The Decisive Moment
When all the mind chatter turns off
It’s Saturday night, and I have many options for finding nourishment. I decide to cook my easy, repeatable stir fry.
Yet deciding alone isn’t enough. You have to take concrete action.
I begin to cut the onions, our first ingredient.
The wok heats up and boom, the moment the food hits the pan, all ideas about ordering pad thai or chicken wings go out the window.
This is the decisive moment when action is taken. All the mental chatter goes out the window.
Every type of discipline, practice and work has this component.
And it sure does feel better to take action than to sit around and think about the alternatives.
20 minutes later, and my Mexican-Asian fusion is complete.
I know what’s in the food because I oversaw every ingredient that went into it.
But this isn’t about stir-fry.
It’s about working through the resistance that wants you to sit on the couch and eat chicken wings.
It’s our innate nature to want to sit around.
Yet when sitting around becomes the default we don’t feel so good. Add in some algorithmic content and you’re going to feel even worse after a while.
The decisive moment of action is when you load up a backing track to practice your instrument.
You get your knitting supplies off the shelf, and you make a few stitches.
You tie up your laces and go for an easy jog.
Thinking about doing things can sometimes be painful when you’re caked in cheetos on the couch watching pointless reels.
Yet mindless consumption only goes to make other people rich.
The opposite is the conscious direction of your internal will and motivation.
Working on your own projects might not be the path to financial wealth most of the time.
Yet they will give your life a higher sense of meaning and purpose, which money could never even buy.
Tip for planning the week ahead: We often think about what we ‘have to’ do. I always try to rewrite that phrase as what do I want to do?
I’m not great at finishing the things that I have to do. I’m a lot better at completing the things that I want to do, on the other hand.
And pair that with a powerful mind prompt - what do I want to learn more about this week?
Have a fantastic week ahead,
Elliott
Good article about life as always.