Set Your Goals

In recent years, I’ve found goal setting to be one of the most productive activities you can do for yourself. In my experience, rather than rattle off thirty things you think you want, start with a single word.  What would you like to embody in 2010?  What’s your 2010 theme?  In terms of myself, I chose the word ‘give’ because I want to make this year about giving as much possible to the people who come into my life.  From there, apply it to every facet of your life especially in the places where you could use improvement.  What are you financial goals for 2010?  What are your health goals of 2010?  What are your spiritual goals of 2010?  What are your love life goals of 2010?  Write them down, print them out and share them with everyone. As Robert Cialdini writes in Influence, we as people want to appear as committed and as consistent as possible.  By sharing your goals with the world, you go the extra lengths to reach the finish line.

Love Your Body (by treating it right)

Love your frigging body.  That’s right, every wrinkle and roll, birth mark and receding hair line should be treated as your best friend. This sounds absurd I know, but only when you truly start to love your body do you actually take the time to nourish, restore, and take care of it.  How you physically look and feel is up to you. It’s all decisions.  What to put in your body, how often you work out, even how you hold yourself is controlled by your thinking.  Yes, you should eat healthy!  Yes, you should work out on a regular basis!  But if the same patterns have been repeating themselves year after year, it’s time to change the way you look by first changing the way you think. In 2010, it’s time to love your body! If you got it flaunt it and if you don’t, flaunt that too.

Learn a New Skill

Whether it’s something you’ve carried on from 2009 or something new altogether, decide on something you’d like to delve into for the new year. New skills are essential for a balanced life and if you aren’t learning something, it becomes impossible to improve. I’m reminded of the time I shattered my leg in a soccer game, which left me bitter and immobilized for a good three weeks until I finally decided to pick up the guitar.  Today, five years later, playing the guitar has become one of my most cherished pastimes. One of the perks of taking on a new skill is that it opens new doors and often takes you down a path you haven’t yet traveled. New friends, comies, tamunitlents and life callings can all emerge from taking on something new.

Side Note:   I highly recommend the book Masteryby George Leonard which breaks down the essentials for mastering anything you do in life.

Take Big Actions

I can’t emphasize enough the importance of doing something big.  Whether that be organizing a fundraiser for AIDS, traveling to Asia, skydiving, writing a book or even putting together a book club, do something that you know will test the boundaries of your comfort zone and ultimately make you a better person.  This can vary from person to person and only you can know what your boundaries are. The best way to start this process is to put together a list of things you want to do before you die.  Don’t be afraid to let your imagination go wild.  Often times the craziest, most outlandish things can be accomplished when you make a commitment to go for it.  I remember my first time traveling to Central America by myself thinking ‘what the hell am I doing?’ only to return a changed person with a new perspective on life (not to mention an endless obsession with traveling).  Life is meant to be lived, so live it to the fullest.

Build Key Relationships

You become who you associate with for better or worse. A famous quote once said “eagles will soar with other eagles while chickens will scavenge the ground with other chickens for scraps.”  Our habits, thoughts and emotional energies are highly susceptible to the influences of those around us. Hence the reason the rich (in material and spirit) hang out with the rich and the poor with the poor. If we’re to succeed in 2010, we need to to be around people who will challenge us, keep us accountable and ultimately make us smile. A good start is connecting up with people you admire or you aspire to be like.  If you think they’re out of reach, think again. Almost everyone I’ve contacted who I assumed was too big time for me, was happy to connect with a like mind.  The biggest challenge is picking up the phone and dialing. So if you’ve got fingers and a voice, start making key contacts in 2010.

Live Spiritually

Whether you follow a specific religion or you simply enjoy spending time out in nature it’s important to have purpose in your life and feel connected to the rest of the world. Studies show people who engage in some form of spiritual activity rate themselves as significantly happier and more fulfilled than those who are not.  A common misconception is that you must be religious to be spiritual and this is completely false.  Spirituality is a relationship between yourself and the rest of the world, religion is simply the backstory.  Depending on what you’d like to accomplish and how you’d like to do it, there are endless ways to engage in spiritual ritual.  As I cannot appeal to everyone I’ll simply suggest what I do;  meditate for 15 minutes a day and reflect daily for what I’m thankful for. That’s it folks!  Clearing the mind always shows you what’s important in life and allows you to act from a place of love and gratitude rather than bitterness and contempt.

