Exposing the Top 3 Reasons Most Men Feel Overwhelmed (and what to do about it)

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Hey guys, do you find yourself feeling like you just don't

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really have time, that it feels almost impossible to make time for the

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things that are important to you, like exercising or eating better or getting

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more sleep, or spending more time with your kids, being a better father, or

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being a better spouse with your wife or being more productive at work or maybe.

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It's not necessarily a time issue for you.

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Maybe it's more about a lack of energy or a lack of motivation to be able to

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consistently show up and do those things.

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If so, you might be what I call the overwhelmed hero.

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And today I want to give you the top three reasons why most men feel overwhelmed,

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even if they don't realize that they are.

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And we're gonna teach you how to go from.

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Overwhelmed to Unshakable.

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So guys, allow me to welcome you to the Unshakable Habits Podcast, where we help

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men to prioritize your physical and mental wellbeing so that you can provide a better

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life for yourself and those around you.

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My name is Stephen Box.

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I am your host and I'm a national board certified health and wellness coach.

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And like I said, guys, today we're going to be talking all about overwhelm

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and what are the really the causes of it and how do we get past those.

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But before we jump into that, I want to ask a quick favor of you guys.

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I.

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We really are trying to grow the show, get the word out to more men

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so that they can hear these powerful messages, and I need your help for that.

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Because a lot of times when people are looking for a new podcast to

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listen to, one of the first things they're gonna do is they're gonna look

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at reviews and they're gonna see do other people also enjoy this show?

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And.

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Right now we only have a few reviews up, so if you guys could actually go to

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Apple or Spotify or go to pod chaser.com and look up the Unshakable Habits

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podcast and leave a review on those platforms, that would help tremendously

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in terms of letting other people know that this is a show, they should

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tune into it and they should listen.

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So I would greatly appreciate that support.

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All right guys, so with that, let's jump into this and let's talk about why

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it is that most men feel overwhelmed.

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There's three reasons and, and just for a little context for you guys,

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This is not just something that I'm just coming up with on the fly.

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This is something that I have seen in my decade plus of coaching.

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I've, for those of you who maybe knew, don't know me, in addition

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to being a national board certified health and wellness coach, I am

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also an I.S.S.A elite trainer.

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I also hold certifications for nutrition as well as transformation

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specialist and all kind of stuff, and.

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I've been doing this for over a decade now, and so I've really had

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the opportunity and that time to coach a lot of guys, see what works for

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them, what doesn't work for them, and then really diving into when things

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aren't working, figuring out why, and almost always the answer comes back to

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overwhelm right now, a lot of times.

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As men, we don't necessarily realize they we're overwhelmed, right?

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Because we're kind of used to the struggle if we're being honest about it, right?

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Especially those of us who live perpetually in overwhelm.

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It has become our norm, so maybe we don't even realize it, but

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what I'm telling you is just like.

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I said at the beginning of the show, if you find that you never have energy,

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if you feel like there's always things competing for your attention and your

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time, if you lack motivation, if you feel like, Hey, I have a day off, I'm

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just gonna crash and just do nothing.

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If you're finding those things are happening in your life, more than likely

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you are actually dealing with overwhelm even if you don't feel like you are.

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Um, It's kind of like, you know, the, the old idea of by the time you feel

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thirsty, you're already dehydrated.

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Right?

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So by the time we get to the point where we can feel stress, where we feel

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overwhelmed, where we have no choice but to acknowledge it, it's too late.

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Um, you know, I don't know if you guys have ever heard me talk about this or not.

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I've talked about it on previous episodes and as well as on other

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podcasts I've been on, but I talk about this idea of a stress sweet spot.

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And if you think about a bell curve, so in the middle is like this perfect

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point where there's just enough stress to motivate you, but not so

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much that it sends you over the edge.

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And if you go back to the left, like down the slope, You lose motivation.

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There's not enough stress to actually push you forward, but if you go a little bit to

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the right, then it's kind of the opposite and the stress, it becomes overwhelming

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and then you fall off the cliff that way.

