Ep 225: If You Change Today, Today Will Change Your Life

People seem to forget if you change today, today will change your life. For a limited time only. For those of you enjoying the podcast, I'm offering a free coaching session. That's right, a free coaching session for those of you who want to improve in their performance or their business or their relationships or any other area where confidence is a key ingredient. Then on the Self Belief Chief site, on the podcast page, self belief.com podcast underneath the episodes, you'll be able to book your own coaching session for free with me or wherever you're listening to the podcast. In the description, there'll also be a link to be able to book your session. I look forward to speaking to you soon. And let's get on with the podcast. When we're looking for that growth and expansion in our life in many areas, it can seem quite straightforward. If you want to get fitter and stronger, you can measure yourself based on the number of reps and sets and the amount of weight that you lift. If you want to lose weight, you can measure it by your actual weight. Have I actually dropped weight? From a diet point, you can measure weight as well. From a career point of view, you can measure things based on feedback or or promotions or financial gain. In lots of areas of life, there are ways to measure that progress and therefore get a boost with that progress and understand that you're moving in the right direction. When it comes to our mind and our mindset and our mental strength, there are very few ideas that people have and that's why they don't know or don't recognize whether they are actually getting mentally stronger. But we all want to get mentally stronger for sure, don't we? That we can handle the ups and downs of life. That we can actually move forward, that we can actually take things on, that we can break our patterns, that we don't dwell on things. That things don't have to ruin the rest of the day, week, year. That actually we can seamlessly move between the different hurdles and obstacles in life and recognize that we have that power or strength. Just in the same way that when you put on muscle, you can measure that you are in fact stronger. So you know that you are stronger, you might think, oh, actually I've got a pay rise. I am now better at my job. And in lots and lots of different areas of life, you can look for those measurable things. But how do you measure progress when it comes to mental strength? How on earth do you measure that? Well, that's what I want to talk to you today about that rather than just Going, oh, I hope I can feel better, I hope I can do better, I hope I can get mentally stronger. Is actually find a way that you understand and can measure it and get the boost of the progress that you'll be making in terms of your mental strength. And the way we do that, really is by creating a challenge. Because when we want to put on muscle, it's a challenge. When we want to lose weight, it's a challenge. When we want to progress in our career, it's a challenge. We don't have to frame it as challenging, we frame it as a challenge. When it's a challenge, it's a game. It's a game to win. We can get motivated and inspired by the end result we want, and we take on the challenge. Some. Some challenges in life we choose and some aren't. But when you choose a challenge in your life, you get excited, you get inspired, you go, yeah, come on, let's do this. We're coming up to that time of year where lots of people will be thinking of New Year's resolutions. In other words, new challenges. Now, I have to say, I hate New Year's resolutions, because I always think, why don't you just do it now? Why does it have to be a New Year's resolution? We're on the first day of the year, which also basically sets you up to fail, because then you've got Blue Monday and everything associated around it, and you're doing a challenge whilst everyone else is doing challenges who are going to fail at roughly the same point, where it's just going to drag you down as well. Do a challenge in your own time. So how do we challenge mental strength? I teach my clients lots of different strategies for managing their mindset, for managing their mental state. And in this podcast, you'll have heard lots and lots of examples as well. But all those strategies to actually improve our mental performance, our physical performance, to be able to cope with the demands of the day, how do we use them to actually measure? Are we moving in the right direction? Because you might go, yes, I can handle a moment better. But actually, is there a sense of momentum with it? Well, to change a pattern in life, to turn it into a habit, to take a commitment and turn it into a habit, takes about seven to 10 days. To take a commitment, turn it into a habit. Now, here's the other bit that people get wrong. A lot of people take on two or three commitments at once. Research shows that if you do that, you only have a 33% chance of keeping one of them Whereas if you take on one commitment at a time and turn it into a habit before taking another commitment. So one commitment at a time to turn into a habit, you have a 95% chance of keeping that commitment and turning it into a habit. So it's about taking on one commitment at a time. With my clients is always one commitment, one focus at a time. Get over that hurdle, accomplish that thing, overcome that barrier, then we move on to the next one. Because human beings are very good at that. They're terrible when you give them four or five things to do at the same time. So here's what I want us to think, and it's actually an idea that Emmett Fox came up with a very, very, very long time ago. And it's called a ten day challenge. So this is what I want you to do. And I really stress that you do this from today. You might want to say, you know what, I'll set myself the date for tomorrow or two days time, but really, if you're serious about what I'm about to say, set it for today. A 10 day challenge where you don't dwell on a negative thought for more than 60 seconds. A 10 day challenge where you don't dwell on a negative thought for more than 60 seconds. And in that 60 seconds, you focus not on the problem, you focus on solutions. That whatever is required in that 60 seconds to flip your mind to be more positive, to come up with a solution, to tackle the, you know, to be able to tackle it, to move past it, whatever is required, that you do that in that 60 seconds. And you do that consecutively for 10 days. Because the idea of doing that forever or adopting strategies forever, if we do it forever, there's nothing measurable, there's nothing, you know, it's too daunting. And it might cross your threshold of belief where you go, actually, that's impossible. And it's impossible to be up all of the time. I'm not asking you to be up all the