Want something in your life? Do the opposite.
It's a strange statement - I know.
Oliver Hihn @mr_kuchen
I felt the same way when I first heard my spiritual mentor tell me...
"Let go of everything and you can have everything."
When he said this, I gave him a peculiar look and said to myself...
"That makes zero sense! Why would I do that?"
He followed that up by saying that life works inversely.
He said...
If you want anything in your life... just do the opposite.
I remember leaving that conversation quite confused.
That statement just didn't make any logical sense to me!
It wasn't until years later, that I discovered the power in what he was truly saying...
My Journey To An Inverse Reality
Growing up, I've always been a motivated type of person. I wouldn't ever consider myself a "Type A" personality, however, I am very driven... and in my early youth, I wanted nothing less than success.
This type of mentality was great for being productive and moving up the ranks in society.
Andy Beales @andybeales
At the age of 23 I was well on my path to becoming a doctor.
I was attending graduate school to become a Doctor of Chiropractic.
Chiros have the same academic curriculum as a medical doctor. It was INTENSE.
I took over 200 exams within three years.
But I breezed through it, while also leading numerous clubs and learning firsthand skills working for numerous high volume Chiropractic practices on the weekend.
On top of that, there was a girl in my life that was my best friend.
I was in love with her... and we were falling in love!
I was clearly on the path to success and no one was going to stop me.
Rude Awakenings
Then one day... something happened.
The girl I was in love with... dropped out of school and moved to another country.
We were having issues at the time, but this was totally and completely unexpected.
I was shocked.
Profoundly shocked.
It shook me to my core, and suddenly the power and will that I thought I had established for myself, was completely stripped from me.
I did my very best to stay focused on school work, but with having four exams every week and an overwhelming amount of responsibilities on my plate, I started breaking down...
Completely devastated, I decided to take a sabbatical from school to deal with myself.
During this time, I went through a process of emotional purging that was unbelievably painful.
It was as though I had opened up pandora's box and every fear and insecurity I had, was coming out of that box.
For three straight months I lived in a world of darkness.
Ahmed Ashhaadh @jerryashhaadh
Every day I would wake up and for a certain period of time, would feel an immense amount of emotional pain.
I started calling these "sessions", as they would last 3-4 hours during which I would be absolutely crippled in emotional pain.
For three whole months I was completely isolated, in a state of absolute devastation.
Finding Myself Again
After a few months passed by, the darkness began to subside and I was able to interact with the world again.
However, something had changed.
I was a very different person, and I could tell because my thoughts were different.
Suddenly I started seeing visions of what I could become.
And these visions... were inspiring.
Thoughts about free energy, permaculture, intentional communities, new age education, healing centers, and even blockchain-based systems (which I didn't even realize was a thing yet) began appearing in my mind OUT OF NOWHERE.
Lukasz Szmigiel @szmigieldesign
It was honestly a bit overwhelming as I was receiving all this information but it wasn't relevant at all with where I was in my life.
This confused me, so I put these visions on hold, and went back to school.
Who Am I?
Back in school, I suddenly felt very lost.
Something was very "off" and I couldn't quite put a finger on it.
I had about six months left of school, then another year of studying for boards, but for some odd reason, I just couldn't focus.
It was like there was this invisible force field that was keeping me from succeeding like I had in the past.
Soon the reality began to sink in...
"I don't want to be a doctor."
The thought shook me to my core.
How the hell am I supposed to survive if I quit now?
I had literally completed all the difficult courses and all I had to do was complete a few more easy ones.
Logically it didn't make sense to quit, so I kept going.
The Truth Sets In
It was almost the end of my 9th trimester and it was becoming more and more clear to me that I had very little desire to continue.
My dreams of becoming a doctor, were no more, and I had no good explanation for it.
I just knew that what I really wanted was something different.
At this time in my life, my family was going through a major financial struggle.
Due to the real estate crisis and stock market crash, we had lost everything, including our house.
This, of course, fed into my dilemma.
Justin Luebke @jluebke
I no longer had the drive to become a doctor, yet at the same time, if I dropped out I would be $150,000 in debt, alongside my parents, who were ALSO experiencing debt.
A lot of it.
This was one of the most tremendously difficult choices of my life.
I knew the logical, sane path was to finish my studies, but my heart was screaming for me to move in a different direction.
Since I had changed, my heart had taken on a different tone.
I guess you could say that I trusted it more, and with that being said...
I dropped out.
My Great Realization
After leaving school, it's no surprise that I went through a significant bout of depression.
There were absolutely times when it got quite dark, especially when I was living with my parents.
