Transcription
Hey y'all, today we're going to talk about how dreams can sabotage your future. So, generally speaking, we don't think about wanting something or chasing something or having some kind of fantasy or dream as actively harmful. We generally think about it as something that, okay, like, yeah, I have particular dreams. Everyone has dreams. That's how we sort of find direction, right? We have to like move towards our fantasies or goals or dreams.
But we don't realize that for every dream that we have, it can actually create a cognitive strain on us and actually prevent us from accomplishing it. If you're ready to take the next step on your mental health journey, check out Dr. K's guide. It's an immersive resource that distills over 20 years of my experience, laid out in a way that is tailored to your needs. So, if you're ready to better understand your mind and take control of it, check out the link in the description below.
This is what's really bizarre. When we think about dreams, we think about them as being necessary for accomplishment. But if we're not careful, the more dreams we have, the more stuck we will be. And you may have noticed that in life, there are two kinds of people, right? There are the dreamers, and they're the doers.
And so, if we want to understand this principle and how to apply it to your life, we have to start with 12-step programs in addiction. So, in recovery or in overcoming an addiction, a lot of patients will benefit from something called a 12-step program. The most famous one is Alcoholics Anonymous. So, they kind of give you like 12 steps that you have to go through, and if you work through the steps, by the end of it, you will be much, much, much more likely to overcome your addiction.
Now, this is really interesting from a scientific standpoint because if we sort of think about an addiction, it is like literally your body or your brain demanding a substance. And there are patients that I worked with who have gone through things like opioid withdrawal, who have also had metastatic cancer. So, this is stage four cancer, and they have told me that opioid withdrawal is worse than childbirth, which is really freaking painful, and actually worse than having stage four cancer. It is so painful. I would much rather die.
So, if you kind of think about when you're experiencing that much pain as an addict, every fiber of your being wants relief. Every fiber of your being wants that substance, right? And so, somehow these people are able to develop the willpower or strength to overcome a complete set of signals that their body is sending them that, hey, you're dying, you need this, you need this, you need this, you need this. And so, how were they able to do that? And once we understand that, hopefully, we can harness it too.
So, I think one of the key steps for the 12-step process is Step nine, which is make amends. What these people actually do is over the course of their substance use, they've usually screwed up a lot of things. They've messed up relationships, they've like stolen money, they've like gone through divorce, they've like alienated their kids, they've ruptured their relationship with their parents, who like mortgage their house and they end up stealing from them. So, they just have a lot of people with addictions just have absolute train wrecks of lives behind them. And so, this is also filled with lots of guilt and shame and denial and suppression, all kinds of crap.
So, one of the really interesting things is what I noticed as a clinician is that when people get through Step nine, things become a lot easier. So, what they do in Step nine is they go and make amends. So, literally what they do is they make a list of all the people that they've wronged, and then they will call up all those people or do their best to get in touch with them and own up to their mistakes, apologize. And then, you know, other people will yell at them, some people will thank them, whatever. You kind of have to like go through that process. And then, once you're done with that, it feels really liberating, and then sobriety becomes way easier.
So, what's happening in the brain? How is it possible that apologizing to a bunch of people actually helps you develop the willpower to resist that addiction? It turns out that our brain has something called a cognitive load. So, you can kind of think about this as RAM. So, your brain can only handle so much stuff at the same time. And if you kind of think about all these people that you've wronged, if I ask you, if you're an addict, let's say, or I would ask my patients, "Hey, who have you screwed over?" And they can immediately, the brain can come up with all kinds of answers. I screwed up this, I screwed up this, I screwed up this, I screwed up this.
So, if you stop and think about it for a second, what that means is that all the mistakes that these people have made, they're actually keeping track of. Your brain is actually has it's like these old days, I don't know if you work with like old people who use computers and they have like a thousand different tabs open and it really slows down their machine. This is literally what happens in an addict's mind. Every time they've wronged someone, it's like one, you know, window of Internet Explorer is running in the background and taking up a little bit of RAM and clogging up their machine. So, anytime they try to do something or overcome an addiction, their brain is so lagged that they can't actually leverage cognitive resources to overcome the addiction.
So, this process of Step nine is actually going back and closing off all those windows. As we close off all those windows, our brain no longer needs to remember it because it's checked off, it's done, right? And if you stop and think about what are the things that your brain remembers? Your thing, your brain will keep track of things that are not complete. So, if you need to pick up milk, for example, there's some part of your brain that will use a tiny bit of RAM to keep track of that task. And so, we sort of discover from addiction psychiatry is when our brain starts closing off all those windows, that's when we increase our cognitive load and we can overcome the addiction.
Now, what does this have to do with dreams and how they sabotage your future? And this is where we kind of lean into a little bit of yogic philosophy because the yogis actually discovered this as well. And they discovered a layer even beyond cognition, which is maybe like spiritual cognitive, I mean energy or whatever. And so, what they sort of discovered is that every dream that you have is something that they call an incomplete karma. Every person that you've wronged is an incomplete karma. So, anytime you have a desire, even if you don't satisfy that desire, there is a part of your mind that still wants that thing.
And y'all may have friends or maybe you've gone through this as well where you think about the one that got away, right? You fell in love in high school or maybe like first year of college and you met this girl and like she was amazing, and or met this dude and he was amazing, and then you kind of like go through life and then they, things didn't work out, but there's a part of your mind that holds on to that, right? And so, if you kind of think about as you go through life, how many of these incomplete things does your mind hold? Remember how much does it hold on to? And then at inconvenient moments, you will remember them, right? Because you sort of stop and think about it, how is it that your mind is able to remember that stuff? It's only able to remember that stuff if it is keeping track subconsciously in some way.
And the more incomplete karmas you have, the more times that you said you wanted to do something nice, "Oh yeah, I was supposed to get that person a birthday card," incomplete karma, something that adds to your cognitive load. "You screwed someone over, man, I really should have said sorry," incomplete karma, cognitive load weighs down your mind. All of these tasks that we have will weigh down our mind. As our RAM actually shrinks and our cognitive load is actually heavy, our ability to actually complete tasks actually decreases, right?
So, this is the wild thing. The more incomplete dreams that you have, the more things that you have dreamed for and fantasized about that you have not achieved, your mind stores all of those in your RAM. And the real devastating thing is, as I have a bunch of crap over here cluttering up my mind, my ability to actually realize a dream becomes sabotaged because now my mind is burdened by all this other crap. So, when I actually try to make something out of my dream, I'm unable to because my mind is not free to do so.
So, this is kind of a really interesting concept that a lot of people don't realize. And when I work with people, what I really try to help them do to accomplish their dreams is to help them unburden their mind. And this starts with a very, very simple principle. So, what I'd ask my patients to do is take a list of, to grab a piece of paper and write down all of your regrets and all of your dreams, okay? And then make a huge list of stuff. And then our goal, sometimes they'd feel really scared because they're like, "There's no way I can do all these things at this point in my life. There's no way that I can be an astronaut and, you know, an entrepreneur and this and that." Like, "I can't do all of these things." And they'd feel overwhelmed and they'd retreat from it and they'd like fall into some kind of weird, you know, distraction like Netflix binge or whatever.
So, the first thing that we've got to do to free up our, our cognitive load is to check it off or strike it off. So, if you take that list, try to figure out, okay, which of these do I actually want to do, and which of these will never be done? And strike it through. So, put a line through it. If you were going to give up on something, and even that process of giving up can be emotionally painful, but will actually free you up cognitively. And this is exactly why people get stuck because we don't want to give up on our dreams. We're taught to chase our dreams, not give up on them. We don't realize that chasing a thousand dreams sabotages your ability to achieve any single one.
But if you know what I'm talking about, you'll realize this is exactly what's going on in your life, which that you want so much that you don't even know where to get started. And even when you try to start, even if you try to get started, your mind will tell you, "But what about all of these other things?" And so, it's incredibly paralyzing. So, what we have to do is start by checking it off or striking it off. And each of these is emotionally painful, which is why we haven't done them, right? This is what you really have to do if you want to free up that cognitive load is start by crossing things off your list. Right, GG noob.
And this is where for me, a big one was falling in love. And what I actually decided to do was become celibate. So, I was going to become a monk. So, I was like, you know what? That. And I grieved that part of myself. I was like, "Man, I was attracted to all these ladies and like I wanted to get with them and like I wanted to be like such an alpha and I wanted to be like a pickup artist and I wanted to get laid. I wanted to do all this stuff." And I had to cross all that crap off. I was like, "You know what? Not gonna happen in this life. GG, man. No re."
