12 Steps To Change Your Life, Tony Robbins Style
If you’ve never been to a Tony Robbins event or read his latest book, Money Mastery, you’re probably a little cynical about "that guy in the infomercials." Which is fine. A little cynicism in an age of idolizing gurus is a healthy thing. However having just been to my first "Unleash the Power Within" weekend with Tony Robbins, I can now recommend parking your cynicism for a few days and getting along to one (regardless of whether you think you "need" to). Whether it changes your life or not, I can guarantee you that you’ll never regret it. And I don’t make guarantees like that lightly.
The 12 keys I share below do not do justice to the experience of an UPW event: a rock concert on steroids where you walk on fire and reimagine your life. While some of the concepts below are one’s I’ve written about in my previous columns and books, all are worth repeating. I hope a few will hit home for you, “unleash your power within” or just remind you to do more of what you already know works. I've yet to meet one person who doesn't benefit from a regular reminder. Tony included.
1. Decide what you want.
Let’s face it, it’s impossible to create your ideal ‘dream life’ if you aren’t sure what it actually looks like. Many people have no idea. So before you do anything else, give yourself some empty time with a blank page to map out what a truly extraordinary life looks like for you - physically, financially, spiritually, emotionally, in your relationships, the work you do and the impact you make. Creating a vision for the future you want provides a compass to guide you forward – what to steer toward and what to steer away from. As the old saying goes, if you don’t know where you’re going, you may end up someplace you don’t much like.
2. Know why you want it!
When Tony talked about knowing your big WHY behind the goals and vision you have for your life, it struck a chord. As I wrote in my second book Stop Playing Safe, “ A clear sense of purpose will compel you into action and fuel your bravery to overcome any size obstacle. ” So get crystal clear about why it is so important for you to pursue your vision for success and achieve your goals. What lies at stake if you don’t? If it’s not meaningful enough, you won’t stay the course when the going gets tough. When your why is about serving something bigger than your ego and need for significance, the more powerful you’ll be in achieving it and figuring out the hows. To quote Tony: “The more you use the gifts you have to serve others, the more you’ll get the gifts you want.”
3. Take action, massive action!
It’s easy to live with excuses and justifications about why you can’t do what you want, at least not now. Maybe later. But inaction exacts an increasingly steep toll on our lives. Nothing is a more powerful antidote to fear than action. Daily action. Massive action! Don’t wait to know everything before you do something. Start talking to people. Extend an invitation. Risk a rejection. Ask for an introduction. Introduce yourself to an influencer. Offer your services. Get your finances in order. Ask for help. Learn a skill. Read a biography. Hire a coach. Join a group. JUST DO SOMETHING. Every. Single. Day.
4. Reframe problems.
So you’ve got problems – the tough economy, a difficult boss, your company’s culture, unsupportive family, too little resources/education/experience/finances (or lack thereof). Join the boat! It’s not your problems that keep you from creating what you want, it’s the story you tell yourself about them that provides you with an excuse to stay in your comfort zone. To quote Tony, “See things as they are but not worse than they are. Your problems are really just invitations to step through fear.”
5. Tell stories that expand possibilities (discard beliefs that don't).
You don’t see the world as it is, but as you are. Accordingly, the words you use to describe your present, past, or future create the reality you inhabit. If you cast yourself as a helpless victim, you’ll be just that. If you cast yourself as the master of your fate, you’ll be that too. You can’t change your history, but you can rewrite your story of it and in so doing, expand the possibilities for your future. To quote Tony, “The past does not equal the future. Unless you live there." The red hot coals I walked on during the first evening of UPW were evidence of the power of belief. Tony's private planes and multibillion dollar business empire are testament to the power of his.
6. Flip fear into an ally.
Too often we cast fear as ‘the enemy’ when in fact, if fear wasn’t wired into our DNA we humans wouldn’t be here! Rather than vilifying fear, we need to harness its energy and make it work for us. We can do that by focusing not on what might happen if we risk failing at achieving our goals and dreams, but how we will feel if we avoid the risk! Psychologists call this “Neuro-Associative Conditioning.” In my own work, I call it 'Flipping Fear' to turn it into your ally. You can do this by stepping into your future self and imagining how you’ll feel in the years to come if you let the fear that’s undermined your actions to now continue to pilot your life. Get really present to how it will cost you. Visualize yourself staring at yourself in a mirror 1, 5, 10, 25 years from now if you’ve let it continue to keep you from stepping up to the plate in your life and doing whatever it takes to achieve what you want. Fear regret more than failure.
