Joshua: Yeah, and it gives you a sense of accomplishment too, which is what I love, and the thing that I like too is that it actually doesn’t take that much time. If you go and you work out for 20 minutes, I mean you have 24 hours in a day, so that 20 minutes, when you talk about bang for your buck for moving the needle on giving you that sense of progress, man, it’s worth way more than 20 minutes that’s for sure. So next up, you’ve identified those outcomes, you’ve started to visualize and you’re taking action, but inevitably at some point you hit road blocks. And you hit those road blocks because they pop back up again and it kind of makes you feel like you want to retreat again. So the next couple of steps in the process that you talk about are how do you overcome those road blocks and how you resist the desire to retreat back into the depression where you were, because there are going to be things that pop up along the way to challenge that, right?
Warren: Oh absolutely. Some of those road blocks are physical and some of them are mental. Sometimes a road block can be a person that is hindering your growth. It can be a manager, it can be a boss, or it could be a family member. But then there are also the internal road blocks. There is a transition period there that’s happening where things are very uncomfortable, going back to work after being off work for a long time or going back to a high level of productivity after a lesser level of activity. It’s uncomfortable because it’s not what you’re used to, even if you have achieved it multiple times in your life; it’s still not something that you’ve been recently doing and so this sense of discomfort is the biggest road block. It comes with all different sorts of dialogue. “I can’t do this” or “I’m not strong enough” or “I’m not smart enough” or “I’m not who I used to be”. We’ve got a whole list there in the book of “I cant’s” or negative dialogue that the mind is going to throw in. They’re road blocks that are going to try and ultimately get you back to a sense of comfort. That uncomfortable phase, for some people its different amounts of time, some people bounce back quicker than others, some people might be able to get back into the groove of working within a week or two, other people it could take 2-3 months to get back into a sense of flow in whatever they’re doing. So the important thing to be aware of, this is challenging but this is why the book is here, is to know, whether these are physical road blocks or whether they are mental road blocks, that they are part of the course and I should expect this.
Joshua: And that’s a good sign because it means that you’re on the path too right?
Warren: Exactly. I mean if you’re still sitting on the couch watching soap operas, you’re not gonna have a lot of internal dialogue and roadblocks.
Joshua: I have to remind myself when obstacles come up, and they certainly do, especially when you’re a business owner, that it’s inevitable, right? It’s like you solve one problem, maybe you’ve had financial collapse in your business and you either start a new business or you recover that business. As you start to make progress with that and take the actions to fix it and move towards the outcome that you’re wanting, inevitably there are going to be other things that come up. Recognizing this is just par for the course is important. It’s like with basketball or NFL where they work and they work and they overcome all those obstacles and train hard but there are still the hurdles to overcome once they get to the playoffs or whatever it is. So I love that you guys put that in there. It’s so important to know that we’re not broken because roadblocks come up again but, instead, here is an opportunity here to really push past that. And one of the things I love that you guys talk about is that sense of gratitude helping us to get over that, right?
Warren: Yeah, we have to and it goes back to a little of what you and I were talking about earlier of self-love. How do we talk to ourselves? Do we talk to ourselves and ignore the progress we’ve made and what we now have to be grateful for or do we go the other way? One of the things I teach regularly is actually being grateful and paying attention to that bears so much fruit. There is an exercise that I made reference to in the book and that I work with many of my clients with, which is when we are actively grateful. Because we can conceptualize gratitude or we can be actually actively grateful. When you are actively grateful for something you think of, let’s say I’m grateful for my son. Well, its one thing to say, “I’m grateful for my son”. It’s another thing to say, “I’m grateful for my son and I’m grateful for the twinkle in his eye. I’m grateful for his smile. I’m grateful for his laugh.” With that gratitude you take it to a much deeper level.
Joshua: Yeah, a much more specific level.
Warren: And that’s what draws the emotion in and makes it so much more powerful. So, if you’ve been given a job after not having a job for a while or you’ve broken through that sales target, actually spending time being grateful for it promotes more growth.
