Back in June, I struck up a conversation with Nick Pagan about multiple streams of income, productivity, and cognitive science after I discovered his blog. Nick writes meaty articles on all of these topics (and more!) and he kindly offered to write a guest post for FinF. Eager to merge our two (blogo)spheres of influence, I suggested the topic “multiple streams of income with limited energy.”

This topic stymied both of us as a blog post, but it did make a fruitful discussion to share with my readers! Before sharing it, I would encourage you to check out his ebook “Understand How to Operate Your Brain Perfectly” - you can get it for free by subscribing to his newsletter, and it’s mentioned at several points in here.

All emphasis is mine, to bring out the juiciest bits :)

Lise: When I originally asked you to write a guest post, I gave you the topic “multiple streams of income on limited energy.” This topic had been sitting on my “things to write” list forever, and it seemed like something you could speak to. But the problem I was having - and, I suspect, which you were having, is what having “limited energy” means. It’s a situation I find myself in often, but I’m not sure I’ve taken the time to better define it.

Does it mean depression (at times in my life, it has)? Does it mean actual, physical energy, as in, I have to sleep a lot (this is also true of me). But I think most often what I actually mean is a lack of motivation, i.e. I can’t bring myself to work on something I ostensibly like.

I’m curious, then, what your first impression of the term “limited energy” is? Do you associate it with any particular activity in your life? Do you associate it with a lack of motivation?

Nick: The term ‘limited energy’ is indeed very personal to you, but from the preamble that you’ve given me, I would conclude that it probably refers to mental and practical resistance to doing things. We all of us have good intentions and desires to do better for ourselves. We can imagine a better future and we can see potential means by which to create the benefits that we want. However, undertaking any new and complex venture is very difficult on a practical level. We end having to solve a great long series of problems, most of which we have not encountered before and some of which require the development of new skills, or getting outside of our individual comfort zones. We end up facing a lot of practical problems and most people end up defeated by those problems and give up, because that is the easier option.

Having to solve all of those problems creates the emotional pains of frustration and annoyance and giving up creates the emotional pain of humiliation and inadequacy. We thus begin to associate pain to carrying out efforts to improve ourselves and our circumstances. After a period of time, we might have forgotten the pain of our previous attempts and so have another go, but if we fail again, which is likely because of all the problems that we have to solve, then we generate more associations of pain. After a while, even to think of bettering ourselves is painful. We now have a great store of mental resistance to overcome if we want to better ourselves.

However, we generally find ourselves discontented with our current circumstances, which continue to generate pain and which gave a motive for attempting to better ourselves before, so we keep imagining a better future and develop a yearning for better results and less pain right now. Your limited energy probably refers to the state of recognizing that you ought to engage in new ventures that create better long term benefits, but that you know it will prove difficult and frustrating, if possible at all. You might just about generate enough willpower to kick start yourself into undertaking a new project, but you know that the willpower won’t last. Unfortunately, you don’t know how to get out of a situation that produces pain now and yet requires a solution that will probably generate additional pain until it works, which, from previous experience, is a dubious possibility. You end up feeling that it is better to make no changes, because that is assuredly the least painful option. You are demotivated and in danger of despairing at the seeming impenetrability and impossibility of it it all. Faced with such a scenario, you will naturally feel lethargic and low in physical energy.

That’s a situation that I faced all too often in the past and I couldn’t find any decent explanations or permanent answers to my underlying problem. To succeed in breaking out of such a situation, I needed to understand what caused my mental resistance, and how to remove it. Following that, I needed to understand what caused my practical resistance, and how to remove it. Anything that you want to do in life, but cannot yet do, is a problem and so, on a fundamental level, a sincere dedication to developing the skill and art of problem solving (making things possible) is the one key skill that you can depend upon to deliver any result in life that you want and that is possible.

Lise: You say “I needed to understand what caused my mental resistance, and how to remove it.” That’s something you talk to about in your ebook, which I’ve found very useful. You would say - correct me if I’m wrong - that that mental resistance, or pain, is caused by the disconnect between your current situation and the ideal situation. You feel pain whenever you feel something is impossible in the moment - not completely impossible, but just not possible now.

Nick: More specifically, you feel some form of emotional pain when you desire something but cannot fulfill it at the moment of desiring it (or very close to that moment). That’s slightly different to how you phrased things above. You don’t feel that something is impossible, it’s actually a practical reality that it is impossible to have that result at that moment.

Lise: The best way to success, you conclude, is to just always be pushing yourself just a tiny bit beyond your current comfort level. Since I met you on the ZenHabits forums, I imagine you’ve used monthly challenges as a tool towards that goal. In my case, I could, for example, set a monthly goal to spend 30 minutes working on a certain source of extra income - like I did in June, when I challenged myself to work on my blog daily. (Which was fairly successful at increasing traffic to my blog, but less successful at making money!)

