What is LifeOS?

The personal development world has come up with some creatively complex ways to attempt to explain and guide human decisions, behaviour, and experience. These often spiritual ideologies give the impression of empowering progress, but their ignorance of the nature of human decision making, motivation, and experience renders them functionally useless beyond the short-term relief equivalent to a big hug and a reassuring pat on the back.

More often than not, they leave you in personal development purgatory lacking any meaningful progress towards even the simplest of goals because they dramatically over-complicate the process of eliminating your limitations and challenges and creating a meaningful, connected, purpose-driven life.

They treat each challenge as a separate and individual roadblock, to be explained and navigated by a different and individual set of complex, time-demanding, and often spiritual tools, rather than identifying the common core behind all challenges, issues, and barriers and solving that, because they lack a fundamental understanding of human brain function.

How your brain works

Your frustrating, difficult, and challenging life experiences aren’t caused by an uncaring universe or the sins of a past life. They’re not the product of a capitalist-driven society or structural discrimination. They occur in and are therefore created in one place and one place only: your brain.

Your brain is the centre of your entire reality. It’s responsible for everything you see, think, do, and feel because it’s the control centre of your body. It receives and processes all information, creates emotions and experiences based on how that processed information impacts your path to your personal goals and objectives, and then guides the rest of your body on how to react to that information.

You only perceive, understand, and experience the world around you because of your brain, so it’s critical to your personal progress to understand how your brain works.

Your awareness of the world around you starts with tiny electrical charges that pulse in through your senses. In any moment, your skin, your eyes, your tongue, your nose, and your ears are all working to convert the world around you into a format your brain can understand: electricity.

The sheer volume of electrical pulses flooding your brain in every moment (11 million bits per second) means your brain can’t process them all. It has to filter through to find the meaningful and significant bits of information to devote its limited resources to so it doesn’t get overwhelmed.

Once it’s identified the important information and discarded the ones not directly related to your personal goals and objectives, it then interprets these impulses through its desires, prejudices, past experiences, and priorities to give that information meaning and context.

The meaning created results in an emotional and experiential response in the form of excitement or fear or joy or frustration or significance or isolation or powerlessness or freedom or whatever word best describes your current life experience. The type and intensity of that emotional and experiential response depends on how close or far it moves you from your desired outcome.

After the split second it takes for your brain to register this information, interpretation, and experiential response, your brain then decides on the best course of action and directs your body to get on board and carry out its plan. These decisions and actions result in new information flooding in through your senses and the cycle repeats itself all over again.

This process occurs not just once or twice a day as you’re working through significant or challenging exercises, but in every waking moment of your life. Your brain is constantly working to understand, interpret, and interact with the world around you.

This is your LifeOS

This process running in your brain of observing, interpreting, reacting, and responding to the world around you is your Life Operating System. It’s called your Life Operating System (LifeOS) because it’s the process responsible for driving the thoughts, decisions, and actions that all determine your life situation, life experience and life trajectory.

It’s responsible for the judgements, questions, and concerns that pass through your head, the life choices you make, the activities you fill your day with, and your emotions and experiences along the way. These include

  • Where you live
  • What you do for work
  • The clothes you wear
  • What people think of you
  • The people you associate with
  • How hard you work
  • The people you talk and interact with
  • Your leisure and recreational activities
  • Your fear and concerns about your future

And everything in between. It’s responsible for your life situation, life experience, and life trajectory, which is why it’s called your Life Operating System.

Three Important Points

There are three important things you need to know about your Life Operating System.

Important Point 1. Your LifeOS is not random

You don’t randomly choose which pieces of information to pay attention to and which ones to discard. You don’t randomly grab every third piece on a rotating basis between your ears, eyes, and nose based on the tidal patterns of the Nile Delta.

You have a strict framework for sifting through and selectively ignoring information. It’s a framework that’s responsible for helping us survive the millions of years of evolution it took to reach this point and will assist in the survival of our species moving forward. The framework is: “How do I get what I want?”

Before the development and globalisation of our societies, the answer to this question was pretty simple:

  1. Get out of the rain
  2. Don’t get eaten by a lion
  3. Make sure I have enough to eat and drink

Everything beyond food, shelter, and safety was an luxury indulged once these basics had been satisfied, but the amount of time dedicated to anything beyond these was limited. The development of our modern societies has shifted the sometimes focus on personal luxury from an after-thought to an almost dominant position thanks to the proliferation of accommodation, law enforcement, and supermarkets. This has allowed people to focus on higher-level desires, but at it’s core, the question driving this process is still: “How do I get what I want?”

