Ep103_7Decisions2024
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Adam Gragg: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Decide Your Legacy podcast. This is episode number 103. Today, I'm going to talk to you about seven decisions for a great 2024. These are lifestyle decisions. If If you found the Decide Your Legacy podcast helpful, do me a favor and subscribe, give it a rating and review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your [00:01:00] podcast content.

This helps it to grow organically and help more people. I'm your host, Adam Gragg. I've been a coach. I've been a speaker, content creator, and licensed mental health professional for 25 years. My passion is helping others find the self confidence and clarity to face their biggest fears and live their legacy.

I talk about stuff I struggle with myself. I don't have it all figured out. I'm a fellow traveler who struggles. Just like my clients and listeners, I want to share something uncomfortable. I did recently, as I do in every episode, because nothing is more important to your mental health and facing your fears.

And nothing is more damaging than playing it safe. So on Christmas day, I reached out to 17 people. I usually would not have reached out to. That was uncomfortable. I actually sent a picture of my dog to some of these people and it was cool. It was fun. It was risky. I'm glad I did it. My clients who want to make significant life changes like a new career, a new business, a new [00:02:00] healthier relationship.

They agree to do things that are challenging. They agree to do things that are going to feel uncomfortable in the moment, yet nine times out of 10, they feel energized when they have actually gotten it done. So this is the podcast that you do not just listen to. My listeners get uncomfortable too. I want you to start off by thinking about and picturing 2024 going very well.

For you, how will you show up in your relationships? What kinds of things will you do differently? How's it going to go better for you? I want you to think about that. And most of all, focus on how you're going to feel at the end of 2024 if you have this successful year that you can picture. It's hard to picture a great year sometimes.

How much would it be worth it to you? to feel that way at the end of the year. I mean, I would imagine if you're really doing this, you're going to feel energized, motivated, happier, more positive. You're going to be enjoying life to a greater extent in 2024. to write down that feeling. What is one of those feelings that you would feel?

Decision number one. These are seven [00:03:00] decisions. Again, decision number one is choose to focus on your dreams. Have, had you already, I had you already start on that here. So that's the first great decision and we don't get. Things done because we don't focus on it. We start dreaming and picturing what life could actually be and it becomes our focus.

We're going to head in the direction of our focus. I have a business coach and he's been very helpful to me. He has, and I talked through business decisions with him, been meeting with him for over a year, maybe a year and a half. We meet for a couple hours, once a month. And I was talking about growing Decider Legacy.

And. Getting new office space, bigger space, so I could add more people and everything. And I, as we talked about it, he pointed out to me that, Adam, you, you focus on what can go wrong, not what can go right. And he was exactly right. I put more energy into what could go wrong. It's not bad to think about that a little bit, but Make 80 percent of your focus on what can go right.

That's an intentional decision. It's a [00:04:00] choice that you can make. You have little control over much of your life. What other people do, what happens, your past, mistakes you've made, the personal challenges you have today, the health challenges you have today, but you do have influence over how you act and how you think over your perspective.

I had a client who was reaching a bunch of goals, and in the past she had been procrastinating and not making great progress, and I asked her what had changed, what's different. The answer was that she was focusing on her vision every day. She was focusing on her goals every day. And she was making progress, which was energizing her and giving her momentum to reach that next goal.

And that next goal, which we're all leading her towards her vision. An action you can take right now is to post somewhere in your house or in your car, where you'll see it every day, something related to this picture in your mind of how your life could be this time next year, 2020 24. So maybe it's a specific level of health or the way that you're engaging people or how you will feel.

Write it [00:05:00] down and post it. I like to do it on my bathroom mirror, on my fridge, on my calendar, on my car dash.

If you choose to start focusing on your dreams, you're going to find that life will become a little scarier in some ways, an energizing type of scary. And life is also going to be more enjoyable. You're also going to find that it can be easy to go cave back into yourself because that's where you were before.

That's where you're actually going to be most comfortable. The second choice is to choose an outward perspective. This means that you're not making it about you. When we get consumed in our emotions, how people will respond to us, how people are treating us, what's going on in our lives relationally, externally, and it's all about our emotions and how we're perceived, it's about us.

