Physical and mental health requires eating properly, exercising, and knowing how to control your thoughts. It is all about habits—forming new habits, abandoning some, and preserving others.
Reach into your feelings and write this down:
- What kind of life do you want?
- What kind of life do you have?
- What would you do that would change your life?
- Is your routine suitable for the life you want?
- How should it be?
- List your daily routine, as it is today, step by step.
- Analyse: feel what you can do easily and what you struggle to do, give yourself a score according to the degree of ease and difficulty. Your strengths and weaknesses.
- List the desirable routine. How should it be?
- Compare the first list with the second one and figure out what needs to be tackled—be it by conserving, changing, or learning—in order to move from the first one to the second one.
- Write a plan to change slowly but keep up the challenge so that motivation does not drop.
- Make a commitment to fulfil the plan, without backing down (resisting).
- Start with determination. As you go along, you will feel that you can do it and your confidence will grow.
- Keep an eye on the saboteurs. They want it to go wrong. Resist them, stand up to them.
For example: proper chewing is essential for good digestion. Experts recommend chewing 30 times. Find meaning in it, make it a way of training the attitudes necessary for any purpose:
- Commitment. In 30 days, I will get into the habit, starting with 10 and increasing by two each day.
- Determination. I start today. Life is too short to be wasted.
- Discipline. I am going to do it without backing down.
- Persistence. If I forget how many times I have chewed, I shall start again.
This formula can be applied to everything that is difficult and necessary, until it becomes easy.
In this way, we find meaning in each of the actions to be carried out daily, as a way of training behaviours with which we can achieve the life we seek, using our imagination to create motivation.
And why is it that sometimes we succeed and sometimes we fail?
One only achieves what one does in the correct manner. Success or failure in doing so depends on motivation.
Knowing how to do things means doing them with less effort and more wisdom. The art of knowing is also knowing what to ignore in order to do the “Simple” things. Do not doubt that you can do it, do not empower doubt.
Why does it work?
Training programmes that progress “from reason to action” usually suggest that, in order to achieve a meaningful life, we need willpower, motivation, and passion for what we do. They have detailed objectives and plans with clear and measurable goals.
All this is desirable, but none of it is a decisive condition for achieving the intended results.
The missing element is “knowing how to do it”. In other words, knowing how to perform the necessary actions, knowing how to overcome the pain of change every day, overcoming the antagonists that reside within us, continually bolstering the knowledge necessary to these actions. This can only be achieved with the courage to expend energy.
Methods that train appropriate behaviours for each task until the expected result is achieved, they teach us.
We shall explain what to do: the things that always work; why to do them, the reasons why they work;
And you will work towards your own recipe, your strategy for each action.
The science of “getting it done”
The world has no love for us. The world has love for what we do for it.
Any human being can clearly see that all their successes and failures were products of what they did or failed to do in the past. The successes and failures of tomorrow shall also be products of what they do or fail to do now. In other words, it is about their behaviour.
Recall an achievement in your life and the hardships you overcame.
- How did you start?
- Did you have a perfect plan?
- Did you have significant prior knowledge?
- Who did you learn from?
- How motivated were you feeling in the beginning?
- What did you do?
- What did you feel during that time?
- What did you feel when you reached your goal?
- How long did it take?
Everything you have done and succeeded in, did not come from a perfect plan, let alone significant prior knowledge; you have simply decided, faced it, corrected course, sought out those who knew, learnt from them, invested in achieving and got where you wanted to go.
It is the small acts of each day that build or destroy great lives.
Your happiest moments were the result of the strong energy you felt when facing obstacles, when resisting impulses while moving towards goals that were initially thought impossible.
Your failures were the result of not doing what should have been done in the right moment. It may have been due to ignorance, negligence, laziness, or a lack of a clear purpose. It does not matter. What matters is that, at some point, you were capable of doing it.
And why are you not capable now?
“Doing is not everything, it is the only thing!”
What really matters is knowing what are the real reasons that prevent us from “doing what needs to be done” and how we can be more effective in life-changing tasks.
We all have needs, in the most diverse fields and of the most diverse natures.
We are capable enough to fulfil them, but something prevents us from doing so.
Knowing how to face your own problems means living a life with less anguish and more joy.
Knowing how to deal with other people's problems makes this skill the best way of ensuring love, income, security, a future; in short, to ensure comfort.
The art of life is nothing more than ensuring the success of others. Learning to be “kind”.
There are people who expect a lot and pay little, and others who pay a lot and expect little. Expecting too much or too little is a matter of motivation, i.e., the pain or pleasure that the person has associated with the problem to be solved.
Knowing how to “face and resist” what is relevant should be your trade. Dedicating yourself to it means learning how to unlock your superpower by changing behaviour.
How many years I wasted because I lacked skill in “knowing how to get it done”.