Once you’ve found the most important information, you then analyse that information based on the same question: “How do I get what I want?”

If you see a lion, you brain immediately tries to assess how this information impacts your ability to get what you want. Is it close or a long way away? Is it awake or asleep? Does it look hungry or satiated? What does this new information mean about your ability to get what you want in life?

Once you’ve analysed and interpreted that information, you then have an emotional and experiential response based on how it impacts your ability to get what you want.

If the lion is close and licking his lips, you’ll probably experience fear. If it’s a long way away and asleep, you’ll probably, well, it’s a fucking lion so you’ll most likely still experience some fear, but it’ll be less. If it’s reciting Shakespeare in a tutu while smoking a cigar on a day-bed, you’ll probably experience shock. You get the idea.

Once you’ve interpreted that information and had an emotional and experiential response, you’ll then instruct your body to take action. The action you chooses will be the action that you believe best helps you get what you want.

  • Sometimes, that action will manifest as purely selfish behaviour such as throwing your ill-tempered and impossibly annoying brother-in-law into the waiting jaws of the hungry beast allowing you to escape
  • Sometimes, that action will manifest as group focussed such as yelling at everyone to run for the hills as fast as their stumpy and unevolved legs will carry them so that everyone survives
  • And sometimes, that action will manifest in acts of apparent altruism as you throw yourself in the vipers nest so that your loved ones have the best chance to carry your family genes into the next generation

But regardless of the specific action, the important point here is that whatever action you choose, it will be the action that you believe will take you closest towards your goals and objectives.

Now, you might be thinking “Hang on, I don’t remember thinking all of this!” If you are, you’d be right. For 99% of your life in 99% of situations, this process isn’t conscious. In fact, it couldn’t be. If you were trying to consciously process all this information, all the time, you’d have no space to process all the other information necessary to navigate our modern world, and you probably would have been eaten by that lion a LONG time ago.

In 99% of cases for 99% of people, your LifeOS runs in your unconscious mind, leaving your conscious mind free to engage with all the necessary tasks of modern living.

This is important because:

Your life is not an accident. Your world is not created by chance. The process occurring inside your head is deliberate and structured and there is an observable chain of events leading from every observation through to your experiences, decisions, and actions.

Important Point 2. Every decision, action, and experience is a result of your LifeOS

This process doesn’t just happen when a lion raises its head from the grass and interrupts your family picnic. This process is running all the time and has been operating in every moment of every day for your entire life.

Every time you’ve had an emotional or experiential response, it’s because you’ve observed something that has positively or negatively impacted your ability to get what you want from life. Every single one, in every moment of your life, from when you were first born to the person you are today. Every single emotion or experience was created because something impacted your ability to get what you want from life.

  • Every time you feel frustrated or angry, it because there’s something you want and you can’t get it
  • Every time you feel free, it’s because you’ve broken through a barrier that was limiting your life
  • Every time you feel sad, it’s because you lost something you wanted
  • Every time you feel excitement, it’s because you’re anticipating getting something you want
  • Every time you experience anxiety, it’s because you’re anticipating losing something you want
  • Every time you feel strong and powerful, it’s because you got something you wanted
  • Every time you feel disappointed, it’s because you thought you were going to get something you wanted and you didn’t

You’re a desire-driven, selfish creature whose life experience revolves around desires.

Every time you’ve made a decision, it’s because you’ve believed that decision would take you closer to your desired goal. Every single one, in every moment of your life, from when you were first born to the person you are today. Every single decision was driven by your belief it was going to help you get what you want from life.

  • You choose the job you do because you thought it was going to help you get what you wanted
  • You associate with the people you associate with because you thought they were going to help you get what you wanted
  • You chose the clothes you’re wearing because you thought they were going to help you get what you wanted

You’re a desire-driven, selfish creature whose life decisions revolves around desires.

Every time you’ve taken an action, it’s because you’ve believed that action would take you towards your desired goal. Every single one, in every moment of your life, from when you were born to the person you are today. Every single action was driven by your belief it was going to help you get what you want from life.

  • You eat the food you eat because you believe it will help you get what you want
  • You participate in the leisure activities you choose because you believe they will help you get what you want
  • You engage your tasks with the level of focus and intensity you do because you believe it will get you what you want

You’re a desire-driven, selfish creature whose actions revolves around desires.

This isn’t just true for your present and past; it’s also true for your future.

  • Every emotional or experiential response you will ever have will be driven by the impact of something you observe on your ability to get what you want
  • Every decision you will ever make will be driven by your belief it will help you get what you want
  • Every action you will ever take will be driven by your belief it will help you get what you want.

