I recently was recommended to watch the Netflix documentary 14 Peaks, which inspired my thinking about positivity and the way a positive mindset can change our lives.
Without giving away too much of the story, a Nepalese climber named Nirmal Purja or “Nims”, an unknown to the Western climbing community, decides to take on the task of scaling all 14 mountains over 8,000 meters (about 36,000 feet) in the world. The height above 8,000 meters is known as the “death zone” in the climbing world due to the danger from avalanches, rock slides and the effects of thin air.
The first person to complete this task took 16 years to achieve the feat and Nims was planning to do it in less than a year. Rather than fame or prestige, Nims sought a greater purpose to emanate from his achievement. He first wanted recognition for the Nepalese climbing community in the wider world. Too often in the past, western climbers have achieved feats and set records and claimed they did it with the help of their local Nepalese “Sherpas” who remained nameless and faceless. Nims wanted to achieve his project to show Nepalese that they too could achieve the same recognition.
Nims also wanted to inspire humanity in terms of what was possible for humans to achieve. Although he was shown in the film to have exceptional endurance at high altitudes, his mental toughness, likely a product of his military career as much as his grit, helped push him where others may have given up. His why pushed him when his body and mind were telling him to give up.
One of my favorite scenes of the film, among many, was when Nims arrives with his climbing team at the base camp of a dejected and downtrodden climbing group of foreigners at one of the mountains. Nims immediately starts a party, sends around alcohol for all to enjoy. The next day, he pleads with the foreigners to scale the mountain. They voice doubts, they voice fears, 3 climbers had died in an avalanche a few days before. Nims told them “When you think you are fucked, you are only 45% fucked.” What he meant by this was your attitude matters and can be the difference between living and dying in an extreme environment.
The story of Nims reminded me of the story of Navy Seal David Goggins and his autobiography Can’t Hurt Me, which I reviewed last year. Goggins had his why when he faced his own demons and his own self hatred to come out stronger.
Self Awareness
Why I bother to write about the stories of Nims and other inspiring people, is my constant search for those things can can inspire me in my day to day and remind me of my own why.
We all will face great challenges at some point or another some time in our lives, no matter how poor or how wealthy we are. All of us have it in them to face their challenges head on and conquer them. As I have gotten older and more experienced, I have become more aware of myself and how I am reacting to circumstances. We all will feel down and out at some point, life just hits you that way sometimes, but how you react matters. Over the years I have developed some tactics to get out of the “rut” and improve my mood. These are some of the tactics I have developed and some of the things I have noticed which I do which help when times are tough.
1. I acknowledge my feelings. I acknowledge that I am upset or stressed out due to a circumstance. I also try to search for what the cause of those feelings may be. Am I upset about the pressure from my job? Was I late today due to factors outside of my control? Am I worried about the future, like what could happen if things go wrong? This is a common spiral for me and many others I know, especially when you are responsible for a family or taking care of others. I take inventory of what I ate, how I slept and if I exercised. These can all affect us in ways we don’t even realize when we don’t take a step back to acknowledge them.
2. I understand that it will pass. People generally tend to settle on a constant state of happiness or despair. Most of us are somewhere in the middle most of the time. Over the course of our lives, circumstances can change. They can be very fortunate, like winning the lottery or tragic, yet despite what may happen, our level of happiness tends to converge back to our steady state. If bad things are happening, they won’t be happening forever. In addition
3. I cut out negativity. I have noticed that when things are at their most stressful, cutting out media and limiting my exposure to negative people help guard my positive mentality, or at least keep it from getting worse. This is called by some being the guardian of your mind. As I have pointed out often in this blog, due to our inherent survival instinct, media skews very negative. This is because we tend to pay closer attention to negative news. As hunter gatherers this helps us survive, in the modern world it can inundate us with negativity. It also can mean limiting contact with negative people. We all know a “downer” who is constantly taking the most negative, grey cloud view of things. Sometimes we can’t avoid this person but limiting our contact with them may help avoid inadvertent negative thoughts.
4. I occupy my mind. When I find myself going in a negative spiral mentally, I have learned to take myself out of my head, in other words to distract my thinking. This isn’t to escape, I hopefully have acknowledged the way I feeling and understand it will pass but sometimes I can make it pass quicker by taking the focus off of myself. This could be as simple as choosing to wash dishes rather than just sit around. I try not to consume things, meaning reading or watching TV. It takes something that requires some coordination and focus and takes you out of the space you are in for a moment.
5. I make small wins for myself. I try to start the day by moving towards achieving something. Sometimes this could be as simple as making my bed. Or it could be shooting off an email I had been thinking of or even drafting a post for this blog. I find exercise helpful here. I have a goal of 10,000 steps a day vi walking or running. I also try to get in 100 push ups, 175 flutter kicks, 100 squats and 40 pull ups. No matter how poorly the rest of the day goes, I can still say that I achieved these small wins despite any bad circumstances. This gives me a sense of achievement, discipline and progress despite whatever may be happening around me.
The Past Isn’t the Future
Overall, it’s important to acknowledge our past yet not be a prisoner to it. There is an old saying that captures this idea. An alcoholic man has 2 sons. One grows up to never drink and becomes successful. The other grows up to drink away his days into poverty and ruin. When someone asks the sober brother why he doesn’t drink, he says “because my dad was an alcoholic.” When someone then asks the alcoholic brother why he drinks, he also says “because my dad was an alcoholic.” Same environment, same genes, two different decisions.
In my own life, my father’s side of the family struggles with bi-polar disorder. On my mother’s side, they have dealt with alcoholism. I have had moments where I felt the pull of both of these. Just like anything however, we have to acknowledge that feelings pass. Life is not always the long arc of achievement or failure. Often it comes down to small decisions, those small wins I mentioned earlier. The sum of these creates a momentum snowballing towards your goals. It’s why some of the great achievers, in sports and other fields, are not always those that have special abilities but rather those that have the discipline to keep to maintaining those small daily wins.
Millionaires from Small Wins
The power of positivity, the power of discipline and the power of effort over time can have huge effects. It’s the same for money and saving. Before most people become rich, they have to master the habit of saving. Then they have to master the habit of investing. None of this is possible if they don’t take the plunge outside of their comfort zone, to confront the reasons why they don’t save, acknowledge them and begin to change their habits. One study found that 95% of consumer purchases were emotional. This then applies to investing. It can be intimidating at first, but as you learn to dip your toe in, go with what you know and then acquire information along the way, the knowledge becomes cumulative. The power of those saving habits, investing habits and compounding then take hold over many years. $1500 a month can become $600,000 over 15 years if saved and invested in stocks assuming a 10% rate of return. That type of saving can hurt at first but once you become used to it, you don’t even think about what you put away. One day down the line, the money can do more than you’ve dreamed of.
Not only do I practice these habits with saving but I practice them with writing. The most read blogs tend to have 1800 words, up from 1500 a few years ago. Every post I aim to achieve these figures. With 2 posts a week that averages about 500 words a day. The typical non fiction adult book averages about 90,000 words. Over the course of a year, by keeping at this blog, I will have written about 2 books worth of material a year. If you are wondering how the most prolific authors have pumped out so many books, this is it, 500 words a day.
How do my readers practice positivity and habit? Do you have tips as well for how to better your mood, remain positive and practice discipline? Please comment or share below.
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