There is a plague infecting our society at it’s roots; and I’m going to give you the cure.
The average person in the world today is nothing more than a zombie. Yeah, they may be, “alive”, but they certainly aren’t living.
People are held in chains by external expectations. The well-trodden path.
I have traveled around the entirety of the United States this past year, and everywhere I went I saw absolutely no ambition. No desire to improve one’s station in life.
You can see it in their eyes. A glazed-over look of expecting nothing more than to be average for the rest of their lives.
NO MORE.
This year, you are going to cast away those chains of low expectations and rise up; and you’re going to do it all on your own merit.
2016: A Year of Discipline and Growth
The reason that most people crash and burn in their resolutions to better themselves is that change is HARD. You are the sum of your habits, determined entirely by what you always do. We can change our habits, but it requires us putting in work.
Change requires discomfort, which puts us out of our natural state as human animals, always seeking comfort.
Change just is not fun; but we can overpower its discomfort by learning to enjoy the process.
There are three big keys I’ve identified to enjoying the process of bettering yourself. I’m going to give them to you, but you will need to put the work into following them.
Following through with change requires:
- Defining Your Purpose
- Understanding Why We Quit Habits
- Maintaining Your Motivation
- Focusing on the Discipline
Defining Your Purpose
We’ve extensively covered how to find your purpose in a different series here at Logic Central Online, but the biggest questions you will need answers to in this resolution season are, “Why am I doing this?” and, “Is this in line with my ideal self?”.
The answers to these two questions will be your own personal mantra for the next three months; long enough to solidify your resolution into your lifestyle.
“Why am I doing this?” keeps in your mind the reason you decided to change something. It’s like the motivational Wolf poster on your wall, silently screaming Conquer at you, reminding you to put in your all.
In order to stick to our New Year’s resolutions, we need to constantly keep in mind that feeling that inspired us to begin them in the first place. Whether it be that dissatisfaction with ourselves when we look in the mirror after a holiday season of destroying our bodies, or even discontentment with our work ethics through the depressing fall season; you need to hold that in your mind because it will keep you consistent on your path to self-betterment.
Why is it So Easy to Quit a Habit?
Laziness is the baseline of human nature, animal nature. Every living thing is programmed to do as LITTLE as possible while still remaining alive and reproducing. It is hardwired into our bodies to take naps and have sex all day every day unless we’re hungry or being rained on.
And so we are programmed by nature to quit any habit we pick up.
How do we maintain them?
Realise that when we mindfully choose a habit in which we are working towards success every day, we are chipping away at that mountain path to the top. Creating a habit that brings you towards success automates your day, freeing up precious brain power to create and plan for future creations.
My morning ritual comprising of dragging myself upstairs to drink a cup of coffee and read a few articles ensures success and creativity.
If I follow a habit every day, I add weight to my scale, tipping me in the direction I always go.
This is great so long as your habit is chosen mindfully.
My morning cup of coffee suppresses my appetite, allowing me to fast until lunch; and it stimulates my mind, launching it into a creative atmosphere.
Loading new knowledge into my mind’s hard drive allows it to mix around like a drop of food coloring in a glass of water; meshing with my other ideas and creating little idea babies.
Maintaining your Motivation
There is a concept in Marketing called pain points. These are points in your marketing which could potentially cause the prospective customer to move on from your product. In order to make the sale, you must first address the pain points and smooth them over by preemptively explaining why your product is the best solution to their problem.
Maintaining your motivation to better yourself is just like smoothing over pain points in marketing.
In order to stick to your resolution, you must remove all of the potential obstacles that would cause you to put in more willpower than is absolutely necessary.
For instance, if you are choosing to diet, you will remove all of the sugary drinks and snacks from your house, and you’ll stop buying them when you go to the store. It requires a lot more willpower to go out and buy a Coke than it does to walk to the sink and get a glass of water when you don’t have any Coke in your house.
Addressing your pain points before they even come reduces the amount of discipline you will need to exercise and creates leverage against yourself to succeed.
Maintaining your motivation is simple when you take the EASY route and remove the hard parts of your resolution.
Focusing on the Discipline
The final, most imperative part of holding to your resolutions is focusing on the discipline.
We’ve already removed many of the obstacles that would force you to expend precious willpower, but there will always be those little things that require you to be disciplined.
Even getting out of bed in the morning often demands a large amount of willpower to move your tired body.
The key to conquering this last little bit of resistance is to make your resolution a measurable metric to consistently overcome.
I find that setting a specific goal to reach on a consistent basis helps me gamify my life; making discipline fun.
This year, I want to develop my copywriting and web development skills. In order to do that, I will spend 1 hour per day writing copy, and 1 hour per day reading business books that I can apply to my development.
If I achieve my 2 hours of self-improvement every day for a week, I will reward myself with a weekend of hanging with my friends and maybe a cheat meal.
If your goal is to lose 10 lbs by the summer beach season, your metric could be to spend 45 minutes per day either doing High Intensity Interval Training, or lifting heavy; and if you reach it every day during the regular work week, you can reward yourself with a rest day and a big cheat meal as long as you fast until lunch time on that day.
Finis
Self-Improvement is one of the noblest pursuits one can take on.
There is no other way to actually LIVE than to desire it, and take it for yourself.
Becoming better oftentimes simply needs a little push to get you going in the right direction.
If you take the tools I’ve given you and apply them to your life, I guarantee that you will be successful in your desire to be harder, better, faster, and stronger.
P.S. Email me at Brandon@logiccentralonline.com with your stories. I want to hear how you’re going to kill your inner zombie.