The format today is a little different. A few weeks ago I recorded an incredible conversation with my good friend Gina Worful where we really dug into one core concept -Self-sabotage.

Here's the summary:

• Self-sabotage occurs at a subconscious level, meaning it influences you without you even knowing it
• Self-sabotage creates a tension in your life because you perceive incongruence between what your mind wants / expects and what your reality brings
• Self-sabotage takes the form of irrational thinking, overgeneralization, limiting beliefs, and procrastination
• Self-sabotage lives in your reptilian and limbic brain, but is made sense by our cognitive brain
• To start intervening with your self-sabotage, you need to cultivate a mindful curiosity around your emotions (shame, guilt, etc.) to begin making the unconscious conscious

When you start diving into this you’d be shocked to learn all the ways that self-sabotage holds you back and keeps you from doing the things you want to do. It’s when you have a plan in place but you fail to take action on it. When you have good intentions to be a certain way but you fall back to how things used to be. Whether this is a new or old concept for you, I think you’d learn a lot by watching the full conversation I had with Gina. You can find it here: https://grow.selfimprovementdailytips.com/self-sabotage-discussion

The first step to overcoming anything is awareness, and this video will give you more knowledge and ideas around how you can take back control of your mind (and life!) Reach out and let me know what you think!

I don’t know what’s going on in your life, and if you need to hear this, but if anything it’s a good reminder to trust the process. Often times we encounter situations that are overwhelming, all-consuming, and seemingly impossible. In the face of illness, disability, financial hardship, relationship issues, everything can feel too heavy to carry. You can resolve that you’re not going to make it. But you will, you always do, and if I’m being honest I've found “it all works out.”

That’s not to say that things won’t be different. They will. Divorce will change your life. An injury will change your life. Downsizing your house or moving to a more affordable place will change your life. But it’s never the end, life goes on and it all works out.

What’s extremely hard to do in the moment, but what I’d challenge you to do the next time you face something like this, is to have faith in the process. To believe that all of this is happening for you in one way or another. It might not look like it and it certainly might not feel like it, but know that there’s something larger happening that is preparing you for greater, leading you forward, and serving you in ways you’re not aware of.

What feels like life-destroying circumstances are truly just life-changing circumstances. Significant? Yes. Defining? Perhaps. But it’s not the end. It’s your choice and within your power to assign meaning to everything you’re experiencing, and to wrap this up let me ask you this question - What are you going through right now that worries you? Breathe into it, and tell yourself, “it’s all works out.”

If you’re in the US or Canada, text me at 949-799-0788 and I’ll send you daily prompts that help you get to know yourself better and build a more meaningful life every day. 

If you’re looking to grow alongside a community of like-minded improvers, then click here to join the Better Together Community.

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I’m going to tell you the truth, and I hope you’re ready to hear it. You are the limiting factor in your life. You are the bottleneck to achieving your hopes and dreams, the thing that gets in the way of you discovering and living authentic happiness, and the roadblock to feeling fulfilled and significant in the ways you’re contributing to the world. While that might sound like a bad thing it’s actually a really good thing because that means you are in control. You’ve probably heard the expression “mind over matter” before and it’s a powerful thought because the mind knows no limits. Whatever you set your mind to (and choose to believe) sets the boundaries for what you can or can’t do in life. 

Taking this to heart, I’ve been running an experiment on myself for the last few weeks that demonstrates this. Every morning as part of my morning routine I do 10 minutes of stretching. It’s full body, usually top down, but I always end it with a hamstring stretch as that’s the most painful and where I can push myself the most. For as long as I can remember I’ve always been much more flexible in my left leg than my right, and I resolved to believe that’s just how it was. That meant that I accepted the fact that I didn’t need to reach as far when stretching my right leg. 

But then I realized, I was just choosing to tell myself the story that my left leg was more flexible than my right. And in telling myself that story every morning I was okay taking action in a way that actually further separated my flexibility. I was feeding myself a limitation and it was making things worse.

So I changed my story. I started telling myself that I’m working on getting the same flexibility in my right leg as my left. And what that did was it set an intention in my morning stretching to not settle for less. I didn’t allow myself to make excuses when I started feeling more pain. And in repeatedly pushing myself and putting my body in that stretch, it adjusted. Now maybe 4 weeks of doing it, the difference in flexibility between my two legs is only slightly noticeable, and I’m confident my flexibility will be the same within a month.

