Speaker 1Hello everybody. How you doing? Hope all is well. Welcome back to another episode of Shot of Philosophy. And today we're going to go back to spring cleaning a little bit, spiritual spring cleaning, because I had an idea, I had a real genuine moment yesterday that I have, that I've kind of worked on a little bit to share with you. So brief story, I have to use an app now to basically book my jujitsu lessons, right? What I didn't realize though was I guess my academy put all the past classes I've done into this app. So I was going to book my class for yesterday and I noticed that I had 99 classes and I went through and I scrolled through and I, you know, I had a fractured rib, so I missed some time. I had a broken toe, so I missed some time. And then of course COVID hit and I've just gotten back recently after getting vaccinated. So I looked at this number and I was like pleasantly surprised. I've been to 99 Brazilian jujitsu classes and the next time I go will be my hundredth. So that's cool. And I realized as I was looking at the app, I was like, damn, I feel like accomplished right now. And this was sort of in the middle of a day where I wasn't feeling accomplished. I was, you know, pushing myself as I typically do. And as many of us do, I'm sure to be as productive as possible. And we've had on the podcast, right? The Epictetus, wake up, do a to-do list and don't leave it at that. Sit with each, with each task. And I realized as I was looking at the app, I was like, damn, I feel like each task, right? Don't just say the task. He says, talk about the guiding idea or principle with each task. So the example I often give is like, you have to care for a family member. Maybe you're picking up your sibling or you're picking up your significant other from work. And you don't want to just say, I got to go do this at four or five or whatever. You want to say, I want to be kind. I want to be patient. Yesterday I was a little rude. I want to be calmer, right? These are really good conversations to have, but they're very stoic, right? They're very much about our obligations. They're very much about fulfilling those obligations. It's a beautiful idea, right? I think if we don't take a certain approach to that, we end up cultivating the sense, or we could open ourselves up to the possibility of cultivating the sense that we're never doing enough or that in these obligations, you know, that's where all the meaning is to be found. And I think we want to have obligation, but we also want to cultivate appreciation. That's for others, of course, but also for ourselves and for our community. And I think that's a really good example of that. And that's really what this number, although it's just a number, right? There's a lot of meaning behind it. I was appreciative not only of, you know, for the gym, because I love going to the academy. I love going there and, you know, practicing jujitsu. I even was appreciative that they even loaded the classes onto the app, right? That's a great way to run a business. I mean, that's something I would forget to do if I worked there, to really sit there. And when I was scrolling through it, like they had classes from 2019. I mean, it really was extensive. And I think most importantly, I felt good about myself because I'm like, I appreciate that I've shown this commitment, this discipline, this diligence, and that I've expressed this passion. I didn't allow this passion for learning something new, passion for being healthy, passion for finding a practice, just lie dormant. I didn't let it just sit. I took action on it 99 times. And what it got me thinking about was, all right, you have a to-do list, like Epictetus. You have these goals. Cool. You even have these ideas that motivate the goals. Great, right? But the back end of that is that we have to show appreciation for when we act on these things, right? So don't just have a to-do list. Also have a got done list. And this is something we see even in Epictetus' second part of that suggestion. It's like at night, see what progress you've made, see how you could have done better, right? I'm suggesting that you have a to-do list, and you have a to-do list, and you have a to-do list, and you have a to-do list, and you have a to-do list, and you have a to-do list, to an extent, and I'll get into the virtue we're cultivating here, that especially if you're someone who tends to be hard on yourself, and you're on, let's say, the action-oriented side, and you're maybe obsessed with optimizing your days, right? You're constantly playing what I call time Tetris. You're in these conversations about, all right, well, if I do this here, then that there, then I could do this there. And you spend time sort of, I'll say maybe of having the best day you can, of doing your best, right? Maybe we can learn how to not even necessarily off the bat stop that, but we can add something that prevents us from essentially damaging our own confidence. That got-done list and a got-done list practice in self-writing, I think is going to be today's suggestion, practical, let's say, or practical suggestion. And I think the virtue of that is confidence and gratitude and appreciation. Those are all really good pathways to success. And I think that's going to be the virtue of that, and gratitude and appreciation. to have a life where we fulfill our obligations, but we also feel some joy. We also feel a sense of accomplishment. And that leads, I think, to a sense of confidence, right? We start seeing ourselves as capable, as disciplined, as diligent, as passionate. And by passionate, I mean, you know, we live that passion. We live our commitments. And there's a great little addition to this too, where it's okay, the task isn't just a task. The task connects to a value, right? When you go to work, you're valuing your health. For me, I'm valuing my happiness. And those are important things, right? So the God done list practice, here's my suggestion, again, as a tool to cultivate confidence, appreciation. And we're going to get a little bit on that in a moment from a great essay by the School of Life. But take 15 minutes on a Sunday, notebook, pen, think of, let's say, five things you accomplished that week that you're proud of. Don't focus on how you could have done them better. That's not what this exercise is for. And I'm not saying don't have that exercise in your life. Maybe that's a daily thing for two minutes, five minutes, right? Well, how could I have been a little more attentive today? How could I