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 Self-Control : Let’s Strengthen It – Success Wealth Mindset

Disclaimer:
This is a free eBook. You are free to give it away (in unmodified form) to whomever you wish.

The information contained within this eBook is strictly for educational purposes. If you wish to apply
ideas contained in this eBook, you are taking full responsibility for your actions.

The author has made every effort to ensure the accuracy of the information within this book was
correct at time of publication. The author does not assume and hereby disclaims any liability to any
party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or
omissions result from accident, negligence, or any other cause.

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 Self-Control : Let’s Strengthen It – Success Wealth Mindset

Table of Contents
Disclaimer: .................................................................................................................................................. 2

Self-Control – Let’s Strengthen It! .................................................................................................. 4

The study I’m referring to is called the Marshmallow experiment: ........................................ 4

Self-Control Traps .................................................................................................................................. 6

Trap #1: Being Good can Derail You .............................................................................................................. 6

Trap #2: Don’t let progress fool you – Mind Priming ......................................................................... 7
So with primes covered, lets continue. ........................................................................................................ 8
Trap #3: Don’t give yourself a hard time or make yourself feel Guilt. Protect your
Mood with Achievement .......................................................................................................................................10
What do you reach for that provides relief? .......................................................................................... 13
Trap #4: Don’t Discount Your Future ........................................................................................................... 13
1st Rule of Self-control is Self-Awareness ............................................................................... 15

One Last Thing – Don’t Scratch that Itch ...................................................................................17

Meditation is Key to Self-Control.................................................................................................. 18

Self-Control Tools & Warnings: ......................................................................................................19

How to Protect Your Mood – Switching OFF the DS-Response ..................................... 20

Mark Iron – Your Mindset Wealth Success Coach ................................................................ 23

If you’d like to fast-track this process, and prefer videos, I

have a more in-depth online course. More than I cover
below. This course also covers a few other things such as
how to control Negative Thoughts, access to a closed
Facebook group, motivational videos and a few other things.
If you’d prefer that, check it out and use the coupon code:
IG250-OFF – Available until March 31st 2016
https://www.school4success.net/store/aDW7pCLf

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 Self-Control : Let’s Strengthen It – Success Wealth Mindset

Self-Control – Let’s Strengthen It!

Self-control is an instrumental component of success, and it’s really simple to build
and strengthen. It’s not formed through constant discipline like many people think. To
start with, all you need is a basic understanding of how it fails and when. Add to that
a couple of the many self-control tips, and also, knowing the hidden traps that make
it seem like you have no self-control.
Remember that by definition, self-control involves two conflicting goals. Part of you
is thinking about your long-term goals and the other part wants immediate
gratification… what you can get NOW! In the moment of temptation, you need self-
awareness to kick in and shout your long-term goals loud and clear and remember
why you’re doing this!

So, let’s just dive in.

Self-control is a better predictor of success than intelligence, and a stronger
causation of leadership, personal relationships and business success. If you want a
more successful life, not only a mindset change is required, but also your self-control
must be your strong point because it is a catalyst for success.
To bring home this point of how critical self-control is for success, I’m going to draw
your attention to a classic experiment. Some of you may be aware of this experiment
and its conclusive proof of the importance of self-control and success. Don’t panic if
you think you don’t have self-control since you can build and strengthen it easily over
time! Self-control and all the habits of success can be learned.

The study I’m referring to is called the Marshmallow experiment:

In the late 1960s, Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel gave a bunch of four-year-
olds the choice between one Marshmallow now or two Marshmallows in fifteen
minutes. After explaining the choice, the experimenter left the kids alone in a room
with both Marshmallows and a bell.
If the kid could wait until the experimenter returned, he or she could have both
Marshmallows. But if the kid couldn’t wait, he could ring the bell at any time and eat
one immediately.
Most of the kids took what scientists call “instant gratification”. These kids folded in a
matter of seconds, lol. The kids (remember 4-year-olds) who waited successfully
tended to get their eyeballs off the marshmallow (promise of reward). What this did
was cause the right distraction at the right time.
One girl covers her face with her hair so she can’t see the marshmallows. One boy
keeps an eye on them but moves the bell far away so he can’t reach it. Another boy

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decides to compromise by licking the marshmallow without actually eating them.