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And so we want to try to find this perfect spot.

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So the idea here is not to eliminate stress.

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It's not to say, oh, just sit around and do nothing and just be lazy.

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That's not what we're saying here, right?

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We, we do need some stress, right?

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But the idea is how do we find that right amount?

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And a big part of, I think, finding that right amount is understanding what

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causes overwhelm in the first place and then making corrections to that.

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So that's what we're gonna cover today.

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So number one is thinking that having it all.

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Means doing it all.

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Doing it all right now, doing it all perfectly and doing it all by yourself.

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Alright, so I know I probably just, uh, had some people catch some feelings on me,

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and that's okay, because I'm just gonna have to keep it 100% with you guys today.

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All right, I'm gonna take you back.

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I'm gonna share a quick personal story here.

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When I started this podcast back in 2020, I had made a commitment

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that I was gonna do this.

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I had already told myself it was gonna happen.

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I wasn't going to allow anything to get in the way.

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All right, well, here's the problem, guys.

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So not only did I.

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Find myself really just kind of struggling to be consistent

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with getting this all going.

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But my mom ended up at one point having to have open heart surgery and she ended up

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having to come live with us for like five months and I was taking her to doctor's

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appointments and everything else and.

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Because I didn't want to let go and I didn't want to, you know,

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make these changes, um, in my life, I, I felt like I could handle it.

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You know?

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I felt like I could just do it all.

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I, I.

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Push through and I'm taking my mom to doctor's appointments and, uh,

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the rehab place, getting her back on her feet and, you know, that was a

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stressful situation to begin with, right?

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I mean, any of you who have ever had a parent move in with you, you know

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how stressful that situation can be.

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You love them, but it.

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Yeah.

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You, you forget like it's, it's not as, it's not as rosy as people might think.

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Right.

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If you've never had that experience, just trust me, it, it is always going to be a

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challenge because especially, you know, if you're a little bit older, you probably

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haven't lived at home in 20, 30, whatever years, and so it, it can become difficult.

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Right.

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So my mom is, is here, we're, we're kind of, you know,

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butting heads a little bit and.

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Trying to kind of adapt to each other and, and figuring out this new situation.

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I, I've got this podcast I'm trying to do, and I'm a one man show at this point.

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I'm, so, I'm doing all the pre-interviews stuff.

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I'm doing all the calls, I'm recording the interviews, I'm editing the

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interviews, I'm posting the interviews.

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I'm doing all this stuff, and this is on top of, I'm still

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running my coaching business.

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Right.

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I'm still trying to do that.

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I'm still trying to make time to exercise.

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I'm still trying to make time for my wife and not just become a horrible husband.

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And I mean, thank goodness we don't have kids.

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'cause I don't even know what would've happened then.

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But the reality is, guys, even though I was kind of getting through

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it, even though it felt like I was pushing through, there's two

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valuable things that I learned.

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Number one is, By the time we got my mom back home, back in Florida and

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I had an opportunity to kind of sit back, get all these episodes out, take

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a break, I was absolutely exhausted.

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I remember taking a break and saying, it's just gonna be to the new year.

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I'm just gonna take November and December off.

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Recharge and come back in January, ready to go.

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It literally took me to July of the next year to relaunch the podcast guys.

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That's how just absolutely depleted I was that it took that long to really even

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feel the desire to start doing this again.

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So podcast almost died, uh, right, uh, which is why I need your guys' review.

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So again, please go do that.

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But the thing is, not only was that the after effect, but I go back

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and I'll watch some of those videos and you can see it on my face.

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I am absolutely exhausted.

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Just physically exhausted and I'm trying to do all these extra things

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and I'm trying to, you know, still get my workouts and stuff in, but at that

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point, my workouts were probably causing more harm than good because I was adding

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that extra stress onto my life, right?

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I, I wasn't adapting my workouts the right way.

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'cause I felt like I still need to do my full workout.

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I still need to go do all that, right?

