The Trough of Sorrow

Image Credit: Pixabay

One of the things I like most about writing a personal development blog is I get to write about new tips and tricks I’ve found. Part of the fun is finding nuggets of advice from the things around me from friends to movies and everything in between. Then I get to write them down, not only for myself but, to share with anyone interested in reading what I have to say. Every time I find something to write about I find several other follow up posts as well.

I’m not just taking things I’ve found, repackaging the content, and turning it into a post but I try my advice. This has led to some interesting little experiments and new things I enjoy doing. Wim Hof’s breathing practice, meditation, and journaling are a few things I enjoy doing.

The problem with personal development is it can be overwhelming. There’s always something new to do, new to try, and a new variation on an old idea. There are so many people out there trying to help it’s easy to feel overloaded. I know for me, the more I read, the more I want to implement all at once, and the more I fail. Working on two-week experiments are great, in theory, but it can be difficult to implement in real life, especially when there’s so much to try.

As anyone who’s tried making a New Year’s Resolution, the easy part is starting, but once the real work begins it’s easy overwhelmed, disappointed, and quit. Initially, we are riding high and are untouchable. Soon we hit a speed bump and we start to wobble. After experiencing this amazing high from our life changing idea, we feel the depressive low from the wobble. Few speed bumps later, and we throw in the towel because we “can’t” do it.

What happened? How did we go from “I’m on top of the world to my life sucks” and “I’ll never accomplish anything?” We’ve landed in the “Trough of Sorrow.”

“What is this fancy, nonsense term you’re using this time, Joe?” The trough of sorrow is a term coined by Y Combinator founder Paul Graham, and his partners, to explain the point in a start-up’s life cycle where the “new car smell” wears off and the real work begins. As seen in the diagram, first start-up founders get excited about how they will change the world. Then the novelty dies off and all they are left is the grind of making it work. Sometimes a start-up can spend years in the trough waiting to see if their idea will work. This is where most start-ups either persevere, pivot from their original idea, or quit completely.

The trough of sorrow is what we experience when life gets in the way of our personal development goals. We miss a day or two working on our new habit or skill and we start to spiral. Soon a day turns into a week, turns into a month, and turns into forever. We’ve failed so we must be failures, right?

This has been the issue I’ve had the last several months. I’ve started and quit several habit changes and projects in the last several months. Every time I try to start something new life gets in the way, I hit a few speed bumps, and I give up. When I hit the trough of sorrow, I tend to hit it HARD. I try to take on too much all at once and wind up sucking at everything until I give up and feel like a failure. Not the good kind where I learn from my experiences but the bad one who throws himself a pity party.

Most days, all I really want to do is hide under my desk or go full Emo, crying alone in the corner of a dark room. I feel sorry for myself because my expectations are not matching up with reality. I suck and there’s nothing I can do about it.

This is why I wanted to write this post. I want to show I still have a long way to go in my personal development journey and I’m writing these posts to help me as much as I want to help others. Somethings I need to remind myself I am doing a good job, my feelings are normal, and I’m not the only one going through this situation. Here are some things I plan on using to help get me out of the trough of sorrow:

Dealing with the Trough of Sorrow

Concentrating on our Emotions:

Many times, we feel like we are the only ones who are failing horribly. We see friends and influencers on social media showing us their perfect little lives and it’s easy to ask ourselves, “what’s wrong with me?” The thing is we all go through the trough of sorrow. Everyone has their low points.

We need to remember change is difficult. It is were easy everyone would be doing it all the time. We are going to fail time and time again. It’s okay to fail, especially if we are willing to learn from our mistakes.

Steve Kamb of Nerd Fitness has a great article on starting over or, as he calls it, respawning. In it he suggests three steps to help us get closer to success when we decided to try something again.

Separate yourself form the Old You: Every time we start over we do it as a new person. It doesn’t matter what happened yesterday. It’s in the past. We can take what we’ve learned and put it towards making today a success. Today is a new day, we are new people, and we can do it
Capitalize on Momentum: Every time we start over we are filled with excitement and passion. We need to take this time to make plans and changes we will be forced to continue when we hit the trough.
Fail Differently: Now, we might not succeed in this attempt either but that’s okay. By doing things a little differently, this time, we will fail differently. This means we will learn more, which we can use for the next time we try again. The more we try, the more we learn, and the more likely we are to achieve our goals.

