Decide Who You Want to Be in Life

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

You know, the most important thing a person can do, in my opinion at least, is to decide exactly what kind of person they wanna be. Now, I know that sounds almost so easy and and and so cliche, but it's the truth. And it's true because if you don't decide exactly what kind of person you wanna be, if you don't have that set in stone, if you haven't written down your core values and set those down in in terms that are black and white, then what happens is you end up putting yourself into a position where you can have your values imposed on you by your environment. I think that a lot of the limitations that we face as individuals, they're so deeply ingrained in our psychology because all of these limitations, they emanate from our own minds, right? Beliefs we have about ourselves, about our limitations, about the things that we can and can't do.

And these beliefs, they become our excuses for why we are where we are in life. And I've seen it over and over again, mostly with myself. And you know, just like you guys, I I don't claim to be some guru. I don't claim to be somebody who has it all figured out. These are things I'm still trying to figure out, and I'm still trying to figure out those deep seated limiting beliefs that I have that are keeping me from being the person I want to be.

But I know one thing, and that is that any improvement that I've been able to make started when I decided that I wanted to make that improvement. And it started when I decided that there was a particular type of person that I wanted to be. It starts back when we're kids. You know, when when you're a kid, you can't choose your parents. You can't choose where you grow up.

You can't even really choose the kids you grow up around. Right? You you as a kid you can decide who you want to play with and who you don't want to play with, but a lot of that's determined by geography. You know whether or not you guys go to the same school, whether or not you grow up in the same neighborhood. And it's really a kind of like a crap toss as to what you're gonna get, Right?

And so a lot of times in our formative years we're surrounded by people who are forming our beliefs about the world, who are, implanting specific beliefs about ourselves and who we are and what we're capable of. And we grow up with those beliefs deeply embedded in our psychology. You know, on last week's Warrior Notes, I talked about excuses. And I talked about why excuses are so hurtful. Right?

Because you keep telling yourself you can't do something. And if you tell yourself you can't do something over and over again, then you make it a reality. You make it your truth. And the thing is that a lot of these excuses people are making up, they emanate from things that they they decided about themselves when they were children. Oh, I'm not good at this.

I'm not good at writing. I'm not good at school. I'm not good at talking with people. And so a lot of people, they go and they hide. They go and they spend their entire lives hiding from that thing that they think they're not good at because they're scared of it.

Right? And last week I had on Kevin Ashworth, an expert in anxiety, and he said that one of the most important things you can do is do controlled and limited exposure to the thing that makes you anxious, that thing you're fearing. And I think that's really important for us as we get older to understand that a lot of the anxieties we have, a lot of the fears we have about trying new things, a lot of the beliefs we have about ourselves and the and the person we think we are, they're not true. They're lies we've made up in our own heads to protect ourselves. But the thing is you have to understand that all of these things are so deeply rooted in our psychology.

They've been there since we were kids. Well, how do you get over that? How do you overcome that feeling of inadequacy that's been there with you since you were a child? How do you overcome that feeling like you're not good enough to do this? How do you stop making it your excuse?

And I think it all starts with deciding that you want to be a certain type of person, And really defining what that is, like getting into it, taking an hour or so and sitting down with a piece of paper and writing down exactly who you want to be and what you want your life to be like. And when you're doing it, you know, sure that it's detailed. Right? Be very specific. How are you spending your days?

Who are you waking up next to? What exactly does your house look like? What is your what is your family like? Right? How many kids do you have?

What do you guys talk about over dinner? Right? Think about those things. And when you do that, and you finish that up, the next thing you need to do is write down exactly what your core values are. What are your deep seated beliefs about the world?

Right? What are your deep seated beliefs about right and wrong? Now why is that important? It's important because of something I mentioned earlier. Up until your adult life you don't get to choose the people you get to be around.

