The actual benefit of meditation that is different than most of us understand.

 One of the very best responses I've ever received about a page on my site!

It's a quick read (but it has a number of links that you might find quite useful, methinks...)

A Summary Of A Deepened Understanding Of What Meditation Is About

Never take the low road...it’ll cost you!

(In email, click on the post title in order to read the entire post.) 

The reason not to take the low road that your primitive mind mindlessly jumps to is that it is not a good strategy - it produces bad results.  It costs you emotionally, relationship-wise, attention-wise and energywise.

Low level mind “nonthinking” responses are at the animal level of “stimulus—> response” and typically lead to low level behaviors, not worthy of being a human.

Read this:

To Avoid Traffic Jams, Take The High Road.

And remember to follow the “Never get angry” rule in The Cardinal Rules Of Life - which will transform your life if you truly choose to follow them!

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Managing the "little selves" to achieve BIG benefits for the Big Self

In order to live a much better life, you must know this (about how the mind/brain and parts of us operate) and you MUST use the suggested strategies, which are easily implemented.  It'll make your life both easier AND you'll be much more happy, with  lots more satisfaction and fulfillment!

I assure you, it is very, very doable!

AN EXCERPT (SUMMARY OF THE IDEA BEFORE THE DISCUSSION OF THE STRATEGIES):

"The human brain wasn't built top to bottom as a single project like Apple builds a computer. It evolved over millions of years in a very messy fashion. Various systems (or "modules") came about to drive you to accomplish different tasks like seeking food, fighting, reproduction, etc. But here's the problem...

They were never integrated. So these systems compete to steer the ship that is your brain. Your mind is less like a single computer operating system and more like a collection of smartphone apps where only one can be open and running at a time."  

After the discussion in this post, I recommend you read that article that the quote is from (linked to, below) AND, then, of course, implement the simple, super-vital doables into your life!!!!!!!!!!!

We must not let the "old way", where the little selves reactively (and poorly) run our live, continue to run different parts of our lives (and cause us not to take proper care of our total selves, to try to use willpower where it often fails, to lose the weight battle, to continue the "struggles" we have...). (See also: The Role Of "Conflicting Needs" At The Same Time - Seeing, Adjusting, For A Life Of Greater Ease And Effectiveness.)

THE NEW WAY

If we let the “little selves” each run the show, randomly, we will not gain even a small fraction of what we could attain if we “managed” them and decided on purpose whether or not to obey the impulse that they give us (or what we think is the emotional imperative that seems to be in control) .

(See Impulse Management - The First Step To Self Mastery And Directing Your Life.)

To effectively, and to lots more easily, manage “the process”, we need to first “stop” - in the form of a “pause” (The Power Pause).  At that moment, we would give some form of attention to our breathing, where we "center", and then engage our thinking (higher brain).  If we have learned about the reality of the “little selves”, then we will see that the (seemingly) ”emotional imperatives” from them are merely biochemical electric impulses from a little, unthinking "small self" (part of us) that are often erroneous and not appropriate and which we don’t want to run our lives.  Then we get to choose: What is best for me and my life?

This practice is a vital core practice for life (one of the top 5 to put/install into your life) that should be installed as a dominant habit in the moments throughout each day (often taking mere seconds, while saving massive. amounts of ill-used time...and "mis-takes").  

Make sure that this practice is made an integral core part of your life, as it will make it enormously better.

THE "OTHER PRACTICE"

The “other practice” (referred to in the linked article) is to meditate, as it trains the “mind” to not overreact. Surely you can do a 5 minute “just notice your breathing” period at least once a day.  I do lots of 1 minute (or 30 seconds sometimes) "meditations" during the day, as a form of The Short Pause (called The Power Pause) - it recenters me and gets me to use my higher brain to live life a bit more smartly.  

Install these (it’s relatively easy actually and it makes life much, much easier) - ASAP!  This. is super vitally important to your life. 

Oh, here's my Evernote copy of the article with boldings inserted: Managing the many little selves to achieve big benefits for the Big Self   The author of the article is a super-genius of life, to follow as a life mentor, methinks!

AND AN ADDITIONAL PRACTICE WITH MASSIVE BENEFITS!

