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. Episode 232 today, and we're talking about you. Yes, it's probably one of the most important conversations because it's about you, it's about me, it's about us, it's about ourselves. That's what we're talking about. And it's been a topic which continuously pops up in my mind because it keeps myself honest, and I go through this little bit of a process to see what are the things that I'm holding back or what are the things that are holding me back in order to get to me, to get getting me to where I want to be. Now I went out for a run this morning and I didn't want to do the run. I've been still struggling with getting back into my confidence groove of that. Anyway, I got out, it was good, it was the best run that I've done in a long time. And the point of that is, you know, the only thing that is stopping you from getting to where you are today to where you want to be is literally you, right? And I'm gonna read this out to you. The uncomfortable truth is this it's not the economy, it's not your schedule, it's not your upbringing, it's none of these things that is holding you back. It is purely you and your head. The gap between where you are and where you want to be is built on your own resistance. And if you can own that, if you can take control of that, that's when everything will change. That's what we're talking about today. I've got a couple of different points that I want to take you through just as a refresher, and um, then we'll get yeah, then I'll I'll I'll finish it up. This is gonna be quick. Like I really just want to make sure we take a moment to really just have a deep deep dive into ourselves personally. Now we've been talking about a lot of the things I'm gonna be talking about today over the last few weeks, but I continuously want to come back here, make sure we talk about the same things because until you click, until you get it, you're not gonna make the progress that you want to make, and you're not going to vother your lifestyle if you do not make the changes in becoming the best version of yourself. We're gonna roll the intro, but if you enjoy these episodes, make sure you do like, subscribe, uh, comment, even if you want to continue the conversation. But most of all, please share it with someone else if you think they need to hear this. Let's roll the intro. So, the first uh main talking point that I want to jump on today is you are both the problem and the solution. Lucky us, we are two things at once. And we we've been talking about this for the last couple of weeks. I I've spoken about it probably about six weeks ago, and I think I did it just a couple of weeks ago. We're talking about you know external, internal things. And it's so easy to blame things on external forces time, money, people, weather, whatever. And it's very easy to do this. But every excuse is a permission simply to slip basic basically So let me say that again. Every excuse that we do is basically a permission slip uh we're writing to ourselves. It's giving us the permission to slip away from doing the things that we should be doing. That's essentially what it is. Now, there's excuses and there's situations. There's uh excuses which we can use to then avoid having to do the things that we should be doing. And then there's situations which literally take us out of control, out of our control that we cannot control, and it means we can't do what we had originally planned to do. A good example of this is if you're driving to work, you get a flat tire, you like you could not have got to work any quicker. Sure, you could have left your car on the side of the road, got an Uber, and left your car, but really you gotta deal with it at that point in time. It's dangerous, it's emergency, you gotta get on top of it. That is something that it's not an excuse for being late. It's it's an actual valid reason for being late. But if you're you know sleeping in, putting snooze on your alarm, not really getting up, and then you're late to work, that's on you. You get my point. So life can be hard. We have to acknowledge it. Life can be hard, life can be a pain in the butt, but self-responsibility is the way we can get ultimate freedom. Because once you take ownership, once you become responsible for what you're doing, once you become responsible for your actions and who you are and who you want to be, what else is there to matter about? Like you are in control. Now, there's always going to be situations which come into our world that we can't control. But how we handle them, how we manage them, and how we, you know, react or proactively react to those situations is going to be the reason and the definition of how we continue to further our lifestyles and become a better version of yourself and get yourself ultimately to where you want to be. Number two, self-sabotage is the invisible wall. Ah, this one's great. Procrastination, doubt, perfectionism, they're all symptoms of a deeper fear. And it's very easy to put these things in place, use them as excuses when really we just don't want to deal with the fear. We've been talking about the invisible wall, we've been talking about getting, you know, out of our comfort zones, which is the next topic actually. But the point is this the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek. We spoke about this the other week, right? If you if you're not willing to go in a little bit further, have a look, you know, embrace the things that are scaring you, then how can you expect to get the hidden treasures or unlock that next version of yourself? It I mean, like you can't you don't get to have your cake and eat it too. Such a great saying. You can look at your cake, you can keep it in the fridge and think, ah, that's so good. But you don't get to keep it and eat it as well. So either you eat it or you don't. That's simple. So when it comes to the self-sabotage and the invisible wall, you gotta look at it as like you're not lazy, you're just downright scared. You're scared of failure, you're scared of judgment, and you're s you're scared of success as well. That's rough, but that's the reality of it. What have you been putting as, you know, excuses or blaming other things when really, really, you just need to get on top of it. Right? Comes back to comfort zones. Comfort zones are cages. We put ourselves in boxes or safe zones just because we want to stay safe or in this familiar territory, but really it's