I remember back when I first wanted my adventure van. I wanted this custom sports mobile type product where I could load myself in it, put my belongings and just head off into the world. And nothing would stop me right. I had this vision where I’d have solar power and I’d be able to work and I’d be able to do things like these daily growth hacks, anywhere in the world and I would be carefree. I could run my businesses remotely. That’s when I would be happy. That’s when I would be able to relax and stop stressing about work and about friendships and relationships. If I just could get this sports mobile, this sports van, this custom made the thing that I wanted so badly, I would then be happy.

Haven’t we all done that right? And then what happened was, I would work really hard to get there, and then I got the van and built out and had tons of problems as that was happening. And then I took off on a trip, and then I was happy. But the truth is, I was happy or could have been happy the whole time. Isn’t the pursuit the happiness, isn’t that pursuit actually what stifles happiness? Absolutely. How many times have we said in our lives, “I’ll be happy when I have that relationship. I’ll be happy when my husband or wife does X, Y, Z. I’ll be happy when my business makes $8 million or $80 million, whatever it is. Or I’ll be happy when I get a bonus. Or I’ll be happy when I get the new job. Or I’ll be happy, happy, happy, right.” We have these kinds of dialogues in our head. And the truth is, whenever you say, I will be happy, you’re saying it’s conditional. They call it conditional happiness in phycology. And what you’re saying is, “My happiness is based on this particular condition.”

And it doesn’t work right. You’re actually stifling happiness inside of you. You can achieve happiness if you’re waiting for something else. And I’ve experienced this so many times in my life. But what if, what if I would have acted as if I had that sports mobile at the time and lived into that happiness? What if I’d just been like, wow, what would it feel like to step in and to drive, to head up to the mountains, to the beach, camp out, whatever I wanted to do in my own little cocoon right. That excites me and I could have been happy in that moment and enjoyed the journey, enjoyed the process and going through that. Instead of worrying about I got to get my businesses ready, oh what is this van going to do? And I’m custom making it and I got to do all these things. And the vendors I was working with, turned out not to be really good guys and they turned out not to be very smart and they lied to me quite a bit.

So with that being said, I was just stressed. But during that whole journey, it was over a couple of years, I could have actually been happy. I used conditional happiness as an excuse, as a reason to feel overwhelmed. A reason to bring fear upon me. So I’m going to ask you today right, where is conditional happiness in your five to thrive, stifling you from actually feeling and getting everything you deserve and want out of life? Is it a relationship? Is it the idea that when you get the new job or when you get the new employee or when you hit a certain benchmark, a KPI, a key performance indicator in your business or in your life, then you’ll be happy. We all have these conversations right. So the key and trick with us all, is identifying and writing them down. Our subconscious is going to play tricks on us and hide it from us. But if we write these things down, we’re able to actually push through and find true happiness within that moment, within that present time, the here and the now.

So I invite you to do. Don’t be somebody who just listens to these daily grow packs. We have tens of thousands of people that are downloading this each and every day, and I want to make sure you’re one of the ones that are doing the work. Make sure you go over to Facebook and join the Author of Your Own Story private Facebook group, where we’re doing Facebook live, we’re continuing the conversation above and beyond this. In fact, I had a member send me a text message that said, “Doug, in the four days of being in the Facebook group and doing the work, I am further along than I’d been in two years of trying this on my own.”

I want that for you. It’s a free group, it’s a free resource. Utilize your resources, utilize your resourcefulness. And of course, if you’re looking for a mentor or coach, reach out to me. If I can’t help you, I will make sure I will find somebody who can. You deserve all of life’s fruits, especially on this journey, and I want that for you. Have an amazing day. I will see you tomorrow. Remember, go out and inspire somebody, simply by living into your own story.

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I am Doug Holt with Author of Your Own Story, and this is your daily growth hack where each day we bring you a tip, trick or technique to help you up-level what we call the five to thrive. That is your mind, your body, your soul, your relationships and of course, your business.

Just yesterday I was talking to another business owner. And they were telling me how overwhelmed they were. And they were looking for techniques or some kind of trick that I might have to help them get over overwhelmed.

