The Big Solutions

Living beings are the product of energy saving.

Excellence is achieved through disciplined management.

The solutions must focus on tactics that ensure evolution and well-being, as well as a positive energy balance over the medium term, so as to ensure a longer, more enjoyable life.

This process has to involve creative intelligence, in order to:

• Learn to analyse information, from what goes on in the body, mind and environment to the data shown by the school of life.
• Train the virtues that are essential to any goal.
• Update the set of known threats.
• Be open-minded to a new reality.
• Analyse routines and update them according to the desired solutions.
• Create realistic expectations of benefits and results.
• Foster commitment to the process, steps and actions.
• Create triggers and the willingness to set them off.
• Have “know-how” as a great motivator.
• Build the courage to spring into action.
• Build defences that prevent the action of saboteurs.
• Navigate impulses.

Identify the saboteurs and to know what is stopping you from doing what you need to do to execute your plan, is the first step of the journey.

Even though all of these steps are necessary to live a meaningful life, the best way to avoid pain and sustain motivation is to not give the saboteurs the opportunity to act.

Manage Habits

Habits are developed through the repetition of actions or thoughts, and often for unknown reasons. They are the smartest way to save energy. It is no wonder that living beings specialise in developing habits.

Think about this: if you did not have any developed habits, how long would it take you to get out of bed in the morning and leave the house? It would take you more than a year just to learn to walk. What about the rest of the actions that make up your routine, that you perform automatically?

Our lives would be unfeasible without habits. We simply would not exist.

The skill with which we manage our habits determines:

• the success we will achieve;
• the efforts needed to achieve it; and
• the degree of fulfilment we will feel.

Good management starts with realising what we want and what we do not want.

Identify the habits you wish to preserve, those you wish to eliminate and those you wish to develop.

In regards to habits of the first group, you do not need to worry about anything other than preserving the elements that improve and strengthen these habits. On the other hand, the habits of the second and third groups require special attention, knowledge of techniques for changing behaviours and great COURAGE.

Good management also means knowing what you do not want.

Some experiences, if repeated, can turn into addictions that are difficult to get rid of.

Good management also means building defences—like a complete set of armour—to avoid these experiences.

Anything that requires justifications such as “it was just this one time” and “I can drop it whenever I want” should never be done. Again: these should never be done. These things are saboteurs that will be difficult to expel if they manage to slip in your tent.

You must let go of anything that can cause strong temptation or desire to repeat, as it can make you drift away from your life goals.

Constructive Habits and Destructive Habits

There are constructive habits and destructive ones.

Constructive habits increase life expectancy. Destructive habits waste it.

Constructive habits preserve physical and mental health. They facilitate actions relevant to the plans to achieve purpose in life. They must be in line with personal values and values of the society in which we live.

Constructive habits make us do what has to be done at the right time, affording pleasure in the fulfilment of duty.

Destructive habits make us put off important actions, procrastinate or look for excuses not to get it done. They make us seek pleasure in destructive things that lead to anguish, and possibly depression.

Constructive habits are like paying in cash and obtaining a discount. Destructive habits are like paying in instalments and ending up with high interest rates.

To be punctual, to pay bills on time, to remember people’s birthdays, to listen attentively, to save money—these are some examples of good habits with which you build your reputation and move towards success.

The societies in which we live have rules, values, approaches and customs according to which they conduct themselves and make judgements.

Some habits that are welcome in a specific society are cause for the most severe punishment in other societies. Failing to take this into account can completely nullify all our efforts to get things right.

Having bad habits (vices), according to society’s precepts, means losing the possibility of living with meaning.

If you live on Earth, do not live on Mars.

For example, stewardship is one of the good habits that reduce anxiety about the future.

Capital is accumulated work that can be used as a contingency to deal with problems.

Our work capacity decreases as the years go by. If we fail to build up surplus work in order to tend to our future needs, we will live in permanent anxiety driven by uncertainty.

Another example: focus your attention on what you build.

Professor Martin Seligman, who is the head of the Positive Psychology Centre at the University of Pennsylvania and the founder of the positive psychology movement, studied 47 severely depressed individuals.

Firstly, the participants focused their attention on things that were proven to increase happiness, rather than the source or nature of their unhappiness.

He then formed communities that encouraged people to pay attention to the exercises that lead to happiness.

