Excellence, actually. The Optimization Trap- and how to escape it.
George’s Podcast Reflection Notes.
All these clips and short segments are made with the help of Snipd, the AI-powered podcast app for knowledge seekers.
Routines and rituals ground us in the process and signal preparedness.
Over-controlling rituals can become a crutch, causing us to feel like we need them, leading to choking under pressure.
Develop routines with things you can generally do almost anywhere, without needing specific tools.
Build flexibility into your routine by practicing alternative scenarios, like limited space or time.
Balancing Conscientiousness and Abandon
Yamamoto balances meticulous conscientiousness with the ability to discard all that preparation and perform.
It’s about having the capacity to maintain insane methodicalness and the ability to let it all go to get the job done.
When things don’t go to plan, performing well proves you have internal resources. This is called self-efficacy, the belief you can be effective regardless of external circumstances.
Controlling the controllables is good, but performing well when things fall apart reduces reliance on external factors.
Steve Magness intentionally created less-than-ideal situations for his athletes, such as arriving late to a meet to reduce warmup time.
The goal was to demonstrate that they could still perform well without the perfect setup.
Differentiate Fear from Intuition
Differentiate between fear and wise intuition. Fear is often general and makes you want to run away, while intuition is more specific.
Practice with safe-to-fail experiments, as suggested by Stu McMillan.
Build routines on principles rather than prescriptions to allow for flexibility.
Steve Magness suggests having a menu of options and understanding what each does, so you can adapt to constraints.
Determine the minimum effective dose to get ready for a task.
For intellectual pursuits, this could be as simple as nothing or a sip of coffee.
Ask yourself the purpose of your routines and consider cutting them out if they only allay anxiety.
The best routine is the routine you don’t have to do, as it’s one less thing that can go wrong.