Although the study taught the researchers a lot about how four-year-olds delay
gratification, it also provided a shockingly good way to predict a child’s future.
How long a four-year-old waited in the marshmallow test predicted that child’s
academic and social success ten years later. The kids who waited the longest were
more popular, had higher school results, and were better able to handle stress. They
also had higher SAT scores and performed better on a neuropsychological test of
prefrontal cortex function (a region of the brain located behind the forehead). At age
four, how children do on this test of delay of gratification is twice as powerful a
predictor of what their SAT scores will be as is IQ at age four. Here is their data:
The third of children who at four grabbed for the marshmallow most eagerly had an
average verbal score of 524 and quantitative (or "math") score of 528; the third who
waited longest had average scores of 610 and 652, respectively, which is a 210-point
difference in total score.
Being able to wait fifteen minutes for two marshmallows was the perfect measure of
something far more important: how well a kid could handle temporary discomfort to
accomplish a long-term goal. Success is about hitting long-term goals. This individual
difference –whether measured in childhood or later years –plays a major role in how
our lives turn out. Instant gratification is tied closely to what Behavioural Economists
and psychologists call “discounting”. In a nutshell, discounting means the longer you
have to wait for something the less it is worth to you. And amazingly, even small
delays can lower your perceived value. In a study with adult participants, I read on
discounting and in just 2 short minutes, 6 M&M’s became worth less than 2 immediate
M&M’s.
Behavioural Economists and psychologists have come up with many complex
formulas for determining people’s discount rates –basically, how much more your
happiness is worth today (RIGHT NOW) than your happiness tomorrow, but more
importantly for success in a few years.
People with bigger discount rates for future-rewards are more susceptible to a wide
range of self-control failures. They’re more likely to smoke and drink, have a greater
risk of drug use, gambling and other addictions. They’re less likely to save, and they
procrastinate more because they don’t hold value for what the future could be. They
have the motto: YOLO. Which is an attitude they’re quite proud of, and broadcast it
everywhere.
They’re even less likely to wear a watch. It’s as if they are so focused on the present
that time itself doesn’t matter. And if the present is more important than the future,
there is no reason to delay gratification, so just give me that M&M NOW is their motto
and their long-term success can never be achieved as many studies, and also,

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successful people will tell you. If you must have the treat now, forget success, well,
great success and the life and freedom it brings.
To escape this mindset, we must find a way to make the future more valuable. I will
give you those tools soon. But first, we need to identify the potential traps and derails.

Self-Control Traps
At the bottom of this article are the self-control tools. However, if you don’t read the
traps before, it will be hard to assign meaning. And assigning meaning to what you’re
learning is everything for your success here, and in all aspects of your life. Because
assigning means empowering belief, and belief is the key to change, and change is
the key to success.
PS. There is no list of importance, just the derails that you have faced and are more
than likely unaware of.

Trap #1: Being Good can Derail You

This all ties back to instant gratification, and also, mood lowering behaviour.
Researchers have found that when you’re really good, this can lead to bad behaviour
because of moral licencing. You feel you’ve earned some bad behaviour. However,
this only leads to a bad mood, and then to a derail – small or what I call an emotional
pivot point (EPP).
Moral licencing is always attached to the following behaviours and thinking:

◉ Bad habits like over eating and drinking. Over spending and procrastination etc.

◉ Doing things in excess.

◉ Impulsive thinking. No plan means no success.

◉ Screw it I deserve this.

There are a few reasons why you feel like you “deserve it”.
1) Dopamine (a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain's reward and
pleasure centres) and cortisol are working together. This simply means you are

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stressed, you have worked a little too hard WITHOUT and planned time off.
And when in this state, that cocktail drives you to bad habits and excessive
behaviours.

2) Or you feel temporarily satisfied because you have been extremely good.
Phycologists call this goal liberation (more on this later). In this state, the part of
you that’s reaching for the goal is temporally satisfied, and that liberates the
part that wants to indulge. You feel like you earned it. You very well may have
but, it’s not a part of your plan so you indulge to excess and become derailed.
That stresses you, and then the cycle continues via dopamine and cortisol.
Successful people always plan time off and relaxation because they are aware
of this HUGE derail.

For example, researchers found that people who just considered donating money,
made them feel morally good, and were more likely to spend extra money than they
would have out shopping. And reverse logic, people who felt as if they were in control
out shopping, decided that they deserved a food reward even though they were on
a diet. Self-control is like a fast-twitch muscle, and drains quickly. The more self-
control you use, the less you have for the important things.

Battle Steps:
You must make it feel wrong, because when it feels like we have earned it, things can
go bad. For example, we know it’s wrong to drink and drive, that feels wrong. We
know it’s wrong to have sex with our brother or sister. That feels really wrong and
makes us go ewwww! When you attach a feeling of wrongness to a potential derail,
you’re much more likely to avoid it.
Plan your time off – If it’s not a part of your plan, you will derail... eventually. Planning
will form a habit, a habit of success. So, plan – plan – plan!

