Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 410 of the Wildly Successful lifestyle podcast! You’re the best for spending time with me every week and also for sharing any episode you found helpful, it may help someone else too!
Ok, Andrew Huberman had David Goggins on his podcast this last week and one of the things that David said was “no matter how much you change, no matter how much you improve, it’s not permanent.” Which is why you have to have practices daily that you do regardless or as he put it “I don’t want to but I will anyway” practices every single day. His motto is “stay hard” which he does that’s for sure and in a world where it’s encouraged to be soft, he is a huge contrast…he lives his life do really hard things every single day.
So I thought ok do I have those practices? I really do. I swear to you guys. I never want to go the gym and work out with Kevin. I love him like a brother and he has done more for my mindset and my physical fitness than anyone and I still don’t want to go. But I do. I love my yoga, I love my spin and my walk/runs. I just know Kevin is going to make me do things I’m not comfortable doing. Squats, pull-ups, leg extensions, man makers. But I go every time because I know it’s building strength And I also know mental health and mental fitness doesn’t get easier as you get older. Both will be a lifelong project.
Mental health is just like physical health. You don’t get to this ultimate goal and then just maintain that without putting in the same or more effort.
That’s why it has to become a way of life. People who are fit and healthy into their 80’s keep working at it into their 80’s. They didn’t get to a certain goal and say I made it! I can quit finally! No they keep going!
If you are creating good habits now and it becomes a way of life now you’re giving yourself a chance to be healthy as you get older. But if you have bad habits now and you think when you get older you’ll turn those around, the odds are not in your favor.
The key has to be to create the habits that you do every day regardless of what’s going on. Have non negotiable things you do every day that benefit you mentally and physically regardless if life is going well or if it isn’t. Regardless if you want to do them or if you don’t. David Goggins says he hates running every single time he runs but he does it anyway.
I told you earlier that I don’t ever want to go to my workouts with Kevin but I go anyway. Somewhere in my brain I thought I was unique that I was especially lazy. That every one else loves going to the gym but I’m uniquely Lazy. lol. Turns out we all have things that are hard every time we do them and some of us will do them anyway and some of us won’t. It doesn’t get easier. And you don’t want it to. Because Dr Huberman said in his podcast that there is a part of the brain called the Anterior cingulate cortex,(only time Im saying that part of the brain but I will put it in the show notes) they have found that .
That part of the brain grows bigger when you consistently do hard things that you didn’t want to do. They have identified this part of the brain as the will to live. And doing hard things makes it bigger. This is only on things you do that you don’t want to do. So I said I love yoga and I love my spin classes and my runs..the fact that I enjoy them means it doesn’t grow the part of my brain that increases the will to live, the part that helps me socially, the part that helps regulate emotions. It’s the doing the thing you don’t want to do, doing that thing anyway that grows this part of your brain. And if you don’t do that every day, that part of your brain decreases. That doesn’t seem fair. lol. Life isn’t fair. Life is exactly what you make of it. If you want to live in comfort 24/7 then don’t expect to be reaching new heights..it’s not gonna happen because in order to reach new heights you gotta risk falling. You gotta risk doing something hard, something new. Life can be comfortable or it can be exciting. It can’t be both. Life can be comfortable or you can keep growing and evolving which is what we were designed to do..but it can’t be both. The reason why you always want more is because that’s how we were designed. If you hold yourself back by living in your comfort zone, you may be comfortable but you aren’t gonna feel truly alive. You’ll wonder if this is all there is, you’ll complain because you’re bored but you’re so dependent on your comfort zone that you don’t change anything to make it better.
I decided recently that I’m going to switch up little things I do. If I didn’t do something because it made me uncomfortable I am now going to do it. I was in yoga and since Covid and all that mess we all lived through in our yoga they have cards that you can put next to your yoga mat that says you are ok if the yoga instructor touches you to help you do a pose correctly or to help you stretch properly. I have never picked up that card and put in near my mat but I also know that in the past before they had to ask permission, they would just come and adjust you a little bit and it always helped so the other day because I’m doing things differently, things that make me a little uncomfortable but that I know benefit me, I grabbed one of those cards and put it by my mat and guess what? I allowed myself a smidgeon more growth because the teacher helped me stretch in just a little better way. Not a big deal but I did something different, not hard just different. Something I normally didn’t want to do and it made me just a little better. If I keep that up imagine where I’ll be in a year.
Doing hard things doesn’t have to be a major undertaking. It could just mean commiting to doing that new class you wanted to try. It could mean getting up 10 min early to meditate. It could mean not picking up the phone when your mind wants a distraction. These things sound easy but be in that moment, you tell me how easy they are. It’s hard to not pick up your phone when you’re on autopilot to do so. But you know what? Every time you do that you’re growing that part of your brain that helps you make better decisions, that helps you with impulse control. So doing something hard makes it a little easier to do the next hard thing because you’re growing that part of the brain.
We live in a time where comfort has never been easier to attain. We don’t have to leave our home if we don’t want to because someone will deliver whatever you need with the click of a button. We don’t have to interact with real humans if we don’t want to, because humans aren’t easy. It’s never been easier to just live in our comfort zone and that’s why people are increasingly lonely, increasingly depressed, and increasingly frankly suicidal. It’s because living isolated, technology run lives is not how we were designed.
We were designed to grow and thrive and reach new heights but in an effort at progress we’ve made ourselves soft. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to just survive, I want to thrive. And that takes doing hard things.
I guess my point is you’re not gonna just wake up one day and want to do hard things you’re not gonna wake up and want to do a really hard workout or want to run
Run 5 miles but you’ve got to find a way to do it anyway and you’re not gonna wake up all of a sudden and want to keep doing the hard things but you’ve got to keep doing it anyway that’s what makes us feel alive that’s what helps us grow, and its keeping our brain active and alert! Society is trending towards being soft and being soft is not how I want to live and I know it’s not how you want to live either.
My challenge to you today is to recognize where it is that you’ve gone soft. Is it in the gym? Is it with your relationships? Maybe it’s in your career. The beauty of this life is it doesn’t take a lot to get back on track. Because back on track just means to get yourself heading in the right direction, which could be as simple as picking up a yoga card or making an effort to get to the gym even if you just go to the sauna. .What does it mean for you? Share this with 3 people who don’t want to watch life from the stands, they want to live it! I love you guys! I’ll talk to you in a few days!
Anterior cingulate cortex.
