[翻 译] Personal Development for Smart People — Chapter3 Power

The most powerful person is the one who is in control of himself. – SENECA

Strength is the third principle of personal development. You are born with the ability to consciously change the world around you. When you are weak and unable to satisfy your needs and desires, you become a victim of circumstances. When you are powerful and succeed in creating the life you want, your surroundings will reflect that fact.

To some people, power is a dirty word. It is associated with negative concepts such as excessive force, corruption and greed. But actually, power is not inherently evil or corrupt. It can be in line with truth and love, or it can be in line with falsehood and disconnection. Whether power is used for good or evil is determined by the consciousness behind it.

Truth, love and power, when combined, can be an incredible force for good. When honest, good people are weak, and false, cold-blooded people are strong, we all suffer. The world is a better place when people who are aligned with truth and love gain the third element, power. If you can be that person, make a conscious effort to develop your own strength, because it’s a decision that’s best for everyone.

When you succeed in empowering yourself, you will be able to more easily meet your needs and desires, and it will be easier to set and achieve meaningful goals. Instead, you can only indulge in powerlessness and ignore your own needs and desires. Neglect your needs and your body may die; By ignoring desires, you lower your level of consciousness and become a zombie.

Some belief systems teach us that “powerlessness is a desirable trait,” but don’t fall for it. There’s no bullshit like that. Powerlessness is neither noble nor wise. This is a false path rooted in fear, denial and a lack of self-worth. If you want to live more consciously, you must learn to use power wisely, not shirk the responsibilities it brings.

It’s not easy to master power. In fact, you may find that cultivating and using strength correctly is one of the biggest challenges in personal development. Still, strength is an important part of conscious growth. Without it, you become a passive victim of reality. With power, you become a conscious creator.

To deepen your understanding of power, let’s explore its six key components: responsibility, desire, self-determination, focus, effort, and self-discipline.

responsibility

You can’t develop your strength unless you take full responsibility for your life. It’s okay to ignore your life, but in the end, you’re the one who’s going to pay for it. You can’t avoid it. Fat death, after climbing the stairs out of breath is you; The credit card is maxed out. Who are you not paying? If you don’t like your job, you have to endure the feeling of going to work every day.

Your experience is your own. I can discuss your life with you, understand your situation, and help you in any way I can. But I will only help you for a while, will not help you forever. After all, I have to go home and live my life without you.

If you try to deny or avoid responsibility, it will come back to haunt you soon. You can indulge yourself, slack off at work, eat all kinds of garbage, and yell at your family, but you’re the one who’s going to experience all this chaos. The sooner you realize that responsibility is inevitable, the better off you will be.

When you were a child, your parents may have taken some responsibility for your life, but you still have to deal with the results yourself. Whether you were raised by loving parents or an irresponsible alcoholic, the burden of life now falls on your shoulders. This may seem pretty damn unfair, especially when you have no control over your childhood. I can’t help it. That’s life. Note 1

Blaming god, parents, the government, or anyone else for life’s misfortunes doesn’t make a penny of sense. Complaining will only make you weak. It doesn’t matter who caused you to be in this situation — what matters is that you must live with it. No amount of complaining will relieve the burden.

I learned one of the most important lessons of my life when I was arrested for felony theft at age 19. For a few days in jail, all I could do was reflect on how I got in. At some point, I realized THAT I had put myself in that cell: I was there because I had no conscious control over my life. At that moment, I finally accepted full responsibility for my life. It still took me years to fully recover from my mistake, but I know it awakened a sense of responsibility that made it possible for me to create a new life for myself — a life OF my own choosing.

No one is coming to save you; No one is going to give you your dream career; No one is going to solve your relationship problems; No one is going to help you lose weight. These problems will never be solved if you don’t take the initiative to solve them yourself.

If you want different results, you have to create them yourself. Taking full responsibility for your life means you’re willing to do whatever is necessary to get the results you want. You must be willing to pay the price for your needs and desires. You have to actively intervene in life instead of letting it play by itself. You’ll make mistakes along the way, but never give up on yourself.

