Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Philosophy Club

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

I have a question about Review Team Guidelines. Kindly direct me where can I ask.

Hi, Surabhi Rani,

If you have a question about the Review Team Guidelines at OnlineBookClub, then your best bet to get the fastest answer will be to send your question using the Official Contact Form at OnlineBookClub.

The messages sent in using that form go to inbox monitored by a whole team of people working 24/7 to ensure you always get a super fast official reply.


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Hi, Witch Cavil,

Thank you for your question!

How do we take that next step to achieving our goals in life. How do we achieve that success.

Here are the general step-by-step plan I would give anyone for achieving any goal, especially a big long-term goal:

1. Read my book, In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All, making sure to stop reading each time you come across a sentence with which you disagree or that you don't understand and immediately post that sentence in the corresponding one of the following two topics before continuing to read:

- Did you understand every sentence in the book, "In It Together"? If not, what part did you first not understand?

- Do you agree with everything in the book, "In It Together"? If not, what is the first sentence with which you disagree?

The reason for immediately stopping to post in the above topics, if you come across any confusing or disagreeable sentences, is because the book was written using liner logic, so if you disagree with or cannot understand one sentence earlier on in the book then it becomes like a train that went off the tracks. You will want to get back on the tracks before you continue, or else it can be a waste of time to read further if not counter-productive.

2. Read my book a second time all the way through, from beginning to end. The reasons for that are explained in this topic.

3. Find and post your starting level in the topic, . This is important because when you ask questions about "next step", as you did in your question above, it's impossible for me to give a specific answer without knowing what your last step was, and thus what your current level is, and what your next step actually is. In analogy, I cannot advise you with specifics on how to get to the to of the staircase if I don't know what step you are on currently. To give directions on how to get somewhere, I need to not only where exactly you want to go but where exactly you are to start.

4. If you haven't already, sign up for my free mentoring program, and complete all the required daily tasks.

5. After you have completed the daily tasks for 100 days without missing a day, contact me so that I can buy you a membership at you.pw, which is the software I use for Phase 2 of the program. (There's no cost to you; I'll buy the membership for you as a gift/reward once you complete the first 100 days in the mentoring program.) If you are in the mentoring program, I'll be sending you weekly check-ins via email, so it will be easy for you to get in touch to get into Phase 2 (i.e. to get in touch with me so I can buy you the you.pw membership).


With all that said, there's one thing that will become a crucial key in my mentoring program and my system for success, and that is the utilizing the incredible power of micro-habits, which is done in large part by purposefully and intentionally avoiding creating new macro-habits, meaning avoiding massive abrupt uses of your precious limited willpower.

In analogy, if you rush through switching gears or accelerate in a car, especially one with manual transmission, you can easily stall or even do damage to the car and break it.

A similar process happens with people who skip micro-habits and jump to huge macro-habits. Some common example's include when people suddenly go on an extreme crash diet, or invest in a get-rich-quick scheme, or after a year of not exercising suddenly start going to the gym for 2 hours per day every day. It's usually worse than doing nothing.

Attempting to jump up the staircase after years of laying down on the ground is an easy way to fall down the stairs and make your starting position even worse (i.e. lower).

For example, 99.99% of the time, a person is better off not dieting than crash dieting.

It's way more effective to make small permanent lifestyle changes, then huge drastic one that thus don't last. In fact, the hugeness and drasticness of drastic abrupt changes makes them tend to be counterproductive.

I use to wrestle in high school. In wrestling (and many martial arts), if you want get your opponent to go one way, you start by pushing him the exact opposite way. You end up using his own force against him. Crash dieters and get-rich-quick-schemers end up having their own force used against them. In contrast, using the power of micro-habits is a way to not need any willpower. You can instead throw figurative opponent across the room to an easy defeat with the slightest flick of your wrist.

To get to the top the stairs most surely, go so slowly that you find yourself using your willpower to stop yourself going faster.

