This is a long post. If you like it in the first 300 words, you should finish it.

First of all, read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead. Those two books will, too a much higher degree than I ever will be able to, explain to you the meaning of effective action; or "action", is the more appropriate thing to say; erasing the word effective is a clue to what action really is (action in itself, is as effective as anything) Action itself; the added thoughts about the action, the theories and all that that take your mind away from what needs to be done, is the problem.

The things I write here, might not be things that first pop into your mind - things that do not make sense if you think about them logically. But if you, while thinking that they do not make sense logically, feel at some level what I say might be true... that is enough.

There is no need to understand this, or be able to explain it - I have a hard time doing it - all you need to do to succeed is use it.

"Doing things just to do them", seemingly indicating laziness, and "only do the things that take you to your goal", sounding more focused - are phrases which, on the surface, contradict each other.

They do so taken out of context. Learn to look deeper into things, and you will see they both take you to the same place; success.

When I say "you need to focus on your body", I do not mean focus on what you think about your body - if I do not explicitly say "focus on your thoughts about this", I will not be talking about your thoughts. I will be talking about simply feeling your body.

Let us begin.

Effectivity consists of doing what? What you should be doing....And of not doing what? What you should not be doing. Everything else is stripped away. Realize that, in taking the action you are currently taking, you are already doing what you should be doing. As I said the problems lies in the important identities we, for some reason, create for ourselves.

I want to show you that those identities are all smoke and mirrors, and completely unnecessary.

This is real.

Let us reclaim your potential.
Independent of how good you are "in reality", you are as effective as how little you care about what your mind is telling you that you can and cannot do, as effective as your decisions making is devoid of unnecessary fear.

How you have to be
You need to be peaceful inside - if you are not calm, you will not be effective. Loosening your shoulders, making sure your breath is full, and sitting up straight - will do wonders in increasing your calm, consequently making you more effective. These are not minor things. Changing your thoughts will not in and out of itself change anything; what HAPPENS in your body by thinking a different thought, on the other hand, will.

You need to change your focus from "what is happening in my head" to "what is happening in my body". Your breath, or lack of it, literally dictates your life; so, if you want to, stop reading this article and spend the rest of your life learning how to breathe fully. Or keep reading this.

You need to focus on everything that will take you to your goal - leaving everything else aside; no matter how addictive it is to feel like a victim.

This has nothing to do with drugging yourself with positive emotions... staying alive is all about being honest with the way things are, so let it all out; feeling every little nuance of your experience, letting it show on your face, relaxes you like nothing else - and will in a supreme way free you in the sense that it keeps you from getting stuck in patterns. You express something, so you do not have to deal with it anymore.

Every obstacle is, in reality - you will notice, in the cases where you do not put 90% of your focus on how hard it will be to overcome - harmless.

Treat the obstacle like water treats obstacles. Strip away anything telling you how difficult the obstacle might be to beat; stay present, see it for what it is... then take action.

Decisions
Evolution kills you if you avoid decisions making; you, and other around you, feel as good as you are decisive. Decide to take responsibility for keeping your energy level above neutral - above depression, stagnation and death; opening up the possibility of effectiveness.

There is a decision behind every success. Be aware of the patterns that your mind gets stuck in - thinking they are, the only possible, reality. Observe them... and, by feeling how harmless they are, naturally disassociate them from "who you are"- and then, by taking action in another direction, dispose of them. Reality is out there, the way it is, regardless of your thoughts about it; you are not the patterns you are stuck in. Decide to realize this no matter what it takes. You disregard your thoughts about reality - decide to take action, and take action. Anything else, like wasting time on making "groundbreaking" theories of the way reality is - is just you being a nerd. Taking action will show you reality.

This little change in character - focusing on moving toward your goal, rather than run away from your fear, always - is seemingly a change of minor consequence, but as time goes by changes everything. It will make you a man/woman of action.

Non-attachment
Optimization of effectiveness includes non-attachment. Meaning...? You never create an image of yourself - as worthless/god. An image is a stagnant remnant - a snap shot of the past. You do not feel you become worse/better when you fail and succeed - you are who you are, and you take action.

You feel as bad and as good as you want to feel about anything, with the distinction that you at the core KNOW you are the same person as before. You enjoy feeling proud, but it does not change you.

You know your experience depends on how much responsibility you take at the present to do what is necessary - not on anything surrounding you. And not on your identity, the past or the future. If you want to become as effective as possible, by learning as much as possible - which is the way to do it - then a "student" mindset is your best friend; the sane realization, that you are not perfect, and that - no matter how far you come - you always have something to learn.

