A 3-point plan

If it is to be, it is up to me

HOW long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself?” — Epictetus

To live a bigger, better, bolder life, you must expect and demand more from yourself!

There is a proven three-point plan that you can use to transform and upgrade your life.

I believe that the best things in life are free, and that the best strategies in life are simple - to understand, apply, teach and share with others.

The following three strategies are simple and extremely powerful, but they require consistent and skillful application for you to upgrade your life and unleash your greatness.

Any time you sincerely want to change and improve your life, the first thing you must do is to upgrade your standards.

Upgrading your standards means raising your expectations and demanding more from yourself and from those around you.

That means purging high maintenance people and situations from your life, having zero tolerance for mediocrity as well as any behavior that robs you of potential and increased performance.

If you think that’s too harsh, your standards are not raised, if you do not push, challenge and demand more from yourself, you’ll continue to under-perform, be under-appreciated and suffer the consequences of low and compromised standards.

You begin the process of upgrading your standards by creating three lists:

1. List all the things (behaviors, habits and beliefs) you will no longer accept from yourself;

2. List all the things you will no longer tolerate from others; and

3. List all the things that you aspire to become.

Emerson said, “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”

If you have the courage to expect and demand more from yourself and if you have the commitment to honor these higher, nobler standard, you will upgrade your life, and create the change you desire.

If you upgrade your standards, but don’t really believe you can meet them then, you have already sabotaged yourself.

This is one of the biggest challenges people face when initiating change and trying to upgrade their lives.

Why?

Because you won’t even try.

You’ll be lacking that sense of certainty that allows you to tap the deepest capacity that’s within you.

Our beliefs are like unquestioned commands, telling us how things are, what’s possible and what’s impossible, what we can and cannot do.

They shape every action, every thought, and every feeling that we experience.

As a result, upgrading our beliefs is central to making any real and lasting change in our lives.

You must develop a sense of certainty that you can and will meet the new, better, upgraded standards before you actually do.

Without demanding more and upgrading your belief systems, you can upgrade your standards as much as you like but you’ll never have the conviction to back them up.

To honor your commitments, keep your promises and achieve your goals, you need the best strategies for achieving those results.

If you upgrade your standards, as well as upgrading your beliefs, then you certainly can figure out the strategies to achieve any outcome you desire.

The best strategy for upgrading your life and fast tracking your results is to model successful behavior. Just imagine if you could act such as Meryl Streep, compose music like Mozart, and sing such as Frank Sinatra.

Just imagine you started thinking, writing, speaking, behaving and even executing like one of these preeminent performers. How would that change your life? How would that transform your choices, decisions and actions?

Would you learn to do things better, faster and easier?

Would your confidence level shoot to the moon?

The good news is that there is no need to imagine these things.

Because this is very possible once you upgrade your strategy and start using psychological modeling.

Psychological modeling is a form of copying, mirroring or imitating the behavior of another person.

This can be done to great advantage on a conscious level of awareness, however we tend to do this at an unconscious level.

The most efficient way to master any skill, strategy or goal in life is to model those who have already forged the path ahead.

What that means is that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel when you can leverage what others have done to reinvent the results.

If you can find someone who is getting the results you want, then you can model their behavior, take the same actions they are taking, and ultimately get the same results.

Not only will this make you more effective, it will also save you a huge amount of time because you won’t have to reinvent the wheel.

You can fine-tune it, reshape it, and perhaps even make it better.

The best possible modeling scenario, however, has everything to do with environment and proximity.

If you want to upgrade your life and turn your dreams and goals into a reality faster, you must get yourself in proximity with the people who are demanding more of themselves and playing the game at a higher level than you are.

Proximity is power and whether it’s your business, health, finances, or relationships.

Surrounding and modeling yourself with people who are already successful in that area allows you to model what is proven to work, helping you compress and consume knowledge, skills, shortcuts and strategies quickly.

There is a program designed to provide you with the information and impetus to commit to all three of these master principles for upgrading your life.

Upgrade your standards by raising your expectations, and demanding more from yourself and from those around you.

Upgrade your beliefs by questioning and replacing anything that slows you down and which impedes progress.

Upgrade your strategy by modeling successful behavior.

You’ll learn the best execution strategies for elegantly, quickly, and efficiently producing the life changing results you desire. After all, isn’t that what you really want?

ARVIND MANI is a former teacher who is passionate about quality education. He lived in the US for 35 years and was actively involved in training youths to improve their speaking skills. The views expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of this newspaper. He can be reached at theinspiredteacher9@gmail.com