10 Things Men Need To STOP doing in 2025

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Welcome back to the Man Talk Show. Today we're going to be talking about the 10 things that you need to stop doing in 2025. Now this is a, a list of things that have dramatically changed my own life and have changed the lives of the men that I have worked with. I'm very fortunate in the sense that the, the clients that I get to work with are men that run hedge funds, that are Wall street traders. They're some of the best in their industry. Athletes, professional athletes from the NFL and NHL, rappers, musicians, heavy metal guitarists and drummers, guys that are real estate moguls and entrepreneurs in, in the tech world. I really get to work with some of the elite, top performing men. And what I've noticed is that all of these men at some point have to stop doing these behaviors that are in this list. And rather than doing some, you know, New Year's new you BS resolution that never works, that nobody ever follows through on, that I personally just legitimately dislike. I think it's garbage. These are the things that you can start to call out and cut out of your life that are going to make a dramatic, dramatic difference. So number one, let's just dive straight into it. And if you enjoy this, please don't forget to man it forward. Share this with somebody in your life that you know will enjoy. It goes a long way to growing the channel and supporting the work that we're doing, but it also just goes a long way to supporting the men that are in your life. So don't forget to man it forward. Subscribe to the channel like the video and let's dive in. So number one, can't say this any other way. Stop shitting on yourself. Stop shitting on yourself. Stop brutally, just like destroying yourself verbally in your head, punishing yourself every single time that you get something wrong, shaming yourself anytime that you don't live up to, you know, the unrealistic expectations that you have set for yourself. Stop self flagellating and self punishing every single time something goes wrong. Start taking what I call clean accountability. This means no shaming yourself. No shaming yourself or punish yourself when things go wrong, when you have made up, messed up, when you have made a bad decision. Now I say this because I've noticed a trend in a lot of men that I've worked with over the last decade and in myself. I used to beat the crap out of myself verbally in my head whenever I did anything wrong, whenever I didn't meet some, you know, unrealistic expectation that I set for myself, I would lace into myself, what's wrong with you? You're such pos. Like, how could you do that? Like, you know, nobody else would get this wrong. You're so stupid. D and I would just berate myself. And in some ways, I was trying to do that to leverage shame, to try and propel me forward to get better results. Now this is a catch 22, because for some men, you might be one of the men like me where shame was crippling me and that self punishment, that, that self deprecation was the thing standing in my way. Now there are men who are in a very different camp where they leverage that self deprecation, they leverage their shame, they leverage. It's what I call dark motivation. They punish themselves and whip themselves verbally, psychologically and emotionally in order to try and get results. And it works for a period of time. And this is the catch. All of the men that I have ever worked with that have used shame to motivate themselves, at some point, that mechanism of shame based motivation will start to work against them. They'll start to not be able to perform. They'll get depressed. They will just genuinely loathe and hate themselves. They'll destroy relationships and push people away because they don't see that they're worthy. A whole bunch of things can happen. So this year, in 2025, start to take clean accountability. This means no shaming, no judgment of yourself, just, yeah, that was the wrong choice. That was a bad decision. That wasn't a smart decision for me to make in my life and take ownership over it and use that as a mechanism to propel you forward. Use that clean accountability as a mechanism to help you change. Number two, stop letting women. Stop blaming women for all of your problems. I've been on YouTube not for very long. I haven't been. I haven't been on YouTube for a super long time. But I've been working with men for over a decade. And what I've noticed on YouTube is that there is a very large subset of men who are convinced that every single problem in their life is the result of a woman's. And there's a large subset of women who believe the same thing about men. Right, right. It's like the patriarchy is the sole problem with everything in existence today, and every issue can be traced back to men. So I get it. I get that maybe you are a man who has been screwed over by a woman. Maybe you were betrayed, maybe you were cheated on, maybe you were hurt by a woman. Maybe she divorced you and, you know, took half of everything that you, that you, you know, earned and, and own. Maybe she won't let you access your kids. I get that there are different, genuinely women out there who are brutal to men. And maybe you've been on the receiving end of that. That still does not warrant and justify seeing women as the enemy writ large for every single problem in your life or every single problem for men in the world. And so this is really about taking your own level of potency and power back. Because whenever we villainize the opposing sex and we say that they are responsible for all of our woes, all of our problems, we move into a victimhood position. So you are not a victim to women. Now. You may have been victimized by women, abused by women physically, taken advantage of women by physically. I'm not