The tagline of TED Talks is: ideas worth spreading. I love that. I think we, as a Primal Potential family, need to focus more on ideas worth spreading AND we need to challenge ourselves to implement them every single day.
If you’d rather listen to this blog than read it, please click here.
When I saw that line “ideas worth spreading”, I happened to have my journal in front of me and casually wrote, “What ideas do I think are worth spreading? What am I going to do to live them today in my choices & behavior?”
Here’s what I wrote:
Connection is the highest form of achievement.
I really wish someone had told me this a few years ago. So many of us, myself included, get hyperfocused on goals like money, career & weight loss. I’ve been hypnotized, at various times, by all 3 at the expense of connection.
Really though, connection is what matters most. Meaningful relationships with other people, honest relationships with ourselves, trust, love, intimacy, communication, integrity, joy, laughter…those matter most.
That is why I say so often on the podcast that I’d like all of us to pursue happiness as the path to health instead of health as the path to happiness.
I’m all for financial goals, career goals & of course health/fitness goals but don’t put them on a pedestal above connection.
And, as you consider connection, don’t lose sight of the fact that it’s impossible to have great, true, honest, deep relationships with others if you don’t have it first with yourself.
Connection begins with you.
Keep the promises you make to yourself.
We love to talk about honesty & integrity. We love to hold others to the standard of truth yet we let ourselves off the hook dozens of times a day, at a minimum!
We care tremendously about being honest & trustworthy to the people around us yet we’re so often not honest with ourselves.
Why do we hold others to a higher standard of honesty & integrity than the one to which we hold ourselves? That has got to change, and we can begin to change it today.
We break promises to ourselves, constantly, in small ways…
We vow to not hit the snooze button and then we do.
We vow to go to the gym but we skip it.
We pledge to stay away from the leftover pie but then have a piece at 7am.
We make a budget & then justify spending on a sale.
Take a sliver of that value you’ve placed on being trustworthy to others & start to value your word to yourself.
In the smallest of ways, begin to keep the promises you make to yourself. Start today.
The “I’ll start tomorrow” way of life has got to end.
It is totally unproductive. Whether you’ll clean the kitchen tomorrow, eat better tomorrow, get to the gym tomorrow or anything in between, we need to make a movement of NOW.
If your “tomorrow” is Monday, the 1st of the year, when the kids go back to school or when the in-laws leave, the same applies to you. It’s all the same.
We need to create a movement of NOW.
“Tomorrow’ is a lie we tell to talk ourselves into a moment. I have no doubt that all our intentions are good as we argue for “tomorrow” but it’s a failing strategy.
Now matters. “Later” is just an idea.
Your success will skyrocket when you stop complaining & assuming.
We all do it…too much. Both assuming & complaining take your focus and attention off what matters most and what you want to achieve. They are tremendously negative distractions. They require a ton of energy & produce only negative results.
Try to go for 24 hours without a single complaint or assumption. You’ll likely be shocked by how many times you find yourself complaning about your energy level, the traffic, weather, the news, someone else’s behavior or any other number of trivial things.
We do it automatically and often half-consciously. The same is true of assumptions. We assume how people are feeling, what they mean instead of what they said…we assume answers to questions.
We assume our future behavior will follow the pattern of our past behavior.
Challenge yourself every single day to make no assumptions & refuse to complain. Your energy will skyrocket, as will your mood and progress.
Eat foods you love that love you back.
This is absolutely an idea worth spreading! It’s not either you eat foods you love or you eat foods that love you back. You can do both. You should do both!
Find foods you love that are aligned with your goals AND find ways to eat the foods you love most in a way that loves you back. It’s possible & it’s the difference between sustainable results & unsustainable results/no results at all.
If you haven’t yet, find your unique balance between pleasure & happiness. You don’t have to be miserable to fuel your body well. In fact, if you’re miserable, you’re doing it wrong!
The obstacle is the way.
Yes, there are challenges. There are roadblocks & circumstances that make change difficult. Welcome to the human experience. This is true for all of us.
You only have 2 choices: you can see these obstacles as reasons you can’t reach your goals or you can commit to finding a way regardless of the obstacle.
The obstacle is the way isn’t some “smile about your hardships” kind of statement. It’s just reality. The obstacle is the way because the way will always have obstacles. Don’t complain about it. It’s the reality of all of us.
The easy path might not be available to you but there is still a path available to you.
The challenge is this: what will you DO with what moves you? How will you live an idea worth spreading? How will you live it today? I challenge you to pick one thing that has moved you today & do something with it. Make something happen. Let it inform a choice or decision. Let it influence how you respond to a challenging situation.
Ideas worth spreading are absolutely useless unless you put them to work in your life on a regular basis.