The Code. The Evaluation. The Protocols: Striving to Become an Eminently Qualified Human

by Jocko Willink

The Path is how you become what you want to be, who you want to be, and what the world needs you to be. It is how you reach your potential. It is The Path of Discipline that leads to Freedom.

What do you care about? Who do you want to be? What matters most to you? What are the most important things in your life? Who are the most important people in your life and what do they need from you? Answer those questions, then write down what you need to do to achieve them. Those things that you need to do, that you are supposed to do, that you know you must do.

Laziness, ego, weakness, and immediate gratification will all try to pull you off The Path every day.

You have to make the right choices. The hard choices. You have to deny immediate gratification and pushback against weakness. You must impose Unmitigated Daily Discipline in all things.

We must aim to implement UNMITIGATED DAILY DISCIPLINE IN ALL THINGS. IT IS THE ONLY WAY.

You can’t reach your potential if you aren’t healthy.

There is no more valuable resource in life than time and it is limited in quantity. No one knows how much time they have, so you have to maximize all of it. ALL OF IT. And yet people waste their most precious resource every day.

Avoid spending time on anything that isn’t productive. If you are disciplined with your time you will have more free time, and you will be able to do the things you want to do when you want to do them.

Like time, money is a precious resource. So avoid wasting money on anything that isn’t productive. Track what you spent money on, what you saved, and what you invested. If you are disciplined with your money, you will have more of it to spend on the things you want, when you need them.

Your professional success is key to your personal success.

Our character impacts those around us and the world we live in and we are in complete control of it.

Children struggle controlling their emotions. Eminently Qualified Humans do not.

Have a plan and ensure everyone in your home executes that plan under stress. Rehearse that plan and assess how prepared your family is. Have all the required equipment and supplies. Everyone in your family should know CPR and basic life-saving steps.

Being eminently qualified isn’t a status we achieve, or a conclusion we reach. Being eminently qualified is being on The Path that does not end.

The Eminently Qualified Human knows: There is no end.

The answer is simple: We are trying to get better, every day.

This requires ACTION. We have to turn our words into action. We have to turn our ideas into action. We have to turn our skills into action. We have to turn our goals into action.

Here is The Evaluation:

As you move down The Path toward an Eminently Qualified Human, your capacity will increase. As a result, improving actually becomes more difficult over time. You have to work harder and do more to make the same amount — or even less — of an improvement.

When you fall off The Path, ask yourself why. Why are you not doing the things you know you should? Do an unsparing self-assessment, identify corrective measures, and ruthlessly implement those measures.

Do not dwell on what it was, because it wasn’t. Do not dwell on what it could have been, because it couldn’t. It was a lie.

Move forward in that relationship with a clean slate. Don’t bring baggage.

PRIORITIZE AND EXECUTE.

Let those challenges raise you up – elevate you. The trials and demands will make you stronger.

It’s a teachable moment for them to see that apologizing and seeking forgiveness is a sign of strength not a sign of weakness.

Control yourself in the future. Your goal should always be to retain control of your words and actions so that you preserve your relationships. But if you lost that control remember that The Path forward to restoring your relationship begins with you.

The fight is not over – in fact it has just begun. Cancer diagnosis? Accident with serious injuries? It’s time to put aside anything that is not aimed directly towards your full effort on beating the diagnosis or learning to adapt to your new circumstances. Understand this might take time, possibly years to heal or adapt.

Get organized. There will be paperwork, appointments, prescriptions, bills, and countless other details that need to be tracked. TRACK THEM. Make a system. Use it.

Write down everything bad that comes from this. Calculate the cost financially, emotionally, mentally, physically, and the impact on your relationships because of your addiction. 4. Then write down everything good that comes from it. 5. Now write down the long-term outcome of maintaining this addiction. What effects will this have on your life in the end and how do you see the people in the world being affected by this?

Separate yourself from your addiction. Avoid people who enable your addiction and don’t want to see you defeat it. Surround yourself with people who want to see you win. 9. When the urge to feed your addiction strikes, discipline yourself with exercise, reading, writing, or anything else that prevents you from falling off The Path again.

And when you feel like those people don’t understand, you’re right, they don’t. 8. It’s ok, because you understand. Don’t avoid the darkness, don’t ignore it.

Push forward then pause and reassess again. Repeat and press forward to the point of friction. Press until you reach the point where you see a new opportunity or a need to pull back and reassess again. 6. Allow yourself room to maneuver. When it gets hard — don’t surrender, don’t give up, don’t quit. Then you haven’t failed. All it means is you need to regroup and reattack. You’ve learned, you’ve gained experience, and YOU ARE STILL ALIVE.