Category Archives: Success

Love The Rough Parts

Ups and Downs

Ups and Downs

​Many people start off with a strong goal, and then lose motivation later on.

For example, if you go to your local gym a week after New Year’s, you’ll see that it’s packed with people.

But if you show up a month or two later, you’ll see far fewer.

If you can recall many of the projects you’ve started off in the past, you may notice a similar pattern.

One of the reasons for this may your particular Meta-Program when it comes to motivation.

Some people are motivated to move away from pain. Some people are motivated to move towards pleasure. Most are a mixture of both.

So anytime you start off a project without understanding and addressing both ends of the spectrum, it’s easy to lose motivation.

For example, if you looked at yourself in the mirror and didn’t like what you saw, you’d be motivated.

But as soon as you made a little progress, that negative feeling would have less of an effect. You’re replacing that negative feeling with positive action.

In this case, it’s best to acknowledge that the INITIAL motivation is to move away from something negative, but to keep going, you’ll need to create something positive to pull you forward.

It’s also common to be in a good rhythm, and then get stuck in a rut. Or even take a few steps back.

You’re jamming along, getting small success after small success, seeing that big goal getting closer and closer and BAM!

Something happens, and it seems as though everything’s falling apart.

During these periods, it’s really easy to get discouraged.

However, it’s important to understand that this is part of the process.

One of the tests of “randomness” in any system is whether or not there are “runs.”

Meaning if you flip a coin a thousand times, you’re going to get times when you get ten heads in a row, or ten tails in a row.

This is a statistical requirement. In fact, if you DON’T have runs, then something’s wrong.

So on your way to your goal, you should fully EXPECT to have rough patches. You should only start to worry if you NEVER have any rough patches.

Even in the movies, when things are too easy, the hero or heroine realizes something must be wrong.

Because it’s NEVER easy.

Remember this next time you hit a rough patch. It’s perfectly natural. It’s expected. It’s nature’s way of FORCING you to dig deep and reevaluate your strategy, so you can come up with something even BETTER than what you’ve been doing.

As the founder of Sony famously said, if you want to double your success rate, all you’ve got to do is double your failure rate.

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Do You Feel Trapped?

Stairway To Heaven

Keep Wanting More

​The other day I watched a movie at my local theater.

Pretty funny, but because I showed up a little late, I had to sit in the front row.

Got used to it after a few minutes, but at first it was pretty strange.

I remember when I was in high school I got a “hand me down” pickup truck from my brother.

I was kind of hard to park, but my friend said, “don’t worry, you’ll get used to it after a while.”

If you’ve ever moved into a new place, you know the first couple nights are pretty weird. If you wake up, you’re a little disoriented. You don’t know where anything is. But after a week or so, it starts to feel like “home.”

It’s been said that the older we get, the harder it is to change our routine. Several marketing studies have shown that people in older age groups are much less likely to switch brands unless something drastic happens.

Young kids, on the other hand, are much more willing to try new things.

No matter who you are, or where you are in life, there are things that you still want, need and desire.

Programmed into your DNA is the desire for more. Even just sitting in a chair, you won’t be comfortable for very long.

Our subconscious minds are always looking out into the future in order to try and improve our “state.”

Sometimes this means a small shift in posture. Sometimes this means a dramatic change.

One thing that can trap is oscillating between states of comfort.

It feels like you’re “improving” but all you’re really doing is shifting back and forth.

Sometimes it’s a good idea just to do something different, just for the sake of being different.

One way to avoid the trap of falling into complacency is always reviewing your goals. Make sure you’ve got at least ONE big goal that is AT LEAST a year out. And make sure  you’ve got a few “milestones” in between where you are now, and where you’ll be in a year.

So you can actually look at each day as an opportunity to get a little bit closer.

Anything will work. So long you are doing SOMETHING to move closer, you’ll avoid the complacency trap.

Taking a walk, writing a few words in your journal, talking to one new person a day, ANYTHING is better than sitting around waiting for something to happen.

Once you start taking daily ACTION, then your subconscious will know you’re serious, and start showing you many more opportunities. THAT is when life becomes exciting again.

If you don’t have a goal, choose one. Any one. And get started.