In fact, they were so overwhelmed, they were telling me they were gonna sell their business. They were just gonna give up, throw it all away. And they’ve been working at this for over two years. Blood, sweat, tears, the whole nine.

And what I told them is what I’m gonna tell you. Is, when you’re overwhelmed, really what’s showing up for you is fear. Now that can be fear of failure, that could be fear that you’re out of control, which it was for this person.

It could be fear of a lot of things. Are people gonna leave you, is your product not good enough. Now, you don’t have to be a business owner to experience overwhelm, right? We all experience it. But what’s really happening is you’re really scared about something. And that’s why you’re overwhelmed.

You’re scared you might not be doing it right. You’re scared you might have too much on your plate. You’re scared that people are gonna think something bad about you, right? All these things contribute to that feeling of being overwhelmed.

So what I want you to do right now is grab your journal. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, or if you felt overwhelmed recently. And then ask yourself this question, right? What am I afraid of? Now if you’re in a state of overwhelm right now, you’re listening to this, you’re just like Doug, I’m overwhelmed right now. You don’t even know.

What I want you to do is take 10 diaphramic breaths, right? In through the nose, relax, let it out. Or do box breathing, which we’ve talked about previously in Daily Growth Hacks. But do it at least 10 times. This’ll help reset you.

Then, grab your journal, and write down exactly what you’re feeling overwhelmed about. This person was saying they’re feeling overwhelmed about their business, and managing people, and all these things. And, they were gonna throw it all away.

But once you get that down, what is it you’re actually afraid of? That is the question. And then, once you list what you’re afraid of, if you want bonus points, list out the worst case scenario, right? What’s the worst thing that could happen?

And then how can you mitigate that? Can you live with that? And yes you can is the answer. You see, once we look at the fear, we all know that fear is false evidence appearing real, or false evidence about reality, whichever acronym you like, but it’s false.

Fear is false. And so, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, and you know it’s fear, and you figured out what that fear is, and you know that fear isn’t true, you can now take a breath. You can relax a little bit more, and dive in consciously to solve the issues at hand.

That’s it for me today. As always, go to authorofyourownstory.com where you can get the latest tips, tricks, and techniques delivered right to your inbox each and every day. And make sure you share this with three people that you feel would benefit from this message, and that you can have conversations that matter with.

If you like these daily growth hacks, it would mean the world to us if you would take a moment to subscribe and review us on iTunes!

I was talking to a business owner, not a coaching client of mine, but I was actually getting an ART session done. This is an Active Release Technique to actually help relieve the strain on your joints. I was having some shoulder issues from my workouts and past injuries that I’ve had. I was talking to this gentleman. What he was telling me was in the area of his relationship. He was actually telling me about his marriage. This is our first session, so he was just talking to me about it and he was very open and transparent, which I really enjoyed. One of the things he told me about was he was actually focused on what he should do. He’s like, “Doug, I just think about this all the time. What are my next steps? What are the things that I should be doing? I just can’t stop thinking about it. In fact, I think about it so much that actually, I’m not making sales call, I’m not calling customers back, I’m not marketing myself. It’s really going down from a spiral.”

Now you got to understand, he knew coming in that I coached business owners because the person that referred me was a client of mine. When he was sharing this with me, he had no idea that I talk about the Five to Thrive. He was just sharing his relationship and happened to relate it to the fact that his business wasn’t working well. What he said was really important. What he said was, “I’m focused so much on this and trying to solve this problem.” It happened to be in the area of his relationship, that it was just consuming him.

This is what I told him. I said, “Hey, look. Are you looking for advice here?” He said, “Yeah. I’d like to know what you think.” I said, “Look, I think what you need to do is pause for a bit. What I mean by that is actually go mountain biking, go do something you like and don’t think about the problem.” How many times have you or I, I know at least me, you have a problem and just sleep on it and the next day somehow, subconsciously, it’s solved, or an idea pops out to you in the shower and you’re just like, “Oh, that’s the answer. I got a great idea now.” It happens to me all the time and I’m sure it happens to you. I told him the same thing. I said, “Just pause for a bit.”