Knowing how to get it done: the true wisdom
Life is a seesaw, oscillating between euphoria and sadness. In other words: moments of great energy, motivation, joy, and moments when there is a feeling of impotence, uncertainty, and discouragement. Along the way, somewhere between peak and rock bottom, there is also the valley of boredom. If we put these moments of boredom together, we find a horizontal line, the line of any life, within the comfort zone.
The spirit of the hunter
Can you remember times when you enjoyed hunting, fishing, or looking for things to collect?
Have you ever built slingshots, snares, or other ways of catching birds?
But surely you have watched programmes in which the hunters replace their firearms with cameras, and fishermen return a fish to the water after catching it.
Everyone is driven by the motivation resulting from the pursuit. Leaving the shelter and searching for food has forced animals to develop pleasure systems strong enough to motivate them to chase game, even in unsafe, hostile environments.
Our biology tailored itself to the pursuit of challenge. Exchanging a mediocre life, in a limited comfort zone, for another life with progress, in which comfort is broadened, is a process that can start from a challenging goal, idea or action.
Something that causes an initial state of unease (stress) followed by gradual, uninterrupted action that leads to the feeling of being on the right track and feeds the motivation to keep going.
The mood will continue to fluctuate, but this time without hitting rock bottom. The energy gradually increases, the path gets easier, but every now and then a sabotaging thought comes along and casts doubt — “will I make it?” — but the confidence you have already built up prevails. You carry on, again and again, until you no longer let fear take hold. The relief we used to feel with the coming of the weekend, when we went on holiday, or when we hit the snooze button in the morning, is replaced by the restlessness that precedes the hunt and the challenges that await us. The comfort zone broadens, you take pleasure in difficult tasks, you find meaning in them, you know that it is worth the effort.
Can you recall moments in your life when this happened? Never? You will find them if you look hard enough. Remember your moments of victory. They may be small things, but we all experience moments that prove we have the skills needed to realise any dream—we just need to know how to use them again, i.e., know how to get it done.
The only secrets you need to discover in order to achieve anything are:
- the things you know about the relevant subject,
- the important things you do not know,
- the things you have questions about,
- the things that prevent you from getting it done,
- the means of doing more with less.
What you need to know:
Search in reliable sources. Sources that use consistent criteria to research what you need to know.
Example: When I wanted to find out why the training that I propose here works, I turned to the best science communicators in the fields of social sciences, humanities, and life sciences. Such were the themes that address quality of life and extract the information I needed from the best works. In doing so, I secured highly qualified talent that had researched thousands of sources and selected the best ones for me. In seven years, I have been able to confirm, backed by science, the evidence for the most effective training method to date, applicable to any need, and which, to me, seems not to enjoy the relevance it deserves.
When you need information that you do not have, you can use the same criteria. It is easier this way. It takes a lot less energy.
If you wish to save time, find that which has always worked, do it at the right time, with no retreat.
- Think about what lies behind life, what sustains it. If you begin your thoughts with the complexity of what happens in you and in the world, you will not find any viable solutions.
- Every existing thing acts, thinks, and spends energy.
- Pain and pleasure are indicators of whether you should spend or save energy.
- Spending or saving is not right or wrong, good or bad; it is the balance that guarantees the right or good result.
It is not good plans, knowledge, or good intentions that make the difference. GETTING IT DONE is what counts.
There will never be good conditions to get it done. We will never have all the data. The conditions arise when you take action, not when you intend to take action, nor when you know everything that needs to be done and can be done.
Life does not teach us; it forces us to Get It Done.
It means getting it done with:
- Commitment, the rope that ties us to each important action.
- Determination, the courage to start, to face it. It is the energy capable of detonating any obstacle and paving the way for any purpose, any dream.
- Discipline, to do better every time.
- Persistence, to resist, form, and preserve habits.
- Overcoming, to finish what we start, to exceed expectations by doing a little more than we were supposed to have done.
Progress is easier when we know that we are walking a worthwhile path.
Learn to “do the simple thing” using the power of determination, in order to:
- Save energy and save time.
- Keep the saboteurs of action at bay when they are still small threats.
- Ride the waves of pain and pleasure.
- Create habits quickly.
- Feed motivation.
Knowing how to get things done means doing them with less effort and more wisdom; it means creating a path when you cannot find one. It is knowing what to face and what to resist in order to balance motivation.
There are two sides to every issue: on one side there is pain and on the other there is pleasure. The middle is always right.
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by doing what you think you cannot do. By doing the difficult things first. The easy stuff gets itself done. It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop.
Wisdom can be acquired by learning:
- to get it done at the right time (it uses little energy),
- to feel (finding motivation in your past experiences),
- to learn from the experiences of others (avoiding suffering),
- or by suffering (it uses up a lot of energy).
The choice is yours.
Using wisdom is key to discovering where to find motivation and how big is this motivation, so as to:
- Solve your own problems, building a life with less anguish and more joy.
- Solving other people's problems to have love, income, security, a future; in short, to ensure comfort.
