Dean Bokhari's Meaningful Show

DeanBokhari.com | EP227. Atomic Habits |

In this episode, we'll look at 3 Big Ideas from "Atomic Habits" by James Clear:

1. Using the "temptation bundling" method to build hard habits,
2. Aiming to get 1% better each day, and
3. The 4 laws of behavior change.

The journal—it’s one of those things that can be as useless as a piece of trash, or one of the most valuable things you’ve ever owned...

It all depends on what you fill that journal’s pages with.

Today, I’m going to share some of my personal favorite journaling ideas. You can use them all, combine the ones you like, or pick the single journaling idea that most resonates with where you’re at in life right now.

Either way, journaling—when done regularly—almost always leads to fresh, new insights and ideas that can absolutely transform your life.

I’ve used all of these journaling ideas below at some point in my life. Either to get through tough times, to achieve my goals, maintain my sanity, or to foster my creative efforts (like fleshing out topic ideas for articles, podcasts or talks.)

Whichever one of these journaling ideas you decide to use, just promise me this: you’ll actually use them. Because they’ll only work if you work them...

FULL ARTICLE VERSION AVAILABLE HERE:

• https://www.deanbokhari.com/journaling-ideas/

NOTE: This episode is a rerun of EP#181. "Write it Down, Make it Happen: 6 Journaling Ideas to Help You Make Massive Changes in Life" (Originally aired in May, 2017)

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DeanBokhari.com | EP200. Stand Up Straight With Your Shoulders Back

"The law of your mind is this: You will get a reaction or response from your subconscious mind according to the nature of the thought or idea you hold in your conscious mind." - Dr. Joseph Murphy (Author, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind)

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One of my favorite Self-Improvement books ever written, is "The Power of Your Subconscious Mind" by Dr. Joseph Murphy.

(... Yes, I'm fully aware of the sketchy title. Don't let it fool you. This isn't some "Secret" non-sense.")

Back to the book... Here's what Dr. Murphy says about believing in yourself:

“The law of your mind is the law of belief itself"

To put it another way: what we believe makes us who we are.

Having said that, it’s only natural to ask yourself the following question:

“What do I believe?”

The famous psychology writer William James observed that whatever people expect to be true will be so, regardless of whether the object of their belief exists.

In the Western world, we tend to place a lot of value on “the truth” (i.e. "I’ll believe it when I see it") — and this is no doubt super-important — but this paradigm pales in comparison to the power of *belief*, and how much of an impact it has on shaping our lives (both for better and for worse.)

• The bottom line is this: whatever you give your subconscious—false or true, good or bad—it will register as fact.

That said, you might want to avoid joking about misfortune and be more mindful about certain types of self-deprecating humor... because the subconscious has no sense of humor.

A mentally disturbed person and a mentally stable person share the same power of belief; the mentally stable/sane people are different from the mentally disturbed/insane only in that they retain objectivity about their beliefs. When a man in a hospital says he's Elvis Presley, he's not “making it up,” he knows he's Elvis.

We need to use this same power to help us achieve our own goals in life + business ...

Beginning right now, make the decision to begin using this power (of belief) to stop wishing and start knowing that you're:

a business genius, or- the perfect spouse, or that - you've got the physique of an Adonis.- (or, obviously, whatever else you want to do, be or have in life + business.)

The trick is to choose to know something that seems almost crazy, but not quite—something that seemed impossible to us a year ago, yet at the same time would really be something that fulfills our deepest desire.

ACTIONABLE INSIGHT:

• After you’re done reading this, take out a sheet of paper and write “what do I believe?” up top.
• Now, apply this question ("what do I believe?") to each dimension of your life — physical, mental, emotional, spiritual — and write down your answer. For example, if you were to apply it to the emotional area of your life, you might ask yourself something like this: "what do I believe about my level of confidence when it comes to public speaking, and persuading people through conversation?"
• Next, take a look in the mirror and repeat what you wrote down... does it empower you? Inspire you? Get you excited about your life? If not, it might be a good idea to re-evaluate your beliefs.

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LIVE LIKE YOU GIVE A DAMN,

Dean Bokhari

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https://deanbokhari.com/acton-leads-motivation/ | Action → Motivation (Rerun*)

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ABOUT THIS EPISODE:

The majority of people looking for motivation will wait for something, or someone, to come around and motivate them before they can get up and take action to motivate themselves.

This is the wrong approach.

I operated with this “motivation comes before action” mentality for years before finally realizing that I had it all backwards. I would look for ways to get motivated to workout, to get up early, or to stop procrastinating and do my work. And I’d be motivated about doing these things for a little while, but shortly thereafter, the motivation would fade and I’d stop taking action.

Then I realized that the lifespan of motivation is a lot like the honeymoon phase of a new relationship—it’s really exciting at first, but that feeling doesn’t last. A relationship needs to be tended to, with small and thoughtful actions, in order to sustain itself. Motivation works in a similar way. We need to take small and thoughtful actions to keep the motivation train moving along, or else it’ll lose steam and come to a screeching halt.

This realization led me to a simple discovery, which I now believe is the most important thing you need to know about getting motivated:

Action leads to motivation.

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*This episode is a rerun of EP188. Action Leads to Motivation, which was first broadcast on Aug 7, 2017