The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck – Newsletter, December 2019

 

EVENT REMINDER:
Business Owners and Entrepreneurs
THIS Thursday, 5th December 2019

The Inspire Collective: December Event!

Sponsored by BNI Wellington and Wairarapa, and Urban Hub, The Inspire Collective is hosting
an evening of inspiration for Wellington Business Owners and Entrepreneurs:

Are you looking for a space where you can connect with like-minded business owners and entrepreneurs, without the pressure to network, or the polished sales pitch?Or are you simply interested in opportunities that will allow you to grow as a business person, to think outside the box, and look ahead to what’s over the horizon?If you answered “Yes” to any of these questions, join us on Thursday, 5th December 2019!We’ll be hearing from four of Wellington’s top business thinkers to inspire with their stories and their wisdom – speaker info TBC.

Previous participants have raved about The Inspire Collective’s past events:

Places are limited, so secure your ticket now by clicking here.

Your ticket includes entry to the event, a yummy tasting platter and your first drink.

I publish additional information over on my Facebook page and also on my LinkedIn –
so make sure you are “following” me on Facebook and connected with me on LinkedIn.
Instructions on how to do this are in my March 2019 newsletter, here.

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The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck

Mark Manson has written an incredible book, “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck”, which I think is absolutely brilliant for everyone to read and learn from, but especially stressed and over-worked business owners.
Below we talk about a few of the key points from the book, which is available to purchase from Mark’s website, along with other great resources.

When we give too many fucks by choosing to give a fuck about everything, from the spilled milk in the morning, to the rude retail worker, then we feel as though we are entitled to feel comfortable and happy at all times – which, doesn’t happen in the real world – and that’s when life fucks us.

So, how do you begin to not give a fuck? First, you need to understand the subtlety’s of not giving a fuck. Essentially, it’s “learning how to focus and prioritize your thoughts effectively – how to pick and choose what matters to you and what does not matter to you based on finely honed personal values.” We’ll talk about the personal values shortly but, for now, here’s the subtlety’s:

Subtlety #1:
Not Giving A Fuck Does Not Mean Being Indifferent; It Means Being Comfortable With Being Different

Basically, if you’re indifferent, you don’t give a fuck about anything but yourself. We must give a fuck about something; not giving a fuck doesn’t mean not giving a fuck about anything, it’s about choosing what to give a fuck about, and not caring about adversity, failure, or embarrassing yourself (or others) because you know what you’re doing is right, and it’s more important than you, your feelings, pride, and ego – you say “fuck it” to the possible shameful outcome to do what’s right. So, you end up not giving a fuck about everything unimportant in life, and reserving your fucks for what truly matters, in line with your values; friends, family, purpose, “the right thing”.

Subtlety #2:
To Not Give A Fuck About Adversity, You Must First Give A Fuck About Something More Important Than Adversity

The most productive use of your energy is to find something important and meaningful in your life, something worthy to give a fuck about. Otherwise, we end up giving a fuck about trivial shit because we don’t have anything “more fuck-worthy” to dedicate our fucks to, like missing a sale or losing the TV remote – it’s not the missing TV remote that’s the actual problem, it’s the fact you have nothing much going on in your life, nothing important or meaningful enough, to give a legitimate fuck about.

“If you don’t find that meaningful something, your fucks will be given to meaningless and frivolous causes.”

Subtlety #3:
We All Have A Limited Number Of Fucks To Give; Pay Attention To Where And Who You Give Them To

We give too many fucks since the day we’re born. Children cry about all sorts of trivial things – not getting the right coloured hair tie, or not getting to go on the left swing (which is exactly the same as the one on the right). We give a fuck about everything when we’re young, because everything seems to matter so much. However, as we get older, experience and maturity lead us to realise these things we used to worry about have so little lasting impact on our lives that they’re actually not worth giving a fuck about.

“We become more selective about the fucks we’re willing to give.
We reserve our ever-dwindling fucks for the most truly fuck-worthy parts of our lives:
our families, our best friends, our golf swing.
And, to our astonishment, this is enough.
This simplification actually makes us really fucking happy on a consistent basis.” 

It takes time to not give a fuck about the trivial shit we’ve given a fuck about for so long. So, why should we try to change what we give a fuck about? What’s the idea behind not giving a fuck?

“The idea of not giving a fuck is a simple way of reorienting our expectations for life and choosing what is important and what is not…
It’s about learning how to lose and let go…
to take inventory of your life and scrub out all but the most important items.
It will teach you to close your eyes and trust that you can fall backwards and still be okay…
It will teach you not to try.”

So, this Christmas when you have the nagging mother-in-law at the dinner table, or the whinging child that isn’t happy with what they’ve received as a gift, just don’t give a fuck! Don’t buy into the trivial bullshit, and realise that these “problems” won’t have a lasting impact on your life if you don’t fix them (in fact, if you do get the child what they want, you’ll cause bigger problems in the future!). Don’t worry so much about upsetting other people by sticking to your own values. Learn to let go. Laugh through the tears. And above all, stop trying.

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Personal Values

Not giving a fuck might seem like it could be easy, but to really not give a fuck you need to know what your personal values are, what your goals are, and what you want to achieve in business and life, so you know what you need to give a fuck about, and what you don’t. There are good values and bad values, so take note of where your current values sit, and amend where you need to. For example, the Christmas analogy we used, with the child being unhappy with their gift – if this is something that you would take to heart, and endeavour to make the child happy at any and all costs, this is a bad value – because it’s emotion-based (and uncontrollable later in life when they expect to be handed everything they want on a silver platter just by making a scene!). 

Mark Manson, author of “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck”, lists the following as good- and bad-values when you’re trying to not give a fuck:

Good values are:
1. Evidence-based
2. Constructive
3. Controllable

Bad values are:
1. Emotion-based
2. Destructive
3. Uncontrollable

Other great tips from Mark’s book are:

Don’t Try

If you suck at something, admit it, embrace it, USE IT! He explains this with a story about a man who sucked at writing, but wanted to be a novelist. When he finally got his chance to try to write and publish a book, he didn’t try to be what or who everyone wanted to be, instead he wrote honestly about how he was a loser and this is what drove him to become a best-selling novellist; not the fact he was a great writer, but that he was a loser who knew it, embraced it, used it, and didn’t try to be anything oher than what he was.

“It was his simple ability to be completely, unflinchingly honest with himself –
especially the worst parts of himself –
and to share his failings without hesitation or doubt…
the real story of his success: his comfort with himself as a failure..
[he] didn’t give a fuck about success.”

Stop Wanting More Positive Experiences

The more you want for, the less happy you’ll be. Why? Because you’re focusing on the negatives all the time; “I’m so poor”, “I have a shitty house”, etc, so all you’ll ever focus on is the negatives, even when you get richer, and a nicer house.

“Wanting positive experience is a negative experience; accepting negative experience is a positive experience.”

It’s philosopher Alan Watts “backwards law” – “the idea that the more you pursue feeling better all the time, the less satisfied you become, as pursuing something only reinforces the fact that you lack it in the first place.”

“Everything worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative experience”.

Working hard at the gym to get the body you want, working through the failures in business to understand better what you need to do to be more successful in the future, and so on.

 

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