7. Adjust course as you go.
Whenever you take a plane flight, most of the time it’s off course by a few degrees. It’s the micro adjustments the pilot makes en route that enable it to land in the right place. Likewise, keep your eye open for how you need to be adjusting your approach as you navigate your way from current Point A to desire Point B. If you aren’t getting the results you want, change what you’re doing. Anything else is a surefire recipe for landing a long way off course from your intended destination.
As Tony Robbins said, “The results you get in life aren’t from one single decision, but from what you do after you make the decision.” Successful people are always monitoring their progress, and continually adjusting what they are doing to produce better results in response to the changing environment around them. They also don't let setbacks and failures stop them. They learn the lessons, change their strategy, and press on.
8. Create daily rituals for 'peak state.'
When you are feeling passionate, brave, focused, purposeful and absolutely determined to achieve a particular outcome, you’re unstoppable. When obstacles arise, you find a way around them. When setbacks happen, you bounce back fast. When people reject you, you move on. It’s not personal, just par for the course of achieving anything worthwhile. While I've always just thought of this as being 'my best-self', Tony Robbins calls this being in your ‘peak state.’ It's a powerful term made all the more so when you embody it.
The question is: What will it take to be in your ‘peak state’ every day? How could you start your day more purposefully so you can be more focused through the day? How can you look after your body better, in ways that optimize energy, process stress and sustain energy? What new habits can you nurture that replace old destructive habits of thought and behavior? It’s the small things you do that few see which create the big results everyone wants. Below is a video I created with five rituals that I've found help me be in peak state!
9. Embrace uncertainty.
Most people want to feel in control of their lives and able to make decisions based on a future they can predict with certainty. But let’s face it, no matter how much you may try to control your environment, you can’t. Life is inherently uncertain and any certainty you think you have (beyond death and taxes) is mere illusion. Embracing life’s uncertainty liberates you to be decisive amid ambiguity and quicker to adjust your sails as the wind changes around you (rather than flipping out because it wasn’t in the weather forecast!)
10. Schedule priorities.
If you aren’t deliberate in how you prioritize your time, other people’s priorities will consume it. So schedule in your "MUST DO" activities into your calendar – for exercise, family, reflection, planning and the rituals to achieve your 'peak state.' Assuming you’ll just find the time amid the busyness of your life is fanciful thinking.
11. Find your ‘A team.’
Never underestimate the impact of the people around you to move you forward or hold you back. As Tony Robbins said “Your life is a direct reflection of the expectations of those around you.” So if the people you’re hanging out with aren’t bringing out your best and bravest, step out of your comfort zone and find people who will ; people who aren’t ready for settle for mediocrity and who want nothing less for you! Because, for better or worse, you can’t help but become more like the people you have surrounding you.
12. Be grateful for everything (even the crap!).
Gratitude is the most powerful tonic for life yet too often we focus on what is missing from our lives and what we don’t have rather than on all that we do. It keeps us living in scarcity, fuels resentment, self-pity and a sense of powerlessness. So stand guard of your mind and when you catch yourself dwelling on what’s missing, refocus your attention on all that you already have. Because no matter how dire things may seem, there is always something to be grateful for.
Celebrating even the small things - from the winter sun to the summer heat (you're alive!), from your ability to read this article (many can't), to the roof over your head (that many would love), from your toddlers' tantrum to your teenagers untidy room (ah, the blessing of children) - can make a profound difference to both your health and happiness. Cultivating gratitude amplifies the blessings in your life, fuels positive emotions and keeps you from making small problems big. People who have a habit of forever focusing only on what’s missing - what they can’t do, or don’t have - will always be miserable… no matter how much fame or fortune they have! Don't be one of them and if you have been, decide now to change that (and buy yourself a gratitude journal like Oprah uses!)
Because if there's one thing that was reinforced from my weekend with Tony Robbins, it's that all it takes to change your life is deciding that the time has arrived to step up and do just that.
Thanks for the reminder Tony.
Stories to Change Your Life
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For e-book version, click here.
By Pastor Mike Novotny
What’s the secret to growing your faith? How about the secret to sharing it with others? Or living it out?
