Thoughts

This article was originally written in Chinese. The following is a generative AI translation for reference.

Core: Building confidence from the inside out.

At the end of 2024, a tarot-reading old lady told me: As someone who wants to start a business, you drew three cards, and this card is something you can act on right now. This symbol tells you that you need to be your self-advocate.

At the time, I didn't really understand. Isn't it just positive self-talk? But after reading a book about Federer recently, I finally felt the depth of the phrase self-advocate.

Federer once said that to win a Grand Slam, you must believe in yourself, play aggressively, and every cell in your body must be 100% convinced you will win. When I compete, I rarely have this mindset, and often lack the fighting spirit to strive (correct attribution is very difficult, and I think I really lack the most important confidence at critical moments). As a result, I lost many matches I should have won.

When I did win a few matches, my mindset had one thing in common: I firmly believed I would win. This belief made me hyper-focused, and the incoming balls on the court seemed to slow down. At the same time, my mind became clearer and my tactics more decisive. It was as if the marks of suppressive education evaporated, I could no longer hear everyone's judgment, I set aside all distractions, and it felt really good, as if I had entered a state of no one else. This feeling is as wonderful as being immersed in Beethoven's symphony, flowing downstream with the river's laminar flow.

Maybe this is flow, letting me be undisturbed and involuntarily pulled toward the end. In flow, I can't help but be my own self-advocate, because in flow I am full of confidence, determination to achieve my goals, and the fighting spirit to go all out. In flow, I don't tell myself to try hard, I tell myself I can win.

To be a self-advocate, start by embracing flow. Flow is a laminar flow you create for yourself.

This article was originally written in Chinese. The following is a generative AI translation for reference.

I previously discovered that flow is a laminar flow you create for yourself. As a basic understanding, it's inevitably very difficult to practice. After self-diagnosing with ADD, I became especially aware of the turbulent flow state inside myself.

The nature of flow is defined by the degree of chaos in your thoughts. Turbulent flow manifests as a tangled mess in your mind, impossible to cut or untangle; laminar flow is layered and clear, and in this state, deep thinking and focus are just byproducts. After all, turbulent flow means chaos, while laminar flow means order. Fluid mechanics tells us that the simplest and most intuitive way to transition from turbulent to laminar flow is to slow down the flow speed.

In an era where everyone's attention is hijacked by smartphones, our thinking is infinitely accelerated, even beyond the critical speed at which we can think clearly, so turbulent flow is the norm. The way to go from turbulent to laminar in thinking is actually not much different from the physical world: slow your thinking (flow speed) down.

Whether it's spending 10 minutes recording a spontaneous thought or reading 10 pages of a book, slowing down your thinking speed can effectively improve the clarity and orderliness of your thoughts.