A (17:15)
Okay, next, somebody said, how do I stop complaining? I feel like I'm becoming a whiner, but things are hard. How do I be more positive and look at the brighter side of things more often than the negative side? I think a lot of times we. We tend to discover a bad habit like this long after it's become a habit, which can be incredibly daunting because it seems like it's become a part of our personality. But the good news is it's in our control to change these things at any. Any time. I think that can be one of the hardest hurdles to get over, is admitting to yourself, okay, I have this issue. And then also admitting to yourself that you are the one that can change it. Because there's something sort of embarrassing about admitting that you have a character flaw and you didn't catch it sooner and that you're allowing yourself to do it and that you don't really know how to fix it yet because you haven't really thought about it that deeply. And so it's kind of become this big thing now, and it's kind of a big issue. And it could have been stopped sooner, but it didn't. I don't know. I find that when I catch a negative personality trait in myself, my immediate response tends to be, well, I guess that's just who I am. And I think a big part of why that's my sort of gut reaction to tell myself or tell others, well, I guess that's just how I am, is because I'm embarrassed to admit that I don't need to be like that, but I am anyway. Does that make sense? It makes it my responsibility. If I acknowledge that I could at any time now or in the past fix this issue, it just. There's something weirdly embarrassing about it, at least in my experience. And so I think the first step is to acknowledge that this is something that can be changed. And also, it's so normal and human to catch a negative trait and to say, okay, I need to make a change. Like, that's such a normal, beautiful thing. And it's actually, like a really brave thing, too. And I think oftentimes we don't give ourselves enough credit for acknowledging it and noticing it and then choosing to change it. I think a lot of times we feel shame that we were even like that to begin with, and that kind of discourages us from working on it because we're like, well, if I have this terrible trait that I'm just Now acknowledging then like, how the fuck am I supposed to solve it if I'm so flawed that I have this flaw to begin with? Does that make sense? Am I getting too heady with this? This is just how my brain works. But it also might be that acknowledging a negative trait can kind of hit your self esteem a little bit. And that can also lower your confidence in yourself to get rid of that bad trait. Because if you acknowledge a bad trait about yourself, then it makes you feel bad about yourself and then you feel less confidence in yourself, less trust in yourself to solve it. It's a real shame that it often happens this way because I think we should all look at self reflection and the acknowledgement of our flaws as a brave, an actually emotionally intelligent thing. It's kind of an amazing thing. It's a skill and it's crucial in becoming a better person. And I don't care who you are, how, how perfect and flawless you think you are, everyone at times needs to self reflect and address their negative traits. It's so normal. But it can be really hard to get over the hurdle of accepting that it's a problem and, and also accepting that you can fix it. And yeah, you could have fixed it months ago, years ago, but you just realized it now and now you need to fix it. And then from there, I mean, that might be the hardest step, the acknowledgement and the responsibility. And then from there, I think when we notice a negative trait in ourselves that's become sort of a habit, the best thing that we can do is slow down and pay attention to our behavior. Now it's kind of unrealistic to pay attention to your behavior all the time. 24, 7. At times we need to lock into autopilot, you know, But I think in a moment, in a phase in our lives when we have something we need to address, it's really important to slow down and be mindful and to pay attention to our actions, you know, And I think it can be sort of tedious, it can be sort of exhausting to constantly be thinking about what you're thinking, thinking about what you're saying and sort of filtering through it, analyzing it, pivoting it, right? If you're like starting to have a negative thought or a whiny thought, or you're about to, you're about to complain or you're about to whine. It's exhausting to catch it and then be like, fuck, okay, I can't say that I'm working on not doing that. Okay? What else can I say? Okay, how else can I think about this? That's an exhausting process. Right, right. But I think it's the only way to truly eradicating a bad trait or a bad habit is to become incredibly mindful of it and catch yourself in the act. Think before you speak, think about what you're thinking, and then actively make the decision to pivot every single time. Pivot, pivot, pivot. Until eventually it becomes a habit to be positive. And then, guess what? Lucky you, you don't have to think about it anymore. It's become a new way of life. That's the beautiful thing about sort of a little chapter, a little phase in life of being incredibly mindful about your behaviors to, to potentially change them. You don't have to do that for the rest of your life. You know, if you work really hard at it, eventually that becomes the new habit, and then there you