Kind: captions
Language: en
[Music]
everybody welcome to impact theory today
we're going to be talking all about
self-reflection and getting real real
with yourself
now this is critically important if you
want to make progress in your life to
make progress you have to accurately
assess where you actually are
stare nakedly at your inadequacies
without any diminishment of self in
order to figure out what skills you're
going to need to improve in order to
make progress and so that is a loop that
a lot of people struggle with but unless
you get it right and can really look at
where you are for real what you're doing
well what you're doing poorly adjust
gain new skills you're never going to be
able to move forward effectively so
without further ado let's get into your
questions number one
what are some things that i can do to
effectively reflect on myself how can i
see clearly where i'm going in life and
whether i am
happy all right you threw me a bit of a
curveball with the end there as to
whether or not you're happy
a few things
one
happiness which is incredibly transitory
is probably not the right thing to focus
on the right thing to focus on in my
humble opinion
is
fulfillment and fulfillment has a
formula which is about working really
hard to gain a set of skills that allow
you to achieve a goal that is both
honorable and exciting so you have to be
hyped up about it and it needs to serve
not only yourself but other people now
that's a far more robust resilient
neurochemical state to pursue and i
should have said pursue a goal rather
than attain it because you may never
attain it but the pursuit of it ought to
be the part that is leading you to
fulfillment so you're working really
hard to gain a set of skills that allow
you to serve not only yourself but other
people okay so if we
know that that's what we want to pursue
then the question becomes how do we know
that we're fulfilled how do we know that
we're happy how do we know that we're
sad how do we know that we're anything
and the answer to that question is
really self-awareness and i mean
literally being aware of self so
understanding that emotions spring forth
from the body they are not a top-down
phenomenon the interpretation
of the emotion
is a top-down phenomenon but as lisa
feldman barrett details in her book how
emotions are made it's really a
fascinating
conversation it's probably the right way
to think about it between your body and
your mind and so your body is giving you
these feelings which are in part due to
values that you hold beliefs that you
have historical
experience your genetic composition
and then based on that
context
you feel literally feel a certain way
and then your higher level cognition
tries to paint a story
on top of that emotion explaining why
you feel it but the reality is is being
kicked up by your body and whatever
story you're telling yourself may or may
not be accurate but we believe the story
all the time and this is how people end
up in these negative spirals but you
have to learn to interpret those signals
from your body that's the important part
about assessing where you're at on an
emotional
playing field is you really have to get
good at interpreting those emotions now
there are two
key factors in learning to interpret
those emotions and one of them is
meditation
you need to get
emotionally quiet enough
you need to get
stress
anxiety
what i call background radiation
quiet enough that you can actually
hear
here is not i don't mean literally but
that you can begin to isolate a given
feeling
and then once you get that calm and
creative state that comes from
meditation and you can accurately
identify what the feeling is then we can
begin in the second part to explore why
we have the feeling that we have
now once we
want to do that when we're in that space
journaling i found is the most helpful
thing in the world so
sitting down what you're aiming for
you're going to write a whole lot of
words
so that you can finally say
in a single sentence
call it the length of a tweet
it's short it's punchy
and when you write that sentence you
feel like a puzzle piece clicking into
place
because you have accurately identified
why you feel the way that you feel now
reason i say that you're going to write
a whole lot of words to get to that
is you're going to be exploring the
nuance and you're going to get close but
it won't be quite right
and as you write the sense oh i'm
feeling this way because of this
and you'd be like you know what i'm
close but it doesn't feel like a puzzle
piece clicking into place yet
and that just means that you haven't
nailed some part of it and so as i
journal i'll say yeah i'm getting close
but i don't think that's quite it and
could it be this i'll start asking
myself questions i'll start putting
forth hypotheses and i know i have it
when it feels like that puzzle piece
clicking into place so make sure that
you keep going until you get to that
point but you've got to learn to
interpret and then articulate what that
feeling is to the point where it feels
right when you say it now the last part
of your question i guess technically the
first part of your question was what are
some things you can do to effectively
reflect on myself and that speaks to
that process that we were just walking
through so meditation and journaling
meditation and journaling that is this
magic combination for me
another thing that can be really helpful
is talking to your friends even doing q
and a's i find really have a way of
sharpening my own thinking it's a great
quote unfortunately i forget who it's by
but the quote was i speak no not so that
i can be understood but so that i can
understand i thought wow it's exactly
why i journal it's the same thing so
speaking out loud to somebody else and
journaling allow you to begin to clarify
your own thoughts and begin to
understand
so those are the things that i would do
to
reflect on that and to create the
environment in which that reflection is
