Chapter 4: Shift Your Story
The author tells the story of Buzz Aldrin, the second man to step foot on the moon. His whole life, Buzz was driven to achieve the extraordinary.
When he finally did, his life suddenly became meaningless.
Buzz became depressed because he no longer had any goals.
Aldrin’s problem was that he did not seek a goal, but a status. He wanted to be the guy that walked on the moon. When he succeeded, he didn’t see better status.
Once you obtain a status—such as a particular job title, income level, or relationship—your motivation shifts from approach-oriented to avoid-oriented.
Rather than keep on evolving further, your new goal in life becomes to protect that status. You do so by avoiding failure, you stop being courageous and plateau.
Without a future self that has outgrown and outdone your current self, life starts to lose its meaning.
Creating “Meaning” Through Stories
Human beings create meaning through storytelling.
Stories are the filter, the structure, the roadmap that enables us to make sense of the life around us and pursue meaningful goals.
Dr. Crystal Park explains that we create meaning from our experiences by connecting three things:
- First, we define the cause of the event or experience. (“What just happened?”)
- Second, we link that cause with our own identity. (“What does this experience say about me?”)
- Finally, we link that cause and our identity with the bigger picture of how the world and universe work. (“What does this experience and who I am say about the world?”)
Creating meaning is something we do automatically. But it has a dark side. If we are not proactive in the meanings we create for ourselves, we can generate a premature, limiting, and false cognitive commitment about ourselves.
“Because x happened, this means that I’m a bad person”.
“Because x happened, this means that I’m never going to live my dreams.”
Trauma is meaning-making which creates a fixed mindset.
Indeed, the problem of trauma is not about the event itself, but the meaning we create out of it. Something terrible happened, but what made it traumatic was its interpretation.
Trauma is the meaning you give to an event or experience, and how that meaning shapes your view of yourself, your future, and the world at large. The meaning you formed during former “traumas” is now driving your personality, your choices, and your goals. Until you reframe the trauma.
Think about it for a second.
- Why do you define yourself the way you do?
- Why are you the way you are?
- Why do you like or dislike certain things?
- Why are you pursuing what you’re pursuing?
It all comes down to the meaning you’ve shaped of your former experiences, as well as the identity you’ve formed as a result.
As Dr. Stephen Covey said, “We see the world, not as it is, but as we are.”
If you have a negative view of yourself, then you probably have a negative view of the world. The world is viewed through the lens of your identity. You only see, or selectively attend to, what is meaningful and relevant to you.
Your view of the world and of your past says more about you than it does about the world and the past.
Consequently, you should formulate meaning based on your desired future self. This requires being intentional about your interpretation of your experiences, even your hard ones.
It requires you to decide for yourself the meaning of your traumatic experience, instead of letting your “brain” be in charge of them.
This requires you to be conscious and self-aware of how you have created meaning out of difficult experiences, and what the substance of the meaning is.
Questions
- How would my future self respond to this experience?
- What would they think about it?
- What would they do about it?
- How could they turn this to their benefit?
- This is happening for me, not to me.
As human beings, we spend our lives creating meaning out of our experiences to understand our lives and make decisions. When you understand this fact, you start to see it everywhere.
Any type of experience or event is a chance to create a rule or principle which impacts our identity and worldview. Every small experience counts.
When going through challenging experiences, you can actually define their meaning intentionally instead of having it assigned to you. You can choose the mark traumatic events will leave on your subconscious.
Most people don’t do that. Their thoughts are governed by emotions, particularly in emotionally heated situations.
Those thoughts are reactive and unintentional, but create long-term meaning and narrative held by the person, which becomes then becomes limited in some ways.
Instead of having emotions controlling you, it should be your goals that direct your emotions, even when the initial emotion triggered by the experience is difficult.
The better you get at emotional regulation in both small and big experiences, the more psychologically flexible you become. Then your emotions and experiences stop defining you in a reactive way.
Here’s how it works.
- Become aware of what you are feeling. You can’t manage something you’re not aware of.
- Understand the difference between primary emotions and secondary emotions.
Primary emotions are your initial reactions to external events. You shouldn’t judge them. They are natural reactions to things around us. For example, being sad when a loved one dies or being frustrated in traffic.
