Chapter 4. Two barriers

Before going directly to the practical classes, I would like to focus your attention on two cunning "barriers" of our world view.

Let's imagine this picture. You have decided to read fast over the next few years to achieve a specific result. For example, learn Spanish using the self-instruction manual in one year. Imagine that the learning process is a track, and the goal and motivation is the fuel that allows you to realize your plans.

What happens next?

As soon as we enter the launch pad, we find some discomfort that does not allow us to move on. We see a barrier in front of which the word "laziness" is displayed in large letters.

“Laziness never arrived at the attainment of a good wish”,
Miguel de Cervantes

Psychologists distinguish several types of laziness. The first is the mental one. Our brain is much nicer to think about simple things, rather than make a decision, make a choice.

Often, such a mental trap is associated with an attempt to dodge the problem. Remember the famous Scarlett O’Hara replica “I won’t think about it today. I’ll think about it tomorrow”? In the context of the heroine’s history, this message expresses strength and wisdom, but in its everyday interpretation, its coloring is not so rosy.

There are two types of mental laziness: conditional and passive. The first is related to the fact that you intentionally avoid making a decision to engage in one or another type of activity – “I will never master it,” “I don’t have that much time,” “circumstances prevent me.” And the second is expressed in inaction after the decision is made, i.e. at the moment when the intention appeared, you do not get down to business, but mechanically continue to act ineffectively.

“If you want to conquer fear, don't sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”,
Dale Carnegie

The second type of laziness is the most common – physical laziness. Many fitness trainers broke more than one spear in an attempt to fight this barrier. There is a huge number of techniques and literature aimed at combating laziness. They all boil down to the fact, that physical laziness is closely connected with the mental one.

As a rule, when a person realizes the need to introduce sport into his life, he begins to look for excuses related to the problem of getting to the fitness center, lack of time or a tracksuit. But at the same time, laziness instantly disappears, if he suddenly received an offer to go to the lake and swim. And laziness does not limit it to wanting to do every weekend!

What is the reason? Yes, the fact is that thought processes are essentially the product of our emotional state. I’m not talking about cases, when physical laziness is a symptom of a disease – apathy, depression, or other ailment. Physical productive activity reacts to the “must” / “do not” factor, because if you have to “do” sports, you do not have to swim, but the process itself brings incredible pleasure.

Let us return to the study of speed reading, based on the foregoing. Brain training should not have the “must” setting; do not link this path with “binding”. Go through exercises in the most comfortable environment, practice mental practices in a pleasant environment. I specifically selected classes that are not boring, but rather entertaining. I understand perfectly well that some of the exercises described in this book will not cause enthusiasm when reading the description, but believe my experience, having begun, you cannot stop.

“Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There's plenty of movement, but you never know if it's going to be forward, backwards, or sideways”,
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Among all the varieties of laziness, the most dangerous one I find is emotional laziness – the absence of any reactions to external events of life.

Modern psychologists derive this problem in the rank of the disease – apathy and depression as a response to a stressful habitat. Therapy and medications help to cope with emotional burnout, however, in my opinion, it is better to prevent the disease than to treat it.

Just a couple of decades ago, the practice of checking potential employees for interviews with tests for logical-mathematical intelligence (IQ) became very popular. Over time, the mind factor has shifted to the area of emotional readiness of candidates. Today, most employer interviews are aimed at determining the level of emotional intelligence (EQ) – a concept introduced in the same book by D. Goleman.

The conclusion suggests itself – if there is emotional intelligence, then it can be fed and even “educated”, as well as mental one. Think, how strong your emotions are, can you be aware of and control them?

To train your emotional intelligence, you need to listen to your own feelings, analyze what kind of event causes you or other sensations. Through awareness of your own emotional state, a special susceptibility to reality will come. You will feel, that you have become not only better understand yourself, but also those around you.

Are you in doubt? Try the following exercise. It is called "mirroring." This method is often used in the lessons of NLP, but it seems to me effective in everyday life.

