Hi guys! Welcome to episode 260 of the wildly successful Lifestyle podcast. Thank you for always hanging out with me! I love that we get to connect every week like we do. I love being part of the wildly successful lifestyle community. It’s all about making us better and keeping us optimal.
We are beautifully designed. We have the ability to heal after horrific accidents. We could have a traumatic brain injury and our brain will rewire around that injury to heal itself. I’ve seen it personally on a before and after scan of my older sister that had a stroke. I talked about her story in episode 259. Literally her brain rewired itself around the damaged part of her brain so that she could talk again. That wouldn’t have happened had she just given up. She made the difference. It wasn’t going to happen on its own. That’s what we have to remember. Our bodies are miraculous in how they are designed but our decisions are what predict how our lives are shaped, how our bodies are shaped, how our brains are shaped. She gave her body the ability to heal. The ability is there, whether or not we use it is up to us. We are so resilient. I am resilient. You are resilient. We just have to remember that because there are a lot of things around us to make life easy. We want and expect everything to be easy. But just because there’s things to make things easy, it doesn’t mean that’s what’s best for us. Fast food makes things easy but is that what’s best for us?
The comforts of life can make us soft but it doesn’t mean we lose the ability to be strong.
The food we eat can make us heavy and tired but it doesn’t mean we lose the ability to feel better.
The stuff we’ve been told or the things we read or listen to can fill our brains with negativity but it doesn’t mean we lose the ability to think positively.
We make decisions every day that decide our future. And by our future that could mean later that day.
We have been enjoying the week on the beach at watersound. We get our chairs and our beach bags and our coolers and we head to the beach, now I know that if I drink water and wear my hat and my sun shirt and be careful to get in the shade of the umbrella as much as possible, I’m going to feel good come the afternoon. On the other hand, if I drink those little sparkling tequila drinks I like and wear no hat and I just roast in the sun, I’m going to have to feel tired and want to sleep by early afternoon and by night my sunburn will have me feeling hot and uncomfortable. There’s nothing wrong with either scenario, I’m on vacation. it’s just I get to predict the future by what I decide to do this morning. Just because the tequila drinks are there
Usually for me the instant gratification decisions are the ones that have me wishing I hadn’t done it.
Small seemingly inconsequential decisions affect us all day every day. Do I make my bed? Do I work out? Do I eat carbs and sugar for breakfast or lunch? Do I read or watch the news?
We have come to a point in society where instant gratification is everywhere and so we expect things to happen quickly and if they don’t we are on to the next thing where we can get instant gratification.
My parents are 72 and 70 and just before Covid they joined a gym to get in shape. They live in the country and so there aren’t sidewalk and so walking on their street is dangerous. So the join a gym and the gym offered an entrance test to see where they were physically and then they test again in a couple of months to see your progress. My dad said when they started they could barely do some of the things on the entrance exam and after a couple months, when they took the test again they were shocked at how far they had come. They hadn’t even realized how much better they were getting every day because it’s incremental but when you add it all together it’s a huge difference.
Same goes for anything we do in life. Every decision we make is affecting our future whether that’s how you’re going to feel this afternoon or how you’re going to perform in 2 months after working out.
We are getting addicted to instant gratification and that’s why you see these fad diets where you lose 10 lbs in a week. These are not designed to be sustainable. There’s nothing wrong with using that as a kickstart but try incorporating incremental changes that ARE sustainable like not drinking your calories or not eating after 7 or exercising 1 or 2 days a week.
Sometimes we don’t tie our mood swings and tiredness to what we are eating and drinking but they play a huge role in how we feel later or how we sleep that night.
Yes, you get instant gratification by having that sugar in your coffee but you can predict the sugar crash that follows it by mid-morning.
You get instant gratification by eating a carb loaded lunch but come 2 or 3 o’clock because of the carb crash you’re searching out coffee which affects your sleep that night which causes you to feel extra tired the next day which makes you want to eat sugar for energy and the cycle starts all over.
Same goes for what you feed your mind. What you feed your mind predicts what you talk about, think about, and look for.
We live in a society that promotes instant gratification and comfort and we are coming up with ways to make life easier and easier but just because it’s available doesn’t mean you have to use it. If it makes you better, then of course use it, but if it’s going to weaken you, make you less healthy or depressed then is it really making your life easier? Just because society has evolved to the point where you never have to leave your house to live, does that mean you want to use that? For me it’s a big no.
You create your future by being intentional. You can predict your future by looking at your habits.
Technology is evolving and we will, of course, want to use the things that make sense for us and make us better but we also have to remember that we are not robots. We are humans and just because a robot can do it for us, it doesn’t mean we want it to. I’ve been craving nature lately, you may notice you have as well…it’s probably because we have gotten a little carried away with our relationship with automation and technology. It’s not normal for us to be on our phones 24-7 or to be inside 24-7. We spend 93% of our time indoors in a temperature controlled environment, sometimes the only sun we see is walking from our car to the house or office. We have gotten away from the things that make us the happiest: Challenges, Natural light and community.
What you eat, drink, the amount of movement your body gets, the natural light you get, and the things you feed your mind are all creating your future.
My challenge to you this week is to take one day and look at each decision you make and ask yourself how’s this gonna make me feel today? Is this creating the best version of me possible or is it making me weak?
Show me your daily habits and I’ll show you your future.
I love you guys. I’ll talk to you in a few days
