فصل 09

Chapter 9

Where Next?

“It’s this simple, in order to improve your internal world, you have to start by taking action in the external world. Get out of your mind, and get out into your life.” I’ve given you seven personal assertions.

“I Am Willing”

“I Am Wired to Win”

“I Got This”

“I Embrace the Uncertainty”

“I Am Not My Thoughts; I Am What I Do”

“I Am Relentless”

“I Expect Nothing and Accept Everything”

Each of them plays into a theme. You may not immediately see it, but it’s there.

If you want your life to be different, you have to make it happen. All of the thinking or meditating or planning or anti-anxiety medication in the world isn’t going to improve your life if you’re not willing to go out and take action and make changes. You can’t sit around waiting for the right mood to strike to for life to play out the way you want it to. Nor can you rely on positive thinking alone to transform things for the better. You have to go out and do.

One of the ironic things about developing our mind and our mindset is that it can actually keep us from acting on the things we really need to act on. You can become a personal development drone. You know tons of cool shit but it’s made little or no difference to the trajectory of your life.

We think, “As soon as I get rid of my worry or discomfort, I’ll start dating again”. Or, “When I find the root of my procrastination or when I find something to motivate me, I’ll be completely unleashed and happy”. The desire to work on our “procrastination” just leaves us stuck in the cycle of procrastination/not procrastination and keeps us even further from forwarding our actual lives.

We’re waiting on that moment or experience when everything in our mind is just perfect. Our thoughts are clear, our emotions our positive, and our anxiety or worry has completely disappeared.

When we feel “off”, we put our lives off. That’s right, you’re waiting on a feeling.

Life doesn’t work like that. There is no perfect mood. And while you’re waiting on it to improve and miraculously make your life better eh, guess what? Your life isn’t getting any better! None of these assertions are going to make your life easy. Hell, for a while, it’s more than likely to make your life harder! Nor is it enough to simply internalize them. You need to act on them.

It’s this simple, in order to improve your internal world, you have to start by taking action in the external world. Get out of your mind, and get out into your life.

YOU’RE GOING TO DIE

“If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life – and only then will I be free to become myself.” - Martin Heidegger

One day, you’re going to die. You’re going to stop breathing, become still, and cease to exist. You will exit this physical plain. Whether it’s tomorrow or twenty years from now, it’s going to happen.

We’re all mortal. There’s no escaping it. You might find discomfort in these words or resist the notion of your demise but if it’s truth you’re after, that’s the one truth you just cannot argue with. You are going to die.

Imagine that you’re on your death bed. You hear the beep… beep… beep of the monitor nearby. Your health is critical, and you’ve only got a few hours to live. You can feel your heartbeat and energy slide.

As you lie there, you start to look back on your life. You never made the change you wanted. You stayed stuck in that same job, that same relationship, that same overweight body until now, the day you die.

You read books, but you never applied them. You planned diets, but you never followed them. You told yourself what you were going to do, psyched yourself up a thousand times, but you never did it. You started dozens if not hundreds of life changing escapades and then wilted.

As you lie there in your hospital bed, loved ones cycling in and out over the course of the day, what do you feel?

Regret? Remorse? Sorrow? What would you give if you could go back to this moment—the one in which you’re reading this book—and do things differently? If only….

Dammit, WAKE UP! The regret will course through your body, your mind, your heart. It’ll be crushing. Unbearable. You’re not sure whether to fear death or to welcome it, just so it can take you out of this misery.

Here’s the thing: future you is not going to regret a lack of achievement or the absence of any one thing in your life. The only thing you will regret is not trying. Not striving. Not pushing through when the going got tough.

Not all mountaineers make the summit, sometimes they turn back, re-tool, keep coming at it. They’re just never satisfied with standing at the bottom, hanging out with all the other non-climbers and explaining their lack of ascent. No, they packed up their tent and moved forward, and they will pass from this world knowing they gave every ounce of their effort. That they played full out. They loved the climb.

You won’t regret not making a million dollars, you’ll regret never starting that business or quitting that lousy job. You won’t regret not marrying a supermodel, you’ll regret staying in that dead-end relationship when you knew you could do better. You won’t regret not looking like a bodybuilder, you’ll regret stopping at the drive thru every night on your way home and living a lie.

