The Law of Exuberance: Abundant Potential is Always Bubbling Within You!

The first of the 7 indisputable laws of Potential Crystallization is what I call the Law of Exuberance.

The Law of Exuberance states, ‘There is an abundance of lively potentials and possibilities bubbling within and around you.’

In the world of computer programming, the concept of open-source software intrigues me every time.

Here’s how it works:

From time to time, brilliant programmers spend countless hours perfecting a software that is designed to solve a problem.

According to the laws of demand and supply, money flows wherever solutions to problems are. Therefore, it follows logic that whenever there’s a software that can solve a specific problem, the creators should charge people money for the benefit of using the said software to solve their problems. And that is what normally plays out in the normal marketplace.

But it’s at this juncture that the concept of open-source software makes an unexpected detour.

Rather than ask the users to pay money as the software is utilized, these programmers do the exact opposite – they share the program’s source code, blueprints, and documentation freely with anybody that is interested in it. That’s tantamount to spending years of research creating a drug that can cure cancer, only to show everybody how to create it themselves in 10 minutes!

Indeed, this kind of unhindered giving is only possible with a perfect understanding of the Law of Exuberance.

When the creators of these open-source software develop them, their dominant paradigm is not the fear that someone will steal their idea and profit from it.

Rather, on the contrary, their dominant paradigm is two-fold: First, they know that that there is an abundance of good ideas bubbling within and around them, from which they can always go back to draw from; secondly, they know that their software is not in the most perfect form yet, and that it takes input from others to bring the program to its full capabilities.

The immediate goal of these folks is not to make as much money as possible, but rather, to play their role as solution providers!

Perhaps, it is no wonder that these open-source programmers either go on to establish great IT companies, or more likely, get snapped up by multi-million-dollar companies who provide the money, the platform and the resources to keep on producing programs and software that attempt to solve even more ambitious problems.

The truth is that the vast majority of us were raised with a scarcity mentality.

We were taught that there is never going to be enough resources for everybody.

We were taught that there was only one way to win – finding a way to ensure that every other person lost.

We were taught to act as animals in the jungle – totally lacking in understanding and reacting solely on impulse.

We forget Proverbs 11:24 which says, ‘There is one who scatters yet increases more; And there is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty’

The more you give, the more likely you are to receive.

The less you flow into others, the more likely you are to stink with stagnation!

Unfortunately, living from a paradigm of scarcity is like having logs of wood in place of eyes. You will be rendered totally oblivious to the abundance that is already around and within you.

If you want to crystallize your potentials without any tears, your default belief system must be one of abundance.

Your outlook towards life must be abundance.

You need to deliberately acknowledge abundance in everything you do.

You need to deliberately acknowledge abundance in everything you say.

You need to deliberately acknowledge abundance in your thoughts and reasonings.

This is not a call to trick yourself into living a lie.

On the contrary, this is a call to acknowledge the real objective truth – that there is an abundance of potentials and possibilities around you!

Three Big Ideas: On Behavior Repertoires, Hedonic Consequences, and Revisiting History

Big Idea #1 From Me

At any given moment in time, there’s a range of behaviors you can perform.

I call this your behavioral repertoire.

Here’s an example that will help you visualize what I mean:

As you are seated/lying down in your bedroom, reading these words, you can decide to stand up and touch the wall closest to you. The probability of this happening is high, right?

Do you also know that you are capable of touching the ceiling with your feet?

But the probability of that behavior happening is very low. As a result, that behavior is collapsed within your repertoire. That’s why you probably can’t recall a time when you placed your feet on the ceiling in your room, even though it is something that is possible.

Now, let’s assume someone brings a double-bunk bed to your room and asked you to sleep on the top bunk. What would happen to the probability of you putting your feet on the ceiling (if you choose to)?

It will increase dramatically!

In life, some behaviors in your repertoire will bring you closer to your destiny, while others will collapse opportunities, thus taking you away from the destination God had prepared for you from the foundations of the world.

And still, some behaviors in your repertoire will never be expressed unless there are enabling factors in your immediate environment.

Here’s the wisdom in the paradigm:

Amplify those behaviors that will bring you closer to the fulfillment of your potential.
Extinguish those that will take you away from destiny.
Stay sensitive to discern whether a change is necessary in your environment for the right behaviors to be expressed.

