How do you get the most out of 2022 | Jim Kwik

All right. Welcome back, Kwik Brain. Your topic and your question for today is, how do you get the most out of the new year? How do you get the most out of the new year? And we're going to talk about 10 small, simple steps to achieve more in the new year. Make sure you follow us if you're listening to the podcast on Instagram and Facebook. And we do these lives sometimes also as well. I encourage you to take some notes. if you feel inspired to do so. I'm going to go through these 10 quick tips, small, simple steps to really not only learn, but also achieve and accomplish more in the new year. And it's interesting because the model that I'm using for this is the Limitless Model. And I always go back to the Limitless Model. And so do you remember the Limitless Model? If you haven't, many of you have already purchased our book Limitless: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, Unlock Your Exceptional Life, there is a 3-part framework for becoming limitless, not only to read faster, to remember more, to learn languages, to memorize speeches, facts, figures, formulas, all that good stuff, but also how to break limits and really redraw the borders and boundaries of what's possible. And how can you apply this specifically to the new year? So before I go into the 10 small, simple steps, that we talk about in Limitless, the power of those small little things that you could do to add up to really big things. I'm gonna just, as a review, go through the Limitless model. Now, if you're watching this on YouTube, which I always encourage you to do, if you're listening to Spotify, it's great. If you're listening to it on iTunes, if you can, and there's some visuals on this and you could watch it also on subscribing to our YouTube. YouTube, by the way, also is where we put the extended version of our podcast. All our audio podcasts are limited to 20 minutes max with no sponsors because your time and your attention is valuable. And we know you're busy, right? And so we want to help you get to the content that's clear and compelling and useful to you. So let me share the Limitless Model with you. All right, so I'm going to go to share screen and we'll go to Limitless Model. And so most of you know what this is. This is the 3-part— it's a Venn diagram. And if you're just listening, I'll give you a visual in your mind and you can imagine it. If you can't imagine it, just imagine you're imagining it. 3 intersecting circles. And they call it a Venn diagram. And you could imagine Mickey Mouse, 2 circles like the ears and the face. And it doesn't matter where the circles happen to be as long as they're overlapping. So most people, they want to know what the methods are. Now, the methods, which is the final circle— I'm going to make it 3 Ms— the final circle are the methods. And you can learn methods. for investing, methods for maintaining great relationships, methods for sales and negotiations, methods for speed reading, methods for focusing, methods for remembering people's names. And that is a lot of what we talk about. But we also have to address the things that keep people from doing the methods because a lot of people know what to do, but they don't do what they know, right? Because common sense is not always common practice. So you have to address the first 2 circles and you have to unlimit yourself as much as possible in these 2 areas because you You can learn again a great method for how to remember names, but the first circle is not unlimited. That's your mindset. If your mindset is I'm not smart enough or I have a horrible memory, you're still going to be stuck in that box. And this new year, I want you to be able to to unlimit yourself. I want to be able to get out of your own way, to unlearn the the constraints and the things that have put you in like a box. And so the mindset is the first spot. Your mindset is your set of attitudes and assumptions you have about. life, your attitudes, assumptions you have about money, your attitudes, assumptions you have about your intelligence or learning. Somebody has— and their mindset is that, oh, learning is hard and it's difficult and it's boring, then that's gonna affect their performance, right? If people have their mindset around, oh, I'm just too old, or I'm not smart enough, or I don't deserve it, it's gonna keep them stuck. Now, the, the second and the final M— you have mindset, The first thing, and then you have methods, the third. The second M is really your— what it is— your motivation. It is your motivation. And we talk about motivation as 3 different parts. It's P times E times S. 3: purpose times energy times small, simple steps, right? So if somebody's not motivated and they're procrastinating— and we don't want you to procrastinate in the new year— you're procrastinating. maybe you don't have enough purpose. So you need to be able to feel that purpose. And we talk about it extensively in podcast episodes. We've done one where I talk— walk through my process of discovering and developing passion and purpose. We've interviewed Simon Sinek and we talked about the power of starting with why in our podcast also as well. So you need purpose. And you need to not just know it intellectually, but how do you feel? Right. But also, once somebody has purpose, they also need energy because you're— if you know, if you want to really win in the new year, you need energy to do so. And if you don't have the energy, if you're not sleeping well, if you're eating a lot of junk food and you're in a food coma, or if you're stressed out of your mind, or you're around energy vampires, everything— those things, external things depleting energy from your life— you're not going to be feeling very motivated to win in 2022. in the new year. So here's the thing. What are we going to do? So you need to be able to optimize your energy. We've done so many episodes on the best brain foods, on how to exercise for more energy, how to optimize your sleep, how to lower stress, how to develop your own positive peer group. And we talk a lot about this in our private Facebook group, which many of you are a part of. Over 100,000 of you are part of that group. You can find it, just search for Kwik Brain on your Facebook. And more, more centered is our app. And I want to encourage you to join our app. And you can just search Kwik Brain Universe in your app store and pull it up. It's absolutely free. And that's where we have our community, students from 