How to Keep Going When Life Gets Messy

We all need team. We all need social support. Whether that's your family or friends or that's that one person you can trust or it's your team, it's leaning on somebody. During this time, asking a parent, asking a caregiver, asking a friend, asking a neighbor, asking a teammate for some assistance or that just means for them to cover your shift, give you some time off, help you with the kid, ask for some advice. If you don't raise your hand, don't think you can raise yourself up as fast. Friday Fumbles what do you do when you fumble the ball? When you screw it up? When you don't make the week happen exactly the way you wanted to? When you didn't meet the deadline or finish the thing or you acted inappropriately or something, Something just did not go right. I know everyone's always like, gosh, Brennan, these Friday finishers, I love them so much, but sometimes we don't get them done. So if you messed up now, of course, we often mess up in different categories of our life, so I thought I'd give you a little rhyme here that you might appreciate. If you haven't heard me teach this before, I'll share the different areas of your life that you might screw up and what you could do about it. I'll try to keep it pithy at first and come back to them. So I've got what, six items here in different categories that you may have had a difficulty with this week, and here's the one word thing to do about them. If you screwed up with a person this week, meaning you said something you shouldn't have said. You were rude, your tone wasn't right. You didn't make the meeting with them. You said the wrong thing, you feel bad about it. If you screwed up with a person this week, apologize. Second category if it was a project you screwed up, prioritize. Third thing if you screwed up. If it's a health issue, optimize. Fourth, if it's a wealth issue, minimize. Fifth if it's a spirit issue, actualize. And finally, sixth, if it's a leadership or management issue, epitomize. Okay, we'll come back to these now for you. Number one, if you had a difficulty with any person in your life, apologize. I often tell you that the best thing you could do every day is to send out a text to three people you care about, people you love. Lead, serve you're friends with, you deeply care for. Send three audio texts out to them just telling them you love them. But I also say at the End of the week, if an interaction with another person did not go well, do the same thing. Send them an audio text and say, hey, you know what? I'm sorry we had this difficult interaction this week. I didn't feel like the vibe was good. I'm really sorry about that. Hope you're doing great. Intentions are good. We're gonna have a great week next week cheering you on. Have a great weekend. As simple as that. Most people save apologies until they're on their deathbed, but that's ego. If you're into personal development, you learn to apologize quickly, authentically, and I think that's very important. Too many people hold grudges for years and years and years. And then if you apologize or you see them one day and they tell you about the grudge and you go, oh, I didn't even know that. I'm so sorry. They're like, oh. And they carried the weight of that for years. Usually because they don't do personal development or they're unconscious about how they're living their life or managing their emotions. But you can't control that. But what you can control is your swiftness in apologizing. When you make people feel bad. To apologize doesn't mean you have to agree with their feelings. You just have to acknowledge that they felt bad and apologize swiftly and in a timely manner. This will fix a lot of the fumbles throughout your life. Second, if it's a project, prioritize. If you didn't do well on a project this week, don't get down on yourself and think you're an idiot. Don't judge yourself. Don't label yourself. Instead, prioritize better. Make a list for exactly what you're going to do next week. Create your next Friday finisher list. Prioritize. Move some things off your plate. Delegate. Figure out a way to manage the project better next week. Don't ditch the project and convince yourself you're incapable. Plan better. Third, if it's a health issue that you fumbled this week, you forgot to work out, you didn't eat well, you didn't sleep well. You've got to optimize. You've got to choose to optimize your health in every area that you can. That means meditation, exercise, diet, sleep, supplementation, positive peer group. These are all things that you can optimize to improve your health. Meditation, exercise, diet, sleep, supplementation, positive peer group. Those things really change your life. So many people continue year after year after year with health issues without seeing experts, without changing their routines or their diet, without trying over and over and over again to get better in that area, to rehab that area, to gain more mobility or flexibility in that area, to improve that outcome over the long term. And I don't say that in a judgmental way. It just happens to be when you are in pain, when you need to heal, when you have issue after issue on your medical report, doctor visit after doctor visit, you get tired and you forget to optimize, even after you've tried. And I just say, if your health isn't where you want it to be, please don't give up. Keep trying, keep optimizing. Next up, if the issue is with wealth, meaning you fumbled on your spending this week, you didn't pay the bills, or you overspent, you haven't been responsible with your finances lately, then what I always tell people is minimize. We live especially in North America, where I'm recording this from, if you are blessed to live here, you tend to have opportunity, much more of it than most people around the world. And often what we do is we think we have to have those kinds of shoes, those types of devices, that kind of computer, this kind of car, this kind of drip, we all have to have this kind of clothes. And sometimes you just gotta minimize, you gotta get simple again and start saving and investing. And you know, we all heard those stories of people who didn't have a lot of income, but they saved and invested wisely over 10, 20, 30, 40 years and ended up millionaires, even if they weren't running big fancy businesses or huge executives and companies. I think it's important to remember that it all adds up. So even if you fumbled over the long term, maybe you can minimize, start investing, start saving. Next up, if you kind of fumbled on your emotional or your spiritual self this week, you just felt off. You didn't feel like you were