Do you ever wish you could make some permanent changes in your life? Today’s episode of Live a Life by Design helps you start, and finish, the process of living life on your own terms. Jimmy shares his proven mindsets to create effective and life-changing transformations that will empower you to live each day in new way.
Episode Keys
- The power of taking initiative today to formulate powerful change in your life.
- How to evaluate the impact others have on your capabilities to continue your personal growth.
- Why you should limit use the past to gain vision for your future.
- One of the greatest steps you can take today to make monumental changes in your body – it is really simple to do!
- How to feed the proper emotions and keep you moving forward on your goals to accomplish a life of success.
Podcast Transcript
Good morning! This is Jimmy Williams, your host for Live a Life by Design. Your Monday morning moments of motivation to help you be a bigger, better, and bolder you everyday. I’ve got to tell ya, this has been one of the best months. Already off to a great start. You know, this month is one in which we have a lot of changes in the air, fall is now here. The leaves are starting to change. It’s getting cooler outside. That just means football season is finally, if you’ll pardon the pun, kicked off.
I want you to know today that I appreciate you very much, listening to this podcast every week. As we try to reach out, dig down deep and give you some high quality thoughts for your week. We want you not just to make thoughts out of those. We want to create action, we want to create a moment that changes your life in a powerful way. And the only way that gets done, though, is that we need to take action. We need to have the right mind set. And you know this year started, we all had big goals. I mean, I’m talking BHAGs. That’s B H A G, Big Hairy Audacious Goals, right?
We were gonna change the world as we see and how we live in it. And then something happened, and of course you know what always happens. So if you know what’s going to happen then we must just adapt how we’ve reached our goals. So today I want to help you take the fourth quarter of this year and turn it into the most powerfully, productive year end you’ve ever experienced. I’m gonna share with you my three mindsets today of how I focus each start of the quarter. Not just the fourth quarter, each start of the quarter into what we call a 90 day year.
Now you’re gonna laugh, most companies look out and they go, we’ve got an annual operating budget. Or we’ve got an annual fiscal goal. Or we’ve got big projects for this year. Well, we do things a little big differently. We actually work off of what are called 90 day years. So I have four fiscal years within an actual calendar year. Did you get that? The reason being is because if your mind says, well I’ve got 12 full months. 365 days to accomplish the goal I set in January, the mind does something powerful. It rationalizes how you have plenty of time to accomplish that goal. I’m going to tell you that you will look in the mirror on October 1 of the year and go, oh boy, I looked at my goals this year, there is not a check mark beside many of these I’ve listed in January.
I’m gonna show you today how you can change your life forever by making some changes in your mindset. So we start each quarter for most people, becomes a 90 day year for us. So your mind does not have the facts of, oh I’ve got a full 365 days. No, no, no, no. You’ve only got 90 days to make something happen. Now at the end of those 90 days, guess what? The year is over. It’s time to take out the big chief tablet and number 5 pencil and determine did I in fact reach my important goals, or did I not.
So, I want to help you today to understand one thing we can do, and that’s the changing of our mindset and approach to change. Did you get that? I want to help you make some changes in your mindsets that will bring about impactful change on your life. If you’re leading a team, these three mindsets will help you become the guide and mentor to everyone on your team becoming bigger, better, and bolder than they were. It is a simple process. But you know, I love what Jim Rohn said. Jim Rohn said, “If it’s simple to do, it is simple not to do”. You’re not those kinds of people though. You’re the kind of people that listen to Live a Life by Design every week because you wish to be bigger, better, bolder as I always say. You wish to have a life lived on your terms, not secondary to where you just take what you get and be happy with it, right? And so, this is not what you asked for January 1 of 2020. That a pandemic would stir across our world, creating chaos, confusion, disruption. But you know what? We got it. And there is nothing we could do to stop it.
Now I’m not a political commentator. I, matter of fact, am not a medical expert. But I am a human being that has a wheel and a mindset to simply understand there are things in life I can not change. And there are things in life that I most certainly can. So I’m gonna work on the latter. I’m not going to worry about the upcoming elections in the United States. I’m not gonna worry about the Covid vaccine, if it is going to come early, late, whenever it comes. I’m not going to worry about if the world will continue spinning today, that is simply out of my control.
But I will share with you my three mindsets that I take on everyday in my world. Literally everyday I have these three mindsets that I take into my being and use to accomplish great goals during this year. And I’ve got to tell you, we have hit many of our greatest goals. I, in fact, very proud of several of these goals that I mention as we go through this episode.
So let’s get started with it. The first of these three powerful mindsets will help you immediately if you’ll just implement it. This is where you’re going to take the next three months of this remaining calendar year and accomplish your Big Hairy Audacious Goals. There’s only one belief you must fully understand for these three approaches to be fruitful for you. Is first banish the thought that you must be like everyone else and simply allow yourself to be pushed around by the pandemic. No, this is not your present world. You are the captain of your ship of life.
