Choice Over Reaction

Watch the episode here:

• Learn why leaving people behind is actually an act of love
• Discover the difference between giving up and accepting reality
• Find out how to stop wasting energy on people who won’t grow
• Understand why your reaction validates bad behavior
• Master the art of staying unshakable when life hits hard

What’s shakin’? Hey, I’m Rick Jordan, and today we’re going all in. When I get ideas for each episode, sometimes they come from just, like, looking out into nothingness. Sometimes they’re in the shower, but sometimes they’re also from some posts that I see on Instagram. And I’m not saying, like, these weird memes from a lot of places, right? But there’s one person I follow. I hope you do too. Jay Shetty. He’s a pretty awesome dude. And this one sparked some things, you know, because, uh, it came up like, towards the end of last year, and it was, I’ve learned three lessons this year, and I want to talk about each of these because it’s something that spurred up a lot of thoughts in my own heart to be able to share with you, and hopefully it’ll help you as well. I’m sure it’ll help you, because the best thing to do is to just talk about things and then to listen, because that’s how you start to bring things up and bring up feelings and emotions, and actually even begin to start processing some things. And this is really good in like, self-reflective moments too. I want to encourage you to do more of that this year as the year goes by. 

Is have some more self-reflective moments and things to be able to just allow your heart and your mind to sort of just speak together and feel what’s going on in your heart, and then have your mind be able to process this stuff to make good decisions for yourself, good choices for yourself. A lot of times, you already know what you want to do, and it’s like you’ve already made a decision about whatever it is in your heart, but your mind just hasn’t caught up. You know, because your mind, you know, how people will say, get out of your head. You know you’re too much in your head, your mind will start to actually go into this protective mode, right? And it’s avoiding what your heart is telling you to do, though, I want you to hear that today, because I want you to start to pay more attention to your heart and your gut and everything else this year. As you continue to move through it, it’s going to do you a lot of good places where you think that you’ve been stuck for a long time, you’re going to start to feel very unstuck. You’re going to start to see movement. You’re going to start to see things kind of come together. And the reason why they haven’t before is only because you just haven’t made the choices that you might think that you wanted to make, because really, your heart has already made decisions for you in a lot of different areas. 

Now your mind’s just waiting to catch up and process it, because you’re pre-programmed and pre-wired into a lot of different things, and you’ll probably hear a different tone of my voice today compared to how I usually am on the show. I’m usually very driven, very in your face, because I get passionate about so much. But sometimes we need to quiet down, and we need to go into this space of self-reflection and actually just quiet our minds for a moment. So do that right now. Just quiet your mind and allow your heart to speak to you. And the only way to do this is also to just get alone sometimes, you know, allow yourself the space in order to quiet your mind down. Let’s talk about these three things, these three lessons that I saw from this Jay Shetty post that kind of inspired me to come to you with this today. The first one is to, and I’ve talked a little bit about this one before in different ways. There was a one episode, your circle today is not your might not be your circle tomorrow. Yeah, I think that was the title of it. We’ll put the link in the show notes too. Go back and listen to that one, because that’s really what this is about. And this was phrase, you know, the first lesson was to leave people where they are. And this is one thing that I’ve struggled with a lot in my life is I have such compassion for people and such empathy. 

And it’s like, you know, when I learn something new, when when I’ve leveled up in my life, I’ve always wanted everybody else around me that I’ve cared for, that I’m caring for, like, right then in that moment, to come with me. And what I had to understand, and this took a lot of time and a lot of heartache, is that sometimes other people that you really care about don’t move as fast as you do, or sometimes just people in your general circle don’t move as fast as you do. They might get there eventually, and that’s really awesome, you know, but you could learn something and be the person that steps out, and everybody else seemingly just needs to catch up, right? Because you can move at a faster pace than some others, and that’s really because you’ve already made the choice to let go of whatever it was hindering you, and that you have. You’re open to growth, you’re open to improvement, you’re open to leveling up. But and you wanted that, that’s the key. Is that you wanted to move forward, you want to grow, you want to level up. You want to explore new amazing things about yourself and about what you can do, and about opportunities for you, and about maybe even opportunities for everybody else, and you’re the leader of that group. 

However, other people in those moments might not want to because they’re still clinging on to to the familiar. Easier to the comfortable, to the place they’ve known the entire time, to the place that’s easy because it takes work. It takes effort, it takes decision. It takes choice to actually move forward into whatever, to grow so in those moments, it can be some of the most heartbreaking things ever, but it’s a big lesson that’s important, because you need to continue to grow, and you’ve already chosen, you’ve already made the choice, you’ve already made the decision. You want to continue to grow. Other people might not want to right now, and that’s okay for you. It’s painful right now, yet it’s okay. So that first lesson is to leave people where they are, because they have to come to this on their own. You can try to beat this into their heads, into their hearts, as much as you possibly can. But I’m I’m telling you from experience, it is wasted energy, wasted breath, energy that you could put into yourself to continue to grow and for the other people that actually are around you that want to see you making moves and like, you know what? The man, that dude, that girl, he, she inspires me. I think I need to make some choices and some decisions, too. 

Those are people that you can focus your energy on right now, outside of yourself, are the ones that want to grow, that want to move forward, the other one, you have to leave people where they are. Eventually, they might get there. And I hope and I pray for you that those people in your life do. The reality is is they might not, but they might. It could be that it might just take a week, it might just take six months, it might just take six years, but they could at some point, because it always has to be in that own person’s timing. That’s the key on this. They have to come to the realization themselves. You cannot make the choice for them. That’s the first lesson. Is to leave people where they are. It actually allows them to make that choice, and that’s empowering. Remember the choice that you made? Could you imagine if somebody else made it for you? It’s not as powerful. I’ll leave that one there for the rest of the day. All right? The second one that was in this was accepting situations for what they are. And I guess I talked about that a little bit, right? There’s this phrase that I used to hear all the time, and I still do like it, is what it is, and I’ve always hated that phrase, and I can tell you why, because it is what it is.

