Written by Matt Zavadil
Updated February 10, 2024
Matt Memo #6 – 7-minute read
Video Version of Memo:
Let’s talk about developing your habits.
The reason I’m talking about this today is because I just read a passage in BJ Fogg’s book, Tiny Habits, that reminded me of an idea I picked up years ago.
That idea is this:
You should develop your habits because in moments of weakness you're going to fall back on those habits.
The problem is most people haven’t sat back and thought: What are my habits?
Addicted To Negative Self-Talk
Too many people, and I’m still a recovering addict myself, are addicted to negative self-talk.
Meaning when everything’s working out perfectly…
- Your marriage is going great
- Your kids are doing fantastic in school
- Your life is rolling along that happy-go-lucky path
- You’re feeling solid about everything…
Isn’t it easy at that point to:
- Talk nicely to everybody
- Think positively,
- Have a bright outlook about the future,
- Feel like everything’s going to be joyous and perfect, right?
That’s easy.
But what happens when you hit a crisis?
That’s when your habits kick in.
If you haven’t thought through who you are as a person and how you talk to yourself inside your mind, what usually occurs is when something bad happens, you begin the negative self-talk.
You might say,
“I’m no good.”
“I’m worthless.”
“Things were going great there for a while but I knew the other shoe was going to fall.”
“I always end up doing something wrong.”
“I’m just no good.”
Did you realize that for most people on this planet, that’s what they think all day long?
So what I want you to focus on right here is you need to start developing your habits.
The Best Habit To Start…
In my opinion, the best habit to start with is self-talk.
Start changing your self-talk so that in the moments of weakness, in the moments of life crisis, you can look ahead and say,
"Okay, yes, this happened, but I'm on the correct path.” “I'm on the path towards success in my life.”
However you define that.
Doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with money or anything else from a physical or tangible perspective.
Success is what makes you happy inside.
So obviously, you first have to sit down and work on that.
Figure out what your purpose is and why you’re here… that kind of thing.
But what I want to focus on right now is this:
You’ve got to train yourself and train your mind so that when the bad things happen…
…and the funny thing is when you train yourself properly on this, the bad things don’t happen anymore because you’ll learn how to not look at anything as bad…
…good or bad, they just “are.”
But if you’re right now stuck in that negative self-talk concept…
..you have to…
…and I’m gonna say…
…when things go “bad” because that’s possibly how you’re thinking about it currently…
But you’ve got to train yourself.
First Step To Training Yourself Into Forward Momentum
And the way you do that is you:
- Read the correct books.
- You listen to the correct audios
- You watch the correct videos
I’m not going to go over anything specific on that, in this moment, because there is so much personal development information available to us in our time.
There are plenty of personal growth books you can go and take a look at, audios and videos that you can find on the internet to help you focus on how to think properly.
If you need a kickstart on that, consider Googling:
- BJ Fogg
- Napoleon Hill
- James Clear
- Tony Robbins
Looking For The “GOOD”
But as you develop a mature way to talk inside your mind…
…what starts to happen…
…which is pretty cool…
…is when you hit a little hiccup in life and things don’t go quite as you had planned, you can easily keep the positive self-talk going, looking for the “good” in the situation.
Because there’s always “good” in a situation.
Even something you perceive as being terrible and awful, if you really look, there was a reason for that.
How many times have you gone through a situation and six months, a year, or two later, you looked back and said,
"Wow, when I was going through that, it was so terrible. "But now I can see why it had to happen. "It changed me in this particular way in order to set myself up to be where I am today. "It changed my thinking, it changed who I am, it changed my outlook on life."
Quick Example From My Life
When I was 16, my Dad got a new job in a city about 3 hours away from my friends, my entire teenage life.
I went into my junior year of high school angry at the world.
By the time I graduated high school, I looked back at the situation and saw the good in it.
Prior to that experience, I lived a pretty easy life.
This was in the 80s when the “latchkey kids’ started to rise in number.
99% of my friends lived in broken homes with only their mom or dad around.
And plenty of times, neither their mom or dad was around when we got out of school.
Funny enough, they all loved to come to our house and I came to understand that they yearned for the loving two-parent environment.
My Dad was a teacher and my Mom was a nurse at a nearby school.
Their schedules matched the schedule of my brother and I perfectly.
They were always around and always supportive and loving.
But I had never faced adversity.
Until that year of 1987 when we moved away from all that I have ever known.
I’m an introvert.
As an introvert, I need time to adapt to change.
I don’t enjoy chaotic situations.
But ever since that experience where I was uprooted…literally…from everything I had ever known…
I’m better at handling that stuff.
I didn’t handle it well that first year.
I was angry and let everyone around me know about it.
I didn’t care about making new friends.
I quit playing football.