Big Idea #2 From Research

In a study titled “Hedonic Consequences of Social Comparison: A Contrast of Happy and Unhappy Individuals”, researchers Sonja Lyubomirsky and Lee Ross asked people to teach children simple maths.

The people were divided into 2 groups.

For some, after they had taught the children, they were told ‘good job’. For others, in addition to being told they had done a good job, they were also told that other participants had done a better job.

After receiving feedback, the two groups of participants were asked to rate how happy they felt about their job performance.

Unsurprisingly, those who received the extra information in the form of comparison to an alternative group were less happy than those who were just told they did a good job.

My key takeaway is this: Don’t build your happiness on things that change. If you’re hell-bent on comparing yourself with others, you’d find that there’s always going to be someone wealthier, prettier, or more knowledgeable. If you must compare, compare yourself with where you’re coming from and where you’re headed to. Remind yourself: The story isn’t over yet!

Big Idea #3 From the Bible

Ecclesiastes 1:9, 11 says, “The thing that had been is that which shall be, and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there’s no new thing under the sun…There’s no remembrance of the former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that come after”

Every question you’d ever ask on this side of eternity has been answered in some shape or form by people in the past.

This reminds me of a quote by German poet, Friedrich von Schlegel, who said, ‘The historian is a prophet in reverse’

By being a student of history, you can identify patterns in the past that will position you for opportunities in the present and future, when they arise.

This principle applies to both your personal history and historical events in general.

History is valuable when it compounds. However, if your memory of it decays over time, it will be useless to you.

Unless you take deliberate effort to harness the power of revisiting history, you will always be caught up in the present moment without an understanding of your roles in it.

There’s a reason the men of Issachar (1 Chron 12:32) were called men of understanding…

May the Lord give you understanding in these things.

Three Big Ideas: On MLK, the Chinese Language, and Digging for Gold

Big Idea #1 From Me

One price of success is the higher scrutiny you will be subject to.

Perhaps the reason you’re still at your current level is because of the private battles you’ve not won yet.

Perhaps God is protecting you and you’re experiencing a dimension of grace to change your ways before it’s too late.

Everyone knows the role that Martin Luther King Jr (MLK) played in the civil rights movement.

Naturally, because of his prominent role in the struggle against inequality, MLK was subject to greater scrutiny by the powers that be.

What they found wasn’t pretty.

Behind the cool, calm and charismatic Reverend that gave the “I have a dream” speech, the FBI found a man who drank, smoked, spoke vulgar and had multiple sexual partners.

While some of the FBI findings were released sometime in 2019, this image of MLK had been painted by his associates in books they wrote as far back as the 1980s.

If you look through the annals of history, you’d find it littered with the blood and bones of great men who may have gotten public victories but were limited by their private battles.

I’m reminded of the story of the two wolves:

‘A fight is going on inside every person. It’s a terrible fight between two wolves. One is evil and the other is good. The wolf that will win is the one that is fed”

This story is instructive.

Take care of your private battles. Do everything in your power to avoid joining the list of casualties on the road to destiny.

Big Idea #2 From Research

In his journal paper titled, “The Effect of Language on Economic Behavior: Evidence from Savings Rate, Health Behavior and Retirement Savings“, researcher Keith Chen showed that people who spoke languages which made no separation between the present and the future were more likely to make good decisions in the present that led to better future outcomes.

Consider two languages: English and Chinese.

Suppose you want to tell someone that you’re going to save money when you get paid your salary at the end of the month.

If you’re speaking English, you’d say:

“I WILL save money at the end of the month”

As you can see, there’s a separation between the present and the action you want to take in the future.

On the other hand, in Chinese, that separation doesn’t exist. A Chinese speaker wanting to express the same idea will say something which when translated to English will mean,

“I save money at the end of the month”

By running analysis with tons of data from different countries, the study demonstrated that people from cultures where the language did not separate the present from the future were more likely to save more, retire with wealth, smoke less and maintain a healthy weight. This seems to support the hypothesis that the way ‘future time’ is talked about influences the way ‘future time’ is thought about. If your language prevents you from seeing your future as disconnected from your present, you are less likely to take your actions in the present with levity.

My key takeaway from the study is that your words have an impact on your thoughts which will, in turn, influence your actions. To change your life, start with the manner you speak.

