Take small actions. Now, remember, the basis of FYMM is to do things so small we don’t even notice. Also don’t forget, the difference between innovation and the FYMM way, innovative ways involve a shock factor, making a huge, drastic change. Big bold efforts to make change can be counter-productive. They can raise our doubts and fears, they have the ability to initiate the mid-brain, the amygdala. That’s why we don’t want to do grand, innovative things. It can add more stress in our lives. It can lower our creativity because we initiated the fight or flight response, we’ve learned about. But with the FYMM way, Allows us to slide by the amygdala On a direct path to the cortex. Allowing us to execute our strategies, accomplish the plan that we want done, or any goal we want accomplished. Let me give you a couple of examples for eating healthy, exercising, saving money, meeting people, asking for a raise, and using time more productively.
So let’s get into it. Eating more healthy. These are just steps. Take one. Choose it. Let’s see what happens. Do it for yourself. Toss out one bite of a fattening snack. If that’s what you’re doing, If you’re eating a lot of candy bars, and you’re having a problem with that, a small FYMM action is when the candy bar is about 90% done, toss it out. Instead of eating the whole thing, eat 90% of it, this will help you learn to eat less portions.
The second step, toss out the first, and the last bite. So break off a little front part, and then only eat 90% of what is left. So, instead of eating a whole candy bar, or the bag of chips, Pringles. Throw out the top little part and don’t eat the bottom part. Don’t save the bottom part and eat them later. Just toss it out. I hope you understand. So back on the candy bar. So, first step we take out a little part, don’t eat it. The second step, take out the first part and the back part. Right now, we’re just eating the middle part. Continue this process by making your candy bar smaller and smaller until it’s just about Bitesize. What we’re doing is training our brain to not need as much chocolate, while we’re weaning ourselves off of the addictive substances.
Exercise. The FYMM way to exercise. If you can’t get off the couch, buy one of those little things that you squeeze with your hand. And squeeze that while you’re cooking, or while you’re watching TV. While you’re watching your favorite TV show, buy two of them. So you can squeeze both simultaneously while you’re watching your favorite TV program. If you’re also having a problem at work, take a pencil, or a pen, put it on the ground and lift it with your foot. Lift it, shift your foot, (to the left or right) drop it, lift it, shift your foot, (to the left or right) drop it. Do it on the other foot. Continuously do that until you can start building yourself up. Do that until it just becomes so easy you’re like, “I’m doing something else this is ridiculous.” Then move your arms. Keep your arms out and continuously circle them in circular motion, during the commercials. Don’t do it during the whole 30 minutes. Why would you even try to do that? You’re never going to continuously do that in the beginning if you try to do it for 30 minutes. No, no, no, no, no. Start off with something so easy that is impossible for you not to do it, And then, add more, with your arms during a commercial you’ve seen a million times, start it halfway through the commercial, or get yourself all the way through the entire commercial with your arms up, put it down. You’re done for the day.
Obviously this has to do a lot with each individual personally, If you consider yourself to be in better than average health adjust accordingly, the concept is unanimous anywhere you start.
Our goal is to initiate some physical activity on a daily basis. Then little by little, gradually, not innovatively, not in one day, but gradually, get yourself to walk in place when you’re watching TV. Walk in place. Or walk in place while you’re cooking. Walk in place while you’re talking on the telephone. Doing something like that. And then eventually get yourself into the gym if that’s your overall goal. If you’ve noticed I keep saying eventually, this is on purpose because I do not want you to put a time goal when you want something accomplished. if you have been paying attention or joined my exercise class, you can see how having a timed goal can be counterproductive. I’m going to reiterate, our only goal in the beginning is to stay consistent. If you start adding too many goals then you’re expanding the problem or challenge and can be difficult to overcome without the necessary skills you are obtaining now.
Let’s not forget mind sculpture. So on all these, on everything that I’m talking about, with saving money, with meeting new people, with eating healthy, with everything, mind sculpture’s going to be very big in this process and is going to help us out a lot. Don’t forget how easy mind sculpture is. It really is, 15 – 30 seconds a day. Close your eyes, envision the change that you want. Envision you accomplishing the goals, envision you failing, so you understand how you’re going to feel/cope, and how you can transform yourself in changing that negativity into a positive thing.
