I’ve been experiencing a theme recently that has come up in myself and in others. Self-improvement is all about making progress, pushing forward, and growth. That’s what the word ‘improvement’ suggests, telling us to urge forward at all times.

But what if it’s not a season to push and grow? What if now isn’t the right time to initiate personal change and transformation?

I want to introduce the idea of being in maintenance mode. Maintenance mode is when you use all of the focus, attention, and energy you normally put toward growth to sustain your current level.

Life can change fast and it can place unexpected demands on you. It could be a new responsibility at work, a family or personal health issue, a temporary difficult situation we must manage, or anything else that life has to throw at us.

Rather than trying to step up to the challenge and keep growing, it often makes sense just to keep things where they’re at. The reason that’s the case is because if you try to take it all on and continue, it’s likely unsustainable. This causes you to strain yourself to the point where you need to recover, and progress is lost.

Alternatively, if your core focus during trying times is to maintain your current level, and make sure you do not compromise your baseline, when it all passes you’ll be poised to pick up right where you left off.

What does maintenance mode look like? It means instead of setting stretch goals or trying to elevate your standards, you hold yourself to a level that you’re familiar with and you know what’s required of you.

Shifting things into maintenance mode is not weak. It’s self-aware, and as one of the pillars of self-improvement, it’s a necessary ingredient to living a fulfilling and purposeful life.

I’m a huge advocate for having structure and routine in life. Jocko Willink says “Discipline creates freedom”, and I believe that we have more license to be creative when we have lines to draw within because it helps us know where to start.

However, there are some downsides to having overly rigid routines. When we do the same things over and over again it leads to something called ‘automaticity’. This is what the mind does - It tries to offload the cognitive demand of repetitive tasks so that you can save your higher-level thinking for more important things.

While this is a great and helpful mechanism for many things, it creates problems when it causes us to be unconscious for things we’d rather be more present for (and engaged in). For example, gratitude journaling. Automaticity slowly makes the practice a little more automated, meaning you become less connected to the experience, experiencing less gratitude only receive a fraction of the benefits.

So, when we settle into routines over time we start to get less out of them. 

The engine behind automaticity is that we gravitate toward what we’re familiar with. It’s an evolutionary trait that we all share as humans, so if we want to create breakthroughs to our next level we need to break out of our current routine.

This means that we need to create a pattern interrupt. We need to inject consciousness and awareness into what we’re doing to bring us back to it. When you pierce the facade of how things have been you get more choice in how things end up.

We all want a breakthrough. A breakthrough in our health and wellness where we start crushing our workouts, buzz with energy, and get really good rest. A breakthrough in our work where we do a great job with that project, are assigned more responsibility, and increase our income. And the fastest way to achieve that is by doing things different from how you’re currently doing them.

So what can you do differently to ignite the breakthrough you’ve been looking for? For me, right now it’s by experimenting with my eating and sleeping schedules. Reflect on it for yourself and see what you come up with! 

If you want to learn a few small things you can do to radically increase your energy, productivity, and mindset, I’ve put together a video series about the 9 Super Habits that have the power to transform your life with little effort behind the scenes.

If you’re looking to cultivate more depth, intimacy, and connection in your relationships, it’s within your control.

If you have superficial relationships is because you tolerate it, or maybe even manifest it.

The beautiful part is, when you take 100% ownership everything is your fault (which means you can fix it) and everything is earned based on merit (as a testament to your hard work).

Relationship expert Matthew Hussey says that we can quickly breakthrough the mundane and ignite more meaningful conversations when guide the discussion toward these three things: Values, beliefs, and experiences. The reason these categories are so powerful and connecting is because it requires that you add more context, and in doing so share more personal information about yourself.

First are values. This is what you care about and what matters to you. When you get people reflecting on what matters to them, and understand how different values are expressed in different situations, you get to peak into their inner workings that aren’t readily visible. This allows you to appreciate the person more and see where they’re coming from.

Next are beliefs. Our beliefs are latent in everything we do, influencing our every thought, action, and reaction. Often unconscious, conversation about beliefs helps people to get really introspective. During this self-discovery they more naturally share details about themselves that they wouldn’t think to share. Meanwhile, you get to learn more about what makes them who they are.

And last are experiences. This one is more obvious and it’s a common topic of conversation. But there are more advanced levels of asking about experiences. It’s not just what happened, but how did it change them? What else did that influence or shift in their life? Often we can talk about experiences as the entry point to having deeper conversations about beliefs and values.

To make this more actionable, let me give you one question you can ask to help dive deeper into conversation.

Relating to values, you can ask “Why is that important to you?”.

Relating to beliefs, you can ask “Why do you think that?”.

And relating to experiences, you can ask “How has this changed you?”

Cheers to having better conversations, asking better questions, and living more connected lives!

Former Navy SEAL David Goggins - Who’s known as an accomplished military service member, an ultra-endurance athlete, and the toughest person in the world - Knows a lot about our personal limitations. In his book “Can’t Hurt Me” he talks about something in our mind called ‘The Governor’. 

