Wisdom on Various Self Improvement Topics from Jordan B. Peterson

If you don’t know him, Jordon Peterson is a clinical psychologist who has recently received a lot of attention because of the stand he took against C-16 which I won’t even get into. He is also famous for his recorded talks like Maps of Meaning and his latest book 12 Rules of Life.

He has also collaborated to produce the Self Authoring Suite which includes:
1 – Past Authoring Program, a guided autobiography.
2 – Present Authoring Programs, which helps analyse personality faults & virtues relating to the Big Five personality model;
3 – Future Authoring Program, which guides through the process of planning desired futures.

There is a lot more to say about this man. I know I can’t get enough of his youtubes and podcasts but he has a lot of info and this post is here to do what I do best. SUMMARISE! Enjoy and please keep coming back as I’ll be adding more as I chunk it down.

When you don’t know what to do/No purpose/Your Ideal Self:
– You’re compelled forward by interests. The more you listen to it the more it fulfils you. The less you listen to it the more you’ll regret it. So you know a certain future will make you happier and the more you move towards it you’re proving it to yourself that it truly is. From what is to what should be, you should have planned sequence of behaviour. The more you sacrifice to it the more you realise how much more you can do.

– Commitment and sacrifice are the same thing.

– Sometimes what stops you is the feeling that if it’s good for you maybe it’s not good for the universe or someone else. In this case set it up so that it’s good for you and that good spreads out.

– You are set up so that you are interested in things that will expand you and round you out. Interests lead you down the path of development. New interests make you feel like a fool but you have to be a fool to next be an asker. So basically as you move forward you’re circling yourself and getting closer to your ideal self the more you circle. You’ll move closer but like a flight is not always exactly on course you’ll adjust the more you move closer. Sometimes you may feel you’ve moved farther but on the upside the farther distance shows you what you shouldn’t keep doing. So it’s learning anyway. Basically in the start you’ll over shoot the target hugely! The the more you do it the better precision you’ll have to hit the target. It’s ok to wander around stupidly before fixing your destination. Just don’t sit around.

– When you don’t learn something you’ll at least unlearn something e.g. coming out of a bad relationship.

Setting up Goals:
Once you know who it is you want to be, specify it with micro-routines. Set up a schedule in a way that you wont fail. Set the day you want, the best possible day you can have. Don’t burn yourself out either. What is your perfect ratio of responsibility to reward. Schedule the reward in too. Starting out it could be 15 minutes of responsibility and 1 hour of video games as reward. Start from there if it’s more realistic. Thats better than doing zero. If you hit 50 this week, try to aim for more than 50 even if it’s 50.1. This will give you a positive feedback loop which will start spiralling up. See it as if you were hiring yourself and have a conversation with yourself. Would you fire yourself? Negotiate with yourself. 6 hours wasted is $2,000 a week. How much would you pay yourself to do what you’re doing currently, that will be your worth. You are suffering because you’re not what you could be. Your actions are like ripples in a pond. Motivation sets goals (I’m going to eat there), as you move towards the goal you get positive energy while obstacles will make you feed bad. From the below Basic Motivations you don’t want to go into a biker bar as it’s not in your nature and will affect you physiologically, psychologically, etc. How about a career where you’ll naturally rise up the hierarchy. Go for what you NEED and you can even have what you want. Not have everything but you have to ask it from yourself, set yourself up to aim for it. Ask yourself what am I doing to screw myself up, and then stop! Stop as much of it, some you wont stop doing at all so don’t focus on them, focus on the ones that you can stop.

Anxiety:
Eat something first! No energy and your body is starving. You’ll feel better after eating. Stabilise your nervous system. If you’re anxious in the mornings make sure you eat something significant, not protein bars. Carbohydrates are poisonous so pick well.

Efficiency:
Try to do difficult things. Realistic goals divided into subgoals. See how much work you can do if you load yourself to the maximum and then step back a little bit. Then again try to do it 5-10 times faster.

Parenting:
– You are far more than a friend. You’re a long term island of stability in a sea of turbulence. Certain amount of harness is needed, let them make mistakes, don’t do any more than you absolutely have to. Don’t be scared and become a helicopter parent.

– Don’t let them not like you because then you’ll not like them back.

