← Earn the Right to Live Your Dreams
Earn the Right to Live Your Dreams
05 Fear Not and Get Your Gratitude On!
00:16:41
Dr. Coyte Cooper, a motivational author, speaker, and coach, shares the importance of overcoming fear to earn the right to live your dreams. To make this happen, he introduces 5 steps you can implement to shift your mindset to focus on...
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Foreign welcome to the earn the right to live your dreams podcast. This is Coy Cooper. Hey everybody. Welcome to another earn the right to live your dreams podcast episode. This is Coit Cooper and today we're going to be talking about a topic that's entitled to fear not and get your gratitude on. And what we want to chat about today first is just the idea of fear. When you talk about one of the main things that stop people from going out and pursuing their highest aspirations, it's fear. It's at the top of the list. You know, when people think about these really, really cool things that energize them, you know, what inevitably comes next is they go, oh man, what if I fall short? And what will that look like? What will it look like to others? How it will impact my life? And we spend so much of our time focusing on that that we never get around to actually pursuing the things that matter. And the one thing that I'm going to tell you right now is it's possible to completely push that out. It's not easy, but it's possible. I know that because I've been on both sides of this as an athlete. When I was in high school, I had an amazing coach who taught me to focus on opportunities, to be excited, to compete as a wrestler, to just go out and to have a blast. And I didn't know it at the time but, but there was a reason why I was wrestling the best in my life. I won a national title as a sophomore, I won outstanding wrestler at the national championship and I wrestled just amazing. I was in my flow state, performing at my highest level. And I now realize now it was because of my coach and what he got me to focus on. I was focused on gratitude, I was focused on opportunities. And that was why I was able to perform at such a high level. You fast forward a few years and when I went to college, my mindset shifted and what I started to focus on was fear. I mean, I was afraid of what I would look like. I was afraid if I lost, I would let people down. I went into competition not to lose rather than going in and just embracing the opportunity. And as a result, I never performed to my full potential. And I can say that now and I have no problem with it because it's a lesson learned for me. And what I want to talk about today is I just recently had an opportunity to interview a 19 year old world champion in wrestling. The youngest ever. And if you haven't listened to the episode, go check it out. It's the one right before this episode. 4. And one of the things that Kyle Snyder talks about as he says that his coaches have taught him this, Tom Ryan at Ohio State, who they just won a national championship as a team. So there's definitely something to this. He says, you can't be fearful and grateful at the same time. And what I would add to that is you can choose one of the two there. You know that that's a critical thing. But some of the key concepts. Let me first read you this quote. Quote from Kyle Snyder. He says, you cannot be grateful and fearful at the same time. You only get the same moment in life once. When you have the moment, you want to take advantage of it. Be grateful that you have the opportunity to go out and do what you love. You know, the first thing I would say, and we're going to go through the key concepts here, but the first thing I would say is to find the thing that you love. This quote won't make sense to you until you find something you are passionate about. I have something I'm passionate about. I'm talking to you right now because I'm passionate about adding value to people's lives. So the first thing I would tell you is that the second thing I would say is this. The concept of your mind can only hold one thought at one time. It's going to focus on gratitude or fear. And when you know that, that's a powerful thing, because what you can choose to do is you can choose to draw back and train your mind to focus on positive and gratitude and make your life so much better. There are differences in approaches. This is the second concept mentality. You know, most people look at situations and they focus on the consequences of the outcome, you know, of winning and getting a medal and you're getting a trophy or being named an All American, or they focus on the outcome of winning or losing. And to a certain extent, some of that might be okay, but you can't sometimes control all those things. And a lot of times, if you're focused on, especially this part, what you're going to look like, the image you're going to struggle. And what elite performers do, they look at situations and they see an opportunity to grow and to perform to full potential. That's what you've got to do. You've got to look at a situation and even if it's kind of this daunting thing, this thing that you've never done before, you've got to shift your mindset and say, listen, this is an opportunity for me to step Way out of my comfort zone to close the gap on my goals. It doesn't even matter about the outcome. If I go into it with that mindset and I learn from it, then I'm going to be better. And so that's the number three thing. And then the number four, just to reiterate passion, to go out and do what you love. When you love what you do, it's so much easier to say, I'm just going to go for it. I love my aspirations so much that I will push through whatever I need to push through. And so those are some of the things that I quickly thought of. And the one thing I would say is this shifting of your mindset. You know, this, this getting rid of fear and getting your gratitude on focusing on the good. It seems like a simple concept, but I'm not going to be naive. It's. It's challenging. There's no question about it, you know, and it's challenging for a couple of reasons. Number one, your environment is counterproductive to this approach. You