Today’s post replaces this old one on the Method, with some subtle but significant updates to the Method.

This post begins describing the Method, which is how to use the Model to lead yourself and others and to improve your life, in particular, using the elements you have voluntary control over.

The Method, step by step

Before anything else, the Method begins with you knowing your emotional system — the foundation of self-awareness and emotional intelligence. You only have to learn it once in your life. From then on you may refine it or refresh your memory, but you won’t have to re-learn that you have a consistent, reliable, and predictable emotional system.

So I call the step of knowing your emotional system step 0. You only do it once in your life, then when you do the Method, you start at step 1 for each application.

0. Know your emotional system
1. Understand your relevant emotional cycles and constraints (plus an extra note on points 0 and 1, on awareness)
2. Conceive of new emotions
3. Conceive of new environments, beliefs, and behaviors
4. Implement the environments, beliefs, and behaviors

Here is an illustration of the Method. Step 4, implementation, generally requires the most effort, so I break it up into a few stages.

Implementation stages

The following stages all lie within step 4 of the Method.

1. Overview
2. Transition (also a caveat)
3. Support
4. Regular life

Here is an illustration of the implementation stages.

These descriptions will benefit from examples so I’ll precede them with a few.

Examples

1. A home run after three strikes
2. Overwhelming joy on a bleak morning
3. Two simple but effective examples

Long term

One transformation — that is, one application of the Method — makes future ones easier, more productive, and more rewarding. So I wrote a few posts on what to expect with more transformations.

1. The Method from another perspective
2. Long-term growth from many transformations
3. Improving your life as much as you want is all based on one transformation

A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

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