How to improve FAST and NEVER get into a RUT 💪
Another Full Guide
With this full guide I'll help you to never struggle with discipline and never end up in a rut again.
This full guide contains advanced knowledge that you wont find easily.
Its very unlikely that you have heard this advice before.
This guide will help you with: gym, money, business, mental health and every other area in life.
You will become that person where everyone will wonder: "They must be special", "They are so lucky", "How did they improve so much?"
But you aren't special or lucky- you simply know the secrets that you learned through this guide.
Imagine what you could achieve if you never struggled with motivation or discipline.
You would be able to become whoever you want to be and reach your highest potential.
I always struggled with discipline and motivation and was unsure why things started to decline when everything seemed to go well.
But everything changed when I learned this.
I've spent a ton of hours into creating this resource for you.
I am very confident that this guide will help you to get great results.
Read thoroughly, absorb the insights, but most importantly, take action on the steps in this guide.
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Contents:
1: Become the Person Who Achieves Your Goals
2: Make Self-improvement Non-Negotiable
3: Turn Peaks into New Standards
4: Your Inner World Creates Your Outer World
5: Conclusion
6: Additional resources
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1. Become the Person Who Achieves Your Goals
"We are not the highest version of ourselves which we can imagine. We are the lowest version of ourselves which we can accept"
-- Sam Ovens
We don't achieve goals, we achieve characters.
We achieve identities, senses of self that solidify and manifest the things we want.
Stop trying to chase the outcome and start chasing the person you have to become.
Become that person and the goal will happen.
You want to become a millionaire?
Be like a millionaire: Believe you can become a millionaire.
Think like a millionaire.
Act like a millionaire.
Work like a millionaire and you will become a millionaire.
You will become the identity who is capable of achieving it.
Your inner world creates the outer world.
Visualize your ideal-self
Close your eyes and imagine your ideal-self.
What habits does this person have?
How does he think?
How does he approaches challenges in life?
The more detailed you can visualize this character, the more clear your path will become.
To be able to transform yourself into this character its crucial that you let go the idea of 'self'.
Who you currently are doesn't matter.
Who you are is mostly a big mix of stories, experiences, bodily fluids, 'energy' and your own ego.
The question real question you should ask yourself is "Who am becoming?".
You are constantly changing, so why should you be attached to a sense of self?
Start evolving yourself and let go this idea of current self.
Go against it.
Instead of being introverted, try being extroverted.
Instead of always following your logic, try following your emotions.
Instead of being focused on money all the time, try focusing on spirituality.
The point is that you have to learn to be both instead of being in a solid binary state.
The key to evolution is variation.
“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.
Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”
-- Bruce Lee
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ACTION STEPS:
- Think of at least three character traits you need to develop to effortlessly achieve your goals. Think of at least two things you can change right now in order to become a step closer to achieving those character traits.
- Do the Myers Brig (MBTI) personality test (https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test). Find out which type you are and which 4 letters of you have. Write it down and start practising doing the complete opposite of your current personality type.
(There is a lot of information on the website. After taking the test, read through your personality traits and its opposites https://www.16personalities.com/articles/our-theory#aspects)
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2. Setting big goals: Self-improvement becomes a MUST
Improve yourself just because "you want to feel better" usually doesnt last long.
This is because you don't love yourself or a part of you that is deep down within you doesn't love you or believes that you aren't worthy of the success that you desire.
Think about it...
If you truly loved yourself with all your heart, would you ever regress in progress or end up in a rut?
The answer is that you can't truly love yourself fully, unless you are some high level transcended monk.
This may sound very harsh.
But, it's the truth.
To solve this, you need a BIG goal.
Something that is really big, a lot bigger than your current-self.
It also has to be something that you LOVE.
You should make it so big that it even scares you.
A couple examples are:
- a Career
- a Business
- a Child
Lets take a business as an example.
To grow your business you need to grow.
If you love your business and love the people that you're helping with your business, you cant engage in unproductive habits, you cant drink alcohol or waste time on Instagram.
This is because your personal growth becomes business growth.
You must become that identity, capable of scaling a successful business and that identity is free of most bad habits.
An important step into having this big goal is that you have to use the ability to determine if something moves you forward or backwards from the goal.
It either does, or it doesn't.
