Delusional accountability

Thaomaoh

Dec 06, 2024

Hey, it’s Bog.

Yesterday I “didn’t feel like” doing my daily dose of push-ups.

“It’s already late, so I’ll stress out my body and won’t fall asleep as easily.”
“I had a meal, so I don’t feel like it.”
“I have other things to do.”

These thoughts made me think that doing push-ups was out of my control.

It’s late - I can’t control how fast Earth rotates around its axis.
I don’t feel like it - I can’t control my emotions.
I have other things - I can’t control how many “other things” I have going on.

They masked the only thing that was actually within my control. Doing the push-ups.

I could still do the push-ups even if (1) it was late, (2) I didn’t feel like it, and (3) I had other things to do.

This got me thinking.

It’s much more useful to think that something is within my control, even if it’s not.

Feeling like something is fully within my control is what often decides whether I take action or not. And sometimes, even how good I feel about doing something.

Most things that I know I can’t control (like whether a comet will hit earth or not) I tend to not even question. So my rule of thumb is:

If I question it → it’s most likely at least a tiny bit within my control.

And if it’s even a tiny bit within my control → it’s more useful to think that it’s fully within my control.

Here’s what I mean:

When I think that I can’t fully control something, it feels like I’m giving power to that thing. I let it control me.

But when I feel like something’s 100% within my control (even if it’s not), that’s when the magic happens.

Take YouTube, for instance.

Any rational human being would think that views on YouTube aren’t 100% within their control.

There’s:

“The algorithm.”
The time of day.
The mood of the person before they choose to watch.
Whether someone’s lunch break is almost over and they don’t have any more time.
Videos that other channels have recently uploaded.
“Random events” happening all around the world.
The weather.
And a bunch of other “random factors” that might make someone not watch your video.

But why would it be useful to think that “views on YouTube are NOT fully within my control”?

Thinking like that would only make me try less. Improve less. Blame circumstances and complain more.

Which would lead to me making worse videos.

Which would then lead to fewer views.

On the other hand, if I thought views on YouTube were 100% within my control, I would:

Try more.
Improve more as a result.
I wouldn’t blame circumstances because there are no circumstances. I’m the one that’s 100% in control. The only thing I could blame is me.
And I would complain less because the only thing I could complain about is me not doing the work.

So even if something isn’t within your full control, you could still get more use out of thinking that it is. If something is within ONLY your control, then it’s up to ONLY you whether you go get it done or not.

Thanks for reading 👋!

❤️ My Favorite Things

⚙️ My favorite keyboard shortcut:

In the previous issue, I talked about how I changed my right command + hjkl keys to act as arrow keys ←↓↑→ on Mac.

These are essentially the same keys that you would use to navigate text inside of the Vim text/code editor.

And over the past month I got quite used to using this keyboard shortcut. To the point where I now get slightly annoyed when I can’t use it.

I recently bought a new keyboard (here it is if you’re interested) and forgot to enable this shortcut. This showed me how much I got used to using the right command/alt keys + h,j,k,l keys as arrow keys. (I created a similar shortcut on Windows with an app called AutoHotkey.)

I still make some mistakes and click the wrong key. But being able to press arrow keys without moving my hands away from the home row is such a game changer. (I’m not sure if it actually improves my typing speed or only feels “cool” to do, but aye, at least it does feel cool.)

✍️ Quote of the Month:

When you present an idea to the world and if it’s not a hit, don’t keep pushing it as is.
Instead, get back to improving and inventing.
If after a new idea or improvement, people are saying, “Wow, yes, I need this! I’d be happy to pay you to do this!”, then you should probably do it.
But if the response is anything less, don’t pursue it. Don’t waste years fighting uphill battles against locked doors. Improve or invent until you get that huge response.

From Anything You Want by Derek Sivers