Look around. Everyone is stressed out of their minds.
We all want to achieve big things, but it is becoming infinitely more difficult to focus on those big things, so those big things don't get done.
Our mind is flooded with the risk of pursuing your own goals instead of the ones your parents, or friends, or partner, or boss want for you.
Being told what to care about, skills to learn, countries to support, foods to avoid, by people with goals that don't align with your own, thoughts about the job you have to show up to, how much time you're going to waste, and all the things you won't be able to do, and what people will think if you decide to go your own way and take control of your life.
These are not easy thoughts to deal with.
If your friends or parents don't support you, or if they even try to stop you, that can be incredibly painful.
You may lose people from your life, and you may lose a part of your identity, and that hurts.
The problem is that they don't know what you know.
They haven't been exposed to the same information, education, and potential so they don't see the opportunity.
Their mind is still programmed with beliefs that serve their outdated goals.
It's difficult for them to believe that your new endeavor will work out because all they know to be possible is what they've done.
Parents are very good at this.
They were assigned goals at birth, they pursued those goals and saw results.
Their identity was shaped, and so was their mind.
They don't continue their education and expansion and exploration after graduating high school or college.
Their minds harden up. They get locked into the same beliefs and thoughts that they've had their entire life.
Once this happens, you've heard the saying, people hate what they don't understand, that's exactly what happens.
Things that don't align with what they know to be true or possible or whatever is there in their limited mind, that's what's possible.
They're not going to believe anything else, and they're going to try to avoid and stop anything else.
This is the first realization that you have to make.
Nobody is going to give you permission to do what you want.
They weren't exposed to the information you were.
They don't have the story that you were telling yourself.
Unless they are developed enough to open their mind to that story, you have to jump out of the nest at some point and trust that you can learn to fly.
Even further, you only have so much focus you can invest into your goals every single day.
It's no wonder why people live in a constant state of stress.
We can't focus. As soon as we wake up, we grab our phones and flood our minds with news, advice, doomsday predictions and people doing better than us.
The only way to find relief is to keep scrolling to make ourselves feel like we are making progress.
The mind craves order, and that's exactly why you feel terrible.
Your attention is not focused on a singular goal for the future so that distractions can't penetrate it.
Your focus is split between all of these different goals that people are trying to tell you to achieve to the point where you can't pay attention to your own.
You don't have any attention left to invest into your own goals or even think about them.
So you only have one option and that is to feel deep into your situation.
Realize where your life will end up if you keep going down this path.
Become absolutely fed up with the lack of progress you're making.
Use that negative energy to laser in on the meaningful goal that you've been putting off.
You know exactly what I'm talking about.
It's that nagging inner voice that is asking you to do more with your life and you can hear it.
You were meant for more than this.
You have what it takes to be successful.
You don't have to end up like the rest.
So seriously, feel into your situation.
Stop avoiding it. You have to add to the gravity of the life you want to achieve.
So here's where you don't want to be.
Here's where you want to be.
And the more you realize where you don't want to be, the more powerful this becomes and it starts to pull you towards it because the other one is pushing you away.
The fear of ending up in just a terrible life will push you towards a life that you want to live.
The pain of not achieving your goals must outweigh the pain of living a comfortable life.
You must remove the distractions numbing you from the pain of becoming who you were meant to be.
Now, if you want to achieve great things, you have to understand what self-discipline is because discipline comes from clarity, not force.
Self-discipline is saying no to people, places and things that distract you from the pain of not achieving your goals.
Most people don't understand self-discipline.
It's not something that is supposed to be difficult.
It is the byproduct of knowing what you want and accepting nothing less from yourself.
It is the byproduct of an ordered mind or an obsessed mind.
And that means maintaining a clear vision for the future.
And when gaps appear that threaten that vision or make it so you I don't know how to achieve that vision, that's when you go to educate and acquire skills that allow you to close that gap so you maintain the clarity because order is balanced with chaos.
Your mind isn't always going to be ordered.
It's often going to be chaotic and you need to be able to zoom out, create order, remind yourself of your goals and fill in the gaps that created the chaos in the first place.
So you need one constant reminder of your vision to constant self-education and three constant building towards your vision so that you can practice skills that allow you to achieve it and identify new paths that you need to take or identify gaps in your knowledge so you can fill it and actually make progress in life.
The reason people struggle with self-discipline is because they get distracted from what matters.
They forget who they want to become.
They forget what they are capable of.
They forget the impact they want to have.
