How to See Yourself as a Good Person

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SUMMARY

  • “When you recognize the good things you do, you start to feel like you matter more.”
  • When it comes to happiness and overall well-being, it’s critical that we act in alignment with our values. In this episode, explore the importance of self-compassion and how to cultivate a healthy relationship with yourself.
  • “You’ll never feel like you matter unless you integrate the fact that you’ve tried, that you succeeded, that you made those choices. You won’t feel like you matter if you don’t integrate your own goodness.“
  • Constantly feel like you’re being too hard on yourself? Then this episode is for you! Learn how to generate more self-compassion and awareness of all the good you already bring into this world.
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INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

FULL TRANSCRIPT

[The following is the full transcript of this episode of Motivation With Brendon Burchard. Please note that this episode, like all episodes, features Brendon speaking extemporaneously–he is unscripted and unedited. Filmed in one take, Motivation With Brendon Burchard has become one of the most viewed unscripted, direct-to-camera self-help series in the history of YouTube. It has also been the #1 Podcast in all of iTunes and is regularly in the top podcasts in the Self-Help and Health categories around the globe. Subscribe to the free motivational podcast on iTunes or Stitcher.)

You’ve got to integrate your goodness. You had to integrate your goodness. What does this mean? Well, let me give an example of how we talk about this in a success mindset, and then we’ll apply it to this particular question of mattering.

1. Identify With Your Wins

Well, if you’ve ever heard me teach high performance, I often tell high performers and achievers, you got to learn to integrate the wins. Meaning, when you win, when you have the success that day. A good conversation, and good feedback. You finished the thing. You got the deal. What you have to do is learn to integrate that into your identity. Like, “I did that, I did pretty well.” You’ve got to see in your identity, in your esteem that you have achieved that. Otherwise, you’ll never feel like you can achieve anything.

I know people who’ve achieved so many things. They feel like they’ve never achieved anything in their life. They have this long laundry list of incredible internal and external accomplishments. They’ve overcome fears. They’ve built amazing things. And yet they feel terrible and like they’re incapable. Why? Because all those little things they want, they never celebrate it — they never integrate it and go, “Oh, I did that. That’s who I am. I am capable of that.”

Well, in the same way as teaching achievers to feel the sense of contribution and meaning and progress and joy and mental strength that comes from recognizing their own achievements. The same thing applies to “Did I matter?” You have to integrate the goodness of your life and the good things that you have done in your life. I know some of you say, “But I ain’t nothing yet. I’m nothing.”  To that, I say, yes, you have. 

2. Celebrate Small Acts of Kindness

You said that kind word to another. Maybe you didn’t know they needed it right then, but you did it. You open some doors for somebody. You did a favor for somebody. You helped with that project. You showed up for a loved one in need. You ran that errand for them. Sometimes it’s so simple, but sometimes you’ve made a choice. In fact, I would argue you’ve made the choice way more than you even conceive of because you’ve never integrated your goodness.

You can’t even conceive of the number of times you made the choice to be kind versus hurtful, to hold your contemptuous criticism against somebody, and decide not to be rude or awful or mean. The number of times you didn’t lash out in anger.

You see, we matter just as much on the choices we did not make as the choices we do all those times you chose not to lie, cheat, steal, be harmful, hurt others, or push others down. Take the easy road, do something that’s illegal.

3. Integrate Your Morality

All of those times you chose not to do that, that was demonstrating a morality of goodness. And what’s happening is you probably just never integrated those into this idea that you are a good person.

“I matter in this world” because so many people out there who don’t make that choice and they’re hurtful to others and they’ve really caused tremendous harm. You chose not to do that. And even if you did do it, you messed up. You did hurt somebody. 

I’ve worked with people in prisons through a lot of my career, and they often get my books for free. And I get these stories or these letters that are profound. They made a huge error in moral judgment. They did something that was wrong, and they know that it was wrong. And we’ve all done something that we know was wrong. But we have to choose whether or not we imprisoned ourselves at that moment, that we did something wrong or we choose to reflect and be open to the reality that we’ve done a lot that is good. And the choices we made for good, the good things we’ve done for others, and the good choices we made not to do harm to others. All of that adds up to goodness when we can sense our own goodness. But most importantly, at a practical level, we try to be good to others. We try to make good choices for ourselves, our families, our loved ones, our careers, our mission, our purpose, and our impact. When we try that is mattering. Whether you count it or not, is the question. And that comes back down to that first question again, who decides? 

4. Give Yourself Credit For Trying

At some point you just go, you know what? Yeah, I’m trying here. And that matters.

You’ll never feel like you matter unless you integrate the fact that you’ve tried, that you succeeded, and that you made those choices. You won’t feel like you matter if you don’t integrate your own goodness.

There ain’t no hope that you’re ever going to feel like you matter. What will happen is you will ping pong from one thing to another to another. Another looking for satisfaction, looking to feel good, hoping something external sparks enough change in you that one day you’re like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, great. You will chase the rest of your life and be blind to the choices that have made you good.

As soon as you can accept and integrate your goodness, let me tell you what — life feels better. So how do you do that? I’m here to tell you the most practical and simple way. How do you integrate your goodness? You learn to start journaling, period. You learn to start discussing it, thinking about it, and reflecting on it. Period. It is the most important thing that you need to do in your life is capture some of the goodness of your life. Get it out of your head. Put it on a piece of paper. Use your GrowthDay journal. That’s what I use. I really use the app. I just journal. I’m like, “Oh, here are some things I did today and some choices I didn’t make.” Like, if you look at my journal, there’s a lot of stuff like that. “Felt really angry, didn’t lash out.” I made a choice. It was good that day. Okay. I sent this audio to that person today. I haven’t heard back, but I feel good that I sent it.

When you recognize the good things you do, you start to feel like you matter more.