Focusing on the Daily Stoic Meditation for June 22, as outlined by Ryan Holiday in the bestseller 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance and the Art Of Living.
The Definition Of Insanity
Epictetus and Holiday focus on the detrimental effects of repeating the same actions, over and over again, without making any meaningful or purposeful changes.
Through this, there’s many things to learn;
- Things will not change unless you take actionable steps.
- Failure can be massively important if you use it correctly.
“If you are defeated once and tell yourself you will overcome, but carry on as before, know in the end you’ll be so ill and weakened that eventually you won’t even notice your mistake and will begin to rationalize your behavior.”
Epictetus, Discourses, 2.18.31
The Importance of Failure
Failure happens to everyone, in every setting, at some point during life.
Perhaps you’ll fail an exam, or maybe you’ll miss out on getting a job promotion. Maybe you’ll be rejected when you ask somebody out on a date, or maybe someone will beat you to the prize.
Whatever the situation is, failure is natural, okay, and prominent. Failure is going to happen; this is something you unfortunately cannot avoid, no matter how hard you try.
—
A lot of unnecessary stress and turmoil stems from fearing failure.
Many people absolutely detest the idea of failing, of making a mistake, or of being bad at something. Most people do everything they can to avoid failure due to the deep rooted fear.
You don’t need to fear failure. All this does is cause a great deal of stress in your life. Those feelings can easily be avoided if you shift your mindset in regards to failure.
—
The magical thing is that failure can actually be a good thing!
Failure is not something to fear.
Failure is not something to run from.
Failure is something that you should accept and embrace — not only is it a natural part of life, it’s something that you can learn from and use to improve.
Mindset Shift 🧠
Make the important mindset shift in regards to failure — forgo seeing it as something to run from but embrace it.
The first thing to acknowledge is the fact that failure is natural — there is no way around this. Failure is something that is going to happen to everyone. The sooner you cultivate acceptance towards that, the better.
The second thing to acknowledge is the fact that failure is something you can learn from;
- If you failed an exam, you can look over where you went wrong, identify your areas of weakness and then improve those areas for next time! This allows you to correctly work on the things you need (for it’s always much better to work on your weaknesses than the things you’re good at) and you can improve your knowledge.
- If somebody else got the job position you wanted, you can shift your perspective on it. Rather than seeing it as a failure, see it as a valuable opportunity to build more skills, perhaps change your CV, or even apply somewhere else!
—
Failure is a good thing.
Rather than failing and then expecting that things will change, as outlined in the meditation, learn from it.
Accept that failure is going to happen and then learn from it.
Actions Over Words
The definition of insanity, as outlined by Holiday in the meditation, is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
Many people do the same things each day but miraculously expect that something is going to be different;
- Perhaps they’ll check their phone, first thing in the morning, allowing emails and texts to cloud their mindset and instantly set them off to a bad start. They might even wake up late, rushing their morning.
- Perhaps they’ll study subjects they don’t like, or work a 9–5 job that they hate.
- Perhaps they’ll come home and simply watch Netflix, drink alcohol or sleep.
Many people’s daily routines look something similar to that, and most of those people are deeply unhappy and unsatisfied with their life.
However, they don’t actually do anything to change it.
Even though they’re unhappy, even though they’re not making progress, they don’t take any action to change the routine. They simply do the same thing, over and over again, expecting and hoping for something to happen.
—
You can’t expect something to change without any actionable steps.
You can’t expect your life to be different if you don’t take any action to achieve that.
You cannot tell yourself that things will be different unless you make that change.
Actions are always more important than words.
—
Rather than saying things will be different, do something different.
Start today and make the change.
Do Something Different
The only way you’ll see any sort of change is if you do something different.
It’s in your hands; nobody else can change your life for you.
You have to be the one to take actionable steps that work to help you improve your life.
How?
There’s a couple of steps to making key changes in your life.
- Outline the end goal.