It's that simple. (Sleep, resting, socialising, meditating, etc.. Is still important)
To achieve the goal that you have set for yourself you just need to have an 'X' number of 'good' actions and a 'X' number of 'bad' actions.
Remember: Create a strong WHY and you'll be able to bear almost any HOW.
=== DREAM/GOAL COMMITMENT FRAMEWORK ===
Go through everyone of these stages of commitment for achieving your dream. (Trust me, this is a fun & important exercise, you don't want to skip this)
- Dream: (think about this for a long time. Get details and take your time)
Allow yourself to dream. Think ahead in the future e.g. : 10 years, 5 years and 1 year, 6 months and 1 month.
Some good prompts to start with: What would you want to do?
How would you look like?
What fun work would you like to do everyday?
Where would you want to live?
What is the average day (from morning till bedtime, in detail)
Tip: Ask ChatGPT or just Google to get more inspirational questions for your dream.
- Define:
Collect more details about your dream.
For example, for the house you want, look online and find a picture and maybe even the actual location.
Define all the details of your dream.
- Declare:
This is something a lot of people skip, but is very important.
If you skip this step its way less likely that your dream will come true.
Tell other people about your dreams.
Tell your family, close friends or even share it with someone from this community. This sounds silly but it has a great effect on your drive to achieve your dreams.
When declaring your dream to someone, you now have the burden/pressure to actually do it.
You are getting put 'on the hook', it becomes your duty to make it reality.
- Decide:
Decide that you're going to get it done.
Full commitment.
No turning back.
- Design:
Design in detail what you're going to do.
For example: What business will you start?
What niche is it in?
How will the business operate?
What is the business going to look like?
What are the different processes?
What is the business name?
(This doesn't have to be perfect or unchangeable, the goal is to make it feel more real)
- Daily Actions:
Plan out the first year, where do you want to be in 1 year?
From there start planning back to each month.
Look at the next month, break it into weeks, what do you have to do the following weeks?
And then start plotting out each day to start things happening.
- Deliver:
Each day you pull out your plan, you know what you need to do right now and today to start making your dream become a reality.
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ACTION STEPS:
- Take time to reflect deeply on (if you haven't already) what you LOVE and how you can make a BIG GOAL out of it. Describe this goal in detail. Write it down and place it somewhere you'll see it every day.
Additional resource: IKIGAI | A Japanese Philosophy for Finding Purpose
- Follow the Dream/goal commitment framework to clearly define your dream and to start pursuing it.
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3. Turn Peaks into New Standards
Your life is filled with ups and downs by nature.
This is true for everyone and you cant avoid it.
In this part I'll teach you how to use this cycle to your advantage instead of being the victim of the cycle.
You can learn to control it, ensuring that your peak will become your new standard.
First, take a good look at the first image. (made by me, using Excalidraw)
As an example I've taken 'saved money' to make it easy to understand and explain.
Remember that this pattern plays into your life EVERYWHERE.
The cleanliness of your room, your income, your school grades and a lot more.
Let's say that this is the chart from 'Joe'.
At the highest point, Joe has saved up $5000 money but he NEVER has less than $1000 saved up.
Once Joe reaches $5000 in his bank account, he feels secure and starts spending more freely and before he knows it, he reaches $1000.
His panic kicks in, he feels pain and regret, he feels disgust that he let it happen AGAIN.
He locks in, starts to work his ass off and aggressively saves up every dime in his pocket.
Joe gets to $5000... Now he feels so comfortable and happy.
Finally!
So what does he do?
He starts spending it and already planned ways to spend it, he thinks why not?
Money exists to be spent! And so, the cycle continues...
=== How do we fix this? ===
So, you might be wondering: How do I prevent this cycle from happening?
And where does it even come from?
I'll explain.
In the last part I told you that you didn't truly love yourself, right?
Well this is the result of that.
Because you can't truly love yourself and there are 'dark' subconscious parts of ourselves within.
It makes it impossible to have an never- ending growth without ever regressing.
So how do you prevent yourself from constantly getting stuck at the peak?
Do you remember the quote from the beginning?:
"We are not the highest version of ourselves which we can imagine. We are the lowest version of ourselves which we can accept"
-- Sam Ovens
We are the average of our cycle and also our lowest standards, and in the example of Joe, his money average is 3000$.