Trap #2: Don’t let progress fool you – Mind Priming

What I mean by progress can fool you, well, before I go into detail, let me first prime
you with some word play but before I do, here is an appropriate quote by Bill Gates,
“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”
It’s about how you frame your thoughts, and also, having a defence against the way
others frame theirs. It’s so important to know how and when you can be primed,
because it lead to those old negative thoughts. Context is key.
Okay, if I say the partial word urse, you couple possible come up with a few
completed words such as nurse or purse… Now, because there’s no prime, there’s a

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50/50 chance of either, right? However, if we talked about shopping 30 minutes

earlier, you’d be 100% primed to say purse. And the same is true if we talked about a
nurse, or even a doctor or hospital, you’d be primed to say nurse. Oh, it’s true!
Also, if you change the words around slightly, you can get a different answer. For
example, a man studying to become a priest asked a priest if it was okay to eat while
praying. The priest replied no, that’s not okay. However, a few weeks later that man
asked the priest if it was okay to pray while eating. The priest said that was okay. It’s
a very small difference, but completely different outcome.
What I’m driving at here is that primes and context are powerful and they WILL
influence your decision if you’re not mindfully aware of primes. And the same is true.
Yes, you can manipulate others into making a decision in your favour if you prime
them first. DON’T DO THAT!

So with primes covered, lets continue.

We now know that through research, scientists have found that it’s crucially important
to frame your words correctly or they can negatively impact your results. Here are
some examples I found from Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. health psychologist and lecturer
at Stanford University. In a nutshell, it can lead you into a false sense of security to
then pivot towards a big derail. Being aware that word play by others or your own
mind can derail you, will enable you to pivot in the right direction even when it
happens. These little tips make all the difference!
Okay, so a couple of professors at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of
Business have shown that making progress towards a goal motivates people to
engage in goal-sabotaging behaviour. In one study, they reminded successful dieters
of how much progress they had made toward their ideal weight. They then offered
the dieters a thank-you gift of either an apple or a chocolate bar. 85% of the self-
congratulating dieters chose the chocolate bar over the apple. The other student was
offered the apple or chocolate bar but NOT reminded of their progress. And the
results were clear. Only 58% of those dieters chose the chocolate bar. That’s a 28%
swing and the other group was primed with good morals.
So, moral licencing was in effect here. They made the chocolate bar eating students
feel morally good, but not in the latter group. Moral licencing in a nutshell simply
means that you believe you’ve earned it despite your plan and long-term goal. My
advice is simple. If it’s not a part of your plan or long-term goal, maybe you should
stop justifying your decision and remember what you’re fighting for. Impulse
decisions are rarely, and I mean rarely, conducive to your goals. Think twice when an
impulsive thought pops into your mind.

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A second study found the same effect for academic goals. Students made to feel
good about the amount of time they had spent studying for an exam were more likely
to spend the evening hanging with friends. Progress can cause us to abandon the goal
we’ve worked so hard on because it shifts the balance of power from self-control to
self-indulgence. It’s simply because we feel morally good, and we earned it.
Remember, if it’s not part of our goal, it is an impulse that you once acted on can derail
you.
Remember that by definition, self-control involves two conflicting goals. Part of you
is thinking about your long-term goals and the other part wants immediate
gratification (chocolate!). In the moment of temptation, you need self-awareness to
kick in and shout your long-term goals loud and clear and remember why you’re
doing this!
Also, self-control success has an unintended consequence: temporary satisfaction,
and therefore silences self-control with a feeling of earning it. Now this goes back to
the quote by Bill Gates: “Success is a lousy teacher, it seduces smart people into
thinking they can’t lose.” So, when you make progress towards your long-term goal,
your brain with its mental checklist of many goals turns off the mental processes that
were driving you to pursue your long-term goal. It will then turn its attention to the
goal that has not yet been satisfied which is the voice of self-indulgence.
Psychologists call this goal liberation.
The goal you’ve been suppressing with your self-control is going to become stronger,
and any temptation will become more tempting. This means that one step forward
gives you permission to take two steps back.
So what happens is the part of you that’s reaching for the goal is temporally satisfied,
and that liberates the part that wants to indulge. Getting your files organized may
satisfy the part of you that wants to work, liberating the part of you that wants to watch
the football game on TV.
So, reward hard work not based on how good or great you are, but reward the work
it took to achieve it. And KNOW that progress is good, but giving yourself a feeling
of superiority is just a potential derail.

Battle Steps:
Self-awareness – Be aware of the context of your thoughts and other people’s words,
and also; mind primes.
Success isn’t a reason to relax, it’s a lousy teacher – keep vigilant and have your plan
in mind.

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It’s great to make yourself feel good, and it’s necessary for a positive mind. Just know
that too much pride will lead you into temptation.
Attach your pride to the hard work to achieve the result – The successful use this
strategy and it’s like a drug. It wires into their brain that hard work is good which
releases feel-good hormones. Then success builds on success. Remember, take
planned time off – never grind to excess because you will fail.

