How I Tricked My Brain To LOVE Doing Hard Things

so one of the things that I'm most proud of is completely overcoming my procrastination habits for most of my life I've struggled to work out build a side hustle or do anything that was hard even when I knew it would benefit me but things have completely turned around the past few years I've discovered a way that makes it so easy to do all the hard things that I used to procrastinate on so what I did was create an alter ego a second version of myself and without it I would have never started making videos in my bedroom that eventually became the foundation of my media company today think of your Alter Ego as an enhanced version of yourself that's free from limitations it takes your weaknesses and turns them into your strengths and it makes your insecurities into their confidence and when you need it you let it take over and creating your Alter Ego is easy we already subconsciously shape our identities and unlock different characteristics to fit into different social situations like the version of you going partying with your closest friends is completely different than the version of you who attends an important work meeting but the problem is most people don't know how to consciously unlock the superpower so here's four steps to create your new Limitless Alter Ego so you can finally make the better choice between living and ordinary life that makes sense and an extraordinary life that makes you excited to get up every morning first draw forward boxes in the first box figure out which area of your life that you want your Alter Ego to show up in what do you want them to accomplish give your Alter Ego a clear Mission then think about the superpowers that your Alter Ego needs so that it can accomplish that goal that you built it for give them the kind of traits that you aspire to have then visualize how your Alter Ego looks maybe you personally dress super casual in sweatpants and hoodie but your Alter Ego wears a suit and is super polished and last but also probably the most important you need to pick a specific object that would help you embody your Alter Ego when you need it the object can be anything a ring a necklace or pair of sunglasses but it's crucial that this artifact is something that you only put on when you need to activate your Alter Ego it can't be something that you already wear every day it has to be a symbolic totem and if you think this is just all nonsense this is how some of the most successful entrepreneurs musicians and athletes Excel I actually came across this video of Beyonce a while back when you're getting ready to go on stage and perform to Sasha Fierce when does she show up like the the moment right before when you're nervous and that other thing kind of takes over for you so she was talking about she this Superstar icon literally one of the greatest pop stars of our Century would get stage fright and not have the confidence to perform so to combat these insecurities before Beyonce goes on stage she would activate her Alter Ego Sasha Fierce and then completely throw her down then there's also Oprah Winfrey and miss o and Kobe Bryant and the Black Mamba R.I.P and the most beautiful part of this is as you continue to use your Alter Ego to do the hard things to get over your fears and Excel your Alter Ego will eventually just become you so now you know how to use your superpowers to get through the hard things but now you're thinking how can you motivate yourself to actually start the hard things there are two things that really helped me do that number one is this mindset shift that took me six years to figure out and number two is I'm gonna tell you why you shouldn't start if you don't want to so number one it's understanding the real reason why you procrastinate and no it's not because you're lazy look no one wants to be behind on their dreams no one wants to hate themselves while they watch their lives pass by people procrastinate because it's a temporary way to relieve us of the pressure and the fear of a deeper underlying problem so what is that deeper problem for me I was absolutely terrified of being judged and being a failure I think it's because I tied my personal Worth to the things that I did meaning of something that I worked on failed that would mean I was a failure so my underlying problem Amplified any hard thing to do because now that hard thing was no longer just an exam or just a signed hustle or just working out it was also my self-worth so in an attempt to relieve this pressure whenever it came up I just watched TV and played video games it took me six whole years to realize that by thinking like this I was making two big mistakes one I was constantly worried about what people thought about me and two I believe that other people actually dedicated their time thinking about me in the first place but the reality is most people don't really care about you we all psychologically suffer from this spotlighting effect where we mistakenly overestimate how much attention others paid to us the truth is everyone is engrossed in their own world battling their own problems like even if you saw a stranger trip on a sidewalk you might chuckle and think about it for a few seconds but after a few minutes you'll completely forget it ever happened okay but what if you just genuinely don't feel like starting and you know it's not because of Any insecurities you're just actually tired and lazy well then don't do it I'm not going to tell you to do it if you don't want to because that's not going to change your mind but I will tell you to just get ready if you don't want to go to the gym just get ready put on your workout clothes if you're tired of your job and it's finally time to start your side hustle just get ready open up Google Docs and a notepad you're not starting anything you're just getting ready and the great thing is typically just getting into the emotion of getting ready taking that first step is enough to get you to keep going but the problem is taking the first step is the hardest one to take think about it let's say you have two boxes in the hallway one of the boxes isn't moving it's still and the other is being pushed down the hall it will actually require more energy to move the stilt box than it takes to keep the already moving box going but once the still box