The 6 Big Ideas:

• Raise your standards

• Take Action

• Importance of your state of mind

• Big goals + action = progress

• It’s critical you establish what’s important to you so you have clarity on what you need to do

• You need to create an identity that will force your actions in the right direction

My Highlights From the Book:

Raise your standards:

Anytime you sincerely want to make a change, the first thing you must do is raise your standards. I vote down all the things I would no longer accept in my life, all the things I would no longer tolerate, and all the things I aspired to becoming.

Take Action:

The most powerful way to shape our lives is to get ourselves to take action. The difference in the results of people produce comes down to what they’ve done differently from others in the same situations. It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but will be do consistently. The answer is: the power of decision.

Importance of your state of mind:

Your behavior is not the result of your ability, but of the state that you’re in at this moment. There are two primary ways to change your emotional state: by changing the way you use your physical body or by changing the focus.

Emotion is created by motion.

Whatever we focus on becomes our idea of reality

Big goals + action = progress:

Discover or create a magnificent obsession. All goal setting must be immediately followed by both the development of a plan massive and consistent action toward its fulfillment.

It’s critical you establish what’s important to you so you have clarity on what you need to do:

if you’ve ever found yourself in a situation where you had a tough time making a decision about something, the reason is that you were clear about what you value most within that situation. We must remember that all decision-making comes down to values clarification.

You need to create an identity that will force your actions in the right direction:

What single change would make such a radical shift in the thoughts and emotions and actions of individual? The answer lies in understanding that he was directed down a path that cause him to literally shipped his identity. He was now simply acting in accordance with his new image of himself.

What exactly is identity? It is simply the believes that we used to define our own individuality, what makes us unique good bad or indifferent, from other individuals. In our sense of certainty about who we are creates the boundaries and limits within which we live will act consistently with our views of who we truly are, whether that he was accurate or not. The reason is that one of the strongest forces in the human organism is the need for consistency.