Tiny Steps and Giant Goals

What's up, my friend, welcome to today's episode of the podcast real quick before we jump in. If you have not, you can schedule a free one on one call with me. If you go to thinkunbroken.com. If you're struggling, if you're trying to figure out what's next in life, if you are just like, I really need help, I need something. Go to thinkunbroken.com. You can schedule a free one on one call with me. That said, let's get into today's show.

One of the things that I focus my attention and my energy around is this idea of tiny steps and giant goals. We often make these huge mistakes about the healing journey, and we believe that just because we've been in therapy for a while, or listened to a podcast for a while, or maybe we're journaling and meditating, and things seem to be working pretty well, that suddenly one day we'll wake up, and these I don't want to phrase it, these pains, these sufferings, these experiences of the past won't be there anymore. It's we hope that trauma will go away. Because we're doing the work and one of the things about it. That's not really true. Now the impact does really start to go away over time you feel it less and less as you walk down the path. And in fact, this is one of the things that I love about doing our unbroken men's Monday group is because I get to see that every single Monday with these amazing guys who are on this journey and Here's the truth. The journey is not As easy as people think it is and so we have this idea and part of this is probably just from the societal narrative of do all the work and you'll feel better. And it's yes, and do all the work and on a long enough timeline, you'll feel better, but things will still happen that make you revert back to where you were. And then you create these time gaps in between the moments of these massive fall downs and mistakes and you build yourself back up and you keep going. That's what it should really be, but that's really complicated for people to wrap their head around. And so, I think about the giant goals. What does it mean to live life on your terms? Who do you want to be? What do you want to have? What is it that you want to create? How do you want to build? How do you want to show up? What do you want in your health, your wealth, your relationships? So much of this is about getting into the depths of the question about why and there's some fear around our big goals because we believe that maybe we're not good enough or it's not for us or it's for someone else or maybe it's meant and destined that It's for a person that we could be and not the person that we are. And I just don't find that to be true. And one of the really difficult parts of the healing journey is getting to the place where you can reconcile who it was that you were in the past with who you are today and understand that you have permission to be great. And it's difficult. It's really hard to be the greatest version of yourself. I've walked through that personally. I don't think by any stretch of the imagination I'm a perfect person. I definitely make mistakes. I definitely screw up. But one of the things that I try to do is to get back up and keep going. And in the reconciliation that I have for myself within my own journey, a lot of it is getting to the place of just continuing to give myself permission. Can I allow myself the permission to be successful, to not self-sabotage, to not get in my own way and to not also get scared. And you're going to have fear in the journey because that's just a part of the journey. Like I've never. Met anyone, no matter where we are in our lives or our journeys, that don't face some kind of fear as they're walking this path. And the thing that I keep going to as I'm on this journey, personally, is okay. What is it that you have to execute against to actually find success? First, I think it's setting these really gigantic goals. Now, you have to understand that if you can change the way that you think about who you are, and you are compelled to leverage. Your confidence against your actions and your effort. You will radically build confidence faster than trying to build your confidence against the outcome. Most people, because they don't hit a home run every time that they're at bat, have very low self-confidence. The people who, and this is just, I've seen this in my personal life, I've also seen it with people I'm around the people in the world who leverage their confidence against the energy of what they actually put in to create change and achieve goals in their lives are the people that I see who are the most confident in the world. Because what they're really doing is they're showing up every single day. It's this idea of people like Steph Curry hitting a bajillion three pointer shots and guys like Peyton Manning throwing a bajillion passes and what we see is we think that there'd be very confident people because they go and win Super Bowls and NBA championships. But what they really are they're confident people because they're in the game every single day, putting in the work and taking the action to create the life that they want to have That's the same thing as the trauma journey. It's the same thing as this healing. We try to do everything all at once Why is it that we think that the only way we heal is like I have to do therapy, I have to do yoga, I have to do meditation, I have to do journaling, I have to do ice baths, I have to get up at 5:30, I have to do all the things and hit the checklist every single day or I'm not worthy. And I think that life is really about doing what's necessary. Because not all of the things are going to be necessary every day. Like, when I think about when I was very much in the depth of my journey, I would go to therapy three times a week, plus anonymous groups on the weekend, plus whatever else I needed to do to feel seemingly normal. And then I didn't, and then it was once a week, and then it was once every other week, and now it's like once a month, or once every other month. Because I measured myself against the daily. I was gaining confidence and healing because I was integrating bit by bit the things that made my life better. I was integrating the journaling, the meditation, the yoga. The drinking all the water, the getting fit, the doing the electrolytes. I was integrating those things. I wasn't trying to do them all on the same day because I would have failed. And actually a few times I did fail because I was like, today's the day. And then I'd go, wait, nope, actually today's not the day because I didn't do the thing. And then I noticed one day, I was like, wait a second. I believe in myself more when I check the box on a daily basis about the mission that I'm moving towards and not the way that I feel about myself. because of the giant goals that I have. And here's what's really funny. And I've shared this before, but when I was standing in New York, looking at my face on a billboard, that wasn't the most confident moment of my life. In hindsight, as a child, or in retrospect, as a child, I would have been like 18 in New York for the first time and I would have been like, man, that's going to be the moment and it wasn't, it was really cool. Don't get me wrong, but the moment was really on the day by day on the lead up to that and getting into the flow state and getting into giving myself the permission to be successful and getting into all of the activities and actions required for that amount of growth on the daily basis. And so now it's like, all right, you have gigantic goals. Like I want, I'll give you an example. Let's say that what it is that I want to do in this moment, I want to not yell at people. How do you get to that? How do you get to, I don't want to yell at people ever again. It becomes a behavioral change. And it has to become in alignment with your belief system. And if your belief system is, I am not the kind of person who yells, then your behavior has to support that, or your belief system and your actions will be in conflict. And so, it will never take into the day-to-day basis because you're always going to be fighting yourself. And it's a giant, and look, not yelling at people is a giant goal for a lot of people, maybe even you listening, because we grow up in these Homes in these structures where we're yelling, we're screaming, we're fighting, we're getting yelled at, we're getting screamed at, we're fighting, it's happening in school, it happens at church, it happens everywhere, and then you're here in this moment and you're like, I don't want to yell at my kids, I don't want to yell at my boyfriend, my girlfriend, my spouse, my coworkers, my employees, but your belief system has to shift into this idea of I am not a person who yells. It's fascinating to me that because that's a really big goal, doesn't make sense to most people until they start to take action towards it. And what you do is you chip away at it, piece by piece, on a daily basis. And it's can you not yell today? Okay, great. If you can make it through the day, can you do it tomorrow? But what if you don't? Alright, can I make it through the next hour? What about through the next meal? What about through the next night? And then boom, you're into the next day. And then what about the next day? Wow, you made it through two days. But then the third day, okay, you messed up and you yelled again. Okay, great. Now we're at zero. Now how do I go to day one? Day two, day three, day four, boom, back at zero, day one, two, three, four, five, right? And so it's about you're putting in the effort and the energy every single day about your cognizant awareness of what it is that you're doing and how you're showing up in the world. And so when you're taking these tiny steps, what you're doing, you're building confidence in yourself. You're like, I'm not going to yell today, right? Now let's flip it. Let's say, that it's something different. Let's say that it's something that's very actionable, that's very tangible, that's in front of you.

