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Abstract

ow would things sound if I stopped thinking?</li></ul><h2 id="9fa8">Somatic Field</h2><ul><li>Which part of my body is the least comfortable?</li><li>Which parts of my body are hardest to detect?</li><li>What happens when I concentrate on two body parts at once?</li><li>Do any bad emotions arise during the body scan?</li><li>How would my body change if I stopped thinking about it?</li></ul><h2 id="778a">Taste Field</h2><ul><li>Does the taste change as I roll it around my tongue?</li><li>How does the intensity compare with other things I have tasted?</li><li>How would it taste if I had never smelled it?</li><li>Does my feeling about the taste change between first contact and swallow?</li><li>How would it taste if I were asleep right now?</li></ul><h2 id="a87c">Olfactory Field</h2><ul><li>Would I recognize the smell if I had not seen it?</li><li>What adjectives are suitable? (Smooth? Bold? Sweet? Floral?)</li><li>How close must it come to me before my nose can detect it?</li><li>Does it improve my mood or worsen it?</li><li>What memories does it bring to mind?</li></ul><h2 id="5631">Cognitive Field</h2><ul><li>If my thoughts were rabbits in a yard, how crowded would the yard be?</li><li>If my attention was a dog, which rabbits would it chase?</li><li>How much of my focus three seconds ago was on the past?</li><li>How does a little circle make me feel?</li><li>What would I be dreaming now if I were not awake?</

Options

li></ul><h2 id="9690">Emotional Field</h2><ul><li>How easy or hard is it to turn each feeling on and off?</li><li>What changes will happen when I start to pray?</li><li>If I were the prow of a ship would my sea be bright under the sun?</li><li>Who have I shared this suffering with?</li><li>How deeply do I love you?</li></ul><figure id="ef74"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*31vXTbzWPAdDxN72iuu31w.jpeg"><figcaption>Photo by Author | Dancing with the Goddess</figcaption></figure><h2 id="1f17">Questions After the Scans are All Finished</h2><ul><li>Did I close my eyes for most of the scans?</li><li>In what ways are mental fields like maps?</li><li>If I were only allowed to keep one field, which one would I choose?</li></ul><h1 id="010c">Note</h1><p id="4022">To the best of my recollection, all the questions are in my own words. If I copied anybody from unconscious memory it was probably my first remote meditation teacher, <a href="https://www.thegreatcourses.com/professors/mark-w-muesse/">Mark Muesse</a>, a Therevada practitioner from Texas.</p><h1 id="d3c3">About the Author</h1><p id="f104">Tom spends his workdays asking people in a big store if they would like any information about heating and cooling. He often wears an Indiana Jones hat. A grapevine in his front yard convinced him to let her live and to even provide her with a little support. That’s all. :)</p></article></body>

M2M Day 276: My ego is already in control

This post is part of Month to Master, a 12-month accelerated learning project. For August, my goal is to complete one continuous set of 40 pull-ups.

For the past three days, I’ve spent 45 minutes daily in the gym practicing my pull-ups and documenting my workouts on video.

After reviewing today’s video, I realized that I already need to make some changes to how I’m training…

Right now, as revealed by the video, I’m optimizing for the completely wrong thing. Rather than trying to systematically improve my strength and endurance through controlled exercise, I’m flailing around with crappy form in order to satisfy my ego’s desire to hit a personal record (PR).

At this stage, I need to resist the temptation of beating my record, and instead, focus on disciplined training (without the regard for my quantitative progress for now).

This is a very easy and common trap to fall into: I want to convince myself that I’m making progress. Therefore, I will do whatever it takes to increase my main vanity metric, even if it requires sacrificing the session’s effectiveness and my long-term goals.

If I want any chance of hitting 40 pull-ups, I can’t continue training like this. In particular, I need to improve the way I’m practicing in three main ways:

1. Slow down

Clearly, as seen in the video, I’m operating under the impression that the faster I do pull-ups, the more pull-ups I’ll be able to do.

This might be true up to a point, but I’ve passed this point in today’s session: I lost control of my body, resulting in an intense swing, embarrassingly bad form, and wasted energy.

I need to slow down, so I can regain control of my body and practice in a way that will actually benefit me.

2. Use my back

Because my body is going all over the place, I’m predominately using my arms to pull, and not my back, which is exactly what I don’t want to do.

After all, if I want to strengthen my back, I need to engage it in the exercise.

Moving forward, before each set of pull-ups, I’ll remind myself to focus my attention on the contraction of my back.

3. Increase my range of motion

Lastly, in order to satisfy my ego’s need to complete a lot of pull-ups, I’ve shortened my range of motion to the point where my head is just making it above and below the bar.

Again, if I want to improve my performance over the entire range of pull-up motion, I need to practice in this way.

The worst way to improve at anything is to train for the purpose of satisfying the short-term ego. The ego forces us to take shortcuts that are typically detrimental to overall progress, ultimately bruising our future egos anyway.

I’m glad I captured my ego-driven performance on video today. Without the video, I honestly wouldn’t have noticed just how bad my form really is.

Tomorrow, let’s see if I can train with pull-ups that are slow/controlled, back-powered, and fuller in their range of motion.

Read the next post. Read the previous post.

M2M Day 276: My ego is already in control

1. Slow down

2. Use my back

3. Increase my range of motion

Max Deutsch is a product manager at Intuit, the creator of Somebody.io and Rightspeed, and the guinea pig for Month to Master.

If you want to follow along with Max’s year-long accelerated learning project, make sure to follow this Medium account.