I went inside myself.
But over time, I came to understand that the “bad” situation ended up being a “good” one.
It made me stronger.
It helped me become independent and find a new strength from within myself…
…one I later used as I started building a business, met adversity, and had to keep chugging along even when I felt like a failure.
How To Get The Life You Want
So I want you to start focusing on this idea of looking for the good in the bad.
Teach yourself to strengthen your resolve and develop stronger personal development habits.
You’ve got to do this if you want to get to where you want to go in life.
And when I’m talking about positive thinking, let me end with this.
I’m not talking about fake it till you make it, okay?
I’m not saying to act as if you’re feeling great even when you’re not.
Somebody says, “How are you doing?”
You say, “I’m doing fantastic.”
Well, you know deep down inside that you’re lying to yourself.
It’s not a true emotion.
You’re not going to bring yourself up out of the pain and into joy just by saying that.
You’ve got to learn how to get authentic positive emotions flowing through you.
It’s a developed skill for many people to see things “go wrong” and to look at the situation in a positive manner, see the good, and continue on towards your main goal, your chief aim.
Moving Up The “Emotional Scale”
Now consider this:
If you’re feeling any emotions like:
- Revenge
- Anger
- Discouragement
- Hatred towards something or someone…
You can’t go from those emotions and immediately go to passion, joy, or enthusiasm.
But you can bring yourself up a little bit from that level of the emotional scale.
Maybe you can just go do something you enjoy and it brings you up to feeling more like doubt or disappointment or maybe feeling a little bit overwhelmed.
And then maybe you move up a little bit higher and you feel a little frustration or irritation, maybe then boredom…
…and then eventually as you continue moving up the emotional scale…
…and looking at the good in the situation, stop focusing on the negative and don’t even allow yourself to think the negative, all of a sudden, you might become hopeful. “Oh, I guess there’s a chance here for me to get to where I want to go.”
Now you’re getting optimistic.
Then you start expecting the positive.
You start getting some belief in yourself that things aren’t as bad as maybe you thought they were.
That there’s a way out of this and that there was some good in that situation.
It changed you.
It helped you in some way.
Then you start feeling enthusiasm, and some eagerness towards the future.
You feel happy.
You start feeling passionate about what you’re doing.
And then you get to that level of joy, feeling empowered that you can change your life.
That these outside events don’t affect you in any way…
…how you think, what your mind is going through, how you interpret the events.
You start feeling empowered, which brings freedom, which brings appreciation, which brings love.
How To Affect Others Positively
And when you can feel love towards yourself and towards your situation…
… and towards your life…
…you can feel love towards others, those people around you.
And when you can do that and treat people the proper way because you’re treating yourself the proper way…
…you help make this place, this world where we live, a much better place…
…a much happier place for those people around you:
- Your family members
- Your friends
- Your co-workers
And they start to look at you as someone they can learn from.
They start to look at you as someone that gives them hope…
…that helps them have a positive expectation for their future.
That, my friend, when you can get to that place…
…it’s not fake, you’re not faking anything.
That’s when you can start changing this world for the better.
But you get there by reading the proper books, listening to audios, watching videos that are positive, turning off all the negative influences.
I will give you one resource that could help you a lot.
I would recommend going out and buying a book called “The Bible” (if you don’t have it handy already!)
I mentioned guys like:
- James Clear
- Tony Robbins,
- BJ Fogg
- Napoleon Hill
Their ideas are wonderful, and I use that type of material in my day-to-day dealings with situations.
But did you know all the personal development material we need was originally given to us by God?
God’s Word has everything we need to help us with real, true insights into what to do when we’re feeling bad…
- How to deal with relationship issues.
- How to deal well in business situations.
- How to deal with depression and anxiety.
- How to lift ourselves up out of any so-called “negative” situation.
How to move yourself up this emotional scale that I talked about.
I encourage you to try digging into that material as well as more modern-day personal development authors.
My prayer today is that my ideas here help you in a meaningful way.
And if you’d like to explore other ways I can help you, take a look at the Attraction Marketing Formula if you’re a network marketer.
If you’re working on an affiliate marketing business, take a look at our 15-day challenge.
And if you’re either of those, along with being a high-ticket course creator or coach, look at my DFY content services, as they will speed up your results with either my Business Audit and/or Content Roadmap.
See you in my next Memo with more exploration into the skills that will drive more leads and sales for your business.
Helping you build it big,
Matt
P.S. Here’s how I can help you grow your business:
The Fastest Way To Use Affiliate Marketing: The Insider’s Guide
The Fastest Way To Grow a Team to 1000+: The “Secret” Leader’s Playbook
The Fastest Way To Master Social Media: The 15-Second Method
The Fastest Way To Produce Content: I’ll Do It For You