It’s like the way that I’ve heard it is how I’ve hated it, because the way that it’s usually expressed is that there’s nothing that you can do about a situation, right? Or it’s just accepting the bad. It’s not recognizing that you have the power to change whatever it is in your life, your environment, the people, what you’re going after, your direction. It’s not recognizing that you have power to make that change, even though it might be difficult, it might be painful, that you do have the power. Now, when I’ve heard that phrase, it is what it is. It’s always from individuals who are ignoring that they have the power to be able to change because they’re in that place, like I was talking about before, where they’re comfortable, where it’s easy, you know. It might be that there might be some challenges with it, you know, and some pain and some struggle and some heartache and even some depression or some abuse that might be happening. But it’s like the pain to change. It seems too great at that point, so, like, it is what it is. I’ve only heard that phrase, and I’ve hated it for how it’s said in that moment, because individuals are just saying it. 

Hey, there’s nothing that I can do about it, when most of the time, that’s not true. Most of the time, there’s a lot that you can do about it. It means that you’re going to have to work for something, you’re going to have to put in a lot of effort, and you’re going to have to make some painful choices. But there’s a lot that you can do about it. But in this for in this lesson, where you’re accepting situations for what they are, this lesson is about understanding that you do not have the power to change somebody else. You can only change yourself and change what’s around you. So accepting that situation for what it is has to do with the influence of other people and choices that they have to make over whatever situation that is happening where you are a part of that scenario, you can make changes. So if this is like a job, right? And it’s horrible, and you’re waiting for that promotion, but your your boss is the one who’s responsible for doing that, and you just don’t think that they’re recognizing you, you don’t think that they’re actually, you know, trying to stand up for you, or they’re not giving you the opportunity that’s there, that that’s the situation to accept for what it is; however, you can still do something about this, because the situation you might be in is that you’re accepting that you can never go any higher in the cup. 

Many that you’re in because of what other people are choosing to do, but you still have a choice in the matter. So if you stay there, you’re accepting the situation for what it is. Because what you’re accepting is that you cannot change other people. You can show them the possibility of change. You cannot change them. Did you hear me that you can show others the possibility of change, and through imagination, showing them what could be possible by painting this canvas for them, you cannot make the change for them? That’s what accepting the situation for what it is and what they are. You always have the power to make some kind of change. You always have that. And that’s the biggest superpower that you can take from this today: that you always have the power to be able to change whatever situation it is that you’re in. If you’re in a bad relationship right now, accept the situation for what it is, maybe meaning that I will always have an abusive husband. You can accept that fact, right, that you will always have an abusive husband as long as you’re married to that husband that you’re married to right now? Did you catch that that’s accepting the situation for what it is, because that dude is never going to change, right? Reverse it. 

Or that woman, that wife, that partner, that spouse, that girlfriend, that boyfriend, won’t change, at least right now in a moment, so in a time period that makes sense for you, you can accept the situation for what it is. And this is also being honest with yourself, actually, not ignoring what’s going on. To have an objective view. It hurts and it sucks, because it’s so much easier to turn your head away than it is to just look head on and realizing that this is how it is right now. But that is the first step, because the truth is the truth, and the truth is always the best place to start. That’s the second lesson is accepting situations for what they are. And the third one, and this is one that’s super empowering, because it’s going to allow you to save a lot of energy. It’s going to allow you to actually reduce a lot of your stress levels. I mean, come on now, raise your hand as you’re listening to this. If you want to reduce your stress levels this year, just say, I, I want to reduce my stress level this year. This one, this last lesson here, is going to help you tremendously. Okay, and it thanks to my brother, Jay Shetty, you know, because the number three lesson is not every action needs a reaction ever heard like water bouncing off of a rock? Yeah, you ever heard that phrase? That’s kind of how it is. 

The Rock still gets wet. So it doesn’t when somebody says, You know what, don’t let it phase you. I’m sure you’ve heard that before. There’s still emotions that are around that I want to be real with you. There’s still emotions, because when water hits a rock, the rock still gets wet, okay, but the rock is still unshakable, unmovable, steady, steadfast, unbreakable. It still gets wet, so you still feel what’s going on in that moment. And sometimes it can suck, sometimes you can get drenched. And it sucks to get soaked. I’ll tell you that. You know, this is a stupid example, but it comes to mind, it’s like, I don’t really like going on water rights too much, because I don’t like getting drenched. Nobody likes to be on the receiving end the brunt force of pure negative emotion coming at you. That’s horrible. But in those moments, it’s okay to just walk away. You still got wet, but you’re still a rock. You are still unbreakable, unshakable, unmovable, because it’s your choice to do what you want to do in that moment. 

It is your choice that’s the biggest power that you have this year is to understand that everything is your choice, and you can choose to not react to whatever action is coming against you right now. That’ll save your energy. It’ll save your stress level. And then you can go backwards through these and figuring out these lessons and saying, You know what? What do I need to do about this? Because the the reaction is against that other person, right or against that that situation. Not every action needs a reaction, but most actions need a choice, and that choice is something that you make for yourself, not for the other person. Oh, that’s powerful. That choice is something you make to yourself, versus a reaction, which is for that other person that can actually enable that individual in that moment, in a bad way, because it validates what they’re doing. It can validate what they’re doing. Not every action needs a reaction, but almost every action you can make a choice. You. For yourself. This was powerful. Today, I enjoyed this just chat that we’ve had so that coming this year, you’ve got these three lessons to go into this and actually just empower yourself to have lower stress levels, to understand the power of choice going into this year, so that you can go all in you.