Follow these three simple steps
In high school, my friends and I used to sit in a bathroom and smoke weed. Itâs called âhotboxing.â
You all smoke in an enclosed space so the marijuana fumes would stay in the room and keep getting you higher and higher.
Whenever weâd have these hotboxing sessions, weâd talk about all the things weâd do in the future â start businesses, make money, get all the girls.
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Even back then, I had a dream of being somebody. Takeaway the glitz, the glamor, the women, I really wanted to fulfill my human potential and I could tell even back then that it would happen someday.
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I bring up the random story about smoking weed because my behavior didnât always reflect my beliefs. Of course, I could be forgiven for not taking myself seriously and daydreaming at 18, but as many of you know I went down a path of doing all the wrong things up until the age of 25 â binge drinking, drugs, illegal stuff, you know the story already.
But, I always had that sense that I would bridge the gap somehow. And, I did it. You can do the same, too. Hereâs how.
Use Your Mental Wiring to Your Advantage
99 percent of your thoughts are useless chatter, mostly filled with negativity about what you canât do instead of what you can do.
Donât even try to fight against the nature of your mind totally, just siphon a bit of that 99 percent and use it toward a better end.
What end? Relentlessly thinking about building a better future for yourself. For me, it reached a level of obsession. And I definitely broke some eggs in the process. I was too focused.
I paid too little attention to my day-to-day and got lost in my head. Often, I sacrificed too much fun. But, looking backward, Iâd do it all again. At age 32, I have no boss, I can do what I want, go where I want, and live how I want.
All because I was obsessed with the idea that it had to happen somehow, even though I didnât always know how. For the first few years of learning self-improvement and getting the hang of writing, I just wandered around. I made little to no money and had no tangible plan. But I kept plugging away and had this belief that something would pop eventually.
Find a New Reality to Model
When I got into writing, self-improvement, business, etc, I started to model myself after the people I admired.
Iâd download their belief systems and wisdom. Over time, I realized I could model anyone or anything given enough time, effort, and patience. When you combine those three elements you can gradually create a new model for reality itself.
What do I mean? Well, when you spend too much time focusing on the âreal worldâ you tend to model yourself after it. All of your friends have 9 to 5 jobs, so you assume youâre destined to have one, too.
Self-improvement is often scoffed at or called a scam by people in the real world, so youâll look at it as a pipe dream too. The energy wafting around in the air of day-to-day existence is passive-aggressive, stagnant, and quietly angry at the same time. You will absorb this energy if you choose to focus on it, too.
Thatâs why choosing new models is so important. In my model of reality, everyone was an entrepreneur and a creator. Everyone believed in themselves and was into self-improvement. Everyone lifted each other up instead of playing the crabs in the barrel game.
It came to a point where I told myself:
âOkay, Iâm going to follow the path of this curated group of individuals and ignore everything in the mainstream.â
Reverse Engineer Success
If you can observe the moves people make and emulate them to the best of your ability, you can become successful. Now, copying someoneâs exact moves doesnât work. And youâre not guaranteed the same results as someone else by taking the same steps.
But, in the long-term, in general, overall, you can see patterns, themes, strategies, etc, in the people you want to be like. Then, you use trial and error guided by their path to get the results.
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I noticed that successful writers published their work in many places, so I did the same. I saw that they all kept email lists so they could educate, engage with, and sell products to their readers. I got a sense of the general timeline of success in online business, 3 to 5 years, and committed to it. I adopted the long-term delayed gratification mindset. I studied the basic tenets of marketing.
There are blueprints everywhere for any path you want to take. As far as the doing the work part goes⊠My friend. I care about your success. I will give you all the angles possible.
But you know the gist. You just gotta do the damn work. 90 days to make it a habit. 6 months to be serious. A year to have solid results. A half-decade to have your empire.
The recipe is there. The models are there.
Now, go.
đąContributed by Ayodeji Awosika
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