Pushing yourself vs. Flowing with life

[Identity]

There seems to be this paradox in personal development between on the one hand needing decipline and pushing yourself to grow. The pain and suffering you have to endure and look for. Putting yourself outside you comfort zone and all this.

And on the other hand there is this whole idea of that you should flow with life. Accept yourself. Dont be neurotic and hard on yourself. Don’t guilt yourself into things.

What do you think about this, is it a balance? Do they seem like opposites but actually aren’t?

I personaly struggle with finding the right path with this. Would love to hear your perspective.

[Truth Addict]

1. How do kids grow and learn?
2. Why not work it out in cycles?

Edited August 20, 2019 by Truth Addict

[ajasatya]

@Identity If getting out of your comfort zone is feeling emotionally hard, you may be doing something that is not alligned with your life purpose.

When we're engaged in activities that are connected to our life purpose, discipline and hard work feel very natural and spontaneous. If I'm careless, I can easily spend too much time on my projects and even forget to drink water and eat properly. That's how natural it should feel: unplugging from hard work requires extra awareness.

[bensenbiz]

I see your point : for me the magical recipe was doin what I want and not should - also: playfulness.

[Michael569]

Cal Newport says that instead of pushing yourself too far you should, every day, just lean slightly on the edge of your comfort zone. This way your comfort zone will slowly expand one day at a time. 

If you push yourself too hard, you can stretch the "bubble" rapidly but you'll end up burned out and exhausted. So pace yourself slowly but do something every day. Tap into that uncomfort just a bit but make sure to get back to that place every day. 

If you feel like taking a break and swimming with the flow a while, then do it. But once you have savoured it, get back to where you left. 

[DoubleYou]

What I found works best to enter that flow state is something very counterintuitive. It's to simply give up completely. Admit you can't do it. You won't succeed. Really feel into that. And then...
Keep doing it anyway.

This takes the ego out of every situation.
Now there's nothing to gain. Nothing to lose. No hope, no neediness. No nothing. You've already admitted you can't do it. So whatever will happen will be fine. You might even find yourself succeeding.  In fact, you'll be more likely to.

This way, you enter the flow of life. And you'll be at your most productive. No need to push yourself. No self to be pushed. That one has already admitted defeat.
And now notice that it doesn't change a thing. It's just an ego game. Trying to control a situation beforehand. And all that energy you stuck into that game can now be used productively. So by giving up the need to succeed, you actually free up energy that can be used.

Try it out. It's liberating. 

What you'll find is that discipline is actually a very simple, easy thing. It comes naturally. It's not something you have to push yourself for. That pushing is actually keeping you from it.

[Identity]

On 21-8-2019 at 0:30 AM, Truth Addict said:

1. How do kids grow and learn?
2. Why not work it out in cycles?

Hmm kids seem to have this authentic curiousity about things. They don’t have to oush themselves, they just follow their desire to learn. 

That being said, kids also can’t sustain themselves and need a lot of external guidence. They couldn’t survive by themselves.

What do you mean work it out in cycles? Like, pushing yourself until you get to a “new level” and than flow from there?

On 21-8-2019 at 3:16 AM, ajasatya said:

@Identity If getting out of your comfort zone is feeling emotionally hard, you may be doing something that is not alligned with your life purpose.

When we're engaged in activities that are connected to our life purpose, discipline and hard work feel very natural and spontaneous. If I'm careless, I can easily spend too much time on my projects and even forget to drink water and eat properly. That's how natural it should feel: unplugging from hard work requires extra awareness.

Hmm, I feel like I am quite blessed with the things I am working at atm. I can decide a lot of stuff by myself and create what I want. 

However, if I don’t push myself a bit, I would just fall back into watching bullshit on youtube and other unconscious stuff. There are a lot of things that are pulling me that, if I dont push it away, I get sucked back into.

On 21-8-2019 at 11:47 AM, bensenbiz said:

I see your point : for me the magical recipe was doin what I want and not should - also: playfulness.

What if you want to do all the unconscious bullshit? I want to watch some Netflix with a bowl of ice cream ?

On 21-8-2019 at 1:31 PM, Michael569 said:

Cal Newport says that instead of pushing yourself too far you should, every day, just lean slightly on the edge of your comfort zone. This way your comfort zone will slowly expand one day at a time. 

If you push yourself too hard, you can stretch the "bubble" rapidly but you'll end up burned out and exhausted. So pace yourself slowly but do something every day. Tap into that uncomfort just a bit but make sure to get back to that place every day. 

