Will Mac Askill is best known for his work on effective altruism, the 80.000h project, and as the author of various books such as What We Owe The Future.
If you don’t know either of those the best way to get started in my opinion is his ted talk.
Will argues that we should expand our moral circle. If we truly care about people thousands of miles away, shouldn’t we care about the billions or trillions of people in the future? He didn’t invent but definitely helps to market the term “longtermism” - the view that positively influencing the future should be a moral priority of our time.
I’ll leave out the part of the conversation about his main focus of work because you can find more detailed and - let’s face it - better quality of information in his books or if you simply follow the links.
Interestingly enough Will appeared on the Tim Ferriss show before in 2015 and talked about the existential risk of viruses. If only we could have seen it coming…
When Tim asked him about the major things that concern him now regarding the future he answered: World war and Artificial intelligence. I guess we will know in around seven years or so if he was right again.
But besides from seeing the future, being charming and incredibly interesting, Will has some very good advice to share for beating stress and overwhelm.
His tip: Have a trigger action plan.
Trigger-Action Planning is a technique for changing and creating habits that are totally automatic and don't require conscious thought. The basic idea is that you tie the habit to a specific, simple, concrete thing that activates the 'do this or don’t do that habit' program in your brain.
So when his mood goes down and he feels his motivation tanking, he makes fixing it his top priority. Sounds simple. Well, simple yes but easy - NO.
The key is that you want to be both specific and prepared. Specific as in you know exactly what your trigger is. For example, when your mood is low enough for the sounds of your coworker to become annoying - you know it’s time for action. Your action plan is a prepared set of actions you take right after the trigger that will fix the problem or yield the desired outcome.
I thought I’ll give it a try and actually combined it with my “I have never regretted list” (A list of things I did and continue to do that always felt good)
So when I feel unmotivated I look up from my screen and go through my list that reads:
spending time with my spouse
taking a walk
reading (in a book! twitter doesn’t count)
working out
listening to a podcast
doing yoga
calling an old friend
riding my bike
…
Feel free to steal for your own benefit.
If you still have a shitty day and your trigger action plan doesn’t seem to work then set it in perspective. One lousy day won’t matter in hindsight so don’t work yourself up too much about it. Maybe it’s time to call it a day and just move on.
Just because things are not going well with you doens’t mean that you can’t make other people smile. So here is something to make other people happy without engaging with them: Next time you take a walk, put some change in your pocket and leave it in various places for other people to find.
I really liked his advice and there were many books mentioned in the podcast but one stuck out for me and that’s Joe Heinrich’s The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter
This book shows that the secret of our success lies not in our innate intelligence, but in our collective brains―in the ability of human groups to socially interconnect and learn from one another over generations. Oh, and sweating…
That’s right sweating is very unique. Apparently, Aristotle was wrong when he said humans are rational animals and that’s what makes us distinct and successful - because, in reality, we’re just actually really sweaty.
Have a successful day (and if not… well you know what to do)
GNF
I enjoyed reading the learnings. Especially the spiced-up-part with your way of dealing with grey days.
Here’s my list:
- wiggeling or shaking
- just breath
- embrace slowlyness
The list ist not complete and changes a lot over the years, but it’s there.
Wiggle and shaking? Well … have you noticed what dogs do, even when they are not wet from rain? Correct. They shake.
They shake when getting up or when going outside. When they where nervous or when they just feel like it.
Unfortunately we don’t have this shake-it automatic, but I promise you. It is awesome.
It relieves stress immediately. It’s awkward… which makes it fun and changes situations.
I have to admit, that I only do that in private ; )
- just breathe? Well I am a big fan of „the iceman“ Wim Hof.
- embrace slowlyness? Silence and slow things don’t get much of attention these days. I Never really meditated, So I at least try to do embrace it when the time is right there. So sometimes I just don’t try to Cheer up and jump around when it’s a grey day, but concentrate on it calmly instead. I even use a „mantra“ from my Dad that goes „die Gedanken kommen …. Einatmen…. Und vergehen .. ausatmen“. That even connects perfectly with the breathing.