Trap #3: Don’t give yourself a hard time or make yourself feel Guilt.
Protect your Mood with Achievement
Do you ever wonder what drives you to slam down that extra piece of pizza? How
about why you bought TEN cases of beer when it was on discount instead of one?
Why when you were on that website and noticed a “product” was marked down to
$39.00 from $997, so you added it to “cart” but had no clue what it was? Your brain
was overloaded with dopamine, making you temporarily blind and stupid. But also,
your mood was a little off – and when that happens you produce both cortisol and
dopamine. Those two combined are why self-control failures are frequent, and
addictions are so difficult to overcome. I call this the DS-Response. (Dopamine-Stress
Response)
Don’t worry, you’re not alone! Many times I have made those stupid decisions quite
often. however, no longer and I’ll show you how I achieved this.
Dopamine triggers the reward region for our brain, which is good and bad. Bad when
your mood is negative triggering the DS-Response, good when your mood is positive
but, only when you have a plan in place. There is also another response that involves
adrenaline which is triggered by your sympathoadrenal axis. Adrenaline junkies can
relate here. Dopamine and adrenaline drive them to jump out of planes, climb
mountains and do things most people are not too comfortable with. However, the DS-
Response for the most part rarely uses this system, but it does at times.
Why did we evolve the DS-Response? Survival! Picture this; three of you are on the
savanna hunting and doing your part for the village. However, just before I go on here,
please know that being in a negative mood as scientist have discovered, makes you
physically weaker by dampening your central nervous system, and also; mentally
weaker, clearly. Back to the story, now, two of you feel awesome, but, one is in a
negative mood. While scanning the horizon, you spot a lion and he’s staring you down.
Now, who do you think will be lion lunch? Yes, the guy that’s in a negative mood. If we
didn’t evolve this system, we would not be here today. Luckily for our ancestors they
didn’t have to worry about buying that car, that house, or wanting so many things. This
response was health back then, not today because it leads to bad habits, addiction
and so many other destructive behaviours.

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When our mood is negative, dopamine heightens our attention and focus, focus that
is, to get our hands on whatever we want, and tied to bad or destructive habits! So,
when we haven’t yet got the reward, it drives our actions to get there, and can even
form a habit and addiction. Sometimes, with addiction, it actions us to do whatever it
takes to get the reward. This is where it gets out of control, and that is when your
mood is negative Dopamine pushes you to temporary pleasures and far away from
long-term goals that will enrich your life.
Many marketers use it against us. Marketers have used this to exploit and persuade
us through stimulating dopamine to flood our brain. This then actions us to buy things
we don’t really need, and also, buy more than we need. Take the ten cases of beer;
they do this in a multitude of ways.
That marketing is engineered to overload your dopamine response, and for the lack
of a better word, make you temporarily “stupid.” You then proceed to load up the beer
in your car and drive home wondering if you made a “smart” decision. But don’t worry,
your wife will soon answer your question. While your wife is impressed that you were
able to fit all the cases in your tiny little car, but she is at the same time PISSED that
you purchased TEN cases!
This is how we’ve evolved. It’s a built-in survival system and without it, humans would
not have survived to the present day. However, in the modern world of abundance,
it’s a vice, a health risk, and sometimes, a recipe for financial disaster. Awareness is
the key. If you’re in a bad or low mood it doesn’t align with your goals, and/or it’s an
impulsive thought, you probably don’t need it, right!
When you’re feeling down, what do you do to feel better? If you’re like most people,
you turn to the promise of reward. According to the American Psychological
Association (APA), the most commonly used strategies for dealing with stress are
those that activate the brain’s reward system: eating, drinking, shopping, watching
television, surfing the Internet, and playing video games. And why not? Dopamine (our
reward driver) promises us that we’re going to feel good. It’s only natural that we turn
to the biggest dopamine releasers when we want to feel better.
Dopamine is a powerful driver to action, whether you’re driven by a positive mood
driven to achieve, the DS-Response to derail yourself or adrenaline to have extreme
and intense fun. However, driven by the DS-response, and wanting to feel better is a
now maladaptive survival mechanism. Self-awareness and having a plan is key to
staying on track.

But where we turn for relief matters. The promise of reward does not always mean
that we will feel good. More often, the things we turn to for relief end up turning on
us.

