One of the most challenging parts of pursuing something meaningful is that we want to know exactly where we’re going before we get started. We’ve evolved to be careful with our time and energy, and if it seems like there might be a chance that we waste it, then we find ways to talk our way out of getting started. After all, one of the main functions of the brain is to conserve energy.

But here’s the truth to it - It’s very difficult, if not impossible, for us to know what the end goal is supposed to look like at the beginning. Just like anything, the details become more apparent the closer we get to it. And in order to get closer, we need to take real steps forward to unveil the full picture.

What this requires from us is that we evaluate the limited information we have on hand and faithfully get started. It’s not going to be perfect, we’re going to make mistakes, but it’s all in service of forging our path.

Then once we’ve begun and committed to a direction, we need to give ourselves permission to change our goals once we start pursuing them. My mentor Jim Bunch says “goals are written in sand and not in stone.” Goals are meant to be flexible and dynamic. We can update them and adjust them. Goals guide our behavior, and once we have more information and context available to us, then of course it makes sense for us to make adjustments. But for whatever reason we resist it.

Here’s a real example that I’m actively in the process of. At the beginning of this week I started sending daily emails that highlight the tip of the day in one sentence. At first I didn’t know when or how I’d do it, or even what all needed to be included in those emails. But it became clearer to me once I got started and took a step forward, and now I have new systems and details that I’ll be implementing to make it all more doable.

Our first step doesn’t need to be complex, overthought, or overengineered. It just needs to happen. And once that first step takes us to a new place with new problems, we solve those problems and stack on necessary complexity. So don’t let the lack of clarity keep you from getting started because the fastest way you’ll acquire the clarity is by getting started.

Do you want to be more resilient? Do you want to strengthen your self-discipline, follow through on the commitments you make in your life, cut out making excuses about things and show up powerfully in difficult moments?

There’s actually a process to getting better that Greg Anderson calls “microdosing adversity”. When you intentionally expose yourself to challenging things, you train yourself to have more control and respond more intentionally in unpredictable challenging circumstances.

It makes a lot of sense to me: The more repetitions you have in a certain environment, the more familiar it is to you. When things are familiar they are less scary, less threatening, and more manageable. 

But the interesting part is how this translates to positively impact unforeseen events that you’ve never been in. Independent of what stimulus causes the adversity, when you face moments of adversity often you learn how to regulate your nervous system. Our natural response is to fight, flight, or freeze in dangerous situations. The more often we experience stressful states, the better we get at controlling their impact on us no matter where the stress is coming from.

Learning of this philosophy and seeing how it fits into my practices, I see a few ways where I have unknowingly been microdosing adversity. 

First is with cold exposure. I start every shower as a cold shower. This has been training me in two ways. One is teaching my body that “when I say “go” we go. This helps me take more bold action despite anticipating something uncomfortable. The other is when I get in the cold shower I repeat to myself “I like the way this feels” as a way to practice reframing my perception so that when I encounter other unpleasant things I can take the sting out of them.

The second practice is starting Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. When someone puts their full body weight on your neck, it creates adversity. But the goal is to not allow that discomfort to dominate your thinking, and to respond thoughtfully and tactically to navigate into a new situation.

Other ways to microdose adversity are through fasting, talking to strangers, or taking on difficult workouts. To be more resilient, think through what you can do to put yourself in uncomfortable situations and get better at having control within them.

We live in a very difficult and polarized society where it seems like no matter what side of an issue we’re on, someone has a problem with it and we’re doing something wrong. So we respond by walking on eggshells and being very careful not to interrupt the status quo.

An unfortunate outcome of this is that we’re more afraid to take chances or stand out because we know that criticism is right around the corner if something starts to go wrong. And it holds us back from living to the extent we’d want to and experimenting more in our lives.

But you don’t need to prove anything to anyone. In a world where we’re seeking approval and acceptance, it’s more comfortable to get permission before doing anything that others could criticize.  It’s a way of hedging our bet in case things turn sour because we got an endorsement from someone else.

Instead, what if we just went for it? What if we understood that innovation and improvement require making mistakes, and we embraced uncertainty rather than turned away from it? We’d make significant progress so much faster and so much smoother.

When we try to prove something it puts a pressure on us to get it right. Of course the overall goal is to do things right and get positive results, but the fear of getting it wrong keeps us from trying at all. So let’s get rid of that fear and give ourselves more space to see how it goes.

And here’s how: We have a threshold where we’re comfortable moving forward because there’s a certain likelihood of success. If we were to lower that threshold and take action with less certainty, we’d actually give ourselves more chances to succeed.

I want you to reflect on a big goal or dream you have that you’ve been too scared to communicate to others - a career switch, a passion to pursue, a new lifestyle to enjoy or personal milestone to accomplish. Who’s judgment, criticism, or disagreement are you avoiding? And what do you feel like you need to prove to them?

Awareness takes power away from the negative unconscious influences that run our life. So take yourself there and see what you find.

One of the biggest contributors to the lack of wellness and difficulty that many people experience in their lives is stress. But stress in itself isn’t a bad thing, in fact with a new perspective you’ll start to see it as a great thing! To reframe our relationships with stress, today’s positivity quote is “Stress is a powerful driving force.”

This quote comes from fitness legend Bill Phillips, and it carries extra meaning because fitness perfectly demonstrates what stress does to us. We literally are choosing to add stress to our bodies and do something challenging because we know that it creates growth and endurance.