negating that. I'm sorry if that happened to you. That's terrible. That sucks. So I'm not not saying that that's not a real thing. And I do not ever want to downplay that that's a very real thing that a lot of men experience. And for the most part, that's not what a lot of men are going through. What a lot of men are going through is they're pissed at women. They see women as the problem. They're angry. They don't think that they can get the women that they want. And so they're projecting a tremendous amount of vitriol and resentment and hostility towards women and acting like the victim to women. I can't get the job that I want because of women. I can't make enough money for women. I'll never be able to make women happy. And women become this sort of embodiment of a man's perfectionism, a man's relationship with his own perfectionism, that he can never get it right with his own perfectionism because he can never meet his own expectations. And for some men, they project that out onto women. I can never make you happy. I can never get it right with you. You're always going to betray me. And what it does is create a, not just a victim orientation within your mind and your mindset, but it, it allows you to stay lonely and isolated and disconnected from women because you just see them as one way. You just see women as a problem or as dysfunctional or as all entitled. And you never actually meet the woman that's in front of you because you're just interacting with the perception that you hold of women that's being projected onto her. So stop blaming women for all your problems and start to get to know the women that are actually in your life that you meet, whether it's at the coffee shop or the gym or the grocery store or at the yoga studio, wherever it is that you go at work. Start to genuinely get to know them and get to know that individual woman, rather than projecting your animosity and vitriol towards women at large onto every single woman that you meet. Number three, stop tuning in to calorie less content. Stop tuning into terrible content. All right? Like, stop tuning into the thirst traps. Delete your only fans account if you have one. Stop tuning. You know, unfollow all the women on Instagram or TikTok that you follow that you know are just a waste of time, that are just, you know, getting your attention for free, getting your follow and all your likes and all your comments and all your time and attention and your imagination is going towards them. Stop wasting your time on content that is not nourishing your mind, that's not helping you to develop into the man, the leader, the husband, the partner, the father that you ultimately want to be. Start to consume valuable content that is designed specifically for the sole purpose of supporting you on the mission that you are on, whatever that mission is. Maybe you want to make a million dollars next year. Maybe you just want to enter into the workforce and get a good job. Maybe you want to start a business. Maybe you want to have an extraordinary relationship or a really great sex life or whatever it is. Maybe you want to be an extraordinary father. Start to consume the type of content that is going to help you reach your goal and attack your mission. So really hone in on this. That might mean that you have to unfollow people, might mean that you have to go off of social media for a while because. But really take a look at the content. Maybe you're only listening to certain podcasts and you need to broaden your podcast listening. Maybe there's some books that you actually need to read and, you know, not just consume content, but actually dive back into some books. So stop consuming calorie less content and start consuming content that is going to support you in reaching your goals. All right, Number four, stop ignoring your finances. I cannot tell you how many men I have worked with over the years who use avoidance as their main tool and tactic when it comes to their finances. You ask them how things are going financially, how much do you have saved, where's your debt at? You know, how much is your monthly burn? And they're. They're not able to give you Any information. And I used to be like this. I felt insecure about money. I was, I was terribly broke. You know, I was in debt. You know, I was like the ramen noodle dude. Like I used to make this. Oh man, I'm going to get so much flack for this if you're, you know, if you're watching this or listening to this. But in university I was so broke that I would make stir fry with lunch meat. And so because I didn't have enough money to buy like real turkey, real chicken breasts, or I didn't have enough money to buy steaks and like that type of meat, I would just buy like turkey lunch meat. And so I would make this stir fry. I remember dating this, this woman in university and I made it for her one time and she was like, what is this? Like, are you okay? Do I, do you need help? Do I need to send you help? But part of that was that I was just in complete avoidance of my money situation. I did not want to look at it at all because I was broke, I was in debt, I didn't know how to save money, I didn't know how to invest money. I didn't know what the hell an ETF fund was or a, a Roth IRA or a tax free savings account. I didn't know what any of those things were. And so it was just overwhelming. And so I used avoidance as a tool and tactic for my finances. So start to educate yourself in 2025 about money, about how to save, how to invest, how to earn more money, maybe how to have passive income, whatever that is. Just start to level up your relationship to money so that you're not avoiding some of the hard parts. You should be able to get to a point point where you are running your personal finances like a business where you have a P and L statement for your personal finances