And this will happen to you. You will die. You will go through all of that on your own, in the quiet solitude of our own dwindling consciousness.

Unless you take the action that’s needed to change, to build the life you want, the life you can be proud of.

STOP BUYING YOURSELF OFF

We’re constantly buying ourselves off. We have all kinds of things we tell ourselves about why we “can’t”.

I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. But you can. These are all just excuses. You promise yourself all kinds of new actions, you put them off with a litany of reasons and end up within nothing more than a growing relationship to yourself as a bullshitter!

You’re way more likely to sell out on yourself than anyone else!

The only difference between you and the person who’s living the life you want is that they’re doing it. They’ve built that life, and they’re living it.

They’re not smarter, more mindful, stronger, or any of that stuff. They don’t have anything you don’t. The only difference is that successful people don’t wait. They’re not waiting for the “right” moment. They don’t wait for inspiration to strike or for some cosmic event to force them to action. They get up and they do, and they try, and they fail even before they may feel “ready.” They’re flying the airplane while they’re building it. If it falls out of the sky, they’ll piece it back together and try again.

Your internal condition means nothing. It’s just another excuse that you give yourself.to stay out of the risky zones of life. The problem is, those risky zones ARE life! The rest is just existing.

STOP BLAMING YOUR PAST

For those of you that are blaming your past, thinking that holds you back, I invite you to think again. I invite you to confront the notion that what has been is greater than that can be. We all have pasts, some of them are fucking horrific. SO WHAT!!!!????? Before you jump furiously on the offended bus, why is it you show more passion for your past than you do your future? You and I both know no one can free you but you. I’m not just another guy in the diner with an opinion, I’ve coached people with pasts that would make your toes curl. They have gone on to live free and happy lives and you can too.

People become trapped in their past, trapped in their childhood. It’s one of the many reasons we tell ourselves that we “can’t”. It’s an easy way to relieve yourself of the responsibility you have for your current circumstances.

But nothing can stop you from moving forward and being great, if that’s what you really want. It doesn’t matter what happened yesterday or 5 years ago or when you were in 2nd grade.

Just like how we improve our internal by moving to the external, we can forget our past by creating a future. Build something big, something bigger than anything you’ve done.

When what’s in front of you is so bright and so satisfying, you won’t have time to look behind you. Your eyes and mind will be focused straight ahead.

That will draw you out. A big enough, bright enough, sexy enough future, a future so soaked with potential and possibility it’s weight will snap you free from that significant and laborious past.

You may not like everything from your past, but it’s helped shape who you are today, good and bad. That’s right, there is plenty good about you, and that good is enough to get you what you want. That person is fully capable of living the life they want. Nothing will hold you back, if you want it enough and act on it enough.

TWO STEPS TO FREEDOM

If you’re truly ready to change your life, to take hold of that freedom you’ve been missing, there are two things you need to do.

1. Stop doing what you’re currently doing.

Simple, right? Look at the things that are sourcing your problems, the habits that have put you in the situation you are in.

If you don’t get anything done because you’re glued to the couch, binge watching Netflix for hours at a time, or have become a little too attracted to the delicacies of your local Dunkin Donuts, stop doing it. No, seriously, STOP. Now.

Don’t start listing all the reasons you can’t. “But the shows are so good, and I’m so tired after work,” or “I need the small pleasures to keep me going”.

If you can’t even stop watching TV long enough to get your life together, you obviously don’t want to change. That’s basic shit. It’s the bare minimum, to be honest.

So what will it be? Netflix or a better paying career? Donuts or a body you can be proud of? Video games or a loving relationship?

If eating out every day makes you feel like crap, why are you still doing it?

And every time you think you “can’t” stop, that’s just another excuse. You can. You can, and you will. Stop buying yourself off. Stop letting your internal condition dominate the quality of your life. Take back the wheel.

