This is one of those things that you know to be true, but maybe hearing it said a different way will inspire you to take action on it. You can have whatever you want in life. That’s not just something that sounds good on a Hallmark Card, it’s actually true. But what happens is many people fall short of having, getting, and living how they want to because they wait for it to happen on its own. 

You know that’s not how it works. You need to lead the charge. You are a powerful creator capable of shaping your life, but those powers will not do much for you unless you are intentional about putting them to use.

This is where I want to share a concept that has really resonated for me. You’re rewarded in public for what you practice in private. What does that mean? It means that the work you do behind the scenes and the preparation you put into building a skill, lead to the results that everyone else sees. It honors the hustle no one sees that they get to admire when it’s all said and done.

But here’s the kicker (and you knew this was coming) - You can’t expect to get the outcomes you want without putting in the work. You won’t achieve the results you want without developing the craft. Many people shy away from that part and are entitled to get what they want simply because they want it. That was me for a long time, but I've made a change and I want to show you how I’m working on it.

I’ve always imagined in my career that I would be a keynote speaker. I imagined that I would be on stages, inspiring thousands of people at a time, and I’d be paid to do it. But I always assumed this dream would materialize at some point out of thin air and I didn’t put any energy behind it other than a distant desire.

Reflecting on this idea, that you’re rewarded in public for what you practice in private, I committed to practicing my speaking skills in something that I’m calling the Keynote Speaking Project. Every week for one year, I am giving a practice keynote speech. I am putting in the reps so that when the opportunity comes, I’m ready and confident.

About 15 weeks into this commitment, it’s pretty unbelievable what’s already happening. That’s a story for another time, but what I want you to take away from this is that you can make the decision to start practicing whatever it is you’re hoping to do today, and accelerate your ability to reach the achievements you have on your heart.

I’d love for you to be a part of the Keynote Speaking Project Story. If you have a group or an event, or an opportunity where you need someone to speak, I’m your guy! Feel free to reach out to my email brian@selfimprovementdailytips.com and we can get it set up!

Something that I’ve found really beneficial is using the expression “That’s like me!” to acknowledge and bring presence to my performance. Basically, when I do certain things that are in alignment with my best-self (how I interpret a challenging circumstance, how I stay disciplined to taking action even when I don’t feel like it, or I do something else that’s enforcing my personal integrity) I whisper to myself “That’s like me!” to affirm that quality within myself.

Our behavior is the greatest proof of our identity. Who we are influences what we do, and in that way, what we do is the confirmation of who we are. It’s a feedback loop. But the impact of this feedback loop can be multiplied when you bring more consciousness to the behaviors you’re doing. That’s why saying a simple expression like “That’s like me!” can bring presence to how you act in integrity, highlighting the evidence for your subconscious mind to process it and integrate it. Now not only implicitly does your behavior leave an imprint on your identity, but now explicitly you’re magnifying the instance with your self-affirmation.

It's kind of like giving yourself a high five for a job well done but on a whole new level. At first it’s hard to do because it’s unnatural. You don’t think to do it. But when you set the intention, and you start doing it a few times when you encounter more obvious opportunities for it, slowly it becomes a more normal reflection and process. Like anything, if you commit to it as a practice you’ll experience compounding increases in performance over time.

But I’d be remiss to not mention the other side of it, which is when you act out of integrity. The times when you don’t follow through on a commitment, or you make excuses or exceptions, what happens then? Failing to take action or taking negative action also informs your identity. But you can override that with your own self-acknowledgement by saying “That’s not like me, needs work!”

In both cases, a short expression helps to shape the development of your identity so that it is in better alignment with the person you want to be. And incorporating this simple practice will accelerate that development and get your subconscious mind to start working for you.

Knowledge is good but if you want to see real positive change in your life, book a call with me now so you can start start living the health, fulfillment, and success you always dreamed of in 60 days. All you have to do is click this link here.

