Is there something in your life that’s just bland? It’s not great, and it’s not horrible. It’s definitely not ideal, but it’s not doing too much harm, so it’s probably best to just leave it as is.

You may recall something Nir Eval described in a past SISD, it’s this idea that our natural state is to avoid discomfort. And if this thing is providing a slight consistent discomfort, shouldn’t we be motivated to rid ourselves of it? Yet, we don’t. Why is that?

“It’s the devil you know or the devil you don’t”. This discomfort is familiar. It’s predictable and we've become accustomed to it. It’s even gotten easier over time because we’ve become desensitized to it, and rationalized our way into being more okay with its presence. This is the devil you know.

The devil you don’t know is uncharted territory. In its unpredictability, you can’t be sure that it will make things better. It’s the fear of more discomfort induced by taking action that keeps us from trying it in the first place. We have this bad habit of accepting the realities in our life,  and it’s rooted in this thought.

But, when we get the courage to make a change, challenge ourselves to be vulnerable and outside our comfort zone, we often find that it wasn’t as bad as we made it out to be. And in doing so, we can get rid of our inconveniences, our discomfort, and step into a more authentic and fulfilled self.

Life is hard.

It is. It really is, and it’s okay to feel that way. I think we all try to put on a thick skin so that we feel it a little less, and choose not to talk about it because it’s stigmatized that it reflects negatively on us as people. I’m sure we’d be surprised by the number of people we come across every single day who are struggling, but don’t have the confidence to share that with others. Life hurts when it doesn’t go according to plan. Life presents real challenges and obstacles, and the adjustments we make don’t always make things better. That’s just the reality of it.

Yea life is hard, but compared to what? Compared to not having this opportunity in the first place? Compared to what others are dealing with. The difficulty of life is a big spectrum and there’s no real point of relativity. The super wealthy have a difficult time finding and keeping genuine close relationships. The poor have a difficult time covering their basic dietary and sanitary needs. They’re both very different, and one sounds a whole lot worse than the other, but can we know for sure?

That is why I challenge you today to be mindful about the details of your life, and the challenges within it. What is it about your life that makes it hard? It’s probably something extremely specific and contextualized to your life. Then, the question becomes, what can you do about it? Yes, life is hard, and it’s okay to feel that way, but don’t let it restrict you. You are capable of the work required to make your situation better every day.

Before I go into the quote, I think it’s important to understand what motivation is: the dictionary definition is “the reason one has for acting or behaving in a particular way.”

Does that sound a little different than you expected ? It makes motivation much more tangible and measurable than I thought.

To motivate yourself means to identify your reasons. What is it on a personal or emotional level that moves you, that inspires you to take action?

That leads to the second part which is to aim to be better every day. This is the action I just referred to relates to the process of personal development, and the day by day grind of making progress.

Now let’s put it all together. What are your reasons for making progress on a daily basis? That’s not a question I can answer for you. This is where you need to identify why you value pursuing your potential.

I can only speak for myself. I pursue personal development because I know that when I put in the work to develop skills and mentality, I can be more efficient with my efforts and more impact in the areas that matter to me, which ultimately is to help others find meaning and fulfillment in their lives.

On apple podcasts, my episodes have been formatted wrong and new listeners haven’t been able to find my latest episodes. This pretty closely correlates with the growth of my podcast plateauing. The frustrating part is, had I not made this mistake, my podcast would probably be 150% as big as it is now.

I share all of that to demonstrate my mentality through this. I experienced every emotion from disappointment to gratitude, but what stood out was how I decided to take action. After understanding the problem, and seeing the two hour solution in front of me, I justified the work and began to work on it. That’s when my girlfriend, Irene,  very politely asked if she could try something and found a way to expedite the process expeditiously. She, then, went on to work on my behalf and rectify the mistake, and about a half hour later it was fixed.

Here, I want to highlight two important things. Upon realizing the problem, and its implications, I decided to adopt a forward thinking mindset. I knew I couldn’t change the past, so I did my best to take action and move forward as best as I could. However, my judgment was still clouded as I was suppressing emotion, and had it not been for Irene I would have taken really inefficient action. That’s the second point. Even when I was emotional, I should have taken more time to think through what those next action steps were.

With those two things in mind I am optimistically looking forward.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the term “ego”, and probably people talking poorly about it. Did you know that ego in latin literally means I? It’s something I learned on our upcoming SISD with Eric Kaufmann. Eric is a leader in the conscious leadership space, and describes that conscious leaders have an ability to overcome their ego and focus on interconnectedness and the greater good. The first step to doing that is understanding how our ego is holding us back.

This is just the beginning of a fascinating conversation. We all could use a little help understanding the way our ego functions, and internalizing this point of it wants to be right, it wants to be liked, and it wants to have might is the first step.

This quote is actually more difficult than it sounds. The key factor to that is you have to make your happiness a priority. 

I am so guilty of this… I have always been the person to put the well-being of the group ahead of my own because that’s what I tell myself I value. Yes, there’s some real truth to that, your happiness can be driven by the happiness of someone else. Ask any parent about that and they could tell you. What’s important to think about today is that trade-off between doing what makes you happy and doing what helps other people be happy that indirectly contributes to your happiness.

In my opinion, the first step is to pick apart your priorities and your happiness. Write down the first thing your gut tells you. Then, ask yourself “why” and write down the next thought until you stumble upon something concrete. If you don’t find what makes you happy, you’re likely to find the root of what’s making you unhappy.

Once you’ve done that, we’re on to the second part. Make it a priority. If you want anything to happen, you need to design it into your life. For example, if you like golfing, then allocate time in your day to do it. If you enjoy feeling productive, then hash out a good morning routine. If you like looking good, then schedule time to exercise. I get it, the means necessary to accomplish the goal isn’t always enjoyable, but that’s when your why needs to be larger than your how. Whatever it is that makes you happy, there’s nothing wrong with that! Embrace it and make sure you’re getting enough of it.