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So what does this have to do with giving yourself a hard time? When you feel bad,
either by your own thoughts or other people’s malicious comments, you’re in the
DS-Response triggered via the HPA axis (hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis). When
this system is engaged, the HPA axis sends neuro peptides (chemical messages)
into the blood to the adrenals prompting the release of stress hormones, namely
cortisol. So, stress hormones are released, and also the excitability of your dopamine
neurons (Dopamine-Stress-Response). That means; when you’re under stress, any
temptations you run into will be even more tempting thus leading you to a potential
disaster. But it also places in your thoughts all the things that make you feel “good in
the moment”. Like shopping, drinking and eating – but to excess. It makes you do
things you wouldn’t, if you were in a positive mood.
For example, one study compared the appeal of chocolate cake to participants
before and after they were made to feel bad about themselves by thinking about their
personal failures. Feeling bad made the cake look better to everyone, but even
people who had said they did not like chocolate cake at all suddenly expected that
the cake would make them happy.
In moments far away from stress, we may know that food doesn’t really make us feel
better, but this clarity flies out the window when we’re stressed and the brain’s reward
system is screaming at us, “Beer, beer, beer!” – or “Wine, wine, wine!”
Feeling bad just derails us away from our clear-headed wisdom and towards our least
helpful instincts. That’s the power of the one-two punch of stress and dopamine. We
are drawn back again and again to coping strategies that don’t work, but that our
primitive brains persistently believe are the gateway to bliss. The promise of reward
combined with the promise of relief can lead to all sorts of illogical behaviour.
For example, one economic survey found that women who worried about their
finances shop to cope with their anxiety and depression. It defies logic. They’re just
adding to their credit card debt, which will make them feel even more overwhelmed
later on. But it makes perfect sense to a brain that just wants to feel better now.

Battle Steps:
So, if you’re hard on yourself and make yourself feel guilt, or someone else make you
feel guilt, protect your mood not via temptation, but achievement. Make self-
awareness your goal and catch yourself before you let yourself feel guilt or feel bad.
Guilt or being in a bad mood leads to giving in. I also have a blueprint at the bottom
of the eBook explaining how to “Protect Your Mood”.

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What do you reach for that provides relief?

What do you normally turn to when feeling stress or guilty? List them as potential
derails. Strategize and put a plan in place to avoid them.
It’s ok to fail but remember you will fail and make mistakes. However, with the
knowledge that being hard on yourself and using the guilt trip is only making it worse
will help you stop. Remember, when you do that the HPA axis will release more stress
hormones and make you physically feel worse, and more emotional pain. These
stress chemical in the body are no different than the way alcohol alters your brain
altering your thinking. You are literally setting yourself up for failure. Stop that!
Instead, you must use the methods that researchers have found to work and by work
I mean release the feel-good hormones that work and put you back on track.
According to the American Psychological Association, the most effective stress-relief
strategies are exercising or playing sports, praying or attending a religious service,
reading, listening to music, spending time with friends or family, getting a massage,
going outside for a walk, meditating or doing yoga, and spending time on a creative
hobby. This is what you need to be focusing on IF success is important to you, and I’m
sure it is.

Trap #4: Don’t Discount Your Future

We know that instant gratification is a common trait of the masses, and we know it’s
the opposite of what ALL successful people do. And to be successful, you need to
add value to your future self (not discount it) and what’s possible, that is IF you don’t
give in to the mindset most people use which is temptation! This reminds me of a
quote by Robert Kiyosaki, “Most people don’t achieve their dream! Don’t be most
people!”
So, you need to sit down and really think about why you deserve this life – because
you do – but only you can. This comes down to your why:

Please see my free video here:

https://youtu.be/-Dgbor_W8BM it’s IMPORTANT and FREE!
As a quick example of what researchers call a “discount rate”, I’ll provide an example
of a study that suggests that humans are not as smart as a chimp. Published in 2007,
it was on self-control pitting chimps against humans. However, the humans or chimps
didn’t know they were being tested against each other. Both humans and chimps
were presented with two treats now OR six in 2-minutes. Both chimps and humans
preferred six treats, however, humans lost. Chimps chose to wait for the six treats at
72% as compared to the humans at 19%.
Does that mean the chimps are blessed with more self-control? Hell no, when our
self-control is full we’re pretty much unbeatable as spice. The trouble is, we have all

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these mental trickery tools that convince us that we can get the reward tomorrow,
and I’d rather have something now. We have so many ways of falling prey to
temptation, because we are also experts at justifying why we need it now. If you find
yourself justifying or rationalising a decision, I’m here to tell you that it’s 99.9% not in
line with long-term goals.

Battle Steps:
It’s all about the value you hold for the future and mind framing or context.
Researchers have found framing a question can play in or out of our favour, and
context is the key. For example, researchers gave participants a check for $100.00
and said you can cash it in four weeks’ time OR you can have a check for $50.00 and
cash it now, most chose to wait the four weeks for the delayed reward. And
contrasting, if they start with the $50.00 check and then offer the $100.00 delayed
reward, most did not wait for the delayed reward. They would keep the check they
started with. It’s called “loss-aversion”. People don’t like to lose what they already
have.

It registers as a loss because that’s the default bias of the brain, (what you start with,)
so being self-aware of this bias will help you decide on the delayed reward because
you’re now aware of this hidden default bias. Never discount your future, always make
decisions based on the biggest future benefit. Leave temptation for most people.
Constantly be thinking of your future self. Scientists now know that the area of the
brain we use to think about the present is different to the area we use to think of our
future self. So, for most people, the future-self region of the brain is still like an infant
– you must develop it. Scientists have demonstrated through brain imaging that you
can rewire and grow that region of the brain. This can achieve this in a few ways:

◉ Thinking of your future-self and how great it will be.

