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Thursday, March 08, 2007

Inch by Inch Progress and the Lost Art of Consistency

Your mind has a certain perception of what level of success you should have, and whether you like it or not, your mind will constantly play games with you to keep you at the level of success it thinks you should achieve.

This is one of the freakiest, hard to deal with barriers that you will ever encounter.

To truly transform and experience “deep identity level change” you will have to fight and force and continually manage it the entire way through.

One of the biggest games your mind will play is making you remember and focus mostly on the events in your life it thinks are in alignment with the level of success that you’re accustomed to – therefore allowing itself to be lazy and avoid working through the complexities of adjusting to a new set of beliefs.

So for example, if you don’t think that you’d be able to easily figure out the complexities of gaining massive success, your mind will literally screen out and forget all the good things you’ve done – in order that you don’t get any “big ideas” about what you’re capable of, and submerge yourself into a new reality that would be taxing for your mind to have to think through.

Let’s say that you go out to a club one night with the goal of meeting and talking to every woman in the place (a phenomenal idea – good thinking).

You chat up ten groups of girls that night, six of which are really cool to you and four of which somewhat blow you off.

If your mind doesn’t perceive you as being a guy who could deal with the status that comes with having attention from women, it will cause you to focus on and remember only the girls who blew you off – basically pummelling you with evidence that you can’t do the new things that you’re trying to do.

Your friends will ask you “How did your night go?” and you’ll remember all the approaches that didn’t go your way. They might even remind you – “But didn’t you have a good time with that one girl?” and you’ll say “Oh yeah… Well, whatever…”

You might also hang out with a guy who has the type of skills that you could learn from, and literally not be able to see how well he’s doing or rationalize that his skills are purely because of his looks or something else you don’t have.

It doesn’t matter if this is in direct conflict with your personal desire to get good with women.

Your mind’s agenda is different than your own.

Of course, it’s fundamentally important that you force your mind to continually re-focus on the positive that’s happened (even if it's just ONE INCH of progress) – which can be done by journaling daily, talking about the good things that happened with friends who are supportive, or just regularly taking stock of how far you’ve come.

Did you get a conversation going? Did you get a few laughs? Did you at least get out of your house and actually live life while most people sat at home and watched TV?

Whatever it is, you’ve got to focus on that. No matter how small it might appear.

Once your mind is conditioned to do this on its own then you’ve reached your goal and it’s no longer something you have to do consciously – although if you find yourself falling back into old patterns you’ll have to bring back the fundamentals and re-adjust.

You might say, “Why can’t I just look at my successes and failures realistically and focus on them with equal weight?”

But without a focus on the positive you really have nothing to build on.

You’re not trying to be a scientist here.

You’re just getting into a headspace where you feel like the man and your mind is no longer resisting behaviours that you know are more attractive.

Emotionally and neurologically, you’re trying to force your mind to anticipate a positive response from new behaviours so that they become natural and smooth.

To approach confidently and without constraint your mind has to anticipate a positive response from it, like “This makes more sense than wandering around the club aimlessly or clustering in a group with my friends… This makes more sense than approaching timidly or self-apologetically, like I have some big reputation or self-image that I have to protect…”

You’ve got to force your mind to register it’s “OK” to take on a new set of foreign behaviours (even if they’re in severe in conflict with your social conditioning), and to trust in a fresh set o f bearings for a positive response.

By doing this you scramble your mind’s attempts to self-sabotage you, and then you rewind and reground yourself at a later point once you’ve got the new reality locked down.


Tyler

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

Take Life Inch by inch and that shit will add up someday.
dont be a sissy and crumble at the first sign of failure.

Anonymous said...

i just got soooo pumped up im about to brake something

Unknown said...

I've been watching this video almost every day for the last months. You start to progress when you stop looking for that magic pill.

Anonymous said...

Huge motivational video man, I believe that consistency is the key to succes in any area of life, and this vid encourage you to achieve it.
BTW you must post some images of HB's in BA the level there is unreal I've seen like 12's in my scale of rating you look at 'em and you think...are you real?? no seriusly I think you must be seeing it to. >:)
JackDanielz

Anonymous said...

I remember watching this as part of the training when I took on a sales job.

The boss used it to motivate us.

Dirk said...

