Episode 78 - The Rebel Syndrome: How to reconcile your desire for freedom and variety with scheduling and constraint

Do you hate predictability with a vengeance? 

Is your worst nightmare knowing what you're going to do three weeks in advance? 

Do you refuse to be pinned down or hemmed in by commitments? 

Then you may be suffering from the rebel-syndrome.

In this Episode you'll learn how real autonomy and freedom are found - and no, it definitely doesn't reside in deciding in the moment. 

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Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00:09) - Welcome to the Managing the Smart Mind Podcast with your host, coach Kramer. This is episode 78, the Rebel Syndrome. How to reconcile your desire for freedom and variety with scheduling and constraint.

Speaker 1 (00:00:33) - Hello, smart human. First of all, you may hear some background noise there, some birds, there's some cars, the old chopper. Um, I usually record with all the windows closed, but we're in the middle of a heat wave in Holland and it's become pretty unbearable in my studio with no airco underneath the roof. So windows are open. You may hear sounds. Okay, let's dig into today's topic, the Rebel Syndrome. I think a fair proportion of smart humans have it right. Whoa, what does that look like? First of all, they hate being told what to do and listen, I guess so do I. Most of us hate, really hate being told what to do. Freedom, autonomy is a universal value amongst fast brain. Humans. Humans. But people with the rebel syndrome take their desire for freedom so far that it inadvertently ends up hurting them. They refuse to be pinned down on what they're doing and when they're supposed to be doing it.

Speaker 1 (00:01:50) - For example, they believe a life hemp in by calendars and goals is not worth living. And by the way, when you put it like that, , it sounds awful, but that's very black and white. So rebels, people with the rebel syndrome keep making decisions in the moment right now. You may think that sounds rather zen and academy me. If you have no obligations, no products, you need to ship, no places to go, no livestock to feed and so on and so forth, then it's really fine and fun to live and make decisions in the moment. It sounds pretty awesome, but I'm guessing that this is not what your life currently looks like because then you wouldn't be listening to this podcast , you'd just be staring at the clouds or something. You probably have people to serve, whether these are mini humans, clients, colleagues, patients, fans, doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (00:02:54) - You have quote unquote obligations. You may even have meetings to go to another demands upon your time, and this may make you even more rebellious, right? The more you feel your life is controlled by external factors, the stronger your desire for autonomy becomes. But then as a result, you keep putting of tasks, decisions, and you avoid making commitments because of your deep desire to feel more free and in control. Now, this is a problem because your refusal to be pinned down actually reduces your freedom and autonomy. And yes, I know this sounds very counterintuitive, but bear with me, let's look at your brain for a second. Your brain is very bad at making decisions in the moment. It will default always to the easiest or the most urgent option available, right? This is like the marshmallow test or whatever you wanna call it. Our brains want easy, or if there's enough pain and we're super scared, then we'll go for what solves that, right?

Speaker 1 (00:04:07) - The most urgent. But when asked in the moment like, oh, do you wanna work out now your brain will just say, oh, I can. Let's do it later, right? Let's do the easiest thing, which is not to work out. So this is what you're going to default to. You will either be putting out fires, right, the urgent, or you'll be procrastinating the easy, and it usually ends up being a vicious circle, stopping at both the stations of urgent and easy. First, you're very busy putting out fires, then you probably feel a little bit exhausted, and so you procrastinate until, oh damn, more fires and new fires to be put out and so on and so forth. At the end of the day, you're usually also very frustrated in addition to being tired because you didn't get any meaningful work done and stressed, right? Because you're constantly working under pressure.

Speaker 1 (00:05:07) - It's exhausting and very unfulfilling. So eventually this deep desire for autonomy and freedom turned into rebellion ends up making you less autonomous and free. Now, of course, is not this simple, as in more fa factors play into procrastination, and I have in fact three episodes on this one topic, so you may able to check them out if you haven't already. Check the show notes for the links. But this rebel syndrome can be an important component in procrastination for a lot of people especially, but not exclusively those with d h, D. So how do you reconcile the two? How is it even possible to feel free and yet schedule shit ? Well, it is, it is possible. You need to start realizing that freedom and autonomy actually lies in making decisions, in making decisions ahead of time, in constraints, in proactively saying yes and no to things and in deciding when and where you're going to do them.

