Becoming the Uninhibited Introvert - Success Series 2019 EP7

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

— Barack Obama

Our final post for Success Series 2019. We’re almost at the end of February and if you’ve kept your New Year’s resolution to becoming the best version of yourself, some new actions should be embedded by now and you’ve raised the standard for yourself. Let’s quickly do a recap, because successfully embedding new thinking is to remind yourself over and over again, and then apply and apply again. By now you should have the following:

• Adopted a Growth Mindset and the realisation that you’re not stuck with who you are, no matter what age you are.

• Started to Focus on Yourself and prioritised your own needs, wants, desires as much as your prioritise others.

• Realised that Process is Key to success; a continuing series of small steps that push you towards your goals.

• Use Discomfort to drive you Forward and recognise that your level of success is directly correlated to how comfortable you are with discomfort.

At a minimum, you have put in place the Three Actions You can Take straight away to become a better version of yourself and kick start your journey, and immediately taken the actions to Silence the Ego that is holding you back.

So what else is there to be done? No matter how much desire you have to improve or how closely you’ve tried to push through your self improvement journey, you would’ve come across some motivation blockers. Our final post for Success Series 2019 is focused on giving you three final actions that help to reinforce your motivation to succeed and finding the best version of yourself. Your have to push through the mental blockers that sap your motivation.

As Zig Ziglar said:

When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there.

FIND THE TIME

You will never find time for anything. If you want time, you must make it - Charles Brixton

One of the most common things you say to yourself is this: "I don't have enough time!". Yeah, I understand. You wake up around 6AM, get yourself ready so you get into work by 8AM. Go through an 8 hour work day. Get home by 6PM, dinner by 7PM, then you're ready for bed by 10PM. If you have kids, the hours stretch for longer. So you feel like you never have time to read a book, put the book into practice, or just do some self reflection. Sure there are weekends, but you spend most of them resting, doing chores, and catching up with friends. Oh, don't forget that about those awesome TV shows we have to watch. So all in all, life gets in the way and there's just not enough time. Don't forget, you also need a good solid 7 to 8 hours of sleep right.

But here is the truth! If you want to be successful, then you have to make time. There are only 24 hours in a day. That amount is fixed. But what you do with each of those hours is up to you. So the reality is this:

If you want to be successful, get out of bed at 5AM!

It's not easy, especially the first few days. But I promise you, after 3 days, it becomes an addictive habit. What I can also promise you is that just by waking up one hour earlier, you'll find that you are a lot more productive throughout the day, and "that time" that you don't have, will reappear. Get up before a sparrow's fart and you will look at your day in a completely different light. I've been doing it for the last two months and other than the few weeks where I was sick, waking up at 5AM has become my daily routine, even on weekends. Getting those few hours to myself before the rest of the house wakes up is so precious. It's the few hours that I have to myself before life takes over again. There is also something amazing about being up at 5AM when the rest of the world is still asleep. The peaceful quiet allows me to concentrate. Things that I read stay in my head longer, and I find that I'm able to apply it throughout the day.

I also feel more energetic throughout the day. This is counter-intuitive given that I've woken up earlier, one would think I'd be more tired. But that's not the case. I'm hyper focused. Not just on ticking tasks lists but there is a clarity of thought on what outcomes I want to achieve. 

EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE

Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a health body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity - John F Kennedy.

This is not an exercise blog. We don’t post on Instagram videos or pictures of us in tight gym gear doing yoga poses and heavy hitting exercise routines in awesome locations with the sun rising over the horizon. I promise you, as much as I feel like I’m in good shape, a picture of me in tights is not what you want in your head.

However, study after study have shown that exercise, even in light form will produce enormous benefits for you mentally and intellectually. You don’t need to read scientific studies by Harvard University. Research and real life tests by Amy Cuddy, Tony Robbins, and Mel Robbins (not related to Tony) have proven over and over again, the clear link between the mind and the physical body. Stress, overthinking, and negativity can cause you to be sick. Thinking that you lack confidence can cause your body to adopt a negative pose, which further reinforces your thinking. However, as Amy Cuddy has proven, if you change your pose, you can change your thinking and feeling of confidence. So there is clear link between the body and the mind.