actually going to be successful
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right next
what process can i use in order to
recognize when i am just overthinking
things
if you are not taking action on a daily
basis you are overthinking things
thinking needs to be accompanied by
action so the thinking is your best
guess as to what's going on the action
is going to be
running a test to see if that's actually
what's going on now the action could be
journaling and it could be you trying to
organize your thoughts or maybe you're
trying to start a business or decide if
you want to be a professional dancer
whatever the case may be i promise you
as marie forleo made it very clear to me
you are never going to think your way to
answering that question you have to
engage and engagement is more effective
than thinking every time and i think
that's so true you're going to learn
so much faster because it will come to
you in the language of emotion which is
the subconscious
way of speaking to you and the
subconscious can process data faster and
vaster than the conscious mind so it can
take in a lot more data points it can
take all that historical context and it
can translate that into an emotion so
it's going to be a much bigger data set
that you're drawing from when your
subconscious is speaking to you in
emotion then when you're just trying to
logic your way through it first of all
you've got all these biases that you can
blind yourself with you can talk
yourself into a corner but when you go
and do something there's no bamboozling
you you feel the way that you feel and
as long as you're able to again get in
that calm creative state in which you
can interpret that emotion
then you're going to have the
information that you need and taking
action
is the fastest way to figure out how
you're going to feel the feelings are
the fastest way to take all that data
and get it into the conscious mind and
then as long as you do the work from
your conscious mind to be able to say
that in a single punchy sentence with no
commas run-ons or parentheticals so that
you know exactly what's happening now
you've got the ability to do something
with it so
i think honestly most people live their
entire lives overthinking things but the
easy way to know is whether or not
you're taking action if you're taking
action as a way of experimenting with
the thoughts you're probably just fine
if you're just trying to think your way
to a solution you're almost certainly
overthinking it
all right
why should i take steps to learn from my
own suffering
when it is so
unpleasant
this one is very easy to answer and the
reason that you want to
learn from your suffering is because if
you don't you're going to repeat your
suffering
and if it is unpleasant the first time
you can imagine how deeply unpleasant it
gets over time because let me tell you
how the human mind works
anything that you do a lot becomes
easier and it goes into what's called
the default mode network the default
mode network is the part of the brain
that you access when you're daydreaming
or when you're driving to work and you
get there and all of a sudden you're
like whoa how did i get here i wasn't
even paying attention and the way that
you get there is because that's
something that you've done repetitively
it's been
it's it's actually been hard wired it's
been made
more
calorically
efficient
so the brain actually wraps these myelin
sheaths around these connection points
so that the impulses travel more
efficiently
and then by moving it into the default
mode network by hard wiring it now it
becomes
literally the default thing that you
think so if you repeat that suffering
and you make the same mistakes over and
over and over and you keep doing the
things that lead to your suffering then
that suffering becomes the easiest thing
to do versus
learning from your suffering where in a
very finite period of time you're going
to have to stare very nakedly at it
you're going to have to lean into it
you're going to have to take
responsibility even if
it truly is
somebody or something else's fault
by giving the power over to them you
will end up in that loop where you're
just being victimized over and over and
over not realizing that you can take
control of that situation and get out of
that victimization pattern because you
have the agency to change something and
get a different result and once you
change something and start getting a
different result now you're putting that
skill set to use that you got by
reflecting on where you went wrong what
you could control again even when you
truly have been victimized
you do not have to play the victim and
you certainly don't have to repeat that
pattern so by taking this very finite
time
looking very concretely at what the
exact problem is what you could have
done differently taking that
responsibility taking that power back
that's really what you're doing when
you're taking responsibility you're
taking the power
now when you have the power
you're able to make a choice in the
future that brings you better results
and therefore you don't end up living in
that loop of repeating that problem and
in avoiding the repeating of the problem
and repeating the suffering you don't
get that hard wiring in your brain that
pattern does not go to the default mode
network and therefore it isn't the
easiest thing for you to think and once
you break that pattern and let those old
things atrophy by taking the time to
actually figure out what you need to
change
now you can create forward momentum in
your life and now figuring out what you
need to do to change now acquiring new
skills those are the things that get
moved to the default mode network and
now suddenly when you encounter a
problem the solution is the thing that
comes to your mind because you've
reinforced that over and over and over
you constantly are claiming your power
you are constantly looking at the things
that you need to do differently in order
to get a different result and you are
