There is a sinister force that holds you back

It's a dark energy that will do anything to stop you from achieving your goals.

It's the seductive beast that makes you snooze your alarm when you have work to do.

The savage thing that entices you to have another drink, another cigarette, another bump.

We all experience this sinister force, it's part of the beauty of being human.

This essay will discuss this sinister force.

Cause and effect

The sixth principle of Hermetic Philosophy is the principle of cause and effect.

It's the philosophical embodiment of "everything happens for a reason".

Everything that we experience as humans, emotions, physical matter, thoughts, visions, is an effect, these effects do not come out of nothing.

Every effect must have a cause.

And every cause must have an effect.

For those of you who do not subscribe to meta-physics or ancient philosophy, that's fine, you don't need to in order to understand these concepts...

Isaac Newton later reconfirmed this knowledge with his third law of motion.

This principle is prevalent across all states of being, both physical and metaphysical.

We see it in the interaction between atoms, the ebb and flow of our solar system, and deep within the realms of human psychology.

There is no escape from this principle and it has more control over your life than you might realize.

Accepting this fact and understanding these concepts will make your life a whole lot easier.

A goal set, is an action taken

By setting a goal, you're taking an action.

Due to the law of cause and effect, an equally powerful opposing force must then manifest.

This sinister force that holds you back from achieving your goal, is the equal and opposite reaction caused by the setting of a goal.

Imagine you're wearing a backpack on your back.

Every time you set a goal, you're putting rocks in your imaginary backpack.

The more you want to achieve this goal, the bigger the rocks.

The more rocks in your bag, the heavier it is and the harder it becomes to move yourself towards the achievement of your goal.

These rocks slow you down, hold you back, make you want to give up.

These rocks are a representation of this sinister force that holds you back.

These rocks cannot exist without the goal, and the goal cannot exist without the rocks.

You'll begin to notice it within yourself.

You probably have patterns of setting goals, getting started and eventually hitting a point where the last thing you want to do is whatever you need to do to achieve that goal.

Trying to lose weight? Junk food becomes more tempting.

Trying to stop smoking? Cigarettes become more appealing.

Trying to read more books? Netflix becomes more entertaining.

It's a vicious cycle...

Most people don't understand why this force manifests and how they can overpower it.

Surely if we want to achieve something badly enough, we can just achieve it... Right?

We both know that it's not that easy...

This sinister force

You're probably wondering what this sinister force is.

What thing could be so evil that it wants to stop you from achieving your goals?

What awful manifestation of the universe has set out to actively destroy your life?

Well...

It's you.

You are the dark force.

You are this sinister energy and you are doing anything you possibly can to stop yourself from achieving your goals.

This might be a hard pill to swallow...

It's not your job, it's not your spouse, your laptop, your sports team, your broken leg, your book collection, your porn addiction, your boss, your clients, your family, your race, your accent, your financial situation, your dog or your internet.

None of these things are to blame for your failure.

It's all your fault.

Everything is your fault.

You are your own worst enemy.

You are the sinister force holding you back.

You might be offended, you might feel some emotions bubbling up and you might want to tell me why I'm wrong, why it's not your fault that you're not rich or healthy or happy.

You can choose to continue blaming the universe for your current situation, or you can choose to take responsibility for your current circumstances.

I suggest the latter.

Responsibility is the ability to respond.

We all have this ability within us.

By taking responsibility and choosing how we respond to the shit that life throws at us, we take control of our lives.

By blaming the universe for your situation, you're letting go of all control and all hope of living a decent life.

If you wake up every Saturday with a hangover that ruins your whole weekend, by blaming your friends for being peer-pressuring alcoholics you are letting go of control over your life.

You are putting the outcome of your life in the hands of your alcoholic friends. (This is exactly how I used to think)

If you are 50kg overweight and you struggle to walk up the stairs, it's easy to blame your spouse for not cooking you healthy meals or your boss for making you sit at a desk for 60 hours a week.

Blaming them for your obesity is not going to help you live any longer.

If you currently have no income, you might blame the job market. Or maybe your clients for leaving you, your family for not supporting you, or your ex-boss who fired you. What a waste of energy.

It's easy to blame your environment for your situation.

