Just Choose Three

If you’re interested in personal development (which you probably are if you’re reading this blog!), then you’ll know just how much amazing content there is in the world. From old school giants like Tony Robbins and Oprah Winfrey, to popular gurus like Brendon Burchard and Gabby Bernstein, to your smaller instagrammers and YouTube influencers – there are a million different places to look for great advice and personal development tips.

While it’s fantastic that there’s so much content to consume, the downside is that there’s almost too much – cue Analysis Paralysis: the feeling of being overwhelmed with choices, unsure who’s content to implement. This rings especially true when there are teachers with conflicting messages.

Post 7x a day on Instagram / Spend less time on social media
Focus on your mindset more than anything / You wont get anywhere without action
Don’t fight your natural desires / Wake up at 4am everyday
Facebook ads are the way to go / Organic networking is the only way
Go on the Keto diet / Vegan 100%
Be a productivity machine / focus only on one thing until you’re really good at it

Confusing much?

Here’s the thing: I believe that any method works for anything – as long as you actually follow it to the letter.

For example, you can lose weight on the vegan diet, the paleo diet, the Keto diet, the Master Cleanse, fasting, anything – they all work, as long as you’re dedicated whole-heartedly to the method.

But if you try to mix ad match, vegan one day, fasting the next, keto the next, paleo next – your body and mind will be ultra confused, and it’s unlikely to work, right?

That’s why I’ve discovered that it makes so much more sense to choose just a handful of mentors and follow their word to the letter.

Here are my three main mentors:

Brooke Castillo = Mindset
Brendon Burchard = High Performance
Stacey Boehman = Business

That’s all.

Of course, I still consume the occasional piece of content from Gary Vee, Gabby Bernstein, Marie Forleo, The Minimalists, Tony Robbins, Marianne Williamson, Mel Robbins, Gretchen Rubin, Oprah, Elizabeth Gilbert, (you name it, I love them all). But there’s no way I can follow all of their advice, all of the time. So I’ve chosen my top 3 mentors, and I’m sticking with them – at least for this year. I’ll hear other advice, but I’m sticking to the Brooke, Brendon and Amy diet 100%. Their words are my gospel!

Who are your three mentors for 2020?

Impossible Digest

I’ve just hit GO on my first ever weekly newsletter, Impossible Digest, which I set to do weekly in my February Goals blog. (This also happens to be my 200th daily blog post in a row!)

Since it’s the first weekly newsletter, I want to share with you here so you can get a taster of what will hopefully go on weekly for quite some time.

As these are screenshots of my email, check out the links:

Christina Koch

Cold Showers

My first push up progress vlog

Want to receive this newsletter? Subscribe below:

Self Care is the Work

If you're taking time to get things organized, meditate, take a bath, do the inner work, the mindset work, the self-care – know that it is just as important as daily action (it IS daily action!).

Even if it doesn't feel like it. Inner work shows up as outer results. The thoughts we believe control our actions, and our actions control our results. And even beyond that, our thoughts control the way we view the world, and the opportunities we see, and our perception of our happiness, success and fulfillment. So if you are ever feeling guilty for taking time to look after yourself, let that idea go.

None of us want to achieve our impossible goals if when we get there, we're unhappy and unfulfilled.

I’ll leave you with one of my favourite meditations to get you in the self-care-is-moving-me-towards-my-goals mood:

These Are The Good Old Days

I listened to Brooke Castillo’s Life Coach School Podcast today, and she shared this beautiful clip by Ryan Moran. Instead of digging up my own thoughts, today I want to share what he said, so I transcribed it. Here it is, one massive quote, an ode by Ryan Moran.

When I was a kid, all I wanted to be was a millionaire. Now that I am a millionaire, all I want is to be a carefree kid.

There was a time in my life where I lost a lot of weight, and I had abs for the first time in my life, but I felt too skinny, and all I wanted was to add some muscle. Now that I've added some muscle, all I think about is how much I miss my abs.

Before I was a father all I wanted was kids. I wouldn't trade my daughter for anything, but I sometimes miss the days when I was alone. When she was a baby, and she was crying in the middle of the night, all I wanted was for her to be older. Now that she's older we have such a stronger connection but sometimes I miss the days when she was a baby.