constantly executing against that and
that
becomes that loop and i can't tell you
how much in the beginning when i started
my growth mindset journey it was oh god
it took so much time and energy to stop
feeling sorry for myself to stop feeling
like a victim to even remember to think
about the fact that i could do something
differently that i could take
responsibility
but as i started doing that and got
these tremendous results out of my life
i started doing it more and more and
then it became my default answer the
very thing that i would click into as
soon as i encountered a problem it was
like word if i take responsibility for
this if i claim back my power now i'm
going to be able to turn this into a
skill set and once i have a skill set
then i can do things that other people
can't do
and i can change my life
and
because that reinforces through so much
positivity and it's so useful and so
effective
it will hardwire itself and once you're
there
you are well on your way to winning
mental health is a huge priority in my
life and i encourage everyone to
prioritize it and one of the best ways
to follow through on healthy mental
health habits is by working with a
licensed therapist better help is
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impact take care and be legendary
how do you determine when your struggle
is necessary and when it isn't
all right so first of all there's going
to be a lot of struggle in your life in
fact i cannot guarantee that you will be
successful in life but i can guarantee
that you're going to struggle so
uh while i don't want people to think
that the struggle is the success because
it's not i want people to understand
that the struggle is necessary the
struggle is the guaranteed part now i
don't want you to be comfortable there i
don't want you to sit in that i don't
want you to say well tom said this was
going to be a struggle this is going to
be hard and so there's no reason to try
to make it better
you want to always be trying to make it
better
the struggle should be intelligent the
struggle should be efficient you should
struggle as little as you need to in
order to get the momentum going that you
need to get in order to reach escape
velocity and whatever it is that you're
trying to do
but don't think that you can ever
eliminate the struggle so there's some
amount of that that's going to be
necessary okay now how do we know
when we've
taken the struggle to a place that makes
sense and when it's spilling over
and the answer is
even though we're going to hold in the
back of our mind that there's going to
be an element of struggle to this and
that the struggle is guaranteed you
should also hold in your mind the
competing idea
that i don't put up with struggle i
don't want to struggle i want to make
this as easy as possible i want this to
be as efficient as possible and the
ability to hold those two
competing ideas in your head
and exist in the friction between them
and the friction is this i don't want to
struggle at all i want things to come
easily to me i want to become so
powerful that i'm like a character in a
video game that has god tier powers on
the beginning level and i can just
decimate every obstacle that's in front
of my path
and the other side of that friction is
that i know that the better i get i
better be going after more i better be
playing a bigger and bigger game and
getting into more and more difficult
situations and therefore i'm always
existing right in that moment where i
can just barely grasp
the branch that i'm reaching for it's
always almost out of reach
because that's how you make progress in
your life and as tony robbins says and i
think this is so genius progress
is one of the foundational
pillars of human happiness if you want
to love your life you've got to be
making progress but the only way to make
that progress is to constantly be
pushing yourself so the friction is i
want it to be easy i do not want to
struggle but in my struggle i'm actually
getting more powerful and therefore i
should be seeking more and more
difficult things to get into it now if
you're just in a spiral and this is you
being afraid to reach for something new
and so you're actually more comfortable
just to stay thrashing about in the
small world struggling never actually
trying to achieve anything real so that
you never have to reach beyond your
grasp so that you don't have to be in a
harder and harder situation then you
just have to be honest with yourself and
again the way that we're going to figure
this out is we're going to look at
progress
what's your goal
did you write it down
does it have a due date do you know what
how much
and by when
if you don't have goals that have those
three components then you're never going
to know if you're making progress and
this is where most people want to live
most people want to live in a space
where they don't know if they're making
progress because if you don't know if
you're making progress you also don't
know if you're failing and if you don't
know if you're failing
there's a safety to that
there's security to
in fact one of the most nefarious things
that nature implanted in our minds is
loss aversion
it feels
way worse to lose something than it
feels good to get something
because we have that negativity bias
because that was very important to
keeping us alive in a
primitive environment
because we have that loss aversion
most people would actually rather stay
where they're comfortable
then acquire new skills get more
powerful and be capable of doing more
things
so the way to check yourself against
that is to have a goal or goals that
have very measurable outcomes so you
know if you're actually moving towards
them or not
and they have those three elements
what are you trying to do
how much equals success so i'm gonna be
the chief marketing officer of this
company by a given date
okay so you need something that is
measurable that you can see whether you
did it money becomes an easy one i just
