Battle Ready

by Ollie Ollerton

  It would have been so easy to do what I’d always done, with that self-serving egoic voice reassuring me, ‘Yeah, you deserve this now. You’ve done really well, it’s time to get absolutely wankered!’ By just taking that moment of pause, of being aware of the lack of purpose of me drinking again, and the consequences that lay waiting for me, and instead responding to myself with, ‘Look how good you feel. Why would you want to lose this?’ I managed to flip my thinking. My ‘inner me’ was starting to blossom, the deeper self who could see beyond the ego. My reward for abstinence was that I woke up the next morning to a beautiful Ecuadorian dawn, and saw the sun rise while everyone else was still mothballed in hangovers. It felt amazing having broken that cycle.

  Kicking alcohol was a major achievement for me and a significant step in my evolution as a person. Given the grip it once had on me, I never thought I’d be strong enough to pack it in, but once I conquered that, I realised that I could change anything in my life. Knowing I was in control was such a massive growth point for me. Everyone around me said, ‘You’ll never stop drinking!’ and even I had told myself this having tried to be teetotal so many times before. But I conquered it, and even if I have had an occasional beer now and again, having found the stop mechanism I now know I can activate it whenever I need to. To reprogram the software we apply to our lives we have to look beyond what we think we’re capable of. One of the ongoing side effects of my drinking, my relapse, was the feeling of guilt and shame. And guilt and shame are fuel to addiction.

  WHAT CAUSES RELAPSE INTO OLD HABITS?

  We are naturally wired to cling to the familiar, as explained in the Survival Blueprint. It can be any number of things that trigger our return to bad habits, be it exposure to places, people, boredom, emotions or things that trigger old behaviours because they trigger something in your brain and remind you of your old habit, which then gives rise to cravings. The first concession you have to allow yourself when you lapse and take a drink is that most of us waver in the early stages. You’ll feel humiliated and tempted to throw in the towel. Try and reframe the setback as something you can learn from rather than be beaten by. See the relapse not as a return to the start but rather as a stage of your recovering your sobriety, gradually bringing you closer to achieving your goal. It’s an opportunity for growth, not the beginning of the end; chances are you will be even more determined to commit to your goal the next time round.

  So, cut yourself some slack, be kind to yourself, accept yourself and look for the positives. If you’re sober 98 per cent of the time, don’t focus on the 2 per cent you’re not.

  PLAN FOR THE WORST, AIM FOR THE BEST

  The American astronaut Chris Hadfield in his book An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth describes how at NASA they negatively plan for the worst which gives them confidence. How so? Because space is an unforgiving place to make mistakes, so if you prep a contingency for every possible eventuality you can think of, you’re more Battle Ready to deal with things if something goes south. If you already have solutions up your sleeve, you can relax. He believes it’s about sweating the small stuff, learning about all those little things that could develop into something major. He asks, ‘What’s the next thing that can kill me?’ Hadfield thinks that you can’t control what life throws at you, but you can control how prepared for it you are.

  THE FIVE-SECOND RULE

  I like to read a lot, although I have to admit I have many unfinished books in my bookcase. Podcasts are another great resource and I recently came across Mel Robbins, a lawyer and the creator of the concept of the ‘five-second rule’. Her message resonated with everything Break-Point stands for and really resonated with me too. Our enemy, she says, is the ‘f’ word – no, not that one! – fine. That’s it, fine. On the surface it looks harmless, however when we say/think that fine is enough we’re selling ourselves short. Fine is not enough, we deserve so much more. We all have life-changing ideas, but we do nothing about them. Mel Robbins calls it ‘hitting the inner snooze button’ and going back to sleep. In any area of our life that we want to change we are never going to feel like it. The propulsion required from being on autopilot to doing something new, she calls ‘activation energy’.

  Robbins and her husband were in financial debt after pouring all their life savings, home equity and kids’ college education fees into a failed pizza business. Feeling helpless it seemed too big a problem for Robbins to solve. She found her only solace in sleep, at least until her alarm went off and then she’d be wide awake plagued by her thoughts. All she had to do was get up, make her kids breakfast, then look for a job, but that was too much for her. Every night she made noble plans that the new day would be better and things would change; no more dread and fear. But every time the alarm went off she hit snooze and lay there defeated. Until one morning she counted 5-4-3-2-1 once the alarm went off and, mindful of watching a rocket taking off on TV the night before, launched herself out of bed. She realised that in that five seconds lay her road to recovery, because after that short span of opportunity the negative thoughts kicked straight in and kept her in bed. Following this success she began to apply the 5-second rule to many areas of her daily life and things began to improve very quickly.

