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1 [email protected] [email protected] Building of the New You – A Simple Method for Bettering Yourself by Thomas Charles alias Tomasz Blaszczak
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Building of the New You
A Simple Method for Bettering Yourself
by Thomas Charles alias Tomasz Blaszczak
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]2
Contents
Prelude 3
Chapter I Know-How of a Habit 5
Chapter II Introduction to Building of the New You 17
Chapter III Designing of the Habit 21
Chapter IV Forming of the Designed Habit 32
Chapter V Aftermath 40
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Prelude
Develop the habits; you have the brain power, you have the energy, but develop the habits of
success.
- Warren Buffett
Whats truly behind our thoughts, actions and success in life? What constitutes a
person? The answer is - our habits. We all have a particular set of habits which is
steering our lives from the backseat. Our habits and the things done by us in
accordance to those habits are the driving force throughout our lives. Our habits
determine what kind of person we are and what kind of things we are really capable
of. We are the set of habits.
In the long run habits are responsible for our level of happiness, our professional
well being, financial situation, quality of our relationships, social life, and even
attractiveness. Intermittent actions are not enough to achieve success, especially in a
modern era where competition is as sharp as ever. All successful people in any
profession are successful because they can repeatedly do effective things in their
profession. They can do that simply, because they have the right set of habits which
help them excel. Make no mistake, positive and effective habits have the elevating
effect allowing us to achieve our goals and make our dreams become reality, at the
same time negative and ineffective ones limit us mercilessly throughout our whole
life. We are what we repeatedly do, and thats why we are the set of habits
We all have habits; its the way we are wired. Our mind constantly pushes things
we learn to our unconsciousness, so we wont need to waste more energy on
thinking about those things in the future. Acting in accordance to the habit is
unconscious. Its just easier and feels comfortable. Our habits are like our inner
autopilot. Everything is fine when our habits work in our favour, but problems occur
when our habits are actually detrimental to us. The problem is when some pesky
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autopilot gets behind the rudder of our plane without our permission or knowledge
and is steering us the wrong way. We have to realize that while the good autopilot
will fly us to wherever we want to, the bad one will likely crash our plane in middle
of the journey.
Its up to us to decide. In a simple and relatively quick way we can change our
habits, designing them according to our liking. We can build our new effective and
successful selves. We can build our own effective and successful autopilot the way
WE like, because every action CAN become our habit. We can achieve anything we
want to and can become whoever we want to be in relatively short period of time.
Building of the New You is an easy learning method and a tool that can be used by
anyone to become a better person, to achieve desired goals and permanent results in
every area of life. The purpose of this guide is to bring permanent results and
improvements to anyone who aspires to them.
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Chapter I
Know-How of a Habit
We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
- Aristotle
Habit is a behaviour or action that is repeated regularly, that tends to repeat
itself even when we dont think about repeating it. Do you ever find yourself clicking
your favourite webpage every time you turn on a computer without thinking about
it, even though you saw it an hour ago? Thats a habit; it happens subconsciously.
Every habit can be singled out to one repeating core action, thats directly affecting
this habit. This core action has been imprinted in our neural pathways by our
repetition of it. To form a new habit we have to lay down the new imprint by
repeating certain new action for a time of three weeks to two months. The exact time
it takes depends from the environment we are in, our discipline, consistency, and
from our physical and mental state. For example lets imagine someone who is shy,
someone who has a habit of talking too quietly in company of strangers. Lets call
that someone Quiet Joe. To have such a habit doesnt mean that Quiet Joe is unable to
talk loudly in front of the strangers at all. He is able, but to do that he has to remind
himself to talk loudly, and as soon as he forgets about talking loudly his habit of
talking too quietly will take over. It means that its very unlikely that we will find
Quiet Joe talking like a TV presenter on daily basis. Most of the time or always our
Quiet Joe will mumble quietly without even thinking about it. Thats how the habit
works. Now imagine that Quiet Joe constantly talks as loud as he can for three weeks
to two months and guess what will happen... Our Quiet Joe wont be quiet anymore!
He will be known as Loud Joe. His mind will change his habit; loud talking will
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become imprinted in his mind. From now on he will talk loud without even thinking
about it, and it will require his conscious effort to talk quietly again.
Role of a Habit
Habits have a very useful role. Thinking costs energy. Habits save us a lot of
energy that we would normally spend on thinking about doing something before
actually doing it. Our mind forms a new habit out of the repeated action by pushing
it to our unconsciousness; its a way of saving energy. Thanks to the habit we dont
need to think about doing certain things, because if theyre imprinted in us we will
do them anyway. Again imagine someone who lets say was walking like a runaway
model for all of his life and suddenly decided to slouch. Within three weeks to two
months of regularly doing so he will change his habit of walking like a runaway
model into a habit of slouching; slouching will become imprinted in his mind as his
new and default behaviour. Because of the new habit, from now on he wont be
wasting energy on thinking about slouching anymore; he will be doing it anyway.
Habit doesnt engage our thinking and thats why the habit is an energy saving
mechanism. Unfortunately our mind doesn't care whether our habit is negative or
positive for us as long as it saves energy. Slouching is not perceived as confident or
attractive and in longer time will probably result in health problems, but our mind
doesnt care whether the habit is good for us as long as its able to save some energy.
Thats its only job in that department.
Comfort and Discomfort
Our mind works like a spider catching repeating in front of him actions into his
web. Once the action finally gets caught into the web its not easy to get it out of
there, because our mind has an additional protective mechanism. When an action
becomes a habit not only it becomes unconscious, but it also gets wrapped in
comfort. It means that acting according to the habit will feel comfortable and natural.
Anytime when we try to do something against the habit thats already in us, it will
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feel uncomfortable and unnatural. We have to realize that as adults we are not empty
inside, forming a habit usually has to result in changing some other habit or habits
that are already imprinted in us. There is a connection between forming one habit
and changing other habit or other habits at the same time. Often we arent even
aware of the existence of this old habit(s) in us. Our old habit(s) opposes against its
changing with some level of the feeling of discomfort. Thats also the main reason
most of us are unable to form habits we want to, or to change our unwanted habits;
we just cant handle the feeling of discomfort that goes with acting against the habit
thats already in us. For example, again lets take our still Quiet Joe and make him
stand up right now and publicly speak in front of a crowd of 100 people. As we can
imagine it would feel very uncomfortable for him to do so; he would have to battle
the pack of dark thoughts, doubts and fears. To publicly speak well Quiet Joe would
need to form a habit of public speaking. While forming the habit of public speaking
he would have to face a surprisingly difficult opponent... Some of his old habits, like
for example habit of shyness, maybe a habit of low self-esteem, negativity or even
false pride. Forming the habit of public speaking for Quiet Joe just like forming any
other habit would require dealing with some level of the discomfort. In bettering
ourselves theres no other way than going pass the discomfort, no matter how hard
and creatively we try to avoid it. Habits are wrapped in comfort and forming new
ones will be uncomfortable to some extent. Of course, Quiet Joe can stay in his
comfort zone, but by doing so he will never learn new skills. Thats the alternative
we have.