Remember that this cycle is happening in EVERY area of your life. I took 'saved money' as an example because it is very easy to track and to express in numbers.
Before I continue, let me also be clear on one thing: If you think that this doesn't apply for you and that you don't experience this effect, then that means you simply aren't aware of it.
Nobody can escape this effect in life.
It's impossible.
What we can do though, is make it less extreme and more 'controlled'.
We cant solve this issue by focusing on increasing our peaks because like mentioned before, we don't become our highest dreams.
This gives us one option: you need to focus on RAISING your (lowest) standards.
The way to raise your standards is by taking that drive you feel when you are at your lowest (for most of us it is pain/dissatisfaction/disappointment).
Take that feeling all the way upward to your peaks.
Even though you are at your peaks and have achieved 'x' amount of money or income you still experience that drive as if you are at your lowest standard.
This is not an easy skill to master but consciously controlling your drive is a crucial factor if you want this model to work for you, instead of it working against you.
So lets say your goal is to earn 10k/mo.
You need to feel disgusted by it.
You should feel disgusted for not having it and anything below 10k/mo is not good enough.
Your current goal needs to become your lowest standard, that is the only way to truly achieve it.
Don't give into your complacency.
This is the biggest enemy for progress.
Most people fail to recognise this when they are in their peaks.
Become aware of the comfort you feel in your peaks and turn it into a reminder to maintain motivation and feel the drive you would have at the lowest standards.
Celebrate wins but don't let them trick you into complacency.
When you apply this method of controlling the drive, the problem still isn't solved but the result is that the ups and downs will be tilted.
Over time, your highest peaks becomes your lowest standard.
As a result you will get the Self-improving Cyle: SEE SECOND IMAGE.
What can also be observed is that over a long(er) period of time, the ups & downs start to narrow.
This is because you are aware of this cycle in your life and naturally you become more capable of maintaining the drive no matter the results.
It will never be completely gone but you will significantly be less effected by it.
Highly skilled entrepreneurs/millionaires are improving fast because they are great at continuously raising their lowest standards and maintaining the drive.
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ACTION STEPS:
- Find out what your lowest standards are and what your peaks in different areas of your life. Write and/or draw it for as many of your areas as you can think of.
- Set new standards: For each area in your life, define what your new standard is. Commit to never break it ever again. Fight like hell to maintain it.
- (For the dedicated boys): Create a detailed plan on how you are going to maintain these standards and how you are going to steadily increase these standards.
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4. Your Inner World Creates Your Outer World
Your thought shape your reality. If you believe you are bad at math, you will likely avoid practising math and therefore get worse(/bad) results.
If you believe that you're great at sales, you are more likely to approach opportunities with confidence, take proactive actions and achieve good results that also again reinforce your belief.
SEE THIRD IMAGE
"Beliefs > Action > Results > Feedback"
1. Beliefs: Your thoughts create your beliefs
2. Action: Your beliefs drive your action
3. Results: Your actions create results
4. Feedback: Your results provide feedback
These are also called "Mental feedback loops" they either are positive or negative.
They can either build you up to be the best or ruin your life to the point that you want to 'quit living'.
Always learn from the feedback and take massive action again and again.
=== Changing your beliefs ===
Changing your beliefs isn't easy because most of your current beliefs are rooted by years of experiences and feedback.
To change your current beliefs you have to manually overwrite them with new beliefs by repeatedly creating experiences that don't align with your current beliefs and eventually your beliefs will change.
An effective way to do this is through affirmations and visualizing.
To create an good affirmation should have at least these three things:
- Emotion: Experience the feeling of having achieved the affirmation.
- Vivid Image: A detailed mental image.
- Present tense: State the affirmation like you already achieved it.
An example:
I love speaking on public stages and in front of hundreds of people, it makes me feel energetic and meaningful because people want to listen to me.
This is one of my affirmations.
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ACTION STEPS:
- Define and create multiple positive mental feedback loops that align with your dream/big goal.
New belief: ... + Action: ... + Expected result: ...
- Create affirmations that align with your big goal and dream. Use the mentioned framework. Commit yourself to repeat this affirmations DAILY.
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Thank you for making this far.
If you liked what you've just read, let me know (comment) and I will work on making more guides like these (I already have multiple guides in my mind).
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