Monday 14 December 2009

Self MOT

New Year’s resolutions are rubbish. No one sticks to them, and they generally do very little good. The problem is we should be making resolutions every day and we should be changing concrete useful things about ourselves to make ourselves perform and function more efficiently. The concept of the Resolution is outmoded and outdated. We proudly introduce the Self MOT.

With it coming up to New Year, people will likely be thinking harder about ways they can improve themselves. Normally this means they’ll be planning on quitting smoking, starting a training routine, being more confident, drinking less, going out more, getting a partner, or something else abstract or non-ambitious like that. Here at the Biomatrix.Net however, we’re of the opinion that self-improvement shouldn’t be an annual occasion but something we’re continuously working on. At the same time, we’ve always focussed less on these kinds of superficial changes and more on improving yourself in ways that will take you above your peers. We’re not so interested in improving our hygiene, or our people skills in order to get a girlfriend or a boyfriend. Here at the Biomatrix we’re more interested in improving the size of our biceps so that we can perform fantastic feats of gymnastic ability; learning to leap across chasms, bench giant amounts, think at twice the speed. Finding a girlfriend or a boyfriend, or getting over a social nervousness is a base-level ambition; that’s how you should start off not an ambitious way to improve yourself. If you think about it, it’s that kind of attitude that could have left you feeling unconfident in the first place. Of course work on those things too, but do it all year round, and at the same time work on yourself in more meaningful ways. The success in relationships and business will come as a result of how you now carry yourself and are massively more successful in general. Have some ambition, some self belief, and take yourself up and above the rest. As in don’t just work on your confidence, make yourself faster, smarter and stronger so that you’re naturally more confident. Learn skills, improve your body, improve your mind and set ambitious goals. Shoot for the stars and do it all the time. Furthermore, do this all year round rather than having a half-arsed attempt during the first months of January.

So a good New Year’s resolution for a lot of people is to stop making pansy-ish, lame New Year’s resolutions. Instead you should be setting yourself goals throughout the months and planning ways you can improve yourself and your situation throughout the course of the next few years. What can you change about yourself that will make you perform better, be more productive, be more physically imposing and impressive? How can you achieve these goals over a certain amount of time? I will call the Self MOT. Here you will make a detailed assessment of yourself, and of your achievements and write down notes about anything that’s lacking in either your life, or in your own capabilities. Decide what’s pressing and what isn’t, and look for things you can change about yourself that will change your circumstances and potential. As Jackie Chan says – don’t let your circumstances control you; control your circumstances. It may not be New Year, in fact it probably isn’t as this is going live around the first half of December, but you can start this right away – what’s the point of waiting half a month before you start making positive change?

Take a sheet of paper. Now rate yourself on the following factors and answer the following points:

Strength:

Measurements (biceps, chest etc):

Speed:

Intelligence:

Productivity:

Looks:

Agility:

Knowledge:

Areas of expertise:

Areas lacking:

Emotional Stability/Control:

Happiness:

Health:

Weaknesses:

Skills (list):

Finances:

Assets:

Relationships:

Spare Time:

Areas of concern:

Goals:

Ambitions:

Now fill these out and use the answers on each element to inform your answers in others. For example if you’re not happy then fill in goals and ambitions that will help improve your happiness, and fill out areas of concern that are causing you to be unhappy. Make and answer more items if appropriate.

With this done you should find you can now identify more accurately areas of weakness and problems and faults. So follow this up with a ‘four year plan’ that can help you fix each of these issues. This might involve elements such as increasing the size of your biceps or the strength of your bench press, along with increasing productivity and salary through getting a new job or improving your business. Ensure your larger plans are made up of smaller ones and set targets throughout the year. Spend large amounts of time focussing on problem areas and goals and know that there’s no problem you can’t solve given enough thought, no matter how abstract or how large – even if it takes a few days. You may find you also need to adapt the plan over time, and may choose to ‘internalise it’, so that you can adapt it to changing events without having to write it out. So long as you have a plan, active goals, and are aware of the problems in your life and in your performance; you will be able to keep moving forwards and keep improving to ensure you get the most out of life.