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This article is about consolidation. Consolidation of what you have achieved… Without consolidation there is no growth… or if there is: it is called unmanaged growth… aka cancer.
Genetics is hardware. Epigenetics is software. Loosely speaking.
Capacities, in the DNA, can be expressed, switched on or switched off, like a plugin that provides additional functionality in a software.
When you change, you do more than just surface changes: in effect you change how the DNA, capacities, etc. get switched on or switched off… you are creating epigenetic changes. And not just physical, the only aspect ‘science’ is talking about, but the whole person. Not just fat/skinny, health conscious, life-unconscious aspect… but really the whole intelligent person who you are or… ahem… who you are not.
The first phase of growth is to plug the leaks.
Of energy, life force, glycogen, time, working memory, will-power… eliminate the mistakes, eliminate the sloppiness, etc.
I was working on changing my sleep schedule, to get up around four… So that I can get more done before I have to talk to anyone, or have anyone around with strong emotions, hijacking my attention.
It was really difficult, and I had to suffer through days when I was tired, before I could be well and flow with the new schedule.
The reason for this change was a change in what was needed from me… it was a circumstance.
If I look carefully, almost every big learning, every breakthrough came as a result of some change in circumstances that ‘forced’ me to change my habits, change what I do.
The number one thing about change is discomfort. Maybe even pain. There is no way around it.
Most people come to me saying: they want to raise their vibration… If they knew life, even just a little bit, they would know that what they are asking for is help in changing…
But 99 out of a 100 people come to me with a TLB score of 1.
TLB measures your pain threshold. Your discomfort threshold. Your willingness to be out of your depth. To be uncomfortable and yet stay in the game.
And then, true to form, they don’t change. They quit. Some even before they begin. Some a week, a month into it. But by the three months mark, only one out of 100 remains still in the game.
Some avoid change by moving sideways… they seemingly stay in the game, but they move sideways where they don’t change. This article won’t apply to the sideways movers: they produce no gains, nothing to consolidate.
One of the things that make it impossible for you to change is your unrealistic timeline.
In your imagination, in the mind, change is instant.
In the mind you can jump from being a pauper to driving a rolls Royce… just imagine it. You can jump from being fat to being skinny. You can jump from being an undisciplined insomniac to someone who has a life that includes beautiful sleep and beautiful days.
But reality doesn’t work the same way as imagination.
In reality you need to do a lot of things before they become really real… lasting.
I discovered for myself something that later on I re-learned in the 67 steps:
you need to consolidate your gains.
Consolidate means: lock them in.
Tai calls it ‘ratchet them in’… so it won’t go back to no gain as soon as you take your attention off it.
The dictionary says:
- 1. Consolidate: make (something) physically stronger or more solid. When we talk about habits, or learning, what you consolidate, what you make physically stronger is the neurons that fire together… the ‘chunk’.
- 2. combine (a number of things) into a single more effective or coherent whole. One could also say: integrate it into your life. Instead of homework, instead of a project, make it one of the permanent plates you can spin, that will not make other plates fall, instead the other plates help it stay up and spin…
There are many ways to look at integration… but
…as long as the new thing, the new habit, new knowledge isn’t integrated, you can wave it good bye… because it won’t stay. It can’t.
And there are many people who never get to have anything to integrate: they never invest enough energy, time, to create chunks of new knowledge, a group of neurons that can fire together, automatically.
Tai calls consolidating ratcheting.
A ratcheting tool has a function of consolidating: it locks the tool from allowing a backwards slide.
Consolidating takes time. 67 days? I don’t have a definitive answer to that question, but 67 may be the magic number.
My Playground course is designed for a year long course to allow time to consolidate the approximately 20 new distinctions. So the new brain cell groups can automatically perform the desired actions a joyful, productive life demands.
Consolidating is a huge part of plugging the leaks… after all an unconsolidated gain disappears faster than you can blink, leaving only its memory.