- Decide on small, atomic habits.
- Take action.
Outline The End Goal
First, you need to outline the problem.
- Perhaps you’re unhappy with your physical health and your physique.
- Perhaps you’re unhappy with the subjects you’re studying in your education.
- Perhaps you have a couple of bad habits that you want to break.
Outlining and understanding the problem is key to making changes — if you know the problem, you can find the solution.
Identifying the problem allows you to figure out what actions led up to the problem, and it also allows you to research ways to take action and improve the situation.
—
Next, figure out what you want.
What do you want to achieve?
What do you want to change in your life?
Ask yourself these questions to understand yourself better — if you don’t know what you want, how in the world are you going to get it?
—
Once you know the end goal, the thing you deeply desire, you can break that down into smaller, more atomic actions that allow you to achieve it!
Atomic Habits
I’ve focused in depth on habits, specifically relating to James Clear’s bestseller Atomic Habits, in other articles — check them out for a better understanding!
🔁 What are habits?
Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.
This definition is kinda wordy and complicated; habits are daily actions that you take which can allow you to massively improve in the long term.
When you repeat 1% wins and good habits, day after day, through replicating good decisions, duplicating small wins and reflecting, your small choices may compound into great results.
When you repeat 1% errors, day after day, through replicating poor decisions, duplicating tiny mistakes, and rationalising little excuses, your small choices may compound into toxic results.
—
Habits are small, daily actions.
You can use habits for your own advantage!
—
Once you’ve outlined the end goal, you can break the goal down into smaller, actionable daily habits that allow you to achieve the goal.
Rather than trying to make a massive, overnight change, you can simply adopt a few key habits that you’re consistent with — this is much more likely to bring results.
Say your end goal is to run a marathon, for example.
- Rather than instantly trying to run a marathon, maybe try and run 5k.
- Maybe even just run for 10 minutes, rather than trying 5k initially.
Running 5k is much easier than running a whole marathon, in the same way that running for 10 minutes is much easier than running 5k.
Whatever the goal is, break it down into smaller, easier steps; make the steps so easy that anyone can do it, and so you have no excuse not to!
Then, once you’ve broken the goal down into easier steps, make those actions a daily or regular habit. Consistency is key.
Back to the marathon idea; you’ll likely never run a marathon if you only run once or twice, whenever you feel like it. You’ve gotta be disciplined and run consistently — make it a daily or regular habit to run!
Habit Stacking
Habit Stacking, as outlined in the book by James Clear, is a great tool to help you build and stay consistent with good habits.
Habit Stacking is an incredibly efficient, and fairly easy, way to cultivate new habits, and to ensure that they stick around.
Habit Stacking itself is the process of stacking habits on top of each other; in other words, doing one habit, then another, then another, in a routine.
It’s the process of pairing the new habit you want to cultivate with an old habit you already have.
For example, you may want to start meditating in a morning. To stack this habit, you can take a look at your current morning routine and find a great place to slot it in. You must ensure that whichever habit you choose to be before the meditation stays before the meditation, for it acts as a cue. You know that after you perform X habit, it’s time to meditate.
Habit stacking helps you create a lifestyle full of consistency.
There is no point performing good habits every once in a while; you reap the true benefits when they’re performed with consistency.
The process of habit stacking ensures that, when it comes to performing the new habit, the ball is already rolling, you have the momentum, and all you have to do is ride the wave.
In this case, not performing the habit requires much more effort than performing it, for it’s stacked alongside other strong habits.
—
Through forming small, daily habits, you can achieve whatever you want to achieve. You can achieve those big goals!
Take Action
The last step is taking action.
Once you’ve identified the end goal and broken it down into smaller, atomic habits, you need to take action.
Do not stay stagnant, do not stay wishing for something to miraculously change — be the change.
In Conclusion
Take action and make those great changes, rather than simply hoping and expecting something to happen. You are the only one in control of your life.
