Yo yo yo. Welcome back to the Further your Lifestyle podcast conversations on lifestyle passions and hustles. My name's Chris, I am your host and I'm super excited to be back here having the conversation with you Episode 212 today and I want to ask you a question Do you ever feel like you keep hitting the same wall? Let's be frank here we're getting straight into it, right? You feel like you're showing up, you feel like you're putting in the effort, you feel like you're doing all the things that you're supposed to be doing, but nothing's changing. You're not catching a break. You're not seeing the results that you're expecting to see. Why do you think that is and maybe, just maybe the thing that is actually holding you back? It's not actually out there. There's nothing out there that is actually going to change that. It's something that maybe you're doing, and it's something that you're doing on repeat, and it's probably likely you don't even know you're doing it. That's what we're talking about today. If that sounds like something that you're struggling with, that you keep hitting the same wall or you're not seeing the results, there's obviously and I believe there's probably some patterns that you can't see that are causing you to get into these sticky situations. Now, it might not be exactly all that either, but we're going to discuss it today. We're going to go through it. We're going to go through some prompts, we're going to go through some different points and parts of this episode which will hopefully, hopefully, help you come out on the other end realizing what you need to do to move forward. Now, if this sounds like something you're interested in, buckle up, but make sure you hit subscribe and you can leave a comment down below as well, or you can continue the conversation or you can ask a question along the way. But most of all, if you think this episode's of value to you, please share it with someone else. Maybe we can help them see the patterns that they don't see already. That would mean the absolute world to me.

We're going to roll the intro. Let's get into it. So we're going to keep this episode pretty short and sharp. There's going to be a whole bunch of different prompts that I'm going to go through. I might even share a bit of my own experience as well, but this is for you. This is for you to go through, to really visit in your own time.

Spend some extra time to think through, challenge yourself and see if there's things here that you need to take action on, and the first thing that we're going to be talking about is what are patterns? Now, before we say that though before we get into that is I wanted to start off with this quote you can't break through if you're reinforcing the same walls that are keeping you in. Right, we feel like maybe we're taking two steps forward, but then you end up taking five steps backwards, or because you think like you're making progress, but you're actually making it harder because you keep doing something else. That's what we want to discover today, and that is part one. What are patterns? And these are usually unseen patterns. These are things such as like routines or thoughts, habits or reactions that potentially, or most of the time, will always be automatic. Sometimes you might not even know that you're doing it right, and that's the reason why there are unseen patterns. But now, they're not necessarily bad habits that you're aware of. They're kind of like invisible behaviors that we normalize or that we've always been doing. I'll give you some examples Procrastination disguised as perfectionism.

This is a huge one for myself. I like to have things right the best way possible, which means you end up procrastinating on actually moving forward and actually putting in the action work. The other one is saying I'm just busy, as a way to avoid uncomfortable growth. You don't have time to take on this next thing because you're too busy, when really you just don't want to have to deal with it because you know it's going to make you have to work harder and change things that make you comfortable. The next one is starting strong, but always quitting when it gets uncomfortable.

We are so easy to say we're going to go, do this, we're going to conquer that, we're going to smash this, we're going to complete this, we're going to get that All these different amazing goals. But when we get into the hard work, we realize this isn't what you signed up for, this isn't what you thought it was going to be. You thought it was going to be a piece of cake and no, it was just a sandwich of rocks. Right, a lot of hard work and look, this happens. This is normal and that's why we're talking about it. The other one is always focusing on learning but never actually applying. You can listen to this podcast. You could feel motivated, inspired, encouraged, but if you do nothing about it, what's going to happen? Nothing, nothing's going to happen. So that's why we need to get into the details of this. That's why we need to understand why is this so dangerous?

Now, the beauty of patterns are they do feel safe. I love routines, right. Routines make me get things done easier, because it makes me more comfortable. But they can be limiting and our brains naturally crave familiar over effective, because familiar makes our brain obviously not have to process as much, which makes it easier for us to be able to do, do, do. If you hit yourself with a hammer while hammering a nail, the next time you go to do it you're going to be a little bit scared to do it. I was literally just out riding my bike and there's this route that I take and in the past I have been swept by magpies there and it was horrible. I've been attacked numerous times there, but today I'm like you know what? I don't want to have to go the long way. Today let's go this way. And down there I didn't get attacked, but I was terrified because the brain was freaking out, thinking it's going to happen again and it didn't right. So that's why our brains work the way they do.

You can want progress, all you want, but if your habits are not aligned with how you're trying to execute. You're going to stall every time. That's just the matter of fact. Right? Your comfort zone is made up of, like current, patterns, so if you break those patterns, we can expand the zone, our comfort zone. We talk about this all the time, so it's really important. That's why we want to get out of this dangerous zone. That's why we want to understand what these patterns are, so want to get out of this dangerous zone. That's why we want to understand what these patterns are. So how do we recognize what these loops even look like?

