Best Of: How to Stop Worrying
6 Aug 2019 · 16 min
Brendon Burchard breaks down three types of pain that fuel worry: loss pain, process pain, and outcome pain. He teaches how reframing each one shifts your mindset to embrace change and perform better.
Hey, my friends, it's Brendon Burchard and welcome to a best of edition of the Brendan show. These best of episodes feature training that I have done live, sometimes on online to tens of thousands of people or live on stage where I was speaking on some stages across the world. Or these might be some of my monthly training programs and highlights of those that I do every single month with our monthly students. So I know you're going to really enjoy these because these are a little bit more of a deep dive look at some of my training as a personal and professional development trainer. You know, I focus so much on helping you find that deeper level of motivation and start practicing some of those high performance habits. Well, you hear me talk about many of those concepts and in these special episodes here, these are my best of trainings only and exclusively right here on the Brendon show. So I hope you enjoyed them. Please note that as you hear me speak in many of these, you'll hear me reference something because sometimes I'll have been training live or on video or on stage or through a broadcast. So you might not be able to see something I'm suggesting or motioning to or maybe even drawing out on a flip chart or motioning towards on a presentation, but you'll get the gist of it. So make sure you bust out your journal. Take some good notes here because this is really valuable insights on the mindset or the strategies that you need to adopt in order to improve your life. And if you want to go and get more content like this, but much more deeper and have more of an interactive relationship with me in this type of training, make sure you join our high performance monthly training program. That's our monthly subscription program where I go live with you and our high performance students every single month and I train on a new topic or a new piece of research that we've created from the high performance institute and I train on that and then I do Q and A and actual live coaching, interactive coaching with people every single month. That's called high performance monthly and you can Access it at brendon.com monthly that's brendon.com monthly B-R-E-N-O-N.com forward/monthly to get deeper dive training similar to this. So if you like this, you would love that training program. But without further ado, let's jump in right now to one of the Brendon shows, best of trainings.
I believe that fear gets way too much airplay. You know, I think so many people say well, people don't take action because they have too much fear or. Or fear is holding people back. And I think this is so common in our language, it's almost to the point where it's almost comedic. It's ridiculous. It's like, well, what are they fearful of? What are they so scared of? You know, we live in the modern world right now where there's not all these impulsive fears that are driven by a physical reality to be safe. You know, we're not being chased by animals that are trying to kill us often. Right. So most of the fears that we actually have are just negative, contemplative thoughts that we're rerunning too often and we're associating so much pain to that it becomes convenient. Oh, it's fear. As if some fear is some big, unknowable, scary, awful thing. Well, mostly it's not. Most fear is just bad management of our own mental faculties. It's not an impulsive physical thing generating in our brain telling us to, you know, fight, flight or flee. And everyone wants to use that excuse. You know, we still have all these, you know, biological psychologists or people running around saying, well, it's just an impulsive thing that people can't understand or be conscious of. Right? It's the unconscious fears. It's just wiping us out. It's like, get over it. Neuroscience has shown, like, we have much more powerful capabilities than most of us think that we do. And the reality is, most fear, once you understand what it actually is, and it usually is a contemplative process, and once they understand what it is, and then it's like, oh, we can overcome it, because what is it then? I mean, what is fear? What are we so scared of? What's going to hurt us? What is this thing that we fear is going to bring so much pain in our lives? Ever thought about it? What is it? What is the thing that we're so scared that's going to bring in all this pain to our lives? I remember figuring this out for myself, and when I did, I wasn't so scared anymore. Because sometimes, you know, the things, once you understand them more, they're not so terrifying. Once something becomes knowable, you can develop competency around it. Once you can develop competency around it, then you can develop confidence around it. There's this old thing in psychology we call the competence confidence loop. The more you understand something, the more confidence you have in that area. Same thing with anything that does happen, to impulsively generate some fear in yourself. Well, now, once you understand what it is, you can deal with it better. Because what we're all fearing is basically three types of pain. Three areas that we might experience pain in our lives. And once we understand