A drastic reduction in depression was observed in 94 per cent of the participants.

If you pay attention, top coaches who happen to be excellent teachers have the ability to induce their students to focus their attention on specific tasks, which result in the behaviours required to achieve the objectives. This is done with such frequency and timing that it allows the students to turn the lessons into habits.

Habits allow you to achieve results with less effort.

Many people do the things they do without knowing why they do them. They just know that these things work.

However, this training model is not observed in other activities. This is simply because it requires discipline, and discipline is achieved when the people involved are actually willing to achieve significant results, with due commitment.

If you concentrate on the habits you wish to develop or change, progress will be achieved quicker, and it will bring you little to no suffering. The “attention density”, i.e., the amount of attention paid to a given mental experience in a given timeframe, opens a window in the brain. It eliminates the brain’s resistance to change, making it switch from survival mode to progress mode. In other words, it makes the brain shift its focus from the threat to the opportunity.

If you are interested in learning more about how these phenomena work, you may want to read about the experiences of Dr Jeffrey Schwartz, a researcher at UCLA.

The Truth that they never told You

If you wish to live a meaningful life, you do not need to have a purpose, to pursue your talent or your vocation. You do not need to be beautiful and rich.

Obviously, these are factors that do help. However, they are not decisive. In fact, they generally serve as a pretext for inertia.

The important thing is to use the resources at your disposal, to the best of your abilities, instead of making excuses out of the things that you lack.

If you can clearly see a purpose in your imagination, this purpose shines light over the path and gives you the energy that will make you withstand the hardships that are inevitably a part of every journey.

It is a guiding light that points you in the right direction, even if you are walking in a zigzag.

As for the rest: it is never too late to acquire new skills. Wealth and beauty are ephemeral.

The decisive requirement is to know where you wish to be—today, tomorrow, in a year from now—and how you intend to get there.

If you do this by being the best at what you do, it could be your purpose.

You can use it to reach another goal. Any goal.

You will enjoy overcoming every obstacle. You will have the energy to improve the things you do, whatever they may be. You will learn to:

• Navigate pain and pleasure.
• Make commitments and not fail them.
• Make plans for a day, a week, a lifetime.
• Use your imagination to shift your focus.
• “Do” whatever must be done at the right time.

Imagination does create a real image.

Dreaming gives you energy. It renews hope. If you have dreams, believe in them. Conviction is the mother of all victories.

Think about this: (we discussed it earlier in this text). No farmer would plant if they could not imagine the harvest.

Money, prestige or fame will come as a consequence of a valid goal that is sought and achieved for its own sake.

To start with the life you live and achieve the life you wish to live, commitment, determination, persistence and imagination are paramount. Displaying these traits for a day, a week or a month will allow you to keep them for a lifetime.

Those who are determined do not sit and wait for things to happen. They do not rest in the mere expectations that things will improve. They do not sit and wait for it to rain. They get out there and make things happen.

• They do not wait for the door to open. They push it open.
• They do not wait for the obstacle to be brought down. They find a way around it.
• They pay no heed to the inner voice that sows doubt. They only listen to the voice that builds solutions.

Then, motivation ignites and you just have to keep it going, fuelling the fire with persistence and the wisdom of imagination. This is also the best way to fight laziness and procrastination.

Those who can use their imagination well are able to anticipate what is going to happen. They can navigate impulses. This is of utmost importance in our lives. We must see that the entirety of our attention and skills is used to identify the things preventing us from doing what needs to be done (the saboteurs). Next, we must develop strategies to remove these obstacles.

It is far easier to prepare ourselves to overcome potential scenarios if we imagine them.

Nothing—nothing at all—is impossible, as long as you never let go of persistence.

The persistence required to complete tasks is directly related to motivation. Motivation and pleasure are a product of the journey itself, not the final victory.

Motivation arises from the expectation of getting where you wish to be, overcoming obstacles and having the courage to resist the frustration that arises when something does not go well.

Think about your successes.

What did you feel during the journey to your achievement? What did you feel when you got there? Can you recall it? No? Then I shall tell you.

Imagine you wish to climb a mountain. You are at the base of this mountain. Everything you would like to achieve in life awaits you at the top of the mountain. You wake up, and you are puzzled by one or several ideas that will not let you sleep.

