Yo yo yo. Welcome back to the Further your Lifestyle podcast conversations on lifestyle passions and hustles. My name's Chris, I'm your host and I'm super excited to be back here having the conversation with you Now. For me it feels like it's been a while because I've been on holidays for the last couple of weeks but I had actually front-loaded a lot of my episodes, so I haven't actually been doing a lot of recording, so I do feel a bit out of it. I feel a little bit distant from what I've been doing as a routine and back to back of weeks. Now that's okay, that's a good thing. It's always good to take a break, and it's given me some small, short and sharp things that I kind of want to talk about today In episode 216, which again continues to blow my mind that we're still here, showing up on a regular basis, and that's really the key to anything that you want to achieve.

But today I want to talk about a couple of this is going to be really short, short and sharp, but it's around this theme or topic of what are you hiding from or who are you building for, and this is a conflict between. Sometimes I feel like we do things because we're trying to avoid something else, but we justify it by doing this thing that feels really good or feels productive from an outside perspective, yet it's actually avoiding the thing that we should be doing. And then the side to this is who are we actually building it for? Are we building it for ourselves, or are we building it to prove it to someone else, or are we just trying to get that gratification or validation from someone else? So it's a bit of a deep topic. You know we spend and I've spoken about this so much, actually I spend so much time talking about this but we in general, like as a generalization, we spend so much time chasing goals or creating plans or building the life that we want and you know it can be thrown around like a cliche here I am further your lifestyle and it's easy to say all these things. But sometimes I feel like we do go on this mission to do all these things, to achieve this greatness, to get all these goals, to tick boxes, to win, win, win, win and succeed, but maybe we're not actually seeing that progress that you want and maybe it comes down to maybe there's some things that are holding you back, and there's three areas that I kind of want to brush over today, and it's really just prompts and thoughts and things to make you go actually think about this and have a reality check. We're almost at the middle of the year of 2025 and it's a good time to start to think about these things, and we'll talk about that in another episode. But these are the three things that I really want us to get into, and then we're going to get into it Right.

Number one is is your life sorry? Number one is if your life is a mirror, what part of yourself are you still refusing to look at? Like that's, that's deep, and I know there's things that we avoid or there's things that we don't want to. You know, ignorance is bliss. We don't want to even recognize it. Number two was are you building something real or just burying the truth beneath productivity? That was the point, too, that I was talking about, and to blend all this together.

Point number three is and if no one ever saw your progress, would you still show up for it? I think this is important. There's a lot of people that I know that they don't like sharing the journey, but they go, do the journey themselves and they make really good progress when sometimes we need to have that accountability. I myself, I like to have it out there because it keeps me focused, it keeps me motivated. It knows that I'm trying to live up to it. Right, but they are my own goals.

Anyway, this is what we're going to talk about today. We're going to roll the intro and let's get into it Now. If you do enjoy these episodes, make sure you do subscribe and you can leave a comment down below. You can ask a question, you can continue the conversation, but most of all, while you're listening to this, if you think there's something here that resonates with you or that someone else needs to hear it, please share this with that individual and tell them to have a listen of it. It would be greatly appreciated. All right, let's jump into it.

So section number one, or number one, was mirror moments. What are you refusing to look at? Now, this is I'm not literally meaning when you look in the mirror. I'm talking about when you look at your life. What do you avoid confronting in yourself? You know there's a lot of things here and I can get real. I'll talk personally. There's things of me I'm avoiding personally getting into. You know, maybe losing weight or getting back into my exercise routine. I had an injury last year where it's almost been a year where I haven't been able to run a lot of heel pain, and I'm now at the point where I actually don't have that pain and I'm not getting back into a groove because I am too scared to do it. It's not that I'm scared of committing, it's scared that I don't want to get back into this groove like a groove train. And then, all of a sudden, I'm taking three steps backwards again. But, on the contrary, I'm not happy and I'm not comfortable with. You know, I'm gaining weight and I'm not feeling my you know productive self because I don't have that energy, because I'm not out there exercising. So that is something that I'm avoiding to confront, but it's becoming more and more real in front of me. But I keep putting on this ignorance is bliss kind of thing, and that's me. That's me being open.