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So I had this idea that I had to do it all.

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I had to do it all perfectly.

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I had to do it right now, couldn't wait.

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And I had to of course, do it all by myself because you know, I'm a

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man and that's what we do, right?

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So I found myself in that situation, and it's not unlike what I see a

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lot of my clients deal with, right?

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Where they feel that they have to go and do all these things.

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On their own.

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And I even, I've had people who, they're signing up for coaching,

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they're paying me for coaching.

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Things happen.

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They get completely off track, and I'm having to reach out to

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them and be like, Hey, I haven't heard from you in a few weeks.

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What's going on?

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And they're not even reaching out for help.

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Why?

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Because as men, we have been programmed by society to think we're

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supposed to be the problem solvers.

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We're supposed to figure it out.

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And.

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I think even though most of us don't acknowledge this out loud, there's a

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subconscious thought that we've had of, if I can't even solve my own problems,

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how good of a problem solver am I?

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And I'm gonna be honest with you guys.

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Most of us suck at solving our own problems, right?

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Myself included.

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Uh, because I would tell you right now, I have coaches for

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a lot of different things.

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I, I have somebody else write my workouts.

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I can write them.

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I know how to write them.

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I might even be better at it than the person that, that I have.

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Write 'em for me.

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I don't know.

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But you know what?

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I have someone else write 'em for me.

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I have other people tell me what to do on my business, right?

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I have people helping me with the podcast.

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Why?

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Because I've come to understand that it doesn't matter if I can do it.

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What matters is, can I reasonably do everything and do it all at a high level?

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And the answer is no.

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So I need to focus on the things that I can do at a high level and allow other

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people to assist me in doing other things.

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So that is one of the big lessons that I, I learned from that.

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And it's one of the big lessons that I've taken away from

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watching a lot of other guys.

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'cause here is the reality guys, and this one might hurt a little bit to

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hear, but I wanna be honest with you.

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Well, I want you to be honest with yourself.

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Okay?

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How many times has the all or nothing mentality left you with

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nothing instead of all Hmm, right?

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Hurts a little bit.

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Because the reality is, I would be willing to bet that it's

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never left you with all that.

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You've never achieved everything you wanted to achieve.

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If I had it all to do over again, I would have changed so many things

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because all those, some of those podcast episodes were really good.

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They could have been so much better.

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If I were in a different state of mind when I did them, if I hadn't just been

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trying to push through, if I had asked for help, if I had had somebody to bounce

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ideas off of, if I had had a support system in place outside of my house,

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it would have been so much better.

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Going on to the second reason why I see a lot of men end up feeling overwhelmed

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is they're not focused on the present.

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You know, We spent a lot of time thinking about the past, you know, like

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I was just sharing the story with you guys, and I think part of the reason

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that it took me until the following July to get back to recording wasn't

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because I was so overwhelmed that it literally took me until July to recover,

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is that I spent several months after I was really probably ready to get

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back to recording, beating myself up.

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Right.

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Looking at those videos, thinking about how tired I looked, how horrible

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it was, beating myself up about not giving my absolute best to my guest.

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And that's part of why it took me so long to actually get back on track

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because I was living in the past.

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I.

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Guys, how about you?

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Do you find yourself constantly living in the past?

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Do you feel like every time that a solution presents itself that you're

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so caught up in trying to think about all the times that you failed or

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remembering the times that you dropped the ball or that you weren't able

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to stick with it, and assuming that that was going to be the case again?

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Right, you're stuck in the past instead of being present in the

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moment and not realizing that the situations might not be the exact same.

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Or the other thing is, you know, we get so focused on worrying about what's going to

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happen in the future, you know, especially things that might not even come true.

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There's a lot of anxiety and there's a lot of fear that are associated with that.

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And I think, you know, as men we are taught to kind of.

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Take those feelings and ignore them, right?

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Just to kind of push through.

