“A man who conquers himself is greater than one who conquers a thousand men in battle”

– Buddha

Everyone has this one or two vices that they love to indulge in.

Some of the most common ones include smoking cigarettes, porn, and masturbation, fast food, alcohol, etc.

You probably are aware that if you overindulge, those vices sap your vitality.

They drain your motivation. They give you a temporary boost, but make each moment you don’t use them dull and joyless.

I know, that we are all human and I by no means preach complete abstinence from all the little pleasures of life. But I’ve been on both sides of the spectrum and I can tell you that the difference is HUGE.

I’ve been a dude who jerks off all the time, eats tonnes of sugar, and smokes weed every day. I’ve also been a dude (and still am) that doesn’t do any of those things.

And even though you miss out on those little hits of pleasure here and there, the stable, grounded state of mind and self-esteem that I attained that’s with you at all times is totally worth it.

I would even go as far as saying that getting rid of those addictions was the #1 transformative thing I have done.

#1 – The Painful Struggle Between Your Higher & Lower Self

So how do you ACTUALLY crush your addictions?

Here is how Abraham Maslov defined it:

Scarcity Pleasure – relief you get from loss of anxiety or tension – does waiting for the weekend, escaping yourself through drinking or drugs, living from paycheck to paycheck ring a bell?

Abundance Pleasure – the ecstasy of functioning at once prime. Not just xing the dysfunction, but the bliss you get from living an awesome life on your terms.

Be it, “beating your meat” to internet porn, video games, smoking weed or tobacco. I’m sure you have your own favorite way to escape your daily troubles in one way or another.

Of course… it’s an easy source of good emotions, even though you know it’s not good for you in the long run.

Let me tell you something.

Your favorite vice, that you use to escape your reality is a classic example of “Catch 22”.

What is a “Catch 22”?

“It’s a problematic situation for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem or by a rule.”

“Your addictions work like a medicine that helps you to cope with life, but they are also a poison that perpetuates the life that’s miserable and has to be escaped from.”

Let me give you an example.

If you drink alcohol every day to escape your problems instead of actually dealing with them, you that the problems don’t exist.

#2 – The Horrifying Illusion That Can Leave You Traumatized

In reality, they are only masked by the pleasant feeling the alcohol gives you.

The moment you get sober, the reality of the situation smacks you right in the face which will cause emotional discomfort.

This discomfort then becomes a trigger to drink alcohol to forget all about it.

In the meantime, the problems rot and fester under the carpet eventually reaching a critical mass when they are just impossible to fix.

In the meantime every time you drink you erode the mental faculties that you need to deal with a piling stack of problems. Your thinking becomes fogged, your energy levels plummet.

Now you are in a situation where your problems are multiplied, yet your ability to handle them was severely diminished.

Can you see the vicious circularity of this?

If you managed to quit your vice for good, all the mental resources and vital energy is now freed up to be invested in chasing your dreams.

Whatever problems you are dealing with- you now have the energy and motivation to clean it up and get on a Positive Upward Spiral of Success.

If you focus on personal development and building a life you don’t want to escape from – using vices as a crutch to make yourself feel good, will simply stop making any sense.

#3 – The Only Magic Pill Solution That Works

Do you want to know the surest and quickest hack to make leaps and bounds in your own personal development?

Identify all your vices and get rid of them!

Throw them all into a bin and set that bin on fire (easier said than done).

This by itself will free tremendous amounts of time and energy in your life that you have at your disposal to supercharge your personal transformation.

It won’t be easy, your brain currently relies on all those external crutches for positive emotions and when you take them away, you will have withdrawal symptoms.

The thing is – the currency of success is sacrifice. I know you’ve been told you can have it all, but it’s garbage – you have to sacrifice lower-level pleasures for higher ideals.

There is no way around it.

The greater the sacrifice – the greater the reward.

And if you don’t sacrifice for what you want – what you want becomes the sacrifice.

Without identifying and getting rid of those sneaky little demons of yours, you are literally setting yourself up for failure.

It’s like trying to run a marathon with a ball and chain. You could do it, but the marathon is already hard enough as it is, why would you make it 100X harder.

I find that the biggest enemies of modern men are:

1. Masturbation to internet porn
2. Fast Food Diet
3. Smoking weed as an escape
4. Computer games addiction
5. Drinking and smoking
6. Social media and phone addiction

I have been addicted to all of the above and I have successfully unhooked myself from all of them.

I know all too well how easy it is to fall prey to becoming a slave to those habits. They all feel good at first, but before you know it, you can’t live without them.

If you need some help in cleaning yourself up from any of those I’d be happy to help you.

Click the link below and check out the free case study I prepared for you

#4 – Action Item: The Ultimate Sacrifice

Open up a new document, identify and write down what are you willing to sacrifice in order to live your life to the fullest?

