About the Episode
Psychology, there are a lot of different tools or practices that will help you absorb, process, and learn information quicker and more efficiently. Learn what Rick Jordan learned to do to help the brain dump information that will stick and stay.
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What’s shakin’, welcome back, it’s good to be with you again. Hey, you know what, share this out with three people. I’d like to ask you to do that today, please, I want you to do that today, share this out with three people.
Because today, we’re gonna talk about gaining clarity in your life and around decisions that you need to make and notice how I said you need to make, because there might be some that you say, “oh, I want to make this choice, or I want to decide on this thing.” But really, what it comes down to is a lot of the decisions that you have to make in life or things you need to make, because usually, it means that there are stalling points. That’s why you need to make it. So you might want to choose something, you know, go one way or another, not a specific part of that choice. But you might want to make a decision for some reasons. But most of the time, you need to make the decision, you always need to make the decisions because it’s like a stopping point that prevents you from moving forward with things. In any direction whatsoever.
Things that get you stuck, will get you dead in life and you know what, so many people, so many people really die at age 25 but get buried at 75. Did you hear that? And this is likely because of those decisions that they need to make but they keep them stuck in this place in life, and they just coast. That’s it, through the rest and they’re unhappy. They’re in situations that they don’t like, and they’re buried, or die at 25 and then buried when they’re 75. It’s crazy.
So today, wouldn’t it be amazing… Just imagine, if you had clarity around what you needed to do. I’m going to give you some ways to actually do that today, and gain that clarity in ways to get unstuck with just clarity of vision and what you need to do next. And everybody said, hallelujah, you’re clapping. That’s awesome. And I know this because there’s been situations in my life where I’ve been stuck for a period of days or weeks and that’s only because I didn’t make a choice, and I didn’t even know how to make that choice because I didn’t have clarity around it, which sucks on your happiness, by the way. It just pulls it down, sucks it out of your life, clarity will give you the happiness and the direction and the movement that you need. And here’s how you do it.
Okay, here’s the thing, no hesitation, close your eyes, whatever you’re thinking of right now close your eyes, and ask yourself the question that you need to make, what do I want to do? And the first thing that comes in your head, start to explore that. Okay? ‘Cause you know, I fully believe this, that most of the time, if it comes to decisions about a job, if it comes to decisions about a relationship, if it could, I’m not talking like what do I eat for dinner kind of decisions, I’m talking big life things that people have gut instincts, right? People understand really, truly what they want, because they’re drawn towards this thing in a healthy way, not in a sick addicted way, but in a healthy way. They’re drawn towards it. And your gut can tell you those things.
So, reach down into your gut, that’s the first thing is reaching your gut. Because I bet you that you already know what you want. Because your gut tells you what you want. And your gut tells you what you want because you are a good person with this core that knows what direction you want to go in life. So now that you’ve done that, that you’ve reached in your gut, this part’s super important, okay, because if you just keep this stuff in your head, these choices are like swirling around and this is what it means when people like to get in their head about things when they get in their own damn way, when they’re in their head is that they didn’t get it out of their head. So they’ve already heard what their gut told them. But then they’ve got to get it out of their head, you’ve got to get it out of your head. When they sit when you’re saying “Oh, I’m just in my head.” Get it out of your head.
You know, the easiest way to do that is to write it down. Write it down somewhere. And if it’s a multitude of things, you know, when you reach and go, I want this, I want that I need to do this. I need to do that. Write all those things down in some kind of document. Write it down. That’s how you get this out of your head is you write it down, and then you can go back to this because it’s like, “Well cool. I wrote it down. Now what do I need to do?” Because if you wrote it down, trust me, and you don’t need to do anything on it right now after you write it down, some of you might feel compelled to, and that’s okay. That is okay. But just that step, after you’ve reached your gut of writing this down somewhere, will give you relief, incredible relief. I do this in journals, and they’re just one big thing on each page. That’s how I do it. It’s the same way I take notes at conferences, I do this and just one big thing, and it’s out of my head. And now I can actually look at it and begin to process it. And you know, what these things might be really, really, really big things. Because when you actually look at it on a piece of paper, it might actually start to sink in, of the magnitude of this choice, of the magnitude and all the goodness that can come from this choice that you need to make. Again, that you need to make because when you don’t make it, you’re stuck. How do you proceed from here?