When I was growing a small business, all I thought about was growing a big business. Now that I'm growing a big business a successful business I sometimes miss the days when it was small, or simpler. Growing up in a small town near Cleveland, Ohio, all I thought about was getting out. Now that I live in a big booming city, I miss home.

I realized the other day that there are two sides to everything. There are the problems that we feel in the moment, and there are the positives that we think about in the rearview mirror.

We feel the problems, and we long for the positives.

We rarely ever pause to appreciate the positives, while we're still in them and instead, we just experienced them later, and we experienced them in the sense of missing the times that used to be. A friend of mine lost her brother, recently, and my heart just broke for her because I knew that all she thought about, all she wanted was to have her baby brother back. I knew that she thought that if she had her baby brother back that she would appreciate him so much more and love him so much harder than she ever had. Now, I have a brother, and I don't spend 24 hours a day, thinking about how much I love and appreciate my brother but if anything ever happened to him, all I would think about was having my brother back.

It made me realize that there are things in my life that I overlook that if they were taken away from me, it would be the thing that I longed for the most. The times when my daughter is screaming, if anything ever happened to her, all I would want would be to come for a screaming baby. If my business went under and I was working for someone else, I would long for the grind of starting something new, spending long hours building something.

If I was going hungry, the extra flab covering up my abs? I would gladly trade my hunger for a little bit of fat if I had food to eat. The beautiful curse about being human is that we are wired to find problems. That does not make us happy, it actually makes us miserable, but it also makes us grow and create and solve those problems. We rarely ever pause to appreciate things that are in our life that we could be grateful for until it is too late. But you get to control what you focus on. You get to control whether you consciously appreciate the things that are in your life, or if you focus on the problems, and you wait until later when you feel that sense of longing for how things used to be.

No matter who you are, where you are, what you have or don't have, I can promise you there is someone else, looking at your life longing to be in your situation – even in the situation that right now, you see as a problem. There is someone who looks at your life and longs to be in that situation, even though, once they got it, they would probably long for something else.

No matter who you are or where you are, you have so much to be thankful for, and to appreciate.

These are the good old days.

Peak Performance vs High Performance

I got this question on Instagram today: “Is there a difference between peak performance and high performance?”

Such a good question. At first glance, they seem synonymous, right?

But actually, they’re quite different. Peak performance is where you experience an intense burst of optimal function in one area of life, but once it’s over, you drop back down to regular functioning. High Performance is sustainable success across all areas of your life over the long term.

For example, an entrepreneur might experience peak performance because they are working 18 hour days during a launch, but that isn’t sustainable over the long term, so they drop back down again and therefore feel like the journey fluctuates up-down-up-down. Similarly, an athlete might have one stellar game where they’re functioning in their absolute peak state, but then the next game they’re back to a stable level of performance, and that can be incredibly frustrating.

To combat this irritating fluctuation, we need to get ourselves in a High Performance lifestyle, by bringing up our baseline functioning and success across all areas of our lives.

I’m lucky enough to be certified as one of only a few hundred High Performance Coaches worldwide, and I’m honored to get to serve such incredible people. I’ve been blessed to work with people who have broken world records in sport, launched new technologies and broken into the film and modeling industries. I currently have two spots open to work privately with me, so if you’re interested in getting High Performance Coaching to take your life to the next level in all areas, apply for a free, no strings attached consultation here.

Architect Your Life

“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.”

- Jim Rohn -

This quote properly pains me, because I’ve seen so many people hand over their life to someone else’s grand plan. It doesn’t matter what your plan is, as long as it’s your plan. It doesn’t have to complicated plan, but it doesn’t need to be architected by you.

We get to choose our destinies – what will yours be?

Should You Take a Break?

You’ve been hustling, you’ve been working your butt off, you’ve been making things happen.

You’re in GO GO GO mode – but are you headed for burn out?

Here are three questions to ask yourself to know if it’s time to take a break:

1. Am I sleeping at least 7-8 hours a night?
   Did you know that sleep deprivation is equivalent to intoxication when it comes to mental focus? Sleep is absolutely essential to function at our best. There’s no way you can perform at your optimum unless you’ve had enough sleep, or you’re basically going through your day drunk. If you haven’t been getting the recommended 7-8 hours of sleep a night (or more, I know I need about 8.5-9 hours to be at my best), then it’s time to take a break before you lose focus completely and make a mistake that could cost you.