I felt like an absolute failure.
I felt like I had lost everything.
And all of it was true:
I had nothing.
Elti Meshau @eltimeshau
I remember one day I was driving on the highway and a dark thought appeared before me...
"If you just swerve abruptly to the right, you can end it all right now."
Although that thought felt tempting, I knew it wasn't the choice that would solve my problems.
Then I remembered what my spiritual mentor had told me that one day...
"Let go of everything and you can have everything."
At this point this advice was starting to mean something to me.
The Next Few Years
As time passed, my life began to change.
I ended up moving from Milwaukee (where my family lived) to Austin after a friend loaned me money to make the move.
I knew that living at home wasn't where I was supposed to be, and Austin was a city that kept calling my name.
While I lived in Austin, my life began to change in incredible ways.
I was introduced to an improv organization which ended up being a community project that I would lead for the next three years. That organization will soon be a non-profit and we are currently working to offer city-wide programming for children and adults.
I starting working for TaskRabbit, a part time gig within the sharing economy. I started off cleaning houses, helping people move, and offering personal assistant services. This led into creative services where I took on my first graphic design job. I learned everything I could about graphic design through YouTube, and began to attain more clients. This led into learning motions graphics, which led into video production. I am now producing my first live studio show at the public access TV station.
Shortly after, I met a woman that I feel in love with within one week's time. We had an instant and unbelievably powerful connection. Almost two years later, we live in a house together.
Earlier this year I discovered cryptocurrency by the grace of a few great friends. Through this discovery I realized the opportunity that was before me and decided to invest 90% of everything I had at the time. And thus far, I've been shocked by how my financial situation has begun to flip itself around.
Why Am I Sharing All Of This?
I am saying all of this to say this: life happens inversely to how you would expect it to work.
That statement I heard a long time ago...
"Let go of everything and you can have everything."
Has allowed me to have everything I desire in life, and more!
Now, let me clarify that this is an EXTREME example of living inversely.
I learned HOW to live inversely from this potent experience, however...
You don't have to let go of everything in your life like I did to get what you want in your life.
I had to share this story in order to pave the way for a practical perspective to emerge...
How To Live Your Life Inversely
From the time I dropped out of school, until now, I've learned that the inverse principle of life can be applied to many things.
It was through living it day in and day out, that I truly recognized its true power.
Life works in mysterious ways, but at the same time, when you start to observe the patterns being to emerge, it becomes incredibly obvious.
Letting go of everything in my life in exchange for a new life, led me to discover a myriad of practical ways to apply this principle of living inversely.
With that being said, I'm going to share with you a few examples of how you can live your life inversely, and how that can have a major impact on your life.
Some of these examples you already know, while others may be completely new to you.
When you begin to see the pattern start to emerge, you will be able to use the inverse principle, in every aspect of your life.
Examples of Your Inverse Reality
Slow Down To Speed Up
This morning I woke up and I was feeling fatigued and at the same time I could tell that I had been looking at a computer screen for too long the day before. As I was responding to comments on Steemit, I realized that I was not in a good mental space to create content.
Once I realized that, I knew exactly what I needed to do.
What I wanted was to snap into action. To speed up.
However, I wasn't able to speed up, which is why I acted inversely:
I slowed down.
Daniel Monteiro @danielmonteirox
I started by taking a walk outside in order to slow down my mind. I observed the trees and took in the fresh air while connecting with what I'm grateful for in my life.
When I arrived home I could tell I was still feeling fatigued so I decided to take a nap, followed by a slow-paced meal.
Once I had finished doing those things, I felt completely ready and willing to speed up!
And just like that, I snapped into action.
Now you can apply the strategy in numerous ways. I use this strategy a lot especially when my mind feels like it is out of control. When it's hard for me to think straight I know that I need to slow down, and so what I'll do is meditate for 10 to 15 minutes or take a short nap.
This is most effective when I am under pressure to get things done. It's during these times when I struggle with my ego to do the opposite of what I think I'm supposed to be doing.
The ego usually will tell you to work more and grind harder.
What I've noticed is that when I choose to slow down during these stressful times, I find the strength, focus, and energy to get what I need to get done on time.
If you want to speed up, slow yourself down!
Increase Your Steemit Post Engagement By Engaging With Others
I wanted to share this example because it relates directly to this platform and basically any other social platform out there. When I first started on Steemit I struggled to understand how to actually get people to read my content.
My first thought was to just start creating a lot of content, as much as I could and hope that when people started seeing it more often they would then engage with it.
That didn't work.
