You Can't Think Yourself into New Ways of Living

I’m just wondering if you’re familiar with the following scenario:

You’re just chilling, and you feel kinda lazy and without motivation, scrolling a bit on social media. You see all kinds of posts from your friends along with a lot of nonsense. While scrolling, you also come across a few quotes here and there, but ONE of those quotes really gets your attention. You start thinking about your life, your relationship, or career or whatever thoughts the quote triggered, but that won’t last for long though. Before you know it, you just continue scrolling because what else are you going to do? 

Don't waste this!

I’m just gonna be real with you here - taking the path of least resistance is very natural for the majority of mankind, and besides that - turning your whole life around because of a quote you’ve seen on social media? Isn’t that a bit extreme? Well, let me tell you something. It does NOT matter where you get your “AHA” moment from! If you get one, cherish it, and do NOT waste it. Such moments can be turned into life-changing events, which are triggered just a few times in a lifetime, and yes, a simple quote on social media can do that. 

"THE" quote

I actually came across ONE quote that’s really worth discussing and thinking about in my opinion, with definitely a potential “AHA” moment. With the right mindset and attitude, this quote can definitely turn your life around for the better. The quote goes like this: “We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.” 

It’s a quote from Richard Rohr. Google told me he's an American author, and I have never read anything from him besides this quote, but this one just really STUCK. So, why is that? What makes this quote so special? 

The KEY element for change

Let me tell you this: Every swing I gave at “the wheel of life’ that enabled me to completely turn things around and thus brought about drastic changes, it was made possible by only one thing: taking action. Really starting to live that different way, and THIS causes a different way of thinking. Listen, you can keep thinking about something, but not much will change if you do not more than that.

So many times I've been stuck in life, wanting to change something but did not seem able to, just because I did not apply the key element for change. And what helped me along my journey, is to take not just action, but UNEXPECTED ACTION. What do I mean by this? I mean: totally shocking myself. 

"I felt SO miserable"

I remember that I wanted to quit smoking, and I tried it for many times. However, it just didn't work, and I kept having setbacks. Until one day I had to help a friend with pushing his car, and just doing THAT made me EXTREMELY TIRED! That event triggered the need for taking some serious action, because I didn’t want to feel this way ever again. 

Then I stumbled upon this concept of shocking myself, so one day I was just sitting behind my computer, and in the middle of what I was doing I decided to put on my running shoes, go outside, and started to sprint until the point that I literally just felt sick. I felt SO miserable, that every time I had the urge to smoke, thinking about that feeling was ENOUGH not to give in. I really shocked myself, and started working out more often. 

So, basically, I started living a different life, which changed my way of thinking. My physical fitness started to become very important to me, and it became the main reason that I didn’t start smoking again. Just thinking about that terrible feeling when you need oxygen, but you feel that bad stuff from those cigarettes making it very hard to properly breathe. If I only kept thinking about quitting smoking cigarettes, I am sure I wouldn't be able to quit. Unexpected action did the trick for me. Living differently to create new ways of thinking.

Just do this!

Another thing that happened when I shocked myself, was that very quickly I felt much better. I felt more vital, more alive and had much more energy. It had an effect on everything I did, and I think it's because I did something what I normally would not do. This has somehow given me a boost, even though I felt completely miserable after that sprint. 

So, the point here, is if you want to change something in your life, don’t just sit and wait around for it to happen, or until you find that one quote on Instagram that gives you that “AHA” moment, but just unexpectedly take a type of action which totally shocks you. At least, that’s what worked and still works for me! You can’t think yourself into new ways of living, you have to live yourself into new ways of thinking. So by start doing stuff, you start thinking differently. 

It's the same thing with reading all of those self development books, or watching self development videos just like this one. I had many times that I was ONLY watching YouTube videos, literally for hours in a row, day after day, and during that time I had a lot of little "aha' moments, but without taking any action upon it, it just made me feel miserable and worthless. Inspiration is a wonderful thing, but without action, I think it has no added value to one’s life. So, I hope that after seeing this video, you know what to do.

Thank YOU

One last thing I want to say to one of my subscribers, is thank you so, so much for your donation. It really means the world to me and like I said in a previous video, everything donated will be invested back into the channel to create the best possible experience for you guys, so this made me able to buy a proper tripod for my camera. This is something I wanted for a very long time, and YOU made it possible. My level of gratefulness is indescribable. 

Thank you all for watching and for being a part of Maximize Your Life, see you in the next one.