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But the problem is when we get focused on the future and we start to worry

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about what the outcomes are gonna be, and we start to push certain things,

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we end up in a situation where, We not only are focused on the future,

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so we're not focused on the present, but we start to tighten down, right?

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So we, it's this whole idea of like, okay, I see bad things could happen.

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Let me brace myself, let me buckle down here.

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Let me get ready to deal with this.

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And in the process of doing that, we are essentially clamping

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off where we are right now.

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We're clamping off our ability to be present in the moment, right?

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And so I feel like a lot of times, This is problematic, not just when

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it comes to to work, but in so many different areas of our life.

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You know, it's, oh man, you know, I, I'm gonna do this thing oh

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eight, something bad happened.

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It's very similar to this thing that happened before.

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We must be about to go down that path again.

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Boom.

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We're in about the past, right?

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Or.

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You know, well, what if I start doing this and then this happens to my kids?

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Or what if I, I start doing this and my wife reacts this way,

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worrying about the future, right?

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Instead of just focusing on what can I do right now?

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What are today's actions?

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And I, I think this is really a big one for a lot of guys because when we

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are so focused on everything but the present, Yeah, we're not doing what

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we need to do and we're living in this world where we have no control.

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Because if you are always worried about what has already happened in the past

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and where that it might repeat itself, or you're always worried about what

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might happen in the future, something that you have zero control over in

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something that may or may not even occur instead of being in the present, then

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you have no control in the present.

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We have control.

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In the past, in the future, no control.

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So it's something to you guys.

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What do you want?

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Do you want control or no control?

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Because if you want control, you need to live in the present.

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Alright?

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Number three is thinking that self-care is optional.

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It's not.

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Guys, listen, here's the reality.

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Most men that I talk to see themselves as a provider and a protector.

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Those are the two roles that we have taken on that we take pride in.

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Well, Guys, let me ask you a very honest, simple question, but it's gonna be a

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tough one for you to really sit here and think about for a minute, okay?

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How much value are you going to be to your family if the only thing they

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have to remember you by is a picture?

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Because guys, lemme tell you, when we don't take care of ourselves, a lot of

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us end up being a picture on the wall.

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And our spouses and our children are left to figure things out without us.

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And we think that, oh, I have life insurance, I have an

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insurance policy, whatever.

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I'm gonna lead them some money.

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You know, so they're financially taken care of that.

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That's a piece of the puzzle, guys.

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But let me tell you, I have had so many women.

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Who tell their husbands to come to me and, and get help with their, their

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exercise and their nutrition, and sleep, and sleep and all that good stuff.

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Because what they really want is for him to be healthy, and they want him to

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be less overwhelmed, less stressed out, and they want him to be more present.

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It's not about the money and it's not about your positions

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at work and all that stuff.

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I get it.

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As men, we take a lot of pride in those things, and I'm not saying

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that there's anything wrong with wanting to have a certain title or,

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or make a certain amount of money.

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I'm not at all saying there's anything wrong with that.

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What I'm telling you is that.

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Most of the time what our family wants is us.

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They don't want money, they don't want things, they want us, they want our

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time, and they want our attention.

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Right.

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So again, we're going back to that idea of being present.

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You gotta give that time and attention to the people around you.

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So those really guys are the three big things that I see

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the cause overwhelm, right?

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So when you stop and think about it, I, I'm gonna recap 'em for you here.

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So, so number one is thinking that, that having it all being, doing it all,

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doing it all right now, doing it all perfectly and doing it all by yourself,

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okay, that's, that's the first one.

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The second is living in the past or living in the future.

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I.

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Where you have zero control instead of living in the present

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where you have total control.

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And the third one is not prioritizing your own care, your own self-care,

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because you think that it is a luxury.

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And not recognize the fact that it is a necessity, because

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guys, here's the bottom line.

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If you do not take care of yourself, first and foremost, you cannot be

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around to take care of the people who are most important for you.

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That's, that's the bottom line, guys.

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So how do we go about fixing this?

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That, that's the big question, right?

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How do we go about fixing this?

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So number one is, Get rid of the all or nothing mentality, right?