Anxiety increases the more we make our life about us. In fact, it's a great gauge. When your anxiety is increasing, it's something, it's your body telling you something needs to be fixed and changed. Anxiety is a blessing. Because of that, so our [00:06:00] emotions can consume us and take away our power. We're making it about us.

We're believing our thoughts and our feelings as factual. We can decrease that by getting out of ourselves. When I flew on my first trip to Europe. So I was going from from Newark, New Jersey to Milan on a direct flight from, I mean, I'd flown to Newark from Wichita, from Chicago to Wichita, everything, but I was terrified to get on that plane and I couldn't quite figure out how.

I mean, it wasn't the best time of my life. I was struggling with a lot of things personally, but I couldn't figure out at the moment, why am I so incredibly terrified? I'm just getting on a plane to go to a foreign country where I know really no one at the airport, but I knew some, my sister was there. My brother in law were over there in Milan.

And we were going to Lake Como, but I was so scared and I was focusing so much on what could go wrong and it really wasn't turbulence or a plane crash, although that used to be a terrifying thing for me. It's not now, thank goodness. But I was terrified of all the unknowns of going to a foreign country.

And I'm speaking the language. Are they gonna pick me up at the time, on the right time at the [00:07:00] airport? What's gonna happen while I'm actually there? I was a work trip, so I was gonna do some things at a wellness retreat as a coach and. That was an internal, it was a me, my feelings perspective. I was giving all this power away to how I was actually feeling.

I was calling people, should I cancel? Should I fly back home? Oh, I'd be so ashamed of myself if I did. And if I canceled on this thing and I didn't, thank goodness I didn't, but I got there, had a great time. It really opened up my eyes to a whole new perspective and a whole new world and a whole new environment for me and opportunities I never thought were.

out there internationally, but it was amazing for me. And I was so terrified, I almost missed out on it. And I find I'm about to have a breakthrough when my fear and my anxiety escalates to a great level, because that means that I am so scared of what could happen because it could be so good. And it's, I will justify it saying it's what could go wrong, but it's not.

And so when we choose to have an outward perspective, we're choosing relationally to engage people. in a [00:08:00] different way. We're thinking about how I can help somebody else. What opportunity is there for me to engage and ask questions? And that leads us to better relationships. The third decision is not to go it alone.

People have been around a lot of family recently. Because I'm doing this podcast right after Christmas 2023. I know that many of you listening are drained and you probably feel that the coaching, if you're a client, has not been helpful during this season of your life. And I have tried to warn you, but we go back into bad habits when we're around.

environments that may not be as healthy and they're not necessarily ones that we choose to be in on a regular basis. So many of you may feel drained and may have had boundary difficulties because people had been infringing on your boundaries and you had to set and establish boundaries and maybe you got some pushback and maybe you had people even accusing you of being selfish or not loving.

I don't know. But you may feel, you may not feel like yourself [00:09:00] and be ready to just take a break. And I mean, personally, I have been around family for the last week and I've established good boundaries, but I do feel like there have been some more difficult interactions. So, I mean, for example, and this is not to bash on anybody whatsoever, but when I go home, my parents, who I love and who are great people, they treat me like sometimes like I'm, 16, not to any fault of their own, but for example, like my dad will say, Hey, go help your mom.

And I'm like, okay, I'll go help my mom. And I do it and everything, but, or my dad will ask me how many pieces of pumpkin pie have you had? I'm thinking I'm 50 years old, but I don't say that. I just roll with it. It's not a big deal. You know, it's just. him, and it's a sign of how they're trying to help as my parents, but I can feel drained.

And that's not a draining situation. I mean, that really isn't one of them, but some interactions were, and I can have this tendency to be codependent where I need people, need people's approval. I can [00:10:00] believe my value can comes from how people are treating me and perceiving me, or how I perceive their Thinking about me or interacting with me, but that's not healthy for me.

So when you go with other people in these healthy interactions, which some relationships can be both if you don't establish healthy boundaries, but not going it alone is choosing in 2024 to have people around you who you're opening up to and you're sharing your struggles with. It doesn't have to be a lot of people, but one person who you're really being honest with.