Considering the fact that the "little selves" will not move us to a higher level of living life, it is up to our "Big Self" (our true "I") to decide what is wanted and needed, ahead of time, when we are in our most alert, sharpest state.  If we think and plan ahead, just following the elementary practices of doing so (various versions are on the site), we can formulate the ways of proceeding in our life that work for getting the very most out of life.

So, with no compromise, I recommend that you do all three of these:

1. Implement the short pause between all shifts in activity (The Power Pause)

2. Do some form of meditation that will tend to lower the reactivity of the little selves. 

3. Plan and think things out to decide what and how to proceed to get what you want.  (See Using The Higher Brain and some form of reflecting on and learning from life, such as The Life Improvement Journal.)

Warning:  You will need to actually follow the links in these, and implement it over a week or two...but the worth of doing this will be priceless!!!

(I do realize that, at best, maybe only one of you will do this in a complete way, but hopefully a few more will reap some of the benefits of doing this.  I do hope that people can realize the depth that the site goes to to "fill in the missing pieces" that people need to understand and utilize to create greater lives.  In the random rush of life, we all have missed some of the pieces that we need to know to wisely run our lives. (Consider reading Mastery Learning, For Results! - Not Allowing Cumulative Misunderstandings, Misknowings & Missings.)

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Please share this with anybody you think would be benefitted by it.  Either post a link to social media and/or use the little white envelope (with the arrow on it) to share with individuals....

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Of course, it helps to have my iPhone do the Stand Up hourly notification, plus another app urging me to "breathe" periodically popping up... And then a timed reminder to urge me to do a power nap, from which the nap app will awaken me if it detects that I will drop into a grogginess inducing start of deep sleep....while my sleep app assures I achieve a 100% sleep quality, waking me only after I'm out of the deep sleep stage so I can awake in an alert state, timed to have had my alertness creating cortisol gradually rise in anticipation of my body waking up at the appointed time range, so that I am alert and do not waste my energy by caffeinating too much and raising my cortisol too high....

Are mysterious forces running one's life or are we "100% in charge"?

(Click on the title of this post to see the entire post.)

WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE?

Those who create "mysterious forces" as being "the cause" of what happens are giving away their true personal power - and their very lives.

The only way to a great life is through seeing life as something you are 100% in charge of.

That does not mean that you are omnipotent, though.  We humans all must operate in life within the bounds of physics - and then use physics to gain what we want - and not just be a passive victim of it.  

It's a bit like Werner Erhard's story about a person lying on the freeway and cursing the cars as they run over him, bump, bump...bump, bump....  The idea is that most people are living their lives that way.   But, he suggests that we, instead, get up and walk off of the freeway... (Duh!)

THE MYSTERIOUS FORCE OVERTOOK ME...

The other day, a person I was talking with suggested that she was basically helpless in that she was overtaken with the urge for a food/sugar binge and now suffering from the post-crash.  She said "I know you don't believe in mysterious forces, but that is what overtook me."   

Well, no, I acknowledge that there are forces we may not understand (so that they are still a mystery as to how they work), but I do think that we should not explain the unknowable or unknown with an explanation we make up - and then, amazingly, forget the non-thinking creation of it and hold it as "the truth".  

That false "truth" would naturally lead one into not realizing that one is 100% in charge of one's life (though not in control of all forces).  

Indeed, there are no "mysterious forces" that are entities with an intentional, intelligent willpower and agency.  

IT'S ALL MECHANICAL!

There are only mechanical forces that we can seek to understand and then manipulate for our best life results. (They always occur according the realities of the physics of life - in an identifiable causal chain.  

The "forces" of her "having to" eat a bunch of sugar are simply part of a sequence, where one has not yet adequately determined an alternative strategy for dealing with the "problem" (the gap between how we're feeling and how we want to feel). 

In dealing with this myself, in my testing of the concepts in self control, I see that what occurs before any "compelling" cause of behavior is a sense of anxiety (or a physical tiredness or low blood sugar) that the body/mind must correct in order to get back into the well-functioning range.  It is simply the mechanism of "homeostasis"-seeking behavior that evolved into us over time - it is a bit of the "physics of the body" or, in other words, the pre-determined mechanics of the body.  

When we are lower on the functionality scale, we often revert to "animal like behavior", for which we roundly criticize ourselves (believing that criticism does some good, which it doesn't).  What we actually need is a well-thought out pre-decided strategy on what to do to get back in balance!