You are a desire driven creature and your desires drive every emotion, decision, and action in your past, present, and future.

The idea of being an inherently selfish and desire-driven individual might offend your moral sensibilities, but don’t worry. You’re not alone. You’re not the only inherently selfish person. This is true for everyone you’ve ever met, can currently see, and will ever meet.

  • The emotions, experiences, decisions, and actions of the woman in accounting are desire driven
  • The emotions, experiences, decisions, and actions of your Uber driver are desire driven
  • The emotions, experiences, decisions, and actions of your parents are desire driven
  • The emotions, experiences, decisions, and actions of the creepy guy who hangs around out the front of the convenience store are desire driven
  • The emotions, experiences, decisions, and actions of the church pastor are desire driven

Every person in every situation doing every task in every moment is driven by desires and it’s their desires responsible for their emotions, experiences, decisions, and actions.

This is important because:

It gives you the underlying motivational logic of every person in every situation making every decision and taking every action, including yourself.

  • If you’ve made unproductive decisions in the past or are currently making unproductive decisions, it’s because you desire something and you believe these decisions will help you fulfil that desire
  • If you’ve taken unproductive actions in the past or are currently taking unproductive actions (binge drinking, being stuck in your head, spending hours in front of computer games, etc…), it’s because you desire something and you believe these actions will help you fulfil that desire
  • If you’re currently struggling with negative emotions, it’s because elements in your life are currently limiting your ability to fulfil your desires

Your desires are the foundation for life situation, life experience, and life trajectory.

Important Point 3. Your LifeOS isn’t set

The underlying brain structures in your unconscious mind that drive your LifeOS were once believed to be set in concrete. It was believed they were locked in place either at birth or from a very young age and the best you could ever hope to do was manage the issues and challenges that arose from your personal setup.

This has been proven completely incorrect in a number of different studies and experiments covering everything from recovering from a stroke to the impact of blindness on brain structure and everything in between.

The truth is that your brain is an ever-changing, fluid set of connections meaning you can reconfigure it to make the best use of your resources in an ever-changing world.

This is important because:

It means that any issue, problem, or barrier created by limitations in your Life Operating System can be overcome by retraining the patterns and processes in your brain using your conscious mind.

  • You can stop focussing on what other people want and start paying attention to your core desires
  • You can stop worrying about the past and start building an empowering future
  • You can stop being crippled by anxiety and feel calm and cool in every situation
  • You can stop living an empty and meaningless routine existence and start being driven by your life’s deepest purpose
  • You can stop having to drag yourself out of bed every morning and start being passionate and driven
  • The can stop the endless noise and chatter in your mind and start being focussed and directed

You can make more productive decisions, you can take more productive actions, and your life can be filled with positive emotions and experiences. You can live a meaningful live, deeply connected to those around you, driving forward and making a difference to the world, simply by taking conscious control of your LifeOS.

Taking Control of your Life

If you’re ready to escape the repetitious frustration most people have accepted as the only way to live their life (Case of the Mondays? Hump day?), there are a number of ways you can start to transform your life ranging from just dipping your toe into the water to diving head first into the deep end.

Dipping your toe in the water

If you’re ready to move forward with your life but have already wasted too much time reading ineffective life advice and want to understand more about LifeOS, start by reading other articles on the site. There are articles covering everything from dating and relationships to creating a vision of your ideal life and you can access them for free, simply and easily.

LifeOS Articles

One foot first

If you’ve read enough of the articles to understand that LifeOS is different and want to know more about that difference, you can explore the core foundations of the LifeOS philosophy here: The LifeOS Framework

It breaks down the 4 principles that stand at the core of every article, challenge, and coaching program and will help you see exactly how and why we’re different from every other life advice you’ve ever read.

The LifeOS Framework

Waist Deep Wading

If you’re clear on how LifeOS is different and you’ve decided this is the place you want to help you create a remarkable reality, introduce yourself on the forum. Our growing community of committed, driven, like-minded individuals have already overcome many challenges on their paths and can help you start the process of eliminating the daily frustrations that don’t need to be part of your life.

The LifeOS Forum

Neck Deep

If you’ve seen and read enough and just want to get your life moving in the right direction, start with one of our challenges. They’re simple, one-step programs that will get your life moving in the right direction with guidance on how to avoid most of the common issues and a supportive community to turn to when things get tough.

The LifeOS Challenges

Head first in the deep end

If you’re the kind of person who thrives with structured guidance from experienced professionals, our coaching programs will give you the knowledge, insight, and experiences necessary to make rapid progress towards your vision of your ideal life.

The LifeOS Transformation Programs

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