On the bright side, while taking full responsibility for your own life can be challenging, it’s not entirely impossible. You may not have complete control over your life right now, but developing your power will give you the opportunity to eventually create the life you choose. The will of man is stronger than any obstacle in his way. In the pursuit of worthy goals, you are bound to encounter challenges and setbacks, as long as you are persistent and willing to pay the price, you will succeed in the end. Note 2

desire

Desire is the fuel of power. One of the best things in life is to enjoy the gradual realization of desires through one’s own power. Not just enjoying the moment of great achievement, but savoring and enjoying every step along the way.

What do you want? What do you crave? What is it that makes you want it so badly that you can’t get it out of your mind even though you don’t think you can get it? Give yourself permission to dream. Take time to cultivate your deepest desires, no matter how bullshit they may seem. It’s okay to pursue the impossible, but it’s not okay to pretend that your desires are indifferent.

Never deny your desires. When you deny your desires, you lose touch with truth, love and power. Lying to yourself takes you away from the truth; Being apart from your heart takes you away from love; Cutting off the fuel of desire takes you away from power. If you want to develop your powers, you must accept your desires, no matter how strange they may seem.

Most people are out of touch with their true desires. They let others decide what they should want, or settle for what they think they can get. They have been brainwashed by society that the purpose of life is to work for decades in a meaningless job and load themselves with debt; Distract yourself with mindless entertainment; Get married, have children, go broke retire, and die in silence. As a result, they live forever in the shadow of despair, forever powerless and unhappy. Don’t give in to the illusion of false desire. Only true desire can summon true power.

self-determination

Self-determination, self-determination, means that you have complete freedom to decide what you want. You don’t need anyone’s permission or approval. Your choice is yours and can never be determined by others. You never have to prove to anyone what you want. You just want what you want, and that’s enough.

To use power effectively, you must take full responsibility for your life and be willing to make decisions in any situation. This includes ambiguous, challenging and dangerous situations. It doesn’t have to be the right decision. The only requirement is that whatever happens, you are responsible for it. Since there is no escape, consciously participate in the decision-making process so that you can at least influence the outcome to some extent.

When you come to an important crossroads in your life, make the decision consciously and with your own power. Offer a clear “yes” or “no” and don’t be silent. In order to align yourself with the forces, you have to make real choices.

Life is always asking: What do you want? You can answer the question however you like. Aligning yourself with truth and love will help you evaluate the possibilities, but there are no absolutely right or wrong answers, just the freedom of your choice. Will you be silent, or will you consciously exercise your right to choose?

You have to break society’s brainwashing that you have to live by a set of rules set by others. You have no such obligation. The only thing that really limits you are your decisions and their consequences. Note 3 You are a free and independent person, and it is up to you how you use that freedom.

focus

True power exists only in the present. The past has no power, the past is gone; The future has no power. It exists only in your imagination. You can’t use your power yesterday or tomorrow. When your plans are higher than the reality of the moment, you become weak because you succumb to illusion. So it makes sense to focus on the present moment, because that’s the only place you can really use your power.

We tend to think of time as a resource, just like money. To complete an hour of work is to spend an hour on it. How do you spend your day? Where do you want to spend your next vacation? How to spend your lunch break? Although this is a common way to talk about time-limited events, and I do this a lot myself, it’s wrong in the ribs. Time is not a one-time resource, nor can you “spend” it. No matter what you do or don’t do, time will pass by itself. You don’t choose whether or not you spend your time; your only choice is how you direct your attention in the present moment.

You will never be in the past or future. You only exist in the here and now. Whether you think about the past or look forward to the future, you are still thinking about it in the here and now. All you have is the present. You can’t stop the passage of time, but you can control your attention in the moment. That’s it — no past, no future, just the present.

What’s the use of talking about long-term goals if the only thing that exists is the present? What does it take to really achieve any goal?

Realize that you can only act in the moment and enjoy the results in the moment. You cannot accomplish or experience anything in the past or future because you will never be there. When people learn about goal setting, they tend to set goals that go against this fact. The foundations of reality are wrong, and goals based on them are bound to be difficult to achieve.

The goal of goal-setting is not to control the future. That’s meaningless because the future exists only in your imagination. Goal setting focuses on improving the quality of your present reality. Setting goals gives you clarity and focus in the present moment. Whenever you set a goal to accomplish something, always ask yourself, “Does setting this goal improve my current reality?” If not, then the goal is meaningless and you should give it up. But if it makes your life clearer and gives you more motivation, then it’s a good goal.