It Takes a Habit
Okay, so lets imagine that our Quiet Joe decides to go against discomfort, and
takes our challenge to stand up and speak in front of the crowd of 100 people, whats
then? He will have to repeat it. We have to remember that since the new action that
we would like to turn into our habit is still not imprinted in us, as soon as our mind
drifts someplace else we will forget about doing and repeating this action. In order to
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form/change the habit we have to be consistent. If Quiet Joe would keep reminding
himself and discipline himself to repeat the new action, with each repetition the level
of discomfort would decrease and if he would stay disciplined in doing that for long
enough the discomfort would disappear forever. Its doable! Even though habits are
just stronger that any intermittent actions, ruling every profession and having
permanent effects on our lives by setting our default actions, its still possible to
mould them according to our will. Consistency is the key here; in order to do
something against our habit we have to keep exercising our will and consciousness
because any time we forget about it the habit thats already in us steps in and takes
over. For example, if we have the aforementioned habit of checking our favourite
webpage always when we turn on our computer in order to not check it, always
when we are about to turn on the computer we would have to remind ourselves not
to do it. We would have to consciously restrain ourselves from checking it and
anytime we would forget about that we would immediately do what our habit
would lead us to and to what is imprinted in our mind we would check our
favourite webpage again. All of us probably experienced this in the past, when once,
twice or even few times we did something that was surprisingly effective, brilliant,
so easy, and then we stopped doing that for some reason. After that we couldnt
really bring back this level of performance anymore. It kind of faded away, staying in
us just as a memory, a flash of our potential. It happened because our habit of
mediocrity or insufficiency which we unfortunately had in us already took over. Any
flashes of even the most brilliant intermittent behaviour are always overshadowed
by our habits in the longer run. Intermittent actions are not enough to make a lasting
impact; its our habits that chisel our lives and careers. Thats why a real and
permanent change of a person is impossible without forming/changing of the
persons habit(s).
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One Is Often Enough
The connection between the particular new habit we want to form, and the habit
thats already in us which is trying to make the acquisition of the new habit
uncomfortable for us has the other side. If we would be able to form that new habit,
the other habit which is making it difficult for us, by making us feel uncomfortable
would change also! Repeating one action and forming the habit out of it would
results in changing of the other habit or habits. For example if Quiet Joe would be
able to form the habit of public speaking he would also stop being shy, his self-
esteem would go up and in general he would become more positive. Some habits
have more significant meaning and power than others! While for example the
aforementioned habit of public speaking has the power to resonate on many areas of
persons life, a habit of for example daily teeth brushing - while needed - doesnt
have such resonating power. Forming one new habit could make a difference in our
lives as dramatic as the difference between being successful and unsuccessful
professionally.
Look Around
When we listen to successful sport figures talking about their training, we hear
them talking about many repetitions of some action or move. They are constantly
trying to form effective habits and correct ineffective ones. The same mechanism can
be found while observing and listening to successful people from financial. First rule
of a trader never lose money, its a habit! What they mean by that is that the
professional goal of the trader is to repeatedly make decisions that result in not
losing money. Their ideal is to make a habit out of not losing money and the
successful ones manage to do just that. The same rule applies to people who are not
successful; if we observe or even listen to them we will notice that they repeat same,
ineffective actions with most common example being quitting too early. Look at
famous sport figures, and financial sharks - they never give up. They fall just like
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many of us, and they get up just like few of us. Its their habit. How about an ability
to lead other people? Its not a magic trick, its a skill. Its a habit! Did you notice the
trend of successful people like Richard Branson, Mark Cuban or Sheldon Anderson
crossing borders of businesses and taking on new endeavours with great benefits?
Why is that they can take on the new thing, and become successful in it? They can,
because they already have in them effective habits that allow them to reach their
goals in new fields. One the most successful entrepreneurs of our time Richard
Branson said:
I learned early on that if you can run one company, you can really run any companies.
Sounds easy, right? When you have the right set of habits it actually is very easy. Our
habits are responsible for our success or lack of it. Doing something once or even few
times is not enough as well-being in every area of life is based on regular and
consistent ability to make good decisions, speak well, sing well, act well, think well,
shoot or swing well, the list goes on. One lucky time is not enough to withstand
competition and persevere, especially in times we live now. Its about repetition of
whats successful. Its about doing whats effective for sustainable period of time. Its
about habits! Single actions are quickly forgotten by others, and - even worse they
are quickly forgotten by us. Some habits can raise respect and attraction and some
will do the opposite. For example, while a habit of being able to express yourself
boldly and with confidence will be respected and attractive, a habit of timidity wont
be respected and attractive. Some habits are healthy for us and some are not regular
jogging is healthy, while smoking isnt. Our habits are responsible even for things
such as our facial expression. Effective habits will cause good for us, while ineffective
habits will limit us throughout our whole life if we let them.
High Status Habits
Very important group of habits are habits that are strictly related to status,
whether material or social. Usually its both material and social status - combined
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in one person, and its not by chance! If we take a closer look, we will notice that
people of high status usually speak louder and clearer, walk and position themselves
differently than people of lower status, their eye contact is different, they keep
composure under pressure and so on. When we hear a phrase high status we
automatically imagine someone successful and rich. We naturally and unconsciously
reward other people just for their high status image in our eyes, and this perception
of someones status is based on nothing else than on high status habits they exhibit in
front of us. We reward people of high status habits by giving them a better emotional
treatment like respect, sympathy, even fear, or by giving them something material,
like for example our money. We think: Hey, he has such a nice suit, speaks so eloquently
and makes such a good impression, he must be somebody I could trust! or He sure would
know how to handle our money right, but do we really know that or we just
subconsciously assume it? Actually, our perception of someones status is based
strictly on what we see, think and feel and not on facts or reality! Again, its all about
habits. As humans we are able to unconsciously feel the difference between a
consistent and congruent behaviour and something thats not consistent and
congruent, between the habit and the intermittent action! Perceiving someone as
having high status instinctively elicits positive emotions inside of us and eventually
results in us treating that person better than we naturally tend to treat someone who
doesnt exhibit the high status habits and therefore doesnt elicit those positive
emotions in us. We are wired to be social. We are wired to pick up those cues. High
status is attractive and is respected, and its not our choice. We dont choose to feel
this way when we see a high status person, we just feel it. That better treatment in
general mean better opportunities for the person with high status habits. Somehow
and some way they simply seem more attractive socially, they get better jobs, better
treatment, more trust and the list goes on. It means the successful and rich have it
going for them on two levels. They are already successful and rich, plus their high
status itself gets them a better emotional and material treatment by people who look
up to them and want to associate with them. We feel that we have less money, less
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success and that we are less attractive than the person of high status. Though, are we
really sure about that? Yes, we subconsciously feel and think that way, but do we
actually know that for fact? Have we seen their money by our own eyes? Have we
witnessed or felt their success? Most of the times answer is, No! The only thing we
see is the image of high status. The only thing we see is the habit(s) that we perceive
as high status and our perception does the rest.