So my challenge to you is what do you avoid confronting in yourself? Like I'm confronting it, but I'm not executing on it, and that's something that I really, really need to focus on, which actually leads to prompt number two, which is is your busy? A distraction from something deeper? And this can be taken in so many different perspectives. But I know that you know, when I wasn't able to run, when I had to take time off from running and you know, neglect the exercise and all that stuff I bury myself deeper into work. If I have an issue, I usually then use my other hobby to bury myself into it and that's why previously, I loved the ability to be able to do my business, do the podcast, do the YouTube, do my running on the side, all those different things, because when one was low, the others I would put my effort and time into it to really, you know, I guess, refresh the headspace. But because I can't run at the moment, I'm lacking that ability to be able to really actually just bring balance into my life and actually sometimes I justify doing other things which are still good for where I want to be, but it's not good from a balanced perspective and I'm being 100% honest here. So my question to you again is is your busy a distraction from something else deeper that you should really be doing? Sometimes we make ourselves so busy we create chaos I've spoken about this before to avoid doing the things that we should be doing.

So are you being honest about your motives or are you just rehearsing your survival patterns? That's, I mean like this stuff is like next level deepness. You know, I think sometimes there's always going to be hidden agendas to ourselves and you know that comes down to self-sabotage. Or you want to achieve this, but really you want something else, but you're using it as a smoke and daggers kind of thing. So you've really got to look and understand of, like, why are you doing things right? Why are you doing things? And it does lead into some of the other points we're going to talk about Are you trying to do it for someone else? Are you doing it because you want validation, or are you doing it because you genuinely want something in the outcome?

For me, I'm pretty set on knowing what I want from a long-term view, how that's going to come to being. It's going to change, it's going to be constantly changing. But I'm not out here just doing this for the sake of doing it. I'm doing it because it's what I want and I'm doing it because it's going to get me to that next thing that I want. And when you get to that next thing, there's always going to be something else. But if you don't know what that is, you're really just doing rinse and repeat on the rat race, right?

And the last one, for the mirror moments, is what's one truth you've quietly known but haven't admitted? That's yeah, look, I don't think there's a truth that I'm ignoring. As I said, I tend to create chaos. I tend to do all these things to fill the void of not doing the things maybe I should be, or procrastinating on. But for you, what's one truth you've quietly known but haven't admitted? Maybe you lack this or maybe you're not doing the thing.

One thing that I used to struggle with is I used to not like taking a more because I was comfortable. But now I've realized that when I'm comfortable, that's the time to step it up, because I don't like being comfortable, because I get bored and I get complacent. Or I get lazy because I don't like being comfortable. It's like a board and I get complacent. Or I get lazy and I don't like being lazy. Now there's a difference between being lazy and taking time off and going slow right or just, you know, riding it out. But when I become comfortable of this is too easy, it just doesn't excite me. So I like to continuously create that chaos to keep me motivated. So that's some entangled mess right there. But let's move on to building or burying.

And this one, I think it comes back to the, you know, especially if you're trying to build a career, if you're trying to build a business, if you're trying to be an elite status at something, are your actions moving you forward or are they covering something else up? Sometimes, what we tend to do is we do these things saying that it's moving us forward, but it's just getting us away from the thing we do not want to do. So, yeah, it's getting us forward from that situation, but it's not actually being productive for us to where we need to be A lot of the time in order for us to actually get through and be successful and actually make a difference in our own lives. It's usually doing the hard thing, and the hard thing is usually actually facing the thing we don't want to face. Because once you face that and overcome that, you remove it from your headspace, from your weight of your shoulders, and you're able to start to make thriving decisions. Because there's not this little thing scratching at your itching and you say, oh, you haven't done this. You, you know thriving decisions. Because there's not this little thing scratching at your itching and you say, oh, you haven't done this, you haven't done that, so that's something really you got to think about.