It isn't as easy to accept that your situation is your own fault.

By taking responsibility for your current situation, you are taking control of your life.

That, my friend, will make your life a whole lot easier.

Accept that you are your own worst enemy.

Know your enemy, know his sword

- Miyamoto Musashi

For every goal that is set, a battle begins.

It is a battle between the part of you that wants to grow and the part of you that doesn't.

It is a fight to the death.

There can only be one winner.

In order to create the life that you want to live, you must beat this sinister force more times than it beats you.

In order to beat your most feared opponent, you must first understand them.

You must be able to anticipate their every move and counter-attack their weakest points.

So, who are you?

Who are you really?

I want you to question yourself, deeply.

Write it down.

Everyone has a different answer.

Most people, when asked, will tell you something about them.

"I'm a lawyer"

"I'm a conservative"

"I'm a man"

"I'm a pansexual"

"I'm a dominatrix"

"I'm an Asian"

"I'm Louis"

"I'm an Atheist"

"I'm a vegan"

"I'm a punk"

"I'm a loser"

If you wrote down something along these lines, you're wrong...

You are not your job, your political beliefs, your gender, your sexuality, your fetishes, your race, your name, your religion, your diet, your music genre, or your failures.

You are not any of these things.

These are nothing more than labels you have prescribed to yourself.

Most people attach their identities to a certain aspect of their life and therefore manifest character traits to match these identities.

*In the last essay I discussed our paradigm. How it was formed and how it controls our life. If you haven't read it yet, I highly suggest you do it before continuing.*

Who we are, is just a reflection of our paradigm.

Who you are, is just a collection of everything that you believe to be true about yourself and the world around you.

This sinister force that holds you back and stops you from achieving your goals, is nothing more than a collection of what you believe to be true.

These beliefs create your thoughts, which create your words, your actions, your identity, your reality and this is the only thing that holds you back.

A vegan is not a vegan because the universe created them to be a vegan.

They are a vegan because every experience they've ever had in their life, both real and imaginary, has led to them believing that a vegan diet is superior to other diets. These beliefs have led to their thoughts, words and actions, and identities.

The universe didn't decide for them to be vegan, they did... Based on how they reacted to every experience they've ever had in their life.

The universe itself is infinite, it has no bias. It doesn't give a shit if you eat meat or not.

Likewise, the universe is not the cause of your misery. The universe didn't decide for you to be the "unlucky" one. The universe has no reason to throw shit your way.

It's not "out to get" anyone.

You're miserable because you believe yourself to be a miserable person, your thoughts align with these beliefs, therefore so do your actions, your identity, and your reality.

Your reality then strengthens your belief that you are miserable and this creates a self-fulfilling feedback loop of misery and disaster.

You have created yourself, your identity, and the reality that you live in.

You have created this sinister force that holds you back.

Are you the same person that you were 15 years ago?

Do you have the same beliefs, habits, thoughts, interests, and hobbies?

No, of course not.

This is because you are malleable, you can change.

Your identity is not set in stone, you are not anything.

You can change at any time.

You can adopt any identity that you want.

You can live in any reality that you want.

The universe doesn't decide who you are.

The universe doesn't hold you back.

You do.

Your identity is the effect of a million causes

Now, we know that your identity is comprised of everything you believe to be true about yourself.

And that your identity is the one thing holding you back from achieving your goals.

I hope you understand that if you learn to change your beliefs, you can therefore change your identity, your actions, and ultimately your reality.

But where do these beliefs come from?

Bear with me here...

I am going to use a visual from a mentor of mine, Charlie Morgan to explain this.

Imagine you're standing in front of a pole with two buckets attached to either end, one red and one green:

This black pole symbolizes something you experience in your life.

Let's take electronic music as an example.

Every time you have an experience related to electronic music, a drop of water will be poured into one of the buckets.

If it's a good experience, the water goes into the green bucket.

A bad experience will pour water into the red bucket.

Different experiences will pour different amounts of water (depending on the strength of the emotional reaction), and not all experiences are perceived equally.

Over time, one of the buckets will outweigh the other and that dictates what we believe to be true about the thing in question.

I like electronic music, therefore my scales will look like this:

Thason I like electronic music is not because the universe decided for me to like it, it's because over time I have stacked up more positive beliefs than negative beliefs about it.

