The Mental Edge

How’s your desire?

It’s pretty much a given at this stage, but it’s always helpful to remember: Weak desires generate weak results.

Reminds me of Piers Steel’s Procrastination Equation (see Notes) where he tells us that motivation is driven by our confidence in our ability to achieve an outcome multiplied by the perceived value of the goal. Then divide that by your impulsiveness and how far out the goal is.

Here’s the fancy, handy-dandy equation it’s worth tattooing on your brain:

MOTIVATION = (EXPECTANCY x VALUE) / (IMPULSIVENESS x DELAY)

In other words, if your DESIRE is weak, your motivation is going to be very low and you’re going to be blown off track by other things easily.

Note to self: Start with strong desire.

So, what do you REALLY want?

Kenneth has us capture our desire in what he calls a “Desire Statement” and tells us: “If your Desire Statement is important enough for you to make a strong commitment to it—that is, for you to decide that you’ll do whatever it takes to make your desire come true—it can become a powerful motivator that allows you to pursue your goals aggressively.”

Let’s go ahead and take a moment to create our Desire Statement.

What do you REALLY want to see in your life?

What fires you up so much you’re willing to do whatever it takes to make it come true?

Dream. Stretch. Think: Challenging but possible.

Desire Statement:

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

Awesome. You fired up?

If not, and if you’re serious about optimizing + actualizing, please repeat.

Tend the fire until it’s an inferno.

P.S. One way to tend it is to add a “Reward Statement” that captures all the great things you’ll feel as a result of achieving your desire. Let’s create one of those as well, shall we?

Reward Statement:

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

P.P.S. Speaking of burning, I love the way Michael Lardon captures it in Finding Your Zone (see Notes): “Activation energy is the energy required to start a chemical reaction. For example, you may not know that paper burns at 451 degrees Fahrenheit and does not ignite at 450 degrees. Now imagine yourself lost in a forest, cold, needing warmth. You invest energy by rubbing two sticks together, causing friction in hope of igniting some paper and leaves. You create heat by your efforts and even raise the friction area’s temperature up to 450 degrees without successfully creating fire. Sadly, you quit in discouragement, not knowing that the activation energy is 451 degrees. However, if you push a little harder and create a little more heat and raise the temperature one degree, the chain reaction occurs and the fire ignites—burning without more effort, burning by itself.

Great champions know that if they push a little more and prepare better than their competitors, they will move past the threshold and consequently set the stage to enter into the Zone. The difference between good and great is immeasurably small. Sometimes all it takes is a bit more perseverance and you find yourself at the next level. This process of giving that little extra builds upon itself and forms the foundation for great performances.”

When I read books, I’m always (of course!) connecting new Ideas to old Ideas and seeing how I can weave them together in my life and in my work to help you integrate, etc.

As I read this passage (and preceding chapter), I immediately thought of Gabrielle Oettingen’s new science of motivation which she unpacks in her great book Rethinking Positive Thinking.

She tells us we need to WOOP our goals.

Specifically, we need to identify our Wish + the Outcome (/#1 benefit) we’ll experience from its fulfillment then we need to add the Obstacles we’ll face plus our Plan to deal with the obstacles.

Wish + Outcome + Obstacle + Plan = WOOP!

Well, that’s basically what Kenneth is talking about here.

As I played with the language he uses, I discovered the acronym DROP.

He talks about “Desire” then “Reward” then “Obstacle” then we can add “Plan” and #bam.

We DROP into WOOP.

Let’s DROP WOOP your goal meow.

See if you can capture each of these in 4-6 words:

My #1 Desire = __________________________________

My #1 Reward = __________________________________

My #1 Obstacle = __________________________________

My Plan to deal with the obstacle = IF the obstacle appears THEN I will do this:
__________________________________

#highfives

P.S. You may have noticed we come back to the same Ideas often in these Notes. :)

That’s by design.

In The Little Book of Talent, Dan Coyle tells us REPETITION is key to mastery: “Repetition has a bad reputation. We tend to think of it as dull and uninspiring. But this perception is titanically wrong. Repetition is the single most powerful lever we have to improve skills, because it uses the built-in mechanism for making the wires of our brains faster and more accurate.”