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Start to figure out what is actually important to you.

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What are your values?

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What are your identities?

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What are your priorities?

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And really figure out how do I.

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Get down to the things that are truly important to me and focus just on

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those and stop trying to do everything.

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Stop trying to be perfect.

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Accept the fact that there's gonna be a learning curve, that you're

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gonna make mistakes, that these things are going to happen, but

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even outside of just recognizing that perfection is not necessary,

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understanding that there's gonna be growing pains and all that other stuff.

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It really ultimately comes down to putting less on your plate in the first place,

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and understanding that you need to have a clear vision of what is important to you.

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Okay, so that's number one.

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Number two is being present.

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Right.

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So how do we fix that?

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How do we become more present?

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How do we get out of the past?

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How do we get outta the future and how do we get more present?

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And the answer is by focusing on the things that we can control.

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This is all about discipline, guys, right?

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It's about having that consistency.

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If we are focused on the important things and we're then focused on

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showing up for them consistently.

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The only way we can do that is to be present in the moment.

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If we're not present in the moment, then it's going to be impossible

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to be consistent because we're going to constantly be pulled

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by the past or in the future.

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Okay.

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And then the third thing is about mastery.

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So when you know, we talk about this idea of self-care.

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Being something that is not optional, it's just not a luxury

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that it is in fact a necessity.

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Understanding that you can't go from zero to a hundred.

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You can't just suddenly start exercising your hour a day, taking

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time to meal prep, cook all your foods, you know, getting more sleep,

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managing your stress, being the the best husband and father in the world.

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You can't go and do all that in one.

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Week.

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Right?

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It's just, it's not gonna happen.

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Matter of fact, guys, I'm gonna tell you right now, you're not

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gonna do it in 30 days, right?

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At least not perfectly.

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Like you can make a lot of progress in 30 days, but you're not going to make

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all of it happen in a 30 day window.

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So when you start looking at these things, understand that

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mastery comes into play here.

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And when I talk about mastery, what I'm really talking about is this idea of.

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Appreciating the process.

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It's this idea of accepting that I need to work and I need to get

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better at, at what I'm doing.

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And when we take that approach to it, when we start to understand

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that it's, it's about small steps.

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It's about getting a little bit better every single day, then we're

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able to prioritize those things.

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We're able to make self-care.

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Something that is part of our life because we're not just trying

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to just throw it all in there at once, which is impossible to do.

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And again, that ties back to me to that second thing about being present, right?

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Because that's where discipline comes from.

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Mastery comes after discipline first.

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We need to get consistent, then we can get better, right?

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That's how it works.

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So it's vision first because vision is about understanding

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where we want to go with this.

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Discipline comes next because you need to be able to show up, you need to be present

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in the moment, you need to be consistent.

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And then once you've started showing up consistently, now we can

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actually focus on getting better.

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So that's the three parts, guys.

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That is the three things that are causing overwhelm and the three things that are

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going to help you to get out of overwhelm.

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Now, I know those can be a little bit challenging, so if you find yourself

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feeling like, Hey, this is me.

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This is exactly what I need, I.

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I love the sound of this, but I need help with it.

Stephen Box: 00:25:42

Go to Unshakable habits.com, click on the roadmap call button at the top,

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and schedule a free call with me and let's talk about it, and I will show

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you how I can actually help you and how my programs have actually helped

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me in just like you to go from being overwhelmed to Unshakable so that

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you can become the Unshakable hero.

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In your life and create a better life for yourself and those around you.

Stephen Box: 00:26:11

So guys, I really appreciate you tuning in this week.

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And again, if you would please go and leave that review either on

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Apple, Spotify, or on pod chaser.com, I would greatly appreciate it.

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And as always, I want to remind you that while none of us are born

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unshakable, we can all become unshakable.

Outro: 00:26:34

Thank you for listening to the Unshakable Habits

Outro: 00:26:36

podcast with Coach Stephen Box.

Outro: 00:26:38

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