I regularly go on weekly fasts from anything that's beginning to control me— sugar, YouTube, even certain thought patterns I catch myself spiraling into. The moment I notice I'm reaching for something compulsively rather than choosing it consciously, it becomes a clear sign that my thinking and productivity are also degrading unconsciously in the background. When we're not in control of our inputs, we lose control of our mental clarity.
Clear thinking—connecting past, present and future coherently—is how we turn intentions and lessons into progressive and positive actions aligned with our goals. Having removed YouTube (video scrolling) I feel I removed a burden on my brain! The constant stream of quick dopamine hits was fragmenting my attention span and making deeper work feel unnecessarily difficult.
But I'm eager to share a paragraph finely written by Michael Singer that captures why we feel almost overwhelmed with choices and decisions—and why it can be so hard to continually make choices that align with what we want or have planned:
The inside of one's psyche is a very complex, sophisticated place. It is full of conflicting forces that are constantly changing due to both internal and external stimuli. This results in wide variations of needs, fears, and desires over relatively short periods of time. Because of this, very few people have the clarity to understand what's going on in there… As a result, we find ourselves struggling just to hold it all together. But everything keeps on changing—moods, desires, likes, dislikes, enthusiasm, lethargy. It's a full-time task just to maintain the discipline necessary to create even the semblance of control and order in there. — The Untethered Soul
Singer's insight explains why good decision-making feels so exhausting. We're not just choosing between external options—we're navigating the internal weather system of competing desires, fears, and impulses that shift throughout the day. The key isn't trying to control this complexity, but developing practices that create space between these conflicting forces and our actual choices.
Here are three safeguards that directly address this challenge:
1. Movement Without Distraction
Regularly make time to walk without your phone, run without music, or cycle in silence. The physical side-effects strengthen your immune system, but the core benefit is returning home to your work or project feeling lighter, more certain of what you want to do—or DON'T want to do—for that project, decision, or week.
2. Daily Writing
You don't need to write books or essays, but simply writing what you are thinking and feeling consistently will build clarity over time. This directly addresses Singer's observation about the difficulty of understanding "what's going on in there."
Writing forces you to translate the swirling mess of internal experience into coherent language. The act of choosing words makes you choose between competing thoughts and emotions. Over time, patterns emerge. You start recognizing which internal voices represent genuine insight versus anxiety, past conditioning, or momentary mood fluctuations.
3. Deep Breathing as Mental Space
It's almost tragic how we underestimate the power of breath. When you're frustrated and angry, if you had a video recording of your breathing, you'd be starkly surprised how shallow and constrained it becomes right before you rationalize, fight back, or make reactive decisions.
Deep breathing doesn't eliminate the conflicting forces—it creates space around them. This is why professionals make daily meditation their routine. Feelings like spotlight pressure, public speaking nerves, and anger thrive when our breathing is constrained, because shallow breathing signals to our nervous system that we're in crisis mode, making clear thinking nearly impossible.
When you breathe deeply before making decisions, you're not just calming down—you're creating the physiological conditions where you can observe those internal conflicts rather than being hijacked by them.
There are many other safeguards, but this week, see how you can practice one of the above. The goal isn't perfect control over our internal complexity—that's impossible and exhausting. The goal is developing the clarity to make choices from a centered place rather than being swept along by whatever internal force happens to be loudest in the moment.
This is how we nurture clear thinking and productively utilize our hours and attention on things that move us forward.
Cancelo Alvarez
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