Psychological Necessity - Tip the Scale So That You Run Towards Change

Most people spend their entire life stressed without ever giving a single thought as to what it is they really want or what's important to them. See, I'm here to cut through all that noise connecting you to yourself and the life that you were meant to live. I used to slave away at a corporate job that I hated, but I broke through the social norms and pursued my passion. As a result, I own my own coffee company. I'm espresso sommelier, and I get to travel the world. You too can live a life that you love, but it starts with getting clear about what you want. It starts with a new decision. I'm your host, Donnie Rouse, and you are listening to the podcast One Life. Psychological Necessity. Any change that you take or make in your life requires you to have some kind of psychological necessity. What is psychological necessity? Psychological necessity means that you either have enough pain to push you forward where you can't take it anymore, or there's that much pleasure that it literally pulls you forward. You see a new opportunity, see new possibilities. The thing with psychological necessity is that often it's either thrust it upon us, right, when you get a diagnosis from a doctor, or you have to literally cultivate it yourself. You have to ask yourself the challenging questions that require you and make you look at life differently and the changes that you need to make. So this is not meant to be. I'm going to share an experience, and it's an experience around living in Stanford, Connecticut, my hometown. So I'll give you some of the backstory there, but I want you to just start to pull it to your mind. One area of your life, an area where you know that you need to make some changes, but you haven't been. When you got that area, just hold it there and I'll say a few questions now and. But I want you to just listen to my story and see how the change happens and how more so the psychological. Can't even speak how the psychological change happens, right? Because what I'm about to share with you is this kind of tug of war until all of a sudden it just released. So start with questions. One, name the area of your life that you want to have a change in. And then secondly, are you willing to stay in this position, this state of discomfort or dissatisfaction for the next five, 10, 15 years? That was one of the most powerful questions for me when I answered it this most recently. Next question is, what are you losing by not changing? Right? By not changing, you're making a decision. So there's always something to be gained. But there's also something to be lost. So what are you losing? Next question is, what are you not experiencing as a result of not changing? It's so easy to think about and focus on the pain of the change without looking at, like, what will you gain as a result of it? Right? What experiences we have, what feelings we have. Once you break through that psychological barrier and you're on the other side, and now all of a sudden you're like, man, what was I afraid of? How will you feel? And what will you gain as a result of that change? I kind of just fed into my next question. And then lastly at the end, I want you to think of what would one courageous action be that would get you to just start moving in that direction. So the story behind this is about relocating. Those of you who know me know that I've been wanting to relocate for quite a while. I gave myself the story that, you know, my business is keeping me here, my family, and all of those things are true. In 2016, I had a. Well, I was living in a house with my brother, and I moved out. I went to Brooklyn for a few months. And then after living in Brooklyn, I said, this is definitely not for me. And I went on this traveling spree, which I was seriously one of the best experiences. Experiences of my entire life. And that to. To have the resources to travel like that, I. I moved back home to my childhood home, to my family, and there was a lot of, I would say, mental distress to say. To say it softly about, like, what people would think about me, right? Well, what would people think if. How can I date somebody? They're not going to take me seriously in this. When I say psychological distress, it really, really, really was heavy. But the weight of, you know, the more compelling side, like, the travels and the experience I was having at that time, far superseded anything else. And I mean, for the most part, it still does today. But it was also like, you know, the scales were a little bit shaky, and the desire was, I want to experience another place. Not just somewhere in the country, but somewhere outside of the country, living in other places, experiencing different cultures. If you know me at all, you know that that is what gives me the juice that makes me feel most alive. So there had been this tug of war literally going on for years, to the point where I was doubting, well, can I make it? Can I do it right? And you start asking shitty questions, you start getting really, really shitty answers. All of a sudden I was like, no, I can't do it. And then, like, things my Father would say would creep into my mind and it would just bring me lower. But you would be surprised at what you are capable of, right? You are capable of so much. And it only requires just stepping through this little bit of discomfort. For what you see is a wall. It's really not really even a wall. It's just a black curtain with a part in the middle. All you have to do is step up to it, move it aside and step in. I mean, it's easier to see as a black curtain with a slit. Once you've actually taken the big courageous step and you've moved through and you're like, oh, that wasn't much. But when you're, when you're in it, right, you're looking at this wall and you're like, fuck, this thing is like five feet deep and thick. I can't break through that wall. But it's going to require