Your Emotions Control Your Goals
25 Mar 2021 · 22 min
Brendon Burchard and Jamie Kern Lima argue that emotions drive discipline more than willpower alone. Jamie shares missing a major deadline and rebuilding focus on what matters. They cover morning routines, saying no to protect key work, and ditching self-criticism after setbacks.
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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 and 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.
The challenge with focus. And discipline is always an emotional regulation challenge. It's never what you do for a living. It's not your bank account, it's not how many kids you have. It's not the, you know, all the stories we will tell ourselves because we know people who have that big of a team or have that big of a fan or have that many responsibilities and they're able to do it. And it comes back to in the science. I'm not making an argument here against you. I'm saying in the science that it comes back to an emotional regulation. The ability to have self control in the midst of distractions and competing interests because you know what you want, you're clear. Like when clarity is down, discipline goes out the door. When clarity is down, of course you're not focused because your mind is trying to absorb and take in everything so you can find the thing. And so it's actually okay if you're unfocused on discipline. But just know the first step is going to be seeking clarity and reminding yourself with visuals and notes and cue cards and pop ups on your phone what is important. I have to you guys, everyone tease me about this now, dame, because I.
Say it all the time.
I have to stand in front of that board over there every day for five minutes to remind me of what's important. Otherwise I will absolutely run outside and chase cars. I mean, I would be the dumbest, happiest dog running all over the place. I am just not built. I'm not. Everyone thinks, Brendan, you're so focused. I'm like, I'm not built that way. I've had to train myself that way. Yeah, that's the difference.
Yeah. And I think, you know, one of the things I talked about yesterday was just when we think about the one things, the one big thing, right. That moves the needle and then the things that are distractions, right? And I talked about, for me, the importance of just walking in the morning. And so many people inside the live community talked about how when they do their morning workout or they go for a walk or maybe it's a meditation that it literally impacts everything else that it's not even about, you know, how they feel in the moment of working out or how, you know, the immediate. It's about that it literally sets up everything else for that. And I think to your point about being, you know, having clarity when you talk about clarity, you know, I think that, I think that for me, as an example, just to be super real, before this call and before I was laughing about haircuts with Brendan and about focus, I literally, one of the first things I said to him is I just missed a huge deadline and I don't miss deadlines. I was like, I can't believe I go, Brendon, I literally am about to cry this morning. Like, I missed one of these biggest deadlines for a big company that's going to support my book launch. They needed an email. It's a whole thing. And I was like, I can't believe I did that. Normally I'm so organized, right? And I made the decision in that moment. I'm going to just enjoy and be present with Brendan, talk about his haircut. And I'm going to. When I, when I, when I. Hopefully this makes sense. When we talk about clarity, I'm crystal clear because I've spent 10 years working 100 hour weeks building this huge company with thousands of like all the things. And I didn't enjoy it a lot of the times. Like, I was so right. And so for this book launch, I'm also working 100 hour weeks. But I'm so clear that I want to enjoy it this time. Right. So it's interesting that in this moment where the pre show to the Growth Day morning show, when I'm like, Brendan, literally, I'm about to cry. I literally can't believe I dropped this ball. It's so unlike me, all these things, but I'm like, you know what? I have clarity that this time around, I'm gonna enjoy this. For me, that's the big thing, right?
Yes.
And so I'm like, oh, the flow. Be like. Because there's.
Just enjoy it. Yes, just enjoy it.
And you know what?
Also, I gave her a little coaching this morning. I said, it's okay, you missed the deadline. Most a. Most deadlines are arbitrary. And I'll just say that for the track record, people need to understand that. But also the mentality here, this will help because it's probably the shift of her being able to enjoy things in her life versus where she couldn't before. Comes back to an unconscious, catastrophic thinking. Right? Missing a deadline, it's not catastrophic. You'll fix it. You'll get it done.
But if you, if it's, oh, the.
World'S falling apart, oh, I hate myself. Well, that's why people often don't enjoy the life. They're just like, everything is catastrophic. Everything's a big deal and a drama. I'm not saying this about you. I'm saying this about people in general, who they, they make these little things that aren't even huge, huge things without realizing, oh, you can improve, you can change it, get it. You can still, okay, so you missed it by a day. Get it done. There's so many. If I cried on every deadline I missed, I would cry on the hour every day of my life. The number of deadlines that I have built into my life, I would just be like, But I miss a ton of them, a ton of deadlines. And people like, you're the discipline guy. I'm like, yes, But I also run all these different companies, do all these different things. Inevitably somebody put an arbitrary deadline on me and they prefer it then. But it's not real. If I miss it, I'll catch back up, I'll get back in it. I'm not flipping about other people's times. And Schedules. I just know I'll get there. It's cool. I don't. I don't flip out.