In that way, you not only use much less of your precious little willpower but actually in a way you use negative willpower. The little bit you use is push in the opposite to direction to trick your figurative opponent so he can use his own force against him.




With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

For huge success, use habits not willpower.
use-habits-not-willpower.png (1.07 MiB) Viewed 4269 times

[Surabhi Rani]

Thank you, Sir! I got my doubts related to the Review Team Guidelines cleared out by using the Official Contact Form at OnlinebookClub. I look forward with hope for any further guidance regarding my primary goal of review writing.

[Shally Z]

Hi Scott,

Thanks for creating this forum.

My question is how did you know that starting OBC and writing a book was your calling (or ideal job)? I'm also curious how you started OBC and made it so successful.

I find myself (and a lot of others I know) unsure about my careers and what I want to do for a living. Did you have any advice on how to figure out your dream job or starting your own business?

Thank you in advance!

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Hi, Shally Z,

Thank you so much for your question!

how did you know that starting OBC and writing a book was your calling (or ideal job)?

While doing what I was doing, I knew it was my calling at that time because I was doing it. As my book teaches, nothing happens that shouldn't happen. As my book teaches, "You don’t find the right answer; you create it. Whatever you choose to do becomes right—becomes true, becomes real, becomes part of reality, becomes revealed as seemingly fated all along—because you choose it." (Page 153)

If I was being truly called to do something else, then I would simply do that something else, meaning I would simply do what I was being called to do.

However, I would suggest avoiding using the word 'calling' in this sense because it sort of makes it so one is (falsely) identifying with the ego instead of the spirit, meaning your true self. In reality, the one doing the calling is the spirit, meaning what my book refers to as the real you. It's not really a 'calling' so much as a 'doing' or, in other words, a true wanting/choosing. The calling (a.k.a. wanting/doing/choosing) is coming from the spirit, meaning the real you. It's non-verbal calling/activity, and you--the real you--are the one doing it. In the lingo of my book, you would be the the one calling rather than the one hearing the calling. Granted, if one hasn't achieved spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline), meaning one is still like a spiritual slave, like a prisoner in their own body, then indeed it might be something like an impotent calling from deep down in the hellish pits of such a cage. But when you realize and fully put into practice your spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline), then the difference between the calling and the doing dissolves. Hence the invincible true happiness (a.k.a. inner peace) that comes with that: You never feel like you are not fulfilling your calling.

Here are some relevant quotes from my book about this topic:

You do not have a spirit. You are a spirit. You have a body."

***

Insofar as you do have the power of choice, it can feel overwhelming due to the open-ended freedom that comes with that—with there being multiple different equally right answers, answers essentially to the question, what will you do?

Your answer to that question is inherently true, inherently correct, and inherently right because it is your answer.

It can be a false comfort to falsely imagine the open-ended blank canvas of a question with infinite correct answers as instead being the nonsensical question of, ‘what should I do?’ as if the right answer was already chosen and you just need to find and obey the chooser’s commandment, as if it was a paint-by-the-numbers situation of rule-following instead of a blank canvas of infinite opportunities calling for free-spirited creativity.

[Emphasis Added.]

***

To be truly inspired is to be inspired by true happiness now, not for alleged happiness in the future. To be truly inspired is to act not as a means to an end, but to let you and your actions—meaning the real you and its actions—be ends in themselves. Such actions thus tend to inherently have an artisticness to them, demonstrating free-spirited inspired creativity.

***

The spirit—the real you—is... the source of inspired free-spirited creativity, of effortless action, of doing without trying, of being motivated and driven by contentment in the here and now rather than by discontentment or by addiction to comfort. This beautiful source of inner peace and free-spirited inspiration is also in other words the source of the third path that is not between but rather transcends both laziness and restlessness. It is the third path that neither entails blindly obeying fear nor entails blindly doing the opposite of fear, but rather that transcends that one dimension of fear entirely and is called bravery. It is the third path that is not merely between but rather transcends over-indulgence versus excessive asceticism. It is the third path that transcends duality and leads to the underlying unity that unites all into a singular perfect harmony. It is you. When this book speaks of freedom of spirit, that which is liberated, that all-loving inspiring force that is liberated, is you, the real you.