2. Am I getting my social needs met?
   Countless studies in psychology and high performance have shown us that our social connection is our number one predictor of happiness. Yes, you read that right. More than money, career, status, and even health. If you’re not socially connected, you’re not living at your peak, and the more isolated you become, the more you risk a downward spiral into loneliness and burnout. Who could you connect with today, face to face or on a phone call (not just via text or social media) that would put a spring in your step?

3. Am I passionately motivated?
   While the loss of passion and motivation can actually be a sign of boredom, not burn out, there’s nothing like absolute boredom to burn you out! If you’re not feeling excited about your day ahead, then it’s time to take a break, rest, and reevaluate. What would get you excited to wake up in the morning again?

Renewing your energy before you burn out, will save you time, energy and money in the long term. Take a break, get some extra sleep, connect with a friend and reevaluate what you’re doing. I promise you, you’ll be twice as productive when you come back, ready to crush it at 100% again.

Provide for Your Creativity

Over the last few days, I’ve been listening to conversations with Liz Gilbert (the author of Eat Pray Love) and Oprah exclusively, and I thought I’d share one of Liz’s brilliant ideas from her book Big Magic.

Liz said that when she was a young girl (16 or 17) she made a promise to her writing that she would never make it provide for her, she would always make money another way so that she could pursue her passion without any pressure. And she did until Eat Pray Love became a massive international bestseller (15 million copies, I think?), and she finally became a full-time writer. But she never expected it to happen. She was perfectly happy working a bunch of different side jobs. Is that not the most lovely thing?

The overall message is: provide for your goals and dreams, don’t make them provide for you.

Do We Want the Process?

Do we want the process, or just the result?

When we look at someone else’s life and think – I want that – do we stop to consider if we want how they got it?

Gary Vee is a beautiful example. I love what Gary Vee preaches about working hard, being patient and hustling like crazy, but also, I don’t want Gary Vee’s lifestyle. Nope, I’m not willing to put in the work it takes to put out 60 pieces of content a DAY, like he advises.

“99% of people aren’t willing to put in the work it takes to be a billionaire!”

That’s meant to make us feel motivated to be in the 1%. But I’ll proudly admit I’m part of the 99% who don’t want to put in the work it takes to be a billionaire. I can think of a lifetime of priorities more important to me than becoming a billionaire. Sure – if, like Oprah or J.K. Rowling, I became a billionaire by accident, it would be a different story. But I’m not setting “a billion dollars” as one of my goals. Screw that. I don’t want the process.

When we set goals, we have to think about the process. For example, if your goal is to be a New York Times Best Seller, take a look at your perfect (or at least, enjoyable) day. If it doesn’t include sitting and writing for hours on end, maybe an NYTBS isn’t really want you want. This also happens to be the way I figured out I didn’t want to be a fashion designer (it turns out I just wanted to wear cool clothes).

If we love the process, we’ll be happy whether we achieve our goals or not. Choose the process, not the result.

New York Without Sight

If you closed your eyes and when you opened them, you couldn’t see – would your dreams still be the same?

Would you still want to move to New York?
Would you still want that designer wardrobe?
Would you still want a million followers on Instagram?

This test always brings me back to my true desires.

Yes, I’d still move to New York. I’d move there for the people, the dancing, the music, the excitement, the food, the possibilities.

No, I wouldn’t that designer wardrobe. I’d want to wear things that made me feel comfortable and presentable, but you can say goodbye Gucci.

No, wouldn’t want a million followers on Instagram. In fact, I don’t even think I want that now, with my sight.

Why do we set the dreams we set? What’s it all for? What really matters? When you can’t see, it all comes into focus.

This scenario happened to a friend of mine, Tiffany. On the day of her thirty-second birthday, she woke up totally blind for absolutely no reason. Her priorities suddenly shifted massively, and her true dreams came into full focus. She wanted to be an entrepreneur (by the way, she sold $1.7 million in her first year in an e-commerce business, while totally blind).

Food tastes better with your eyes shut because it blocks our sense of sight, which takes up so much of our brain processing power. When we block out sight, we allow our other senses like taste to come to the surface.

When I close my eyes, New York is still delicious. Gucci is not.

The things your heart truly desires will be just as good without sight.

(Ditch the rest of your desires, they aren’t real).