Every goal I ever achieved, or came close to achieving, was simply the answer to a question I was obsessively asking myself. Questions have the power to shift your focus instantly and fill you with energy and inspiration. The first thing you need to do is identify the questions you are currently asking yourself. Which questions consume you on a daily basis? Are they productive? If not, change your questions. You control the questions you ask. Use questions to stay focused on your new direction in life. Throughout the day, ask yourself, “What is my purpose?” “What are my core priorities?” and “What is my story?” Avoid distractions by asking, “What is the most important thing I can do right now?” and “Will this matter in a year from now?” Stay positive by asking, “What’s great about this situation right now?” Use quality questions to get quality answers and quality results. Black Hole Focus: How Intelligent People Can Create a Powerful Purpose for Their Lives Less but better. A more fitting definition of Essentialism would be hard to come by. The way of the Essentialist is the relentless pursuit of less but better. It doesn’t mean occasionally giving a nod to the principle. It means pursuing it in a disciplined way. It is about pausing constantly to ask, “Am I investing in the right activities? Only once you give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, can you make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter. There are far more activities and opportunities in the world than we have time and resources to invest in. And although many of them may be good, or even very good, the fact is that most are trivial and few are vital. The way of the Essentialist involves learning to tell the difference—learning to filter through all those options and selecting only those that are truly essential. Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential. The way of the Essentialist means living by design, not by default. Instead of making choices reactively, the Essentialist deliberately distinguishes the vital few from the trivial many, eliminates the nonessentials, and then removes obstacles so the essential things have clear, smooth passage. In other words, Essentialism is a disciplined, systematic approach for determining where our highest point of contribution lies, then making execution of those things almost effortless. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less When you truly know what you want, and that what you want is worth having, you’ll find all your internal resources aligning. The interesting thing about the mind is that if you take a brain and cut it open, you can’t find the mind. You can’t find a poem or the taste of chocolate or the feeling of a first kiss or the music from the prom dance. All you find is a bunch of nerve tissue. The nerve tissue in your brain acts as a substrate. It’s almost like your computer. It acts like your hard drive or your motherboard, and basically it’s designed to store various bits of data and to assemble, reassemble, and rearrange them and call them up whenever you want. When people do things that are not good for them—and it doesn’t matter whether it’s biting their fingernails or committing serial murders—they are doing what they are doing because some part of them thinks it’s essential. A part of them believes that it’s necessary for survival, for their well-being. While some behaviors may not be sane, healthy, or anything most people would condone, it’s important to understand that in that individual’s worldview, in their mind, that behavior is absolutely necessary. The two things I’d like you to hold in mind are that there is no such thing as an inner enemy and that behind every behavior is a positive intention. Your mind—as well as everybody else’s mind—is operating the best way it currently knows how. It may be wrong and it may need an adjustment, simply because most brains decide how to operate when people are four or five years old. Understanding that we all live in and operate from a personal model of reality is the key to making our lives better serve us. NLP: The Essential Guide to Neuro-Linguistic Programming Fear is recorded at the cellular level. It is a memory of every seemingly life-threatening experience they ever had. It was born of a time of absolute dependency and helplessness. It originated in not having their needs met in a timely, judicious manner. It was fostered by fearful systems that discouraged risk and rewarded conservatism. It was heightened by the reality that life is messy and chaotic and any kind of change promises a journey into the unknown. I call this kind of fear, Memory Fear. Because of the memory fear created in childhood, Nice Guys still approach the world as if it is dangerous and overpowering. To cope with these realities, Nice Guys typically hunker down and play it safe. As a consequence of playing it safe, Nice Guys experience a lot of needless suffering. Suffering because they avoid new situations. Suffering because they stay with the familiar. Suffering because they procrastinate, avoid, and fail to finish what they start. Suffering because they make a bad situation worse by doing more of what has never worked in the past. Suffering because they expend so much energy trying to control the uncontrollable. No matter what happened, he would handle it. The following week, Nolan proudly announced that he had contacted an attorney. Even though he felt tremendous fear and anxiety, he found courage in repeating his new found mantra: "I can handle it." Facing present day fears is the only way to overcome memory fear. Every time the Nice Guy confronts a fear, he unconsciously creates a belief that he can handle whatever it is he is afraid of. This challenges his memory fear. Challenging this memory fear makes the things outside of him seem less threatening. As these things seem less frightening, he feels more confident in confronting them. The more this confidence grows, the less threatening life seems. List one fear that has been controlling your life. Once you decide to confront the fear, begin repeating to yourself, "I can handle it. No matter what happens, I will handle it." Keep repeating this mantra until you take action and stop feeling fear. No More Mr Nice Guy |
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