Saving money. So if your goal is a dollar a day, maybe that’s too much. Maybe you don’t even have a goal right now. You’re just like, “I just want to save.” The easiest way to start saving money is to stop using your credit cards. Go to your bank every week, so you don’t have to pay the ATM fee. What hurts a lot of people is they don’t understand percentages. if you keep going to the ATM machine and only take $20 but paying a $3 fee you are paying an incredible high percentage on your money, over 10%. The very easiest thing for you to do to start saving money is start looking at fees. And start understanding the percentage of something. Whether… If you’re getting a cash payday advance loan, look at how much money in interest and in fees you actually are paying. If you’re going to the ATM three times a week, add up how much money you’re paying the ATM. If you’re paying your bills over the phone and they tell you there’s a service fee, start cutting down the fees first. Cancel out all the fees. That’s one way to help save money if you’re having a huge problem, just cut fees out.
I understand I’m going to get a lot of flak for what I’m about to say, stop going to the grocery store and buying a lot of food, I have watched numerous documentaries and I see Americans especially waste about half their food they buy. if you know no one in your family is going to eat leftovers do not cook more than your family is going to eat at one sitting. If you are on food stamps, buy seeds because they are covered through food stamps and grow a mini garden, I did not say a mini Farm so you cannot have an excuse that you do not have space, technology is so advanced you can grow a tomato plant upside down. If you are not using the reward system at your grocery store, either you are really lazy or you are very frivolous. It’s as simple as typing in your phone number. Type your phone number in, and then look at how much you’re saving.
But then also remember, pay attention to small moments. So when you are starting to do this, you need to pay attention to where your money’s going. That’s the fastest, easiest way to start saving money, is to see where your money is going.
Does that make sense? Because if you don’t know where your money’s going, then it’s kind of hard for you to save something that you don’t know where it’s going. So once you recognize where it’s going, then recognize where you can cut off the excess money. Like, “I really don’t need to go to the ATM four times in a week. I can be responsible and get money from my own bank once a week.” And then what do you do with the change? Do you save the change, or do you spend it? So if you want to save money, take that same change, put it to the side where you can’t touch it. Where you cannot touch it. Well, I mean, you can touch it, but just, don’t touch it. Put it to the side and then a very smart move to do, this is a little bit more advanced, You can do your own research on this. I’m not going to teach it, or go into it. But with that change, at the end of the month, take it to your credit union and get a bond. A secure 10 year bond, that will basically double your money in ten years. And then what you do with that bond, put it away. And so every month you take your change, you save it, you put it in a bond, throw it away, not throw it away, but put it away. And then you’re doubling your money in 10 years and off of money that you’re not even paying attention to. It’s just change pennies, quarters and dimes. Who cares?
Meet more people. Don’t forget, we envision ourselves doing this thing. Think of an interesting place to go with people who have the same interests as you. So it could be a place of worship, adult education, athletic event. How about the disco or the bar? Yes. But we’re trying to think of positive places, not places where it’s not the most positive environment. I’m not saying going to the bars is a negative thing, and meeting people in the bar is a negative place. But when you’re meeting people under the influence of alcohol, it might not be the most promising relationship. I’m just saying, for the longevity of things. Just saying.
Every day think of one additional location or group. Remember, this is just for ideas. So just think of another place every day. Think of someone who has a full and happy social life, and ask where they met friends. So in your life, after you’ve been brainstorming different places where to meet people, go find someone that you know. It could be your mom, could be your dad, could be your sister, brother, aunt, uncle, co-worker, boss, whatever. Someone that you see at Starbucks, and they just have the bubbliest personality, and it looks like they know everybody. Ask them, where do they meet people? How do they socialize? Then, what’s the next thing? Join a social group. With Facebook nowadays, they got social groups for everything. There’s also with WeChat, you got a who’s shaking their phone, right? It’s literally who shakes their phone at the same time as you, and it would show you who’s shaking the phone with you.
