- “The more that you avoid, and the more that you’re on the defense, the more your identity moves into victim mode, and so your identity doesn’t integrate any weapons. I want you to perceive this in a different way and I want you to start approaching this stuff in life earlier.”
- Avoidance can be a natural response when faced with challenges or uncomfortable situations, but it often hinders our personal growth and prevents us from finding solutions. In this episode, Brendon helps to explore the root causes of avoidance and its impact on our lives.
- If you’re looking for tips on how to avoiding problems in life, this episode is for you!
- Watch the video to get the full teaching!
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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.)
Your identity is shaped by whether or not you avoid or approach, whether when difficulty specifically when difficulty strikes. Do you avoid or do you approach? This is very similar to playing offense, but slightly different because many people there’s a difficult thing happening in their life, a difficult conversation you have to have with your partner, your spouse, or somebody at work, and you’re avoiding that conversation and you’re avoiding the conversation is difficult. And because you like the comfort, you like the comfort, the comfortable life, you like the comfort of the moment or that relationship or how you feel. You don’t want to deal with the drama they’ll bring up when you bring it up often because again, you don’t know how to bring it up.
1. Focus On The Problem, Not The Blame
It’s a skill set, right? You just haven’t learned that practice yet. Everything comes back to skill set, everything comes back to practices, and you just never blame the person or the situation or the challenge. The problem. I always ask, did they have the skill set there yet? Have they learned and honed that and practiced that? And if they haven’t, let’s work on that and we can solve that. Most marital problems, for example, can be solved by communication training, which sounds so crazy. It just happens to be research. True. Just most people never learn how to talk and talk through difficulty. Well, we choose avoidance for short-term comfort. The problem with avoidance is it actually works. You get short-term comfort, but you also know when you choose avoidance, you also choose long-term pain. The longer you fail to address it, the it gets worse. The longer you fail to address your health and your weight, the it gets worse. The longer you choose to face that difficult thing in the conversation or in the relationship, the worse the relationship gets. It’s like either you have an idea of like, I’m going to engage, I’m going to approach this, I’m going to deal and I can deal with it quickly. Right?
2. Develop The Habit of Facing Challenges
You’re solution minded. You’re in the game. You’re on offense. You’re in assertiveness. The more you will feel like you have a handle on life, your hands on the steering wheel again, otherwise, you’re feeling victim over and over and over. And listen, I just want you to understand this, because today we’re talking about your identity.
The more that you avoid and the more that you’re on defense, the more your identity moves into victim mode and you feel defeated.
Because even if you win on defense, you’re never getting to the goal line, right? That one is down. Even if you win on defense, you’re never getting to the goal line. And so your identity doesn’t integrate any wins. There are no touchdowns. You didn’t make the play to win. And so what you feel like is defeated, discouraged, shut down. And by the way, I don’t make that bad. I just want you to know it’s a perception and it’s a choice in identity. And I want you to proceed in a different way.
3. Approach The Stuff Of Life Earlier
I want you to start approaching the stuff of life earlier. Earlier, like early, like I am here. And literally the only reason I was. How did you get this room? How does he do all this? And like, oh, I saw in my career everything was shifting towards video and I was like, Oh, I’m going to learn how to do video. I’m going to teach myself. I’ll tell you that story tomorrow. But I was like, I’m gonna teach myself to do video, okay? I’ve no idea how to do that. I’ve never done anything with a video camera. I’ve never owned a video camera. I don’t know how to upload the video into the computer. I don’t how to edit it. I don’t know how to get it online. And I’m like, But look, I’m online and this is happening. I’m going to go forward with it. I’m just going to go right into it. Did the same. I’m doing the same thing with A.I. for three years and I followed and learn from other mentors like Bezos saw like, wow, people are ordering stuff online. It’s growing by 13,000%. I should get here, like, approached it earlier. Doesn’t mean you need to be an early adopter and everything. You just need to be real about what’s happening in your career or your industry or your relationship or your health. You can’t avoid it for so long, and the longer you avoid it, the worse it gets.
