USLM3- The Journey to Success

[Shannon]

That feeling is called fear of the unknown. You're feeling it because you've never done this before. That is spelled P-R-O-G-R-E-S-S. Allow your emotional self to feel it, and then consciously guide yourself back to the task at hand, which is taking the next step toward achieving whatever goal you are working towards. Breaking your goals down into small enough steps is the key to making this easy.

Usually when my fears start acting up, and I recognize consciously that it is my fear talking and that what it is telling me is not true, I say to myself, "Come on now, you and I both know that's not true." It always falls back on "But what if..." and then I start laughing, because "What if the moon falls on my head? What if killer cockroaches try to assassinate my big toe with a toothpick? What if the sun turns into a lobster? Oh noes!!!"

What if is actually a rather fun (and funny) game. You can be as irrational and ridiculous with it as you like, and as long as you don't take it seriously, it's amusing. The problem comes when you take it seriously. And if you do, think it through logically. What if I try and fail? Well then I have learned how not to succeed, so I can avoid that next time I try to succeed... and I am never going to stop trying to succeed, so all I have done is help myself succeed!

[mat422]

That feeling is called fear of the unknown. You're feeling it because you've never done this before. That is spelled P-R-O-G-R-E-S-S. Allow your emotional self to feel it, and then consciously guide yourself back to the task at hand, which is taking the next step toward achieving whatever goal you are working towards. Breaking your goals down into small enough steps is the key to making this easy.

Usually when my fears start acting up, and I recognize consciously that it is my fear talking and that what it is telling me is not true, I say to myself, "Come on now, you and I both know that's not true." It always falls back on "But what if..." and then I start laughing, because "What if the moon falls on my head? What if killer cockroaches try to assassinate my big toe with a toothpick? What if the sun turns into a lobster? Oh noes!!!"

What if is actually a rather fun (and funny) game. You can be as irrational and ridiculous with it as you like, and as long as you don't take it seriously, it's amusing. The problem comes when you take it seriously. And if you do, think it through logically. What if I try and fail? Well then I have learned how not to succeed, so I can avoid that next time I try to succeed... and I am never going to stop trying to succeed, so all I have done is help myself succeed!

Thanks Shannon. As of right now I don't think that less serious one is doable for me. A lot of my life has been spent being too serious, but it's because I constantly felt like I was one mistake away from a major catastrophe. That feeling has haunted me for years. I think a lot of it is due to the fact that I don't really have a fallback or proof that I can be a self-sufficient individual. So I can't not be serious because a lot of it just feels like my survival depends on it. At its core it's just a very primal fear.

But like you said, failure isn't really a thing as long as I keep trying. And I'm not letting these fears stop me from continuing to move forward. I may not be able to convince myself that I can do it or take it less seriously but my actions are what matter and I can follow through on those independent of my feelings.

[Shannon]

As of right now I don't think that less serious one is doable for me.

That is a self limiting belief that keeps you where you are. I understand that you have strong, primal fears. I am interested in helping you because I have been in your shoes. I still have my own fears, too. But that belief is not helping you. Work on that. Anything is possible. Everything is doable. You just have to figure out the way to your goals.

Fortunately for you, I just finished creating FRM 4.3, which will be in USLM4, LTU, etc.

[mat422]

I've just been really up and down this past week. I'll focus on correcting this belief. I realize it has held me back for a while now, it's not exactly hidden or unknown to me. I guess I just stop myself from correcting it due to giving in to the fear. So I'll just push past that and do what I need to do to get my mindset right from now on.

[mat422]

Also completely unrelated but I had a dream I was running dmsi 3.3 and executing perfectly. In the dream I was thinking to myself, man I'm glad I decided to try this. Sounds like a way to derail my USLM progress to me.

[mat422]

Little things are starting to come into place for me. I'm seeing how I keep myself down a lot by comparing myself to others. The only person I need to compare myself against is my past self. If I'm doing better, then I'm doing great.

It hit me today when I was at work. I was thinking about the stuff I learned, the stuff I could do, the small little changes I contributed to in the company. They're not the hardest things, but I never gave myself credit for them. Instead it was always "oh that? That's nothing, you shouldn't be proud of that anyone could do that. Try handling something more challenging then you get acknowledgement for actually doing something."

So many "I shoulds" in my life. It's not as bad now, but I used to have a really bad habit when I saw someone was good at something I wasn't. I told myself "you should be able to do that, you're not as good as them". But now I understand just how useless those comparisons are because people and their backgrounds are different. And it's not fair to judge yourself against others.

