The 3 step method for Inner peace - Talk less, Be precise, Be still

Talk less, be precise, be still

This 3 step philosophy was the culmination of mine and my cousin's reflection after a year of living together in the busy city of Bristol. This is not to say I was living by this philosophy, quite the opposite.

For starters, I was talking far too much, trying to fill empty silences with even more empty and vapid thoughts, believing that anything is better than the awkwardness of not knowing what to say.

However, what I came to realise is that when you say something you don't really mean or care about,

1. Everyone can sense it

2. Your lack of interest in what you are saying will stunt any creativity for a follow up to their answer.

We must therefore learn to not be afraid of silence.

This sentiment stuck with me after reading Ryan Holiday's book "Stillness is the key". As he puts it:

“All of humanity’s problems,” Blaise Pascal said in 1654, “stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

If you struggle with sitting with your own thoughts, then this is an indication that you are not at peace with yourself. If this applies to you, start small and spend 15 minutes of your day in complete silence and go from there. By doing this daily, you can start being more comfortable in your thoughts and at the very least will obtain some hints as to the cause of what is keeping your mind so noisy and disrupted.

The irony has just hit me of talking about how to talk less so I will leave it here and move onto the second step:

Be precise.

What does it mean to be precise?

For starters, if you say something you don't mean, that is not being precise.

This type of person will say yes to going out and then bail at the last minute. If this becomes a pattern and someone notices, it confirms to them that you are not a righteous and trustworthy person. Not only that, you also realise yourself that you are not living in line with your word. This critical self-awareness is not merely registered when you overcommit to a social event either. Any time you mislead and say something counter to what you feel inside, deep down you know you are not living with integrity.

As Jordan Peterson said:

"You can't twist the fabric of reality without having it snap back at you"

In order to be precise, we must be impeccable with our word. This is the first agreement in Don Miguel Ruiz's "The Four Agreements" and in my experience it is the most respected quality. As he says:

"Be Impeccable with your word: speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.”

An exercise we can do to improve our impeccability, is to spend an entire day living with clear precision.

For a day, try to do every small simple thing with clear precision/accuracy.

Take your head out of the picture and just have clear focus in all the tasks you do. It can be as simple as buttering your bread perfectly or washing up efficiently.

Do these precise tasks as many times in the day that you can and then when the day is over, reflect over your mood and see how differently you carried yourself in the day and consider whether it was preferential to your state of mind.

Once we have mastered these first 2 steps, stillness will follow.

To quote Ryan Holiday again:

“Stillness is what aims the archer’s arrow. It inspires new ideas. It sharpens perspective and illuminates connections.”

As a result of this stillness, our awareness will be heightened. We will know when the perfect time to leave a social gathering, when nothing else needs to be said. This allows us to be good and be gone. We will never overstay our welcome. Our time is now valuable both to ourselves and others, and our conversations are all the better for it, with our time being concentrated on things worth our time.

Thanks for reading

All the best,

Brandon