Ep 26: How to Reduce Anxiety and Enjoy the Journey

Most people don't realize this, but the reason you feel so much pressure right now isn't because of how much you have to do. It's because of how you're relating to where you're going. You've turned your future into something that you have to reach, right? You gotta prove it. You gotta finally get there. And without realizing it, that creates this constant gap, this internal pressure where you feel like you're not enough. Nothing is ever enough. And where you want to be feels like this far away destination. That gap, that gap is what creates anxiety, pressure, making the process feel heavy. But what if the future wasn't something you had to reach? What if it was just something that guided you? When you make this shift, everything changes. Welcome back to Build for Impact. I am Jake Burhans, and this is the podcast where inner peace meets high performance and where building your dream life starts from the inside out. I love that intro. I haven't talked about that, but I think it's absolutely incredible. Inner peace meets high performance because inner peace is a prerequisite for high performance. For you to operate at the very highest level, you have to be laser focused. You have to be regulated. You have to be dialed in. Peace does not mean passivity, folks. Doesn't mean that you're getting half the results. When you operate from peace and you prioritize inner peace and the inner work, your performance is going to 2x, 3x, 4x because you are operating at the highest level. You're able to deal with external stress, right? And let it go. And no matter how chaotic things get externally, which inevitably they will as you grow in your business and your life, you're able to deal with it, right? Think about Tom Brady down 28-3 in the Super Bowl. That's a level of focus that we need every day. A Navy SEAL. A speaker, a surgeon, those people aren't passive and checked out, but they're regulated and they're laser focused. And that's the difference. And then we're building your dream life starts from the inside out because that's truly it. Your dream life isn't built out there. It's not a house, it's not a boat, it's not an Aston Martin. It's an internal state of being you cultivate. And the Aston Martin and the house and the boat and the relationship and all that stuff is great. That's the cherry on top. So in today's episode, we are going to be focusing on one of the biggest shifts that we talk about in Module 3 in the flagship Built for Impact program. Which is using the future as a compass instead of a destination. Because this shift, this one shift, it removes so much pressure. It calms your nervous system. So the first thing here is that we often turn the future into pressure. So often, right? We treat it like something we have to arrive at, and this creates an internal gap where you are now and where you're trying to get. Basically, you are here, your future vision is way over there, and there's this gap. And because we need that vision and we're trying to arrive, there's all this pressure and stress and anxiety to get there. Instead of just waking up every day and enjoying the process, there's this urgency and anxiety and overthinking to get there because we think getting there is going to solve some internal problem. It doesn't solve any problems. Okay. It doesn't solve any problems. The shift we want to make is looking at our future as a compass, not a destination. It's just there to orient our actions. That's it. You wake up and it's like, it's like you're waking up and you're like, hey, do I want to walk towards the sunset? Or do I want to walk towards the scary dark woods? I'm just going to walk towards the sunset because I enjoy walking in that direction. There's flowers on the side of the path. It's warm. There's a nice breeze. I can see the sunset. I'm not trying to chase the sunset. I'm not trying to get there, right? That's what it's like trying to chase your goals with pressure and anxiety and overthinking. It's like you're trying to chase a sunset. It's always just out of reach. You're never going to get there. Because what happens is when you're always chasing your goals, you get to that goal, you realize that it didn't give you what you wanted internally, and then you just set another goal and another one and another one. You keep doing that loop until you realize that the external thing is not giving you what you want internally. So the shift becomes then about enjoying the process of building because you understand that is the point. This comes back to my favorite definition of success, which is success is the pursuit of a worthy ideal. It's not arriving at the worthy ideal. It's not getting there. And this aligns with, I think, our natural human needs. To evolve and grow. Like that is our, one of our highest needs is just to evolve and just to grow. So when you understand that is the point, that is the win. It's not about getting anywhere. It's just the fact that you're pursuing something. The fact that you're pursuing a goal or a vision, that is the win, the pursuit. It's not actually getting there. And then it makes it so much easier to wake up every day cuz you're just enjoying the little processes of getting better and there's not all this pressure and you're not rushing to get anywhere. You're just enjoying. And inevitably the beautiful part about that is you actually end up getting to your goals quicker because you're more regulated. You can think clearer, you have more energy, you're making better decisions. So you can have your cake and eat it too. You can have that internal state of peace and you can reach the destination that you're wanting