195 countries that are there sharing their best practices. And part of it is sharing their best practices for creating more energy in their life. But finally, once you have purpose and energy, the third part, which is really the focus of this conversation, You could have a lot of purpose and a lot of energy and still not be motivated because your goals might be, um, not— they might be too overwhelming. They might be intimidating, or they might be confusing. And a confused mind doesn't do anything, right? So you had to break things down into S3, small, simple steps. So in this episode, I want to share with you 10 small, simple steps to be able to become limitless. All right. And these are choices and just like anything, And if you see, I'm just also looking at the chat that's going on here as we do this on the New Year, on New Year's Day, on Facebook and Instagram Live. But as you do this, I want you to remember that these— there's choices that we make, right? That life is the C between B and D. We quote a French philosopher in And limitless about this. And life is the C between B and D. B stands for birth, D stands for death. Life, C, choice, right? You know, it's these, these choices that we make, you know, each day that really determines our, our life or our own experiences, how we feel, what we think, what we do, and the results that we get, you know, or we don't get also as well. And, you know, I really do believe that difficult times, they could define us. Difficult times, they could diminish us. Or difficult times could what? They could develop us. We ultimately decide. So here are 10 choices that you can make. They don't have to be time intensive. I believe that one step in another direction can completely change your destination. Some people would call it their, their destiny. Now you've heard me say this before in previous podcasts, um, that the, the metaphor that I'm using for the past couple years is that of a butterfly. Because a butterfly for me is a profound symbol of transformation, right? And so a lot of us feel like we're going through a transformation or that we're in a cocoon. And when we're in a cocoon, you are alone with your thoughts, your fears, your doubts. You might be feeling alone. And while the beauty is in that butterfly, the growth happens in that cocoon. And so what are some— what are 10 things you could do or not do, 10 small, simple steps, 10 choices, if you will, that can make in the new year to be able to win. All right, so I'm going to go through it and let's have this conversation now. All right, thank you everybody who's chiming in also on social media. I really appreciate all of you and the thousands of people who are watching this live and being part of this conversation. All right, so let's— I'm going to give you 10 things, choices, small simple steps. Let's make the first 4 things you want to stop doing, choices to do less Of this, okay? Because it's really stopping something and then starting something else. All right. And I'll, um, for, you know, I tend to alliterate a lot, so I'll make these all, uh, the letter C. All right, all the letter Cs. So let's talk about 4 things to stop and 6 things you could start. And you don't have to do all these things, right? You could be inspired to do one of these 10 things, stopping something or starting something. I think it'll help you a whole lot. So let's Let's start with the— in no specific order. The first one, I'll talk about caring, and I would say stop caring. And what do I mean by that? Not, you know, still obviously be compassionate, care about others, but I would also say stop caring specifically about what other people think. And this is a big one, and it's easier said than done. I'll be the first to admit it. And so I'm not saying it's easy, but I'm saying it's going to be worth it.

Right.

Here's the thing. If, if you fuel your life on the opinions, uh, of those around you, and it could be positive or it could be negative, then you're soon going to run out of gas, right? Nobody has the right to define who you are, right? The only opinion about your dreams that really counts is yours, right? And we do ourselves a big disservice when we let the noise of other people's opinions— they, they distort our reality. They might be subverting our own thoughts, getting away from our own values. They might drown out our inner voice. And of course, I'm not saying don't learn from people, right? You could, you could get feedback from others, right? From, uh, you know, other people, your friends, your family. Um, you can learn from mentors, but know that you and you alone are responsible for your life, you know? So part of this, what I'm talking about here, it's not caring, is really just to You know, audit the— not only your internal voice, because that's something else, but also stand guard to the doors of your mind when it comes to the low opinions of other people. All right, so that would be the first thing I would say. The second thing I would say is stop— besides caring what other people think, the second C is I would say stop. And this would be another stop. Stop complaining. And And again, we're all guilty of this. There is no judgment here. What I would say is that we can make excuses or we can make progress, but we certainly can't make both. And just from a functional standpoint, when you're thinking about winning in the new year, complaining really is kind of useless, right? It wastes valuable time, it wastes energy, it doesn't accomplish anything. And so I would say excuses are useless. You know, wishing is also kind of useless. You can't be upset by the results you didn't get from the work that you didn't do. And so I would say, as a reminder, you don't want to wish for it, you want to work for it. You don't want to say it because a lot of people could talk about stuff, but I think it's better well done than well said. So don't say it, you show it, right? Don't promise it, prove it, right? Accept responsibility for your thoughts. Accept responsibility and ownership over your actions. Be accountable to your commitments. Learn from your mistakes and the results will follow. The 3rd thing I would say you can make a choice to be able to stop or at least reduce— stop could be reducing, right? We are mitigating it. I am not putting a lot of time and attention there— is criticism. Stop criticizing. Who am I thinking about? Yourself, right? Because this is about you. And so I would say part of this process is we need to be able