Many people set goals and then begin to imagine that achieving them will involve great pain and sacrifice, which is a recipe for failure. Whenever you consider a new goal, pay attention to its impact on your current reality. Set goals that make you feel powerful and motivated every time you focus on them. Avoid goals that make you feel powerless, stressed, or weak. View goal-setting as a way to enhance your current focus, not as a way to control your future.

Suppose you decide to start a business. At some point in the future, you’ll enjoy being the boss, doing what you love and making a lot of money. So far, no problems. Then you start thinking about how much work it’s going to take on your own, how much is at stake, and other depressing thoughts. You’ve lost touch with the present and become caught up in your own fantasy of the future. Bring your attention back to the fact that these upsetting thoughts are not happening, they are all in your head. Thinking about thinking about making yourself unhappy, stupid not stupid ah…

Instead, try this: Imagine starting your own business and how great it will be when everything runs smoothly. Now bring your attention back to the present and think about how this goal improves the quality of your life in the present moment. Not one year from now, not five years from now, not even tomorrow, it’s here and now. How has the goal of starting your own business helped you? Does it give you hope? Did it inspire you? Does it energize you? Let these thoughts play in your head for a while. Think about how the goal of starting a business has improved your life now. If you don’t see immediate results, give it up and move on to a different goal.

Want to lose weight, fall in love, or enjoy a more fulfilling career? Instead of imagining doom and gloom on the way to achieving your goals, think about how each goal will improve your current state before it is achieved. How does the idea of staying healthy work for you now? How is the idea of finding a soul mate or a more fulfilling job good for you? How does your present moment change when you focus on these goals? Do you feel more motivated? Do you ever feel like you want to do something about it?

If you set a goal that will improve your current state, does it matter how long it takes you to achieve it? One week or five years doesn’t matter. The whole process was fun and enjoyable. More importantly, you feel happy and satisfied in this moment. This will drive you to take action while you’re happy, so you’re productive. Don’t pursue goals that will make you happy in the distant future. Focus on goals that will make you happy right now.

Whenever you set a goal, you can choose to imagine a path to success full of sacrifice and pain, or you can choose to let the goal inject excitement, enthusiasm, and motivation into your present moment. Although it may seem like you’re setting goals for the future, you’re really doing it for the present. The more you know about this, the easier it will be to achieve your goals.

If you adopt this mindset, you will soon learn to set different types of goals. When you set goals and focus on how they affect you, some underlying patterns begin to emerge. You’ll notice that certain types of goals continue to motivate you, while others don’t. Behind these types of goals are your innermost life goals. When you are fully aware of your purpose in life, you can feel great inspiration and motivation whenever and wherever you are, simply by staying focused on your purpose. You’ll explore life purpose in depth in Chapter 9, which includes a powerful exercise to help you discover your life purpose.

After fully recognizing my life goals, I came to realize that different goals didn’t motivate me at all, so setting them was a waste of my time. Once, I set myself a goal of becoming a millionaire — having a net worth of at least $1 million. Becoming a millionaire seemed like a worthy milestone on my personal growth path, but in reality, it was a meaningless goal I didn’t care about at all. Focusing on it left me disconnected from other people and my true self. I began to see other people as potential dollar signs, not people. When I finally gave up on that goal, I immediately felt better and moved on to other goals that were really important to me. Note 4

Sometimes, your intentions will motivate you to set goals that you might otherwise refuse to set. When I first launched www.stevepavlina.com in October 2004, I set a goal: to build the best personal development site in the world. Many would consider this an ill-conceived goal. For a novice, this goal is vague and hard to measure. What is best? There was no deadline, there were already thousands of competing sites online, and I had no budget or specific plan for achieving my goal. Moreover, I had few credentials to endorse — no PhD, no published books, no training practices, no workshops or seminars. I’m just a game developer with a degree in math and math.

Despite these problems, I feel motivated whenever I focus on this goal. I imagine all the people who visit the site, get an idea that really helps them, and then leave satisfied. It made me feel powerful, and I had a wonderful feeling that I was going to make it!

