Well, hey there. Welcome back. Let’s talk about the dark side of things. I don’t mean the dark side of everything, even though that sounds kind of exciting, doesn’t it? Okay, let’s rewind.

The Psychology of Motivation: Monsters and Unicorns

My recent book because talks about fundamental building blocks. In simple terms, it’s built on Freud’s pleasure principle. And in simple terms, Freud’s pleasure principle states that we basically do everything based on two sort of drivers. One is to seek pleasure in all forms and to avoid pain in all forms. These two driving factors are neither good nor bad. They are neutral and sometimes they’re used to great success and sometimes they’re used to your detriment.

In the book, I take those semi-intangible concepts and I give them a face. The avoiding pain takes the form of a monster. The seeking pleasure takes the form of a unicorn. But the book goes farther than that. I then go on to talk about something that really separates all high achievers from everyone else. And that is essentially repetition. And there are many books out there and I cite some of them talking about this repetition and how you become an Olympic athlete by repeating. But the thing that everyone else forgets about or ignores is, well, how do they repeat so much? What drives them to repeat? And of course, it’s the monsters and the unicorns.

The Secret Weapon of High Achievers

And I have always said to myself, or rather recently, whatever you repeat, you enhance, you create, and you achieve. At least that’s what I tell myself. And that’s what because is about. It’s about repeating something over and over and over again. And and it doesn’t have to be a 4 secondond action. It can be something that’s fairly long term, something that takes days or something that requires a lot of nuance, but if you continue at it and repeat it and repeat it and repeat it and stick at it, you will achieve it. You can do great things this way. You can make amazing changes this way. But like the monsters and the unicorns, repetition is neutral.

Think about that.

The very concept of repetition doesn’t carry with it good or bad. It doesn’t carry with it constructive or destructive. It’s both and neither. So swimming almost constantly will make you a better swimmer. Practicing speaking will make you a better speaker. Studying and practicing repetitively and diligently will get you your realtor license, your pilot license, etc.

The Dark Side of Repetition: How Unconscious Habits Hurt Us

But my friends, let’s talk about the dark side. The dark side of repetition. And you know what’s interesting about that is that from a lot of people’s perspective, the dark side is actually what they know better. And I’m not saying it’s because they live in the dark side of repetition, but it’s because that sort of has been their perception of it. Stop making that face. If you keep making that face, it’s going to stay that way.

Do you remember that? Did your parent ever say that to you? How many of you grind your teeth? It’s also called bxism. That’s a repetitive thing that people do with their teeth where they just clench down or they grind them side to side and it has tremendous negative impact on your health. Ergonomics is based partially on people repeatedly doing something that’s bad for their body. You can sit in a bad chair for a little while and not a lot’s going to happen. But if you spend hours and hours in a chair that’s slightly tilted or lifts your legs off the floor and puts a lot of pressure on your arteries and so forth, it can have really devastating health effects just just from sitting.

You can eat good food and even in smaller portions, but if you eat it fast, it can also affect your health. Eating it fast once isn’t going to do a lot, but every time you eat, if you eat fast, it’s going to affect you. You will find or probably have found that you have aches and pains that are actually caused by you. And they’re caused by you in a way that is just repetitious. It’s, for example, I had an issue with my ankle for a while. I didn’t know where it was coming from. It it really hurts and I couldn’t remember doing anything to it. I couldn’t, you know, I would I would go work out. I’ i’d run and all that stuff. I wasn’t doing it incorrectly. Something was going on. And I found that when I would work at my desk sometimes, I would sort of let my ankle flop over to the right. So, I’m putting all this tremendous pressure on it just because that sort of felt, and you can see the quotes, felt comfortable. But what I was doing is hyperextending some things and really causing some damage. So I just had to become aware of that.

I mean, it’s the same thing with even crossing your legs, squishing up your your hand and arms at night and tucking them in so that you’re constantly woken up with tingles and things because you’re sort of squishing up like a dead spider. This extends to the way you speak, the negative self-t talk, the way that you interact with others, preconceived notions that you continue to repeat, and the list goes on and on. I mean, how many times in your life have you had this thought? Oh my god, I did it again.

How to Predict Your Triggers and Break the Loop

If you’ve ever had that, it can be really frustrating because it’s something you do repeatedly that you probably can’t even predict. And that seguays us into the next section, which is, okay, we’re aware of this, Mark. Now, what do we do about it? Well, predicting your habits or just embracing something you do and saying, wait a second. I think I’m probably going to do that again. I’m about to eat. I should probably somehow figure out how I cannot eat fast. I’m hungry. I shouldn’t suddenly impulsively say I want three times as much food because right now I’m really hungry. That sounds really good.

I’m sitting in my chair. Do I have the right chair? And if I do, am I sitting in some weird way that I think is comfortable or compensates when I’m stressed?

I’m working on something intensely. What am I doing with my jaw and my teeth right now?

I keep squinting my eyes. Do I just need different glasses or am I sitting too close to my screen? I seem to have a headache every day at the same time. What is it that I’m doing?

Having a little bit of forethought can help dramatically.

And I guess that’s one of the pluses of this repetition. It’s going to repeat. So, at least it’s sort of on a predictable schedule. And as I talk about in my micro seminar, do it to a fault. Things that you do can be attached not just to time, but to actions and feelings. So you might just do something when you’re feeling a certain way. It can even be when you have joy. You might do something around the same time or you might do something around the same activity.

The whole concept of triggers essentially is described in what I just said. And in fact, there’s a section of the book because it talks about triggers that they’re your monsters and unicorns that sort of raise their hand and say, “Hey, I’m here. Just so you know, I’m going to be doing this thing.” So, give some thought to your repetition in your life. It is one of the most powerful things that you can use from a from a 30,000 ft view. Repetition in general is an amazing thing and it can do amazing good and amazing harm.

So let’s try to limit the harm. Let’s nip that stuff in the bud and let’s try to use it for good.

Outro

If this made sense to you, then check out my over 300 other episodes that talk about interesting things like this. If you know someone who you think would benefit from this quick 10-minute podcast, feel free to forward it to them as well. And thank you as always for listening. And feel free to provide any feedback. Take care.

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The Dark Side of Repetition & What’s Really Causing Your Pain