Yeah. And something you just said that I think is huge. Huge, Huge. Huge in distinguishing discipline is. You're not saying the big thing is through discipline, I will hit every deadline. I feel like what you just said is transcends that. And I think this is huge for everyone, especially people out there who are perfectionists or people out there who are dealing with stuff not going their way. And sometimes it's small things that we miss or mess up, and sometimes it's big things. But what you just said. What I heard. What I heard is not, oh, because I'm mastering discipline, I'm going to hit every deadline. It's, oh, because I'm mastering discipline, I'm going to know how to keep focus with clarity and handle everything and be resilient when I don't hit deadlines. Right. It's the discipline and the clarity that transcends all that. When that's huge. Because then we're not at the mercy of all these things that we're not doing perfectly or balls we're dropping or mistakes that happen or things that aren't going well in our life and sometimes they're out of our control. Right. With setbacks. So it's like the discipline isn't in just that. The discipline is how do we handle it all? With clarity. That's huge.
Yes. It's like, think of this. When I think about, like, focus and discipline and that part of how. How much those two things hang on resilience. Because you're going to focus, you're going to break discipline. And if you pretend that's not going to happen. And every time you break focus or you break discipline, you hate yourself because you missed your morning routine or you hate yourself because you missed this deadline and that self hate gathers. And the more that that guilt or that self dislike for missing things, the more that that gathers and you allow it to, the less resilience you're going to have over a period of time. Because you now you're chipping away at your own confidence because you're so hard on yourself. And the more you're hard on yourself, the more you chip away at the confidence. So the two, the only two things you can do going in is one, just make sure you have clear priorities and perspective. Yeah, I love those two words together, priorities and perspective. Because you need perspective to have priorities. And when you have priorities, you need perspective when you miss them or have to reshuffle Them.
Hey, it's Brendan and I want to jump in the middle of this episode here real quick and tell you about something I'm really excited about and something that answers a question that many of you have for me all the time, which is, Brendan, where do you get this crazy focus and energy in your life? And the truth is I've developed a supplement line that really helps me do that. And frankly, I needed to. I don't know about you, but sometimes.
When you're trying to achieve big things.
A lot of stress comes along. And as you're trying to achieve bigger things, you need to be on your A game more often. You need to be mentally sharp, you need to be mentally prepared, you need to be mentally energized and productive. And not once in a while, but like every day you have to be on. And sometimes guzzling more coffee isn't going to do it. You have to use what we call nootropics, which are, you know, basically supplements that help optimize your brain. And yes, we have a product for exactly that. It's called HPEX Optimized and it is our most popular product. And you can get it. It's back in stock@hpxwellness.com that's hpxwellness.com you'll find HPX optimized for your mental focus and energy. There's. You'll also find my favorite powdered energy drink that we created, this 100% organic and vegan. And you'll find my Essentials, which is my daily multi that I take that covers my energy, that covers my longevity, that covers my immunity, that covers my brain and body health that I absolutely love. And you will feel the difference. Go to HPX Wellness.com right now. HPX Wellness.
Most of my week, people, I would say 20% of my week is reshuffling things. Like what I'm like, oh, yeah, 20% of my week is reshuffling things. The good news is we learn in high performance habits the research. 60% of my week is on the needle moving things like the things that move the business forth, build reach and build revenue. Like, these are like the things. Everything else is secondary for me as a CEO because that's my job, for the team, the company, you guys, as an audience for me to focus on these, just these few specific needle movers. And that's what my encouragement would be today is for everybody to write down what are the real needle movers that make you happy or give you progress that you feel like, oh, by doing these things I move forward the most. And if you can just give 60% of your time to those each week, we know, at least from the research that that that's your, your odds of reaching long term success and being happy about it. That's right there. And then it's just about. I love what Jamie said. She's being present when she's in here, having the perspective to know, okay, I'm here now, I can't deal with those other things right now. The perspective is I'm going to be present with this. There's big things, there's this thing and just not blowing things out of proportion. I think that's one reason people lack focus and discipline. They've beat themselves up so many times, they, they actually hurt their confidence, which hurts their discipline. I don't know if that makes sense.
Yeah. And this is so good. I think, you know, right now we are in the middle, we're approaching the middle of February, which is wild, right? There are so many people that are part of the Growth Day community and that are just hopping into this Growth Day morning show going, who are these two people? What's going on?
Hi, guys.
