Tag: insomnia
The 3 Steps to Becoming a Ruthless Winner (and transforming your business success)
There are two types of people in this world.
Winners and losers.
Sorry to be so blunt but, at the end of the day, you either get your life exactly where you want it to be or you complain, makes excuses and accept that your life can never be the way you want.
Is being a winner the most important thing in the world?
No. It’s more important that you’re a good person. But why can’t you be a good person and a winner?
If I had to pull a number out of thin air, I would say 90% of people are losers and 10% are winners. Being a winner certainly isn’t common. Most people will have one, or more, areas of their life which aren’t the way they want.
It’s ok to be honest about this. It’s alright to admit that, in some areas of your life, you’re a loser.
I was a loser for 90% of my life. It’s only recently I’ve turned a corner and changed my mindset (more on this later).
That’s why I can write with authority on this subject. I know the loser’s mindset. I’m aware of all the things you’ll tell yourself that, unwittingly, prevent you from winning.
Right now, I’m going to share them with you.
Then, I’m going to show you how to win.
Step 1: The 5 Lies Losers Tell Themselves
This is, by far, the most important part of transforming yourself from loser to winner. You have to stop thinking, and talking, like a loser.
Every time a loser experiences a setback, or a failure, they’ll tell themselves one of these 5 things.
- I’m not worthy of success
- The world is against me
- Failing to achieve my goal is ok/2nd place is good enough
- It wasn’t meant to be/The universe didn’t want me to have it
- My goal isn’t possible
Let’s explore each one of these lies in a more detail.
- I’m not worthy of success
This lie can arise from low self-esteem or a perverse sense of morality (when so many people are poor, struggling, or losing in life, it’s not right that I should be the one winning). Whatever the cause, this thought must be expunged from your mind. Winning, if done fairly and without exploiting others, is good for everyone because it increases the amount of positivity in the world.
Furthermore, there’s the potential for greatness within every single one of us. You are worthy. It’s the system that makes you doubt your light.
2. The world is against me
When I first published my book, back in 2012, it took over 6 weeks to sell a single copy outside my immediate family. I was devastated. For four years, I’d worked on this project and now it had failed. However, it was a good book (I was certain of that), so I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t selling.
My ridiculous conclusion? The world was against me. Something in the universe, Amazon’s algorithm or people’s lack of good sense, was holding me back.
Of course, it couldn’t have been my lack of knowledge regarding marketing or my naivety about the online content creating space. Oh no, in my loser mind it had to be because the world was against me.
If you ever find yourself thinking similar thoughts, stop. The world isn’t for, or against, anyone. It just is.
3. Second place is good enough
There are times when a growth mindset is useful. Furthermore, it’s ok if you don’t win every time. Sometimes, you can win just by learning an important lesson and improving. However, there will be other times, with your most important goals, when only first place will do.
Learn to identify these occasions and refuse to settle for anything less than total victory.
4. It wasn’t meant to be
If the universe never meant for you to have something, then it wouldn’t have given you the desire in the first place. The universe wants you to have the life of your dreams. However, it’s not going to give it to you.
Therein lies the distinction you need to understand. Everything you achieve in this life; you are going to have to make it happen. There is no “meant to be.” Instead, there’s just what you want and what you’re prepared to do to get it.
5. My goal isn’t possible
History is littered with unachievable goals that, eventually, occurred. Nelson Mandela once said, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” He, alongside his ANC comrades, overthrew an entire political system.
Don’t tell me (and especially, yourself) that your dream of being a five figure a month coach, or making a living from your music, is impossible.
If you ever find yourself repeating, or believing, any of these 5 lies then change your thoughts. Winners don’t think this way.
Here’s what they do instead.
Step 2: Pick a goal that you must achieve
I use the word “must” deliberately. This is something you can’t leave this earth without doing. It may be something as simple as having children. Perhaps it’s selling a million copies of your books. Maybe it’s climbing Mount Everest.
The specifics of your goal aren’t important. All that matters is that it’s important to you. Something about what the goal will force you to do, or become, is so significant to your life journey, and development, that to not get there would equate to a wasted, or failed, life.
This goal should be easily quantifiable. You should be able to tell a friend, in one sentence, exactly what you want to achieve and be clearly understood.
Once you have this all-important goal, proceed to step 3.
Step 3: Mentally commit to your goal
What does this mean?
You must develop total certainty in the knowledge you’ll achieve your goal. Make a decision that it’s going to happen.
