How to Think Bigger: Aim Higher, Get More Motivated, and Accomplish Big Things

by Martin Meadows

there’s nothing wrong with not dreaming big. The key to a happy life is fulfillment.

there’s no clear correlation between your background and what you’re going to achieve in life.

One simple change – replacing news and mass media with books – can produce dramatic changes in your life.

observing people you view as similar to you improves your self-efficacy

you’ll get more fired up by watching people similar to you succeed than by watching people who are much more skilled than you

If your body doesn’t work on the highest level, how are you supposed to work on the big goals?

Negative stimuli are more powerful at discouraging you than words of encouragement are at motivating you.

You can’t focus on achieving your full potential if you lack the more basic needs in your life such as a sense of belongingness and esteem. If you suffer from shyness, social anxiety, or depression, your plan of action should start with fixing these issues.

Without a powerful “why,” big achievements are close to impossible. We all need strong internal motivation to act on our goals.

intrinsic motives (passion, challenge, etc.) are three times more powerful than extrinsic motives

When you put too much focus on the money itself, you’ll get less enjoyment from your job, which will negatively affect your well-being.

Intrinsic motivation is about enjoyment, fulfillment, or challenge – anything that comes from within you rather than the influences outside of you.

If you’ve been trying to motivate yourself to work on a certain goal, write down your vision. If you’ve written it properly (meaning: it fires you up so much you’re restless), you should no longer struggle with procrastination.

don’t let the false sense of achievement coming from envisioning your goal make you lazy.

There’s no substitute for the certainty that you can achieve your goal.

anchoring – associating an internal feeling with an external trigger.

every single day, develop more certainty in your abilities to succeed. Put yourself in a prime state by visualizing and anchoring.

Your life is the sum of your rituals. Successful people have completely different rituals than complacent individuals. Change your rituals to change your life.

Next to reproduction, the second most important objective of the chimp is self-survival.

whenever thoughts such as “But I feel” or “I don’t feel like” pop up in your mind, it’s usually your chimp

Replace Emotional Thinking with Routines

Below the layer of automated behaviors lies your personal philosophy – your most important values and truths that are unbendable. These core rules will guide your life and either help you achieve your goals or hinder your growth.

Nothing is impossible for a man who refuses to listen to reason.

Abundance is all around me. Scarcity is the mindset of the poor.

when you’re playing to win. This attitude improves your performance.

when you’re playing not to lose – it leads to decreased performance.

the key to successfully using competitiveness to achieve more is to focus on winning, and not just trying not to be left behind.

“If you’re competitor-focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering.

the most successful entrepreneurs are those who find people who are at least as good as, or better than, they are at running their businesses27.”

the Köhler effect, we try harder when we’re a part of the group and don’t want to be the weakest link.

we learn from people we observe directly, from instructions given by these people, and by means of media.

Jim Rohn, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with”

Jeff Bezos once said, “We’ve had three big ideas at Amazon that we’ve stuck with for 18 years, and they’re the reason we’re successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient.

“Make a great mental leap: dissociate effort from reward. Focus on the outcomes that you want and find the easiest way to them with least effort, least sacrifice, and most pleasure. Concentrate on what produces extraordinary results without extraordinary effort. Be efficient but relaxed. First, think results. Then get them with least energy.

“Slow down and remember this: Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of mental laziness-lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.”

The more you simplify the goal you want to achieve, the easier and faster you’ll achieve it.

resist the temptation to do more.

picking just a couple of marketing techniques to focus on.

“To discern what is truly essential we need space to think, time to look and listen, permission to play, wisdom to sleep, and the discipline to apply highly selective criteria to the choices we make.

The whole purpose of setting big goals is to grow as a person.

In order to grow, you need to get results.

Never mistake motion f...

three important conditions for the state of flow to occur41: 1. The activity you perform must have a clear goal. Without knowing the direction you’re going, you won’t achieve flow. 2. You must receive clear and immediate feedback. If you can’t judge your performance, you won’t be able to maintain the state of flow. 3. You must be confident in your abilities to complete the task you’re performing. The perceived difficulty of the task can’t be much high than your perceived skills.

Striving to achieve the biggest goals possible – usually by following the approach of “fail fast or fail forward” – will help you increase your focus and achieve results more quickly.

adds one more condition to achieve flow: freedom from distractions43.

“Nothing is impossible for a man who refuses to listen to reason”

the most effective way to develop your self-efficacy is through achieving small wins and persisting in face of obstacles44.

watch others achieve success and model your behavior after them.

self-efficacy is task-related

The more success you achieve in one thing, the easier it will be to achieve it in other areas.