Heres an interesting frame for thinking about the connection between pleasure and addiction. Its not the only frame you can use, but I think its a useful perspective to avoid some confusion. The Experience of Pleasure Pleasure is a frequency of experience. By itself it is not harmful or addictive, just as water isn’t addictive&

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2020/11/pleasure-is-not-addictive/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pleasure-is-not-addictive

The morning I hit a nice milestone for my novel-in-progress, getting it just beyond 30K words, so Im still ahead of schedule for reaching 50K words by November 30th. The daily target of 1667 words continues to work well. Yesterday I added 2050 words, which I think is the first time Ive gone over 2K&

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2020/11/nanowrimo-days-16-17/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nanowrimo-days-16-17

Were halfway through NaNoWriMo 2020, and my novel is now at 26,344 words. Since this is the halfway point – with 50K words in 30 days being the goal – I should be at 25K words now, so Im 1344 words ahead. I think it was a wise decision to get ahead of the 1667&

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2020/11/nanowrimo-days-13-15/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nanowrimo-days-13-15

Desperation loyalty is remaining loyal to a group or identity based on neediness or clinginess, often in violation of more important values. It is a place of stuckness that elevates loyalty to others above the commitment to grow. Its relatively easy to spot this in other people. Its harder to spot this in ourselves. If&

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2020/11/desperation-loyalty/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=desperation-loyalty

Recently I saw a NaNoWriMo participant complaining of running out of inspiration. Their writing had hit a wall, and the lack of inspiration was to blame. That strikes me as an odd and hugely misleading way to think about inspiration, like its a resource that can run dry. Truthfully it never runs dry. Saying youve&

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2020/11/inspiration-doesnt-run-out/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=inspiration-doesnt-run-out

Inc. Magazine shared a recent article about 10 songs that make people happy, based on some findings by a neuroscientist several years ago. I dont normally find Incs articles worthwhile because they publish so many fluffy clickbait pieces (often padding out one minor quote from Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, or Jeff Bezos into&

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2020/11/10-songs-that-make-people-happy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=10-songs-that-make-people-happy

I just finished my 12th day of novel writing for NaNoWriMo. Since I started on November 1st, my novel has grown from 0 to 21,087 words. Ive written 17 scenes so far, so Im averaging 1240 words per scene. While I had some aspects figured out before I began, Im mostly pantsing it as I&

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2020/11/nanowrimo-days-6-12/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nanowrimo-days-6-12

The novel Im writing is set in the future, tentatively in the year 2047, so its roughly one human generation ahead of us. For technology, however, thats many generations ahead. Consider that the first iPhone shipped in 2007 (13 years ago). If you got an iPhone 4S when it first came out, that was 9&

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2020/11/will-ai-make-you-an-addict/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=will-ai-make-you-an-addict

Theres a lot of talk about how supporting Trump may take down the Republican party. Perhaps that remains to be seen, but I wanted to do a little test within my own mind to see what I associate to each of these terms today, at least from a branding perspective. I was curious how the&

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2020/11/is-the-republican-brand-dying/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=is-the-republican-brand-dying

Some people have a high tolerance for lying and falsehood. They can hang out around others who frequently share false information, deliberately or from ignorance, and it doesnt seem to bother them. Either they dont notice the falsehoods, or they arent much affected when they do notice. Im not one of those people. I used&

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2020/11/sensitivity-to-lying/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sensitivity-to-lying

In my extended social circle, some people are calling for unity and healing now that Joe Biden will be the next President. Others arent so sure that healing is really whats needed. The offer basically sounds like this: Its time to repair the wounded relationships between the people who supported a lying, racist sociopath for&

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2020/11/does-the-usa-need-to-heal-now/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=does-the-usa-need-to-heal-now

While you can do lots of different 30-day challenges solo, consider that you can also do them with a relationship partner. Rachelle and I often do 30-day challenges together, especially with other Conscious Growth Club members. This month were doing NaNoWriMo together, so were each writing novels by chipping away at the word count day&

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2020/11/one-minute-relationship-challenges/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=one-minute-relationship-challenges

Here are my latest progress updates for my novel: Day 4 I had a very pleasant writing session on this day, now at 6872 words total. I’m starting to enjoy this more as the scenes are coming together, and I’m getting more familiar with the key characters. I spent some time organizing the manuscript scene&

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2020/11/nanowrimo-days-4-5/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nanowrimo-days-4-5

So lots of people are asking: Why is the counting so slow in Nevada? Ive lived in Nevada since 2004, so I was curious about this too. Youd think the home of Las Vegas would be superb at counting – money at least – and the population of the state is only about 3 million&&

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2020/11/heres-why-nevadas-ballot-counting-is-so-slow/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=heres-why-nevadas-ballot-counting-is-so-slow

Four days ago I posted a simple obedience test. Im still getting more responses each day, but it looks like the patterns have become clear enough to share what Ive learned thus far. The basic idea was that I commanded people who read that post to read 5 more articles from my website on that&

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2020/11/obedience-test-results/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=obedience-test-results

On Day 2 of NaNoWriMo, I wrote 1743 more words, so Im at 3439 words for my novel so far. Today Ill pass 5K words. While the challenge is technically to write 50K words in 30 days, Im framing it as a daily commitment to write at least 1667 words per day. So Ill surely&

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2020/11/nanowrimo-day-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nanowrimo-day-2

I did my first day of NaNoWriMo yesterday, writing the first 1696 words of a new novel – basically one full scene from start to finish. It took an hour with a 10-min break in the middle, so it was 50 minutes of writing time. And oh it’s bad – so hideously bad – but&

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2020/11/nanowrimo-day-1/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nanowrimo-day-1

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) begins today, and this is the first year Im participating. Shortly after posting this, Im kicking off a 30-day challenge to write at least 50,000 words of a novel this month, which works out to 1667 words per day. Heres how Im framing it: Ive never written a novel before,&

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2020/11/starting-nanowrimo/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=starting-nanowrimo

I want to try a little experiment today regarding something Im curious about. This test is valid on whatever day you read this post, not just on the day I originally publish it. This is a simple obedience test. Im going to command you to do something – just a simple command with no extra&

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2020/10/a-simple-obedience-test/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-simple-obedience-test

Heres my prediction for the U.S. election, which is just 4 days away& and also some predictions for what I think will happen in the months after that. I expect that Biden is going to win by a landslide and that its not even going to be close. Yes, Trump and the Republicans will continue&

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2020/10/my-2020-election-prediction/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=my-2020-election-prediction