I was just in the process of updating and revising and adding some things to my book. I added this section. It's relevant to some of the things we've been discussing lately, and I thought this would be helpful to a lot of you.

Enjoy.

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Entering Flow

Let me repeat this sentence. Let this sink in for a minute.

The degree at which you make progress is the exact degree that you have cleared out things that are obstructing you.

Let's say you are traveling down a road at a fixed speed. But the road is littered with large boulders obstructing your path. Your speed is determined to an exact degree by how many boulders there are, how big they are, and your skill in navigating around them.

The more boulders you eliminate, the faster you'll go.

And following 80/20, we want to get rid of the big ones first.

Now, in your real life, things that are obstructing you are beliefs about the world which do not serve you. If you believe money is the root of all evil, you'll have a hard time making lots of money.

In order to rid yourself of un-useful thoughts and beliefs, you need to externalize them, get them OUT of yourself, so that you can attack them from all angles. When you keep something in your head, you can only examine them from a subjective perspective. By writing it out or talking it out, you can see it with a 360 degree vision. Front, back, sideways.

I'm about to give you a comprehensive formula to clear out your inner headtrash,... and then keep yourself clear permanently, with a little bit of daily maintenance.

One of the tools you will learn to use is Byron Katie's “The Work” which she describes as a written meditation. (And, sorry, meditation fanboys... the sitting-down-and-shutting-up variety doesn't hold a candle to this...)

I used to experiment with all sorts of mind hacking tools to dig into my psyche. The Work is the fastest, simplest and most easily understood method I have found so far.

Your first mission is to go to http://www.thework.com/dothework.php and download everything there. Read the “Little Book” and learn about how The Work... um, works.

This will require REAL work and REAL effort. But once you're done, you'll feel like someone just lifted a 100 pound weight vest off your shoulders.

Ignore this at your peril.

OK. Let's dig in.

The tricky part about all this finding the thing you need to clear out. In your actual head, as opposed to a boulder-ridden road, you can't always see the actual boulders. They're hidden underground. So how do we find them?

We explore and we dig... comprehensively.

Here's what I want you to do.

Step 1. Write out, in as much detail as possible, a complete list of answers to the question “What's bothering me right now?” (Also, experiment with replacing “bothering” with “frustrates,” “annoys,” “angers,” “disappoints,”… etc – whatever works for you.)

Step 2. Write out, in as many words as you need, your complete personal philosophy, thinking and perspectives on...

• Love, romance
• Other people in your life
• Money
• Success
• Religion, spirituality
• Politics
• Health, fitness

This isn't something you do in 15 minutes. This will probably take you three or more hours, minimum. Dump it ALL out there.

Depending on who you are, this list might be two or ten times longer.

And, don't ignore a subject because you think it isn't relevant to your situation. You never know where something's hiding.

Finally, if there's something you're reluctant to write out, that's an immediate tell. START there and dig as deep as you can.

Step 4. Go through everything you have and find anything that remotely resembles a belief. A belief is anything that says “this is how the world works.”

Pay special attention to things you feel conflicted about. Things that elicit a strong emotional reaction. Things that you'd rather not think about, or have a hard time admitting to yourself.

Take all your identified beliefs, and write them out on a separate piece of paper.

Step 5. Do “The Work” process on each of your beliefs.

Step 6. Keep a daily journal and dig for Stuff every day. Start with the question “what's bothering me right now?” and just write out your crap. If you want good dental hygiene, you gotta brush your teeth every day. If you want good mental hygiene, you gotta flush out your brain every day.