The Greatest Advice You Will Ever Receive Jordan Peterson Motivation

so i figured something out that i

thought i’d tell you about this took me

like 30 years to figure out and i

figured it out on this tour so there’s

this old idea you know that you have to

rescue your father from the belly of the

whale right from some monster that’s

deep in the abyss you see that pinocchio

for example but it’s a very common idea

and i figured out why that is i think

so

imagine that we already know from a

clinical perspective that you know if

you set out a path towards a goal which

you want to do because you need a goal

and you need a path because that

provides you with positive emotion right

so you set up something as valuable so

that implies a hierarchy you set up

something as valuable you decide that

you’re going to do that instead of other

things so that’s kind of a sacrifice

because you’re sacrificing everything

else to pursue that and then you

experience a fair bit of positive

emotion and meaning as you watch

yourself move towards the goal and so

the implication of that is the the

better the goal the the more full and

rich your experience is going to be when

you pursue it so that’s one of the

reasons of of that’s one of the reasons

for developing a vision and for fleshing

yourself out philosophically because you

want to aim at the highest goal that you

can manage

okay so you do that

and then what you’ll find is that as you

move towards the goal there are certain

things that that that you have to

accomplish that frighten you you know

maybe you have to learn to be a better

speaker a better writer a better thinker

you have to be better to people around

you or you have to learn some new skills

and you’re afraid of that whatever

because it’s going to stretch you if you

if you pursue a goal and it’s and so

that’ll put you up against challenges

okay so all the clinical

data indicates well the opposite of safe

spaces as jonathan height has been

pointing out that what you want to do

when

you identify something that someone is

avoiding that they need to do because

they’re afraid you have them voluntary

voluntarily confront it and so you break

it down what you try to do if you’re a

behavior therapist is you break down the

thing they’re avoiding into smaller and

smaller pieces until you find a piece

that’s small enough so they’ll do it and

it doesn’t really matter as long as they

start it you know then they can put the

next piece on in the next piece and what

happens is

they don’t get less afraid exactly they

get braver

they get they get it’s like there’s more

of them you can and here’s why so

imagine

you do something new

and that’s informative right there’s

information in the action and then you

can incorporate that information and

turn it into a skill and turn it into a

transformation of your perceptions so

there’s more to you because you’ve tried

something new so that’s one thing the

second thing is

and there’s good biological evidence for

this now that

if you put yourself in a new situation

then new genes code for new proteins and

build new neural structures and new

nervous system structures same thing

happens to some degree when you work out

right because your your muscles are

responding to the load but your nervous

system does that too so you imagine that

there’s a lot of potential you locked in

your genetic code

and then if you put yourself in a new

situation then then the stress that’s

the situational stress that’s produced

by that particular situation unlocks

those genes and then builds new parts of

you

so that’s very cool because who knows

how much there is locked inside of you

okay so now here’s the idea

so

let’s assume that that scales as you

take on heavier and heavier loads

that more and more of you you get more

and more informed because you’re doing

more and more difficult things but more

and more of you gets unlocked

and so then

what that would imply is that

if you got to the point where you could

look at the darkest things so that would

be the abyss right that would be the

deepest abyss if you could look at the

harshest things like the most brutal

parts of the suffering of the world and

the malevolence of people and society if

you could look that

look at that

straight and and directly that that

would turn you on maximally

and so that’s the idea of rescuing your

father because imagine that you’re like

the potential composite of of all your

all the ancestral wisdom that’s locked

inside of you biologically but that’s

not going to come out at all unless you

stress yourself unless you unless you

challenge yourself and the bigger the

challenge you take on the more that’s

going to turn on and so that as you take

on a broader and broader range of

challenges and you push yourself harder

then more and more of what you could be

turns on and that’s equivalent to

transforming yourself into the ancestral