Not to get validation, not to get some kind of manipulation of their life and their relationship with you, which can be hard to identify. Manipulation is a deceptive thing. We often don't know how we're doing it. I've had some, some awareness this year of how I can be manipulative and I'm not doing it willfully, I'm not trying, but I'm trying to impact relationships to get what I want out of them in an unhealthy way from my own insecurity.

And that's not [00:11:00] good. And that's what I'm working on. And I've had some breakthroughs there and it's really encouraging. And that means I'm not going it alone. I'm not needing capital N E E D relationships. I'm needing relationships, small N E E D. It's something that I need to be a better person because I want their honest feedback.

And I want to go with other people because I know I'm more likely to reach my goals. I know I'm more likely to be emotionally encouraged. I know there's people who can come into my life that give me energy in a positive way, which I want in my life. So that's what I'm talking about here. So how can we engage other people in a healthy way?

Not our relationships are our responsibility. You can't blame other people for feeling discouraged or drained in your relationships. That's your boundary to set and yours alone. People who, and I know this just from dating as a single middle [00:12:00] aged man that there are needy people out there in the dating world.

And a question that I'll ask sometimes that I can find is helpful is, you know, how long you've been single. And when they tell me they haven't been single, I mean, sometimes they're not honest about it because they'll tell me they're single yet. They're actually still in a relationship. It's just maybe not official right now or whatever.

And that's, that's totally fine, but it's a sign. It's a red flag for me because People that can't be single confidently are not going to be in a relationship confidently. They're going to be insecure in that relationship because they are capital N E E D, needing a relationship to feel secure in themselves.

They're finding their value externally. It's not a healthy thing. Work on that and then you'll really start having healthy relationships because there'll be relationships that can feel secure. Feed into you that you don't need, but you want. It's a choice. I want people to be in relationships that they want to be in, that they are energized by, that are making both people better.

That's a healthy thing. So an action you can take here is to write down a group or a people, a group of people that you can [00:13:00] engage this year. I share this kind of stuff a lot, but just write it down in your journal somewhere. I mean, is it a club that you could join? Is it a church you could join? Is it a, A running club you could join.

Is it a class you could take where you're getting to know people because you're going consistently at the same time every week to that specific yoga class and you're intentionally trying to interact with people after the class or before the class, waiting for everybody to lay down their mats? Is it a group, professional group that you haven't thought of engaging before, like a BNI group or some sort of coaching business owner group that you haven't been in?

even been involved in in the past, you know, or maybe you haven't, but you know, like Vistage. Think about it and write it down. So if you found this podcast helpful, hit the link to Shatterproof Yourself Lite. It is a course that I've put together and it's, it's a brief course. You can watch it right now after this podcast and it has seven small steps to a giant leap in your mental health.

There's a workbook, four page workbook, where you write down your answers swiftly and you can [00:14:00] share it with your friends, go through it with somebody else. You're going to. I find it very valuable, especially if you found this content helpful because it digs in deeper, much deeper into these concepts that we're discussing today.

These decisions that we're discussing today. So seven small steps to a giant leap in your mental health. Check it out. The fourth decision is choose to be healthy. Yes, that is a choice to be healthy. Nobody can choose. Health for you. You can't blame it on anybody else. If you're telling yourself, Oh my gosh, I, I ate a whole bunch at Thanksgiving because there was so much rich food and this unhealthy stuff that was put in front of me and I didn't want to let anybody down by not eating it.

That's an excuse. You can choose, you're not in a foreign country here with people you don't know, where it is going to be offensive to them if you don't eat what they had made. Now, I know this can be and sound really rigid, if someone just was really had this pumpkin pie they were so proud of and everything, well have a bite of the pumpkin pie, you know what I mean?

But you don't have to have two pieces of it. With Cool Whip on it, which is what I did, [00:15:00] and I'm not really ashamed of it because that's what I wanted to do, but you can have boundaries within yourself and it's your responsibility to eat healthy. It's your responsibility to make time for your exercise.

It's your responsibility to get enough sleep and to rest when your body tells you it needs rest. It's your responsibility to Take the time to eat healthy and plan your meals out. And I find that's very helpful for me to actually plan my meals out and freeze some things. I mean, when I have frozen breakfast burritos, I eat healthier because those are in the fridge and I'm not going to grab something quick that's not as healthy.

