The 3 Costs of Making Progress in Your Life

Welcome to the Charged Life. This is Brendon Burchard. Hey, my friend. It's Brendan. And in this episode, what I want to talk with you about is the price of change. You know, we all go to change our lives and we all want to improve our lives. Whether you want to improve your health or your relationships, your work, your lifestyle, you know that sometimes it's difficult and you back off of it. You back down from change because it's scary. I mean, do you know anyone who needs to change their life? And you keep telling them, change, change, change, but they don't why? Or have you ever set a big goal at the beginning of the year and you knew you really wanted to achieve it, but you found yourself a couple months later not doing it? Well, the reason is because psychologically you are unwilling to face the price of change. It's kind of like the way I think about it, it's like admission gates. Like how, you know, how you go in an amusement park or a circus or to Disneyland, you kind of have to pay to go through the turnstile to enter and enjoy the ride. Well, change is like that, too. Most people bounce up against those turnstiles, though, and they go, this is. I don't like it. It's uncomfortable to me. And they leave the park and they never get to experience the beauty and the wonder and the fun on the other side. They say, ah, it's not worth it. And they walk away from their goals and their dreams and their hopes because they just thought it wasn't worth it or it was too hard. So what are you going to have to face? What are you really going to have to allow yourself to pay for the price of change? Well, I think there's three costs to change. Anytime you want to change your life, you're going to be faced with these three things. They're the price of admission to a better life. And once you realize that these are the price of change, you can consciously choose, will, is it worth it to me or not? Because most people, they're not consciously choosing it. They just get scared and run. So instead, I want you to realize there is a cost to change. Are you up for it or not? Here's the three costs to change. That first price of admission to get to the other side of change is uncertainty. You know, when you go to change your life, you don't know how it's going to turn out. You start the new diet, is it going to work? Is it not? You don't know you're going to change your career. Or quit your job? Are you going to get a better job? You don't know. You're gonna leave that bad relationship to find someone who really loves you, cares for you, treats you well? Are you gonna find somebody better? You don't know. And that terrifies people. Uncertainty is so scary because we might lose something we like, well, what if I lose the job and it was okay? Or lose the person she was not so bad. Or I lose that opportunity and it's scary to people. But that's what your mind has to be willing to wrap around, deal with. Your mind has to be able to say to change. Your mind has to go, I am cool with the fact I'm not going to know what the heck is going on. I'm going to go for it anyway. I'm going to enter that dark cave. I don't know if I'm going to be eaten alive. I don't know if it's going to turn out bad, but I'm going to go in. I'm going to trust and believe in my ability to figure things out. I don't know how it's going to go, but I know I'm going to show up as the best of who I am to deal with, with that change. Your mind must be allowing and saying, I'm gonna let go of everything. I think I know I'm gonna let go of everything. I want it to go like, I'm gonna let go of my need for permission. I'm gonna let go of my need for perfection. And I'm just gonna try. And when you can get to that point, when you can say, you know what, I'm cool with the fact I'm not gonna know what the heck is going on. Cause I haven't done it before. I'm going to try. Even though I don't know how it's going to turn out. If you can get over that, that's that first sort of step into making longer term change for your life. See, I'm okay with it. I never know how things are going to go. As many of you know, I shoot this whole YouTube show, this, this thing called the Charge Life, my podcast. I do it extemporaneous. I don't know exactly how it's going to go. I usually know the topic. I know maybe one or two points in my head and I just go, but my mind, when I first did that, it was terrified. So I said, no, no, no. I need certainty. I need certainty. I need notes, I need a script. I need to know exactly how it's gonna go. And I thought, you know what? That's not the charged life. The charged life is good with spontaneity. The charged life is good with being in the moment. The charged life actually loves and draws energy and power and vibrancy from flow from being in the moment and dancing with the moment versus having everything needed to be script in your life. So have you not changed because your mind is saying, I need everything to be perfect and scripted out. I need to know all the exact steps in the future. If your mind is telling you that, I guarantee you're not progressing, growing or achieving at the rate that you could. You gotta let go of certainty in your life and be willing to venture into the unknown and walk into it being okay, that you'll be vulnerable, being okay that you'll be scared, being okay. You're gonna have nights where you're laying awake going, I don't know. I don't know. And that's okay. Because you know what? You'll figure it out. If I can tell you one belief that's given me more confidence than anything in my entire life, it's like, you know what? I know that I'm kind of a bumbling fool, but I believe in my ability to figure things out. Put me in the mix, Put me in the game, Coach. I can do will be a hot mess for maybe a quarter, but by second quarter, I'll get it. I'll figure it out. Put me in the game. I will figure it out. I trust in that. And that's why I've been able to change my life so significantly and grow so quickly beyond sometimes my peers. Because I'm willing to venture into the unknown and they are