Speaker 1 (00:06:24) - Remember, not deciding, not planning, not scheduling means that you will refer to bad decisions in the moment because your brain and deciding ahead of time is actually claiming your freedom to decide what you want to do with your time, with your resources, with your precious life. I'm gonna say that again because it's important. Deciding ahead of time. What you're going to do is actually claiming your freedom, your autonomy over what you want to do with your time, your resources, and your precious life. But listen, your desire for freedom, autonomy, and variety is real, right? And we need to address that too. It's like, oh, just push your desire for variety, surprise, excitement away and ignore it. That will make for a very miserable life. This is not a, oh, just put everything you want to do on a to-do list and then schedule all the to-dos on your calendar and you'll be fine.

Speaker 1 (00:07:25) - Exercise, which by the way,  most insane thing ever, I have still have to meet the person, like the smart human with the brain that actually, that works for, it's a definitely a minority, I'm sure. So first of all, put everything you want to do on a to-do list. It's not going to work for most smart humans because listen, you can't even finish writing your things. I want to-do list in the first place. It's infinite, right? So that approach just been it. We need a little playfulness and flexibility here, a little beginner's mind and willingness to experiment. I want you to think about how can you plan the unpredictable? How can you arrange for excitement? How can you organize plenty of variety in your life? And to give you some inspiration, I'll give you an example of how I do this In my day-to-day. I keep lots of open space in my calendar.

Speaker 1 (00:08:28) - Yes, I plan things right? Of course. I mean, I have client meetings, I have the shamelessly smart membership where I teach and coach and do lots of other fun things. Um, all the, all that kind of stuff. But I still keep lots of open space. I call this flexi time because it feels good and it is flexi time because during these time blocks, I get to do whatever feels good in the moment. Maybe it's beautiful outside and I want to go for a walk. Maybe I want to continue working on the project I was working on because I'm in the zone, right? Or in flow, maybe I want to take a minute to work through my inbox during flexi time, I get to do whatever I want. And of course, this flexi time, let's be honest, is also very useful as buffer time as I tend to underestimate how long some things take to create or build, et cetera.

Speaker 1 (00:09:31) - And in addition to this, I've designated days and longer blocks for specific themes, things I work on. So Tuesday is podcast day. Hello, today's Tuesday  and Wednesday and Friday are coaching and teaching days. And instead of making me feel constrained and bored, this actually makes me feel relieved because I know exactly what I'm meant to be doing on those days. There's little room for confusion or overwhelm, but there's still plenty of room for improvisation and variety, right? No day is ever this same, and I don't decide exactly what I'm going to do, like minute to minute or even hour by hour. The broad scope is clear and I get to fill in the granular level on the day itself. Now listen, I get it. Your life may look very different. You may have a lot more external constraints than I do, but this means you have to be even more decisive about the time blocks you do have control over.

Speaker 1 (00:10:29) - I want you to take a step back, think first about what you want to achieve over the next month, the next quarter, the next year, and then what is it you need to do on a daily or weekly basis? Work towards those results that you actually want, right? If you never schedule it, it's never gonna happen. And at the end of the year, you're gonna be like, oh, dang, I wanted to do that thing. I wanted to build that product. I want to write that book. And it never happened. So what do you need to do on a daily or weekly basis to work towards the things you really deeply desire? And then second, what would be the most fun, delightful, and exciting way of scheduling that, right? Maybe you use the concept of flexi time. Maybe you can even, I dunno, design some kind of randomness in your schedule.

Speaker 1 (00:11:28) - Like you put all your tasks, you write them down on tiny cards, and you put them in a hat and you draw a task, whatever rocks your boat and you know, creates your dopamine. Basically, you get to be playful and experimental around this. So use the constraint, but within the constraint, make it super fun, exciting, engaging. So I really want you to try this and commit to it once you've decided what it is you're going to be doing. And then after a week, of course, you get to evaluate what worked right, what didn't work, what did you end up doing and why? And then you keep what worked and you let go of what didn't. You can make the next week even better, and so on and so forth, right? So you slowly start building a wave, organizing your life that works with your smart mind, that makes you feel good and free and autonomous, and that works in the long term. So if you're feeling like you have a bit of the rebel syndrome, I want you to reclaim your freedom and autonomy where it matters in deciding ahead of time how you want to live. Have a wonderful week.