Damn.. this stuff is so incredible to get pumped up. Small improvements on a consistent basis will get you ultimately where you want to be. One of the problems with this, however, is that I don't have ultimate control over my internal state, so that fallbacks somehow prevent to get better on a consistent basis. Because improvement, in my experience, can only happen if the improvements I want to make are congruent with my internal state. If not... then it is so damn awkward to make those improvements and it will feel like I am not getting anywhere. How do you deal with this?

Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting this important article. It's refreshing because you really explaine how to get the right attitude....and not just say 'you need the right attitude'!

Anonymous said...

In terms of pick-up and self improvment in general, this is hands down the best blog on the net. Another home run, Tyler.

Anonymous said...

This video rocks! Awsome!

Robbins teaches CANI!= Constant And Neverending Improvement = I CAN!

:-)

harshbharwani said...

nice article tlyer and i have started using this stuff when i read your article about positivity and ahhhh sometimes you fall back on your old patterns and its so unconcious its not funny but im loving the process of making inch by inch progress

harshbharwani said...

awesome article these are the thing that actually gets you going and i love the progress even if its inch by inch although sometimes i fall back to my old pattern which is so unconscious the key i learnt from tyler is to stick to it and eventually the brain changes and its after some time its automatic

Anonymous said...

Yeah - sometimes when you make a bit of progress your mind goes "woh, this is me now?" then a few days later your rationalisations adjust to your reality.

Anonymous said...

We are constantly seeking for external evidence of our current success. Our internal barrier will make sure there is correlation between our beliefs and our reality.

Creat0r

Anonymous said...

Thanks Tyler. Much appreciated.

Anonymous said...

about the article what streams to mind is the concept of homeostasis as in the predisposition of living organisms to maintain a state of stability vis a vis the environment in which it perceives itself to be inserted. so basically any attempts to disturb that stability by way of improvements, optimizations, etc.. provoke a reaction in the opposite direction to keep the current state because it's more stable ie. you're accustomed to it and have developed habits and skillsets to cope with contingencies, etc.. whereas the new and improved state is "risky" so yeh your frigging unconscious brain might just be worried that you could die in your journey of self improvement and is therefore throwing road blocks along the way, etc try yoga

Anonymous said...

Dude, another home run!

I loved this movie when it came out, and appreciate it more now for Willie Beamon's (Jamie Foxx) transformation from being a 'boy' to a 'man' as well as this speech.



Bish

Unknown said...

Man, I'm... I'm speechless... I have never seen anybody with arms as long as Player 57's before!

Unknown said...

I hear this "no magic pill" everywhere all the time and its SO true. We all want a quick fix. But the biggest success comes down to consistency.

He even mentioned the claw! Come on!

Anonymous said...

TD - grab the "10 day self-discipline" course from Amazon - it covers a lot of this stuff

-sheriff

Anonymous said...

well-put tyler; this is why learning how to learn, having the mind of someone who learns is so important - it allows for you to set the highest goals, and constantly adjust minor goals along the way towards that endgoal.
hansome hyena

Anonymous said...

Yo! TD. When are we gonna hear about Argentina. I want pics!

btw, i read 'driven from within'. Very solid.

-Nathan

Anonymous said...

" To truly transform and experience “deep identity level change” you will have to fight and force and continually manage it the entire way through. "

What a big Limiting Belief you got there.
Tyler, why not open up for easy ways of change? They exist. They are all around you. Start noticing them. Do yourself a favour.

Anonymous said...

thanks tyler. just want to say i enjoy your blog and find your writing challenging and inspiring, even if i don't always agree.. and not just for learning pick up.. but for learning life skills and how to relight that fire in my belly that got lost somewhere way back in my childhood. looking foward to reading the blueprint.

Absolute Marvel said...

Interesting article for sure, I read the book, Power of Now, you recommended and I really held on to the idea of "I am not my mind."

This sound like a place where I am not my mind would come in beautiufully.

nrm said...

this has been one of your better articles in a while tyler. good stuff.

Anonymous said...

I guess you might find this interesting:

"Individuals experiencing this syndrome seem unable to internalize their accomplishments."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_Syndrome

crypticfox said...

This is an outstanding post. Real-world instructions on how to acheive and maintain a positive mindset.

Jean said...

great stuff!