Take Control of Your Thoughts

Hello my friends. I'm Brendon Burchard, host of the Brendon show and founder of growthday.com and I'm honored to be your high performance coach today. I believe that every day we can be inspired. We can live with intention and purpose. We can bring the joy and honor the struggles of each day to push ourselves to grow, to serve, to be a role model, to lead extraordinary lives. I believe that every day is a great day to grow. That's why I started my company, growthday.com it's an online personal growth platform where you can get me and the world's best personal development teachers live coaching you every week. Sharing our wisdom, keeping you motivated and accountable, encouraging you to find the aliveness and the connection and meaning of life that we're all after. If you're not a member yet, please go sign up@growthday.com and join our huge worldwide community of achievers. For less than a dollar a day you get the world's best teachers live every week. And look, you've probably known for a long time that you needed some expert guidance, an inspired community and life changing tools. So please, your breakthrough awaits you@growthday.com now let's get to today's episode. My friends, please listen closely. Maybe you take some notes so you remember these insights of personal growth and share this episode with three of your friends because we all have to share more positive messages in the world today. So share this with three friends just like you who are committed to their personal growth. And also be sure to tag me or DM me on Instagram. Rendon Burchard Join our million plus community there on Instagram so I can say hi. Thanks again for listening.

Now let's begin. Often when we were young, we weren't taught personal development. It's why I'm so passionate about teaching kids. If kids don't learn personal development, they don't learn to take control of their own thoughts. A fundamental in all personal growth. Take control of your thoughts again, get to define the meaning of the events in your life. Many of you took an event in your life and ascribed defined a meaning to that event that actually harmed you over the long term. Your parent did something bad and you decided as a small kid that the meaning of that was you were bad.

Anyone ever been there?

Right? That's therapy 101, right? I'm not a therapist or a neurologist or a psychiatrist or anything ends in an ist. But isn't it true that we do that there were things that happened to Us, where we subscribed a bad meaning to it, we attached a label of bad meaning. Well, guess what? The more of those bad meaning labels you ascribe each year to something, the more you've got a big backpack of negative meanings that you're carrying around every day. That's what's happening. One reason people don't feel positive meaning towards life is because they have hammered negative meaning into every event so many times that that baggage is real. It is heavy. And how could they possibly lift their eyes and their head to a destiny and a greater meaning and positivity? Because they're carrying the weight of all these negative meanings they've ascribed to everything throughout their lives. Because usually they weren't taught as kids or as young adults to gain control of their thoughts and the labels and the meaning that they are putting on things. Well, she looked at you that one way when you were 16, and then you doubted yourself for the next 10 years. That person broke up with you. You decided you weren't lovable, you got injured, you decided you'd never have fun again. Somebody passed away. You decided life wasn't worth it. You decided that person left you or that job you got laid off of. Well, I guess I'm not worth anything anymore. And you put the meaning on things individually, you put the meaning, an outside observer could look at it and they go, sucks, man, you got laid off. I'm sorry someone passed away. I had that happen to me too. And we forget the human story. And what we do is we start labeling. And the more we self label things as negative over a period of time, the more we struggle. That's what happens for people. They're carrying so many negative meanings over so long a period of time. When you talk about meaning or fulfillment with them, they can't even conceptualize it. And that's why I use that metaphor. Just imagine it's a big bag of negative meanings on their back. It's got their head face down. They're just trying to lift this thing, man. They can't lift their head up and find meaning for life because so much of the negative meaning has pushed them down. And it sounds flippant as hell to say, I know, to tell someone, but you gave yourself those meanings. Maybe you didn't know back then. You unconsciously created those labels. You unconsciously ascribed that meaning. You believed what they said and their meaning you took as your own and you carried everyone else's meanings or all the negative meanings. And you never decided as an adult, as an adult decided, you know, What? From this day forward, this is a demarcation line. From this day forward, from now on, every day, I'm going to be very conscious about the meaning I put on things. I'm going to start putting meaning on things that are supportive of my life. I'm going to put meaning on things that help me learn and get better. I'm going to put meaning on things that allow grace and forgiveness and self love and self awareness versus self hatred and negative judgment. You start that as an adult one day or you do not, period. And that impacts your sense of meaning in life. I believe most people have never been taught any of this. And I know that sounds crazy for me to say as a person. This is like my job, my career. And yet I know that Most people, about 98% of the world, don't read personal development or spirituality books. They don't read sociology. They don't read psychology. They don't. They have no background, no stuff. They've never taken a class, any of those topics. So they've never even taught about how we interpret the events of our lives into safety, not safe belonging. No belonging into our identity, into our next intentions, into the patterns of behaviors and thought that we have in the future. Because most people don't get taught that they've been running on autopilot. And when you run on autopilot, you know what the problem with autopilot is? The manufacturer set the speed for you. The manufacturer set that governor what's possible in your life. And for most people, their thoughts have been manufactured by others. They didn't ever learn to take control. I know this sounds almost flippant to someone who's struggling in this area because you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, Brendan, you're just saying I don't sense meaning in my life because I've never learned to define it. I'm like, no, I'm saying you don't sense the depth and the fullness of meaning that you deserve in your life because you haven't been consistent enough in defining the events of your life in supportive and meaningful ways for you. I'm not saying you've never done it. I'm saying we're lacking the consistency and the depth in it. Because I know some of this might go, yeah, yeah, I already know all this. I'm like, great, lots of people know lots of things. Common sense is not always common practice. I get it if you are. Yeah, I already get this brand. I'm like, okay, great. But have you been doing it?

