We live in a surface-focused world.
So many float on the superficial layer and wonder why they feel empty within.
It’s superficial on a materialistic, shiny object level and a knowledge acquisition level.
How many personal development programs can you sign up for?
How many books can you read in a year?
How many podcasts do you consume?
The amount of speed reading courses and the fact that we can listen to podcasts at 2x speeds only reinforces this.
All to feed the voracious desire to consume knowledge under the guise that this creates transformation.
No one has ever become a master at something by reading a book once and walking away from it.
They merely have a superficial understanding of the material.
Genuine transformation requires we transcend intellectual understanding and instead cultivate emotional embodiment.
The difference between the 2 is exponential.
Intellectual understanding is critically important and a step toward personal transformation.
But emotional embodiment is where our true expansion lies.
Example: It’s one thing to know our core values; it’s another to embody them where they’re a part of you the way your skin is.
Intellectual doesn’t always equal action.
Emotional embodiment creates meaningful action.
I created a fill-in-the-blank exercise when I reinvented my life after prison to embody my values:
When I embody the value of __________, I create _____________ in my life.
Example: When I embody the value of mastery, I create a deep sense of purpose, meaning, and fulfillment in my life.
Now I know why this value is essential to me and what embodying it will create in my life.
And this isn’t a one-and-done (that’s intellectual); I did this exercise (and many more) every day for 3 years straight.
I listened to my heart and did my best not to repeat yesterday’s answers.
The practice was life-altering.
Emotional embodiment doesn’t apply only to our values but to all aspects of our lives that we desire to expand.
Superficial is easy: we consume empowering content, are rewarded with a shot of dopamine, and feel as though we’re done.
Emotional embodiment is a long-term investment (one of the best we’ll ever make) that eschews the ease of the superficial.
So, how do we break through the surface and dive deeper into ourselves?
Here are 3 simple steps you can begin today:
Clarity: We must cultivate crystal clear clarity on the life we want to live.
The first step in cultivating clarity is understanding who and where we are today. It’s easier to start if we know where we’re starting from.
Next, we have to give ourselves permission to dream big. Who do we want to be, and how do we want to live?
Clarity creates the roadmap to the extraordinary.
Stop Settling: We must understand that we’re settling when we consume something once and take zero action beyond that.
We must also understand that we took a step and celebrate ourselves for it.
Here are a few ways to stop settling:
Highlight passages and ask yourself why they matter to you.
Put yourself in the author’s/podcaster’s shoes and ask yourself what your first step would have been if you faced what they faced.
Read other’s reviews to see the material through someone else’s eyes.
A hundred people read the same book; chances are you’ll see a hundred different perspectives.
The public library is a great resource.
Meaningful Action: Knowledge without action is merely air.
Now that you’ve established clarity and stopped settling, you can take the words off of the pages or out of the podcast and turn them into tangible action.
Engage with the content repeatedly, highlighting different passages, asking new questions, and creating something unique based on what you consumed.
Write a blog post, do your own podcast, craft a talk, or teach others what you learned.
Here’s another challenge to embody the information: Take the opposite stance and try to prove it wrong.
We can only understand something fully once we understand its direct opposite.
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An extraordinary life doesn’t live on the surface; it’s waiting for us beyond the pale of the superficial.
These 3 steps are how you break through and into your desired life.
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