on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis so you can see the breakdown of how much money is coming in, where is that money going to, how much money is being saved, where is it being invested and how are those investments doing? That's the basic breakdown for finances that no one taught me that. I wish someone had sat down, one of my parents, my mom was a banker. She probably could have done that at some point, but that somebody had sat me down and said, here's how money works and operates, here's the basics of it and we're going to help you to learn how to invest. And that just never happened. But it's one of the things that has radically changed my life When I prioritized my finances, I started earning more. I started not just earning and making more, but I started to save more. I paid off my debt pretty quickly. So I got entirely debt free, which felt amazing, even though I made some sacrifices along the way. I remember at one point, I don't remember, I think it was like 2014, I was going to invest, it was like 10 grand into Tesla. And I didn't do it because at the time I didn't know anything about stock trading. I thought it would be a good idea to buy Tesla stock. I think it was at like, you know, 20 bucks at the time or something ridiculous like that, or like $42. But I had all of this credit card debt and I'd been carrying that credit card debt for a long time. And I just made a decision to pay down the credit card debt because I was on a mission at a goal, get rid of my debt because it wasn't good debt, right? It wasn't like I wasn't leveraging to buy stocks and making, you know, more, more revenue off of the stocks than I was on the cost to borrow the money. It wasn't good debt. It was like 20% on a credit card that had like $25,000 on it. It was not good. So I decided to pay off all my debt. Now in hindsight, I wish I had bought the Tesla stock, but I succeeded in my mission to pay off the debt. And I'm really glad that I didn't gamble because I didn't know anything. I probably would have lost money. You know, I would have been like the only dude that lost money on, on that stock. So stop ignoring your finances. Focus on them for 20, 25. Number five is stop seeking validation from women from external sources. Now I call this stop outsourcing validation and start insourcing validation. So what a lot of guys do because we're very external is they outsource validation, outsource the reinforcement of their own self worth. I'm not sure if I'm worthy. I'm not sure if I'm good enough. I'm not sure if I'm smart enough. I'm not sure if I'm attractive enough. And what they do is they try and deploy.

This mechanism of getting feedback from people at work, from fans, from family members, from, you know, people that they, that they whatever see at the gym, from their girlfriends, from their wives, from their partners. And they try and get validation to fill up their internal lack of I don't feel good enough. Now if there's one Thing that you can do, if this one really hits home with you, if there's one thing that you can really start doing in 2025, and it is to build a rigorous mechanism of.

Self appreciation and self recognition. If you can start to give yourself recognition and appreciation for the things that you are doing that you are doing well, if you can acknowledge, like, oh, I got up this morning and I, you know, I executed on my morning routine and like, you know, really good job, and you can start to build the habit of reinforcing all the things that you do well and all of the parts of yourself that are valuable innately and inherently. You won't need to externalize and outsource all of that validation. So stop outsourcing that validation and start insourcing that self recognition and appreciation. The next piece is Stop overworking. Okay, this is number six. Stop overworking. I see so many men killing themselves, really burning themselves out in order to, you know, make a living. And they, they just really struggle to prioritize any type of time for themselves. And I think it's. It's challenging because hustle cards culture within a modern society really glorifies the pathway that leads to burnout. Right? Hustle culture in itself is really just a recipe for the end destination is going to be burnout. That's. That's really what. It's what it is. Now, there are some people who love working really hard, who love just going a thousand miles an hour, and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. I love working hard. I really, really do. I love working hard, I love building my business. And I have had to learn to rest. I've had to learn to pull back on the rain sometimes and not take on more than I can do naturally. And this isn't about balance. This isn't about work, life, balance. You know, I think a lot of that stuff is nonsense, but this is about being able to design your life in a way that matches your priorities and your values. So if you have a value of family and friendship or community, travel and adventure, but your entire year is basically just working 80 to 90 hours a week. And you don't travel and you don't see friends and you don't see family, then your life isn't matching your priorities and your values. It's not matching what brings you joy, what fulfills you. And you are just pouring all of this work and effort into something that maybe you enjoy or maybe you don't at all. But you're missing out on living a more aligned and More congruent life. And for a lot of men, this is easy because for most men, it's easier to just be doing than it is to be being. And what do I mean by that? A lot of us men find that our worth and our value is tied or tethered to how much we can do. So we have this perception that a lot of guys have. It's like, the more that I do, the more valuable or worthy I will be in the eyes of other