Big Idea #3 From the Bible

Proverbs 21:5 says, “The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness, but everyone that is hasty only to want”

The word translated “diligent” implies the continual act of mining for gold or digging a trench.

No one digs for gold by striking the topsoil once with a shovel before giving up.

Yet, when we think, we don’t hold our thoughts and spiritual impressions long enough for them to take root.

The Bible promises that if you’re diligent with the thoughts that God impresses upon your heart in the same manner a man mining for gold continues to digs, you will lead a fulfilling life.

Perhaps the reason you’re facing chaos in your life is because you’re too hasty in thought – refusing to consider a thought long enough before jumping into your next bout of busyness and distraction.

May the Lord grant you understanding in these things.

The Kanisza Triangle: Why There’s Much Food in the Tillage of the Poor

Look at the featured image above.

What do you see?

If you’re like most people, you’d see two triangles planted on top of three circles.

And like most people, you’d be wrong.

As it turns out, there are no circles or triangles in the shape above.

What is perceived as circles are actually three black shapes oriented at different angles.

What is seen as the dark triangle is simply a series of Vs arranged in different ways.

And of course, there is no white triangle at all. You totally made that up on your own!

So, what does this teach us?

People find it easy to remain blind to the obvious.

People looking at the Kanisza Triangle easily see the white triangle that is not even in the picture, yet they miss the Vs that are staring at them.

In the same vein, people look at their environments and only see chaos.

They look at their circumstances and conclude that there’s nothing good that can come out of it.

Yet, right there in the midst of the chaos are opportunities begging to be crystallized.

Little wonder Proverbs 13:23 says, “Much food is in the tillage of the poor…”

The mind hates gaps and when faced with them, will subconsciously create fillers

In the image above, the triangles and circles you saw were not there.

They were creations of your imagination.

In the same way, people have a tendency to make up assumptions about how the world works.

To counter this, you must be humble enough to acknowledge that there will be times when you are working with faulty or incomplete assumptions.

In instances like this, don’t be afraid to reach out and ask for wisdom.

James 1:7 says, ‘If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.’

Conclusion

Order is the inherent nature of the world God created, and there are still obscured patterns waiting to be uncovered.

Proverbs 25:2 says, “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honor of kings is to search out a matter.”

To see these things, however, you must take a step away from crowd-think and hone your skills of perception.

Helplessness is Learned: When You Feel Your Life Spinning Out of Control

In the 1960s, Richard Solomon and his team of researchers conducted a simple experiment.

They got some dogs, restrained them, and, gave them about 64 electric shocks.

The following day, the dogs were placed in a special box with two compartments separated by a short barrier.

The idea was that if the floor of one compartment was electrified, the dog could hop over the barrier and escape into the other side.

However, that wasn’t what happened in Solomon’s experiment.

When the dogs were placed in the special box and the current turned on, they didn’t move an inch.

The dogs were in discomfort, yet, they didn’t do the one thing that could relieve their pain – Jump to the other side!!!

As it turned out, the experience of being restrained and shocked 64 times in one day taught the dogs one thing: No matter what you do, you can’t escape the pain

This phenomenon is called Learned Helplessness

Unfortunately, as a human, you do the same thing.

Unlike computers and phones that are constantly updating to access better functionalities, humans love to build their lives on faulty and incomplete mental models established on incorrect and untested assumptions.

As a result, when you’re pushed to the wall, you are ill-equipped to view the situation from another angle where the solution is more obvious.

In this state, you forget that you are never really helpless or powerless.

You ignore the fact that God deliberately designed you to be a partner with Him in the continually unfolding story of creation.

You forget that God made you to institute order on chaos.

There’s good news, though.

You’re not a dog.

You can make a decision to seize your power back and step into the original way God designed you to function.

I share 3 useful ideas:

1. Elevate Your Perception

The beauty of a painting is not appreciated when you’re kissing it, with your eyes a few millimeters away from the picture.

To enjoy the painting, you need to step back away from it.

In the same way, you fail to see the masterpiece that God is making with your life because you’re too wrapped up in the minutiae of everyday living.

If you simply take a step back, it’s easier to find perspective and find what God is doing in you and through your circumstances.

Learned helplessness melts in the heat of perspective.

