Break Out Of Your Comfort Zone | Leo Babauta

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:08I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. And if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life, and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you want to make it easier, you want to make it flow, you want to feel abundant, then make sure to go to makemoneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment moving forward. We have some big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following and stay tuned to this episode of The Daily Motivation Show.

0:49I would like to just talk about something that's really important about these habits. Is that every single one of them, if they're going to really make an impact on your life and on anyone else's, there's an element of risk, which is this uncertainty, maybe a little bit of fear, maybe a lot of fear in some cases, and then that discomfort that comes with all of that. If you're doing the action habit that doesn't give you any of that, and you're like, oh yeah, that's easy, I'm taking a sip of water every day. Like one sip of water a day, that's not going to create anything. You know, because it was easy and it's what you already know how to do.

1:20If it's not giving you that little bit of an edge, a little bit of uncertainty, a little bit of risk to the capacity that you have to be with that. If it's not giving you that, you're just doing what you already know how to do. You're like, okay, I'm going to go out for my walk and walk once around the block. That's an amazing habit. And it's not going to actually expand your capacity to lead in the world and to create what you want. Because it's something you already know how to do. There's no discomfort there. But if you're like, I'm going to strap on my running shoes and go for a mile run. You're like, ah, it's a little bit of an edge for me.

1:52After a while, it doesn't become one. and then you have to find the next one. The new edge. Yeah. The problem with what I'm sharing with people here is that that discomfort and that edge, that uncertainty, the risk, we don't want that. Our minds, you know, they've evolved to try and eliminate that. We want comfort. Comfort and eliminate uncertainty. If there's uncertainty, our minds go into overdrive. How do I get out of this? It's like you saw like a predator on the savannah. Your mind goes into a mode where it's like, do something so that this is to either kill that animal or get the hell out or find some protection whatever you have to do to not make that a threat anymore and so our minds go into this mode and we still do it now with our phones with everything that our minds go into this mode where we have to protect ourselves until we can get to a place of peace but now because we have these uncertainty devices called phones we're constantly being given it and we're constantly trying to get out of it by distracting ourselves, giving ourselves comfort.

2:52The proposal that I have for people is to do something that's a little bit risky, a little bit uncertain. Every day, take that action habit. People don't want that. And you'll get excited about it at first, and then after a few days, you're going to stop. That place where you want to stop is where the real magic is. So I've been meditating before I started the blog, more than 15 years. I have never been consistent with it. And someone who has a blog called Zen Habits, who shaves his head, who's a Zen student, you might think he meditates every day. Two hours a day, he's got it down. The actual practice of sitting down and meditating, I've had a real struggle doing that.

3:29And that's actually been really enlightening for me. It's like, why is that? What stops me from sitting down? And it's like, oh, I got all of this work to do, the emails, all of that kind of stuff. So every time I can highlight when I don't do it, it's transformative. So the not doing it is almost as transformative as doing it. When I do sit down and meditate, it has me face the things that are getting my way from actually meditating. The reason why I'm not actually sitting down and I turn away and go to my computer, I actually face that on the cushion and I can see that it's there. And that really helps me to fully face what I don't want to face.

4:07And that's the same thing as this action habit that I'm talking about. If you can face the thing you don't want to face, it's confronting. We don't want to. It's uncomfortable. And it's transformative. The caveat is we have to choose into it. You know, there's a little switch that happens. If we say, I am going to take on the thing I don't want to face. You're like, okay, I'm going to do this. And I want to learn something from it. And I want to like really be with all of this. If you are being forced to by your boss or by your spouse or by the life, it's basically it's like being a victim. Sure.

4:40It's like I have to do this as opposed to I want to. Yeah. You might actually feel the stuff you don't want to feel and you're like, I don't want to. This sucks. It's actually going to be maybe more of a painful thing than anything. Yeah. So if you decide to choose into it, that's the difference. So just be like, OK, I'll do it because I have to or because Leo said so or Lewis told me. That's not it. It's a disempowered way to take on stuff. If you take it on with empowerment, like I'm going to tackle this on. I'm going to conquer that beast. And it turns out to not be a beast. It's actually love.

5:10but you choose to and you want to learn from it and get the most out of it. That's where the transformation will take place. That's where I think all of the great things will happen.

5:26Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation. And I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on the School of Greatness. And if you are loving the daily motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

6:23Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.

6:38Thank you.