people, or the more valuable and worthy I will feel within myself. Now, obviously, there's an argument to be made that if you build something in the world, that that is can be very rewarding and fulfilling. It can bring you value financially, it can bring you status, can bring you a whole bunch of things. But at the end of the day, if you don't know how to just be with yourself, if you don't know how to just like who you are without having to cut through the task list, you know, every single day, you're going to struggle to find any level of fulfillment. You actually have to enjoy who you are innately. And so part of this, part of this letting go of overworking, which, by the way, burnout doesn't actually allow you to be very productive. It doesn't allow you. When you're burnt out, you don't. You can't perform very well. You can't provide for your family very well or even yourself very well, and you can't contribute in the way that you want. And so the overworking, knowing where your limits are, it's like, what is that? There's a gambling ad back in. In Canada. I don't know if it's still up, but they used to say, know your limit and play within it. And that was sort of the notion of like, know when to pull your chips on the table, off the table. And I think the same is true when it comes to working and really hustling. Know when and know where your limits are and then play within those limits so that you don't bet the house and come out broke on the other side, because that's not going to be of service to you or anyone in your life. Number seven, stop living without structure. My gosh, I see so many men whose lives are they call it free. It's like, I have so much freedom in my life. It's like, no, you just have no structure whatsoever. And you're floundering around wondering why you have no direction, no path, and no purpose in your life. We have no effing structure. If you do not have structure and order in your life, it's going to be very, very challenging for you to feel like you have any type of direction. And I don't care if you're a really creative person. Like, I'm a fairly creative person. But structure is still one of those things that has supported my life in exponential ways. So as an example, I organize my days to have themes. So there's certain days that I create content, there's certain days that I have business meetings, There are certain days that I see clients, right? So like, for example, Fridays are my client days. They're stacked with clients. That's when I see the majority of my clients. Wednesdays I run groups. Tuesdays I create content. Guess what day it is. Tuesdays I create content and, and do podcast interviews, right? So start to create structure in your life. You can organize things so that you have a bit of a routine so that your body and your mind can settle into knowing what it's doing. And this is especially true if you are a creative, if you are a solopreneur or an entrepreneur and you kind of wear a bunch of different hats, it's very important to organize and structure your life in a way that is going to allow you to know, not have to, what I call hat switch or brain switch, right? To go from a business meeting into an interview into a, into a client meeting, that's going to require very different parts of your brain. And that's going to burn you out quicker. That's going to be, that's going to tax your mind and your body faster. So by developing structure in your life. And this applies to morning routines, nighttime routines, right? I have a very good morning routine. There's a lot of flow and flexibility in it, but there's very specific things that happen every single day. I have a nice nighttime routine that allows me to wind down and go to bed because I have a ton of energy. And I'm one of those guys that has a harder time falling asleep because my brain is super active. I'm thinking about my company, my business clients, you know, what I want to be doing. I'm thinking about my kids, my family, the task list, everything that needs to be done. I have a hard time going to sleep, sleep. And so I have a wind down structure or routine that helps me to wind down. So start to build structure out and start simple, right? Maybe you start with a morning routine. Maybe you start with shifting things in your workflow so that you have a little bit more structure. Maybe you bring this into your relationship, and you start to build some structure within your relationship. You have a date night that you start to adhere to and you have some fun with it. So start to build some structure. Number eight. I touched on this before, so this one will be short. Stop disregarding rest. Stop disregarding rest. Burnout doesn't make you more of a man. Overworking, driving yourself into the ground doesn't make you more of a man. If you want to be more effective, you likely need to learn how to rest. Now, you might be one of the guys that's watching this and you're like, actually, all I do is rest. And I never get my ass off the couch. Like, likely you're not really resting. You're distracting. Real rest is not sitting there watching Netflix or, you know, zombie scrolling through TikTok or Instagram or whatever social media platform that you have. Real rest is undistracted. Undistracted solo time. Time in solitude. That can be time in nature. That can be meditation or breath work or journaling. There's a bunch of different ways to do it. But start to prioritize rest. And this, this can also include starting to really prioritize your sleep. So now that I have two kids and a business that I'm running, I really hone in on making sure that I'm getting at least seven hours of sleep. Because otherwise I'm cranky, you know, and sometimes that doesn't happen just because of life, but I really try and prioritize making sure that I get a certain set amount of sleep.

