Get better at applying TGA principles
Level 3: Master of the Mundane
Future Guardian,
There comes a point, in everyone's journey through The Guardian Academy,
Where you've read all there is to read,
Where you've started to apply the principles and the practices,
Where you've perhaps even started to help others,
And you discover this repeated experience ...
"Dammit! I totally forgot to use The Rear View Mirror on myself last week."
Or,
Insert any principle or practice.
You get weeks into a project only to realize "why didn't I ask myself if this is what I really wanted?"
Your inclination might be to beat yourself up for "not getting it."
But lets slow down here for a moment.
Let's ask ourselves,
How do we get better at applying all this Guardian Academy stuff to our everyday life?
We know about Raising the Floor ... we know the next step is applying it ... but we find ourselves forgetting at crucial moments!
If you've had that experience,
Especially if you’ve said to yourself "dammit, I thought I had solved this?"
Well,
My Friend,
Do I have some good news for you.
I have an answer, and a perspective, which I believe will be quite useful in your journey.
Let's start with that simple answer.
The simplest answer is
Use prompts.
In The Guardian Academy we have, in essence, "packaged" the necessary response/dynamic for applying these principles into your everyday life using what we call prompts.
These are questions you can ask yourself in specific scenarios which help you apply the principle to your own life.
Rear View Mirror itself is a prompt.
It is a question you bring to the fore whenever it is you are trying to get more of something.
It's powerful because when we are in that state of wanting more of something - more time, more money, more energy - our default response to the "problem" is try to look out there for something new.
And so when we are in that state we want to use the prompt to direct ourself to more principled action. In this case The Rear View Mirror prompts us, instead of looking to something new, to look behind us and see what worked in the past.
I want more free time - well, when I had more free time in the past what was I doing?
I want more energy - when I had more energy in the past, what was I doing?
More money - I've made money before, what did I do to do that, and can I just do more of that thing?
Etc.
There are two challenges we face when we're wanting to figure out how to apply The Rear View Mirror more consistently to our everyday lives.
One is the necessary tools or awareness to know when to bring out that prompt.
The other is a useful perspective shift on consistently doing anything - most especially when it comes to change in yourself.
For your reference,
Here are some of our common prompts which we frequently use and which I'll reference going forward.
We have The Rear View Mirror1 above, add onto that:
Resource Engineering2
DALA Glasses3
Via Negativa4
Nobody Wins a Race They Don't Want to Be In5
Raise the Floor6
What do I Measure? Trends (see footnote 5)
Learn to Appreciate When Bad Things Don't Happen (see footnote 5)
And I'm going to add one which isn't officially in The Guardian Academy, but since I'm writing this … I GET TO DO WHAT I WANT!!! HAHAHAH
Is this thing going to solve my most immediate constraint?
(I'll explain this further on, it's based out of a personal prompt I've been using effectively for years to stop myself from buying shiny things that don’t help me)
But here's the thing.
Your key to moving forward and growing is not about knowing the specific prompts.
Training yourself to stop
The most effective immediate answer to the question "how do I apply {insert principle here} more in my everyday life?"
Is to STOP.
The real trick is not getting better at applying the thing,
The real trick is getting better at recognizing when you can stop and think about a situation where something like this might apply.
That might sound like a semantic difference,
But from a behavior perspective, it's an entirely different world. Just think about what your behavior is like if you go along wanting to better apply Raising the Floor.
Are you going to walk around everywhere all the time thinking "I need to Raise the Floor. I need to Raise the Floor."
Of course not.
It's not useful all the time. Where this concept is useful is surrounding certain decision making processes.
So, you might think "Ok I need to get good at recognizing when I can apply Raising the Floor."
NOPE
Too specific.
I'm going to posit this for you:
When you are moving forward and trying to solve a problem, THAT tendency ('i need to get good at recognizing when to use this tool') is the least efficient space of mind to be in, because you are focused on solving the problem you think you have.
This principles are about pulling back not only to solve a problem, but to also make sure you have clarity on what the problem really is so you solve the right one.
And this is why instead of trying to recognize when to apply these prompts, these principles, we instead train ourselves at certain decision crossroads to STOP. And THINK.
Easy to skip over this.
You know what's funny?