Nick: I don’t think of it in terms of pushing myself, as that infers that I have to drive myself to overcome resistance. I have a different emphasis. It’s not about overcoming barriers, it’s more about dismantling them, or working around them, or by developing my stride so that I can step over them easily. My approach is to think and act very, very pragmatically. If I have a problem to deal with that is created by a desire, then I work out a method to solve it. Key to that solution is ensuring that it is doable by me, i.e. I have to have the capability and the resources to carry it out. If I don’t, then I won’t succeed - that’s just practical good sense. At times, I recognize that I have to expand my capabilities and that’s an additional problem to solve along the way. I carry out research on existing possibilities and determine whether I am willing to do what it takes to get that capability and then commit to developing it. If I’m not committed to that, then I see if I can, and will, hire or buy that capability, or else see if another way around the problem exists. Sometimes, I do give up on things if it seems beyond me at this time. Again that’s practical good sense, because if I can’t make it possible for me to get done, then effectively it’s impossible for me to do. With that limitation in place, any further effort will be wasted.

The great thing that I have found about this approach is that it detaches me from feeling personally inadequate. It’s so easy to feel inadequate, inept and useless when you continually attempt to overcome resistance and do the personally impossible. By taking a highly pragmatic approach to problem solving, I either make things possible to do (which makes me adequate), or else I accept the limitation and give up (which means that I don’t labor on ventures that I was foolish to start and I don’t have my lack of ability thrown into my face continually to mock any delusions that I have about myself).

Lise: What are some other methods that have worked for you to get past that initial resistance and make forward progress on a large task?

Nick: I rarely use monthly challenges, unless I want to establish a new habit for which I have a lot of resistance (I did a recent blog post on this). Sometimes conditioning is needed to install a new habit as I encounter resistance. Ultimately though, that resistance will remain unless I make the habit both desirable to do and easy to do. That requires some rational analysis and preparation up front. Normally, when we encounter a problem that generates negative emotions, we tend to focus on what we lack and this keeps us locked down and unable to get resourceful. I find that it is vital to focus on the solution and the positive benefits of taking actions that lead to better results.

In terms of making forward progress on a large task, it is important to do thorough analysis of the problem that you are trying to solve. Many people end up focused upon relieving the symptoms of their problems and not upon the underlying root cause. If you don’t know the root cause and come up with a solution to eliminate it, or else manage it highly effectively, then most of your efforts will not work. You might suppress the symptoms but the root cause will manifest itself with other symptoms somewhere else in your life.

Once you identify the proper cause of the problem and specify it clearly, then solutions become apparent more easily. By spending a lot of time coming up with an effective and personally possible solution, you automatically remove a lot of resistance. If you find yourself encountering a lot of resistance when carrying out a large task, then it is because you have not spent sufficient time focusing on how to make it easy, i.e. possible, for you to carry out. Identifying personal barriers to progress and continually breaking them down, so that you personally can move beyond them, is key to making forward progress without resistance.

Lise: Another point you make in your ebook is that in an ideal situation, “you don’t need motivation or psyching up because you work in harmony with yourself.” Sometimes it’s hard for me for tell the difference between resistance because (a) a task just isn’t that interesting to me, and (b) resistance because a task will be hard to begin or the final goal is far from my starting point. Do you have any thoughts on telling the difference between the two?

Nick: Saying that something isn’t interesting can become an excuse not to face up to the real problem, which might be that you lack the capability to get it done, or you fear some of the consequences of getting it done. If you had that capability, then there would be no problem; just an event to go through. My basic standpoint is that if I’m not actively engaged on taking steps to solve my problems, or else taking a healthy break (that I allow myself as a reward for doing good things), or else doing the chores that support further activity on solving my problems, then I am off purpose and I’m procrastinating. That occurs because of resistance somewhere. I would say that (a) and (b) are closely related, i.e. something difficult or momentarily impossible to do has come up. Telling the difference between the two is of less importance than recognizing that both indicate resistance and a need to identify the underlying cause and to come up with doable ways to move forward.

Lise: In my case, my goal is to establish additional streams of income so I can eventually quit my job. One of the ways I’ve considered doing that is by tutoring statistics. But, to be honest, I’m not 100% in my comfort zone tutoring statistics. I’m not a math or statistics major; I’ve only taken a few classes, and most of what I can speak to is how to use stats in psychology or market research. Plus, I’m dyscalculic! Is this just one area where I should cut my losses?

Nick: From what you describe, you will encounter a lot of problems to solve and hence resistance, so it will be a struggle for you. If you are not willing to do whatever it takes to make the venture work, then it won’t work. If you want to create multiple streams of income, then you need to study and know marketing, selling and establishing a business. These are the underlying processes that allow the creation of income. A common idea for ways to make money is to look at personal interests and strengths and then attempt to charge people for what you can do. That’s not a very effective business model. Instead of hoping that a market, or customer, will meet your needs, you need to do the reverse. Find out what serious problems other people have and then create solutions for them. Do this in such a way that paying for your help relieves their pain and, even better, leaves them with more money in their pocket. Also, don’t split your focus on many activities as that generates a great wave of problems to solve and it’s difficult to build momentum with anyone of them. You have a blog about thriftiness and saving money. Focus on that. Find out what pain other people have and come up with solutions that work. Record them, prove them, put them into an e-book and sell that from your blog. If you can come up with 10 tips that each save a minimum of $20 a year guaranteed, and you sell that book for $20, then each customer can make a $180 gain for that year, and for every subsequent year that they apply these things and for which they are still valid. Now that’s an interesting proposition (more exciting to potential customers than studying statistics, don’t you think?).

