The Art of Mental State Mastery

I’m far from mastering this skill, but one thing I’ve been playing around with is how important mental states are to our productivity, happiness, focus, health habits, and more.

For example, if you’re tired or feeling down, there’s a good chance you’re not going to focus on your meaningful tasks, and instead will look for distractions and comfort.

If you’re feeling frenetic and in quick-task mode, you’re not likely to focus on deep work but instead will look for easy busy work to do.

Mental states will usually affect whether we do our exercise, eat healthy, binge-watch TV shows, drink alcohol, eat junk food, or are open-hearted (or rude) with the people we love.

So it’s really important to monitor mental states. It’s also an incredible skill to be able to move yourself into the proper mental state to do focused work; to create, to meditate, to exercise, or to do whatever you find meaningful.

In this article, I’ll share some ways to get better at moving into the mental state you need to be in to do that meaningful work. But I’ll also share an advanced skill — being able to do what you need to do, no matter what your mental state. I think of this as an “antifragile” skill (in the terminology of Nassim Nicholas Taleb).