You're Not Being Cringe Enough

In this newsletter, I’ll be expanding upon several different ideas I’ve been pondering/trying to formulate this week.

Enjoy.

Your Willpower Storage

You can get a lot more done in a day with less effort.

You just need to start strategizing your willpower storage.

Your willpower storage is the amount of space you have allocated to using your willpower each day.

It’s size changes daily, based on:

• How much sleep you got

• How much effort you put in yesterday

• Your general well-being

And it resets each day.

Therefore, you should optimize your day to tackle the task you think requires the most storage space first.

A good way to figure this out is by asking yourself, “What is the thing that, when trying to to start and stay focused on, feels harder than everything else?”

If you try to do this task later in the day, you’ll likely have used up too much storage to get yourself to complete it.

This is a very similar concept to what is outlined in the self-help book, “Eat That Frog” (which, if you aren’t familiar with, essentially goes into why you need to do your most difficult task first.)

But the added insight is how willpower can be grown.

Willpower shares similarities to muscles—it can be trained to increase it’s storage space over time.

But like muscles, there’s a limit to how much we can grow it (and to be honest, I think the limit is much lower than our muscular potential).

Funnily enough, the day after I thought about the idea for this “willpower storage”, they were discussing this topic as I listened to the latest Modern Wisdom podcast with Andrew Huberman.

And in the podcast, he further confirmed my idea that we have a limited storage of willpower per day (except, through actual science).

The brain area most associated with willpower is what’s known as the ACC, or anterior cingulate cortex—and there’s a direct correlation between the size of this brain area, and how much someone can exercise their willpower effectively.

In order to grow this brain area, Huberman suggests:

• Several hours of cardiovascular exercise per week

• What he calls micro/macro sucks—these are difficult things you really don’t enjoy doing, but you know would benefit you in the long run. (For micro-sucks, think doing a sink full of dishes. For macro-sucks, think going for a mile run when you’ve solely been lifting weights for a while, or any task that doesn’t produce immediate gratification upon completing it.)

Another interesting finding was how you can hack willpower even further if you can convince yourself that it’s unlimited.

Basically, they found that if they told people, “You have a limited amount of willpower”, they were able to do less difficult work than those who they told, “You have unlimited willpower”.

But even still, the willpower eventually ran out for everybody—it’s just that it ran out in less time for the ones that saw it as limited.

Might be a little difficult to convince your brain that you have unlimited willpower after I just told you… that you actually don’t.

But who knows. By deluding yourself, it might produce a little more juice for your ACC, that could be the catalyst for new growth in that brain area.

These are all just really fancy ways of saying:

If you do more difficult things more consistently, it will be easier to do more difficult things.

Mind blowing, isn’t it?

Approval VS Authentic Cringe

There’s two types of cringe.

Approval cringe.

And authentic cringe.

Approval cringe makes you cringe because it’s forced.

For example, when I first started my YouTube channel, I thought I needed to fake a high energy personality in order to drive more engagement.

If you watch some of my earliest videos, you’ll feel that it clearly wasn’t “me”. And this type of cringe is usually cringe to just about everybody, because humans have an innate sense of when someone is trying to be someone they’re not.

Authentic cringe, however, only makes some people cringe.

This is when you embrace a standout portion of your personality so much, that it makes those who aren’t into your personality type uncomfortable.

Either that, or it makes them feel insecure because they are afraid to embrace that part of themselves fully, and so that insecurity comes out as cringe.

Now, here’s the interesting part: You can usually only be authentically cringe if you are cringe for approval first. 

Even though I was clearly forcing my eccentric YouTube personality, it was almost necessary in order to find my natural YouTube voice.

Because without testing what feels “right”, there will never be a “right”.

This process involves rediscovering certain aspects of your personality from when you were a kid, or trying to mimic the personalities of those you find yourself most drawn towards, until the unnatural eventually evolves into the natural.

So embrace your cringe, and let it develop until it starts to bring you praise from a select few, instead of contempt from everybody.

That’s when you’ll know you’re starting to be cringe authentically.

And don’t judge others who are early on in the cringe process too.

Rediscovering Yourself, and Realizing Who You Are

Life is a constant process of becoming.

Of constantly testing new things, reflecting on how they made you feel, how your reactions to them relate to your past, and summarizing all those experiences to gain a deeper understanding of who you are.

Before you can start to let the process of becoming flow naturally, you first must get to the point where you can accept yourself for who you are right now.

And that might be the scariest, most confusing thing you can do…

But self-mastery is truly, the most rewarding undertaking of one’s life.

If you want to truly master yourself for good, learn how to build habits that last for the rest of your life, and you want to join a community of like minded individuals all looking to improve, you should check out my Ultimate Self Mastery Course.

The course features 14 videos with 15+ worksheets, a guided meditation, and an exclusive community where we all hold each other accountable and give further advice.

This course is a culmination of years of research on behavioral science, psychology, and of course, trial and error from my own life.

Being able to actually apply the advice you receive, and get consistent feedback from like-minded people are probably the two most important factors in seeing permanent change.

And I’m guessing you currently feel like you can’t talk to anyone in real life about your struggles with self-development, right?

That’s why our community meets in a group coaching call every other week to make sure we are all staying on the path towards self mastery.

It’s also been an incredible way for everyone to open up about things that they have been going through, have accountability surrounding the habits we are trying to build, and get feedback and advice without judgement.

And because of that, the friendships in there feel genuine.

It’s easily the most fulfilling thing I’ve ever created.

Here's some recent wins from our community:

There are now only 4 days left in the sale I’m currently running on the course.

If you use the code “CHANGE” at checkout, you’ll get 10% off.

Watch the intro video on that page to see if the course is right for you.

Hope to see you in the community.

Quote of The Week

Thanks for reading, everyone. Hope you enjoy your weekend.

-Cole