The Governor is our brain’s fail-safe off switch. It’s the voice of reason trying to keep us from overexerting ourselves. It’s there to protect us, but Goggins estimates that The Governor is activated at only 40% of our physical potential. This means that we’re capable of more than double what we think we are when our mind says we’ve hit our limit.

It takes courage to expose yourself to what lies beyond your comfort zone. It’s uncertain and potentially damaging to push too far. But here’s the truth: "Only those who risk going too far, find out how far they can go." 

When you “risk going too far”, it suggests that it’s very possible that you hurt yourself. That you end up on the wrong side of the bet you made. That’s what risk is! But in order to find out just how far you can go and the true edges of your personal limits, it requires that you put yourself in harm’s way. 

This is obvious in a workout where you commit to a weight, speed, or amount that challenges you. That’s how you find out what’s on the other side.

In business you take financial risks or try strategies that aren’t guaranteed to produce results. That’s the only way you tap into the scale of results that you’re capable of.

In relationships you need to be willing to save 'I love you' first and risk heartbreak, or make contact with a new friend first and risk rejection, to discover just how strong your relationships can be.

Darren Hardy puts it this way - Life is like a pendulum. If you want to experience a certain level of success, you need to expose yourself to a certain level of failure. As long as the pendulum has the energy to swing high on the side of success, it has to also have the energy to swing high on the side of failure.

If you want to live a more outstanding life you need to be open to taking on more outstanding risk. 

And that’s what this quote tells us. "Only those who risk going too far, find out how far they can go." You don’t need to be the person that is all or nothing, burning the boats and being reckless in pursuit of discovering their full potential like David Goggins. That’s not enjoyable to everyone…

But maybe bumping yourself up a on the spectrum will serve you in experiencing the next level of depth that you’re after in life. And then when you get there, maybe you bump it a little more!

Goal setting is a huge topic that is a cornerstone to personal development. But just because it’s so central to the conversation doesn’t mean there’s only one way to talk about it, and I think adding perspective to how we look at goals helps us find our own right relationship with them.

Recently I’ve been trying to play more games in life and I’ve been having fun changing my approach. When something is a game, it creates a frame that allows you to step into it and causes you to show up differently than you normally would. 

So what if we started playing games instead of setting goals? The objective doesn’t change but the way you pursue it does.

Instead of having a goal to get in the gym 3 times this week, what if you played a game to get into the gym 3 times this week?

Instead of having a goal to complete a certain project, what if you played a game to complete the project?

Instead of having a goal to not hit the snooze button, what if you played a game to not hit the snooze button?

Setting things up as a game does a few important things. First, as mentioned earlier, it changes your energy toward it. Instead of being something you have to get done, it’s something you want to get done. It’s the difference between ‘playing to win’ and ‘playing not to lose’.

Second, and this is big, is it naturally causes you to plan and strategize.

So often with goal setting we stop our process after we determine the goal. The goal is only helpful if  it guides your behavior that’s to come. This is more assumed in a game. You know you can’t just want to win because you play... You need to think about how you’re going to win. So seeing goals as games naturally takes us into the critical process of creating strategies and plans that support us in achieving a result.

Goals are just the beginning to the goal-achieving process. Games give you insight into how to win and what you’re going to do to win. And especially if your goal is something that is important to you but the act of doing it doesn’t inspire you, making it a game helps you change your perspective and kick into gear a little more.

So is there one thing you’ve been struggling to be consistent with or to get yourself to do? Play a game. It could be a one minute, 30 minute, 3 hour, 5 day, or 6 month game. The game doesn’t matter as long as it gets you to start playing.

Something that breaks my heart, and is all too prevalent in today’s world, is loneliness.

One of our most fundamental human needs is love and belonging, and in my opinion, we’re spending so much time superficially connecting with each other that we’re not getting the depth of connection we need. This is perpetuated by the social media led, be-busy culture that keeps us from allowing ourselves to be present.

One side of loneliness relates to being alone. Especially since work has shifted to be on computers and at home, we don’t get the same quantity of interactions that we naturally used to. On top of that, levels of social anxiety have increased and people who are naturally shy have a hard time finding outlets to be more social.

But there’s another side of loneliness that is becoming more prevalent as well. Many people feel lonely even though they’re not alone. This isn’t due to a lack of social interaction but rather a lack of meaningful social interaction. Over time people have gotten more guarded, it’s harder to be vulnerable than it used to be, and we’ve been taught to be more independent. All of this has led to less intimate moments, and therefore less feelings of connectedness.

So how do we fight loneliness?

First, if you’re feeling lonely, you can make a subtle shift in your language to invite more meaningful conversation when you do have social interactions. Instead of asking someone “How are you?”, my favorite thing to ask instead is “How is everything in your world?” It asks them to reflect a bit deeper and more holistically, and pulls you into a more meaningful conversation. 

If you’re not feeling lonely yourself but you want to help fight loneliness, all it takes is a micro moment of courage. When you see someone by themselves, ask to sit with them. If there’s a friend you’re concerned about who’s having some mental health struggles or going through something heavy, reach out to them in a heartfelt way. I’ve found that these small efforts to acknowledge someone create disproportionate impacts. 

Making the world a better place always starts with you - Making your world a better place whether that be internally or immediately externally.