Then I thought, maybe I just need to write better content, so I really focused on creating the best possible content that I could create.
That also didn't work.
At this point I was getting very discouraged because I knew that this was a platform that I wanted to participate on, but I was not receiving any feedback about what I was creating. So I decided to do some research and look up some of the most successful Steemit creators to understand their success strategies.
What I learned was that 99% of the successful Steemit users are the ones who have engaged with other content first before receiving engagement on their own posts.
Simply put:
If you want people to engage with your content, engage with their content first and then invite them to experience your content.
I've been doing this since the beginning of December and it has been extremely effective.
Most of you who read my content know that I reached out to you first, I read your article fully, and left you a genuine comment.
Once you start doing this more regularly, not only will you start building relationships with so many wonderful people - you'll experience an entirely new level of appreciation for the content that is shared on Steemit.
If you want engagement on your content, engage with the content of others.
Face Your Fears To Have No Fears
This one always reminds me of that level in Mario where the ghosts are chasing him.
You know what I'm talking about?
When the ghosts are chasing Mario, and you have him turn to face the ghost, suddenly it freezes in place and does not move.
However, when you look away, they start chasing you again...
And if Mario forgets to turn around to look at the ghosts, he dies!
This is such a great analogy for life.
When I was growing up I spent a fair amount of my energy trying to avoid the things I was afraid of.
This, of course, only made my fears grow bigger and more intense.
The more I avoided what I feared and tried to get away from it, the more prevalent my fears became in my life.
My fears would grow and grow, to the point where I had no other choice but to face them.
Of course the moment that I faced my fears I realized that they were not fears at all.
What I realized is that they were experiences that I needed to understand and learn from.
By facing my fears, they suddenly dissolved and turned into something that was completely different and not fear at all.
Now my daily mantra is, "follow the fear."
If I'm not sure what to do in my life, I will literally do the thing that scares me the most. This has been not only effective but extremely useful for killing fear before it has a chance to grow!
If you want to get rid of fear in your life, invite fear into your life.
Admit You Know Nothing To Learn Everything
Have you ever been in some class that you felt you already had a lot of knowledge in? Maybe you felt like you had already mastered the material?
I've been in this situation before and I have noticed that when I step into any situation, thinking that I already know everything, I usually don't learn anything.
But the truth is... you can always learn something and life typically does not put us in situations that do not provide us with some sort of opportunity to learn.
Evan Kirby @evankirby2
When I step into situations telling myself that I already know everything, my mind tends to be unreceptive of knowledge, and I miss out on learning opportunities.
Now, even if I THINK I already know something, I'll pretend like I don't, for the mere purpose of keeping an open mind.
Sometimes, when someone teaches me something that I already know but I'm receptive to what they are saying, I learn it in a completely new way that I would have never expected.
When you step into any situation and say, "I don't know." You are creating a space for knowledge to exist.
A state of learning cannot thrive if you have already told yourself that you know everything.
If you want to learn everything, admit you know nothing for if you admit you already know everything, life will surely show you that you know nothing!
Love Yourself To Find True Love
This is a big one that many people deal with. I really struggled to understand this lesson for years, but it is the absolute truth in my opinion.
Before my first long-term relationship I really, really wanted a girlfriend.
I thought about it every day and wished that I had someone that I could cuddle with, spend time with, and call my girlfriend.
I spent a lot of time wishing that I could love someone and I spend a lot of time thinking about what I didn't have in my life.
However it wasn't until I started letting go of needing to have anyone that something changed...
You see the moment that I stopped needing a girlfriend was the moment that I met someone very special.
It was incredibly obvious, I remember the moment I said to myself,
"You know what... I don't need anyone, I just need myself. I am good. Life is good!"
Suddenly at that moment the world shifted and it was like I had opened the door to let love in.
After years of having similar experiences like this, I realized that in order to find love in your life, you must first love yourself.
Amy Treasure @amytreasure
If you don't love yourself then you will not have capacity to love another person. A lot of us look for what we're trying to get outside of our self but the fact is that even when you are in a relationship, the love that you experience is not coming from the other person, it's coming from yourself.
The illusion is that love stems from outside of us.
The truth is that everything that we are experiencing, every thought and feeling that we have is of our own creation.
This is one of the most empowering concepts that you can embrace in your life because when you do, you will no longer be dependent on anything outside of yourself.
At this point, you have the keys to the Universe. You are free to experience life to the fullest!
Love yourself and you'll find the love that you're looking for.
Let Go Of Where You’re At To Get To Where You Want To Be
I've written about this in a few other articles and I'll briefly say it again.