To suggest to you to behave in a free-spirited way is the same as to suggest to you to behave as yourself, your true self. The words “be free-spirited” and “be yourself ” mean the same thing.

How does my human mind and ego know that I--the real me--am calling it to do what it is doing now? It knows it because it is doing it, with spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline). In other words, I know it simply because I am being myself, rather than being some kind of spiritual slave or spiritual prisoner. I know it because I can easily tell and feel whether my mind is my master or my servant.

It's like asking an artist how they know as they make the brush stroke on the canvass whether they are a sell out or a true inspired artist acting of free-spirited creativity.

It's perhaps the easiest thing to know of all. It's perhaps the thing of which we have the most intimate knowledge.

It's basically the inverse of the question, how do you know if you are an addict?

You know. You just know.

I'm also curious how you started OBC and made it so successful.

Starting it was easy.

Starting a business is easy.

It's like starting a diet, starting a career as a professional weight-lifter, or starting to not smoke by saying "I hereby quit cigarettes".

It's sticking with it that separates the very few from the very many.

Very few humans demonstrate consistency, dedication, and the other symptoms of being in a cooperative loyal truly loving relationship with their selves over time, built on true love and teamwork.

As my book deeply explores, most humans are in a toxic if not flat-out abusive relationship with their selves over time, and such toxic and/or abusive relationships tend to by cyclical, hence why they are also often called "love-hate relationships" even though they are very far from being a true expression of true love. For them, life is like being on a miserable roller-coaster with huge ups and downs, but that just goes around and around. You could even call it an unmerry-go-round.

As long as one is on that unmerry-go-round, meaning trapped in that kind of cycle, one will not go anywhere. Such cycles entail feeling exhaust and feeling miserable and typically involving tons of hard work that gets you nowhere.

So the simple answer is: break the cycles. Be a rebellious cycle-breaking free spirit. Escape the cycles by breaking the cycles.

From there, set a far-our long-term goal and stick to it, meaning keep walking in that line instead of going in circles.

One key is that I spent years working 80 hours per week at OnlineBookClub to make it into what it is. I had a vision and I just keep working towards it, like setting my sets on a specific mountain in the horizon and waking up every day and walking towards that and only towards that. If I hadn't done that, it surely would have gone out of business quickly like most new businesses do. But, even working 80 hours per week, even working smart and working very hard is counter-productive if you are stuck in a self-abusive cycle. Then you just walk in circles, instead of waking up every day and going in the same direction. It doesn't matter how fast and hard you run if you are running in circles. If you are running in circles, you'll still effectively go nowhere.

That is why reading my book at least twice is so important for those kind of goals. My book is one of the few things out there that will truly teach you how to identify and break those cycles, all of them. They come in many forms.

As my book says, all humans are on the addiction spectrum.

I find myself (and a lot of others I know) unsure about my careers and what I want to do for a living. Did you have any advice on how to figure out your dream job or starting your own business?

It depends what you mean.

One way to interpret the question is as this: "I am unhappy, meaning I don't have inner peace and don't feel the wonderful joy of invincible spiritual freedom. How can I figure out what career path will lead me to happiness? And, then, how do I go about getting and succeeding at that dream job so I can finally be consistently happy with wonderful consistent free-spirited inner peace like you are?"

If that's what you are asking, then the answer is you can't. I could quicker tell you how to fish in a desert. It can't happen. You'd be asking me how to do something that is inherently impossible and nonsensical. We can refer to certain externals (e.g. jobs, careers, houses, spouses or potential spouses) as a "dream job", "dream house", or "dream spouse", but getting those kind of external things never brings true happiness (a.k.a. inner peace) and insofar as one believes that one's happiness depends on such externals one will never be happy. That false belief is called the hedonic treadmill and it's a major premise in my book, discussed very early on. As my book teaches right at the beginning, fulfilling desires doesn't cause desire to eliminated; it only causes them to be replaced by new desires. Achieving goals doesn't cause you to not have unfulfilled goals and live in some goal-less state; it just causes your goals to be replaced by new goals. If you define happiness as having all your goals fulfilled and all your desires met, then you'll never be happy because you will always have unfulfilled goals and unmet desires.