◉ Creating a vision board of your future lifestyle.

◉ Writing a message to your future-self: http://futureme.org/

◉ Mental rehearsal – Out of the scope of this eBook. I do teach this, contact me
or visit: https://www.school4success.net/

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1st Rule of Self-control is Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is only possible through self-assessment. That simply means you

become completely upfront and honest with yourself. You take an honest stock of
your strengths and weaknesses. This is probably one of the hardest things in life to
do, because quite simply – we tell lies to ourselves. I know I did. But in doing this, you
will uncover the truth and be able view your thoughts without bias. It’s like taking the
blindfold off and truly seeing. It’s not complicated either, just be honest with yourself
and accept your limits and embrace your strengths.
What I do and recommend is to once a week, go over the events that happened in
that week and ask yourself: Was I honest? Was I self-aware? What motivated my
actions? Could I have done something better? If so, how? And remember to not be
hard on yourself, this is a learning and growing experience. Remember, if you do
that, you’ll activate the DS-Response!
Self-awareness benefits:

• Being brutally honest helps develop a thin skin which translated to more
resilience to the outside world
• Ability to quickly pivot and self-correct.
• Not afraid to admit mistakes which shows courage and integrity
• You won’t have guilt or regret
• The ability to act consciously instead of reacting to people and events
• A greater perspective on events, situations and life
• The ability to intercept negative thoughts and transmute to positive thoughts
• You will develop a greater sense of gratitude and inner peace
• Being completely real and showing the world who you are and what you’re
about
• Better problem solving as you won’t have limits brought on by excuses and a
closed-mind
• And so many more!

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Important things to note:

• Every situation you’re in, make it a habit to say in your mind, “be self-aware”
• Every time you’re alone with your thoughts, make it a habit to say in your mind,
“be self-aware”
• Every time you make a decision, make it a habit to say in your mind, “be self-
aware”
• Every time you can think to, make it a habit to say in your mind, “be self-aware”
• Self-awareness has four distinct layers:
o A mind wide open
o Being brutally honest with yourself upon reflection
o Forming the habit of questioning your thoughts and actions before
they’re sent out as energy to manifest your reality
o The courage to admit mistakes, question your beliefs, and self-correct if
needed

With that simple method master, you will be very self-aware and conscious of your
character, feelings, motives, desires and what energy you are putting out. You will be
able to make changes on-the-fly. This goal is to know thy self. As the great Socrates
said, ““The unexamined life is not worth living.” That is what self-awareness is all about.
How about a practical example of engaging your self-awareness and to avoid the
brain default bias:
We have two competing minds that both want your attention. One is only concerned
with now, while the other is in charge of your long-term goals. This is where self-
control needs to be exercised. You need to recognize a choice that requires self-
control. Otherwise, the brain will default to what is easier. Your built-in bias takes over
and you will lose.
Self-awareness is the first line of defence. For example, if a smoker thinks about a
cigarette, typically a default bias will try and convince them to have that smoke by
attempting to reason and justify why you deserve it now, and you’ll try and be “better”
tomorrow. This is the internal battle that is brought to your awareness courtesy of the
DS-Response. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you are “self-aware” of what really
happening.
What is happening? Your brain is now releasing stress hormones via the HPA axis
because the nicotine craving is stressing you, your mood is now dropping. Stress and
dopamine are driving you to your easy out, your default bias to smoke. This is what
happens in most addictions.
There are a few good battle strategies with these types of competing goals – to
smoke or not to smoke – to eat or not to eat:

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1. Take a 10-minute time out – If the craving is still there, have it. Normally, this
will pass – and builds after successful attempts to wait.
2. Set a minimum limit in the beginning – This is counter intuitive, but
researchers have found it to work. Instead of saying to yourself, “I’ll only smoke
one pack a day”, say “I will smoke at least one pack a day”. It seems we hate
being told what to do, and it works! This works in many other areas too, i.e. I’ll
have at least 5 sodas today. You get the idea here.
3. Make it harder – Insist that there are designated times and zones you can
smoke or eat. This also lends well to other aspects of your life, i.e. If I want to
eat chips while watching TV, make a rule that you must eat in the kitchen with
a knife and fork OR you can have a fruit salad (or chicken Caesar salad) and
watch TV. Habit switching works well!
4. De-value the habit – List all the potential side effects and read every morning.
You’ll also find that you will add to this list most days, just keep coming up with
reasons to de-value the habit. It will eventually lose all value.
5. It greatly helps to replace a bad habit with good habit – Researchers have
found that best results are seen replacing an old habit with a new and
importantly, a good habit.
6. Only try and remove one bad habit at a time – If you go too extreme and try
to fix several bad habits, you won’t have any willpower left to fight even one
successfully. Work on one at a time until you have won the battle then move
on.