And then there's this whole point around what's the difference between growth and escape? Right, and it's easy to put this fake idea or ideology around. No, I'm doing this because it's going to get me that, and justifying that, it's okay. You know, buy with emotion, justify with logic, when really we do these things based on the basis of someone else telling us doing it, on the basis of that we think that's what happiness is, or on the basis of that's what we think that definition of success is. But have you actually defined what your happiness looks like? Have you defined what your success looks like? Have you defined of where you want to be? Now, if you don't know, that's okay, you can cruise and figure it out and you know, pivot and adjust as you need. But you've got to understand that. Where is this all coming from, which is point?

Number three is is your ambition built from vision or fear? Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. You can have a grand dream and a grand vision, but sometimes, when we build things out of fear, we might be doing it for the wrong reasons. Now, there is this fear, when I started my business and left the nine to five, that I was never going to be able to give myself the time and effort to try and give myself that chance. Because I was never going to be able to give myself the time and effort to try and give myself that chance because I was worried I was going to regret it and run out of time. So if not now, then when? But on the contrary to that, I didn't necessarily have this big planned vision of what my business was going to look like. I left my job to do the podcast, but I had to start a business to be able to pay the bills, and from that I've learned that this is really what I want to do. I've always wanted a business, but I didn't know what it looked like.

So you know, you do need to understand where that ambition comes from, because it is going to fuel you in a different way and a different mentality. Definitely something to be thinking about. And what's one thing you've built that's helped? You hide something else. You hide something else. This is an interesting one, I think.

Over time I've realized that the more I put content out, the less I need to think about it. But when I first started I was using the content like creating content or trying to create a story around that content. That helped position me to be better than what I actually was trying to hide my insecurities. But now, as I've gotten out of that and I've become more confident in myself, I don't care about that anymore. You know, I'm putting out content that I want to do and that hopefully, is motivating other people, but if it doesn't motivate you in particular, there's definitely going to be someone else out there and trying to remove that whole vanity perspective around. You know metrics and numbers and look at me, look at me. But I'm just out here trying to do the journey and just trying to figure it out as I go, while trying to have a lot of fun while doing it. But in the past it made it easy to be able to hide some of those things and maybe project that I'm actually better than what I look Now. Whether that was what came out I have no idea, but definitely in the first year of me stepping away from my nine to five and trying to figure out this business and the content and the podcast, it was something that I had to deal with and I was hiding it and I had a bit of business coaching and some personal coaching to help me break through some of those mentalities and, you know, just perceived or misconceived ideas of things or, you know, blocked belief in all these things that maybe I didn't realize I was holding myself back. So that's something else you probably got to look at as well.

Number three was if no one saw what you were doing, would you still do it? This is integrity 101. And the amount of times I've got asked for people in my business oh, do you want to do cash? You don't have to pay tax and stuff. I said no, no, no, no, no, no. Because when you start doing things that you shouldn't be doing and it gets you get comfortable with it, it just becomes a baseline of routine and habit and I do not want to build something on the basis of it didn't work or only works because I took a shortcut or a cheat. So you really got to validate and understand are you doing the right thing when no one else is looking? Would you still create, pursue or show up if no one actually was applauding you?

Now, I think this is where it's really important to understand that the only person to compare yourself to is yourself. Look back to where you were a year ago, six months ago, six years ago, 10 years ago, wherever. That's the one that you need to be making sure is applauding you is you. If you're not happy with what you're doing, if you're not giving yourself a pat on the back, if you're not pleased with what you're doing, then you have a big problem. A pat on the back if you're not pleased with what you're doing, then you have a big problem. Right, I'm happy, but I'm not satisfied. I know I can do more and I'm rooting for myself to do it, so that's something you really need to think about. The other thing is where are you performing instead of progressing? Another big one which I think especially with content and me sharing my own journey, I have to be super careful is because I'm all about building my business, but I also want to make sure that people following along that journey are getting some level of value.

But I do not want to I'd never want to sugarcoat any of that kind of stuff, because the reality is none of this is easy. Well, for me, it might look easy. You know, I have to show up relentlessly. I have to work through problems. It's those things that might create extra stress. It's problem solving, but it's my journey and that's the beauty of it is. I've created that own chaos for myself, so I have to live with that. But I'm not out here trying to create some fake idea of what it could look like. I'm creating the reality of what it does look like and I never want to sugarcoat those things. I'm comfortable with what I'm doing. I'm comfortable with my life. I'm comfortable with how that's all playing out because I'm getting to where I want to be. But I know that makes other people uncomfortable when maybe it doesn't seem realistic for them and that's not my problem, that's a them problem.