2. Your situation is not an isolated one

When going through trying times, humans forget that they are not the only ones who have experienced such circumstances.

No matter how rough the situation it is you’re going through is, there are people who have gone through worse and came through on the other side.

It’s easier to snap out of learned helplessness when you realize that: (a) your situation could have been much worse, and (b) other people in similar or worse circumstances pulled through.

3. There’s always a way of escape

Gavin de Becker once said, “When you worry, ask yourself, what am I choosing not to see right now?”

Learned helplessness is built on a foundation of faulty mental models that are in turn established upon incorrect assumptions of reality.

Once you understand this, you’d realize that you have no problem but a perception problem.

The fact that you’re faced with a situation means you have what it takes to get out of it.

Open your eyes and heart and stay sensitive, you’d realize that the answer is closer than you think.

The Reason You’re Not Getting Anything Out of Books

There’s always an element of difficulty that accompanies the pursuit of mastery.

People who go on hiking or mountain climbing could use vehicles and helicopters to get to their destinations. But, in addition to the feeling of accomplishment that comes from completing the climb or hike, there is also something about the journey that changes those who embark on it.

The same can be said about a good book. When you pick up a book, you should experience a “stretching of the limits of your mind to new dimensions.” This stretching should be uncomfortable, as old patterns of thought are uprooted and newer ones installed.

Most people walk through life with unchallenged and untested assumptions about how the world works. A good book should give you the opportunity to test those assumptions. Whether those assumptions are right, wrong, or incomplete, a good book will cause tension which will give you the chance to examine the foundations upon which your life’s philosophy rests.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case today with the kinds of books in circulation. Nowadays, we have a glut of information and a poverty of attention. As a result, there are few books in pop culture that are capable of doing any stretching to your mind. Rather, what you’ll see is the same crap recycled over and over again.

That’s why I’d say about 80% of the material in the self-help space is filled with simple, post-modern, watered-down, feel-good, motivational fluff camouflaged as books; each riding on the latest fad while claiming to be the best thing since sliced bread. And the more of these books you read, the more likely you are to suffer mental decadence, as well as action paralysis – a situation of inaction induced by the frequently conflicting ideas that self-help books offer. This is WHY you’re not getting anything out of popular books !!!

To start getting the best out of books, I recommend replacing self-help books with any from these three categories:

Biographies

There’s really nothing new under the sun.

Every challenge you will ever face has been faced in some shape or form by someone in the past.

When you read a biography that is presented in a balanced manner, you are free to objectively consider the events in the individual’s life without anybody force-feeding you with their opinions. As you are thinking about this person’s life, you are also indirectly examining how you would think if you’re in situations similar to the ones you’re reading about.

In addition to reading about the characters in the Bible, I like researching the stories of interesting people scattered throughout history. I’ve used the stories of people like Hakeem Olajuwon, Barack Obama, Dmitri Mendeleev, Harry Truman among many others to expound upon ideas in my posts.

Historical books

It’s often said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again with the expectation of a different result.

People who ignore history do so to their detriment.

When you read the story of the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War, it’s hard to understand how the same events could still pan out years later in the Iraq War.

Many unnecessary pains that we face in contemporary times could be avoided if politicians and policymakers paid a little more attention to history.

As of this time, in addition to the Bible, my favorite source of history books include anything written by Robert Greene and Ryan Holiday. I enjoy listening to Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast – Revisionist History.

Recently, I’ve also been trying to read more about the history of the Yoruba people. In what I’ve read so far, I’ve been amazed by the level of societal organization and technological development that my people had as early as the 1400s. I highly recommend you not just reading contemporary global or foreign history, but more about your culture and people.

Books from other fields

If you want to genuinely change your life, you cannot afford to be confined to the self-help space.

Understand this: The idea that will change your life is common knowledge in another field

From reading books on Quantum physics, I came across ideas that ended up inspiring my book Mastering the Art of Observation

Ideas from chemistry inspired this quote which I used in my post, ‘Wisdom Shouts in the Streets: “Everything resorts to chaos, order is enforced by power”

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was fully formed after he read books from Geology and Economics.

Read books from biology, economics, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, chemistry, physics… And even maths!

They will enrich your mind with metaphors that will expand your mind to see the world in ways you never thought possible.

