"This will be my year."
This is what I used to say at the end of every year. Big promises were made...
"I will quit all my bad habits."
"I will start an online business."
"I will do the things that improve my life."
"I will do nothing that will decrease the quality of my life."
The motivation was always high at the end of every year. It was like turning a new page that was whiter than anything I've ever seen. But the problem with white things is that one single stain can ruin the entire thing. And you also know how motivation just comes and goes, right?...
Every year I managed to steer clear of anything bad for the first two weeks of January, but then the motivation started to wither away. I started to fall back into my bad habits. The stains started dropping fast, and not soon after, the white page felt dirtier than ever.
And to me, that was the end of the world. The moment I made one mistake, the entire thing turned to shit, and I'd say, "Well, there's no point anymore." And just like that, I was back to my old life.
Another year, wasted. This cycle repeated for four years. From 2018-2022. Each year, I had the desire to change. I knew there was a better way of living and I wanted that. Desperately...
So after 4 years of trying and failing, I finally made it happen in late 2022. The reason it took me so long was the lack of clear systems. In these 4 years, I didn't know what to do. I wanted to change but I'd quit 2 weeks after the new year started. (When the motivation started to wither away.)
So what did I do differently that year compared to all the "failed" years?
I started doing deep research on relevant topics, implemented a clear system and a set of habits that allowed me to turn my life around (without quitting the moment I lost motivation).
As you may have noticed, 2024 is approaching and there's just a little less than 2 weeks to go.
I genuinely don't know a better time than this moment right now to set you up for the best year of your life yet.
Let's go!
A year is a long time and it's unreasonable to expect everything to go perfectly. You may slip up on some days. You may take massive Ls on other days. You will do some things you'll regret...
And that's okay. Do you understand that? You do? Good.
Say you break one of your non-negotiables and drink alcohol during the period you said you wouldn't. Don't let that one mistake turn everything into shit. Embrace the mistake, learn from it, and move on.
Don't be like I used to be... A quitter who gives up on his dreams because he made one simple mistake.
Question. Who is responsible for the quality of your life?
If you named anyone or anything other than yourself, you are a VICTIM. You gave away power by blaming something or someone else for the shitty situation in your life.
Victims are at the bottom of the food chain. If they were to be "put in the wild," victims would be eaten first.
Why? Because victims believe that their situation is permanent. They don't even believe that change is possible.
"The world is against me"
"I was dealt a bad hand, it's unfair"
"I was born into a poor country, it's unfair"
"My parents haven't done enough to support"
"There's no point in trying if everyone is working against me"
(Writing these lines is pissing me off)
And so you see, a victim blames absolutely everything and anyone other than himself. That mindset right there is the reason victims never improve. They think someone else should fix their life. They think that it's the universe's fault and that the universe should fix it.
Spoiler alert: no one is going to save you.
The solution to this?
Take responsibility for absolutely everything, even for things that are seemingly not your fault. (Circumstances and accidents)
If you were born into a poor family in a poor country, it's your responsibility to make something of your life.
Because what else are you going to do?
Blame your parents for having a kid?
Blame the universe for bad luck?
What good is that going to do? Yeah, no good.
In these situations, you always have 2 choices:
If you didn't get the girl you wanted, it's your fault. It's not her fault, it's not the universe giving you a hard time, it's always you.
You didn't work hard enough in the gym, you didn't smell nice on the date, you showed up late.
Everything that happens in your life is the result of your own actions and it's your responsibility to deal with it.
Blaming others is a losing game.
What is an ego?
The ego is a false identification of yourself, it's a mental image created and conditioned by the past, the environment, and other factors.
Say you had an awful experience with a beautiful girl that you very much liked, she told you that you looked ugly.
That experience created a false self, the ego. Now that false self believes that it is ugly and if not stopped, starts taking over your life.
It starts controlling you and your actions. It may tell you to spend all your money on fancy clothes or else you feel ugly. It may tell you that without the newest iPhone, you are an embarrassment.
That's the reason why so many poor people do everything they can to look rich. It's their ego, their false sense of self controlling their life, telling them they need all these fancy objects or else they are nobody's.
And the ego always wants more. Once it gets an iPhone, it wants a MacBook, then it wants a car, etc.
If it doesn't get it, you suffer. You feel unworthy, embarrassed, sad, etc.
You need to get rid of that false sense of self. You do that by observing the ego in action, becoming the 'witnessing presence'.
If a beautiful girl is walking towards you and you are unable to look her in the eye and smile, why is that?
Observe what is going on in your brain. Most likely it's the ego telling you that, "You don't have the newest iPhone, don't look her in the eye, or else you will embarrass yourself."
(There are millions of examples of how the ego can control your life, this was one example from my personal experience of seeing the ego in action)
Understand that the ego needs the past to survive. If you realize that your ego is controlling your life, you are holding onto an experience from the past. (A negative one)
Bad date?
Embarrassing experience?
Whatever it is, find what it is and accept it. There's nothing you can do to change it anymore, the best you can do is accept it and be more focused on the present moment.
If you don't, your ego will just keep on controlling you and your life.
Your standards are like a reflection of your life.
If you have low standards you don't see many problematic things as problems.
Low health standards make it okay for you to eat junk, you don't see it as a problem.
If your financial standards are low, you don't see being one paycheck away from being broke as a problem.
But if your lowest standard is to make $5000/month, you see anything less than that as a problem and start shaping your actions to solve it.
Develop high standards in every aspect of your life.
People take action according to the dominating beliefs they have. The problem with that is, most people have been conditioned into false beliefs.
The conditioning starts from the moment you are born. Everything around you influences and shapes your belief system-- society, your friends, your family, etc.
If they have false beliefs, they will transfer them onto you. The most common of them all, "college is the only way to succeed in today's world."
If everybody around you believes it as the truth and you don't question it, you will believe that too. As a result, you start taking action based on a false belief...
You start pursuing a degree you don't care about, get a job you hate, and wonder, where did it all go wrong.
Your job is to question everything... Everything you believe, everything people tell you, etc.
Too many people adopt entire worldviews from people they don't even want to be like without ever questioning that worldview.
Stop taking advice as law and question everything, especially the things that people think you are crazy for questioning.
This is the only way to find out the truth for yourself.
Without a purpose, you are like a leaf in the wind. You're just flying around with no control.
The main reason why people scroll for 8 hours a day and binge Netflix is because they have nothing better to do.
They have no mission. Nothing to work for, so they naturally gravitate towards the "easiest" stuff aka cheap dopamine.
When you have a purpose, you start influencing your every action to achieve that purpose.
When your purpose is to lose 10 pounds in the next 3 months, you start ordering your actions to achieve it. If you have a choice to eat junk food, you choose against it because that doesn't align with your purpose.
Remember, a purpose doesn't find you, you find the purpose.
Summary:
Thanks for reading.
Until next time,
Tauri
Evidence-based advice getting you leaner, more muscular and healthier.
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