Then, no matter what you’re faced with along your journey, remain steadfast in your certainty. Never deviate from the thought you’re going to win.
Comply with these 3 steps and something incredible will happen. You’ll keep getting more out of yourself (learning, improving and getting mentally stronger) until you achieve your goal and become a winner.
How I did it
Last year, I experienced my own loser to winner transformation.
It happened on a tennis court, when I was playing in the final of an ITF masters tournament in London.
My opponent had beaten me on 3 previous occasions. I hadn’t defeated him once. However, despite this unfavourable head-to-head, I knew this was my best chance to win.
As the match began, my confidence soon wore off. I was playing terribly. It felt as though I was a puppet, and a vindictive puppet master was forcing me to make the most basic of errors.
It wasn’t long before I dropped the first set 6-0. I was in full-on self-sabotage mode, an experience all too familiar to me both on, and off, the court. However, just as the match was about to run away from me, I made an important change.
I started to alter my state. From years of immersing myself in the personal development world, and through my work as a hypnotherapist, I knew that the frustration and rage I was feeling would only lead to a continuation of my terrible form. I couldn’t hope to play well until I got myself feeling good.
This I did, raising my energy and reaping the rewards of my positivity by winning the second set 6-2.
At this point (1 set a piece), the match, and tournament, was to be decided by a 10 point tie break (first player to get to 10 wins).
It was here that my loser mindset kicked in.
I looked at my opponent and thought, “I’ve done really well. I’ve never beaten this guy and I’ve turned the match around. I was barely able to hit the ball over the net in the first set and now I’ve won the second. I’m proud of that. It doesn’t matter what happens in this tie break, it’s ok if I lose.”
A split second later, though, and I couldn’t tolerate this thinking. It was not ok if I lost. I had to win.
I’d been playing tennis competitively for almost 20 years. I’d done ok but never fulfilled my potential, often self-sabotaging in important matches.
Now, here I was, 10 points away from winning my first ITF masters tournament and beating an opponent I’d yet to record a victory over. It wasn’t the time to rest on my laurels. Second place wasn’t good enough.
Right then, I decided to win. For the next 15 minutes, I didn’t allow my mind to contemplate defeat or relax. I remained focused on victory and narrowly, and somewhat nervously, edged out a 13-11 win.
After this match, something inside me changed.
I could no longer look at low book sales figures on my Amazon reports and feel sorry for myself or wake up in the middle of the night and feel frustrated at not being able to get back to sleep. Neither of these outcomes (and many more) concerned me because I knew, ultimately, I was going to win.
I’d made a decision in my mind that I was going to get what I wanted (more book sales/a full night’s sleep etc). This absence of doubt ensured I remained focused on opportunities and got the best out of myself.
I hope this blog post will help you do the same.
GET YOUR FREE COURSE
If you want to discover a passion you can make a living from and overcome the fears that are holding you back, check out my free course 30 Days to Escape The System. Click here to get the course right now! (You’ll find the tips on developing belief and self-confidence fascinating!)
7 Self-Help Principles and Practises that ACTUALLY Work
The self-help industry sometimes gets a bad rap. Rightly or wrongly, it can be viewed as exploitative and unscientific.
You might have had your own experience of paying hundreds, or possibly even, thousands of dollars for a course that promised the world yet delivered very little.
Yet, despite the downside, I still love self-help for its optimism, idealism and redemptive promise.
More than that, though, it has some incredibly powerful ideas and practises.
Self-help books turned my life around.
I’d spent 22 years on this planet before I heard a single voice, either in person or through any other medium, telling me I could have the life I wanted (a poor reflection on the societies we live in). Then, I stumbled upon The Power of your Subconscious Mind and started learn about the mind-body connection.
This, in turn, introduced me to other writers, speakers, bloggers and more. Over the course of nearly two decades, I’ve experimented with multiple practises and principles, applied what works and discarded what doesn’t.
Now, in this blog post, I’ll present you with my findings. My hope is that you can apply what I’ve learned to your own life and share in the benefits I’ve experienced.
1. Living in the Now
The premise of this practise is simple. You live in the now when you are completely absorbed in what you are doing in the present moment. There’s no thinking about what you did yesterday or regretting a decision you made 10 years ago. Likewise, there’s no thinking about what you’re going to eat this evening, worrying about a meeting you have next week or whether you’ll get ill at some point in the future.
