Creating your world
Here at Agoge Project, we’re all about building the world and life you want. This starts in the mind. That’s why we are working on your mindset.
Now, firstly, we need to get you out of that survival mindset and into a creation mindset. Survival mode vs creation mode.
Why is this important?
Most people will tell you that time is your most valuable resource, and in a way it is. The thing with time is, we’ve all got the same about of time. What I like to do is focus it down even more.
Attention is your most valuable resource. Why, because being able to focus your attention on the right thing at the right time is far more powerful. Where you focus your attention is where you will see results.
So where are you focusing your attention?
Is it on survival mode?
This is where you’re focusing on what you don’t want to happen.
‘I don’t want to lose this race.’
‘I don’t want to get fired.’
‘I don’t want to be hungry.’
‘I don’t want this. I can’t do that.’
You’ll see this a lot in the language you use and we focus a lot on how the words you use shape your reality.
What I want you to do, is move over into creation mode. This is focusing on what you do want to happen and on what you can do. This puts you in that creative space and this is a practice. You are continually practicing this to create the thoughts that put you in that creation space and move away from the thoughts that put you in that survival space.
One great way to live in creation mode is to be inspired.
I’m always amazed at what creativity exists in the world. I like being inspired by people. I love reading biographies of great people. I also love watching sports. I get inspired by what the individual and also the team can achieve.
When I get inspired, I get excited to do more and be more. And it really fires me up and puts me in that creation mode.
Go out and get inspired. It could be by music, by art, by literature. It could be going to a festival or a museum.
Whatever suits you. Seek out inspiration. It helps you build up that ripe imagination, which then helps put you into a creative mindset.
So going back to that survival vs creation mode.
If I say to you, don’t think about a pink elephant. What will happen. You think about a pink elephant.
So if you’re always in survival mode thinking about the don’ts, the can’ts, the won’ts. Then that’s where your focus will be.
So our words literally create our world. Because when we start creating pictures in our mind then what happens is that we start looking for that picture in the world.
So if you’re only focused on problems, you’ll start moving towards those. And this will even manifest itself physically. You’ll physically move towards finding those problems. However if you’re focused on what you do want and the direction you want to go, you’ll start physcially moving yourself in that direction instead.
I call out my clients all the time on this during our coaching sessions since being in the creation mode is that important.
So here is some homework for you.
Here at Agoge Project we are huge fans on writing stuff down. So make sure you’ve got a notebook or a journal or something to physically write down things in.
The saying goes:
The difference between a dream and a goal is that a goal is written down.
Furthermore it’s about retention. We only retain about 10% of what we read, but that jumps up to about 50% retention of things we write down.
So here’s an exercise to help you get better goals and find out what your goals should be.
It’s called the perfect day exercice.
Simply sit down, find a quiet spot. I’d recommend somewhere nice in nature and take your time with this. Don’t rush it.
What I want you to do is write down what your perfect day looks like. This should be a perfect work day. This is sustainable. We love to be of service so that should be part of it.
I want as much detail as possible. Where you wake up? What time? Who you wake up with?
Think of it in 30 minute increments.
What coffee are you drinking? What car are you driving to the gym? What workout are you doing? Who with? How much time do you spend outside?
Where are you working? What does it look like? An office? A park? Your garden?
What are you eating for lunch, dinner, breakfast? What does your house look like? Who are you spending it with? Where do you live?
You get what I mean.
I love this exercise and it’s really given me clarity and direction on what I want and how to get there. It also personally made my goal more real.
When I first did it a few years ago I didn’t realise how powerful it was, until I lived that perfect day. And I only realised I’d had my perfect day after it had happened. And I was blown away. It happened a lot sooner than I’d thought and I swiftly got back to my journal and started writing my latest update of it. I added more detail and focused on what it really was that was important to me.
Next this I want you to look at is your vision. A great quote that my mentor said to me was that
“ordinary people plan in years. Extraordinary people plan in decades.”
Yes that’s decades plural.
I know this is hard and what I say is that if you’re over 30, think in 10 years and if you’re under 30 than 5 years will do.
So to get you in the right frame of mind. First I want you to write about who you were 10 years ago. Or 5 years if you’re under 30. I call it the 10-year rewind.
Pick today and then go back 10 years to the day. Write out in as much detail what that day was like. Who you were. What you did. Think about the perfect day exercise. This is similar just you’re looking at a specific day in the past.
Where were you? What did you do? Where did you live? Who were you with? What is shows you is how far you can come in 10 years and how different your life is. That can then help frame you for what is possible in the next 10 years. So compare where you are today, right now to where you were 10 years ago.
So for me this gave me a lot of gratitude. Thinking back to where I was 10 years ago and what’s happened over that time and where I’ve managed to get to. And what’s really amazing is that most of what you did, you didn’t do conciously. It just happened. You were going through life and proving and progressing and evolving and that’s awesome. But what’s so cool is that you’re now conciously creating the next 10 years with a lot of detail.
So if you’re thinking conciously and you’re creating from here about those 10 years ahead. What’s really possible? You get to go even further.
What often happens with the 10 year vision is that if you write it down, it may happen in 5 years. Or 3 years. Or even months.
So take time, write it down and share it widely.
Share your vision with people since that will help it come true.
I write my 10 year vision down every single day.
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This article was written by Stuart Munnich. If you’d like to know more or receive notifications for future articles, please head over to the Agoge Project Website or subscribe to updates right here!