If you want to know the answers, Jesus has a story for you—a lot of stories, actually! During his ministry, Jesus told powerful parables, or stories, to help people understand spiritual truths about invisible things.
And in Stories to Change Your Life, you’re invited to explore some of these eye-opening parables told by the greatest storyteller of all time, Jesus.
Think God can’t love you after what you’ve done? Jesus has a story for that.
Struggling to trust God’s forgiveness? Jesus has a story for that.
Afraid to share your faith? Anxious for the next generation? Overwhelmed by money issues? Find it hard to pray? Preoccupied with the worries of life?
Yep, Jesus has a story for that!
The parables of Jesus reveal the secret to living an abundant and purposeful life.
Book Cover Type: Paperback
Pages: 178
How to Change Your Life
7 Ways to Change Your Life
1. Do Something. Anything.
A lot of people get stuck when they try to change their lives because they don’t know “where to start” or “what to do.” The simple answer is: to do something—anything, really.
The motivation to do anything—like change your entire life around—doesn’t just come from some magical, mystical place within you. Action is both the effect of motivation and the cause of it. You’ll figure out whether or not it’s right or not in good time (trust me), but only if you stop procrastinating and start engaging with the world.
I call this The “Do Something” Principle. And I developed it by accident back in my years as a consultant, helping people who were otherwise immobilized by fears, rationalizations, and apathy to take action.
It began out of simple pragmatism: you paid me to be here so you might as well do something. I don’t care, do anything!
What I found is that often once they did something, even the smallest of actions, it would soon give them the inspiration and motivation to do something else. They had sent a signal to themselves, “OK, I did that, I guess I can do more.” And slowly we could take it from there.
If you want to change your life, don’t set out to accomplish all you’ve ever dreamed of. That is daunting and demotivating. Just do a small action that nudges you in the right direction, anything.
Have to redesign an entire website? Sit down and design the header. About to tackle a large project? Start on the outline. Want to make friends in a foreign country? Go out for a beer and see what happens.
These small actions will spur you on to do more, and before you know it you’ll have accomplished the goals that initially seemed so daunting. You’ve changed your life for the better.
2. Recognize That Everything You Do Has a Cost—Be Willing to Pay It
A lot of life ultimately amounts to a series of tradeoffs. Everything has an opportunity cost, and the big things we want in life—like happiness and healthy relationships and wealth—they all have big opportunity costs. You don’t get to have the dream career at the top without putting in your time at the bottom, then taking a risk or twelve and breaking a few hearts along the way.
So the most important question you can ask yourself isn’t about what you want, it’s about what you’re willing suffer for. As I’ve previously said, doing what you love is not always loving what you do. So what kind of shit sandwich can you stomach? And—importantly—do you even really want your dream in first place?
For most of my adolescence and young adulthood, I fantasized about being a musician—a rock star, in particular. Any badass guitar song I heard, I would always close my eyes and envision myself up onstage playing it to the screams of the crowd, people absolutely losing their minds to my sweet finger-noodling.
This fantasy could keep me occupied for hours on end. The fantasizing continued through college, even after I dropped out of music school and stopped playing seriously.
But even then it was never a question of if I’d ever be up playing in front of screaming crowds, but when. I was biding my time before I could invest the proper amount of time and effort into getting out there and making it work. First, I needed to finish school. Then, I needed to make money. Then, I needed to find the time. Then… nothing.
Despite fantasizing about this for over half of my life, the reality never came. And it took me a long time and a lot of negative experiences to finally figure out why: I didn’t actually want it.
I was in love with the result—the image of me onstage, people cheering, me rocking out, pouring my heart into what I’m playing—but I wasn’t in love with the process. And because of that, I failed at it. Repeatedly. Hell, I didn’t even try hard enough to fail at it. I hardly tried at all.
The daily drudgery of practicing, the logistics of finding a group and rehearsing, the pain of finding gigs and actually getting people to show up and give a shit. The broken strings, the blown tube amp, hauling 40 pounds of gear to and from rehearsals with no car.
It’s a mountain of a dream and a mile-high climb to the top. And what took me a long time to discover was that I didn’t like to climb much. I just liked to imagine the top.
If you want to change your life, don’t ask yourself what you want. Ask what you’re willing to suffer for. That’s the answer that will make a difference.
