If you want to make seemingly quantum-like changes in your life, then you’ll want to avoid the trap of attempting to make a whole series of changes at once.
I realize the temptation is huge. You read Psycho-Cybernetics and you listened to Theatre of the Mind, and you get so incredibly pumped that you want to change everything about yourself, everything you hate, everything that is holding you back – and you want to change ALL of it NOW.
One of the most overlooked principles in Psycho-Cybernetics is called over-motivation. In short, it’s wanting something so badly, wanting to make quantum changes so quickly, that you get in your own way and stumble over your own shadow, not to mention your feet.
When it comes to money, over-motivation can be an enormous hurdle. Same goes for weight loss, or winning a championship in sports.
This is why you make one change in your life at a time, rather than 50.
Once you decide to make a specific change, you track it, and do so in such a way that everyday is a victory.
Here’s an example of how it works and how it doesn’t work:
How it Doesn’t Work
A guy I know wants to become a copywriter. He reads one book after another on HOW to write effectively. He even goes to seminars and enrolls in online courses on the subject.
It appears, on the outside, that this person is DOING. But studying a subject, although important, is NOT DOING… nor is it LEARNING.
There’s no everyday victory for this person, no confidence building going on. It’s just study, study, study. All he can do at the end of the day is say that he read something.
Great. But what did you create?
The joy in life comes from creating after you study or think. The joy comes from the practice of something.
Studying and thinking are important components, but without the DOING you have nothing.
This person is over-motivated. So motivated, in fact, that he will buy everything and enroll in even more because he wants to be the BEST copywriter the world has ever seen. But when shove and push want to get together, he’s got no oomph. Over-motivation ruined this person’s chances of success.
How it Works
Person number two is also interested in copywriting and buys the same courses and attends the same seminars and workshops as Mr. Over-Motivation. But she does one thing different. After she reads about a specific skill or facet of the trade, she closes the manuals or shuts off the recording and PRACTICES the one thing she just learned.
And at the end of the day, she gains greater insight and clarity about the craft because she’s practicing. She can also hold something in the air, in her own hands, and say, “THIS is what I wrote.”
She created something. She did something.
And if she continues to do this every single day, and tracks it, she has a million times better shot of making it than the person who only studies.
This is how it works, my friend.
Do one thing.
Do one thing everyday.
Track it.
Get good at what you’re tracking.
Then learn another thing – and do it.
And another.
One change at a time – and pretty soon you have 50 changes.
Make cents? Or sense?
Good.
Here endeth the lesson.
Matt Furey
P.S. If you dig my style of email writing, and want to learn from the master himself, in a Psycho-Cyb/Zen sort of way, then GO HERE