A secondary emotion is what you feel about the feeling itself.
Secondary emotions increase the intensity of your initial emotion, creating some sort of vicious circle that pushes you into destructive behaviors.
Hence, part of becoming psychologically flexible is holding your initial reaction loosely—not taking it too seriously or overly identifying with it, but acknowledging it, labeling it, and then deciding how you want to interpret and feel about the experience.
3. Let go. Accept and acknowledge whatever you are feeling instead of pushing it down, pretending you are not feeling anything.
You then want to step back from the emotion and consider the consequences of acting on it. Usually, the consequences aren’t in line with the values and goals of your future self.
Questions
- How much of your current narrative is based on primary emotions, your initial reaction to various events or experiences?
- What is the meaning you continue to give to previous events that no longer serve the story you wish to tell about yourself?
- What is the story of “you”?
- Who are you? Why are you the person you are?
Your Past Is Fiction: It’s Your Story—Get Creative!
The author tells the story of a smoker who attempted to stop smoking several times and always failed.
One day he moved to a new city for his new job and when he was offered a cigarette, he refused. “I don’t smoke”, he said.
He reframed himself as a non-smoker, and he has never smoked ever since.
Side note: this story outlines how powerful labels are. They really imprison you into action. While they can be useful to stop smoking, they can also be destructive, like labeling yourself as an introvert, and hence, acting it out.
The Gap and the Gain: Reframing Your Narrative
According to the theory of “narrative identity” developed by scholar and researcher Dr. Dan McAdams, we build our identity by integrating our life experiences into an internalized evolving story – a narrative.
The story gives a sense of unity and purpose to our lives.
That narrative is composed of the past, present, and future. This means that the three parts composing your story as it is are not fixed, but are happening simultaneously as you’re living your present.
Your narrative evolves as your experience evolves. The facts about the past don’t change, but the way you interpret them does.
Most people trap themselves into a negative narrative and never come out.
A fundamental aspect of “reframing” your narrative is shifting what was formerly defined as a negative experience into a positive one. Instead of having something to you, you need to have it made for you.
You may be wondering “Why would I want to do this? If the experience was negative, why would I pretend that it was positive?” “Positive” and “negative” aren’t facts, but meanings.
The meaning you place on past events determines who you are and what your future is.
Changing how you view your past is essential to upgrade your identity and future. If you want to change your future, you need to upgrade your past since the past may prevent your ideal future from happening.
You do so by changing your story, your narrative with the gain and the gap theory.
That theory states that some people only see gaps in what happens to them, while others only see gains (it’s merely about being positive and negative).
You can live in your dream house and only see the one painting which is missing because it was destroyed in a fire. You see the gap. Or you can see everything else that you gained – the gains.
When you’re in the gap, you can’t enjoy or comprehend the benefits in your life. All you’re focused on is why something didn’t happen the way you thought it would.
This gap gain theory also applies to how you see yourself.
Instead of comparing your present and future version of yourself and seeing what you don’t have, look at what your past version of yourself had and was so that you can measure what you have gained since.
It is important, especially for short-term goals. Of course, you shouldn’t abandon your vision.
But you shouldn’t compare yourself to your vision as it will most likely be depressing – you should look at everything you have accomplished instead.
Seeing progress motivates you, it boosts your confidence, enthusiasm, and excitement.
So, it’s important to focus on the gain, to shift the view of your own narrative, and reframe the stories where you focused on the gaps to focus on the gains instead.
Practically, it means looking at it asking the question “how much did I learn” instead of asking “how much have I suffered?”
When you reframe your narrative, it is incredibly powerful to shift from what was a “gap” narrative to a “gain” one.
For example, you may harbor negative emotions about something that happened to you in the past. You may view the experience for all that it cost or has done to you. You may be blaming your current circumstances on those former experiences.
But what would happen if you flipped the script on those experiences? What would happen if you proactively shifted your attention and began looking for the “gains” of such experiences?
Re-remembering the past is about filtering your past through the lens of your chosen identity—your future self. How would a more evolved version of you view these events?
How have these events enabled you to become who you are today? Everything in your past has happened—or more accurately, is happening—for you, not to you.
