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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Tony Robbins
Started reading
August 12, 2023
it’s not the events that matter most to us, but rather, it’s how we interpret those events that will determine how we think about ourselves and how we will act in the future.
But if we fail to direct our own associations to pain and pleasure, we’re living no better than animals or machines,
what you link pain and pleasure to will shape your destiny.
what drives our behavior is instinctive reaction to pain and pleasure, not intellectual calculation.
The truth is that we can learn to condition our minds, bodies, and emotions to link pain or pleasure to whatever we choose. By changing what we link pain and pleasure to, we will instantly change our behaviors.
any time we’re in an intense emotional state, when we’re feeling strong sensations of pain or pleasure, anything unique that occurs consistently will become neurologically linked.
If we want to take control of our lives, we must learn to “advertise” in our own minds—and we can do this in a moment. How? Simply by linking pain to the behaviors we want to stop at such a high level of emotional intensity that we won’t even consider those behaviors any longer.
Then, simply link pleasure to the new behavior you desire for yourself.
The first step is simply becoming aware of the power that pain and pleasure exert over every decision, and therefore every action, that we take.
It’s because they know changing will lead to the unknown, and most people believe that the unknown will be much more painful than what they’re already experiencing. It’s like the old proverbs say: “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know,”
In fact, most of the things that are valuable in our lives require us to go against the basic conditioning of our nervous systems.
First, write down four actions that you need to take that you’ve been putting off.
Second, under each of these actions, write down the answer to the following questions: Why haven’t I taken action? In the past, what pain have I linked to taking this action?
Third, write down all the pleasure you’ve had in the past by indulging in this negative pattern.
Fourth, write down what it will cost you if you don’t change now.
The final step is to write down all the pleasure you’ll receive by taking each of these actions right now.
“I’ll gain the feeling of really being in control of my life, of knowing that I’m in charge. I’ll gain a new level of self-confidence. I’ll gain physical vitality and health. I’ll be able to strengthen all my relationships. I’ll develop more willpower which I could use in every other area of my life. My life will be better in all these ways, now. Over the next two, three, four, five years. By taking this action, I will live my dream.”
It’s not the events of our lives that shape us, but our beliefs as to what those events mean.
What are our beliefs designed for? They’re the guiding force to tell us what will lead to pain and what will lead to pleasure. Whenever something happens in your life, your brain asks two questions: 1) Will this mean pain or pleasure? 2) What must I do now to avoid pain and/or gain pleasure? The answers to these two questions are based on our beliefs, and our beliefs are driven by our generalizations about what we’ve learned could lead to pain and pleasure. These generalizations guide all of our actions and thus the direction and quality of our lives.
We need to remember that most of our beliefs are generalizations about our past, based on our interpretations of painful and pleasurable experiences. The challenge is threefold: 1) most of us do not consciously decide what we’re going to believe; 2) often our beliefs are based on misinterpretation of past experiences; and 3) once we adopt a belief, we forget it’s merely an interpretation.
Other beliefs are so generalized that they dominate virtually every aspect of our lives, either negatively or positively. I call these global beliefs. Global beliefs are the giant beliefs we have about everything in our lives: beliefs about our identities, people, work, time, money, and life itself, for that matter. These giant generalizations are often phrased as is/am/are: “Life is…” “I am…” “People are …” As you can imagine, beliefs of this size and scope can shape and color every aspect of our lives.
Once accepted, our beliefs become unquestioned commands to our nervous systems, and they have the power to expand or destroy the possibilities of our present and future.
If you can think of an idea as being like a tabletop with no legs, you’ll have a fair representation of why an idea doesn’t feel as certain as a belief. Without any legs, that tabletop won’t even stand up by itself. Belief, on the other hand, has legs.
The question is: which one of these beliefs is the true belief? The answer is that it doesn’t matter which one is true. What matters is which one is most empowering. We all can find someone to back up our belief and make us feel more solid about it.
The key question, again, is whether this belief is strengthening or weakening us, empowering or disempowering us on a daily basis.