But, you know, I think, Brendan, that, you know, a lot of people, I think this is really big, what we're talking about in the sense of a lot of people have gotten to mid February and they started the year off strong, right? Thinking, okay, a lot of people start, or maybe they started the month off strong, right? And they think, here's my big goals, my, you know, all the things. And then when they start missing them, they don't give themselves grace exactly what you're talking about. And then they think, oh, okay, I'm starting over next month, or I'm starting over next week, or I'm starting the diet next Monday or all the things. But when we start focusing on the thing we missed, the thing that we didn't have, our focus on, the thing that we, the ball, we draw all those things. And it may even be New Year's goals and New Year's resolutions and all of those things. I feel like we're letting the circumstances of those determine, like a way bigger space in our daily life and in our own mindset than it needs to be if we're able to then transcend them. And I just want to go back to it one more time because I even think for people new to your community, they might see you as someone with a high performance planner. And every little thing is you talk about schedule and timing and laying it all out and having it Planned. Right. So I think it might be easy for somebody to think, oh, that's the key to success. And I think this is huge because I think a lot of people probably share this in the comments and share this with me. This idea that, oh, I've let missing those things or missing or dropping the balls in my New Year's resolution or falling off the wagon in something or this or that kind of take over or take a bigger space and my own mindset of I've failed or I'm not doing this enough or well enough or that enough or oh, I've lost focus, so screw it and I'll figure that goal out later. But no, it's. How do you, how do you handle it when that happens? Is the discipline just to go back to that one more time and you sharing this is huge because I know you as a friend in real life. So I know all these things and I think they're so funny when you might miss a deadline or something because I think, oh good, he's human. All those things because I know you as a friend. But I just want to make sure everyone makes this connection because I think it's our humanness inside all of us where we beat ourselves up a little bit if we miss a deadline or drop a ball or make a mistake or if someone else does something to us that just sucks. Right? And it's not even in our control or we haven't kept the promise to ourselves that for this year, we're going to do this for our New Year's resolution or X, Y or Z. You're not saying that day to day as the inventor of the most genius million sold high performance planner, you're not saying that day to day it all is perfect and that's success. You're saying how you handle it when you miss all the deadlines, how you handle it is everything. You just share that one more time because this is huge for a lot of people who are starting to just doubt themselves or feel bad that they. You know what I mean, that we're in the middle of Feb and things aren't going as they planned.
Yeah. Let's work backwards through this conversation. So if you are lacking focus and discipline, we can work backwards from that and go, oh, there's some emotional regulation issues here that are preventing me from being more focused or disciplined. Working backwards from that. It usually comes down to clarity and confidence. Clarity is, oh, I know what I want. I have my priorities. I get what that is. And confidence is, oh, when I mess up, I can Keep perspective and still stay present and keep working forward versus stopping. It's when you recognize, oh my gosh, I wasn't focused this morning. So f the whole day I'm going to go sit down with seven buckets of ice cream and seven seasons of Netflix. Like, that's, that's not going to make you feel better about yourself. It's going to give you short term comfort. But then the next day, you don't trust yourself to show up when you mess up. You don't trust yourself to show up when you get unfocused or you didn't fulfill the thing or meet the deadline. And so I think it's really important to go, oh, okay. Focus and discipline then ultimately comes from clarity and confidence. Am I clear about what I want and why it matters? Do I remind myself of that? Do I have the confidence to step forward each day in doing it and then have the confidence to be resilient when I don't get it right and keep it all in perspective? Clarity and confidence come together in perspective to go, oh, I missed this thing. Okay, guess what? There's wars happening in other countries. Guess what? There's literally there's hundreds of thousands of people in your state living in poverty where they're going to bed tonight with no meal. You missing your email deadline. I promise, if you can keep that perspective, you know what I mean? Like, and I check, I'm not speaking to you on that example. I'm speaking to me like, I miss email headlines. And I have, I told Denise this morning, the most ever in the history of my career. I have the flags in my email. You know, the flag is I have to, it's me. I have to personally answer that. I have more flags in my inbox than I've had in my entire career. And it doesn't bother me at all. I'm going to get to them. I'm going to do my best to clear the decks and get to them at some point. But I have no guilt, I have no feeling about it. And part of it is setting expectations. Simple as setting up an email. Many of you, I can't believe I've done this. For your own focus, discipline, set up an email saying, thanks, received your email. Right now, very busy on these projects. Please understand it might be several days, three or four days before I can get back to you with what you need. You know, if this is an email asking for me to take on this or do new projects or you're reaching out to see if I'll invest in you or something like that. Please know my plate is full of projects. I'm taking on nothing new at all in the next six months. So if this is your request, come back six months from now. That helps me prevent people from piling on things onto me that now I have to additionally juggle. One of the ultimate secrets to focus and discipline is, as we talked about, saying no. It's just saying no, keeping the decks clear so you can focus on the things that matter the most. And that's hard, especially for Jamie and I. We're like, if you're a high performer or you're the person, which you probably are, because Growth Day members tend to be the more successful their peer set. So what happens is because you're good, everybody comes to you. Yeah, that's the challenge with being good at what you do or a good role model. Everyone comes to you with everything. You have to make sure you turn those away and you focus on your needle movers and those receive the priority every day, every week. If those needle movers receive the priority, you'll get the progress. You'll feel good about yourself. And now momentum ads. You get more folks in discipline over a period of time as you actually prioritize what matters.
Okay, my friend, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Brendon 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 the 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.