don't want to encourage anyone to chase
money but it'll be a great example i
want to be earning 350 000 a year
um
36 months from now
pick a very specific date
okay
now
we know exactly what we're going for and
by the way we can break that out and say
how much extra would i need to be making
per probably don't want to do it on a
monthly basis but per quarter
half a year certainly year
so that you know whether you're on track
so you don't just wait for this binary
outcome at the end of 36 months
now when you've got that
now we can start to measure our progress
and we know whether we're doing it or
not
but that way
you won't be
stuck in
empty struggle
to stay comfortable
and there it is beyond that just know
the struggle's part of the game find a
way to struggle well find a way to make
progress through your struggle and
everything else will take care of itself
next
what are some things i can do to develop
a self-awareness that will allow me to
take control of my path and steer myself
towards my goals
okay as we were talking about before
self-awareness is really about learning
to read your body cues and understand
what they're trying to tell you
understand your emotions and then
understanding what's driving your
emotions that's going to be the key now
a big thing that you can do in terms of
figuring out how to take control of your
path and steer yourself towards your
goals is getting really good at goal
setting
making sure that you
use the process of building desire to
figure out
how to increase your desire for
something
because steering yourself towards your
goals is really about wanting something
so badly that you're willing to try over
and over and over again in order to make
progress because the reality is as
winston churchill said success
is the ability to go from failure to
failure to failure without a loss of
enthusiasm
now that requires that you really want
something
that you're able to read yourself to
know if you want that thing badly enough
that you're going to stick with it
because if you don't one of two things
is true thing number one either you have
chosen the wrong thing but a lot of
people
use that excuse over and over and over
as angela duckworth says in her book
grit if you find yourself doing that
three times or more odds are you have a
grit problem you have a tenacity problem
you're not sticking with it you're not
pushing through the boredom and the pain
which are inevitable if you want to get
good enough to be extraordinary at
something so we need to set these goals
that meet two criteria they are exciting
to you
you want them very badly
you've invested time and energy into
wanting that thing it needs to be based
on something real it's very hard to turn
an ember into a raging inferno when
there was no real ember there to begin
with so it needs to be something that is
legitimately interesting to you and then
you're going to fan those flames and
really build emotional
importance and emotional resonance
around this thing
then the second part of any goal it
should be honorable meaning that
pursuing it is
going to allow you to serve not only
yourself but other people
now the great news is that because we
are a social creature the more that you
do that the more that you're pursuing
something that allows you to elevate
yourself yes but other people most
importantly
now
mother nature has just put a reward into
your brain when you do that i promise
you will feel better i promise it is
just the way that we're wired when you
serve other people you will feel better
serve other people and you will feel
better now that doesn't mean that you
have to be mother teresa and that you
can't be doing things for yourself again
the goal should be exciting and
honorable but once you're doing
something that you really care about and
you are acquiring a set of skills that
matter to you that you just want to get
good at
but they are very much on purpose
allowing you to help other people
now all of a sudden you get in this
feedback loop of the more you engage the
harder you work the more skill set you
get this really becomes a passion
because part of passion in fact i don't
believe something becomes a passion
unless it's reciprocated by the people
that you serve and so when you're doing
something that really allows you to
light other people on fire and look that
could be building toy models in your
house but if nobody ever gets to enjoy
those toy models the odds of that really
becoming this self-reinforcing behavior
are very slim we all want to create
something that we share with somebody
else and it gets appreciated by them it
brings a smile to their face and it
could be that simple maybe what you
create just makes other people happy but
in doing that
you connect to other people
you're elevating other people
you're engaging you're being a social
creature you're contributing to the
group and in contributing to the group
now it can become a passion because
you're getting the feedback that you
need to go back and do all the boring
painful stuff that
true
mastery requires
and if you want to achieve your goals
mastery and desire
are going to be the two most critical
components next to clarity
you need to know where you're going
you need that magic trifecta what how
much by when
but beyond that
if it's exciting and honorable and
you're helping other people and you're
getting that feedback from the crowd and
you're pushing through the boredom and
the pain to gain mastery to allow
yourself to serve in a meaningful way
everything else begins to click into
place
and that's it
that
is how we do self-reflection
that's how we stay real
remember you got to take ownership for
this stuff
but when you do that
and it's married towards a goal and
skill acquisition what you can
accomplish is truly extraordinary
all right guys speaking of things that
will help you accomplish truly
extraordinary things if you haven't
already be sure to subscribe and until
next time my friends be legendary take
care peace