creating misery. That's all it's doing. You don't know it at the moment, but as you get further along and you realize why haven't things changed? Because you haven't changed. You haven't done anything to enable yourself to have something different happening in your world, in your life. Opportunity, take on a little bit of risk, have a conversation with someone, ask for permission to do something, go try something new. All these different things. If you're not willing to do it, then you can't be willing to expect to grow. Staying in your comfort zone is a choice, and it's the one you make daily. That's on you. We're talking about you. You have to take ownership of it. And then there's this analogy, it's like living in a prison with keys in your own pocket. You can open that door anytime you want, but are you willing to? That is the question. Are you willing to? Most of us are not. And I I I I go on like a broken record about this so much because when we do what we think we cannot do and give it a go, you'll realize it actually wasn't that bad and you're capable of doing it. I get goosebumps thinking about the amount of times people told me that what I was doing was an absolutely career sabotage. Walking away from my nine to five, coming to build this business myself, getting told from people that I cannot be successful at this. Now, success is defined on what we wanted on what we want to define it as. And I'm I'm happy regardless of where it is at this point. Sure, there's more things that I want. I'm I'm happy but not satisfied. But the brilliant thing is, I'm way more satisfied and happy, both satisfied and happy than what I was doing before. And that's all that matters to me. But imagine if I had listened to the noise of other people and used that to stay comfortable and use that to box myself into this cage. But oh no, I knew I wanted to do something, so I took control and I did it, and I continuously do it. I show up, I do the work, and I rinse, repeat, and I do it again, and I find new ways to grow, find new ways to push myself, and we make it happen. You just got to be willing to do that. So every step forward is a permission. You don't need to feel ready, you just need to start, you just need to take the step, you just need to go do it. Action is what builds the clarity. Not thinking about it endlessly. You can think about it all you want, but it will not get you the results or give you the experience for the results. You know, when you put in reps, you learn so much quicker. When you give something a go, you learn so much quicker. When you fail quickly, you learn so much quicker. And that is how you become very better at doing something that at the start seems very hard, but then it becomes easier, simpler, quicker, and you build the resistance, you build the resilience, you build the ability, you build the experience, you build the wisdom, you build the skills to be able to do this just normally. So here's a quote for you You're waiting to feel like it. But what if the feeling only comes after you've done it? You you want to you you have these ideas like, oh, I can't wait till I can get to here. But if you're not doing anything that gets you here, why would you not go on the journey and start making that happen? The best time to start was today or 20 years ago, right? That's the best time that's that's off the quote about investing. But the point is, you know, you could have started doing something a while back, but you didn't. So now is that time. Don't wait till Monday, don't wait till next week, don't wait till next month. What can you do today that gets you one step closer to where you want to be? And then number five is thy identity shift. Who are you right now? Sorry, who you are right now may not be capable of what you want. So therefore you have to change, you have to become someone else, you have to become the person you want to be. Now, the the the thing, this is where it kind of gets a bit weird, because it's like a you know future, present, past. But the person you could become, they're already waiting on the other side of that effort. That's why when we get to places we think, oh, it wasn't really that bad, and you look back in hindsight and think, gee, I should have done this quicker. That's because you already are capable of doing these things. You just don't know it because you haven't given it a go. If you want a different life, you need to become a different version of yourself. If you want to level up, you have to level up. If you want to do something that you've never done before, then you have to start trying to do it as if you've never done it before. Like it's not rocket science. Oh, this cracks me up. So, a couple of things that you can think about that I'm gonna leave you with. Number one is what's really stopping you? Not like what you tell people, but what deep down is really stopping you? Number two, what's one thing you've avoided that you know could move you forward? And number three, who do you need to become to earn the life you say you want? They're on you to answer. I'm gonna leave you with this. You don't need to wait for the motivation, you don't need to wait around for motivation at all. You just need a sign. Sorry, let me say that again. I've got these notes here. I'd written this down and I only read it once before I started. We'll say that again. You don't need to wait for motivation, you don't need a sign, and you don't need permission. The only permission you'll ever need is the one you give yourself. So if you're waiting for motivation, go take action. If you're looking for a sign, this is the sign, but go take action. And if you're wanting permission, you've already given it to yourself. Go take action. That's all you gotta do. I'm gonna leave it there. Short and sharp, keeping it honest, keeping it real. I'd love to hear from you if you want to continue the conversation. You can jump down into the comments. Otherwise, I want you to get out there, take action, and do one thing today that's gonna get you closer to where you want to be. I have so many people that say to me, Oh, how do you do this? Oh, you've got consistent growth, you haven't how did you achieve this? It's like I keep doing things and I'm just not saying it. Well, are you just doing the same things or are you actually doing things that puts you in a position to grow? That's what you've got to be doing. Appreciate you being here. You have a wonderful day. Cheers.