So...in this process, I must recognize the "signal" (a "feeling") that there is something to possibly deal with and then decide if I need to deal with it (instead of being passively reactive to it, as if it were an order instead of just an impulse, and then, having experienced the problem response-behavior in the past, I access my own thought-out pre-determined strategy to deal with it, so that I will get a better result, without any damage done. 

A "RESET" IS REQUIRED WHENEVER...

During such out of balance times, it is clear that it is best to do a "reset", since my higher brain is otherwise in a dangerously low condition while the primitive mind is spending its resources elsewhere, trying to correct for the out-of-balance dysfunctionality.  

So, instead of eating sugar, I do my "1/6 cut of a Detour low sugar impact bar", at 30 calories, and a small handful of almonds and usually some water to get into balance physiologically, plus some deep slow breathing, and often, using 4 of the 5 letters of the word above, "rest".  I find remarkabley refreshing and restabilizing a 20 minute nap (using my Sleep Cycle app to assure I don't fall into actual sleep and get groggy, as it senses the movement and breathing patterns).  

Problem solved, with no bad side effects and no major time later in recovery...

THE FULLY IN-CHARGE PERSON

A person who is fully in charge of his/her life will encounter such signals and impulses in life, the same as with all other humans, but the difference is that he realizes he can do something about it, and not lie in learned helplessness as the dogs did in Seligman's experiments.  

Once he sees that a problem has occurred, he proactively seeks a way to solve the problem and then devises or finds the solution.  (This is essential if one is to "Live The Life Of A Life Champion", instead of being an amateur at life.).  

The alternative is to keep repeating the same problems over and over, getting bruised from lying on the freeway of life.  

I would hope that she somehow "gets the message" and then learns what is needed sufficiently such that she can realize that it is ALL up to her as she is the only one in charge and must be 100% fully in charge of her life if she is to be able to create the best life.

There is no other way... circumstances, other people, mysterious forces will not somehow rescue her...

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A key principle in life is to not "obey" impulses or "mysterious forces" - as they will do a lousy job of running one's life!  

Instead, one would best cognitively decide what to do with them.  

But the trick is not to decide when you are in a "lower state" and your willpower is low, but to decide ahead of time when you are in your higher brain what to do.  This pre-decision (a decision made ahead of time as to what to do) will then be used when the particular trigger that leads to "bad" behavior comes up.  

That is what the master of life does.  The victim let's the default response of the lower primitive mind rule.

The process is simple:

Note the problem --> Do what is necessary to solve the problem in the future --> Decide to do that whenever the trigger/cause of the problem occurs.  

Simple.

And it makes life so much easier... In fact, it makes life easy...  (having cleared away all the difficulties and "hard" things to do)... 

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I recommend that anyone to whom this applies read the materials and keep learning and thinking about this until one gets to the point of always noting what goes wrong in life (and also anticipating what could go wrong that is major) and then immediately doing whatever it takes to fix it... such that one lives a largely problem-free life!!!!!  

She, obviously, needs to do her "homework" (and to set aside the time to do so) so that she can gain the basic understanding needed to run her life:

Know how your brain works

Know how your body works

Know how your "emotional system" works

Know how life works (the key things, anyway) 

The first three do not take a lot of time to become functional in.  The first priorities to learn about on life also come relatively quickly (i.e.  months).  Subsequently, we can add to each of these, which we then do when operating fully functionally from having learned the first three sufficiently.  

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You can pass this onto someone else by clicking on the little white envelope right below this post.  Spreading the word will help make these works be availed of by more people, to create more good in the world and to create more Life Masters.  

The Wisdom Of Buddha, Vipassana, And ...

(If you received this via email, click on the title of the post to see the entire post.)

[This could be one of the most valuable things you receive in life...]

The Vipassana Research Institute publishes, virtually verbatim, the nightly discourses of information provided after each day of meditation in the retreat. (You can read all the way through them to see more deeply into what is taught in the (free) retreat.)

I had, a number of years back, put up a page on The Vipassana Way, when I was investigating meditation practices and philosophical disciplines.

I have take the liberty of using the discourses as a platform for one to learn all of life, with my added annotations and added comments.

See how much value you can derive from this:  The Vipassana Discourses - Day 1 Thru 11 - Annotated With Added Comments/Links.

The impetus for this was provided by PL, The Life Mastery Seeker, as he updated me on what was going on after he had gone to a retreat.  His email in o 4/23, plus his next one, in the continuing communications Seeking Life Mastery, The Journey Of PL.