Excuse me. So that I am functioning optimally for my business, for my clients, for my team members, for my kids, for my wife. Without that, if I do not prioritize rest, then I am going to bring that frustration into almost every single avenue of my life. I'm going to make poorer decisions. Um, I'm not going to be as present with people and what I've noticed for myself, and maybe this is the same for you. The less rest that I have, the more susceptible I am to those pseudo rest mechanisms, right? To. To zombie style scrolling through Instagram or, you know, whatever it is. And so that's usually the way that it works for most guys. So start to prioritize rest and making sure that you're dialing in, at the very least, your sleep, but also prioritizing having some restful periods and learning what rest looks like. Like for me, going for a hike and going for a walk in nature by myself is incredibly rewarding. And I feel very fueled after that. So you need to find your own version of that Number nine. Two more. Number nine. Stop holding on to resentment. Cannot tell you how many men that I've worked with over the years whose lives are just riddled with resentment. They're carrying around a bitterness and an anger in their hearts and their minds that is poisoning the waters of their purpose, of their intimacy, of their relationship. And it has become a kind of protection mechanism that ensures that they stay in this place of dissatisfaction. And so often men who are more committed to the resentment that they're carrying than the resolution of that resentment, there's a part of them that doesn't feel worthy and deserving of what it is that they actually want. Whether it's deep intimacy or connection or a great sex life or meaningful purpose or a good working environment or good working relationship. There's. There's this part of them that's like, no, I'm actually not worthy of that, or that's not possible. And so I'm just going to hold on to this resentment. But learning to forgive, learning to actually resolve the resentment is an incredibly powerful tool for you as a man. Because men have such a tendency and proclivity towards resentment, towards letting resentment build and then letting resentment become a sort of normative way of being. It just becomes this thing that they, that, that they then operate from having resentment towards women at large, right? Having resentment towards their wife or their girlfriend or their partner that they just will not, you know, let go of. And the more that I've worked with men, the more that I've found that a lot of men just do not know how to forgive. And so they either skip straight to it and they're like, yeah, yeah, whatever, I forgive it, it's no big deal. Feel. But they don't actually let themselves, you know, feel the impact of what happened from the betrayal or whatever it was, or they just let resentment become a huge part of their personality and their identity, and they carry it around and they allow it to pop out in these passive aggressive or aggressive ways in their relationship. So this year, if this one really hits home with you, prioritize doing whatever you can to learn how to forgive, how to forgive yourself, and how to forgive the people that have maybe betrayed you or hurt you and to forgive the people that maybe you've carried resentment towards. And there's a bunch of different ways to do that. I'm happy to do a separate video on that if that would support you. Last but not least, stop rejecting help and support. Stop rejecting help and support. I mean, listen, I run, I Don't know if you know this, but I run something called the Man Talks alliance. And in the alliance, there are several hundred million men. And what I have seen time and time again is that whenever a man's life is starting to go south or he's struggling, we have this natural predisposition towards isolation. It's not ingrained in us to reach out and call a buddy or ask a friend for help or ask a friend for support and advice. We have this natural baked in predisposition towards trying to figure that out by ourselves or convincing ourselves that if we don't solve it all on our own, that if we need help from other people, that there's something even more wrong with us, that we're fundamentally broken. And one of the things I can tell you unequivocally is that your life will be exponentially better by surrounding yourself with other men that you trust and rely on to support you and, and give you feedback and guidance when your life starts to, you know, fragment, fall apart, when things start to, you know, get tough, whether that's financially or relationally. So pick up the phone if you do not have men in your life like this. Find some. Make it your absolute mission. I can tell you that my life is what it is today because I have continued to seek out and surround other exceptional and extraordinary men that can mentor me, that can give me feedback, that are, that are peers and equals, that I trust their opinion, I trust their perspective. I trust them to see things in a way that maybe I don't see, or I trust them to point out things in my life that I might be missing and to really hold my feet to the fire. And this has served me in a way that I cannot even describe to you. So if you, if you want, you could go check out mantalks.com the alliance is on there. Doors will be opening in January. That is a phenomenal place to start. But there's many programs out there like that. So if you're looking for a good place, go find a group, go find a community. Doesn't have to be mine or Man Talks. There are tons that are out there. But you will absolutely benefit from having men who are invested in your life, invested in your success, invested in supporting you to move through the obstacles and the challenges that you will naturally and innately face. So that's it for today. Those are the 10 things I hope that you start to tackle in 2025. Comment below if you're watching this on YouTube and let me know which one you are going to be tackling or if there's a different one that you are working on cutting out for 2025. And as always, do not forget to man it forward. Share this episode with somebody in your life that you know will enjoy it or could use it. Till next time, Connor Beaton signing off.