Guys, this paper, The Unbearable Automaticity of Being, although 10+ years old, really calls out some mind-blowing stuff if you read through it. It shows that Tyler's statement that "most people walk through life in a fucking daze" is way more scarily true than maybe any of us realize.
Key things the paper basically says:
- Our unconscious mind runs the show... probably 99% of what you do is run by your unconscious, even if you'd like to think otherwise. You'll backwards-rationalize that you really wanted to do something that was actually based on unconscious impulses. Coca-Cola knows that if they show you enough pictures of happy people drinking Coke, eventually when you want to feel happy, you'll "decide" to have a Coke.
- Our unconscious is incredibly sensitive to being influenced by outside forces... just reading the words "Florida", "sentimental", and "wrinkle", for example, can temporarily change the way you walk!
- Our "willpower" is like a limited resource. Things like making choices, doing mental work, and suppressing impulses rapidly deplete it. Resisting eating the chocolates, for example, makes it harder later on to stick with a difficult mental task.
So, what is the relevance of this to self-improvement and PU? Well here's a couple things that I took away from it personally...
- If you don't want the tail to wag the dog, that is, if you want to run your life in pursuit of what you want, and not just blow around like a leaf in the wind, then it's critical to feed your unconscious the messages you want it to get. Your unconscious is constantly getting bombarded by outside influences which it will soak up, and turn into "decisions" on your part, unless you consistently feed yourself messages designed to drive it the way you want to go. This means taking time daily to do "self-programming", hanging with only positive people who are moving in the direction you want, and minimizing negative influences (i.e. going on a junk-media diet).
- If you want to succeed with using your willpower, you should try to use it as little as possible. Set your life up to basically point you automatically in the directions you want to go, removing stuff from your environment that tempts you (whatever that is), setting up schedules that automatically help you along, not trying to change 10 habits at once, and living a life where generally you don't have to suppress yourself. If you have to use a lot of mental effort just to get through the day, you won't have much left over when the time comes to make the hard decision, or put in that extra 10% effort to get over some hump. Do the shit you want to use willpower on early in the day if you can.
Person with no willpower who blows in the wind = chode. Person who runs their own life and has self-discipline = attractive.
On the flip side, if you want to influence the girl you're with, know this...
- Her unconscious is picking up your very subtle signals... she really does feel like you feel. If you're confident, happy, sexy and playful, that's where she'll tend to go to.
Sexual words embedded in conversation, like playful sexual talk, will get picked up and sink in (that NLP shit has some truth to it
) - Most of her responses are automatic, whether she knows it or not, especially later in the day.
I'd like to hear your thoughts as well.
All the best,
Spatch