Let me know your questions, comments, suggestions, reactions, etc.  (Contact)
_______________________

If you think this could be of value to another human being, please share it, using the little white envelope right below this post.

The election is analogous to running your own internal tradeoffs in your life - and you have to vote one way or the other...and try to gain control...

(Click on the title of the post to read the entire post.)

Of course, no one knows for certain which Presidential candidate would have been best.

They may think (translation: believe) that they know the future for certain, but...

While I am commenting on politics in the US, I am more interested in how it adds light and an opportunity in our own internal (discipline, emotional) struggles in life that occur every day in one's life, in attempting to satisfy all "sides".  

THE ELECTION WAS A PERFECT ILLUSTRATION OF...

As to the election itself, it was a perfect illustration of what is written about in the books The Righteous Mind and The Believing Brain (the links are to my summaries, and then to the books).  It was a perfect illustration of the illusion that "emotional reasoning" tells us what is "the truth" and of the thinking errors that all human's brains will be subject to.  (If you are not human and are above it all, you need read no further, but if are human, even though tremendously smart and intelligent and thinking you are objective, these errors will occur for you, for sure.) 

And, of course, the result of the election (either way) would not actually turn out to be the disaster ((if you are on the losing side) that you worry about nor the new perfect world that will now come about (if you are on the winning side).   (In Zen Habits, he writes Compassion In The Midst Of Madness, which certainly is the better way to go!)

BUT, FIRST, ONE MUST LEARN THIS...

But the case is, whether in politics or internally in your life, you always will benefit by knowing how the mind works AND how to work it, for it is the instigator of the emotions and the "great guide" is still what one needs to come to the workable actions that will make the difference.

As I am writing my book (working title The Self Control Book), I see that the higher brain MUST sufficiently comfort or de-discomfort the primitive mind, fill enough of the basic needs, and assure the primitive mind of the safety and survival of oneself, first, before we can manage it.  

If you can't start the day totally grounded and sufficiently "safe", with some specific minimal needs filled, you will have a day that is uncertain and anxious, be less effective, and/or have a day where you have trouble even starting up very well!!!   

IN THE MOMENT, DO THIS...

Later in the day, if something puts us off our emotional or physical stasis, we must address that and make the best of it by, guess what: engaging the higher brain such that you can return ASAP to The Zone.  If you stay in the "offness", you will wander around, likely getting nowhere, trying to unthinkingly solve the "problem" (of "offness").  

So, the wise person knows that at the start of the day and each. and every time, an "offness" occurs, he/she must use this simple system:  Pause, breathe(!), think (engage the higher brain).  Regardless of what is going on, the wise person virtually ALWAYS does The Pause - it never makes sense not to do it!

The process is The Prime Process (procedure) that a person must have down pat, completely clearly, completely installed, for it is the beginning that leads to things being much more workable, and ultimately to a much better life.  

To be able to implement a strategy at the time that it is needed, one must design ahead of time what one will do, clarify the why and the how and then practice the process until it is fully installed and always used, until it is automatic and effortless. (An example of the type of thinking is illustrated in The Skill And The Process For Effective Change.)  

We must always decide ahead of time and be very clear as to what to do.  The pause-breathe-think is the one system design that is the most important of all of the system designs that create a better and easier life.  (A process or a procedure is a system, which is simply a series of steps in a specific sequence that will lead to a desired results.)  [Government could use a lot of improved and definite well-designed systems!.  But for now, you should concentrate on doing a magnificent job of creating great systems for your own good!] 

THE MORNING SYSTEM - GETTING IT INTO EFFECT AND EFFECTIVE

And the system design that I am now working on re-designing with more thought and better knowledge (from studying this more!) is 

1) to have the "perfect", for me, start of the day design, that will launch me into the day and way of being that will best serve me AND 

2) to utilize the vital gold time with absolute focus (allowing no, zero, distractions) that the day starts off with.  

Yes, the rest of the day matters, but, if you do this process, you will have already lived a magnificent (about) 5 hour day that has more value than all of the week's afternoon and evenings added together, in total.  

WHERE THERE IS MASSIVE IMPORTANCE, MORE PERFECTING IS NECESSARY!