Reversal
We tend to think and feel that we are only allowed to act like we have high status
if we actually become successful and rich - fortune and success come first and then
come the high status habits. It seems like social status determines our habits. Its
only partially true, because it can actually go other way! Our high status habits can
and will draw fortune and success to us! Lately there was a story of complete
stranger who got into highly televised award ceremony, walking pass security, right
through the red carpet and nobody even asked him about anything. He did it
because his body language, his confidence, his habits created the high status. He
created the high status treatment, while in reality being an average guy! Security
folks saw a young gentleman in a nice suit, walking straight up, confident and
without hesitation. Their first instinct, their first feeling and thought was that it has
to be another celebrity and that he has to have something going for him. Oh, they
knew it! In their minds he definitely was some rich and successful actor! That first
glance was enough for them to give him a celebrity treatment. Just like its enough
for us to give the better treatment to somebody who acts like he deserves it, to
somebody with high status habits. The thing is, our instincts arent misleading us
much, because high status habits draw better treatment and better opportunities to
the person who possesses them. If he isnt successful and rich already, then he
probably will be soon. That person, who right now may even be poor as a mouse and
work as a parcel sorter in a warehouse will soon gather high status treatment and
high status things around him or her thanks to high status habits, as we think: Such
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a fine looking person, he must be some director or manager. What, if someone told
us the truth, that he actually works as a parcel sorter in the warehouse? We wouldnt
believe it anyway...
Our Environment
Process of acquiring the habit is automatic, and we cant choose to stop it. We
acquire habits since the day we are born. We take over the habits of our parents, our
peers, our teachers and our idols. We absorb from our environment just like a sponge
absorbs water, no matter if we want it or not. We absorb positives and negatives, and
our mind doesnt evaluate if the things we absorb are good or not. Thats why the
environment that we grow up in or live in is very important. Emotional states and
behaviours are infectious to a point where if we put a group of different people, with
completely different backgrounds and make them coexist together they will
relatively soon become alike. Often in life the people we are surrounded with are not
chosen by us. We have to realize that having random people around us for extended
periods of time is like gambling in the casino the odds are that we will lose more
than win. The odds are that we will acquire a lot of negative and ineffective habits.
There are many people in this world, some may be beautiful inside and giving and
other may be detrimental and toxic. Some may be aspiring and constantly pushing
themselves to their goals and others will just sit, complain and blame other people
for their inability. Social circles and groups tend to oppose values that are different
from the ones they are already cultivating. For example if one day we would decide
to change our values to ones that are totally different to the ones of our current peers
we would face a lot of ostracism, discomfort, pressure and even guilt because of it.
Staying among those old peers would practically disable us from incorporating those
new values. This coin has a flip side though; if we would be able to get into a social
group that actually shares our new values, then the same mechanism would protect
and inspire our growth instead of hindering it. If someone would like to become lets
say successful fashion designer, the best way to do that is to position himself among
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people who are really into fashion designing by for example moving into the flat
where most flatmates are into fashion designing. In ideal situation we want to grow
and surround ourselves with people in some way positive for us, with people in
some way better than us, so we could naturally absorb their positive values and
aspire to their level. This way we would be dragged up automatically, instead of
being dragged down. Every day we are absorbing our surrounding and the habits
we come in touch with. Problems, low or high self esteem, low or high status, work
ethic or lack of it, power and inability, anger, happiness, frustration and so on, it all
in some form and shape is a reflection of different habits weve acquired. Effective
habits guide us through the storm and keep rewarding us and ineffective ones keep
on punishing us socially, financially or in some other way. In that regard we dont
have a choice; we cant switch off our mechanism of acquiring habits. What we can
do is choose what habits we want to acquire. Remember? The mechanism of
acquiring habits works like the spider catching repeating actions into his web, so
what we need to do is just focus on feeding him the things we want and need, and
not the random ones. The mechanism of acquiring habits doesnt care what is fed to
him; his job is to save energy. It will change into habit anything it will be in touch
with for long enough time.
Everything Changes
Often we like to believe that we can choose whether we want to change ourselves
or not. That we can work on improving ourselves by pushing the boarders of our
comfort to new areas or that we can just do nothing, accept ourselves the way we are
and that the things always are going to be the same. Heres the kicker; they wont be
the same, because we are limited by time and natural decline. Our level of comfort is
strictly correlated with the state of our body and mind. For example, if we lay down
on the ground for one year, receive only food to keep us alive and do nothing, then
our muscles and intellectual abilities will deteriorate. At the same time our comfort
level will decline drastically alongside with the state of our body and mind. The
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border between comfort and discomfort is dynamic and not static, it always changes.
There is nothing in between comfort and discomfort. It means that if our comfort
grows, then automatically our discomfort shrinks, and vice versa. Our comfort grows
(while the discomfort shrinks) when we learn new things, renew our old skills or
simply by just moving and spending energy! Discomfort grows (while the comfort
shrinks) when we do nothing. Our body is naturally regressing when we do nothing.
We can actually simplify it we move and our comfort grows or we stand still and
our discomfort grows. We wont feel it in day-to-day perspective. We will probably
feel it in month-to-month perspective, and we will definitely feel it in year-to-year
perspective. Thats why sitting and doing nothing while feeling good and
comfortable can only work for a little time and cant be carried on forever without
negative consequences. Soon we will start to regress physically and mentally and
with that the level of our comfort will shrink. It will be shrinking, and shrinking,
filling our frame of mind with fear and frustration, taking away our personal space
until we find it hard to breath. The battle between comfort and discomfort is a life
long struggle. Its just like in the classic proverb:
War cannot be avoided; it can only be postponed to the enemys advantage.
When we rest and do nothing, discomfort is gathering forces and is preparing the
inevitable attack. Feeling the discomfort from time to time is actually good for us! Its
good to purposely expose ourselves to the feeling of discomfort that accompanies
doing new things and growing. Richard Branson said it best:
You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.
