You’re not lazy, you’re just running the wrong iOS.
When we approach life’s events through the lens of one particular perspective, things can seem one particular way. But we are not doomed if this perspective doesn’t move us forward. We can choose which perspective we need based on whatever it is we come up against.
The Power of Words
“We don’t go on because we’re ready. We go on because it’s 11.30.” — Lorne Michaels
Let’s begin with words. They’re far more powerful than people think. By upgrading our words within our thoughts, we upgrade our perspectives. When we upgrade our perspectives, we upgrade our behaviours. When we upgrade our behaviours, we can upgrade our achievements. And this fact is huge.
Because it’s the details within our behaviours that determine our overall success, and if we can get this right, over a long enough period, we will win. It’s as simple as that. So let’s look at some words worth upgrading.
‘Should’.
It’s so full of guilt and shame, isn’t it?
‘Should’ is an obligation, it feels negative and heavy. It already implies we’re not doing something.
These connotations aren’t helping us. Let’s reframe it.
Let’s go from the underlying feeling of ‘have to do’, to ‘get to do’.
This is a completely different vibe. This implies it’s a choice. This is empowering and positive. Much better.
Now we may not genuinely believe this sentiment at first. And that’s ok.
But eventually, we can.
Repeating this perspective enough times will force our brain to look for ways that this notion may be true.
And we can help lock in this helpful perspective by consciously designing ways that we can make doing the right behaviours more enjoyable and something to actually anticipate until finally, it becomes something we simply can’t go without.
Imagine that. It’s possible. And when we do that, the behaviour has now moved from a ‘pleasurable’ into a ‘must do’.
When we feel we must do something it forms part of our core identity.
This is actually the most likely means of us following through with something.
When people attempt to set a new habit it’s usually such a difficult process because they are fighting against a version of themselves, an existing identity that doesn’t currently value that new desired habitual behaviour. This creates room for procrastination.
And as the author James Clear in his book Atomic Habits, when it comes to behavior change as shown in the picture above, the deepest and most influential to long term change is at this identity level.
The Power of Identity
This is where we step into the shoes of the type of person that was built for the job at hand, no matter the external circumstances they face. This is where values naturally align with the required behaviour and where doing the work becomes an effortless and genuine pleasure.
A great way to step into the identity of someone that naturally does the behaviour aligned with our goal is to simply ask:
‘What would this person do right now?’
This small but powerful question surprisingly works in all kinds of situations when motivation has left the building and our emotions are tempting us into an easy out. It shuts down our noisy dialogue between our increasing emotions and our diminishing logic and focuses us on actions by thinking about the word ‘do’.
Having an ideal role model or identity we want to associate with in each of our life’s major categories can be a great way to guide our behaviour.
For example;
Feeling lazy and putting off going to the gym?
‘What would [Israel Adesanya/ your favorite badass athlete] do right now?’
Not done your daily levelling up yet?
‘What would [Warren Buffett/your favorite macro thinker] do?’
Getting stressed out in the details of it all?
‘What would [Richard Branson/ your favorite free spirited action taker] do?’
These role models or identities come built with their own software. Their actions come naturally to them. It’s how they’re wired. And we can step into these as and when the situation calls for it.
In summary, we need to remember that we can change our perspective when the situation calls for it by taking action first and not by thinking things through.
Actions will shut down the noise of our feelings, feelings which change moment to moment anyway and thus are a terrible way to be guide for our behavior long term!
These actions stem from a clear identity, which we can basically call a well defined perspective on how to approach situations.
And these perspectives, much like software come built with their own set of clear words and phrases, tried and tested over time to deal with these specific situations with predictable success.
So next time you’re not ‘feeling it’, or are confused what to do next, don’t let your feelings fight it out with your logic.
Take control by asking the magic question, ‘what would [ideal person for the job] do?’ and run that needed identity software to get the job done.