Where there is great possible return, that is repeated over and over again in life, we must focus and perfect the system that will gain that for us.  Besides the systems for emotional regulation and management, the two systems above are of the highest return and very much worth perfecting.

Toward the end of bettering what I do, I am revising my early day, and several considerations to pay attention to. 

In the start of the day, I must "feed the elephant" (my body and vulnerable primitive mind) what it needs to feel sufficiently satisfied AND safe (which includes being confident about this day).  And I know that the design will not be the "perfect" model that I want, but it will be one that works for the better.  

SHOOTING TOO SOON FOR PERFECTION

My earlier conception of the perfect model was to "get up", take care of what is needed for 5 minutes and then go off to exercise (without having eaten, so that I could burn off more fat)...and so on.  But there was a problem that occurred at the border between my thinking (called the "metaphysical" world, not of the physical world of reality) and getting over the border into physically producing the results. It didn't work! 

There was a "design flaw" where I forgot (or overlooked) some details in the causal chain, at first, viewing it too simply, this way:

Five minute routine --> exercise for 30 minutes --> do some perfect grounding --> ....

Instead,  it looked more like this:

Five minute routine. --> need to satisfy body/primitive mind enough so it is not stuck --> then...

I forgot what happened right after the five minutes, next in the series of steps.

I also forgot that the rewiring of the brain is gradual (not metaphysically instant!), It is a bit like developing muscles, where one must build up one's strength until one can handle bigger weights (and not just because you decided in your mind to be physically stronger).  

So, I may still get to the point of doing what I think will be the best (the 5 minutes, or so, then exercise) routine, but not now.  But that's just fine, as I am making more progress.  

My main necessity is 

1) to have a great launch of a conversation for the day and 

2) to limit, to less than 30 minutes (for now), my necessary physical and mental transition from sleeping to launching the day start - which includes a timer being set as a physical cue AND still allowing myself to explore a few minutes of a high interest email or idea,  But before allowing any exploration and potential for wandering, I've set the rule to ONLY classify, without exceptions, in less than 5 minutes, all of the emails I will read or might wish to read (into a "Sure" box and a "High" box, the latter of which I hardly ever get to).  In this way, I never get caught up into a mindless process of wandering about exploring things without a sense of balance or time. 

[I also satisfy my curiosity and exploration inclination by setting it up so I can do all I want of that, but only in the evening - and only if it fits.  This, essentially, "flips my day" from doing all that I'm interested in in the morning, which pushes out my higher productivity time, to doing it in the evening if there is enough time left over - the end result is that I get the absolute value of the gold hours and I don't allow the less important to push out the most important due to lack of time!!!!]

So, as is more realistic, I am building from some initial doable habits/changes to some bigger ones later on, but getting a lot of benefits from the initial changes, patiently considering the reality of time and that all things take time.  I will simply take the amount of time needed to gradually and effectively build up to greater and greater things.  

OH, AND ANOTHER DETAIL

Oh, and I also never really got around to doing the strategy that many experts recommend in morning routines: to do  extensive outloud reading of various inspirational materials, intentions, declarations, etc. that might take up to 30 minutes or so.  Bottom line I needed to cut it down to a few minutes of exactly what I needed to hear and install in my conversation for the ideal strong day.  (I'll give you a copy of it when I get it to the level I want it.). 

It is true, to some extent I am "letting my feelings" govern to some extent,  but limiting them by a set, decided system, until I get better and develop more muscle.  Those who let their feelings run their lives are doomed to using the limited thinking of the primitive mind and the outdated and/or insufficient impulses and non-thinking of that lower brain....

SO, THE BOTTOM LINE... 

We need to use excellent operating knowledge to create a way to implement "self control" so that we can get more of what we want in life.  To do that, our higher brain must devise ways to get the workable behavior actually done, given that there is often "another side" that means well but will be pushing for a counterproductive behavior, putting up "resistance", or caught up in a negative emotion. 

The "art of self management" lies in increasing the strength of the side toward what works, such that it overcomes the primitive mind's push for something else.  But if we don't fill enough of what the primitive mind wants, it will push much more strongly and often win (where we lose).  

The art is in increasing the power of the "good" side and diminishing the power of the "opposing" side.  In my study of Navy Seals, one key distinguishing factor is that they realize that many primitive mind signals (and limits) are not accurate and/or not true and, accordingly, that they can be ignored or lessened - the Seals are beyond operating reactively but have arrived at actually proactively insert thinking with the knowledge of how things actually work to make decisions that are for their best benefit.  They realize that there is nothing to be afraid of and that "the force" on the other side is not legitimate (or is much weaker).  

