I’m not a big proponent of statistics, dear readers; for a couple of reasons. One of the reasons is that statistics are incredibly difficult to substantiate in the real world. The stats are always changing, and in general, I suspect a lot of people may not trust them. For that reason alone, I hesitate to use stats myself.

Unless it’s convenient or validates an already existing belief.

Then I can very easily see the need to jump on the statistics train. But so can most of us.

 

Which is why it’s so fascinating for me to witness cultural trends that either celebrate statistics like the “50% of married people get divorced” one, or that are ignored like “1 in 3 people experience depression in their lifetime” one. Because we will probably use this information to our advantage or simply ignore it, then we can continue along our path of non-resistance.

The other reason I am kind of against statistics is that the effort it takes to cite written sources (read: any sources) is already a lot of work, and with the Internet, what you say or do can come back to haunt you later. Sometimes mere moments later.

Wait a second timotheories, that last statement looks like you are saying it’s okay to just run on autopilot when it comes to fact finding… Sounds like you’re lazy.

Good point my friends, good point.

This is why it’s fun for me to hide my references and ideas behind pop culture. We all recognize pop culture references, whether we love them or not is another matter. But it’s easy to recognize them and what they represent a la satire.

Take this one from the show Family Guy. I always found the scene below both really funny and really excellent, because it sums up almost perfectly the suffering most people put themselves through by simply not challenging themselves with a little bit more uncertainty and risk in life.

Hate to break it to you, but you’re gonna have to click on this 2 times to read it all. It’ll be worth it. I promise.

We constantly do this to ourselves.

We go to bed with the best intentions, but never wake up when we say we will. We head home with the expectations that we’ll clean up the house and prepare for the next work day, but instead we plop down on the couch to a favourite show and order pizza. We avoid going out when invited because of the challenge to find a sitter or deal with people we don’t know, so we opt to stay in instead and say that we have the option to go out but are choosing not to exercise it.

Which is exactly what this TEDx talk by life coach Mel Robbins starts off by saying. Though I think she can speak more clearly for herself, so I’ll let you watch the clip yourself.

But for the sake of time and convenience, I’ll skip ahead to the part I am most interested in sharing with you. You can probably watch for 2 minutes, but the last ten minutes are great, and the full 21:39 are even better. Ready?

That’s the big secret.

We are never going to feel like doing the thing that is the most important thing in order to make a positive change. Activation energy is incredibly difficult to put together, and according to Mel, all of these decisions are determined within the first five seconds.

We have to say yes to the impulse within the first 5 seconds, otherwise we won’t make the change. And we have this problem from the time we are children to the time we expire. Parents understand this concept, but may not be able to articulate it properly.

You see, parents make you do everything you are supposed to do, but when you become an adult, you stop having someone there to tell you to do it.

So what’s an adult to do, especially if they want to do something difficult like starting an art project, getting into the recording studio, or sitting down to write the fifth chapter of their novel?

It’s simple,
(but not easy):
FORCE Yourself
OUT Of Your Head
PAST Your Feelings
OUTSIDE Of Your Comfort Zone

You have to stand up, fight that impulse within the first five seconds and get going, and always remember, you are never going to feel like it.

But hey, that’s just a theory right? Some food for thought. What do you think though? Have you tried this? Do you want to? Please leave some comments, and subscribe to the feed. See you tomorrow friends, with something timely.

Tim!