A coach who's worked through depression argues you need two things to grow: staying true to yourself and deliberately pushing past comfort. He walks through how to build a learning mindset, choose joy daily, and set goals that pull you toward your actual potential.
If you still feel unfulfilled, if you still feel like you haven't broken through, that's a good higher calling to honor that is saying to you, challenge yourself, young man. Challenge yourself, young woman. Challenge yourself, my friend. It is time to rise to the next level. The world, the universe, God, your soul, your spirit is demanding more of you. Rise to the next level. That is a beautiful impulse we must hear. And if we don't hear it, it's because we've drowned it with negative thinking and the wrong intentions. So we must now challenge ourselves. One part of intention is to align with what's natural for us. That's what I'm calling congruence. The other part of that intention, that circle that overlaps, that challenge, it's because we must also challenge ourselves to become better, because our natural inclination is to also be congruent with our potential. And when people are in misery in their life, it's usually as a coach, as a high performance coach is one of the things I listen for. It's usually one of these two buckets. They aren't being congruent, meaning aligned with what is natural and right for them. They're not being themselves, being honest and doing their best. They're not in flow with congruency, right? It's not natural yet. They're not making the choices for what's right for them yet. Or a lot of people have that. They're flowing through life, man. They got all the things, they've succeeded, they're happy. I mean, everything looks perfect to the outside world, but inside they're stewing, they're frustrated, they're unfulfilled. And the hardest thing to tell a person like that, and I've had to look a million people in the eyes and say this to them, is you're not challenging yourself sufficiently to your next level of potential. And so inside that part of you that recognizes that divine greatness, or that part of you that knows of that thing called destiny, or that part of you that realizes legacy matters, or that part of you that recognizes there's something that's in the future holding space for you, that's grand, it feels cheated. And as a high performance coach, a lot of the work that I have to do with people is say, okay, if the only challenges you're facing in life right now are the ones that life threw at you, that's why you're unhappy. You're only in reacting mode. You're not in growing mode. Let me say it again, you're in reacting mode, not growing Mode, you're going through the motions. And even if you're congruent, you're being a good person, you're showing up, trying each day to be yourself, be your best. But if you still feel unfulfilled, if you still feel like you haven't broken through, that's a good higher calling to honor. That is saying to you, challenge yourself, young man. Challenge yourself, young woman. Challenge yourself, my friend. It is time to rise to the next level. The world, the universe, God, your soul, your spirit is demanding more of you. Rise to the next level. That is a beautiful impulse we must hear. And if we don't hear it, it's because we've drowned it with negative thinking and the wrong intentions. So we must now challenge ourselves. 2020 this year. 2022 this year. This is a year for you of challenging yourself and not getting discouraged, adopting the learning mindset, being in growth mode. And when you do that, it's different. There's pop, there's energy, there's aliveness, there's edge to our lives. You know, we all know that story of that person in the suburb or the big fancy house who got, quote unquote, too comfortable. They've got money, the car, the house, food for the kids, they can handle tuition. Like everything seems going wrong, but they're just unhappy. We got to get them back into alignment with congruence and we've got to get them back to deliberately challenging themselves to rise the next level. How do we do that? Well, after suffering so many years with depression in my life earlier, I recognized at some point my attitude and energy in the world was my choice. And I thought, if I'm going to bring, if I get to choose over the long term and in the moment, I want to experience joy. I want to be happy and free and loving and light. And I'm going to bring that into each day. I really believe. If you want one thing from today, if you could take one thing as a major intention this year, I would ask for you to choose to bring the joy every day. It doesn't mean I have to fake it till I make it. It doesn't mean that I don't have dark, dark, difficult days and moments of my life. It just means what on par over the average across the days. Most often you're going to get joy from this kid. That's a choice. I was not born that way. You have to challenge yourself to go to the next level. Whatever that is for you, right? Whatever that is for you. What is that? Please write it down. What is the next level of challenge for you this year in your business, if you have a business, what's the challenges you're going to take on? Right? Whether you call that goals, priorities, initiatives, OKRs, you know, key performance indicators, whatever you call it, those are deliberate challenges. You are setting a step ladder of ever increasing challenges. Not because you're glutton for punishment, because in your heart, you know there's potential. Mmm. It's a beautiful thing. That's why I love January 1st. That's why everyone loves New Year's, because there's potential there. It's that open page, that new chapter. Oh, I love that time. Love that time. So I want to share with you again, if you're not where you want to be, the intention is, okay, I want to show up and experience life differently. And then we come back to those circles. Let me realign with congruence. Let me be more congruent with who I really am, being myself, being honest with others, what I really think, feel need and desire, and let me set up some challenges for myself and stick to them. When I set up those challenges for myself and I stick to them, I feel more congruent, even with my future potential. And now I'm happier. And the good byproduct of it is more positive emotions, more healthy relationships, and more progress in our lives.