Now I didn’t tell him to go meditate, which is what I would recommend many of my clients do, is take a 20-minute meditation regardless of the type of meditation you want. There are guided meditations and I have guided meditations I’ve recorded that I give to clients. You can do a lot. I like davidji. I like a lot of them that are out there. Or you can do more of a Vipassana style meditation, which I’ve done as well. Totally up to you. You could also just as easily go for a walk, go for a mountain bike ride, work out, whatever it is that takes your mind off the problem. Pause for a bit.

Now I’ve seen this so many times in the area of business in my own life where I’m just stressed about finances, making payroll in the past, all these things because I didn’t forecast, all these little things. They would consume me and I’d miss out spending time with my family. I’d miss out spending time with my friends. I’d physically be there, sure, but I wasn’t mentally there. Does that sound familiar to you? If it does, I’m going to encourage you to use this technique and just pause for a bit, even if that pausing is counting to 10 backwards and taking 10 diaphragmatic breaths. Really, if you can take longer time off of the problem, it seems to work itself out.

I haven’t heard back from him. I don’t know if it works for him, but I can tell you if you’ve been in this situation and I get in a situation a lot where things can consume me or at least in the past I did, I recommend you pause for a bit. Grab your journal, write down your Five to Thrive. Your mind, your body, your soul, your relationships, and your business and then where is something consuming you? Are you consumed as many people are about your body? What diet should I do? Or I’m not doing the right things. Or is it in your business or relationship? I hear this all the time just like this gentleman. If you’re a business owner and your relationships aren’t working, nothing’s working. Your business isn’t working and vice versa. If your business isn’t working, your relationships aren’t working. That’s why we have the Five to Thrive. You want to have a balance in those five key areas.

If that’s happening for you, I want you to take a pause. I want you to think about the problem and then not. Sounds simple, I know. You’re saying, “Doug, how can I not think about the problem? It’s consuming me.” Well, what I want you to do is do something else. Maybe painting is for you. Maybe bike riding. Maybe walking. Whatever it is, do something totally different. Volunteer somewhere where are diving in helping somebody else. Coach somebody. Take a couple of these Daily Growth Hacks and work with an employee, with a friend, and use some of these tactics and tell them, “Hey. I’m working on stuff myself and will you do it with me?” When you are teaching someone, you can’t think about your own problems because you’re worried about them, right? You’re helping them out. That’s another thing you can do.

Whatever you do, take time to pause and get away from your problem and subconsciously it just tends to work itself out. Answers seem to flow through you. That’s it for me today. Make sure you share this with at least three people that you know so you can build your accountability, build your tribe, and help somebody else out. Of course, go over to Authorofyourownstory.com and make sure you get on our newsletter if you haven’t already. I want to make sure you’re getting the latest tips, tricks, techniques, news, and information about the Author of Your Own Story tribe and things that we’ve got going on here. I will see you tomorrow. Go out and inspire somebody today by being the author of your own story.

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This morning, a weekend day, I got up early and actually did a few things in my business. It’s something that I enjoy doing. Of course, I journaled and did my morning routine. But then I went to the gym, I went to the gym and took part in an exercise class, one that I’ve been going to for several months. Now, this was the first time that somebody else actually showed up to the exercise class. Apparently, on Saturday mornings, nobody shows.

So the funny thing about this is, after that, I came home, cooked breakfast, ate with my family, played with my son, and then my wife and I decided to go for a hike, and we climbed one of the mountains here in beautiful Bend, Oregon. Now, we did this all in the day and actually ended up at a brewery where I had a beer and a burger and just enjoyed an afternoon. And so when I actually talked to several of my friends, because I posted something about it on social media, I got a flood of messages coming in, like I can’t believe you did that. Wow, that’s so amazing.

It was interesting, I turned to my wife and I thought, geez, you know, everybody’s commenting about how amazing this is, they’re sending me private messages on Instagram and on Facebook and even Linked In. And they’re saying geez, that’s just amazing that you took time out this year to do that. I thought, this year? This is normal, and I’m not saying this to brag, it just kind of blows my mind to think about that. And so I reached out to one of the people that reached out to me, it’s a good friend of mine, we’ve been friends for over 20 years, and I just said hey, you know like what do you do on a typical weekend? I’m just curious because you were saying how amazing my day is, and really it’s just normal for me.

