 When you're scared of something in life, whether it is job uncertainty or is that person going to wanna still be with me long-term or financially, am I gonna be able to pay my bills? Inevitably what most of us do is freeze and do absolutely nothing. Or people take crazy chaotic action, go balls to the wall, 100 miles an hour, they're not thinking and they're just working. But in between there's a sweet spot and there's a very, very simple piece of advice that has changed my life when you're feeling a lot of uncertainty about the future. What's up you guys? Alex Hein here over at Modern Health Monk. Before we jump into this video, put together a free guide which is a seven-day self-growth challenge. It's the first link right below in this video. Every day you're gonna basically get an email that has one little video and one little tip on how to improve your life. So, check it out right below. Now the first time in my life I felt this uncertainty about the future. That horrible feeling of is this all there is? Is this the end of my life? Is this the grand purpose, the grand scheme? I was 21 or 22 working my first full-time job as a teaching assistant in a high school in New York. Now, around that time, I actually liked the job. It was enjoyable, it was easy. I liked being a teacher or a teaching assistant. At the end of the year though, I found myself looking at these other people in this career, in this profession. These people have been here for 40 years. I mean, they started at 22, the ones that are committed to being a teacher and then they're gone at like 65. And these people have not done anything else in 43 years. And I just thought to myself, this is the end of my life. It doesn't get sweeter or different or have variety. I don't ever get a month sabbatical. There's no other great adventures. It's just work until the day I die. That thought made me feel very claustrophobic. And when that thought made me feel very claustrophobic, that's where I hit that point of the fear of uncertainty. The uncertainty of, well, maybe there's something else out there better for me. The uncertainty of maybe I can find something that pays me a lot more than being a teacher or a teaching assistant. And the ultimate existential uncertainty of is this all there is. Now, you know my story. If you've watched me on this channel, I bought a one-way ticket to China and the rest is history. But I wanna share a very simple principle I learned. Most people do not change their life because they feel inspired. They change their life because they hate something and they feel desperate. The saying is you change either due to desperation or inspiration. And I can sure as hell tell you, most of us only change when the pain gets bad enough. So for me, like so many people, you're at a job, you hate the job, you see five years, 10 years, you see the other people in that profession there for decades and you're like, I'm gonna blow my brains out if I'm there for another 20 years. So for me, the ultimate power question is wherever you are right now in your life, whether it is your job or that relationship or these friends or where you live, if you're there five years from now, are you gonna feel happy? Are you gonna feel inspired? Are you gonna feel like I'm gonna blow my brains out? What do you actually feel like? Right, just your overall gut feeling, your intuitive feeling when you think if I'm exactly where I am five years from now, how am I gonna feel about life? And if that thought scares the shit out of you, you should listen to that feeling because that feeling is telling you that something's gotta give. That feeling is telling you something has to change. Think in your day-to-day life. My friends I have or don't have, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, the people I'm with are these the same people that I wanna be with in five years or does the thought of being around people who are not driven, they don't want anything out of life, they're critical, they're negative, they're unhealthy, they're unconscious, being around those people for five more years scares me. Think about that. Does the thought of being with a person you're dating or not dating scare you? Maybe you've been single for five years and the thought of being single for another five sounds incredibly depressing. Or maybe you've been in a relationship but it's really pretty lackluster and it doesn't inspire you and the person is boring and mediocre and they don't do anything. And that doesn't excite you for another five years. Do you want that five years from now? What about financially? Are you doing well? Are you in debt? Are you living in a tiny apartment that you hate in a bad part of town? Or are you happy with those things? So ultimately if the thought of being where you are right now five years from now scares the crap out of you, listen to that feeling because it's telling you honestly all you need to hear. You have to be able to plan your future or else somebody else will. It's like the saying that if you don't create a plan for your life, you're going to fit into someone else's and you know what they have planned for you? Not much. That might be Jim Rohn. But basically if you don't decide what you want you're gonna fall right into the status quo. The nine to five life, the boring ass job at Bank of America, wearing a suit every day, nine to five and then you throw in an hour commute each way. It's really a seven to seven. You come home, you watch some Netflix, you play with your cat, you eat a frozen pizza and then you go to bed and that's your life for the next 40 years. Most people would unsure don't act, which is the problem. I don't know what I want from life so instead of doing something constructive I'm just gonna go back to playing Skyrim. No hatred for Skyrim, I love it. But it's not gonna change your life in the real world. I mean think about like weight or think about finances. Has there ever been a time in your life where not looking at your bank account, your debt helped you pay off the debt or not stepping on the scale actually helped you get fit and lose the weight? The answer is no because avoidance doesn't make problems go away and doesn't fix them. Now ultimately, I wanna leave you with one final thought which is that sometimes we think things will change with time and sometimes that is true and a lot of the time it isn't. It's like a diabetic who keeps eating pizzas every day and decides to just not look at the scale or look at their blood sugar readings, praying to God, hoping that things will change but the good news is that it only takes an hour a day to change your life. It only takes an hour a day studying your personal finances to make sure in five years you are not there, that bad place anymore. It only takes an hour a day looking at your health or your wellness or something about a medical condition to know that in a couple of years I wanna make sure I'm not here and I won't be there or I'm single and I've been single too long or I don't have any friends or I hate my friends. It only takes an hour a day to change your life and that's something that basically anyone can do and that should be inspiring because it doesn't take three, five, 10 hours a day, it doesn't take your whole life, it doesn't take massive energy, it just takes one conscious hour sitting down, thinking about what you want from your life, that's the thing that will make the difference. Not turning the other way, not checking how much debt you have or not stepping on the scale but just facing the facts of your life for an hour will make a huge difference even over the course of just three or four months. So if you're scared of the future, in my opinion, you have to face the facts. You have to face the facts and you have to figure out by not having a plan, most of the time you're gonna be a ship without a rudder and you're just gonna get blown off course and carried by the seas and carried by the wind, they're gonna be going somewhere but not necessarily where you end up wanting to be, like the Bahamas. So spend that one hour a day figuring, well, where do I wanna be and who do I actually wanna be and that'll make sure that the direction your ship is steering, it is always course correcting towards the life you actually want. All right, guys, my two cents for today, when you're scared about the future, make sure you're consciously directing it and not letting it just push you to the side any which way the wind is blowing. Check out the free seven-day self-growth challenge below this video. That link is gonna help you do a lot of this in your own life as well. So check it out.