Mean It!
(128 Things…)
Mean It is a state of mind. It’s about focus. I have a sticky note on my mirror that says it all; “Your focus becomes your Reality!” If you take only one phrase from this entire volume, let it be that.
Each one of us is bombarded with information. Our wants, needs and desires are endless. Modern media has made a science of putting as many possibilities in front of us as possible in the hope that some of them will resonate. With so many possibilities, options and objects in front of us, is it any wonder our minds become confused?
At any given moment, each of us has hundreds of ends we are trying to achieve. Hundreds of desires we’re trying to fulfill. Needs we’re trying to satisfy. Those that get our attention have a chance of becoming reality. Those that get our focus have the greatest chance of becoming real.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of human minds are incapable of sifting through the mass of confused inputs and achieving completely ordered focus. A few extraordinary individuals have been able to unclutter their minds long enough to apply their full energy to one goal and achieve it, but what about the rest of us?
What about those of us who’s entire lives we don’t want to be consumed by a single objective? What about those for whom Mt. Everest is just a mountain? Who don’t have a daring business idea? Who aren’t inspired to lead a national revolution? Who aren’t inspired to write a great thesis? Who’s thirst for understanding can’t lead them to new ad breathtaking discoveries? Those whose artistic abilities are strictly terrestrial?
If we cannot be consumed by a single, obvious, all consuming passion, then how are we to find our way through this awesome sea of possibilities? On which quests do we labor and which jewels do we reach for first?
Those of us o mortal talent have many passions. We strive at the same time for many things. Our wish book overflows with desires, most small but each important to us. Our children’s happiness, to be valued in our careers, to express ourselves in various ways, to love and be loved in return, to satisfy curiosities and decorate our worlds with things that give us joy. The things we desire, though perhaps no one thing overpowers the rest, are no less beautiful, worthy, noble or important than the things which our childhood heroes achieved to great fanfare. Yet each of these things requires focus to become reality.
The human mind is not capable of sifting through so many options. It is not possible for the majority of us to achieve the focus and clarity of those for whom one objective eclipses all others. And so we toil every day a little bit on each. Our consistency depends on the accidents of memory and circumstance and things go undone. The list of hopes, dreams, and desires fulfilled, though still impressive for many, is always outweighed by an even larger list of hopes and dreams unfulfilled due to lack of attention and consistent effort.
In the summer of 1998 I tinkered with a system I hoped would offset some of the limitations of my own mediocre mind and help me see a greater proportion of my hopes and dreams become real. My little experiment succeeded beyond my wildest imagination. So much so that I was approached by a few acquaintances to show them how the system worked.
It’s been 10 years. I believe in what I’ve created and I want more than anything to share what I have learned along the way . this book is my attempt to do just that. The fundamentals are so simple, most will discard them and walk away. I frankly share the basics with at least a few dozen people every year and nobody gives it a second thought. Those who do discover that the simplicity of the system obscures a labyrinth of deeper principles and lessons that take hours to explain and would take a lifetime to master. I will do my best to document those here. At the very least, my children and grandchildren may benefit from what I learned almost by accident years ago and will be the better for it.
The first step of the Mean It system is very simple. It is in fact so simple in fact that most people have trouble grasping it. Step #1 has a single rule; “Create a list of 128 things you want in life.” I call the system you are about to begin “guided contemplation.” It is a form of free writing. The list of 128 should be compiled in a quiet place free from distractions. The rest of this chapter is devoted to clarifying what should be a very simple rule and explaining to you how and why it works.
Why 128? The simple answer is that “the mind is like a rubber band; it only works if you stretch it.”
The heart houses dreams and desires vast beyond conscious comprehension but requires time and effort to recall them. The conscious mind on the other hand, can access limited amounts of information very quickly. In order to do this, the conscious mind aggregates and summarizes information for quick processing. It does this by creating rules, erecting prejudices, and keeping the total number of remembered items relatively low. Most people can only consciously remember a few dozen things at any one time. If you ask someone to list the most important things in their lives, most will not be able to come up with more than 50.
The conscious mind’s list will be influenced by forces beyond us; people in our lives, our parents, our friends, our church, the news, movies we have watched, things we learned in college, etc. It will be filtered by our preconceptions, prejudices, and rules we create to make our lives easier and more bearable to live. We are not interested in the conscious mind’s prejudicial, pre-processes, aggregated and summarized list of goals, dreams, desires, and priorities; we are interested in the heart’s list. To reach the heart, we must stretch.
The conscious mind will try very hard to interfere with the list-making process. It is not comfortable being out of control. It’s rules engine is automatic and very powerful. The mind is very chatty. In order to silence it, we must treat it like a dog on a stake.
The mind is chatty and will only get in the way. To get to the heart we must silence the mind. The mind tries to impose rules, limitations, logic etc. on the process. Thus, there are no rules to this phase. The irony is that because there are no rules, this phase requires the most coaching, guidance, and explanation. This is beause the mind has trouble operating in a no rules environment, so it tries to impose it’s own rules.
The conscious mind will try to interfere with this process. Consciously there’s only so much we can process at any one time. The system forces an introspective search of the mind and then the heart.
The objective of the list is not to do a brain dump from conscious memory of these pre-processed items. The plan is to go deeper and pol the heart for it’s more comprehensive archive of dreams.
Goals are objects of the mind. Dreams are objects of the heart. We’re interested in what the heart says because we hear from the head all the time.
The number 100 is twice the number most people can come up with off the top of their head, which ensures we’re delving into the hearts archive. The extra 28 is round power of 2. And focus you to dig a little deeper.
1-2-4-8-16-32-64-128-256-512-1024-2048-4096-8192
The mind is chatty and will only get in the way. To get to the heart we must silence the mind. The mind tries to impose rules, limitations, logic etc. on the process. Thus, there are no rules to this phase. The irony is that because there are no rules, this phase requires the most coaching, guidance, and explanation. This is beause the mind has trouble operating in a no rules environment, so it tries to impose it’s own rules.
Non rule #1: items can be from any category of your life. Emotional, spiritual, vocational, educational, financial, material, etc. List anything and everything that comes to mind.
Non-rule #2: there are no rules, only non-rules.
Non rule #3: do not judge the items on this list. This is the conscious mind trying to interfere. It’s like the dog chained to a steak. Eventually the dog will stop struggling and will sit down by the steak. Do not under any circumstances indulge the mind’s desire to censor the list.
Non-rule #4: no item is too small. Anything the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve. Small items build belief. As you accomplish the small, you begin to believe in the possibilities of the greater. This makes the greater possible. Thus the small items are just as important as the big.
Non-rule #5: no item is too big. Trust me. Anything is possible.
Rule #1: only list items you can achieve in this life. I had to add this one because super religious people kept perverting the list with stuff like “get into heaven.” The items on the list must be rooted in conscious reality.
Non-rule #6: when in doubt, write it down.
The boob example is a good one. Start with superficial stuff and you’ll find it important.
You don’t have to stop at 128, but you must have at least 128 things.
Expand the list.
1. Don’t judge
2. Stretch
3. Anything goes
4. Stream of consciousness
5. Build out steps
6. Why lists work
7. Why you need to write everything down
8. Guided contemplation
1. Power protect
2. Be honest
3. Listen to your heart, not your head
4. Compound contemplation
1. Should shock
2. Shocks mind, not heart
3. If doesn’t shock
a. Judged tour
b. Not honest on list
1. Points
2. Completion
3. 12,800 total and percentages
4. Tracking
5. Journal