If you feel like taking a break and swimming with the flow a while, then do it. But once you have savoured it, get back to where you left. 

Yeah, this makes a lot of sense, thats kind of what I try to do now. I also try to keep looking at the big picture to not think that Im either totaly winning or totaly failing.

 

On 21-8-2019 at 2:25 PM, DoubleYou said:

What I found works best to enter that flow state is something very counterintuitive. It's to simply give up completely. Admit you can't do it. You won't succeed. Really feel into that. And then...
Keep doing it anyway.

This takes the ego out of every situation.
Now there's nothing to gain. Nothing to lose. No hope, no neediness. No nothing. You've already admitted you can't do it. So whatever will happen will be fine. You might even find yourself succeeding.  In fact, you'll be more likely to.

This way, you enter the flow of life. And you'll be at your most productive. No need to push yourself. No self to be pushed. That one has already admitted defeat.
And now notice that it doesn't change a thing. It's just an ego game. Trying to control a situation beforehand. And all that energy you stuck into that game can now be used productively. So by giving up the need to succeed, you actually free up energy that can be used.

Try it out. It's liberating. 

What you'll find is that discipline is actually a very simple, easy thing. It comes naturally. It's not something you have to push yourself for. That pushing is actually keeping you from it.

Sounds interesting, but I don’t think its something I am going to do tbh. Feels to scary or too counter-intuitive ?

[Truth Addict]

5 minutes ago, Identity said:

Hmm kids seem to have this authentic curiousity about things. They don’t have to oush themselves, they just follow their desire to learn. 

That being said, kids also can’t sustain themselves and need a lot of external guidence. They couldn’t survive by themselves.

What do you mean work it out in cycles? Like, pushing yourself until you get to a “new level” and than flow from there?

 

Yes! Combine the two answers together, and see what happens.

[TrynaBeTurquoise]

"There is action in inaction and inaction in action"

I don't think that flowing with life means not pushing, I think pushing when appropriate can be considering going with the flow. 

[Shadowraix]

On 8/20/2019 at 9:16 PM, ajasatya said:

When we're engaged in activities that are connected to our life purpose, discipline and hard work feel very natural and spontaneous. If I'm careless, I can easily spend too much time on my projects and even forget to drink water and eat properly. That's how natural it should feel: unplugging from hard work requires extra awareness.

I don't think this is the case 100% of the time. There are a lot of aspects of projects that may be less interesting than others. Game development for example has quite a rollercoaster. 

There are going to be times and days when you might not feel it, but that hard-work, discipline, and big picture thinking is what helps one through those days.

Flowing is a fantastic state to achieve, but I don't think its always practical all the time in the earlier days of personal development.

Edited August 22, 2019 by Shadowraix

[Identity]

6 hours ago, Shadowraix said:

 

Flowing is a fantastic state to achieve, but I don't think its always practical all the time in the earlier days of personal development.

Yeah, this. You can’t flow yourself out of a rut into a flowstate most of the time.

Practicaly, did more advanced people flow their way to where they are? Or did it take some years of pushing themselves to be able to say that.

Just like you should not search for enlightenment. But if you dont start with that, you aint gettin enlightened.

[possibilities]

People who believe in rest and passivity as a way to live life are seriously, seriously misinformed about the constituents of reality.

They're a physical body that is meant to move around and achieve actions, especially as a human being. A human being was never evolved to be a "rest guru" haha.

There's one simple policy to me when it comes to action: rest between sets (i.e. like in weight training), that's it. Rest never becomes a set unto itself like many people make it.

Having the need for rest as a philosophy is seriously indicative of health issues (i.e. lower levels of testosterone - which can be corrected these days with the right actions, etc so there's no excuse - although there's of course differences in ones potential here that doesn't mean someone with lower levels of testosterone has the right to make a philosophy out of being lazy simply because they're not motivated to do a lot of stuff) of one way or another that they justify with a "spiritual cultural norm". Oh my god there's nothing spiritual about sitting down and doing nothing, as a strategic imperative in between sets to aid the majority of your action taking sure, otherwise why even exist? The only logical choice to exist includes some kind of useful action that can be produced, no one in their right mind is going to be like "my reason for existence is to sit here and do nothing", that's just the devil talking.

 

Edited August 23, 2019 by possibilities

[Nivsch]

Sometimes the ego press you to do effort and push yourself and maybe part of the flow is also flow with the ego!

Sometimes.

What do you think?

