Self Improvement Daily Podcast

I did it! Another 30 day challenge complete. This one was about self-love, and the challenge was to write three things you like about yourself every day for 30 consecutive days.  

My experience was interesting, and just to preface it all, not as ground-shifting or life-changing as you’d expect. But, it could be great for you, and that’s exactly why I want to share about it! To start, I wrote down things that were really generic. “I like my routines”, “I like my work ethic”, “I like my enthusiasm”. Although it made me feel good, it wasn’t anything I wasn’t already aware of. Over time, it got narrower in scope, and what I noticed was, it turned into an opportunity to reflect on the previous day and the characteristic traits I displayed that I was proud of. It served as an interesting combination of gratitude and self-acknowledgement all wrapped into one. “I like how I handle rejection”, “I like how I make time for calls”, “I like how I am in the habit of reading before bed”.

One thing I wish I did differently is I wish I focused more on the physical parts of myself. I think that could have been a really helpful part of the exercise because that is often where people, including myself, fail to do the work and reflect.

At the end of the 30 days, I went through all of the nice things I wrote down about myself, and it did make for a heart-warming moment because the validation behind 90 compliments is hard to deny.

Again, this wasn’t life-changing for me, although I did enjoy it. I’m not jumping to start all over again, but I will consider doing it once a year moving forward. This could be exactly what you’re looking for, and by taking two minutes a day to appreciate yourself, you might come upon a whole new version of you that you were refusing to acknowledge.

“Every accomplishment begins with the decision to try”. Do we know why this is? It’s because every thing that happens once started as nothing. It started as zero. Everything in life requires a first step which leads to inertia and building into a steady momentum.  

Every accomplishment starts with a beginning, but what about the rest? When is it that we make the decision try? To me it happens in two different settings.

The first setting is pretty obvious. It’s at the origin, or the start.  We make some decisions that takes us from inaction to action, and that transition is the decision to try.  The second setting is a bit more overlooked, and even more interesting.  It’s the moment when we fully commit . How many times have we started something and then not backed it up with our actions? Those are the situations where we’re convincing ourselves we’re trying, but we really haven’t started trying yet. Great things can’t happen until you commit to the result you want.

This thought pairs really well with a quote I learned from my mentor, Mike Sherbakov, taken from the novel, As a Man Thinketh, by James Allen. Allen stated,“The greatest achievement was at first, for a time, a dream”.  So, that’s the start. Identifying the dream and what you want to achieve, so you can turn that dream into a reality. “Every accomplishment begins with the decision to try”. Go all in on that dream and make it happen! Knowing that we have the power to turn our dreams into a reality is definitely something worth smiling about!

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a time when you were in physical pain? It was a pretty bad memory right? It might have been so significant that you still carry trauma from that event. Well, perhaps we can begin to look at pain from a different angle. Dr. Jen Esquer, a doctor in physical therapist and body health expert was recently featured in a Self Improvement Sit Down, and had this to say on the topic.

While Jen focused on the value of physical pain, the same thought applies to emotional pain. The fact that something hurt you means that you need to take note of the event. Pain is your body’s way of communicating that you should avoid whatever happened to cause it, whether that’s physical or emotional. Let’s be grateful for those signals so that we can continue to optimize our beliefs, behaviors, and processes as we experiment with what works for us in our lives.

I was camping with my girlfriend and some friends and we were working on packing everything up. I received directions from one person that I then needed to relay to another person, and when I had successfully done that I took a moment to think about what had just happened. I can’t remember all of the specifics, but it had something to do with packing the car and the order of events we were about to take. The communication was completely impromptu, not prepared at all, but very effective.

A few things I did in that communication,was I catered the message to be most pertinent to the receiver. I also gave them a reason why what I was about to tell them was important. I answered their follow up questions before they needed to ask it, and I shared a clear plan that they felt comfortable moving forward in their role.

The things I just listed, I didn’t think about them. I didn’t brainstorm the different elements I wanted to include in the message and think it through. It all came out naturally as part of the way I communicate, which I believe comes from years of leadership experience.

Taking that moment to step back and realize the nuances of my own communication style was really rewarding. Not only was it validating to see the progress I’ve made and my skill in practice, but it gave me a renewed confidence to be assertive in similar future situations. And the best part is it all happened subconsciously!

There is so much wisdom when you use ideas from other fields. This is the beauty of a multi-disciplinary approach to problem solving and creativity.

And that is evident in this topic. We’re talking about about a common household appliance, the thermostat, and that it’s functionality explains how we as humans respond to and achieve things in our life. Coming from the founder of Daily Law of Attraction on Instagram, Jay Stark.