With enough emotional intensity and repetition, our nervous systems experience something as real, even if it hasn’t occurred yet. Every great achiever I’ve ever interviewed has had the ability to get themselves to feel certain they could succeed, even though no one before them had ever accomplished it.
If you’re going to make an error in life, err on the side of overestimating your capabilities
If you develop the absolute sense of certainty that powerful beliefs provide, then you can get yourself to accomplish virtually anything, including those things that other people are certain are impossible.
We need to remember that how we deal with adversity and challenges will shape our lives more than almost anything else.
Achievers rarely, if ever, see a problem as permanent, while those who fail see even the smallest problems as permanent. Once you adopt the belief that there’s nothing you can do to change something, simply because nothing you’ve done up until now has changed it, you start to take a pernicious poison into your system.
No matter what happens in your life, you’ve got to be able to believe, “This, too, shall pass,” and that if you keep persisting, you’ll find a way.
If we don’t see a failure as a challenge to modify our approach, but rather as a problem with ourselves, as a personality defect, we will immediately feel overwhelmed. After all, how do you change your entire life? Isn’t that more difficult than just changing your actions in a particular area? Be wary of adopting the belief of the problem being personal. How inspired can you get by beating yourself up?
All personal breakthroughs begin with a change in beliefs. So how do we change? The most effective way is to get your brain to associate massive pain to the old belief. You must feel deep in your gut that not only has this belief cost you pain in the past, but it’s costing you in the present and, ultimately, can only bring you pain in the future. Then you must associate tremendous pleasure to the idea of adopting a new, empowering belief.
Remember, we can never forget that everything we do, we do either out of our need to avoid pain or our desire to gain pleasure, and if we associate enough pain to anything, well
New experiences trigger change only if they cause us to question our beliefs. Remember, whenever we believe something, we no longer question it in any way. The moment we begin to honestly question our beliefs, we no longer feel absolutely certain about them.
If you question anything enough, eventually you’ll begin to doubt it.
I’ve classified beliefs into three categories: opinions, beliefs, and convictions.
An opinion is something we feel relatively certain about, but the certainty is only temporary because it can be changed easily.
A belief, on the other hand, is formed when we begin to develop a much larger base of reference legs, and especially reference legs about which we have strong emotion.
A conviction, however, eclipses a belief, primarily because of the emotional intensity a person links to an idea. A person holding a conviction does not only feel certain, but gets angry if their conviction is even questioned.
Often the best thing you can do to create mastery in any area of your life is to raise a belief to the level of conviction. Remember, conviction has the power to drive you to action, to push you through all kinds of obstacles. Beliefs can do this as well, but some areas of your life may require the added emotional intensity of conviction.
So how can you create a conviction? 1) Start with the basic belief. 2) Reinforce your belief by adding new and more powerful references.
3) Then find a triggering event, or else create one of your own. Associate yourself fully by asking, “What will it cost me if I don’t?”
4) Finally, take action. Each action you take strengthens your commitment and raises the level of your emotional intensity and conviction.
Using social proof is a great way to limit your life—to make it just like everybody else’s.
The way to expand our lives is to model the lives of those people who are already succeeding.
As a result of this understanding, I created a simple mnemonic: CANI!™ (pronounced kuhn-EYE), which stands for Constant And Never-ending Improvement. I believe that the level of success we experience in life is in direct proportion to the level of our commitment to CANI!, to constant and never-ending improvement.
CANI! is a true discipline. It can’t just be practiced every once in a while, when you feel like it. It must be a constant commitment backed up by action. The essence of CANI! is gradual, even minute, continuous improvement that over the long term sculpts a masterpiece of colossal proportions.
The only true security in life comes from knowing that every single day you are improving yourself in some way, that you are increasing the caliber of who you are and that you are valuable to your company, your friends, and your family. I don’t worry about maintaining the quality of my life, because every day I work on improving it. I constantly strive to learn and to make new and more powerful distinctions about ways to add value to other people’s lives. This gives me a sense of certainty that I can always learn, that I can always expand, that I can always grow.
Begin to brainstorm all the beliefs you have, both those that empower you and disempower you: little beliefs that don’t seem to matter at all and global beliefs that seem to make a big difference. Make sure you cover:
