Benjamin Hardy

Last week, I visualized my new workout partner. Today, I’m benching 20 lbs more than I ever have before. A few months ago, I noticed a 50-year-old man at the gym lifting twice what I lift in every exercise.

In order to be successful, you must believe in something. You must have a stand. All successful people and brands have a clear WHY.

Being ambitious isn’t enough. Far more important than ambition is commitment.

Most people aren’t willing to feel difficult emotions on a regular basis. However, if you’re willing to disregard how you feel in the moment, you’ll have access to a world of opportunity unavailable to 99% of the population.

Although people instinctively believe they are making their own choices, in today’s trigger-laden environment, the opposite is more true. They are unconsciously and reactively operating in a world that was creating for them, not in a world that was created by them.

Be → Do → Have. Not the other way around.

Do you consume your time or invest it? Is the work you’re doing a transaction or a long-term relationship?

Sadly, most people are living a lie. They don’t keep commitments even to themselves. They don’t accomplish their goals and dreams. They are bound by fears and other emotions they so desperately want to avoid.

Confronting the reality of death is one of the best wake-up calls for beginning to truly live.

The reason most people fail to make the best long-term decisions is because they don’t know what they really want. If you don’t know what you want, of course you’ll take the best thing offered you.

The very challenges inherent in life make it possible to thrive. Without said challenges, there would be nothing to overcome. You can’t possibly have “the best” of times without simultaneously having “the worst” of times.

If you work hard in a particular class, you’ll love that class. If you work hard on a project, you’ll love that project. If you invest yourself in a relationship, you’ll love that person.

When you make a decision, things will start to shift. Regardless of the absurdities around you, you’ll get momentum. Stuff will start happening. But only when you’re serious and resolute, come hell or high water.

Look back on all the things you did today. Did you act like the person you wish to become? If you repeated today every day for the next year, realistically, where would you end up?

Competing with those at your same level yields slow and minimal improvements. You’re better off “competing” with people far advanced than your current level.

In order to make epic decisions, you want to be in a peak state. Do whatever gets you in a “natural” high where you can hear your highest intuitions.

You haven’t learned how to learn. You don’t have confidence. When you look in the mirror, you don’t like the person you see.

If you got fat the instant you ate ice-cream, you probably wouldn’t eat it. If you got lung cancer the moment you smoked a cigarette, you probably wouldn’t smoke it.