And he said, wow geez, actually I slept in, you know, and then I kind of rolled out of bed and went on the couch and just kind of went over, checked the news, and just sat there a little bit, my kids were running around and doing their thing, and I just of just relaxed. The word he used is, I just kicked it, and just relaxed, and my wife, you know, she was kind of doing her thing. Around noon or so, we kind of got together to get the kids out, took them to a friends house, and then I came back home, and you know, kind of caught up on a couple of shows, and kind of just dinked around the house, Doug.

It got me to thinking, wow, what is your normal? What is my normal? Right, and oftentimes when I have these discoveries, these discoveries with clients that I’m working with, we’re just people that are going out there, and talking. You know, that are reaching out to me and telling me what’s going on in their lives. I love that. And I started thinking, what is my normal in my five to thrive? And is that okay with me? And so I started looking at it, and I journaled, and I would encourage you to do the same right, be your own coach.

So in the area of your mind, right, for me, in the area of my mind, what is my normal? Right. And is that good enough? Is that where I want it to be is the most important … So I wrote down what my normal is for me, and then I decided, you know what, that isn’t where I want to be. And so I’m going to make a shift, I’m going to make a change, and I actually started right away after I journaled that. And then what about, in the area of my body, what is my normal, and is that good enough for me?

Ironically, I was like, you know what? I could be doing more, as a matter fact I would like to be, mobility is something I need to work on, or would choose to work on. So I wrote that down and took action immediately. And then I said well geez, what about in the area of my spirituality? I said oh you know I’m good there, my normal’s actually pretty good for me. What about relationships? Yeah you know, I feel like I’m good there too, yeah, I could use some improvements, but I like my normal, in that area. And then what about business? What is my normal?

And I thought you know what, I could raise the bar there a little bit more too. And so I’m actually opening up my coaching programs. So I’m opening up for more clients, I typically only take five clients for a year, my full year program, I’m sticking to that, but in the other programs we’re just launching, from my own personal coaching, is I’m launching a six month and 90-day program. So, what I’m asking you to do is grab your journal, write out your five to thrive, right. And what I encourage you to do something, as I was working with a couple of my clients is, another category I work on is wealth.

Wealth can be anything that it means to you, but for most of us, it means our bank account, right? Our investments, you know, what do we have in the bank? And then write down, what is your normal? What’s normal for you? Is it normal for you to work out one day a week or six days a week? Or are you an iron man, or are you somebody that’s just happy to be able to walk around the block and play with your kids?

You know, whatever it is for you is good, right, it’s your story. And then write that out in your five to thrive, but ask yourself, is your normal what you want? Right? Is your normal what’s going to get you to the author of your own story lifestyle? And if it’s not, make a drastic change today. In this moment, never leave the source or place of making a decision without making a drastic change. That’s how we become the authors of our own story, and not getting stuck in somebody else’s story.

My normal’s going to be different than yours, in fact, a lot of people are going to look at my normal and say geez that guy’s a slacker, and some people are like wow, he’s just doing too much. Right, but that’s my normal, and it’s up to me. And as long as I’m living in my path, in my lane, I am going to be happy and fulfilled. And that’s what I’ve discovered over the years. And I want the same for you.

So many of you have reached out to me, and I love it, thank you so much for the messages. And, a few I’m backlogged on, and I apologize, but I’ll get back to you. You’re sharing your journey, right, and we talk about this. With my coaching clients as well. Is make sure it’s your journey and not somebody else’s. And then go after it. The worst thing in my eyes that could happen is, one year from today you’re in the exact same place that you’re in right now, and you don’t want to be. If you want to move forward, move forward. If you’re stuck, reach out and I’ll help you get unstuck, that’s what I do professionally and I’d be happy to help you.

As always, share this with at least three people that you know, so they can benefit from having this kind of work, and being their own coach, and make you accountable. And remember, listening to this is just digesting content, do the work, that’s the key here. Do the work, do the work, do the work. And you’ll actually thank me and thank yourself, which is more important.

That’s it for me today, as always, go out and inspire someone simply by being the author of your own story. I’ll see you tomorrow.

If you like these daily growth hacks, it would mean the world to us if you would take a moment to subscribe and review us on iTunes!