Redefine Success and Break Free from Societal Expectations | Mark Manson EP 283

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

0:10I firmly believe that taking charge of your mindset allows you to be in the driver's seat of your life and unlock your potential. And that's why I'm thrilled to share that my new book is out right now. It's called The Greatness Mindset. In it, you'll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward. This is the book that I wish I had 20 years ago. It's everything I've learned in the last decade with the research and the science to help you unlock your mind. Make sure to go to lewishouse.com slash 2023mindset to pick up your copy of my book, The Greatness Mindset, today.

0:51I did some mental jujitsu and I was asking myself, what's more valuable to the world? is writing a book that affects a million people a little bit or 10 ,000 very profoundly. Deeply. You know, who's to say which one of those two things is better or more important, more valuable? Sure, selling a million copies is sexier. You know, it gets you more attention. You do more interviews. But there's a strong argument that affecting 10 ,000 people very deeply is arguably a more valuable contribution to the world. And so I started thinking of things in that way. It took me a long time to kind of detach myself from that.

1:32When you're starting out as a writer, and this is probably true with podcasts and everything, it's like you love seeing the numbers go up. You know, it's like every year the number is higher than the year before. And it feels good. It motivates you. You feel inspired. You're like, hell yeah, I'm growing. I'm getting better. And at some point, though, like once that number gets high enough, you got to let go of it. You just you got to let go of it because it's not sustainable once it's that high. You know, it's you're going to run out of oxygen. And so it was a difficult process to kind of get back to like step one, write a book I love.

2:05I started out, I was like, all right, I got to keep the train going. And so I started trying to write stuff that I thought subtle art readers were going to really love. It felt very empty. It started to feel like a job. Forced. Yeah, which I didn't become an author to have a job. I just kept scrapping it. I'm like, no, no, no, this isn't going well. And eventually I had to just get back to like, okay, I need to write for myself first. Yeah. then once I have a book that I'm proud of, that I think is great, then I can look at it and say, like, okay, like, how can we, you know, maybe change this or market this so that it'll sell a lot of copies?

2:42You know, that's step two. But step one in a creative process, it always has to be about yourself first. Otherwise, it's just, it's not art anymore. How do we develop a sense of hope for ourself? How do we create a new vision, a new dream, a new game plan moving forward in any moment? One, you need to develop a sense of values. For you to have any vision of hope in the future, something needs to be better or worthwhile. Like it needs to be valuable. And it can be anything. It can be helping out the kids at the local school. It can be building a company. It can be buying a new car, whatever. You need to decide that something is more valuable than what you have today.

3:20And oddly, a lot of people struggle with that. They don't know which way to go. They don't know what a better life would look like. or they want to do so many things that they do nothing. Yeah. I've seen that also. It's like, well, I love this and that and all these other things. I don't know which direction to go. Yeah. And so they don't go anywhere. So it's like you got to pick that one thing that is kind of the central value in your life. And then the second component is that you need to feel that you're capable of getting there. If you have this vision that is just completely detached from reality and you see this a lot, People will pick goals or dreams that are just so out there that it gives them an excuse to not do anything.

3:59It's about finding a vision that can kind of bring both of those things together. It's about being realistic about who you are, where you are, making a solid decision about what is better in the world. What is a worthwhile pursuit for your life? You want enough stress and pain so that it gives you that sense of meaning and accomplishment, but you don't want too much that you give up and cave in. It's kind of listening to your body, listening to your heart, your mind. Make sure you're checking in with yourself every week. Yeah. And the perfect metaphor is like working out. You know, it's like if you go into the gym, you walk on the treadmill.

4:32Like we've all seen those people who like come in the gym and like are walking like one mile an hour on the treadmill on their phone. You know, it's like that's not a workout. You're not getting anything out of it. But at the same time, if you go to the gym and you just destroy yourself for hours. Can't walk for two weeks. You're going to get injured. you're gonna, you know, it's gonna backfire. So it's the same thing with our psychology. If we're too pampered, if everything's too easy, if everything's given to us without any reward or effort, we essentially remove a sense of value from our lives.

5:02And that removes a sense of purpose. That causes a crisis of hope. People struggle with depression and anxiety and things like that. When things are too easy, we don't have as much hope as what you're saying. Yeah. By most metrics, we're safer, healthier, wealthier, living longer than ever in human history. There are fewer wars. There are fewer diseases. Yet everybody's, like, freaking out constantly, you know? Anxious, overwhelmed, stressed, depressed. Depression, anxiety, yes. On medication, drugs. Suicide, drug overdoses. Everything. And then you look at, like, all the political crap that's going on.

5:37There's, like, this almost fever pitch thing happening in society, despite the fact that everything is actually the most comfortable it's ever been. And so one of my arguments is that the more comfort and luxury we experience, the more we have to be selective. We have to consciously choose our discomforts and our stresses. Back in the day, if you were a farmer in the 1800s, or if you were a subsistence farmer out in India, you don't have to worry about any of this stuff. You get up and work every day. Your vision of hope is, I need to feed myself and my family, and I need to get up to work every day or else we're all going to start.

6:15You know, it's very easy for that farmer to like find meaning in their life. But when you're like living in a nice condo in LA and you've got awesome opportunities happening and cool new sushi restaurants opening everywhere and awesome vacations down in Tulum, like you have to seek out that stress because if you don't, if you don't pick those things to challenge and to stress yourself, you're going to start succumbing to all the little things. You know, you're gonna start throwing a fit if the Postmates guy doesn't bring enough forks. Like I have to be a lot more conscious about choosing my struggles, choosing what pain I want to put myself through in my life.

6:55Because if I don't, if I don't choose that pain, then I'm gonna be back on the couch playing Zelda. I think as a culture, we're just getting away from that. Everybody wants to be coddled and protected all the time. And it's like, you can't. Like not only can you not be coddled and protected all the time, but it will backfire. You know, the more you're protected, the more your feelings are always protected, the more sensitive you're going to get to every little thing that goes wrong.

7:27Thank 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.

8:22Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.

8:38Thank you.