The anticipation of your achievement builds a level of motivation that makes you restless. You are unable to shake off the idea (or ideas). It makes you impatient. You are determined to leave, so you make a simple plan. Extra energy lights up your dream, and it is now a clear dream.

You tell your best friend Albert about it. Your enthusiasm somehow manages to infect the person least likely to believe in your reasoning. Albert had everything at his disposal. He owned the town at the base of the mountain. But Albert decides to follow you, to face new challenges. The two of you agree on a day to set off, and so you wait for him. But he never comes.

Determined and impatient, you set off on your own.

Imagine the walk up the trail. There are obstacles in every step of the way. These are difficult, challenging obstacles. Your inner voice says: “Why did I get myself into this? I can’t do it. I should go home”.

But you set out to reach the top of the mountain anyway. You made a commitment—you would not to give up until you made it. It was your choice. When you think about giving up, the shame of defeat invades your soul. And you fear the shame of having to face those who believed in your courage.

Your motivation rebounds in the perspective of what you will feel when you make it to the top. This motivation replaces your defeatist thoughts. And then, with your succeeding achievements, you persist, again and again, and you reach a point where you feel less pain, and you even feel pleasure.

Then, you begin to see the top of the mountain. Your strength is twice greater, and you finally get there.

Imagine the moment when you get to the top. The celebration, the joy.

What are you celebrating? I am asking to you. Is that you had got to the top or the fact of you were brave enough not to give up, withstood the pain, the cold, the rain, the exhaustion?

The journey, of course.

And your dream and all the things you found at the top, will you find pleasure in it? Yes. You will find pleasure proportional to the toll of the journey, and the courage you had. But once you are at the top, the feeling is not the same as during the journey. It is the memory of the challenges you had on your way to the top that will ensure you cherish and preserve these feats.

That is what remains in your memory, you still have the certainty that you can continue climbing if you wish to. The certainty that you will climb to the top again if someone kicks you down to the base of the mountain and takes everything away from you.

Now, let us start over.

Imagine this. Back at the base of the mountain, you set off the same way. Albert eventually makes it to the meeting point, but he is too late to find you. Once he learns that you had already set off, he takes a helicopter ride to get to the top.

Can you imagine his feeling as he gets to the top of the mountain? No? I shall tell you.

Naturally, in his short journey, Albert would be thrilled with the euphoria of expecting to find what you told him there was at the top. He gets to the top, but he is confused. He cannot believe his eyes. He frantically indulges in as many pleasures as possible. After some time, there is no more fun to be had. Albert begins to feel the chill, the wind and the rain. Soon enough, he goes from apathy to boredom, and from there to depression. Nothing pleases him anymore. The only option is to return to the base.

This is the case for nine out of ten people who have never climbed the mountain—those who won the lottery and those who were born wealthy.

Have a creed

In addition to your values, you need a philosophy that directs your actions, to function as a corollary of your beliefs.

I shall give you an example.

I will work creatively to find out:

• Who are the people whose happiness I must ensure?
• What do they value the most?
• What is their idea of quality?
• What do they expect from me?
• Am I failing somewhere?
• I shall use the information obtained to improve my actions.
• I must not react negatively to criticism.
• My actions shall be unwavering displays of my commitment to make others happy.
• I shall never promise more than I can deliver.
• I will never force others or ask them to do what I cannot do.
• My goal is to exceed the expectations of others (in the things that matter most to them).
• Other people’s needs take precedence over my own needs.
• My efforts are to get it right on the very first try.

I will regularly reflect on:

• What stops me or sabotages me.
• My emotions and their impact.
• My limits and possibilities.
• How I acted and how I took advantage of opportunities.
• The bright side of events.
• My persuasion tactics.
• Attentive listening.
• Cordial and friendly demeanour.
• Making others feel important.
• Abstention from criticism.
• Avoidance of comparisons.
• Ways to keep my motivation high.
• Surrounding myself with people who are better than I am.
• Looking for the best people to learn from.
• Being a continuous learner.
• Showing gratitude.
• Competing against myself.
• Learning lessons from my failures.
• Preserving discipline.
• Achieving excellence at little things.
• Making a commitment to act upon every little cheerful comment or compliment.

Write down the tenets that will guide your behaviour.

Read them every day, until you have memorised them.

Meditate on them, until you incorporate them as habits.

Remember the power of beliefs. This power can make your dreams come true, and it can also destroy them.