Loved it! It was little emotional as well - As a person who finds joy in reading short essays.
Another dimension to look at likes - it is also about how many people saw the article!! The more you write, the more social media algorithm markets your article! However - more writing might lead to a race feel rather than a creative job!
Tbh - this relates to every job! The joy and excitement we have in initial days of career will wear off eventually! Not because we age but because of comparison! (rankings, pay bands, desire for promotions)
Thank you Ravali! You are absolutely right – this relates to every job. We're all measured far too much, certainly far more than our dopamine and valuation systems were designed to handle.
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment. I always greatly enjoy your thoughts.
Your reply is SO thoughtful and reflective. Thank you!!!!!!
Your comment here (and writings more generally) remind me how far we can all come with some self-awareness -- and I don't mean that in the "we all need to wake up!!" way, but instead how much our own minds, experiences, rhythms, habits provide a rich and instructive playground for uncovering these brain lessons. Every time I learn something from your writing, it feels both fresh and insightful AND what I already knew to be true, but could not articulate. This comment adds another layer: I also learn about the common thread among all of our experiences. This final layer is comforting in those disquieting moments when you realize that you know the problem and thus own the problem...and need other voices to help you figure out how to work through it :)
You're absolutely right. "Self-awareness" gets used so often it's lost its meaning. Or worse, picked up a woo-woo connotation it doesn't deserve. But the thing underneath it is real: our own minds and habits genuinely are the material we learn from, if we pay attention to them.
"...when you realize that you know the problem and thus own the problem." I'm writing this one down. That's perfect.
Thank you for adding so many more layers to these ideas! Your insights truly are amazing.
Thank you so much for this piece, explanation and resource. Since I’m new to Substack and have only written a few things, the metrics here haven’t caught my attention. But I’m on LinkedIn daily and it is a truly terrifying place to be for your brain, especially since it’s tied to my business success. Now I understand why. I’m so grateful you share your wisdom here!
You are most welcome! I can imagine LinkedIn is even more dangerous when it comes to metrics-chasing. But it sounds like your sense of awareness around it will hold you in good stead. Your creativity is no doubt well protected :).
I imagine you can add a lot of clauses as a preamble to looking at metrics -- so "for someone with this audience size, with a similar stage of growth" could be amended to add: "whose audience likes to savor and really ingest the writing rather than buzz through it" -- which is my way of saying that I enjoy your articles so much because they make me think critically and engage in a lot of self-reflection...but that means I often wait to read them until I know I can focus, creating days-long delays :)
That said, perhaps I am trying to make a more substantive point here...or rather a question...does the mental set-up for viewing metrics have a whack-a-mole quality? Where do you tip from an effectively contextualized mindset (what you present) to a 'protect-my-ego-at-all-costs-via-100s-of-caveats' mindset? The devil may be in the details, too, for perfectionists -- I can imagine a person giving themselves no caveats at all if their internal standard-setting is out of calibration to what is possible because they have disordered expectations of themselves.
Sort of relatedly: I find that the OFC is so disruptive to may daily operations when I try to track things of quantifiable substance -- e.g., hours slept; minutes worked out; calories consumed; time spent in deep work; days where I spend time doing engaged reading -- that I stopped tracking most everything. I discarded all "specific, difficult goals" in my life in favor of two things: (a) devotion to my intuition about what is best for my mind and body, plus lots of dedicated mindfulness practice to figure out *what* that actually means and (b) "do your best" goals rather than specific, difficult goals. For example, this morning I have a block of time for working out. With a "do my best" mentality, I take stock of my energy, fatigue, wishes for how I want to feel later in the day, muscle soreness, etc... and then do my best in the time block. Today that means a rather intense workout; yesterday I did gentle pilates.
I suppose this can sound like nonsense when you're trying to grow a business or meet performance standards set by work. The idea of "intuitive growth" rather than some metric-driven understanding of progress feels quite silly, as I type it out. I wonder at the friction, then, between trying to live a more intuitive life and trying to live a life informed by data. The solution you present here is an elegant one to try to balance the two...not blindly wedding yourself to decontextualized metrics that can create destructive comparison...it's just frustrating [to me!] to not be able to live intuitively in all things as we operate in these competitive spaces.