How you tell the story is the story!
What you choose to emphasize or ignore in a story determines the focus and impact of the story.
Part of shifting from the gap to the gain is getting more information.
If you have trouble with the way people have treated you in the past, or the way you have treated others, you may want to go talk to these people and ask them questions, see their point of view.
This will help you see whatever happened in a different way. Eventually, you may understand why people hurt you and be a bit more sympathetic to their situation.
You may forgive them.
Reshaping your Narrative
1. Shift past meanings from gap to gain
Let’s practice training your mindset to shift from the gaps to the gains.
In order to do so, pull out your journal and answer the following questions:
- Over the past ten years, what significant “wins” or “growth” have you experienced?
- How have you, as a person, changed?
- What negative things have you let go of?
- How have your views of yourself and life changed over the past few years?
- What are one to three accomplishments or signs of progress you’ve had in the past ninety days?
2. Think about one to three negative experiences from your past
Now that you’ve thought about your past in terms of the gain, think about one to three key experiences you feel have negatively impacted your life. Write those experiences down in your journal.
3. List all of the benefits or “gains” from those one to three experiences
Now spend some time thinking about and then listing all of the benefits, opportunities, or lessons that have come from those one to three experiences. How have those experiences happened for you, instead of to you?
4. Have a conversation between your future self and your former self
Your former self is not gone. You carry him everywhere you go. However, it is probably a bit bruised, which is therefore limiting your present and future self. It’s time to make your former self healthy.
You’re going to change the meaning of the past. You’re going to let go of the pain you’ve been carrying. You’re going to be left with a different identity than your former self. Your former self will now be totally healed.
Measuring the gains of your experiences to see how far you’ve come is one powerful way of seeing the strengths, rather than the weaknesses, of your former self.
Another powerful technique is having a conversation between your future and former selves. You can do this in your journal, in your imagination, in a therapy session, however you want.
First, imagine your ideal future self. They are incredibly compassionate, wise, and understanding. They’ve been through a lot and have created the freedom and capacity you want in your life. To get you started, here are a few questions you could answer in your journal:
- How does your future self see your former self?
- What would your future self say to your former self?
- What experiences would they have, if they were to spend an afternoon together?
- What would your former self think of your future self?
- How would your former self feel when they heard the loving counsel of your future self?
- Who would your former self be after that conversation, once compassionately given permission to let go and move on?
5. Change the identity narrative of your former self
When you shift your story, you see new possibilities for yourself.
You’re no longer the victim of what happened. Instead, you’re proactively creating meaning from your own experience. Your past is a story, which you reconstruct and design here and now.
Every time you go back to your past, you influence it. When healed and healthy, the past is simply a source of information that you can use (not a source of emotion, except for positive and chosen emotions).
The past is just raw material to work with. It’s a database that is entirely malleable and flexible.
Following the conversation between your future and former selves, who is your former self now?
- Who is the past version of you that you’re now carrying with you?
- What is different about your former self now that they’ve been healed and transformed?
- How do you feel about your former self?
- When asked about the past, what is the new story you will tell?
Avoid recalling difficult memories when depressed or feeling unsafe.
Rather, intentionally visit your memories when you’re safe, happy, and lighthearted.
The way you choose to remember your past and how you tell your story determine your past far more than what actually happened.
- What is your story?
- What are the pivotal experiences from your past?
- What are the gains you’ve had from those experiences?
- Who was your former self? How do you feel about your former self?
- Who are you now? Who is your future self?
Your Future Is Fiction: What’s It Gonna Be?!
You need to commit to your future self or may hesitate due to decision fatigue.
Decision fatigue is caused when you make too many decisions. At the end of the day, you are tired and don’t want to make them anymore, so you make “bad decisions”.
Decision fatigue can be avoided by making a committed choice.
By not making a clear decision for yourself beforehand, you’ve deferred the decision-making process to some future moment when you’re forced to decide.
“It’s easier to hold to your principles 100 percent of the time than it is to hold to them 98 percent of the time.– Clayton Christensen
Creating Your Future Self
1. Honestly examine the future you’ve consigned yourself to
Before imagining your desired future self, take some time to honestly think about the future you’ve currently consigned yourself to have.