go. Okay, next, somebody said, is leaving your comfort zone the only way to grow in life? In my experience, most of the time, yes. And here's how I think of it. Okay, let me give you, let me give you a metaphor. This is actually, I don't even think I came up with this metaphor. I, I, I must have heard it somewhere. But then I kind of, I don't know, like, rewrote the story a little bit in my brain to make sense to me. And so I don't really know where this came from, but I, this is how I think of it. A challenge is like a mountain. And if you have the proper strength and muscles, getting over the mountain is easy. However, if you don't have the proper strength and muscles yet, it's impossible to get over the mountain until you've built that strength and those muscles. And so the only way to get over that mountain is to train, to get stronger, to build those muscles. In order to grow muscle, you have to push your muscles, which is like pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. It's like sitting on the couch is staying in your comfort zone. Okay? Sitting on the couch and watching TV instead of building your strength to get over that mountain is like being in your comfort zone. Going to the gym, lifting weights, hiking, running, building your muscle so that you can get over the mountain is like getting out of your comfort zone. That's the way I think of it. I don't think that we should expect ourselves to grow all the time. Like, we have to rest sometimes. You know, it's like we, we gotta, we gotta sit on the couch sometimes. You know what I mean? You can't train and lift weights 24 7. It's healthy and crucial for us to rest, you know, to metaphorically sit on the couch sometimes. But we also need to take care of ourselves. And so we also need to lift metaphorical weights and run a metaphorical mile and train to get over those mountains that we're faced in our lives, you know, And I think that's important to keep in mind. Like going back to comfort zones. The key to life always seems to be balance. And I think that applies here. Sometimes it's nice and healthy and important for us to be in our comfort zones, but sometimes it's also crucial and healthy for us to push ourselves out of our comfort zones. That's just the way it is. Let me give you some examples of how going out of your comfort zone can cause growth. Okay, Example number one. Confronting someone even though you're scared to, perhaps confrontation is out of your comfort zone. Maybe you're a people pleaser. Well, if you push yourself out of your comfort zone and you confront, you'll become a better communicator moving forward. What a beautiful thing. Another example, example number two, Admitting to yourself that you need more discipline in your life can be out of your comfort zone. Perhaps self reflection is out of your comfort zone. Perhaps you have a tendency to distract yourself with things outside of you so that you don't have to reflect inward. But perhaps one day you admit to yourself, you know what? I need more discipline in my life. I've been feeling kind of like shit about myself. I don't feel good physically, like my sleep schedule sucks. I don't get a lot of work done, like, whatever. Perhaps one day you go out of your comfort zone and you self reflect and you admit to yourself that you need more discipline. From there you'll be able to make a plan and guess what's going to happen. You're going to become a more disciplined version of yourself who has a healthier balance in your life. Not only through that do you become more disciplined, but you also become better at holding yourself accountable and making changes in your life. The next time you start to realize that maybe you need to self reflect, something's got to change. That's going to be less scary. It's going to be much easier. Example number three, let's say you build up the courage to break up with your partner who isn't good for you, even though you're afraid of being alone. That's really scary. That's out of most of our comfort zones. But on the other side of that, not only are you going to overcome the fear of being alone, but you're going to build confidence in yourself and in your decision making. And next time you're in a relationship that isn't serving you, you won't be as afraid to leave. I do think that we have to go out of our comfort zones to grow. And it's scary and it sucks, and it's not fun. And in the moment, your hands will be sweaty and your stomach will hurt and you'll want to cry. But then the next time you're faced with that challenge, it'll be a little bit easier. And then the next time you're faced with that challenge, it'll be a little bit easier. Your muscles will continue to grow, and then you'll be able to face bigger mountains and bigger mountains until you're so fucking strong that you believe that you can handle anything. Somebody said, how do I be more present in my life? I'm gonna sound like a broken record in this episode, but I'm realizing when it comes to bettering ourselves, a lot of it is just mindfulness and slowing down. So I'm gonna give the same advice I've already given, like, 20 times today. Slow down and be a little bit more mindful. It can be really challenging to be present because the past and the future have a tendency to grasp onto our attention firmer than the present does. Like, there's something about the past and the future. I think it's the fact that they're in our imagination. It's easy to obsess over them. Listen, as much as I think it's important to