Get Addicted to Growth (7 Simple Steps)

The Simple Truth About You

If you’re here, I know something important about you…

You want more out of life.
You want to be your best self.
You desire to change and improve.
You want to conquer life, instead of be conquered!

But… wishing for something and getting it are two different things.

Continuous personal growth is mandatory to make all of these things a reality. Everything you desire out of life is on the other side of getting better.

Today, I’ll be your dealer.

I’ll get you hooked on personal development.

But only when you follow these 7 proven steps that I have used myself.

Step 1: Easy Does the Trick

Imagine a video game that was bugged like this:

The locations of the game are completely messed up. So when you start it, you don’t spawn at the beginner location. Instead, you’re level 1 and you spawn right before the final boss of the game.

You can’t do any damage to the enemies.
The enemies will kill you in one hit.
You don’t have any skills that help you survive.
There’s no way for you to get to a different area.

Would you continue playing that game?

Unless you’re a masochist, you’d ragequit after a short time of playing. The issue here is that the difficulty is too high for your current level. If you went through the game normally, you wouldn’t have this issue. It would be challenging, but you’d be stronger.

That’s the mistake people make in real life too!

Someone will have a burst of inspiration, set huge goals and… feel overwhelmed. In his excitement, he created a too difficult expectation of himself. He couldn’t do the work, felt discouraged and gave up.

That’s how many goals start AND end.

Instead, start building momentum.

Start with creating small, achievable daily actions.

When I first got started, that was simply watching 1 or 2 YouTube videos or reading a blog post. That was all I could do at the time. This was in a period where I was depressed, had 0 confidence and hated the person I was.

Starting small allowed me to take action and get out of that hellhole!

Step 2: The 2 Ways to Change Behavior

At first, I didn’t get anywhere… and I mean for a few years!

The problem?

I didn’t know how to change my behavior and take action. Every day, I was fighting against my mind, instead of working WITH it. I only started making real progress after I learned how the mind works.

I could write a full book about that, but here’s the key point:

We only change behavior to get a reward or avoid punishment, that’s it.

But here’s the key:

The rewards and punishments need to be in the present moment!

Most people give up on their goals, because they’re far out into the future. It feels disheartening because it will take a long time. The reward cycle is too long and most people will never get past it…

Here are two ways to get around this (do both):

1. Break up huge goals into smaller sub-goals. Break those subgoals down into actions you need to take on a daily or weekly basis.

2. Celebrate every win along the way, no matter how tiny it might be.

Let’s break it down:

What I did was to mentally link action to goal.

For example, I’ve never felt “inspired” to go to the gym, I don’t like it. But I do push myself out the door. Then I celebrate that as a win. And crucially, I remind myself that this action helps me achieve my goal of getting in the best shape of my life!

Create more instant, positive reinforcement for the right actions.

Step 3: The Science & Art of Progress

Have you ever wondered why video games are so addictive?

It is because they play into one of our deepest psychological NEEDS (not wants):

Progress

The path to happiness and fulfillment in life is one of continuous growth. That’s why you hit a goal, feel happy for a few moments but immediately start looking for the next thing.

Standing still is agony.

We can model video games to create more motivation and turn personal growth into an addiction! The secret that video games hide is that they prominently display many ways in which you are making progress.

For example:

• Your stats going up

• The experience bar moving

• Gaining more levels

• Milestones (bosses, puzzles solved. etc.)

• Messages of “Congratulations!”

• New and better equipments

• Skill upgrades and new skills

• And the list goes on and on

There are 2 keys to implementing this yourself:

• Multiple ways to make progress

• Making these ways visible

For example:

With growing my newsletter, YouTube and business, I’m fighting an uphill battle. At this point, I’m at a pre-revenue stage. What do you think would happen to my motivation if my only way to see progress was tracking revenue?

It’d be extremely disheartening!

Luckily, I’ve mastered the art of progress.

In this case, I can measure progress in a lot of different ways:

I can look at my own actions, like publishing a new video or writing this newsletter. I can learn new things and implement them. I can celebrate a new subscriber, amount of views, comments, etc. And I can pat myself on the back for the behind the scenes actions too.

See the point?

The more ways in which you can make & recognize progress, the more motivated you’re gonna be. The reason is the progress leads to motivation, not the other way around!

Step 4: Lighting the Fire Within

Achieving things is HARD! There’s no way around it.

So my question to you is this:

Why MUST you push through when things get difficult?

Why is it that you’re doing the things you’re doing?

If you cannot answer that question, you’re doomed to fail! You will make progress until you hit a snag in the plan, and probably quit. Unless you have a strong reason why, you’ll get defeated by the how!

Here’s the important part:

This needs to be a deeply rooted, emotional reason why.

Something shallow or something where your heart isn’t in it won’t be enough!

Don’t have a reason like that yet? We’ll fix that in the action steps below!

Step 5: Combining Past, Present & Future

Here’s a fantastic way to lose motivation:

Only focus on a faraway goal (without measuring progress towards it).

Here’s the thing:

Our minds are designed to give way more value to the present moment. Therefore, things that are far out into the future get discounted. So when you think about a goal you won’t achieve for months (or years), that isn't very encouraging.

Instead, use positive reinforcement on multiple levels.