So even if you’re shy, you can go out and you can do small little steps. Once you brainstorm all these different environments, try going to one. If you like basketball, go to a college game. A local, small college. If going to a professional game and being around thousands of people makes you nervous. If you’re more of an introvert, and you kind of get nervous around people, then start with a small college. Go somewhere where it’s smaller, where there’s not so many people and then try to interact with people, try to meet people there, get to know a couple people. Go to a bookstore, go to a poetry-reading event, go to a seminar, go to anything, go to small little things around you, where there’s going to be sociable people. Don’t overwhelm yourself. Just give yourself the goal of only going to this place for 15-20 minutes, getting the feel for it. then work yourself up from 15-20minutes, to meet two or three people. And if that’s too scary, one person. “I’m going to go 15 minutes and talk to this one person. And then I’m out of here.” Set yourself up for goals that you can accomplish. If 15 minutes is too scary? Set it up for five.
Asking for a raise. Start a list of reasons you deserve more money. Every day add another reason why you deserve more money. Spend one minute a day practicing your request to your boss. So once you write down your list of different reasons why you deserve more money, then start practicing out loud on why you deserve a raise. Increase this time a little at a time, at first it’s only a minute. So increase it maybe two minutes, three minutes, until you feel comfortable, until you get your ins and outs. Now remember, think of different things, like when we envision things, and sculpt our mind we also have to think of the opposite. So if our boss doesn’t react the way we want, how are we going to act in this situation? This better prepares us for when we Finally discuss higher compensation with our superiors. if we only look at it from our argument, from our side, then we’re never going to be able to intuitively give our defense on why we need a raise, because we’re only looking at it from why we need a raise. Now we should also look at why they need to pay us more. What value do we bring to the company? What are we doing? What is it, that they should be paying us more? If we can’t convince, ourselves, why we deserve more, then we have a lot of work to do before we ask for a raise. Through experience what I’ve noticed is a lot of people expect they deserve more, but when they actually look and analyze their position in the company there’s a lot more they could do to bring more value to their current position. Before we want to upgrade our current position we want to make sure that we are completely optimized in our current position to bring more value to the company and to ourselves. If we do this then we will slowly but surely put our superiors in a place where it is impossible for them to say no, Because we have become too valuable to the operation.
Does that make sense? It’s a process. So, once you feel successful, or completely comfortable with why you deserve more money, what it is that you’re going to do, you’ve practiced a rebuttal of what your boss might say. We are already well-prepared for whatever our boss has to say, with a well-thought-out answer to his response.
Use time more productively. Make a list of activities that take up time, but are not useful or stimulating you. It could be watching TV, browsing the internet, reading things that you don’t find pleasant, doing things that you do, but it’s a waste of time, after you think about it, you find something more productive to do with your time. Make a list of activities you would like to try that could be more productive and add a new one each day. So what we’re doing is the FYMM way. First, you’re writing a list of all the things that we think that are wasting our time, that are unproductive. And then on the other side, we’re writing a list of things that we could do, that we want to try, that could be more productive. And then try the activities in a limited manner, stop doing the unproductive list, and start doing the productive list. Everything that could be unproductive, let’s try to stop doing those things and let’s try working on the new list we just created, that could be more productive.
Write down each day, one person that is very productive with their time. The person you are like, “Wow, they’re always doing something, always. They’re always accomplishing their goals. They’re a go-getter.” Don’t just find one because you want to find different examples.
Could be somebody on TV, someone you read in a book, somebody that you see on a daily basis, someone that’s working in a Starbucks and they’re on the ball all the time. They don’t waste any time when they do anything, and then ask them. Or, if you’re too nervous to ask them, or if they’re in a book, then study what they do and then see what you’re doing differently in your life, from what they’re doing, and then adjust accordingly.
Taking small actions to get to what we want. I hope these little things helped you. I tried to give a vast array of different things. With productivity, asking for a raise, meeting more people, saving money, exercising, eating more healthy. If there’s anything else that I missed, feel free to send me a message. Let me know, and then I’ll bring that up and we can discuss that. Thank you.