Isolate and Annihilate

When the Romans were laying waste to the Gallic tribes around them, they frequently utilized an important strategy. It was the strategy of “Divide and Conquer”. We will learn about another strategy: isolate and annihilate.

Now when we hear this phrase, sometimes we do not think of it the way the Romans would have thought of it. We hear “divide and conquer” and think about splitting up a task and working together with our team to finish it. We think it means to separate our forces and send them in all directions.

What the Romans meant was that the enemy must be divided if they are to be conquered. So, when it came to the tribes of Gaul, the imperative of the Romans was to split them up. Cause them to break their alliances or fight amongst themselves and they could be destroyed one by one. The Romans would cause internal division so that their enemies could be more easily defeated.

Today I propose to you a slightly different idea but with a personal development application. I call it “Isolate and Annihilate”.

What it means is that we are going to list all the faults we want to eliminate in our lives and start attacking them one at a time. We will split them off from each other, not viewing our faults as one giant mass, but instead as tiny individual parts adding up to a pseudo-powerful whole.

This may seem simple, but the classic religious approach to personal development has always been the “flash in the pan” method. Apply a massive amount of effort for approximately four days and then give up and remain the same for the rest of the year. It is the New Year’s resolution of the church.

This is why year after year, people in the church make no progress on themselves. Think about it: how many people in the church do you know who have actually improved areas of personal weakness in their lives? Perhaps 2%?

While there are plenty of people who talk and preach about changing themselves, in reality, no one is willing to put in the effort to change.

It is an element of human nature, and change is expensive for the human organism. Just as most people are not interested in the general concepts of self-improvement, most people are also not interested in spiritual improvement. They are interested in it enough to talk about it, but not enough that they take action.

Here is our protocol for actually making improvements in ourselves. Isolate and Annihilate.

I – Identify the Enemy

It is hard to fight an enemy if you do not know who the enemy is. War is difficult if the enemy is dressed like civilians and you cannot tell the two apart. You need to have a firm idea in your mind of what you are trying to improve before you can actually start to improve it. Most people make mistakes right here! They go to war with the vapor and are surprised when they get lost in the fog.

Perhaps they want to get in better physical shape, so they just mindlessly start exercising and “eating healthy” with no real direction and end up going in circles. They have not identified specifically what their problem is. Is it a lack of muscle, excess fat, or lack of heart health? It could be any number of things, but without identifying exactly what the enemy is, every attempt at change will be ineffective at best and will fail at worst.

To correct this, we need to make a large list of all the faults and undesirable character traits we currently have.

Write down everything from character flaws to sins you are at war with. Make this list exhaustive; leave nothing out. You are going to total war, and everything must be considered. Do not be alarmed if your list seems massive and unconquerable. That which can be identified can be destroyed, and you have just identified every enemy you have.

Draw a line down the center of a blank piece of paper. On the left put character flaws and, on the right, put sins. The right side should have more behavioral components while the left should have personality components.

Just by making this list, you are ahead of the majority of people in the world. Because now you have a written list of enemies and by virtue of that you have a written list of goals. Once you have your list, move to part two of the protocol.

II – Avoid Taking on Too Much Change at Once

As mentioned before, the classic error of most people is attempting too much change at once and burning out. When it comes to their health, they try to change their diet, weight training, cardiovascular exercise, and sleep habits all at once. They do this even though in every one of those areas they have not practiced discipline for years. The result is that they burn out, quit everything, and are back where they started.

What we want to do is select just one behavior, flaw, or sin to focus our efforts on. So, on your list, take a pen and circle the biggest bottleneck trait or behavior. Circle the most prominent character flaw or sin you are dealing with. This should be the one that, if crushed, will have the greatest impact on improving your overall character. Most men have “that one thing” holding them back from being truly excellent. It could be gossip, a bad temper, or a drinking problem. They may have many other smaller level evils, but there is always one behavior that is so prominent even the people around him can see it.

After circling the biggest problem, put a box around the smallest problem.