to lighten up, right? It is not about being perfect. It is about personal progress. And when we release criticism, self-criticism, or we release— another word, putting it in a way, putting it in self-judgment— that you could be so busy growing yourself and your business, if you have your own business, your career, your education, that you have no time for self-judgment. But those moments where you start to criticize or judge yourself, take a pause and just try observing yourself instead. Just try feeling instead of going in your mind and criticizing yourself, just observe yourself because the former leads to self-doubt. The latter The latter leads to self-awareness and self-growth, self-improvement. And so let's try in the new year to replace criticism with curiosity. So that would be the third thing. And then the fourth C, I would say, let's talk about comparison. This is a big one because people are— it's hard. We talk about this in the book. We talk about digital dementia, digital distraction, digital deduction, digital deluge. But we also talk about digital— depression where we're comparing ourselves to the highlight trailer of everybody else's life, you know, online and social media. And people think they're, they're green with envy because the grass is greener, you know, on the other side, or, you know, in that app or something. And I would just remind you that the grass is greener where you— what? Where you nourish it, right? The grass is greener where you water it. And at some point, you know, when we're looking at other people's grass, maybe it's greener because on Instagram because the filter that they're using, or maybe also there's a— online there could be a lot of artificial turf, right? Either way, being green with envy is the thief of joy. And when you let jealousy get the, the best of you, it often brings out the worst of you, and it rarely solves anything, and it builds nothing, but it can destroy everything. And I think that joy and happiness is found when you stop When you stop and you cease comparing yourself to other people. And when I say green with envy, I'm talking about watering on your side what you want to nourish. Our friend, Dr. Daniel Amen, talks about brain envy. And that could be where you're like, oh, that person's really smart. And what are they doing to get that smart? Because genius leaves clues. So don't compare yourself to anybody but your best self. It's not about being perfect. It is certainly not about being perfect. It is about what? progress. It's about the consistent effort you bring every single day that leads to small incremental improvements, right? Little by little, a little becomes a lot. And because consistency compounds, right? You do the best you can with what you have and you do it on your own timeline. And that, that's how winning is done, right? That's how transformation happens. So those are the 4 C's that you could stop or reduce to be able to win more. The final 6 C's are things, choices that you can make, small simple steps to be able to that you could, instead of reducing, you could do more of. All right, so no particular order, and you might have heard me say some of this before, but remember what keeps us from mastery, what keeps us from level of expertise, knowledge, skill, ability is this: what keeps us is saying that we know this already, right? So maybe if you've heard me talk about this before, you could listen to it with, uh, with new ears, right, and see it with new eyes. So very quickly, number 1, clarity. All right, so that would be number— what do we have to do? Number 5. The choice you can make is using this time to get clarity in your life. And I'm not a big fan of resolutions. We know the statistics around people who make New Year's resolutions and their ability to stick to it. But I think clarity is something that you could do on a daily or even weekly basis. Clarity and asking yourself clarifying questions. What's most important to you in your life? What's most important to you in your education? What's most important to you in a relationship? What's most important to you in your career and your contribution? Those give you your north stars, your values. And then second clarifying question, are my actions aligned with those values? Because if you feel burnt out or exhausted, maybe it's not because you're doing too much. Maybe it's because you're doing too little of the things that light you up, the things that really matter. Second choice you can make, care. And I'm not going to go deep into this because our podcast is all— a lot of it is about self-care. Self-care is not selfish. So taking time, and it doesn't have to be a lot of time, but just prioritizing your sleep or taking some time, 10 minutes to meditate, right? That'd be a form of self-care. The third thing to start, and we're building on it, is contribution. Chronic stress shrinks the human brain and chronic fear actually suppresses our immune system. Whole area of science called psychoneuroimmunology. immunology. It means it makes you more susceptible to colds, the flus, the viruses. And I think one of the antidotes to fear is contribution, putting your focus on somebody else. Many of you know, we donated 100% of the proceeds to the book Limitless to charity, Alzheimer's research, building schools for children who have no access. And I think you learn so you could earn so you could return. So how can you invest some of your time, your talent, your treasure to make a difference? That's the third thing that you can do. That's number 7, if you will, on the list. 8, 9, 10, really simple. Number 8, I would say this is a great time to be creative. What do you want to create in the new year? And you've heard me talk about this. It was during the Great Plague that William Shakespeare created some of his incredible masterpieces, created Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra. So what do you want to create? You have your to-do list. Do you have a to-create list? And so what lights you up? Maybe it's something in your business. Maybe it's something that you want to build physically. Maybe something you want to write. Maybe it happens to be music. But this will help you to be able to win because I believe the future belongs to the creators where a lot of jobs are going to artificial intelligence. They might be automated or going someplace. What's not is going to be the things that are truly limitless, our ability to solve problems. There's no limit. Our ability to imagine.