If you continue to be led by your emotions, you’ll only be left with regret. You’ll eventually live that vision, lying on your death bed and thinking “what if?” I’m not saying your emotions and feelings aren’t important; I’m not asking you to turn into a robot. What I AM saying is you need to get those experiences much further down the ladder of importance and act on what is going to make the biggest difference to your life.

One of the common excuses we feed ourselves is, “I want to change my life but…” while watching hours of TV, eating junk food, reaming my way through Facebook etc. Be straight with yourself.

YOU DON’T WANT TO CHANGE! If you did, you’d be doing it! Call yourself out on this shit.

Take a long, hard look at your life. Be honest with yourself, identify the behaviors that are holding you back. You need to use every waking hour of your life to further your cause, no excuses. You’re not any different or any worse off than anyone else. You’re not a fucking special case who needs different rules than anyone else.

You need to make a choice, right now. You’re never going to change your life until you get rid of those things. No more excuses.

1. Start taking the actions to propel you forward.

Again, pretty straightforward, right? Changing your life isn’t just about NOT doing certain things. You’ve also got to put in the work and build the positive habits that will pull you in the right direction.

If you want a new job, go out and apply for one. Get out there and network. Search the classifieds, talk to friends, ask for references.

No, I mean really do them. Don’t say you will, and then don’t. Don’t hype yourself up, then push it off until tomorrow.

“You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.”

• Carl Jung

Take stock of the things you want to achieve. What do you want to accomplish? What do you need to do to get there? Map out the next step – hold yourself accountable, moment by moment by moment to those steps.

These two steps, stopping and starting, are naturally linked. Because psychologically, it’s hard to just quit something “cold turkey”. Especially when it’s an addictive habit, that affects the very chemistry of our brains, like food or sex or drugs or video games.

Stopping your bad habit doesn’t help, unless you replace it with something else, something that actually works in your favor and is an example of the new kind of life you really want to live. It’s about systematically replacing the old with the new, forging a new life for yourself–the kind of life you’ve always wanted.

You have to clear out the bad to make room for the good. Otherwise you’re not going to have enough evidence for that new life. You’re building a case for a new life, item by item. The process has to be thorough and decisive or you’ll always be held back and slowed down on your journey to change, carrying that dead weight.

Quit the TV, the sea of self-help books that you read and do nothing with, excessive eating, sofa camping and procrastination. Replace them with tango classes, book clubs, eating for fuel, bicycle riding and expressing yourself…ANYTHING!

Need support? Get yourself a coach, a good one, the best you can afford. If money’s an issue, join my i365 program, a 12-month journey of personal expansion and power. It’s on my website and you can participate for a dollar a day. A dollar. Like I said, NO EXCUSES!

GET OUT OF YOUR HEAD

“Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action comes, stop thinking and go in.”

• Napoleon Bonaparte

There’s a time for thinking and developing your mind. But ultimately, you’ve got to step up to the plate and put what you to know into action.

All of your assertions play into that. You are willing – to take action. And to embrace the uncertainty that comes along with it.

“I am relentless” doesn’t mean relentlessly thinking or watching TV. It means relentlessly doing. Relentlessly taking action, pursuing your goals, acting and failing and ultimately succeeding.

Nothing that I’ve shown you will make a single difference in your life, unless you act on it. You have to make the difference. Make it happen.

You have to claim your greatness. I’m not going to do it for you. Neither is your mother or your spouse or your neighbor. Confidence won’t save you, the future is not suddenly going to improve, your worry isn’t going to suddenly disappear and your new qualifications aren’t going to make you suddenly assertive or credible. Only you can take a stand for your potential.

Don’t just read this, think about it, and then go on about your life doing the same shit over and over. Apply it.

“I’ll do it later” – no, do it now.

“I’m not smart enough to do that” – cut it out. Stop honoring that shit and act.

Don’t let your mind control you any longer. Stop letting it hold you back with its excuses and distractions and worries.

You are not your thoughts. You are your actions. You are what you do.

And your actions are the only thing separating you from where you are and where you want to be.

This isn’t just about seizing the day, this is about seizing the moment, the hour, the week, the month. This is about seizing your fucking life and staking a claim for yourself as though your life depended on it.

Because, the reality is, it does.