Questions
- What is the current future you’ve consigned yourself to?
- How do you feel about that future?
- Is it what you actually want?
- Do you see yourself achieving the goals you have always dreamt of achieving?
If you are not completely excited about the future you honestly see unfolding before you, then there’s a problem. That limited future self is also limiting who you are now.
In order to upgrade your identity, you need something extremely purposeful that you can shape your current identity around.
Choose a big goal, something that matters to you.
2. Write your own biography
You need to aim beyond what you are capable of. You need to develop a complete disregard for where your abilities end. If you think you’re unable to work for the best company in its sphere, make that your aim. If you think you’re unable to be on the cover of Time magazine, make it your business to be there. Make your vision of where you want to be a reality. Nothing is impossible. —Paul Arden
Now, write your future story as if it already happened. Write it as if you were at the end of your life. Write it as if you were someone 300 years in the future writing about you.
- What was your story?
- What were the significant events that happened?
- How will you be remembered?
- How did you live your life?
- What did you accomplish?
Write about your life from the moment you were born until the present. Then take a break. And now write from the present to the future.
3. Imagine your future self three years out
- Who do you want to be three years from now? Get specific.
- How much money are you making?
- Who are your friends?
- What does your typical day look like?
- What types of clothes do you wear?
- What does your hair look like?
- What type of work are you doing?
- What does your environment look like?
- If you haven’t done a lot of future-casting, then you might just start with ninety days from now.
- Who do you want to be in ninety days?
- What do you want to have accomplished by then?
- How do you want to be different?
- What changes do you want to make in your environment?
4. Tell everyone your new story . . . of your future self
Never mind searching for who you are. Search for the person you aspire to be. —Robert Brault
Most people’s identity narrative is rooted in their past. From now on, your identity narrative is based on your future self. That’s the story you tell people from now on when they ask who you are.
Write a three to five pages document about your future life and share it with everyone. They will hold you accountable.
Furthermore, it is important to highlight that your vision should include realizations that are way above your current reality.
It needs to inspire and excite you.
It needs to give you motivation and hope. It needs to be big enough that when you look back, you’ll be shocked by where and who you currently are.
Also, your vision shouldn’t be fixed, but constantly adapted and worked on.
Whatever document you craft your vision on should be a working document, so that you can make sure you can keep on growing.
In order for it to be strategic and useful, it’s helpful to narrow your vision to three or fewer years out into the future.
The vision should focus on your one major goal, which if you achieve will make your future self and everything else you want in your life possible.
Now that you’ve reframed your past and imagined your ideal future, it’s time to get busy.
Take Action
In order to solidify your new identity, you need to begin acting in alignment with it so that your present self can transcend himself and become your desired future self.
It also means it is time to leave your former self in the past.
Psychologists have a term for this—self-signaling, which means that our actions signal back to us who we are. We judge and measure ourselves by our actions.
If you change your behavior, your identity will begin to follow suit. You will act yourself into becoming.
Your future self is your new standard. If your current payout for speaking gigs is 5 000 and your future self is earning 30 000, raise your fee to 10 000 first, and refuse any less than that.
Prefer being rejected at your new standard than being accepted at your old one. That’s how you force change to happen.
Make your future self the new standard for your current mindset and behavior. Act out your future self now.
Let’s see how it gets done.
Chapter 5: Enhance Your Subconscious
The unconscious is the repository of all of our feelings, regardless of their social or personal acceptability. To know about the unconscious is extremely important, for what goes on down there may be responsible for those personality characteristics that drive us to behave as we do. —Dr. John E. Sarno
The author tells the story of a healthy and fit 36-year-old woman called Jane. One day, Jane got into a water-skiing accident and her leg was screwed. The doctor told her she would never run again. Jane accepted it and stopped running.
Some years later, her husband suddenly retired and started doing nothing with his life. That angered Jane but she didn’t say anything.
Suddenly, the pain in her leg came back.
One day, Jane met Steven Ozanich, the author of The Great Pain Deception. Steven asked Jane about her pain, and when he found out about the water-skiing accident some 15 years earlier, asked Jane how things were with her husband.