He also shared some interesting story form his childhood:
My mother was determined to make us independent. When I was four years old, she stopped
the car a few miles from our house and made me find my own way home across the fields. I got
hopelessly lost.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/richardbra414117.html16
In other words, you learn and you grow by doing what is uncomfortable, falling over
is definitely not comfortable, but it will be good for you in the long run. So move,
intentionally push yourself to feel the discomfort. When we feel the discomfort it
means that we grow inside, it means that our boundaries of comfort are spreading, it
means that there are more and more things in our life that we will feel comfortable
doing thanks to that discomfort we feel right now. On the other side, feeling of
comfort while more pleasurable can be very misleading and can cost us a lot; when
we feel comfort our discomfort grows. Its counterintuitive. Laziness has its price.
The price we pay is the way we will soon feel simply put we will feel worse. Doing
nothing is asking for trouble and will change us no matter if we want it or not, so if
we are destined for change, if we can't choose whether we want to change or not,
then we should at least choose the direction of that change.
Whats Done Once Can Be Repeated
Looking at any area of life we will find the same pattern. There are certain
repeating actions of which the success in those areas consists of. Take a look at social
life, who is most successful in it? The people who are confident, positive, assertive,
good in communicating, etcetera. Look at the relationships area... Confidence is
attractive, our mind set, the way we walk, the way we dress, the way we use space,
the way we present ourselves, the way we talk and so on. It all can be extremely
attractive and seductive. Now take a look at professional life. Our work ethic, the
way we handle pressure, the way we motivate ourselves, the decision making and so
on. Everything mentioned above can be singled out to one repeating core action that
can be done once. If it can be done once, then it can be repeated and if it can be
repeated, then it can become a habit, it can become our habit! Thats where our choice
starts, so stand still and decline or move and grow.
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Chapter II
Introduction to Building of the New You
Lets bring back Quiet Joe once again. If Quiet Joe would be able to develop the
habit of comfortable public speaking he would grow on many different levels. All it
would take is his will to expose himself to public speaking for the time of three
weeks to two months exact time depending of his discipline and consistency in
consciously repeating that certain action. His confidence would grow, his posture
and body language would change, he would develop a habit of leading people with
his voice, his eye contact would be better, his social ability would improve, he would
become more attractive, he would handle pressure and rejection better, and even his
facial expression would change. Just by forming this habit he would acquire other
habits that would further draw more positive things to him, like better treatment
from others and better professional opportunities. That's a lot, and all of it thanks to
forming just one habit, because when you form/change one significant habit the rest
follows. Building of the New You allows you to systematically acquire permanent
skills, behaviours and beliefs that will take you over the hump in chosen area of life.
From abilities and skills like making good decisions, leading people, to general facial
expression, theres really no limit to how it can be used. Its all up to your likings and
needs. Would you like to become a successful businessman, investor, actor, better
leader or better family person? Or maybe you would like to become more attractive,
more confident and better socially? Building of the New You is a simple method of
learning, gaining and bettering yourself. Its a blueprint on how to reach your goals.
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Two Part Process
Building of the New You is a two part process. It consists of choosing the traits and
habits you want (designing of the habit) and making them your own by imprinting
them in your mind (forming of the designed habit). Remember? Habits work like
your inner autopilot. You cant choose whether you want to use the services of the
autopilot in your life; that choice is being made for us. What you can do is choose
which particular autopilot you want to steer the plane called your life or your
career. You can consciously pick and form the habits you want. You can also change
the habits that are already in you. You can design the New You however you like
and then make the New You materialize. Remember, every action can become your
permanent habit in the relatively short period of time of three weeks to two months.
Its about deciding what you want, doing it once, and repeating it until it becomes
your habit, so it can bring permanent results to your life. Anything short from a habit
is not enough; the goal is to make something your habit!
Designing
The first part of Building of the New You is designing of the habit. As it was
explained in the Chapter I, change is inevitable, but the direction of that change is
not. A lot of books have been written about people in general, but its very likely that
no book has been written about you! Thats your job; you have to pick the direction
you want to go. If you dont know yet then thats the moment when you ask yourself
about what do you want, who do you want to be, and what area you want to succeed
in. This stage is done in your mind and on paper. You set your own limits here. You
select the habits you want to acquire. When you find the answer(s) and decide, you
will write it down. First stage is more important than the second stage, because if
your thoughts dont reach the certain goal then your actions definitely wont reach it.
Imagining, choosing, deciding is doing something mentally, acting is doing
something physically. Whatever you pick, chances are its been done before you by
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other people, and if its been done before, then most of the times it CAN be done by
YOU; if you can imagine doing something then actually almost always there is no
reason you cant do it physically. If you can do it once then you can repeat it, and if
you can repeat it then you can make the habit out of it! Try not to allow yourself to
believe that you are unable to do something, especially when it has been done before.
Try not to allow yourself to believe that your idols do some kind of magic tricks and
thats why they are successful. Its not magic, its a habit, so challenge yourself. Dare
yourself! This stage is about picking the habits that are responsible for success in the
area of your desire, the habits exhibited by the most successful people in that area.
Its about the habits you want to make your own. Its about designing of the New
You!
Forming
The second part of Building of the New You is the execution of what you have
designed - forming of the designed habit. Its about practically doing the actions you
have chosen, and turning them into your own habits by imprinting them in your
mind through repetition. There are two ways of forming/changing a habit; direct way
or indirect way. Both ways work. It takes about one month for disciplined and
experienced individuals to form/change a habit. Beginners usually need around two
months of honest and consistent work. Assuming the beginner pace, twelve months
divided by two months equals six. In one year you can form/change six habits, and
thats more than enough to change your life dramatically and achieve goals! Often,
forming one or two habits is enough to bring you desired results. With each habit
formed/changed you will become more effective in doing so. Your experience and
motivation will grow. The second stage of Building of the New You is about practical
forming of the New You!
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Be Disciplined and Know What You Want
Discipline and consistency are necessary, but if you never had a chance to
consciously form/change a habit then dont worry. Discipline and consistency are
habits also! They can be learned and there is a simple way of learning them, which
also happens to be a good habit to keep in your life. Start jogging, swimming or bike
riding regularly. Doing it every even date of the month will be enough, so just do
that for a month and you will be ready to go. Purposely, you wont find heavy
motivating in this guide, as you also wont find me telling you what or who to build.
From now on Building of the New You is YOUR tool and YOU can use it to build
whoever YOU like and whenever YOU like. You already know the schedule, the
required time, the discipline and consistency it takes. Its up to you, as it always is. In
the next two chapters you will learn exactly how to search and choose the most
effective habits for you. You will also learn how to practically make them your own,
so they can permanently work for your success on daily basis. Lets get to the heart of
things!
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Chapter III
Designing of the Habit
What you will be doing now is you will design habits you want to make your
own. You will design the New You. This part is about singling out and writing down
the exact action(s) which you want to turn into your habit(s), the action(s) you will be
repeating, until it becomes your habit. You will form sentences containing those
actions and write them down. The content of sentences which you write down is
crucial, because forming/changing of the habit(s) just like everything in our lives -
starts with a thought. You want to capture that thought in particular sentence. In
general, designing of the New You means choosing the area of life you want to be
successful in, and choosing the traits you want to acquire. Heres how you do it.