starts moving they'll require less energy to keep it going in this case if you haven't started yet you are the still box so it's all about making the first step easy by simplifying barriers in the number of steps needed to start in my case with recording these videos I already have my lights my camera and my mic set up on this thing ready to go all I need to do is press record super easy so this next tip might be confusing because it's the complete opposite of what everyone preaches so we were all raised to measure our worth by our results like whether we get an A on our exam or whether our side hustle made ten thousand dollars last month but that's why most people struggle to do hard things so in the 1890s decades before Roosevelt became president two journals went up to him and asked if you wanted to become the president one day now you think Roosevelt would say yes of course look but no instead Roosevelt got frustrated angry even and started yelling don't you dare ask me that don't put such ideas in my head don't remind a man at work on a political job that he may be president it almost always kills him politically he loses his nerve he can't do his work he gives up the very trait that are making him a possibility that was my Roosevelt impression the problem with fixating ourselves with the outcome is that we get our motivation from the end results and when we don't see the tangible outcome very clearly we get scared and doubt ourselves which leads us to run away from our dreams before we even have a chance to knock on its door but even if we grind for hundreds of hours Blood Sweat and Tears just to get a little bit closer to that door just another 10 hours and we're one step away from opening the door of our dreams it moves just a little bit a bit out of reach whenever we get close to reaching our dreams our adani adaptation kicks in our human tendency is to constantly want more and never be satisfied so our dreams keep changing always Moving Out Of Reach but there is a way to completely bypass this innate behavior so you'll feel like anything no matter how hard is achievable and this really clicked in my head after I read the story about Jesse itzler who decided to live with monks so one beautiful day in the monastery Jesse was cleaning the dishes after serving food to hundreds and hundreds of people and as he's scrubbing and washing the plates the monks just kept on bringing more and more plates 100 200 500 plates that all needed to be cleaned obviously this is a lot of work so Jesse asked how many more do I have to do and the monk simply replies you only have to do one just the one that you're holding in your hand now what appeared as a huge lofty unattainable goal for one person cleaning more than 500 plates was broken down into simply just doing one plate after the other setting goals are important to provide us with a general direction on where to go but the tip is to focus on the process doing the right things and taking the right steps because even if it's not obvious each additional step that you take each right or wrong turn you'll learn something new and when you focus on the process that newness becomes the reward in itself you don't climb the mountain just by looking at the top reaching the top is simply a byproduct of your journey but what if the task is just straight up boring you just need to do it and you're not making any progress something that really helped me is called the upgraded word and it all begins with the letter e the most common letter used create words you see your language how you speak and think about yourself is what your mind will unconsciously adopt as your identity and I'm not talking about negative self-talk or even using negative words this is really nuanced like if I were to say I want to be successful by 45 I'm sure we all thought something like this before because it sounds motivating inspirational even but this does more harm than good because this phrase is coming from a scarcity mindset it's subconsciously telling yourself that you need to get something meaning you don't have it already your mind will unconsciously adopt this identity and constantly look at success as something that's unattainable for you and it will limit You by confining you into a prison that you made yourself but I'm not saying just pretend like you're some super successful bigwig either instead just make a small tweak to force yourself to adopt and abundance mindset instead of saying I want to be successful by 45 you say I am a person who is successful and with this small tweak you'll unconsciously take on a new identity because you'll think I am currently successful and what do successful people do they execute and work hard so I will execute and work hard but simply changing your language is just half the battle I'm all for having a healthy and positive mindset but that alone isn't going to cut it you also need to take action to achieve what you want and what's powerful is once you do take action once you do take the proper steps you'll start to see progress and the progress itself will motivate you to continue to take more action like when I saw my first what ten dollars deposited into my bank account from my first online business I just felt amazing so I kept pushing because at that time ten dollars was a lot of money for me I kept learning and improving and then it was a hundred dollars then a thousand dollars and I couldn't believe it and that's what got me to where I am today financially free traveling the world and doing what I love to do so know this today is your chance your one chance to do the hard thing that will change everything all it takes is one choice one action one Leap to land a new life don't waste another year because you couldn't decide today but hold on because you might be trying too hard and it's holding you back if you really want to be successful you need to stop trying you need to let go watch this video next to understand why and to see if you're trying too hard

Channel: Vincent Chan

Views: 34,543

Keywords: learning skills, study quest, self-development, self-improvement, personal development, motivation, money, personal finance, hard things, procrastination, working out, studying, side hustle

Id: 80x7DBo0Zs4

Length: 13min 13sec (793 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 04 2023