What goes on in our heads impacts EVERYTHING

You can’t escape your own head.

Believe me, I’ve tried.

(It was called ‘Grey Goose’)

The ONLY thing you can do is work with what you’ve got so that it fires you up instead of bringing you down and getting stuck in the cycle overwhelm, procrastination, limiting beliefs and self-sabotage.

First thing I’ve gotta say is no fucker is immune to this.

Not me

Not you

Not that motivational coach with the perfect life and a perma-smile

Being a human – it’s hard work.

Just because normal everyday existence of being a human isn’t punishment enough.

Some of us decide to become entrepreneurs

Lol

Crazy hours. Check.

Hard to connect with people not like us. Check

Opening ourselves up to massive criticism. Check

No guarantee of income. Check.

Daily battles with value and self-worth. Check

The list goes on.

No wonder most of us are tapped in the head.

Depression, ADHD, bipolar, suicidal feelings and more all effect a higher number of entrepreneurs than they do the general public.

That’s a fact.

If you’re going through things – know you are not alone.

Even at the lighter end of the scale

Stuff comes up.

We hold ourselves back.

We worry about what other people are going to think

We self sabotage every time we get close to our goals

And

The greatest tool we have – our brains

Is the one thing that truly works against us to stop us progressing.

With that in mind – here’s a few of my top tips for taking control of your mindset

#1 The power of the braindump

As I say, what is in our heads is what holds us back.

More often than not, we get so preoccupied with life and business that these thoughts start to fester away in the background without us giving all that much thought to them until they turn into massive monsters that blight up with procrastination, overwhelm, fear and more.

The first thing you need to do to tackle mindset issues is to get them out of your head and know what you’re actually dealing with

And

Regularly keep your head clear of all the junk and crap it picks up along the way.

You do this, with brain dum

Some benefits of doing regular brain dumps?

1. Ideas

I’ve had some epic ideas because (for me) I actually am present with my own mind
That and the looped music helps ‘distract’ my brain and my subconscious can do its own thang

2. Problem solving

Similar to above – I’ve been able to come up with:
– copy hooks
– solutions to business and personal problems
– rationalise relationships (stick or twist)

It’s been very useful

3. Less rage/generally a bit nicer

I’m simple less angry
Don’t tend to go from 0-100 much
As a rule calm
– for anyone who has followed me for a while, this is novel eh –

4. Less stressed/sleep better

I go to bed kinda ‘empty headed’ now and as someone who’s mind NEVER SHUTS THE FUCK UP….sleep has been a bugger
Less so now

Here’s how it’s done…

1. Do a FULL brain dump BEFORE you switch off, get that shit out of your head and LEAVE IT

2. If you have a problem or something you need clarity on? Write it on a piece of paper to take with you – look at it at points

3. Either NO phone or on airplay mode

4. Have either a looped song, movie score or something like natural sounds (I like thunderstorms) on music

5. Take a book – paper one – with you that inspires you or is of interest; something you WANT to read as opposed to HAVE to read

6. Go buy a a pen and notepad, and a bottle of water (clarity dehydrated is nigh on impossible) and take em with you; any ideas that come up and

WRITE THEM DOWN

Not on your phone, go analogue

Then either a) go to a location where you don’t speak to anyone (I have a special place socially distant…you have to climb a cliff to get to it lol) or get yo ass locked in a room

#2 – Knowing when to go #ballsdeep & knowing when it’s time to pull back

As I say – entrepreneurs are a special bunch

We will give it all we’ve got and then some on top

And what happens is we will keep going and going and going until we break.

And when we start to break we keep pushing harder to punish ourselves and catch up.

It takes some time to learn to recognise the signs.

I have broken myself plenty of times in the past

Me personally?

I’ll see shifts in how I’m working, how I show up and the content that I put out.

Over time I go from full on content machine to full on sillyness and everywhere in between.

And by learning what makes Dan tick, I’ve come to see where I need to ease back, take a change of scene, mix some more fun stuff in my life if it’s gone a bit work heavy.

This is something I can’t give you an exact image of because it loooks a little different for each of us.

Here are a few signs to watch out for that give a hint it might be time to pull back and change things up before you burn out

– You content gets massively serious and dry OR you can’t do serious content and it’s all fun stuff

– You’ve stopped things like going to the gym and date nights because you’re constantly busy

– Your sleep pattern has shifted and you’re suddenly crashing early or waking up in the middle of the night

– You’ve been doing lots of videos, webinars and lives till now but you just can’t face hitting the button

– You’re suddenly eating everything…or nothing

As I say, how this shows up is individual.

