How I Brainwashed Myself to Success

Summary

• I often reflect on my initial struggle with negative thoughts and emotions, which are common for many people, recognizing how it's easy to let these feelings serve as an excuse for inaction.
• I've learned that society has misled us into seeing our negative emotions as indicative of something being wrong with us, rather than potential catalysts for change.
• Momentum plays a crucial role in life: it can spiral us downwards or drive us upwards, largely depending on our perspective towards our own energy.
• Recounting my own downturn—weight gain, substance abuse, legal troubles, and social isolation—I emphasize the turning point was realizing the severity of my actions through a frank conversation with my father.
• My commitment to change began with a resolute Facebook post, deciding to cut off distractions and dedicating myself to self-betterment.
• Recognizing the need to reshape my mindset, I identified three tools that helped me reverse negative trends in my life: negative visualization, building frustration tolerance, and challenging my thoughts.
• With negative visualization, I contemplated the consequences of not changing my behavior, using fear of an increasingly negative future to motivate positive changes.
• To increase my ability to handle frustration, I adopted a strategy of acceptance, labeling my feelings, and using realistic mental cues to navigate negative emotions effectively.
• By confronting my thoughts and questioning their validity, I broke the pattern of allowing feelings to dictate my actions, thereby increasing my psychological resilience.
• In challenging my thoughts, I would ask myself if they were true, how they affected me, and what life could be like without them, ultimately proving my thoughts wrong to create more productive behaviors.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest starting with what you can do right now to get better. If you're feeling down or stuck, think about how that can push you to change things. Don't see feeling bad as a sign something's wrong with you.

To get moving in the right direction, think about what will happen if you don't change. This can be scary, but it can also give you a big push to start doing better. It worked for me to stop thinking about what I didn't want to happen and start moving toward what I did want.

Another thing that's really helpful is to be okay with feeling frustrated. Sometimes we try to fix our bad feelings instead of just saying, "Okay, I'm frustrated, and that's alright." Give that feeling a name and then tell yourself something true but hopeful. Like, "I feel upset, but I can still work hard and get better."

The last piece of advice is to not believe everything you think. Our thoughts aren't always right. When a mean thought pops up, ask yourself, "Is this really true?" Chances are, it's not. Think about how that thought makes you feel. If it's not a good feeling, the thought probably isn't helpful. Imagine how you'd act if you didn't believe that bad thought. You'd probably do things that are more useful for reaching your goals.

To sum it up, use your bad feelings as fuel, be cool with getting frustrated, and don't trust every thought. Question them and prove them wrong. This way, you start to be the person you want to be, little by little. It won't cost you much, just some time to think and the courage to change your mind.

Quotes by Leila Hormozi

"Momentum can either work for or against you"

– Leila Hormozi

"A huge component of life is learning how to utilize the negative"

– Leila Hormozi

"People who achieve high goals… have very high frustration tolerance"

– Leila Hormozi

"Thoughts are not facts and emotions are not commands or directives"

– Leila Hormozi

"Build a case as to why your thoughts are not true"