So the first mindset is you must start where you are. Now that sounds very simple, doesn’t it. But you will never find a perfect day for change. By its own definition, change requires energy, personal disruption of thought and body, and a vision to have already seeing yourself reach the goal. One of the craziest ideas about change in life is a horrible word. I gotta tell you this word has made billions of dollars for companies across the planet. I really dislike this word so badly that I don’t even want to use it, but I’m gonna say it today so you will understand what I am talking of, and that is a four letter word that I think is so profane. I just can’t stand to even say, but I’m going to say it today because you will then know why I dislike this word so badly. This word is diet.
Now you heard me. The mention of this word, just the mere mention gives you cold chills. The cold, cold word diet means that I must now make a change in life that I know is not good. As a matter of fact, you’re gonna mention things in your mind like oh my goodness, all I can see is cottage cheese and drinking water and exercise and all of these things. I’m not going to get to have any roast beef, no steak, no chicken. I am not gonna have any of the food I currently like, I’ve got to eat, of all things, broccoli. Oh my goodness, why am I eating broccoli. Man was not meant to eat broccoli. Take it from the late George Herbert Walker Bush. He didn’t like broccoli, said so on his entire voice, he said I do not like broccoli in the White House so the chefs there did not make it. But the point I’m making is, is diet is a bad word. However, if you do want to do something about life, I don’t like that word. What I do is simply say I’m gonna start eating sensibly.
Now the difference between that is it’s positively framed in my mind. The word diet in my mind has negative connotations. So I don’t look for ways to lose a little weight here and there. I don’t diet. I just start eating sensibly. And I eat smaller portions of good foods that I want to enjoy. Now I can still have chicken and steak and ham and so forth, I just eat smaller portions than I used to. And with that approach, sensible dieting, you will never find the perfect day. Or even a moment to stop eating sugar, bread, drinking sodas, eating junk food, binging donuts, drinking dairy, etc. There will never be a perfect time. Now I hear what you’re saying, and don’t turn off this episode, you’re thinking I’m gonna talk about taking yourselves on diets. That is not what I’m referring. What I am saying though, for a lot of us, is that this is why we must start where we are. And the point I’m making here is today is the best day to start some change in your life if you’re wanting to eat better, there is no better time to start.
Your body is already addicted to the sugar in all of these substances I’ve mentioned and it is in your brain that you crave them. So just make a small change by simply eating or drinking less of these types of foods everyday, lower the amount of intake of these foods over a two to three week period. Finally you will find yourself no longer craving these foods, but eating more sensibly. The secret ingredient for me, and listen, this is important to this process. My secret ingredient to accomplish this type of change in my life is to drink lots of water. You heard me, lots of water. I mean, I am talking about a gallon of water a day if I need to. At minimum 64 ounces. And I will tell you, my stomach is full of water and it has no calories. No bad things in it. No sugar. And I am less likely to crave sugar in all these other foods that are just simply not good for me.
The same approach of this can be applied to exercise, reading, journaling, etc. Whatever you wish to change in your life. Start where you are. Start today with whatever shape you find yourself in, in whichever area of life you wish to change. You will be in a better place mentally, physically, spiritually, financially, whatever area you wish to change if you’ll just take a little each day and continuing to increase the focus on sensible things versus what the world tells you to do or be. You will find life getting much better for you. Simply start where you are. Lou Holtz, the hall of fame football coach division one, he loved to work with young men. He loved to mould these young men, not just into better players but into better people. Lou Holtz realized one thing about life. When he was a little boy he wanted to play football, but his stature which was well below six feet. His body frame, which was just not the most muscular in class realized quickly that he could play football, but he was never going to be the star player. He just didn’t have the build. But he could do something that impacted the lives of many people, but doing something else he had the power to do. You see he worked on those things he could change. And he became one of the winningest football coaches in Notre Dame history.
He took those young men and moulded them into the characters that they would need to be successful in life. One of my favorite Lou Holtz quotes is, “Everybody is looking for instant success, but it doesn’t work that way”. You build a successful life one day at a time. So make up your mind to start today. Don’t wait another minute to move your life in a better direction. As the mind loses momentum for change, it becomes rational. You heard me, you will think of all the reasons you shouldn’t perform the changes that you so desire to become one of the people you wish you were because of other things that are far less important in life. So that first mindset I believe you have is you must start where you are.
The second mindset is to forget about the past. No one who is uber successful has continued to develop into an even bigger, better, bolder person by working on those things in life that can’t be altered. Your past is your past. Let it go. One of my favorite quotes about the past is from Bill King. It’s one you’ve probably heard many times, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present”. Live in the day. Live and control what you can for just this 24 hours. Everyone from Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, down to the bum on the street all have the same 24 hour period. How is it that some people can gain such progress in that 24 hour period and others don’t move an inch. It is simply the mindset that they have forgotten their past and seek to be better people at the end of each day. You see, it’s not a quarterly goal. A weekly goal, it is down to what are your big three items today to move the needle on your growth, your passions. How you wish to be seen in the world but more importantly, that person in the mirror.