have been a little more organized today? Sure. I'm not saying this new God done list practice is at the expense of any other practice, but I'm suggesting it as a possible addition. And I'm going to start doing this too, because I felt good yesterday. I had this moment with the 99, and I started thinking like, well, what else have I done today? What else have I done this week? Well, this week, I went to jujitsu twice. This week, I worked on some research and got some milestones done there. This week, I went to work. This week, I provided value, hopefully, to my students when I was emailing them, right? So I started having a different conversation. It was less about a deficit, what I didn't do, what I could have done better, and more about this idea of, well, what do I have in abundance? I was really happy with how, you know, I eat really healthy foods. This week, I had some discipline there, and it was great, and I enjoyed the food too, right? So it's a way to reroute again, or winnow, as we've had many times, winnow the thoughts. So take 15, take five, five accomplishments this week. Sit and write about each, and don't only think about the task. And this is where the writing comes in. What value did you serve? Maybe you were extra attentive to your significant other. Don't just say, I was really on top of it. I really, you know, let's say, for example, I really called my parents more this week, and we had great conversations. Well, great. That's a good way to start. But what's the value? Well, the value is love. The value is family. Who are you becoming as a result? Well, I'm becoming, let's say, as per my own definition, I'm becoming a better son. And that's important to me. Well, why is that important? And then we start having these really meaningful, I think, dialogues on the page with ourselves that not only keep track, and again, give us that sense of accomplishment, that sense of confidence, but also, I think, push us forward, right? Because again, we start feeling competent too. We have to keep track of the ways we've been competent, right? And that's going to build our confidence. So on that note, let me go into this essay by the School of Life, and it's called Self-Love. Because I do think self-love and confidence go together, right? The person who is courageous and who's confident, I think a lot of that can come out of feeling good about ourselves. And the main thing about this essay I want to share with you is this idea they have of the internal judge. And what this essay highlights really nicely is the idea that a lot of times our internal judges are internalizations of external judges, right? And we've adopted the external voice as an internal voice, and we made it our own. And we have to audit these voices, right? Or else they can be really self-destructive, because we perpetuate the voices by telling the same stories over and over again. So when we do this, we're going to be able to tell the same stories over and over again. And we're going to In my opinion, this meeting, this got done, just for argument's sake, Sunday, 15-minute self-reading exercise around what we've accomplished, we're adding a new voice. Potentially, right? We're changing our inner voice. Okay, we're learning to be better judges of ourselves, especially if we tend to be hard on ourselves. Okay, so we have to be conscious, we have to be deliberate in the way that we speak to ourselves about how we've spent our time. We're exposing ourselves to this better voice, because the intention, again, with this practice is only to focus on what we've done well, and why it's important to us. It's not about optimizing. It's not even about acknowledging progress. It's not the point. It's acknowledging simply a job well done, right? Because I think also progress becomes something that we can easily obsess over. This is more finite than that. It's even more episodic in the sense of looking back at the the week, I'm saying Tuesday, this went well. And by this, I mean, my effort made sense here. My effort was good here. My effort served an important value. And here's what that value is. Here's why that value is important. So we're moving from tasks to values. And in so doing, we're giving ourselves like a little bit of a congratulations. And that congratulations, if it's truthful, especially, right, has to be truthful, of course, is offering, I think, a really nice inner voice. And this is a great quote from the essay, right? Instead of promoting a punishing, critical voice, we can represent to ourselves a calm, understanding way of addressing ourselves. And we can use that to address failures, of course. But I also think we don't address our successes enough, many times. And I know a lot of people who do this too. We don't acknowledge how we've been effective. And the worst part is when you're, quote, an effective person, even just in one regard, that becomes a norm. It becomes a habit. Then we forget about it. We ignore it. No, no, no, no. Never forget to think about what is good. And that's external, the luck we get in this life. But also, it's the internal, the effort we put forward. Acknowledging our efforts regularly is a way to cultivate self-love. It's a way to cultivate confidence. And the more detailed it is, the more frequent it is, I think the more attentive it is, the better it will be. So, introduce this practice, maybe. Introduce this voice of acknowledgement. Allow yourself to feel good about your efforts. We have to make it frequent. We have to make it attentive. And we have to try to make it habitual to really create the greatest sense of confidence from this, I believe. I felt great when I did this yesterday. And again, it was an external that kind of threw up this idea for me. And I'm thankful for my academy and to my academy for doing that. But it then immediately led into a different discussion about, well, where else have I kind of done this? And I'm like, well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Right? Where else have I accumulated some effort today and this week? And that felt really good. Again, in the face of or in spite of a day where before that I was kind of berating myself about not doing enough. So, that's a compassionate voice. And it was a truthful voice. So, I'm like, you know what? Let me try to make a suggestion on the podcast, spiritual spring cleaning. How could I be more confident? So, I hope this is helpful. Thank you for listening. And I'll talk to you soon. Thank you.
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