Jane admitted things weren’t great.
Steven understood that Jane’s pain had nothing to do with the accident, but that it was an emotional problem. He also told her that she would be able to run again very soon.
Jane followed Steven’s advice. She expressed her feelings to her husband, got a rage journal inside which she writes her feelings to process them, stopped therapies for her legs to abandon the idea that the problem was physical, and started living as if the pain did not exist.
Now, Jane is fine and is running again.
Your Memories Are Physical, and Your Body Is Emotional
Like memory, we tend to think of emotions as abstract, residing only in our minds. They are not. Emotions are physical.
If you speak with a physiotherapist, they will tell you about times when by massaging one specific part of their client’s body, they released an emotion that had been stored there for a long time and the client began to cry.
This is called emotional release, or catharsis.
Emotions and memories have physical markers in your body.
The information relayed throughout the brain and body is emotional in nature. That information—the emotional content—then becomes the body.
The experiences we have transform not only our perspectives and identity but become our very biology. This phenomenon is talked about by Amy Cuddy in her Ted Talk: “your body language shape who you are”. The emotions you live (“who you are”) also shape your body language.
People with low confidence, low mood, or low self-esteem seldom walk with their shoulders pulled behind and their heads straight, the regard fixed on the horizon.
Why does this matter?
Because we need to reframe how we see our body and look at it as an emotional system.
Emotions are chemical, and our body becomes accustomed or habituated to these chemicals. It can also become completely addicted (think dopamine, and think heroin).
This is why overcoming an addiction is so difficult. Addiction isn’t merely a mental disorder. It is physical.
In order to change your addiction, you literally need to change your biology. You need a future self with a new identity, a new story, a new environment, and a new body.
In his book The Big Leap, Dr. Gay Hendricks explains that when people begin a journey of personal transformation, they will subconsciously sabotage themselves in order to get back to their former selvesack on our forme:
“Each of us has an inner thermostat setting that determines how much love, success, and creativity we allow ourselves to enjoy. When we exceed our inner thermostat setting, we will often do something to sabotage ourselves, causing us to drop back into the old, familiar zone where we feel secure.”
It’s like when you feel you don’t deserve whatever good things you receive.
When you begin making improvements in your life, you’re going to subconsciously try to get back to where you feel comfortable.
This is emotional.
If you’re not used to feeling great most of the time, your subconscious will grow uneasy. It will fight back once you try to allow yourself to feel good because it is addicted to the negative emotions of your former self.
Because negative chemicals are what literally make up your body.
If you don’t change your subconscious, then altering your personality will be difficult. If you change your subconscious, then altering your personality happens automatically.
To make powerful changes in our lives, we need to change at the subconscious level.
Otherwise, the change will not be permanent. You could try to force yourself to be positive, for example, but if your subconscious, or physical body, is habituated to negative emotional states, it will default to behaviors that reproduce those emotions.
Willpower doesn’t work for overcoming addictions, at least not in an effective or predictable way.
You are an emotional being. Your physical body is your “subconscious mind,” and the only way to alter your subconscious is by shifting the emotional framework that makes you who you are.
In many cases, the cause of physical pain is not “physical” at all but emotional. Once a person accepts the fact that they have suppressed emotions and learns to express and reframe them, they will stop misdiagnosing their pain as a physical condition.
Of this, Steven Ozanich wrote, “pain and other chronic symptoms are physical manifestations of unresolved internal conflict.”
When you change your subconscious, your personality will change as well. Your personality is merely a by-product or reflection of where you are emotionally.
The untransformed trauma (and the fixed mindset it creates) stunts your imagination. Your future self and purpose are then either nonexistent or extremely limited.
This isn’t what you want. Think of these for a moment:
- Why have you become who you are?
- Are you the person you’ve become out of choice, or out of reaction to your life’s experiences?
- What would happen if you became the person you really wanted to be?
- What would happen if you allowed yourself to feel good more often?
- What would happen if you stopped avoiding your pain?
The author subsequently goes on a rant to practice fasting and give money to charities – not the amount of money you have, but the amount of money you wish to give when you earn your target.