They teach this on Sesame Street.
I kid you not.
There's an entire skit with Cookie Monster that is all about teaching yourself to STOP. and THINK.
And it makes complete sense.
When we're in "doing" mode we are striving forward trying to solve a problem looking for the answers grasping at what makes sense, tricking ourselves into thinking we're making decisions as we choose what handholds to take, when in reality what's happening is we're blowing past the decision making process altogether.
It's easier when we're helping other people because we don't have the inner dialogue pushing us along and making the the path foggier, narrowing our vision on the outcome rather than the step in front of us.
When we're helping others, we HAVE to stop and ask questions otherwise we can't continue properly.
So we can recognize that for ourselves, we don't need to rush past decisions.
Unless we're in a really desperate life or death, do or it's all over immediately kind of situation (which is nearly never the case) ...
We get to actually slow down.
Since all of these prompts tend to center around decision making processes, my advice is to build a flag in your mind that pops up whenever a decision needs to be made.
And then you can analyze the style of decision and what's going on around it. If you recognize patterns in the styles of decision making for yourself, you can use those patterns as well.
A common one we all face is 'I want more' (of something).
"I need more money."
Ok great.
Flag up.
What prompts can we apply to this scenario?
Let's go down the list.
Resource Engineering - you say "I need more money." Well ... what if the money you need is actually right in front of you? Maybe you can Recapture and Reallocate what you need and solve your problem without doing anything else.
DALA Glasses - you say "I need more money." Do you? What is it you really want? Why do you need more money? Maybe what you really need or want is related to an alignment of behavior and what you say you'll do. Maybe you don't need more money at all to get what you actually desire.
Via Negative - you say "I need more money." Well ... what if instead of getting more money, you just did less of something else. Spending less money is often easier than making more money. Maybe that solves your problem (in this case, a variation on Resource Engineering).
Nobody Wins a Race They Don't Want to be In - you say "I need more money ... so I'm gonna build a digital course and sell it." Yea but ... what if you *hate* making digital courses and dealing with customers and all the support, etc. No sense in pushing down that path if you don't want to be doing it.
Raise the Floor - you say "i need more money." Great. But the tendency might be to beat our best here. We might think "i need to hit $10k a month" when our highest has been $8k. But our most likely success is going to come from turning the $2k month into a $3k month, and so on.
What do I measure? Trends - you say "I need more money." Why do you think that? Maybe the way you are looking at your own data is warping your perspective. Perhaps you've had this thought because you had a couple bad months ... but if you pan out over the last 12, you discover a significantly increasing trend and that you *are* already making more money.
Learn to Appreciate When Bad Things Don't Happen - you say "I need more money." It might feel like an urgent problem to solve, but maybe take a moment, relax, and recognize that you're probably doing pretty well. You might want or need more, but at least right now you're stopping and making strategic small steps forward rather than completely blowing yourself up.
Is that enough?
I'm not saying you go through EVERY prompt every time.
I'm saying, train yourself to STOP and THINK - especially when there's a decision to be made, when you are looking to make a change, when you desire more or less of something.
Use those junction points as opportunities to reflect and run through these types of prompts.
The immediate constraint prompt (AKA “The ROI Prompt”)
My personal prompt, which I introduced above as "Is this thing going to solve my most immediate constraint?" Is one I made in response to any situation where I am tempted to buy a solution to a problem I think I have.
I was trying to combat the emotional drive to buy those answers, the FOMO, the GREED, alongside having a very tight budget.
My initial version of this was really just "am I going to immediately use this and get the ROI I need from it right away?"
If the answer was no (or I couldn't understand how to do that), I didn't care how tempting it was, how valuable it looked, how good the offer.
Didn't matter.
Because it wasn't worth spending the resources to get a thing that wasn't going to solve a problem for me in the moment. Even if there was a highly compelling argument that it could solve my problem later. If it could be ROI positive later, then I could make that choice later and it would be better for me.
The "stop" point for that prompt was easy to see, because it was whenever I wanted to buy something.
I could also apply other prompts in the same situation.
I'm looking to buy a solution to a problem … Well, Rear View Mirror - maybe I've already solved this problem? Dala - maybe the problem isn't what I think it is. Raise the Floor - maybe my situation is better improved more simply solving different problems altogether.