But before you consolidate you need to create some gains… right?
Each new project, each new change begins with phase 1: stop the bleeding.
In your imagination you can go 
from bleeding your life force to hero in one big jump.
In your imagination you can go from sickly to healthy in a week…
But reality and imagination don’t mesh.
Phase 1 is stopping the leak. You may have many ways you leak time, energy, Life Force, money… and you need to pay attention to all of the ways, because you cannot go to phase 2, unless all the leaks are plugged in.
So the student who recently saw that she is spending money she doesn’t have isn’t ready yet for a project. She probably has to plug the leaks in her attention, her time, her unproductive spinning her wheels actions.
This is new knowledge for most of you, you have never even considered changing this way.
You have never even looked at your leaks…
Some people can double, triple, the quality of their lives, their money, their health, their relationships by just plugging in the leaks.
But taking responsibility for your leaks takes taking on discomfort, pain…
Going from TLB 1 to TLB 2 can make a huge difference. It’s as rare as anything in this comfort loving phase of humanity.
I have people who invest in the type of coaching where we spend an hour or more a week talking. I have to work for quite some time with them before they are willing to plug in the leaks.
One of those leaks is the fantasy that just because they are talking to me, they will be at their goals in a few months.
No one wants to look at their leaks.
It is the biggest part of the change, and just admitting them is painful. So you lie, or explain, or talk around them.
If you don’t do phase one completely, your life will continue going nowhere. This is not a threat: this is a promise. The way things go. The most likely outcome.
Whenever you endeavor something, you should always look at the most likely outcome, the worst outcome, and the best outcome.
And consider that the most likely is what will happen.
The most likely outcome is that you’ll continue doing what you have always done.
Past performance is quite a reliable predictor of future performance…
But your wishful thinking blocks it from your view.
When I look at my life, the most likely path has always been that I settle into an ess, evolutionary stable strategy at a low level of results, at a low level of achievement, at a low level of income, and get comfortable.
Another thing is predictable: I have to arrange for circumstances to force me to go to the next level.
It is not the glorious picture I have of myself, but it is how it has been.
The circumstance I need to arrange for will require of me to do things that are out of character for me. Do things that may be painful. Things I don’t know how to do. And, of course, I will hate it. But I will do it… unless the pressure disappears (the circumstance).
Because, it seems, without an outside pressure I am not likely to go to the next level.
And I have to do it without dropping any of the productive activities I now do.
Taking on new activities will only produce a growth if I can create a SYSTEM so I won’t forget doing all the things I have been doing, so I can maintain ess.
Starting something new, but springing new leaks is not a way to grow. But that is what my students do.
As soon as they start something new, they drop something ‘old’… like their diet, their sleep schedule, their cell hydration, or doing the work in the course they are in. So they NEVER consolidate the gains… never ratchet it in… they do the dabbling bit.
In the beginning of a project there is double amount of work… At the beginning of a project I work 12-14 hours a day, 7 days a week.
But you need to be prepared that you need time and energy to get the ball rolling… so later you will have something to consolidate.
When I reach a level of comfort I consolidate. I lock the new gains in.
How long does this take? Muscletest says that I can start consolidating in about 67 days.
I have learned that if you know how long it will take, you are willing to summon courage, willing to summon energy… After 67 days I can settle into a new ess… and have my new comfortable life on that level…
And that is the time and plan for a new circumstance down the line to force me to grow another notch… Growth is like a staircase, not a straight line.
This is not what you had in mind, is it?
But this is how life works. Not the way you fantasize about life, the way ‘they’ teach you to think about life.
Life works the way it works.
Feverish activity is followed by consolidation… and then again. Rinse and repeat the same cycle.
Part 2: what are your leaks? What is the first phase of your growth plan?
When you look at yourself, you have no idea why you aren’t able to grow. Or whatever you do see is only a partial picture.
Your Starting Point Measurements show it clearly…
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