These are supposed to help you change your subconscious because you have a much clearer vision when you fast and are more detached from your emotions and because by living like the person you want to be, you trump your subconscious into getting it to believe that you already are this person.
Chapter 6: Redesign your environment
If I changed the environmental situation, the fate of the cells would be altered. I would start off with my same muscle precursors but in an altered environment they would actually start to form bone cells. If I further altered the conditions, those cells became adipose or fat cells. The results of these experiments were very exciting because while every one of the cells was genetically identical, the fate of the cells was controlled by the environment in which I placed them. —Bruce Lipton, MD
In 1979, psychologists from Harvard designed a house so that it would resemble the 1950s.
They took a bunch of old guys that were young in the 1950s and told them to just pretend they were in 1950.
They couldn’t speak about anything else that happened after 1950 in order to force their brain to be in 1950.
The television broadcast games from 1950, and they could read the news from 1950.
Well.
They got younger. Not only mentally, but physically as well.
Those that had come in with canes left without them. Those that couldn’t carry their bags left the experiment being able to carry them.
That is how POWERFUL your mindset is. It can make you younger.
Context Shapes Roles: Roles Shape Identity and Biology
How people see themselves influences their mindset and emotions. And it also impacts their biology.
We adapt to the roles of our social environment.
It takes a lot not to be transformed by that social role.
Most of the time, you become the role you’re given.
Putting yourself in new environments, around new people, and taking on new roles is one of the quickest ways to change your personality, for better or worse.
Fully take on the roles you assume, and you’ll change from the outside in.
Now, why do people feel they don’t change?
Because of routine.
The reason why people feel they don’t change is that as they age, they engage less and less in new experiences. Life becomes a routine.
You start having fewer “first-time experiences”. You wake up at the same hour to go to the same place to do the same thing every single day. You become emotionally fixed, hence tend to be less open to new experiences, which increases being emotionally fixed in a vicious circle.
The situation doesn’t change, people’s social role doesn’t change, and as such, people’s personalities appear to be fixed.
Question
- When was the last time you did something for the first time?
- When was the last time you did something unpredictable?
- When was the last time you put yourself in a new situation or a new role?
- Are there clothes in your closet that have been there for over five years?
Culture is often ignored because it seems invisible, but it shapes identity, behavior, relationships, and personality.
If you find yourself in consistent environments and consistent social roles, then your personality will show up as stable and consistent over time.
There is a huge volume of literature further detailing how the groups of people you hang out the most with shapes:
- Academic achievement
- Choice of university and degree
- How productive you are at work
- Whether or not you cheat in school and other life domains
- Whether you’re likely to do extracurricular activities and go above and beyond the call of duty
- Whether you engage in risky behaviors such as smoking, doing harmful drugs, and using alcohol
- Your likelihood of engaging in criminal behaviors
- The financial decisions you make and how well you ultimately do financially
- Your chances of becoming an entrepreneur
Since your environment shapes who you are, you need to immerse yourself in an environment that pushes you to become your future self. You need to hang out with people that are who you want to become.
Furthermore, here are three fundamental strategies of environmental design that you can use to force yourself into becoming who you want to be.
- Strategic remembering
- Strategic ignorance
- Forcing functions
Strategic Remembering
Strategic remembering is Tim Ferriss always carrying a copy of the book The magic of thinking big.
It is Ryan Holiday carrying a coin onto which is written “Memento Mori”.
If you want to become your future self, you need an environment that reminds you of that future self, not of your former self.
Goals become realities when you are constantly reminded to go after them. This is why many successful people write down their goals every single day.
They need to remember where they’re going, just like an airplane needs to constantly update its trajectory as it gets pushed off course.
Questions
- What transformational triggers can you install into your environment?
- Where would you put those strategic reminders?
- Change your computer password to a phrase your future self would use. Throw your TV away. Remove all of the social media apps from your phone. Look at your closet and get rid of anything that your future self wouldn’t wear. You could fill your entire environment with reminders of your highest aspirations and goals. And you should.
Strategic Ignorance
Most of the things calling on your attention are garbage. All social media apps, the news, etc don’t bring anything into your life, nor help you develop and achieve your goals.
Strategic ignorance is about getting rid of everything that prevents you from becoming your future self and anchors you into your past.