A second way to interpret the question would be this: "I have read your book. I already follow all eleven of the suggestions at the end. I am so incredibly free-spirited (a.k.a. self-disciplined) as a result. In fact, I am so free-spirited (a.k.a. self-disciplined) that I get compliments and questions about it from friends, family, and acquaintances who want tips from me about how to achieve and have the level of incredible spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) that I have. Needless to say, based on all that, I am happy, truly happy, meaning day in and day out I enjoy the wonderful spiritual joy that is consistent free-spirited inner peace. You could say I've achieved enlightenment or nirvana. Life is like a literal heaven for me. Everyday I wake up and feel like I am in heaven. Now that I have this unwavering invincible consistent true happiness (a.k.a. inner peace), I wonder how to decide what to do with myself. Needless to say, I'll be happy no matter what job I have and what job I am doing, but nonetheless do you have any tips or advice for how to find or decide on a career path that best suits me?"

That's a question I can answer.

A great analogy for choosing a career path and/or a "dream career" is shopping for a new house or coming up with a imaginary "dream house" so to speak to set as a goal or benchmark for your house shopping.

In either case, my suggestion is to start with wild brainstorming: (1) write down all the different options you can think of, (2) write down all the things you'd like your dream house/job/career to have if given the choice.

Then, I'd suggest sorting all the items in #2 as much as reasonably possible based on how much each quality matters to you. In other words, order them into a list of priorities from your biggest priority to your lowest priority. For example, for a house maybe having a fireplace and a garage are both on the list, and for a career maybe making a certain amount of money and having a short commute are both on there. But you can weigh each of those individual things against each other to order them by priority. You can keep asking yourself, "all else the same, if I could have one but only one, would I rather have a house that has A or B?" (In the case of job-searching, replace the word "house" with "job".)

From there, it becomes an easy mathematical calculation to determined which house/job from the available ones most meets your unique preferences and priorities.

I hope that advice is helpful!

Please do let me know if you have any follow-up questions about this or anything else at any time.


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

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[Leonie Vermaak]

Thanks for this Scott. It is very helpful. I'm definitely saving this post for future reference. It's good to have this, to read again and again to keep a person going when you maybe feel like giving up.

[Oscar Zereta]

I want to be a writer, but I don't know if I would run out of ideas if I start. How came one overcome the fear of writer's block? And what are the tips to be a successful writer?

[Leonie Vermaak]

I want to be a writer, but I don't know if I would run out of ideas if I start. How came one overcome the fear of writer's block? And what are the tips to be a successful writer?

I'm with you on this one and also would love to know what Scott's advise would be.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Hi, Oscar Zereta,

Thank you for your questions!

I want to be a writer, but I don't know if I would run out of ideas if I start. How can one overcome the fear of writer's block?

These two questions seem to be very closely related to this broader question I've been asked many times: "How do I increase my confidence?"

Here is the answer I gave to Justin, who phrased it as, "What recommendations do you have for increasing confidence? Specifically, are there any practical techniques, mental exercises, or daily habits that have helped you increase your self-confidence?"

And here is my reply to Megan's question about imposer syndrome.

If "overcome fear" means "become fearless", then that is impossible.

Thus, I would never recommend you aim to be fearless because that's impossible, and I don't recommend doing impossible things.

Instead, what I recommend is you aim to achieve a state of incredible bravery and free-spiritedness (a.k.a. self-discipline). That is something my book will teach you to do.