3. Embrace the Fact That No One Gives a Shit
Look, I know you were told that you’re a special little snowflake in a sea of otherwise normal people, but I have some bad news for you: very few people actually give a shit about you because you’re actually not all that special (that, and people are too concerned with themselves to begin with).
But before you hit the back button on your browser, I want you to consider just how liberating that is: No one gives a shit. You are free to do whatever the hell you want and no one will care if you fail spectacularly. If anything, they’ll respect you more (for like, 5 seconds and then they’ll go back to posting selfies on Instagram).
So instead of basing all your life decisions on what others think of you or what you do or how attractive you’ll appear in your new car, figure out exactly what it is you value most in your life and cut all the other bullshit out.
Ask yourself: What does a successful and meaningful life look like to you? Did you grow up wanting to be a pilot? Do you dream of having a family with five kids? When you close your eyes, do you see yourself waltzing down the red carpet in your designer gown, your path lit by a hundred camera flashes?
Once you’re clear on the life you genuinely want for yourself, ask yourself: What is it that I want from this life?
Do you want to be a pilot because it’s cool? Or because you want to be rich? To make the ladies go weak at the sight of your sexy captain’s uniform? Or are you simply fascinated by the marvel of human technology and want to master the skill of flying an aircraft?
Asking yourself why you want what you want will help you uncover the values that underlie the life you’ve imagined for yourself. Yes, you want the life of a pilot. But is the value you’re really after appearances, money, sexual prowess, or mastery of skill?
Not all values are created equal. Some are better than others. If you find that your values hurt rather than help, you can work to update them into better values—values that are evidence-based, constructive, and controllable rather than emotion-based, destructive, and uncontrollable.
Once you know what you value (and have replaced bad values with better ones), you are free to build the life you want knowing no one gives a shit if you fail.
4. Focus More on Habits, Less on Goals
A lot of books and self-development advice focuses on goals and “systems” of developing, like, S.M.A.R.T. goals and creating an unrelenting focus on ACCOMPLISHING EVERY SINGLE GOAL YOU EVER SET NO MATTER WHAT OR YOU ARE A FUCKING LOSER.
The truth is, in and of themselves, goals are pretty overrated. There’s nothing wrong with having goals, but obsessing over them is often counterproductive because, in reality, achieving a goal isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. Instead, I like to focus on creating a system of healthy habits that focus on the most important, highest impact areas of my life. My goals pretty much take care of themselves at that point.
In a nutshell, habits comprise three main parts:
An environmental cue A behavioral response A reward (or the removal of an unpleasant stimulus)
The more often the cue, behavior, and reward occur in close time and proximity to one another, the stronger a habit becomes.
To create a new, healthy habit—or to break a bad habit—you’ll want to be as intentional as possible with all three parts. You can manipulate your environment to introduce cues that you can then intentionally start to associate with a desired behavior and reinforce it all with a reward.
Let’s say you want to start working out on a regular basis. Instead of just focusing on developing the habit of “working out,” focus on developing a routine around initiating a workout. This may seem like a subtle difference, but it’s actually huge.
An easy way to do this is to choose a cue that already occurs regularly in your daily life, such as getting home from work. Then, during the early stages of developing your workout habit, focus your effort on going straight to your room after you get home and changing into your workout clothes. Then go fill up your water bottle and head straight to the gym or hit the running trail or whatever.
You want to develop the habit of putting yourself in the position to work out regularly, which makes it more likely that you’ll work out regularly.
After a while, you’ll start to notice that when you get home from work (environmental cue/trigger), it takes little to no effort to go to your room, throw on your workout clothes, and head to the gym (habitual response).
You’ll even start to look forward to it, and maybe even feel like something in your life is off when you don’t work out. And that’s the power of habit.
To reinforce the habit, use the “reward” component of the habit equation. With our exercise example, you might get done working out and treat yourself to a (healthy) snack or maybe schedule a post-workout rest session by watching an episode of your favorite TV show.
Some people derive enough reward from the exercise itself (e.g., “runner’s high”), which acts as a powerful reinforcement for their habit. Whatever you do, be sure to incorporate a healthy reward into your habit routine.
If you’re not sure which habits will change your life, I recommend focusing on building one single compounding habit. Compounding habits—like exercise, healthy eating, and sleep—have a multiplication effect across several or even all areas of our lives.