not. And it is those who venture into the unknown who are the adventurers, the pioneers, the explorers, those who move the needle of change in the history of the world. So allow yourself not to know and go. The second big price to change that a lot of people avoid or run away from, but it's always going to be there is when you bumble into something like that, guess what the price to change is. Other people might not understand. Meaning judgment, meaning rejection. People might make fun of you when you go to change your life. They might say, who do you think you are? Why do you want that? Well, that's dumb. Why are you doing that? You're so stupid. Why can't you just be happy? You're gonna get people saying that There's a social fear of change as well, because they would rather have you conform. And to their little Conception of. You see, people draw a little conceptual cage around who you are, and they say, well, this is who that person is. They think they know you. They don't know you. And you know what? They also don't know. They don't know tomorrow. And they don't know where you want to go. They don't know exactly what you are capable of because they're trying to gauge it based on their certainty coming from the past. But who you are is not tethered to the past. You. You and I can both wake up tomorrow and claim what I call in my book life's golden ticket, a second chance. You get to wake up tomorrow, take a new breath in, decide, what am I gonna show the world today? What am I gonna do today? How disciplined am I gonna be today? What energy am I gonna arrive to the world with and choose today? What's my attitude gonna be? What are my habits gonna be today? What am I gonna really go after with thunder and power today? You get to choose that every day. That's a second chance. Every single day. That's the beauty of the world. Tomorrow is always a blank slate. Tomorrow you get to begin anew. It takes guts. And most people don't have the guts because they're scared of the rejection that could come. Your spouse makes fun of you. The people at work go, are you crazy? That's stupid. The kids in the play yard point and tease and ridicule and abuse and beat. But you know, at the end of the day to your life and you got to decide what it stands for. Are you going to live your life based on the noise of the crowds and the masses telling you what to do or living their life or you're going to live your life? Are you going to put your dreams on hold just because some person who doesn't even know you or what your capabilities are judged you once? Look, the reality is most people got your back. And it's not my opinion, it's reality. All of us assume, oh, there's all this judgment. All these people are out to get me. Look, you need to stop believing people don't support you and want you to achieve and grow. I used to believe that. I thought, well, you know, the people around me, they'll support me until I get above them, right? No one wants you to be above them. But you know what? Above, That's a BS definition. That's their meaning definition, not yours. You're just growing into your full potential. Don't apologize for that. Don't hold back from that. Just because somebody might not like it. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Your job is to live that fullest expression of who you know you can be, to do that confidently, to live in that freedom of flow, of being spontaneous and alive, regardless of what other people think. It's so easy to go, well, I better not tell my dream because they'll think I'm small. But if you don't tell your dream, your mind doesn't believe it. If you don't tell your dream, the supporters who would like the idea can't get your back. You don't tell your dream. People can't believe in you, buy from you, follow you, get on board with you. Look, in silence is suffering. If you're not expressing who you are and what you want in life, that's not personal freedom. That's personal caging of your soul. And you're doing that, not anyone else. It's easy to blame everyone else. Well, they judge me, so I stopped. No, they will always judge you. You stopping or starting, that's on you, buddy. And we got to accept that in our life. That's personal accountability going, it's on me, no matter what the world says. Because you know what? You know when you're going to get the believers, you know you're going to get them with momentum. You know when you're going to have more motivation with more momentum. As you get going, as you start succeeding, as you start committing, as they start to see, wow, she's really interested in this. Wow, she's really doing. Wow, she's really going good. Wow, she's really succeeding. More of them will clap at the beginning. They all like, weird. And then as you get going, they're clapping for you. So don't forget that. And don't also forget that, guess what? The bigger you grow, too. Yep. The more people will judge you. It's not like you get success one day and everybody loves you, you know, or you get millions of followers. Look, I got millions of students out there who graduated my videos, my online courses, who've read my books, and we still get people going, well, Brendan, you're an idiot. Millions of students, brendan, you're an idiot. Or I do my videos and they go, well, this is stupid. You're just, you know, why don't you just stop doing these videos? Your hair sucks. I hate your shirt. You know, it's like, I don't care. I don't. I'm not gonna pause my mission simply because there's some mean people out there who are uninformed or in a bad mood. You must not stop your march out of a fear of rejection or judgment. Because it never goes away. What needs to come back into your life is the confidence. You're doing it anyway to go. That's the price of change. The price of change is some people won't like it. But on the other side, that's your dream. So go. The last big price, big cost of change, Last huge one, and most people don't like it is that guess what? To change, to progress. It's going to bring struggle. Struggle, hardship, difficulty. That's part of the process. One, you gotta