living your best life or expressing yourself authentically or reaching your full potential or challenging yourself, then actualize. That means determine who you really want to be. Show up next week, truly intentional, dedicated and devoted, persistent to becoming that person that sometimes, yeah, in the moment we feel like crap. But if we still have a vision for who we are and who we can be, we can challenge ourselves to live into that next week, even if we fumble the ball this week. And finally, if in leadership position, you don't feel like you led well or managed others this week, then it's time to epitomize the values that, that you espouse. That means to be a symbol, to embody the message that you are trying to convey. If you want others to work harder and you're disappointed in how they showed up, then you show up. If you thought others should get something done and they didn't, make sure you're on task. You got to stand for what you believe in. It doesn't mean it's easy. In fact, all of these things are hard, right? To have a perfect week with every person you meet so you don't have to apologize. To accomplish all of your projects so you don't need to prioritize better to have such great health that you don't have to optimize any area at all. To have such great extravagant wealth that you don't have to minimize anything. To have an extraordinary spirit that's fully actualized, to lead perfectly so you don't have to epitomize even more. Well, guess what? That would be a pretty outstanding week. Give yourself double high five in the mirror, you know, pat yourself on the back and on the lower back, because guess what? You did a pretty amazing job. But each of us has to have the guts to look at our week and to recognize where we did well and where we didn't. And last but not least, if you fumbled this week, you dropped the ball, you didn't do a good job, you offended somebody, you didn't feel like you were on your A game, you lost motivation or drive or focus this week. Take it easy on yourself now. Do the hard work of reflecting, being honest, journaling about the situation, dealing with the people or the projects or the needs that were left behind or not done well. And then breathe. Breathe. I highly recommend you try the release meditation technique. Just release it all. If you have never done the release meditation technique, just Google it. Release meditation technique. My YouTube video will pop up and I'll teach you how to do it. But it's basically repeating the mantra of the word release in your mind over and over and over again as you release the tension in your body and the thoughts that come across your mind. Do that 15 or 20 minutes. Plan A better next week and then show up next week ready to go. Show up next week. Filling out your morning mindset in your journal. Practicing your best habits every day. Live with intention. Do your best. Just make sure you get up, you get at it again, you keep going. Because every day is a great day to grow. We all have different seasons of our life where it can be really difficult to stay on our A game, to do our best. Even sometimes we're managing difficult seasons of life. And so I thought I'd talk about that today. You know, just this weekend I spoke with several friends who had family members in the hospital who were dealing with a lot of the political turmoil from around the world, who, you know, continue to deal with struggles in their business or their finances, their career, their health, their mission. And sometimes, you know, people are dealing with difficult projects, difficult tasks, difficult situations. And other times people are dealing with difficult seasons of life. You know, that season of life where maybe, you know, you're ending a relationship or getting a divorce, or that season of life where you've had a bad medical report and you've just been feeling awful for weeks or months or years on end, or that season of life where the kids are leaving, or that season of life where you're in transition, starting something new and you're just scared. We all have different seasons of life and that can be mental, emotional, physical, social, spiritual. And so what do we do during those times? I thought today we just jump in. If you're struggling at this season of your life right now, some simple ideas. First idea, give yourself some grace. Matter of fact, I'd encourage you to actually write it down on a piece of paper. Right now. I'm going to give myself grace during this difficult time. Actually write it down on a piece of paper if you're struggling. I'm going to give myself some grace during this difficult time. What I mean by that is you're going to allow yourself to feel the difficulties, to be slowed down by the difficulties, to take a rest through the difficulties. You're going to allow yourself to be uncertain even though you're used to being the hard charging striver. You're going to allow and trust and have faith and hope that things will get better. But during this day, it's okay, you don't feel better. That's grace. You can have hope that things will change, but also grace to face the truth and the reality of the difficulty and the emotions that you feel today. It's truly okay. We're not all superhuman, we're not all high performing 24 7. There's seasons of our life when we lose somebody, when our life has been upended, when someone cheats or takes, when we don't feel well, that we have to take a few deep breaths and allow ourselves not to be perfect. And I don't mean just now in the moment when I'm talking about a difficult season in life, it's okay to say, you know what, the next two months, I'm not going to go as strong or as hard as I usually go, or I'm Okay. Not being fully aware of what my exact life purpose is at this exact second. And I'm okay if I don't know it next week or next month too. I'll keep an eye, I'll keep thinking, I'll keep doing the work, but I'm okay not having it all figured out right now. And I'm going to turn that, that, that preparedness to allow myself into some faith. I'm going to go easy on myself. I'm not going to have negative self talk. I'm not going to beat myself up over and over and over again for not having figured it out or perfected it or feeling perfect just yet. I'm just not going to get down on myself and be my own worst enemy right now when it's already hard. Because isn't that what a lot of people do? You know, you've had success, you work hard, you're a learner, you care about health and wellness, you care about personal development. Clearly you're here. And I have to tell you, sometimes people like you and me who really care about personal development, who