Spend around 10–30 minutes a day visualizing a version of yourself that you are deliberately trying to build. Do it when your mind is already calm, especially in the evening or just before sleep, because the mind accepts imagery more easily when it is not being pulled in different directions.
The basic idea is simple. The brain treats repeated internal experience as something important. When a certain kind of situation is lived again and again in imagination, with enough detail and emotional weight, it starts to lose its “imagined” quality and becomes something your mind recognizes as familiar territory.
And what becomes familiar stops feeling impossible.
Old patterns weaken in this process not because you fight them directly, but because you stop feeding them the same mental rehearsal. At the same time, new patterns begin to stabilize because they are being repeatedly experienced internally before they ever exist externally.
Start by settling your body. Slow breathing. Less tension in the face, shoulders, stomach. You are not trying to force anything, you are just lowering internal noise.
Then choose one specific scene. Not an abstract goal. A moment. Something you can step into mentally.
If it is health, do not think “I want to be healthy,” instead see yourself moving through a normal day with physical ease, walking without effort, breathing clearly, feeling your body light and responsive.
If it is confidence or success, see yourself in a real situation where you would normally hesitate, but now you speak without that hesitation, you are steady, direct, and things unfold without internal resistance.
If it is discipline, see yourself already inside the routine, doing the work without negotiation, as if it is simply what you do.
Always stay in first person. Through your own eyes.
What is directly in front of you. What is under your feet. The texture of the environment. The light in the space. The small details your attention would normally skip.
Then sound. The way voices actually enter the space. The rhythm of your breathing. Any background noise that belongs to that environment.
Then physical sensation. The weight of your body. Temperature on the skin. The sense of movement. The way you occupy space when you are not resisting yourself.
Emotionally, you are not trying to force excitement. You are allowing a quieter set of states to appear. Relief that things are simple. A sense of “this is already how I operate.” A quiet internal stability that does not need justification.
You are not building a fantasy. You are rehearsing familiarity.
At the end, stop adding detail and just remain in the general felt sense of it for a short moment, as if your mind has already accepted it as normal.
Let that feeling continue lightly as you move into the rest of your day.
Repeat it often enough that the scene stops feeling like something you are trying to reach, and starts feeling like something your mind already knows how to do.
Officially 1 month since I switched to a flip phone.
- Everyone is more severely addicted to their smartphones than I thought. Once you have a dumbphone, you'll frequently find yourself as the only person in the room not on their phone. It's not just teenagers, it's parents and adults of all ages. It's like everyone is stuck in a trance. 75+ year olds might be the only exception.
- All the objections I previously had for getting a dumbphone have turned out to be overblown and/or solvable. My iPhone addiction had fed my brain excuses to not do this earlier. If you really want to make the switch, you can.
- I've felt embarrassed to pull out my flip phone in public at times, for fear of being different or drawing too much attention to myself. But I have learned to just own up to it. Most people end up saying something like "Oh, I probably should do that too."
- I am using my brain more. Even though my flip phone has Waze, I find myself memorizing maps and roads. I'm more bored and get lost in my thoughts. I'm using paper and pen more. Increased desire for tangible things > digital things.
Overall, it has been a great experience and I plan on never going back.
People walk around with an invisible permission structure in their head. They're waiting for someone to let them do the thing. They want a credential, a green light, an authority figure to nod.
High-agency people have basically deleted this software. They simply ask "is this possible?" not "is this permitted?"
It turns out a staggering amount of what we think is forbidden is just... unattempted.
40 years of age is midlife in absolute terms based on actuarial tables.
Because of how we experience time, it’s more like 60-70% of life is gone.
Each year moves faster.
That’s why I keep reminding people. You’re not young. You don’t have time. Gotta getting moving.
You gotta be putting like 10x shots on net compared to what you’re currently doing. Most people take one shot every few years. To run up the score you should be putting up 2-3 shots a day minimum. At the end of each year you’ve shot thousands of shots while most people did nothing. It’s a numbers game. Your shooting percentage can be horrible and you’ll still lap everyone. Gotta score to win. Gotta shoot to score. Shoot more.
Life becomes 100x more enjoyable when you play it like a video game. When you recognize that you have the free will to do literally anything you want and start living like it. Step outside of all your limiting beliefs and realize that you have the power as well as the right to create anything you desire. Exercise this right relentlessly with wild self belief. Become the person you’ve always wanted to be. Build the life of your wildest dreams. Don't hold back. Don't settle. Be borderline greedy and dream huge. Collect the fruits that life's always had to offer you, and that you now have the vision to see.
upon Doing The Thing, you will invariably find two things to be true:
1. Doing The Thing was pretty easy, actually
2. not having Done The Thing was bothering you more than you thought it was
There is no greater illusion than thinking the accomplishment of some goal will change your life. What will change your life is the person you become in the process of going for it.
In 2002, Jordan Peterson gave a 1hr lecture on how to kill fear & unlock exponential growth in your life.
His frameworks:
- Fear shrinks when faced
- Ignored problems grow
- Treasure hides in chaos
15 lessons that will help you conquer anxiety & weakness:
You f*ckers are always "waiting" for something...but what is it?
What's the magic wand that's going to tell you now is the time?
Magically giving you the courage to go for it?
Have you ever considered why so many people go old & grumpy? It's cause the whole time they thought it was coming.
This magical call to adventure. This invisible hand that would set them on their journey.
Issue is - that call never comes. YOU have to be the one that changes your life. YOU have to decide: let's saddle up and ride.
If you don't, you'll end up just like them wondering where all the time went and how they got it all so wrong
Just start outcompeting everyone.
Take more shots. Put up more reps. Post more content.
Meet more people. Say yes to more things. Reach out first. Follow up again.
Become inevitable.
The only metric you should care about is shots on goal.
The older you get, the more you realize luck is mostly exposure.
If you sit in the same place, have the same routine, talking to the same people, nothing new really happens.
You have to tackle the world to win.
Travel more. Talk to people. Try a breakfast spot. Post on social media. Start a side hustle or a hobby.
The world rewards motion. You don't find opportunity sitting still.
This study changed my life. People call me lucky but I'm just tenacious, shameless, sociable, restless, and OK with rejection. Life is a numbers game. Shoot 100 shots and you'll score some. People will say it's luck. It's not. It's creating more opportunities for success 🤷🏻♀️
Nobody loses more severely and consistently than the overly cautious.
Such an abominable way to live. Completely antithetical to human spirit.
I can never hide my disgust when I see it.
If you’ve ever competed in a sport or competition of some kind, you know that defeat hunts you down once your mindset shifts from playing to win to playing to not lose.
Your entire life is like this.
If you can’t go out alone to a restaurant, cafe, bar, or movie, you're one small move away from increasing your quality of life by 30% minimum.
The bottleneck is that youre too in your head about what strangers think of you. Your whole life becomes performative.
You’re cutting yourself off from what you actually want to do because of the imaginary judgement of people who won’t think twice about you the second you leave their line of sight.
If you learn to rationalize with your own thoughts by defeating them logically, the entire thought process crumbles and over time, it ceases to exist in common scenarios
Boom - social anxiety defeated.
BREAKING - Nine Maryland sheriffs have just announced they will ignore Democrat Gov. Wes Moore’s ban on cooperation with ICE and continue allowing officers to be deputized by the federal government for immigration screenings.