you to. And the psychological necessity is what you have to take hand of or take hold of. So I was looking at this, I was looking at the psychological necessity of it. I was going, well, what do I lose by staying here? You could also look at what do you gain by saying it. Because everything, if your condition or where, your position, wherever you are, if it was not meeting your needs in some way, you wouldn't do it, right? You wouldn't be. If you're like, oh, man, yeah, I really hate, you know, being home because, yeah, it makes me feel like, not as independent and, you know, always getting asked questions where I'm going, right? Who would put up with that? But when you looked at my, my story, right, I'm like, oh, well, but where am I going to go next? Oh my God, should I go to Asia? I think I'm going to travel to this place. I had all of these reasons why I should keep the current circumstance going. I want you to know that it literally is all a mindset because who is this? Why can't I go out and move out and do all these things? It requires change in a different way too, especially in different areas like my business and marketing and all this other stuff. But I want you to just kind of grasp where I was gaining from staying home, where I was benefiting from this, right? Because if you're not benefiting from it, then you wouldn't be in that position to look at it differently. It's like saying, well, you know, food, for example, right? You might want to get in shape, but it just seems like too much. But now, you know, all of a sudden you're like, well, I don't want to give up my favorite foods. I love doing this. I always go out to dinner with my families, and they're always eating pasta. I don't want to eat a salad. And because of that, you start to attach more pain to the change. What happens when you get a diagnosis and now you're forced. All of a sudden, now that pain threshold has far surpassed the pleasure of eating that pasta. So that's what it was with me. I was realizing that, you know, the question that was the trigger for me wasn't really, like, what I would gain all that big. Although when I would visit the city I want to move to, I was like, oh, my God, this is freaking it. Like, this is it. And then I come back, I get back in the routine of doing things, and I'm like, oh, my God. I start spiraling. I start going in through the old motions. So I knew what it was. But the thing that tipped it over for me was asking the question, like, are you willing to stay in this position for another 3, 5, 10, 15 years? And where would you be if you were to do that? What would the consequences be? Right? Because things don't get better after that much time. If you're not improving, they tend to get worse, and you're in a worse spot than you were before. And as I thought about that again, it's funny, I feel like we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to change and try to break through. And I don't really think that that is always the most healthy way, because it ends up. You end up stressing about it, and it just causes more tension. But life has a plan. It took all this time for, you know, it's almost like a building. It's like a snowball that's rolling down a hill. It's starting to gather weight and momentum, where all of a sudden you're like, oh, shit, here we go. All right, now I gotta start running. Sometimes you have to move faster than you are ready. So I do believe that, you know, everything in life is having happens for a reason. But there is tremendous power that you have to make those changes ahead of that snowball. So as I. As I thought about that question, there's no freaking way in hell. No way in hell. No. You know, but if I'd asked the other questions, like, oh, well, think yourself out 20 years. What would you. I am like, I couldn't even. I couldn't put myself in 20 years. I was very challenging for me to think 20 years out, then look back and Be like, oh, here I am now. And I couldn't do that. But I knew the pain that I was experiencing by not following through on things that I knew I should follow through on. So, you know, in that's. There was a whole. I mean, there's so many other. It's not that complex. I think I'm making it more complex than it is. Like, with my business. What do I do? And like, well, I, you know, I could still kind of brew periodically, and then people have to just hoard it when I do brew my cold Roman. But anyways. But the fact that I'm even sharing this, I want you to know, because this was also something that, like, I felt a lot of shame with when people, you know, in my friends, my good. My good friends might do. Who the frig cares? Who cares if you're living back home? Who cares? Look what you're doing. You're traveling, you're doing this, your business, your party, all this stuff. But I was being very, very hard myself. And the reason I'm sharing it now is because I broke through that mental threshold and the change is eminent. It's happening, you know, because. And I. I tell you that because we tend to look at, you know, people, we look at other people, we think they got the shit figured out, right? You look at people who are influencing, you know, telling you their story afterward, and you're like, oh, yeah, but easy, man. They must have just had it and it just clicked. No, it does not happen. Right? Most people don't share the shit when they're in the weeds. They may say they're having trouble, but I know it was very difficult for me. But when you made that. When you make the conscious decision now, all of a sudden you're like, you know what? The change has already happened. I don't. I could share and do all this because I know it's real. So if you think you're behind or, you know, other people aren't sharing, I want you to know that everyone is struggling with something, right? Everyone struggles with something. Some people, it's their health or weight. It's other people, it's something in a relationship or