These will help:

The Tipping Point

Create Your Tipping Point

How To Engineer Luck

​I used to go to the gym a lot.

For a while, I was using these stair climbers.

They had a program that looked like you were going up and down hills.

Going up was hard, and when you watched the readout, you could tell when an easy part was coming.

The resistance in the pedals suddenly lessened considerably. You could go a lot faster with a lot less effort.

I remember the first couple times I went rock climbing. Pretty scary to say the least.

But paradoxically, after I slipped a couple of times, it became a lot less scary. I had a buddy who was an expert, and he would always go first. As he climbed up, I’d feed the rope out. He would put the rope through pieces of “protection” so that if he fell, he’d fall until the rope was tight, from his waist, through the “protection” and then back down to me.

But when I climbed up after, slipping was only a couple inches. As the rope was straight from me to him.

So when I did slip a couple of times, I IMMEDIATELY felt the rope holding me. 

Once I had experience that the rope was there to protect me, the fear vanished, and I climbed a lot faster, and more confidently.

If you’ve seen romantic movies, there’s often a time when a couple has a lot of sexual tension. He feels it, she feels it, but both are kind of scared to act on it.

Then when they both act on it at the same time, that’s when the fireworks start. That fear is IMMEDIATELY replaced by a pleasure that has no equal.

If you’ve experienced this, you KNOW what an awesome feeling that is.

Most of the time, resistance, either internal or external, takes a while to get over. It slowly gets smaller, as our courage and fortitude slowly gets bigger, until we get to that tipping point.

But sometimes, it can happen in an instant. Like on the stair climber, or rock climbing or kissing your partner for the first time.

Most people think that these things “just happen.” That when they do happen we are “lucky.”

But in reality, these “tipping points” can be engineered.

Not only engineered, but reproduced at will. Which means you can walk up to anybody, and talk to them in a way that will almost GUARANTEE that tipping point will happen.

When THEIR internal fear vanishes, and the floodgates open.

Now, GETTING to that point takes some time. Some practice. Some mental exercises.

But it IS worth it.

Learn How:

Avoid The Two Tragedies of Life

Don't Get Between These Two

They Both Suck

​One thing your brain is good at is categorizing things.

Scientists have discovered that primitive cultures have an inherent knowledge of different plant species.

They intuitively know which plants, even when they see them the first time, whether they’ll be good for medicine, or eating, or clothing.

Surprisingly, these instinctive categories match up pretty closely with scientific categories.

One of the Meta Programs, those semi-permanent filters we carry around with us, is to sort by similarity, or sort by differences.

Like if you looked at a bunch of shapes, you might automatically see how they were similar to each other, or different from each other.

Knowing how you do this can help. Sometimes sorting by similarity is helpful, sometimes sorting by difference is helpful.

If you always choose “bad” relationship partners, for example, you might be sorting for something similar when you should be sorting for something different.

They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

One way to get out of any rut is to make a pretty big change. Nothing HUGE, like moving to new city, but rearranging all your furniture, or changing your schedule around.

This can kind of shake up the way you look at things, so you’ll see things a bit differently. Start noticing things that are helpful, and suddenly not notice those things that aren’t helpful.

Often times we think we want something, but only part of us does. Or we want only part of what we think we want.

Whenever we’re attempting to manifest something, we often overlook two crucial areas.

One is what we’ll have to give up if we get it. The other is what we’ll have to accept if we get it.

They say there are two tragedies in life. One is not getting what you want. The other is getting it.

Why is this?

Well, if you never get what you want, or never even try, that clearly sucks.

But if you DO get what you want, what then? Sit around and watch TV? Hang out down at the bar and watch TV there?

The truth is that the pursuit of goals is where you’re most happy. When you’re taking action, measuring your results, and getting closer and closer.

Think about this. You’ve got this HUGE goal out there. You figure it may take a couple of years. So you start taking action. Then you start getting closer. Then you come to a FANTASTIC realization.

That original goal is simply to big enough. The closer you get, the bigger you make it, and the further you push it out there.

If you haven’t chosen something BIG, or haven’t started moving toward it, you should.

It’s pretty exciting when you do.

These will help: