when we think about our life we usually
think about it in the form of a story
you know first we were born and then we
did some things and made some memories
and now we're here and we work in our
job or whatever but in the future we
plan on doing more things seeing the
world maybe and saving up enough money
for a enjoyable retirement we all tend
to view our lives in a sort of narrative
structure like this with the beginning a
middle and an eventual end which kind of
makes sense because by reflecting on the
past it helps us make sense of where we
are now and by having hopes and dreams
for the future it gives us something to
look forward to something to plan
towards and if we currently don't like
our present situation we can place our
pains and frustrations on the hope of a
better tomorrow but if you think about
what it feels like to actually live life
like what it feels like on a day to day
basis it feels completely different we
kind of just wake up we feel kind of
groggy we stumble down stairs get the
coffee hop in the shower and get dressed
before getting in the car to get that
bread and after you get that bread you
get more bread at McDonald's because you
have an addiction and then you come home
usually pretty tired and you veg out and
watch Netflix or whatever you do until
you go to bed this is what living life
usually feels like to most people most
of the time life in general is usually
pretty normal you do the things that you
do every day you kind of have a routine
or a pattern you stick to and life
usually isn't super inspiring or
mind-blowing it's just sort of the
day-to-day experience but is there
anything wrong with that I mean social
media has us thinking that everyone's
hanging out on yachts all the time going
on crazy adventures trying out the two
thousand different bananas in Southeast
Asia and everyone's getting married
person of their dreams popping out the
most beautiful babies but that's not
life that's a highlight reel and these
highlights that we constantly absorb by
the people we follow on Instagram or the
movies we watch on Netflix these
highlights start to really influence the
story we tell ourselves about our own
lives we start viewing our lie
at least our lives live to its fullest
potential as a life with as many of
these highlights in it as possible so
the days when these awesome crazy things
aren't happening we view that as somehow
suboptimal our amazing days become the
expectation and our normal days become
boring like we're wasting our potential
we're wasting our lives away but this
story we tell ourselves this adventure
life no one's life is like this not
Dwayne Johnson not Elon Musk sure these
guys are doing some really cool
important things more often than we are
but still the majority of their lives
they just sort of wake up they do a
bunch of things they don't want to do
they're grinding it out they're working
hard they're often really frustrated or
stressed out they still poop they still
have to eat
you know most of their lives exists in
this sort of day to day monotony they're
experiencing life in the exact same way
that you are
except when Elon Musk is fantasizing
about escaping the day-to-day grind and
taking a vacation instead of the Bahamas
he's thinking Mars assuming you get
eight hours of sleep every night which
I'm sure you do you only have about 16
hours to live because you only
experience life one day at a time that
little section of time between lifting
your head off the pillow and putting it
back down again and all that stuff in
between that seems kind of normal and
kind of inconsequential that's all life
is it's just that thing over and over
and over again and this can sound super
depressing or super inspiring depending
on how you look at it it can be
depressing obviously if you don't like
those 16 hours usually a lot of us are
slaves to our bad habits we do things we
don't want to do we work jobs we don't
really like and we're put in certain
financial or social situations that we
really don't like being in so every
single day day after day is something we
generally don't like doing which is why
we fantasize about the future so much
we're still waiting to live our real
lives and if this is all there is then
that's obviously super depressing but
there's a silver lining because changing
your entire life isn't
big of a feat as you might think it is
since life is lived in these little
16-hour mini episodes that's a very
manageable amount of time to perfect we
can start to build habits that we
actually enjoy doing and that are good
for us and we can train ourselves to
make choices that are actually aligned
with our values and will help us be the
person we want to be every single day
because a good life is just a series of
good days
not necessarily days where everything
went our way and nothing was difficult
or stressful but days where our system
was running we gave life a good shot we
made choices that are aligned with our
values and we did the little things that
make us happy
maybe that's having a good conversation
with a friend or putting a little extra
effort into cooking so you eat something
kind of memorable and that you're proud
of
maybe that's developing one positive
habit at a time so that the things that
keep you grounded and happy and your
mood elevated start to become things
that you do automatically viewing life
on a micro scale like this also adds
clarity to the little choices we make
throughout the day if you've always
wanted to be a more social person then
that means saying yes to beers with the
boys today when you get the invitation
and if you're constantly fantasizing
about being a more fit person that means
going to the gym today because your life
is today that's all it is it's just
today repeated a big THANK YOU to
Skillshare for sponsoring this video one
problem you might encounter when trying
to start a new habit is that when you
try to go from something like watching
YouTube videos obsessively every single
day to try to replace that habit with
reading a book you're going from
something that's super stimulating to
something that's a lot slower paced and
harder to do so the transition can be
pretty jarring and you might quit right
away unfortunately a great way to
counteract this problem is to take
smaller steps so go from something super
stimulating like watching videos to
watching just better videos a great
example of this is to utilize today's
video sponsors Skillshare which is an
online learning platform with thousands
of classes covering dozens of topics
that will help you learn real-world
skills and just make you smarter in
general simon Sinek
even has a class on Skillshare where he
teaches you about how to give better
presentations which is the class I'm
currently diving into Skillshare is
offering better ideas viewers two months
of Skillshare premium absolutely free
which means that right now when you
click the link in the description you
have access to every single class on
Skillshare including simon Sinek awesome
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membership the monthly hit is less than
$10 a month so kind of a no-brainer so
click that link below and get access to
the thousands of classes that are on
Skillshare expand your mind make
yourself smarter and have a great time
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army also I just relaunched my Instagram
the minute we hit 10,000 followers is
the minute I give away a whole bunch of
Kindles so that you guys have absolutely
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recommend so hit the link in the
description follow me on Instagram I
know this is kind of ironic because I
just said like oh we're influenced by
Instagram and all these people on yachts
and stuff but I can assure you I'm
almost actually I've never been on a
yacht and I love a really normal life so
delete all those travel pages unfollow
them follow me instead because I'll
probably make you feel really good about
your life yeah other than that
thank you for watching and we'll catch
you in the next video