For example, exercise helps you maintain a healthy body weight, but it can also give you more energy and focus throughout your day, it improves your mood, helps you sleep, and so on. All of these benefits have their own ripple effects across your life: you’re more productive at work/school, you’re more pleasant to be around when you’re with friends, family, and significant others, you look and feel healthier.
Pick a compounding habit and develop a routine around it. Then your goals will take care of themselves. This is how you change your life, one habit at a time.
5. Figure Out Who You Are
Simple question: do you really know who you are? I mean do you know what drives you, what terrifies you, why you do the things you do, and do you know how others perceive you too? Self-awareness is, somewhat paradoxically, in short supply these days (self-delusion, on the other hand, is not). But there’s really no way to change your life if you don’t know what you’re changing about yourself in the first place.
I think of self-awareness as having three levels. The first level is being aware of what you’re doing. Life sucks, and we respond to this suckage by distracting ourselves. We transport our minds to some other time or place or world where it can be safe and insulated from the pain of day-to-day life.
We stare at our phones, we obsess about the past or our potential futures, make plans we’ll never keep, or simply try to forget. We eat, drink, and fuck ourselves into numbness to dull the reality of our problems. We use books, movies, games, and music to carry us to another world where no pain exists, and everything always feels easy and good and right.
There’s nothing wrong with distraction. We all need some sort of diversion to keep us sane and happy. The key is that we need to be aware of our distractions. We need to make sure we’re choosing them, not the other way around.
This is the first level of self-awareness, a simple understanding of where your mind goes and when. You must be aware of the paths your mind likes to take before you can begin to question why it takes those paths and whether those paths are helping or hurting you.
The second level is asking yourself what you are feeling. This is where you really start finding out “who you are.” I hate using that phrase because it doesn’t really mean anything, but this is the level that people talk about when they say they are “finding themselves”—they are discovering how they actually feel about the shit going on in their life, and often they have been hiding these feelings from themselves for years.
Level 2 is an uncomfortable place to go. People often spend years in therapy navigating Level 2. It takes time to become comfortable with all of your emotions. Going back through those emotions and allowing them to take place is something that requires a lot of focus and a lot of effort.
And the more you become aware of your own emotions and your own desires, the more you discover something terrifying: you are full of shit.
We realize that a large percentage of our thoughts, arguments, and actions are merely reflections of whatever we are feeling in that moment. Level 3 is then to discover your blind spots: when are you reacting to your emotions, rather than acting based on conscious thought?
Once you’ve reached Level 3, then you’re set. You know who you are, and you know what you should be changing about yourself.
6. Focus on Fewer Things (and Get Really, Really Good at Them)
In our modern-day culture of make more, buy more, fuck more, be more, I’m guessing that some jackass on the internet telling you that “more” is not actually always “more” in life is sure to be drowned out pretty quickly with all the “life hacking” and “lifestyle optimization” podcasts and blog articles and blah blah blah out there.
One of the consequences of living in a time with seemingly endless opportunities is that you have to choose which opportunities to pursue (everything has a cost, remember?). And I hate to break it to you, but you can’t have it all. And so, for the vast, vast majority of things you do, you will simply be average. That’s OK. You don’t have to be a superstar at everything you do to live a meaningful life.
But if you can do one or a few things really, really well, you’ll be ahead of almost everyone else who’s distracted by their smartphones and arguing about things they have no influence over on Facebook.
(That reminds me: like me on Facebook so we can argue about things.)
7. Stop Trying So Hard
As counterintuitive and counterproductive as it sounds, a strange thing happens when you try too hard to do just about anything. Trying too hard to make friends or meet someone who’s willing to see you naked every now and then often has the opposite effect of chasing them away. Trying too hard to be cool often makes you look desperate and uncool. Trying to be happy often makes you miserable.
But there’s a simple fix, and no, it doesn’t involve lowering your standards. It only requires that you look at things a little differently than you have been. As hokey as it sounds, be grateful for what you have while you’re working towards what you want. Everything you need to be happy is likely right in front of you. Start taking the time to appreciate the simple pleasures in life, like having a beer with a friend, taking a walk in nature, calling your grandma and telling her you love her, going to a game with your buddies.
These things might seem mundane, but if you can’t enjoy the simple joys in life, you won’t enjoy much if and when you actually do change your life either.