If those come up, evaluate what you’ve got going on and how you can mix things up before you take yourself down.

And if you do go down – take a think back to how you were working and if any sign showed up so you can add them to your personal list of red flags

#3 – Remind yourself you’re actually fucking awesome

It’s EASY to crack on when life’s good; posts flow, deals seems to land with ease, shit goes your way

Then life goes – ‘Hold my beer’ – and decides to fuck with you

That’s when you want to say ‘fuck it’

– quit making the calls
– stop making the pitches
– gives less fucks about yourself
– ditch the diet and training
– content no longer gets created

And so on

I know because I’ve been there in my past

Staring in the mirror

Looking at my reflection thinking wondering what’s the point of going on anymore

THAT is the make/break point

When every fucking fibre of you is saying ‘stop’ – especially when you have every right to

When you take a step THEN?

That’s when you reach a new level of resilience and tenacity that you didn’t think you had

You find a gear that may not be the fastest or the most efficient but it’s has power and it grinds you through the shitty terrain and on to smoother roads

I have consciously decided to spend a lot more time on my own without electronic devices, people or any form of stimulus and aggressively work on my thoughts

Everything from triggers to limiting beliefs to self-sabotaging behaviours I have gone through each and every fucking and examined why I do the things I do and ask one simple question

Does this serve me?

For starters I have learned that you can ALWAYS find a positive even if it FEELS negative, and you will get what you focus on

Now I mentally walk through and WRITE DOWN (this is key btw) all the positive things that have come from the encounter, issue, relationship – whatever it is

And when I find myself on a little negative feedback loop?

I have them on my notes on my phone and if I find something shitty bubbling up with regards to whatever situation it may be?

I just read the corresponding note

Another thing I have found is that pain IS temporary IF you take action; don’t get me wrong when life throws you a curveball you are allowed to feel crap and throw yourself a little pity party..

But ONLY a little one and ONLY for a little while.

After that? The KEY thing to getting over setbacks is ACTION

Sitting around feeling sorry for yourself doesn’t do shit, and as hard as it may be? What you need to be is DOING and NOT thinking in times like this. Brilliantly, the more action you take the better you tend to feel as time goes on

#4 – Have A Support Network

Think you can just go it alone?

That we should have it all handled because hey, everyone else does

On top of all that

We beat ourselves up and we put ourselves down and we just don’t think we’re worth it.

We don’t think that we are worthy of help.

We don’t think that we deserve to be cared about.

We don’t think that we deserve support

because

We think that’s our job and our job alone.

So it can be so hard to ask for help, share the load, and delegate.

We take on more and more and more

Carrying a bigger weight on our shoulders

and I’m telling you now

if you carry that weight

if you keep on adding more and more stuff without getting any help without having any support without having people to help you figure things out,

It is going to break you.

Some point somewhere along the line that way is just going to get too much and it’s going to absolutely crush you.

The alternative is getting a support network in place

Support inside your business and sport outside of business because both sides are just important

and both areas are areas where you’re going to have things come up.

You’re gonna have problems, you’re going to have issues

If you try and do it alone You’re an idiot.

Yet, it’s something that we have a habit of trying to do.

We try to just deal with our problems

We are the problem solvers after all

We try to find the answer & a way forward figure it all out.

Because if we don’t, who will?

We convince ourselves that it’s not a big deal

We can handle it

That other people have got bigger problems

And if we just keep on pushing will find a way

So we push and we push and we push until we break down

And none of that is necessary

The thing is

On top of thinking that we should be able to deal with everything.

That we should be smart enough to do it alone.

You NEED to have support in place to actually be provide practical help, smart guidance, emotional support and different ideas is key to seeing you through whatever comes up.

Combine support with your own tool box of times and tricks to help you recognise what phase your mindset is in and the kind of action you need to take to get the most out of it and you can really power yourself forward

Even during times when most other people would fall apart.

As much as I’m a practical Get Shit Done & fuck anything that’s gonna try and stop me kind of person.

Without the mindset part?

Game over.

There’s only so much a person can grind through whilst fighting their own head.

I know there are a lot of people struggling right now in the mindset department.

Even if business is operating just fine and works in lockdown, the whole isolation thing, fear for the future, missing family and trying to look after dependents takes its toll.

But

You got this.

And we

A.K.A. me and the Planet Dan Team

We got you.

And we’ll be doing as much as we can to bring you all the best of our knowledge and skills to keep you going, and getting the best results you can even through trying times.

All we ask is you let us know when you find things useful and go take action on them.