Focusing on this goal has given me tremendous motivation to write, and I write and post new articles on the site every week for free. For the first four months, the site didn’t attract much traffic or generate any revenue. In its fifth month, it finally brought in a “whopping” $53. But over the next three years, the number of free articles on the site grew to hundreds, enough to fill about 20 books. I didn’t spend a penny on marketing or promotion, and just by word of mouth, the site quickly grew to 2 million visitors a month. As traffic grew, the site began earning tens of thousands of dollars a month, mainly from advertising, affiliate programs and donations. www.stevepavlina.com was quickly recognized as the most popular, useful, and down-to-earth personal development site. Goals are achieved because they give me the focus and motivation to take action in the moment.

In fact, your goals don’t need to be specific, clear, and measurable. You don’t need definite deadlines, and you don’t need a detailed step-by-step plan. You just need a strong desire to take action. Only a purpose that corresponds to your truest and deepest desires can summon this power.

You’ll learn a lot about yourself when you discover the types of goals that really motivate you. It took me many years to realize that pursuing material goals had always left me unmotivated. I didn’t really take money seriously and didn’t really have the motivation to achieve these goals. If necessary, I will retire on a park bench with a “blog for food” sign.

What really excites me is helping people grow. I’m always ecstatic when I see people make big breakthroughs in personal growth! It seems to be the best motivation for me to act. When I set goals centered on making a positive impact on people’s lives, I feel empowered and motivated to take action.

If your goal looks great but doesn’t fill you with desire and motivation when you focus on it, it’s worthless. Don’t settle for useless goals you don’t care about. Even if something seems solid and achievable, and other people encourage you to try. If it doesn’t excite you, you probably won’t achieve it. Focus your attention on goals that inspire you in the present moment, because the present moment is the only place where you have real power.

Efforts to

To turn a wish into a reality, you have to take action at some point. When you set goals that truly inspire you, you will naturally be motivated to take action. You’ll work hard, but because you’re motivated, it won’t seem like hard work. Most of the time, you’re just doing what you love.

What about the law of attraction? Can’t you do nothing all day and attract what you want by the power of your mind? That’s a serious misunderstanding of how the law of attraction works. As you set your mind on what you want, you’ll begin to notice new resources in your life. However, if you don’t take action, these resources will dry up and you won’t get any closer to your goal.

Your actions are part of the process of intention manifestation. Genuine desire will force you into action. If you do nothing, your intentions are weak. You’re trying to do something you don’t want to do, and it’s dying.

If you find yourself without any motivation to achieve your goals, you’re setting the wrong goal. You want to set things that you can’t wait to do. Desire is the fuel for action, and if you “fuel” yourself with fake desires, you won’t move at all. No action, no motivation.

When a long-awaited vacation is about to begin, how do you act? Do you just lie around in bed? Complain about being too tired to catch a plane at the airport? Or is it exciting? If your goal doesn’t excite you as much as a vacation, it’s a bad goal.

Achieving meaningful goals usually takes a lot of effort, but if the goals you set are right for you, the effort won’t hurt. You will still face obstacles and challenges, but you will have the motivation and strength to tackle them head on. Choose goals that will keep you motivated. Working on them will be almost effortless.

self-discipline

Self-discipline is another so-called “dirty” word. We were told to relax, let it slide, and not to worry. The myth of quick and easy is ubiquitous in modern society. This may convince you to buy a lot of junk you don’t need, but that’s not the way to fill your life with success and fulfillment.

Even if you have a strong motivation to achieve a goal that truly motivates you, there will be times when your motivation wanes and you must use your willpower to keep going. Self-discipline is being willing to do whatever it takes to achieve your goals, regardless of your mood. When you feel unmotivated, apathetic, bored or lazy, self-discipline will inject another wave of motivation and keep you going. This is your fail-safe system, the backup incentive.

Motivation is great, but it’s not consistent. It has peaks and valleys. Even if you really love what you do, there will still be a lot of boring, difficult tasks that you don’t like. For example, if you enjoy spending time with your children, there will still be days when caring for them feels like a chore. Sure, you can take a break. You can ask for help when you need it. But even if you take the time to fix it, there will still be times when you feel unmotivated. This is where discipline comes to your rescue.