For example, is there a world in which you use your de-habitizing framework for any external social comparison? Instead, could you use the data to inform choices about topics, but rely instead on questions like (a) am I writing in a values-consistent way and (b) am I "doing my best" with each post given the resources I have to allocate it? if the answer is yes and yes, success is yours; and if not, the OFC will helpfully chime in to let you know that it's time to revise your process....but at least this revision is in service of what YOU want, not some number. This is just a thought experiment -- and one that I am not sure is actually inconsistent with current processes for those who work in this space!! I only suggest it as a way for *me* to process if/how/when to incorporate external metrics in my life.
You flatteringly implied my articles are worth savoring and ingesting, and I want to extend the same compliment back to you and your comments. They truly give me much to think about and I often need time away from the machine to let your thoughts and my own marinate a little. This is me returning to your wonderful comment after a few rounds of marination. (I think I’ve now stretched that metaphor to its limit!)...
You are absolutely right, you can get lost in the clauses and caveats if you’re not careful. (There's that principle called iatrogenics… harm caused by the cure, not the disease. The tighter the system, the more anxiety lives inside it. That’s definitely what we want to avoid!)
Fortunately, I think there is a really simple way to keep the above clauses in check. I ask myself, “Is this a lagging metric, or one that impacts my daily work?” If it’s a lagger, I simply don’t view it daily, but rather shift it back to weekly, or some other interval that better suits its “noise.” (Fitbit and health monitoring belong in this category too, I think.) And when I am in a position to be externally assessed, I make sure to “load” my brain with the appropriate context (as best I can, anyway) before viewing that assessment. Basically, to try to prevent any prediction error from updating deep priors like self-worth. It is all information in the service of learning and growing, right? 🙂
You asked such a great question: "How do I tell the difference between healthy contextualising and ego-defence dressed up as contextualising?" I think the tell is whether the caveat still lets the number inform me. Healthy context adjusts how much weight I give a signal (“This is noisy, so one bad week means little”). Ego-protection uses context to make the signal mean nothing (“This could never reflect on me”). That said, given our modern world is full of opportunities to update self-worth downwards, I think the risk is less that one will explain away a metric and more that one will sadly (and inadvertently) let it update a prior they should try to keep protected.
I love that you also seem to have settled on a strategy I try to adopt myself: tying your identity not to a specific action, but rather a set of higher values that are more “immune” to the day-to-day fluctuations of life. For instance, someone who runs every day and identifies themselves as a runner may feel a hit to their pride if they have to miss a day due to illness. But the person whose identity is based around the value of physical health recognises that that run would negatively impact that value and instead does a gentle walk. Their action aligned with their identity and they feel no hit to their self-worth. Your “do my best” mentality (and eschewing of “specific, difficult goals”) is exactly this – a higher value (e.g. physical health) rather than a more rigid “lower” value of working out every day etc. That’s truly amazing.
Your last paragraph is also uncannily close to how I approach my own work. When I publish an essay, I have two “yardsticks”: did my husband enjoy it, and would the me of 5 years ago have found it useful? If yes and yes, then the metrics actually don’t matter. (This is actually why I have likes and subscribers and restacks etc. masked. They don’t serve any informational purpose. Comments are the only things I care about, for obvious reasons. I wouldn’t want to miss out on the thoughtful observations of wonderful people such as yourself!)
Thank you, Nicholas! You're doing the truly important work though… taking knowledge like this and bringing it to life where it's most needed: in the little minds of the future.
Loved it! It was little emotional as well - As a person who finds joy in reading short essays.
Another dimension to look at likes - it is also about how many people saw the article!! The more you write, the more social media algorithm markets your article! However - more writing might lead to a race feel rather than a creative job!
