Give yourself a reason to run your own life
Let's fix your attention in 2 steps. So you don't waste your one and only life.
If you do not give your mind a reason to run your life, guess what.
Your brain will run it instead.
Let’s play a little game for a second.
I want you to try and spot the problem.
From the second you’ve woken up you’ve done everything you could do to avoid silence. Indulging yourself in your Spotify on-repeat or your favorite “educational” podcasts. Scrolling TikTok or Instagram waiting for your overpriced and rotten Starbucks morning coffee.
Anything to make you feel “good.”
You stay up late to make up for the first 8 hours of your day not being “good.” You eat junk food and chain yourself to your bed or your couch to make yourself feel “good.” You watch Netflix and scroll, and don’t read and write or think in silence like you think about wanting to do... because god-forbid we face a little boredom... because to you, those thing don’t feel...
“good”
Did you spot the problem?
Doing everything in your power to always be feeling “good” will ruin your life.
That is what your brain wants.
But not the mind.
Not your mind.
If you are anything like me, you are not the world’s greatest superfan for willpower.
With this essay, I have a 2-step framework I have being testing and iterating myself for some time now.
The first step will help you with evaluating everything that is stealing your attention (and I mean everything)
In the second step, we’ll go through how to go about redirecting that attention, but in a way that serves what you truly want from your life
And that most important first step, my friend, well, it involves understanding this profound idea:
Your mind and brain are two entirely separate entities.
And not understanding that profound idea...
Safe to say it will cause some bad shit for you down the road.
Profound thinkers, let us think through these 2 steps together.
Step 1: Evaluate Where Your Attention Goes
There is no peace for the man who has seen what he could become
- Epictetus
You need to start directing your attention like your life depends on it.
It does.
Living on TikTok as your 5-9 after your 9-5...
That will create a life you may want.
If you’ve read this far, we both know that isn’t the case.
You want something more profound than that.
Same logic applies to having no plan or project to strive toward.
Same applies to overstimulating your brain, eating junk food and Netflix binging, but just to feel some relief in your mind temporarily.
Living your one and only life on a loop of relief and suffering and relief and suffering and relief and suffering...
If you do not want to live your life like this, good.
Let’s go a little deeper, shall we?
You should (correctly) start seeing your mind and brain as being distinct from one another.
Integral Theory gives us a four-quadrant map that will help with this.
It’s the top-right corner.
I recommend exploring it fully in your own time if you want to understand what makes a perspective as complete as possible.
I know I know.
The image looks complicated and scary.
Really, it’s just a mental model for thinking about perspectives.
Why is this relevant to this essay?
The mind and brain are the subjective and objective perspectives regarding the individual quadrants.
Which, are the two of the four AQAL model perspectives we care about today:
The mind is the Q1 quadrant/perspective - Think thinking itself. Your thoughts, your emotions and feelings, your subjective inner world.
The brain is the Q2 quadrant/perspective - Think your physical brain as opposed to the metaphysical mind. Your cognitive processes, neuroplasticity, whether you’re neurodivergent or not. Your objective inner world.
Why care about either of these perspectives?
Well, your mind is conscious and generative, and where thoughts are forged and reacted to.
But your brain, however, is hardwired to do one thing, and one thing only.
Keep you alive.
That wiring is ancient.
Since, the human brain itself is ancient, and has wiring suited for an ancient world where salt, sugar, and fat were once scarce, and joyful stimulation meant no tigers or lions were nearby to bite your face off.
The world has changed a lot since then.
But your brain... sorry.
Not so much.
Your brain is hardwired to abuse abundance, since, to your brain, that abundance isn’t abundant.
Your brain abuses salt, sugar, and fat because it still perceives it as a scarce resource.
Same applies to artificial and digital stimulation.
The brain cannot get enough of it, because it was never bloody meant to get any of it.
It views it as scarce, too, and now we can’t stand in line for a Starbucks coffee without scrolling to avoid boredom like it’s the plague.
I often think about where I would be and what I’d be doing (and how lost I’d be feeling) if I had put my attention toward different avenues across the last 4 years.
If I chose a psychology, philosophy, English, or sport-training degree instead of my media degree.
If I had never started my personal brand and writing one long-form essay each week.
If I had never started meal prepping, or jiu-jitsu, or how I’d be suffering so much more if I had never started thinking about deep ideas seriously.
Here’s a profound idea:
What you give your attention to will determine the trajectory of your entire life.
Force interest until you find it.
Fake bravery until you feel it.
Fake discipline until you build it.
And fake curiosity until you fucking find it.
Let’s stop here for a second, that was a lot to think about.
So follow these action steps to apply and help offload some of the mental load of everything we’ve discussed:
Grab a page or a notebook
Write down every single thing you give your attention to (and I mean everything)
Cross out everything you want to stop giving your attention to fully
Put a star beside anything you aren’t currently doing, but would like to start doing, and think you could start doing
This should take about 10-15 minutes tops.