that, we can reorient our mindset around those things and no longer be frustrated or stop by fear. The first thing that we fear pain in, in our lives is what I call loss pain. Loss pain is, well, if I change my life or I do this new thing, I'll experience loss. And because I experience loss, I don't want to do it. So I'm scared to try it because I might lose something that I, like, I care for, I adore. I might. If I go and make that big change in my life, I might lose my job, I might lose. Lose my relationship with my spouse, I might lose my connection with my kids. I might lose a passion, I might lose a benefit, right? I remember when I wanted to go and start my own business, everyone was generating all this fear in me by saying, well, be careful. You know, this is very dangerous, Brendan. You don't want. You don't want to quit your job and lose all that security you have. You're going to. I mean, what about your 401k, Brendan? You're going to lose your 401k. I mean, all these things we think we're going to fear. And the reality was part of that was true. As I thought more about the situation, I was kind concerned. I was fearful that I would lose the security I had that the job provided. I would lose that steady paycheck we all want. I would lose that predictability of my career path. I would lose that nice process of having managers around to kind of coach and consult me into higher levels of performance. I would lose the peer set. I love my co workers. I lose some of the work that I loved. I would lose that great lunch and cafeteria. You know, it's like you think of all these things you're gonna lose so you don't make the decision to quit. Same thing. Like, people are going to try and, you know, quit, you know, smoking, or they're going to try and start a diet. They're fearful that they're going to lose that. That smoking break that gives them that peace and that comfort and that. That sense of calmness from breathing in deep even though they're breathing in death. You know, they're fearful, oh, well, if I change my diet, I'm gonna lose those foods that I love so much. So I'm not gonna change. And that's what people do. They're fe reorienting our lives is start focusing on the things that instead of what we're going to lose, of what we're going to gain. Yeah, I might lose my security for the short term, but over the long term, I might have more freedom. I might gain freedom. I might lose that coaching and that person who's going to develop me in terms of that organizational structure. But over here, I'm going to gain greater challenges. I'm going to grow faster because I'm going to be doing things faster on my own. Oh, you know what? I'm going to lose that 401k.
Yeah.
But I'm going to make a million dollars over here, you know, focusing on those gains. See what happens in the. In the fearful mind. It starts asking this question, what if? And it follows that phrase with a negative statement. What if this terrible thing happens? What if this terrible thing happens? What if this terrible thing happens and we generate and we stew within our gut these acids and these fears that literally trick our mind into thinking we can't change. But once you understand loss, pain is something you're dealing with. Start focusing more on the things that you will gain and you're getting over a hurdle. The second thing that we fear so much is what I call process pain. Process pain is changing in anything is going to be hard. The process of change itself is hard. Let alone what we'll lose. Doing something new is hard. When I went to think about starting my new business, I was terrified. I'm like, it's going to be hard. I don't know how to do those things yet. I don't have any competency in those areas yet. I'm not sure how this will go. I'm going to have to work 247 starting this business. I'm going to have to work really hard for three years. I might not be able to get any support and help. The process is scary. So we don't change. I mean, same thing for that person who thinks of quitting smoking. They're not thinking of the freedom of quitting smoking and living healthier. They're not thinking of being able to breathe and get up the stairs. They're thinking of the process of dealing with quitting. The addiction, the withdrawals, the frustration, the shakes, the addictions to the nicotine and how challenging that is. The person trying to start the new diet, it's the same thing for them. Process pain. They're thinking, oh, my gosh, I'm gonna have to shop in new shopping places to get fresher food. Oh, My gosh, I'm gonna have to learn to cook new meals. Oh, my gosh, I'm gonna have to, you know, start exercising. Oh, how hard is that gonna be? And we think of all the things are gonna be hard in doing those things. But part of the mastery of life is learning to see change as a game. Learning to see challenges as something that we can joyously enter, to become the joyous master in the processes of our lives. To understand, yes, they might be challenging, but challenge is good. Challenge will develop us. Challenge will help us reach our highest self. Challenge will help us live that fully charged life. That, that process, it can be engaging and fun and exciting and new. It can bring variety and spice into our lives. We can look forward to the process of change. And when we switch our mind that way, we start to change more often. The third thing