One of the most important questions to ask yourself in your self-improvement is “What do I want?”.

When you know what you want you can begin to strategize on what you need to do to get there. Knowing what you want is a North Star that you can orient your life around and make sure that your daily decisions are in alignment with it.

But there’s a problem… What if you don’t know what you want?

In your career, what if you don't know what you want to do for work?

In your personal time, what if you don’t know what hobbies and interests to try?

In your relationships, what if you don’t know who you want to spend more time with?

If you connect with any of those things, it’s totally normal and common. It’s hard to know what we want.

To take some pressure off… Remember the reason why knowing what you want is so important - It’s because knowing what you want can help you figure out what you need to do next. 

That is what’s actually most important. Knowing what you want is just the first step to knowing what you want to do next.

So if you’re feeling lost, misguided, or unsure about where you’re headed, you don’t need to think further down the line than what’s immediately in front of you. This means the more appropriate question to ask yourself is, “What do I want to do next?”

The reason this takes pressure off is because you don’t feel like you need to get it perfectly right. The consequences of being wrong aren’t so severe because the impacts of it are momentary. But what it does is it gets you into action and once you take a few steps further down the path, you have better insight into what you want which will help guide you into what to do next.

Here’s a perfect personal example: Getting started in my coaching business, I didn’t know what I wanted. But I knew what I wanted next, which was to try out different programming options and see what worked. So I took action, tried out different variations, and with this feedback I discovered my preferences and have steered my business in a way that feels more aligned with what I want. 

And then next, having arrived at the Group Coaching model that feels right, I’ve been able to understand the landscape of my work and have a new plan to maximize my impact on the world, and I feel more on fire about it than ever!

All of that started with little direction, but the experience of doing it gave me direction and helped me arrive at being more confident about knowing what I want.

Whether it be about a major life decision or having self-control in a trying moment, ask yourself this question: “What do I want to do next?” and let that carry you in the right direction, even though you don’t fully know where you’re headed. 

If you don’t know where to start but you know you want to be healthier, more confident and disciplined, and become the person that’s capable of setting bigger goals and achieving them - It’s not too late to sign up for the 21 Day Super Habits Challenge that starts today.

All you need to do is take the first step by registering NOW!

Honestly, time and again I see how just 3 weeks of this work completely transforms people’s lives and it can do the same for you.

When you want to change your life, it could feel daunting. There’s a big gap between where you are and where you want to be, and you don’t know what happens in between. Our minds create resistance because there’s so much uncertainty, fear, and unfamiliarity that paralyzes your action. The longer you acclimate to that state, the more resistance that’s generated to keep you in that state, creating an overwhelming battle to fight in order to get started.

Let’s make this concept a bit more concrete by using the metaphor of a man standing at the foot of a big wall. He believes that on the other side of the wall could be everything he’s wanted in life - peace, fulfillment, and success. But equally on the other side of the wall could be things that make his life worse - stress, anxiety, and danger.

Due to this uncertainty, his mind convinces him of reasons why he shouldn’t climb over the wall and begin his journey: 

“You don’t know how to climb the wall.” 

“This time next year, you’ll be stronger and better prepared to climb the wall.” 

“What if it isn’t worth it to climb the wall?” 

“What if you struggle and look stupid trying to climb this wall?”

This is the default program in all of our minds. This is our mind’s natural state. And what it does is it keeps us in the familiarity of how things are right now, safe in everything that we can already see, rather than exploring the uncertainty of what’s on the other side of the wall.

Having climbed over a few walls in my career and personal life, and having spoken with many people who’ve climbed over big walls, here are two perspectives I want to share.

#1 - The first wall feels the tallest. It might not be the tallest, but it feels the tallest. Why? Because you’re getting started. You’re going from something to nothing, which is when the resistance is the strongest. Once you climb over one wall and see the next one is taller, you’ll be less hesitant to climb over that one too because you already got started.

#2 - The people who are the fastest at trying to climb the wall after deciding they want to are the most successful. You don’t learn anything, get strong, or earn more experience while you’re waiting. You stay stalled and stuck where you currently are, doing the same things you’ve been doing the same way you’ve been doing them. But those who go for it, who try, who take risks and make commitments, they end up getting further on the journey.

Coming back to how I started… The idea of changing your life can feel overwhelming. 

Shifting big things in your career, relationships, and lifestyle… Or small things in your daily choices, interactions, and routines.

But that first wall in front of you, the one you’ve been looking at this whole time wondering when it’s time to finally commit to climbing it, it feels taller than it actually is. And the fastest way to create the changes you want in your life isn’t to keep preparing to climb over it but to start climbing immediately.

The first wall is actually internal. It’s just getting started. It’s just the first thing you can do to illuminate the path for what comes next. But you can’t see that path because there’s a big internal wall in the way. 

If you need a place to start in getting more structured with your self-improvement, and prove to yourself that you’re capable of getting over any obstacle, once a month I host a 21 Day Super Habits Challenge that helps you build momentum and confidence that you can do whatever you set your mind to (all while creating the infrastructure for becoming the healthiest, most productive, most disciplined version of yourself).