Reality Is Negotiable

If you have the belief that reality is negotiable, why wouldn’t you negotiate? Even bad negotiators get more than those that don’t negotiate. The first step is to realise you can, then believe you can.

Reality will not change unless you change it. You only live once, and it’d be a sad life to not enjoy it as much as you can.

The steps as I see it

The steps in my mind go like this:

• Admitting you’re unhappy with the current reality
• Believing that there is at least a tiny chance that you can change it, or you can become someone who can change it
• Desiring it, thinking about it, almost obsessing over it
• Intuitively coming up with plans because you’re thinking about it so much (Because you first believed you could, then desire sprouts out of belief)
• Staying optimistic, consistent and convicted with each failure (I wanted to say conviction but convicted rhymed, even though I’m pretty sure that’s what happens when you’re a convicted felon)
• Staying flexible with your plans (Like, really flexible) and reviewing your intuition, plans and results

Step 1

Admitting you’re unhappy with the current reality.

The first step is sometimes the hardest, because now you have to live with knowing you did nothing about it if you did nothing about it, and if you did something, you have to live with the, in your mind, probably high chance of failure.

It’s almost like either choice, in most people’s minds, lead to failure so they’d rather stay blind and not admit it to themselves, not to mind admitting it out loud.

The part of you (5%? 10%? 50%?) that dislikes parts or all of your current reality has valid points and needs to be given it’s time to convince the other parts of you that it’s true. Once you take that part of you seriously, the next step becomes available to you.

Step 2

Believing that there is at least a tiny chance that you can change it, or you can become someone who can change it.

Start with the last one, accept the belief slowly then move to the first one and expand on it further in your mind.

The second step comes from having self-belief. Belief in that everything around you has been made by someone no smarter than you (See Steve Job’s speeches). Or that if they can do it, why can’t I? Which slowly becomes, if they can do it, I can do it. A more powerful version of the previous belief.

It starts with just a tiny idea that you think about while you’re brushing your teeth, or walking the dogs. Then over the months or years, you realise this tiny idea has sprouted into self-belief.

How? Because you’ve thought about it, you’ve built the logical and emotional case in your head for why it’s true (Think a pros and cons list without the cons). You’ve found proof it’s true, whether from case studies online, reasons in your own head, or times it’s been through for others and/or yourself in the past.

And really, the truth is we are all conscious humans with the ability to do this anyway. If you’re born with desire as a human, that desire latches onto bigger things once the option for bigger things open up to you, which comes from the self-belief that you can do it.

Step 3

Desiring it, thinking about it, almost obsessing over it.

The third step comes about once you truly believe you can do it.

If you can get it, 100%, how is that not motivating? It’s like having to just walk over to your wildest dreams. You’ll without a doubt in your mind have them. You just have to walk to them. It’ll take months, years, decades, but you’ll have them.

Step 4

Intuitively coming up with plans because you’re thinking about it so much (Because you first believed you could, then desire sprouts out of belief).

This step happens on its own. When the mood strikes, go for it. When you have a plan, write it down. Do the most important thing first, cut out distractions. Run tests, experiments, see what happens.

Step 5

Staying optimistic, consistent and convicted with each failure (I wanted to say conviction but convicted rhymed, even though I’m pretty sure that’s what happens when you’re a convicted felon).

It’ll probably be months to years or even more depending on how big the goal is. That time’s going to pass anyway, you might as well use it going towards the right direction so you don’t end up somewhere you really don’t want to be.

• Optimistic: “this will still work out, “failing” is a normal part of the journey”
• Consistent: “I’d rather do 3 hours a day on this instead of 10 hours one day a week, and feel bad for not being “productive” – whatever that word means”
• Convicted/conviction: “there is no way on earth this won’t work out for me”

Having the “I’ll do it or I’ll die” mentality is a big plus. Lots of entrepreneurs I’ve spoken to have it – either I live life on my own terms, or I’ll die trying. Think high standards or lowest acceptable ones.

Step 6

Staying flexible with your plans (Like, really flexible) and reviewing your intuition, plans and results.

Reality is negotiable but reality negotiates back. Any dream is possible for any person. That’s simply a fact in my mind; whether that’s true statistically or not, I don’t care, the belief is empowering and I’d rather live an empowered life.

Some dreams/goals might take decades or generations, or require you to become something you don’t want to become. Sometimes, as an entrepreneur, you try to force something work but if it’s too saturated – or the idea just doesn’t have product-market-fit, it doesn’t take off…. Sure, you could make it work. But if you can stay flexible, pivot, adapt, you’ll see much more success, much quicker for much less work.

Review your intuition, don’t trust it, don’t get too single-minded on 1 goal, 1 plan, 1 way to achieve that 1 thing in your mind. There’s so many paths to get there, you just need to find 1 of them that works for you.