There's some questions that we can ask ourselves. Number one is when things get uncomfortable, what do you do every time? Do you push or do you pull away? For me, I tend to create chaos for myself. I tend to put myself in positions now that's going to force me to grow Back in the day. I would never do that, but now, because I am responsible and accountable in building the business that I want, I push myself in those limits. There's other areas where I lack in this. I'm too scared to do it. There's a lot of things I could do with this podcast, but I've been too scared to do it, so I pull away. What about you? What are things that get when things get comfortable? What do you do every time? The next question is where in your life do you feel stuck and what have you done over and over again to fix it? There's probably a lot of you here sitting here today or listening or driving or whatever, where you felt like you feel stuck. You're not moving forward. But what have you been doing to actually change it? You might go do something, but if you keep doing one thing and it's not getting the result you want to see, you probably have to change it. That's just the way it works.

Do you start over a lot but never follow through? I see a lot of people saying they want all these things. They get on the latest fad, they think, oh, I'm going to start this business, I'm going to make all this money, I'm going to do this, and then they disappear and they jump to the next thing and I get it. We need to get into a groove of finding who we are, what we want and all those different things. But if we actually just started with the thing that's making us uncomfortable, which is us having to go through the hard process of figuring out how to make our idea, our dream, a reality. We don't have to spend all this time jumping around 10 different ideas of someone else's dream, right, it's very easy to watch someone on YouTube that tells you here's the best way to make $1,000 this month. You go try. It doesn't work out. So you go to the next one, when really you've got this idea that maybe you want to revolutionize tissue boxes. I don't know right, but you've been putting it off because you're scared. You don't know where to start, you don't know how much it's going to cost. What do you do? How do you even start with that? You have to get uncomfortable. That's how you start, right.

So the other thing is do you chase new things? When hard work starts? I like to call these side quests. It's very starts, I like to call these side quests. It's very, very, very, very, very, very cliche, very normal to see people and myself when you know you've got to be doing X and you go do Y because you feel like that's going to make you productive, but you're really not doing the one thing that you should be doing.

Your comfort zone is made up of your current patterns. If you can break those patterns, we can expand the zone right. So you need to stop doing all those things that make you comfortable, right. That's why we said it before. But we've been recognizing these loops. We've been recognizing these loops right.

I'm taking you through a few different examples. So the key thing here is awareness is the first step. When we can make ourselves aware, we can then start to work through it. Now you can't fix a pattern you refuse to acknowledge. We can then start to work through it. Now you can't fix a pattern you refuse to acknowledge. If you don't acknowledge that there is something that you need to fix, then how are you going to fix it? So what do we do from here?

And, like I said, this is a very short and sweet episode. What do you do from here? The first thing is we want to create pattern interrupts. We want to do something different on purpose. That's why I always force myself to get into a little bit of chaos, because it forces me to figure out how to do it. It creates yourself into this boxed area that if you want to move and if you want to level up, you've got to solve for it. Very dangerous, risky, but it works for me.

Otherwise is do something different, maybe on the way home, instead of just walking the same way, maybe go a different way. It's going to challenge you. You're going to learn new things. It's going to be a small experiment, and that's another thing. Doing small experiments Change the routine slightly to observe the ripple. The other thing you can do is call it out. Once you name it, you can start to, I guess, tame it, or you can start to control it and start to understand what is the triggers, what are the things that are causing you to do these things. Then we can replace it.

Now you can't just stop a habit, but if you can swap it, your brain's going to get a little bit tricked and, kind of like, just naturally ease into that. That would be my recommendation for you. So you're not stuck, you're just in a loop, right, and it's time. You basically just got to agree that now is the time that you need to step out of it. I have a few more challenges for you, right? Number one is what's a habit or a behavior that you keep repeating that you know is holding you back, but you haven't addressed? For me, it's all those side quests of procrastination. The other one is if you keep doing what you're doing right now? Where will you be a year from now? This is a tough one, because that's a reality check, and I think we know the answer to these, but that's why I'm asking you to ask yourself now what pattern do you need to break to actually see the progress you've been chasing? What's the thing that's holding you back? What's the thing that's pulling you away from your potential? Break it. It is time to break it. And then the last thing that I'll ask you is what would your week look like if you made one small change to your routine?

People get scared that change is here to you know. Screw up your life, it's not. Change is constant and change is always going to come, and if you can control that change, it means you're going to have all the power. So make a change that's going to change your life. So progress doesn't come from doing more. It comes from doing things different. It comes from doing things innovatively right. It comes from doing things in a way that's going to change up your life, and until you're willing to challenge the way you show up, you're always going to end up back where you started. You're always going to be hitting that wall. So your future and this. It may sound corny, but this is the reality of it. Your future depends on the pattern you choose to break next, and if you don't do it, we'll be here having these conversations again and again, and again. It means no difference to me whether you do this or not.

My goal here is to really provide some level of value, some insights to help you further your lifestyle. This is my way of doing that. There's things here that I need to go take action on, and there's things here that I've already experienced and I've been able to change. Heck, getting out of the nine to five and then taking the gamble and the risk to build a business on my own from zero. That is the biggest pattern interrupt I've ever done, but it was the best thing that I ever did.

I'm not here to say go do that, but there's small things that you can do that's going to change your life, and it just starts with doing one thing. So please let me know down in the comments what are you going to change, what are you going to break? And I would love to hear from you If you want to continue the conversation or maybe you've got a question about this, maybe need some help. Always happy to have the conversation. You can send me an email or you can hit me up on Instagram, or you can just drop a comment and we can get in contact. I would love to be able to help you and, of course, if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone else. Appreciate you all. We'll be back here again next week doing it all again. You have a wonderful day, cheers.