Let me share about something that sounds like an oxymoron but is actually very insightful. It’s this idea that being busy is being lazy. Before you throw your arms up and disagree let me explain. I’m not speaking from the conventional sense where being busy means being active, and being active is not being lazy, I get that logic. But I want to focus on laziness in a little more depth. It’s not enough to show up and be active doing the work, you need to be efficient with your effort and invest in your ability to produce better outcomes. Many people are too lazy to take the extra step.

What happens is we’ve grown accustomed to being busy. It has become familiar to us and predictable for us to know how challenging, or demanding, or engaging things might be. If you want to settle for plateauing at that level then so be it. Being busy in this way is lazy because you’re unwilling to do more than what is expected of you.

Do you know what takes work? Simplification. It’s hard to make things look so easy. Albert Einstein is quoted saying “The definition of genius is taking the complex and making it simple.” It requires putting in that extra work to streamline, optimize, and iterate in the attempt of producing new levels of growth.

The problem is many people deflect diving into that hard work by signing themselves up for things that keep them occupied. It’s more comfortable to be in the familiar flow of activities than to breach something new and uncertain. So instead of doing the hard thing that is for the best, they do the easy thing that is ‘good enough’. That’s laziness, isn’t it?

So take a look at your schedule, your commitments, your life, and have an honest reflection. How much of these things are absolutely necessary, and how many are fillers that make you feel more productive because you have more going on? 

This is advice I’ve been practicing myself over the last few months. I’ve been saying “no” more often. I’ve removed myself from different commitments I’ve taken on. And this has liberated me to make more progress on fewer things because I have the space to do the hard work of simplification and scale.

All I’m asking for you to do is to be honest, nothing else. Get in the habit of being honest with yourself, not telling yourself a fake rational story, and your life will start to angle into your truth.

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…)

If you’re in the US or Canada, text me at 949-799-0788 and I’ll send you daily text messages that help you grow and discover yourself every day.

Not in the US or Canada? Send me a DM on Instagram to @self.improvement.daily

Something that I’m affected by, alongside just about everyone, is self-doubt. We are our own toughest critics and we can be really, really hard on ourselves. We know our own truth better than we know anyone else, we see the areas we’re falling short that no one else knows about, and it causes us to lose confidence and belief in ourselves.

When doubt creeps in, it does so really quietly. Doubts are whispers, not sirens. Self-doubt is so subtle that it integrates itself into your normal stream of consciousness and influences you without you even knowing it. Emotions are sirens. They are loud and clear, and you know you’re feeling something when you're emotional. But doubts are discreet whispers.

This makes it very difficult to defeat self-doubt. The first step to changing anything is being aware of it because with awareness comes choice, which helps you to make new decisions that lead to new results. But the nature of self-doubt makes it challenging to identify and therefore, difficult to change.

Self-doubt is a form of self-sabotage. This is your brain’s attempt to protect you from things that are new and unfamiliar by making suggestions to your conscious mind. Self-doubt is the brain’s way of keeping you from believing that you’re capable of doing something new, better, or different. It’s a defense against change, which through years of evolution has come to be perceived as a potential threat. And remember this happens quietly - Self-doubt (alongside other self-sabotaging tendencies like procrastination, limiting beliefs, irrational thinking, and overgeneralization) introduces itself in such a quiet way that it goes unnoticed. 

But no one in their right mind would choose to be held back. No one wants to be the limiting factor to their own success, and the reality is our self-doubt is often the biggest bottleneck to making progress. So to become more aware of your self-sabotaging tendencies, and begin to change them, I’ve put together a self-sabotage quiz so that you can start becoming everything you know you can be, and not just the version your protective brain has allowed you to be.

One tip, one tool, and one point of self-awareness at a time you’re growing into a better version of yourself. Way to be consistent! And to apply today's learnings click here to take the self-sabotage quiz.

