Limitless: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, and Unlock Your Exceptional Life

by Jim Kwik

digital deluge—the unending flood of information in a world of finite time and unfair expectations that leads to overwhelm, anxiety, and sleeplessness.

digital distraction. The fleeting ping of digital dopamine pleasure replaces our ability to sustain the attention necessary for deep relationship, deep learning, or deep work.

digital dementia. Memory is a muscle that we have allowed to atrophy. While there are benefits to having a supercomputer in your pocket, think of it like an electric bicycle. It’s fun and easy but doesn’t get you in shape. Research on dementia proves that the greater our capacity to learn—the more mental “brainercise” we perform—the lower our risk of dementia. In many cases, we have outsourced our memory to our detriment.

digital deduction. In a world where information is abundantly accessible, we’ve perhaps gone too far in how we use that information, even getting to the point where we are letting technology do much of our critical thinking and reasoning for us.

I realized that my favorite ones all shared the same pattern—the Hero’s Journey. Joseph Campbell’s classic plot structure appears in nearly all famed adventures, including The Wizard of Oz; Star Wars; Harry Potter; Eat, Pray, Love; The Hunger Games; Rocky; The Lord of the Rings; Alice in Wonderland; The Matrix, and more.

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The Magic of Thinking Big, The Power of Positive Thinking, and Think and Grow Rich.

He held up a finger, saying, “Don’t let school interfere with your education.” I later learned he was paraphrasing a quote often attributed to Mark Twain.

The quote next to his image said, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

obsessed to solve this riddle: How does my brain work, so I can work my brain?

It was in that moment that I realized that if knowledge is power, then learning is our superpower.

Pencils of Promise.

What’s one of your dreams? One that is ever present, like a splinter in your brain? Imagine it in vivid detail. Visualize it. Feel it. Believe it. And work daily for it.

your motivation, and your methods to create a limitless life. When you do what others won’t, you can live how others can’t.

Remember, one step in a better direction can completely change your destination.

The Limitless Model

A limit in your Mindset—you entertain a low belief in yourself, your capabilities, what you deserve, or what is possible. A limit in your Motivation—you lack the drive, purpose, or energy to take action. A limit in your Methods—you were taught and are acting on a process that is not effective to create the results you desire.

Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change,

When you learn from your mistakes, they have the power to turn you into something better than you were before. Also, remember that you are not your mistakes. Making a mistake doesn’t mean anything about you as a person.

New belief: There is no such thing as failure. Only failure to learn.

It’s better well done than well said. Don’t promise, prove. Your results will speak for themselves. New belief: Knowledge × Action = Power

After all, it’s not how smart you are, but how you are smart.

Don’t take criticism from someone you wouldn’t take advice from.

Here’s the formula: Motivation = Purpose × Energy × S3

They say the two most powerful words in the English language are the shortest: “I am.” Whatever you put after those two words determines your destiny.

When you have something you know you need to do and you keep putting it off, it weighs on you, even making it more difficult to do anything else well as long as this task goes uncompleted.

Various studies have shown that somewhere between 40 and 50 percent of what we do every day is the product of a habit.

Good point.

Creating habits to automate essential parts of our lives is a fundamental streamlining technique

Before we get to this, let’s talk for a moment about how long it takes to form a habit. In

University of Oregon,

Pleasure/pain: This is the most immediate motivator.

Motivation

Trips to the library became a regular thing.