Single Out the Action
As it was said in Chapter I, every habit can be singled out to one repeating core
action and then, if done and repeated for the time of three weeks to two moths it will
become your habit. The time it takes to develop the habit depends from your
discipline and consistency in conscious repetition of the new action. Singling out this
core action is important. For example, lets take confidence; its a premiere trait of
attractive and successful people and there are at least few actions which will improve
the level of your actual confidence, and therefore improve your perception as
confident. Ability to hold an eye contact when you talk to a person is perceived as
confident, attractive and honest. If you think that this is something you are lacking
then here is where your research stops. For this moment there is no need to search
deeper. From now on you will just try repeating holding an eye contact when you
talk to the person. You will do that for the time required; until you turn it into your
habit. You dont need to hold and eye contact always when the other person is
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talking to you, but when you talk always do it. When you turn that into your habit,
then the habit will turn it into permanent improvement of your confidence level and
the improvement of the perception of you as confident and attractive person! The
same pattern works in other areas. The key is to find those significant core actions
that are common among the most successful in the area of your desire. Its simple;
you will look for the particular action which the most successful people repeat, for
the things that are common among them and in their behaviour.
Whatever You Want, Wherever You Want
Pick the area you want to excel in. It can be anything; finances, business, acting,
social life, etcetera. Then find people who are most successful in the area you have
chosen. It could be one or few persons, alive or historic. From now on you want to
look at those people like they would be just a set of habits. You want to pick up the
repeating pattern in their actions, style of work or being. Look for consistent traits
here. If its a popular area of life, like business or acting then the search will be easy
because there will be many sources you can use, and chances are that someone has
already done the work for you. There will be many books touching this area,
biographies, quotes and interviews, so often the search will be as simple as writing in
any internet search engine, name of the person quotes or the habits of successful
name of the profession or a person. If your area is less popular and more peculiar then
there wont be as many sources you can use, so you might need to dig deeper to find
them. Also, there are many books out there some of them excellent - which list and
describe the habits that are responsible for success in various fields, for example the
brilliant The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. Such books are very helpful and
contain a lot of information about many habits of successful people. Just remember to
look at people you see, read or hear about like they were just a set of habits and
search for the common elements that repeat themselves in their words and actions.
Watching or reading interviews can be very insightful also! Its surprising how
openly successful people share their knowledge. They have an inner need to do that,
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so its just a matter of you caring to listen to them. If you are lucky and have access to
your role models then you can personally ask them about their habits, about their
routines and write down the answers. Be aware that you dont focus on copying the
whole person. You focus on copying the particular habit of this person that you find
useful the particular habit(s) out of their set of habits.
Dont Take Advice from Anyone
As much as possible avoid taking advices from people who are unsuccessful in the
area you desire or unsuccessful in general. Manny of us have the tendency to give
advice and talk about things we unfortunately have no idea about, even when we are
unasked for help. Listening to the advices of the ineffective people would affect you
in a negative way leading you to making wrong decisions and wasting your time.
Just try to be aware of this threat and avoid it. Advice is like a foundation of a house
the flawed foundation leads to flows in the house that is built on that flawed
foundation.
If Its Worth It Pay for It
It may be that people you would like to learn from dont give free advices. Its ok.
Actually this might be even better for you. Successful people have the habit of
valuing their time and work, and they dont like to waste it. If you need something
from a well respected source and its affordable to you then pay for it! Its probably
worth it and it will be good for your growth, as we naturally dont respect things that
are given to us for free. By paying for something or by investing your work into
something you attach yourself to that thing. For example, if someone gave you a
book for free then there is a high probability you wont read it, but if you pay for it,
chances that you will read that book will increase. When we invest money or any
kind of effort into something or someone we start to care for that thing or that
someone and we attach ourselves to it. The moment weve invested money or work
into something is the moment its harder to quit and separate ourselves from the
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thing weve invested into. Thats also the reason why its hard to cut relations with
toxic people in our life; usually we already have either our effort or money invested
into them. It doesnt take much to get attached to something or someone. The
moment we give or borrow someone money or the moment we simply give someone
an advice is the moment we invest into that person. This mechanism is commonly
used by people in social and marketing areas of life. Now, since you know how it
works you can actually use it in your favour and attach yourself to positive things,
instead of negatives.
Practical Examples
When you already know the area you want to excel in and/or you know the
person you want to learn form, this is how you do a simple research and form a
sentence that you will be executing later. If for example you want to excel in
advertising or in business in general then there are not many better examples than
the one of P.T. Barnum a brilliant businessman, known as the father of advertising.
When you type in, in any internet search engine PT Barnum quotes you will
immediately find few sites containing quotes from him. You take a look at them and
voila! Literally, youve just found a dozen of sources from which you can extract
useful habits, including:
Politeness and civility are the best capital ever invested in business. Large stores, gilt signs,
flaming advertisements, will all prove unavailing if you or your employees treat your patrons
abruptly. The truth is, the more kind and liberal a man is, the more generous will be the
patronage bestowed upon him.
Above you a have a simple truth of advertising and business be polite. If you want
to excel in business and you are already polite then you continue to read the quotes
in search for other different habits, but if you are known as being rude or impolite
youve just found the action you want to make your habit. You have it from the
master PT Barnum; Be polite. Write it down. Its a very clear and simple sentence,
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and you want your sentences to have clear and simple forms. Lets take another
random, but more current example Warren Buffett, one of the most famous
investors and richest people in the world. Again, you type in the internet search
engine Warren Buffett quotes, you will find few sites with quotes from him. For
example:
I dont look to jump over 7-foor bars: I look around for 1-foor bars that I can step over.
Again you have found a very simple core action that you can repeat and make your
own. You can rephrase it, so it sounds more practical to for example Look for a low-
risk investments or Always make a low risk decisions. Heres another Warren Buffetts
quote:
Risk comes from not knowing what youre doing
You rephrase it to, Before every business decision make thorough preparation and
analysis, or Calculate the risk before every business decision and there you have it.
Another simple, but crucial habit of successful businessmen you might want to make
your own. Lets go further and take a look at the aforementioned Richard Branson,
famous business magnate and billionaire. He is not hiding his business mindset and
is known from expressing it publicly:
I dont think how to make money, I think how to improve life, do something good.
When he looks for business opportunities, his first thought actually is not to gain
something and make money. His first thought is how to improve and better the lives
of other people. Its counterintuitive, but he will be the first one to tell you, that the
root of his business success is his goal of improving and bettering the lives of people
around him. Richard Branson has a habit of looking for ways of improving and
bettering the lives of people around him; the money comes afterwards. When
Branson was in his late twenties, he was in Puerto Rico waiting for a plane to the
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Virgin Islands. That flight got cancelled so he and other passengers were annoyed.
