In Lesson 1 I showed you the mechanics behind why 90% of people struggle with action. Now let's look at what the 10% do differently.

I explain this concept in my book The Action Formula, where the formula goes like this:

Action = (Desire^Hype) / Perfectionism − (1 + Unwillingness) × Guilt

People generally don't like obligatory chores. So the action quotient for chores is low because the desire is low, and the hype is low. You also want to do it right… IF you're going to do it.

But chores suddenly become extremely attractive when we feel the pressure to do something important and difficult. What happens there? All the tasks of the chore remain the same, but why do we suddenly find it so compelling?

We think difficulty, frustration, complexity lies in the actions themselves. Driving a car is inherently more difficult than frying an egg. But the actions themselves are actually qualityless; there is nothing inherently more difficult in driving, there is nothing inherently easier in frying an egg.

Difficulty, frustration, complexity, and perhaps most importantly resistance — lies inside of US. How we perceive things is why we feel a certain way towards certain things.

The 10% don't look at tasks. They look at themselves, and the resistance they have. When you wear poop-stained glasses, everything in your field of vision looks shitty. You get angry at the world for giving you a shitty experience of life. Then you take off your glasses, and you realize that the world was perfectly fine all this time.

When you're not frustrated at the world and the tasks you have to do in it, it takes the emotional weight out of the action and you're able to look at the action and the objective of the action in a more balanced perspective.

(Many take action to arrive at a desired state, but I strongly argue that this kind of "achievement" model of action is a seed of suffering. Learn more about the "convergence" model of action here.)

But here's why even the people in the 10% still struggle with action: knowing how a car works is very different from knowing how to drive. Driving is something you internalize by experience. I can explain to you the qualitative taste of a niche Korean dish, but unless you actually have it once you'll only have a cursory understanding of what it's supposed to taste like according to Billy.

So how do you do something you don't want to do, regardless of whether it's the action's fault for being hard or my fault for making my life hard? Let's learn how to do just that in the next lesson.

I cannot travel to the sun. Wait, if we're being super technical I could start my travel to the sun and arrive way after my life has ended. So the more truthful statement here is: with the technology available to me right now, I cannot travel to the sun in my lifetime and arrive alive. This is a limitation imposed by the physical world and it applies to every human being from the past to now.

Suppose I have been smoking for the past 20 years of my life. Is it likely that I will also smoke today? Yes. But can you absolutely, 100% guarantee that I will smoke today? No, because there is always variability in a human's life.

But when I'm the one trying to quit smoking, it feels like it's impossible. But my feelings aside, is it actually impossible? This is the question I have to learn how to verify for myself.

Conversely, suppose I want to start saying no to people. It feels like it's impossible, but again, my feelings aside: is it actually impossible?

Throughout our life we live with an unconscious agreement with the world: when it feels impossible, it is impossible. This is the agreement that we have to learn how to break. I stop participating in a feeling-based restriction system and start participating in a reality-based freedom system.

This is where Buddhist practice comes in. The first layer of practice is waking up at 5AM every single day without compromise. It feels so punishing, it will feel so tiring, it will ruin the rest of my day. I have heard practically every reaction that comes from this invitation to wake up at 5AM.

Many tell me that they will try it, but they don't actually do it. Why? Because they still participate in the old agreement with the world. "I can't do it, I'm too tired." So when I'm tired, is nothing possible? Or isn't there a possibility that you can do it tired? As long as they never prove that it is possible, it forever stays in the realm of impossible.

Then we move on to the 108 bows. This comes with another great wave of resistance. I don't have the core for it, it hurts too much, I'm going to be too tired, this is just self torture. Again, the great list of reasons why you can't do it emerges — but it's up to you to prove to yourself, is it?

Meditation, when approached in the Buddhist way, is perhaps the most gentle way to start your practice (although I wouldn't say it's the easiest). Tying meditation into our primary topic of action, you're practicing happily doing something you don't want to do.

Meditation is relaxed focus into whatever you decide is your focal point. We usually pick the sensation of air we feel at the tip of our nose when we breathe as the focal point. You just focus on this sensation from a relaxed state of mind, over and over until the bell rings again.

But when you sit down to actually meditate an infinite number of distracting thoughts come about. It's fine, that's a natural phenomenon; we just don't follow those, we just focus back on the breath. Then we get distracted again, and when we notice ourselves distracted we come back again. It's this process repeated.

It is incredibly frustrating, especially if you're in a prolonged session and your joints start to hurt. You meet your limitations with every breath you take, and you're faced with the familiar question: "can you focus on the breath?"

Some days you will converge towards the state you want. Some days you won't. Some days a meditation session will be just full of distractions, some days it will feel like it passed by in an instant. But the more you practice, the more you prove to yourself: A lot of the things I thought were impossible are in fact possible. I have verified as such to myself.

Start here.

So now you have the question on the bottom line: is it actually impossible?

You can answer it right now. Not with 108 bows, not with 5AM mornings — those come later, if they come at all. You answer it by doing one thing today that your brain has been telling you is impossible.

So give it a go, and let me know how it went. Was it in fact impossible, or did it end up being possible?

Over the last 3 lessons you learned the deep mechanics of how action works within our unconscious mind. In Lesson 3 you gave what you were procrastinating on an earnest try, with the intention of proving to yourself "is it impossible?".

Here is the last bit of action mechanics I would love for you to learn.

It's not about white-knuckling through action. It's not about subjecting yourself to misery just for the sake of doing it.

For example, suppose you're looking for a job and you're going to apply to 5 jobs a day. Sure, you can apply to 5 jobs a day, but if you're feeling so beat up and drained by the end of the day, the job application process isn't benefitting you.

But at the same time you really want a job. So you get caught in this catch 22 situation where you have to go through a grind or gruel, or don't and be stuck where you are. That's not why I'm teaching you this.

What needs to be verified is, "is it impossible to do this happily?".

Suppose you're making a phone call you've been dreading. Chances are it's so tempting to just hold your breath, get through the phone call ASAP, and hang up.

Yes, the deed is done, for sure; but this doesn't help you understand how you can continue doing everything in a happy way. The next time you need to do something you've been dreading, you're going to be stuck in the same emotional dread zone.

Along with the power to execute and do, you truly benefit from a deeper loving relationship with yourself where you communicate openly with yourself. Unfortunately when you're working with resistance, it's very difficult to have a calm, conscious conversation with yourself.

Why do I dread the phone call? Turns out I've received an unexpected medical diagnosis that turned my life upside down on the phone. And I've never gave myself the space and time I needed to process that experience. When I understand that the dread of phone calls are an echo of this painful experience, I'm able to look at that self and sooth myself.

This is the experience I walk through with my clients. Yes, I understand your resistance. Yes, you know that you could theoretically do what you're delaying right now. But have YOU had all of the inner conversations with yourself about this resistance? Have you ever let ANYTHING related to this emotional baggage outside of yourself?

Practically all of the time my clients have no outlet for their emotional weight. I've walked through this process with so many clients, I realized I need to develop a solution for this very common problem.

That's what the Practice Kit is designed to help you do. In fact this course was created so that you can learn about this process. It's 30 days of getting to understand yourself:

You write what's actually happening inside you (not what you think should be happening). You practice noticing your reactions without following them. You do one real thing in the world that your emotional weights have been keeping you from.

Each day is small. Each day is the question again: What am I feeling in the face of this action? And each day you answer it yourself.

This is the same cycle I practice. It's the same cycle I walk my clients to. ALL my clients universally love the experience of understanding themselves better, and in that emotional space action starts flowing.