You aren't disciplined because you aren't the person who would seamlessly achieve the goal they set out to achieve.
Someone whose true identity is a bodybuilder doesn't have difficulty going to the gym or eating healthy.
They just do it. It's a natural part of who they are because that's who they are.
Someone whose true identity is a writer doesn't have difficulty going on long walks for idea generation or sitting out and having focused work sessions for writing.
They just do it. They're a writer.
What else are they going to do?
They aren't a video gamer.
They aren't a bodybuilder.
They're not going to the gym.
They're not playing video games.
They're a writer. They write.
That's what they do. It's easy.
Now on the flip side, someone who has the true identity of a video gamer and I'm talking like a stereotypical gamer who you'll find in the depths of Reddit comments just trolling all day.
They don't have any difficulty doing that.
That's just a natural part of their identity.
That's a habit to them is to go on and try to ruin other people's lives and troll and not contribute anything meaningful to the world.
Not saying every gamer is like that, obviously, but the people where it's their identity to be a troll and a gamer and their actions reflect that and it just digs them deeper and deeper into a whole.
They obviously don't have any trouble doing that.
People's behavior is shaped from their identity.
You don't have trouble doing what you do on a daily basis like procrastinating or going to bed light or other things because it's just been conditioned as to that's who you are and anything that conflicts that like becoming a writer or becoming a fitness guy or becoming someone worth being that's going to threaten you and you need to recondition who you are in order
to get there so that your actions just become natural.
You're naturally self disciplined.
Now in terms of the gamer, you have to understand they can sit in front of a screen for eight to 10 hours a day and like their lives, a bodybuilder on the other hand would see that as a living hell because they're they know that they're ruining their health.
They've studied bodybuilding and nutrition to the point of knowing that sitting in front of a screen for eight to 10 hours a day is the worst thing that they could do for their health.
And if their goal is health and bodybuilding, then they're not going to do that because it's not their goal.
You're working towards goals with every single action you take much of the time.
That's just unconscious and you have no idea what the fuck you're doing.
But when you make those conscious and you start to pursue them and you invest energy into a new goal for who you want to become, it's going to be difficult at first, but you're eventually going to create the identity that you want to create.
And those actions are going to come naturally and then you will become that person.
Each identity has its trade off so it's wise not to become dogmatic about one becoming a gamer or becoming a writer or becoming a bodybuilder is good.
It's a good lens for achieving a specific goal and acquiring specific skills and having specific behavior.
But once you become attached to that, that's when sacrifices are necessary and pain starts to get involved because everything challenges your identity like getting locked into a routine.
And one day when you have to get off that routine, you just feel like shit because your happiness was based off of the order that the routine provided.
That's not the goal. Your goal is to kind of collect identities and perspectives to form this big overarching integral one where you can become a shape shifter, you can become different identities at different times and have the skills necessary to do so so that you can live in more situations optimally.
It's not about being a specialist.
It's about being a generalist, which we'll talk about next week, but you want to be a generalist in perspective to be able to navigate more situations in life without stress.
So the first step to becoming self-disciplined is to remove distractions.
Ask yourself, do you know why you're doing what you're doing?
Have you asked yourself that question in the last month?
Why are you going to school working that job building that business doing that workout?
Was it your choice or was it a goal that was programmed into your head by your parents, friends or culture?
Did your life for goals that you didn't know you were pursuing?
Sit down with a notebook and write down every single thing that you are doing throughout the day and why you are doing it.
If you don't have a good answer, that's a distraction.
You are wasting emotional energy on other people's dreams so that you don't have enough for your own.
Now, if you need help with clarity and just want something physical to write this down on, you can use my foci planner, which is in the link in the description.
It's right here, it's an actual physical planner.
The second step to becoming self-disciplined is to view life as a game.
Now recently, I've been fascinated by the concept of anti-goals.
Anti-goals are not goals that you don't want to achieve.
They are the sacrifices you are not willing to make to achieve a goal.
As an example, if I want to build a billion dollar company, what am I not willing to sacrifice to get there?
Because most people who have these lofty goals don't really pay attention to what they sacrifice along the way.
They're so focused and specialized on one specific goal that they neglect their health, their family, and most other areas of life just to achieve it and then look back and be like, look at everything I destroyed rather than look at everything that I built.
Now, on the other hand, if you're smart, you understand that you can still achieve that goal and maintain or even build other aspects of your life.
You don't have to lose your health in order to build a business.
You don't have to lose your family in order to build a business.
If you think that, then that's what's going to happen.
But if you accept that that's the creative challenge that you have to take on to figure out, okay, how do I build this billion dollar company while still being able to maintain those things?
That's what creates the game.
That's what makes it fun.
Because yes, it will take a lot more time and work to actually achieve that goal.
But what else is there to do?
The only choice if you don't take on the creative challenge is to let your life burn right in front of you because you didn't have the restraint or discipline to take on more responsibility in a wise way.
Now that's the cool thing about anti goals is that they turn life into a game because they check all the boxes for the flow state.
The first is challenge, a goal that is within reach and test your skill.
The second is skill. If your skill is too low for the challenge, you get anxious.
If it is too high, you'll get bored indicating that you need to choose a greater or lesser challenge rather than give up.
That's important. If you are anxious, you're probably pursuing a goal that is too high and you need to identify a goal before that so that it becomes easier to achieve and easier to order your mind and focus on it.
You may be projecting too far into the future.
And if you're bored, you're either not pursuing a goal or you're pursuing the wrong goal or you've achieved a goal and you still haven't set another one.
The third is clarity. A hierarchy of greater to lesser goals makes it easier to start moving towards your vision for the future.
The fourth is feedback.
You know exactly when you're making progress and that feels good.
You don't feel trapped in a cycle of repetitive tasks that lead to nowhere.
The fifth is rules. Rules or boundaries frame how you perceive the world.
Your mind has more space to notice information that aids in the achievement of your goals.
When you turn your life into a game, you become obsessed with progress.
There are quests, there are challenges, there are dungeons, there are other things and depending on the level of the game that you're at, that's when on the map, places become bright.
You can see them. You can navigate them.
You can get into them and discover what you didn't have before and what you didn't know existed there before.
So if you aren't pursuing new goals in your life and being self-disciplined, you're closing yourself off to so much experience in life.
Now the third step for becoming self-disciplined is reinventing yourself.
All change is behavior change.
All behavior change is identity change.
So all change is identity change because you are what you repeatedly do.
You are disciplined towards the goals in your head right now.
It isn't difficult for you to watch Netflix all day, lay in bed and just be lazy.
For many high performers, that is the worst thing in the world.
They would hate their lives if they lived that and you think you're comfortable.
For high performers, the pain of not achieving the goals that make them who they are would eat them alive because their identity is dying.
There's physical death and then there's mental death.
Your identity, when that changes, it hurts.
When a part of it is threatened, it hurts.
When your connection to something in the world or your attachment to something in the world gets threatened like your video games being taken away or something being taken away from you because that's mine.
That's what I'm talking about here.
When your lifestyle and goals are taken away from you or you're not able to achieve them, that should feel painful and that's a good thing.
So with that, your journey is going to be painful.
You are letting your old self die off.
You're letting your old beliefs and habits that are holding you back shed.
So the first step is just awareness that it's going to be difficult to change.
And the second step is reprogramming your mind to operate towards becoming a new identity.
So throw yourself into a new environment that aligns with who you want to become.
Draw on your mind and ideas, information and education that exposes you to new goals and ways to achieve those goals and view every situation through the perspective of your ideal lifestyle and make decisions accordingly.
Throw yourself into the deep end and teach yourself to swim.
But most people won't take the leap out of fear and that's why we need to talk about self-confidence rather than self-discipline.
So let's talk about an unconventional path to becoming self-confident because there is a lot of advice online on how to become self-confident.
It's a very big issue and clearly it is a global problem that hasn't been solved yet.
I don't think my solution is the only solution, but I think it may provide you with some things to try outside of what normal people are telling you to do.
The reason I say this is because when I started writing, it changed my life.
And not just writing in a journal, which is extremely helpful, but writing in a public journal.
Writing helped me become confident in my thoughts and life direction by being exposed to public criticism, forcing me to audit my beliefs, finding friends and connections with shared goals so I stopped feeling like an outcast, practicing a skill and seeing progress with it every single day, and failing often to keep me humble and give me new direction that I wouldn't
have normally found. Now obviously, writing is not the only way to self-confidence, but a lot of people get it wrong.
And I'm speaking from experience here, I'm giving you writing advice from a writer, and it may help you, it's worth a try.
Most people think that writing is just a type of skill or a hobby.
They don't see it as the one thing that makes us human.
We are the only species that can pass down information by documenting knowledge with writing to help those who come after us avoid danger and evolve.
Writing is why we make it so far as individuals and as a collective.
We would literally not be here with all of this stuff surrounding us with technology and any of that if it weren't for writing in documented communication.