He really wanted to get there on time, so he decided to charter a plane, he said:
I didnt really have the money to charter a plane at that point, but I told them, lets go ahead
and order it.
Next, he picked up a blackboard and went over to all the people who had had their
flight cancelled with him, on the previous flight. He just wrote on the blackboard,
Virgin Airlines, $29. He immediately sold off the rest of the seats on this chartered
plane and used the money to buy the chartered plane. The plane took off to Virgin
Islands that night< That exact habit gave birth to the Virgin Airlines, just as it did to
his other business ventures. So there you go! Would you like to become the
successful entrepreneur? Why dont you take his advice, and turn the idea of
improving and bettering the lives of people around you into YOUR habit!
Be Creative and Open
Be aware that the examples above are totally random. You can learn and
internalize ANY habit you choose, to become successful in ANY area you want. Use
your mind. Building of the New You is meant to be a learning tool and a method that
can be used effectively in every area of life. If its some general traits which you are
interested in improving like for example confidence, attractiveness or social skills
then again you need to do reduce this general trait to particular core actions. Few
model traits of confident people are; attacking fear, expressing what you think and
feel, being assertive and doing what one would like to do and not settling for
something else, keeping the eye contact when they talk, talking loud and clear,
walking straight or leading from the belly while walking etcetera. Basically you write
down: Attack the fear, Keep the eye contact with the person you talk to, or Talk like
you would talk to someone across the street, or anything that you find useful. Reducing
a general trait like confidence to a core action like above, and then forming a habit
out of this action by repeating it will drag up and significantly improve the level of
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that general trait whether its confidence, attractiveness, social skills or other. Its also
important to be aware that we as people have a tendency to gravitate towards
extremes. We either tend to look at everything in a negative way, or in a positive
way. We either tend to always give our 100% and work hard or we have a very poor
work ethic, the list goes on, so pick the extreme that will serve you better.
Write It Down
When you will come up with actions you want to change into your habits, then
you should write them down. You will be using it later, in the stage of forming of the
designed habit. It will help you keep it all in synch for the time required to
form/change a habit. The designing of the habit ends when you have one core action
or a list of few core actions that you plan to turn into your habits written down. You
will be working with those actions later, one at a time, until you notice that you are
doing it naturally without thinking about it, until it turns into your habit. When you
actually acquire and form the designed habit, then you can move to the next one on
the list. Through a year you can acquire five to six habits which will result in a
dramatic change in you and your life. Often you wont need to form/change dozens
of habits, as one or two will be enough. With each habit formed/changed,
forming/changing of the next one will become easier and smoother for you.
One at a Time
Form of the sentence should be simple and short. That way it will be easier to
memorize and recall when needed. You want your sentence to have a practical
content, so the message regarding what to do is clear: Do X, Try to do Y etcetera.
There may be a temptation to add more details to them and make them longer, but
try not to do that. Adding and complicating the content of the sentences will make it
more difficult, to a point where you slow down or even totally stop the process of
acquiring the designed habit.
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One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height
of cultivation always run to simplicity.
- Bruce Lee
When you add to the content of the sentence you risk that you will include two
actions in one sentence. Two actions in one sentence is too much, because our mind
cant consciously focus on two things at the same time; we cant think about two
things at a time. Doing one thing will immediately take your attention from the other
thing. Trying to make two habits at a time may result in acquiring zero habits; one
action will be distracting you from the other one. For example lets assume you are
working on changing the way you walk while at same time trying to change your
general face expression by smiling more. While walking you will remind yourself to
walk straight, and then you will try to also remember about smiling. You might find
some success doing both for a moment but very quickly you will forget about for
example smiling. Then, you will try to remind yourself to smile, and by doing that
you will forget about walking straight! So realize, trying to remember and trying to
learn two things at the same time will decrease your repetitions and by that extend
the time needed to actually forming the desired habit. Having the sentence which
includes two actions is counterproductive, so keep it simple. Try to focus on one
thing at a time. The more things you try to do at the same time the less effective you
will be. When you will be able to make the habit out of your one, new action then
you can go to the next action from the list. Secondly, dont include in your sentences
things you cant control. Whats beyond your control? Its easier to say whats in your
control only you are in your control. Anything outside of you is beyond your
control. For example you cant control other people. When you write Accepting
myself, its okay because you wrote about thing thats in your control, but when you
write, Being accepted by others, its not okay because you include something thats
beyond your control. Realize that you cant control whether someone will accept,
love or hate you or not.
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Modify or Change If You Need
The content of the sentence should mean something to you; it should be
understandable and wanted by you. If in the process of doing what you designed
you find yourself thinking differently or wanting something different then just
modify the sentences so they will reflect that new desire of yours. The content of the
sentence should be alive in your mind. If you have copied some action word to word
you might consider editing or rephrasing it, so it will sound more like you. You want
your sentences to have a practical content and be understandable, so it will be easy to
work with them later. Keep it clear and simple.
Focus on Significant Habits
Some habits are way more significant than others; meaning once acquired will
improve you and serve you in many areas of life, because they resonate in many
different areas of life. Confidence habits are not only attractive, but they also create
an image of high status. As it was explained in the Chapter I, having the high status
habits will draw to you the better treatment from other people. Form high status
habits and then just be yourself; people around you will subconsciously reward you
with better treatment and opportunities! You can wait to become rich, and doing that
will probably allow you to form some high status habits and draw even more
benefits to you, or you can do it the other way; by simply reversing the process.
Acquire the habits of high status first and then the benefits will be brought to you!
Make no mistake; you can form habits of high status even while being poor and low
status, because your factual status is actually irrelevant. Its all about forming the
right habits. The perception of you as the high status person will do the rest for you,
either by getting you opportunity of great job or staring your own business, drawing
attraction of some valuable partner, friend or in some other way.
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Examples of Core Actions of High Status Habits
Loud and clear talking - aside from being very attractive - creates a resemblance of
father figure or a school teacher and causes other people to look up to you. Keeping
an eye contact when talking, combined with touching the person you talk is another
extremely powerful thing that gives an aura of high status and power. Powerful
people also tend to talk less, using silence to their advantage which creates a really
powerful image in the eyes of people who come in contact with them. Ability to lead
and manage other people, ability to keep composure under pressure, ability to listen
and communicate yourself properly, along with being proactive are also extremely
useful, so you might consider introducing them to your life. As it was mentioned
earlier, there are many great books listing and describing particular habits of
successful, influential and powerful people, so you might want to give them a read.
Additionally, there are a lot of books about mindset and body language in which you
can find many gems that will be very useful to you. Each one of those significant and
universally resonating habits will permanently improve your general traits and the
perception of you as the respected, attractive, confident and high status person.
