I've noticed that my best articles are created when I'm not thinking about the outcome: how you’ll feel about it or how many new subscribers it will generate.
When I started writing this article I was in a results based thinking state. It made me stressed and my writing feel tense. It makes me feel desperate and engages fight or flight mode, which is an enemy of creativity. When I’m in this state my mind feels like a clenched fist.
When your mental fist is clenched, cortisol oozes into your body.
One vivid memory I have of G is him telling me he wants to adopt a ‘detached + amused’ attitude. Towards what? I asked. Everything. Being detached and amused is the opposite of having a clenched mental fist.
Going back to my example: Right now I’m tense about what I'm posting, and if it's 'good enough'. I relaxed my mental fist, and now my thinking looks more like I just wrote this and I find it interesting so lets just post it and see what happens.
When my mental fist is relaxed I understand that the future is evergreen with alluring possibilities: that every day is a new day, every moment is a new moment. Short term misfortune is insignificant because life is a long term game. In the short term luck matters, but long term skill and attitude do. The humor and absurdity that my unclenched mind assigns events gives me energy. When I unclench my mental fist I move on, don’t ruminate, and have a bias towards action.
The clenched mental fist assigns so much weight to everything: believes the outcome of everything matters so much. It makes you tense about everything. When everything matters so much life becomes draining. And you don’t just drain yourself, you drain everyone around you. The clenched fist has a bias toward thinking over action.
You can release the tension at any moment simply by becoming aware of it. Almost like magic, the tension dissipates. Initially, you'll need to repeat this process multiple times. If your mental state is usually tense, it will likely revert to tension soon after you release it. Over time, the interval between releasing tension and its gradual return will increase.
The challenge lies not in unclenching the fist, but in remembering to. The tension sneaks up on you, gradually intensifying until every tiny muscle in your mental hand contracts. Practice releasing the tension repeatedly until it becomes your default state. You'll be unstoppable.
End Notes:
Detachment gets confused with apathy. Detachment isn’t about detaching from the world. It’s about detaching from your ego to not take yourself too seriously.