Tbh - this relates to every job! The joy and excitement we have in initial days of career will wear off eventually! Not because we age but because of comparison! (rankings, pay bands, desire for promotions)
Thank you Ravali! You are absolutely right – this relates to every job. We're all measured far too much, certainly far more than our dopamine and valuation systems were designed to handle.
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment. I always greatly enjoy your thoughts.
Your reply is SO thoughtful and reflective. Thank you!!!!!!
Your comment here (and writings more generally) remind me how far we can all come with some self-awareness -- and I don't mean that in the "we all need to wake up!!" way, but instead how much our own minds, experiences, rhythms, habits provide a rich and instructive playground for uncovering these brain lessons. Every time I learn something from your writing, it feels both fresh and insightful AND what I already knew to be true, but could not articulate. This comment adds another layer: I also learn about the common thread among all of our experiences. This final layer is comforting in those disquieting moments when you realize that you know the problem and thus own the problem...and need other voices to help you figure out how to work through it :)
You're absolutely right. "Self-awareness" gets used so often it's lost its meaning. Or worse, picked up a woo-woo connotation it doesn't deserve. But the thing underneath it is real: our own minds and habits genuinely are the material we learn from, if we pay attention to them.
"...when you realize that you know the problem and thus own the problem." I'm writing this one down. That's perfect.
Thank you for adding so many more layers to these ideas! Your insights truly are amazing.
Thank you so much for this piece, explanation and resource. Since I’m new to Substack and have only written a few things, the metrics here haven’t caught my attention. But I’m on LinkedIn daily and it is a truly terrifying place to be for your brain, especially since it’s tied to my business success. Now I understand why. I’m so grateful you share your wisdom here!
You are most welcome! I can imagine LinkedIn is even more dangerous when it comes to metrics-chasing. But it sounds like your sense of awareness around it will hold you in good stead. Your creativity is no doubt well protected :).
I needed this reminder today. ❤️ It's surprisingly easy to let numbers shape how you feel about your writing, even when you know better!!!
It really is, isn't it? None of us are immune.
Thank you for sharing this.
I imagine you can add a lot of clauses as a preamble to looking at metrics -- so "for someone with this audience size, with a similar stage of growth" could be amended to add: "whose audience likes to savor and really ingest the writing rather than buzz through it" -- which is my way of saying that I enjoy your articles so much because they make me think critically and engage in a lot of self-reflection...but that means I often wait to read them until I know I can focus, creating days-long delays :)
That said, perhaps I am trying to make a more substantive point here...or rather a question...does the mental set-up for viewing metrics have a whack-a-mole quality? Where do you tip from an effectively contextualized mindset (what you present) to a 'protect-my-ego-at-all-costs-via-100s-of-caveats' mindset? The devil may be in the details, too, for perfectionists -- I can imagine a person giving themselves no caveats at all if their internal standard-setting is out of calibration to what is possible because they have disordered expectations of themselves.
Sort of relatedly: I find that the OFC is so disruptive to may daily operations when I try to track things of quantifiable substance -- e.g., hours slept; minutes worked out; calories consumed; time spent in deep work; days where I spend time doing engaged reading -- that I stopped tracking most everything. I discarded all "specific, difficult goals" in my life in favor of two things: (a) devotion to my intuition about what is best for my mind and body, plus lots of dedicated mindfulness practice to figure out *what* that actually means and (b) "do your best" goals rather than specific, difficult goals. For example, this morning I have a block of time for working out. With a "do my best" mentality, I take stock of my energy, fatigue, wishes for how I want to feel later in the day, muscle soreness, etc... and then do my best in the time block. Today that means a rather intense workout; yesterday I did gentle pilates.
I suppose this can sound like nonsense when you're trying to grow a business or meet performance standards set by work. The idea of "intuitive growth" rather than some metric-driven understanding of progress feels quite silly, as I type it out. I wonder at the friction, then, between trying to live a more intuitive life and trying to live a life informed by data. The solution you present here is an elegant one to try to balance the two...not blindly wedding yourself to decontextualized metrics that can create destructive comparison...it's just frustrating [to me!] to not be able to live intuitively in all things as we operate in these competitive spaces.
