Hey! Dan here. I don't know if you caught my other couple videos about addictions
and escapism but this is the third video in that series and it's about creating
an empowering environment so let's say you've figured out the things that you
avoid triggers your escapism you've broken your addictions how can you keep
up this positive life path right for me the easiest way has always been creating
an empowering environment what do I mean by that well let's say you're trying to
say quit eating sugar probably not good to keep a bunch of chocolate bars and
you know packs of sugar and whatever else fruit juice lying around your house
right that would not make it easy because when you get a craving you'll be
like oh I'll just drink this juice and then you'll have juice don't do that
right setting up your environment to help you succeed I'll give you an
example I have an Xbox I've mentioned this before I don't know why I keep
mentioning it and I do not want it to become something we're like in the
middle of a Tuesday afternoon I start playing so the way my setup is is when
I'm not playing I put it away and by that I mean like it's unplugged all the
chords are taken it's put in a box put into storage so when I do want to play
it creates or it has a bunch of effort right I need to go and pack it plug it
in it only takes a minute or two maybe even less but it's enough of a barrier
that if I'm just sort of tired like let's say I'm kind of tired
I've just finished three coaching calls and I sit down on the sofa if the Xbox
is sitting right there with a controller I'm very likely to turn it on and start
playing right and then get sucked in and then play for a couple hours right so
don't have it there it goes with food goes with whatever you can also apply
this to how you set up your routines and your days in general I know I have this
pattern I'm sharing way too much of my my my issues in these recent videos but
I know I have this pattern of although I haven't been doing it recently I do have
this pattern of being like avoiding kind of getting right into work at the start
of the day and so I've caught myself before where I've got up you know early
like there was a day five or six days ago where I got up at
like 5:30 6:00 a.m. and I'm like all right awesome get up and I started
listening to podcasts and maybe watching a few YouTube videos as I was like
having breakfast and getting ready and I sort of got pulled into that like just
into being a consumer of content which is fine if you're watching my content
and the day dragged on and I think it was like 10:30 11:00 before I was like
oh do I even get work done today like what's you know am I gonna take on get
done versus a day like today where I got up and being aware that I can get you
know pulled into other stuff got up didn't check any email had a
quick breakfast headed out I was at a cafe working by 7:00 a.m. you know at
the gym by 8:30 it's been a crazy productive day and it's because I set up
that empowering environment an environment doesn't have to be in your
home right your home should be an empowering environment but it can also
mean like going to a gym building a great routine going to you know let's
say there's a cafe and you know when you go there you tend to focus well and get
more done then build that into your routine go there every day go there
before you get suckered into some bad habit or fall into a pattern that you've
had right know in other videos I've spoken about discipline discipline
starts like this at the start of the day and then it gets smaller and smaller and
smaller until we have none occasionally comes back and then it gets smaller
again we have a limited amount of discipline available to us right I've
talked about the studies and all that before I won't get into that but know
that it's like a fuel tank when it runs out you do not make the best decisions
and it runs out when we're tired when we haven't you know eaten well or we
haven't eaten in a long time lots of other things can cause it as well right
stress wears it out so what a lot of us do is we think about when we're in our
best state of mind when we have a lot of energy when we're disciplined and what
and that's when we say you know yeah of course I can keep candy in the house
like maybe I'll have guests over and the wonít or like you know whatever that is
it's in those moments where we have a lot of discipline where we maybe make up
those excuses but when you are tired when your discipline is running low you
do not make the best choices none of us do right so what you want to do is use
your intelligent brain when you're thinking clearly and set up your
environment to anticipate the worst-case scenario
anticipate when you're super stressed and you're likely to make a bad choice
or go to something that's comfortable anticipate when you know you're gonna be
starving and you'll just eat anything right right now I'm eating like
basically high fat moderate protein like no carb it's just sort of this keto diet
although I'm not doing all of it and it's awesome but the thing that I've
been meaning to do to make it work is I go over the top with buying groceries
like there's always good food to eat in my fridge I pre-order groceries sort of
before they run out so that I never hit that thing where I have nothing to eat
I'm starving and the only place open is the you know pizza by the slice across
the street here and I'm like okay God and then I break you know this great
roll that I've been on and so it's about anticipating right anticipating what you
might do when you're feeling really off and anticipating what would get you to
that state of being off and not letting it happen right preemptively doing the
things that will benefit you and put you in the best headspace essentially so
when you're setting up this empowering environment think about what are the
goals that I want to achieve what am I trying to do here when I first moved
into this apartment in Prague about three years ago it was great because
unfurnished and that's what I wanted I wanted to create a place that was based
on my goals right so half of my office I had a whole separate office room I still
do it's over there half of the room was basically like a
home gym so I had TRX and a few other things and it was like okay because I
want to be taking breaks and working out so that will be great and then it was
like okay I want to be doing more reading so initially I didn't have
in my apartment for four months intentionally because I was like at
night I don't want to be on the Internet I want to be reading and whatever pretty
soon I realized I've wanted to watch TV shows at night occasionally and stuff
too but it was set up like to do the things that I wanted to do so in the
kitchen I like to cook a lot so it was you know buying the right utensils and
stuff so that it would be really easy to cook so I'm less likely to eat out
unless it's going out with friends is setting things up if you want to read
more make sure you have a really comfy chair and like a nice reading
environment and don't put your reading chair or hammock or whatever it is in
front of a TV because you might like just check what's on TV right look at
these patterns this would be an awesome career if someone was like an interior
designer slash psychologist I'm sure there is a profession like this I just
don't know about it were you sort of like an interior design psychologist and
you figured out like people's patterns and then you helped set up their home so
that they did all the things they wanted to do in their life like they woke up
and then there was a little fountain with meditation stuff and they just like
naturally went and meditated and did all this stuff that would be cool if any of
you become that let me know and I will promote you and hire you that I'd be
awesome so that's it set up an empowering environment for yourself it
makes such the difference because yeah sometimes we feel great and we're in
full control and we can do whatever we want but a lot of the time we are not we
are feeling tired weak you know we lose that willpower everyone has this
happened to them the difference between people that tend to break their positive
patterns you know break their diet or quit the exercise routine or whatever
they're doing the people who fall apart usually don't have safeguards in place
they don't have an empowering environment to help them keep that up
when they're not at their best so create that empowering environment little pitch
for myself here if you're looking to be a part of an empowering environment for
about a week I am going to be doing live events in Playa del Carmen Mexico at the
end of April this is 2018 here and in Prague in August and these will be
awesome week of incredible events incredible
people there'll be a link below in the description check those out if you're
interested in meeting me and just having an incredible time thanks for watching
subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and have yourself a wonderful
day
you