Hey, it's Brandon jumping Back in here again. Are you looking to go to the next level in your life right now? The next level of joy, abundance, success? Then you already know that you need to journal about your lessons learned in your life. You got to track your moods and your habits. You have to learn from the best personal development coaches and teachers in the world. And you got to stay inspired and accountable so that you can be more focused, disciplined, joyous, and keep growing. That's what the Growth Day app is going to help you to do, my friend. It's the world's first all in one personal development app. It has all of the tools you need, all the coaching and the community that you need to level up to progress every week, to track your breakthroughs, and to keep growing in every area of your life consistently over the long term. So go start your transformation right now@growthday.com or just download the Growth Day app.

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Think about this year. Think about last year. What meaning did you consistently subscribe to your daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly experiences? Most people said, oh, I'm so glad this whole year is done. F this year. You know, we get to the end of each year and you always see those memes going on F the year, right? F 2020. F 2021 every year. It's a big joke. You just see this, right? F 2016. F. There's always, every year there's some comedian tries to one up themselves and saying, f this year. And I was like, ooh, be careful. If you're willing to throw out entire years of your life, you're missing it. You're missing it because think about this. I believe life is extremely short. I am unwilling to toss away years. I'm unwilling to do it. I'm going to create the meaning in those years that I can still have a connection with myself, my family, my future, my destiny, even if it sucks. Look, the pandemic sucked, right? That's what lots of people say, it sucked. I'm like, well, kind of still parts of we're in it. And I'm like, wait, so a year or two, the whole thing sucked. Everything sucked. Every moment sucked. And that's what we do. If we don't like something, we throw away these whole timelines. I know people who are so maladjusted as adults because they threw away entire seasons of their childhood. Something awful happened to them in high school. Well, my high school sucked. I'm like the entire thing. Every day, 365 for four years, you never imbued a single moment with joy, happiness, fulfillment, passion, excitement, adventure, love. Nothing. Not once ever. But that's what we do. We throw out things. See, the more you throw out of your life, the less meaningful it feels, doesn't it? Do you know who feel incredible meaning in their lives? People who cherish their life. Cherish it. Truly cherish their life. And if you feel like I'm speaking philosophically to you, I'm not. I've had both the blessing and the very real difficulties of being with a lot of people at the end of their life. And many of you know, I've volunteered in hospice. I've been with my own father as he passed away in our home. And I can share with you that it's not until too late that many people finally start cherishing their life, really owning and appreciating different parts of their life. And if you can remember to do that, I think something magical happens. That's why I ask everybody, go into your growth day journal every day and capture any meaningful moment, capture any sense of gratitude, capture any event you didn't like, and spin that meaning into such a way where you acknowledge what's real, but you're back in control of your emotions, feelings, and your next actions. It's like by the more often that we capture moments that we can cherish or moments that we can learn, the more life becomes more meaningful. But absent of that self reflection, it's just a busy blur. That's why journaling has proven over and over and over in psychology, including mental health practices and yes, therapy, to dramatically shift people's thoughts and feelings and life satisfaction over the long term. Almost no single tool other than journaling has ever proven to do that period. Outside of speaking consistently with a therapist. It's an incredibly powerful tool to gain more meaning in life. That moment of self reflection, that moment of capturing something, as soon as you capture it, you start to recognize it and feel it and cherish it a little bit more. But all of that takes what you deciding to define the moments of your life more actively and consciously and consistently. And people are like, gosh, do you do that every day, Brennan? I'm like, yeah, as simple as, you know what right before bed thinking, like, what's the meaning? I need to put onto some of the events today that both gave me energy and took some energy away. What's the meaning I need to put on that argument I had today. What's the meaning? I need to put on that reward I got today. What's the meaning? I need to put on this frustration I keep having. What's the meaning? I need to put on that beautiful moment with the cat and my wife. Oh, my God. If you don't see them again, reflect and put a label or a meaning on it, then guess what Disappears. The more disappeared moments that we don't capture, appreciate, cherish, ascribe meaning to, the less meaning we feel. So many people feel little meaning in their life because they've never actually consciously put meaning on anything. Put more meaning on things more consistently, you feel it more.

Okay, my friend, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Brennan Show. Tell some people about this episode. It's on each of us to spread positivity and empowerment during these times of chaos and negativity, right? So I'm asking you to be the dealer of hope and personal growth and education in your tribe. So take a screenshot right now and share the screenshot and this link to this episode with three of your friends today. Post it on social media. Use the hashtag growthday. That's growthday, because that's the name of my company and we're always giving away prizes to our community. If you'd like to help me personally, then please rate and review the podcasts on Apple Podcasts. Give us some stars, cheer us on, leave a review. Because believe it or not, that stuff actually really does help. And I read all of them. So my last thought for today, please remember, you are stronger than you think and the future holds good things for you. Tomorrow can be an inspired day.

Every new morning is a second chance.

Every day is a great day to grow. We're thankful to have you here in the Growth Day community, so be sure to go deeper with us@growthday.com.

Sam.