time. I'm asking you to be up for the next 10 days, for the next 10 days of your life. You don't dwell on a negative thought for more than 60 seconds and you focus on solutions, not problems. Now, some of you might go, that sounds unbelievably easy. And some of you will go, that is impossible. How do on earth do you do that? Well, it's a day at a time, but can you actually do that? Can you actually make it 10 days without having or dwelling on a negative thought that immediately you can think of solutions and you do that by asking yourselves better questions in those 60 seconds. So something you know, you have a thought, something happens, you go, what can I learn from this? How can I grow from this? How will this help me succeed? You ask yourself better questions. The art of mastering anything. The first two steps is one, the state you're in, and two, the questions we ask ourselves. Try to improve that state by immediately not dwelling on the thought, by, you know, actively moving, thinking differently. To use the strategies in this podcast and shared elsewhere, to use those strategies to manage your thoughts, whether it's things to do with breathing or color patterns or pain cycles or pattern breaks, all things that I've talked about in different episodes, any of those things or anything else. To use those things to empower yourself, to break through those barriers and limiting beliefs in the moment so that you don't dwell on them. If you fail to make, you know, to not dwell on a thought for 60 seconds, that's okay, but you need to start back to day one. Okay, so you get to day three and you find yourself, oh, I've dwelled too long in a negative thought. Go Back to day one. Start from day one. Can you make it 10 consecutive days without dwelling on a negative thought? Now, here's what happens. You'll do it for the 10 days, and it's a measure. It's a way to measure your mental strength and capacity. And you might fail the first one or two times, and then you get it. What happens is when you get to 5, 6, 7, day 8, day 9, the confidence it will build to go, oh, I can really take care of my thoughts and emotions here. I can really manage this. I'm actually a lot stronger mentally than I thought I was. Now at the end of day 10, by all means, if you want to go back to the old ways, feel free to. I won't stop you. But if you do it for 10 consecutive days, I think you might find it too addictive to give up, that actually you will notice a change in your life, that you'll realize that in life, it's not about the problems, it's about how long we dwell on them, how often we experience them, how much time we spend worrying because we worry, because we think if we worry and spend more time worrying, it'll get us to take action. But actually that's not true, is it? When we worry, it often cripples us. It makes us go into a safety mode. It makes us not take action, actually. So the reason why you're worrying doesn't actually serve you for the thing you want to do, which is to take action to change your life. So instead of worrying, it's not ignoring it, it's focusing on solutions that you get as quickly as possible to think of, what can I get learn, what can I grow, how can I succeed, what is the solution to this? And we deal with it there and then. And anytime a thought comes up, we get better and better and better at dealing with it straight away. I'm not saying ignore your thoughts at all. I'm saying find solutions because that's what you really want is solutions. And then you can leave it to one side. I know you're tired of being strong, and maybe this year has been a very difficult year. I know you're tired of being strong, but you still are. I also really believe that like I have experienced with a lot of people, you have no idea how mentally strong you really are. And to prove this, I want you to think of the day to day things that we struggle to deal with. And we focus on those things because it stops us focusing on the things that we really do worry about, the things we really do fear. But what I find with human beings is when we do have those moments, the really, really tough moments, not the day to day problems, the really, really tough moments human beings tend to deliver, they find something in themselves, find something to help other people, they find something to push through those barriers. It might still be painful, might still be difficult, you might be upset, you might be angry, but you still find a way. Human beings are good at that because it's a sole focus. That thing then is all of their focus. And we find a way when our back's up against the wall. I think human beings are very good. It's the day to day shit that really doesn't matter, that we struggle with. You'll have had moments in your life where the chips were really down and you got through it, you overcame it, you beat it. That's how mentally strong you really are. All I'm saying now is for the day to day experience, is that we take conscious control of it, that we decide to nip those thoughts in the buds in the bud, to actually overcome it, to actually find solutions for 10 consecutive days. And then after that you can do whatever you want to. Just 10 days to test yourself in a way that you've never tested yourself before, but to feel the inspiration and the shift and the change when you get through to day three, four, five, six, notice the difference and the change in the way that you're thinking and that when you're not dwelling on problems all the time, how much better life looks. I used a saying a long time ago. I hold on to it because through the tough moments, it's a good reminder for me. I was going through a difficult moment in my life, and I'd gone to Seville. I remember going to this cathedral, and I looked up at the ceiling. As much pain as I'd been in, I looked up at that beautiful ceiling. And it made me realize something. Whatever you're going through in life, there's still beauty somewhere in the world. Find it. Find it. Wherever you're going through this beauty somewhere in the world, it is our job to find it. And it's our job to find it in as many moments as possible. It takes time to train to be able to do that. And we'll go through things in life which are just so difficult. I don't want to be idealistic either. I'm just saying for the next 10 days, that you do find beauty in the moments by looking for solutions, asking yourself better questions, and getting better answers. Notice how your life changes. The thing is, if you manage to do those 10 days, you might find that it's not 10 days of your life that has changed. It's 10 days that has changed your life. I think this challenge is absolutely worth it. My name is David Holman. If you change today, today will change your life. So enjoy the rest of your day. Enjoy the rest of your life, and I'll speak to you on the next episode.