I've come to realize that this "ROI prompt" was really a form of forcing myself to focus on my most immediate constraint.
After all,
If you're going to expend resources of ANY kind, ideally you want those resources to go towards solving your most immediate constraint (so that you can then get more resources immediately back).
Let me go a step further ...
Presence is a component in this.
That's certainly a repeating theme throughout The Guardian Academy. When it comes to finding our full potential and living a life of meaning and happiness ...
Presence is crucial.
Presence is having present awareness with yourself in the NOW. Not being mentally in the future or in the past. Just being really right here, in the moment, NOW.
And you can look through all those prompts and see how thinking through them can help bring you into presence. Even The Rear View Mirror forces you to come into the present - it's pulling you back from looking towards a future dream, into the present moment and asking yourself to just look behind you to see what worked before when you can apply right now.
Presence.
Because we're all only ever Here, It's only ever You, and It's only ever Now.
You, Here, Now.
Embrace that.
Be like Cookie Monster. Stop. and Think.
And ask yourself ... is this a moment to apply a prompt? What could that be?
By the way
When you build that stop, that flag, that prompt to reflect on before moving forward, if you get stuck, that's exactly what The Arena is for.
Especially when you start this off you might recognize the points - "I want more of something" - and its easier to recognize that this point IS a place to stop and reflect ... but you might then just think "well I have no idea what to do now."
I want more of something and now I'm supposed to use a prompt, what do I do? what prompt? how do I use it?
That is exactly the point of The Arena. You come in, you share what you did, what happened, and ask for help in navigating what to do next.
![Stepping Into The Arena [Invite]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_140,h_140,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2f8bf824-6dfe-4bec-9c0c-ec8575266298_1011x447.png)
But training yourself to stop is only the first half of the equation.
The other half,
Which is a very useful perspective to help you keep moving forward ...
Recognize:
You're gonna forget
You're gonna go through a moment like this where you could stop and think and slow down and reflect ... you're gonna do it like you usually do, and a week later be like "oh shit I forgot to use The Rear View Mirror"
Here's the perspective:
Know that this is ok.
This is human.
Especially because we are purpose driven people who go beyond the bounds of others expectation to create the life that we really desire,
We're also highly likely to feel like we can solve these "faults."
You're highly likely to want to feel like you can solve this. That you can always remember to apply The Rear View Mirror, or DALA glasses, or that you'll always have great communication because you understand The Rocky Road.
Especially if you are good at helping others apply this themselves (it's always more challenging looking within and helping yourself).
Ever been like "damn it I thought I was over this", "I thought this was never going to happen again"
Recognize you never fix it.
This is the same with The Human Mindset and The Champion's Mind.7
If you go through Dr. Jeff Spencer's training, you'll discover this very lesson. No matter what you do, no matter how clear you are on the choices and how to grow ...
You will not be perfect.
It will never be solved.
And that's ok.
Thinking it does, thinking you've "solved" it or will "solve" it, is a form of being delusional.8
What matters isn't perfection,
What matters is change in the right direction. What matters is that the thing you wish to have happen less frequently, just continues to happen less frequently.
That's progress and growth.
That's learning.
We're not after being perfect automatons. We are human. We're after growth, learning, and continually evolving towards our better selves and the life we desire.
So,
Let's recap.
We want to use prompts around our own needs, lives, circumstances etc.
We want to use this tool as often as possible when appropriate.
So, we train ourselves to recognize the moments when such prompts could be useful. Decision making moments. Problem solving moments.
We train ourselves to stop and think and look through our understanding of prompts so we can then appropriately apply them.
If we forget, that's ok
If we are forgetting less frequently, then we're moving in the right direction
All we can do is improve relative to where we are now.
A little preview to a future article ...
How can we know that we're improving?
Here's one method,
The 3 Lists (featured here):
If you need help clearly seeing how you are improving and growing, apply that to your day to day life.
(It can also help you build those stop points and apply prompts more frequently)
Be Useful. Be Present. Love the Journey.
Joseph Robertson, CMO The Guardian Academy
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I've been wondering how to keep using the tools in the guardian tool box.
This was helpful!
6WU: Stop and think, use a prompt