In this episode, I discuss why I think working on your emotional self is important to help you overcome things like imposter syndrome and help you bounce back faster from when things go wrong.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, where my goal is to give you 10-minute lessons on how to grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so you can have better careers, better relationships, and better personal finances.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones.
In today’s episode, I’m going to talk about the importance of working on your emotional self. By working on your emotional self, you can overcome a lot of the things that sabotage your life impostor syndrome, jealousy, feeling of loneliness, feeling overwhelmed, avoiding conflict, letting obstacles hold you down, and giving up. I was overweight as a kid, and I still have times where I have to overcome the voice in my head that says I’m not good enough and my self-consciousness prevents me from doing something. I am lot better now than when I was in high school and in the Marines thanks to books like The Feeling Good Handbook which taught me the 16 cognitive biases that people tell themselves like the Mind Reader, which is expecting people to read your mind and do the things that you want to do without actually telling them. Or having a convert contract where you did something for someone else and now you expect something in return but you didn’t clearly state out loud to the other person.
Once you get physically and mentally strong, then I think you can start working on your emotional self. The physical part helps with confidence and helps you understand that you can transform your body and mental self helps with awareness. I’m doing a lot of new things now like recording this podcast because I read somewhere that it will be helpful with my brand, and I heard and saw how those people started out and I feel if I work on it, I can be just as good with enough time.
Once your emotionally strong, then that’s when you can start taking it to another level. Things that used to hold you back now can be done with ease. I used to be so scared of dancing because I thought I was going to be judged, but then I took some Salsa Lessons and I gained more confidence, then it allowed me to dance in other genre but it took time.
I say one of the best things that helped me with my mindset, was The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck by Mark Manson. This book help is a book about values and explains what the things we should care about and what we shouldn’t care about. We tend to care about stuff that we really can’t control and one of my favorite things to do is write the things I can’t control on one piece of paper and on another piece of paper write the things I can control. Then I toss the paper with things I can’t control in the trash and focus on paper with the things I can control. This relieves a lot of stress because when those things you can’t control happen, you just let them pass by and you’re back on track for the things you like to do. Instead of being the person who loses control when a storm cancels your flight or there is traffic. There is always an opportunity in a crisis, you just have to be emotionally strong enough to handle the crisis and work on your opportunity.
I think one of the worse things we do, it says if we do this item, then things are going to be really awful or really great. I remember with things like dancing, I was afraid people would judge me and then I would be less liked. That’s not the case from my experience as an adult, it’s more mind over matter, if you don’t mind, it don’t matter. Your reactions are what gives people fuel if you don’t give them fuel, then the fire will fire out, you just have the handle the heat for a little bit but it won’t burn you if you’re emotionally strong enough not to overreact.
One of the things that you can do to get emotionally stronger, is to take an improv class. One you’re going to be told to do a lot of uncomfortable things like sing in front of a crowd, which I did outside in a circle on a busy street in Washington, DC, make funny voices and faces, and placed in awkward situations like trying talk like Elvis and who is always hula hooping, that was tough. When you do improv, you want to try to knock it out of the park every time you speak, but usually, that causes you to overthink things and then causes hesitation and then the scene loses its energy. So if you do improv enough, you’ll build up that skill of doing uncomfortable things and not letting that voice in your head hold you back.
Working on your emotional self is a muscle that needs to be built up, whether that means going to therapy or doing something challenging like walking on hot coals. I talk to people all the time that don’t want to want to do something because they have some type of fear, whether it’s not raising your prices because you’re afraid of what your customers might think even though it is causing you to be overworked and for little pay, not taking an improv class because you’re not strong enough, not going for that promotion because you would feel like an impostor if you got the position. We only have so many opportunities in life and if we don’t take advantage of them, we’ll lose them forever because time is a lost hour or year, is something that you can’t get back. I hate to waste time because as I’m getting into my 30s, I realize how fast time is going by I wish I had more time to do the things I want to do. The last thing I want to do is be on my death bed and wish for more time. I saw what my parents did, and especially my mom was miserable at her job and I don’t want to be in that position, because it takes a toll on your health and your self-confidence, then you get stress out from life and all its obligations like paying bills.
Having control over one’s emotions is what separates the professionals from the amateurs in life. You’re able to take more chances, you able to bounce back from setback faster, you’re able to handle conflict better, you’re able to keep your ego in check, and you’re going to live a better life. One of my favorite quotes is “It’s not a question of who is going to let me, it’s who is going to stop me” by Ann Rynd and the only person that is going to stop me is myself. We have two choices in life, we can either have our emotions control us or we can control our emotions. The choice is yours. I know which choice I am going to make.
I want to thank you for listening to today’s episode.
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