Other Habits
Other area in which you may find Building of the New You useful is a health area.
Habits ranging from proper diet, exercising and body relaxing to anti-addiction are
crucial to persons well being. Good body condition is a foundation of good mind
condition; the bad physical state will negatively affect the mind state, and the bad
mind state will negatively affect the body state. Also, you may consider improving
yourself in areas of work ethic and time management, as we often find ourselves
saying that we dont have time for anything; time we spend on the internet or in
front of the TV could be used in a more beneficial way.
Try turning off the TV and get out there and do things. My mum brought us up very much
to get out there and do things, don't watch other people do things, and don't watch television.
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() what I'm doing I see as so fascinating, so rewarding, so interesting that I don't ever
really want to switch off too much because I find myself in such a wonderful, challenging
position that I don't want to waste that position and there are just so many important
challenges going on.
- Richard Branson
Now Its Time
Right now, before you will go further, I want you to take out a pen and a piece of
paper and think about or do a research and write down the action you want to turn
into your habit. It may take you a minute or it may take you a week. It doesnt
matter, thats the most important part of the process of building of the New You. You
can fill your list of sentences with anything you choose to. Be creative, be open and
choose to build the New You however YOU like!
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Chapter IV
Forming of the Designed Habit
Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Lao Tzu
Youve picked and wrote down the list of sentences with action habits which you
want to turn into your habits, now its time for the practical part of Building of the
New You - making it happen, making the New You happen! In this part you will
focus on practical repetition of the action for the required time, until it actually
becomes your habit. There are two ways of forming/changing a habit - doing it
directly or indirectly. The direct way is simpler, though it may not be the best way to
start with when you are a beginner in conscious work with habits. The indirect way
is a gradual way; its a surer way of acquiring the new habit.
Daily Check-Backs
Out of the list of the sentences with the designed habits pick one from the list that
you want to start with or just start with one action if you dont have the list. Every
day you will read and keep reminding yourself about doing and repeating that new
action, so write this sentence down in your phone as a note and add date of when
you actually started working on it. Ideally you want to look at it few times a day -
just read the sentence in your phone every time you check what time it is. You can
also do it by having a piece of paper in your wallet with that action written down on
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it. As it was explained in Chapter I, in order to form/change the habit the particular
action must be imprinted in our mind by our repetition of this action. Until it
becomes imprinted in our mind we cant stop and quit doing it, and we will be
forgetting about doing that new action many times. Thats when those regular check-
backs to your phone or paper note and reminding yourself to continue doing this
action will come handy. Its natural that you will be forgetting about it, so dont
worry and just try to regularly remind yourself to do it until it turns into your habit.
In the part of forming of the designed habit you will only work with one sentence at
the time; you will form only one designed habit at the time. Dont think about and
dont do other actions from your list just yet. Remember? Our mind can only focus
and think about one thing at the time. That means that if you try to think about
executing other actions from the list at the same time, you will be unnecessarily
distracting your attention and energy from doing and repeating the chosen action.
Use your attention and energy the right way. You will be getting plenty of
distractions in your daily life, so theres no need to add more to it and make it harder
to acquire the desired habit. When you forget about doing the action then simply
start doing that action again. You will be forgetting about doing the action you work
on many times. Treat those check-backs to your note as a reminder and motivation.
You need to keep doing it until you form the habit out of the action you currently
work on. You can stop when the action turns into the habit, because from that
moment you wont need to think and remind yourself about doing it anymore, you
will be doing it unconsciously. After you form the habit, then you can go to the next
sentence from your list.
Direct Way
As soon as you write down the action in your phone or on the piece of paper you
can start doing it. As was mentioned before, there are two ways to approach it; the
direct way and the indirect way. The direct way is very simple, just start to do the
action from now on. Just keep physically repeating this action until you form a habit
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out of it and push it to your unconsciousness. For example, if its talking clearly, then
every time you open your mouth try to talk clearly. You will probably feel the
discomfort, anxiety and pressure while doing it, because the old habits will protect
themselves. You may think then: If I start to talk in a different way people will think
that Im weird, They will laugh at me or simply excuse yourself Im tired and
dont feel like doing it. Watch out for that. The clash with discomfort or anxiety is a
surprisingly tough opponent forcing us often to quit too early. We quit before we are
able to form/change the habit. It takes the certain level of inner strength and
confidence to follow the direct way. The truth is the things what other people will
say in reaction to you trying the new stuff dont really matter. Most of the time fear
of reaction of our peers, and the fear of failure are a lot worse than the reaction itself,
and often there is no reaction at all. If something, someone will ask you whats up
with your new thing, but the main point is that the way people will react is not
important at that moment. Whats important is to sustain doing and repeating the
main action for the required time of three weeks to two months. So if you are strong
enough to go against that inner dialogue then do it; start from now on!
Watch Out at the Beginning
The beginning of doing something new is the most difficult moment. Its the time
when we are most vulnerable for being hurt and therefore quitting. We often talk
ourselves out of doing something or someone may ridicule our attempts or hurt us in
other way. Theres no escaping this... But whats the point of escaping this?
Remember? Discomfort is good for us! Just bruise past this vulnerable period, with
each repetition it will become easier. From the moment you start to run you will run
downhill. It will become A LOT easier, so be persistent here, be persistent in
reminding yourself and attack the discomfort by doing and repeating the main action
regardless. Which each passing day the feeling of discomfort will be weakening until
it will disappear totally. One day you will suddenly find yourself doing the action
without thinking about it, so continue and keep reminding yourself about doing and
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repeating that action until you wont need to anymore. Somewhere along the line of
three weeks to two months you will catch yourself thinking, Hey, I am doing X, and I
dont need to remind myself about doing it! You will be doing it unconsciously; you
wont need to keep reminding yourself few times a day anymore. Thats the moment
when this new action stops being new to you. Thats when it happens; you have
formed/changed a habit! The direct way is a better way if you are confident and have
some experience in dealing with anxiety. If you dont then its still okay, heres when
the indirect way of acquiring a habit comes in handy.
Indirect Way
The indirect way of acquiring the habit divides the process of forming of the
designed habit into smaller steps, significantly weakening the feeling of discomfort.
Imagine trying to get into the cold water of a lake or taking a really cold shower.
Theres two ways of doing that. You can run quickly into the cold water, or quickly
turn on the shower switch with cold water resulting in quite painful body and mind
experience, probably even causing you to run out from the water in shock. The other
way is to do it gradually, by stepping into the cold water slowly and rubbing cold
water into the dry parts of your body. The same with the indirect way; you dont
want to expose yourself to the shock of discomfort. What you might want to do
instead is weaken the feeling of discomfort by dividing the process of forming of the
habit into smaller steps. That way you will avoid the shocking feeling coming from
the huge gap between the comfort you felt before and the discomfort you suddenly
feel after the experience. That way you will expose yourself to discomfort gradually.
