It has been a while since we last talked here. How are you?
Today we are talking about the key to your personal growth. Self-Transformation.
Whether it is losing that stubborn belly fat, getting the confidence you need to talk to that girl, or stepping up in your career… you have to transform yourself first. The best thing is, this is a skill that you can learn it, right here, in my blog today in just 5 minutes…
And this skill would be installed in you, PERMANENTLY, for the rest of your life. With this ability to transform yourself, you are destined for success.
Why?
Because 95% of the people are unable to transform themselves.
They cling onto certain beliefs and mindsets that they developed at a earlier stage of life, and they are unable to critically and rationally assess whether these beliefs are helping them. They are incapable of change. This is devastating news, because who you were is not who you are. You might have the actual ability to, for example, learn a new language, but your belief that “I can’t” stopped you from even starting well before you started. And this “I can’t” belief might originate from decades ago a bad experience you had learning say, Spanish, when you are still in your 2os. Do you think you are smarter now? Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t. But the point is, you are a different person now.
So stop telling yourself you CANNOT do it because of this this or that. That is just your subconscious trying to persuade that you cannot, so that it can save some effort. Scientists have discovered that “avoiding change” is a natural tendency for us human beings, because our primal brains would like to preserve energy, so that we can survive in the wild. The world has changed a lot since then, but this instinct stays.
Admit the truth that you in fact don’t know whether you can do a certain thing or not, you have no idea. Your past self is not you. So now, you are free to choose every single time. You are free to decide, accept new challenges and take up new beliefs and identity.
This is also known as the growth mindset vs the fixed mindset, I think it is in the famous book Mindset by Carol Dweck, which I have also wrote a short book note piece on it a few years ago in this blog when I read it.
Link to that blog post: Play Safe vs Growing (2021/02/04)
So Rule #1 to self-transformation: Be fluid. Be ready to take up new beliefs and identity for yourself.
Bonus point: a lot of people talk about “talented” “gifted”, these words lead you into thinking some people are born into it, but personally I would not choose into believing into that, I think it is just social conditioning, your environment, the environment that you are now in, people you are close to, your upbringing… these are things that shape you into the person you are now, what you called “self”. A lot of these conditioning, you cannot go back and change, but you can change how you see things, today, now. You can choose to see things differently. The people that are labelled “gifted”, are just like you, just that they do things differently and see themselves slightly differently. They are no different. You can be like them as well, but you have to first ditch your belief that they are gifted and you simply aren’t. If you keep on thinking that they are different, you are basically telling your subconscious that it is ok for you to stay the same and NOT IMPROVE, because these people that you look up to are “different”, they are “gifted”, and you are simply not. Be this factually true or not, this is not a good belief for you to have.
Rule #2 Act, not think.
Let us switch things up and play with your mind a little bit with the following quote…
“It is much easier to act your way into a new way of thinking, than to think your way into a new way of acting.”
At this stage of my life, I am seldom impressed with quotes but the first time I hear this, I was truly impressed.
Basically, what the quote means is that you have to “act as if”, that is, you have to temporary act as if you are a different person, so that you behave differently, to transform yourself.
You may say, “… but Ryan! it is very hard for me to “act as if”! This is not who I am.”
But can you tell me, where did you get the idea of “who you are”? Did anyone tell you that when you were born? Or is it just a pattern that you typically fall into in the past? Can you change that? Is this pattern something that you must hold onto, even though you know it is not helping you deep down? You HAVE THIS ABILITY to change your own old way of thinking and acting. The power is in your hands! You have just never used this power so it feel unfamiliar to you and there is this fear for change. This is not your fault. This is true for all humans. So just know that you are just experiencing some psychological fallacies, and make the leap anyways.
If changing still feel difficult, I understand. Let me give you a trick, the 10-minute trick.
For the next 10 minutes, just temporary get rid of your sense of self for a moment and play a game of acting. Act, for just a mere period of 10 minutes, like you are a different person that would do [insert anything you want to do]. If your brain is trying to resist the change, tell yourself this is just for 10 minutes, after that, you can do whatever you like for however long you like.
Funny enough, after 10 minutes of “acting”, you will discover you are actually fine with the new identity. It was not that bad after all.
This is how you bring about change in yourself.
I wanted to share more but I guess that’s for it for today.
The above would totally help. I am very sure.
Ryan