Working through our Problems:

Once the initial excitement of starting something new and we get to the trough it’s easy to get frustrated. It’s helpful to take some time here for introspection. We should ask ourselves why are we failing? What are the issues we are encountering? What is triggering our regression? Looking into why we are having issues allows us to plan around them.

A lack of or poor planning is another reason many of us stumble. Initially we get excited and dove right in. We knew what we want our end result to be, but we haven’t made a plan to get there. Since there’s isn’t a plan, we bail. When planning to start our new habit, skill, or project it’s important to think of these three things:

Keep it simple: Figure out the bare minimum we can do and still be successful
Celebrate Small Wins: Build small wins into the plan and celebrate them.
Build a Team: It’s important for us to have a team to help keep us accountable. Family, friends, co-workers, hire a coach, or find someone off the street. Anyone who will help us to keep going.

We must Perseverance:

When we start something new it’s easy to feel like we can take on the world. “Ain’t nobody gonna break my stride, ain’t nobody gonna slow me down. I’ve got to keep on movin’!” Then the resistance realizes we want to change the status quo and it freaks out. The resistance pushes us head first into the trough.

The resistance doesn’t want us to grow. It doesn’t want us to change. It tries to trick us into thinking we “can’t” do it and won’t make it. It knows one of our basic instincts when things get tough is to run away. In fact, it’s counting on it.

It’s not that we don’t want to change but it’s easy to feel “it’s not the right time.” Maybe I’ll let things in my life die down and start again. The problem is life rarely slows down and something always gets in the way. As cliché as it might sound, unfortunately, perseverance is the only way to get through the trough.

The thing to remember, no matter how many times we quit, start over, or try something new it will always be difficult. The trough of sorrow isn’t a unique or special circumstance. Being extremely passionate about a project, skill, or habit change doesn’t mean we will skip out on the struggles. The struggle will always be real, and we will need to deal with it, eventually. If we want to make real, lasting change we need to persevere when times get tough.

I think the important things to remember are we are not alone, it’s okay to fail and start over, it’s important to have a plan and a support network or group, and the only way past the trough of sorrow is through it. It’s never easy and we are going to stumble many times along the way. As long as we pick ourselves up and try again we will eventually make things happen.

Chen, Andrew. “After the Techcrunch bump: Life in the ‘Trough of Sorrow’”.

What is Your One Thing?

Image Credit: Pixabay

As I may or may not have mentioned before, I have three children, one who is only 7 months old. This means my house is in a constant state of disarray. This tends to leave my wife and I extremely frustrated. No matter how much we try to clean up, it’s ruined quickly. It’s one step forward and two steps back.

Last weekend, I was complaining to a buddy about the house, and he gave me a strange but amazing piece of advice. He said, “pick one thing and make it YOUR thing.” Basically, pick one place in the house, whether it’s the bedroom, family room, toy room, kitchen, etc. and always ensure it is neat and clean. No matter how the rest of the house looks or what else is going on, I must ensure my “area” of the house is clean. No complaining just do it.

“Okay, Joe, what’s the big deal?” I think it’s an easy way to give us some semblance of order back in our lives. I know when I feel like my life is completely out of control it’s because I’m worried about too many things all at once. My wife, my kids, my job, my house, my friends, my future, and my world all at the same time. I feel like I’m on a treadmill. I’m going a mile a minute but I not getting anywhere.

Instead of trying to do everything, we need to pick one thing and make it OUR thing. The important thing is to make it small and manageable. Picking too large of a “thing” can be a one-way ticket to Overwhelmsville.

Going back to my conversation about my house, I decided to ensure the dishes are clean and put away every single night. This gives me a base of operations while allowing me to feel like I made a difference by accomplishing something. Then if there is time or if feeling especially frisky I can expand to the rest of the house.

This prevents cherry picking and the “what do I feel like today” mentality. Whenever it’s time to clean the house, I know where I’m starting. Basically, I’ve eliminated the choice of where to start reducing my need to use willpower. Now I’m able to be more effective in the house.

Why is keeping my house clean so difficult? Is it because I’m a slob, I have 3 kids, or own more things than necessary? Probably all of them. The other problem is, by the time I get home, at the end of the day I’m exhausted. Sure, I spend most of my day sitting in a chair staring at a computer screen but mentally, I have very little left in me. I’m all out of willpower.