Here is a list of the most common vices once again:

1. Masturbation to internet porn
2. Fast Food Diet
3. Smoking weed as an escape
4. Drinking and smoking
5. Unhealthy amounts of video games
6. Social media and phone addiction
7. Validation addiction

Remember, sacrificing is not optional.

You must replace a low-level behavior that doesn’t add value to your long-term happiness with a high-level activity that helps you to improve and build yourself up.

For now, I just want you to become conscious of what those habits are – we will work on replacing them in later sections.

#5 – Harnessing The Power of Role Models

Let me give you one of the coolest cheat codes on this journey of self-transformation.

As I already said, your identity is malleable, you can tweak and change it by first constructing its blueprint on paper and then slowly aligning yourself with it.

That means that you are in control, you can mold and shape it the way you like it.

And what’s the easiest way to bridge the gap between who you are and who you want to be?

Modeling.

Not this kind of modeling…

I’m sure you have a bunch of men that you admire. That’s great to admire them, but why stop there? I want you to go deeper and look under the surface.

What are the specific qualities that you admire about those people?

Just as an example, let’s say that in your vision you put that you want to be a marathon runner.

What are some qualities of a marathon runner?

1. Driven
2. Dedicated
3. Persistent
4. High tolerance for pain

Now, who is a good example of those traits? The person that comes to mind for me is David Goggins – he perfectly embodies all the traits you would be looking for.

If you’re an aspiring marathon runner, you want to be studying David Goggins in and out. Watch his videos, buy his book and try to see the world from his perspective until it becomes yours.

#6 – Action Item: Identify Your Role Models

1. Find 5-10 role models that embody the qualities you admire and would love to have yourself.
2. Write their names down in a document
3. Watch videos of them and study their behavior, watch out for what exactly makes them special.
4. Write down what makes them unique and ask yourself – how can you incorporate this into your own character?

#7 – Discover Your Hidden Motives

Another way to get rid of addictions is to simply have a vision for a bigger, better life.

But before you will be capable of translating that vision into reality, you first have to start with why.

Knowing what is the core of your motivation behind your vision is vitally important.

Your vision has to be attached to a powerful enough engine that would allow you to achieve the “escape velocity of action taking” and get what you want out of life.

By escape velocity of action taking, I simply mean that it can be hard at first to get yourself to do the right things consistently as well as say no to the wrong things consistently.

You may do the right actions for a bit and then fall off track.

Once you reach that zone where it’s easier to take the right action then not and you see those temporary dips on your journey just as minor turbulence.

That’s how you know that you reached the escape velocity and are now building momentum that will carry you toward your goals.

Most people’s motivation when they are starting out is covered in lack, insecurity, and ego.

They want to show the people that didn’t believe in them that they are worth something.

They want to prove to themselves that they are enough.

Let’s say you want to get really rich and get a Lamborghini.

Why do you want it?

Is it a way of saying “f*** you to all the people that didn’t believe in you?

Do you think you will be more attractive to women if you are rich?

Or maybe you are genuinely passionate about sports cars?

And if saying “f*** you” to all that didn’t believe in you is your primary motivation then that’s one.

If it lights up the fire under your ass, then it’s good – at least in the beginning. Just make sure you don’t get stuck in those lower motivations forever.

The only reason I got into self-development was that I thought I can get more girls if I become a better person.

And guess what, I did!

But as it turned out, part of becoming a better person (and getting better with girls) is detaching from needing them, so ultimately I renewed my reasons later on as I acquired a taste for personal development and self-transformation for its own sake.

#8 – Action Item: Discovering Your Why

1. Go back to the document that contains your vision and ask yourself: “why do I want this?”
2. Write down the answer.
3. Now dig deeper, look at the answer you came up with, and ask yourself again: “why do I want this?”
4. Repeat 5 times. Once you dig about 5 layers deep you will get down to your original motivation.
5. Repeat this process on every element of your vision

Example:

You may say you want a girlfriend, but if you dig deep enough, you’ll nd that what you really want is external validation that would make you feel like you’re “good enough” or worthy of love.

If that’s the case, maybe you can short circuit the process and start feeling good enough now and then get a girlfriend for a different reason.

Now all you need is a way to store this knowledge of yourself and always keep it handy.

The point is, you need some way to keep all this together, so you can fully integrate and remind yourself about it in times of need.

1. Open a Google Drive (or any other cloud storage of your choice)
2. Create a folder and call it The Source Code
3. Take all the documents from the exercises you’ve done and put it all there
4. Done!

PS Hey man, thanks for reading – I hope you found this information valuable.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Also,  share it with a friend that may find that life-changing information to be of value.

Speak soon, my man!

PREVIOUS ARTICLE:

THE SECRET FORMULA FOR OVERCOMING SELF-SABOTAGE & TRANSFORMING YOUR LIFE