  Robbins says we should set our alarm thirty minutes earlier in the morning, and when it goes off, we have five seconds in which to jump out of bed. Once we climb out of a warm bed, we come face to face with the physical force required to change our behaviour. It’s right at our fingertips, but instead we spend so much time waiting to be in the right mood to do something dynamic that we never get around to it. So, we must force ourselves through the short-term discomfort for the long-term gain. Imagine your brain as being made of two halves: autopilot and emergency brake. Anything that represents a new departure from your humdrum routine needs a level of will to make it happen as it will automatically receive an emergency brake from the brain.

  ‘Force yourself out of your head. If you listen to how you feel when it comes to what you want, you’ll never get it because you’ll never feel like it.’ Remember the five-second rule. You’ve got five seconds before your brain starts to talk you out of getting up and your emergency brake is activated. Robbins teaches businesses to make quick intuitive decisions based on gut and instinct, rather than the intrusion of the brain and its danger-averse thinking. We know that the opportunity for growth and expansion lies in our ability to step outside of our comfort zone but knowing what to do will never be enough. Because of the way our brains are wired, when our thoughts and feelings are at war and when there is a conflict between what you know you should be doing and what you feel like doing, your feelings are always going to win. If you don’t feel like doing it, you won’t do it. If you have an impulse to act on a goal, you must physically move within five seconds or your brain will kill the idea.

  Almost 2,000 years ago Emperor Marcus Aurelius was thinking along the same lines. In a daily journal he noted:

  At dawn when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself, ‘I have to go to work as a human being. What do I have to complain of if I’m going to do what I was born for – the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?’

  When you have found your inner purpose and a goal to match it, getting up with intention is easier than you may think. If you have a goal of launching your own business and you have no idea where to start, get on Google right now and research other companies in your field of interest, see what they’re doing and decide what you’ll do similarly and where you’ll differentiate yourself. Knowledge is the key to achieving your dreams. Then google a free business-plan template and fill it out. Get serious about it and put your intentions in writing.

  Whatever your goals are, show the world and yourself that you’re serious by taking action, however insignificant that action may seem, right now. Because when you physically move, your brain starts to build new habits. When you do something you’re not used to doin
g, you are in the act of building new habits and erasing existing ones. You have to force yourself into action. Plan your week ahead, consider what might pop up as an obstacle and be used by your brain as an excuse. The reason the Special Forces have done so well is because of their ability to take the shot without having to seek the authority from command. Once you see the shot in your crosshairs, take it before the window of opportunity has passed; sometimes you have to trust your gut and take the plunge.

  FEAR

  In our blackest moments exist our deepest growth opportunities where we either perish or flourish. Through difficulty we learn who we really are. When the call to change comes, we are faced with a challenge that frightens us but could at the same time send our life in a more positive trajectory. In his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell believes we all have an inner purpose which calls to us at some time or other in our lives:

  If you follow your bliss [your calling] you put yourselves on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you . . . don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.

  Fortune favours the bold, and when life opportunities present themselves, those prepared to leave the safe and familiar are amply rewarded. If we can embrace the unknown and keep moving, we become stronger, as it’s in the darkness we create something new. Einstein once said: ‘If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.’ To change anything in our lives we must step away from the predictable when the call comes. To fulfil our potential, we need to confront our inner fears and, in the process, become fuller versions of ourselves. Fear left untreated creates a monster, and that monster just gets bigger the longer you leave it. It’s only when you turn around and look into its eyes that your monster shrinks. So, by exploring our fear more intimately, we start to habituate ourselves to it and it loses its sorcery. In a non-stressed state, our brains can handle four or five pieces of information at any one time, but when we get stressed it lowers to one or two. The first steps toward doing anything new are always the hardest, whether it’s climbing into a boxing ring, scaling a mountain, or riding a horse, as with those first steps your mind will panic and the lizard brain will shut down your thinking brain and try and cripple you with fear. But keep going another couple of strides and fear’s attempt to hold you back suddenly melts off you like snow on your shoulders in the bright sun . . . and then you’re moving on to fresh, exciting ground.

  In the Special Forces I’d be in a four-man team piled up behind a door about to go into what was usually a shitstorm of the highest order, and it was one of the most stressful moments of my life. Imagine it, you’ve got your weapon ready and loaded, safety catch off, your heart drumming against your ribcage with anticipation. Then a hand on your shoulder gives you ‘the squeeze’ to inform you the guys behind you are stacked up and ready to go. You pass it on to the guy in front of you, and if you’re second man in, that means giving the squeeze to the point man (first man in), at which juncture, it’s time to rock ’n’ roll and let rip the dogs of war. The stress and anxiety ramping up is hard to describe. What are we walking into on the other side of the door? A wall of bullets? A bomb? You never know until you’re in the theatre, screaming bullets ricocheting from walls, bodies going down around you.