I LOVE that.

And, I very deliberately repeat similar ideas again and again and again.

If we’re committed to *really* getting this stuff, we need to commit to repetition.

I like to imagine a spider web. One thread doesn’t do a whole lot. Neither does two. Or three. Or four. But you weave enough threads together and you start creating something super powerful.

#wisdomthreads!

Motivation, as you might have noticed, can be fickle.

That’s not a new discovery.

As we’ve discussed, the wise men and women of India actually had a name for this trait in Sanskrit: arambhashura—the art of being a hero in the beginning.

Gregg Krech captures this brilliantly in his great book The Art of Taking Action (see Notes) where he tells us: “It’s not really the feeling of excitement itself which is the culprit here, it is the loss of excitement which then prompts us to abandon our efforts towards fulfillment of our dreams — dreams which were, at one time, very exciting to us. If anticipatory excitement moves us to action, the loss of excitement often prompts us to stop. Action dissolves into inaction.

Meditation teacher Eknath Easwaran tells us of a Sanskrit word — arambhashura — which means ‘heroes at the beginning’ — people who take up a job with a fanfare of trumpets but soon find that their enthusiasm has tiptoed down the back stairs.”

17 days.

That’s how long Kenneth tells us most people can show up as heroes.

Then? Then they tiptoe down the back stairs, out the back door and far, far away—pretending they never really wanted to do whatever it was that so fired them up moments before.

(Laughing as we’ve all done that more times than we’d like, eh? :)

The antidote?

CRA.

CONSTANT. RESILIENT. ACTION.

Keep your Desire + Reward + Obstacle + Plan in mind.

DROP-WOOP the arambhashura in the butt everytime you *insert whiny voice* “don’t feel like” doing whatever it is you said you were going to do.

Know that your motivation will wane. THAT’S A GIVEN.

Then, simplify, re-commit and apply CRA.

Remember: “CRA is the difference between your dreams remaining a fantasy or becoming real. CRA is the internal drive that creates the enthusiasm that keeps you working harder toward your goals. You won’t give up when things don’t go right the first time; you’ll go back and do it again. If you can’t go through the obstacle ahead, you’ll go around it; if you can’t go around it, you’ll go over it; if you can’t go over it, you’ll go under it. With belief and all the emotion you can muster, you’ll stretch yourself and find a way.”

Power Talk.

You can’t read a book about getting a Mental Edge in sports and life without reading about the importance of our internal dialogue.

(Check out the Note on What to Say When You Talk to Yourself for a bunch more on this.)

I love the image of a glass of dirty water under a running faucet.

EVENTUALLY (!), the dirty water will be displaced by the clean water.

Think of that image and turn on the Power Talk faucet the next time your negative little chit chat gremlins are starting to fill your head with the dirty stuff!

P.S. You also can’t read a book about getting a Mental Edge in sports and life without reading about the importance of our breath. That’s our next Big Idea:

26,000.

That’s how many breaths the average adult takes per day.

That’s a lot.

* busts out calculator *

Approximately 18 breaths per minute.

Now, first of all, that’s WAY too many breaths to be taking. In my interview with Navy SEAL Commander Mark Divine (see Unbeatable Mind), he talks about getting his breath rate way down (4 per minute is actually relatively easy once you’ve practiced a bit) and how critical that is to elite performance.

Fact is: If we want to be calm and confident, we MUST learn how to regulate our breathing.

I’d read that for years. When I finally got how important mastering my breathing pattern was I started practicing nice long inhales, a little mini hold and nice long exhales ALL.THE.TIME.

When I’m meditating. When I’m reading. When I’m typing (like now). When I’m driving. When I’m walking. When I’m waiting. When I’m napitating. When…

There are countless opportunities to bring ourselves into this moment, connect with the most precious resource we will ever have and vitalize every cell in our bodies in the process.

Let’s practice now.

Inhale to 6. Hold for 2. Exhale for 7. Repeat.

Ahhhhhh…

It’s time to WAKE UP (!!) to the potential within us.

Or, alas, we will experience the consequences of Maslow’s dire warning: “If you deliberately plan to be less than you’re capable of being, then I warn you that you’ll be deeply unhappy for the rest of your life.”