One Last Thing – Don’t Scratch that Itch

Let me paint a picture for you. Say you’re working away on your dream, and all of a
sudden a thought pops into your mind. Let’s say the weekend activities. This then
triggers an itch to be scratched, like opening Facebook and checking out what others
may have planned, so you scratch that itch. An itch is simply something your brain
thinks is going to make you happy right now, instant gratification.
This happens because not only does the brain have a fight-flight response to protect
your survival, it also wants to protect your mood. If your mood lowers, or you become
bored, (being bored is a huge trigger and problem for instant gratification for most
people.) the reason is simple. Evaluation knows through natural selection that a good
mood means a better chance of survival. So say one of our ancestors was in a low
mood, bad mood, sad mood and if a lion was coming, they’d be like, “Screw-it, let it

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eat me! I don’t care”. So not only does evolution have a mechanism to protect survival,
but also your mood.
And as you know, today that instinct hasn’t changed from our early ancestors, and it
doesn’t translate to our modern symbolical threats at all. It worsens them.

Battle Steps:
Does that itch really need to be scratched? Do you really need to check Facebook,
email or text messages? Can’t it wait till the allocated time is upon you? Success will
pass you by if you keep scratching that itch. Remember, scattering focus by checking
social feeds will derail your day hugely. Instead of being productive and single
minded, you’ll be fuzzy, scattered and just procrastinate. When you procrastinate, you
fall behind. You’ll be stressed and in a bad mood. Success is focused energy. So when
you’re bored and losing focus be aware and put a plan in place.

Meditation is Key to Self-Control

That’s right! Meditation literally builds grey matter (your brain) neuroscientists found
in brain imaging. Your left pre-frontal cortex is the area of the brain that does all the
heavy lifting of self-control and many other traits of success. So it only makes sense
to do all you can to increase the grey matter in this region of the brain. But also, this
area of the brain is VERY important in three other areas:
1. Motivation – The left pre-frontal cortex hold motivation for your long-term
goals.
2. Enthusiasm & Optimism – Builds up the region of the brain responsible for
these POWERFUL success trait.
3. Imagination – Develops the region of the brain responsible for imagination.
Now, some of you may think, “I have no imagination”. That’s NOT true! We are
all born with the same tools, the successful have just developed theirs with
repetition. YOU CAN TOO.
4. Helps Shot OFF the Fear Response – The left PFC is the only area of the brain
that can turn off the amygdala’s (the threat detection system) fear response,
especially to symbolic threats. These are the ones that derail your success. i.e.
being worried about failing or what others will think of you.

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5. Helps Shot OFF Anxiety and worry – It also helps quiet down the bed nucleus
of stria terminalis (BNST for short) which persists the fear and anxious feelings.
This region of the brain is responsible for risk assessments and future
predictions. The trouble is, most people are hyper-vigilant, so instead of the
BNST eliciting a safety signal as designed, it instead sends a danger signal out,
and worrying thoughts take over. This can lead to full blown anxiety. Meditation,
as mentioned, will over time reverse this and quickly switch off the BNST.
6. Builds Focus & Clarity – This area of the brain is the region that helps you focus
on the task, and not become easily distracted. Distractions will become a thing
of the past. will also easily hold focus longer,
7. Engage the parasympathetic nervous system (relaxation and calmness) –
This is responsible for shutting down the stress response thus protecting your
mood and success. It does this by sending a message down the descending
vagus nerve and shuts down the sympathetic nervous system. After practice
over just a few short weeks, you will be amazed how Zen you will feel with
relaxation and focus. There are a few techniques to use which I teach in my
course or you can find the information via a Google search on meditation.
8. Induces healing and repair in the body – When you learn to quickly turn off
the stress response through meditation, your body changes from emergency
mode where recovery and healing is impossible to yes; healing and recovery.
It is really a no brainer. Meditation is so powerful if done right.

So, don’t let anyone tell you that meditation is of no benefit. It has changed my
life! If you don’t know how, I have a full course on meditation opening soon:
https://www.school4success.net/products/meditation-is-key-to-success

Self-Control Tools & Warnings:

1) Create a list of potential derails and treat them as a threat to your success. Add
value to what you should be doing instead of trying to justify why you deserve
this reward. Remember, justifications, blame and excuses are just beautiful lies
we tell ourselves to make us feel good at the moment, but deep down, we
know it’s wrong. If we keep doing it, it becomes a habit – a habit of failure!
2) PLAN your time off and indulgences, make them a part of your week, but earn
them. Never impulsively decide to do them, because you will end up creating
a habit of failure.

