Daron Larson

Mindful awareness isn't self-help. It's exercise. We don't call physical exercise self-help. Physical exercise develops physical capacities. Mindful awareness develops attentional capacities. 🧵👇

It's always the people who've never walked in your shoes who love to tell you how you could walk faster.

🦋🔥😳

A relevant section from Atomic Habits for anyone building a new habit this year: People often think it's weird to get hyped about reading one page or meditating for one minute or making one sales call. But the point is not to do one thing. The point is to master the habit of showing up. The truth is, a habit must be established before it can be improved. If you can't learn the basic skill of showing up, then you have little hope of mastering the finer details. Instead of trying to engineer a perfect habit from the start, do the easy thing on a more consistent basis. You have to standardize before you can optimize.

@shreyas This has consistently been my experience throughout my working life. It’s also why I get so irritated by leadership experts on social media perpetuating blind spots about this dynamic. 🙏

This explains many workplaces

No one has stronger opinions than someone who knows a little bit about something, that’s why tourists always have ideas to “fix” the countries they visit, that’s why amateurs love to criticize professionals, that’s why young people love to judge older people: the more you know, the more humble and nuanced you actually become.

The ultimate form of preparation is not planning for a specific scenario, but a mindset that can handle uncertainty.

It's tempting to believe that your struggles are due to your lack of intelligence or talent; when in the majority of cases, it's because of your lack of emotional control and self-discipline.

Getting in shape is a psychological process disguised as a physical one.

American politics today epitomizes dualistic, either/or, win/lose, us vs them, immature thinking. It's bad for individuals, our country, and the world. We live in a world of nuance. Real issues are layered/complex. Sound bites and tribal loyalty won't get us where we need to go.

Investing and fitness are very similar. Everyone wants a short cut, the next thing, when really you just need to stay in a boring index fund for a long time. Everyone wants the fancy workout, when you need the basics for a long time.

@BradWarner 🫡

You keep scrolling on X because the next thing might be interesting or useful. But it almost never is. So stop.

An absurd ideological belief is a form of tribal signalling. It signifies that one considers their ideology more important than truth, reason, sanity. To one's allies, this is an oath of unwavering loyalty. To one's enemies, it is a threat display.

@JamesClear “It doesn't matter if we know everything about building better mental health and fitness if our actions practice the same old unhelpful compulsions.” @MarkFreeman

What is one sentence that has stayed with you after reading it? (Bonus points for including the source.)

The most expensive tasks that brains do are (1) moving your body and (2) learning something new. They have a metabolic cost that may feel unpleasant. So, feeling bad doesn't always mean that something bad happened. You might just be doing something really hard.

Endurance sport is mental training. You are alone in your head for long periods of time with ever increasing levels of discomfort. You have a concrete goal that half your mind is screaming to abandon. You repeat this day after day and have no option but to figure it out.

99.99 percent of life is the process.

@Oh_Behave_John I'm sure you can give me some compelling examples. We're talking about more than being calm. Deciding what to pay attention to, noticing the richness lurking in ordinary moments, and fighting less on the inside. These are a few of my favorite skills. daronlarson.substack.com/p/phenomenal-a…

@DaronLarson Please tell me more about these empowering attention skills 🙂

Mindful awareness is so profoundly human that you don’t need anyone to teach you how to do it, but using it to develop empowering attention skills on your own can be tricky.

It helps to have someone convince you such an odd-sounding hobby is worth exploring and that you’re not doing it wrong when you try. daronlarson.substack.com/about

It is better to have character than success.