father

into all because you’re you’re like the

what would you call it you’re the

consequence of all these

living beings that have come before you

and that’s all part of your biological

potentiality and then if you can push

yourself then all that clicks on and

that turns you into who you could be

that’s and that’s the re-representation

of that

positive ancestral father

the point is your best strategic

position

is

how am i insufficient and how can i

rectify that

that’s what you’ve got and the thing is

you are insufficient

and you could rectify it both of those

are within your grasp if you aim low

enough one of the things why do you see

that that’s another thing you keep

saying aim low enough have a low enough

bar why do you why do you mean that well

let’s say you’ve got a kid and you want

the kid to improve you don’t set them a

bar that’s so high that it’s impossible

for them to attain it you take a look at

the kid and you think okay this kid’s

got this range of skill here’s a

challenge we can throw at him or her

that exceeds their current level of

skill but gives them a reasonable

probability of success

and so like i’m saying it

tongue-in-cheek to some degree you know

it’s like but if you’re but i’m doing it

as an aid to humility it’s like well i

don’t know how to start improving my

life someone might say that and i would

say well you’re not aiming low enough

there’s something you could do that you

are regarding as trivial

that that that you could do that you

would do that would result in an actual

improvement but it’s not a big enough

improvement for you so you won’t lower

yourself enough to take the opportunity

incremental steps yes and so this is

also what is achieved through exercise

it’s one of the most important well what

do you do when you go and lift weights

yeah you don’t go in like if you haven’t

bench pressed before you don’t put 400

pounds on the damn bar and drop the and

drop the bar through your skull right

you know you think look when i started

working out when i was a kid i was i was

weighed about 130 pounds and i was six

foot one it’s a thin kid and i smoked a

lot i wasn’t in good shape i wasn’t in

good physical shape and i went to the

gym and it was bloody embarrassing you

know people would come over and help me

with the goddamn weights here’s how

you’re supposed to use this you know

it’s humiliating and maybe i was

pressing 65 pounds or something at that

point you know but what am i going to do

i’m going to lift up 150 pounds and

injure myself right off the bat no i had

to go in there and strip down and put my

skinny goddamn self in front of the

mirror and think son of a there’s

all these monsters in the gym who’ve

been lifting weights for 10 years and

i’m struggling to get 50 pounds off the

bar tough luck for me but i could lift

50 pounds and it wasn’t fair very long

until i could lift 75 and well you know

how it goes but and i never injured

myself when i was lit weightlifting and

the reason for that was i never pushed

myself past where i knew i could go and

i pushed myself a lot you know i gained

35 pounds of muscle in about three years

in university i kind of had to quit

because i was eating so goddamn much i

couldn’t stand it it’s eating like six

meals a day it was just taking up too

much time

but there’s a humility in determining

what it is that the wretched creature

that you are can actually manage aim low

and i don’t mean don’t aim and i don’t

mean don’t aim up

but you have to accept the fact that

you can set yourself a goal that you can

attain and there’s not going to be much

glory in it to begin with

because if you’re not in very good shape

the goal that you could could attain

tomorrow isn’t very glorious

but it it’s a hell of a lot better than

nothing and it beats the hell out of

bitterness and it’s way better than

blaming someone else it’s way less

dangerous and you could do it and what’s

cool about it

there’s a statement in the new testament

it’s called the matthew principle and

economists use it to describe how the

economy and the world works to those who

have everything more will be given from

those who have nothing everything will

be taken it’s like what’s very

pessimistic in some sense because it

means that as you start to fail you fail

more and more rapidly but it also means

that as you start to succeed you succeed

more and more rapidly and so you take an

incremental step and well now you can

lift 55 pounds instead of 52.5 pounds

you think well what the hell’s that it’s

like it’s one step on a very long

journey

and so it’s it and it starts to compound

on you so a small step today means puts

you in a position to take a slightly

bigger step the next day and then that

puts you in a position to take a

slightly bigger step the next day you do

that for two or three years man you’re

starting to stride

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