Hustle Hard, Play Hard

Whatever you’re doing, doing it 110%.  I know I sound like your high school gym coach but this is a biggie. Working hard and playing hard is nothing more than immersing all of yourself into what you’re doing in that particular moment.  Where people often struggle is that gray area where they’re working but they’re thinking about what it would be like to be sipping Mai Tais on the beach.  As a result there work ethic struggles.  The opposite is common as well where someone who’s life has revolved around working, takes a vacation and can only think about what they need to get done when they work.  This gray zone is never enjoyable because it is alway trying to escape what’s happening right now. Through obsessing about the future or dwelling over the past, it’s impossible to live fully.  Fortunately, the cure is simple; engage yourself fully in whatever you’re doing whether it be grinding out this quarters financials or lounging in a hammock off the coast of Panama!

The late psychiatrist Milton Erickson found that whenever it snowed, he would love to wake very early so he would be the first one to layfootprints in the newly fallen snow. As he walked to school, he would trample a round about path that weaved back and forth around the side of school rather than walking in a direct path to the front. And low and behold, the kids that showed up later would follow his weaving round about path, making it wider and more prominent. Erickson used this example of his childhood to illustrate how we develop habits. By doing something or behaving in a certain way, the brain lays a specific neural pathway for that behavior or emotion making it that much easier to do again, for better or worse. Over continued exposure, that neural pathway becomes so prominent that the behavior or way of thinking becomes the natural, default thing to do. A habit is born.

People have a ton of habits. We have speaking habits, emotional habits, sleeping habits, work habits and even body language habits. In becoming an attractive man, you want to break any and mental or physical habits that hinder your ability to meet and attract women. You also want to develop new replacement behaviors that rewire your brain for abundance and success in all areas of your life including relationships.

‘I used to have an unconscious habit of fidgeting every time I was interacting with a woman. Whether it was because I was nervous, anxious or whatever, it had become so ingrained that whenever I was speaking with a woman my hands had to be moving or touching something and my legs were usually bouncing back and forth. Someone eventually brought this to my attention and recognizing the effect of body language, I made a point to keep still when I was around women. At first it was hard and required a lot of focus and energy. But after a few weeks of conscious stilling, I noticed my body began naturally not moving as much when interacting with people. And despite a few occasional self reminders, this new behavior has become a natural and thoughtless habit.’
-Greg

The process of replacing habits is usually a 5 phase process that consists of 1)Unconscious Incompetence, 2)Conscious Incompetence, 3)Conscious Competence, 4)Unconscious Competence and 5)Maintenance.

Unconscious incompetence

This is before the learning begins. When you have a deficiency in a certain area, you will not be aware of it until someone or something brings it to your attention. Without awareness, you cannot know if you’re doing something the right way or the wrong way. You have no idea. Take for example table manners. A child will have no qualms about chewing with his mouth open until someone lets him know that it is impolite to do so. Without awareness, there can be no learning.

Conscious Incompetence

When you recognize and accept you are doing something wrong, you have conscious incompetence. You are aware you doing it the wrong way. When a child is told to keep his mouth closed when he chews and that indulging in such behavior is rude, he will have conscious incompetence. He knows he is doing it and knows it is the wrong behavior to do.

Conscious competence

Once you have recognized you are doing something wrong, you will consciously make an effort to do it the correct way. You are making a conscious effort to correct your behavior, rewire your brain and avoid reverting back to a bad habit. When the child recognizes his mistake, he makes a conscious effort to chew with his mouth closed. This of course is a controlled process that requires attention.

Unconscious competence

After massive amounts of repeated effort, the new behavior becomes an automatic process that simply is a part of you and requires no conscious attention whatsoever. Sticking with the previous analogy, after the child has repeatedly made a conscious effort to chew with his mouth closed, he will stop thinking about it yet still perform the task. At this point, it has become part of his natural behavior.

Maintenance

The phrase “If you don’t use it, you lose it’ is absolutely true. As a guy who played soccer for over fifteen years, I eventually retired and invested my energy in other things like meeting and attracting women. However, a couple of years later when I returned to play, I noticed my skills had deteriorated with time. This can apply to anything in life including attractive behavior. Always be willing to occasionaly revisit a learned behavior to prevent yourself from getting too rusty.

It’s important to consider what habits you engage in that help you and hinder you.  For those that are holding you back in your relationships and wellbeing,  you should always be working towards changing the pattern and allowing better, more effective habits to replace them.   For those habits that are productive and considered strong qualities, you should always be strengthening them and making them more prominent in your life.

Also check out the company I was talking about ‘tatango’  here