This weekend I heard Brendan Burchard say something that I absolutely loved. When he has people over or hosts in any capacity, and people ask what they can bring, he tells them “Bring the joy” and it’s brilliant.

Think about the desired outcome of the party. As a host your objective is to make sure your guests have a good time. There is nothing that will guarantee a good experience more than the positive energy of the people there. So instead of dismissing people who want to contribute to the party, and telling them that everything is already taken care of, Brendan gives people a really impactful way to contribute to the party. In communicating this he establishes the culture for the party, helps people set an intention for their role in it, and truly lifts the overall value of the party in the simplest of ways.

As we know, positivity spreads. Your energy influences others and creates a ripple that then goes on and extends beyond your comprehension. If you want to live in a more joyful world, you just need to bring the joy yourself. It’s finding reasons to be enthusiastic within the mundane. It’s having a good attitude even when the circumstances don’t warrant it. It’s letting your guard down for a bit and expressing yourself in ways you normally wouldn’t. Being joyful is being present to the moment and choosing to inject positive emotions into your own personal experience.

You’re at your best when you can be yourself, and there’s nothing more honest than a joyful moment. Oftentimes we hide from the world to protect ourselves from judgment and criticism. We recoil into what’s comfortable because it doesn’t direct any negative attention our way. But I’m sure that’s not how you’d choose to live. You’d rather be the quirky, goofy, authentic you that you were made to be! And the only way to do that is to bring the joy more often and let it take over!

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…)

If you’re in the US or Canada, text me at 949-799-0788 and I’ll send you daily text messages that help you grow and discover yourself every day.

Not in the US or Canada? Send me a DM on Instagram to @self.improvement.daily

Something that is fundamental to your personal development is understanding the beliefs you hold. Your beliefs dictate a large part of your life because they influence every moment of your day. They live at a subconscious level and put a certain lens on everything you see and shape reality in that way.

You’ve acquired your beliefs in a number of ways. They come from your personal experiences and how you made sense of them. They were picked up during childhood, or during transformative periods of your life. And they were learned from those who raised you and influenced you.

That’s the problem - A lot of the beliefs we have we did not choose for ourselves, and we haven’t had the presence to question them or consider any alternative. It’s a matter of awareness (or lack thereof) that keeps us in our old beliefs, so I wanted to provide some ideas about how you can become more aware of your beliefs.

The first is an “I am” statement. This is how you identify, which is a byproduct of the way your beliefs are influencing your subconscious. Listen to the way you describe yourself to others, but also the conversation happening inside your head that’s commenting about the person you believe yourself to be.

The second form is “People are” statements. This represents how you’ve chosen to generalize others and in doing so, what you believe to be true about people at large. These beliefs affect your relationships with others - How you treat them, what you expect from them, what you think is good or bad for them… And in that way these beliefs shape your life because it shapes how you interact with other people.

Then there are “Life is” or “The world is” statements. These are your beliefs about how things work around you - What you’re in control, what forces are acting on you, and what patterns seem to come up again and again. This highlights your relationship with the big picture and where you see yourself in it.

Here’s the punchline - The beliefs you hold, or that anyone holds for that matter, are not fact. They are simply what you choose to believe. So how about you decide to have the beliefs that support what you want? Who you are, how other people are, and how the world is.

How about you feel empowered to shape your own perception, and live the life you want because you committed to it? You’re always one moment, one decision, one shift away from changing your life, and that holds more true with your beliefs than anything because it changes the filter that everything else is observed through.

I'm Brian Ford and if you want to start upgrading your beliefs so that you live with more enthusiasm and optimism, I show you exactly how to do it in 3 steps and 60 days with my Plateau to Prosperity program. If this is of interest to you, let's schedule a time to chat about how I might be able to support you.

A lot of people get hung up on this one thing in their personal development. They fear that they’re going to lose touch with who they are now when they become someone else. They fear that fundamentally they’re going to change who they are and that seems like too steep of a cost. What does that mean for your relationships? How will that change your interests and what you do on a daily basis? How will that conflict with commitments you’ve already made?