[mat422]

More realizations. I have a tendency to look at what other people have done to see what's possible vs following my own path and being a leader. Maybe it's fear of the unknown that caused me to believe other people vs finding my own truths in life. As if I strayed from the more known paths both my parents subconsciously responded in fear and I learned it was "dangerous".

I think breaking free from that need to know from someone else or look towards someone else before I make decisions will be a huge step for me. There's a difference between seeking advice to help make your decisions vs seeking advice and following it because you're too afraid to trust your own judgement.

I think with this sub though there's been a major tear down in mindset. But that in between state is quite chaotic. I still need to form a solid mindset that has a point of focus and direction. Otherwise I'm just sitting in a state of limbo, not really stuck in the negative anymore, but also not really fully solidifying a new sort of lifestyle to replace the old one.

[mat422]

Days off still aren't as smooth as I'd like. I find myself going to sleep at night and wishing I could just turn on uslm. When I'm actually listening to the sub it's like kicking into another gear, I feel like I can go beyond the sticking points. Hard to describe really. But it also relieves a massive amount of tension in my body and this detachment washes over me. Not a bad detachment, more like a feeling of choice to no longer weigh myself down with all the bullshit I've given myself in life.

In general I'm feeling like I'm losing my obsession with caring what others think. I've realized it hasn't been my personality that holds me back, but rather constantly hiding away and not living in a way that embraces who I am. I feel closer to being liberated from this constant weight of trying too hard to fit in.

[mat422]

So as it turns out my prior beliefs of being worthless, unwanted, incapable, etc were just a result of fear. To keep people away and avoid being hurt I basically just took on the traits of someone most people wouldn't want to associate with. It also gave me a reason for not working on developing that part of myself. As long as I held these beliefs I was "safe".

I see now it's not healing that needs to take place. These assumptions about myself are just beliefs I've created for myself. They don't have a root, they are just there. I made them up so I can choose to believe whatever I want.

Especially when it comes to girls I've held the belief that most girls aren't attracted to me. But that wasn't a self esteem thing. It was to protect me and avoid having anyone get that close to me.

[Shannon]

How did you realize that?

[mat422]

How did you realize that?

Well interestingly enough it all started when I was working on some music. I found myself being overly critical, assuming it was crap to begin with, basically not giving it a chance. But then something clicked in my head, I'm always making connections between seemingly unrelated things. I was afraid of this music being bad so I just made it bad in my head right off the bat so nobody else could tear it down before me. Since I consider music an extension of me, I had the realization that I do the same thing in my day to day life. Put myself down, expect the least from myself, assume the worst of what others think. In some ways it was like a survival mechanism, I knew the enemy, there were no surprises. I felt awful, but I knew how to manage it.

From there I saw how the only thing keeping these negative beliefs in place was the fear. Deep down I have that strong desire to rid myself of them and embrace positive things, but I knew the fear prevented me from doing so. But just understanding that these beliefs weren't me, that it was the fear compelling me to take them on helped me realize how I have more control than I had previously assumed. Although terribly irrational, there is a reason for developing those things in myself. Understanding the reason helped me become more detached from it and able to choose a better approach.

[Shannon]

I love watching you grow and progress, Mat.

[mat422]

Definitely a shift in mentality. For a while now I've wanted the subliminals to "save" me. Like I'd keep hoping one day I'd have some massive breakthrough and everything would be better. But now I understand waiting around for change obviously won't bring it. My habit of running away when things get hard put me in a cycle of not moving forward, but at the same time feeling awful I wasn't going where I wanted to go. You don't get into a boat and pray the currents of the ocean take you where you need to go, you steer that thing.

It's funny, I have a quite avoidant personality. I fell into passivity/trust the universe as a way to avoid responsibility. This illusion of being centered, false harmony. Deception framed in a way that's positive. By far the most confusing and difficult thing I've had to learn to be aware of. It's easy facing something you're afraid of if the primary response feels negative. It's a whole other head trip when your behavior gets twisted around to be positive.

[mat422]

Note to self, don't confuse difficulty and struggle with success. More struggle =\= more success. Gotta shake this limiting belief as well. Just because that's been my reality for years now doesn't make it the only way. I can't just hope for success, I have to expect it at every step of my journey. It needs to be the default, not failure.