What are the four things that make changing your life so difficult?
1 Deciding what you want your life to be like
2 Deciding what needs to change in order to get it
3 Overly complex methods of change that require massive amounts of time and effort
4 Not having a workable strategy to get you where you want to be
Some people say you need to be motivated in order to change your life. I disagree. I think when people hit a block they are there not because they are emotionally low. They are there because they don’t know what to do next or they do not have the tools needed for the next step. So they get exhausted trying everything.
Then it of course sounds like a good idea to push harder or to pump yourself up. That only makes you more tired and frustrated than you were before. You end up putting energy in all directions instead of just one or two productive directions.
It would seem that the first logical step would be to decide what you want your life to be like. Most goal setting and change books say that you need to imagine what your life would be like if you were the person you would like to be. How are you supposed to do that? If you are stress, frustrated and drained you can’t make that kind of decision and it is where most people make HUGE mistakes.
Why is that mistake?
They want to be powerful in order to overcome their problem. A super powerful person could handle their problem so they make that their goal. They want to have power over other people so they can’t be hurt. They want special powers to the universe will do their bidding. That is a fragile goal because if you ever fail it disproves your entire goal. It is nothing more than a wishful house of cards that collapses at the first hint of trouble.
This over exaggerated desire is an impossible goal to accomplish since none of those solutions are the real answer to the problems. In reality there is no way you know how you are going to turn out. You can’t make that decision from a state of desperation and fear.
So what is the answer?
We have a different view of motivation. You don’t need to push. One question that seems to be overlooked is: When you are pushing, using motivation, willpower and pumping yourself up…what is it that you are pushing against?
I recently met a guy who was running a seminar who woke up at 6 am to start pumping himself up so that by 10 am he could be ready to teach. That is 4 full hours of motivation, pumping and a full day of willpower in order to get through the day. He said that by the end of day 2 he was exhausted…ya think? He was working so hard to push all day.
To really get what you want you just have to remove the thing that you are pushing against so hard. Then you don’t have to do all that hard work. You don’t need super motivation, super confidence, super energy, super memory, super skills or super anything else. By using those you never solve what is making it so hard. You just get used to working harder than everyone else to do the thing you want to do.
Once you remove the wall you are pushing against then you can use what we call natural effort. Yes all things take effort but at a natural level it does not burn you out. The result is to pick a direction and to be able to move in that direction with natural effort. You will have a natural level of motivation.
Once you get this cleaned up you need a strategy for success. You might already have one that is not working because you have had to push so hard that you gave up on it. Putting a strategy to work is impossible if you are constantly trying to pump yourself up in order to do it. Once you get back to natural effort levels you can start using the strategies for success that you already know.
The other half of this is learning new strategies if you need them. Learning is very difficult if you add pumping yourself up and pushing through fear. It just won’t work. You brain needs to be in a learning state and high emotional states almost completely shut down the brain ability to do that.
If you don’t have a strategy then you will be able to research and find one. One of the things we do in our TLT retreat is to teach the strategies of success. Over the years we have modeled many successful people along with people who fail at everything. When you contrast those two models it becomes very clear what is working and what is not. Then you can make a plan and implement a strategy for success.
Finally I want to talk about success. For some it is financial. For others it is social. For others it is very personal. No matter what you want in your life, cleaning up the obstacles, and getting a good strategy is the key to attaining those goals. It might be something as simple as feeling better about you and who you are. That might mean making changes to become someone you feel good about being. Then you need to know how to get there.
Of course there is the Total Life Transformation Retreat for 5 days at America’s number one beach Clearwater Florida September 4-8
Give it a quick look: https://www.essential-skills.com/3dmind/september-total-life-transformation-retreat/