Yes, including people.
Strategic ignorance is about knowing what you want and focusing on it entirely.
As people, we are easily swayed or derailed. Rather than putting ourselves in tempting situations calling back on our former selves, we should aim at avoiding them altogether.
You can easily design an environment with the principles enabling you to pursue what you are after.
You need to design rules and systems that stop you from finding yourself in a mire of filth or the daze of endless opportunity.
You need to make one decision that makes a million other decisions either easier, automatic, or irrelevant.
Think about all of the inputs you’re currently getting that are sabotaging your future self.
- Rather than relying on willpower, how could you become ignorant of these things?
- In what areas of your life do you need to apply strategic ignorance?
- What simple decisions could you make right now that would eliminate decision fatigue from your life?
- What are you currently aware of or overly informed about that you shouldn’t be?
- What distractions or unwanted temptations remain in your world that need to be removed?
Forcing Functions
A forcing function is a self-imposed tunnel that forces you to grind to get out of it.
You imprison yourself and make the achievement of your goal the sole solution to get out of the tunnel. You’ve designed the situation to force you in the direction you want.
Forcing functions exist to coerce you into acting the way your future self would act. It also helps with getting rid of distractions.
Implementing forcing functions into your life ensures that you’re constantly moving in the desired direction, hence the tunnel metaphor.
Forcing functions also require time restraints, which activate Parkinson’s law. This law states that any achievement will take you as much time as the time you allow yourself to have.
Forcing functions can also arise out of the situation itself. In extreme sports, for example, forcing function is the activity. If you are not focused when you do a backflip with a snowboard…you may die.
Forcing functions demand a complete commitment from you.
To quote the author, “the goal is psychological flow and high performance.”
Your life should be designed so that you can focus 100% on your achievement. You want to produce the absolute best, otherwise, you may fail.
One of the most useful and powerful forcing functions is money. If you invest in a costly program, you’ll be more enticed to follow it.
Likewise, if you give 1000 euros to someone and they only pay you back 100 euros at a time every time you hit your goal within your deadline, you’ll be much more motivated to work.
Questions
- How can you embed more forcing functions into your life to ensure you become the person you want to be?
- What situations could you create that would produce powerful results?
Conclusion of Chapter 6
If we do not create and control our environment, our environment creates and controls us. —Marshall Goldsmith
Your environment is one of the most powerful and important personality levers. You must change your environment and design it for purpose if you hope to see any result fast.
To quote the author:
“You are the product of your culture and context. You’re the product of the information and inputs you consume. Everything that comes in —the food, information, people, experiences—shapes you. The first step is becoming mindful of your context and how it is having an impact on who you are. The next step is becoming strategic with your environment and situation.”
Conclusion of the Book
Embracing Your Future to Change Your Past Life Is Simple
Everything happens for you, not to you. —Byron Katie
Questions
- You’ve made it this far. The question is, what are you going to do now? Are you going to be consistent with your former or your future self?
- Are you going to activate the four levers of your personality and make radical and desired change?
- Are you going to continually expand yourself—imagining and becoming a new future self again and again?
I’ll leave the conclusion of this summary to the author.
“You are now equipped to increase your imagination, motivation, faith, and courage. You are equipped to embrace your future and change your past.
Throughout this book, you’ve been asked dozens of questions. Go back through those questions and answer them in your journal. Use your journal every single day to imagine, design, strategize, and conspire to create and live your wildest dreams.
Personality isn’t permanent, it is a choice.
Your personality can change in dramatic ways. The life of your dreams can eventually become something you take for granted— your new normal. Once you arrive at your wildest and most imaginative future self, take the confidence and faith you gain and do it again, but this time bigger and better.
Life is a classroom. You’re here to grow. You’re here to live by faith and design. You’re here. You’re here to choose. The choice is yours.
Who will you be?”
For more summaries, head to auresnotes.com.
Did you enjoy the summary? Get the book now!
Subscribe to my monthly newsletter and I'll send you a list of the articles I wrote during the previous month + insights from the books I am reading + a short bullet list of savvy facts that will expand your mind. I keep the whole thing under three minutes.
How does that sound?
