Inversion

A powerful concept to utilize more in our self-improvement, decision making, and to inform our own self-awareness is called “inversion”. When you invert something it means that you flip it on its head, put it upside down, or orient in the opposite arrangement.

Typically when we seek to solve problems in our lives or understand something we look at it directly. We want to figure out what our right amount of exercise is, what entails a healthy diet, how much time we want to spend on social media, and how many hours we consider a full day of work (among everything else).

While it’s helpful to have a clear track of thinking, sometimes we run into a dead end trying to define something that is really difficult to lock down.

This is where we can try inversion. Instead of focusing solely on what we want, we can get more informed by also thinking about what we don’t want.

How much exercise in a week is certainly not enough to keep up a healthy lifestyle? How much is too much when it comes to having dessert or fast food? How long is too long to spend on social media in a given day? When does it become a problem that you’re working beyond a certain time of day?

Invert the focus and you gain a new insight.

When it comes to establishing personal standards for ourselves, using inversion is very helpful. By thinking about what’s unacceptable to us we indirectly define what is acceptable. This gives us a clear expectation that we can hold ourselves accountable to, get feedback on, and navigate forward with.

So my recommendation to you right now is to go through a mini-thought experiment...

That one thing that you’re struggling most with, try inverting it to gain better insight into your standards. WIth the extra visibility you will either realize that you’re not as far off as you thought, or kick start motivation because you cannot deny that you need to be better.

Are you going to do it now? Great!

If not, do you need support getting into action? If so then this will do the trick!