7 Principles of Inner Excellence to Stay Calm Under Fire | Jim Murphy

1. Clarify Life Purpose

Develop a clear, single-sentence purpose for your life to avoid distraction and busyness, enabling you to comfortably engage with your thoughts and self.

2. Live Wholeheartedly, Walk in Love

Practice inner excellence by striving to be wholehearted, walking in love rather than fear, and continuously developing and optimizing your true self.

3. Embrace Moments as Learning

Adopt the mindset that everything in your life, especially uncomfortable moments, is an opportunity to learn and grow, as it’s all working for your good.

4. Seek Discomfort for Growth

Actively seek out moments of discomfort, embracing them as your teacher, as these are key opportunities for personal growth and mastering your ego.

5. Prioritize Presence Over Confidence

Prioritize being fully present over merely being confident, as presence leads to more consistent and better performance by preventing carelessness.

6. Selflessness Leads to Fearlessness

Understand that selflessness leads to fearlessness, as a lack of concern for self eliminates the root of fear, which is often self-centered and future-oriented.

7. Cultivate Courage as Key Resource

Prioritize developing courage, as it is an accessible resource for everyone, allowing you to face fears, look foolish, fail, and endure judgment.

8. Prioritize Mastery Over Success

When feeling nervous or attached to an outcome, ask yourself if you prioritize immediate success or long-term mastery of your ego and indifference to others’ opinions. Choose the latter to improve.

9. Avoid Tentativeness After Mistakes

When you make a mistake, avoid becoming tentative; instead, maintain courage and relentlessness, as successful performers don’t let errors diminish their resolve.

10. Failure is Feedback

Adopt the mindset that there is no such thing as failure, only feedback, to remove the emotional sting and learn from experiences.

11. Detach Ego from Failure

Recognize that the emotional impact of failure stems from self-centeredness; work to detach your ego from outcomes to reduce emotional distress.

12. Growth Requires Discomfort

Apply the principle that growth (physical, wisdom, courage) requires breaking down and discomfort, not constant comfort; actively seek challenges to develop these qualities.

13. Redefine Success: Inner Peace

Redefine success to include inner peace and contentment, recognizing that outward achievement without internal well-being is not true success.

14. Focus on Process, Not Results

For long-term engagement and fulfillment, focus on the process of developing yourself and pursuing virtues like wisdom and courage, rather than solely on external results.

15. Accept Joy and Suffering

Understand that the best possible life naturally encompasses both joy and suffering, accepting this reality rather than solely pursuing comfort.

16. Recognize Your Choices

Recognize that you always have a choice in your actions, even seemingly obligatory ones like going to work, which empowers you to make conscious decisions.

17. Simulate Quitting Consequences

When tempted to quit or make an impulsive decision, mentally ‘play out’ the consequences of that choice to see if it aligns with your true desires, before acting on it.

18. Leverage Lost Situations

In situations where the primary goal (e.g., winning) is out of reach, reframe it as an opportunity to intentionally practice and improve specific skills without pressure.

19. Shorten Focus for Endurance

When facing a challenging or painful task, shorten your focus from the distant end goal to the very next small, achievable milestone to maintain momentum and overcome mental walls.

20. Make Habits Rules, Not Choices

Transform desired behaviors from choices into non-negotiable rules to eliminate decision fatigue and increase consistency, especially for difficult habits.

21. Give 100% of Available

Adopt the mantra ‘give 100% of what’s available,’ meaning you give your best effort based on your current capacity, even if that capacity is reduced on a given day, to avoid guilt and burnout.

22. Avoid Busyness as Escape

Recognize busyness as a common avoidance tactic; instead, create space to get deeper, face your fears, and examine life at a more profound level.

23. Use Solitude for Reflection

Regularly engage in solitude to deeply reflect on the true motivations behind your goals and what you ultimately want to have achieved and experienced when looking back on your life.

24. Annual Life Change Question

Annually ask yourself, ‘What good reason do I have to not change every single thing in my life?’ to critically evaluate if your current actions align with your purpose.

25. Vacation to Enhance Life

Reframe vacations not as an escape from your life, but as an opportunity to enhance it by stopping busyness, thinking deeply about your life purpose, and planning how to move towards it upon returning.

26. Clarify Desired Life Feelings

Begin self-coaching by clarifying what you truly want, specifically how you desire to feel in your life and how you wish to avoid feeling.

27. Hold External Goals Loosely

Set external ’third world goals’ (results and circumstances) but hold them loosely, recognizing they are temporary and less important than your inner world and who you are becoming.

28. Purpose Unchanged by Success

When experiencing overwhelming success or stress, remember that your core purpose remains unchanged, which can alleviate pressure and help you stay grounded.

29. Attribute Success Beyond Self

When achieving significant success, attribute it to a higher power or external forces rather than personal ego, viewing yourself as a messenger to avoid self-centeredness and stress.

30. Choose Empowering Motivation

Cultivate empowering and positive motivation (‘clean fuel’) rather than relying on negative drivers like a chip on your shoulder, which can lead to emptiness even at the peak of success.

