They know things need to change, but what do they do? Keep on doing the same shit. They never learn from their mistakes and even if things don’t work, they still keep doing them.

You might have heard about experiments that they have done with mice in a maze. A mouse is put in a maze and it needs to get out of it. However there are a few obstacles blocking its path.

The mouse runs around the maze and then gets blocked by an obstacle. It will then run around the maze again, taking the same path and get blocked again. It does this a few more times, but eventually learns that this is not the right way.

The mouse then takes a different path. Eventually it learns, finds a new path through the maze and gets out!

What about people? I sometimes feel that some are more stupid than a mouse. A person will run around in the maze, get blocked and then run using the same path again. And again, and again, and again…

Unlike mice, some people will never learn that in order to get out of the maze, they need to run a different path.

The maze is a metaphor I like to use when people keep on doing the same thing, and making the same mistake over and over again, never learning from it and never changing things up.

Luckily, one man has come up with one simple hack that will magically change this and help you to turn into a superhero, without any effort! Seriously, no effort required on your part. Guaranteed! You can trust me, I am a consultant.

Just kidding…

There is no simple hack, but I did recently come across a book “Breaking out of Homeostasis” by Ludvig Sunstrom that discusses this problem and gives some tips on how to break out of this pattern.

I am a fan of Ludvig’s blog, probably mostly because I get massive amounts of confirmation bias from it. Yeah, I know. I preach against falling for cognitive biases and I do it myself. So sue me!

Ludvig managed to put all his thoughts together and come out with this book. Before I go into my thoughts about the book, let’s define what he means by the phrase “breaking out of homeostasis”:

Homeostasis in biology terms is your body’s process of maintaining stability and equilibrium, a steady state. This usually refers to the body’s internal processes like the body temperature, PH levels, and different types of metabolic processes.

However, this term has also been expanded to mean psychological homeostasis and this is the meaning that Ludvig is working with.

Homeostasis is basically having a shitty routine and sticking to it. It can also be not having a routine, but doing random things without thinking of the actual purpose of doing them.

To quote Ludvig:

“It’s the person whose life is defined by their unwillingness to think and exert effort.”

Ludvig makes two categories of people:

1) Homeostasis Dwellers
2) Homeostasis Breakers

Homestasis Dwellers are the guys that just pass through life, going through the motions, never really striving for anything. Sometimes they are even proud of being lazy and self-centered:

“Homeostasis Dwellers are proud of being ignorant, lazy, or self-indulgent.”

This is the majority of the people in this world. The majority of the people will never read this book. And even most of the people who do read it will never take action.

The main reason in my opinion is that they don’t want to change. If that’s you, stop reading this and just go back to sitting for hours trying to take the perfect selfie!

Then post it on Facebook and watch the Likes roll in! So much easier to seek external validation through instant gratification! Fuck intrinsic motivation…

However if you are a guy who does want to change, then Ludvig’s book gives some tips on how to do that. Of course different people will get different things out of reading the book, depending on their motivations and status in life.

I think I am a Homeostasis Breaker, or at least striving to be. For people like me, I think I am already implementing many of the things, so the most valuable part of the book was crystallizing some thoughts that I already had brewing in my head.

So this isn’t a traditional book review, but instead a sort of think-along, a summary of some of the thoughts that I had while reading Ludvig’s book.

The success of any book is dependent on whether people take action on it, and whether it sparks new ideas in its readers. Here I am firing the first salvos.

Are you a Homeostasis Breaker? If not, do you want to be?

A Renaissance Man by definition is a Homeostasis Breaker. They are not satisfied with the status quo, but instead want to break free of the chains that are holding them down.

What does this require? Knowledge and discipline.

The word “discipline” is the key here. Most people don’t have it and never will.

To once again quote Ludvig’s definition of homeostasis:

“Homeostasis is the ancient biological force that causes us to conserve energy, resist change and seek pleasure. It is the reason we want to prolong our emotional state (and why we don’t want to get up in the morning).”

You see, this is all about self-discipline or the lack of it. This is the primary driver of success.

The second chapter of Ludvig’s book has a very telling title:

“Pushing Through the Plateau, The 3 Types of Pain-Tolerance, and Building Character by Becoming Comfortable with the Uncomfortable.”

And subtitle:

“The reason most people fail (at anything and everything) is because they quit as soon as it feels uncomfortable. Winners push past that.”

This made me think of some of the things that I have been doing in order to acquire self-discipline. The key to all this is the ability to withstand pain. How do I do that?

By going to Thailand to train martial arts, and especially climbing mountains like Mt. Kilimanjaro, Mt. Blanc, as well as different mountains in the Alps and other places.

These in my opinion are the best ways to train yourself to tolerate pain and to push through. This then helps you to build self-discipline, as well as gives you a great sense of accomplishment.

As Ludvig says, the key here is knowing about plateaus and how to break through them:

“Because I didn’t know about homeostasis and the nature of plateaus, I’d quit the moment I lost motivation. I was a weakling who would give up at the slightest hint of boredom, discomfort, pain, or cognitive dissonance.”

