- Every problem of inaction
is ultimately a problem of emotion.
You procrastinate not because you don't know what to do,
but because you don't feel like doing it.
You eat garbage and stay up all night
because you don't care in that moment that it's bad for you.
The trick then is to master manipulating your own emotions,
and it turns out it's actually not that hard to do this.
You can trick your mind
into wanting to do things that are good for you.
It's like you train the subconscious
the same way you train a dog to stop shitting on the carpet.
By the end of this video,
you'll have the tools necessary
to start attacking your life's biggest goals.
Now, a quick note.
This video will be best if you have a major goal in mind
as you watch.
So take a second and think of a major action
that you want to implement into your life,
and then get the fuck ready.
When it comes to behavior change,
the single biggest factor will probably shock you.
It isn't willpower, or discipline, or motivation,
or self-esteem, or vision boards, or manifesting,
or asking the fucking universe
to come magically clean your pool for you.
The research is clear.
The most important factor
to determining behavior change is your environment.
If you're like me, that's really disappointing.
We like to believe
that if we can just muster up the right energy, and focus,
and discipline, or control our thoughts,
that we can become the next fucking David Goggins.
- Stay hard, stay hard, stay hard,
stay hard, stay hard, stay hard, stay hard.
Merry Christmas, bitch.
- But if you really wanna be like David Goggins,
easy, call an Uber,
tell it to drop you off roughly 50 miles outside of town,
and then make yourself run home.
- [Reporter] Why are you doing this?
- I just felt like running.
- What I'm trying to say
is you wanna set up your environment
in such a way that your desired change becomes inevitable.
In fact, it's forced by the environment itself.
You wanna lose weight,
then clear all the junk food out of your fridge.
Then, pre-order all of your meals
for the next month in advance when you're not hungry.
Wanna wake up early?
Set multiple alarm clocks up
each on the other side of the room.
- [David] Stay hard, stay hard, stay hard, stay.
- The point is,
before you even start on your path to the new goal,
you want to take the time to manicure that shit
to make it the easiest fucking journey possible.
The second most powerful tool that we have
to influence our mind is creating incentives for ourselves.
This means setting up rewards
and punishments for our behaviors.
Here, let me actually show you what I mean.
This is Jiwon.
She's a fan of mine,
and she's dreamed for years of starting her own business.
(Jiwon laughs)
Yet, despite leaving her job over six months ago,
she has still done nothing.
So have you done any work towards this,
or is it still all just brainstorming?
- I reached out to craftspeople.
I only heard back from one person,
and that person canceled last minute,
and that was like 11 months ago.
- Now, I offered to help Jiwon get started,
but I told her it wouldn't necessarily be pleasant,
but she accepted.
Now, here's the funny thing.
Jiwon is really smart.
But I actually find that smart, educated people like her
often have the most trouble taking action.
Smart people procrastinate more
because they're so smart
they can find twice as many bullshit excuses
to not do something.
In Jiwon's case, she spent months studying business plans,
doing market research, emailing vendors,
and brainstorming various ideas.
Now, that all sounds like it's doing a lot,
but it's actually not doing a fucking thing.
I gave Jiwon a simple choice:
either work out to exhaustion
or finally settle on a fucking plan of action.
She chose the plan of action.
So this is how this is gonna work, Jiwon.
- [Jiwon] Okay.
- You're gonna push the sled
and we're gonna write your business plan.
(Jiwon laughs)
You can't stop pushing or pulling the sleds.
- [Jiwon] Until I haven't- - Until we've completed
your business plan, all right?
- [Jiwon] Okay.
- Most people like Jiwon get stuck overthinking
because frankly,
they have the luxury of overthinking.
As humans, we don't take action
unless the pain of inaction is too great to handle.
So my goal here is to make the pain of inaction
greater than the pain of action.
You're doing great.
(Jiwon pants)
- [Jiwon] Thank you.
- The first question is: What are you gonna sell?
- [Jiwon] I'm going to sell stories
about craftspeople around the world.
- [Mark] So what kind of crafts?
- [Jiwon] Well, when I got the idea,
it was a potter in Korea.
- So it sounds to me, step one, build the brand.
Step two, find the customers.
Step three, put together a pop-up store
and hope to God that customers show up and buy something.
Two weeks, two weeks, two weeks.
Does that sound good? - Yeah, I have to do it now.
- [Mark] Now you have to fucking do it.
Now you have zero excuses.
- Maybe I have to go to Korea.
- The best productivity advice I ever got
was from my high school math teacher.
He told us, "If you're ever stuck on a problem,
don't just stare at it.
Start writing and rewriting it in different ways."
The simple act of writing will then spur new ideas
and help you solve it.
Now, this sounded crazy in a bit woo-woo to me,
but I quickly discovered it was true.
And not only was it true with math problems,
but it was true for everything in life.
Don't want to exercise?
Well, put your shoes on and walk around the block.
Suddenly, it feels kind of easy to start running.
Don't know how to ask your boss for a raise?
Well, walk into their office
and ask for 10 minutes of their time.
Suddenly, the conversation flows from there.
I've started calling this the Do Something principle.
When you feel stuck,
do something, anything, no matter how small,
and the rest will begin to naturally follow.
The Do Something principle works
because it turns out
that action is not the result of motivation,
but actually the cause of motivation.