We’ve all had those days where we know what we should be doing but we don’t have the energy or drive to make it happen. Instead of cleaning or working on a project, we procrastinate because we don’t have the willpower. We feel weak and lazy.

The thing is our willpower is like a glass of water. Every time we make a decision or “force” ourselves to do something, the cup gets drained a little. The more energy we expend making decisions, both conscious and unconscious, the fast cup empties and until we feel overwhelmed. This leads to what researchers call decision fatigue.

There are several ways to help combat decision fatigue. James Clear gives us 5 ways to combat decision fatigue and SJ Scott gives us a few more, with 9 ways. Two of the points they agree upon are making important decisions ahead of time and simplifying the process. The idea of “pick one thing and make it YOUR thing” is an amalgamation of these two ideas. We’ve decided what we are going to do (in this case it’s focusing on keeping the dishes clean) and we’ve kept it small and manageable (concentrating only on the dishes and the sink area). Now whenever it’s time to get to work we don’t need to guess, we know where to start.

The trick is to understand our priorities. What do we care about the most? What can we concentrate on which will reduce our stress exponentially? What are the things we dread doing the most? These are the things we need to work on first. Then when we’ve created the list of our top priorities, we figure out which is number one and start there. This becomes our thing.

Now we aren’t reliant on willpower to push us into action. We know what we need to do, and we can do it. It’s our top priority after all.

I know I’ve talked a lot about my house and my kitchen but the nice thing about this idea is it can work for most things. Dinners, the kids, job functions, and even friends and family. By developing priorities for the major stressors in our lives, we can pick out thing to become our thing. Once we finish our thing, we can move on to the next thing.

This implementation will take time and practice. I’ve been at this for almost a week and I’ve failed more often than not. The important thing is to keep trying and work to continuously ensure it’s the priority. We already know what we have to do, we just need to execute. So, let’s find out thing, make it our thing, and go kick ass together.

(Bonus Post) My Bucket List

Image Credit: Viktor Hanacek

Yesterday, I wrote about taking time to create a bucket list or, as Steve Kamb would call it, an “Epic Quest of Awesome.” (I’ll explain more about this second part in a later post). I figured if I was going to ask you do create a list of things you want to do; it was only fair I made my own to share with you. I’ve made list like this before but I’m finally ready to start working on mine.

I know some of these “goals” might feel a little nebulous but that’s not the point of the 10-minute exercise. You want to set a timer for 10 minutes and write down everything you’ve EVER wanted to do not matter how silly it might feel. The planning comes later.

Now, for your viewing pleasure… My Bucket List:

Things I want to do:

Sail to Antarctica on the Bark Europa
Hike the entire Appalachian Trail
Visit every continent (including Antarctica
Visit all 50 States
Spend a month living in Europe
Spend a year living outside of the US
Attend the Arnold Classic
Attend the E3
Attend Origins
Attend GenCon
Own an Island (possibly in the Caribbean)
Sail around the Caribbean for a month
Fly in a Private Jet
Gamble in Monte Carlo, Monaco
Spend a month living off the land (have to think more about this one specifically)
Kill a deer with a bow
Clean/eat a deer I’ve killed
Own 50 acres of land in NC
Build a Bunker
Learn how to pick a lock
Learn to Snowboard
Attend Carnival in Venice, Italy
Attend a meditation retreat (Thanks Eat, Pray, Love)
Take a Course on Tactical Shooting
Learn to speak Spanish

Places I want to Visit:

Visit London
Visit Dublin
Visit Madrid
Visit Barcelona
Visit Tuscany/Florence
Visit Istanbul
Visit Prague
Visit Bratislava, Slovakia
Visit a Castle in Germany
Visit Amsterdam
Visit Tokyo
Visit Hong Kong
Visit Bali, Indonesia (thanks again Eat, Pray, Love)
Visit the South American Rainforest

Fitness Related Goals:

Become a Certified Personal Trainer
Squat 400lbs
Deadlift 400lbs
Bench Press 300lbs
Complete a Spartan Trifecta
Medal in a Spartan Race
Participate in a Powerlifting Competition
Spend a year learning Brazilian Ju-Jitsu
Teach my kids to weightlift