It’s the stress of an elevated heartbeat that improves your aerobic fitness, and you literally need to tear your muscle fibers in a workout so that they repair bigger and stronger.

This isn’t the form of stress that comes to mind when you feel anxious or worried about your safety. That’s because this healthy, empowering, productive version of stress is different - it’s called “eustress”. Eustress is an intentional demand you put on yourself in the short-term knowing that it will create positive benefits in the long-term. And it’s the exact reason why “stress is a powerful driving force.”

However, the version of stress we are more accustomed to, that is crippling, is called “distress”. This is when we’re worried about being able to pay our bills, regretful about how we handled a conversation, or fearful about our own safety or someone else’s. This often creates a chronic stress-response that damages our health and well-being.

However, with these two lenses of stress, we can choose which one serves us more in a “middle of the road” scenario. Let’s say that you’re feeling strained by meeting a tight deadline at work. Is the way that you’re feeling eustress helping you expand your capacity, or is distress causing anxiety? 

When we choose to see life’s challenges as a force for positive transformation in our lives, we step up to the challenge and maximize our growth potential from it. This is where the mindset “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” comes from, should we choose to receive the demands of stress in a productive way.

Self-improvement is a huge topic, so let’s try to make some sense of it. There are so many books to read and podcasts to listen to, but among all of that information are a few universal truths that I want to quickly outline for you.

First, it’s all about application. One of my favorite personal development minds, Darren Hardy says the adage that “knowledge is power” is incorrect. Knowledge is potential power, like electricity in a light switch. It’s once you turn on the switch, or apply what you’ve learned, that you’ll get it to start working for you.

Then there’s something that a lot of people overlook without realizing it. There’s a quote that goes “you can’t improve what you don’t measure.” So something that’s foundational to improving anything about your life is having a high-quality performance tracking system. That way, you know how you’re actually doing, you can measure your progress, and you can make changes to get new and better results. 

Right now 99% of people on their self improvement journey are using  biased, faulty, subjective measurement systems and therefore are getting a biased, faulty, and interpreted view into their performance.

Lastly, it’s always about the fundamentals. When we talk about raising our standards it means that we do the fundamentals with more consistency or at a higher level. And this is true for everyone looking to maximize their potential. 

There are fundamentals for your health - Exercising, eating healthy, and getting enough rest, so that you have the energy to show up as the best version of yourself.

There are fundamentals to the way we spend our time - Staying focused, being organized with our todos and tasks, and creating a plan for the day so that you’re investing your time in the things that are most important to you. 

And then there are fundamentals in your mindset - So that you see the world through a lens of gratitude and abundance, and you cultivate self-discipline so that you actually follow through on your good intentions.

No matter if you’re just getting started or you’re far along on your self-improvement, you reach your next tier by improving the quality of your fundamentals. And after a decade of studying how experts in this field approach their growth, and experimenting on myself to fine-tune the process, I’ve put together a 21 day challenge to help you install what I call your Super Habits System. 

This a proven step by step structure to master these fundamentals, get more focused and organized than ever, truly revolutionize your health, and ignite a deep motivation that pulls you to become the version of yourself that the world (and your world) needs! You can check out more information about the Super Habits System in and register for the 21 day challenge here!

Last week I did a breath work session and it planted a new mantra that has been stuck in my head ever since. If you’re not familiar with breath work, you can use breathing and forced hyperventilation to induce stress, reset your nervous system, and even in extreme cases create short term tremors or even hallucinations.

As I laid there breathing during this session, during one of the more demanding parts of the practice, out of nowhere my mind started repeating the same expression over and over again:

I get what I want and I want what I get.

I get what I want and I want what I get.

I get what I want and I want what I get.

I’m sure I’ve heard it before, I don’t know how else I would’ve thought of it, but I can’t place the context. All I know is it’s something I need to hear right now and as I breakdown what it means to me, it’s something I want you to hear too.

First, what does it mean to “get what I want”? Well you can’t get what you want unless you know what it is, so clarity is key. But then beyond that, I felt a short-term resistance to the expression because it sounds like it’s something a stubborn child would say. We’ve been taught not to be selfish and not to be entitled. 

But does it come at the cost of our self-worth? Why can’t we get what we want? What if what we want is what’s best for everyone? My more elaborate understanding of this mantra is a motivating reminder that if anyone has gone out and achieved their dreams I can achieve mine too.

Then the second part - “And I want what I get”. One perspective comes from a place of gratitude. It’s an acknowledgment that what you get is enough, and that you’re content and satisfied with it. But the other more discerning perspective is the clarity piece I mentioned previously. You don’t just pursue anything or want anything, it’s very specific. It’s exactly what you want and nothing else, adding a layer of focus to the desire.

So when you put them back together - “I get what I want and I want what I get” - It marries powerful alignment with certain success. And I haven’t heard anything that makes you more unstoppable than that!

If you want to start putting this mantra into action, where you get what you want and you want what you get, that’s exactly what we do in the 21 day challenge I organize. It is designed to make you more disciplined, focused, organized, and clear than you ever have been. And it’s structured in such a way that while the challenge is only 3 weeks long you leave with the Super Habits you need to make it last a life-time.

Worth a look right? The next Challenge goes live on Monday, so register now!