Remember, bravery isn't the absence of fear; it isn't fearlessness. Instead, quite the opposite: you need fear to be brave. Fear is the only thing you need to be brave. If fear (and other bodily feelings and urges such as anger, hunger, pain, discomfort, etc.) are like the water in which you might otherwise drown, then bravery (and spiritual freedom in general) are like learning to swim. The funny thing is that, once you learn to swim, you also learn to love the water. I do a lot of things precisely because they are scary or painfully tough or challenging. I love having the opportunity to exercise my bravery and other similar forms of spiritual freedom (a.k.a self-discipline).

Page 102 of my book will be especially relevant and helpful for you. Among other things it says "do not fight your fear" and "feelings are not choices, and choices are not feelings."

You control your choices, not your feelings. You can say, "I feel hunger, but I choose to not eat anyway." You can say, "I feel the urge to drink and the painful discomfort of sobriety, but I choose to stay sober and not drink anyway." You can say, "I feel afraid to do X, but I'm going to do it anyway."

That is very powerful phrase: "do it anyway".

You are afraid you might run out of ideas. You are afraid you might encounter writer's block. You are afraid period. So what? That's fine.

In fact, even better! If you weren't afraid or otherwise feeling discomfort, then that could be a sign you were a prisoner of the comfort zone, an addict basically.

Feeling fear and discomfort is a very good sign you are on the wise liberated path to incredible success, rather than an addict or other spiritual slave addicted to comfort and imprisoned in the comfort zone.

And what are the tips to be a successful writer?

That depends on what you mean by "successful writer", and thus what success uniquely means for you.

One man's trash is another man's treasure. One man's success would be another man's failure.

The answer is completely different if your main goal and version of "success" is merely to make a bunch of money versus something else. I think what you will want to do is mediate in depth on the question of why you want to be a writer at all and what you would be hoping to get out of writing. Once you have that vision, I imagine the rest will come incredibly easily to you. Typically, when people don't get very far in their journey, it's because they don't have a set long-term goal (a.k.a. a vision) that they stick to consistently, and instead just aimlessly wonder around going in circles. One can walk a million miles and never leave the town they are in. Perhaps all you need to achieve huge success is simply just a simple vision of what huge success is for you.

I have some mentees who ask me for advice on how to lose weight, and others ask me for advice on how to gain weight. So if someone just asks, "how can I be successful in my body weight goals", I wouldn't really be able to answer just like I cannot really answer you. I couldn't tell them to eat more or eat less because I don't know what they want to do and where they want to get to. It depends what success means to you. It depends what your unique goals are.

My book will teach you both (1) the importance of the following and (2) how to implement the following: the principle of fully and unconditionally accepting what you cannot control.

When you have done that, then you will also realize that success is a choice, and thus failure is an illusion. Or, in other words, as the book says, "trying is lying".

For more on that, I strongly encourage you to read the following recent post of mine:

Beware: The phrase "work hard" can be just as dishonest and dangerous as the word "try". Be very careful with it!


With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

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[Leonie Vermaak]

Thanks fir this Scott it's appreciated

[Runan]

I have a question. It's so hard to maintain a regime—a routine per se—without breaking it. It is also difficult to break old bad habits and inculcate new good ones. One is accustomed to those habits, and the physical self (though perfectly healthy) is not cooperating with the mental mind to change. How does one get back to their regime? And how does one get rid of old bad habits to inculcate new ones?

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

I have a question. It's so hard to maintain a regime—a routine per se—without breaking it. It is also difficult to break old bad habits and inculcate new good ones. One is accustomed to those habits, and the physical self (though perfectly healthy) is not cooperating with the mental mind to change. How does one get back to their regime? And how does one get rid of old bad habits to inculcate new ones?

Hi, Runan,

Thank you for your newest question!

In my book, In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All, on page 120, shortly after a fun example involving a cookie monster, I wrote, "An imaginary roadblock can be as effective as a real one."

I'm not a mind-reader, but your question seems to reveal some possible false ideas you have and other would-be false but possibly self-fulfilling roadblocks.

Because they are self-fulfilling, they can be very tricky. As humans, our own bodies, own brains, and own minds are very good at tricking us. The mind is not just a terrible master, but also often a cleverly deceptive one.