You know, you’d learn from the past in order to not repeat it. But do not keep your focus on the past. Life has a way of continuing forward whether you’re involved in it or not. Plan your day to day to accomplish one powerful step toward a big goal. Conquer that burden of carrying your past around. It can become heavier than stone. Perhaps you may need to change your thoughts by making changes in who you spend time with each day. There’s an old saying that you will become the person like the top five people you spend the most time with. Who are those people in your life? Simply write them down. Are these the type of people you wish to aspire to be? Do you see these people enjoying life to a greater degree than you, or are you simply around like minded people that have a ceiling of complexity in their lives that they can not overcome? Are the people surrounding you providing you positive, uplifting support all day? If not, don’t spend time around those people.
Now I’m not saying to you go on Facebook and defriend everybody on your social media. I’m simply saying don’t turn on your social media. I have told my daughters so much, that I may have erred a little bit in their raising. We taught our daughters to be kind to all people. That people’s circumstances may have placed them in situations of which are out of their control and they are acting out in a behavior that is not truly them. I have asked our children to be kind to everyone because I believe in sowing the seeds of kindness, you will reap a harvest of the same. But there are many people hurting in our world. If you don’t believe me, just turn on social media today. Just give yourself a time frame. Take an egg timer and put it on three minutes. Give yourself three minutes and I want to know how many positive statements you can write down in three minutes from social media. Now do not be surprised of this challenge. You would not be the first person who told me, Jimmy, the paper is still blank.
So, my point I’m making is, I’m not condemning social media, I am asking you not to live your life on the social media platforms. I’m asking you to go out in your world and make big changes so that people around you will benefit as well as yourself. Find others that will keep you powerfully positive in your mindset and focus on the opportunities of the future. Not the failures of the past. There’s a story I love to hear about a lady who simply wanted to change her way of arriving to work each day. It was simple that, but so complex. She had been relegated to the back of the bus, literally. Summoning her courage one day, she concluded a new decision must be executed to bring about change in her life as well as many others. Boy, was she right. Not only did she bring about change in her life, she created a paradigm shift for rights of all Americans by simply sitting down on a front row bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama on December 1st, 1955.
This beautiful lady became known as the First Lady of Civil Rights. Of course I am speaking of Rosa Parks. Rosa’s refusal to give up her seat to a white person caused her to be arrested that day. And this act sparked a transformation in the south that changed our country for the good. Rosa is inspiring in so many ways to me. Her statement about conquering fear is applicable to us today. She said, “I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear”. Not only did she live life by her design, she blazed a trail and inspired millions of others to do the same. The key mindset here is forget about the past. Forge a future that truly defines you and where you wish the world to be a better place.
The third mindset is the more tough one. The third mindset is simply this, stop feeding your fears. Focus on the future, be diligent about the next 24 hours, but do not feed your mind with endless reports of Covid activity, news feeds of the presidential race, or any other area of negativity that you have no control to change. You heard me say it earlier, I just simply do not allow my energies to be spent on areas in the world that I can effect no change whatsoever. And I focus all of my energies on the environment around me that I can change for a better world. For me and for those around me. There are many things in life that you and I must realize. We will simply have no impact to change. And so to focus on these areas of life we can change, we must stop feeding our fears with things we cannot change. You know, I’m reminded of the old tale of the wise Native American father, as he is explaining life to his son. This tale from the old Cherokee Indian is basically this, inside every man is a wolf and another wolf. So we have two wolves. As he explains a fight is going on inside of me, he said to the little boy. It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil, he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. He continued though, the other wolf is good. He is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generocity. Truth, compassion and faith. The same fight, he says to the little boy is going on inside you. And inside every other person we know. The little boy thought about it for a minute, and then he asked his grandfather, which wolf will win? After a brief moment of silence, he looked down at the little boy, right in the eyes and with the most sincere voice he could muster, the old Cherokee simply replied the one you feed.
What could you accomplish today if you had no fear of failure? Why not use that same mindset every day of your life? You see, why not feed the wolf of good, why not look for truth? Why not share compassion? Why not deepen your faith? Why not be benevolent to others? Giving to the needs of others will only help you grow as a person. You see you must stop feeding the fears of hate and lies and envy, and sorrow and regret. Those seeds will not flourish if you focus on the powerfully positive good things in life. If in fact you do wish to create yourself a world of turmoil, a world of hurt and regret, it’s easy to do. The more difficult part of life is changing that focus. And becoming the person that feeds the positive wolf in this story. It takes more energy. It takes more effort, it takes more resources. But the reward is so much greater and so much sweeter. You will actually find that you attract success to your life whereas most people are out pursuing it. You can never chase down enough success in life to make you happy. But you can attract more than enough success to get you happy in life and to keep you that way by changing the person you become.
These powerful changes will only occur when you have fully implemented and adopted these three mindsets. Start where you are today. Forget about your past and stop feeding your fears. This week, take some time and focus on these three mindsets everyday. I would highly recommend it would be the first thoughts in your mind as you awake each day. Feed your mind that powerful message of positivity and find out how your day will be so much better. Start with small changes and make progress that is monumental in your life. You deserve it! Go ahead, Live a Life by Design.