Finding someone worth working for, also has to do with motivation. There are people who expect a lot and pay little, and others who pay a lot and expect little. Expecting a lot or a little is a matter of motivation, i.e., the pain or pleasure that the person has associated with the problem to be solved. Paying too much or too little has to do with the perceived urgency and value of a given issue.
Example. If someone has a serious illness, the motivation is very high. If they only have a short time to live, the urgency is great, and if they are very afraid of dying, the value is great. In this case, it is normal to expect little and pay a lot.
Knowing how to act as a detective, to discover where to find motivation, is the intelligence for solving your own problems and other people’s problems.
It is obvious:
No-one loves you. A person loves what you do for them.
Do not doubt this conclusion or attempt to prove it. Always be kind to yourself and to those in your life.
To be kind is to do what is valued, giving people reasons to become necessary or indispensable to them. You become necessary when others do not want you to leave, you are indispensable when they fight for you to stay.
Knowing what is valued means getting more with less energy. You cannot give people what they are incapable of receiving (valuing).
To be kind to yourself is to be able to solve your physical and mental problems and feel satisfaction in doing so. It is about creating and sustaining your self-confidence.
To be kind to others means to be able to solve their problems, addressing their pains and their pleasures. It means creating and sustaining trust.
To achieve success at something, you must first be able to imagine it.
What prevents you from getting it done
The things that stop us from getting it done is usually related to our ability to expend energy. Our brain will not let us, it finds the most sophisticated excuses to discourage us—it even relies on the opinions of others to back these excuses.
To get around this and get a clearer picture of what goes on, I recommend that you choose a situation or problem and describe it referring to yourself in the third person (e.g., “Peter has a problem”) rather than the first person (e.g., “I have a problem”). This way, you can assess the situation more objectively. This helps you to reduce the emotions that may cloud your thinking and to find the real reasons why you are unable to do what you need to do.
Think of situations in which you resolved and delivered or failed to do so.
You may think, always, that what you need to do is easy, so it will be. Do not doubt of your power, so as not to give way to doubt.
You are the one who has the power to make things seem difficult, easy, or even fun.
“Nourish your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go higher than you think.”
— Benjamin Disraeli
Be careful with your thoughts, they become words.
Be careful with your words, they become actions.
Observe your actions, they become habits.
Remember when you said “not today, perhaps tomorrow. I wasn't born for this. I need to prepare myself. I can't do it.”
Or was it another excuse that you thought up to justify not getting it done?
Anyone who dares to waste an hour of time has not discovered the value of life.
Is your routine suitable to the life you desire?
How should it be?
What needs to be changed?
Finding meaning
Finding meaning is finding inspiration (motivation) to do things, like training.
If this is the life you have and you must move on from it to the life you want, the best way to walk more comfortably and quickly is to answer these questions at every step:
Since I must do this, what can I practise? — Commitment? Discipline? Imagination? — Or is it another one of the skills I lack?
The important thing is to take our time to reflect on how we can learn.
The attitude we take in any circumstance starts with the questions:
- What is the problem (the issue to be resolved)?
- What is behind it (the fundamentals)?
- Where can I get the best information on the specific subject?
- How is the solution structured?
- What do I need to learn (what am I missing)?
- Where does this lead me, what is it good for (finding meaning)?
- What should be done?
- How to do it well?
Human beings are driven by motivation, but in order to get things done well, they need to find meaning in life, in their goals, in what they do, or in all of it. All of this is good, but in the absence of any of these elements, motivation can be built from simple things. If you lack a purpose, find a goal; if you have not found a goal, find an idea, a reason to do it. Never an excuse.
It is better to have a path than to have a thought.
Do you want a path? Right now?
Start with your home, your work environment, then your health, your appearance, your charisma.
This is your laboratory.
All great deeds are the result of small actions. Every complex thing is made up of small parts, everything is learnt from simple things. Finding meaning in small steps is finding a path worth taking. To always do a little more is to gain confidence, to build the path to the superhero.
Remember and feel: how did you learn to speak, write, read, and think?
Do not wait for the light of inspiration. Go out there and find a candle. Do not wait for a miracle. Build it.
A miracle happens only when you find it by “getting it done”.
If you have not yet found meaning in what you do, find it in Voltaire's quote: “Labour saves us from three great evils: weariness, vice, and want.”
There is a lack of “knowing how to get it done”. In other words:
- knowing how to perform the necessary actions;
- knowing how to overcome the pain of change every day;
- winning the antagonists that reside within us;
- continuously improving the knowledge required for these actions;
- making from your failures, your teachers.
And that can only be achieved with the courage to expend energy.
The way we save energy is converting what is important and causes discomfort into a habit and, until this happens, every action must be performed and repeated with a trigger, without thinking.
The best recipe is the one that manages to reduce the pain (necessary to the effort of change) and increase the reward of the journey.