We constantly tell ourselves limiting stories and beliefs that are designed to keep things how they already are. This is one way, among many, that your mind sabotages your success. Here's the kicker - As long as you choose to neglect how these forces are present in your life, you will be holding yourself back. You will be the roadblock, the bottleneck, and the obstacle.

Defeating self-sabotage will transform your life. The first step to anything is awareness, and if you want to learn more about self-sabotage, and your own self-sabotaging tendencies, then I have something for you. I sat down with a good friend and expert on the topic, Gina Worful, and we had a fascinating conversation all about it. It’s almost half an hour long, and you can start freeing yourself from all the unnecessary weight by learning how it's affecting you in the first place. Access the conversation here: https://grow.selfimprovementdailytips.com/self-sabotage-discussion

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Last week I had the pleasure of connecting with former Navy SEAL Rich Diviney and he shared an insight I wanted to pass along to you. Rich is the author of the book “The Attributes” and as one of the most optimized humans on Earth, he made a very fundamental distinction that he uses to help others optimize the ways they contribute and exist within society.

It’s the difference between attributes and skills. Attributes are intangible. They’re something that you’re born with in some capacity and your attributes get expressed in everything you do. In that way your attributes inform your behavior because they are the context that everything you do exists within. It’s your character traits, qualities, and dispositions.

Skills are different from attributes in that they’re more measurable. A skill can be presented or performed in a way that clearly demonstrates if you have it. You are not born with skills, they are learned and acquired over time.

Why is this distinction important? You want to surround yourself with people who have the right attributes. These are the people that have fundamentals like grit, mental acuity, and drive that make you better. Their ideals, values, and standards of operating inspire you to be better. That’s not to say that attributes can’t be developed, they absolutely can, but unlike skills they develop slower and in ways that are difficult to observe.

To put this in an example, last week I learned how to do a backflip. Doing a backflip is the skill, it’s clear whether I can do it or not, and how good I am at it. The attributes that were expressed in that process were having the courage to try, learnability to integrate instruction, and humility to not expect a result immediately.

Rich has put together a great assessment so you can see for yourself which attributes you most possess within your grit. You can go through that exercise by visiting his website here: https://theattributes.com/grit-assessment/

You’re probably familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which is basically the progression of attaining different tiers of needs from physiological to safety to love and belonging to esteem and then to self-actualization. We all interface all of these needs, some are more prominent than others based on the state of your life, which means that they are weighted differently depending on what’s most important to you.

You can gain insights into your needs by looking at the problems you’re experiencing. At the end of the day, problems are just unmet needs. We’re motivated to solve problems and meet our needs because we experiencing discomfort when we leave things unresolved. With that deeply rooted motivation, what that means is you will always get your needs met. What’s important to consider is the way that you’re doing that.

Let’s say that you have a need for more belonging and intimacy in a relationship. You could be vulnerable in your relationship and communicate about your needs, or you could seek out getting attention from someone else to fill that void. You can not have your baseline need of having food met so you can go and buy food (if you can afford it), you can get assistance from government organizations, or you can steal it. If you don’t address the need it will grow stronger and stronger until eventually it creates an urge to satisfy it that is unavoidable.

Seeing this through the lens of your best self, it is very important that you are aware of the problems you’re experiencing, what underlying need that problem is suggesting is not getting met, and what you’re doing to meet that need. You can build structure and expectations to be accountable to doing productive and healthy things to meet your needs. Combining intention and awareness will help you get what you need and ensure you’re doing it in the right way.

To integrate this into your life today ask yourself this question - What problem do I keep on experiencing and how am I solving it?

If you’re in the US or Canada, text me at 949-799-0788 and I’ll send you daily prompts that help you get to know yourself better and build a more meaningful life every day. 

If you’re looking to grow alongside a community of like-minded improvers, then click here to join the Better Together Community.

I had a first-world problem moment of realization that added some really important perspective to my life, and I wanted to share it with you. Have you ever gotten frustrated about not having enough space in the fridge or the pantry to fit all your food? What happens is you need to take everything out, put it on the counter, and strategize how to make all the puzzle pieces fit one by one. It can take 10, 15, 20 minutes to organize and sure, it’s a little inconvenient. But here’s the perspective shift.

How blessed are you to have so much food that you can’t fit it all? When you put it that way, it’s such a good problem to have because it certainly defeats the alternative of not having enough food.