I want to quit smoking. This is a big one, and I don't know if you know this, but people who had traumatic childhoods, on average, are 2, 200 percent more likely to smoke cigarettes. Think about that for a second. 2, 200 percent more likely to smoke cigarettes than people who did not have adverse childhood experiences, chances are, if you're listening to this, you either have smoked or you're smoking, or you might be smoking right now. Now, I'm one of those people, and I quit smoking every day for about a decade. And even longer for weed. Like I started smoking weed when I was like 12, right? So between weed and cigarettes, I smoked for 18 years, which is insane. By the way, I don't recommend but also you'll find that people who have high adverse childhood experiences scores will also use marijuana and other drugs. And so as I'm here sober now, I will admit on the very rare occasion, just cause I've seen no reason to bullshit you here I'll go smoke a hookah. That's very rare. I was like maybe once every quarter, but I don't smoke cigarettes on a daily basis. I don't vape, I don't smoke marijuana, don't almost ever drink. In fact, I haven't touched alcohol in nine months or something like that, right? And so it's about the daily. So you're in this place like, I want to quit smoking. I quit smoking 3, 000 times, right? Every day I was like, ah, this is the last one. And what happened was I realized that I was only ever going to fully be done when I changed my belief system and I shifted because not smoking was such a big goal. My, almost everyone in my family smoked cigarettes. Like literally almost everyone. All of my friends smoked cigarettes. Literally almost everyone. My little brother smoked cigarettes. He won't mind me telling you this. He's now quit, which is amazing. At the time. When I smoked, all of my girlfriends smoked. It was just a thing. It's probably also a Midwest thing. It's cultural, I'm sure, to some capacity. And here I am. I'm like, all right, I have to change my belief system. And my belief system switched to, I am the person who does not smoke. I do not smoke. I do not smoke. And it was just day in. Day out, because the goal, holy crap and this genuinely, the idea that I could quit smoking, you might as well told me I was gonna fly a airplane in outer space. Because I was so far away from the notion of that as a realm of possibility. And what happened is I quit smoking. I quit smoking because I made a decision to change my belief system and myself narrative into, I do not smoke. I am a man that does not smoke. I do not align with smoking. It is not what I do. And so I kept having that conversation with myself every single day. And then I would get tempted and I'd buy, I'd literally like, gosh, go buy a pack of cigarettes, smoke one, crumble it up, throw it in the trash, pour water on it, and I'd make it two or three days, and I'd do it again, and I'd make it seven days, and then I'd do it again, and I'd make it a month, and I'd do it again, and then I was like, one day I was like, wait a second, and It's been like six months. Wow. It's been a year. Holy crap. It's almost been a decade because I changed my belief system. The goal was huge, but it was tiny steps every day that got me there, but it all starts with our belief systems. And so I want you to challenge yourself as you're standing in front of what's next in your journey about what it is that you want and who you want to be. And make a decision, make a really hard-fought emotional belief system-based decision about who you are. Because if you do, everything in your life will be different. And that's one of the hardest things about this journey. You have to get to that place in your head, where you give yourself the thing that you know that you need to make your life better. And then you attach your confidence to the daily basis. What can I do today to reinforce my belief in the thing that I am doing that is moving me towards these giant goals? Because if you can do that, my friend, you can do anything. So that said, go crush it today. Go crush it this week. Thank you for listening to the podcast. I just found out we are a top 75 show in the world. And I appreciate you so greatly. And I really want to get this show back to number one again. It's been a while. It's been a few years since we had a number one slot. And I cannot do it without you. Please, do me a favor. Go on Apple Podcast. Hit that review. Whether it's 5 stars, 4, 3, 2, or 1. Be honest. Leave a review. Leave a comment. Go to Apple Podcast. Go to Spotify. leave a review. If you're not subscribed, please subscribe. Because I want to continue to make this content and help people. And as this is not only my passion, but it's what I'm here to do, and I cannot do it without people like you. Take care of yourself, take care of each other.

And Until Next Time, My Friend,

Be Unbroken.

I'll See You Soon.