While we can point to many of these things and call them delusions, or self-deceiving lies of the mind, or imaginary roadblocks, the deceiving mind can then fight back against us and somewhat dishonestly and somewhat rightly say that they are true because they are self-fulfilling. Believing the would-be false ideas can make them kind of true, thereby resulting in your misery and spiritual imprisonment/slavery.

If you fight imaginary demons, the miserable and exhausting fighting is real.

Thus, my primarily piece of advice for you, is to re-read my book, In It Together, especially the chapter titled, "Suggestion One — Be Honest. Let go of denial, delusion, and self-deceit." That chapter is the one that says "to try is to lie" and explains why.

From there, I suggest you then also read (or re-read) the following topic of mine:

Beware: The phrase "work hard" can be just as dishonest and dangerous as the word "try". Be very careful with it!

Then, and only then, I ask you to re-consider the following claims that you made above or seem to me like you might be making or believing or using as the premises to your question above:

- It takes hard work and/or lots of trying to maintain a regime or routine.

- It takes hard, difficult work and/or trying to break old habits.

- It takes hard, difficult work and/or trying to build new habits.

- It takes tons of willpower to break old habits or build new ones.

- The physical self/body should cooperate.

- I cannot succeed unless my physical self/body cooperates more.

- My success isn't my choice.

- I cannot succeed unless my physical body cooperates fully: For instance, I cannot succeed at a weight loss diet unless I don't feel any hunger while dieting. If my physical body and mind is uncooperative in the form of making me feel hunger and hunger pain, then I have to obey my feelings and urges by breaking my diet and eating tons of comforting junk food.

- Some of my current habits are 'bad' or 'evil'.

- Some of my bodily urges and bodily feelings are 'bad' or 'evil'.

- I have to fight myself on a daily basis in a desperate attempt to fight off these 'bad'/'evil' demons I have, but they are too strong, and despite me fighting and trying so hard everyday they end up winning the hard fight.


I think each and every one of the above sentences is false. Those are the kind of things I have in mind when I talk about "imaginary roadblocks" and "tormenting phantoms" and even "self-fulfilling delusions".

Granted, they are not always delusions or falsehoods in the purest sense, precisely because they are self-fulfilling. Believing those would-be falsehoods gives aspects of them some truth, but even that vanishes once you stop believing these things, most notably by letting go of the concept of ''trying' all-together.

Don't try. Never try. I don't try. I never try.

Your human mind will lie to you. It will think false thoughts as surely as your heart will beat. Don't fight it, but don't believe it either, at least not blindly. Don't identify with it. Don't say, "I think my mind's thoughts," because, as my book teaches, that's as wrong as saying, "I beat my heart."

The antithesis of self-responsibility is instead taking responsibility for things that aren't really yours, such as taking false authorship of your heart's beating or mind's thoughts.

You hear the thoughts and feel the feelings, and you literally hear and feel the heart beating, but you are generally not the author of such things. You control them less than you control literal children in the literal backseat of your literal car. In both cases, they have a lot to say but little power to make you do anything but happen to hear them say it. They can't make you believe them let alone obey them. Take anything your mind says--i.e. any verbal thoughts that pop in your human brain--with a very skeptical grain of salt. Listen to it with a smile. Notice it with a smile. You can think of it like an impotent beloved child in the backseat of a car you are driving who is begging you to drive to Disneyland while you instead drive to the dentist. You are 100% in control of your choices, and have no direct control over anything else. There's no fight to be had. You can just smile with acceptance and keep driving to your destination.

A chapter in my book that might be especially helpful for you is the chapter titled, "To find inner peace, simply stop fighting".

Trying is the enemy of actually doing; and doing without trying is the very definition of grace. Once you learn to do without trying, you will not only achieve incredible success, but you will do it with infinite ease.

