The book “The Miracle Morning” has dozens of reviews with happy customers claiming that every morning feels like Christmas.

Sounds like a bad joke, doesn’t it?

There’s no way. Especially not with me being a chronic late-nighter. Sure, i’ve been doing this Miracle Morning thing for a while, and yeah, it feels good. Some of time. But often, it’s only above average. And yeah, I suppose there was one day that did actually feel kinda like Christmas morning… now how did that happen?

Sorry for the self-narrative but I learned something amazing by practicing these miracle mornings. Just to bring you up to speed, a miracle morning is when you get up 30 min. to an hour early to engage in a bit of self-improvement. Meditation. Affirmation. Visualization. Exercise. Read. Write. All of the best self-improvement activities in a single morning.

It really makes a fantastic jump start to your day. When have several activities that excite you planned for the moment you get up, that can really put a jump-start on your day. It really helped me out in the first 2 months I was doing it.

But… it still felt like it was missing something. It was good, but not the earth-shattering greatness that I read in the reviews. But I did have a few mornings that felt darn close.

I talked with a few friends about it. One friend told me to move towards what I wanted instead of moving away from what I didn’t want. The other helped me figure out what I wanted in the mornings.

I wanted to wake up relaxed and enjoy my morning unfold. I wanted to enjoy the grey hour when there’s no color, just a pale grey light slowly building and illuminating the sky. To fully awaken as the light grew, and to feel time seem to stretch out where 5 minutes lasts for 20. I wanted to be excited to take on my day.

Once I new exactly how I wanted my morning to feel, it was almost too easy. For the last 15 minutes of my day, before going to bed, I imagined what it would be like when I woke up. I imagined waking up and being excited. I smelled the brewing of my cacao tea, and felt the growing power of the grey light. I felt the triumph of getting better at my exercise, and the joy of the shower afterwards.

I imagined all of this at night. And do you know what? The next morning when almost exactly how I pictured it. It was one of the most wonderful mornings of my life.

Now, don’t expect everything to go exactly right every time. It still doesn’t for me. But I know how to get better. And I keep adding things that make my morning what I want it to be. It’s amazing. And now I can see how this could end up feeling like Christmas every day.

I’ve heard it said that when you ride a bike or a motocycle, you always want to look at where you want to go instead of at the obstacle you’re trying to avoid. This makes sense, because if we focus on the obstacle, then we don’t focus on where we need to go to avoid the obstacle.

This may be the real secret behind the law of attraction. How often do you focus on where you want to go instead of on what you want to avoid? Do you focus on the stress of all the things you’re working on? That may not be helping you much.

Try to focus on what you want to happen instead of on what you’re afraid of happening. That kicks your mind into problem solving mode instead of stress mode.

And yes, I do know that this may not help much with clinical anxiety or depression. But it might help. Give it a try. Next time you’re stressed, think about what you need to do to move past the problem. You might be pleasantly surprised.

 

Last year I sold hand-made clay sculptures like the one above on Etsy. This year I’m figuring out how to sell 3d printed ones.

As I go through the next few weeks, I’ll post progress reports here. I’m excited to see where this project goes.

It’s late now, so the first one progress report will be tomorrow. G’night.

I am afraid of showing weakness.

I am afraid of being seen as less than I “am”.

I am afraid of being seen as unknowledgeable. As stupid.

 

Modern psychology has uncovered 2 basic was a brain sees its ability to learn. Fixed mindset, and growth.

The fixed mindset is the belief that you are either smart or dumb, and that’s the way you were born. You’re good at math. You’re the top of your class. You’re the one who always has the answers…

The fixed mindset is damning, in that it dams all progress. Your intelligence is fixed. You can, or you can’t, and there’s nothing you can do about it. There is no becoming.

Growth mindset is just the opposite. You know that you may not be good now, but you can become better. Effort is what matters. Putting in the work to try something new until it becomes familiar. Believing that you can become better by applying your mind and your will.

I do not currently have this mindset. Not yet.

I’m too desperate to be seen as intelligent, as smart. I want to be impressive.

It’s a facade. And it’s holding me back from what I can become.

 

The really hard part is how painful being wrong is for me. My whole identity for 26 years has been build around this idea that I am smart and intelligent and clever. How do I let go of something that feels so fundamentally a part of myself?

I’ve got a few ideas on where to start. We’ll have to see how they turn out.

Asking more questions, even when it’s uncomfortable, is a place to begin. Maybe by question journaling, the same way some people gratitude journal.

 

You know what the actually scary part is? I’m not sure which side this blog post is on. Am I posting this to seem impressive in my self-knowledge, or am I actually going to change?

Mind-games with yourself are the worst.

Yes, I’m going to change. But darn it all, this is hard.

And so we come to the end of a month of writing every day. I learned so much about myself and writing and…

Gosh, that feels forced. No. I can’t do it like that.

