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What are the psychological benefits of having ritual practices?
Rituals are a series of actions performed in a specific order and are often part of a larger symbolic system. The oldest known evidence of rituals is the burial of loved ones, with the ...
What are the psychological benefits of having ritual practices?
Rituals are a series of actions performed in a specific order and are often part of a larger symbolic system. The oldest known evidence of rituals is the burial of loved ones, with the oldest example being a Neanderthal woman buried in Israel around 130,000 years ago.
Today’s conversation will reveal why most world-class high performers, from Barack Obama, and Serena Williams, to Tom Brady, have weird and quirky rituals to sustain their peak performances.
Dr. Michael Norton is a Harvard Business School professor, leading behavior scientist, and best-selling author.
Michael’s research focuses on behavioral economics and well-being, with particular attention given to happiness and spending, income inequality, the IKEA effect, and, most recently, rituals.
Expect to learn about why most peak performers have rituals, the ritual effect, the unexpected costs to optimization, how rituals help with uncertainties, the practical applications of rituals, how to improve your life using rituals, and much more in this critical thinking podcast episode.
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Show Notes
Mike’s Website: HERE
Mike’s LinkedIn: HERE
Mike’s new book, The Ritual Effect: HERE
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Discover More: The Rituals of High Performers
Discover more is a podcast for independent thinkers who appreciate the importance of nuances with mental health is a throughline. Todays conversation will reveal why most world class high performers have weird and quirky rituals to sustain their peak performances.
Why Do World-Class Performers Have Weird Rituals?
Most world class performers have some sort of a weird rituals to help with their performances. Mike: Why do rituals make us who we are? Mike: It's not just for famous people. It's for all of us. Rituals are incredibly important.
The Search for Meaning in Life
Meaning is one of these, to me, very slippery concepts. We do all kinds of things to have a sense of meaning, including pick work that's inherently more meaningful to us. Another way that people seem to very often turn to for meaning is via ritual.
What are some detriments of money in life?
Making more money is not so bad. However, it also is important the way you use your money. Are you using it to buy yourself stuff, or to connect with other people? What else can we do with our time and with our money that might pay off in more happiness or more meaningful?
What is wabi sabi in Japanese?
What is wabi sabi in Japanese? The beauty is in the fact that they were broken. Sometimes, for example, struggle can generate a lot of meaning in life. Sometimes forgetting things is a way to rediscover them in ways that are very meaningful.
What are the Rituals of Grief?
A big part of grief is remembering and honoring people. Sometimes what rituals help us to do is literally bring back things that are gone. Rituals don't have to be fixed and inflexible. It's all about how can it benefit your life.
Habits vs Rituals
Mike: How are rituals different from having consistent habits, which produce psychological benefits and practical rewards? Mike: We should definitely have good habits, but there's more to life than just executing our habits. The same habit can be embedded with more emotion and more meaning than just checking stuff off a checklist.
Have You Optimized Your Life?
Routine fosters productivity, but novelty creates inspiration. We tend to optimize things that we can count well or track well. But are you optimizing overall on your goals and on your values?
The Relationship between Uncertainty and Rituals
The relationship between uncertainty and the power of rituals is strong. One of the ones that I find most fascinating is the emergence of rain dances across the world. Is it a very wise idea for cultures to create rain dances under the conditions of uncertainty?
Loneliness epidemic discussed
In some cultures, traditional rituals or religious rituals are a little bit on the decline. When we lose rituals like that, what we lose is forced, yes, but it's also genuine. Are you going to replace Christmas or Easter or Thanksgiving?
The 3 Spaces of Addiction
One of my favorite concept from sociology is called the third space. Church has been a very solid third space for Americans, but now third space is dying. If you do not choose your suffering and addictions intentionally, those addictions and suffering will come find you.
Why New Year's Eve Rituals Make Me Happy
I've actually harnessed the power of anticipation when I have cravings. Most couples are happier before they head out for the new year's Eve event. Rituals help us to remember sometimes to celebrate things. Without the official New Year's Eve ritual, we might not bother doing any of it at all.
In the Elevator With Religion: The Immutable Emotions
The six primary emotions, concepts such as awe and longing. Research shows that rituals are one of the things that can really trigger awe. Religion can help us access these emotions that are hard to access. What's required is to take time to find things that might make you feel that sense of awe.
Awareness and the richness of emotions
Mike: How the diversity of emotions we experience influences our overall well being and our overall sense of our lives. Sometimes if you've had all happiness all the time, a little sadness actually can make your life richer and more interesting.
The Importance of Thought Diversity
America is still struggling with racial diversity in 2024. What is the right distribution of people to speak with? This variety of people we talk to is important for our sense of well being. Do you feel like maybe gaining a little bit more micro?
Are We Becoming More Censor in Academia?
A lot of professors are increasingly more concerned about self censorship. It's interesting because the most recent class that I taught was to college freshmen. I wonder if their emotional resilience and their capacity for emotions are also strengthened. It would be great if somebody studied it.
Grief and the rituals of grief
Mike Starr: How do rituals help us confront death and other severe discomforts in our life? He says groups continually come up with rituals to help people manage that kind of grief. Starr: People freelance their own little rituals to keep the person's memory alive.
No More Rationalization for Grief
Bob Greene: Why don't you like the word rational? He says when we think about grief, we don't know how to help you get through it. He says the idea that engaging in ritual is wrong or irrational doesn't feel right. Greene: What would you say to skeptics?
The Power of Pretending God
Most research shows that faith in God or religious faith is a pretty strong predictor of well being. What's subjective is not often objective, but what's objective is not always practical.
Post-Marriage Rituals
Do you pour the milk first or the cereal first? Always the cereal. There's probably an optimal way to load a dishwasher that none of us really know. Even with these little silly things in life, we do build more meaning into them.
Group Ritual Effect
The group ritual effect from chapter eleven reminds me of a similar concept of the mob effect. Ritual does something to the group. It bonds them together and a little bit gives them an impulse toward action. It can also bring us together to do things that we wouldn't otherwise be capable of.
How to Unite the Country
We can either make it more divisive or more unity. What would you encourage us to do so that we can become more collective? If we can find a common pillar that unite us, I think there is hope.
How to Audit Your Life's Rituals
Mike Norton: It can be kind of fun to audit your own life for the presence of rituals. We created a rituals quiz that you can take that shows across different domains of your life. As always, I encourage you to embark on the train of discover more and choose curiosity over fear in the next week.