that most people are actually fearing is they're fearing what I call outcome pain. They're scared that, what if they lose all these things in changing? What if they go through all this terrifying, difficult work and then the grass is not greener? The outcome is no better than I had at the very beginning. I was terrified that with my business too. I thought, oh my gosh, what if I begin this business and I do all these things and I work my butt off, but I don't make it? I don't earn any more money, I don't have a better lifestyle, I don't grow as fast. What if on the other side of the fence, it's not any better? And we sit and we think, what if it's not better? And I would have to go through all that, and if we're stuck there thinking that way, we never change. So part of the maturity and the mastery of life is realizing too, that instead of focusing on the outcomes that are negative, we can start thinking and dreaming about and visualizing and really giving our attention, our focus and powers of attraction into those things that would be powerful and good, satisfying, fulfilling, happy, joyous. On the other side of that fence, the things that would turn out to be wonderful and magnificent if we change our life. If I quit the smoking, I'm finally be able to feel good again. I'm not going to have to be addicted to some small little thing that's killing millions of people, that's just feeding these huge organizations that are killing people over and over and over again. I'm not going to perpetuate a disease in my body or in my family. I'm not going to make my own, everybody carry on my addictions. Oh, you know what? In that new area too, I'm going to feel fit and happy and vibrant and energized on my own again. Oh, when I start that diet, you know what? I'm going to really enjoy tasting some new foods because I haven't tasted good food for a long time. I'm going to actually enjoy going out with people again. I'm going to enjoy shopping again to find clothes that actually fit my body. You start thinking about all the things that will be positive from that change. And when you do that, you start to master your mind and direct it better. Because you know what? When you're obsessing about loss, pain, process pain and outcome pain, guess what? The more you focus on those, the more you obsess about those types of pain, your brain and your body goes, no, don't do that. I don't want to experience that. Because we built and we've been gifted with this incredible contraption here that is unbelievably driven to avoid pain. And when we realize that, then we have to stop suffering in our mind and stewing in our mind about the pain we might experience if we do the very things that would improve our lives. You and I both know what would improve our lives. Why aren't we doing it? Because somewhere there we probably associate a lot of loss, process or outcome pain to it. And today might be a great day to sit down and say, what do I really want in my life? Why have I not been progressing faster? And when you start exploring that question of why have I not been progressing faster, you might discover loss process and pain at work. And you're gonna flip it now and focusing on the gains, the joys and the positive outcomes. And when you start to do that, you'll find yourself being that joyous master. You'll find yourself getting further ahead in life and you might just find that life can feel fully charged once again.
All right, my friend, I hope that you enjoyed that. Best of Episod. Was that inspiring? Were you fired up? Did you love it? If you did, make sure you do me a favor, go out on social media somewhere and share that episode. Just go out, post it somewhere, post yourself, listening to it. Make sure you hashtag the Brendon show. Because when you do that, I can look you up and we can find you on Instagram and post that on the social media. And sometimes we do all expense paid trips to people we find. We just randomly select people, we send them gifts, autograph books, swag T shirts, all expense paid trips to some of my seminars. So make sure you let us know, share what you thought about this episode out there on the social media worlds and then we can find you and celebrate you. And also I would love to invite you to join us in our high performance monthly program. So just go to brendon.com monthly. That's brendon.com monthly. That's where we do deeper dive trainings like you just heard. But we do that every single day, month. And there's some live q and a there and I do some giveaways and we give students in that monthly program tickets to my seminars and some extra special training on leadership. So make sure you check it out@brendon.com monthly. I appreciate you being part of this community of so many people dedicated to finding that deeper drive of motivation and practicing high performance habits so that they can become extraordinary in their careers. In your personal life, in your health, you can live an extraordinary quality of life. And sometimes you just need a little bit more training and a little bit more nudge, a little bit more energy, a little bit more drive and consistency. And I'm hoping that being part of this community with the brendon show, I'm providing that to you in some way. So thank you, my friend, for listening. I look forward to seeing you or listening with you on the next episode of the b r e n d o n show.
Sam.