Part of what us ordinary people need to see is that most of "signals" that cause us to give in to not doing what we should best do are illegitimate and/or very weak, and therefore very handleable.  It is as if we were trembling before the massive voice of the Wizard Of Oz, who was actually a wimp behind the curtain with a loud microphone...  The Navy Seals (and ourselves eventually will) see that there is no true power on the other side....  

The book about all of this, hopefully, will explain and make this really, really clear AND have you truly and easily becoming a master of self control and accordingly a Master Of Life.

(A bit of a disjointed piece, but I hope you get the ideas from it.) 

_________________

And, of course, what you should do with this is develop for yourself a great system for launching a powerful day.  See all the videos and examples of morning routines to copy or revise from in the piece The Morning Ritual - Launching Yourself Into Creating A Great Day. 

   

Free for a bit, I think but very worthwhile: Habits 101 video, etc.

Brian Johnson, an excellent deliverer of learning materials, has offer one of his programs for free (sign up for his mailing list, which you can unsubscribe from right after if you wish).  Certain of his mini-programs are available only for members, but he made this available at no cost.

There are downloadable materials and a very worthwhile about 52 minute video.  I recommend you watch it and then I recommend you set it up so that you do all the followup activities,

Habits 101

Let me know what you think about it.

Keith

This "energizing" makes self control easier and better!

(Click on the title of the post to read the entire post.)

No one can reach success, happiness, and a great life without very good self control.  No one.

Not even with the help of the good fairy and great, powerful thinking, as in The Secret!

So, if self control is a MUST, a required, skill in order to create a great life, then if you want a great life you MUST develop and use this skill!  (Duh!  Of course!)

You'll read more about how to develop the skill and how to make self control work with ease when you read the upcoming book The Self Control Book, but, for now you can adopt a strategy that increases the "pro" forces, and reduces the "opposing" forces that get in the way, so that you will gain better, easier self control.  Please know that self control is a process, not just some trait that you magically exert upon your life - the latter is one of the fictions, one of the myths, that people create about life - and one to be thrown into the trash heap of nonsense forever!!!

Without going into the whole story, it is easy to understand, I think, that when one has more energy one has more positive drive, more discipline, and more control over one's life.  The low one's energy, the lower one's power, the more one experiences a struggle and the more possible is the loss.

ALL people who have been successful have had plenty of energy - and it is the ONLY way to live a great life!  

This piece is part of the overall system to gain energy that is usable and life enhancing.

Learn it and do it!

Install it into your life!

The Vital Skill Of "Energizing" - One Of The Greatest, Most Essential Skills For Living A Good Life.

Seeking "Relief" In All The Wrong Ways

(To see the entire post, click on the post's title.)

I've seen many people who are "not as effective as they can be" follow their "impulses" as a way to "seek relief", especially from anxiety (or boredom).  Learning the more workable ways of getting relief, without causing bad long term consequences, is the key, so you can drop all of the old, unintelligent ways of escaping and relieving that actually reduce life.

As part of The Self Control Book that I am writing, easier ways to "channel one's energy toward what is best for yourself" are recommended as being no more effort but much more beneficial.  Let me repeat that in a different way:  without having to exert self discipline or more effort we can substitute better "default tactics" that will benefit us more.   For no extra effort, once learned, we can get more of a return value from that same (or less) amount of time.

People who are ineffective or not as effective as they want to be are not "faulty", they are just using poor strategies and tactics that they picked up but did not reexamine them to check out their workability (and then replace those with ones that get better results).

One of the key points of The Self Control Book is that one does not have to exert hard discipline and engage in willpower battles to gain more "self control", as self control is about consciously controlling one's energy to gain that which is best for the person.  It considers the smart balancing of "offsetting forces" (and the misperceptions of their power), while diminishing them and raising the "pro" forces, all in such a way that there is no struggle (and loss) involved.

Consider this:   Seeking Relief In All The Wrong Ways!.

Yours toward your gaining the personal power to create a great life,

Keith

The only great road to a great life: first, is "emotional management"

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Until you can understand how emotions work and then how to work them, you will be subject to being run by your dinosaur brain and limited to the fact that we have not evolved for the last 10,000 years.  Our impulses and instincts are those that fit the world 10,000 years ago.  And many of them are not useful, with some of them in fact being harmful for today's world.