So if you want to feel more confident, think more clearly, or otherwise build the strength and resilience to push through your self improvement journey, then do some exercise on a regular basis. You don’t need to join a gym and pay $50 a month. You don’t need to buy tight clothing or gym gear. You don’t need to enter into the marathon. All you need to do is on a regular basis (at least once every 2 days), make an effort to go for a walk for 30 mins. Enough to get the hear rate up a little more than normal, maybe even pop out a sweat. After a month, I promise you that you will not only feel better, but you will also feel more confident, and it serves as another tool that helps you to push through mental blockers in your self improvement journey. At the very least, your heart will thank you.

FINALLY - READ and APPLY

Any fool can read, the point is to understand - Albert Einstein

Let's run through some quick questions and hopefully you'll start to see my point. Now, answer these questions honestly (if you have to think about it, you're not being honest):

• In a year, how many books (e.g. anything that is non-fictional, is not a novel, and is not a text book for university or college) do you read? They can be physical books, eBooks, PDFs, or Audible.

• In a year, how many TED Talks (or anything similar) have you watched? Again, the content doesn't matter, just the number and frequency. 

• When you are inspired by something you've read, watched, or heard, do you go through it again? It feels good to get that sense of inspiration doesn't it? To know that you are not powerless and there is something you can do to change yourself.

• Over the last year, how many inspiring recommendations did you truly believed would make the biggest difference to you?

• Finally, of the ones that you truly believed would make the biggest difference to you, name one. Just one. What was the recommendation, why did you believe it would make the biggest difference to you? 

For most of you, I'm willing to bet that you can't remember with any clarity, a single recommendation that you truly believed would make a difference to your life. Sure, you might have some vague recollection at a high level as to what the TED Talk was about. But when you try to describe it, it's probably as vague and useful as a blind person trying to describe an elephant but never having seen one.  

Or books. Do you go through books like "Influence" or "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*cK" or "Crucial Conversations" on a regular basis. After reading one book, do you feel like you need to read another one, or get a sense of achievement from having completed a book and then congratulating yourself for ordering another one. OK, be honest, do you genuinely feel like you are getting smarter just by the fact that you have ordered a non-fictional book on Amazon or bought it from the Bookstore? Does the fact that you've just bought a non-fictional book give you a sense of hope that you can overcome your self imposed limitations? When you look at your book shelf, are you proud of the fact that you have all these world famous books in your collection, neatly lined up next to one another, and most likely in mint condition? Hint: a book after it's really been read, should not be in mint condition.

Yet, despite everything you have read, heard, watched, you are still lusting for that next book that you hope will give you an edge. Deep down, you are still searching for that "something". You've read a hundred books by a hundred successful people and yet you walk into a meeting room on Monday morning, and you are still ........ well YOU. Nothing has changed. You don't feel any different. And before long, you've completely forgotten anything you've read and you go searching on MyCorporateDiary for that next book recommendation.

Unfortunately, we are inherently lazy and therefore, just reading book after book is our brain's way of justifying that we've tried. If you don't take any action, even just one action from a single book, then nothing will change. The book "Influence" has six triggers that can help you to influence someone better. You'll read the book, get excited and motivated, and a week later, you might even be able to recall what the six triggers are. But if you don’t apply the triggers consistently, it will fade so quickly that within a month, you would’ve forgotten the triggers that help you to influence better. Instead of reading the book again, you go off looking for the next book that helps you to influence better.

As we’ve reiterated over and over again in Success Series 2019, improving yourself is a process and it starts with a single first step. Steve Jobs didn't become the Steve Jobs we know of overnight. He developed his personality over his lifetime. He made some big mistakes (after all, he was kicked out of his own company), learnt from them, and carried on from there. You need to take that first step yourself. Pick a single simple action that you've read, heard, or saw, and then apply it to your life and see if it works. What refinements need to be made? Does it sit well with your personality? Is it something you can do consistently? After a while, this single action becomes second nature, and then you can pick up another one and repeat the process. Over the course of several months, when you look back, you will notice a different you starting to emerge. This is the only way to improve yourself. 

So stop reading book after book after book. You should read one or two books a year, truly understand them, and apply them to get value out of them. Otherwise, all you are doing is building a very expensive library.

Blog photo by bruce mars from Pexels