I like to compare this exercise with the profound idea of separating wheat from chaff against the mind and life you want in the next 6-12 months.
Since you now have what you want to keep giving your attention to, and soon cut out, from stealing your attention, here is what to do with what is left.
The chaff.
Step 2: Redirect Your Attention
You have a big long list now, which means only one thing.
The most important thing must be done first thing every morning.
Pick it from your list.
Maybe it’s something like reading or learning.
Maybe it’s going outside and getting sunlight into your eyes instead of rotting in bed on your phone before work.
(trust me, it really helps)
The reason we do our most important task first thing in the morning, is because:
(i) you’re most alert, and have the most amount of energy and focus available to you than any other point in the day
(ii) you’re more likely to commit to doing something first thing in the morning when you don’t have 1000 different things trying to grab your attention... most of them still being asleep
(iii) the chances of that important task getting hijacked by easier, more distracting tasks, is going to be slim
I’ve been writing my weekly newsletter for more than a year now.
I’ve followed the same practice every single morning.
My first work block is for creating something.
Something new.
Like my long-form writing/content course I’m releasing on July 21st for early-bird access.
My reading and self-education digital products.
Also my exclusive paid guides on my Substack.
I’ve found 45-60 minutes to be the sweet spot for this block.
Then, I spend the same amount of time writing content.
Short form when I feel like it, this block is mostly dedicated toward long form writing.
My one Profound Essay that I send out via my email newsletter each week.
Once I’ve completed my two 45-60min creating and writing blocks, I complete 1-2x 20-45 minute blocks responding to comments, DMs, emails, doing admin work or taxes, and so on.
Maintenance work.
Or creating YouTube thumbnails and scheduling videos.
One day per week I replace my content block for recording a YouTube video (I just read my newsletter to a camera).
Between work blocks I like to do non-cognitively demanding things.
I eat.
I make coffee.
I go on a walk and think.
I try not to think… which actually gets ideas flowing a hell of a lot more than if I try force them.
The reason why I’m telling you what I do, specifically, is because I want to build a personal brand that I can make a living from in the next 3-5 years.
That is why I do what I do every single morning.
That is why I do it first thing.
Every single day, even before my “real” job.
If you want the social proof, you know where to look.
Enough creator talk.
The broad principles that have helped me find success, that will help you too, if you stick to them, are as follows:
Keep your work blocks small, short, but extremely high quality
1-4 blocks at most
20-45 minutes per block completing one needle moving task
Note: A needle moving task is the highest leverage type of task you can do.
Think writing a piece of content that can reach hundreds of thousands of people, and only takes 5-8 hours to write. Compared to, say, designing your Substack or YouTube bio that nobody gives a fuck about (but people do give a fuck about your content).
Now.
Look at your list.
Pick out the most important thing you want to start giving your attention to.
Then (this is important) if you can handle more than one task block, do more.
1-4 blocks, and 20-45 minutes per block is your limit.
So that’s 1-4 things on your list to choose from at the higher end. Or, simply your one most important task to complete.
For me, that’s building something to share with you legends and sell to those who are interested, and writing my weekly essay that I send out via my email newsletter that attracts people to my personal brand.
To finish this essay/newsletter, I will leave you with a profound idea to walk on.
Literally. Go on a walk and think about it. I know I need to.
Everything you do is just… feedback.
If something doesn’t work for you, iterate.
Same applies if you don’t feel motivated, or if you’re losing focus.
Or if all you want to do after day 3 of this plan is go back to scrolling your life away.
Iterate with trial and error.
Everything you have already done today has told you enough about what you have to improve on tomorrow.
Your life is a book that gets written based on what you give your attention to.
Please, I beg of you.
Do not waste it.
I appreciate your time and attention as always.
I hope I gave you something valuable in exchange for it.
You’re an absolute legend.
- Craig :)
I almost forgot:
For the writers, creators, those with the creative gene, so to speak, who didn’t forget it when I said it.
The Profound Writer course is coming out July 21st.
It’s my personal writing/content system that helped me grow my audience and earn my first 10k by writing long form like this one.
(for those who care about stats)
Essays, newsletters, articles, YouTube scripts etc.
6 modules (for now, with many more on the way).
AI prompts that guide you without thinking or writing anything for you.
I think you’ll be surprised by how I’ve engineered them…
Feedback surveys after every module.
Module and lesson requests.
This will be an evolving course that I will continue to improve over the coming years.
Meaning it will be a hell of a lot more valuable the longer it is around, and the more feedback I get.
I want it to be the best writing course on the internet.
And I believe it will be just that.
I look forward to seeing you inside the course.
Subscribe to get early-bird access when it comes out.
I won’t keep you any longer, you have a lot to be doing.
When is it rolling out Craig?