Train Your Mind & Get More Done By Compartmentalizing Your Thoughts

When you change the way you think, you truly change your whole world and your environment. Our environment is not going to change. So if you're sitting here thinking, man, they owe me an apology, or, you know, this person needs to change, or my parents aren't this way and I deserve to be treated this way, I'm telling you, if you're trying to change your external world, it's not going to work. The only thing you can do is the internal. Hey, everyone, welcome back to the show. It's time for another quickie, because there's always time to fit in inspiration. And if you can't tell, I have my sexy radio voice because I woke up pretty sick today. And this is a little glimpse into just showing up no matter what. You don't get to choose a lot of days, right? You don't get to choose when your inspiration is coming. You don't get to choose when you feel great, but you just have to show up through all of it. So if I'm gasping for air, that's the only reason why. But I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to be able to do this. Truly, I truly, truly am so excited to talk to you about what I'm going to talk to you about, because it's helping me, actually, right now, in this state of compartmentalizing your thoughts and how much our mind tries to attack us every single day, I believe that if you can control your thoughts and your emotions, you can create whatever you want. And you will create peace within. You will create happiness. You'll be living the life that you want. The only thing keeping us from doing this is the thoughts that we are choosing to think. And some of you are like, I'm not choosing this thought. This is happening in my life, and I'm thinking it, and I can't get it out of my head because it's important that I think about it. Yes, it is important that we have the places and time to think about these things. But learning how to not let it infiltrate every single area of your life is going to be the thing that saves you. So the more successful people that I talk to, the more I realize that they focus on these skills of compartmentalizing their thoughts, knowing that when they have a work problem, they have designated times for those problems. And of course it creeps in. But there are things that you can do to start choosing to get them out of your head so that when you're home or playing with your kids or having that date with your partner, that you're not Fully in that other place because you know that you've put the thoughts and the time into it around a solution. So first, I want to read you some amazing quotes that I absolutely love just around our thoughts. Compartmentalizing awareness. This is William James. He says the greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. I have to tell you about a time when I was constantly running. Like, I really loved running. Like, actually running outdoors. And I was probably running just about every single day, three to six miles. And I had just all of a sudden went from hating running in a year to spending that year learning how to get out of my head so that I could enjoy running. Because I'd heard like so many people say how amazing running is and this runner's high that you get. And I was like, bullshit. I don't know what you're talking about. Like, the only time I want to run is if someone is chasing me or my life is on the line. And I took it on as kind of this mental challenge that I wanted to see if I could be present when I was running. Because what would happen when I ran? And this was very, very telling about what was going on in my life, what would happen when I ran is that I would be thinking of everything that I needed to do. I would be going down my to do list. I would be thinking I should be doing something else. I would be thinking about how much this sucked. I would be thinking about how far I was going to go. I would be thinking about how much my body hurt. And I was like, wow, these thoughts I'm thinking are so not serving me. I could think a thought and immediately feel that chemical reaction shoot through my body that makes you feel like you want to stop, like your body's heavy. And I remember this because I also remember this feeling when I first started at the gym. Because I would go to the gym and I'd be lifting weights and maybe I'd be listening to a great song and I'd be in a positive place. And then all of a sudden I would think of something. Doesn't matter what it was. I mean, we're humans. We can easily pick all the negative thoughts. Maybe I'd think of something I should be doing. I feel behind on things. I have anxiety. I'm panicked. All of a sudden that 20 pound weight or whatever you're holding feels like 100 pounds. All of a sudden you look down at the floor, all of a sudden you feel all of the energy leave out of your body. Because our thoughts are directly correlated to how we feel in our energy. So the greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. Elizabeth Gilbert says, your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions. So how do we start pinpointing these thoughts? Eckhart Tolle says, we are not our thoughts, we are the awareness behind them. And this is the key. This right here was the magic that at the time, I was listening to a lot of Gabby Bernstein. Like, every single time I would run, I would put a lecture on from Gabby Bernstein. Every single time I would run, I would be listening to her books, and she would talk a lot about changing your thoughts. And when you change the way you think, you truly change your whole world and your environment. Our environment is not going to change. So if you're sitting here thinking, man, they owe me an apology, or, you know, this person needs to change, or, my parents aren't this way, and I deserve to be treated this way. I'm telling you, if you're trying to change your external world, it's not going to work. The only thing you can do is the internal. And that is going to come when you start to change your thoughts and you try to grab a new thought. And the only way you can do this is becoming aware of it. So every time I'd be running, a thought would come in. I would feel that energy leave my body, and I'd be like, nope, choose again. Like, I'd literally just say, nope, choose again. And sometimes I'd smack my hands together. I just say, like, the back of my right hand to the palm of my left hand. I'd be like, nope, choose again. So if you ever saw me running in Palisades park in Santa Monica, you probably saw me do that at least a few times while I'm on my run, because I wanted an anchor. I wanted a moment of, nope, don't do that. Check yourself and go and choose another thought. So I'd be like, what do I want to think about? Ah, what sounds exciting. Creating a compelling future. What does this look like? What would that look like? Could I be present right now? Ooh, what am I so grateful for right now? That's something that I would always think about. I'd be like, oh, okay, palm trees. Okay, I'm looking at the water. Okay, I'm running. How cool is it that I have a body that's running? Wow. This is so cool that I'm even trying to run. Even though it's a grandma shuffle, I'm still so proud of myself. And then you know what? I get hit with another thought and I'm like, ah, nope, choose again. And this was where I really started this work of compartmentalizing my thoughts. I'm not going to think of the problems right now because I'm on a run right now. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to be present on this run. I'm going to think of only positive things. This is going to be my run for dreaming. This is going to be my run for creating. And you know what? That's what it turned into. I would create a ton of my content for Bliss Project. I'd create a ton of my content for podcasts. I'd be listening to podcasts. And truly my, my run that I dreaded turned into my run that I was excited about because I knew that that was my time to think. That was my time to daydream instead of, this is my time to focus on everything I hate. And that took a lot of work. That took so much work. But that is when I learned how to fall in love with running. And it wasn't that I fell in love with running. I think I fell in love with the fact that I learned how to switch my thoughts because was like, yay, I can't wait to run. It was like, okay, cool. I know I get the space and this time and I'm so proud of myself. But let's talk about what compartmentalizing your thoughts is. If you haven't figured it out, it's the act of separating your thoughts and emotions and focusing on one thing at a time. And the reasons why that you want to do this is because you're going to have major increased productivity because you can separate your thoughts from one task to another without being distracted and without all of the emotions. And so you'll increase your productivity because you're not dragging your not feeling terrible. It also helps us better decision making. You're going to be able to assess situations more objectively. You're going to make better choices with better logic and reason because you won't be so emotional. It's going to reduce your stress. It's going to improve your relationships because you're going to be more empathetic and be able to respond in a way that shows you understand where they're coming from. You're going to have increased self awareness because when you can compartmentalize your thoughts, you're going to better be able to understand your own emotions and thought patterns. This increased self awareness can help you identify areas for your own personal growth and work on developing healthier habits. So the things that I did to really learn how to do this was just becoming aware of it. Just mindfulness. Exactly what I said. Hey, today on my run or today all day during the day, maybe you journal about this. I'm going to try to notice all of these thoughts and I'm just going to boom. Maybe clap your hands together, maybe say, nope, choose again. And you're going to move forward, right? You're going to just keep doing that all day long and have so much grace for yourself. You might do it 500 times. I know there were some days I'm like, wow, this is very interesting that I am really noticing how much I think negatively or I let these other thoughts come into all of my work.

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So prioritization. You need to prioritize your tasks based on their importance and urgency. When we're emotional, we just do the thing that we feel like needs to get done right now. Even though that's not the most important thing. That's usually the thing that you're like, oh, well, I feel bad about this or I need to talk to them or I'm worried about this person. That's not the most important thing for moving the needle forward or making money or taking care of your family. So prioritizing what is most important and removing your thoughts from that thing until it's time. So schedule it. Visualization. Imagine placing your thoughts and emotions in separate boxes or compartments. This can really help you mentally separate them. So like, if you're trying to be present with your kids and you're thinking something, actually closing your eyes for a minute, maybe even writing it down, writing that thought down and putting it in a box for later and saying, it's safe in there. I know it's there. I'm not going to forget to think about it, not going to forget to think about it. But if I think about it now, it's robbing this moment of all of its joy. Maybe you have a box. Maybe that's what you're worried about. Maybe you're worried about you won't cover it. Have a notes section on your phone for thoughts for later and put in a processing time into your calendar of this is going to be when I'm going to think about this and solve this problem or on this call or when I talk to this person or this appointment. And there's something called time boxing, which people sometimes also call time blocking. It's a technique where you actually allocate a specific amount of time for each task. Kind of what I was saying. This can help you focus on one task at a time and prevent other thoughts from distracting you. So knowing that you have these different times in your day to be able to go and think about it and also just seek support. For me, having people to help me cope with different things and help me learn how to do this is so important. If you don't have someone, maybe you hire a therapist. I think therapy is one of the most amazing things for our lives, right? Being able to talk, talk through things. Maybe you call a friend and you say, hey, can you help me process this? Like, I don't want to think about this anymore, so maybe I have some time for that. You know, it's on the calendar. So you try to keep putting that thought back in that box visually until it's time, right? Like, nope, it's not time to think about that. I have some time on the schedule for it. I believe if you can start doing this, you're going to notice in one year that you are so freaking good at this. You'll be like, whoa, I can't believe the amount of peace that I have now compared to last year. And then imagine in five years. So, you guys, I'm sending you so much love today. I'm just always so grateful for you and for tuning into this podcast. And until next time, everyone earn your happy. Sam.