Self mastery is the daily practice of creating yourself into the person your vision calls for. You master yourself by choosing the story you tell yourself and living it in small moments all day. I call it self creation. It runs on three parts: your being, your triggers and the new tools you keep adding.
- Mastery is a game of one versus one. It is you versus you.
- Self creation turns anything in your day into something powerful that serves you.
- Treat your personal growth as a get to.
- Keep adding new tools to the way you create yourself.
What is self mastery?
Self mastery is the ongoing work of creating yourself as the best version of yourself, where the only person you compete with is you. The most important relationship you have is the one with yourself.
Mastery is a game of one versus one. Me versus me, you versus you.
Rob Cressy
There are levels to this game. You move from knowledge to awareness, and then to teaching it to others. I went through John Patrick Morgan's Being a Client Magnet program three times, and each pass did a different job.
| Pass | What happens |
|---|---|
| First time | You are introduced to the concepts. New ways of thinking and new language come in, and it can feel like a fire hose. |
| Second time | You have been living it, so you listen differently. You look for the inches of gold you missed. |
| Third time | Mastery level. You know the concepts, you live them, and now you hear them differently. |
What is self creation?
Self creation is my name for your ability to turn anything in your life into a positive thing that fuels you and empowers you for unlimited possibilities. It is foundational to my coaching and to my life.
A bottle of face wash is a simple example. The brand I used got discontinued, so I bought a $35 pump of Jack Black face wash. When it came in, I turned it into a trigger. Every pump became a pump of confidence. I rubbed it on my face and said, "I am that I believe. I believe in myself. I believe in my dreams." All of that took about 10 seconds, and I was legitimately excited to wash my face.
You can turn anything in your life into something powerful that serves you.
It works because the story you tell yourself creates your actions, and your actions create your results. That same principle sits underneath changing your identity.
How do you master yourself step by step?
- Start with your vision. Work backwards from where you want to go. Create your vision, then your being, then your actions.
- Create your being. Ask one question: who is the kind of person that takes those actions? Then be that person.
- Speak it. Write your "I am" declarations and read them every morning. You create as you speak.
- Set triggers. Attach a declaration to something you already do. Touching your phone can become "I am infinite love. I am infinite value."
- Collect the evidence. A friend read "I am full of love" every morning. Then he hugged his wife and said it, and the next morning those words carried that moment.
- Add a new tool. Ask what new tool you have added recently.
I started speaking my I am statements during workouts on the Peloton bike, which anchored them in with movement. Earlier I added journaling to my morning routine.
What is the difference between need to and get to?
Get To vs Need To is my distinction for the two ways you can relate to your own growth. Need to treats working on yourself as an obligation. Get to makes it a lifestyle, a mindset and a way of being.
Someone on a call once told me, "I need to work on myself." I corrected them right away. You get to work on yourself.
- Need to You come from a place of lack or scarcity. The work feels grinding and heavy, and you look at how much it is going to cost.
- Get to Growth becomes an energy inside of you. Showing up feels almost effortless, and you are always seeking more knowledge.
I went all in on my personal growth from the day I started as an entrepreneur with no money in my bank account. Books, podcasts and free content all count.
How do you practice self mastery every day?
Self mastery fits inside the day you already have. The actions are often extremely simple. Depth comes from giving yourself the space to say, "I am going to allow myself to be transformed." These four tools take seconds.
- Compliment file When someone gives you a compliment, write it down.
- Jar of awesomeness When something awesome happens, write it down and put it in a jar.
- Gratitude trigger Name three things you are grateful for every time you brush your teeth.
- A menu Create your own list of options you know will work when you feel less powerful, then choose one.
Mastery also shows up in how fast you come back. Judgment, fear and bad days still happen. The levels of mastery mean you get to shrink how long they stay with you. What would limit some people for a week, a month or a year can pass in a few hours or a few minutes.
How can AI support your self mastery?
Stay human first. Give AI the context of who you are and who you are becoming, so its help fits you. Let AI draft and keep the judgment yours. I walk through this in how to use AI to become your future self.
Do this today
- Create one trigger. Pick something you touch every day, like your water bottle, and attach one "I am" declaration to it.
- Name your next tool. Answer the question "What is the next tool I am adding?" and use it once today.
Listen to the episode
The Transformative Power of Self-Creation
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Read the full transcript
The greatest gift that I can give you is the possibility of self-creation. And self-creation is your ability to turn anything that you want in your life into a positive thing that creates and fuels you, empowers you for unlimited possibilities.
And this is something that I've done a ton of internal work and coaching on to get to this point. It is so foundational. It's foundational to my programs because it's foundational to my life and the lens that I create in the world. And it is my duty to share this with you because it is one of the areas that I believe is the most under-indexed in the most people, especially high performers.
Because one of the challenges of high performers and people who are already crushing is it's very easy to rest on your laurels or think that I can't get better or I don't have time to work with a coach or go through a coaching program or add something new to my life. And when I hear this, I both understand it because I used to be that way. But at the same time, it is such a missed opportunity to tap into the unlimited potential that you have.
Because one of the challenges is helping someone see something for themselves that they don't even know is possible for themselves, especially if they're already at the top of the food chain. So let me give you some simple examples around the world of self-creation because I'm a self-creation expert. I'm a master creator at all of this because it is full of love. It is full of power. It is full of freedom. It is what allows you to create an energy in your life and a flow around your life where every day you can literally do and create and be anything that you want.
So one of the very simple things that I've done recently is I bought some new face wash. The old brand that I'd use got discontinued and tried out a few other brands. They didn't work for me. And one brand that I love is Jack Black. They create such good, high-quality stuff. And it is three times the price of just about anything else. And Jack Black comes in a blue bottle with a black cap, so you know what it is.
And I looked and I bought a $35 pump of Jack Black face wash. And I was actually really excited about it. And when it came in, I said, you know what? I'm going to self-create and turn this amazing face wash into a trigger for myself. That way, every single time I pump this, it is an ability for me to self-create.
And for me, it's a pump of confidence because this is the best face wash that I know of. I'm like, you know what? I'm going to look better. I'm investing in myself. So now I can sit there and boom, I put that on and I rub it on my face. I'm like, man, I am that I believe. I believe in myself. I believe in my dreams. I believe in my vision because I look good and I feel good. And this gives me confidence.
And boom, all of this in the matter of 10 seconds, just by putting on some awesome face wash. And now I am legitimately excited to wash my face because what this bottle of Jack Black allows me to create in myself.
And I've shared this before, but another thing that I've done from self-creation is you can fill up your water bottle in your cup of belief. Think about all of the things that you do every single day. How many times do you touch your phone? Imagine turning that into a trigger for I am infinite love. I am infinite value. Boom. In this way of being, you can literally turn anything in your life into something powerful that serves you.
And this is a concept that goes oh so deep. Yeah, it's simple on the surface, turning face wash into belief. But I'm telling you that diving into your ability to self-create in the lens of how you see the world, where literally you look around and everything is an opportunity.
And this is what I believe most people miss, is that it can be more than just a water bottle because most people sit here, I'm just filling up my water. Sure, but how about you turn that into something that creates some positive energy and positive emotion? Because now you can start coursing with love and growth in all areas of your life because ultimately you've got this vision of where you want to go and who you want to be.
So we get to create ourselves because the story that we tell ourself creates our actions and our actions create our results. So when you become a master creator, this is your ability to create anything that you want. And this courses an energy inside of you.
And I wanted to share this because this is actually a piece of love inside of me that I love so much because of what it creates in me and then what it can create in you. And even this podcast is an act of creation.
Transcript cleaned up for reading.