In my opinion of life, if we want to get something, we need to exchange something for it.
Nghia Le @lephunghia
It's no different than going to the store to buy some groceries, you need to exchange your money for those goods.
The same goes for your life and your dreams, if you want something new in your life or you want a new life situation, you have to be willing to exchange a part of yourself for that.
For me, I wanted to work for myself and not for someone else. I had to exchange my security and comfort for that.
I had to live in an insecure environment for a long period of time in order to establish a sense of self sustainability. I also had to be okay with earning much less than I could earn if I had worked for an already established organization.
I exchanged what I had in exchange for what I wanted to have.
I literally had to let go of working for another organization in exchange for working for myself.
That was the trade-off, it wasn't easy but it was worth it.
Let go of where you are to get to where you want to be.
A Few More Quick Examples
Spend less to have more
Studies done on individuals who earned a million dollars or more per year found an interesting correlation: rich people spend less.
They are much more frugal with how they spend and because they understand the value of money, they also understand the value of saving.
Fabian Blank @blankerwahnsinn
Wealthy people simply spend less and that's a big part of why they have more.
Live Broke To Get Rich
Another similar perspective is the power of living broke.
When you live broke you realize things that you would not have realized had you had the money to do what you want to do.
When you live broke, your mind starts to look for ways to acquire money.
You suddenly become much more creative and proactive with your decision making.
Estée Janssens @esteejanssens
I have discovered so many new ways of making money, simply because I was broke.
Not to mention, I didn't waste money on nonessential items.
Live broke, and you'll discover how to get rich.
Break Down To Build Up
Here's an obvious one, how do you get stronger?
You go to the gym and you work your muscles so that they break down.
All you're doing is breaking down your muscles so that they can build back up again.
Daniel Apodaca @danielapodaca96
This process is how the body strengthens itself. I believe the mind works in similar ways.
When you break things down and make them weaker, you can build them back up to make them stronger.
Feel Worse To Feel Better
There's a concept in alternative medicine called "retracing."
This concept refers to the healing process. If you go to a Chiropractor and start receiving adjustments, you might start feeling worse at first.
You might notice some of your old pain and symptoms starts coming back.
This is because the body, in its healing state, will re-open (or retrace) old patterns that have not been fully healed yet, and begin to heal them.
Sarah Gray @sarahfaithgray
In order to heal them, the wounds need to be reopened and you need to re-experience them.
Thus, in these situations, if you want to feel better, first you must feel worse.
Give Value To Get Value
Great entrepreneurs are very familiar with this concept.
Do you want to GET business from your customers?
Then you must GIVE value to them first.
Asking for value first never works because you haven't established a sense of trust yet.
If you provide value to someone first, then they will likely return the favor.
Most marketing on social media these days revolves around giving free products or services in exchange for attention.
This is typically what leads to the sale!
Give value before you ask to get value.
Want To Get Paid? Work For Free
If you follow Gary Vaynerchuk at all you will understand this one.
He talks about his strategy for getting a job. If you want to work with someone, especially someone who is very successful, reach out to them and tell them that you will work for free for 3 months.
Provide a ton of value to them for 3 months, and they will likely hire you and pay you.
It makes complete sense because there is no risk on their part, and you get an opportunity to share what you can do for them.
Buy Low, Sell High
If you trade cryptocurrency you understand this one.
Fear of missing out (FOMO) is a common issue with novice traders. If you buy high and sell low you will always lose money.
Rick Tap @ricktap
However, if you wait until the market drops back down and then buy in, you will likely make a profit.
Buy when it's cheap, sell when it's expensive.
Losing Everything I Was, Helped Me Find Out Who I Am
10 years ago my family went through a financial crisis and we lost everything that we had, including our house.
During that time, I had dropped out of medical school six months before becoming a doctor.
At this point I had lost everything, my money, my social standing, my confidence, I didn't have much at all.
But it was by losing everything that I realized that I could do anything and become anything that I wanted to become.
"Losing all hope was freedom"
That quote from Fight Club is a statement that I truly believe in.
When you lose everything and you lose all hope, suddenly something odd happens...
You discover hope and you realize that you are capable of anything.
The same goes with everything in life.
When we want something that we don't have, we just need to do the opposite in order to create space for that thing we want to exist.
Life is a process of discovery.
It's not a process of control.
If it was a process of control, then everything I am saying wouldn't make any sense.
Provide space for what you want by detaching your focus from it.
Do the opposite. Provide space for it to thrive.
Let it grow, then discover it along the way.
That's what this inverse reality is all about.
And that's how I live my life.
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