We’ve all had the experience. We put water in a pot, turn on the stove and watch it.
It seems like it takes forever to boil.
You do the same thing but go to the other room to do something else – it seems like the water boils in a flash.
In “reality”, we know the time it took for the water to boil was exactly the same in both scenarios (if everything was held constant in both cases except for watching and not watching which we assume for the purposes of this illustration) – it’s just the perception was different.
Let me ask you a question.
You know the pot is going to boil.
So why watch?
Why get so involved?
Are you biting your nails, fretting whether or not the water is going to boil?
Of course not.
You only do those things when you don’t fully believe something 100%.
When you believe something 100%, you’re not that emotionally attached so you don’t engage in those nervous types of behavior.
When you throw a ball up in the air, you’re not concerned or worried about whether or not it’s going to fall down.
You know it’s going to fall down because your belief in the law of gravity is pretty damn strong.
Similarly, you know that if you apply X amount of heat to Y amount of water, you know in Z time, it’s going to boil – so long as X and Y is constant.
Here’s the thing though – you don’t know what x and y is going to be in the very, very, very beginning (yes, you will have a pretty good general idea but for the sake of this article, assume you have no clue).
You need to experiment and watch to see what it takes to get the pot boiling IN THE BEGINNING, so you can get the belief, and thus the detachment.
You need to know the ratio of consistency in terms of heat applied to the amount of water to get it to boil.
So if you put in 100,000 gallons of water in a pot (it’s a big pot :)) and you turn the stove up just a tiny bit, so the gas is barely flickering, you’re going to realize the water isn’t going to boil.
You can watch the pot for 1,000 years.
It’s not going to happen.
So you make some changes.
How about 99,999 gallons of water and you turn the flame up a bit more this time?
Same thing happens.
It’s not going to boil.
The same thing happens when we set these lofty goals but we don’t back them with intensity and consistency of action and as a result, our goals never get achieved.
The water never boils.
But how about instead of 99,999 gallons of water, you pour 9 milliliters of water and blast the stove full on.
In other words you do this one thing – and you do it with great intensity and consistency.
The water WILL boil.
Pretty damn fast.
Ah ha!
Now you start getting closer to the ratio.
Pretty soon, after fiddling around, you find out exactly what that ratio is.
And once you know that, then it’s easy.
You just measure, pour, turn the heat and you don’t bother watching it because you know it’s going to boil.
It’s just a matter of time so you’re detached and go on do other things and before you know it, the water boils.
It’s the same thing in any endeavor we do.
Most people get stuck trying to find that magic ratio that will give them solid belief that the water will boil and thus give them detachment as well– and it’s when you have those two things, belief and detachment, that things really start to speed up.
So many people try to find the magic ratio starting with 100,000 gallons of water and a tiny flame.
Don’t do that.
Make it easy.
You find the ratio a lot closer when you start with 9 milliliters of water and blast the heat full on consistently.
So don’t try to lose 50 pounds.
Lose 1 pound.
Find out what it takes to lose just one pound.
Once you know the ratio in terms of time needed to exercise, nutrition intake, exercises to do, etc., to lose one pound, then it’s easy.
You just plug it in.
The weight will drop.
The water will boil.
There’s no need to watch it. If you do, it will just seem like it’s taking longer.
Go on to do other things because you’ve mastered it. You truly believe it works so you’re detached. You’re not sitting there fretting about whether or not it will boil. You’re not going to fret about whether or not you’re going to lose weight.
And when the water boils, it will seem as if it happened really fast. It will seem like you dropped a lot of weight quickly. And that will give you the confidence that you can get other things done as well.
Success will breed success and spill over into other areas of your life because you have the perception that you achieved your goal in a very small amount of time – even though it took the same amount of time to do it.
The thing that made all the difference is you perceived the achievement of your goal to be quicker (remember, perception is reality).
So much wisdom behind such a simple saying indeed.