Here’s how I do this:

• Past: As cliche as it sounds, compare yourself to where you used to be. Don’t just look towards your goals, look back at the progress you’ve already made and reinforce you’re on the right path.

• Present: This is where you want to link your actions with the goal you’ll get in the future. Celebrate your wins as they happen and reinforce the right actions as the way you’ll achieve your goals.

• Future: This is a combination of your goal + your why. Keep this as your guiding light, but also create intermediate goals and milestones to make things more manageable and see results faster.

To put it simply, this way you’re acknowledging progress on multiple levels.

Step 6: Orient Your Environment for Success

Changing your environment is the quickest way to change your behavior! It’s the key to better habits and achieving goals. In this video, I share how you can change your environment for the better.

But there’s another way to use your environment to your benefit.

I call this The Inspiration Stack.

Here’s an example from behind the scenes:

Normally, I don’t really care about home decorations or aesthetics. Like, zero fucks given about that kind of stuff. The only decorative things I’ve bought in recent years are the posters you see behind me.

Why?

Because this is where I do my work.

And when I look at them, it inspires me to push through.

What is your inspiration stack?

This could be things like motivational posters in your office, or the background on your phone or computer. They could be post-it notes. They could be mantras you say to yourself (“What would XX do?” is an example). They could be alarms with a certain message, an email you send to yourself.

And most importantly: The people you have around you.

We’ve talked about finding your why. But this is infinitely more powerful when it’s about more than yourself. If you can include your loved ones in it, that’s going to help you push through when you wouldn’t do it for yourself alone!

Then there are people that encourage you to dream bigger and take action.

People that transform you into a better version of yourself, just by being near them.

When you find these kinds of people, don’t let them go easily! They’re RARE as fuck!

And as a final note on this topic, this includes content as well. You could listen to podcasts or videos that motivate you as part of this inspiration stack. You could read newsletter that teach new stuff (you might do so already, wink wink).

And of course, you could subscribe to my YouTube channel as well.

Step 7: Dealing With Setbacks and Failure

Yet again, let me give you a video game analogy:

Imagine you bought a new game and started playing it. Except, it turns out that it was already beaten for you. You enter the first boss room and it lays slain on the ground. You have a key that opens any lock and puzzles were already solved upon entry.

Would you enjoy playing that game?

HELL NO!

Here’s the thing:

When you’re playing a game, you want to be challenged!

When things get difficult, that’s when you buckle up and really focus. It’s the game’s challenges that bring excitement and make it fun. You expect failure and setbacks along the way. That’s how the game works after all.

However…

When it comes to real life, what do people do?

As soon as they encounter problems, they become discouraged.

They give up…

Successful people on the other hand have realized that problems are inevitable. And so they don’t see them as problems, but rather as challenges. To them, the issue is little more than a boss to be slain or a puzzle to be solved.

Reframe your own “problems” like that as well!

When you can do that, you’ve found a new lease on life!

Imagine what it would be like when setbacks don’t discourage you that much. When, instead of giving up, they inspire you to take even more action! Imagine if you thought it was FUN to solve these problems.

That’s when you know you’ve turned personal growth into an addiction!

And once you’ve started taking these 7 steps, that’s exactly what you’re working towards!

The Cure to a Meaningless Life

There’s an epidemic among young people (like 35 & under). And no, it’s not some kind of virus or disease. It’s not even stupidity, although common sense is seemingly becoming less common by the day.

No, this is an epidemic of feeling like life is meaningless. If you’re feeling a similar lack of purpose, passion and meaning in your life, listen to this audio:

Treating People Like Dogs for Fun & Success?

This one might seem like it’s a bit out there…

But trust me when I say it’s not nearly as devilish as it sounds.

In fact, this is the most powerful psychological hack to improve all of your relationships (including with yourself). It will also help you get more done when working with other people and make people like you.

Don’t believe me? Go and watch it for yourself:

Finding Your Deeply Rooted Reason WHY

In step 4, we talked about finding the reason why you MUST (not want to) succeed at whatever goal you have. But how do you actually find that? That’s what we’re going to do right here right now!

Grab a pen, and let’s get started!

1. The first step is to write down your current goal at the top of the piece of paper. If you don’t have one yet, that’s priority #1 of course.
   

2. Assuming you have a goal in mind, ask yourself: “Why is achieving this goal important to me?” And write down the answer to it.
   

3. Notice that it’s most likely a superficial answer. Meaning, it’s probably about getting money, status, love or freedom. It’s a good start, but we’re not there yet.
   

4. Take the answer you just wrote and ask yourself: “Why is [answer] important to me?”. Once again, write down the answer to this question. It will probably be a bit more specific and personal to you.
   

5. Repeat this process 2-6 more times until you get to something that is deeply personal and meaningful to you. The exact amount of times will differ from one person to another, but…
   

6. You will know when you got it. That’s because you’re likely to get emotional during the process. You might even cry during it. If you’re unsure if you’ve got something that’s emotionally powerful enough, try one more layer.
   

7. Congratulations! You got your motivational superpower!
   

8. Go to Step 6 of the main content above. The part about creating your Inspiration Stack. Go and implement this in as many ways as you can think of. You want to keep your WHY top of mind and use it to pull you through when it gets tough!

This process is called the Trail of Whys and it’s how to turn goals into true desires.