Laziness paralyzes our aspirations. One big breakthrough will not allow to get ahead of those who are stubbornly and unceasingly moving towards the goal.

Every time, when you see the interlocutor's reaction or his emotion, manifested in facial expressions or posture, try to repeat it, that is, mirror it. Do not use this exercise as a manipulation, just track the change in its relationship to you. After some time, you will see that it has become warmer, more responsive. The essence of this method is as follows – what emotions would you like to mirror from you? Negative or positive? I think you know the answer yourself.

If you suddenly feel emotional devastation, if your favorite dish does not seem so tasty, if native people stopped pleasing you, if you stopped wanting something, take action, because only you are the lever of control of your own life. And will you achieve much without desires, dreams, aspirations?

“A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others”,
Ayn Rand

Creative laziness. This one is close to me as no other. Psychologists say little about it, but I will tell you about it in detail.

Creativity surrounds us from all sides – whether you bake a charlotte, repair a car, write a novel or draw up an annual report. By investing in any business soul, we get pleasure from the process itself. But there is a downside. It is connected with the “beginning”.

Often, people around you notice, that creative people are scattered, lazy, apathetic. They can look at the monitor for days, drink coffee at night, do nothing for days. And suddenly, quite unexpectedly, in a few days they create a work in one breath.

One of my friends confessed, that when she wrote a scientific work, she always missed all imaginable and inconceivable deadlines for submitting the material. She stayed in prostration for several weeks, painfully thinking about the failed exams and expulsion from the university. But, according to her, one wonderful morning she bright and early, and, ignoring breakfast time, sat down to type the text. The work was coming out like clockwork.

I don’t think, that creative laziness is laziness. If you feel, that it is difficult for you to start any business, give yourself a little rest. Catch your breath. Comprehend what you want to do. Take out the idea before you get down to it. Often creative apathy is confused with the fear of failure, but what kind of failure can wait for someone who has not even tried?

A little advice from the author of this book – look for inspiration. This idea is not new, but in this section I focus on this component of the process. Read books. Watch movies. Study the biographies of famous people. Connect with successful people. It works.

The next type of laziness is familiar to few, but I would still like to talk about it. It is philosophical laziness. Each of us is a little philosopher. We like to talk about life among friends, sitting on the couch, having a cup of tea in the kitchen. However, some philosophical trends are fairly dense in our life, and this does not apply to ordinary conversations and individual assessment of the environment.

Buddhism, existentialism, nihilism – all these trends boil down to the denial of the meaning of the world around. The vainness of being is raised to the rank of the highest value today. Why strive for a higher ideal if life is finite? If everything around is only ashes, and we are “dust on the boots of the Universe”?

If you are lazy and you are justifying yourself with your own frailty, you are trapped.

Yes, our path is not endless. Of course, not every one of us will leave a mark on history. Of course, you are just a middle manager, a blogger or a primary school teacher. But doesn't your life become devalued in the context of individual perception?

The value of any human life is measured only in the quantity and quality of the desires of the person.

Between the lines this is read in any philosophical work. Even if it seems to you that in comparison with outer space, the compiled statement does not matter, remember that only a professional like you can compile it!

And finally, laziness associated with the discrepancy between the desired and the possible. How does it differ from classical laziness, when we can take a step, but do not want to?

Suppose you are sitting in a dusty, stuffy office and at lunchtime you go through the pages of a travel website. You see a beautiful white yacht, swinging on the waves near a golden villa in the sun. You sigh and lazily think that you can never live in this picture. In your head the thought sounds, "oh if ...".

Next to you a colleague for the hundredth time trying to make a presentation on the sale of the latest equipment, which he needs to present at tomorrow's meeting. He is lazy, because he doesn’t have the slightest desire to do this work, he thinks only that the easel and paints are waiting for him at home. Tired of the hard work of everyday life, he will be drawing a snow-white yacht and a villa under the bright sun of Tuscany.

