Rules of Living #8: Slamming It In The Face, Sticking It In The Gut

Watch our favorite action heroes at it! When they meet their foes, they literally put their skills to the test… Spidey slams Doc Ock into the wall! Neo bashes Agent Smith so hard he flies through the building! Batman lands his knee in the criminal’s gut with a thud! Smashing heroes with one exception – they are fiction and so are their enemies.

What a better way to talk a little more about facing challenges and bashing away the one thing that really stands in our way – bad habits! I’ve mentioned many times before – we have to build great habits. My teacher, Dr. Richard Bandler once said, we need to take charge of our neurology. We mould and remould it. The way we think affects the way we act. All we are doing is making sure that the process of change inside of us is filled with pleasure and constantly being established in a combination of habits that better our human standards. I know that most of the fiction behind action movies entices us. But that’s because it is more than just entertainment. We like the idea that there is an underdog fighting the odds. We enjoy the fact that our hero can get hurt but live to fight another day. We love that, sometimes, our hero faces dilemmas and is pretty much like any one of us. Yet, we seldom impose this kind of moral support for ourselves as heroes in an ordinary world. It doesn’t take very much to realize that we are all plagued by difficulties. The only question is… are you going to fight it with everything you’ve got? Even when the odds seem to be against you, you are still pitting every ounce of strength you have, every thought, every iota of motivation you might have… until the final blow is dealt. Bad habits should never be the controlling factor of your life. You have to take these habits by the collar, fling them into a wall, and literally gut them with the weapons of ardor and determination.

The reason why I decided to add this to my list of Rules for Living is that I find a lot of people timid in the face of opposition. Now, I’m not suggesting you become aggressive. I’m suggesting that you find some way to put down your opposition, especially the voice in your head. There’s little room for self-doubt on your journey toward success. It’s almost as if a host of demons are on your tail and you’re running – but if you slow down, these demons are gonna rend you limb from limb because you’ve been allowing your thoughts to be sustained negatively. These thoughts are also habits because you built them in. I was told by someone that his friend was feeling suicidal. My idea of people who are suicidal is you need to shift them out of the state that allowed them to be suicidal in the first place. If they are frustrated at something else… if they are sleepy… if they are humored… all these states change their habitual rumination. Occasionally, you will need to challenge the obvious (the obvious solution is to tell them not to do it), and innovate a strategy that works. Habits are all strategies. You needed adequate planning and practice to have gotten them in your head. So all you really need to do to stop yourself from self-sabotage is to alter the lousy habits that aren’t getting you there!