“A” is for Action: the 5MM
BREATHE!
"A" is for ACTION. And that means that every day you take at LEAST the "Minimum" action that represents a single step toward your ultimate goals. If you don't know what to do, that step might be simply identifying people who have accomplished your intent. If you don't know your goal, then your first goal is to find a goal. Work backwards from either what will relieve the most pain or increase the most pleasure. The answer will almost certainly be in the arenas of health, love, or money.
What if you are totally paralyzed? Then start with the FIVE MINUTE MIRACLE: Simply breathe abdominally for sixty seconds once per hour. The list of benefits from this simple practice are involve increased focus, centering, creating a cognitive "break" that allows your mind to rest, breaking the cycle of stress-->strain, and more. Much more. But the point is this: you can research all the benefits of abdominal breathing combined with synaptic facilitation…or you can perform the experiment and see for yourself. Five minutes a day, six days a week for two weeks ought to do it.
And here is possibly the biggest benefit: this simple, five-minute exercise will tell you whether your major obstacles are OUTSIDE you (social) or INSIDE you (emotional). Can you keep your word to yourself? Do you value yourself? Do you LIE to yourself? Your goal is to move forward at 1% per week minimum in all three centers (Body, Heart, Head). and passing all three "Gates" ("Is it True? Is it Kind? Is it Useful?"). MAGIC is how you know you are in the Game.
Look at yourself: If success is "the progressive realization of a worthy goal" and the meaning of life is "to be joyful and of service" then ANY day that you take a step toward your goal, being joyful in your actions, IS A SUCCESSFUL DAY. You WIN, no matter what the temporary result of action.
Why? Because FAILURE IS THE DOORWAY TO SUCCESS. If you fail, and learn, and adjust tomorrow and try again, and keep acting, observing, being flexible in behavior and trying again, constantly modeling some successful pattern, and keeping your mood positive…
You will run out of ways to fail. So your first goal needs to be to do sixty seconds of diaphragmatic breathing, every hour, at least five times a day. Look at all the excuses you will come up with:
You will "forget"
You will be "unable to figure out how to set an alarm."
You will 'get too busy."
You will be "embarrassed" to breathe in public
You'll get interrupted by "emergencies"
Etc. etc.
And if you will record your process of avoidance, you'll start seeing the precise ways you have sabotaged yourself in physical, emotional, and money arenas. Too busy. Too distracted. Too many imperatives.
You need to treat every commitment you make in your life as something important: OR DON'T MAKE IT.
If you make it, DO IT. So be careful what you agree to do. Because if you succeed, you strengthen your will and confidence. And if you fail, you WEAKEN your will and confidence.
Unless you observe like a scientist, and your daily actions are to LEARN HOW TO DO IT. LEARN HOW TO BREATHE ONCE AN HOUR.
What if you defined the knowledge of how to do something as including the ABILITY TO DO IT? The actual ability to set an alarm or notice the clock and stop to breathe for sixty seconds. GET OUT OF YOUR HEAD. If you can't do it, you don't know how. If you have an ego about your intelligence, this should kinda piss you off.
Good. Get angry. Get angry enough to stop bullshitting yourself, and take a single tiny step.
The life of your dreams lies along that path, my friends.
Namaste
Steve
www.stevenbarneslist.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT5p3IVAzvE
