Welcome to The Law of Reverse Effort
An idea I'm pondering on:
Trying too hard is something we get entrenched in every so often in our lives.
And ironically, the harder we try, the poorer our results.
And inversely, the less pressure imposed on ourselves, the more we bloom.
Crazy, right?
This is The Law of Reversed Effort.
It states that:
"The harder we try with the conscious will to do something, the less we shall succeed." ~Aldous Huxley
He goes on to argue:
“Proficiency and the results of proficiency come only to those who have learned the paradoxical art of doing and not doing, or combining relaxation with activity, of letting go as a person in order that the immanent and transcendent unknown quantity may take hold.”
And I thought that made sense.
The harder we try to do something, the easier we make it for ourselves to fail...and the harder we fall.
And we humans, the control freaks we are, want to micromanage everything to perfection—too much for our own good.
Well, what are you going to do?
I don't know.
At least, not yet.
I don't have all the answers yet.
But what I can do, however, is the following:
i) Rest
As I mentioned last week, I'm incorporating more rest and relaxation into my regimen, and coincidentally (but not surprisingly), my output skyrockets after that, both quality and quantity-wise.
ii) Do your best
So long as I know, I've given my all to something—a project, idea, or relationship—that suffices for me.
You won't regret doing your best ever.
iii) Don't stress
I'm of the school of thought that stress is self-imposed...and not worth reducing one's lifespan for. Especially, again, if I know I've done my best, I likely won't regret the outcome.
Which leads to...
iv) What will happen will happen.
I always say that:
I can guarantee the effort, not the outcome. But if the right effort is guaranteed, so is the outcome.
It's The Art of Surrender—letting go of control, doing your best (again), and having faith that all will happen according to your best wishes.
You can only do so much, you know - so do what you can and let the universe do the rest.
The rest will happen as it should be.
v) "If something fails, it wouldn't be my fault."
Another mental model I'm practicing now.
Essentially, I'll want to work so hard that if what I'm working on fails, then at least it isn't because of me—rather an external factor.
Think Usain Bolt, the fastest man alive.
The only reasons he'd come in second place in a race would be:
His age
Broken leg
The weather
Slippery track
Maybe the winner was just faster
And so on.
Circumstances outside his control.
But definitely not because of lack of personal effort.
I want to imitate that.
I'll work hard enough that if what I do fails, then at least it won't be because of me.
vi) Play the long game
Another good mental model I'm adopting.
If I know what I'm doing now, I'll still do it 60 years from now (shamelessly), and I won't stress about it.
I have a time horizon long enough to know that even thirty years from now, my output will be vastly incomparable to my output today.
It all comes down to tweaking your weak points, refining, and iterating consistently over a stupidly long time.
And that saves me the pressure of trying too hard too soon.
Big Think explains The Law of Reversed Effort in a splendid article here.
But that's it for this week.
Until the next one,
Peace.
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~T.K.K