Even for those of you who served in the military, right, you probably couldn't choose the the Marines, the soldiers, the fellow Airmen, the fellow Sailors that you got to be around. A lot of us are very lucky with that and that a lot of the people who join the military, they have certain values and they're brought up into their adult lives in a certain way and it's kind of like going through a second training phase in your personality. But it happens again when you get out to the civilian world. You're once again put into a position where you can either choose the people around you out of convenience, or you can choose people or the people around you based on what they're gonna bring into your life. And I see so many people falling back into that choosing people out of convenience.

And I'll give you a really big example of this. Think about the relationships you've been in. Right? Think about the romantic relationships you've been in. A lot of times, you know, particularly with us guys, we fall into relationships of convenience.

Now how does that happen? It's because a lot of us like to go out to the bar and a lot of us like to drink. And when you go out to the bar and you drink, you end up talking to the opposite sex a lot of the time. And what happens is you end up talking to somebody, you hook up, and a lot of times, and a lot of us don't like to admit it, but these supposed one night stands, these hookups, they start to turn into relationships. And I see a lot of guys falling into these positions where they're bringing women into their lives, and not just guys, women too.

You bring men into your lives that, you know, probably shouldn't have been there in the first place. And it all happened because you got in a relationship with a person without actually knowing exactly what their values are, but more importantly, without completely understanding what you wanted. How that how how what your values are, and whether or not that person was congruent with your values and with the person you wanna be. Right? And I can't emphasize this enough, I've seen so many people get into relationships and then once they're in their relationships they become invested in that relationship so they let go of that person they wanted to be.

They let go of that that career, that dream they had. Also, they wouldn't feel alone. And so they could sustain that relationship with that person who probably should have never been in their life in the first place. And this is why we see so many divorces. Right?

It goes the same thing with your friends. And again, I'd hate to say this, but a lot of times we see guys getting out of the military, they go through that that four years, four years of the most trying and hard and and difficult experience of your life, where you're supposed to become a new person, and then they go right back to the same bar stool they were sitting on before they ever entered. And it sucks. And I'm telling you guys that from my own experience, because that's exactly what I did. I got out, and went right back to that very same barstool in that very same town.

And I sat there, and I drank, and I rotted myself away. And when it got to be too much, I ran away. I ran away like a coward, ran across the country, and started a new life out here in California. And I say I was a coward because I was running away from a relationship that fell apart. And I've talked about that in past podcasts.

I'm not gonna bore you with it right now. But the point is this, when you get out or when you reach adulthood, what whatever's happening to you in your life right now, the most important thing you can do is to sit down and decide. Decide exactly who you want to be. Decide exactly what your values are. And then allow those values to guide your decisions as to who you're gonna allow in your life, what you're gonna tolerate from yourself, and this is an even more important thing, right?

What kind of standards are you gonna set on yourself, right? Are you gonna commit yourself to taking care of your body? Are you gonna commit yourself to expanding your mind? Are you gonna commit yourself to becoming a better person? Or are you gonna fall back and allow the world to determine exactly what kind of person you're gonna become?

And I'll tell you something about the world and mother nature. Right? We always think of mother nature as being this kind of fairy looking godmother type thing that's sprinkling nature dust everywhere. But mother nature's a bitch. She's a freaking screaming bitch who will rip you apart.

And the only way that human beings have gotten to the point that they are on this earth is by deciding exactly what we wanted to do. Having a vision for where we wanted to go, and by building that vision step by step. And if you don't, then like I said, it can all be destroyed in just an instant. And the last thing I wanna see here is this, and, you know, that'll be it because I wanted to keep this short, but nothing that I'm talking about here is easy. Right?

I know this is a short podcast, and I know that I might be making it sound like it's really easy, but it's not. Having values isn't easy. Having having values and following those values, it's very hard and difficult thing to do. But it's worth it. It's the most worth it thing in the world.

Because if you don't do it, you'll lose yourself. And you'll lose who you are, and you'll lose everything that you'll ever become. That's all I got for today, guys. I want to thank you all for listening. And if you found this episode helpful, if you find this podcast helpful, please share this episode or any of our other episodes with a friend who might be in need of this information.

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