Thinking is not a problem in and out of itself - if it is rational and consciously done. Letting your mind ramble, on the other hand - is a waste of time. Before thinking - which, if you are not relaxed enough to be rational, means you run a risk of worrying about/over thinking the situation - remember that, in the end, if you take into account the possibility that you might die at any moment, it does not matter one bit if you fail... it just does not matter.

After realizing that... you will not worry.

Your real potential
You "have been around", in one form or the other - you are the product of constant adaptation, where every cell that could not perform its task in an instant was murdered in an instant - for billions of years. Do you think genetic competence cares if you have bad self confidence..? Or can you NOT change your inborn potential by thinking about it. "Even" fifty straight years of thinking, will not eradicate billions of years of development.

What this means is, under the relatively thin layer of incompetence, it is still there; the, as far as we can understand it infinite potential.

So... you do have potential.

Now... now that we know that we have potential - we need to know how to tap into it.

Will it be hard? Depends on if you are addicted to whining. If you are not, it is simply about changing what you do.

Have high standards
You cannot be afraid of aiming high. As what you focus on is what you get, if you aim lower than the level at which you wish to succeed you will not succeed; if you aim high, you give yourself the opportunity to succeed (Which is everything you need; I will explain what I mean by that later). You aim not at 95% but at 100% - if nothing else because it is so fucking exciting.

Constant change/Activate yourself
Your brain is stimulated by change (in "energy"; not change in the form of a new thought). It needs stimulation to be active. It needs to be active for you to be able to focus. So constant change is needed. What is and easy about this, is that the brain treats any change as change enough. Change the way you sit, how fast you breathe, how much air you take in - anything you can come up with. The method is of little importance - simply perform the action of activating yourself and voila. When you are active, you are given the opportunity, which is all you need, to focus.

Decide to be active. Be active with your body. Get the reference point to how it feels, how it is done - and practice it over and over. Come up with new ways of doing it. Make it into a new habit.

Become active, and consciously put your focus on the things relevant to getting your goal (which you might find, absolutely does not have to be, the things you thought it would be; more on that in a while; meaning the method you use for anything is not important).

Just do
You need to start doing things just to do them.

Not to do them perfectly, but to simply do them. You also want to have done things - to get a new reference point. By having "constant change" as your focus, you will be getting many new reference points. By the way, to clear things up: the effective person does not learn "by spending enough time on it", or "trying really hard" - those examples are losers' ways of excusing a failure - but through getting reference points. By learning how things really work (by the way, by messing up you learn the most)

Total Immersion
Say goodbye to laziness... hello to immersion....Which does not mean you can never again lay down on a cozy sofa and watch a game. You can... but that is like 5-10% of the time. Besides, laziness is most of the time overrated - it is more fun and exciting to watch a game with high energy.

What complete immersion means, is completely focusing on something. What is important to know here, is there is nothing wrong in focusing on something that - on the surface - has nothing to do with your goal. It could be exactly what you should be doing to be effective. Look deeper into things - at the principles that connect successful methods (like relaxing, then deciding to- and taking right action). Why? Because you want to reach the point where you, get so immersed with the current task that, you forget you exist and as a consequence you tap into your real potential.

...Does this make sense? If it does not, as I said before, it does not matter. I did not spend five hours on writing an article about things that do not work.

...Say you are doing the dishes. You have this new mindset now you have learned to up your standards, and about immersion, and you are hopefully more decisive. This means, as you are not lazy and want to become an effective person - you want to get as much as you can out of doing the dishes; or it will be a waste of time.

You might treat the task as a fun challenge; by doing them as quickly as possible, by taking control over your energy and deciding to increase it as soon as you feel it drop - or aiming to be as distinct in your movements as you possibly can by having your focus on doing the absolute least movement possibly. Do you think like this...? Start to - it will change your life.

What you focus on, might be the texture of the things you take out of the dish washing machine - and other seemingly irrelevant things (when you could complain about how boring it is, right...). Why focus on these things? Because while doing it you cannot focus on your thoughts, or negative things that bring down your energy.

Conscious focus is the remedy to being in your head. Any way, regardless of how strange it may seem, of taking you out of your head is a good one.

You will become much more "in the moment" by taking on this approach of conscious focus on constant improvement in your daily tasks.

Professionally
Now, finally...How does this carry on into your professional life?

Well... if you have eradicated laziness, whining and incompetence from your life - and introduced good things - you will know that there is no distinction between "x place" and work. It is all about what YOU do.

You need to reach "a place" where you are qualitative in the way you do things. This means, when reading your mails at work, you do so - that you never complain while doing it is so below this level, I will not mention it or things similar to it again - with a focus on constant improvement.

Learn the meaning of action and you can do anything.

So, this is the end of my first article. I hope you got something out of it:).
Thank you for reading!

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