I am not sure if this makes me a masochist or a sociopath but there is one side character in a well-known movie that a) I secretly admire b) I use to motivate myself when stuff has to get done. More on him in a moment.
An expression says if you have a big enough why, you will find the how.
The problem is that most of us don’t have a why that is sufficiently strong enough to motivate us to do what needs to be done.
You see people will run into burning buildings to save their family, their loved ones, and their pets. All rational thinking says that putting yourself in harm’s way does not make sense. Yet those reasons are completely rational when you understand the stakes.
John Carlton the legendary copywriter tells a story of how he and Gary Halbert had a strategy they used when they needed to write something that would bring in the bacon fast. They called it gun to the head marketing. They would imagine that if someone put a gun to their heads and said either you write a winning piece of copy or you are dead. They often found they produced their best work.
And so enters our hero
Raymond K Hessel…
There is a scene in the movie “Fight Club” where Tyler Durden takes a guy out of the back of a convenience store and asks him what he really wants to be. Raymond says he wanted to be a veterinarian. When asked why he gave up on the idea Raymond says “It was too hard”. Tyler gives him a choice. One month from now if he is not on his way to becoming a vet he will kill him. Pretty twisted right?
But Tyler says “Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessel’s life. His breakfast will taste better than any meal you and I have ever tasted.”
And if I were a betting man and this was a true story I would bet Raymond went on to become a vet.
So what has this got to do with you?
Create Your Own Consequences.
Here is a mental shift you can make for yourself you can be your own Tyler Durden. You can mentally create your own dire stakes. Next time you have a goal or a task that you would like to get done to the best of your ability, frame it in your mind as if it were life or death and not how you would normally frame it.
Cross My Heart…
When I was a kid when we used to make a promise we would say cross my heart and hope to die. It did not really have any weight to it but it was meant to convey how much we meant something.
This is a grown up version on that where you mentally set the idea of dire consequences for yourself.
We mentally shift ourselves up the consequence ladder from…
I’d like to…
I want to…
I have to…
I must do…
My life depends on it!!!
You put the same levels of effort in that you would if you were hanging from a cliff by your fingertips.
Anyway, my point is… I always wanted there to be a Tyler Durden for me. Secretly I wanted to be Raymond K Hessel. I wanted someone to put a gun to my head and force me to be the best version of myself. Then one day I realised if I really wanted to, I could mentally put the gun to my own head. The results…
Well, try this idea for yourself. See what happens. As much as this is an intellectual exercise… Don’t intellectualise it. Try it for yourself.
Remember: Action on insights, is the Answer.
Thank you for reading.
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