The following is a copy/paste of one of the best articles on the internet. So good, in fact, that I am posting it here mainly so that if the original ever gets taken down, I still have a copy. I have made fixes on a few spelling errors, but that is all.
This was originally published on the blog Unfubar your life.
The most important advice given by Tim Ferriss is that it’s easier to control your environment than to control yourself through will power or motivation.
Anthony Robbins talks a lot about high quality problems.
If you spend all your time solving problems that are insignificant no matter how hard you work, how good you are, or how much you try your life will be nothing. If you spend your time solving problems that do not relate to your goals you will never meet them.
You can fix your car, you can clean the house, you can be an accountant, but you can’t do these things and also be a movie star. You can’t do these things and be the richest man in the world.
More than the time it takes, most of us have a very limited amount of willpower. It’s a pain in the ass to go to work every day. It’s a pain in the ass to mow the lawn. You’ve only got some much mental strength to do things that are a pain in the ass. Therefore you must choose them wisely.
If you start as an average person in an average town what will you accomplish very little of great consequence. If your motivation is used up taking care of children, paying bills, showering, getting ready for work, going to birthday parties there’s nothing left of you for yourself. What little time is left absolutely must be spent in complete thoughtlessness. The most effective way to do this is have a beer and watch TV. If you don’t you’ll end up with a heart attack, or better yet end up hopping cube to cube with a katana.
Bill Gates doesn’t need a beer and SportsCenter, but Bill doesn’t work for your asshole boss either. Curing aids actually takes less motivation than replying-all to shitty emails from coworkers all day. As your problems increase in stress, the fewer of them you can tolerate before bringing out the samurai sword. Dealing with your crack addiction while nursing your dying grandmother to health makes it hard to buy that Ferrari you’ve always wanted. You can’t even get remotely close to a position where this could be a reality. There are so many levels of things you must deal with before getting there that you’ll never make it.
Let’s take an average dude’s life dream. Most dudes have a vague dream of spending all day being fed steak by high priced strippers. Well there’s a few challenges one will meet pursuing this dream. First it’s expensive. Unless you happen to be friends with a lot of high priced strippers you’re probably going to have to pay them. So you could get a good job. Then you’d makes some cash. But, a job comes with all these other things you have to deal with. You’ve got to buy ties, show up for 8-10 hours a day, not piss off the wrong people, do work. All the sudden you’re caught up in a whole lot of things that have nothing to do with eating steak.
Let’s try another strategy. We’re going to become so awesome that high priced strippers will gladly buy steak and throw it on the BBQ for us. This usually follows with another vague idea to lose weight so that the ladies will not be repulsed by our presence. The normal strategy for doing this is to get all fired up and eat some salad and grilled chicken for 3 or 4 days and then say fuck that shit. This never ever works. It can’t. You’re friends are eating pizza. Your freezer has ice cream in it. There are no high priced strippers in your living room telling you to eat some more steamed broccoli, but the hot chick on TV says that burger king ribs are delicious. Besides some douche in an Audi flipped you off on your way home and and a few fritos might just make you feel better about it.
This situation becomes infinitely more difficult when you haven’t got a clear definition of your goals. If you ask people what they want in life they can’t tell you. What do you want? I don’t know. If you asks a guy what would be be willing to do to have strippers feed him New York strip all the live long day…..absolutely anything. If you don’t actually have the balls to say yes I want it all. I want what people are afraid to even suggest. I want the Swedish bikini team to mow my lawn while I play xbox from my olympic swimming pool. Without this you can’t pursue it. You can’t get it. If you can’t articulate it you’ll just spend all day doing other things.
So how do we get passed all this shit keeping us away from our floating chair by the grill? Get rid of everything but the floating chair and the grill. You must control your environment. If you want to lose that gut you’ve got to get rid of the fat people in your life. You’ve got to get out of the house, away from McDonalds, away from your job. You must immerse yourself in the world that you want to live in. You can’t live in nowhere midwest town pumping gas and expect the Swedish bikini team to mow your lawn. Step one move to Sweden. Step two lean some Swedish. Go to to the Miss Pole Dance World 2010. Make some friends. Hang out with the dudes who bang strippers. There are people who do these things. They have what you want. If you spend your time in the environment that got them what you want everything becomes easier. It becomes automatic.
Another example. If you are a swimmer, how do you ensure your workouts are the best they can be? Think extra hard about how you’re going to swim really fast for a long time? No, put on a speedo and swim in a pool full of hot girls. How do you become the best violinist in the world? Hang out in your moms basement practicing extra hard or go to the best school and hang out with the other best violinists in the world?
See it is not the little things that keep us from what we want. It’s not the TV or the birthday cake, it’s the 10 hour block of doing whatever you do all day. It’s the 80% not the 20%. You’ve got to go all out on the vast majority of your day. Trying to muster that list bit of motivation to stop doing the small fraction of activities that you actually enjoy is just not going to work. You can’t sleep less to fit in a workout. You can’t simply pack your lunch and eat it at your desk. You’ve got to get rid of the desk. Look around you. In your town are most people over 200lbs? Guess what? You’re doomed no matter how awesome you are.
Without an extraordinary environment you can not have an extraordinary life. It is an impossibility. Twenty four hours a day of menial tasks does not equal an awesome life. There is no hope for you. Except that you are doomed, and do something bat shit crazy. Bat shit crazy is the only path to success. Real success. Working 60 hours a week to buy a mid level Porsche at the age of 50 is not success. Will power is myth. Find a world today that gives you want or makes it easy for your to get what you want.
So as an exercise, write down all the insane things you want. No matter how ridiculous. What would a perfect year be like? Where would you go? Then find other people who’ve done it, and get the fuck out of here.