Even more, you don’t need to buy textbooks stuffed with formulas and all that jazz.

Nowadays, there are tons of books that will give you the gist of big ideas from other fields without boring you with mathematical proofs and other unnecessary details. Examples of good ones I’ve read in recent times include The Ghost Map (public health), The Fabric of the Cosmos (physics), The Impossible Will Take a Little While (sociology/political science).

Conclusion

The bulk of self-help books in print today will spoon-feed you with low-level information, thus depriving you of the experience of having your mind stretched.

The way a chick helped to hatch is condemned to life-long weakness, your choice to be spoon-fed mediocrity is severely limiting you.

By changing the kinds of books you read, you can start getting more out of every reading session

Things We Do Because of the Difficulty of Thought

Thinking is hard.

As a result, we try to make use of mental shortcuts to make decisions faster.

These shortcuts are called heuristics, and while they are useful, many times, they lead us down rabbit holes.

The other day, I sat close to a dude in a meeting.

As we got talking, I found that he had relatives from the Middle East.

I concluded that he was a foreigner and a student.

Well, it turns out that I was wrong on both counts.

The dude was neither a student, nor a foreigner, and heuristics lost yet another battle.

The one that amuses me the most is the media’s use of statistics.

You hear stuff like, “70% of people who eat ABC will have XYZ in ten years”

What they don’t tell you is the number of people they are basing that statistic on.

70% of 100000 is 70000 and if that’s the case, maybe ABC has the effect they claim it has.

However, 70% of 10 is 7 people!!!

I’m not saying 7 people are not important, but any effects observed in them is likely due to causes other than eating ABC.

But here’s the interesting thing: Researchers almost always tell you all the numbers involved in arriving at their conclusions.

Yet, the media likes to conveniently ignore the details, while focusing on sensationalism.

And because of heuristics, we gobble up anything they place before us – hook, line, and sinker.

So, what’s my point in all these?

Jesus said, ‘…be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves’ (Matthew 10:16).

A good way towards manifesting that wisdom is knowing when you are misperceiving the truth because of an ‘over-reliance’ on heuristics.

I’m not asking you to be over-analytical and critical in every situation.

All I’m telling you to do is to be aware.

It can change your life!

Why People Fail

People fail for two reasons.

They embark on a journey, see no effects, and give up before their efforts start compounding.
They mindlessly trudge along on the journey, begin to see some results, but cannot remember what they did that triggered that effect.

Both situations can be avoided by making the habit of deliberate daily reflection your friend.

I talk about it here: Reflective Thinking: Seeing Life One Frame At A Time

The Battle of Dunkirk and the Power in the Law of Cognizance

‘Unless you become aware of the spiritual realities, you can never profit from them’
– The Law of Cognizance

The year 1940 saw the Nazi German army at the height of its military superiority during World War II.

At the Battle of Dunkirk, the Allied armies, comprising mostly of British and French soldiers found themselves in a very precarious situation.

The German soldiers had ruthlessly taken advantage of an oversight in the French defensive line, while hitherto neutral nearby nations like the Netherlands and Belgium had also surrendered to the Germans.

This resulted in the Allied forces outmaneuvered and trapped by the German soldiers in all directions.

In addition, the Germans had planes that could fly over the trapped Allied armies and make short work of them with powerful bombs.

And to make matters worse for the Allied forces, retreat was impossible because they were bottled up in a water corridor that was about 97 kilometers deep and 24 kilometers long. There was no way the Allied armies were going to swim the long way home to escape their predicament.

Yet, over the course of 10 days, from May 26 – June 4, 1940, more than 300,000 Allied soldiers were able to escape from Dunkirk with the aid of boats and ships sent from England.

It turned out that for some eerie reasons, the German army momentarily halted its advance towards the trapped soldiers.

For three whole days!

That was more than enough time for the Allied forces to organize their evacuation efforts.

To this day, there is no consensus on why the German army decided to slow down their offensive at Dunkirk for three whole days, when the logical thing to do would have been to continue charging towards the trapped Allied armies and totally crushing them.

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In my opinion, the actions of the German army at the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940 will continue to be a cause of bewilderment to historians for one simple reason. Historians always analyze past events from a solely physical paradigm.

On the other hand, the accounts of war told in the Bible give a more complete picture of the variables that determine the results of different battles fought.

