Microshifts Are How You Forever Change Your Life
The idea of a transformation is masturbation.
There are people who wait their entire life to start, and end up miserable.
They’re waiting for the right time. They have a grand vision. They daydream about their vision during the commute to work. They tell people what they “hope” to be doing one day. They dream of quitting their job. They’re waiting for that life-defining moment that belongs in a Hollywood-directed movie.
I used to be that person.
I dreamt of breaking free of mental illness for years. Then I slowly realized it was never going to happen. So I began a progressive shift. The shift was made up of daily practices and many different tasks. The key idea was to experiment like crazy and see what might be possible. I had nothing to lose. I was at rock bottom.
You overlook the micro
Starting to eat ice cream may not seem like a big deal. But for some, this is how they become more than 100 pounds overweight. Show me your schedule and I’ll show you where you’re heading. Transformation purposely overlooks the micro. It focuses on huge changes that require willpower, strategies, and money.
Microshifts focus on experiments. For example, instead of driving to the supermarket that is ten minutes away, you start walking. After you practice this new routine it begins to stick. Every new experiment has a tipping point. The tipping point is where you decide to go beyond your current results.
Writer James Altucher is a great example. When he lost everything around September 911, he started writing down ideas on a notepad. The shift was micro. Nobody in his family looked at his new habit and thought it would lead him to great heights. By flexing his idea muscle he started to experiment. These experiments unconsciously helped open him up to new possibilities. Not long after he got a gig writing for CNBC and ended up becoming one of the most well-known writers online.
Feeling like it versus doing it
Many people wait for a transformation because they don’t feel like it yet. The tipping point is when you decide to do a new task because it’s part of who you want to become, not because you feel like it.
I mean who the heck feels like waking up at 6 am and going to the gym for a workout in the freezing cold? Not me. Not you. But everyday people go to the gym in the morning all the time. They don’t feel like going to the gym, but they know once they get started with their workout the benefits will follow.
You’ll never do anything worthwhile if you wait to feel like it. Feeling like it is procrastination in disguise. Tiny actions bring down the great wall of procrastination.
You want to have undetectable microshifts
The cliche is “what gets measured, gets managed.” This is nice in theory but measuring results adds a lot of stress. The changes I look for are the almost undetectable ones.
Undetectable changes slip under the door of your mind and allow you to start creating new pathways in life. Once you have a new pathway start to show up in life, then the next step is to alter your beliefs slightly. What would you have to believe to change your life? Beliefs act like rules.
Rules make decisions for you. They allow you to outsource your excuses to a third party who is ruthless.
You can even refer to these rules when a person requests your time. “Sorry Jack, I have a new belief that says I decline these sort of opportunities.”
Transformation feels deadly
Breaking through your fears for a once-in-a-lifetime transformation takes a lot of courage. How often do you feel like being courageous? How much energy does courage take? It’s too hard.
I feel courageous about once every few years. If you rely on courage you rely on hocus pocus magic and law-of-attraction thinking. You may as well rely on a Disney movie to create alchemy in your life, or a palm reading, or horoscopes.
In fact, you may as well rely on a child to fix your broken dreams because this approach is blurry. Breaking comfort zones is for navy seals. For the rest of us normies, microshifts created by tiny experiments are better.
Experiments give you evidence against yourself and your bullshit excuses.
Evidence leads to momentum. Momentum leads to microshifts that look like a transformational avalanche in five years' time.
Getting started with changing your life is the hardest part. Chunk down the process into microshifts that get past your natural desire to overthink, and that create mental energy you can build from.
Use this mantra: today I am going to try one new thing for five minutes. Tell me you can’t do that? Of course you can. That’s a microshift in disguise that will forever change your life.
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