page title icon The 4 Phases Of Gathering Gravity (aka, the journey to learning and successfully doing anything you’ve never done before)

Moving from the Knowns and
the
Known Unknowns, all the way
to the
Unknown Unknowns

“…sooner or later you’re going to realize –just as I did– there’s a difference between knowing the path and WALKING the path.”
— Morpheus

Look, gathering gravity on any subject is only a skill.

And, just like any skill you’ve learned (like walking, talking, writing, reading, foreign languages, riding a bike, playing a sport, instrument, etc.)…

…any skill or capability you can now perform automatically, you can trace it back to a time when it was an impossible feat for you to accomplish. So as you locate that doorway and decide to walk your road, here’s the 4 signposts you’ll see on your journey…

1. The Excitement Phase:

Right now, you’re probably very excited because you’re starting to see new possibilities. You may even have some good guesses as to why the things you’ve tried in the past didn’t take you all the way to the finish line.

You’re probably feeling a little sense of hope bubbling up inside you. That’s what happens when you first see a bigger future with new possibilities.

It’s an exciting feeling of optimism combined with those stomach butterflies because somewhere stuck in the back of your mind, are all your memories of times you were hopeful but things still didn’t work out the way you wanted.

In the excitement phase, your doubts and fears quietly wait their turn to say, “I told you not to get your hopes up!”

However, that doesn’t matter because right now excitement speaks louder than fear, and therefore controls emotions. The new potential you feel inside wins out, right? Your heart leads the way telling you “This time it’ll be different because this time you have the missing pieces that’ll fix where the other things failed.”

So, you dare dreaming of that bigger future again.

And it feels good to be expanding again instead of being frozen in the fetal position because fear got the better of you. In this phase, your curiosity is peaked which tends to blind us to the work and potential obstacles that always lays ahead. All we see is the promise of the new life awaiting us.

Embrace this feeling. Love it. Bask in it. Soak it all up. It’s fun and feels good…

…and the more you store it all up now, the more you’ll have for gathering gravity later as you come up against the learning curve blocks in later phases.

Plus, without embracing your excitement, there’d never be any new discoveries.

2. The Feeling Stupid Phase:

As you start learning and consciously try making forward progress to do something you’ve never successfully accomplished, you’re bound to feel confused and frustrated.

Such is the nature of learning anything new, for the first time.

Here’s where your fear and doubt memories see their chance to rain on your excitement parade. Just remember, it’s completely normal.

And, frankly, it’s actually a good sign.

Why?

Simply because it’s the foundation you will build true lasting change on top of.

You see, the only reason you “feel stupid” is because you’re attempting to swim in completely unknown waters. Until you learn and internalize (take your mind out of the mix) so you can channel your new skill…

…you will always be all too aware of how much you suck at it.

Again, this is normal.

All learning is a process that can’t be shortcutted (called the “learning curve” – go figure, right?).

Anyways, self-doubt and feeling stupid happens because you see the gap between what you want and what appears it’s gonna take to have. The first time reality hits, you realize you some deficiencies to overcome.

And guess what usually comes before real understanding?

Yup, a little or a lot of confusion.

As you’re exposed to new concepts, you become all too aware of all things you don’t yet know!  This is probably what gave birth to the “ignorance is bliss” saying. Because, before the breakthrough, you didn’t know what, if anything, you were missing. It can be hard to see a bigger future of possibilities when you aren’t sure it’s possible for you to reach.

That’s why we tend to feel stupid, blow small challenges up bigger than life, and play our mental recordings that go sound like this:

“this sucks… I’m not smart enough… it’s too hard… I’ll never figure this out… I’m better than this… I should be much further ahead by now…”

It’s completely irrational, yet we still do it.

The funny (or not so funny) part is that all those mental conversations we have with ourselves, are learned. They’re 100% imaginary. We made ‘em all up. They are stories we’ve told ourselves again and again until we believed them to be real and true. Fact.

When was the last time you saw a baby get pissed at itself for falling down while learning to walk? They have the same amazed look when fall as they do when they figure it out.

Why?

One reason: They haven’t yet learned to talk themselves in a negative way. They haven’t learned that falling down is “bad” — they haven’t learned to take their results personally yet.

So, just know that until you make sense of all this newness, it’ll be overwhelming. It’s a new world you’re playing in. Which naturally brings with it the yearning to know and have all the new things right away. When your memories of fear and doubt trigger you to talk to yourself in a way that enhances feelings of stupidity, now you’ll know why.

And, when you know why it happens, you can control it because you can consciously remind yourself, “oh, yeah, that feeling is just a past habitual fear recording.”

Now, as you probably already figured out, this phase is the first landmine you’ll have watch out for as you gather your gravity because this kills 70-80% of people dead in their tracks.

You can, however, get unstuck and move through it.

The trick is to remember,

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” –

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

Action cures fear.

Even though it’s unknown to you now, if you trust the process (instead of resist or fight against it), and gather gravity anyway…

…then you can be sure your “Aha! Moment” is soon to follow.
(You know, where you say “aha! I got it!” and clarity starts to replace confusion. All of a sudden the fuzzy horizon you’ve been reaching for, comes into focus.)

As you sharpen your focus, you’ll gather more of your own internal gravity field, which pulls you towards your desires. Soon you’ll start to see positive results manifest (instead seeing evidence of your fears manifesting).

You’re starting to get the hang of this stuff.