And I'm going to enjoy it more too because I'm proud that I made this thing that I can put in my fridge. I usually am when I freeze food because I don't do that very often. So I feel good that I planned and worked it out and have it ready for me and my daughter and friends or whoever's going to share it with me.

So we're talking about getting enough sleep, getting enough exercise, getting enough water intake, eating the right foods. And I don't care what it is for you, but whatever it is, commit to it and stick with it and make a plan. And that's the action I want you to consider [00:16:00] taking today. So plan health into your week and do it detailed.

So if you're going to get four hours of working out into the week, we'll plan it into your schedule. Is it in the morning? And that means you're going to wake up at a certain time. Is it in the evening? Or is it during your lunch break? I don't know when it is for you, but when are you going to get that water into your life?

So I like to drink 32 ounces when I wake up, before I have a cup of coffee. How are you going to plug your meals into your life? Are you going to have lunch at the same time every day or dinner at the same time every day? It's one thing my dad has done for pretty much my whole life. As far as I can remember, he doesn't snack between meals.

And then he eats at the same time. My mom and dad, every night at 6 o'clock. This, I can't call at 6 o'clock because they will get mad at me if I call and I end up calling at 6 o'clock without even remembering this. That's how I am. I'm so scattered sometimes, but they eat and it's consistent. He has the same breakfast generally at the same time every morning, the same lunch at the same time every morning, not the same exact food.

I'm not saying that, but he has a lunch at the same [00:17:00] time every day. Great thing. So if you're going to work out, when are you going to do it? If you're going to Sleep. When are you going to plan the sleep in your life? To get eight hours of sleep, which is what I believe is a great place to start. Seven and a half to eight hours of sleep.

So for me, it's going to bed at 9 30, getting up at 5 30. I also believe when it comes to this health area is there's some kind of intellectual stimulation, which is going to take your mind off your worries, and so reading is very helpful for me.

It's actually essential for me to be mentally healthy, and so I try to plan in reading before bed, 30 minutes if I can, or 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes in the evening, every day. So what your challenge is, is to actually make a schedule for your week, and where are you going to plug these things in?

It's really simple. It's those really five things. Water intake, exercise, diet, nutrition, bedtime, and workouts. So the fifth choice, the fifth decision is choose to be happy. Yes, I said it. You can choose happiness. Happiness is a lifestyle, and it's a byproduct of doing specific things intentionally, consistently over time.

You [00:18:00] can't make yourself happy in the moment, but you can choose the lifestyle that gives happiness a great possibility of occurring. You can't force it, but it can happen. So you can blame nobody. If you're miserable, what are you putting into your mind and choosing to focus on? What are your inputs? Are you choosing to focus on negative things consistently? Are you choosing to avoid gratitude, avoid people potentially because they challenge you to see the good things in your life and so you're being, you're being consumed by the negativity in your life. How are you managing your stress? What are you doing to choose happiness?

So I know for me, it's A habit I've had for years and I've had many clients that have developed this habit as well is to choose gratitude and put it into their life. And so the daily five and five, five things that I'm grateful for that happened yesterday, five things I'm looking forward to later in the day that I'm excited about right now.

An action you can take is what are you allowing? I mean, write this down somewhere. What are you allowing into your life that's taking some of this potential [00:19:00] joy from you? It could be a specific person where you have to have, where you can have boundaries. It could be a specific type of activity where you can have some boundaries by delegation or by even not doing it potentially, because you know it's something that's not really helpful for you and you don't have to do it right away.

What are you consuming with media and movies? And what kind of books are you reading? You can do an assessment right now. What can you? Cut out or minimize, that's taking out, taking some of the joy from your life. So the six, taking some of the joy from your life. So the sixth decision to make to have a great 2024 is choose to journal.

I'm a big fan. So I have a client who was on a podcast episode recently, and he was in one of the most popular episodes I've had of the Decide Your Legacy podcast. I'm going to link to that. And it's on journaling and creating a journaling practice. Now, this same friend has created a habit of running as well, which has [00:20:00] had a huge impact on his life also.