deal with the unknown. That's scary cause you're not in the game. Just like even thinking about scary cause it's the unknown. Two, judgment, rejection, possibility. And three, this is gonna be hard. I'm not. It's gonna be uncomfortable, not just uncertain. It's gonna be difficult. I'm have to stay up late nights to work on my dream. I'm gonna have to give up some things I like doing with my family or my friends sometimes, so. So I can focus a little bit more. I like reading those trashy magazines, but I'm not adding value. They're comfortable for me. I'm gonna put them aside. I'm gonna struggle with the discipline to stay focused. I'm gonna struggle not knowing what I'm doing, looking silly. I'm gonna struggle being absolutely a hot mess as I begin this. It's gonna be hard. It's gonna be a lot of late nights. It's gonna be, you know, times that are gonna try your struggle, your mind, your body. And thank God it's not easy. Thank God it's not easy. Because you know what? It's only in the tough stuff that your real character is exposed and forged. It's only in the difficulties that the path becomes meaningful and worthwhile. If everything were easy, none of us would grow. If everything were easy, none of us would learn. If everything was easy, none of us would ever feel alive. It's in that struggle, in the fight, in the challenge, that we find real growth, that we find the charged life. Because you know what? A lot of people, they live what we call the comfortable life. Everything's fine, everything's great, everything's easy. And then at some point, someone says, how's your life? And they go, it's fine. They say it knowing that something's missing. You know what's missing? The push, the challenge, the struggle, the growth that comes from those things. So are you going to struggle, but you're going to doing this dream for me. I struggled with, you know, launching a book one time didn't do so good. Launching videos. Nobody watched it. Doing my first seminars, 20 some people showed up. That was it. But I knew the struggle was worthwhile. And I said, the struggle is gonna make me sharp. The struggle is gonna give me skill. The struggles to make me grow. The struggle will allow me to serve better with more empathy and verve and power. And guess what? Now three New York Times best selling books seminars sold out after seminar, after seminar, after seminar. Video's been viewed millions of times. We're talking like tens of millions of times. Why? Because I was okay with the struggle. In the process of struggle. I never hated it. I said, this is part of the journey. I accepted that was the truth. I didn't fight it. I didn't bemoan it. I never complained. I was never bitter. I was like, this is just part of it. Even when I started, I went bankrupt when I first began, I didn't know what I was doing. I just said, okay, this sucks. I own this. It's real. That's okay. I'm gonna keep working. Because you know what? Don't ever forget when you knock on the door of opportunity that it's work. Who answers? Don't bemoan, complain or hate the struggle and the difficulty that it sometime takes for you to grow enough and to find that place in you that is allowing it to be spontaneous and flowing even in the midst of difficulty, to find your center in the midst of that chaos. Because you know that it's okay, this chaos, chaotic. It's always going to be chaotic. It's always going to be crazy in the world. But we don't have to feel that way. And that's a struggle to master your internal world and master our day each day and push away distractions and say no to the wrong things. That's hard. It's difficult. And thank God it is, because that's what makes you grow. I hope that you've enjoyed this episode. If you did, do me a favor. Like it, share it, tell other people about it. I'd love them to enjoy the charge life along with you. And remember this, it's always difficult to change. There will always be people who judge you and you'll never know the exact path and exactly how it's going to turn out. Begin anyway. Because you know what's on the other side of these prices, these admission charges to change. You know it's on the other side of going anyway. Even though you're uncertain of walking through. Even though they might make fun of you, of pushing through. Even though you might be uncomfortable and face struggle and hardship and difficulty. You know what's on the other side? The price of change. Progress. And progress is worth it. Your growth is worth it. If you'll take these ideas and you'll keep going through. Pay the price of change. Keep moving through. You'll find that progress and you'll get to experience what we call the Charge Life. Hey, it's Brendan again. Did you notice something in today's episode? Yep. No ads, no sponsors. Just a positive message to improve your day. How do I do it? How is it that you listen to all those other podcasts and they have minutes and minutes worth of lame ads for underwear or other websites they're promoting? Hey, I don't judge them, but I choose to focus on you in this podcast. And personally, when I listen to other shows, I just skip those long winded sponsor pitches. Anyway, I can only do this because you share my podcast with so many other people and enough folks end up looking me up online and buying my books or taking my online courses that I can self fund this entire effort. And you know how hard it is to do all this. And that's why I appreciate you guys so much. I heard that you even helped me break a record too. The longest running top 10 self help show without a single sponsor or product pitch or ad. So if you like this podcast ad free and sponsor free, do me a favor. Tell a friend today, you know you should listen to the Charged Life, Brendon Burchard's podcast. Just help spread the word, share why you like my show or tell people to go to podcast.brendon.com it would sure help and I'd appreciate it. And I'm sure our community would too. I look forward to talking with you again soon, my friend. Until then, go out there every single day of your life. Live fully, love openly and make your difference. Today.