A lot of people have a hard time setting boundaries but it's extremely important to do. The reason it can be hard is because it feels selfish and even rude at times in the way you need to interact with people and enforce them. It can get uncomfortable communicating your boundaries to someone and it might even feel like you’re creating confrontation in doing so. 

But when you do establish boundaries for others, what ends up happening is you protect yourself. It helps you maintain certain things as a priority and honor the previous commitments you’ve made. It aids you in removing distractions, temptations, and other circumstances that pull you away from what you’ve determined to be most important. For example, telling people at work that you won’t respond outside work hours is a boundary. Letting someone know that you don’t want to talk to them if they keep complaining is a boundary.

Having boundaries doesn’t only keep things out of your life, it helps you to stay in it. They give you a clear and objective criteria around the things that you simply aren’t willing to consider doing. Not drinking alcohol on weekdays is a boundary. Not watching TV until you’ve finished your mindfulness practice for the day is a boundary. Boundaries are dynamic and can adjust once you get some good feedback, but that adjustment happens best after the boundary has been enforced rather than allowing yourself to make an exception in real-time.

Every part of this process requires something really fundamental - that you’re honest. You need to know what you want and stand up for it. That needs to be represented in the way you invest your time and you must guard it so that you don’t get derailed. This is both in setting boundaries with other people and establishing them for yourself. 

It’s easy to build the expectations, protocols, and standards of your life around what already is. However, when you really start to understand what you want and disrupt the current pattern you need to enforce that change by implementing stronger boundaries.

So now let me flip this on you - What boundary do you need to set to stay accountable to the life you want to live?

On your personal development journey, you need to be sure you have the right foundation in place. Discover the 7 Fundamentals To Self Improvement and instantly accelerate your growth! (Who knows what you might be overlooking and how it’s holding you back…)

People who don’t practice personal development sometimes misunderstand this one piece. To them it suggests that you must not think you’re good enough as you are if you want to improve. Of course we know that’s not true, that pursuing your own self-growth is actually an expression of self-love, but I think this perspective adds something really important to consider. 

You are incredible just the way you are, you are worthy of having a fulfilling and meaningful life, and you already have everything you need inside of you to become the person you know you’re capable of being.

Let’s zoom in on that last part. You already have everything you need to become the best version of yourself. Each one of us is born with greatness fully-loaded inside of us. We each have the tools and capabilities to accomplish things beyond our wildest dreams. Just look around at what humanity has accomplished throughout history, from all walks of life, with all types of backgrounds, and you’ll realize that each and every single person has a revolution inside of them.

From more of a spiritual angle, this is all because we are connected to something bigger and draw our power from this source. Call it God, call it the Universe, no matter what you believe to be the form of this potential you already have direct access to it. The problem is, we’re getting in our own way and restricting our access to what is already there.

So if something needs to change, it’s certainly not you. You don’t need more, you are fully loaded. What needs to change is the strength of the connection to that universal source of abundance, potential, and limitlessness. The restrictions placed on us are that of our own psychology, the lessons that have been handed down to us that we’ve come to believe as truth, and the limits of our own perception in a 3 dimensional world with 5 senses.

You are perfect exactly how you are and self-growth helps you start to let all of that goodness shine. In pursuing self-awareness, mindfulness, intentionality, perspective, better health, and all of the things that we work on to improve our lives, we clear up our connection to this universal power and start allowing it’s light to shine through.

Our greatest limiting factor is and will always be ourselves. Once we stop getting in our own way, talking down on ourselves, belittling what we think we’re capable of, and adding unnecessary resistance to our own lives, that’s when we really get to access our fullest potential! And that’s all you, you’re fully-loaded with it, now your mission is to share as much of it as you can with the world as possible.

On your personal development journey, you need to be sure you have the right foundation in place. Discover the 7 Fundamentals To Self Improvement and instantly accelerate your growth! (Who knows what you might be overlooking and how it’s holding you back…)

I’ve been spending years setting and pursuing goals but what I just learned might change all of it. I’m still processing exactly what my conclusions are, but I thought I’d share it with you in real-time.

Regardless of your experience setting and working toward goals, you’ve probably heard about how effective they are. You cannot achieve something that isn’t clearly defined, and taking the time to set goals helps you get clear on exactly what results you’re hoping to reach. Good specific goals sound something like “Run a Marathon by December 2023”, “Hit my $100k sales quota in March”, and “Give my first paid keynote speech by June 2023”.