And he most likely never thought he was actually going to be able to do this, but he set the goal, established this habit, and he's continued to run consistently. And as a byproduct of that, has lost, I believe close to 25 pounds in the process. It's been a life changer, a game changer. I mean, change your health, change your mindset, creates a different habit of thinking for you.

You can go back and reference your journaling. And the journaling was a specific decision that he made to do this in the evening, every day for a specific period of time, another client did the same thing and he did this on his own. I believe, I think it was just something that he came up with.

Actually, both clients came up with these things and rewarded himself with a new pen when he got, I think, 30, 40, 50 days of really nice. Tactile turn pen when he got that number of journaling days off on the books, you know, crossed it off. It was a great goal. So, the seventh decision [00:21:00] is to choose discomfort.

When you go into 2024, how are you going to be in situations where you're going to be uncomfortable, and you're intentionally going into these situations knowing those strong emotions are going to come, but you're still going to do it? And for me, it has a lot to do with growing my business. Those are the uncomfortable things that I am choosing to do.

It has to do with reaching out to people in my family in a different kind of way or reaching out to people that I haven't connected with in a while, reaching out in a different way with my daughter. Those are uncomfortable things in healthier ways that are riskier, that are vulnerable. So you're taking a risk.

Maybe it's trying a new food. Maybe it's going to a new place, going on a trip. Maybe it's going in. Engaging in opportunities that you've turned down in the past to be invited to go do things with friends. Facing a fear that you want to face, like a fear of heights or a fear of animals in a certain way.

I mean, maybe you go to the zoo and you face being around animals for the first time in a long time. cooking something new, [00:22:00] trying a new recipe. Maybe it's reading fiction when you are all consumed with non fiction. Maybe it's listening, listening to a new podcast when you didn't even think you could get podcasts on your phone because you're kind of out of the loop, but you're going to open up a whole new world to yourself by doing that.

And if you're listening to this, you're not one of those people, but maybe it's a friend you can encourage to try into something new. Hopefully you'll encourage them to listen to the Decide Your Legacy podcast. So. Make a list, as an action here, of five uncomfortable things that you can do. Make a list and write those things down.

Just right now you can put down one or two. And an action you can take is do one new thing a week. Some small thing a week. And so, I want you to be excited about something that I have coming out and It's going to be a mini course that is free to people who purchase Shatterproof Yourself, the full version, as a pre order. And so you can check it out. It's called 25 actions, uncomfortable actions you can take. Going to be a mini [00:23:00] course that people are going to get for pre ordering the full version of Shatterproof Yourself. So you can make that. You can decide to do uncomfortable things. Each and every week. So let's go ahead and recap these decisions here. So decision number one is decide to focus on a vision, on your dreams, decide.

Decision number two is choose an outward perspective, not making it about you. It's going to really improve and decrease, improve your mental health and decrease your anxiety. Number three decision, number three is don't go at it alone. Choose in 2024 to have relationships and people you're opening up to.

Just one person is all you need, but you're getting real about real stuff in your life and you're not hiding any longer. Decision number four is choose to be healthy, work health into your life. Decision number five is choose to be happy. Yes, what you focus on the most, you're going to amplify. If you're miserable, well, analyze what you've been focusing on.

Number, number six is choose to journal and number seven is choose to be uncomfortable. Those are your decisions. So remember my rule, Adam's 80 [00:24:00] 20 rule. So 20 percent of transformational change is insight. You're getting insight today. 80 percent is taking action. What action are you going to take from this podcast today?

And if you really want to make it stick, choose to teach it to somebody else as well. Not just take the action, but choose to teach it to somebody else. What resonated with you most today? Act on whatever inspired you to take some kind of emotional risk and do something different. If you're interested, I am forming legacy coaching groups for 2024 right now as we speak, and these are a max of seven people in a group.

If you're interested, reach out, hit the link. You'll have some information on that. Just send me a link in the contact information that you're interested in Legacy Coaching. I want to sign off today the way that I always do. Make it your mission to live the life now, today, starting today, that you want to be remembered for.

10 years after you're gone. People are hanging out talking about family that have passed away on New Year's Day. [00:25:00] What do you want them to say about your life? And would they say that today? And if not, make a decision to live that life now. So you decide your legacy, nobody else. I appreciate you greatly and I will see you next time.