For instance, 1 Chronicles 14:10-17 gives an account of two battles fought between the Israeli army and that of the Philistines.

Before the first battle, King David of the Israeli army inquired from God to see whether he should go ahead and engage the enemy. God gave the king the green light and the result was a rout in favor of Israel.

Soon, another battle with the same enemy became imminent and David inquired of God again – refusing to take spiritual dynamics for granted.

This time, however, God’s instructions were slightly different.

‘…and God said unto him, Go not up after them; turn away from them, and come upon them over against the mulberry trees. And it shall be, when thou shalt hear a sound of going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt go out to battle: for God is gone forth before thee to smite the host of the Philistines.’ – 1 Chronicles 14:14-15

God asked David to stand under the shade of mulberry trees and listen for the sounds of marching feet!

To the logical mind, that did not make any sense whatsoever.

For starters, you don’t stand idle when the threat of war is real. You gather your resources and prepare your army for battle.

In addition, it is impossible to march on branches and leaves still attached to the trunk of a tree. Besides, to the natural mind, merely standing under a tree to listen for a sound that others cannot hear is hardly a military strategy, especially when you know that the enemy is going to be better prepared because of their thirst for revenge.

But King David had an awareness of the spiritual realities available to him and the children of Israel that day.

He knew that the factors that determine victory in battle were more than the number of soldiers, horses, and chariots that an army had. David had an understanding that failure on his part to stay aware of the spiritual variables of war could cost him and his army severe losses.

David’s choice to stay consistently aware of the dynamics of the spiritual realm brought him and his army their desired results.

‘David therefore did as God commanded him: and they smote the host of the Philistines from Gibeon even to Gazer. And the fame of David went out into all lands; and the Lord brought the fear of him upon all nations.’ – 1 Chronicles 14:10-17

Interestingly, there were spiritual dynamics at play during the Battle of Dunkirk that contemporary historians sometimes overlook during their analyses.

Just before the British military leaders embarked on sending boats and ships to evacuate the trapped Allied armies, the king of England at the time, King George VI called for a National Day of Prayer where he implored everyone under his jurisdiction to cry out to God for divine help. And his people responded, as there are eyewitness accounts, as well as photographs proving that the entire nation went on their knees, crying out to God for deliverance.

Just like King David centuries before him, King George VI understood that there were spiritual realities that were available to him and his nation.

As the nation took advantage of their connection to God’s Strength, Wisdom and Power in the spiritual realm, interesting events were unfolding in the physical realm.

As mentioned earlier, first, the German authorities decided not to press their advantage at Dunkirk for three whole days.

Then, the weather at the battlefield became very cloudy, such that it was not possible for the Germans to use their bomber planes in making life unbearable for the trapped Allied armies.

Even more remarkable, the water corridor was very calm, such that the evacuation efforts of the Allied armies via ships and boats were much easier than it would have been had the waters been turbulent.

Understand this: Talent, planning, and strategy will only take you so far. If you fail to take cognizance of the influence of the spiritual realm on events in the physical realm, you will always fall short in the long run.

What I Learned from a Bad Driving Habit

I only started driving in 2017.

In those early days, I remember being crippled with anxiety whenever there were more than two vehicles on the road.

Back then, crawling at 30 miles per hour was very fast.

However, for me, the holy grail of driving was the ability to drive with one hand. You see, I always held the steering wheel with both hands and my brain would always fry whenever someone tried to hold a conversation with me as I drove.

In contrast, I saw other people flawlessly executing what I was incapable of doing.

As I saw other drivers use one hand to control a 4000-pound vehicle as they nonchalantly engaged in conversations with passengers, I could not help but grow green with envy every single time.

The question that never seemed to leave my mind was this: How are these guys able to drive a car with just one hand?

Fast forward to a couple of months ago, my boss and I traveled for a conference.

In the car, we talked about the finer details of the presentation we were scheduled to deliver together the following day.

Of course, I was the cool driver cruising along the highway — with just one hand on the steering wheel!

That’s when it occurred to me that I had been doing this bad habit for almost two years and I did not even know it!

If you think I am advocating for one-handed driving, you are missing my point.

The bigger picture is the process that took me from the ‘Day Crawler’ in 2017 to the ‘Cool Cruiser’ a couple of years later.