Motivation and self-discipline are the twin tools of power. Motivation is often highest at the beginning. You’ve just finished your vision, and your goals and dreams are still dancing in your head. You may have just decided to start a new diet or exercise program. You accept the challenge willingly and the first few days are easy. But after a few weeks, the initial momentum had faded. Now the work is so difficult, you wonder if it’s worth the effort. This is where self-discipline prevents you from giving up, and gives you the ability to move on with determination regardless of your emotions. Motivation is what starts the race, but what gets you across the finish line is discipline.

Motivation is highest when you are ready to take action. When you stop moving forward, the momentum naturally drops. If you’re disciplined enough to get going again, you’ll often rekindle your natural motivation to keep going. It takes a lot of force to move from a static state into action, but once you start moving, it’s much easier to keep moving.

Self-discipline must be balanced with reason and wisdom. There is no point in pushing yourself to the brink, but it is productive to recycle time that would otherwise be wasted. Self-discipline means taking appropriate action when you should. This includes rigorously completing work on time without resorting to extreme measures. Staying up late studying for exams isn’t self-discipline — it’s just procrastination.

Sometimes I wake up energized and feel relaxed at work. Sometimes I feel lazy and lethargic. Motivation alone is not enough to drive me to accomplish most goals. If you had relied on motivation alone, you would never have seen this book, because it would never have been written. Self-discipline gets me through those times when motivation isn’t enough to get me moving, when the powerful being inside of me says, “Don’t procrastinate, we have to move on today!” Once I get rid of the first half hour of not wanting to act, I almost always want to keep going.

Problems, obstacles, and setbacks are nothing for a disciplined person. A disciplined person sees things the way a bodybuilder looks at a barbell: I will lift you up and get stronger in the process. A 40-pound dumbbell can be light or heavy depending on how strong you are. Some people think it’s heavy, some people think it’s light. Again, the size of the problem is only related to your level of self-discipline. The more disciplined you are, the less your problems become.

It’s not easy to discipline yourself to do what needs to be done (even if you don’t like it). Building a high level of self-discipline is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do. Some people will do almost anything to avoid it — endlessly procrastinating, taking drugs, even killing themselves. Despite the difficulties, self-discipline remains one of the most important aspects of personal development. Without it, you’re doomed to live in the shadow of your own potential. Once you become disciplined enough to consistently implement your best intentions, you can achieve all sorts of wonderful things. Setting goals is a wonderful feeling because you know you can trust yourself to do everything you need to achieve them.

Impediments of strength

Several obstacles will try to weaken you by denying your power and making you give up on your goals. As you recognize these obstacles, you will learn to embrace your power and use it wisely. No matter how powerless the past has been, your true strength is still waiting for you.

timid

Timidity is the mentality that one is too weak, too small, too humble to deserve real power. “Who are you? How do you get to live a meaningful life? You are only one in a billion.”

This belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. In fact you are very strong, you are only using your strength against yourself, making yourself weak for a while. You’re like a god declaring, “Let me be powerless.” And that’s exactly what happened.

Shyness can make you settle for small, empty goals that don’t motivate you — assuming you set them at all. You’re stuck in a meaningless job that doesn’t matter to you. Living in a place you don’t care about; Settle for self-distrust relationships with a bunch of mentally weak guys who just see you as another warm body at their pity party. At the same time, your true self is yelling at you, but you let idle entertainment, junk food, and other distractions drown it out.

You should not live under a rock. That’s not you. You are seriously underestimating your true abilities, which will set you up for sale. This is your reality right now, and you are responsible for it. Don’t try to deny this fact, and face it.

You are not put on this earth to get lost in petty life. Wake up, take a good look at yourself and admit, “MY life is crap! I can do better!” Listen to your inner strength for once. It doesn’t mislead you.

cowardice^{Note 6}

Cowardice is when you use your power to satisfy your fears instead of your desires. You create what you don’t want, not what you want.

Fear of failure breeds when you worry that using power will cause you to make too many mistakes. The truth is, you do fail sometimes, and some of those failures can be a big hole, but that’s nothing to worry about. It is better to fail as a powerful being than to try to hide from the truth and live like a rat. When you retreat from failure, you only weaken yourself. When you make mistakes and learn from them, you become stronger.

