For those feeling beaten, battered, and tired from the daily grind, it’s time to stop floating through life and start taking proactive control. The following eight principles focus on ordering your internal world, mastering your environment, and building a foundation of discipline. If you’re ready to implement a basic, yet monstrously effective, strategy, follow these steps to take back the reins and forge a stronger identity.

Step 1: Cleanse Thy Earthly Vessel (Self-Care/Hygiene)

• Action: Shower, brush your teeth, wear a scent—treat yourself with respect.
• Principle: The character you’re playing is your own. Failing to care for yourself at a basic level signals low self-worth.
• Outcome: Making cleanliness a daily ritual increases your self-perception and tells your subconscious you are worth taking care of.

Step 2: Order the Kingdom (Environment)

• Action: Deep clean your house, and get rid of all the clutter that is scattering your mind.
• Principle: The space you occupy is an extension of yourself. A disordered kingdom reflects a disordered self, and vice versa.
• Outcome: By making things clean and beautiful, you’ll feel like you have “your shit together,” encouraging you to bring that ordered energy to the rest of your life.

Step 3: Get Out of the House (Social/Movement)

• Action: Get out of the house. The human brain operates best with our feet moving and the sun in our face.
• Principle: The modern world is designed to keep you inside. We are meant to be in relationship and community with others.
• Outcome: Go outside, and become an initiator of people coming together and things happening.

Step 4: Sweat (Exercise/Physical Health)

• Action: Get the blood pumping and break a sweat daily.
• Principle: Exercise is a “pill” guaranteed to boost mental and physical energy, improve mood, increase clarity, and prolong lifespan. That which costs energy giveth energy.
• Outcome: Top performers in the world “take this pill” every day.

Step 5: Monitor Thy Treasury (Financial Awareness)

• Action: Check your bank balance daily. Investigate unconscious spending, auto-renewing subscriptions, and anything you don’t care about.
• Principle: An out-of-sight, out-of-mind attitude is keeping you stuck, while giant corporations thrive on your financial unconsciousness.
• Outcome: Exposing yourself to the hard numbers unlocks the ability to do something about your financial situation.

Step 6: Remove the Hooks (Digital/Substance Dependency)

• Action: Identify what you are bound to or dependent on to operate at baseline. Turn off notifications, unsubscribe from email chains, and unfollow draining accounts.
• Principle: External substances or behaviors are often used to medicate internal problems.
• Outcome: You remove the things that constantly pull you back into mindless consumption and dependency.

Step 7: Strategize (Planning)

• Action: Put the figures on the board. What do you want in life, and in what ways do you tend to fail? Develop a plan.
• Principle: Every successful entity relies on a strategy. Things don’t usually get better on their own; even a basic strategy can be monstrously effective.
• Outcome: You move from simply floating through life to taking the most effective way forward based on available information.

Step 8: Submit (Execution/Trust)

• Action: Submit to the things you must do. Shut your mind off, take a deep breath, and do the necessary work.
• Principle: The thinking has already been done by you. You must learn to trust the more authentic voice in your head and let it override your weaker self.
• Outcome: Over time, this authentic self becomes your primary voice, developing a strong, reliable identity—the basis of confidence and self-efficacy.

Conclusion:

The journey toward a better life is a continuous loop of small, daily disciplines. Start with what you can control—your vessel and your kingdom—and then venture forth. By consistently applying these eight steps, you will build a solid foundation of self-mastery. There is no better feeling than the self-efficacy that comes from acting in alignment with your authentic, strategic self.