Look, this month has been great and tiring and good and stuff. I learned a bunch, but I don’t think it was transformative like some people who do a 30-day writing thing feel it is.

Now don’t get me wrong, I did grow a lot. I got over my phobia of publishing my thoughts publicly. It’s even been enjoyable.

It did not, however, feel like a hardship, or even all that difficult (except for the days around Christmas. I wish I could have skipped those days.) It was just a fact. I would get home from work (writing blogs,) and I knew I would write more (a blog) before I went to bed. It was part of existence.

Sigh…

I don’t even really know where I want this article to go. Maybe to what is ahead. I’m excited for that.

I intend to keep writing. Probably close to every day, though I have no intention of writing a completing a post every day. That will hopefully make for better overall writing as well.

I am very excited for what’s happening in the Praxis program. I’m applying to businesses that I will partner with for the next 6 months right now, and they are really cool businesses. I’m really excited to see where I’ll end up.

Happy New Year everybody. And thank heavens 2016 is dead.

A short thought this evening. Slight spoilers for Arrival.

The movie Arrival poses a very interesting point for us to consider. The protagonist says that the goal and subtext of the language and games we use shape our framing and understanding of our world. If they had tried to communicate with the aliens via chess, then the subtext of the conversation would be conflict and strife.

What was the subtext as you were growing up? How did the games you played shape your point of view? What books did you read that subtly shaped how you see the world? When did the words of a movie character shape a decision you made?

I look back on my life and see the influence of dozens of different sources. Not all of them helped. Now I choose my influences a bit more carefully. How will you choose yours?

Dozens of reviews said the game helped overcome depression. Dark Souls. Hmm. Though I don’t deal with depression, I was curious. I bought the game.

Holy toledo.

Playing Dark Souls isn’t your average “relax after school/work” sort of videogame. It’s a white-knuckled, rage-inducing, smash your head against a wall until it breaks or you break sort of game.

And it may be the greatest game of all time.

The World of a Life-Changing Game

Dark Souls is a dark fantasy open world role-playing game. Imagine if Sauron had won in the Lord of the Rings. Start there. Then you have your sword, shield, armor. Oh, and you’re always 4 hits away from dying. Often less.

You travel through a cursed and dying land, where 95% of people have become mindless, violent hollows. The only thing keeping the 5% going is purpose. If they have a purpose, they retain their sanity. If they lose it, they lose themselves entirely.

As you try to bring life back to the world (though you have no idea how for a large portion of the game,) you encounter many kinds of people. Some have nearly given up, others are knights with the most magnificent optimism you have ever seen, and very occasionally, You meet someone who cares about you. “Stay safe friend. Don’t you go hollow.”

These encounters are few and far between. Most of what you encounter is mindless soldiers who hack you to ribbons, demon bosses that squash you into the ground over and over again, and the mockery of the game’s “YOU DIED” screen. You see that one a lot.

To someone with depression, it’s a fair analogy for life. Everything is out to get you. The world is dark and you don’t really know what you’re dong. It sometimes feels pointless to try, because no matter how many times you try, you cannot defeat that one enemy.

The Mechanics of a Life-Changing Game

Dark Souls makes no apologies for being an incredibly difficult game. The incredible thing is how fair this difficulty is.

If you die, it’s your fault. Always.

The enemies telegraph their attacks so you can know to dodge. If you observe and learn, you survive. Only to be crushed by the next type of enemy and you have to learn his pattern too.

This is where the game’s genius is. When you finally, after 3, 5, 10, even 20 attempts, beat that enemy or that boss, you feel elated. You overcame something that was totally impossible just a minute ago. I have jumped up and shouted in triumph after several incredibly difficult bosses.

A world that makes everything feel dark and impossible coupled with the most magnificent sense of triumph for those who persevere. Hmm. I wonder where that could be useful?

That’s the reason why this game helps many players overcome or deal with their depression. By playing the game, they overcome the same sort of self-defeating thoughts that hold them back in real life.

And me? I learned a bit of grit, perseverance, and mental toughness. Just a taste. A seed to grow into something stronger. But I had never encountered any medium that teaches those soft skills in a way where you experience them.

The Power of a Videogame

After I played this game, I realized it showed a possibility that nobody has ever really thought of before.

Videogames could be one of the most effective education tools ever made. We just have to build the game right.

Games like Dark Souls force you to use certain types of thinking and problem solving to beat them. If you don’t, you won’t beat the game.

We could make games that teach problem-solving without forcing it. We could make games that inspire curiosity towards the real world. We could make games that build resilience. The key is to build those thought-patterns into the gameplay.

Luminosity was a mind-training exercise that tried to be a game. It doesn’t work well. We need actual games that happen to have mind-training elements built into them. Games that help you live life outside the game.

With virtual reality and augmented reality right around the corner, we will have some of the most powerful computing tools ever.

They can be used to escape reality, or we can use them to help us live in reality. I know which path I want to take.