Part One: Best
Bossmode is my methodology for my life. It is how my mind works. I’ve built it piece by piece and now it’s really coming together. I have talked about how it works before but this is a little different and it will be a shorter post as a result. I guess I should start from the beginning and show a little bit of the path that I have walked.
When I was in elementary school, I had attention deficit disorder and a reading disability. When fifth grade rolled around, I only had a second grade reading level. I couldn’t keep up with reading aloud with my classmates if I was even following along instead of daydreaming. My parents and teacher were in talks about holding me back from going to middle school. They had me enrolled in programs to help me learn to read and one of my younger sisters was tutoring me. None of it was working.
That’s where videogames came in to save me. Final Fantasy IX was the best reading teacher that there ever could have been. Games still didn’t have voice acters back then so to progress through the game I had to follow along with the text at the speed that it went by on the screen. If I didn’t keep up, I would get frustrated and have to start the game over.
By the end of the game and the end of the fifth grade year I was reading at an eleventh grade level. This is where the battle of my attention issues turned to hyperactivity side of things. The more I gamed the more my creativity blossomed. School was just not interesting enough for me. I wanted to make stories and play more games. This is where procrastination and a fear of failure started to take over my life. I would follow my interests and save my homework for later. Once I was so far behind that I couldn’t keep up I started to believe that everything that I did do had to make up for what I didn’t.
If I didn’t make the mark it was more evidence that I should just wait longer and eventually it meant that I should stop trying. If I tried, I would lose. As I look back on that fear of failure I can see that I had to find ways to overcome it. I had to think of a goal or a future that was so desirable that I was more fearful of not trying. That was the exact thought that I had when I started to pursue coaching as a career.
Best is that goal. The future that is so desirable that you have to try. Best is the spark that lights the fire of your intrinsic motivation.
Then I found the idea of a 25 year goal. A goal that is so important that you will show up for it every day for 25 years! When you break it down it removes every element of fear that is left. Take each year and split it into ~90 day chunks and you get 100 quarters. If you show up with your best attitude striving for a best day ever. The goal of being 1% better allows you to hit your goal at an exponential rate.
Never let yourself be limited by your mindset. If something is important to you show up each day trying to get 1% closer. I believe you will get there faster than you could ever imagine.
Your Machine Mind 