The Powerfast Method

Action

Intro

The final step of The Powerfast Method is Action. At this point where you have first gained a clear perspective of the physical world and the ego and you have managed to create a positive overall reality around you, it’s time to make things happen.

The difference between reading a book and changing your life for the better, is application. Apply what you have learned to the world around you. A great way to start is to start making the changes to your own world. If you believe that different coloring in your room would inspire you more effectively, take action and change the colors. If you believe that your energy levels would be better by removing sugar from your diet, take action and stop eating sugar. It is time to create action where there has only been planning.

Remember that most things we are supposed to want to do in our lives are illusions that we think we want. We have been told what to want since we were little children, it is sometimes hard to realize our motivations behind our desires. Sometimes we want something because it is socially accepted as something that “everyone wants” but in reality does not offer us anything we really want in our life. It is good to remember that usually whatever you think you want, is in reality something you need for something else you want. One simple way to find what you should be doing is following your bliss and your passion, all the rest is confusing noise.

Only commit to things where you can apply your bliss or your passion.

Take responsibility

It starts and ends with you – Blame nobody

This is the most important part of the entire Act segment. Take responsibility of your situation and take responsibility of your choices. These two are actually one and the same because your situation usually is a result of your choices. When you realize that you are blaming someone for getting you into a unwanted situation, remember that you made the choices that led you there.

When you take responsibility of your choices you gain the ability to choose differently. That can’t happen if you are blaming someone else for the results. Only if you remember that you and only you are responsible for the choices you make you can choose to make considerably better choices naturally.

Responsibility also applies to your reactions, mood and attitude. If the weather or your boss or any random event is responsible for your mood there really is nothing you can do about it, therefore you are off the hook and can freely be the victim. People who react like this live their entire lives as victims. But if you own up to the fact that you choose to act miserably because the circumstances are not ideal, you gain the power to choose differently.

There are always choices. Every single one we make is our responsibility alone. You are not only responsible for your current situation, you are also responsible for your entire future. Nobody else will ever take responsibility for your future, nor should they. You have the freedom to choose, so choose. Don’t worry if you choose wrong because if you are alone responsible for your choices, you can always choose to change your mind later.

Write down a list of at least 5 things that affect you negatively and you have the habit of blaming it on something else than yourself. Everyone has dozens of these but the challenge is in identifying them. Once you have identified at least 5 write 3 different choices you could make concerning the issues, none of which is the choice you have made so far. Make the choices believable and easily applicable because I recommend you apply the good ones right away.

Be a proactive participant in your life

Sometimes we wake up in a situation and think “This was not supposed to happen to me. This is not where I was supposed to end up”. When we don’t have a clear picture of where we’re going, it’s very easy to start going with the flow. When this happens we drift around with no will of our own. We rely on our spouse, boss, family and friends to make all the decisions. We give up control of our life. Sometimes this happens because of indecisiveness or because it is much easier than taking total responsibility of our lives.

If we’re not in control, we’re not responsible.

This can be liberating in a perverted way. This never leads to a happy life. One of the first signs of depression I look for, is someone letting go of their control or responsibility. When they no longer have the will to try to control their fate, it’s a short trip to cynicism, indifference and desperation.

Be the person who leads your life.

It is you who needs to figure out what you want to do and to step up. You are the architect of your life. The responsibility is yours alone. If you’re in a situation that is far from the life you want to be living, it is your responsibility to make a plan and take the action needed to change it. This doesn’t necessarily need to be so dramatic. It can be like you’ve been sleepwalking for some time and all of a sudden you wake up. When you wake up, you can start working.

Where is it that you want to be? What is it that you want to do? Write it down. Don’t kid yourself. Don’t try to force yourself to be something you’re not or like something you don’t. It is such a waste of life to spend it doing something that you don’t feel to be yours. Know what you want and be a proactive participant in your life. Never sit on the benches! There’s a game going on and you need to be on the field playing.

Learn, Grow and Evolve

Just the fact that you’ve gotten this far reading this I believe you’re a type of person who is trying to learn, grow and evolve. This is a very admirable trait. Let’s face it, the majority of people don’t fall into this category. Most of us believe that we’re all done. That we’re a fully developed package that will suffice for the rest of this life.

Whatever isn’t growing is dying.

This biology 101 – whatever isn’t growing is dying. This is true for plants, animals, people, our minds, our abilities and our strengths. If we’re not moving forward, we don’t stop, we start moving backwards. There is no solid point in the universe, so everything is always in motion. Walking up a hill needs work but rolling down one is automatic.

It should be a regular habit for us to grow every day. We can learn, we can exercise and we can practice. This shouldn’t be something that we force ourselves to do, it should be a part of our personality to better ourselves all the time. This doesn’t mean that we’re not good as we are, but whenever we stop progressing we regress. There’s no reason to beat ourselves up for things that we should be doing to grow, we should just do it automatically. It should be a part of who we are.

There’s a belief some people have that mistakes and failure should be avoided. But I believe that these are the best opportunities to grow and learn. Whenever we learn something from a so called “failure” there really isn’t a failure. The only way that we can fail is to not learn from the mistakes we make.

I don’t want to specify things what we should to learn, grow and evolve, because ideally we should do it with everything we do. If we develop a habit to learn all the time, listen more than we speak and think more than we label, we are on ongoing trajectory to great things. Whatever little things you do today to evolve multiplies with time. Just changing your course a single degree today will lead you to an entirely new destination in the future.

Make learning, growing and evolving an ongoing habit in your life to enjoy a healthy life during the journey to a brighter future.

Connect

Some of us are introverts and some are extroverts, some are a little of both. One thing that all of us have in common is the need to connect. The connections we seek are different in nature, but we all need these connections. Without connections we are prone to loneliness. For a person who feels this emotion, there’s the danger of fading out of motivation. This can be the first domino of a long stack.

I just found a study that showed some data gathered from 148 earlier studies done with 308,849 participants (link here) which concluded that people with strong social relationships had a 50% higher chance of living longer than people who don’t. This tells us a lot about us as a species. We are not meant to live alone.

We all have unique needs when it comes to social relationships and for some of us a small tight group is preferable to a larger less tight group. For some it’s enough to have just a couple close friends. The problem arises when our unique needs for social relationships are not met.

Connecting socially is something that we need to do. It’s not something that necessarily happens organically anymore. In the old days it was quite rare to even have the option of social isolation, but after we’ve moved into an era of more busy work schedule, non-stop television programs, the internet, game consoles, etc. this is now the norm for a growing population.

We all have a tribe. It’s our responsibility to find and connect with it.

This is something that touches me personally. After the people around me starting turning 21 and started going to bars, got into relationships, started out their careers and such I felt like I was left behind. None of the people actually went anywhere physically but they were no longer available. Growing up I was a interesting mixture of extrovert and introvert. My social anxiety kept me out of the bars, I didn’t make new friends at the jobs I worked at and talking to women made me nervous. I was very shy around people I didn’t know but I was overly social around “my group”. After this group dismantled I faced a challenge. I needed to find new people to connect with. This was not an easy task.

Eventually I figured out that instead of trying to force myself to fit in a group of people I didn’t really connect with, it is much more beneficial to find the people with whom I already have a connection. In my case it was philosophical and psychological discussion. For me there is no quicker way to feel a connection with another person than to talk about these subjects that reflect my passion.

What makes you feel connected to another person faster than anything? What kind of person is most likely to have this trait? Where can one find these people? That is where you look for your tribe.

Never forget the importance of family. If you have a healthy relationship with your family, nurture that relationship often. Don’t trust relationships to stay strong passively.

Remember to be thankful for the people you have in your world. This gratitude always reflects onto the relationships and makes them stronger. Even when there’s drama and life happens, be thankful for the people you’re lucky enough to have in your life.

Share your experiences and be interested in the experiences of others. Share ideas and have inside jokes. Find people who share your passion and if possible, collaborate. A shared experience with someone you care about is twice as precious than an experience had alone.

Live

After understanding that you and you alone are responsible for your situation, future and  choices, it’s time to make some choices.

Making a choice sounds dramatic and serious, but the reality is that we make them every day hundreds of times. The difference is that we tend to do them on autopilot and they are choices that are expected of us, and therefore we don’t really need to be accountable for them because they represent the accepted norm. The flip side here is that we all create our own norms and when they are created, anything we do within those norms is accepted as “just you”.

The norms are usually built upon unconscious choices based on random associations. Some are made based on fear, some based on comfort or security. Now it’s time to make choices based on what you want.

I have always thought that the difference between an active and a proactive person is a master plan. An active person likes to do things because it makes them happy. A proactive person has the big picture in mind while actively doing things that takes him/her a step closer to the ultimate goal. But there comes a bit of a paradox here. Having a big picture in mind means doing things with the intention of getting some sort of satisfaction later, and this goes against the whole idea of living in the moment. So the way to go about this is getting a clear picture of where you want to head, and think what kind of principals, if lived by every day, would eventually take you there.

After getting these principals clear as crystal in your mind, live by them and live actively. Do not focus on the end result, instead focus on living by the principals that will eventually create the result. Every day express these principals in some way, create situations where you can apply them.

These principals will eventually become the new norm. If you chose principals of integrity and love, that is what will be expected of you. If you chose principals of motivation and determination, that is what will be expected of you.

Something will always be expected of you. Make a choice to make people expect good things from you, and it will be very unlikely that you will let them down.

This is the part where you start writing down you goals. Be honest. How do you really want to use your time for now on? What is your bliss? What is your passion? Think of your childhood, what did you want to be when you grow up? Apply this to your journal every day so you can start getting a clear picture of what it is that you really want. This keeps your mind open for clues around you. Clues for the right direction and the right choices. Once you have found what you really want (at this moment) and written it down, start thinking about life principals that, when followed every day, will eventually lead you to where you want to be. Write these principals down. They are the new norm that you actively apply to your life and thought. This norm applies until you find a reason to revise it, which is only natural when you grow as a person.