Now you can leverage this new world and get some new results on purpose, instead of habitually by accident. Here’s where you’ll need to keep your eyes peeled for the next signpost because you’re about to enter the…

3. The Cocky — “I already know THAT” — Phase:

We get addicted to the discovery process. We love the feeling of starting new journeys. Remember the excitement? It feels so good to dream again (especially if we’ve been living in fear for a while). It’s like drowning and then all of sudden being able to breath again, right?

There’s a tendency to get bored with the progress you’re making at this point because the breakthroughs you make at this stage are very powerful, and yet…

…not big enough. They’ve stop feeling as big as they did in the last two phases.

The distinctions you discover here, although seemingly tiny, pack even more power than the breakthroughs you experienced at the start. It’s easy to miss the power in these subtle tweaks because in the beginning each new discovery, no matter how revolutionary, turns you inside out with excitement (because it’s brand new).

Your long-term, sustained success lives in these seemingly little distinctions. This stage determines if you turn pro or stay amateur. Amateurs never go the distance to master their craft.

Ego, laziness, and entitlement gets in the way.

These intermediate students start off with a bang but their progress stops at this stage because being idolized becomes more important than growth.

It’s easier to hide out, boasting about past accomplishments (or bitching about the ways we’ve been victimized)… it feels safer to stay there than risk taking it all the way to mastery level.

So the danger here is we can trick ourselves into believing we’re experts, when in fact, the only thing growing is our egos.

It happens because self-doubt, fear, confusion, and frustration that comes from the feeling stupid phase can suck us dry if you don’t take time to recharge your confidence. So when we finally get at least some results, we want to show off to the world. Because of the struggle it took to prime the pump and get our first taste of success, it’s human nature to crave recognition for our accomplishments.

Nothing’s wrong with stopping to smell the roses.

And, there’s certainly nothing wrong with helping others (often teaching helps you really understand things on a much deeper level)… nor should you feel guilty about patting yourself on your back to celebrate your wins along the way.

You should be enjoying the process because there can never be a happy ending to an unhappy journey.

The problems, however, start when you need others to praise you. Because when the satisfaction of the accomplishment is meaningless without others recognizing you for it, WATCH OUT!

It’s a big red flag.

And, it’s sneaky, too. It’s so seductive that if you don’t keep a careful watch over it, you won’t know it sucked you in until your results plateau and you find yourself on the backslide rollercoaster. That’s why, as you start to make progress, you need to keep a vigilant watch for mindsets of pride, cockiness, and superiority.

Remember, a true master never has to prove anything to anyone.

In fact, most masters are the first to admit they still have a ton left to learn (and, they’re happy to learn from anyone, including someone brand new with zero experience, because they know answers come from unexpected sources).

Every master I know is never comfortable referring to herself as an “expert” because she recognizes she’s always expanding. More is always possible, and always waiting. New and greater horizons are only seen when you get to the next level. It’s a constant and never-ending world of new possibilities. Declare yourself an expert and it limits your vision.

So, as you start to feel yourself enter this natural state of awareness with respect to gathering gravity, I suggest you remind yourself as great as things are right now, it’s but one single grain of sand on a million mile beach…

…Only the 1% tip with 99% of the iceberg still hidden below the surface, where all the game-changing breakthroughs lives, in the unknown unknowns.

4. The Resolve Phase:

This is when things become fun, relaxed, and fulfilling.

Once you gathered enough gravity to the point that your vision takes on a life of its own, and you’ve successfully graduated from the earlier phases, you will eventually settle into a place of peace where you enjoy the process.

Now you’re in it for the love of the game, not just to get to the finish line. You don’t care how long it takes is because the journey itself is your reward. All setbacks are temporary and quickly dispensed with. You don’t worry or get impatient because you know it’s not if but when your declarations will manifest.

Paradoxically, even though the journey itself is the reward, the more you take your joy from the process itself, the faster you bridge the gap between the life you are living and the life you want to live.

Enter this peaceful state of quiet resolve, and your results grow bigger and bigger at ever faster speeds because your gravity feeds itself.

However, you’ll care more about the experience.

You’ll start to focus more on what you’re becoming in the process of creating incredible new results faster and bigger.

I was raised on martial arts.

When I first joined, every class drilled the fundamentals: How to make a fist; how to punch properly; how to do a proper push up; how to properly point your toe when you lift your leg for a front kick; and so on.

We spent hours learning these fundamentals. In the beginning you spend all your time watching, thinking, and trying to do what the advanced students where doing. Every time I tried something new, my mind raced as I tried to make sense of, and remember the basics.

All I could focus on was the mechanics because I had to think about each move consciously.

Yet after a bit, I settled into a quiet knowing where I could focus on a whole other level of mastery because the fundamental moves had become automatic and I no longer had to focus on them consciously because they were a part of me.

And so it is and will be with you as you go beyond the basics of consciously gathering gravity in areas you haven’t explored (or had success yet) before.

With that quiet knowing comes a resolve that will keep you inspired to see the rest of the journey through to because you’re no longer rushing to the finish line because life is in the living of it, not in the doing or having… 

So, here’s to you, and your gathering gravity pursuits.

Because in that pursuit, you will get the greatest gift: living your life. Truly living, as you draw life to and through you, in the process of building your bigger future.

As far as I’m concerned, ain’t no better feeling in the world.

Expanding. Living. Loving.

Enjoying the process;-)