Unless one learns to manage one's belief system and its interactions with our emotions and then to manage the emotions, one cannot live an effective life that one is in charge of!


THE ROAD TO A GREAT LIFE LOOKS LIFE THIS


Emotions managed -->  Self control learned and implemented --> Everything else can be done!

Everything else can be done easily, including effective learning, effective thinking, effectiveness in relationship, success in life - everything can be accomplished.  If the first two parts of the causal chain in life are not sufficiently mastered, you will have difficulties with making much forward progress.

If you do those first two, then you can manage to direct your energies to what is best for you. (That is the definition of "self control".)


"COMPLETE" THEM!!!

If you don't sufficiently master those, you will be handicapping your ability to be effective and happy in life.  If you stop short of completing the pieces of either of these, your life, too, will fall short of what you really want.


OTHERWISE A GREAT LIFE IS NOT POSSIBLE!

You just cannot live a great life if you have some emotional obstacle, like anxiety, shame, guilt, needing others approval, fearing others not approving of you, defensiveness, etc.  It is not possible  to live life even close to fully if you don't thoroughly replace those with what works.

You cannot live a great life if you do not have great self control - not the struggle or steely determination type of "control", but the smart directing of one's energies for one's best benefit instead of being stuck in dinosaur instincts that are not valid anymore (though they did save your life in the caveman days! ).  (The book I am writing right now is The Self Control book, as I realized that one reason a certain individual was stuck in life was that he could know everything but he couldn't get much of anything implemented or completed effectively.  He was disabled by anxiety, shame, guilt, confusion, not having things laid out clearly, and just plain old fear.  He was one of the "bright" people, who were "stopped" by his own emotions and lack of ability to manage his emotions.)

I do not want any of you to be stuck at a level below that which you can certainly attain in life.  And you, again, can only get to the level of at least rapid growth only by mastering the management of emotions and by mastering self control!!!!

Bon voyage (to those who choose this path!),

Keith

Start, and don't stop before  sufficient mastery, with the reading related to and in the Program For Emotion Management.  By the time you finish that, I will be ready with the path that will assure that you can gain great, freeing self control.  Before the book comes out, though, you can get the idea from the readings and links on the website - but don't jump to those until you have first gained "sufficient mastery" of your beliefs and emotions!!!

Formulating Your Morning "Readings" For Launching Your Day

(If you received this via email, click on the title of the post to see the whole post.)

As I am working on "The Self Control Book", I am reformulating my morning readings and grounding materials.  I am reformulating them as they need to be briefer, though with some alternatives, yet very powerful.  They must set the day up to be strongly standing for what I want in life, in a very inspiring way.  We only get so many days, so it seems a pity not to fully live each one with vitality and power! (This is not something for you to do "later".)

I am not sure if you noticed some of the materials on the site, which you might use to formulate your own materials.  So I'll point out a few.

As I was looking through the page Options For Grounding Oneself In The Morning - Or Any Time, I noticed the page which has over 30 links to actual pieces you can use:  Pieces To Use To Get Centered For The Day.   You might create some for yourself, using this to generate ideas.  One person I know of just took "My Daily Reading" and read it every morning as is, calling it "very beneficial" for confidence and clarity and grounding.

While these may not be in the morning per se, this collection is interesting:  Success Videos.  I've pulled some other YouTubes into specific subjects on my YouTube Channel, with links:  YouTube Channel - Contents, Links, Guide.   Something like this might be a selection to watch in the evening, instead of....

Although more on why and how to ground, you might use Grounding And Centering - Contents, Links.

One thing for sure, recommended by virtually every powerful life and success coach, is reading (or reciting) something very powerful in the morning to launch your day successfully.   (See The Morning Ritual - Launching Yourself Into Creating A Great Day.)

I absolutely recommend that you, asap, formulate the launch that will work for you, perhaps at first copying and cutting and then refining it later.

Notice that this idea might appeal to you, but notice also the tendency to not completely finish this and to not implement it into your life.  We tend to want to go off to a new interest or a new promise, failing to harvest what we have in front of us.

I hope you do this completely and effectively.

Write to me (contact) about your results, difficulties, victories, comments, etc.  I'd love to hear from you.

