Episode 27: 5 Steps to Transforming Your Life

Episode-27-5 Steps to Transforming Your Life

emetanoia  

PRONUNCIATION: 

(met-uh-NOI-uh)  

MEANING: 

noun: A profound transformation in one’s outlook. 

ETYMOLOGY: 

From Greek metanoia (a change of mind), from metanoein (to change one’s mind). Earliest documented use: 1577. 

USAGE: 

“You’ll need to rethink everything. Here you’ll need to resort to old-style metanoia, to radical rethinking and alteration.” 

Alois Brandstetter (Translation: Peter & Evelyn Firchow); The Abbey; Ariadne Press; 1998. 

 

In this episode, we will discuss the concept of metanoia. Metanoia is defined as the profound transformation in one’s outlook.

How many of you find yourself in a position right now where you need to transform your outlook and life? Are you sick and tired and being sick and tired? Have you have reached this point in one or more aspects of your life (your job, your relationships, your finances, etc.)?

So, what’s keeping you from making that transformation? Do you have a fear of failing, are you in toxic relationships that keep you from transforming, are you lazy, or are you a world class quitter?

If you want to live that magnificent life you will need to rethink everything. You’ll need to resort to the concept of metanoia, the radical rethinking, and alteration of who you are right now. So, here are 5 steps to metanoia:

Make the Decision to Transform

First and foremost, YOU must make a conscious, committed (keyword committed) decision to make a transformation in your life. If you want to be in shape YOU must make conscious decision to get in shape; if you want to be wealthy YOU must make the decision to be wealthy, if you want to be tougher, you have to make the conscious decision to be tougher. No one else can make the decision for you. It doesn’t matter if you have been provided with all the tools and resources to achieve your transformation; if you haven’t made the conscious decision to achieve your transformation you won’t, it’s that simple. I ask you, have you finally had enough of the BS that is negatively impacting you and your life? Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired?

In 1999, I made the decision to get divorced in my first marriage. Most people would have thought of looking in from the outside that I had it all but in fact, it was just the opposite. I knew it was going to be hell, that I was going to be separated from my son, that I was going to have work harder than I ever had and my life was never going to be the same. But I knew, in the end, my life and my son’s life were going to be better. If I hadn’t made a personal commitment to a massive change I would still be living in misery or be dead by now and I mean that seriously. When you commit to a transformation it’s amazing what happens in your life. You know no matter what, you will somehow someway make the life change.

Take a great quote from Amelia Earhart:

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.

So, I will end this section like this: if you aren’t personally willing to commit to the decision to change you will find yourself where you are a year from now, trust me.

Eliminate the negative patterns

We all have positive and negative patterns in our lives. Look at successful people around you; one of the reasons they are successful is the positive patterns in their lives; they hang out with optimistic people, they view failure as an opportunity, don’t even think of quitting, unfailingly work hard, consistently visualize themselves being successful, etc.

Take a second to think; what are the negative patterns in your own life that ROUTINELY keep you from transforming yourself? Do you hang out with toxic people who suck the success of you, are you carrying a chip on your shoulder, do you have a pattern of being a world-class quitter, are you always looking for a quick fix, do you let the 4 letter word of fear derail you or do you consistently exhibit a pattern of laziness?

You must identify and seek to eliminate these negative patterns or you will NOT make the profound change you are seeking. In my early 20 and 30’s, I struggled with a negative pattern of not believing I belonged at the highest level of success in all aspects of my life, personally and professionally even though I had been successful. I recognized this pattern and took small steps to eliminate it, raise my confidence and jettison the chains of not believing I belonged at the highest levels of life. I changed my social circle, worked on crafting a successful personal image from how I signed my name to how I talked to how I dressed, took on personal and professional challenges to build my confidence and consistently worked on visualizing myself in positions of success, wealth, etc. You MUST seek to understand your patterns in your life and make them work for you not against you.

A great quote from Tuli Kupferberg:

When Patterns are Broken, New Worlds Can Emerge.

Build a plan of action – Once you have made the committed decision to transform yourself and are committed to eliminating negative patterns in your life it’s time to build your plan of action. So, how do I build the right plan of action?

First, you need to make the time build a solid plan of action. The more complex the transformation the longer it will take to build a solid plan of action. Don’t shortchange yourself and spend the time you need to build an action plan that will work. It could take you an hour, a day, a week, etc.