Writing started as carvings and caves and have now become ideas on the internet.
That's how writing has evolved.
The carvings were barely seen, but with the internet you have the ability to share your ideas and writing with thousands of people.
Writing is the intersection of purpose and profit.
Don't underestimate that power.
Now, writing will make sense when we come back to it, but step one to becoming self-confident is to deconstruct your goals.
You aren't confident because you haven't invested in your portfolio of failures.
You've spent too much time residing in the comfort of other people's paths in life.
You've failed to break free from the masses, think for yourself, set your own goals and achieve them regardless of how long it takes.
You aren't confident because you don't have results in anything aside from what's already been done.
Sit with your thoughts.
What do you really want out of life?
Is it the same boring path as everyone else?
No? Then, the only option is to pay attention to what you don't want in life by observing the actions of most people and where those lead.
Do the opposite of everyone else if you want to achieve something more out of life.
Think about your future and deconstruct it into goals you will have to achieve and actions you will have to take.
Create yourself every single day with the material that will help you achieve those goals.
And last, block out time for focused work to build out your vision for the future.
Then, start. Self-confidence comes from doing what you think is uncomfortable over and over again and realizing it wasn't that bad in the first place.
Step number two to becoming self-confident is to start a business.
Because if you truly think about what you want in life, starting a business is not optional.
A business is the only thing that gives you control over your time so that you can do what you want.
And even if you think you want a job, you're going to be destined to pursuing the goals that are assigned to you for the rest of your life.
Do you really want that?
I'm not saying jobs are bad.
I've never said that. And I try to always preface it with the fact that I feel like a job is a stepping stone to learn and acquire skills to eventually be able to go and do your own thing and survive along the way because you have to survive.
The problem is when people become trapped in a job because it becomes comfortable to them and they don't know how to escape.
And then by that point, they're locked in with so many responsibilities from a family to bills to a mortgage that they have no way out.
And then they justify to themselves that that's what they wanted their entire life.
So think about it. What do you really want?
And is that really any different from what most people want?
Because it's in their nature.
You want autonomy, work you enjoy and to have an impact on the world so you can fulfill your human need to be a valuable contribution to humanity.
A business is not some capitalistic pursuit to own a private jet and mansion.
A business is how you solve problems.
A business is how you build something of your own.
A business is how you contribute to humanity through value exchange.
A business is how you take back control of your life.
A business is how you develop self confidence in your interests and expertise.
Now, small plug. I probably shouldn't do this this soon, but new course on par with to our writer is called mental monetization.
Link in the description if you want to learn how to monetize your creative work in the best way.
Most people are programmed to have a negative reaction when they hear the word business.
And this is one of the worst things that could happen to you, honestly, because you're just going to have that reaction until you realize how dumb that reaction was.
It delays your time and perception from noticing money making opportunities and actually acting on them.
Because if you constantly think that the business and money are bad, then you aren't going to make any.
You're just setting yourself up for unnecessary suffering because you have all of these irrational thoughts as to what you think money is when it's just a piece of paper.
It's neutral until put in the hands of good or evil.
And if you are evil or you think money is evil, that's probably a projection of your internal state.
So maybe you shouldn't have money and maybe you should do some internal work first and then go after business.
So when this happens, when you miss label money and business, you go on to do one of the worst things of all.
You hide from your desire to reach your potential, self actualize and self transcend by demonizing anyone and anything that would compromise the comfort you don't even know you are addicted to.
And you continue to be a cog in the machine of a business that is making money in potentially unethical ways.
You don't want to start a business, but the only other option is to work for a business.
You say that money and starting a business is superficial, but the thing that consumes most of your time is scrolling on surface level social media, you never go deep into any kind of interest or skill.
That's what business is.
You have to become an expert at something and dive deep into it.
It's the most deep pursuit you can go into.
And then you need to pass that to others in exchange for money.
Now step three to becoming self confident is to write in public.
Now if you aren't a fan of writing, which I would heavily question and it's probably just a reaction in your head because everyone writes, you text your friends, you send emails to your friends, you're a writer, whether you think you are or not, that's just a base human function of yours.
If you don't want to think about it like that, just think about communicating in public or communicating in general.
Writing is a superpower.
You can achieve your goals faster.
You can attract like minded people.
You can start with zero experience.
Become comfortable with people seeing your ideas.
And writing is the foundation of media.
Everything you see online from posts to videos to advertisements start with writing.
Media is where the attention is and if you want to do anything worthwhile in life, you're either going to need money or attention to do so.