The vital two rules to make your new self control much more smartly productive!

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Here is a vital excerpt from The Self Control Book that I am in the process of writing (and growing from, while actually seeing what works).

The value of this key point is immense, if you heed it.  (Pass this post on to others that you think this would be of value for - see the little letter symbol right below this post.)

SELF-CONTROL AND THE PRODUCTIVITY RULES

As discussed, self control is the directing of the energy needed to get what is wanted (or needed).  And, of course, it is critical/vital/essential that you have clarity over where and how to direct the energy.  

The “where” is toward the thing wanted.  But the how matters incredibly.  I can go the effortful way or I can go the “least effortful for results” way.

Wouldn’t it be a waste to not direct one’s energy the best way to get more of what is wanted?  

Of course.

So…

Though many people have seen a demonstration of the idea that one must put into the time “jar” first the big rocks (high value things) and then, after that, put in the next biggest size rocks, and so on until the jar is filled up, they often do not run their lives that way - and thus they get far less value out of life - and I do mean “far, far, far less”.  

In terms of long term planning, most people “get the idea”, but it gets lost on a day to day basis.

And, yes, we do need some self control to follow the rules, but to not effectively direct our energy is belying our ultimate goal, of having our “energy” actually being applied effectively (see The Power Formulas To Have High Personal Power You Must Do These) to get the “effect” (result) that we want.  

So, your two key rules, though you should study Productivity much more (since that will get you more of what you want in life), are:

Rule #1.  Strictly, highly conscientiously start your day off with what has the highest payoff, and then the next highest payoff and then the next and so forth.  (See “Big Rocks and Parkinson’s Law” in Importance Versus Urgency and The Extraordinary Value Of Golden Time - use it wisely or the gold is lost forever!)

Then, and only then (!!!!), you look and see what time is left over for the small things. And you’ll notice alot of small thing go into oblivion, because they are simply not worth doing!  By the time you get through a good part of the day, it becomes clearer that you can’t do everything by the time you get to the little things - and then you learn that you must have originally been smoking marijuana in your thinking that you could ever do so many things “of interest”.   

Most people, however, use “the times when they have the highest ability to harvest results” for other lower value things and then they run out of time for what is important!  You must use your new self control to “strictly” follow this rule, with no interruptions (minimal), no distractions, no working on anything of less importance than the most impactful thing you can work on.  Note that this is also what the most successful people on the planet do - without it they could not possibly succeed anywhere close to where they are.  

Following this rule has a far greater effect than a very high IQ or even a high level of knowledge.  You cannot NOT FOLLOW this rule if you want to have the greatest life!!!!

Rule #2.  Make sure there is sufficient time for “good recovery” and that it is scheduled in and strictly adhered to.  It is, you must realize, absolutely essential for well functioning, which in turn is necessary for “well harvesting” and getting the results you want in life.   Because of this we classify it in the category of the highest importance in life.  Learn to optimally spread it out during the day for the maximum benefit.  (See Energy And Rest Cycles - Part Of Reality, To Be Honored and Energy Management.)

If you aren’t doing those two things, you are not smartly exercising your self control.  You must learn it to reach full adult power!!   

[For me, I had allowed the practice of using the morning for “creative exploring and thinking”, wherein I’d review, make notes on, etc., the ideas from the resources I received email from.  While this was “fun” to some extent, I was spending my gold on stuff that was easily doable with less energy later and doing it later helped me see that I simply wouldn’t have time for much of it, so I saved all that wasted time taking notes for follow up or making notes on stuff that I would never do. (I was buying, or creating, a “gold mine” of information, but never getting around to mine it… yikes!)  

Kind of a “Duh!” but it took me awhile to wrestle my lower self to the ground and to retrain that self.  When I did, I had approximately two more “gold” hours a day and I made alot more progress on my top projects!   Just staying present and focusing intentionally required little effort, once I got used to it, for enormous gains. (I had to stick  in my schedule, at the right time slot, “DO NOT WASTE THIS TIME!  NO EMAILS!!!!”, until it was no longer needed after I’d done it every day for a month! I even used a golden yellow color for the time slot, Google Calendar.)

Having done this regularly and reliably for a number of weeks, I found that I could be pretty relaxed about the rest of my day, as it didn’t need to be managed as astutely - I felt that I had already had a great day and accomplished 80-90% of the value for the day - by noon!]