When you worry that the use of power will give you too much responsibility, you breed a fear of success. But in reality, fear doesn’t help. You’re responsible for everything in your life. You have no choice but to carry the world on your shoulders, because you can’t turn down your life. You can never lessen your responsibility by making yourself powerless. There is no escaping responsibility for life.

The only sensible choice is to use your power consciously and to the best of your ability. Focus on what you want, not what you don’t want, and accept heavy responsibilities commensurate with your strength.

Negative regulation

You may be misled into thinking that power is somehow bad or evil. Someone may trick you into putting values like loyalty, meekness and obedience above strength. It is no coincidence that those who seek power by coercing and controlling others often praise these qualities. Don’t give your strength to those cunning people who prey on the weak and tell you that being strong is a mistake.

If you truly believe that weakness is better than strength, then logically, you should consciously try to weaken yourself. Destroy your health, destroy your career, destroy your relationships, make yourself as weak as you can, and see how that feels? Of course it’s counterintuitive, so I hope you don’t actually do something stupid like that.

Some common sense is wrong about power, and I encourage you to get that wrong common sense out of your head. Do you prefer to be weak or strong? Do you wish you were more well-rounded or less competent? Get rid of negative beliefs about power that don’t work for you.

How can I develop my strength

Strength is like muscle, it becomes weak when not used and stronger when used. Everyone has some strength, but not everyone develops it to the same intensity. Here are a few ways to train yourself.

Progressive training

Training yourself to step up to bigger challenges is a great way to build strength, and especially self-discipline. When you train your muscles, you increase the amount of weight you can lift until you reach the limit of your muscles and then rest. Similarly, you can develop strength by constantly pushing the limits of your abilities. It’s not about trying and failing at things that are way beyond your reach. It’s not about doing things that aren’t challenging over and over again. You have to keep pushing the boundaries of your current abilities.

Progressive training requires that once successful, the challenge must be increased. If you continue to exercise at the same level, you won’t get stronger.

It is a mistake to push yourself too hard when developing strength. If you try to change your entire life overnight by setting dozens of new goals, you’ll be damned if you succeed. It’s like when someone goes to the gym for the first time and bench presses on 300 pounds. It just makes you look like an idiot. Accept where you’re coming from and don’t be too hard on yourself.

If you’re starting at the lowest point in your life, you may find it challenging just to get up before 12:00 and pay your bills on time. After that, you may gradually improve your diet, start exercising and quit your bad addiction. As you gain more power in your life, you can try to challenge bigger goals, such as building your dream career and attracting a fulfilling relationship.

Don’t compare yourself to others. If you think you are weak, others will appear strong. If you think you’re strong, everyone else will look weak. It doesn’t make sense. Just look at where you are right now and get stronger as you go. Note 7

Let’s say you want to develop the ability to focus for eight hours each weekday. Maybe you’ve tried to work eight hours a day without distraction, but you can only do it once, and the next day you’re a total failure. That’s perfectly fine. This means you can now do it once in a row. Two is too much for you, so lower the bar a bit. Can you focus for 1 hour a day for 5 consecutive days? If you can’t do that, cut it down to 30 minutes or whatever you can do. If successful, add to the challenge. Once you’ve mastered one week at a level, take it up a notch next week. Continue this progressive training until you reach your goal.

By raising the bar a little each week, you can stay within your capabilities and become stronger over time. In weight training, there is little value in lifting a piece of iron up and down, but the resulting muscle growth. However, while building strength and discipline, you also benefit from the work you do along the way, so even better. When your training produces something of value and makes you stronger at the same time, it’s a win-win

Control the first hour

It is said that the first hour of the morning sets the rudder for the day, and how you start your day often sets the tone for the rest of the day. If you spend your first hour waking up in a rigorous routine, you’re likely to enjoy a productive day. But if you get through the first hour unfocused, the rest of the day is likely to be just as uneventful. Conquer the first hour by exercising, reading, cleaning, writing, or doing other productive tasks.

Many people have told me that whenever they complete an important task first thing in the morning, they get a tremendous sense of happiness and energy that lasts for hours. I’ve had the same experience. Completing an important task early in the day is motivating and energizing. When you conquer the first hour, you will feel that no matter what happens, the day has been a success.