If you’re setting goals like that then you’re already advanced in the way you think about it, but I want to share one shortcoming. How are you supposed to attain these goals? They're clear and inspiring, but what’s the process to making them reality? When we define our goals we often connect to our vision, which is abstract and dynamic. It’s great to tap into what you want to achieve but it takes you further away from knowing how to achieve it.

Instead of setting goals, maybe we start defining desired outcomes. Functionally it’s the same thing -  “Run a Marathon by December 2023”, “Hit my $100k sales quota in March”, and “Give my first paid keynote speech by June 2023”... But it suggests that there’s a process to it. An outcome is something that comes as a result of doing something else. Crafting your ambition as an outcome makes it more actionable and process based, which will hold you more accountable to doing the things required to achieve the desired outcome.

And in a strange way, it also separates you emotionally from the end result. When you don’t hit your goals it all feels like falling short. Of course 90% to quota is better than 50%, but psychologically hitting a goal is more binary. Either you did it or you didn’t. When you pursue a desired outcome, you acknowledge that there’s a spectrum to it in the very nature of it. It recognizes that there are other possible outcomes and many of them would be a good end result.  You give yourself more space to consider that when you frame it up as a desired outcome rather than a goal.

I’m curious to know what you think about this. Send me a DM on Instagram @self.improvement.daily or an email to brian@selfimprovementdailytips.com and we can chat about it!

Something that having a positive mindset really does for us is it helps us to be optimistic. But there's a difference between the two - Positivity is presently seeing things in a good way, and optimism is seeing that things will be good in the near and far future. Often times present positivity shapes your perspective to be more optimistic.

The reason I mention it is because I want to relate positivity and optimism back to feeling encouraged. We often see encouragement as coming from someone else but the real magic is how it translates to create change in your life. When you’re feeling encouraged it means that you’re more willing to go for it, take risks, and put yourself out there. You’re listening to the positive voice in your head telling you that you can rather than the cynical voice saying you can’t. It’s literally in the word itself - you are acting "in courage".

Utilizing encouragement requires action both in creating results in your life and feeling that way in the first place. You know the relationship that exists between actions and results - If you want to live a more inspired and positive life you need to do the things that create it.

The problem is, many people wait to feel a certain way to take action. They wait to feel motivated, inspired, or encouraged before actually bringing themselves into the activity itself. But that’s an unfair expectation that will leave you falling short of what you want. Mood follows action, not the other way around, so if you want to feel more encouraged you need to take encouraging action first and allow that to shift your feelings.

So here’s something practical you can do. If you’re struggling to take action and procrastinating or delaying, say this to yourself - “I’m feeling encouraged”. Or ask yourself the question "What would I do right now if I felt really encouraged?" You’d be surprised how influenceable your mind is and how tricking it in a small way will help you to start getting into action, which will change the way you feel.

Speaking for myself, I want to feel more alive, inspired, and passionate more often. It helps me feel like I’m bringing my best to every moment and fills my life with more significance and meaning. Hopefully this perspective encourages you to feel more encouraged about your ability to create the life of your dreams.

On your personal development journey, you need to be sure you have the right foundation in place. Discover the 7 Fundamentals To Self Improvement and instantly accelerate your growth! (Who knows what you might be overlooking and how it’s holding you back…)

Let’s talk about achieving your goals and making your dreams come true. A worthy topic right?

A lot of us have heard the idea of the ladder to the top, which suggests that there’s a single path we can stay on to get where we want to go. While I am a huge advocate for crafting a plan and being disciplined to it (cutting out distractions and being clear on what’s required of you), I’ve found that getting to the top is a lot more like a jungle gym than a ladder.

It’s not as simple as climbing one rung at a time. It’s getting to the top of the ladder to find a dead end, jumping across to a net, climbing down and swinging over to rock wall, scaling it halfway and jabbing your foot into a small crack to grab a rope… you get the picture.

Reaching your goals requires that you’re flexible, nimble, and resourceful. Sometimes you need to be really creative to maximize an opportunity, take steps backwards to go forward faster, and change plans when your route doesn’t look as promising. 

Kind of like a puzzle, some jungle gyms are more complex, and some are straightforward. But in both cases, in order to succeed you must constantly evaluate and reevaluate your plan to innovate, optimize, and improve. That’s the art of the whole process - you need to give your well-thought out plan a fair chance to work but also know when it’s time to pivot.