It isn't hard. It doesn't take hard work. It's infinitely easy. It comes from and with the omnipotence of the spirit. Spiritual freedom (a.k.a self-discipline) is empowering beyond words. It's so graceful as to seem almost magical. The way you will succeed once you capitalize on it will likely have others thinking you seem magical and magically graceful, because of the ease with which you succeed and the infinite happiness and peace you have while doing it.

But I do want to leave you with a very practical tip. And that's this: Use micro-habits, and avoid taking on new macro-habits. Rome wasn't built in a day, people say. Starting a new macro-habit or making a huge change to your regime is like attempting to jump to the top of a huge staircase from the bottom. You will almost certainly end up lower than you started as you fall down in disgrace, with some broken bones perhaps. My books talks about that often via the word "overcompensation" which appears multiple times in the book, particularly in reference to abusive cycles, particularly self-abusive ones. It's big ups and big downs that ultimately get you nowhere, but just running in a miserable circle.

Only make very small changes to your regime and routine, one small change at a time, preferably with 21 days between each small change, since it takes about 21 days to build a new habit.

For more on that, and really on the entire theme of this reply I've given you, I also strongly recommend you read the following topic of mine as well:

To achieve your goals, avoid using willpower. In fact, use negative willpower. Use your opponent's force against him.



With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott

"An imaginary roadblock can be as effective as a real one."
- In It Together, page 120
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---
In addition to having authored his book, In It Together, Eckhart Aurelius Hughes (a.k.a. Scott) runs a mentoring program, with a free option, that guarantees success. Success is guaranteed for anyone who follows the program.

[Leonie Vermaak]

This is such an interesting answer and so though provoking. Thanks for this Scott.

[Runan]

I have a question. It's so hard to maintain a regime—a routine per se—without breaking it. It is also difficult to break old bad habits and inculcate new good ones. One is accustomed to those habits, and the physical self (though perfectly healthy) is not cooperating with the mental mind to change. How does one get back to their regime? And how does one get rid of old bad habits to inculcate new ones?

Hi, Runan,

Thank you for your newest question!

In my book, In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All, on page 120, shortly after a fun example involving a cookie monster, I wrote, "An imaginary roadblock can be as effective as a real one."

I'm not a mind-reader, but your question seems to reveal some possible false ideas you have and other would-be false but possibly self-fulfilling roadblocks.

Because they are self-fulfilling, they can be very tricky. As humans, our own bodies, own brains, and own minds are very good at tricking us. The mind is not just a terrible master, but also often a cleverly deceptive one.

While we can point to many of these things and call them delusions, or self-deceiving lies of the mind, or imaginary roadblocks, the deceiving mind can then fight back against us and somewhat dishonestly and somewhat rightly say that they are true because they are self-fulfilling. Believing the would-be false ideas can make them kind of true, thereby resulting in your misery and spiritual imprisonment/slavery.

If you fight imaginary demons, the miserable and exhausting fighting is real.

Thus, my primarily piece of advice for you, is to re-read my book, In It Together, especially the chapter titled, "Suggestion One — Be Honest. Let go of denial, delusion, and self-deceit." That chapter is the one that says "to try is to lie" and explains why.

From there, I suggest you then also read (or re-read) the following topic of mine:

Beware: The phrase "work hard" can be just as dishonest and dangerous as the word "try". Be very careful with it!

Then, and only then, I ask you to re-consider the following claims that you made above or seem to me like you might be making or believing or using as the premises to your question above:

- It takes hard work and/or lots of trying to maintain a regime or routine.

- It takes hard, difficult work and/or trying to break old habits.

- It takes hard, difficult work and/or trying to build new habits.

- It takes tons of willpower to break old habits or build new ones.

- The physical self/body should cooperate.

- I cannot succeed unless my physical self/body cooperates more.

- My success isn't my choice.

- I cannot succeed unless my physical body cooperates fully: For instance, I cannot succeed at a weight loss diet unless I don't feel any hunger while dieting. If my physical body and mind is uncooperative in the form of making me feel hunger and hunger pain, then I have to obey my feelings and urges by breaking my diet and eating tons of comforting junk food.