– Teach them to accept ‘no’ e.g. when they want to crawl away just hold their leg and while they struggle say no. Let them throw tantrums or cry but repeat this a few times until they learn. In the future they’ll still resist or cry but they’ll know what that word means and there is no compromise. It helps them regulate their behaviour. If they still misbehave you can take them to a planned corner or steps and tell them you’re not going to let go of their hands until they are going to act civilised. Don’t be angry just be firm, ‘I’m not going to let you go until you get it’. They may pretend to comply and run off but you keep repeating it. Getting them to bed you should give them a stable time. Wrap up some gifts where they can see them and if they do the thing you want them to do i.e. go to bed at 9.30 instead of 10 then they get a gift. Using successive approximation you can get them to bed earlier like this. Small rewards but not too often.

– Mothers Pathology is when she nurtures too much and the child doesn’t want to leave or grow up. Best to be like a good manager who doesn’t need to be around all the time.

– The primary socialisation between children is with themselves from age 4 onwards. Before that you teach them to be social.

– Encourage Your Children!. Don’t protect your children, gradually expose them to the harshness of the world. Life is suffering (Buddhism) but you’re so damn tough that you can’t only deal with it, you can improve it. You are stronger than things are terrible. Confront the suffering voluntarily and you’ll see you’re stronger than you think.

Jobs:
You want to be a big fish in a small pond. You don’t want to be the stupidest person or the cleverest in the room. If you’re the cleverest you need to find something more challenging. The lower your IQ the more repetitive work will suit you and being delegated. Even the army will not take anyone under the IQ of 83 and the army is desperate to get as many people as they can which say a lot.

Writing:
Being able to write and articulate is the best weapon you can ever have. To be able to make your point and slice someone up without aggression is a great skill.

Diet:
Him and his daughter had a lot of health issues which all disappeared with just changing to only meat and veggies. Snoring stopped, reflux gone, gum disease for decades all gone, phenomenal weight loss. Carbohydrate poisoning is happening to people in unbelievable amounts. 2 food scientists who resigned said that the food pyramid was a disaster and had it backwards. Jordan Peterson – The Carnivore Diet Changed My Life! – Joe Rogan Podcast

Women Choosing Careers over Motherhood:
Not everyone is going to get high-end careers. The demands in the career only get harder and they realise that it’s not what they want. High calibre women are the ones that decide relationship and family are the priorities. The glass ceiling is an illusion. Think about what you’re going to do from 45 to 90?

Marriage:
I’m never leaving! No matter what! That is the reason for marriage. I know you’re trouble and I am too but we wont leave. It is voluntary enslavement but it is so much more and better than that. Getting divorced is going to cost you so much more than you think. Also do you have enough joint interests and have you figured out dealing with careers, economics, family dynamics, finances. Negotiate joint responsibilities, practical issues of life, future goal etc.

Key to Healthy Relationship:
When you want your partner to do something more of tell them how much you loved and appreciated it. Be specific and they’ll do it so much more for that reward. Get rid of our grudges and resentment for doing this. Imagine telling a kid you’re busy or giving them negative feedback for desirable behaviour. Would they want to do it again? Where is the reward to do desirable behaviour. (Paras note: When working with kids I’ve always had this attitude of ‘ignore what you don’t want to happen and focus/reward immediately on what you want to see more of’. I find it hard to do with adults but it works.)

Listening:
Stop talking to the people who are not listening to you and let them carry on. You will find out much more and in general you want to talk to people who listen anyway. If you listen they’ll tell you the weirdest things so fast. They’ll open up. Your goal is to enter every conversation to walk away a better person. Understand WITH a person not ABOUT them.

Arguments:
Best way to deal with them is for the next person speaking to restate ACCURATELY what the other person just said. Usually you take the stupidest thing from what they said and demolish the person with that (straw-man). You’re a bigger person if you help them make their argument stronger than what you make yours to look. Help them make their point. Re-achieve their frame of reference.

Paras note: Something I always say is when you’re fighting either you win or the relationship wins. As he says below… ‘you want to negotiate your way to a sustainable peace’.

Don’t Defeat Them, Negotiate Your Way to a Sustainable Peace Jordan Peterson

Price’s Square Root Law or Price’s Law:
Half of the work is done by square root of all contributors. So if 100 papers are written by 25 people, 5 will have contributed to fifty papers. Think about musicians being played most of the time, sports men who score most of the time. 1% has most of the money, 1% of that 1% has the higher amount, 1% of that 1%… you see how it goes.

Communication and Making Up with his Wife:
Here is what you did, here is how it struck me, here is how I would like it to be. Don’t just keep complaining, don’t put up with things you don’t want to and offer a solution and try to integrate it. Go to room separately and think of how correct you are but how you increased the drama, what did I do to increase the probability of the argument, tell your partner that and they tell you the same thing.

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