While we’re on the topic, something else I think about is how magical a grocery store is. There are people in this world that wouldn’t dream of seeing so much food in one place, available for you to pick exactly what you want and take it with you. We live this every day, we take that kind of access for granted and we’ve grown accustomed to the incredible privileges we have that we don’t appreciate them as much as we should.

And this is 100% myself included, which is why I wanted to bring it up. The more mindful we can be about the things we have in our life, and the more often we can be grateful for it, the better our personal experience becomes and the more inspired we’ll be to share what we have with others in need.

To wrap this up let me ask you a question - Can you relate with this? Have you ever been frustrated by having too much food to fit in your fridge?

If you’re in the US or Canada, text me at 949-799-0788 and I’ll send you daily prompts that help you get to know yourself better and build a more meaningful life every day. 

If you’re looking to grow alongside a community of like-minded improvers, then click here to join the Better Together Community.

I wanted to call out a concept that is massively important to me because 1) It’s the first chapter of the most transformational books I’ve ever read, “The Promise Of A Pencil” by Adam Braun, and 2) My good friend John Piasta brought it up in conversation and made me question my understanding about it. The thought is - Do people want to stand out from the crowd? Do people want to achieve and contribute, and be more than average? I always thought the answer is “Yes” without having a second thought, but today I’m reconsidering it.

I’m cut from the cloth where I have always wanted to excel. I’m a competitor that constantly wants to push the boundary for myself and what I think is possible. This also means that my happiness and identity is wrapped up in how much I’m creating or contributing to society. It’s what I authentically enjoy doing and it motivates me to think and desire bigger. It can certainly lead to disappointment when you fall short, but when approached correctly I think ambition can be very healthy.

However I’m realizing that guess what… There are people that are not like me. They are content in the simplicities of their own life, present in its richness and at peace with their circumstances. They don’t desire to be anything more than average. And that is okay! I don’t want to impose judgment on this, I think it’s an amazing gift to know what makes you happy and to live in alignment with that. I don’t expect that anyone dedicates their life to anything other than what makes them happy, but I do hope that they have the perspective to know what is available to them and what exists around them. For example I was shocked to learn that, if you want to be in the top 1% of income earners in the world, you need to make $52,000 a year. Hopefully that helps contextualize your privilege and good fortune.

There’s no right answer here, there’s just what’s right for you. And to integrate this into your life I want to ask you the question that Adam Braun asks in the first chapter of his book - “Why be normal?” And think about how that lands for you. Do you find yourself justifying why it’s okay to be normal, or do you feel pulled to do more to step outside of your comfort zone?

If you’re in the US or Canada, text me at 949-799-0788 and I’ll send you daily prompts that help you get to know yourself better and build a more meaningful life every day. 

If you’re looking to grow alongside a community of like-minded improvers, then click here to join the Better Together Community.

The concept of luck is a misunderstood thing. We often relate luck to chance, that there’s a random probability that something can happen. While it’s true there is a relationship between luck and chance, it’s much more elaborate than calling them the same thing. There’s an expression from the Greek Philosopher Seneca that goes “luck is when opportunity meets preparation” and I've really found this to be true.

Chance is relevant to luck when you relate it to the first part of this expression - Opportunity. When something is an opportunity it simply suggests there’s potential that something can happen. An opportunity is just one option among many, and the fact that an opportunity exists does not guarantee that anything is going to come of it. There is an element of random chance that puts certain opportunities in front of you, we call this “catching a lucky break”, but that alone is not sufficient. Luck is only observable when that random, chance opportunity materializes into something good.

That’s where the second part comes in - Preparation. Being prepared increases the odds that an opportunity will yield positive results because you have built the skills, infrastructure, work ethic or whatever it takes to maximize the opportunity. You’re ready to make the most of everything in front of you because you have the right pieces already in place. And when that chance opportunity arrives, you can apply your preparation to convert potential into something meaningful.

One of the most successful golfers in history Arnold Palmer said something that perfectly summarizes this thought. He says “The more I practice the luckier I get”. Why is that? It’s because his practice has prepared him to seize the moment, and the more often that happens, the luckier you appear to be. Luck is just an observation that things seem to go right often. If that’s the case, then we all can be lucky by creating more opportunities and refining our skills.

I’d love for you to reflect on the role luck has played in your life - Do you consider yourself to be lucky?

If you’re in the US or Canada, text me at 949-799-0788 and I’ll send you daily prompts that help you get to know yourself better and build a more meaningful life every day. 

If you’re looking to grow alongside a community of like-minded improvers, then click here to join the Better Together Community.