Now that I think about it, the one thing that transformed me from one state to the other is so obvious.

Consistency!

I became a better, more confident driver because I continued to drive every day and in every circumstance.

I drove in the rain.

I drove in the snow.

I drove at night.

I drove in the fog.

The more I drove, and the more contexts I drove in, the better I became as a driver.

Consistency made me a better driver!

At the end of every year, people give different motivational talks about how you need to keep reinventing yourself every year.

They talk about how it is essential for you to make plans for the new year to be your best year yet.

However, while I am all for planning and reinvention, I don’t know why people wait till the end of the year before they make such moves.

It’s not like your life stops and resets at the end of every year.

The earth does not stop revolving around the sun to give everyone a breather at the end of each year.

Yet, we are quick to hop on the bandwagon of those who conveniently advocate for reinventing yourself every year — forgetting the rewards that may arise from persisting with your current path.

If you really want to be successful in any field of endeavor, you need to reflect on previous successes you’ve experienced in your life.

If none comes to your mind, think about the following:

You did not learn to walk because you planned it. Rather, you learned to walk because you were consistent.

You did not learn to write alphabets because you reinvented yourself, you learned because you were consistent.

If you’ve earned a degree, it happened because your study habits were consistent over the duration of your schooling.

Consider this quote I have been meditating on for some days now,

He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread; but he that followeth after vain persons is void of understanding
– King Solomon (Proverbs 12:11)

Every step of the farming process is a testament to the power of consistency.

A half-hearted attempt to clear the weeds on a farm will make it impossible to plant seeds.

A half-hearted attempt to plant seeds will jeopardize the farmer’s harvest when it is time.

Even harvesting is dependent on consistency. The farmer does not harvest half-way before trying to reinvent himself into a shepherd. Rather, when the crops are ripe, he goes all in and does not relent until he’s done.

On the other hand, there are the inconsistent ones who are tossed to and fro by the different doctrines pushed by the different thought leaders.

People in this camp are left overwhelmed with information, even as they sink into the cesspool of action paralysis…until the end of the following year when they get their next fix of reinvention talk.

If you are ready to thrive, you do not need to wait till the end of the year to make your desired change happen.

All you need is consistency, and here are 3 tips that will keep you on track.

1. Eliminate Ruthlessly

As humans, we are finite.

We can only be in one place at a time.

We only have enough resources for some things, but not everything.

As a result, we need to deliberately select what we choose to focus our attention on.

Again, when you think about the previous successes you’ve experienced in your life and you’d find them rife with elimination.

To walk, you needed to eliminate crawling.

To write, you needed to eliminate the uncoordinated hand movements that were not giving you the desired symbols.

Staying consistent becomes a simple ordeal when you ruthlessly eliminate the unessential and concentrate on what matters.

2. Design an Enabling Environment

When the defaults in your environment promote the performance of your desired behavior, you become more consistent at it.

For instance, if you want to be more productive with your time, you could redesign your physical space such that your phone is in a separate room whenever you need to work.

In the same way, if you want to be a generally more healthy individual, it is easy to build consistency in healthy eating when your immediate environment is filled with healthy meals.

Your environment is not just limited to the physical inanimate objects in your surroundings. Rather, it also comprises of your social environment, which is made up of the people you surround yourself with.

Before I started driving, no one in my immediate circle could move a car to save their lives. I naturally started driving as soon as my social environment comprised of drivers.

Think about it: You are able to walk today because the people who surrounded you as a child all walked and encouraged you to walk.

Like I said in my post, The Adullam Ring: Outsourcing Decision-Making for Better Outcomes, when you form your Adullam Ring of like-minded individuals, you set yourself for success in the long-run. This happens because of the positive peer pressure that constrains you towards consistency. No one wants to be the one dragging the group back.

3. Track Your Progress

When you are in the habit of measuring how often to repeat a desired behavior, you are more likely to stick with it.

As you track each time you write that article, meditate, go to the gym, make that sales pitch, or do some predetermined action outside your comfort zone, you will literally see those tiny actions add up over time in your tracker.

Self-sourced motivation is the best kind of motivation, and there are very few things that can spark motivation than seeing yourself going on a streak.

I have provided a simple habit tracker that you can download and adapt for the purpose of tracking your habit (No squeeze page or sign up!)