know if it really is right, which is place a
Speaker 2: market in your calendar, on your year, planet, whatever it is,
Speaker 2: on your phone, that in two weeks or three weeks,
Speaker 2: you will allow yourself once more to really like freak
Speaker 2: out about that thing, so as to just create a
Speaker 2: little island of calm right now, and also to remind you,
Speaker 2: as you will find again and again and again, that
Speaker 2: by the time that that period has elapsed, the thing
Speaker 2: is no longer an issue and it didn't matter. I
Speaker 2: do do this to this day with certain things. If
Speaker 2: I'm sort of particularly concerned about some aspect of parenting
Speaker 2: or aspect of household finances or something, I'll be like,
Speaker 2: first of all, if I'm doing this really badly, and
Speaker 2: I've been doing it really badly for years, like two
Speaker 2: more weeks isn't going to make a difference. So for now,
Speaker 2: let me just put something in the calendar two weeks
Speaker 2: ahead from now and see what it's like. If I
Speaker 2: just postpone it and it's not perfect, you still worry
Speaker 2: a bit, but it does create space, and it enables
Speaker 2: you to see two weeks later than actually the thing
Speaker 2: doesn't feel so bad.
Speaker 1: I was laughing at those examples because my producer, Ryan,
Speaker 1: who's on the line, who's often the one that helps
Speaker 1: me postpone my worry, literally sent me a text when
Speaker 1: I was in this COVID situation where he said, why
Speaker 1: don't we wait at least twenty four hours till you're
Speaker 1: testing negative to freak out that you're never going to
Speaker 1: be able to smell again? And so, but I think
Speaker 1: this idea of sort of being kind to ourselves when
Speaker 1: we're in the midst of worry, I think gets to
Speaker 1: the last tip that I love so much in your book,
Speaker 1: which is this idea that we all need to follow
Speaker 1: the reverse Golden rule, which is very consistent with a
Speaker 1: lot of advice we talked about in this podcast. So
Speaker 1: what's the reverse golden role?
Speaker 2: The reverse Golden rule, in the version I know, comes
Speaker 2: from the philosopher at O Landau, and it's just the
Speaker 2: idea that you should not treat yourself in ways that
Speaker 2: you wouldn't treat others, specifically other friends. I think I've
Speaker 2: definitely struggled with the whole notion of self compassion, right,
Speaker 2: there's definitely this whole world. I think it's fairly obvious
Speaker 2: that this is a good thing, but I have always
Speaker 2: had a sort of an aversion to it. That probably
Speaker 2: is a sign that I really need it, because that's
Speaker 2: what those kind of pringe reactions usually are. But a
Speaker 2: big moment for me in understanding this was to realize
Speaker 2: how common it is to sort of beerate yourself in
Speaker 2: a voice, in a monologue through the day or whatever
Speaker 2: it might be, in ways that you just would never
Speaker 2: dream of doing to a colleague or a friend. I mean,
Speaker 2: you probably get fired if to a colleague. There's a
Speaker 2: quote in the book from the psychoanalyst Adam Phillips, who says,
Speaker 2: if you met this person in your head in a
Speaker 2: social context, you just think there was something wrong with them.
Speaker 2: He says, he would just be boring and cruel, which
Speaker 2: I think is brilliant. And so what I take from
Speaker 2: this is for those of us who are reverse to
Speaker 2: any idea that we're being asked to think of ourselves
Speaker 2: as incredibly special and as the center of the universe
Speaker 2: and showering ourselves with love, it's like, no, it's just
Speaker 2: don't be more mean and less friendly to yourself than
Speaker 2: you would be to other people. And this feels very
Speaker 2: manageable to me. It's like, oh, okay, yes, I'm a
Speaker 2: nice person. Basically, I think I wouldn't do that to
Speaker 2: anyone I cared about, So how about I don't do
Speaker 2: it to myself too. And of course it's just a
Speaker 2: matter of catching yourself in the act of pulling yourself
Speaker 2: an idiot or whatever it is. But I think that
Speaker 2: idea of just self friendliness really sort of cuts it
Speaker 2: down to a manageable concept.
Speaker 1: And I love that you've made even this concept of
Speaker 1: following the reverse Golden rule one that you just called manageable. Right,
Speaker 1: It's not like being perfect to yourself and compassion all
Speaker 1: the time. It's just like not treating yourself worse than
Speaker 1: you would treat another reasonable.
Speaker 2: Right, and the way that you treat other people in
Speaker 2: a friendly way. It does not always need to be
Speaker 2: self indulgent. Right. There are times when you might decline
Speaker 2: to buy your friend another drink at the end of
Speaker 2: the night or something like that. Right, there are times
Speaker 2: when firmness is called for, so tough love has a
Speaker 2: space here, but it's clearly done for friendly reasons, as
Speaker 2: opposed to what we're often doing to ourselves, which is
Speaker 2: just sort of screaming and yelling at ourselves.
