“I’ll do what I previously won’t so I’ll have what my old self wont.”

I believe that everything we have, both good and bad can be used for good.

In a previous gig I had to talk to several people and interview them to check if they have goals and to find out if the company I worked for could assist them.

After interviewing about 3,000 people I found out that more than half of them had goals and interestingly enough, some were willing to work to achieve their goals and many were not willing to work for their goals.

Most of them agreed that they have something like a bad habit or a self-defeating mindset that’s pulling them down or holding them back, preventing them from reaching their goals.

Let’s admit it.

We’re not perfect.

All of us are.

We’re not some bozo pretending to be zen-like or enlightened saying we have no problems.

Everyone has issues.

The good news is, all problems have solutions.

Whether we admit it or not there are wrong beliefs and right beliefs.

I’ll respect yours and I wont debate you.

When I say “right beliefs,” I’m referring to beliefs that brings you closer to the life that you want.

When I say “wring beliefs,” I’m referring to beliefs that bring you further away from the life that you want.

So in this context, right and wrong are simply direction.

I’ll just share a wrong belief I had that I changed recently.

When we talk about bad habits, we’re looking for things we absolutely love and would not quit.

Let’s be honest.

We can quit the “bad habit” but we won’t because of some emotional attachment to it.

We’re too attached to it we will never discuss it in public or we’ll stand by it and fight tooth and nail to keep it. 

Our bad habits are our perceived limitations and we sometimes refer to them as impossible.

When we talk about dreams, we refer to goals that we see as too far to reach or impossible.

In the end, we view our bad habits as weaknesses that chains us to out current situations.

The definitions are so dramatic I just want to cry sometimes when I think about it.

If you think about it, everyone has dreams and everyone has bad habits.

When we describe both dreams and bad habits, both will often contain the word impossible.

For a lot of us both are impossible.

Dreams are impossible to reach.

Bad habits are impossible to quit.

Which make it beautiful.

How can this be?

How can this be the solution?

You can compromise to your advantage or you can compromise to your disadvantage.

I don’t mean giving up your dream to retain your bad habit.

That’s what you’ve been doing for a long time.

I suggest using your bad habit as a payment to achieve your dreams.

Compromise does not mean having both.

Compromise means you trade or swap one for the other.

Some say rich and successful people chose “both/and” instead of “either/or” and it all has something to do with our capacity, but I disagree here.

My solution involves not going for achieving “both” because we are going to use one “impossible” to pay for the other.

I don’t want my crap and my food sitting in the same place.

Here are some examples:

  • Swap “wanting more” to “use what you have.”
  • Swap “waiting for the right time” to “do what you can.”

Finances:

  • Trade your bad habit of spending on useless stuff to pay for your goals.
  • Swap spending on low priced items for expensive items that you really want and need and will use.
  • Swap servicing bad and needy clients for fun and paying clients.
  • Swap accumulating debt for accumulating cash.</strong></li>

Work/Business:

  • Swap shopping for useless things and focus on selling products and servicing clients.
  • Swap spending on toys and start investing in people.
  • Swap unproductive activities for productive activities.

Health:

  • Swap junk-food for a superhuman fit body.
  • Swap your rice and sweets addiction for food that will help build a great shaped body.
  • Swap eating cholesterol rich foods like pork and oil for a superhuman heart. Note: Eating cholesterol is fin in moderation.
  • Swap smoking for inhuman endurance and stamina.
  • Swap your fat for achieving peak-human abilities.

Relationships:

  • For people important to you: Swap facebook/twitter for real life interactions.
  • For people who are not important to you: Swap face to face interactions for Email, facebook or twitter.
  • Swap the one night stands for true love.
  • Swap the get laid quick strategies for finding your partner for life.

Family:

  • Swap socializing time with unimportant people for time with your family.
  • Swap excess work time/friend time for family time.

Spiritual:

  • Swap tv time for time for God.
  • Swap your religion for a relationship with God.
  • Swap selfish habits for godly habits.
  • Swap converting others through words and debates to living a life worthy of the Gospel you preach.

Goals:

  • Swap the pay increase for location and time independence.
  • Swap the car and the house for travel around the world with cash to spare.
  • Swap the predictable secure career for the ability to make your own money.
  • Swap the stressful life for cash and time. Note: What I meant here was to avoid stressful activities because it eats up both cash and time. For example: If I’m stressed because I spent too much time at work, I almost always as a “bullshit coping mechanism” overspend on things I don’t care about, just to “feel I’m making progress with my career and life goals.” 
  • Swap the game addiction for more time.
  • Swap being busy for time for what matters.
  • Swap consumerism and materialism for minimalism and essentialism.
  • Swap stuff for people.
  • Swap feeding your ego or being right for keeping people who matter.
  • Swap serving your mortal boss for serving God.
  • Swap being an asshole for being nice.

Most people would rather have both.

I prefer to choose and keep one from the options.

Make your own list of things to swap.

If you have a lot of bad habits, thats great news because you have more things to swap for your dreams.

What can I say?

I have a bad habit of creating bad habits that will bring me closer to my goals.

Updated: Saturday, August 25, 2018 and note from Kevin of the present day:

I’ve rambled on in the description.

In an attempt to clumsily say what I want to say, I ended up doing so poorly.

Or maybe I just said it in a way that only I will understand.

As far as the examples go, it’s still on point. I just had the fix the lack of proper formatting.

I also had to fix the occasional, unspecific words like it, them and ones.

The intentions on the list are still things that I want to do and still believe are the right thing for me.

I’ve only learned to apply this really important intention:

“Swap servicing bad and needy clients for fun and paying clients.”

I really wish I had this list with me and kept reading this list at difficult decision points in my life because it would have been really useful as a reminder of decisions that I made when I’m lucid or sober.

This had been really relevant:

“For people important to you: Swap facebook/twitter for real life interactions.”

One problem I personally have with social media is not my interactions there, it’s endlessly scrolling the feed and reacting to notifications like a junkie. I don’t interact with people that I want in my life as much here. I greet people I don’t get to visit, every now and then but it’s not the “majority” of how I spend time on social media. I’m just scrolling through the feed, hunting for memes and browsing things to buy.

I’m really happy that eight years later, I’ve successfully achieved this:

“Swap the pay increase for location and time independence.”

The time and location independence is worth far more than having the money. I’m not sure this applies to everyone but my experience is, it became more effortless for me to increase my income after I’ve achieved my time and location independence.

If I’m writing the about page, knowing what I know now.

Minimal Changes is originally a horribly written blog with lots of good intentions and lessons that Kevin wants to apply to his life. Some will be extremely useful and some will fall off the cracks.

On this blog, Kevin will attempt to express his intentions clumsily and will slowly improve his writing skills over time.

I’ll see you guys on the next post.


Thank you for reading.

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