This quote reminded me of my own struggles and quitting whenever the going got tough. I think this is one of the most important points that you need to learn: not to quit.

Back in ancient times, most of the philosophies of life were based on the assumption that life is hard and you need to work for things. This is a message that is often lost in the hack-obsessed, self-gratification seeking modern world.

In today’s world, everyone wants to have everything fast and without having to make an effort for it. When they don’t get it, they quit.

What do you need to do to get rid of this weak mental state? You need to work on metacognition.

When Ludvig was describing the three evil minions of homeostasis (cognive biases, coping mechanisms, and evolutionary mismatches), I started thinking that maybe homeostasis is a cognitive bias in itself?

Maybe there is a homeostasis effect, just like there are tons of other effects. In many ways this effect behaves similarly to the status quo bias.

Homeostasis effect – keeping things the same, while having a preference for change.

As opposed to status quo bias – keeping things the same, while having a preference for keeping things the same.

According to the classification in my Cognitive Biases Framework, the homeostasis effect would belong in the status quo category of biases. Why?

Because even while having a preference for change, the people falling for this bias do not want to put out an effort to change. The hassle of the effort is not worth the potential change for them (sometimes they justify this in various ways).

Also in general, keeping homeostasis is the beneficial and risk-averse strategy. You don’t want your core body temperature rising suddenly or your breathing becoming erratic.

No, you want a steady and predictable pattern. That’s why homeostasis is so hard to get rid of, including the psychological type.

What you need to do here is to rewire your brain’s reward system and get rid of bad habits.

In the book, Ludvig mentions how he did that. He used to be a lazy guy who played video games all day and had stomach problems, but at one point enough was enough and he decided to change: to break out of his own homeostasis.

Just following the journey of a guy like Ludvig can have beneficial effects for many people. They will realize that if he can do it, why not them? Personal examples always serve as the best sources of inspiration and the book is filled with them.

Overcome your fears

The most important part of the book for me in terms of lessons was the section on overcoming your fears.

This is one of the obstacles that I have when I want to connect with change-makers. In my explorations of successful ideas, I have discovered that the crucial part for an idea to spread is not coming up with the idea, but instead its marketing.

For example, James Hutton came up with the revolutionary idea on deep time and rewrote the first principles of geology. However he was not very successful in persuading others about the correctness of this. He was really bad at marketing.

Luckily, when he was alive, he had gathered together a network of influential people, some of whom were good “sellers”. After his death, they succeeded in promoting his work.

Personally, this is the part I have always struggled with. I am good at research, coming out with ideas, bringing together ideas from different corners, but I am not good at convincing other people.

I am bad at connecting with people, probably stemming from my introverted nature and focus on coming up with the ideas themselves.

Ludvig on the other hand, is very good at connecting with change-makers and influencers. I think this is his core competence and something that he excels at above others.

There is one Jedi mind trick that Ludvig teaches that can help you in getting to his level.

Yeah right!

No Jedi mind tricks here. Just some advice.

In the chapter titled “Amygdala Slavery”, there is a discussion on fears, more particularly social fears. This has always been my biggest stumbling block.

What’s the secret? Don’t give a fuck.

“After about one or two months I noticed that the people who were doing well, and selling more newspaper subscriptions than the rest of us, weren’t successful so much because they did this or that thing; they were successful because they didn’t care.”

This chapter was for me the most pertinent, since it addressed my biggest obstacle, one that I am really struggling to overcome.

I just wish that the book had gone a bit more into this, and also addressed more of Ludvig’s strength and that is his amazing ability to get influencers to support him and spend time with him.

When shit hits the fan

That said, the most important thing is taking action. You can read as many smart books as you want, but if you don’t take action on them, they will be of little benefit.

What you need to do is come up with a system that will help you to break out of homeostasis. This system needs to reflect your own personal circumstances.

Mix and match. Apply some of Ludvig’s stuff, mix in some of my stuff, go back to the Ancients and add in some of their ideas.

Ludvig’s book contains a lot of messages that you can use in order to break out of homeostasis. He spent great amounts of time researching this topic and the book summarizes his ideas very well.

If you are a lazy Homeostasis Dweller, it can help you with some of your sticking points and get you over the hump. If you are a Homeostasis Breaker (like me), there are always a few golden nuggets that you can pick out to enhance your own personal system with.

Read More:
The Art Of Learning: One Simple Mindset Change That Will Lead You On The Path To Mastery.

You learn to live life on the go. At birth, you are not given infinite wisdom, but instead you need to learn by trial and error. Some people are lucky and discover the right paths quite early, for some it takes longer, while the majority of people breeze through life without a clue.

Some people have the luck of getting a mentor who guides them on the right path, while others arrive there in other ways. One good thing about the current period is the explosion of knowledge that we have available at our finger tips.

If you don’t have a mentor, it is much easier now to embark on the path by yourself, aggregating information from different sources and building up a framework to guide you.

