⚖️ Relationship Between Ego, Beliefs, and Perception

“We do not rise to our ambitions, but rather fall to our standards.”

— John Mark Stevenson

And what is similar to this:

“You do not rise to the level of your goals, but fall to the level of your systems.”

— ’Atomic Habits’, James Clear

It is not enough to set goals, or to want to change and even put in the efforts to make change. People get distracted and fail time after time because they put in the effort, see difficulty and immediately give up. But it was never just about the patience and the perseverance. Even spending years of consistent effort could lead to no meaningful progress because there was never a shift in standards. Everything falls down to how we define terms like ‘effort’, ‘hard’, and ‘enough’.

Reforming Identity

When we face difficulty, we fall only because we have not fully identified with the person who is able to overcome it. We secretly self-sabotage, and this we can see manifest in the smallest of things. If we want to identify as someone hard working and disciplined, but we do not fully believe it, we will see this present itself in many small, cumulative moments:when we leave a stray piece of clothing on the floor of our room; when we leave our work a few minutes earlier than planned; when we snooze the alarm and wake up 10 minutes later than planned; when we entertain a bad habit with a stray thought, and another thought later, and another, till we fall into the bad habit; when we believe ourselves to be tired even when we are not, and we entertain lovingly those thoughts permitting us to rest and escape; when we break small promises.

All those little things accumulate, and reflect the true mindset we possess. A person who truly believes to be hardworking and ambitious, will ensure that this belief is reinforced in every word, act and thought. Everything will serve towards reinforcing the belief.

But if one wants to reinforce this belief, but finds himself slacking off in the unimportant things in life, the best place to start is by being holistic. It is ingenuous to be hardworking in the aspects of life which we find important, but neglect the other less important things. Everything must be tackled with equal vigour, and monitored and studied continuously. Stop worrying about others, insofar as it helps you to see how you need to be improved and how you procrastinate from effort in some particular small thing.

Micro Changes Before Macro Changes

Most certainly will it be that, once we have taken control over every small thing - we have organised our room, knowing the particular purpose for each item and their position to maximise their utility; every dish that we dirty we clean immediately; every speck of dirt which we see in our car, our room, our house, we remove immediately; every hour and every minute is for a particular purpose to help us achieve our goals; every thought that does not benefit us or is unhelpful in any way we remove immediately without entertaining it - everything that we do indeed, surely if it is for the good, we will have tangible proof that we are what we believe ourselves to be, and our belief will motivate more action, and action to reinforce belief - everything for an upward spiral towards the good!

What is the utility then in striving to attain those looming goals of ours without self-belief? Failure without corrective beliefs will only spiral us downwards to infinite despair and everlasting failure. No matter how hard we try, all will be in vain until we decide that everything needs to change and not just a few things. If we do by some difficulty attain a specific goal, we will quickly descend back to what we were because we have not yet identified with the person who succeeded. It takes a different life, a different mind, to accept major changes like success in one’s goals, or a kind of monetary success.

Seeing Progress Rather Than Consistent Failure

Knowing in fullness that we are worthy of success, and seeing the means of success in the smallest actionables, failure becomes nothing but a little stumble, a little stutter. It then becomes folly to weep over constant failures, because we are constantly aligned with our success and are focusing on the improvements from our previous failure. We are attuned to our progress rather than our mistakes - and this is the true indicator for a change of heart towards authentic self-belief.

Let us all begin listening to all the promises which we give others, all the lies we let slip from our tongues, and all the false flattery. Let us listen to every single, atomic thought and monitor the ones which cause laziness, hopelessness, envy, anger, anxiety, melancholy, and selfishness. Filter away the unhelpful ones and only think clean thoughts. As Marcus Aurelius writes,

“Train yourself to think only those thoughts such that in answer to the sudden question ‘What is in your mind now?’ you could say with immediate frankness whatever it is, this or that: and so your answer can give direct evidence that all your thoughts are straightforward and kindly, the thoughts of a social being who has no regard for the fancies of pleasure or wider indulgence, for rivalry, malice, suspicion, or anything else that one would blush to admit was in one’s mind.”