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The concept is, we have our own internal gauge or setting for what we want to achieve in our life. Sometimes we under achieve, sometimes we over achieve, but at the end of the day it all balances out to that setting. We can take advantage of this by setting our internal thermostats high and let the world conspire to make that normal. This is the law of attraction to a tee.

Can we all agree that we want a little more fun in our life? Fun usually leads to happiness, which is something we all could use a little more of. The reality is, happiness is a little more ominous than we think. This can best be explained by Dr. Mike Rucker, who is an expert on the psychology of happiness and fun.

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Dr. Rucker stated, "For many of us, a fulfilling life includes a drive towards happiness, making attaining happiness worthy of pursuit. However, there is an inherent risk when we chase happiness in this way. When we make happiness our goal, often unconscious dissidence is the result. This occurs because when we try to resolve ourselves to being 'happy', we naturally become aware of the distance in our current reality and the reality we seek. You might have heard the coaching maxim, 'Its better to measure the gain, than measure the gap'. However, when we blindly pursue happiness, that's exactly what we fall victim to. Measuring the gap. I submit to you there is a better way, and that way is creating a bias towards fun. This approach steers our focus away from the happiness gap, which science suggests paradoxically makes us less happy. Instead, it creates us more opportunities to create joyful moments. When we take action-oriented approach to creating more joy in our life, we move our focus away from what is missing, and towards the awareness that we posses the agency to create our own joy".

It’s a dangerous game when we are explicitly pursuing happiness. Dr. Mike suggests instead that we pursue happy moments by way of having fun, because that is more objective than playing the comparison game, or falling into the happiness gap. Measure your happiness the right way!

I met a woman two days ago who probably doens’t know how big of an impression she left on me. She had a great answer to an interesting question, “What is the one thing you have to do to turn your passion into a business?”. Her answer was, "follow your shine". First, the word "shine". You can’t be angry and use the word shine. It’s just impossible. "Shine" has a positive connotation that speaks to a very natural beauty.  It also makes you feel protected. When we’re safe, we have more courage to explore and experience.

The last word is "follow". "Follow" provides the direction for the expression. Once you find your shine, what do you do with it? You use it to guide you where you are meant to go. It is the path being paved before you on your journey. Which is why it is the perfect thing to tap into when turning your passion into your business. You have faith in your skill set, you answer the call, and you trust the process.

Want to hear one thing we all have in common? We are all breathing.  But there’s way more to it, did you know that our breath has the ability to dictate the way our body chooses to interpret certain situations? Dr. Jen Esquer shares about how we’ve been breathing wrong this whole time! Have a listen.

“Think about a breath cycle. We have the inhalation state and the exhalation state. I inhale and I exhale right? Well that inhalation phase, even if you were to hold your breath, that's your sympathetic fight, flight, freeze response.Your exhalation state, or we're even holding after your exhalation state is more of that parasympathetic rest, relax, digest state. Now, if we can tap into that exhalation phase, then we can start to shift and we can start to stimulate that vagus nerve and activate that parasympathetic system”.

That’s really good information, especially when you think of what we have been told to do our whole lives to calm ourselves down. Take a deep breath right? Well the better piece of advice might be, take a long exhalation. There’s a reason your heart speeds up when you breathe in and slows down when you breathe out, it’s your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system at work!

Keep your phone away from your bed at night. For years, I have kept my phone plugged in, sometimes even on loud, not too far from where I sleep. It was necessary in my last job because I was on call, and the habit continued until recently. I liked the flexibility of being able to address anything urgent or stay aware of people trying to get in touch with me, but I didn’t realize the cost that it all comes at. That cost comes in two main ways.

First, keeping your phone near your bed likely means that it is the last thing you engage with before you go to sleep. The blue light on our phones throws off our circadian rhythm and actually makes it harder to go to sleep. Keeping your phone away let’s you wrap up a few other things before bed, helping to restore your circadian rhythm and improve the quality of your sleep.

Second, is when your alarm goes off in the morning it forces you to get on your feet. I never snooze my alarm, but I do have a tendency to wake up slowly and rest my eyes for about 5 more minutes before I start my day. If I wanted to continue with that in my new practice, standing up and getting on my feet brings all of my attention to the times when I do decide to slide back into bed. This worked so well that I only did that once in the last 3 weeks. Because of that, I find myself starting my days 5 minutes earlier with the same amount of rest.

So, I’d encourage you to try it. Keep your phone away from your bed tonight and see how you feel in the morning. My guess is that you fall asleep quicker, wake up faster, and start your day sooner.