The presumed fear prevents people from really stepping up in their life. It’s the uncertain, unpredictable future that keeps people tolerating the present. Kind of like the devil you know and the devil you don’t, we’re designed to prefer that which is familiar because we feel emotionally prepared for it.

But the truth is, change is unavoidable. As a human being, you are designed to be dynamic - To evolve, to learn, and to change. Whether you resist it or not, change will happen to you. You aren’t meant to be the same person forever, and you can guide the direction of that change to move toward the life you always envisioned. 

Now don’t mistake this for meaning that you’re not ‘good enough’. You are perfect exactly how you are. You are exactly where you’re meant to be. You are complete, and amazing! But again you aren’t supposed to be there forever, circumstances will change, your life will evolve, and it’s just a matter of how.

Now if you can see around the corner and be proactive about your growth, that’s when you really start to get things to work for you. But the perception is that it comes at the cost of your current self. So the question that comes up is, “Are you willing to sacrifice who you are for who you could be?”

Really think about this. It might make you feel a little anxious. The language in the question is strong for a reason. It honors the emotional, deep roots you have grown to maintain things how they are. But that’s the point - Either you’re on the leading edge of your personal evolution, feeling like you’re leaving your former self-behind, or you are unconscious and out of touch with the changes that you ultimately experience.

 Are you willing to sacrifice who you are for who you could be?

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…)

If you’re in the US or Canada, text me at 949-799-0788 and I’ll send you daily text messages that help you grow and discover yourself every day.

Not in the US or Canada? Send me a DM on Instagram to @self.improvement.daily

Life feels busier than ever and we're trying to get as much done as possible so we don’t fall behind. We can all remember that time we were brushing our teeth while doing a squat workout and preparing breakfast, right? As much of an exaggeration as that is, we do find ourselves multitasking very often trying to manage so many things all at once.

But contrary to what we’ve learned and believed we’ve been doing for years, multitasking is impossible. It’s a myth. The conscious brain is only capable of executing one function at any one time. If you don’t believe me, try rotating your right foot in a clockwise direction and then writing the number 6 in the air with your right hand. You can’t do it! And that’s because the brain is occupied with one single task, which causes your foot to adjust to going counterclockwise instead.

You may disagree with this and recall instances when you’ve successfully had your focus on multiple things at the same time. In fact we do this every day! But it’s not multitasking. What’s actually happening is something called task-switching. You can effectively manage multiple tasks at the same time, but your attention is switching from one task to another in micro moments rather than being held in the conscious mind simultaneously.

A leader of the Navy SEAL community, Rich Diviney, references task-switching in his book “Attributes”. He considers it a mental acuity characteristic, and he defines it as an ability to shift focus among tasks back and forth. When someone can do this quickly and efficiently, they are better at doing what we call “multitasking”.

To put it another way, managing multiple tasks is more about switching focus than it is splitting focus, and these switches occur so fast that we aren’t even aware it’s happening. 

Now to make this more applicable for you, let’s relate this with managing distractions. Sometimes you focus shifts without your intention to do so. Like when you’re in the middle of a task and your phone buzzes with a message. When that happens you must redirect your attention back to the task at hand, but often you return to that task less effectively. This is because your brain is still trying to accommodate for the disruption, so it keeps unconsciously flipping back to the text message and consuming your mental energy. This is called “attention residue” and it makes it more difficult to perform well in a task.

So eliminate distractions whenever you can to prevent your attention from being hijacked, and cultivate this attribute of task-switching to increase your cognitive capabilities.

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…)

If you’re in the US or Canada, text me at 949-799-0788 and I’ll send you daily text messages that help you grow and discover yourself every day.

Not in the US or Canada? Send me a DM on Instagram to @self.improvement.daily