It was a cold, stormy day. I felt frustrated. I was searching for the best way to reach a goal of mine, and I felt blocked. So many options. Hard to tell which are good.
After working on the problem all day from 7 AM, as I had all day every day for… a long time, my frustration became acute.
Late in the day, I shut my laptop, put on my swim shorts under my jeans, and walked out the door. I rode my bike to the end of the road, then left my bike and hiked down the slick muddy trail to the rocky beach.
When I got there I stripped down to my shorts, and started working out.
I lifted heavy logs, did pushups, performed pull-ups, squats, etc., all until muscle failure. The wind whipped the trees over my head, the storm beat the rain on my shoulders, the waves crashed up the beach to lap my heels with icy foam. Heat radiated from me as thermogenesis worked its biological magic.
As I took my frustration out on the rocks, logs and trees, I began to think, and I had a realization.
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Understand: our behavior affects our inner sensations. The key here is to ACT the way we want to be.
When you feel powerless, do something POWERFUL.
Straighten up. Widen your stance. Lean back and hook a leg over the arm of your chair. Take it out on the weights like a beast. Say “No.”
Do your version of something only a powerful person would do.
When you feel confused or unsure, do something only a CERTAIN person would do.
Confidence has nothing to do with belief. Only certainty.
In belief there is a certain form of delusion. That delusion is only as valuable as its utility.
Nothing in on this plane is certain, while humans seem to need a level of certainty to feel any semblance of happiness.
Most people outsource their certainty and confidence to outside sources. Parents, politics, peers, religion. Their self-image is only as stable as the thing (or things) they’ve attached it to.
But not you. Even in the face of sheer terror, you do the thing a certain person would do.
Now you’re certain. Now you’re confident.
When you feel lame, do something only a WINNER would do.
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At the end of my workout, body burning with fatigue, blood pulsing through my limbs, I dropped from the branch I was using as a pull-up bar, and walked into the sea. The waves slammed into me, ice cold and dark with sediment from the storm, knocking me back a step. I waded in deeper until the waves raised me up when they rolled past instead of knocking me back.
By the time I staggered back out, gathered up my clothes and hiked back up the hill, my body was tingling from the effort and the cold salt water, my mind was refreshed, and I was ready to return to my task with renewed vigor and vastly improved attitude.
I felt power in my limbs and dangerous in my brain.
The Force was, once again, strong with this one.