expectation. Whatever it is, whatever we all suffer. Get that through your mind and you will be a lot better off. The hardship comes or the mental stress comes when you think that you're alone. But if you ask anybody, hey, what are you struggling with? And you have these level three conversations with people, you realize that everyone's struggling with something. And, like, I might tell you this story, like that Even what I'm sharing now about the living home. And you'd be like, oh, dude, who the fuck cares, dude? You're traveling the freaking world. You have a coffee company people love. Why do you even care? Right? And then you may share something with me about. Wait, I'm like, who the fuck cares? You're a beautiful person. If you really want to change, it's totally possible, something you can do, but do it because you want to do it, not because it would anyone else. You know, we are a lot harder on ourselves than others would be. And we have it in our minds that, like, oh, my God, like, the world is conspiring against us when it's not true, it's not true. Most people, if you share these feelings with people, they'll be like, listen, chill the hell out, man. Life is beautiful. You're awesome. Chill out. And then you'll be like, oh, yeah, wow. You know what? I guess I pretty am awesome. I am pretty awesome. I guess I'll just relax for a bit. And then you just chill. And then it comes down again. Anyways, so we're talking about that. Creating that psychological necessity. And I. I talk about this, and I want it to be a necessity, but also I want you to balance it out with some trust, some faith that everything that's happening is happening for you. One of the reasons for me staying home longer than I needed to, right. I had moved out and, like, my. One of the. One of the reframes that I had gotten from one of my coaches, even friends. But you didn't stay home. You had your own house, you moved out, you've traveled. It's not. And I was like, oh, well, I guess you're right. Okay. But, you know, I was still hard on myself. It didn't help, right? They could say that. I mean, it did lighten the load a little bit, but I was still being extremely hard on myself. So what I want you to do is just kind of balance it out with faith. During that time that I was home, a lot of things happened, like health issues with my family, that if I were not there, it very likely would have been a shit show. Maybe I wouldn't have the people that I love around me today. All right. And you don't really. I didn't. I don't say you don't. Maybe you do. I wasn't putting the attention there to see what blessings were present there in me being where I was at this moment in time, what things happened or how I was a blessing to other people's lives. I was too caught up in my own mind and my own struggles and my. Just the bullshit that was literally spiraling in my mind. So it's not, you know, you listen to me on here. A lot of the stuff that I go through on here is stuff that I'm experiencing and I'm dealing with. And I share some questions, different ways of looking at it, because it's shit that's real to me, and I share it with hopes that you understand that you're not alone if you're feeling any of the stuff that I am sharing with you. Sometimes I'm getting better at being more vulnerable and sharing the experiences. It takes time to open up like that. But I'd like to believe that I'm opening up more and more. And hopefully you hear that in the post, in the episodes that I do. But I want you to leave you with this. We'll go over the questions one more time. But I want to leave you with change, right? Change can happen in an instant, right? You can make a decision. You could change your life in one moment. But it is also a process, right? The example I just gave you, I want to move, right? Change. The decision is there. Once the decision is made and you've committed to. All right, it's there. What's the process now? Right near the current, looking for a space, you know, registering the car. There's a bunch of details. There's a lot of things. Or the course I'm doing, that's even better example, Like, I'm like, I just want to create this course, the One Life course. If you don't know what I'm referring to, I'm like, I just want to put this damn thing out, right? I want to start doing it. But there's a lot. There's a lot of things with regard to marketing, to setting up the module. So this way, when I'm communicating with you, I'm doing it in a way that's effective and allows you to absorb and maintain the material, right? It's all new stuff that I'm learning that if I were to just kind of put it out there and just like, all right, poof, it's there. Let's revise. You might not get the impact, and I would be doing a disservice to the people who were enrolled in that program. So just give yourself some grace. Trust the process. And that's a message for me right now, too, because I definitely need to just trust the process and know that life has your back. So let's go over Those questions one more time. All right, so what is the area of your life that there is dissatisfaction in? And ask yourself the question, are you willing to stay in this place of dissatisfaction for the next 3, 5, 10, 15 years? If you do, what kind of effect is that going to have your life? You could look at the psychological effects like, well, man, I mean, my self esteem is going to go down the toilet. And you could think about the stress you cause to family, friends, whatever it may be. What do you lose by not changing? It's another way of saying, instead of saying, what do you get by changing? You're saying, well, what do you lose? And you start to look at loss, right? Because if you're looking at gaining and you're looking at lose, none of us want to lose something that we, we could have, right? Or something we have. So when you look at the possibility of changing, what will you lose? And you might lose, like, man, like, you know, just