“Life is C (Choice) between B (Birth) and D (Death).”
– Jean Paul Sarte
You design your life through the daily choices you make. Where you put your attention most of the time is what your mind gets molded into and is then transformed into who you are. Knowing this, we have the power to look at where we a lot our energy adjust accordingly, learn what works and let go of things that aren’t essential.
Your present condition is the sum total of all of your choices. Your choices are votes to what you are committed to. Also choosing not to choose is a choice, so maybe you’ll start to look at things that you used to ignore or take for granted with more attention.
I find this four way approach to be really helpful because it can be applied to your daily routine immediately. Let’s get to it.
1. Do More of Something
Take a look at the past couple of days. What activities have helped you in achieving your full potential? Have you been meditating, exercising, eating healthy with intention? Maybe try to do more of that. The secret here is making Simple Small Steps. For your meditation maybe increasing the time to another 5 minutes. With lifting weights, adding a couple of reps. For your health maybe adding more health foods into your diet like grabbing more blueberries and avocados while in the grocery. There is power in incremental increase and with consistency, you will benefit from its compounding effect. There is great power in 1 more no matter how small in the right direction.
Action step: What activity are you already doing daily that you will do more of?
Increasing the duration, frequency and intensity.
2. Do Less of Something
Ask your self what activities have you been doing that aren’t serving your highest purpose. It might be making you happy on the surface level but isn’t pushing the needle towards your highest good. An example would be time spent consuming media. Maybe you lessen your Netflix and chill time by 30 mins. You do not need to take it away totally for it is your way of decompressing and recovery which is vital too. The trick here is to asses what’s really important and prioritizing them. Less time allotted to what serves your lower end desires and more time allotted to your higher end desires.
“Easy choices = Hard Life, Hard Choices = Easy Life”
– Jerzy Gregorek
So make those seemingly hard choice of doing the right thing; (more exercises, be more positive, healthier diet, more creativity, more meditation) to improve your life in the long run. It is in the choices where you dedicate your time which dictates your outcome and direction in life. It is how you create and live your life after all.
Action step: What thing do you do daily that you will do less of?
Decrease its duration, frequency and intensity.
3. Stop Doing Something
As you start looking meticulously at your day to day, logging in your habits and watching yourself. What activities that aren’t for your highest good that you are ready to let go of? Maybe throughout your life some habits or frames of mind have proven themselves of no use to the person you are intending to become? Try letting go of them gradually leading up to totally. Doing less and less as we have discussed in Number 2. Then in this step you totally let go of them. Imagine them as your old garment that don’t suit your style anymore. Say “Bad habit of such and such, I no longer need you, thank you and goodbye”.
Action step: What bad habit that you are lessening and now completely letting go?
Acknowledge it, honor it and say goodbye to it!
“Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.”
– John D Rockefeller
4. Start Doing Something
In studying these mental models, habits and self help articles, you now know that anything and everything can be started and it is up to you to head on out and do it. 100 push ups a day? Start with one. Writing a book? Start with 1 page. Learn an instrument? Book some lessons. One trick to starting is booking and investing time and money for it. Starting a blog? Invest in a domain and hosting. If you invest time and money, you are more likely to take it seriously. So ask your inner self through silent pondering and act on it.
“If you talk about it, it’s a dream. If you envision it, it’s possible. If you schedule it, it’s real.”
– Tony Robins
“A year from now you may wish you had started today.”
– Karen Lamb
Conclusion
- What are you doing more of?
- What are you doing less of?
- What are you gonna stop doing?
- What are you gonna start doing?
Reference: Jim Kwik
thanks for being here, Namaste 🙏