we've spent a lot of time making self improvement a way of life, sometimes when we're not improving or given our best or being a role model, we get hard on ourselves. And we're the very ones who need to give ourselves empathy and compassion and leadership when we're struggling to truly give that gift to ourselves that, you know, you take. You work so hard to take care of everybody else, but in your difficult season of life, sometimes you won't even raise your hand, ask for help on your own. But grace is saying, I can allow this. Grace is saying, I won't be hard on myself or unfair to myself because that's not going to help me be better later. You don't kick yourself while you're down when you understand that you got to give yourself some grace. Realize that you're a child of God. If you don't believe in God, that's okay. Realize that you're a remarkably improbable spark of human activity and that in the improbability of it all or the blessings of it all, here you are in a world that is way bigger than you, full of tons of chaos, in a universe that isn't always friendly. And if you don't believe that, well, study some physics. Not everything has a beautiful opposite and equal reaction. The truth is, sometimes it's hard. And soon as you can honor that as truth, you can give yourself some grace. Second idea, when you're managing a difficult Season of life. Please prioritize stress management. What happens when people who are in a personal development enter a difficult season of life? They tend to make it even harder on themselves by burning out. Well, I guess I'll just double down and work twice as hard. And sometimes, hey, listen, that's required. Your business is in a difficult situation. You've got to figure out the finances. Sometimes, you know, you got to move out of the house. Sometimes crazy stuff happens. You, you gotta learn to breathe. You gotta make sure you take time to meditate. You gotta make sure you're getting sleep handled. You gotta make sure that you are not burning yourself out and you aren't making yourself even more anxious during uncertain times. Stress management. Breathing, sleeping, speaking well of yourself, Making sure that you're exercising to release some of that stress, Making sure that your diet isn't terrible when it gets even more difficult, because feeling worse and stressing your body with even more toxins is usually not going to help you have the energy to pull through. Stress management, wellness, the things that we talk about in high performance work. But make sure you prioritize it, especially in a difficult season of life. Third, social support. You gotta reach out more, which takes vulnerability and courage. Often, especially if you've been the leader or the role model or the influencer in your family, your friends or your team, your business, if you've been the strong one, it's hard to raise your hand and ask for some help, to even admit that you need help. But no persons have ever gotten ahead faster by themselves over a long period of time. We all need team, we all need social support. Whether that's your family or friends, or that's that one person you can trust, or it's your team, it's leaning on somebody during this time. Asking a parent, asking a caregiver, asking a friend, asking a neighbor, asking a teammate for some assistance, or that just means for them to cover your shift, give you some time off, help you with the kid, ask for some advice. If you don't raise your hand, don't think you can raise yourself up as fast. It does truly take social support over a season of life. Yeah, we can all weather a day or two. We can all deal with weeks or months of tough times. And a lot of people, they go into isolationalism during that time. They just hunker down, they say, and just, I'm focused on my stuff. But the reality is they're usually boxing themselves into loneliness. And when you feel lonely, you don't tend to lift yourself as high and you need that connection to bring you back sometimes. So reach out, ask for some help, get some support. Last idea, Keep the long view of hope alive. You know, we've most of us have been in those situations where it was difficult with our health at some point and when you feel awful as an example, it's just so hard to keep vision, to even believe that tomorrow or the future or the next chapters can be good. But when you keep the long view of hope alive, things really shift. I know. Trust me. Oh yeah, Brendan, you can say that. Hey, listen, I've laid in my deathbed twice. I've known what it was like to feel the uncertainty of the next hours and breaths and to still use your mind to summon an optimism or connection to a better future state or a better future being or a better future living situation or a better future relationship. That's important to keep that future there, even if it looks murky or muddy or so far away. Because it's really easy to down in the dumps, to get down in the pit of despair and forget to look up to the sunlight above that pit. I get it. But something we have to do, it's not easy, but it's required if we're going to pull ourselves up. Keeping that hope. We know from some of the most extreme situations in the world how important that is. If you haven't recently read Man's Search for Meaning from Viktor Frankl, read it again. I think it's important this time in the world. But I think it's also a nice reminder of his suggestion that the last of humans freedoms is the ability to choose one's own attitude. And while that might sound like hype fest, self help, the reality is Viktor Frankl was facing one of the most ominous threats in human history in World War II. And so if you'll read that book or keep that long view, keep that hope, shape your attitude, use the journal right here in growth day. Go to that morning mindset and just keep prompting your brain to focus forward, Keep prompting your brain to give yourself some grace, Keep prompting your brain about things you can be excited or appreciated about. There will be plenty of days, there might be nine out of ten days, you're like, ah, this is a bunch of garbage growth day stuff. But if one out of those 10 days, we spark a little bit something in you, make you feel a little bit better, remind you of something of yourself, of possibility, of your opportunities, your blessings, of what could be your future, then we did a good job and reminded you that even in these most difficult times ultimately, every day still has a chance. Every day you might get a little better. Every day a new opportunity might be there. It might be three days out, five days out, 10 months out, but every day still can become a great day to grow.