Second, once you commit the time, sit down with that piece of blank paper and detail the individual steps you will need to achieve your transformation. Outline the timelines, steps and actions you need to accomplish to get you from where you are now and where you want to be when you complete the transformation. Be very specific in the steps and actions you must execute by breaking down the goal into individual steps and actions you must take daily to achieve it. This is where people often don’t spend enough time breaking down their goal of transformation into small steps and actions.

When I made the decision to run my first marathon I knew I couldn’t make an action plan to run 26.2 miles that in a week would have me being able to run the entire race. I had to break my action plan into many baby steps (Run 1 mile, then 2 miles, then 6 miles, then 12 miles, etc.) building on daily and weekly success over a 3-month period. I had to account for the extensive time it was going to take an account for it in my action plan. I built my marathon action plan by building on baby steps until I was mentally and physically readied to run the marathon and make this transformation.

Here is what I often see: People will make a committed decision and eliminate negative patterns but don’t build a solid plan of action. A plan of action is the cookbook for your transformation. You can’t cook up your transformation without an action plan.

Remember as Nathaniel Branden said, A goal without a plan of action is a daydream.

Implement and Follow a Daily Routine – Once you have committed to transformation, eliminated the negative patterns in your life and built a plan of action, it’s time to develop a sound daily routine that incorporates your action plan and the individual steps and actions you must execute each day to achieve your profound transformation or metanoia.

Your daily routine MUST (emphasis on MUST) be consistently executed and applied. You MUST take your plan of action and build a daily routine that cooks up the action steps every day so in the end, you have cooked up your transformation!

Strive to be your best at finishing each daily step or action and you will successfully achieve your goal. Daily success builds upon itself and will lead you to your goal. I can’t underestimate the power of a daily routine.

Look at the daily routines of successful people; they are consistent in what time they get up, what they do with their mornings, what they focus on to be successful and what time they go to bed.

I built a daily routine that works for me in achieving success on a daily basis and ultimately the key goals in

  • Up at 430 – 500 am daily
  • Drink 3 Glasses of Water
  • Take My Vitamin Supplements
  • Listen to Motivational Podcasts
  • Meditate (3 Times a Week)
  • Review my Schedule for the Day (Focus on Priority 1 & 2)
  • Workout (4 Times a Week)
  • Execute My Priority Tasks

Remember John Maxwell’s quote on the importance of routine:

“You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily, the secret of your success is found in your daily routine”.

BE CONSISTENT AND PERSISTENT

The lynchpin of making your transformation is being consistent and persistent. You must be consistent in attacking all aspects of your action plan every day but more importantly, when you begin to see progress or achieve your goal you must be persistent in seeking continual improvement to reach new levels of success and not just quit when you reach your goal.

Think of when people work out to get fit; many will be consistent in going to the gym and working out but will not be persistent in maintaining the level of fitness and seeking to continuously improve. You need both to be successful.

A good example for me of consistency and persistence is the state of my golf game and where I want and need it to be if I want to achieve my goals of playing in the US Senior Open and US Sr Amateur. I have been consistent in working on my game for many years to maintain my status as a top amateur player; yet to achieve my goals of the US Sr Open and US Sr Amateur I must improve my game by at least an additional 10 to 15% by being persistent in seeking out new levels of improvement in my game to achieve these goals. If I am not persistent in figuring out how to get 10 to 15% better which at this level isn’t easy, consistency won’t matter. Persistence is what will get me the incremental improvement that ultimately gets me to my goals and beyond.

A quote from Bill Bradley on Persistence:

Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.

In closing, consistently review your progress and adjust your tactics as needed. Review how you are progressing each week and revise your plan of action and daily routine as needed. Your trek to your goal is not going to be a straight line; it’s going to be a jagged line. You may fail, you may get discouraged but stay focused on the daily routine on your road to your goal. When you fail and there is a good chance you will look at the opportunity it gave you and adjust your plan of action and daily routine.

I will leave with a quote from CeCe Pennington: The reason I started my transformation with the mind first is that you have to see it first and believe it before you start your journey. You have set your mind at a place called W.I.T. It’s ‘Whatever it Takes.’

The time for transformation is now, for tomorrow could be too late!

Episode 26: 7 Reasons You're Not A Millionaire Yet

Episode 26: 7 Reasons You’re Not a Millionaire Yet

Episode 28: My Life is Spinning Out of Control, Help Me!