to get to. You can get those external results. Another way to think about this is it's not your goals that are creating pressure. It's how you're relating to them. It's not the fact that you have a goal. It's how you're relating to that goal. You're putting so much pressure on yourself, right? The future becomes like this requirement, right? So the present starts to feel like a problem. Oh, I gotta get to this version of myself because until I get there, I'm not enough until I get to this level in the business where I make this amount of money or I have this relationship or I've done this amount of travel. I'm nothing. Again, the future is just a compass. We're just orienting in that direction. We're getting up and we're walking in that direction. And if we do that every day, it's a win. The beautiful thing about a compass is that a compass doesn't rush you. It's just pointing you in the direction every single day, right? It just keeps you pointed in the right direction, and that's what your goal is designed to do. Because we know that success is the pursuit of a worthy ideal. So we just wanna be constantly in the pursuit of a worthy ideal. It doesn't really matter what the ideal is or the goal is. It just matters that we're growing and we're getting better. So by just orienting and understanding that walking is the goal, it allows us to move forward without feeling behind all the time. Which is a beautiful thing, right? So the destination mindset is like, I need to get there. The compass mindset is, you know, this is the direction I'm moving in. And from the nervous system perspective, why the compass approach versus the destination approach reduces your anxiety is because when the future feels like a requirement, your nervous system and your body, all it hears is I'm not enough yet, which triggers that urgency and that pressure and that constant mental noise. But when the future becomes orientation, The present feels like it's enough. You can relax, right? Your regulation increases and you can think better so you can enjoy the process and you can get the thing that you want. And one thing to understand about calm and peace, I want you to associate peace with precision. Peace is not passive, checking out on a beach, doing nothing. Peace is laser focus. It is showing up and knowing you need to get things done, but you're not running around like a chicken with your head cut off. You are getting what you need to get done. You are precise. Again, you are Tom Brady down 3 to 28. Okay. Down 28-3 in the Super Bowl, in the third quarter with 7 minutes left or however much was left. And you're able to get it done. That's the level of focus that we need every day. And when you do all this again, we can enjoy the journey of growing and we can actually enjoy the pursuit of our goals and enjoy being an entrepreneur instead of just being stressed out all the time. This is one of the biggest reframes I had to change. Because when I started the business, I was always trying to get to some level. Okay. When I just get to this amount of personal income, I'll feel better. When I get to this amount of money in the business, I'll feel better. When I get to this level of the business, when I hire a manager or I hire a rep or I hire a cold caller, I'm just gonna feel better. No, none of it worked. None of it worked. Wasn't until I understood it was the problem wasn't the goal. The problem is how is it relating to the goal? I was like, I need to get there because I didn't feel enough in the present moment. So making the switch is gonna change your life. Okay, so something to sit with this week is where in your life are you treating the future like something that you need to reach instead of something that's just guiding you? Just, we want, again, we want our goals and our destination to be our North Star. That's it. So one simple practice you can use is notice when you feel pressure to get to your goals. And I still feel some now, right? It's a, we're all a work in progress, but just be aware of it. Again, awareness is the first step. And instead of pushing harder towards that, just remind yourself, this is the direction. It's not a deadline. It's a direction, not a deadline., right? And then you can let your body relax and you can move on. But be aware of that this week. At the end of the day, this isn't about lowering your standards, okay? Or caring less about what you're building or doing. It's about changing how you relate to it. Because when the future becomes a compass instead of a destination, you don't lose direction. You just lose all that pressure and that stress and that anxiety. And from that place, everything gets easier and cleaner and smoother. If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who's been stuck in that constant pressure loop, someone who needs to hear that they don't have to build their life that way. Okay? And if you're not in the Built for Impact community, get in there. 7-day free trial on the community. Ton of value in there. Again, no contracts, no commitments. You can get in 7 days, hop on a free call. You could do the orientation videos, the operating system assessment, the 7-day internal reset challenge, and the foundations course. Um, you could get all that done within 7 days and then bounce if you didn't get any value. Um, I would encourage you to get in there and just study that stuff. Uh, then if you feel called, you can check out the core program as well, which is the flagship program designed to rewire how you operate from the inside out. Also, make sure you are subscribed to this podcast to get notified every Monday when new episodes drop. But until next time, all the peace, all the power.