This can be some habit or behavior that is annoying despite being quite small. If you fix it, it should give you a certain sense of pride and confidence that you can change other aspects of your life.

So, in the end, you should have two flaws identified: the biggest and the smallest.

III – Attack One Flaw at a Time

Do not try to tackle your whole list at once. You need to systematically destroy one fault at a time. What would have happened to the Roman legions if they have tried to conquer every single tribe in Gaul at once? It would have been a disaster. They would have needed to spread their troops so thin that they would have been overrun at every battle.

Rather, they needed to systematically break down the oppositions so they could be crushed. You must do the same. Forging your character is a systematic process that will take time and persistence and will not work if you attempt to change everything about yourself at once.

IV – Choose the Dragon or the Wasp

Now you get to make a decision: do you attack your largest or smallest fault first? While you can do what you want, I would encourage you to try attacking the small fault first, especially if you have never tried to change yourself in any major way up until now.

The reason for this is that once you crush that small, annoying part of who you are, it will fill you with a small dash of confidence. The net value of your character increases and you begin to think positively. You start to believe that you actually do possess the power to change yourself, and that belief will lead to even more change.

Begin to work your way up the list of personal defects that you made earlier.

Systematically crushing them one at a time from weakest to strongest. All along the way you are building confidence and positive pride in your character. You are developing the inner belief that is going to allow you to face the dragon with a ferocity that you did not even know you possessed. You will have built the strength of character by forging your own path and improving yourself. Once you get to the dragon, it will not even be a problem. Through the strategy of isolate and annihilate, you have demonstrated the power of your will.

Of course, you always do have the option to attack the dragon first. I think for a great many people that would simply be too much to ask. They cannot muster the willpower and long-term discipline to stay focused on an enemy for that long. They will begin to break down, lose focus and doubt themselves. Then they will question why they even tried to change in the first place. Finally, they will quit on themselves, because they had not developed that level of inner strength necessary to face the dragon.

I will not deny that if you can attack the dragon first and crush it, it will do wonders for your mind. Then you can enjoy an easy descent as you systematically crush your character flaws in reverse order, moving from the strongest to the weakest.

Continue repeating this process until you have the character you want. Truthfully, you will likely never be where you want to be. You will never believe you have arrived, but that is okay. It does not mean you should not work to improve yourself. The rewards of wisdom and character that come from correcting your behavior are valuable beyond measure.

V – Hold the Line

After your character is established, when you are finished with your isolate and annihilate strategy, it needs time to solidify. You do not want all your hard work to fly out of the window. Yet how many people lose fifty pounds for a wedding just to gain it all back over the next year? How many men quit smoking, drinking, using drugs, or looking at pornography only to fall back into that pattern of behavior time and time again? To avoid this, we need to hold the line.

Holding the line is primarily mental. The reason is that most people relapse into their old behavior because they think, “Well, I’m in shape now so that means I’m good to go! No need to keep training and managing my nutrition”. That attitude is a recipe for disaster, but it is the most common attitude in human beings. We like it when things take care of themselves after we have done our part. Unfortunately, character will always require some degree of upkeep. It will not be a large amount of upkeep, but it will still be required.

I submit a different mentality to you today. Once you correct your behavior, you should double down on your discipline. Become even harder and more aggressive about your training. Become more militaristic about your self-discipline. Not in a self-flagellating type of way but understanding that this attitude allows for the maintenance of gains.

For at least a few weeks, you need to train the mind to never let its guard down.

You are at constant war against the enemy, and he is waiting for you to look away or fall asleep at your post just for a moment so he can strike. Prevent this by being hyper-vigilant and intense.

Maintenance is mental, simply do not let your guard down until you have made your new character or behavior completely automatic. You need time to establish any new behavior as a habit. Once you are automatically performing the way you want to, then you can slowly begin to transfer your attention to the other parts of yourself that you want to change.

To isolate and annihilate is to split your overall character into small components, select the areas that need change the most, isolate them and crush them. Through this practice, you will gain limitless personal control and strength.