be present, I also think it's important to analyze the past and to think about the future. Like, you can't not do that, because if you ignore the past, then you'll ignore the lessons that the past has to offer. And if you don't think about the future, then you're not going to be able to create goals that will give you something to work towards. Without goals, it's very hard to feel motivated and excited about life, you know, but also, too, I think we all have things we want to accomplish, you know, in our lives. And if we're too present and we're enjoying the moment too much and we're not thinking about the future at all, we can at times get a little lazy, perhaps, you know, so it is important to pay attention to the past and the future. But it becomes a problem when it's an obsession that gets in the way of being present. It gets in the way when you look at the Past. And you look at the future and you feel stress, you feel upset, you feel overwhelmed. I think one of the best ways to be more present in life is to not in the moment, in the present moment, be like, I, I am going to be present right now and enjoy this moment. Now listen, that does help. Okay, Being mindful in a present moment and choosing to enjoy it can definitely help, but I think that's not addressing the root of the issue. I think the root of the issue is an obsession with the past and the future. And so I think the best way to handle that is to improve your relationship with the past and the future. Look at your past, and instead of dwelling on it and wishing you could have done things differently, use it as a teacher. Use your past as a teacher. Accept your past for what it is and let it sit in your brain softly as a teacher. And think of it as like a nice teacher, a warm teacher, your favorite teacher. Instead of thinking of the past as, like, this mean, evil teacher who's, like, walking around the classroom smacking the desks with rulers, think of this teacher as like a kind, warm, understanding teacher. Is that a weird. Is that a weird metaphor? Is that a weird way of thinking of it? I'm not sure, but that's kind of how I think of it. It's pointless to dwell on the past and regret because what's done is done. And so to put a positive spin on it, accept the past for what it is and allow it to make you a better person. That can help your relationship with the past if you allow it to teach you things. And through that, you become a better version of you. You'll learn to accept the past for what it is because you'll see that everything that's ever happened to you in your life was crucial. It had to happen to teach you valuable lessons that will make you a better person moving forward. As for the future, I think the key to having a healthy relationship with your future is, is to make the right kind of goals. I think at times we can become obsessed with a very specific future. Like, I'm going to marry this person, and I'm going to have two kids, one girl and one boy. And the boy's going to be younger. And then I'm going to have a dog, and the dog is going to be a golden retriever, and the golden retriever is going to poop in the yard a lot. And then. And I'm going to live in a house that has exactly four bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms. And I'm going to live on this street and I'm going to do. When you start doing all that. Listen, I don't ever want to get in the way of somebody's particular way of manifesting. But I do think that making hyper specific goals like that can sometimes create an obsession with the future. That's unhealthy because then you become obsessed with getting like. It's like if one day you're at an animal shelter and you meet this dog that you fall in love with, but it's not the golden retriever that you imagined. You're like, well, that's not what I was manifesting, so maybe I shouldn't. And that's not living in the present moment. Or perhaps maybe you thought you were gonna marry this one person. Maybe you thought you were gonna marry your ex. Maybe you're like, one day we'll be back together, but then one day at a bar you meet this new person, you're like, wait a minute, I really like this person. But then you're like, well, but I don't think that that's right because I like, you know, I had this very particular plan about the future. I think it's really important to make goals that are vague enough to allow life to happen as it may, but also specific enough to be intentional with your life. You know, like a goal might be that you want to be in a particular kind of romantic relationship, perhaps one where there's laughing, but there's also perhaps a certain type of affection that you like. Perhaps there's a certain common interest, like you both love traveling. Perhaps there's a certain type of way that you know, you need to be nurtured by your partner if you're gonna be together forever. When it comes to making a goal of where you're gonna live one day settle down. Instead of being like, I wanna live on this street and with this cross street and I need to be in this house that I've always had saved to my Zillow. Instead, maybe it's like I wanna be in a home that has this particular energy, you know, like maybe it's warm and cozy like grandma's house. Or maybe you say, I wanna live somewhere where there's a really beautiful tight knit community and we do block parties once a month, like, you know what I'm saying? More flexible goals. I think that that can be incredibly helpful if you're struggling with being present.
