Arsenal Of Tools

 

Artwork by Nykos Gyftakis (http://www.nikosgyftakis.com/tablet/index.html)

 

Last blog post, I finished by saying that you need an arsenal of tools to be able to handle whatever twist life has for you. I’ll go into more details about this.

 

There are some things about yourself that you don’t like and you probably tell yourself sometimes “I should be better than this!” but the reality is that there are some things that you can change and other things that are far too ingrained to be able to do much about it. But, you might find yourself surprised when you see parts of yourself changing that you once thought impossible. I’ll do my best to try to teach you how to do this, but I can only go into depth on the traits that I’ve developed personally. There might be more, but I may not know them.

 

1. Basic Shaping.

The general idea is that we are a product of our environment, so if you change your environment, you change yourself. This is sort of the backbone to “successful” people. If you want to gain muscle and become an athlete, then you need to spend more time with athletes. Same goes with business, art, etc. Not only can you get helpful advice from your groups, but just being in that environment encourages behaviours and an understanding. It also works if you want to eliminate certain things from your life as well, such as addictions and other bad habits. That’s how the method goes, but it’s not an absolute and it’s not the only thing you’ll need. This is actually a much easier and simpler way to influence a course for yourself. These next ones are going to be a bit more difficult.

 

2. Foundation of Shaping

Patience (tolerance), discipline (self-control) and willpower are the same thing. It works like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes. This is something I noticed within myself and there are some scientific discoveries that further my point. Here’s a video that may be more helpful. (hour long, but worth it)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfnUicHDNM8

(Consider this a practice in your patience, you might need to rewatch it a few times)

 

A simple trick that I’ve learned is to just pretend not to care. If you force or act a certain way, eventually, that acting becomes a part of you after repeating it enough times. It’s the whole “fake it till you make it” concept. It does work. 

As humans, we are highly adaptable to conditions and there are some studies that show how pretending something is real is actually eerily close to that something being real (which makes truth seeking very difficult).

 

***Please note that this is not the same thing as trying to be someone or something that you’re not. You will always be you, but I want to show you that you can be a version of you that you want to be. Think of it like tree shaping, you influence where the growth goes.