So you need to go where the attention is.
You can no longer rely on your boss to generate attention, attract customers and assign you some measly work for a set amount of money to fulfill the product or service to those customers.
You must do all of the above.
Writing in public is the first step for beginners who don't have capital or experience to start a business.
Writing is a zero very eventually skill that you can start today and start attracting people to your interests and the things you would eventually want to turn into a business.
Choose two to three topics to write about, topics you want to learn about, build a name for yourself in and turn into a meaningful career.
Second, learn through observation.
Watch what others in those topics are writing about, how they write about it and why they say things the way they do.
If you think I could have wrote this, then write about it.
You don't need permission on the internet.
And if you don't know where to start, consider to our writer even though it's unnecessary.
It's just a guide. It's a course.
If you want to further your education, consider it.
Otherwise, watch a lot of YouTube videos.
Step four to becoming self-confident is to make new friends.
There is a concept called a mastermind and what that means is multiple minds working together to achieve a shared goal.
In the past, you had to make connections in your local area to make your business a success or you had to go to a prestigious school in your local area and connect that way.
Now you have access to anyone at the click of a button.
Your success is no longer determined by your socioeconomic status and physical location.
It is determined by who you are connected to and the opportunities they can pass off.
How do you find these connections?
Have a goal you want to achieve.
How do you attract people to that goal?
Starting a business with a mission to achieve that goal.
How do you get in front of well-connected people, writing in public to spread your ideas?
What does this have to do with self-confidence again?
Well it's kind of obvious, if you don't push beyond your limits and fail and have a way to overcome that then you're not going to become confident.
If you don't have anything to fail at or get better at, how are you going to be confident?
A goal, business, and writing in that order are how you continue to repeat this process to infinity.
There are no limits except for the ones you place on yourself.
You will eventually hit a ceiling in a job.
Someone is in charge of the limits you can reach.
If you aren't hopping on the evolution train with technology, AI, and the internet by opening up shop and virtual reality, the internet and social media, they will make you obsolete.
You make friends online by just showing up and talking to people.
And that's just like you would at a party.
Because on the internet you increase your social proof with your brand and ideas.
And outside of the internet you increase your status with cars, looks, and material acquisitions.
And I feel like it's obvious which one leads to a better life.
After four years of writing, I can message almost anyone online and get a response from them.
I mean, Gordon Ramsay follows me.
I have a lot of followers because I write on social media.
When I say writing, that's what I mean.
Go look at my Instagram, go look at my Twitter, look at my YouTube community page, look at the newsletters that get turned into YouTube videos.
It's all writing. And now with the social proof that I have, based on my ideas, I can DM people, almost anyone, you'll probably DM John Cena tomorrow and get a response from him.
Now step five is to publish your work.
To understand confidence, we must understand stories.
Stories equal transformation.
You aren't confident because you're trapped in someone else's story.
You don't have a chance to transform into who you were meant to become.
You don't have full control over your ability to escape the low point of the story, reach the climax, and have a happy resolution.
The path out of a low point in your life is trial and error.
The essence of life itself.
Your first attempt at writing will suck.
Your first attempt at launching a product will suck.
Your first attempt at making friends will suck.
So if you learn to write and you learn to launch a product, which is the new course, mental monetization, you're going to fail.
Like that's just what you're going to do.
But then you get back up and you try again until it's right.
This is a path where people can't just tell you exactly what to do.
They can give you guidelines and be like, Hey, here's how you actually flesh all these things out.
It's up to you to do it. But in schools and jobs, it's like, Hey, do this exactly this way and you can be replaced.
The reason 99% of people are cripplingly unconfident is because they unconsciously think you just become confident without doing anything that breeds a more stable form of confidence.
Confidence is improvement.
Publish your writing and be called an idiot.
Publish your product and collect the negative feedback.
Put yourself out there and let people expose your flaws.
Only then, once you're aware of the problem, can you know what to improve.
You can't improve what isn't published.
So when I say published, I mean just built in reality, not in your head, not little ideas that you're thinking about, but actually built.
You can't improve if you aren't aware of the problem.
Dying in your dark hole of comfort prevents you from both.
The longer you decide to stay there, the longer it will take to develop confidence.
You can watch this and do nothing with your life because you don't know enough to start or you can finally take the leap and dedicate your life to learning and building rather than expecting everything to be given to you.
That's it for this video.
Thank you for watching.
Like, subscribe, book, planner, other things, link in the description.
Check it out. See you next time.
Bye.
