The Key To Pursuing Your Dreams & Creating A Life You Love | EP 834

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

0:11everybody's dreams are lies because they don't exist they're just making that up that's why they're dreams and so the difference though between people who are successful or not is how they choose to pursue those dreams so let's just say i had a dream to become an olympian i always in my mind picture that dream on the top of a staircase and i have these series of steps that go down. And every step represents a quantifiable smart goal that I'm going to put on. I'm going to get out of bed every day and exercise for 30 minutes. I'm going to get out of bed. That's step one. Exactly. What's step two?

0:49I'm going to get out of bed every day, right? And I'm going to find myself a coach. Step number three, I'm going to find the best person in my field, and I'm going to be relentless and pursue them and train with them. If that means I got to pick up their shoes if that means i gotta clean their toilet whatever that is and that is you start putting those steps in there now when you put those steps in be like oh guys success came no you're gonna say no hell no but now you got to say stop don't let that come in that's where you use the power of affirmations stop we talk in psychology about this thing called centering physical actions that you'll see athletes do like a trigger like some like a snap of a snap rubber band.

1:33Stop the negative stop. Slap in the face or whatever it is, right? Yeah, replete. Deep breath in. You got this. Yeah. Right? Whatever that is. Whatever it is, because you're going to be on your step, your first step. Get up today. You start again tomorrow. A friend of mine was when he was trying to quit smoking. He put it all. His hands was always in there because he always jingled coins. Another person, always their keychain. Shake, shake. And then it becomes automatic. It becomes automatic and that's where you want it to be. I got this. I got it. You can't beat me cigarettes. No, no, no not today whatever that might be but recognize how important it is to ladder up that step because if you put that big dream out there it becomes so overwhelming where am i gonna start oh my gosh the tiniest step is the one that moves us towards our goal the tiniest step i just tweeted the other day somebody who graduated from university and i said savor the moment savoring that's a big component about happiness and savoring means live in it feel it relish it embrace it you know when sometimes it's cold and you want to just get out in the sun you're just like ah and you just feel it that's savoring pausing slowing down engulfing it it's almost like when something's happening like pull yourself out and just watch yourself with your friends and appreciate it when perfectionism hinders your ability to have joy, to move on, to pursue something because of your fear of failure or you're never good enough or you can't relish your accomplishment, it becomes maladaptive.

3:01And then it inhibits you. And you'll see this in a lot of high-performing athletes who are driven to excellence that that perfectionism becomes so debilitating that they then can't perform. They can't get in the flow. Cheeks meant to heal, I flow. They can't get in the flow. They can't be present because they're so anxious and worried about everything else. I once had an athlete, he's just, this game just started going down further and further. Every time you had a mistake, oh gosh, I remember he's like, well, I think I should make nine out of 10 passes, 10 out of 10 passes. And then I remember taking him and putting Roy Keane, a famous footballer on TV, and showed him how Roy Keane made four out of 10 passes, five out of 10 passes, the very best footballer in the world.

3:43And you 19 year old kid wants to make 10 out of 10? changed his mindset. It allowed him to let go of being excellent. Because if you're perfect, then you could be, but then you're not stretching. You're in some place that's comfortable where you can be good and excellent. But if you're moving forward and you're driving to these new places where the skill is novel to you, you're a new boss, you're a new leader, of course you're going to screw up. That is the example of you pursuing excellence. You need to fail in order to grow. What your level of preparation in terms of readiness for the event versus my level will always be different.

4:20You might have done a thousand repetitions and I did 10 ,000 and I'm still not ready. Right. So this is true no matter who you are, no matter where you're going into that new and novel situation. And one of the things you have to let go of is being perfect. When you set yourself up to go into that event and think that perfection is the only way to excel, to measure success, it will never happen. One of the things I've always said to myself is this is a process. What am I here to learn? And so that is one of the questions I always tell myself. But this is a big moment. This is the opportunity. It's came to me.

4:55What if I fail? And you're going to. Embrace failure because that is not the outcome that measures your success. If you come into something and say, success is only if I don't make a blunder. When you make the failure. You're done. It's over. You might as well give up. Exactly. Reflect on it. It is the reflection after the event. I am in this. I know I'm not ready, but there's lots to learn from me going now. And when I do this, I will now be better prepared for the next time. I'm a new vice president. I will say average at best. Oh, I screwed this up. Screwed this up. I got to do this better next time.

5:32That's always in my head is, man, these are great teachable moments. The next university that gets me for a vice president is going to be really lucky. One of the reasons why we are so concerned about what other people think and how they look at us and what they think about us is because, to be honest with you, we don't love ourselves. And I know this is like, what the heck? When we are not comfortable with who we are, when we're not appreciated by the people around us, we go elsewhere to find it. But we do that because somewhere along the line, somebody has put us down. Somebody has shut us. Somebody has told.

6:07And then we own that. To your point. then we've worn it like a cloak of shame and we're embarrassed or we don't feel good about ourselves. You know, there's lots of things you could go back and you could study psychology and say, you know what? He wasn't loved as a child, his mom or his dad or his sister or his wife or whatever. Right. But all of those things we don't have control over. And so it's when we start to just really look at ourselves and embrace who we are, whatever it is, warts and all. when we really try to just get past all the external pressures of who we are and what society wants us to be and can truly love ourselves and appreciate the one skill, the one talent that we might have, whatever it is, then we stop performing and needing it to come from Johnny or Sally or Frida out there, whoever that is in the audience.

6:57Then we don't need it. And then we're okay if we fail.

7:10Thank 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 podcast 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.

8:00Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.