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3) Self-Control drains – Become self-aware and know when the danger times are.
Have a strategic plan in place.
4) Using your non-dominant hand to open door, eating and doing you hair require
you to use your willpower. Research shows that after a week or two,
participants scored much better on tests requiring self-control. You can also
add to this such things as saying “yes” instead of “yeah”. Anything that makes
you become self-aware and forcefully exercise a small amount of self-control
helps strengthen your self-control.
5) ALWAYS get the important things done first, never leave them to chance. As
soon as you are awake, do them and the rest can wait, but your time and
success cannot.
6) Create success habits, the more success habits you create the more successful
you will become. You probably don’t even know what success habits you have.
They’re simple things you always do that help you reach a goal. In my course I
teach this, so consider taking it if you’re having trouble creating habits of
success. There is a method that works best, and it’s easy to master and
implement.
7) Self-control is like a fast-twitch muscle. It’s powerful when full but drains
quickly. This comes back to point #4 which is always be self-aware of your
IMPORTANT self-control challenges and do them first. Always have a strategy
in place for the rest of the day.
8) This needs repeating – Have a 10-minute delay to give time for the craving to
pass. You will find it works more often than not and the more you apply this
method, the quicker it’ll become a habit. This quickly teaches your brain to
delay gratification which we now know is critical to success.
9) Deliberately choose your thoughts – remember, you become what you think
about.
10) Mental rehearsal – It’s out of the scope of this book but it is a key tool to giving
massive value you to your future self. I teach this in my meditation course:
a. https://www.school4success.net/products/meditation-is-key-to-
success.

How to Protect Your Mood – Switching OFF

the DS-Response
1. Physical activity – Exercising, gardening, surfing, sports etc.
2. Helping people

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3. Meditation MEDITATION :-)

4. Get addicted to achieving goals – event it it’s just sticking to your daily plan
5. Learning… self-improvement. Become a little better, smarter, every day.
6. Set small habit goals – This requires self-control and will strengthen it.
Something as small as saving a $5.00 note every week (or every other day!) I
guarantee that after one month, it will form a habit and teach you; you can
create habits of success.
7. Remember what you’re fighting for – your why.
8. Remember that the DS-Response is a physiological response leading you
astray.
9. Remember that 5-year vision of your future self. You know the self-that’s living
life on their terms.
10. Remind yourself that you don’t want to be in one years’ time exactly where you
are today.
11. You’re working towards having freedom, the freedom to not only live the life
you want but to also think and act with positive energy.
12. Refrain from the activities that create bad habits driving you towards short-term
gratification. These activities are triggered by the DS-Response:
a. Gambling, shopping, smoking, drinking, eating, playing video games,
surfing the Internet, and watching TV or films for more than two hours.
13. The only way to protect your mood is to create the correct physiological
environment in your body. You must use the real mood-enhancing strategies
that create the feel-good-hormones and neurotransmitters which are:
a. Serotonin and GABA, as well as the feel-good hormone oxytocin. And as
a bonus, they also help shut down the brain’s stress response, reduce
stress hormones in the body, and induce healing and relaxation. But
because they aren’t exciting like the dopamine releasers, we tend to
underestimate how good they’ll make us feel because they require real
work. To paraphrase the great Thomas Edison, “Most people hate work
because it is dressed in overalls and looks really hard.”
b. So we forget about these strategies not because they don’t work, but
because when we’re stressed, our brains persistently miss-predict what
will make us happy. This means that we’ll often talk ourselves out of
doing the very thing that will actually make us feel better because it is
the hard choice.

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c. According to the American Psychological Association, the most effective

stress-relief strategies are exercising or playing sports, praying or
attending a religious service, reading, listening to music, spending time
with friends or family, getting a massage, going outside for a walk,
meditating or doing yoga, and spending time on a creative hobby. That
right there is your new go to mood enhancers… so get used to it – pick
one, two or more, and start now to make it a habit.

14. Don’t let progress fool you. Remember mind priming and context.
15. Don’t give yourself a hard time because that is what switches on the DS-
Response and you’re only going to deepen the adverse effects.
16. Helping others is the fastest and easiest way to make yourself feel good –
never underestimate this strategy. However, a word of caution. If you’re going
to try helping others by being a shoulder to cry on, make sure their negative
energy doesn’t make it worse for you. You really need full self-mastery here.
Because if you haven’t, you will more often than not fail. Help by showing
initiative, don’t wait to be asked – scan your environment and do what you can.

That covers this eBook. I hope you loved it and most importantly; it has help you :-)

If you’d like to fast-track this process, and prefer videos, I

have a more in-depth online course. More than I’ve covered
here. It also covers a few other things such as how to control
Negative Thoughts, access to a closed Facebook group,
motivational videos and a few other things.
If you’d prefer that, check it out and use the coupon code:
IG250-OFF – Available until March 31st 2016
https://www.school4success.net/store/aDW7pCLf

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Mark Iron – Fitness-Mindset-Wealth-Success Mentor

I’d love to hear from you! Tag me in Instagram

#school4success and let me know how you go!

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