The quote at the beginning of this chapter is a beautiful illustration of how you can
gradually acquire a habit without dealing with shocking amounts of discomfort and
risking the collapse of the whole process.
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Starting a Ladder
We often tend to think that doing something starts with an action. Not really. It
starts with a thought. Look at it as you would look at the step ladder. Everything
starts with a thought; thats the first step. The second step, its talking about doing
something - verbalizing it. Then the action follows up third step. If that action is
repeated enough times through the time of three weeks to two months then the habit
forms/changes the fourth step. So you start with thinking about doing something,
but youve already done that by designing the habit(s). Because youve already
chosen the action you want to turn into your habit, now you want to start to talk
about doing the main action. You will talk to your friends, family and other people.
Keep in mind, you dont focus on making them understand you, agree with you or
support what you do. If they will then its okay and if they dont its also okay; its
irrelevant at this moment. Whats relevant for you right now is to keep stepping
down the ladder. The goal in the phase of verbalizing it is to get more comfortable
and thats it, so start talking about what you want to do. Just say: Hey, Ive read a
book about habits and in this book there was this idea that talking loud and clear can be very
beneficial in life. Thats what Im trying to do now, Im testing it now. Remember, your
goal here is to feel more comfortable with the idea of doing something new and not
to convince and have battles of words with people about what you plan to do. Even
when others dont agree with what you tell them or will ridicule you dont stop
doing what you want. At this moment their opinion about what you are doing is not
important. Whats important is your goal to get more comfortable in doing and
repeating the chosen action so it can turn into your habit.
Going Down the Ladder
Treat the quote from the beginning of the chapter as the ladder of progress in the
way of acquiring the habit. Remember to go down the ladder step by step. Imagine
you standing at the certain height; you want to get down and you are using the
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ladder for it. Of course you can use the direct path, and jump from the height instead
of using the ladder, but if you are not trained and prepared then you might break
your legs. The first step of the step ladder is selecting and writing down the action
you want to form/change into habit. The second step is verbalizing that thought by
telling people about doing that new action. At this point the discomfort will weaken,
because thats what verbalizing will do. Talking about doing something before
actually doing it, will greatly weaken and reduce the discomfort you will feel while
doing it, just try it! When you reduce the discomfort and pressure like that, the third
step - the actual action becomes easier to do and repeat. The fourth step is
maintaining the repetition of the chosen action for the required time, which at that
point will become a lot easier. So theres no hurry. Dont try to immediately run into
deep and cold water if you are not ready for it. Instead do it gradually. Dont skip the
steps of the ladder; think about it and write it down, talk about it, and do it until you
form/change the habit. Understand that if you cant talk about doing something, if
you cant tell people about doing some action like for example learning how to lead
people, because you think they will laugh at you or for whatever other reason, then it
will be much harder to actually start leading those people.
It Shouldnt Take Too Long Though
If you find yourself taking longer than two months in forming/changing of a habit
then you might need to reconsider your approach, and just go back a little to
improve your work ethic and dedication. Focus on dedicating yourself to honest
work on forming of the designed habit. The time of three weeks to two months
should be enough to achieve permanent results. The old habit will let go and the new
habit will occur. If it takes longer than that, then dont change the goal, instead
change the mean by dedicating yourself more to what you want.
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Our Environment
The kind of environment you are in and the kind of people you have around you
are very important factor in forming of the designed habit. Its importance cant be
overstated. For example, if you want to become a successful businessman then try to
be around successful business people as much as possible, because when you want to
excel in business and you are around people who are unmotivated and passive then
you are shooting yourself in a foot. Please dont do that. Emotional states, behaviours
and habits are infectious. Good and positive environment with successful role
models around you will do miracles for your growth, accelerating it greatly. Wrong
and negative environment with many people who dont share your aspirations and
motivation will hinder your grow making it more difficult and less comfortable,
sooner or later stopping the growth completely. This cant be expressed enough, try
to purposely surround yourself with people who represent goals, values and habits
to which you aspire and avoid those people who represent the opposite. Really,
theres no other way. Keeping the wrong people around is not the way to go, because
you will absorb ineffective and unwanted habits. Wrong company will hinder the
process of forming/changing habits by you on many different levels. The goal is to
organise your environment to pull you up and not to push you down. Surround
yourself with people who aspire to goals similar to yours and your growth will
accelerate. This is so powerful that the fact of positioning yourself in the effective
environment, among the effective people itself without even intellectually investing
in it alone will be enough for you to achieve success. Thats how powerful effect our
environment has. Just being in the presence of effective, powerful, successful or
attractive people will be enough to acquire effective habits. You will find less
distractions, more motivation and security in reaching your goals among people who
share your goals and values. So take advantage of it.
39
General Hints
Remember to be disciplined and consistent. You will be forgetting many times,
just keep doing and repeating the action which youve chosen to become your habit.
There are no mistakes in this learning process, aside of giving up too early. Sitting in
one place and waiting for long time separates us from opportunities and new ideas.
Thats what a lack of movement does. Moving, doing, trying and getting to know
new things open new paths, thoughts and insights. When we sit in one place and
wait, we manage to do the impossible; we manage to give up even before we started
thinking about something, because we deprive ourselves from the opportunity of
fresh ideas and inspiration getting to us. Sometimes we even get to the point where
we thought about doing something, but kind of never had a time to start to do it or
maybe we even started to do it, but somewhere, at the early stage of the path we
were wounded by criticism or failure and let our goals and dreams die. Its crucial;
dont quit! Give yourselves a chance to change and become better, because it can take
as little as three weeks to two months to achieve dreams.
The reason most people fail instead of succeed is they trade what they want most for what
they want at the moment.
- Napoleon Bonaparte
40
Chapter V
Aftermath
Doing and repeating the chosen action for required period of time will result in
forming the new habit and bettering you on many different levels. The moment the
new action becomes imprinted in your mind is the moment you wont need to keep
reminding yourself about doing the action designed by you in the beginning, you
will be doing it subconsciously, without thinking about it. You will become someone
else the New You. Your new habit will also guard its change with the feeling of
discomfort. The same old mechanism of forgetting and feeling discomfort will
protect your new formed habits. You can even further improve the protection of your
new habits by checking from time to time if by accident you are not exposing
yourself to the factors that will result in changing of your habit to an unwanted one.
This check can be quickly done by just re-reading the list with the habit(s) designed
earlier, but at that point all the necessary work is done already. The moment you are
able to acquire the habit is the moment when you introduce the element of
permanent improvement to your life in the fields and areas that youve chosen. Now
you are able to just sit back and relax while your new autopilot will be flying you
safely to the destination youve chosen!
