We live in noise.
The noise created by entertainment.
The noise created by ads.
The noise created by other people’s opinions.
The noise created by work that we aren’t supposed to do.
This noise clutters our minds.
And causes us to be stressed, overwhelmed and distracted.
The worst thing is, we don’t even realize we’re trapped in this noise.
We don’t realize until we try to remember something or start journaling.
The first day I started to journal, I was blank. What did I do the whole day?
I don’t know. Like I couldn’t even remember what I ate for breakfast. I sat there for 10 minutes and managed to write a sentence. That’s it!
That day I realized what this noise was and how it filled my day.
24 precious hours that would never return were gone!
Muted and forgotten in the noise.
I couldn’t remember what I did, what made me happy, or what I ate.
I realized this noise had a price and the price was far greater than money.
It was costing me my focus, my experiences, and slowly my life!
If you would ask me would I spend my life staring at a screen or spinning in circles, I would say no. Anyone would say no. But here I was, immersed in the noise, unaware that it infact was consuming my life.
It consumes your life, too!
Don’t believe me? Okay, try to think of 5 things you had this week. Then try to recollect 6 experiences that made you smile and 6 experiences where you learnt something new about yourself.
Do this in the next 10 minutes.
Done?
How did you do?
Out of 3 questions, how many could you answer easily?
I could answer only the first one easily… but the rest were all blurry.
See, that’s the point! Noise blurs everything!
And slowly it makes our life blur, dull, and unfulfilling.
If it’s such a villain, why do we still tolerate it?
Why don’t we take any action?
🧠 Dopamine is Addicting!
We don’t take action because we are wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain.
Even if the current pleasure leads to destruction.
Even if current pain leads to future pleasure.
We are trapped because we’ve gotten too comfortable. All noise has elements of intermittent reward loops and fear avoidance.
Let me prove:
Noise created by social media – Intermittent reward
We randomly see something funny, something entertaining, and something annoying. This creates a complex cocktail of dopamine spikes. When we can’t predict when we’ll be rewarded, the reward we receive becomes more satisfying.
Noise created by ads – Intermittent reward
After the ad is over, we’ll be able to watch the things we want and be entertained with some dopamine.
Noise created by other people’s opinions – fear that leads to avoidance.
We don’t do the things we want to because we hold the fear of being judged.
We don’t want to be alone, and that’s why we conform to our social circles and remain like them. Not pursuing our desires, painfully trapped in guilt and comfort.
Noise created by work that we aren’t supposed to do – Fear that if we quit our job or current opportunities, we’ll have no money and that will endanger our survival. This one is a tough one! I’ve struggled with it for some time! This one eventually leads to burnout.
All noise leads to temporary pleasure or fear avoidance.
🏃🏻♂️ Escape Plan
How can we escape this noise/comfortable cage?
Start with observing and writing.
The first step to break free from noise is to become aware of what’s happening in your day. The easiest way to do this is to journal every night. Journal every night for 40 days. When you journal write these things:
- What did you do today?
- What made you happy today?
- What did you learn today?
It’s not important to write a full page; what’s important is that you start and write something, even 2 words for every question is good. Slowly, this will increase your awareness, and the noise that occupied your day will become less.
It can’t go completely. This isn’t a swallow a pill and all will be fixed.
This is a slow and long-lasting method.
When you journal daily, you’ll notice that some days you didn’t learn anything. Some days you do feel happy, and that in itself will slowly make you focus on those aspects. You’ll start your day wearing a different awareness lens so that you can answer those questions in your journal.
By day 25, you’ll observe that you went from 2 words to many bullet points or even pages. This will slowly change you and in the process, dwindle the noise that would catch you.
🤔 Less Noise, Now What?
Congrats, the noise is getting less. And you’ve become more aware. You now know how your day went, and what adds joy to your day-to-day life, and what activities and projects you spend your time on.
As a result of this newfound awareness, you’ll also start seeing that many of the activities that you do don’t contribute positively towards your goals and dreams.
This is the most exciting phase! Because now you can start creating the life you wanted. You can start deciding what you want and make a simple plan of how to get there.
I say simple plan because if it’s too complicated, you’ll give up before trying and be tempted to lose yourself in the noise. This is a delicate phase. And you need to allow yourself to fall/fail.
I made the mistake of creating elaborate, detailed plans and it worked fine for 2 days, then the 3rd day it failed. I gave-up and got overwhelmed and went back into the noise to get comforted by it. Rather than sitting with my feelings and analyzing the situation.
That’s why I’m warning you, set simple plans.
Because the future is uncertain and your plans need to have flexibility so that you can continue it despite the circumstances.
😥Be okay with imperfect execution
We are bad judges.
We judge ourselves too harshly.
We have these impeccable standards for ourselves.
And this is why we fail. We see the world as black or white. There is no grey, no off-white, no yellow, no red. Meaning if we fail to execute the actions, we declare ourselves as failed. And throw our hands in despair and continue back to being comfortable, because that comfort at least isn’t uncomfortable or fear-filled.
But colours exist. So do your efforts.
Even when you don’t do the things you decided you’ll do to improve your life. You did show up and did something. So let’s accept some progress as progress.
Let’s learn to judge ourselves with empathy.
Because you won’t accomplish your goals by trash-talking and motivating yourself at every mistake.
Some days you’ll do 10%, some days just 4%, and somedays 98%
Some action = progress
I did something today, and that is good!
I’ll do better tomorrow.
I’m happy to see myself evolve.
Start having an inner dialogue like this.
This will eventually lead you to becoming more consistent.
And that will lead you to accomplishing your desires.