31. Beware Dirty Fuel’s Cost

Acknowledge that ‘dirty fuel’ like fear or anger can be effective for short-term achievement, but recognize its long-term cost, such as the loss of inner peace and joy.

32. Deathbed Reflection for Priorities

Regularly reflect on what will truly matter most to you on your deathbed to guide your priorities and avoid getting caught in the ‘competitor’s trap’ of endless achievement.

33. Contentment Doesn’t Kill Drive

Challenge the belief that removing anxiety or achieving contentment will diminish your drive; instead, trust that your talent and purpose will still motivate you.

34. Best Life: Feel Fully Alive

Redefine the ‘best life’ as one where you feel fully alive, rather than one characterized solely by good external circumstances or ease.

35. Easier Life Not Best

Challenge the common pursuit of an easier life, understanding that it is not necessarily the best life, and that growth often comes from embracing challenge.

36. Prioritize Invisible Over Visible Growth

Be aware of the tendency to be drawn into a ’transactional world’ focused on visible, surface-level results (money, possessions); consciously prioritize invisible, deeper growth like wisdom and love.

37. Avoid Isolation, Seek Truthful Relations

Avoid isolation, as humans are created for relationship; maintain connections with people who can offer honest perspectives about who you are and what’s possible, to prevent spiraling.

38. Pursue Fullness of Life

Focus your efforts on pursuing fullness of life, trusting that other desired outcomes will naturally follow.

39. Surrender Will to Higher Power

Practice surrender by giving up your personal will and life to a higher power, especially when feeling overwhelmed, to alleviate anxiety and access greater power.

40. Exchange Personal for Universal Power

Exchange your limited personal power for the expansive power of the universe, especially when facing challenges, to find strength and relief.

41. Use Daily Affirmation Reminders

Set up daily silent reminders with affirmations on your phone to reinforce desired beliefs and mindsets throughout the day.

42. Use “God is With You” Mantra

Use the mantra ‘God is with you’ to feel less alone, reduce overwhelm, and remember that success is not solely dependent on personal effort.

43. Holistic Life Quality

Understand that the quality of your life stems from three core elements: your inner world (thoughts, feelings, beliefs, desires), your mindset (frame of reference), and your relationships.

44. Optimize Holistically: Mind, Heart

For true human optimization, adopt a holistic approach that delves deeper than just the mind, exploring the heart and subconscious to address your greatest fears and dreams.

45. Performance and Best Life One

Realize that striving for extraordinary performance is the same path as living the best possible life, which involves meaning, fulfillment, enriching relationships, learning, and growth.

46. Aim for Self-Forgetful Presence

Aim for a state of full presence characterized by freedom, heightened awareness, and a complete lack of self-concern, where you feel connected, grounded, and centered.

47. Embrace Vulnerability for Performance

Emulate high performers by cultivating a willingness to face your fears, look foolish, fail, and endure judgment, as these are essential for achieving ambitious goals.

48. Break Goals into Small Steps

Break down large, daunting goals into very small, manageable steps, focusing only on the immediate next step rather than the overwhelming entirety of the task.

49. Make First Steps Smaller

When struggling to start something, identify if your first step is too large and intentionally make the next step smaller to overcome inertia.

50. Start Habits with Tiny Steps

To start a new habit, begin with incredibly small, almost effortless steps, like placing running shoes by the door, then putting them on, gradually building momentum.

51. Lower Expectations for Presence

Lower your immediate expectations to what you know you can achieve in the present moment (e.g., hitting the center of the club face), which helps cultivate presence and better performance.

52. Daily Workout Rule, Flexible Scope

Establish non-negotiable rules for essential habits (e.g., ‘I work out every day’), allowing for flexibility in duration or scope but removing the choice of whether to do it.

53. Help Homeless to Break Spiral

When feeling overwhelmed and spiraling, seek out a homeless person and offer help as a way to break isolation and shift focus.

54. Coach by Clarifying Desires

When coaching or advising others, focus on helping them clarify their deepest desires and then support them in achieving those, rather than dictating actions.

55. Teach Sacrifice, Love, Relationships

Teach young people that understanding sacrifice, love, and building relationships is the most powerful path to both success and mental toughness.

56. Prioritize Long-Term Kid Well-being

When parenting, consider the long-term well-being and health of your children over short-term gratification, recognizing that what feels good immediately may not be beneficial in the long run.

57. Questions for Purpose Clarification

When clarifying your life purpose, ask yourself: How do you want to feel? What do you value most? Who do you value most? Who do you want to become like?

58. Reduce Thoughts for Clarity

To combat modern anxieties and comparison, cultivate a state of having fewer thoughts and even fewer breaths, implying a calmer, more focused mental state.

59. Resist Comfort’s Aggressive Pursuit

Be aware that aging can be characterized by an aggressive pursuit of comfort, and actively resist this tendency if you wish to continue growing in wisdom and courage.