Now, in regards to the action
that you specifically want to take, ask yourself:
What is the simplest
and smallest actions that you can take today
that will move you towards your goal?
This can be as small and simple
as opening up a Word document
and writing the title of the book
that you've always dreamed of writing.
It can be as simple as texting an old friend
and asking them how they're doing.
Start with something so small
that this snowball can't help but get going.
The simple act of giving Jiwon some incentives
and getting her to take some small
and basic actions towards her goal
caused a chain reaction so large
that even I didn't anticipate how far it would go.
Within a few weeks, she built an entire website on her own.
She started social media accounts
and began creating unique content.
And not only that,
she actually got on a plane
and flew to Korea to meet with artisans herself.
There, she sourced a couple dozen pieces of product
(arrow chimes)
and brought them back to the United States
to try to sell herself.
(arrow chimes)
She went above and beyond all expectation,
which makes this next point incredibly important.
So I believe very strongly in celebrating accomplishments,
so I brought you to Disneyland.
After almost a month of work,
she crushed her initial goal so hard
that I wanted to reward her for that accomplishment.
(Jiwon laughs)
It's important to create rewards for yourself
for taking the actions you need to take.
These rewards can be part
of what creates a sense of significance and meaning,
but be careful with this one.
You don't wanna fuck it up.
Don't use the fact that you aced your exam
as an excuse to skip class for the next three months.
You don't wanna celebrate your victory
in such a way that it prevents further victories.
Anyway, I wanted to make sure this trip to Disneyland
was still productive for us,
so Jiwon and I had serious conversations
about branding and marketing
while we spun around in teacups.
So have you considered selling on Etsy or eBay?
- Never considered that.
- That will also give you a little bit of cash flow.
- Yeah.
- Maybe go on Instagram, set aside like 100 bucks.
Test it on a couple different demographics.
But as we were leaving,
she actually surprised me
because she came up with a proposition of her own.
- If I sell out all of the products I brought back,
we all go to Korea together
and we bring back all of the ceramics together.
- You need our suitcases.
What you basically- - I need your suitcases?
(Mark laughs)
- I thought her proposal was clever, so I accepted it.
I mean, do it for the lulz, right?
Knowing how hard it is to sell everything online,
I figured I was gonna be pretty safe in this challenge.
There was absolutely no way
that she was gonna sell out her inventory in time.
See, Jiwon actually leverages
an interesting phenomenon here
and another strategy to help us take action.
Social pressure.
People love to complain about social pressure.
They complain about it
because they feel like it prevents them
from doing what they wish they could do.
But what if you actually use social pressure
to help you do what you wish you could do?
See, we're a social species.
We are always looking for the approval of others.
We enjoy doing things with others.
We just like being with other people.
So if you can leverage that to help you achieve your goals,
then it's like adding jet fuel to your motivation.
Utilizing social pressure for the benefits
of achieving your goals and taking action
is actually one of the most practical and useful tools.
It also partly explains why I am in Korea.
See, Jiwon didn't actually sell all of her goods.
In fact, she sold most of it just to her friends and family.
But I'm still here,
and it's actually for a much more important reason.
As I've invested more in my YouTube channel the past year,
one of my dreams has been to travel to other countries
and investigate other cultures and values.
But because it was difficult, and expensive,
and time-consuming, I never did it.
That is, until Jiwon gave me a reason to.
So now, I have a new documentary-style video
about Korean culture and mental health
coming out on my channel in a few weeks.
I really can't wait for everybody to see it.
It's completely different than anything I've ever done.
Now, with Jiwon,
this is the power of social influence
working in both directions.
While I started working with Jiwon
to help motivate her to pursue her goals and dreams,
I somehow ended up finding myself
on the receiving end of motivation.
I guess you could say motivation has a kind of karma to it.
The more you motivate others to take actions
and encourage them to be the best versions of themselves,
the more you'll find that they motivate you in turn.
Jiwon didn't sell all of her goods.
In fact, she didn't even start
looking for pop-up shop locations
before our time together ended.
The Jiwon from a couple months ago
would've considered this a failure,
but this failure has helped her learn
about her business and herself.
It helped her establish the connections
with artists that she's going to need,
and perhaps most importantly, it helped her get started.
She accomplished more in a month
than she did the entire 11 months beforehand.
That's why the last step to taking action
is to recognize that failure moves us forward.
- I have failed.
Like, I told you I was gonna sell everything
very confidently,
and I didn't. - [Mark] Yeah.
- And of course it sucked,
but I was surprised at what I learned.
I took the lesson as a learning more than like,
"Oh, my gosh, I failed.
I couldn't do the thing I said I would."
- And this is why I always tell people,
"The point of your goals are not actually your goals."
I mean, sure, it's cool to lose 20 pounds,
or take an extra vacation, or buy a house.
These are good things to work towards, don't get me wrong,
but don't mix it up.
It's not the thing you're chasing that makes you feel good.
It's the chasing itself.
It's taking action.
It's the movement between point A and point B.
If you could go back and speak to Jiwon
from before all this- - Yeah.
- What would you tell her?
- I would say just go for it.
Just do it.
It's not that big of a deal.
It's really not.
And just by doing anything, you learn something.
(upbeat electronic music)