In my first book, I provided you with a simple formula to help you remember nine key practices that improve performance by increasing mental toughness and happiness:
NESTS + Habits + NOISE + Thriving Habit + Five Ss + SONS + GOAT + GP-CA - POT
The Five Ss:
This second book focuses on the most difficult and time-consuming key concept, the Five Ss (Sort, Set, Supervise, Steady, and Savor), which requires you to:
* Sort the prioritization of your values and remain faithful to them,
* Set goals based on these prioritized values,
* Supervise your levels of fear with effective habits,
* Steadily work towards achieving your goals, and
* Savor your successes by noting they have occurred and enjoying them.
Determine your cherished values:
Unless you consciously focus on your values, significant environmental changes are likely to catalyze changes in them. For instance, if you get married, have children, become unemployed, or addicted to drugs, then your values will probably change. If you never consciously think about or challenge the hierarchy of your values, then you run the risk of becoming little more than a reflection of your society and its institutions. Hence, you'll be socialized to have values that are useful for others, but not necessarily for yourself. You don't, however, have to wait for a significant environmental change to stimulate you to reprioritize your values. This book will help you decide what you really want. You will be taught how to conduct a thorough and at times quite intense examination of your values and presented some difficult questions. For instance, you will examine values such as responsible, tolerance, a greedy life, a secret life, and equality and case studies such as the federal bailout of American International Group, the covert illegal CIA human research program Project MKULTRA, the Guantanamo Bay detention center, and Comedian Michael Richards use of the word "nigger." Then you will be guided through exercises to prioritize your terminal and instrumental values, define them, and decide why they are important to you.
Set effective goals:
Next, you will set harmoniously aligned goals; which are positive, specific, observable, and measurable; have a specific completion date; are moderately difficult; involve a mixture of outcome, performance, and process goals; are written; are placed where they can easily be seen; but most importantly based on your prioritized values. As a result, your focus will be improved, your actions will seem relatively effortless, your persistence will be enhanced, and the frequency with which you perform phenomenally will increase.
Make good decisions:
Finally, you examine making good choices about unique and important situations, which align with your values and goals. You learn how external actions conspiring against you (e.g., other individual's lying, lack of impartiality, and involvement in corruption) and your self-sabotaging behaviors (e.g., being swayed by initial instincts, acting in a familiar manner because of a past obligation) make it harder to base your decisions on factual information. Then you learn many effective techniques to improve the likelihood of making good choices (e.g., meet different people, use checklists, self-imposed wait periods, focus unwaveringly on long-term goals).
Increase your frequency of performing phenomenally
My approach requires energy, determination, time, and most importantly, introspection. Such a process is not easy, effortless, and quick because reprioritization of values, setting goals, and making good choices usually involves considerable introspection. But it is certainly possible and so are the resulting phenomenal performances.