– Leila Hormozi

Full Transcript

you ever looked at your life and thought to yourself man I am so far from where I want to be when I was 19 I was anxious I was angry I was frustrated and I felt hopeless I would go so far to say that 99 people in this world feel that way they use their negative thoughts and emotions as reasons not to do something I don't feel motivated I'm too anxious I'm too upset think about the amount of times that you've told yourself those things majority of most of our Lives we've been told that negativity is a bad thing I'm here to tell you that the one percent of people in this world that succeed know it's the exact opposite they actually use those negative thoughts and emotions as fueled to get what they want you see most of us have been brainwashed by Society into thinking that these thoughts and feelings are bad that they mean there's something wrong with us you're anxious you're depressed you're OCD every label in the book you can think of I was called and I spent so much time and energy trying to rid myself of these things thinking there was something wrong with me that there was something broken that I was damaged good there's nothing wrong with thinking those thoughts with feeling badly with feeling negative the problem is labeling it as something wrong and it telling ourselves that there's something wrong with us when we feel these things momentum can either work for or against you your life either continues to get worse and worse and worse or it continues to get better and better and better it just depends on what Outlook you have on that energy and my life was honestly going wrong in every direction that you could think of like I was 85 pounds overweight I wasn't in a relationship I was doing drugs and drinking alcohol on a regular basis I was flunking out of school I got arrested six times and I had really like no real friends I continued to fail until what I would say is like one of the many Rock Bottom moments I had which was the sixth time I was arrested and the cops took me home to my parents house because I was going to college about 30 minutes away from where my parents house was where I grew up the cops took me there I don't remember what happened I just woke up at my dad's house and I knew that was not good I was expecting my dad to yell at me and to tell me I'm a loser and I'm amounting to Nothing in life and all these things that I already knew and I already thought of myself and instead my dad told me I don't care if you want to keep doing this or not doing this but I have to tell you I do think you're going to kill yourself what do you mean he said I think you're going to drink so much we're going to do drugs and you're going to die what was so tough to hear about that was that I knew he was right I remember leaving that conversation and going to the bathroom to take a shower and looking in the mirror and just hating myself when I looked in the mirror I saw a victim I was letting all those thoughts and feelings dominate me control me rather than learning how to wield them and use them as tools to build the life that I've always wanted and so I went home that night to my apartment and I made a commitment to myself I remember specifically I sat down in bed and I was so angry angry at the fact that I let my life get here and I made a post on Facebook I was proclaiming that I was going to change my life that I was no longer going to be at any parties that you wouldn't see me that I was getting off social media and I was just going to go commit myself to bettering my life I made that post I cut off my friends and I went to work I decided to dedicate myself to becoming the version of myself that I had always wanted to be the version of myself that I envisioned when I was a little girl when you're growing up and people are asking you what do you want to be when you're in school you're thinking of this like amazing successful person I decided to rededicate myself to that Vision but I knew that in order to do this I needed to start with my mind what I really need to do is undo all the garbage that had been put in my head when I was growing up through society and other authority figures that I knew wasn't right so what I want to share with you in the rest of this video are the top three tools I use to brainwash myself to go from spiraling downwards to spiraling upwards and become the person I am today tell me the last time you asked yourself one of these questions why am I so fat why can't I succeed why do I suck at this the first tool that helped me negative visualization instead of asking myself questions that were unproductive and led to unproductive answers I started asking myself productive questions if I continue to do this and I do not change what happens five years from now well you've gained 85 pounds in about two and a half years that's impressive and that means at that rate oh my gosh I would be 500 pounds in five years that version of me staying the same was so terrifying that there was no option but to change not that I wanted to change more but that I was terrified not to change a huge component of life is learning how to utilize the negative a lot of people say well you want to make sure that you're always running towards something screw that if this works do it you know what got me to lose 85 pounds not wanting to be skinny in a bikini but it was being terrified of being 500 pounds using a more powerful negative future to propel you into the future that you actually want to understand the second tool I'm going to ask a series of questions and answer them myself why did I eat because I didn't want to feel hungry why did I drink because I didn't want to feel anxious why did I flunk school because I didn't want to tolerate feeling like I wasn't good at something I had a very low frustration tolerance people who achieve high goals Studies have shown that they have very high frustration tolerance they are able to tolerate a large amount of unwanted thoughts and feelings in order to achieve something usually the reason that we're not able to achieve any sort of goal is because we have low frustration tolerance in that area and the thing about feelings and leaning into them and being able to tolerate them is that the more that you step into them the more they dissipate here's what I learned and what I do for myself to build frustration tolerance and what I did to get myself out of the place I was in one is accept the frustration oftentimes we spend so much energy in life trying to rid ourselves of anger anxiety frustration sadness whatever it is acceptance the second is labeling it label it as frustration I have frustration here and then the third step is creating realistic mental cues around the situation when I was growing up I was told to say affirmations to myself so if they work for you that's great but I actually found this work better for me I don't say I am a beautiful confident skinny woman when I was 85 pounds overweight not confident at all saying it just felt like I was like a fraud I want to make sure that I can get my life in order what can I say to myself I may feel anxious hungry and alone but I can become the person I want to be if I work hard enough with enough consistency realistic statement I can do it and the third tool that I used to change my life was proving my brain wrong I went personally most of my life thinking that my thoughts were me that my thoughts were real that my thoughts meant something I realized that that wasn't true at all thoughts are not facts and emotions are not commands or directives I think he's going to leave me I think he's cheating I think I'm going to lose my job I think I'm gonna die think about the amount of times that your brain goes to that well it's wired to do that what I hadn't been doing for so long was if I felt some acted on it and what I learned is I needed to break the link between feeling and behaving oftentimes we think I feel so strongly that it must mean something but what if it doesn't mean anything so there's four questions I ask myself when I don't know what to do because I have very strong emotions and racing thoughts one is it true say the thought is I'm so fat I'll never lose weight is it true maybe not is it absolutely true I mean it's not absolutely true because I guess I haven't tried everything okay so it's not absolutely true that you can never lose weight then the third question is how does this thought make me feel when I think to myself I can never lose weight how do I feel discouraged frustrated anxious depressed so is that a productive thought probably not and then the last question I ask myself is what would it be like if I didn't believe this thought I might actually try harder I would actually show up to the gym because I wouldn't feel like I was just like a dead end and there was no point of trying build a case as to why your thoughts are not true and then you can create more compelling reasons to convince yourself of new thoughts that will lead to the life that you want instead of ones that are just going to keep you stuck where you are