Speaker 1: And another thing we shouldn't scream and yell at ourselves
Speaker 1: about is the idea of imperfectionism. You earned your book,
Speaker 1: I think with one really important tip, which is, like
Speaker 1: we've just talked about all these ways you can become
Speaker 1: more imperfectionist, but you can't take a perfectionist attitude towards
Speaker 1: your own imperfectionism, which I'm glad was a tip that
Speaker 1: you had in the book because it was one that
Speaker 1: I needed because I was ready to just as to
Speaker 1: jump in to imperfectionism in the most extreme drill sergeanty way.
Speaker 1: So any advice for how we can try to be
Speaker 1: imperfect in it imperfect?
Speaker 2: Well, I think, you know, just seeing it, reminding yourself
Speaker 2: right exactly. It is so easy to take any useful idea,
Speaker 2: even ideas which seek to push back against that sort
Speaker 2: of absolutist perfectionistic stance, and turn them into new things
Speaker 2: that you'll going to try to do perfectly and won't
Speaker 2: allow yourself to fully show up in life for until
Speaker 2: you've done them.
Speaker 1: You are now kind of an expert on imperfectionism, but
Speaker 1: you're the kind of person who has these insecure, overachieverer tendencies.
Speaker 1: How have you kind of become an imperfectionism guru but
Speaker 1: not gone too far with it?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think I'm often in danger of
Speaker 2: going too far. But I think that the answer to that,
Speaker 2: such as there is one, is to find ways in
Speaker 2: your life to keep returning to these ideas and this material,
Speaker 2: so you know, not to self promote too much. But
Speaker 2: the structure of Meditations for Mortals is a four week
Speaker 2: structure with a day's chapter for each day of that
Speaker 2: twenty eighty period. Is designed to feed into that to
Speaker 2: counter the risk of thinking that this is something that
Speaker 2: you can get once and for all. And as you
Speaker 2: say right at the end, I say, don't actually expect
Speaker 2: to completely transform your life in four weeks. If you've
Speaker 2: been following what we're saying, I hope you understood this
Speaker 2: point that was not the goal. Another aspect of this
Speaker 2: for me that I think is really important in my
Speaker 2: life is just any form of journaling. Right So, morning
Speaker 2: pages is the one habit that has really stuck with
Speaker 2: me decades now, not because I decided I was going
Speaker 2: to do it every day and mark it off on
Speaker 2: a schedule, but because it was so useful for me
Speaker 2: that I just naturally wanted to do it. So I
Speaker 2: never have to sort of make myself do that. Sometimes,
Speaker 2: especially since becoming a parent, I don't necessarily get the
Speaker 2: opportunity to do it. But that's a different point. And
Speaker 2: anything where you're just sort of reflecting your thoughts back
Speaker 2: to yourself in that way, to me, has the effect
Speaker 2: of sort of keeping you on this, keep you on
Speaker 2: a straight line here, and making you realize when you
Speaker 2: are running away with the idea of oh, this is
Speaker 2: a new thing, you're going to make into a perfect thing.
Speaker 2: Even that is almost too much right or even there,
Speaker 2: I don't want to. I don't want to give people
Speaker 2: the idea that if they just do morning pages every day,
Speaker 2: it's sorted. I am deliberately attempting anyway to sort of
Speaker 2: constantly pull the rug from under this notion that there's
Speaker 2: a system that will do it for you, and then
Speaker 2: you get to not really show up. It's precisely working
Speaker 2: the muscle of not doing that and coming back and
Speaker 2: back and back to the real, messy, imperfect reality that
Speaker 2: we're always in.
Speaker 1: Oh, everybody's a work in progress. I suppose so.
Speaker 2: And whatever happens, we'll meet that moment and that moment
Speaker 2: and then that moment.
Speaker 1: I think that's a nice and comforting sum up of life.
Speaker 1: It's a series of moments that will meet much as
Speaker 1: we've handled the moment that just passed. Will never be perfect.
Speaker 1: We'll always be messy, but will be okay. In fact,
Speaker 1: if we can embrace imperfection, I think we might even
Speaker 1: be more than just okay. I think we might just
Speaker 1: wind up becoming happier. So that's your first how to
Speaker 1: guide in this new season, And just to recap here
Speaker 1: are Oliver's Tips one more time. First, you got to
Speaker 1: do things. Don't get stuck in that perfectionist fantasy plant phase.
Speaker 1: Dive in and get going. Tip number two fight back
Speaker 1: against productivity debt. You don't need to justify your existence
Speaker 1: by getting through some huge to do list. Tip number
Speaker 1: three is to remember that there's a cost to information overload.
Speaker 1: So resist the urge to stockpile all the knowledge possible
Speaker 1: and the urge to care about everything. You've got to
Speaker 1: just let some important things go. Tip number four to
Speaker 1: reject the urge to always whole ass stuff, shoot for
Speaker 1: eighty percent and remember the benefits of scruffy hospitality. Tip
Speaker 1: number five. Let the future be the future. There are
Speaker 1: lots of bridges we'll cross when we get there. Tip
Speaker 1: number six. A little self compassion goes a long way.
Speaker 1: And the final Tip number seven is not to bring
Speaker 1: a perfectionist attitude towards imperfectionism. And so our next Howtoo
Speaker 1: episode will build on what you've just heard. It's a
Speaker 1: guide on how to be enough. That's all. Next time
Speaker 1: on the Happiness Lab with me Doctor Laurie Santos