By now, we know that an energy management system is behind all processes that ensure life
The first tool used for this purpose is the automation of all energy-intensive things. This is done by turning these things into habits.
Many tasks are required to obtain and save the energy necessary to live, such as foraging for food, facing threats and evolving. Each of these requires a series of habits and routines that lead to the desired outcome. If the food is some piece of fruit sitting high up in a tree, you need to know how to walk, climb the tree, climb down, etc.
Habits and routines are also grouped together to meet demands of different kinds, and then they are given different names: behaviours, attitudes, states of mind or mood, mental models, etc.
In order to live a peaceful and comfortable life, we need to know how to analyse these groups of habits, so as to figure out what is preventing us from achieving our goals and then find solutions.
The solutions themselves are simple, as long as they are put into practice.
What To Do
Thousands of studies have been carried out, all around the world, to try to identify the ingredients that make up the recipe for success.
I have personally interviewed dozens of winners. So far, only two qualities have been discovered to be common to all of them: the first—and most valuable one—is the ability to get into action; the second one is the willingness to learn.
The remaining ingredients are perfectly changeable, according to the specifics of each case.
Great thinkers, scientists, artists, entrepreneurs and peddlers of ideas have all addressed this matter, with greater or lesser degrees of competence. To defend their theories, they all emphasise one aspect or another.
In an attempt to be brief, with no ambition to work within a reductionist approach, we can separate the proposals into what is essential and what is complementary.
Addressing the essentials, Aristotle said that superior results are achieved through the “disciplined management of behaviour”.
And this disciplined management requires:
- Having a purpose, making commitments and being determined.
- Knowing how to use focus to develop habits, training discipline and persistence, and embracing breakthroughs.
- Knowing how to use imagination to shift the focus from the unimportant to the important, by nurturing expectations suitable to the plan that outlines the journey.
This book is based on evidence, not personal opinions. Each statement has to stand for itself, or rather, for what it might mean to you. The information can be learnt once you search within your own life and feel that you have found matching examples.
That which you can “feel” needs no teaching.
Learning to “feel” helps us to see the obvious:
- To see what the eyes cannot see.
- To unravel mysteries.
- To find answers to questions that were never asked.
- To understand that which science and reason cannot explain.
- To understand what haunts us, what amazes us.
- To understand the difference between the subjective and the objective.
- To understand that you need to have knowledge.
- To know what you must do.
- To know what you can expect.
Knowing how to feel avoids needless, repetitive experimentation in paths that do not lead to the desired goals. This buys us time.
A study carried out by psychologist John Coates at the London Stock Exchange showed that those who could identify their heartbeats more accurately made more money than others. This is because traders who can identify heartbeats more accurately can make more informed decisions about when to buy and sell assets.