← Build with Leila Hormozi
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How I brainwashed myself to succeed. Have you ever looked at your life and thought to yourself, man, I am so far from where I want to be. When I was 19, I was anxious, I was angry, I was frustrated and I felt hopeless. I would go so far as to say that 99% of people in this world feel that way. They use their negative thoughts and emotions as reasons not to do something. I don't feel motivated. I'm too anxious, I'm too upset. Think about the amount of times that you've told yourself those things. Majority of most of our lives we've been told that negativity is a bad thing. I'm here to tell you that the 1% of people in this world that succeed know it's the exact opposite. They actually use those negative thoughts and emotions as fuel to get what they want. You see, most of us have been brainwashed by society into thinking that these thoughts and feelings are bad, that they mean there's something wrong with us. You're anxious, you're depressed, you're ocd. Every label in the book you can think of. I was called and I spent so much time and energy trying to rid myself of these things, thinking there was something wrong with me, that there was something broken, that I was damaged goods. There's nothing wrong with thinking those thoughts, with feeling badly, with feeling negative. The problem is labeling it as something wrong and it telling ourselves that there's something wrong with us when we feel these things. Momentum can either work for or against you. Your life either continues to get worse and worse and worse or it continues to get better and better and better. It just depends on what outlook you have on that energy. And my life was honestly going wrong in every direction that you could think of. Like I was 85 pounds overweight. I wasn't in a relationship. I was doing drugs and drinking alcohol on a regular basis. I was flunking out of school. I got arrested six times and I had really like no real friends. I continued to fail until what I would say is like one of the many rock bottom moments I had. Which was the sixth time I was arrested. And the cops took me home to my parents house because I was going to college about 30 minutes away from where my parents house was where I grew up. The, the cops took me there. I don't remember what happened. I just woke up at my dad's house and I knew that was not good. I was expecting my dad to yell at me and to tell me I'm a loser and I'm amounting to Nothing in life. And all these things that I already knew and I already thought of myself. And instead, my dad told me, I don't care if you want to keep doing this or not doing this, but I have to tell you, I do think you're going to kill yourself. I said, what do you mean? He said, I think you're going to drink so much, we're going to do drugs and you're going to die. What was so tough to hear about that was that I knew he was right. I remember leaving that conversation and going to the bathroom to take a shower and looking in the mirror and just hating myself. When I looked in the mirror, I saw a victim. I was letting all those thoughts and feelings dominate me, control me, rather than learning how to wield them and use them as tools to build the life that I've always wanted. And so I went home that night to my apartment and I made a commitment to myself. I remember specifically, I sat down in bed and I was so angry. Angry at the fact that I let my life get here. And I made a post on Facebook. I was proclaiming that I was going to change my life, that I was no longer going to be at any parties, that you wouldn't see me, that I was getting off social media and I was just going to go commit myself to bettering my life. I made that post, I cut off my friends, and I went to work. I decided to dedicate myself to becoming the version of myself that I had always wanted to be, the version of myself that I envisioned when I was a little girl. When you're growing up and people are asking you, what do you want to be when you're in school, you're thinking of this, like, amazing, successful person. I decided to rededicate myself to that vision. But I knew that in order to do this, I needed to start with my mind. What I really need to do is undo all the garbage that had been put in my head when I was growing up, through society and other authority figures that I knew wasn't right. So what I want to share with you in the rest of this video are the top three tools I use to brainwash myself to go from spiraling downwards to spiraling upwards and become the person I am today. Tell me the last time you asked yourself one of these questions. Why am I so fat? Why can't I succeed? Why do I suck at this? The first tool that helped me. Negative visualization. Instead of asking myself questions that were unproductive and led to unproductive answers, I started asking Myself productive questions. If I continue to do this and I do not change, what happens five years from now? Well, you've gained £85 in about two and a half years. That's impressive. And that means at that rate, oh, my gosh, I would be £500 in five years. That version of me staying the same was so terrifying that there was no option but to change. Not that I wanted to change more, but that I was terrified not to change. A huge component of life is learning how to utilize the negative. A lot of people say, well, you want to make sure that you're always running towards something. Screw that. If this works, do it. You know what got me to lose 85 pounds? Not wanting to be skinny in a bikini. But it was being terrified of being 500 pounds. Using a more powerful negative future to propel you into the future that you actually want to understand. The second tool. I'm going to ask a series of questions and answer them myself. Why did I eat? Because I didn't want to feel hungry. Why did I drink? Because I didn't want to feel anxious. Why did I flunk school? Because I didn't want to tolerate feeling like I wasn't good at something. I had very low frustration tolerance. People who achieve high goals, studies have shown that they have very high frustration tolerance. They are able to tolerate a large amount of unwanted thoughts and feelings in order to achieve something. Usually the reason that we're not able to achieve any sort of goal is because we have low frustration tolerance in that area. And the thing about feelings and leaning into them and being able to tolerate them is that the more that you step into them, the more they dissipate. Here's what I learned and what I do for myself to build frustration tolerance and what I did to get myself out of the place I was in. One is accept the frustration. Oftentimes we spend so much energy in life trying to rid ourselves of anger, anxiety, frustration, sadness, whatever it is, accept it. The second is labeling it, label it as frustration. I have frustration here. And then the third step is creating realistic mental cues around the situation. When I was growing up, I was told to say affirmations to myself. So if they work for you, that's great. But I actually found this worked better for me. I don't say I am a beautiful, confidence, skinny woman when I was 85 pounds overweight, not confident at all. Saying, it just felt like I was like a fraud. I want to make sure that I can get my life in order. What can I say to myself? I may Feel anxious, hungry, and alone. But I can become the person I want to be. If I work hard enough, with enough consistency, realistic statement, I can do it. And the third tool that I used to change my life was proving my brain wrong. I went personally most of my life thinking that my thoughts were me, that my thoughts were real, that my thoughts meant something. I realized that that wasn't true at all. Thoughts are not facts and emotions are not commands or directives. I think he's going to leave me. I think he's cheating. I think I'm going to lose my job. I think I'm going to die. Think about the amount of times that your brain goes to that. Well, it's wired to do that. What I had been doing for so long was if I felt something, I acted on it. And what I learned is I needed to break the link between feeling and behaving. Oftentimes we think I feel so strongly that it must mean something. But what if it doesn't mean anything? So there's four questions I ask myself when I don't know what to do because I have very strong emotions and racing thought. One, Is it true? Say the thought is, I'm so fat, I'll never lose weight. Is it true? Maybe not. Is it absolutely true? I mean, it's not absolutely true because I guess I haven't tried everything. Okay, so it's not absolutely true that you can never lose weight. Then the third question is, how does this thought make me feel when I think to myself, I can never lose weight. How do I feel? Discouraged? Frustrated? Anxious? Depressed? So is that a productive thought? Probably not. And then the last question I ask myself is, what would it be like if I didn't believe this thought? I might actually try harder. I would actually show up to the gym. I wouldn't feel like I was just like a dead end and there was no point of trying. Build a case as to why your thoughts are not true. And then you can create more compelling reasons to convince yourself of new thoughts that will lead to the life that you want instead of ones that are just going to keep you stuck where you are.