- Some of my current habits are 'bad' or 'evil'.

- Some of my bodily urges and bodily feelings are 'bad' or 'evil'.

- I have to fight myself on a daily basis in a desperate attempt to fight off these 'bad'/'evil' demons I have, but they are too strong, and despite me fighting and trying so hard everyday they end up winning the hard fight.


I think each and every one of the above sentences is false. Those are the kind of things I have in mind when I talk about "imaginary roadblocks" and "tormenting phantoms" and even "self-fulfilling delusions".

Granted, they are not always delusions or falsehoods in the purest sense, precisely because they are self-fulfilling. Believing those would-be falsehoods gives aspects of them some truth, but even that vanishes once you stop believing these things, most notably by letting go of the concept of ''trying' all-together.

Don't try. Never try. I don't try. I never try.

Your human mind will lie to you. It will think false thoughts as surely as your heart will beat. Don't fight it, but don't believe it either, at least not blindly. Don't identify with it. Don't say, "I think my mind's thoughts," because, as my book teaches, that's as wrong as saying, "I beat my heart."

The antithesis of self-responsibility is instead taking responsibility for things that aren't really yours, such as taking false authorship of your heart's beating or mind's thoughts.

You hear the thoughts and feel the feelings, and you literally hear and feel the heart beating, but you are generally not the author of such things. You control them less than you control literal children in the literal backseat of your literal car. In both cases, they have a lot to say but little power to make you do anything but happen to hear them say it. They can't make you believe them let alone obey them. Take anything your mind says--i.e. any verbal thoughts that pop in your human brain--with a very skeptical grain of salt. Listen to it with a smile. Notice it with a smile. You can think of it like an impotent beloved child in the backseat of a car you are driving who is begging you to drive to Disneyland while you instead drive to the dentist. You are 100% in control of your choices, and have no direct control over anything else. There's no fight to be had. You can just smile with acceptance and keep driving to your destination.

A chapter in my book that might be especially helpful for you is the chapter titled, "To find inner peace, simply stop fighting".

Trying is the enemy of actually doing; and doing without trying is the very definition of grace. Once you learn to do without trying, you will not only achieve incredible success, but you will do it with infinite ease.

It isn't hard. It doesn't take hard work. It's infinitely easy. It comes from and with the omnipotence of the spirit. Spiritual freedom (a.k.a self-discipline) is empowering beyond words. It's so graceful as to seem almost magical. The way you will succeed once you capitalize on it will likely have others thinking you seem magical and magically graceful, because of the ease with which you succeed and the infinite happiness and peace you have while doing it.

But I do want to leave you with a very practical tip. And that's this: Use micro-habits, and avoid taking on new macro-habits. Rome wasn't built in a day, people say. Starting a new macro-habit or making a huge change to your regime is like attempting to jump to the top of a huge staircase from the bottom. You will almost certainly end up lower than you started as you fall down in disgrace, with some broken bones perhaps. My books talks about that often via the word "overcompensation" which appears multiple times in the book, particularly in reference to abusive cycles, particularly self-abusive ones. It's big ups and big downs that ultimately get you nowhere, but just running in a miserable circle.

Only make very small changes to your regime and routine, one small change at a time, preferably with 21 days between each small change, since it takes about 21 days to build a new habit.

For more on that, and really on the entire theme of this reply I've given you, I also strongly recommend you read the following topic of mine as well:

To achieve your goals, avoid using willpower. In fact, use negative willpower. Use your opponent's force against him.



With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
a.k.a. Scott




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In addition to having authored his book, In It Together, Eckhart Aurelius Hughes (a.k.a. Scott) runs a mentoring program, with a free option, that guarantees success. Success is guaranteed for anyone who follows the program.

Thank you for answering and clearing my doubts. I will start with micro habits.

[Moisés Alcántara Ayre]

Hi Scott,
I'm starting my own business in a few more weeks. I've been giving it my best shot thus far. However, I was wondering what the most common mistake is for people who start their own business.

Moises