know, when you look around, you pay attention to this during your next day and listen to the things that people are saying. And when you hear the things that people are saying, most people choose to focus on the negative. I mean, they can have nine positive things going on around them, and if somebody gives them one negative thing, they dwell on it all day long. And so what that means for you, if you want to shift your mindset, then you've got to overcome this. You've got to have a structure in place to where you can be successful doing this. And number two, you probably have years of poor habits where you've been taught to play it safe. You've. You've been taught to just draw back. You've been taught to focus on the negative, to be honest, and you've been taught to fear things. But the one thing I would tell you, it's possible for you to be different. You know, you don't have to feel fear when you go into situations. You don't have to have that anxiety that is driving your days. And I know because I've had it before, you know, and not even that long ago, where I'd go into my days and I would dread things because I was focusing on the wrong things. I did not have the right structure in place. And as a result, you know, I was drained. I mean, I would have a lack of energy. I wasn't always enjoying my life. And what we're talking about here is doing something about it. So how do you get Your gratitude on how do you get out and focus on the positive so you can have an energized life where you're closing the gap. Your goals. The first thing you have to do is you have to train your mind to naturally find the positive in situations. Some people naturally do this better, but you can work on this and improve on it. I've improved a great deal during the last year, but I'm also intentional about that. And I'll tell you how you can do that. If you want to eliminate fear, you do this by learning to fill your mind with gratitude and productive thoughts. And I'm not talking about being Pollyanna and being unrealistic. What I'm telling you to do is to teach your mind to find the good in situations, to look forward to opportunities, and to just love your days. And if that sounds awesome, loving your days sounds awesome. Then do the work. Do the things that I'm going to tell you to do, and you'll love your life. You'll love the outcome. You're going to have to grind. You're going to have to earn it. But if you're willing to earn it, then you can not only love your life, but you can perform at a really high level. So let's just get down to it. Five things that you can do, and you can do them right away to start shifting your mindset, you know, to start getting to the point where you're focusing on gratitude and the opportunity and you're taking advantage of moments like Kyle Snyder talked about. The number one thing is this. Create a great gratitude list. And I added great there, because, you know, what I'm telling you is not to go into it and just find things you're sort of excited about. It's to sit down and say, what are the things in your life that you're charged about? And I've worked with enough people to know that some people have been trained to be so negative that this is hard for them. They're like, I can't find anything. I'm telling you right now, if you can't find anything, we've got to get you working. Because there are things all around you. You just aren't looking for them yet. For me, every single day, I have what I have called a core list. And then I have kind of an extension list where I'll add things that are going on in my life. My core list I see every day. You know, my family, you know my wife, who gives me unconditional love every single day. It's the greatest gift in the world. I have it every single day. My k. Just remarkable little human beings. I mean, they're just awesome. They're crazy, but they're awesome. And then finally, just all the people around me, and there's more than that. There's my extended family and things like that. But this core list, I see it every day. I get up in the morning, I read, I journal, I revisit my goals, and I go through my gratitude every single day because I want to set the tone, to focus on those things. So that's the first thing I would do. And I would not only do that, but I would take it with me. I would put it on a small card, and anytime I'm being negative, take it out and train your mind to see that, redirect it to that. You do it enough. What habits are, is if you do it enough and it becomes a habit, your mind will naturally do it itself. But that's going to take you likely 60, you know, 30 to 60 days. The second thing I would say is this, and I love doing this. It's practice, strategic journaling. And here's what I mean. You know, most people. Not most people, some people have tried journaling, and it's a struggle at first, but one thing that I found really effective and when it comes to training your mind to get your gratitude on, it's this. If I have an activity coming up and it's something that I'm nervous about or I have anxiety about, it's a big event, you know, something where I'm talking to a huge crowd and I start to, you know, maybe think about, oh, what if this happens? I immediately will take out my journal, and what I'll do is for a week straight leading up to the event, I will sit down and I will only write about why I'm excited for the event. I'll write, man, I'm so excited to impact people's lives. I'm so excited to get better. This is amazing opportunity for me to get to where I can reach my goals. And I don't even care if I'm writing similar things every day. I'll write them over and over again. And what I tell people is, you're training your mindset. And when you do that, what you'll find is you'll learn to focus on that. Because I learned this as an athlete when I was performing. Right? When you focus on just being excited to perform, you know, to go into competition with the right mindset, you're going to have a little bit of nerves. But, man, you're going to embrace that. I do this even when I interview for a job. I teach myself to look forward to that. I love it. And after a while, your mind and your body will respond. So practice