Maybe you try chunking it, maybe you try breaking that thing down and actually saying, This is the third thing, by the way, chunking it, you might want to just say, “Okay, I can see four things that I need to do in order to make this happen, or even 10 things. Or maybe it’s just one thing, in order to make this thing happen.” It’s so much easier when you chunk it up and say, “Okay, I could see this happening.” You like to place yourself in the future, this is what you’ve got to do with this place yourself in the future, as if it’s already done. So imagine yourself in that position right now, where you’ve already made the choice, and everything you’ve done is already completed, and you’re living in that new house. So you’re in that new relationship, or now you’re single, or now you’re in that new job, imagine yourself there right now. And then look back, be like, “Wow, I’m glad I did those four steps. Or I’m glad I did those three steps.” When you see yourself and you envision yourself in that moment, you’ll be able to look back and actually be able to chunk those things into certain steps, like monumental actions that you needed to take, that you did already take in order to get to that point, that end goal, that milestone in your life.
So when you reach in your gut and you write it down, then you’ve got to chunk it, you’ve got to break it down into steps and actions that you can do. And then here’s the next big part. After you’ve chunked it, now you have to give yourself deadlines. You have to give yourself a timeline. I see this thing floating around on Instagram. I don’t know if it’s actually Elon Musk that said this, but they’ve always got his photo on this thing, that if you give yourself three days to clean your house, it’s going to take you three days, if you give yourself three hours to clean your house, it’ll take you three hours. And in principle, this is true for everything. The amount of time that you give yourself to complete something will be the amount of time that it takes. So if you’re struggling right now, and you’re saying I really need this over fast, and you’ve already chunked this up, and you’ve determined these things, make it a short time period, you might have to bust your ass to get some of these things done but now you have it sitting right in front of you. And you know, when it’s on paper and out of your head, it’s gonna seem a lot easier to do. But then when you give yourself a deadline on these things, whatever deadline you choose, whatever timeline that you choose, that’s how long that it’s going to take. Period. You give yourself 30 days, it’ll take 30 days, if you give yourself three hours, it’ll take three hours. How soon do you want to realize this big change in your life? Do you want to wait 30 days or do you want it to happen today?
Chunk it up, and then set your deadlines. And then after you do this, you actually have to take action. The cool thing is that when you set yourself a deadline you can actually see and maybe this is good anxiety, you can actually see this deadline approach and be like “Oh man, oh man” And don’t think of it as a way where you say, “Well, I can always move it.” Because no, when you set this deadline, this deadline is like written in stone, okay, you have to set this timeline, you know, against all things that could possibly happen, then you figure out what you need to do to get there and you take action on those things after you set the deadlines. You start moving on it. You don’t just sit there because that’s what deadlines do, is that they actually force you to take action because now you’re competing against yourself. You’re holding yourself to the fire. I hate that whole accountability group thing. Sometimes people need a little push from somebody else and it helps them, yes, but get in competition with yourself with these deadlines and take the action you needed to start the movement towards those.
And when you chunk this up too, by the way you start to hear, cross these deadline points and these things are done, it’s going to feel really awesome as you start to check these things off on your list, because now since they’re written down, after you’ve taken action, and you meet these deadlines, you’re gonna feel so accomplished and suddenly, that big thing, that huge thing that was broken down into chunks, you can visually see the progress just because you wrote this down. I alluded to this one, because the next part is about taking action is the consistency. Because the biggest part about motivation is actually doing things when you don’t feel like doing them. That’s what real motivation is not actually doing things that when you want to do them, no, the real motivation happens is when you’re able to look at this list, at this chunked up list with deadlines. And some of these things, of course, they’re gonna suck, they’re gonna be hard. But you look at these as like, “You know what, okay, well, I got three days to do this, I can start right now. And if I continue to do this for three days, I can lose weight, I can kick those sugar habits, I can end this relationship, I can apply for this new job, I can go get a new apartment, I can move to another state.”
When you chunk this up, and you give yourself deadlines, I’m telling you, when you take action, and you take it consistently, you will be able to do anything, anything will be yours. Anything can happen, because you follow these quick steps. So, the last thing I have for you today, after hearing all these things about reaching into your gut, and writing it down, and then chunking it and then setting deadlines on those chunks and taking action and taking it consistently. Ask yourself this question, because this will simplify everything. This will simplify everything so that you can feel the progress in the movement and the joy and the fulfillment right now is, what’s one thing, just one thing that I can do today, when you start to feel that you don’t want to do these things. Remember motivation is doing things when you don’t want to do them, and the easy way to get past that hiccup, that drag down, that suck of energy, is to simplify and ask yourself one question: What’s one thing, just one thing that I can do today?
Important Links:
Episode Topics:
- Clarity of Decision Making
- Gut Decisions
- The importance of writing things down while processing
- Consistency on things we have to do but don’t want to do