Success

Commit to one thing (…at a time)

There’s only a certain amount of things you can do at once and be efficient at it, that amount is one. You can do several overlapping chores and multitask but to be truly effective in a subject one has to commit to the task in hand. Jugglers rarely excel in one of the “balls in the air”.

One of the problems people seem to have is having too many “mandatory” duties that they see as more urgent than the subjects they would want to commit to. Whenever they try to spend time on their bliss or passion they feel guilt and pressure because they could be working on the seemingly more currently topical duties, instead they are “wasting their time” on their passion.

The way to find space to work on one’s passion is to claim room for it. That happens by making your passion the priority and letting go of many things that are less important. There is always time to do the important things. When something important comes up the time appears from thin air. So, how to make time for your passion? Make your passion important.

After creating time to work on their passion some people hit the reality of their dream and realize it involves hard or less exciting work. This will often quickly make the subject a smaller and smaller priority, until the subject is no more than a memory of the time the person “tried and failed”. This happens for a couple of reasons one of which is too much concentration on the end result. Too much concentration on the ultimate goal tends to make the work needed to be done feel like an obstacle between you and success. You can only do that for so long until it just doesn’t seem worth it anymore. The work has to be rewarding in itself. So after you have a clear goal, forget it and commit to the work, not the goal. Try to get positive feedback from your efforts. Love the work. If you can’t find a way to love the work you do, there is a possibility that it is not the right work for you.

Write a list of the things that consume your time, a simple list that shows you clearly how you spend your time. This is based on the diet technique where you write down everything you eat during the day so you get a better picture of your real dietary input. Write this list down once a week a look for things you could change to gain time to work on your project.

Use your journal to write about the work involved with your passion and use a positive tone. Find things that you like about it and write them down. Write down ways to evolve in the work and bring it to a completely new level. Don’t use bad references when you evaluate your work, compare yourself to the best and learn.

Write a manual on how your “business” operates. When working on your passion you should imagine yourself as a business. Write a manual on how your business operates so anyone could come along and take over just by reading the manual. If you are doing something creative it is less likely to be easily done by someone else, but assuming that someone could the manual should be enough information on how to go ahead and get things done.

Stop, re-evaluate & act
Whenever you find yourself in a surprising or stressful situation, or you simply need a fresh view on some matter, use this simple mind tool to get the space needed to resolve the matter.

1. Realize that you are in a situation where you need to revise your paradigm fast.
2. STOP and step out of the situation.
3. Re-evaluate the situation and create the proper perspective suitable for the outcome you want to achieve.
4. Step back in the situation and ACT.

Get into the habit of quickly applying this whenever some unforeseen situation causes you stress, fear or worry. You can also apply this whenever you realize that you can benefit from a new paradigm of something.

Act like you’re already there

Visualize how your life would be like if you had already succeeded in all your goals and live accordingly.

This is incredibly simple and equally effective. Whatever your goal is, the road to realizing it reveals itself when you act as if you had already done it. For instance, imagine you want to become an actor. Finding and attending acting classes, going out to auditions, reading the literature and studying, learning dialects etc. seem very far away dreams if you have absolutely no acting experience in the past. The way to make them relevant is to make the transition into becoming an actor. Just by making that decision and really believing it makes all what we listed suddenly relevant to your current situation. All of a sudden you are an actor, so it’s important and relevant to learn your craft as well as you can.

What if your dream was to be a wealthy angel investor? If you set out to learn one thing at a time hoping to rise to a level where you are qualified in doing an investment, the road is long and far away. But imagine that you are an angel investor. What is it that you do? What do you need to learn? How would you go about learning it? How should one start? All of a sudden the questions become more relevant, and the tasks more clear. Now that you are an angel investor, what is it that you need to know?

This goes even further. Don’t stop with imagining what you need to know, instead visualize everything. How you would act, how you would spend your time, how you would speak and so on. Truly become the person that managed to realize the goals you have. If you visualize yourself being more confident and articulate, then be more confident and speak clearly. Become the kind of person to whom your goals are not a problem.

Love what you do & Do what you love

The secret to a fulfilled life is enjoying the journey. If you choose to be happy only after you have managed to reach your goals you make a choice not to be happy. Period. You will never reach all of your goals because goals change (as they should) when they come close to being reached, otherwise there would be no more driving force in your life.

Make a choice to love the entire journey to success. First be happy and then succeed.

You can apply many parts of the Paradigm process to focus on the positive parts of the journey to success you are on, and I recommend you do. Don’t create repetitive mantras because they quickly become empty words and don’t try to convince yourself of things by repeating them, instead always be truthful while having a positive outcome in mind. It’s not productive to convince yourself that dirt is gold, but thinking about ways to turn dirt into gold inspires action.

When you find ways to truthfully love the path to success, the “obstacles” seem to come and go with no wavering in your desired outcome, because when you’re doing what you love you usually like to be challenged now and then.

Whatever you want to accomplish find ways to truthfully love the path leading there.