Lise: One quote really caught my eye in your ebook. You write about working within your comfort zone, saying “we have such confidence in these [routine] processes that … if you could live your entire life from now with a requirement to only ever fulfill desires based upon these skills then you would live a life of full contentment, with no difficult problems.”

The big question I asked here is: why don’t we? I mean, for a moment ignore that it’s difficult in Western society to just do what you want and are comfortable doing. But say I decided that all I wanted to do for the rest of my life was play World of Warcraft. I’m good at WoW. I enjoy it, and rarely get bored. What’s wrong with that? I think both you and I have the sense that something IS wrong with that, but it’s in line with this statement, no?

Nick: Playing WoW is in line with the statement, but it is only practically possible if you have reached a position in life where you can support yourself to indulge in this desire forever afterwards. If any part of the whole system cannot allow this, then you will not sustain such a desire.

Lise: In short, why can’t we just live within the realm of routine skills and strengths?

Nick: We can only live within the realm of routine skills and strengths if they provide us with our basic needs and our chosen desires in a satisfactory manner. If they don’t do that, then we have to build our skills and strengths to reach that level of providence. Actually, most people do live within the realm of routine skills and strengths everyday, but the important distinction is that they are not content with what that provides. Rather than accepting their limitations, they desire more. Since they struggle to meet those desires, they then generate negative emotions for themselves. To live within your current realm of skills and strengths requires you to eliminate any desires that you cannot currently fulfill and to accept the limitations that such a stance would leave you with. If you can accept that, then you’ve got it made, because you don’t seek to deal with anything outside the scope of your current abilities and what they can provide for you. Most people are discontented, because they desire more and the only way that they can deliver those desires is by expanding their capacity to solve the inherent problems that prevent them from having those desires right now.

Lise: It seems to me that overall you’re proposing a system whereby we “work smart” rather than working hard - we apply all our problem-solving skills to moving around the resistance we feel to work, rather than to just trying to push through the pain.

If I might try to apply your examples to a current project I’m working on…

Right now I’m working on writing my first LARP (live action role-playing game). It’s a large task composed of many pieces - designing the world, creating the characters, coming up with the combat and deduction systems that players will use to navigate the world, etc, etc. The game has a drop-dead deadline of March 6, 2009, as we will be running it at a LARP convention that weekend. Additionally, I would like to do a trial run this fall.

As with any multi-part, distant task, I feel resistance. I tell myself that, “It’s all creative work, I can’t *make* myself work on it,” which is only partially true - there’s work of all kinds, creative or just plain mechanical–that needs to be done. Some of the problem-solving I’ve been doing in this regard includes:

  • Scheduling a time every week to meet with a friend of mine whose presence always inspires me to go home and work on the game.
  • Doing a monthly challenge to work on the LARP a little bit each day.
  • Reading books to keep me inspired (the LARP takes place in a Victorian setting, so I’ll read Victorian literature as an inspiration–I’m rereading Dracula right now)

Obviously only I can say what actions will increase the likeliness that I can move past those feelings of resistance, but are there are any other methods from your system that you would recommend? Maybe you can give an example of how you’ve used your own methods to make progress on a recent project?

Nick: My project, since Feb of this year, has been to write the book that I’m leading up to launching soon…

Because this is a creative / judgmental issue I meet a lot of resistance in the form of indecision. The voice in my head is saying, “I don’t know how to do this / make it better. How can I be sure of what’s good or bad, right or wrong?” The answer, of course, is that no one can really say for sure, but that doesn’t lead me to solving the problem. In this situation I tell myself to speculate. I say, “What might be good here?” or “What could prove better / more suitable here?” This speculation over possibilities rather than an out and out desire to be right encourages me to look at lots of alternatives. This in itself is a creative act. When I have several options, then a good one often shines forth and if many shine forth, then I just conclude that probably anyone of them will do, so there’s no need to labor over a decision. Take action and make progress and perfection be damned.

As for resistance, I eliminate wherever possible by giving up on the desire if it’s not important. If it is important then I seek a way to remove the barrier, go around it, over it, under it, or whatever it takes to get beyond it and make progress again. The important thing is recognize the barrier, accept its presence, accept that running into it with brute force is not going to dislodge it and use crafty intelligence to move beyond it somehow. Acceptance is a very vital part of that process. It overcomes disappointment, or outright denial, and it puts us into practical mode rather than emotional mode.

Consistency in progressing is very important and it’s best done in small doses. Anthony Trollope was one of the most prolific writers of the Victorian age and yet he wrote for just two hours everyday, day in and day out. He was criticized for making art routine and for not waiting for the muse to hit him, but the productive output speaks for itself (I’ve never read his books, so I can’t comment on the artistry).

Thank you, Nick, for your time and thoughts! As he mentioned above, he has another book coming out soon, and by joining his newsletter you can stay up to date on that project.

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