One of the best pieces of advice I have ever got was to view yourself as someone you would give advice to. That your job is simply to improve that person’s life and making sure he/she actually acts on your advice.
If you find your life hard, then imagine the life you are living is not yours, and that it belongs to someone else. Instead of viewing the crisis as your problem, try to imagine it is someone else’s problem. By doing so you will facilitate the solution finding you tremendous freedom and relief. You will start taking chances that you normally would not and won’t be as affected by defeat. Doing so helps you learn the universe is abundant.
Let’s take a look at some changes in mindsets that can elevate you towards success and growth.
When you say something, you mean it.
Most people don’t follow this simple rule. If you say to yourself “I’ll make 10 sales in a week”, “I’ll do 10 push-ups today”, “I’ll sleep eight hours a day this week”, you should do it. If you treat the promises you make to yourself like they’re unbreakable, you won’t need any motivation anymore. Your word is your bond.
Business is simply the exchange of perceived value.
What’s the key to getting rich? The thing needed to learn is how to get the right message, product or service (with the help of sales & copywriting) in front of enough of the right people (traffic). If you learn how to sell and you know how to generate attention, your money problems are essentially solved. If you know how to build (i.e. programming) and sell, that’s the holy grail.
Environment > Willpower > Motivation.
I don’t recall where I read this, but there was a study that showed that 95% of soldiers in Vietnam that were addicted to heroin managed to curb their addiction once they got back to the US. (Edit: Found the article here). The environment in Vietnam was a toxic one, while the one in the US didn’t make them feel the need to use heroin.
The lesson? Stop relying solely on discipline and change your environment. Addicted to TV? Cut off the cable bill. Want to stop playing video games? Sell it or every time you stop playing, put it in your closet. Can’t stop watching porn? Install one of the numerous apps out there that blocks out porn ruthlessly.
Optimize your environment in a way that minimizes your need to rely on discipline. I personally hate the “JUST BE DISCIPLINED BRO!!“, I mean I understand it is an important skill, but the environment is far more important. This is probably why the “You are the average of the five people around you” is such a popular phrase.
Beware of information addiction.
Just because you know something doesn’t mean you will act upon it. People think reading the next post, article, or book will change their lives. Nope. Do you know what will change your life? Taking action and learning from your failures and mistakes. A man that plays five hours of golf will always beat out a guy that read five hundred hours on golf but didn’t play golf at all. Reading a book is not taking action.
Books are ironically both overrated and underrated. I keep my action/reading ratio to 90/10. For every 15 minutes of reading, I make sure I act for at least half an hour to an hour.
Google is your friend.
“Bro, what are the best books on sales?”, “Yo, what are the best books for copywriting, dating, fitness, etc.”.
Google. Please, I beg of you, stop being an “askhole” and a value leech. Stop asking questions on basic googleable material and stop asking questions without having shown that you have tried looking for something. Being an askhole is lazy and shows you just want the dopamine (or “high”) of being given information.
If you are looking for a mentor or protégé, make sure you come across as a highly valuable prospect and offer value to the person (i.e. even stuff like buying him or her a lunch to talk is enough.)
The more extreme you are, the better results you will have.
Look at ESPN’s post on Kobe Bryant. It’s a solid piece of perspective.
Don’t be a “bro, what are your sources? Studies? Proof?” person.
I get that it is important not to believe what everyone is saying 100%, but sometimes, just trying for yourself (if it’s not dangerous of course) helps. Contrarians are cool. The placebo effect is also very real. Investigate visualization, many top athletes use it. Approach life as an experimenter. Just try out things and come up with your conclusions. Think for yourself.
There’s absolutely no point arguing online with strangers.
I know it feels good trying to show off your perceived intelligence by arguing points online, but it is such a low ROI activity. My interactions on social media (particularly Facebook and Twitter) have decreased substantially because of this. Perhaps, it’s due to age, or maturity, but over time I’ve realized how people work and it is so rare to change someone’s opinion by arguing, especially online. Changing someone’s opinion requires being indirect, planting a “seed” inside the person’s brain and letting time do its thing.
The internet should only be used for laughs/entertainment, self-improvement, and networking. Everything else is a waste of time. Click To Tweet
Got anymore mindset hacks? Leave them in the comments below.