I often ask clients with anxiety, ‘where are you now?’ I then get them to describe their surroundings and what they’re doing at this precise moment.
Do you understand what this does?
It brings you out of your head and into the world. When you live in the now you engage with your environment. You come alive and are responsive (as opposed to being anxious about the future or depressed about the past).
Although not always possible (and I’m not for a moment suggesting you ignore important parts of the human experience like grieving), this is the best way to live.
Your performance at sports, presenting, coaching and being present for other people will go through the roof. Furthermore, you’ll begin to enjoy life, appreciate the beauty and nature around you and possibly even feel more connected to the universe.
2. Being Grateful for what you have
Whether you express this by keeping a gratitude journal, repeating 10 things you are grateful for when you wake up or any other practise you find beneficial, being grateful for what you have is the best way to maintain a positive outlook.
At any given moment, your life is full of negatives and positives. Even the person who lives the life of their dreams could probably find 10 things they’re not happy about.
But what do they, and you, choose to focus on?
This is what’s really important. What you believe is a 5/10 life can easily turn into a 7/10 one when you pay attention to what you have (rather than focusing on what you lack).
Of course, being grateful for what you have doesn’t mean you ignore the negatives, refuse to learn from your mistakes or give up on trying to improve and make your life better.
Instead, it’s about your overall attitude. You become someone who acknowledges the good things they have in their life (and everybody has something, no matter what) and uses these as a springboard to create something even better.
3. Applying the 80/20 Principle
One of the greatest delusions you need to wake up from (if, indeed, you are experiencing it in the first place) is that positive results directly correlate to the amount of effort you make.
They don’t.
The relationship between results and effort is not 50/50 (fifty percent in, fifty percent out). Instead, it’s more like 80/20 (this can be eighty percent effort in, twenty percent result out or, if you get it right, twenty percent effort in, eighty percent results out).
19th century Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, was the first to observe and codify this phenomenon. It can be seen in all areas of life.
- 20% of the food you eat is probably causing 80% of the damage to your desire to lose weight.
- 20% of the blog posts you write are probably responsible for bringing in 80% of your websites’ traffic.
- 20% of your investment portfolio is probably generating 80% of your profits.
The 80/20 principle is most valuable when it comes to eliminating waste.
Let’s say you spend 20 hours a week working on your new business. 20% of this time is spent promoting yourself on social media. However, social media only generates 5% of the traffic to your website.
What should you do?
The 80/20 principle would suggest you cut back on social media usage and redirect your time towards the few, key clients, customers, topics and platforms that are generating most of your revenue or positive results. Focus more of your attention here and watch your business grow.
4. Record Everything
Over the years, I’ve got into the habit of;
- Giving each day a score out of 10
- Recording the amount of money I spend on food and drink every day
- Splitting my work into three and a half hour sections and then ticking them off in my diary when complete
- Writing down how much time I spend watching TV/Netflix/YouTube each day and placing a cap on its duration
- and many more
What does this do?
Primarily, recording everything gives you a goal to aim for and the motivation to get there. Furthermore, it keeps you focused on the small steps needed to achieve your big goals.
Often, when you have a big dream, you can get overwhelmed by the enormity of the task in front of you. By recording everything you do, you chunk down, and make yourself aware of a set of standards which, if achieved, will push you in the direction of being successful.
5. The Law of Attraction
Critics will tell you that the law of attraction isn’t actually a law and that its claims are unscientific and unsubstantiated. However, have these same critics dedicated nearly two decades of their life to measuring the correlation between their mood/energy and their environment (both physical body and external circumstances)?
I have and here’s what I’ve learned.
There is a mind body connection. Changing your state and raising your energy can have a profound impact on your sports performance, sleep, socialising, creativity and dating.
Can it bring you untold riches and amazing opportunities though?
This is harder to gauge. From analysing my own life, I would say that raising my vibration and deliberately working on making myself feel good has played a role (although possibly not directly caused), the many breakthroughs I’ve experiences (getting a publishing deal for one of my books, finding love, building a following for this website).
What about you?
To experience the benefits of the law of attraction, start developing a greater awareness of how you’re feeling on a day by day, hour by hour, basis.
How would you score your energy?
If it’s at a 5/10, what could you do to move it up to a 6? Keep progressing in this manner and you’ll be amazed at how your life changes.
6. Letting Go
This is the promise of every major religion. If you let go of your worries about how you’ll survive, or achieve a goal, and, instead, have faith that God will always take care of you, then amazing things will happen in your life.
