Three Levels of Personal Transformation

Earlier in my career—especially when I first moved to Japan—I believed there was only one level, or process, of personal transformation:

Set a goal.

Find some motivation.

Work hard.

Achieve it.

Move on to the next one.

That mindset is incredibly common.

It’s also incomplete.

Scott Adams has been blunt about this for years. In How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, he explains that goals create a false finish line. You either hit them—or you don’t. And when you miss, motivation collapses. When you hit them, momentum disappears.

That was my experience early on.

Short bursts of progress, but I never felt excited, accomplished, or motivated once the work was done.

Most people think personal transformation is about getting better results.

That’s only the first level.

Fundamental transformation happens in layers—moving from outcomes, to systems, to identity.

Very few people ever make it to the top, because most never look past the goal itself. They focus purely on the goals, not process or systems.

The moment I stopped asking “What do I want?” and started asking “What kind of person do I need to become?” everything changed.

That’s when the work stopped feeling temporary—and started becoming permanent.

Most people think personal transformation is about getting better results.

That’s only the first level.

Let’s break it down.

Average people focus on outcomes.

They fixate on what they want, not how they’ll get there.

Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) calls this goal obsession—and he warns against it. Goals are fragile. Miss them once, and motivation collapses. When results don’t show up fast enough, ordinary people quit.

How many people do you know, maybe including yourself, who gave up on their goals when they determined they were too difficult to accomplish?

One of my worst memories in high school was my performance in fast-pitch baseball. I grew up on softball, wiffle ball, and slow-pitch hardball in the neighborhood with my buddies.

Then we moved to New Jersey.

There was no high school softball, only fast-pitch hardball.

I could not hit the ball. I joined two teams.

My high school team and a local recreational team.

I look back on the fact that I had a level one mindset of becoming a good baseball player, and I gave up because I could not succeed.

I never knew there was a level two, which would have helped me focus on the process of becoming a baseball player. The daily commitment to practice.

The consistent visit to the local batting cage.

I gave up, and my baseball career was over.

The problem:

Results are delayed. Effort is immediate.

Most people can’t handle that gap.

Because of the gap, sometimes measured in months or years, average people end up bouncing from goal to goal.

The result?

They stay exactly where they are.

Even worse, they give up thinking they are failures.

Winners make a critical shift.

They stop obsessing over results and start respecting the process.

Scott Adams is famous for saying:

Winners build systems:

James Clear reinforces this idea in Atomic Habits:

Small behaviors, repeated daily, compound into extraordinary outcomes.

The breakthrough habit is that winners show up whether they feel like it or not.

They trust that if the process is right, the results will eventually follow.

In most cases, I am a winner versus average because I have been able to elevate my game to push forward even when I do not feel like it.

This past week, mentally, I was hitting stress levels of 12 out of 10. My past self would have just shut down, waiting for the stress to ease up by binge-watching TV or scrolling endlessly on social media.

Taking action when you do not feel like it, when you think the odds are stacked against you, is not easy. At that level of stress, it took me a good minute to shift my thinking from the stress and the desire to do nothing to one where I was moving forward again.

I have definitely transformed from average to a winner, but there is more.

Even winners hit a ceiling.

The journey does not end.

Masters go one step deeper.

They don’t just run the system.

They become the kind of person who runs it naturally.

James Clear calls this identity-based habits.

Instead of saying, “I’m trying to work out,” they say, “I’m an athlete.”

Instead of saying, “I’m trying to write," they say, “I’m a writer.”

The behavior isn’t forced anymore.

It’s aligned with who they believe they are.

Masters don’t rely on motivation.

They rely on identity.

At this level:

A master does not chase outcomes.

A master does not chase habits.

They protect their identity.

When I first moved to Japan, I was operating squarely at Level 1.

I wanted results:

I set goals. I pushed hard. I worked long hours.

Like most people early in their journey, I measured progress only by outcomes.

Over time, that shifted.

Living in Japan forced me into Level 2—whether I liked it or not.

You don’t “win” Japan quickly.

Language learning. Cultural norms. Professional trust.

I stopped chasing fast results and focused on the process:

That’s where momentum came from.

Not motivation—but repetition.

Years later, something changed again.

I no longer had to try to be disciplined.

I didn’t need external pressure to improve.

The behaviors had become part of who I was.

I wasn’t “working hard to survive in Japan” anymore.

I had become someone who:

That’s the subtle shift into Level 3—identity.

Was I a perfect level 3? Absolutely not. But Japan had become my identity. It was who I was, and I projected it so strongly that the people in my circle also knew me as the "Japan guy."

Looking back, I can see that I’ve practiced all three levels—often at the same time.

That’s the real takeaway.

For me personally, mastery isn’t something I have in all areas

I can be a master in one area and a beginner in another—on the same day.

The Day Warrior path isn’t about claiming the title.

It’s about knowing which level you’re on…

and deliberately climbing to the next one.

継続は力なり. Keizoku wa chikara nari

Consistency is power.

If you want real transformation, ask yourself:

Get a little better every day.

Build the system.

But most importantly, become the person who never quits.

That’s the highest level of the game.

The Day Warrior

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