Liking electronic music is an effect, caused by a number of positive experiences related to drum and bass.

Because I like electronic music, being an electronic music fan is part of my identity.

This means that the actions I take and the thoughts I have are congruent with those of someone who enjoys electronic music.

I go to techno events, I listen to drum and bass on public transport, and I like to find new psytrance artists to listen to.

The same concept is applied to every single thing in your life that you can have an opinion on.

Everything from how you think you look, your food, your sexuality, your friends, your taste in movies, the list goes on forever.

It's impossible for us to experience something without pouring water into one of these buckets.

This is the only reason you like or dislike anything in your life.

It is what has formed your opinions on zodiac signs, Christianity, carnivorism, Swiss banking, or the flat earth theory.

Our identity is essentially a collection of these buckets and lines, forming our beliefs about everything we've ever experienced in this world.

Your identity is this:

A collection of millions of beliefs about anything and everything from Hitler to beans.

The sinister force that holds you back is nothing more than this collection of buckets and water.

The only reason you haven't achieved your goals is because you've poured water into the wrong buckets and you've created beliefs that are not in alignment with what you want to achieve.

If you have had a lot of negative experiences in your life related to exercise, you'll have more water in the red bucket and you will believe that exercise is terrible.

Then every time you exercise, you'll have a bad experience and that will pour more water into the red bucket, making you dislike exercise even more, reinforcing itself and strengthening the cycle...

The universe didn't create you to dislike exercise, you did.

I know I'm repeating myself, I really want you to understand this.

Your jaw should be on the floor right now.

Here's where this gets really interesting:

Our brain cannot tell the difference between imagination and reality.

An imaginary experience can pour as much water into one of these buckets as a "real" experience.

Some of you might be reading this with skepticism. Your paradigm might be blocking off this information because it is not in line with your beliefs.

If that's the case I suggest you question yourself, question why you're reluctant to accept this information.

I'm not suggesting you take my word for face value, don't trust me. You should do your own research.

Here are some resources I've used to solidify my understanding:

Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz

Untethered Soul by Michael Singer

The Kybalion by Three Initiates

Effects of Mental Practice, Physical Practice, and Knowledge of Results on Piano Performance

The Effects of Visualization & Guided Imagery in Sports Performance

So, why is this important?

It means that who we are, is not created by some mystical alignment of the stars in the night sky, our identity has been formed by experiences that we have imagined throughout our lives.

Meaning, if we control the experiences that we imagine, we can control our identity and therefore, our reality.

Mental feedback loops

You know when someone says something that hurts your feelings and you spend the next couple of hours or days replaying that memory over in your head?

Every time you replay this memory, you are pouring water into one of the belief buckets.

You are playing the memory over in your head and because your brain doesn't know any better, your brain acts as if you are experiencing it again in real life.

So if you're 6 years old and your classmate tells you that you're stupid because you did poorly on a math test, it doesn't matter if you are actually stupid or not, you'll continue to relive that memory, and every time you do, you're reinforcing the belief that you are stupid.

Throughout school, you continue to believe that you're stupid which leads to you not making an effort to improve your grades.

Every time you get a school report, you see your poor grades, reinforcing this belief and causing you to take even less action.

One comment made by one six-year-old one time can change your entire self-perception, identity, and ultimately, your reality for the rest of your life.

These mental feedback loops make or break people every single day.

Here's the thing: The person in the example is probably not actually of low intelligence.

But, because they imagined themselves to be and constantly reinforced this belief through their actions and thoughts, they manifested their stupidity into reality.

It's an extreme example but this is how identities and perceptions of self are formed, through real-life and imaginary experiences that reinforce the beliefs we have about ourselves.

Change your identity

If you want to achieve your goals and change your life, you need to change what you believe to be true about yourself.

If you believe you're a lazy person, it's because your real life and imaginary experiences have led to these beliefs, thoughts, actions, etc...

If you believe you're a really active person, same story.

If you're lazy and you set a goal of getting a six-pack, the only way to do that is to adopt the identity of an active person.

You do that by changing your beliefs about yourself, pouring water into different buckets, and making yourself believe that you are an active person.

