← Progress Mode with Brendon Burchard
Progress Mode with Brendon Burchard
Will You Be Proud of Yourself in 5 Years?
00:14:47
Are the choices you’re making today leading you toward a future you’ll be proud of? Too many people put off their growth, happiness, and self-respect, thinking they’ll get serious “someday.” But your future self is shaped by what you do right now.
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You want to know in the future you'll be proud of yourself. People pause when there's context of chaos or uncertainty. They often don't realize that they're setting themselves up for future character failure. That's why we look out in the future. Your internal dialogue should be like a voice recording from your future potential telling you what to do. Lots of people think about the future and they're like, well, you know, I want profitability, I want prosperity, I want status, money, fame, power, followers and all that's good. But all of that's window dressing to your character. And so in the future, what you're really building into the future is that idea, which is almost cliche if I phrase it another way, which is you're becoming your best self. You want to know in the future you'll be proud of yourself, you'll respect yourself, you'll be happy with how yourself arrives. That's why we look out in the future. Often we externalize it, but intrinsically we want to know. I fulfilled a certain measure of my potential. I'm a good person, I treat other people well, I follow through. I have self discipline and that has built up my respect. And if that's true, and that's up for debate here, but if it's true, then the future is now means what to do now is to respect yourself, to set up your life in such a way. You're challenging yourself to feel a sense of your potential now. Because if it's true, you want to grow into your potential in the future, you got to do that today. That's why we focus on goals, that's why we stretch, it's why we do hard things and why we also fulfill our promises. I think one of the biggest things right now is that when there's context of chaos or uncertainty, people pause. And often that's to feel that self regulated peace or tranquility, safety and so, oh, I don't know what the world's going on. So I'm going to pause right now. But what they often don't realize is they're setting themselves up for future character failure because they promised all these things to family, to friends, to our team. Hey community, I represent you. Hey team, I got your back. You have a paycheck, right? There's all these outbound promises and one way of maintaining self respect in chaos and uncertainty. Go. Okay, what would make me respect myself today? So I'm proud of myself in the future and what would make sure that I respect myself today? Because we're social animals to Fulfill the contracts or promises I've made with other people, like do a good job for other people is hardwired into us. Sometimes we take it into perfectionism, sometimes we take it too far. But the truth is you're doing actions today. If the future is now, you're doing actions today that either garner your self respect and solidify it, strengthen it, you feel good about the end of the day, or you're, you're withholding so that one day you do those actions, one day you fill those promises. But everyone who holds their self respect hostage to some future date, well, that's why they're not happy today. And so I'll share just a real bit of research from our high performance work that you might like. I ask people this. I'm like, when you have a big dream or a future that you want to build, why don't you get at it today? That was literally the question. I think I might get one or two words wrong there. But it's like, hey, you got a dream, you got a goal, you got a future trying to build. Why don't you get at it today? What prevents you from taking more action today? And many of you, you might think about the general idea that, well, people would say it's fear. Almost nobody said fear was like number 15. So high performers, it's not about fear. And most of you, you're not driven by fear anymore. To be an entrepreneur doing what you're doing, I mean, it's easy. Like, fear is so easy to turn to as the big bad wolf. It's like we all. Oh, fear. We've been taught as a culture that fear is driving everyone. Like, not really. Have you been in the suburbs? They're not driven by fear. All right? And most of the country, suburbs. So I'm like, I don't think so. It's not fear. We often do that because we think we're stronger. You're a high performer, you're stronger. You think they must be driven by fear, those weaklings? No, my friends, most. The two primary reasons, number one is burnout. They just had some kids, they're trying to get them in school, they graduated, they got divorced, they fell sick. They're trying. Most people are trying way harder than we give them credit to. All around the world. All around the world. But they're burned out. And often they're burned out. And the burnout necessarily. And you always say this kind of entrepreneurs, you're like, no, nobody's working as hard as I am. That might be true. But burnout Is often not a function of hours worked. Most often, burnout is a function of poor goal and effort alignment. I'm burned out because I'm doing something I don't like doing. I'm burned out because I'm doing something I don't like doing for somebody I don't like. I'm doing something for somebody I don't like in an area I don't have interest or passion for. And so every effort just feels meaningless. There's no intrinsic sense there that is keeping me going. And so I just want to say, when they say burnout, we ask the question, well, what does that mean to you? It wasn't hours worked. It was often like, I'm just tired of doing this thing that's not my thing. And the second reason was they asked very simple. Why risk? I'm kind of comfortable already. Things are kind of good. Why risk? Why put myself out there? Why not just wait it out? And anytime my clients say to me, just a little inside baseball, when. When someone's. When I'm coaching someone, they're like, why should I even try? I'm like, you're right. Why build? That's why I was coming back. They're like, why would I even try them? You're right. Why build? You know, oh, Mike. Why even have the conversation with our spouse? You're right. Why build that relationship? And then they go, oh, wait. It just gets. It's an immediate smack in their face, right? It's like, why build your wealth? Sounds like a terrible idea. Why build your bookings? Why do that? What? You're right. And I just say, you're right. Why build the relationship? Why build the business? No reason. And then it kept