This statement may put you off if you’re not religious. However, fear not, as the principle can be detached from the dogma.
At its core, letting go is about the power of belief. If you believe in yourself, and believe that your life will work out the way you want, then there’s no need to worry, be fearful of anything or try to control outcomes.
This shift, and corresponding release of negativity, will have an amazing impact on your life. Instead of trying to force your life in one direction, you’ll be open to the plethora of ways it’s possible to succeed.
7. Modelling
NLP made this concept popular. To master it, you need to look for the industry leaders in your field and replicate what they’re doing.
The idea is that, if they can succeed using a certain method, then you can experience similar results by adopting their strategy.
This is a huge time saver. Instead of wasting years in a trial-and-error process, you borrow from something, or someone, that’s been known to produce results.
You can also apply modelling to your mindset.
Ask yourself this question. How does the person you want to emulate think?
Let’s say you’re an insomniac and you want to sleep well. It therefore follows that you must think like the person who sleeps well.
Such a person doesn’t worry about getting enough sleep or panic if they’ve got something important to do the next day. Furthermore, they’re not super anxious in the evening, worrying about the time and concerned they might miss their ‘sleep window.’ In fact, they probably don’t think about sleep at all!
Learning to think like the person you want to become can remove all the inner blocks that are preventing you from living the life you want.
Final Thought
I hope you enjoyed my list. If you feel I’ve missed any powerful self-help principles and practises then please feel free to mention them in the comment section below.
(feature image taken from Angie flickr account)
Call to Action
If you want to discover a passion you can make a living from and overcome the fears that are holding you back, check out my free course 30 Days to Escape The System. Click here to get the course right now! (You will find the unconventional approach to developing belief and self-confidence fascinating!)
How to Cope with Loneliness and Isolation
Let me take you back to 1999. I’m in my first year at University, many miles from home and I don’t know a soul.
I want to make friends. Furthermore, I’m hopeful I might meet my first serious girlfriend. However, something inside me is changing.
I’m starting to grow resentful of my peer group and questioning the university experience.
- Why is it we can only socialise and be open when alcohol is involved?
- Why are so many people reluctant, or scared, to say hello or strike up a conversation at lectures or tutorials?
- Why does no one make an effort to be friendly with me?
The last question sticks in my mind. It bothers me and, as a result, I make a terrible decision.
Fuck’em, I thought to myself. If you’re not going to make an effort with me then I won’t make an effort with you.
As I said, bad move. Soon, I was spending more and more time by myself. Conversations were limited to a “hi,” nod or grunt. I’d attend my lectures, go to the gym, watch tv in the common room, occasionally go the cinema (by myself) and that was how I spent my time at University. It wasn’t that I never spoke to anyone. However, in the entire 3 years I was at university, I could count on two hands the number of meaningful conversations I had with other people, much less a laugh or a good time.
Looking back, I can see the extremely negative impact this had on my state of mind. However, later in life, I also discovered a hidden blessing in my isolation.
This experience, and many more after I’d left university, gave me an insight into loneliness. I know how negatively it can affect your mind. However, I also know there is both a way out, and a way to reduce the sadness of being alone.
It’s this knowledge that I now want to share with you. I want you to know there’s hope and, even if it feels like not a single soul cares, happiness is possible.
The Dangers
Before we explore the potential for change, I must issue a warning. Spending too much time alone, no matter how much you enjoy your own company, is not healthy.
Sure, everybody needs time in solitude and moments of reflection. However, when they start to become your life, rather than a respite, you could be heading for danger.
The damage loneliness causes will catch you unawares. My own experience caused me to retreat deeper into my own world.
Without realising it, I became a prisoner to my thoughts. All I could focus on was a series of psychosomatic ailments that I believed were real. I couldn’t sleep, regularly experienced IBS, chronic shoulder pain and had a bloodshot left eye. Thoughts about not getting enough sleep, how bloated I felt, acute awareness of any twinges in my shoulder and phantom sensations in my eye, dominated my consciousness.
As a result, I wasn’t living. Instead, I existed in my head. I may have walked around and attended lectures but my mind was detached from the reality around me.
How did I get myself in this state?
Essentially, I had nobody to calibrate my thoughts and experiences. Nobody was there to say, “Snap out of it, Joe. You’re young, healthy and there are so many ways you could be enjoying your life.” Instead, because I spent so much time on my own, the focus on my ‘problems’ intensified and, as a result, they became more real.
