Vanessa Lau: What is up, everyone?
My name is Vanessa Lau from vanessalau.co, and I just want to thank you for stopping
by onto my channel and watching my first ever video put up on the internet.
Now, before I start, I actually have to tell you a funny story.
So I actually tried to film this video professionally with a DSLR, a tripod, a fancy microphone
that I bought, two fancy microphones that I bought, and I really couldn't figure it
out.
I mean, I was sweating, and when I looked back at the videos, it just seemed so robotic
and so inauthentic.
So I wanted to do it this way because I just feel like it's more comfortable for me, and
I think that it's probably a better experience for you too.
Let me know in the comments below if you disagree.
So, with that being said, if you're anything like me, at some point in your life, you probably
felt like you weren't at that level that you wanted to be at.
Trust me, I've been there, especially when you start comparing yourself to other people.
And when you start looking at other people, you start realizing even more how far behind
in your goals that you actually are.
Well, if you keep watching to the end of this video, you're going to have the three mindset
hacks that I used in order to get me out of this way of thinking and finally take action.
Before I forget, make sure you hit the subscribe button below and the notification bell so
that you can be notified whenever I post a new video every Wednesday.
I help you hack your mind so that you can level up your life and be authentically you
through personal branding and personal development tips.
So if that's something that you'd be interested in, make sure you don't miss out and you subscribe.
Without further ado, just keep watching and enjoy the video.
All right.
So tip number one, rather than saying things like, "Why can't I," start saying things like,
"How can I?"
We live in a world where social media makes it so easy for us to compare our personal
worst to someone else's personal best.
We have to be mindful that social media is not reality.
It's someone's highlight reel, being compared to your real life, which to be honest, for
most of us, is not that glamorous.
And while it's super important to be mindful that what you're seeing on Instagram, or on
YouTube, or on Snapchat is someone else's highlight reel, you also have to stop yourself
from saying things like, "Why can't I travel like that?"
Or, "Why can't I have a business like that?"
Rather than saying these things, change your language, change it so that you're starting
to say things like, "Hmm, how can I afford to travel like that?
How can I start a business like that?"
By changing your language, this ultimately separates a poor mindset versus a rich mindset.
Poor mindset will always, always think about the things that they can't achieve, but the
rich mindset will always try to figure out a way to achieve the things that they want.
There's a more personal example.
One thing that I always kept saying to myself is, "I could never afford to live in Vancouver.
I could never afford a place in Vancouver."
And if you're not from Vancouver, Vancouver is one of the most expensive cities in Canada,
and I think maybe even the world.
And I realized that when I have that poor way of thinking, I was already giving up before
I even tried to make the income that I need to make in order to live in this beautiful
city.
When I started to shift my way of thinking and asking myself, "How can I afford to live
in Vancouver?
How can I get the income that I need to stay in this beautiful city?"
That is the moment where I felt truly empowered and motivated to make the income and to make
shit happen for me to be able to stay in Vancouver.
Something that's so important for you to remember is that lot of the things that you want in
this life, someone else was able to achieve.
If they were able to get those things, that means that it's not impossible.
So what's important is that you need to stop limiting your own potential and believing
that you can do it too.
I want to share with you an analogy that I keep remembering from high school because
I think there was a keynote speaker that came in and he gave this analogy, and it was awesome.
So imagine that you are in your Honda Civic, cruising along on a 50 kilometer per hour
lane, and you're at the stoplight.
You look beside you and you see a red hot Ferrari.
And the moment that that light turns green, that Ferrari ... speeds right ahead and it
seems like they are light years away, until a couple minutes later, you're at the next
stoplight, and guess what?
You look beside you and the same hot Ferrari is beside you, again.
And it's the same analogy that I want you to apply to your life.
No matter how fast or slow you think you're going, at the end of the day, you're going
to get to the destination that you need to get to.
Every time that I found myself comparing my progress to others, I always, always just
put my head down and focused on my own shit.
Because when you are too busy shoulder checking to see what everyone else is up to, you're
not going to be able to focus and put your energy towards the road ahead.
If it helps you, unplug, disconnect, unfollow.
I've done it before.
I've unfollowed people who made me feel intimidated and made me feel like shit, because I wasn't
at the level that I wanted to be at.
And if I make you feel that way, unfollow me because it's important that you learn to
protect your energy.
Here's another example of mine.
At my lowest point in life I was going through bulimia, my parents were getting a divorce,
and I felt like a dumb ass in Business School.
What I ended up doing is I ended up taking a one month "hiatus" where I just turned off
my phone, turned off social media, unplugged completely, did not hang out with my friends,
and rather, I spent those 30 days reading books, going to the gym.
It was such a transformative month for me that afterwards, I was a completely different
person.
I felt recharged.
I felt like I knew the priorities in my life.
And I just felt so much better about myself when I did myself a favor and just disconnected
from everything that was bringing me down, to get more time to further reflect into what
I want to do in my life.
This tip is actually inspired by Tony Robbins.
I'm actually reading his book, Awaken The Giant Within, and I'm really liking it so
far.
And I actually was inspired to include one of the things that he mentions in his book
as my third tip because it really helped me.
So in his book, Tony asks you to write down a list of five things that you're not achieving
in your life, or things that you're putting off.
You write down these five things.
And then right after, right next to it, you write down the pleasure that you're actually
receiving from putting those things off.
An example is, I always put off going to the gym.
And what I wrote down and what I identified as a pleasure point that I received from putting
this off is that I actually hate sweating.
And so by not going to the gym, I can avoid that feeling of feeling gross.
Then right after, Tony asks you to write down the actual cost of you not doing the things
that you're putting off.
For me, not going to the gym is going to cost me my long term health.
And what it's also going to cost me is happier and productive days.
Because what I found is that every time I go to the gym, I end up feeling happier, healthier
and more productive in my work and in my life.
By doing this exercise, it allows you to realize how stupid and silly your excuses actually
are.
For example, why would I compromise my long term health and happier and healthier productive
days for not sweating for 30 minutes, four times a week?
It sounds really dumb.
Same reason why it's so dumb and stupid for you to not do the things that you want to
do in your life because you're scared of the opinion of five people who probably won't
matter in five years or less.
Using this exercise as an example, you need to ask yourself, what is it going to cost
me to continue to have this negative way of thinking, thinking that I'm behind in life
and thinking that I'll never be able to achieve the things that I want to achieve?
If you continue to have this mindset, I guarantee you're never going to get the results that
you're going to want, and you're always going to stay in the same place, unless you take
action and you start believing that you can.
That brings us to the end of the video.
Those were the three mindset hacks that I used in order for me to up level my thinking
and, therefore, improve my quality of life.
If you liked what you heard, and if you were inspired by it, please hit the subscribe button,
the notification button, and also share it with a friend in order to inspire them to
level up their life.
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