like, oh, right. And it just gets them out of their head a little bit. I'll give you a little acronym for everybody, and it's just vvs. And let me break this down. V. Like the letter V. V, S. So the first one, visualization. And the tricky thing with visualization is you have to take time to think. That's literally the trickiest thing. Some people are like, I don't visualize. I'm like, yes, you do. You just might not be conscious of it. So thinking about what you do in the future and how you do it and how you show up, all that's common sense. But what good visualizers do is they're imagining scenes way more clearly than other people, right? Some people go, oh, in the future, I can see myself as a public speaker. Great public speakers. They've sat in bed in the morning and at night, visualizing being on that stage, how they move, how they look, what they're saying, revisiting words precisely over and over. I mean, their game of visualization. Same with. I work with some of the best quarterbacks in the world. Their game of visualization against another team is way higher than underperforming quarterbacks. They're constantly thinking about it. It's like, oh, I'll do this and then I'll do this. I got to run this and this. Even in the huddle, as they call the play, they just visualize and thought through it for a second. So I'll teach quarterbacks often, hey, I need two more seconds before you call the play. If you're in the huddle, right? You got the moment. It's time on the clock. Take this. Two seconds, close your eyes. Think it, see it. Tell them to play that extra two seconds just to think and see and visualize. See the scene. You have to do that in every area of your life. I tell everybody you should have outcomes, too. So that's the first V, the visualization. The second V is your voice. Your. Your voice is dictating the outcomes of today. Your internal voice, your internal dialogue. What are you saying about today's conditions? Is it the same as the travel? Oh, it's gonna be a big pain in the butt. Oh, this is gonna suck. Oh, that, you know, F the fed, it's their fault. F this, this sucks. And your internal language immediately kills the future. Your internal language kills after lunch. You're like, ugh, why do this? And your internal language is not helping you connect the best of who you are. Your internal dialogue should be like a voice recording from your future potential telling you what to do. This is going to be awesome. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. I'm excited about this. And then the S. And this is a weird one, but a lot of clarity and visualization comes down to what old school, you know, psychologists and philosophers would call symbology, right? There's some. There's kind of some symbol that you are after. And that symbol sometimes is an external thing, right? Symbol can be, hey, I want my wife and I to live in that house. And that's the symbol. Now, of course, our symbols change throughout our life, but it just gives you something to chase after. Some people, that symbol is the gold medal. Some, it's the corner office. Some it's the first kid. Some it's the first car. Some it's a sense of, I went through the day and didn't have an anxiety attack. Because what we think is we have to have this single point of clarity. But what we found in the research was there's actually four boxes of clarity. Very easy to remember. Clarity comes in four boxes that help us perform well, which means become long term successful, but also happy and build positive relationships. Those four boxes are self, social, skill and service. And when you can think of, okay, let's visualize that. What do I look like in this situation? What are other people doing? What's the skill I'm demonstrating? How am I providing service? And you just think through that. The visualization gets richer because often visualization is single point. Me in scene, I want to think me in scene, other people in scene, how I'm exerting myself, my skill and how I believe it did I do a good job. Service to others. It's why even the greats like Phelps, his next question in visualizing his future is like, oh, how do I help more kids? It's non profit work, right? It's the service aspect. And here's the thing, there's gonna be lots of Mondays, guys, where your self, your sense of self sucks. Welcome to Monday. But guess what? Your sense of social is like, you know what, I gotta, I gotta put the kids lunch together, okay? Get myself out of bed. So what it helps you remind you is clarity. It might be in one of those four pillars today, right? Like skill. That might be something you're really focused on today. Like you're going to get that contract done, you're going to follow through, you're going to write that perfect email, you're going to make that pitch. That's a skill thing. And sometimes the skill, you're like, oh, great, I get to do that thing today. That skill. I get to do that thing today. Awesome. What do I want to do? So I think just a very simple thing every day if you want to get back in the game a little bit, is just think, okay, self, social, skill, service. What do I want to do in each of these areas today? How do I want to think of each of these areas and how can I get excited about and visualize doing something there? Because sometimes that just brings your life philosophy back in. Sometimes you're just, you're. If you're run by checklists all the time, forgive my checklist friends out there, I love you too. I also love all the bins in your house. You have many bins, very neatly organized. But my checklist people and your bins, I love you. But sometimes you Forget the life philosophy, the self, the character, what am I trying to develop, who am I trying to become? And that stuff can mobilize you again. And it might not be about you, it might be about your family, it might be about skill development and it might be about some service you want to give. So it might be a drive that's outside of the self box. And I tell a lot of my high performers who lost, like, I don't know, I lost my motivation. But I'm like, that's fine, that's your self box. There's three other boxes. Let's talk about those for a minute. And just remind you you're a multifaceted, extraordinary high performing person. Especially if I'm clicked off by now because I made so many bad jokes. So you're clearly in this game. So just give yourself the recognition. Some days the self box isn't so sexy. You just don't feel it, you don't vibe it, you don't like the gut, you don't like how you looked in the mirror. You had some dandruff, you know, you don't like the beard's not grow. You might have all these things. So moving in the other boxes. Serve those other boxes and you'll catch it.