This One Habit Gives You an Unfair Advantage In Life

Life can be unfair at times.

You’ll look at those who achieve their goals and become the best of the best. 

You’ll attribute their success to

money,

talent,

or luck.

But the truth is you’ll never know what got them their success and trying to figure it out wastes valuable time.

Comparison does nothing for you but hold you back.

Instead of focusing on them, focus on developing your unfair advantage.

Focus on swinging the odds of life in your favour.

If you want to be the best you can be, you need an unfair advantage.

Nowadays with social media, fast food delivery, online shopping and escapist activities like drinking, drugs and porn,

you don’t have to do a lot to be better than the crowd.

You just have to be willing to do what most won’t do.

Most people are addicted to external things because they can’t be alone with their thoughts.

They are at the mercy of their minds.

So if you can master your mind, you will have the single most unfair advantage in the modern era and win at anything.

Meditation

Meditation is not a practice reserved for monks, yogis or the spiritually enlightened.

Meditation is a tool that you can use to supercharge your way to success.

It allows you to turn your mind into an ally and take control of your life.

Meditation gives you huge advantages:

1. Focus

2. Clarity

3. Emotional Regulation and Stress Management

And each of these will help you upgrade your life and unlock your potential.

Focus

There’s no denying that in our modern and technological world, most people’s attention sucks.

It’s so bad that people can’t even focus on a 4 minute TikTok video.

And that’s not even the worst of it.

If you can’t focus on a 4-minute TikTok video or a 45-minute Netflix show, without taking breaks in between, how are you supposed to focus on the tasks needed to achieve your goals?

We live in an attention economy.

Everything around us is designed to capture and keep our attention.

And if our attention is on this thing, then it’s not on that thing.

If you can’t control where your attention goes, then you are a slave to any shiny thing that grabs your attention.

This means less time and attention to what you want to work on.

Even if you do manage to muster some focus, you’ll eventually get uncomfortable and want to escape.

So how do you start taking back control of your focus?

Meditate.

Meditation is a great tool to help you build focus and it’s simple.

For 5 - 10 minutes, it’s you and your breath.

Every time a thought, emotion or impulse comes up, you observe it and come back to your breath.

The more you bring your attention from a thought back to your breath, you are strengthening your ability to focus on what you want to focus on.

This will transfer into everything you do.

Your work.

Talking to people.

Enjoying the present moment.

Being able to focus in a world full of distractions is an unfair advantage.

Clarity

Most people don’t know what they want.

They want things they were conditioned to want by their parents, social media and society.

They live based on the expectations and stories of others.

And not in alignment with their authentic desires.

This leads to you constantly chasing the next thing and the next thing and the next thing, searching for something to fulfil you.

And it’s a clear sign that you aren’t going after what you truly want.

But what if for 5 - 10 minutes a day, you could spend time going within and getting clear on what you truly want?

Well, thankfully you can.

When you meditate in a calm and quiet space, you shut out the external world and connect with yourself.

With your soul.

As you stay with it in this quiet space, you can hear all the things that it has been trying to communicate to you.

“Choose this career”

“Text that guy or girl”

“Stop ignoring your mom’s calls”

“This isn’t for you”

Most aren’t living according to their authentic desires because their conscious minds are so loud and they can’t hear their souls.

Through meditation, you learn to tune out the loud chatter of the conscious mind and tune into the quiet, calm whispers of your soul.

And finally start hearing and getting clear on what you truly want out of life.

Emotional Regulation and Stress Management

We live in a world that is full of stimulus and busyness.

These two lead to two big problems that affect every area of your life:

1. High stress

2. Emotional dysregulation and outbursts

When you are in high stress, you react to anything and everything from a survival state. Your brain is in a state of fight, flight or freeze.

When you are living like this, you are at the mercy of your conditioned programs.

High stress isn’t living to thrive, it’s living to survive.

And when you are high-stress, you are emotionally vulnerable and dysregulated. This means that anything that pushes your buttons will lead to an ugly reaction.

You’ll snap at your kids.

You’ll ignore your partner when they are talking to you.

You’ll flip off every person who cuts you off in traffic.

You’ll lash out at cashiers who got your order wrong.

You’ll keep bottling away all your painful emotions because it’s too much to deal with.

But sooner or later, the bottle is gonna pop and there’ll be no way to put it all back or fix the relationships you’ve damaged.

So many people are slaves to their emotions and stress responses.

But when you can take a step back and sit in meditation, you take back your power.

You take back the power from your emotions and stress and you have a choice.

You have the choice of how to act.

You’re able to deal with and process your emotions in a safe place and empty out the bottle.

You’re able to catch yourself before you react and choose how you want to respond.

And when you are in this state, low-stress and emotionally regulated, you can be who you truly want to be.

Action Step

The beauty of meditation is its simplicity.

• Sit down in a calm and quiet place where you won’t be disturbed for a while.

  • You want to make sure you sit in such a way that your spine is erect. By keeping your spine erect, you create a little discomfort that will prevent you from becoming so relaxed that you fall asleep.

  • You don’t have to sit cross-legged on the floor, a normal chair or your bed is fine.

• Set a 5 - 10 minute timer to start

• Close your eyes and take a deep breath.

• As you let that breath go, focus on your breath.

  • Don’t try to change it or control it. Just watch how you breathe in and breathe out.

Now, the bit most people struggle with.

• When a thought comes up, observe it and return to your breath.

• Do your best to not get caught up in the thought that came up.

• Let it come up, acknowledge it and come back to your breath.

And yes, it will feel like you’re fighting yourself for the first 5 - 10 minutes, but it’s all part of the process.

This is how you master your mind and yourself.

As you master your mind, you will begin mastering your life.

So start meditating to get the unfair advantages of:

• Deep Focus

• Authentic Clarity

• Conscious Emotional Regulation and Stress Management

And turn the odds in your favour.

— Shana

P.S.: I’d love to know what you thought of this newsletter, feel free to click reply and let me know!