 There were a couple of big mindset shifts that have made all the difference in my life and one of them in particular has been a lot less fun to realize than others. Now in this video, I thought I would share one of the single biggest psychological shifts that I have made and why it has changed my life and how you can use it yourself. What's up guys, Alex Hein over at Modern Health Monk. Before we jump in, check out the first link below this video which is for a free goal setting worksheet. So use this worksheet. You're also gonna get a seven day self growth challenge which means you'll get one email a day with a little video showing you how to improve your life. So check it out, link right below this video. There's a great quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin that most men are dead at 25 but are just buried at 75. Now in 2009, I was sitting at my desk of my very first job working as a teaching assistant in a high school in Rye, New York. Now I liked the job, I enjoyed teaching. It was nice interacting with students in that way in a helpful, supportive way. But really at the end of that first year of my very first desk job working full-time, all I could think was, is this it? Like, this is the grand purpose of my life. I'm gonna sit at this exact same desk for 40 years and I'm never gonna do anything different. And there's not gonna be growth or change or variety. I'm literally just gonna sit here. I'm never gonna take a month off to go travel somewhere cool or go walk the Camino de Santiago or just go do a pilgrimage in Southern France and just drink wine and write. Like, I'm 22 and this is what it's gonna be forever. And that scared the crap out of me. And I realize so many of us get stuck because we get this first job and we start getting a little bit of a salary. A few years go on and you meet someone special and then you get married. And then when you get married, you probably wanna have some shared housing space or a house if you can afford it. That increases your expenses. So then you wanna try to get a raise and you wanna keep that job or try to get more of a raise or a better job or a different job. Then you have a kid. And this is like a pet that's permanent, right? It doesn't go away, right? It's not just like a little hobby where like you're done with it and it's kind of annoying and it wakes you up and it pees on you, then you can return it to the stork. It doesn't really work, right? The second you have a kid, it's there forever. It's a irreversible decision, theoretically, unless you donate them which is kind of messed up. But realistically, if you're a good person, a kid is a permanent decision. So then you have a kid and your expenses go up and your responsibilities go up. You're now a mom or a dad and you have a lot on your plate. And those dreams that you once had become dim, right? You always wanted to go live in France or go live in Spain or be in au pair or go shoot videos for National Geographic or just go to India and photograph the last remaining wild tigers. You had some dream, some that pie in the sky, parents wouldn't approve of, but would be awesome and would make you feel alive. But now you have a kid and you have a house and you have responsibilities. And the gravity of your life suddenly hits you and you realize, I for sure have this for 20 years. And if not a lot longer because if I have another kid and another kid, then it's really 30 years of being an active parent. And we're not traveling long-term. We're not doing a sabbatical in France. We're not doing the natural, you know, photography of tigers in India anymore. We're in the nine to five life. And that gravity of that sensation of feeling stuck and feeling like you've been cheated out of life that you thought some grand amazing life would happen to you and it didn't is a very difficult feeling to experience. And I think this is why people have midlife crises around 45 because you are now somewhere in between being a youth in their 20s and a middle-aged person in their 50s. And you think, have I done what I felt like I was on earth to do? Did I do the things that I really wanted to do? And if that answer does not come back in the affirmative, people freak out. Comfort is a very slow grave. What often keeps people the same is the lack of growth but the lack of growth due to a few psychological reasons. The biggest one being they don't want to be uncomfortable or inconvenienced. It is an inconvenience if you didn't sleep well going to the gym. It is uncomfortable having to work an extra two hours a night because that's what will get you a promotion to make your material life better. It is uncomfortable to have a new baby that wakes you up all night. It is uncomfortable to not go out every Friday night because you don't make enough money to either, you can either save or you can go out and get drinks with your buddies. All of that is uncomfortable. And a lot of what we opt for is doing what is easy and what is comfortable. And I don't want to be the guy that says life is all about discipline because I don't believe that to be true. But what I do know to be true is that life is extremely uncomfortable. If you stay comfortable all the time because inevitably what will happen is that over three or six or nine months or 12 months what will happen is that that thing you wanted to do write the book, start the gym routine, upload a video on YouTube, take a trip quit the job that you have job you talked about six years ago quitting inevitably what's going to happen is that time has passed. John Lennon said life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. So if you only do what is comfortable all the time inevitably you're gonna do what you've always done which is that whatever you are disciplined is doing every single day, eating the same food, doing not doing this, you're gonna keep doing that because you're too busy feeling comfortable. I've seen that in my own life there was never a good time to write a book. There was never a good time to start a business. There was never a good time to shoot these videos. There was never a good time to work on something that can improve my life. Sometimes a smaller percentage of the time I wanted to but most of the time I didn't and most of my own change in life was motivated by pain. So it's easy to change in life when it's something you want to do but very often there are going to be things that will upgrade your life dramatically that you don't want to do that are uncomfortable. So if I can leave you with one thing here it is yes always follow your passion and what excites you but always be moving towards doing things that are uncomfortable that you know will improve your life because one thing I know for sure is that comfort will keep you exactly where you are now and if that scares the shit out of you that you don't want to be here in five years then make the right decision.