Business Related Goals:

Start a business
Work from home
Become an Angel Investor investing in at least one successful company
Become an Advisor to a Startup (preferably in Raleigh, NC)
Launch an Indie Video Game
Write a Fiction book
Start a blog
Start a podcast
Spend a Day with Tim Ferriss
Spend a Day with Noah Kagan
Spend a Day with Seth Godin
Spend a Day with Zach Even-Esh

5 Ways to Get Your Post-Holiday Motivation Back

It’s the Monday after the long Thanksgiving weekend and I’m dragging. I started working out with a friend last week and when he texted this morning to see if we were working out, I almost told him no. Then was the normal mad dash out the door followed by the post-holiday work lethargy. My energy and motivation are shot. All I want to do is close my office door, crawl under the desk, and go to sleep. I’ve even been hit by the struggle bus trying to write this article.

This feeling isn’t new is it? It’s probably not the first time we’ve wanted to hit the pause button on life for a moment because we aren’t looking forward to what’s next. So what do we do? We check our email, remember we need to text a friend something really quick, fall down a social media or YouTube rabbit hole, or find basically anything else to do instead of the tasks at hand. “If I don’t think about what I need to do, then they don’t need to get done right?”

The problem with this lack of motivation is even when we are “relaxing” we don’t feel relaxed because of the stuff looming over our head. Then we’re twice as stress out when we finally get around to doing when needs to be done.

Here are 5 things I do when I’m feeling stuck and unmotivated to get the ball rolling again:

Make a List – Lists can be overwhelming to look at but they also give us clarity about the things we need to get done. They can help us rely less on our fickle minds to remember what needs to get done. Though I don’t believe we should be used daily, when we are lacking motivation they can be extremely helpful.

Take five minutes to write down everything needing to be done both today and during the week. Then rank them in order of importance to focus on the highest value tasks first. Then check the list to see which items can be delegated, delayed, or deleted, removing them from the list. What’s left are all of the most important tasks we have to complete.

Pick a Small Win – Once we have the list of tasks, we need a small win. This means we find something quick and easy to check off the list getting the motivation ball rolling. This could be writing an email, making a phone call, or any other task which will take you 10 minutes or less. If you don’t have a quick task on your list grab one from those you delegated, delayed, or deleted.

What this does it trick you into feeling good about yourself. This feeling of, “oh thank God that’s done,” is extremely satisfying even if it’s quick and minimal. Once you get past the “oh fuck, I don’t want to do anything,” you can move onto higher value items off the list.

10/10/10 – This is something I’ve picked up from the Nerd Fitness website and I’ve used it a few times myself. (Yes, this means I’m doing push-ups and lounges in a button down shirt and slacks… because I can!) What I’ve found this does, for me, is get the blood flowing and kicks up the endorphins, getting me out of any funk I might be in at the moment.

If you aren’t able to regular push-ups, you can modify them by doing them on your knees or doing them off the desk or chair. If the lounges are an issue, you can do squats, jumping jacks, or skip them all together. While the push-ups and lounges help get more of the body’s muscles revved up, it’s all about getting the body moving. Go try it for yourself.

Remove Distractions – This can be easier said than done but you want to eliminated as many distractions as you can. Turn off your phone, close the door to your office, put on sound machine, use a website blocker, or any combination of the above to ensure you aren’t bothered. If some of these things are “too important” for you job or the task you’re working on, then obviously don’t eliminate them. The point is to remove as many distractions as humanly possible. We want to get into a flow state, while working, and any distraction will take us out of this flow. Then we are forced to fight to get back into the flow.

30 Minute Rule – I’ve found this extremely helpful when I need to work on a project. After I remove as many distractions as possible, I institute the 30-minute rule. I set a timer for 30 minutes and work as hard as I can for the entire time. Once the timer goes off, I take a 5-minute break. I can check email, mess around Facebook, play a mobile game, or anything else I want to do. After the 5 minutes are up, I set the timer again for 30 minutes, and start working again. If I happen to be in a flow state and want to continue passed the 30 minutes, I can but this process ensures I’m getting at least 30 minutes of productive work done.

Feel free to try one or try them all. The goal here is to break through the funk to get to the productivity on the other side. The longer we indulge the slump the harder it is to break free. I hope you find these as helpful as I have today. Now go kick some ass.