Tony Robbins, perhaps the most famous motivational speaker today, said that we have six basic human needs. These are certainty, uncertainty, significance, connection and love, growth, and contribution. Growth is our focus here, that is, learning and giving yourself the chance to become a better and more fulfilled and happier person.
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I watched a video the other day on Evan Carmichael’s YouTube channel. It featured Malcolm Gladwell who said something that captivated me. He said, “Expose yourself to situations that could potentially prove your preconceptions wrong.”
I was surprised at this comment because I find that it is often human nature that we like to hear things that prove us right. We like to be validated, and validation helps us to feel significant. But here, Gladwell was saying essentially to be ready and open to being wrong, forfeiting validating, so that in essence, we have the chance to learn, to grow.
I remember a quote from Tim Ferriss, author of The 4 Hour Work Week. He said that doing challenging things, things that you find difficult, like walking up to strangers and asking them questions, will help you build emotional strength. When we push ourselves regularly, it gets easier and easier to take on more difficult tasks. As we build strength, we build a foundation for reaching for our goals. We learn. We grow.
Several months ago, I defined my short and long term goals, and I realized that continuing to work at my current job won’t allow me to reach these goals. So I began thinking about how to pursue them, and I realized that to have a lifestyle that allows me to travel while working online, I have to build a brand, a business that represents my values and helps others interested in travel and self-development. But to produce a successful online brand and business, I need to build a foundation, and that foundation is a confident me. I’m now working on self-love and self-confidence, defining steps to help me reach my goals, and building skills that will help me reach an international online audience. Below, I describe my story and how I’ve been pushing myself.
I began doing a morning routine over a year ago, and this has been integral to motivating me daily. This routine gives me physical and emotional strength and focus, reminds me of my short and long-term goals, and also the reasons why I’m doing this. But I’ve noticed that lately my routine has been getting stale and I’ve needed to inject something new into it.
Recently, I decided to start using affirmations in my meditation practice. I had heard repeatedly particularly through life and business coaches, Jake Ducey and Bob Proctor, about the power of affirmations, and how when you consistently listen to affirmations or mantras, you begin to change how you think about yourself.
I identified meditation with affirmations videos on YouTube, and began to listen to these for 10 minutes every morning, and also a few minutes just before sleep time. As I began to notice how important it was to retrain my thoughts, I decided to start logging my feelings throughout the day to notice better my emotions and how they changed throughout the day.
I began writing on a post-it note pad the date, the time, and a star rating out of ten of how I feel. I do this whenever I remember to, and it’s been producing the effect of helping me to notice frequently how I feel. Not only that, but I’m noticing what I allow to impact my emotions. I’ve also been trying some Tony Robbins techniques to change my emotional state when I feel down to bring me up to a higher happiness feeling. As a result, I’ve been particularly productive lately.
In addition to experimenting with techniques to monitor emotions and increase happiness, I’ve also been working on self-love, that is, spending time with myself by going on dates with myself, doing things I love doing and giving that time specifically to myself. I particularly love visiting art and handicraft markets and love to see and sometimes purchase items by the local talent.
As a very social person, I love to be included in fun events, but I’ve also been saying ‘no’ to doing things that I don’t want to do. I’m recognizing what I need better, and beginning to listen to myself. I’m working on not allowing myself to feel pressured to participate in events, and therefore not feeling resentful for having given my time to things that don’t serve me. I’ve even been going home earlier on weekend evenings, leaving my friends, simply because my body feels really tired. That’s something I would never have done a few months ago.
Learning and self-growth go hand-in-hand. I continue to push myself by listening regularly to my favourite YouTube mentors. Only yesterday, I learned about a useful resource on Clark Kegley’s channel, and immediately begun to use it.
Finally, I have struggled with public speaking since forever, and determined to improve my speaking ability forr my YouTube channel as well as gaining self-confidence and meeting self-aware and ambitious people, I have been attending Toastmasters speaking groups for the last couple of weekends. I get very nervous speaking at these meetings, but at the same time, I really want to push myself to improve and do things that I find nerve-wracking. Later today, I will participate for the first time officially in my first role as ‘Table Topics Master.’ I’m nervous but excited.
What are you doing that is challenging you right now? Please share in the comments below and let’s encourage each other.
Tasha
Cover photo by Tirachard Kumtanom
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I totally agree with everything you said on your vlog. For me, being flexible outside your comfort zone will result to less complaining. Less complaining, more happiness!
It’s nice to see that everything you do is geared towards self-improvement. and you are consciously doing these steps with an end-goal in mind. that’s a rare discipline to have.
It’s good to reevaluate things from time to time. A dynamic environment can definitely help us push ourselves. And learning to say no sometimes is healthy! I’ve been working on that myself, especially when it comes to work for me.
It’s excellent that you continuously work on yourself and work towards your goals for your brands. The regular affirmations I’m sure make a world of difference. By the way I was really impressed by your toastmasters table topics a couple weeks ago. Next time if you’d like I can record your part for you on a phone or something.
I find putting myself out there on social media is challenging, especially doing videos! But I’m making progress and slowly starting to get comfortable with it. Also, I find just pushing through the fear and doing it anyway makes me feel empowered! I love mantras and meditation too! I’ve found they work well to keep me grounded and focussed. I’m also trying to do more visualization as I have some big changes coming up!
Speaking in front of people depends on the topic for me. I have absolutely no problem standing in front of students or peers when I’m confident in my subject. However, my sister and cousin both tried to get me to speak at their wedding… and I blubbered right through and had to pass the “baton” so to speak to my youngest sister to continue where I left off haha. I’m emotional, so if the topic is anything at all emotional… I basically won’t be understood at a speaking engagement. -_-
Something that is also challenging me right now is perhaps my self photography project that I’m showcasing on my IG. It challenges me to capture 33 images of myself before my 33rd birthday (in September). I find it difficult to come up with new and exciting concepts or to always have myself featured all the while finding the time to do it all (self portraits generally take longer to create compared to photographing others).
I was reading through your post and the part about saying no really stood out to me. It seems that these days we get pressured into so many situations we don’t want to be in, or don’t care about, yet we go anyway because we are just too afraid to say no. But we need time for ourselves, and life is too short to do things we don’t want to.