having friends over, getting away from the damn northeast winters, you know, I've given you my example and, and you start looking at like this stuff, you're like, oh, wow. Yeah, wow, that really does stack it up. And then how will you feel once you've made the change? What won't matter anymore, right? You, you. The big worries that you have. What would I think? And you know, well, what will I do with the business? And you, you have these worries once you make the change, you're like, all right, it's freaking done, right? You look back and the shit you were worrying about, you're not even worrying about it anymore. Now you're looking back and you're like, huh, well, that's funny. You know, you, you almost, you want to laugh at it. You can be like, well, you know, why not make the change now and laugh at it rather than dwell on the stuff and the hardship and all that stuff. And then lastly, what is one courageous move you can make? If you wanted to make a move today, what is one courageous move you can make today to start moving in that direction? It could be if it's. If we're talking about health, it could be literally just making sure that you get half your body weight in water a day throughout the day. One of the moves for me in the move was I was like, all right, well, I'm just going to call some realtors and I'm just going to start asking them, you know, like, I know I'm not moving soon, but I'm just going to start asking questions as maybe they have and manage some properties where they know the owner who's will have a lease coming due at that time and I'm just going to put it out there. And I did. And as a result, I got, you know, I got some inputs, I got some feedback and people are like, yes, I actually do. Let's connect when it's closer to that time. It was a step and all of a sudden I started getting excited. I'm like, oh shit. Wow. I didn't really think it was that easy. I thought it was going to be a lot more difficult trying to find someone or a place that one that was furnished, two that was in the area that I wanted. But there it was. I took a simple action, the very next step, and all of a sudden something appeared. So what is that next step for you? And that is pretty much that concludes this episode. I hope you enjoyed this. I hope in some way it got you just to think a little bit bigger about your life and the possibilities in it, but also just to make you realize you're not alone. Like all the. Listen, no one gets through life unscathed. We all go through something. I have friends who are losing their parents and you know what? It happens to everybody. So give yourself a little bit more grace. Trust that there's a process. Trust that you are able to rebound from anything that life gives you and that you will figure it out. If you enjoyed this podcast, you could hit that subscribe button. Click that subscribe button. You could ask a question or comment by visiting my website@www.donnyrouse.com Again, D O N N Y-R-A U S.com More importantly, if you are interested in partaking in in the One Life course, it's going to be happening the first week, the first Monday of September. And I'll give you kind of a brief overview. If you're watching a video, you see me signaling to my right side. I have a wall with like a calendar on it. So it just kind of keeps my goals and everything there. So this way I could visually peer over and look at when the dates are. But what we're going to do in that One Life course is we're going to create a life that you're fucking passionate about, right? A life that excites you. Not this bullshit day to day where you just kind of lost in like the details, but give you real clarity to say, all right, well, what is it that I want? What is it that, that I really want to move towards? Why do I want that? And also, I mean, these are literally the questions but looking at the things that are holding you back as well, like what are the fears that are holding you back and what are some steps you can take, habits you can drop as well as bring back on to start moving you in the direction of your goal to get you excited, to get you momentum and just trusting the process. Because no one, you know, everyone wants a quick fix. It's not. There's no such thing as a quick fix. Your life doesn't change. It could change in an instant, but the changes compound, right? You have to take many small steps, and one of those steps is making sure that, one, you get clear on what it is you want in your life. And two, you're constantly keeping that vision in your focal point and you're taking small steps. And sometimes you don't see those steps. It feels like you're not making any progress, but you are making progress. And I say this from myself. I'd be extremely hard on myself. But when I ask the question like, all right, well, what really matters, Will, is what I'm doing gonna move me forward in towards the life that I want. When I say yes, then it's like, all right, shit, let me do it right. All right, I'm not going out with the pizza with friends. I'm gonna sit here and focus on what I'm creating. And it just aligns your entire life. And the only way to move forward is to get rid of all the distractions, the shit that is taking you away from the life that is yours. So that is my. That is the one Life program, One Life blueprint that's going to be happening in September 4th. So if you go to my website, donnyrous.coM-O-N n y r a u s dot com and hit that subscribe button, just put your email in. When the course drops and it is open for signing up, you will be the first to know. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope in some way it inspired you to start making some changes in and towards your most passionate life, but also just to start experiencing some joy, right? Do the things that, you know, they're not as bad as you think. But I want you guys to remember, you only get one life. Live it. God bless, and I will see you all again soon. Thank you.