But something for yourself to think about is are you faking it till you make it? Are you just putting on this persona and really not showing your true colors? Because you're trying to impress or trying to, you know, show up for someone else, right? That is definitely what you've got to think about and you've got to understand. You know why are you doing it, which is the next point of who are you trying to prove this to? And why. You know why are you doing it, which is the next point of who are you trying to prove this to, and why, right? I mean, it's pretty simple. Are you doing it for yourself or are you trying to, you know, impress mum and dad? Are you trying to, you know, prove yourself, prove to yourself that you're better than kids at school? Are you trying to prove to yourself that you know? Maybe your competitors, your peers or just other people? Maybe you're jealous of right. It's a big world out there.

We see a lot of other people's highlight reels and it's easy to think, hey, I want to be like them or I don't like them because they're doing this. Why do we get so dirty about other people's success? It's because we can't see ourselves doing that or we're not doing that, so we get jealous. But I think a lot of the time we actually take for granted of how great things are for ourselves, you know, and that's why it's so important to be looking back on where you've come from, what you've achieved, what you're doing. I mean, if you're not happy with where you are, look back at what you've been doing for the last six months. Have you actually been doing things that's going to get you to the result that you want? I mean, I know it's easy to say that now, but then you've got to look at okay, well, if I want this in six months coming back to my original point if I want to be back fit again, I have to actually just break those fears, break those mentalities and just get out and do it Right. I mean, it's my own fault. So you definitely have to think about that as well. And if all validation disappeared, what would you still feel is worth doing? Great one, and then you don't need to worry about the validation.

But when you start something and you're getting validated for it and then you're not, that's when things start to get a little bit of a challenge and you think what is going on here, like why is this not? I'm not getting the same vibe. It's because you're not getting this validation that it's going well. That's why you need to build a self-critiquing process to make sure that you can see what you're doing and be able to give yourself the chance to learn from that, but also to give yourself the reward and benefit of, you know, the reward of the outcome, like from the small wins or the big wins, or hitting milestones and things like that. So quick one, actually, we've been going for about 18 minutes. It's not that quick, but a challenge and prompt that I kind of want to leave you with is.

Number one is what's one thing you need to admit to yourself, even if no one else hears it. I don't need to hear it, but think about it, soak in it, think about it, write it down, journal it and give yourself that chance to really admit to yourself. Number two is what would your life look like if you only did what was aligned and not was admired? This is a strong topic that I love to talk about. If you know what you want and you're getting some sense of purpose and fulfillment from it, and you can bring that alignment of those two values together, things will start to happen really, really well. It's not about being admired by others. It's about being comfortable and confident and satisfied and happy with what you're doing right, and if you admire what you're doing, then that's all that matters Stuff everyone else.

Number three is this week I challenge you to do this thing right Is show up for something that no one else sees they don't need to know about it and do it like it most mattered in your life, and there's probably things that you want to be doing and you're scared of not, you know, scared of doing it. I'm talking for myself here, but you don't need to document it, you don't need to be telling people about it. Get out there, make yourself feel good, do the things that you want to try, give it a go and don't get validation from anyone else but yourself. Right, that's it for me.

If you enjoyed this episode, please let me know down in the comments below. If you're listening on the audio side only, you can jump over to the YouTube, you can leave a comment, you can say hi and we can continue the conversation. Appreciate you being here. I've missed doing some episodes. We're going to get back into a groove. I mean, it makes no difference to you, I'm just talking myself because I haven't done it for a while, but I'm keen to get back into a groove and we're almost by the time this episode comes out. We probably are. We're probably mid-year already, so we'll be talking about you know how we can start to look into a mid-year reflection. And then how do we take that next six months or the next half of the year of 2025 and turn it into some level of greatness and whether you're here in 2025, 2026, or in the future even, it's still going to be an episode super relevant for you, so that's coming soon as well. Appreciate you being here. You have a wonderful day, cheers.