Stop Sabotaging Your Life & Do THIS To Find Freedom | Lilly Singh EP 214

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 Greatest Mindset, today.

0:51I am a firm believer through doing the work in this book that my mantra is now, I am you and you are me and we're in different circumstances. So I think previously I would believe you're mean. You wrote this comment. You don't know what it's like to be me. You're mean. I am offended by your comment. I'm hurt by your comment. And I think now I have the perspective of, I am actually just like you. You are, in fact, just like me. But our circumstances have led us to these different places, and that doesn't need to be a fight. And it's also getting off my high horse of thinking that I would do different if I was that person, because I might not.

1:25I might do worse. If I was you, and I just had a layoff, and I saw my vacation picture, I might be even meaner than you were, to be honest. And so I think it's just understanding that we're all kind of the same. None of us are higher than anyone else, and we have different lived experiences. Yeah, I think the opportunity or the challenge of life is you're going to be judged for doing nothing, for sitting on your couch all day and not actually taking action on something, and you're going to be judged for doing something. I actually label these things as distractions, and I don't mean this in the way of like, you're not valid, I don't care about your opinion, you're a stranger, so you're a distraction.

1:58What I mean is that where I know I thrive the most is when I'm grateful. When you're grateful, you feel happy. You are a pleasant person. You probably get even more success because gratitude just has such a magic to it. Whatever takes you away from gratitude, I consider a distraction. So it's not that it's not valid. So if you wake up one morning and you're like, I'm in such a good mood. I have a great family. I have great friends. I'm in such a good mood. And then something happens. Someone cuts you off in traffic. And suddenly you're like, my life is so annoying, honestly. And then you start spiraling.

2:27It's not that that's not valid and you shouldn't be upset. You can be, but you don't have to live there. You can come back to a place of gratitude. That's what I mean by distractions. It's kind of like allowing that thought to stay with you for an hour or days or weeks. Sometimes people hold on to these things for so long. I've done that in the past. And I realized, is this supporting my meaningful mission or is it pulling me away from it? And calling them distractions actually allows you to come back to a place. Because when you don't call a distraction, you can stay there for a real long time.

2:55but knowing that you actually want to return back to somewhere else makes it that much easier just that shift in your mentality of I'm over here in the land of gratitude now I've been pulled over here let me get back you know what my goal is to get back here yeah I never had that goal before so I would just wander around over here for a really long time because I was like I know what to do exactly I always repeat those four things I told you about because I look at everything through that lens is this about the relationship to myself it's not so it doesn't matter in that Is it about my relationship with the universe?

3:23No. It also helps me kind of wean out what's not a priority to think about. But really what I do is I actually just give myself grace of being a human being. If I get upset about something, I do not force myself to not be upset. And I think I did that for a long time. But now I'm just like, hey, you're upset. I think you should process all of these emotions. You're allowed to be upset. Forgive yourself for being upset. It's stupid. It's petty. Allow yourself. Forgive yourself. But after you're done, don't forget you can return back to this place. Absolutely. And when you're gentle with yourself, you actually react a lot better to situations than being so harsh to yourself.

3:55I've been doing therapy pretty consistently for the last year, year and a half now. It's been a powerful opportunity for me. I've done it throughout the years, but this time I was like, I'm just going to do it when things are really good. Not when I have an issue I need to address. Because things are good in my life, I want to maintain and continue this emotional accountability, let's call it. You realize you don't always have to cry in therapy. My coach will say, you know, when you feel the emotion, don't try to stuff it. Like, there are so many different healthy ways to express anger. You shouldn't do it at the person in an unhealthy way.

4:26You know, it's getting it out first, whether it's punching a pillow or writing down every nasty thing you want to say and putting down and then burning it or whatever it might be. There's so many ways to express your anger in a healthy way. Let it out and then get back to gratitude and peace. I think that should be the goal. Absolutely. I think it's really hard to find fulfillment from a place from anger, stress. It won't happen. We really need to find fulfillment from a place of peace. Absolutely. And love. Peace and freedom. Giving yourself permission to be flawed and give yourself grace. Yeah.

4:54We spend so much time and energy on what other people think of us and how we interact with others that we don't actually give ourselves the time and energy that a relationship requires. We like to define people very easily. It's easy for us to in our brain say right, wrong, black, white, yes, no, tall, short. It just makes it easier for us to understand people. But we do that to ourselves as well. We have all these words in our head of I am a hard worker. I am funny. I am not lazy. But the issue with giving yourself these really extreme labels is we're never all of these things. And we're not always all of these things.

5:31And then that starts to create conflict. So, for example, I'm a workaholic. I know this. But why that has caused conflict is because I've labeled myself this hustler. You know, it's my whole brand, Hustle Harder. So when I have a day where I'm like, I feel like doing nothing, I don't enjoy a lazy day. I actually get upset at myself. That action goes against the label I've given myself. You create these little battles for yourself inside because you've concluded this is who you are, when really who you are is a multitude of things that falls on various spectrums at different parts in your life.

6:01You can hustle hard on this day, it doesn't mean this day you're going to be the exact same person. We need to understand we are these complex humans that are not easily labeled. We never give ourselves context, ever. We're just like, I have to be this all the time. No, what is the context? When I fail at something, I used to get really upset at myself. You got to get this right, Lily. You are the only one. You're the first at the scene. You got to get it right. It's a lot of pressure. 100%. But instead of looking at myself and being like, you didn't do it right, so you're stupid, and then I apply that stupid label on me, what if I actually looked at myself and said, oh, you're someone who is struggling with something you've never done before?

6:35that like gives me some context. I actually feel like helping that person. I feel like championing that person instead of just being like, you're stupid. So we're just so lazy with labels when we define ourself. And I'm encouraging people to give ourselves context.

7:01Thank 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 Podcast 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.

7:51Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show. You