For example, is there a world in which you use your de-habitizing framework for any external social comparison? Instead, could you use the data to inform choices about topics, but rely instead on questions like (a) am I writing in a values-consistent way and (b) am I "doing my best" with each post given the resources I have to allocate it? if the answer is yes and yes, success is yours; and if not, the OFC will helpfully chime in to let you know that it's time to revise your process....but at least this revision is in service of what YOU want, not some number. This is just a thought experiment -- and one that I am not sure is actually inconsistent with current processes for those who work in this space!! I only suggest it as a way for *me* to process if/how/when to incorporate external metrics in my life.
You flatteringly implied my articles are worth savoring and ingesting, and I want to extend the same compliment back to you and your comments. They truly give me much to think about and I often need time away from the machine to let your thoughts and my own marinate a little. This is me returning to your wonderful comment after a few rounds of marination. (I think I’ve now stretched that metaphor to its limit!)...
You are absolutely right, you can get lost in the clauses and caveats if you’re not careful. (There's that principle called iatrogenics… harm caused by the cure, not the disease. The tighter the system, the more anxiety lives inside it. That’s definitely what we want to avoid!)
Fortunately, I think there is a really simple way to keep the above clauses in check. I ask myself, “Is this a lagging metric, or one that impacts my daily work?” If it’s a lagger, I simply don’t view it daily, but rather shift it back to weekly, or some other interval that better suits its “noise.” (Fitbit and health monitoring belong in this category too, I think.) And when I am in a position to be externally assessed, I make sure to “load” my brain with the appropriate context (as best I can, anyway) before viewing that assessment. Basically, to try to prevent any prediction error from updating deep priors like self-worth. It is all information in the service of learning and growing, right? 🙂
You asked such a great question: "How do I tell the difference between healthy contextualising and ego-defence dressed up as contextualising?" I think the tell is whether the caveat still lets the number inform me. Healthy context adjusts how much weight I give a signal (“This is noisy, so one bad week means little”). Ego-protection uses context to make the signal mean nothing (“This could never reflect on me”). That said, given our modern world is full of opportunities to update self-worth downwards, I think the risk is less that one will explain away a metric and more that one will sadly (and inadvertently) let it update a prior they should try to keep protected.
I love that you also seem to have settled on a strategy I try to adopt myself: tying your identity not to a specific action, but rather a set of higher values that are more “immune” to the day-to-day fluctuations of life. For instance, someone who runs every day and identifies themselves as a runner may feel a hit to their pride if they have to miss a day due to illness. But the person whose identity is based around the value of physical health recognises that that run would negatively impact that value and instead does a gentle walk. Their action aligned with their identity and they feel no hit to their self-worth. Your “do my best” mentality (and eschewing of “specific, difficult goals”) is exactly this – a higher value (e.g. physical health) rather than a more rigid “lower” value of working out every day etc. That’s truly amazing.
Your last paragraph is also uncannily close to how I approach my own work. When I publish an essay, I have two “yardsticks”: did my husband enjoy it, and would the me of 5 years ago have found it useful? If yes and yes, then the metrics actually don’t matter. (This is actually why I have likes and subscribers and restacks etc. masked. They don’t serve any informational purpose. Comments are the only things I care about, for obvious reasons. I wouldn’t want to miss out on the thoughtful observations of wonderful people such as yourself!)
I am at the “pondering a new substack” stage, and I am grateful for your invitation to keep context front and center of mind!
What a great mindset from which to start your writing journey. I think you should go for it :).
Thank you for this creation!
You are most welcome Ally! I hope it helps.
DGM 💕
Once again, I’m blown away!! Limbic dopamine and now OFC. Thank you teaching us about ourselves!
You really know how to engineer intrigue and provide mind blowing knowledge and wisdom.
Thank you, Nicholas! You're doing the truly important work though… taking knowledge like this and bringing it to life where it's most needed: in the little minds of the future.