strategic journaling. The next one is this. Learn to find the positive in each situation. And this is just something where you're going to have to be aware. But when you're going into your days and there's something that either you're nervous or scared about or something that's agitating you, these negative thoughts is to. When that happens, take a step back and to ask yourself, what's the lesson here? Or what could I focus on that would make this more productive? And for me, here's an example. You know, finding the positive is, I have an amazing wife. Her name is Brandy, and she's great. She's such a fantastic mother. But there are things in a day, even with the most wonderful, amazing wife, if I really want to, I can find things that will annoy me and things like, oh, there's dishes left. I mean, this is insane. It's a little thing that matters, like, none. And if I choose to focus on that, I can all of a sudden think I have a problem with my wife. What you need to learn to do if you get agitated because your wife parked in your spot, she didn't put away the dishes, is to take a step back and say, what are all the things I'm grateful for in this person? And I do this, and all of a sudden I start to. I start to list these things, and I think I'm an idiot. Never should I have been focused on this one small thing because my wife is amazing. You can do this in most every situation. And even if there's more negatives, if you'll focus on that positive in that person, you'll be better off. And I know some of you are at home saying, well, what do you mean? You can't just do that. Yeah, you can. It doesn't mean that you don't acknowledge that there's something wrong with some people, but you're choosing to focus on good things because you don't want to be mad, you don't want to be frustrated. And so when it comes to what we're talking about here, it's to take a step back, find the positive in a situation where, okay, I'm going up to do a talk in front of a group, and I'm nervous. No, don't focus on goofing up. Focus on being excited to improve your skill sets so that's number three. Number four. This is really, really important. Remind yourself this, write this down. Tell yourself this every day. Make growth greater than image. And here's what I mean. Make the process of being better, getting the opportunity to improve, to move to full potential, far more important than what you look like. We focus sometimes so much on, oh, man, what if I look bad? Or what if I do this and I goof up? And if that's what you're focused on, you've got no shot. You're gonna have fear all over in your life. But if you just focus on growth being your top priority, that no matter what, you're gonna grow, and you'll even put yourself in situations on purpose to challenge yourself and growth is your highest priority, then you will approach life accordingly. And that's what you gotta do. And you gotta focus on the process, process of being better. And then number five, shift your entire mindset. And this is accumulative of all these things. If you don't like being fearful, then shift your mindset and see challenging situations as an awesome opportunity for you. You know the things that make me nervous, I've taught myself to love those things. You know, going into class, it makes me nervous. Like being goofy, dressing up, you know, dancing in class. You know, you're saying that's. Those are, those are crazy things, but they make me nervous. And what I've taught myself is to lean into that, jump into that, shift your mindset to love that. And if you can, teach yourself to love situations where you're uncomfortable, oh, my gosh, the things you can achieve in your life, because most people won't. And if you can do it and you can shift your mindset to see things different, to see those situations, to differentiate yourself as a human being, you're going to do amazing things. And so those are the five lessons for you. That's how you get your gratitude on. I just want to reiterate one thing. Fear. When you feel it and you feel anxiety in your day, the first thing you need to remind yourself is it's not a thing that's natural. It's not something that's just thrown on you where you don't have a choice. You have chosen to focus on thoughts that has made your body respond that way. And if you're responding that way, the cool thing is, is that you can shift it. You can draw back and say, okay, I'm focusing on the wrong things. I see that now. And then what you can do is say, okay, I'm going to do something different. I'm going to focus on a gratitude list. I'm going to write in a journal about the things I'm excited about. I'm going to surround myself with the structure to get me to embrace mentality where I'm focusing on gratitude and growing. And when you do that, man, if you can change your focus and find gratitude and find the positive, fear will disappear and your life will be remarkable. It won't be easy, but it will be worth it. I just promise that. So get out and practice these things. Pick one of these things, knock it out, chunk it out, do one at a time, and eventually you're going to come back and say, this is amazing. My life is so much better. I feel so much more confident. I'm focused on closing that gap and I'm getting closer. And here's the other thing that's going to happen a year or two from now. You're going to write me and you're going to say, I did it. I didn't think I could, but I did these things, and now I'm getting the chance to live my goals and dreams. I want that for you. So let's get out and let's do it this week. Have an awesome day, and I'll be back at you again soon. Take care. Hey, everybody. I hope you love this episode. If so, make sure that you subscribe to this podcast and tell other people about it. We want to spread the word. We want to impact more lives, and so make sure that you do that. If you're interested in personal development resources, head on over to coitcooper.com, c o y t e C-O-O-P-E-R.com and check it out. And as always, go out and live a charged life. You know, one where you're going out and you're pursuing your full potential and earn the right to live all your dreams. Have a great day, everybody.