Edited August 23, 2019 by Nivsch

[possibilities]

@Nivsch, action isn't related to ego, ego is related to ego. This topic is very nuanced that people misunderstand and subsequently delude themselves about.

Again - on the subject of testosterone:

 

Edited August 23, 2019 by possibilities

[possibilities]

Actually @Nivsch, I'd encourage you to see lack of action as being more related ego than taking action.

Someone can see taking as much action as they can as a way to push through the egoic part of yourself that wants to just "chill and watch Netflix".

To me given the psychological and physical benefits (within limits of course - make sure you sleep well), it seems much more healthy to see taking as much action as one can as a form of enlightenment training than lack of action.

If action is tied to ones sense of meaning and truly is related to their ego then they can try to take as much action as they can without being outcome dependent, that can also be a form of spiritual maturity.

This mindset cooperates well with rest between sets too.

Here's a good Goggins video which supports. So many people are afraid of suffering and I think that's the thing that holds them back most:

Enlightenment Through Suffering in Ultra Running (David Goggins)

 

[DoubleYou]

40 minutes ago, possibilities said:

Actually @Nivsch, I'd encourage you to see lack of action as being more related ego than taking action.

Someone can see taking as much action as they can as a way to push through the egoic part of yourself that wants to just "chill and watch Netflix".

To me given the psychological and physical benefits (within limits of course - make sure you sleep well), it seems much more healthy to see taking as much action as one can as a form of enlightenment training than lack of action.

If action is tied to ones sense of meaning and truly is related to their ego then they can try to take as much action as they can without being outcome dependent, that can also be a form of spiritual maturity.

This mindset cooperates well with rest between sets too.

Here's a good Goggins video which supports. So many people are afraid of suffering and I think that's the thing that holds them back most:

Enlightenment Through Suffering in Ultra Running (David Goggins)

 

Don't turn that into an ideology though.

Sometimes lack of action is just what is needed. Like in meditation. The cessation of all activity. And isn't that the most productive thing you can do?

Activity and passivity are merely two sides of the same coin. A duality.
Either can be valid. It all depends on the situation.

Sometimes it's quite alright or even necessary to just chill and watch some Netflix, instead of pushing your ego around like a martyr. 
That's just more and more ego. Running away from the suffering that will be there when you don't. See, it's the same thing but the other way around.

That said, if you're at a point in your life where you've been running away from taking action when you needed to, by all means. Take as much action as you can. But at some point you're going to want to aim for some balance. 

[possibilities]

@DoubleYou Ideology is imperative to justify any action, its ideology to say "don't have ideology" what is dangerous is ideology with increasing attachment. Ideology is not the problem, its the corrosive effect of poor ideologies that are.

Thus your statement has no logical grounding however it does have popular opinion among people who haven't thought about the problem clearly enough.

"Sometimes its quite alright"

Based on what exactly? No need to take offense I'm just stating things as I see them.

See to me things need to be axiomatically justified, in order to perform any activity, either someone is on "auto-pilot" or they're thinking and doing, and if its the latter then what thinking is explaining the doing? What is the methodology for that thinking? Why is that thinking chosen over other kinds of thinking?

After enough thinking about life and the myriad of choices we could make in the context of life, from preparing to climb Mt. Everest to thinking up solutions to problems to spending relaxation via meditation, Netflix would likely fall at the bottom of the list of priorities, especially as it pertains to being a regular thing. Netflix is designed to make peoples "auto-pilots" addicted, thus I'd have to ask those persons, what is your method for not being addicted?

Martyrdom is a statement that you'd have to logically justify, so in this sense I see this as a false either or you're making, something that acts to invalidate a position that was never made while taking out a position that was made but that wasn't thought well enough about given that I already stated as can be quoted above:

"they can try to take as much action as they can without being outcome dependent, that can also be a form of spiritual maturity."

"But at some point you're going to want to aim for some balance. "

This is also stating that somehow it is imbalanced to always take action, based on what social norm is it imbalanced? Why is that social norm justified? Since when has any social norm been accurate?

This just goes back to axiomatically justifying things otherwise you're just leaving things all up in the air allowing for auto-pilot to take care of things.

Peace out

Edited August 23, 2019 by possibilities

[Dan502]

I struggle with this too.

After work every day I feel like relaxing but I also know that if I want to pursue a new career, I'll have to do something about it.

At the moment I'm just sort of doing very little bits here and there.

Essentially, I'm doing what I can.

Erm. Yeah. This probably isn't great advice, I'm just sharing!