  Fear never goes away and although it might not feel like it, fear is your friend; an emotional and mental rehearsal of what you don’t want to happen. If we can learn to habitually think of it and observe it as such, it helps rein it in. Earlier in the book, I mentioned the term ‘one-metre square’, a resilience model the Special Forces soldier uses in an attempt to calm himself with a combo of box breathing and by blocking out everything else but the one-metre square around himself.

  Given that fear is a part of who we are, however unhelpful it may seem in the twenty-first century when there are myriad problems seemingly flying at you from every frickin’ direction, you need to counterbalance the panic with rational thinking and a process that keeps you from going directly to fight-or-flight response. Take it back to focusing on your breathing: each deep inhalation lowers your cortisol; each exhalation brings you better clarity. Sometimes it’s a good idea to move around if you’re sitting fixed at your desk. You may be frozen with panic or stress. The best antidote to this is fresh air and a walk; your energy will be completely different by the time you return to your seat.

  Remember that the more processes you have built in to achieving your goal, the less vulnerable you are to the tricks your mind will try to play on you. Procrastination is something the ego and your survival blueprint will often use to hold you back when you approach a challenge, and the quickest cure for it is to trust your gut and push forward into action – the five-second rule should also be used when you’re putting something off. Doing something, anything, is better than nothing. Look for the break point then act on it. And trust your instinct – science has proved there are as many neurons in our gut as a cat has in its brain, and cats are smart, so follow your hunches and take a leap.

  In tight spots you either have a mind of clarity or a mind of confusion. When I was in that car being attacked by the militia, outnumbered, driving at 140kph with 12 people in vehicles in front dependent on me for saving their lives, I don’t mind admitting that initially I was overwhelmed, the situation got hold of me, and was threatening to unravel everything. I breathed, took it back to one metre, remembered I was experienced and had trained for this, and that despite the odds I would control the situation and we would prevail. And I breathed all the way through the execution of what needed to be done reaching a flow state that allowed me to slow everything down and execute the necessary action, on my terms.

  STIR THINGS UP AND RISK A REBELLION!

  If you want to perform, then don’t conform. You need to stir it up, do something different to wake yourself from slumber. I mentioned the brilliant scientist and bestselling author, Joe Dispenza in Chapter 5 on neuroplasticity. He believes most of us do the same thing every day, living our life by habit, and that we are programmed to repeat this lazy, predictable itinerary as if on a treadmill. It reminds me of The Truman Show, in which Jim Carrey’s character begins to feel frustrated by the fact nothing ever changes in his life. Every day is identical, the same faces passing him at the same time. Comfortable it might look, but happy he is not. He suspects there’s a bigger world out there and he wants to experience it, but even his best friend tries to talk him out of it.

  In ‘Unlock The Unlimited Power of Your Mind Today!’, a YouTube conversation with Ed Mylett, Dispenza says: ‘Most people are living their life through the lens of the past, unconsciously, and they are filling in reality from their past memory. In our perceptions we overlay our future, the present moment with our memory of the past. That then diminishes possibility and begins to close down the way that we can navigate and function in our lives.’

  It’s only when Truman starts being less like a predictable robot and more like a mischievous human that life gets interesting for him. It’s as if he has suddenly woken up. When he questions the status quo and starts doing things differently he starts to become bigger than the mould he was stuck in. Dispenza goes on to say that it is only by making a decision with hugely forceful intention that we are able to challenge the hardwired programming in our brains and bodies and therefore change our perceptions about ourselves and our lives.

  CHAPTER 13

  LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING

  TRUSTING THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE UNIVERSE

  Our mindset governs the way we look at the world. We need to shift our inner programming from operating from a place of fear to one of excitement and curiosity. Einstein put it beautifully: ‘There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.’

  In moments when our thoughts are free of anxiety it’s like seeing the world with a fresh pair of eyes; life seems full of possibility and we feel more con
nected not only to ourselves but to the music of the Universe. Anything seems within our capability. At times like this we are in-flow, just as we were designed to be. We were born to feel connected to our world, not live in constant fear of it. The bubble of our inner happiness is always trying to burst free from under the water: it’s the negative thoughts we allow ourselves to fixate on that hold it down. In order to access this happiness we need to be more in tune with our thinking and feelings – we need to become an observer of ourselves. For me, it starts with trusting we’re not on this blue dot (perfectly positioned to the sun – scientists call it the Goldilocks Zone!) by accident, but are part of something infinitely bigger than ourselves, something much more in control and intelligent. And when we trust and submit to this benign force, life stops being quite so anxious and opens up into something more magical.

  ENERGY IN MOTION

  Our bodies are constantly replacing old cells with new ones at a rate of millions per second. By the time you finish this sentence, 50 million cells of yours will have died and been replaced by new ones. In a healthy body the lifecycle of every cell is controlled, so you should always have just the right number of each type of cell. Remember that statement, ‘A leopard never changes his spots!’ meaning people can’t change, yet this is more rubbish passed down from the ages. We are energy in constant motion.