Personal “metrics”

Just as sales people have monthly performance metrics, you can use the concept of “metrics” to improve your performance in any effort. Set a minimum daily goal for yourself in one area of your life. This will ensure that you continue to improve and is a great way to develop self-discipline.

You can use any metric you want, as long as it suits you. Writers can set the number of words per day; Basketball players can set the number of 3-pointers they will make each day. I’ve tried using “action” and “results” as indicators.

At first I preferred the former because the goal was easier to control. It is easier for me to write two hours a day than 2,000 words a day. Unfortunately, I find that when I use action as an indicator, my output is weaker. I’ll put in the time, but I won’t maintain the same motivation. Now I prefer to focus on results, like finishing a new article, because I find it keeps me motivated.

I encourage you to try daily metrics to see what works best for you. Start with small goals that can be easily achieved, then gradually increase them to keep yourself in the best position for challenges.

Take care of the hard part first

If you have one or two difficult things on your to-do list, tackle them first. Organize your daily tasks from the most difficult to the easiest. Many people are used to checking email first, but when you do this, you often use simple tasks as a way to procrastinate, knowing that later tasks will become more difficult. Working hard will only keep you taking on more difficult tasks. Who has the motivation to do things quickly? So you naturally slow down. This habit often causes the most difficult tasks to be put off until the next day. This can kill your power, because challenging tasks that you put off tend to have the most positive impact.

On the other hand, if you prioritize tasks from difficult to easy, and do the most troublesome things first, you will always be rewarded with an easier task for each task you complete. This will motivate you to keep the pace fast throughout the day. There’s no reason to slow down when you have easier things to do. Put your daily tasks at the end of the day and see how quickly you can get them done.

I was surprised at the huge difference this habit made to me. The first thing I used to do every day was check my email. It took me about an hour to respond to all kinds of emails. Now I prefer to deal with them later in the day, in less than 30 minutes on average. I type in more succinct messages, because when I’m done, my work is done.

Get your personal rewards at the end of the day, not at the beginning. Saving the best for last will give you something to look forward to, and you’ll find every night more exciting to look forward to. Finish your work early in the day, then relax and enjoy the rest of the day.

The game

If you’re a very competitive person, play to your natural strengths. The game is very motivating and the motivation to win will help you develop your strength. People often work harder to win than to achieve personal results. The game makes your strength visible to the naked eye.

I took part in several speech contests because they pushed me to work harder on my skills. The idea of beating other speakers gave me more discipline to write, rehearse, and finally present on stage than to make the audience feel better. The competition experience has strengthened my ability to write speeches, even if I do not participate in the competition, I can write better speeches.

Matches are common in sales and sports. Can you think of another place? Can you open a prize pool at the office to see who can lose the most weight in a month? Can you make a bet with a friend to see who can make the most money in 90 days? Can you compare with your partner to see who can read the most books in a month?

The good thing about the game is that even if you lose, you gain. You can lose games and still see positive results, which can be more than if you never played at all. Racing is a great way to break the mold and take your strength to a whole new level. Note 8

rest

Rest is a key component of any weight training and is crucial for building strength. Improve yourself through cycles of effort and relaxation. After successfully completing a challenge, take a break before moving on to the next challenge. Stretch, walk, take a nap. Give yourself a chance to relax and recover.

Just as there are risks to overtraining when lifting weights, there are also risks when building strength. If you feel exhausted and unmotivated for days on end, you’re pushing yourself too hard. Take a few days off, take a vacation, and get refreshed for your next challenge so you can return to work with more energy.

The last

You should not be born weak and passive. “A husband xi a husband, a thousand angry ambition is a good plan.” It takes hard work to build strength, but it’s worth it. The more powerful you are, the more you will enjoy the process of creating your ideal life. The deeper you dig, the more treasure you’ll find.

Building a successful career, maintaining successful relationships, and achieving financial freedom can all be challenging. These rewards don’t just pop into your arms. You have to win them. Take responsibility for life and face your challenges head on. Your problems are there to help you grow, not to defeat you. These questions are also challenging.

Building strength isn’t just for you. When you combine power with truth and love, you can form a tremendous force for good. But to reach that level, you must first master this principle… (See next chapter)