The worst self improvement mistake

• I feel like all of us at some point in our life have gotten into a bit of a rut, a period of our life where motivation is hard to come by. We're not feeling as energetic and motivated as we usually are about life in general. And the goals that we've set for ourselves either have faded away from the forefront of our mind, or we've been so discouraged by them that they seem completely unattainable.

I think periods like this in our life are pretty much unavoidable. I don't think it's possible to feel 100% energetic and enthusiastic about life all the time. You're always gonna come down from whatever high energy state that you've been in. It's just a fact of human life. But I feel like a lot of people are prone to staying in these lows longer than is necessary, and a lot of people find it really hard to climb out of these lower periods.

And I feel like I definitely fall into this category. If I'm not careful, it's really easy for me to slip into reclusiveness. I'll just do my own thing on my computer, and days and weeks and months will pass by, and I will slowly become less and less inspired about life. And you might totally relate to this. Maybe it's really difficult for you to muster up the energy to get out of these pseudo depressive, low periods of life. Maybe you're in one of those periods of life right now, and you're not sure how to get out of it, and you want to get out of it.

I mean, I feel like pretty much everybody who feels bad wants to not feel bad anymore. And I think the natural thing that a lot of people do when they feel like crap is they tend to wait around for some kind of aha moment, some sort of quote or something that really just shifts our perspective and launches us out of our depression and into a life that we've always dreamed of.

But even though this is sort of the most common way of dealing with these lows, I feel like it's also the most inefficient way of dealing with it by far. And I would even go so far as saying that it's the biggest mistake that people make when trying to improve themselves or trying to get out of a bad situation and into a new one. And it all stems from this idea that if we want to change our behavior and change our life, then we must first change our thoughts.

And while I think that's true to an extent, I also think it's super inefficient to do that. How often do you come across a really, really good idea that changes your mindset and launches you into a new way of living? Those types of nuggets of wisdom are extremely rare. You might only get a handful of those in your entire lifetime. Seriously, ask yourself the last time you read a quote on Instagram that launched you out of depression, that completely changed the way you run your business, or made you go after the girl, or...

I feel like after a certain amount of time, you read so many quotes, or you read so many self-improvement books, or you watch so many self-improvement videos like this one, and it all just becomes the same bleh, it doesn't really matter. Words are just words; they can only do so much. That being said though, I read a quote the other day that changed my perspective. And now you can disregard everything I said at the first part of this video.

But this quote was interesting because it's kind of an anti-quote quote. The quote said, "We don't think ourselves into new ways of living; we live ourselves into new ways of thinking." And that's a quote by Richard Rohr. And I don't know anything about Richard Rohr. I did a quick Google search of him, and I think he's some Christian writer of sorts. I think this quote really spoke to me because it's different than most quotes.

This quote reminded me of the fact that every time that my life has changed radically, it's always because I've forced myself to live a different way first. And by living that way, I changed the way I thought. The action precedes the thoughts. A really good example of this is when I was going absolutely stir crazy a couple months ago.

I just wasn't getting outside very often, even though I was totally allowed to. I was just used to being in front of my computer all the time. Days and weeks were going by like this where I was just literally addicted to the Internet that I pretty much snapped. I just said to myself, "I need to go jump in a lake or something." So that's what I did.

I grabbed a towel. I drove to my nearest body of water, and I jumped in a lake. And even though it was the beginning of April and the water was freezing cold, just that jolt of doing something I hadn't done before, breaking out of the pattern, doing something different, I was suddenly more optimistic and full of energy and vitality. Maybe it's just the effect of the cold water and that created some kind of endorphin rush or something like that.

But the important takeaway is that by doing something that I hadn't done before, I started thinking things I hadn't thought before. And I can't drill this point home hard enough: stop waiting around for some quotes or some video. Ironically, this might be the video that springs you into action, so I don't know how that works out philosophically. Maybe this whole video is bullshit.

But either way, action is a far more reliable source of inspiration than inspiration itself. We don't think ourselves into new ways of living; we live ourselves into new ways of thinking. So I was watching "Groundhog Day" with Bill Murray the other day, and that might seem kind of random. It's a great movie; you should check it out if you haven't seen it already.

But I'm about to spoil the whole thing. So if you haven't watched that movie, watch that movie and don't watch this part. "Groundhog Day" is the perfect example of this whole concept that I've been talking about in this video. Since the only people watching this part of the video right now have already seen "Groundhog Day," then you'll know that "Groundhog Day" is about a guy who's trapped living the same day over and over and over again.

And no matter what, he can't stop living the same day. He tries to kill himself three times or even more than that because he's going crazy. He keeps on living the same day in the same place. No matter what he does, he can't escape this same day. But the guy's a jerk. The guy is super selfish; he's pessimistic; he's a glass-half-empty kind of guy.

He only lives for himself and he's bitter and resentful towards everyone around him. He thinks people who are happy and enjoying life and are full of love and excitement are ignorant and stupid and naive. And on the surface, this movie might seem like it's just a sci-fi movie. It's about a guy who can't escape the same day.

But if you look below the surface, "Groundhog Day" is a metaphor for the monotony and dread that he invited into his own life through his pessimistic way of thinking. And he was only able to escape "Groundhog Day" by stepping outside of himself, by living differently and by helping others. His world opened up and so did his heart.

His whole outlook on life changed because he started living differently. And it was only then that he was able to escape "Groundhog Day." So if you feel like you're stuck in "Groundhog Day," start living differently. You don't need some sort of emotional epiphany to start changing things up. Start doing things that you're not used to doing.

And by living differently, you'll start to think differently.

What's up, guys? Nighttime Joey here. I just wanna say thank you to Skillshare for sponsoring this video. I've recently been taking the street photography class by Trashhand, and it's really inspiring me to get out there and just take photos of pretty much everything. Here in North America, it's really seeming like the pandemic is coming to a close, and I'm really looking forward to Canada allowing me to travel internationally.

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If you like this video, make sure you actually hit the Like button because when you do that, the algorithm blesses me and it shoves my bald head into other people's homepages helping them out, which also helps me out, so it's kind of a win-win for everybody. If you're lurking here, consider subscribing. But other than that, it's good to be back. I'm posting another video later this month. Looking forward to you guys seeing that and me posting it. Have an excellent rest of your week. (upbeat music)