Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 564 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! What’s going on out there? Have you been living your best life? Have you been taking care of your mindset, taking control of your own health and fitness? Have you been connecting with the people who bring you the most joy? I hope so. We control more of our life than we know and a majority of it starts in your head. The thoughts we have about anything is the reason why we do or don’t do anything. I know positive thinking gets lots of eye rolls. I get it. Sometimes you’re just like “can we not just live a little?” The problem comes in though when “living a little” becomes our daily routine and we ignore the things that move the needle in the direction of being our best selves because we know that’s not where we are currently headed. Trust me on this, I get it and I completely understand. But we feel better when we actively work at being our best don’t we? We feel prouder, we have more energy, we connect with people in a more loving way because we are loving ourselves too. So when someone says “come on live a little” it could mean you’re trying to be perfect which will backfire or it could mean they want to feel better about their poor choices and your high standards makes them uncomfortable. You are the only one that knows which one it is. The key is knowing what YOU want. Knowing how YOU want your life to look, how YOU want your body to look, your relationships to look, not to someone else but to you. But, Good advice only works if you live by it but not all good advice is one size fits all. We get to pick and choose the advice that resonates with us.
I am a self improvement LOVER, I still sometimes when I hear things like you should never drink alcohol or you should never eat sugar or never think a negative thought, sometimes I hear some of the advice and even I will roll my eyes and think “is that even reality though???” Who lives like that all the time? But what Ive realized over time is that there’s a balance that is just right for each one of us and no one else knows what that is. Maybe for you a drinking alcohol on the weekend is no problem, and for some no alcohol at all is better. You get to find that balance. For some any sugar at all and they have lots of problems and others can eat it periodically without much problem at all. And if you can find someone to spend your life with that has a similar balance as you then life becomes like a symphony of being really really good, to good, then maybe not so good, then back to really really good and the cycle continues like that. The goal is to have way more really good days than you have bad, not to never have bad days because that’s not possible even though we think it should be, life is always going to have it’s up and downs. That’s how we are built. We are built for growth and in order to grow we have to struggle, if we had no struggle we would be weak and the weak do not do well in life.
Along the way you will take a step back but hopefully that comes after taking two steps forward. That way you’re making progress! In order to take two steps forward we have to be working to be the best that we can be. Tony Robbins was on one of my favorite podcasts recently, the “All In podcast”. Every time I hear him I am reminded of how much his advice has changed my life over the years. He has often said happiness comes from progress, but it has a lot to do with our focus. Our focus is in high demand to every social media company, news company, advertisements, and they have paid billions to study what keeps us interested so that we are in a constant battle for our own focus. Oh and lets not disregard our kids needing us, our jobs pulling us, our friends, family, so many ways to be distracted from the fact that we were put on this earth to become the best version of ourselves, while also contributing to the greater good. That’s why we are here, thats also why we are designed for growth and why progress feels so good, it’s because that’s how we were designed. We are literally designed to expand our capabilities and overcome challenges. But we also are all in different phases of our lives so there are times where we have to pivot because what worked for so long may no longer be working. I’ve found that to be true with not only my nutrition and workouts but also my mindset work. I’ve had to pivot in all three areas quite a bit. But I’m making sure that I don’t digress, not a lot anyway and when I do, I pivot again. That’s what life is all about but if you share it with someone that aligns with your goals, it makes it so much easier.
Eric, my husband and I are very aligned with how we balance life with not focusing on perfection while still making progress every day. There are times where one or both of us have been a little too focused on how the latest news of the day is so bad or what’s going on with work is so frustrating to the point where we stop focusing on what IS going well and now everything is kind of negative and we are grumpy to each other and we have no reason to be except our focus has been on stuff that isn’t moving us forward and certainly not making us better. For us, the balance of life requires us to move our body every day, to connect deeply with other people, to give back because we have so much and to be really careful what we allow to distract us. Our focus is our power. Tony always says where focus goes, energy flows. If you want happiness and you want balance, you have to protect your focus like it’s your lifeblood, because it is.
Being the best version of you doesn’t mean you never have challenges or have to overcome obstacles, it also doesn’t mean taking every piece of good advice out there just because it worked for someone else. Perfection isn’t an option, not long term, but excellence is. Everyone’s definition of excellence for their life is going to be different because we all have different dreams, we all have different standards, and we are all in different phases, so be careful when you compare your results to someone else’s. Their priorities may be very different from yours. I have a friend who competes in body building competitions. Her idea of excellence in fitness is very different than mine and that’s ok. She inspires me to be better and shows me what’s possible if I’m willing to put in the work she does. In turn though, I inspire her in areas too like home design and with the podcast. Our priorities look different and so does our definition of excellence. But here’s the thing, some of the good advice she takes wouldn’t work for me and vise versa. I am not going to eat 12 eggs for breakfast. That wouldn’t work for me at all. I once had a trainer tell me cardio was unnecessary Maybe good advice for her but for me that doesn’t work. I also had a female friend in her early 50’s who was taking nutrition advice from a 23 year old male trainer. She was eating as much as he ate, she quickly realized that was a bad idea as you can imagine.
My whole point of this episode is this. There’s distractions and advice everywhere, so your focus can easily be hijacked and you’re going to hear good advice that isn’t good for you. I think that’s why we sometimes roll our eyes is because we think we have to do all the things or else we aren’t living our best life, but that is just because we’ve allowed our focus to be hijacked by too many things. I decided long ago that I have to pick one guru and only follow the advice that resonates with me. Deep down, you know what’s going to stick and what probably won’t.
So, if you’re like me, You can roll your eyes at the tons of advice from gurus all over the world of how to be your best self, because we aren’t meant to take all of it. Decide what you want and take the advice that helps you get there, the rest is just distraction! And remember that imperfect action is better than perfect inaction. So taking steps toward your goals even if they’re messy or incomplete, is far more effective than waiting for everything to be perfect and doing nothing at all. Also remember you are specifically designed to overcome challenges and to grow even if it’s one little step at a time. Progress over perfection. That’s why progress feels so good.
My challenge to you this week is guard your focus like your sanity depends on it because it does and also when you hear advice that resonates, take action in some way that feels right to you, but disregard all the other advice as distractions. You’ve heard the saying that A jack of all trades is a master of none. Get focused on what it is you want and you’ll know the the right advice because it will resonate. Share this with 3 people who are trying to be their best selves. I love you guys! Ill talk to you in a few days!