Books are one resource that you can use for this purpose. There are a small number of books that can give you a unique insight into your life and the best way to live it. 

Reading them, not only do you gain a lot of knowledge to incorporate into your ever-growing mental library, but you also experience a few “aha” moments. It is during these moments when questions you have been asking yourself about life and how you should be living it suddenly appear clearer.

You are reading a certain passage and suddenly things click. At that moment you know what was that one mistake that you made that redefined your life. You realize what was that one mindset change that you should have made, but didn’t.

These books are the ones that end up having a powerful effect on the rest of your life. These “aha” moments that they provoke, give you a clearer perspective and an understanding of the things that you should be doing in order to be successful in life.

When you apply these little lessons in practice, your life suddenly becomes better, you start doing things differently and you finally start doing things in the right way.

The Art of Learning

One of the books that has had a huge impact on my mindset and the way I live and experience life has been “The Art of Learning” by Josh Waitzkin.

Josh is a remarkable character. As a kid he was a chess prodigy and the personality on whom the film “Searching for Bobby Fisher” was based on.

From early on, he was dominating his age groups in chess. He brought piercing focus and intensity to the game that catapulted him to the top.

He was on his way to becoming one of the top chess players in the world. However suddenly things changed and he refocused his life by switching disciplines completely.

He went from chess, a discipline of the mind, to martial arts, more particularly tai chi and push hands competitions, a discipline of the body. Remarkably, he was able to dominate there too.

Not only did he become the US National Champion in the martial art of push hands, he also became the World Champion, beating the Taiwanese on their home turf in their own national sport. This was a rare achievement, made even rarer by the fact that he had switched from a totally different discipline just a few years earlier.

How did he do it? He didn’t do it because he was naturally born to be a chess champion or a martial art champion. He did it because he was good at the art of learning.

He was able to come up with a few principles that he could apply across the board, irrespective of the discipline. In his book, he shares with us his secrets.

Application to my life

Growing up, I too had a talent and was a top competitor in a number of disciplines. However I never made it to the top. I never became elite.

One of the reasons was my environment and the fact that we moved around all the time. The other one was drive.

The environment problem was a huge drawback, but the more fundamental problem was my own mindset. Years later, when reading “The Art of Learning” one little passage hit the point and caused a revolution in my thinking. At that exact moment I knew what I had been doing wrong:

“While I learned with open pores – no ego in the way – it seemed that many other students were frozen in place, repeating their errors over and over, unable to improve because of a fear of releasing old habits. When Chen made suggestions, they would explain their thinking in an attempt to justify themselves. They were locked up by the need to be correct.“

Suddenly old memories came rushing back: me looking at the clock in my karate class, me being stubborn and justifying myself when the coach was trying to correct my shooting technique in basketball, me not taking advice of the coach in track.

Instead of having no ego, of learning and working harder, I had been set in my ways. Sure the environment did not help, but my mindset was the bigger problem.

What to do

This was the difference between me, a wasted talent, and Josh. Luckily, there is still time to apply this mindset change. In the book, Josh gives some pointers on how to do that.

The first thing that you need to do is to immerse yourself in the fundamentals and learn those really well. There is no point in learning a lot of different techniques if you haven’t learned the few staples. Embrace being a beginner, approach things with an open mind, break things down, and work hard on mastering the fundamentals, slowly adding to your arsenal as you progress.

“A basic example of this process, which applies to any discipline, can easily be illustrated through chess: A chess student must initially become immersed in the fundamentals in order to have any potential to reach a high level of skill. He will learn the principles of endgame, middlegame, and opening play. Initially one or two critical themes will be considered at once, but over time the intuition learns to integrate more and more principles into a sense of flow. Eventually the foundation is so deeply internalized that it is no longer consciously considered, but is lived. This process continuously cycles along as deeper layers of the art are soaked in.“

This is the basis behind deliberate practice, a concept much discussed in several popular works. One example is the book “Outliers” where Malcolm Gladwell discusses the 10 000 hour rule. The premise here is that this is about how long it takes to reach mastery.

You slowly work on things consciously until they become incorporated into your subconscious. At the beginning you think, at the end you just do. That’s what separates the masters from the others. A deep intuition honed by countless hours of deliberate practice.

Some criticisms of the book

While the book was deep and life-changing in a way, there were some minor points of criticism.
The author points out that one of the defining points of his own journey was when he started studying Eastern philosophy, books like “Tao Te Ching”.

The way that “The Art of Learning” was written, reflects the fact that the author is an advanced student of Eastern philosophy. Some of the phrases appear a bit mystical and flowery and might go above the heads of people who are not very familiar with this train of thought.

However this does not detract from the overall message and power of the work. In fact, this work is meant to be read several times. Each time you read it, you will gain more and more insights into what you should do to become a top competitor.

Read more:
Go beyond your limits: how to do the impossible

Everyone has a story which set them on the path to today:

What is your origin story?

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