This is the problem with extended periods of isolation. Without realising it, your focus becomes too heavily directed towards yourself. As a result, it becomes easy to overthink, doubt and allow yourself to get bothered by the trivial.
As harmful as these consequences can be, they say nothing of the negative impact loneliness can have on your attempts to socialise. Social skills are real. Spend a lot of time around other people and you know what to say, can avoid awkward moments and feel connected. Spend a lot of time on your own, and social interactions can be punctuated with awkward silences, miscommunication and an inability to relax when in the company of others.
Just what you don’t want!
You need to meet new people to break free from your loneliness. However, you feel totally unprepared when the opportunity to make new friends occurs.
It’s a catch 22 situation. Fortunately, there is hope.
The Upside
Spending a lot of time on your own isn’t all bad. There are benefits to your isolation.
First, you can focus your mind in a way that just isn’t possible when surrounded with too many distractions.
If there’s something you want to achieve, or a goal you’re working towards, continued and intense focus upon this objective is required. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve achieved a mini breakthrough in my life after periods of clear focus. These almost always occurred after either feeling low due to spending too much time on my own, or failing at something that was important to me.
Somehow the low mood cleared my mind and prevented racing thoughts. As a result, I was able to focus intensely on what I wanted to achieve (because of the seriousness of my situation, I didn’t want to listen to podcasts, music or be distracted by ongoing debates in my mind). It was as if I’d lost all appetite for mental ‘junk’, and was so keen to improve my situation that disciplining my thoughts was no longer a hassle.
The renowned 19th century inventor Nikola Tesla seemed to agree. He clearly valued time alone, and the opportunity to focus his thoughts, when his said, “Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born.”
The second upside to loneliness is that enables you to focus on what matters.
As much as you may want to feel integrated with a group, or experience loving relationships with other people, there is a downside to too much human contact. Not only does it impact the ability to focus your mind, you could find yourself living a life which isn’t your own.
You get swayed by current fashions and trends, you stop listening to your inner voice and, as a result, can end up directionless.
This won’t happen when you experience prolonged periods of loneliness and isolation. You’ve got time to focus on what matters to you. There are no pointless social obligations, friendships of convenience and other people’s expectations, competing for your time. Instead, you can plan your schedule around what you want to do.
Of course, you don’t want to spend your entire life in isolation. However, if, for whatever reason, you find yourself spending a lot of time on your own, you can use it to improve your financial situation, knowledge and physical health to such a degree that, when you do emerge from your social hibernation, you are a far stronger person.
Ironically, this kind of self-reliance makes you more attractive to other people. Suddenly, you’re mysterious and interesting rather than simply being a loner. Your experiences and knowledge mean you have something to offer in one to one and group conversations.
The Way Out
Despite the benefits of being alone, you are probably, still, looking for a way out. This is understandable. Life is so much richer in the company of people you love and find interesting. Therefore, you want to know how to raise your energy so that when you meet people, you’re able to be positive and engaging. Here’s the method I used (and still do).
Whenever I feel lonely, I remember the words of Yoda. In the second Star Wars film, Episode Five: The Empire Strikes Back, he tells Luke Skywalker,
“For my ally is The Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the force around you. Here, between you, me. The tree. The rock. Everywhere.”
You feel lonely because you feel trapped; imprisoned by four walls or a society that doesn’t care or that you don’t understand. However, you are not trapped.
As Yoda says, you are a ‘luminous being.’ It isn’t reality (the material) that’s trapping you, it’s your energy. Therefore, every time you feel alone or isolated, focus on feeling good.
Amazing changes will happen when you do this with consistency. You’ll be surprised at how you can transform from lonely, to inspired, in little more than 30 minutes. A situation that once seemed inescapable and never ending, now becomes an opportunity. Nothing can stop you.
Conclusion
I hope this blog post has given you something to think about. No matter how lonely and isolated you feel, and no matter how many years you’ve felt this way, you are presented with a very simple and clear choice.
Either succumb to your situation and allow it to overwhelm you or, master the art of raising your energy and watch your life change. In the words of Andy Dufresne, in Shawshank Redemption, “Get busy living or get busy dying.”
Call to Action
If you want to discover a passion you can make a living from and overcome the fears that are holding you back, check out my free course 30 Days to Escape The System. Click here to get the course right now! (You’ll find the tips on developing belief and self-confidence fascinating!)