If you try to change your habits or try to pursue a goal without adopting a new identity, it will prove to be impossible because humans do not act out of accordance with their beliefs (or their identity).

However, the problem is that most people do not believe they can change their identity.

They believe that they are who they are and that's it.

Here's the thing:

Your identity is the sum of all the beliefs you have about the world.

Your beliefs were constructed by your real-life experiences, but mostly by your imaginary experiences.

Therefore, your identity is mostly imaginary.

If you imagine something new or different about yourself, you will change.

Most people don't change because they have adopted the identity of someone who can't change, they believe that they cannot change, therefore their actions and their reality aligns with these beliefs.

This belief is what ruins the lives of the masses.

Self solidification

Self solidification is the total lack of awareness of the human capability for complete transcendence and change.

It is the worst disease that plagues humankind. It is the cause of more suffering, deaths, and misery than any other disease in the world.

People don't realize that they can change their identity as they please.

Anyone can literally become whoever the fuck they want, achieve anything they want, and live whatever sort of life they want.

But they don't.

Instead, they stick to whatever identity they have formed and solidified over the years of unconscious programming.

If you want to start a business, adopt a businessperson's identity.

If you want to lose weight, adopt a fit person's identity.

If you want to have more sex, adopt an attractive person's identity.

If you don't believe that it's possible, that will lead you to not trying to change, not changing, and therefore having a reinforced belief that change is impossible.

However, if you change your beliefs and make yourself believe that it is possible, you'll try to change, see success and therefore reinforce that belief.

In the coming essays, I will give step-by-step processes you can use to change your beliefs.

Your current identity is the sinister force that holds you back, it is the monster that hides within your subconscious that prevents you from achieving what it is you want to achieve.

Why the fuck would you not try to change your identity?

Goals are not material or physical

If you want to achieve a goal, you're not aiming for a number on a scale or a number in your bank account.

You're aiming for a new identity.

The only way to achieve a goal is by adopting the identity of the person who can achieve said goal.

However, we've been led to believe that we need to

• stick to our roots

• stay true to who we are

• be ourselves

• love ourselves

What a load of bullshit.

You are the cause of all your misery, why would you stick to who you are?

Why would you not change your identity and become the person who can achieve the things you want to achieve in your life?

You might not believe that it's possible to change like that.

If that's the case, self-solidification has got its hold on you.

Here's the problem:

Your identity is like a living organism. It doesn't want to die.

It has a natural instinct to survive and it will do whatever it can to do so.

When you set a goal, you threaten your current identity.

It knows that if it doesn't do something to hold you back, it'll die and a new identity will take its place.

This is the natural opposing force that is the effect, caused by setting a goal.

Your identity will begin to make excuses, justify not doing the work, and tempt you with alcohol, junk food, porn, and Netflix... Whatever it is that you need to avoid.

Your identity knows you better than anyone and it knows exactly what tricks you'll fall for.

It knows what buttons to push to get you to give up the pursuit of that goal.

It knows exactly how to tempt you into staying the person that you are.

This is why you are your worst enemy.

Lose yourself

- Eminem

Every time you take the action of setting a goal, an equal and opposite reaction will manifest.

This reaction is a seemingly dark force that will do anything to hold you back.

This dark force is your current sense of identity, struggling to survive.

It doesn't want you to change.

Your sense of identity is the sum of your beliefs about yourself which have been created by your past experiences, both real and imaginary.

If you want to achieve a goal, that can only be done by adopting a new identity and killing off your current one.

We humans, have the ability to create experiences in our minds and change our beliefs as we see fit.

By doing this, you can change your identity and become whoever you need to be in order to achieve your goals.

In order to become fit, healthy, wealthy, attractive, smarter, or whatever, you need to change your identity because your current one isn't serving you.

Most people don't believe that this change is possible. This negative belief is just the result of your identity defending itself, preventing you from growing.

In the coming essays, I'll be discussing practical step-by-step processes that you can use to change your beliefs, adopt new identities and mold your reality into whatever you want it to be.

Thanks for reading, leave your comments, questions & criticism in the community so we can start a discussion!

see you soon,

louis

PS If you want to book a free call and have a chat with me about whatever, you can do that here