Often, laziness acts as a signal, that indicates excessive immersion in disembodied dreams or that the case in which a person is engaged does not suit him at all. It is required to carefully listen to yourself and honestly answer the question about the advisability of choosing a profession, about whether it gives a chance to get what you want.

When doing the exercises do not get carried away by the thought that something might not work out. From the first time even the great masters could not create a masterpiece. Only hard work will lead you to success – you will understand the simplicity and effectiveness of this statement in the learning process.

After reading this book, you can read it again as you like – in the reverse order, selectively, diagonally, skipping already mastered. But you should definitely keep in mind the idea that anyone can handle the program.

After getting acquainted with the first part of this chapter, I recommend you to sort out your own feelings and understand what type of “barrier” hinders the realization of life goals. Perhaps this is a series of obstacles, overcoming which your well-being depends on? As soon as you decide on the type of laziness, it is not difficult to overcome it, because, as you know, you always need to know your enemy.

Laziness generates boredom. Laziness is healed by dedication. Dive into what inspires you and feel the freedom of flight!

To eliminate the barrier of laziness, I suggest using the visualization method. Many dismiss this method due to the (often contrived) lack of imagination, inability to mentally reproduce images, but I developed a system that will allow anyone to cope with this task.

Close your eyes and mentally imagine the road and any obstacle in your path with the type of laziness that is unique to you.

If you belong to the category of visuals, i.e. people who find it easier to perceive visual material, be it text or illustrations, detail the appearance of the barrier. What could it be? A wall, a small fence, a tree across the road? The color, texture of wood or metal, frayed and roughness. Visualize surrounding objects: a sandy or asphalt road, markings and stones, whether it is lined with trees or framed by a field. Paints should be bright, colorful. The smallest detail – the clouds, the font that says the word "laziness" – will help make the picture more realistic.

To another type of people – audial, more susceptible to the sound reproduction of information – I advise you to create a picture melody. Try to mentally reproduce the sound that surrounds you, to hear the sound of the wind, the rustle of leaves. Imagine, that the word "laziness" as if you are whispered by an inner voice. Under the influence of sounds, the blurry picture in your head will become brighter.

For some people, tactile sensations are more important – they are called kinesthetic. If you belong to this category, mentally feel the obstacle – will there be a warm tree under your fingers or a cold one to become, whether the paint on the post has been erased. Try to touch the font that issued the name of the obstacle. Touching will help to recreate the image of the obstacle to moving further the barrier.

Creating an image can take more than one hour. Invest in the appearance of the "lazy" barrier all the negative that it causes you, all the negative emotions generated by the idea that laziness slows down the movement forward.

When the image of the barrier is finally ready, proceed to eliminate it. Break and destroy it in any way, as long as the obstacle melts without a trace, and an endless level road leading to success stretches before you. Feel all the joy of the feeling of free space, appreciate how easy it is to take a step, if there are no barriers in front of you.

This exercise can be done more than once. Repeat it until laziness is gone completely and every time it feels like it is coming back.

So, the first barrier is removed, what is the next barrier?

Habit is second nature. Habits are both beneficial and harmful. The first must be acquired, the second – to get rid of.

Some of our habits are “embedded”. They were formed over millennia and "registered" in the collective unconscious, the study of which were engaged in S. Freud and C. Jung.

Interesting observations were described in the film “Wakinglife” where the hero talks about an experiment, the essence of which is aimed at identifying a certain collective mind. A group of people was given a crossword puzzle specially compiled for the subjects, which they had to solve. After they were given a crossword puzzle for solving, which was released a day ago. The results were amazing – the percentage of unraveled words in the second case was higher by 20%! It turns out that the answer, which already exists in the universe, is much easier to get.

A single mind allows you to transmit information of behavior on an intuitive level, i.e. Some habits are already programmed in the subcortical consciousness. We perform those or actions simply by inertia.