I’ve found two things that are really helpful with this challenge. First, create opportunities for reflection. When you take a step back and look at the system rather than make decisions from within it, things became way clearer and you’re less emotionally attached to it. This helps you make better decisions. Second is, to surround yourself with other people who can add more perspective to you understanding. Again you might be too close to see the full picture.

Life is anything but predictable, and the path to you dreams is anything but linear. You might some wrong turns and get stuck in some tough spots, but as long as you’re committed to the process you’ll find your way.

On your personal development journey, you need to be sure you have the right foundation in place. Discover the 7 Fundamentals To Self Improvement and instantly accelerate your growth! (Who knows what you might be overlooking and how it’s holding you back…)

For years now I’ve been in the routine of taking cold showers to build resilience and discipline. But recently I’ve noticed that the decision hasn’t been inspiring me, that it’s something I’ve been resisting and avoiding, so I decided to revamp my habit so that I’m more excited about it.

You see, the things that we choose to do that are in our best interest, we should deep down feel like we want to do them. Even if it’s hard or uncomfortable, if there’s not a part of the activity that you can look forward to you won’t feel rewarded by doing it and therefore, fail to be consistent with it.

So for me and my cold shower routine, I made one simple adjustment. As I turn the shower on cold, preparing for the discomfort, I’ve been telling myself “I am in control of the way I feel”.

Now, a cold shower represents an opportunity for me to prove to myself that I can control my thoughts despite external circumstances. And I know the power of that and how that translates into other areas of my life. So instead of being resistant to the cold shower, I’m inspired and tapping into something way bigger.

I’d be remiss not to bring up Jack Canfield’s life destiny formula: E + R = O. Event + Response = Outcome. Our outcomes are not simply the result of what happened to us, but rather our perception of and response to it. 

Knowing the power in this, I have become really intentional about my response and knowing that my response is within my control. Taking a cold shower is my way of reminding myself every day and strengthening this mindset so that I can use it in other challenging circumstances.

To wrap this up, there are two things I really want you to understand. 1) If there’s something that you’re committed to doing but it doesn’t inspire you, change it up! The worst thing that could happen is you go back to how things were. Then 2) Your mindset is simply your patterned way of thinking and you can train yourself how to think.

Either way your mindset is evolving, and the direction of that growth can either be dictated by your circumstances or you. Be intentional about your growth and you’ll find that you’ll start taking off in the best of ways!

On your personal development journey, you need to be sure you have the right foundation in place. Discover the 7 Fundamentals To Self Improvement and instantly accelerate your growth! (Who knows what you might be overlooking and how it’s holding you back…)

We are inundated with advice. New things to try, ways to do things differently, stories, lessons, case studies - there’s a lot out there. And to further complicate it, a lot of this advice isn’t that good (whether that be because the source isn’t quality or the approach isn’t particularly relevant to your life.)

A lot of people get caught up in the race of more. Read more books, listen to more podcasts, take more courses… But information isn’t the limiting factor these days. The limiting factor is applying what you know so that it starts changing your life.

I was very stuck in this for a while and I realized it was for the wrong reasons. I was learning just to feel good about how much I was doing. To convince myself that I was really committing to my growth and development. I was motivated by the wrong things, and having become aware of that I’ve really been able to home in on what actually serves me and helps me move the needle.

The things that started to work for me was to revisit and study fewer materials. I have a small handful of podcasts I keep up with, a few leaders in the space that I follow much more closely, and processes that I am actively fine-tuning. This helps to provide more consistency in the message so that it can more effectively encode, be recalled, and used. It also provides more focus around the tactics so that they are set up to perform.

It must say, this will always be a balance. I don’t want to be blind to new ideas and perspectives. It’s dangerous and limiting to be isolated in echo chambers, so pursuing more knowledge will always be a pillar to my life. But instead of that pursuit of more always being the focus, I’m spending much more time mastering the concepts that I feel most aligned with.

So when you encounter something that stands out to you, dive into it so that you really understand it. When you try something that’s starting to work for you, double-down on it. Everyone has their own speed and frequency, and the sooner you can tune into yours the more fluid your life and growth will become!

On your personal development journey, you need to be sure you have the right foundation in place. Discover the 7 Fundamentals To Self Improvement and instantly accelerate your growth! (Who knows what you might be overlooking and how it’s holding you back…)