And so, I decided to become celibate. And the really bizarre thing is, the moment I decided to become celibate, it freed up my mind to actually be with people. So, then when I was talking to a girl, I wasn't worried about getting laid. I wasn't worried about, "Am I saying this right or saying this wrong?" I could actually just be with the person, right? Because all the pressure is off, my mind is free. And then something really weird happened. Women started getting super interested in me. And ever since I sort of figured that out, like I didn't figure it out, but ever since I started doing that, I was like, "Wait, where's all this female attention coming from? This is really bizarre."
So, as I freed up my cognitive load, and people say this about relationships, right? They're just like, "Get to know the person. Like, don't be so in your head, bruh." Or "Don't be so in your head, girl. Like, just, just get to know, just get to know the person." But we can't do that because we have all this crap in our head. So, we got to free that cognitive load. And crossing things off of your list is one way to do it.
Now, for the things that you're left with, right? So, take an hour to like go through that list and really cross off as much stuff as you can. But if you want to hang on to a lot of it, you can hang on to a portion of it. It's going to be emotionally painful. That's okay. But in the back of your mind, if you go through this process, reassure yourself that your ability to achieve your dreams will actually increase, right? That's why we got to go through it.
For the things that are left, I'm going to leave y'all with one other thing that's very helpful, which is the one, five, and twenty rule. So, for the thing that is left, every single day, you're going to do your best to do three things. Complete three tasks. One task that takes less than one minute. One task that takes less than five minutes. And work on one task that takes more than 20 minutes. So, now with some of this cognitive load freed up, what we want to do is focus our energy on these tasks. So, cross one really simple thing off. Cross one thing off that's like, or check off one thing that's really, really simple. Check off one thing that maybe takes a little bit more work. And work on one other goal.
And when I sort of find that people are able to do this, when they cross things off their list, when they let go of their dreams, they can actually start working towards the existing ones. And as they sacrifice stuff off, they're actually able to move forward. And there was something really beautiful happens. In the same way that having too many dreams leads to you being overwhelmed and being unable to start, when you do these two things, the opposite will happen. You will start to actually gain momentum. It'll actually be kind of like dominoes falling over where you complete one task, which gives you a little bit of confidence, then you can complete the next one, and you can complete the next one, and you can complete the next one.
You don't have to do the three tasks, the one, five, and twenty rule, every single day. I would say actually start with five days a week. So, don't do it every day. Give yourself time to rest, otherwise you'll get overtaxed and it'll, you'll just start over. And as you do this, you'll start to gain that positive momentum. And the most beautiful thing is that as you start to discover that your incomplete karmas, the things that you were supposed to do, and by the way, those can be parts of the tasks, right? So, go back and apologize to someone from three years ago that you said you were going to show up at their birthday party and they booked a spot for you and you didn't actually show up. Cross that off of your list. Either give up on it or check it off. Call that person, say, "Hey, I know it may seem small, but three years ago I said I was going to be there and I didn't show up. I'm really sorry about that."
Your mind will feel liberated because even now, if you pay attention, a little bit of cringe, right? You feel that tiny bit of cringe. And what does that tiny bit of cringe do? It causes you to reach towards unhealthy coping mechanisms. And if you're like me, the first decade of your like teenage years to young adulthood, we're filled with cringe. And you're so burdened by cringe that you can never produce, move towards your dreams, because how can someone who is so [ __ ] cringe ever accomplish those dreams? You absolutely cannot.
So, one, five, and twenty. Five days a week. Cross one thing off your list that's one minute. One thing off your list that's five minutes. And move towards something that takes more than 20 minutes. You don't have to accomplish it. As you start to do this, you will notice that your cognitive load is freeing and that you are actually making progress towards your goals. And once you do that, the whole situation starts to change. You will feel better. You will be more productive. It'll be like the complete opposite of being overwhelmed and stuck. So, good luck with it. And it's going to be kind of cringe, but it'll absolutely be worth it. I say this as someone who has had catastrophic date after catastrophic date, who is now half happily married. If it worked for me, it'll work for you.
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