There are habits, that are formed at the subconscious level in the period of growing up. We look at the parents, and the algorithm of actions is laid at the automatic level. Often, we ourselves choose habits in adolescence, wondering little about whether they are useful or not. Only realizing that, for example, the habit of being late brings discomfort, we try to get rid of it.

And here we come to the most problematic type of habits – acquired by artificial means.

Habit is the most bizarre barrier: in the open position, it acts as a positive pattern of action, and in the closed position – a negative one.

Harmful habits greatly complicate our lives – laziness, procrastination, the abuse of pernicious addictions, the manifestation of negative uncontrollable emotions – lead to destructive consequences. Everyone chooses their own good habits – someone doesn’t have enough morning runs, someone is trying to introduce a healthy diet, at the moment you are trying to get into the habit of speed reading.

It is rather difficult to get rid of stenciled actions, as well as to master them at the level of automatism. It is necessary the habit becomes an inseparable part of the daily ritual. Imagine that speed reading is your favorite pet, which needs its own place (time), food (doing the exercises), care (practice).

At one time, Maxwell Maltz made a revolutionary discovery in the sensational book Psycho-Cybernetics, published in 1960, which made 21 days to form a habit. Unfortunately, this statement is erroneous, which is what the author himself says, but it has taken the form of ultimate truth.

The author, on the basis of the conducted research, derived a formula that states that the habit is developed in at least 21 days. Minimum.

In London the experiment was conducted, during which different groups of people were given quite harmless tasks, for example, to eat a piece of fruit for lunch, to run fifteen minutes after dinner. For some groups, the load was more difficult – fifty squats in the morning or an hour walk after breakfast. The study was conducted within 84 days and led to the following results.

Elementary routine actions became an established habit for at least 66 days, while participants in the second group dragged out the process for almost a year. The more complex the installation, the longer the adaptation period is required for assimilation.

During the experiment another important factor was identified. Bringing to the automatism of any action moves in a hopping way. The initial stage, filled with the enthusiasm of the subjects, passed quite easily. After a certain period of time (it is individual for each person) simple habits entrenched in the subconscious, but the complex ones began to disappear from the daily ritual.

Three weeks to form a multistage, time-consuming habit is not enough. Starting to learn from this book, plan no less than 50-60 days. Perseverance and conscious practice will help you get through the period of habituation. Constantly keep in your mind that setting in the form of motivation that you have developed for yourself at the beginning of preparation.

To identify your typical habits, analyze one day from start to finish. Celebrate every action, starting with a morning visit in the bathroom until the ritual of preparing for bed. What habits do you perform on an automatic level, and which ones require effort? Which of the habits benefits and which, on the contrary, is an obstacle? What habits would you like to put into daily practice?

Start small – choose one action that is not labor, for example, drink a glass of water every day before breakfast. Assess how often you forget to reproduce this operation, after what period of time a glass of water became a constant for your paradigm. On the calendar, mark the days when you drank a glass of water and skip the days when you forgot to do it. Did it happen that over time the number of empty cells became less and less?

According to the same scheme, proceed to the study of speed reading. Devote one hour in the morning and two hours in the evening to exercises, techniques, reading texts. Keep a diary where you will celebrate successes and achievements, where you can briefly describe how the barrier automatically disappeared at your will.

Personally, I developed good habits to rebuild my whole life or correct things that did not suit me, using simple rules:


Recall the analogy with the mountain and the three types of people. In the context of my paradigm of world outlook, this is a conscious avoidance of difficulties at the expense of justifying laziness of any type. If we imagine the process of teaching speed reading as climbing a mountain, then yes, I affirm that this path is not easy, but everyone can master it.

If you determine exactly what type of laziness is your personal barrier and introduce three-hour daily exercises into the habit, then you will not stop at the start, you will not think in a negative way, "can I?" Moreover, having overcome these obstacles, you will certainly be able to put into circulation a lot of new good habits. Having studied a certain algorithm and applying it in practice once. You will be able to use it as a personalized instruction, no matter what it touches – healthy eating, sports, training, etc.