Our ability to—

Any Even that goes back to clarity. Having a vision for your life is clarity. A compelling vision is something that you could aspire to. So be even more creative and schedule even 10 minutes just to journal or to be able to write or to do something fun and create. And then finally, the last 2 Cs I would say is capabilities. You have a to-do list, as we talked about, but what's on your to-learn list? If you want to win more in the new year, you have to prioritize your learning. And the future belongs to the learners, right? The faster and more you can learn, the faster and more you can earn also as well. And so what's, what's on your to-learn list? You have unfeathered access to everything like podcasts, YouTube. You want to learn Spanish, salsa, speed reading, right? It's— things are available online. I think the most important capability to learn, learning how to learn. Learning how to learn. Because if you can learn how to focus and concentrate, you can learn how to remember things, learn how to study better, learn how to read faster, understand more, learn how to make good decisions and think critically. Then you can apply that towards everything in your life. You could apply that towards math. You could apply that towards money management, martial arts, music, the metaverse. And everything that you want to study gets easier when you can learn how to learn. And then finally, the last thing I would say, number 10 choice that you can make is community. When people ask me, they hear the title of the book Limitless, how do you become limitless in a limited world? And my answer has always been that we do it together. It's kind of cheesy, but it's true. T-E-A-M, together everyone achieves more. And that's really what we're here. We're here to have each other's backs. We're here to have each other's brains. And so it's not just your neurological networks, it's your social networks. And so where do you start? I would say small, simple steps. Start small, very small. What is the tiniest little thing you could do today to make progress towards your goals for this year or for this quarter? Right? You'll never change your life until you decide to change something you do. Right? You'll never change your life until you decide something that you're going to change, something that you do, especially on a daily level, you know, meaning that the treasure you seek is often hidden in your daily routines, you know, and the things that we're avoiding. So what are— These small little decisions, these small choices matter. What are we going to focus on? That's a choice. What do things mean? That's a choice. What are we going to be? What are we going to do? What are we going to cherish in this moment? And eventually these little choices, small, simple steps are going to become habits that are going to affect the big decisions that you make and the results that you have in your life. And that's really the goal because your life is the greatest project you're ever going to get to work on, right? Take time and make time. Create magic, right? Do not downgrade your dreams to meet this current situation. Upgrade your mindset, upgrade your motivation, upgrade the methods you're using to be able to meet your destiny. And so my hopes for all of you who are listening right now is that this is not the end, but it's the beginning, right? And here's the thing, I promise you, you know, when I started on this journey 30 years ago, it's my 30th year as a brain coach, 30 years. And I haven't deviated from that. I'll be doing it for the next 30 years. It's the thing that I feel like I feel a moral obligation to be able to support people who are going through struggles that I had. And shame on me if there's a way of helping them and I didn't do that. And that's why we make this podcast for you. 95% of everything that we put out there is free. Yes, 5% of them are deep courses. So if you want more, go to kwiklearning.com. jimkwik.com. We'll put all the links in the show notes always. And that's if you want, you know, to go deep and learn the— and train, you know. But this podcast really is the tips that you need. And I encourage you to take screenshot of this, share it if you like. And my wish for you is that I want you to— may you sleep easy tonight knowing that you could handle whatever this year has to throw at you. May you wake up with your mind energized each day, your heart is inspired for a new day. May you move in the direction of your dreams, the things that you desire. The things that you deserve. May you discover gratitude. May you discover beauty in the small little things. And may you laugh, may you love, and always may you learn. I'm your brain coach, Jim Kwik. Thank you for joining me on Instagram, on Facebook, or if you're watching this on YouTube or you're listening to this as a podcast. It's my honor to, to be in this conversation with you. And I want to remind you that there's a version of yourself that you haven't met yet. The goal is show up every single day until you're introduced.

Hi, Kwik Brain. It's your brain coach. I want to thank you so much for watching this video. 3 things to do. Number 1, make sure you share this because when you teach something, you get to learn it twice. Update your learning so you can update other people's learning as well. Number 2, make sure you subscribe To this channel, so you don't miss a thing. Because if you miss a video, you miss a lot. And finally, make sure you hit that bell so you're notified and you find out when we put out the latest and the greatest. One extra thing: if you want really close attention, then text me. Here is my phone number: 310-299-9362. Did you remember that number? 310 310-299-9362. Shoot me a text and we'll stay in touch. Ask me your burning question. And I wish your days be full of lots of life, lots of love, lots of laughter, and always lots of learning. I'll see you in our next video.