[00:00] This is a universal framework that I just shared with you as we call it, reveal your path. Nobody else in the world has put this framework together. Quite like I have through this four step framework that everybody, you know, there are people talking about certain bits and pieces of this, but this is a universal framework that you can use and apply to your life.

[00:23] Welcome to another episode of success through failure. This is your host, Jim harsher. And today I’m bringing you a solo episode. We’re going to talk about how to sustain motivation and achieve. Change in, you know, for those of us who have ever felt like we are motivated sometimes and not other times, you know, motivation comes and goes where we feel like sometimes you’re on track.

[00:46] Sometimes you’re off track or maybe you have clarity sometimes, and then you get back into a rut and get stuck again. We’ll listen. Some of this is the natural. Ebb and flow of life, but here’s what we’re going to talk about today. How to sustain motivation and achieve lasting change over the course of years.

[01:01] Right? Not in the short-term because this and that stuff’s just going to happen. Like the ebb and flow. There are ways to deal with that as well, but we’re not going to talk about those specifically right now. Sustained motivation, lasting change over the course of the long haul for your life. So you can start that side household, make that career change, get that promotion, you know, change jobs, change industries, or maybe it’s in the relationship side of your business or in your health and fitness.

[01:25] Like man, Jim, I, you know, I, I work out for a while sometimes, and then I kind of fall off the wagon and I just can’t. Achieved that, that sustained motivation and achieve that lasting change. We’re going to talk about that. And I’m going to share with you not only my journey of ups and downs and what I’ve learned in lessons, I can share with you, but also, you know, I’ve talked to hundreds of world-class performers on this podcast over the years, and I get to.

[01:50] Pick their brains in and have these conversations. And we’re having a lot of times conversations even before we hit the record button or afterwards. And some of these folks I built friendships with and I get to interact with them even more, which is really cool. I feel really blessed. I want to bring these lessons to as best I can in this episode.

[02:06] So some of those folks who I’ve actually already spoken to, I haven’t published the episodes yet, but coming up, we have Dr. LA. She’s a psychologist, but, uh, also has her MBA. So she’s just, you know, accomplished in the academic side, but on the, on the sort of real world experience side, she’s the chief mind doc for Spartan race.

[02:26] She works closely with mark divine and unbeatable mind. Mark was a Navy seal. I had him on the podcast years ago. I probably should get him back on, but she just shared some really good stuff with me, actually just a few days ago, when I interviewed her Steve Simms, who I’ve had on the podcast, once he came back on, I recorded that interview that one’s coming up soon.

[02:43] I saw yesterday, you got invited to speak on stage with Tony Robbins, another one, Cameron, Harold, who he wrote the book vivid vision and not enough Rio who I interviewed in episode. 338 talked about vivid vision in this book, vivid vision. I read the book, it’s become like desktop reference for me. It’s about two arms length from me right now, as I’m recording this.

[03:06] And I reached out to, to Cameron, Harold, and he’s going to come on the show. So we’ve got all these amazing people coming on, and I want to bring you some of that in this episode. Teach you how to create sustained motivation and lasting change. And some of the things that’ll work for me, there’ll be years.

[03:22] So if you enjoy this podcast, if you enjoy success through failure, take a screenshot right now, just take a screenshot and post it on social media posts on Twitter, posted on Facebook posts on Instagram. Tag me. So I know. And, uh, it’ll let me know. You’re listening. I’ll get to interact with you. Uh, make a comment on any of my posts.

[03:41] If you see me on social media, make a comment, hit, hit reply, and let me know you’re there. And I want to interact with you. I love interacting with my listeners. And the other thing is, if you can leave me a rating and review those things go a long way in showing authority. To apple podcasts or Google or Spotify or whatever platform you’re listening on to let them know, Hey, this is a well-respected podcast.

[04:02] Let’s show this to other people. So that’s the way you can help grow this podcast and help other people gain the benefit that you’re getting from listening. Share a recent review from Olivia Baker. So thank you, Olivia. She said, if you’re looking for motivation, inspiration into improve your life, hit the subscribe button success.

[04:21] Has a truly impressive lineup of guests in these episodes feature actionable tips. Insights. Thank you, Olivia, if you want to hear your name read as one of these folks who left a review, go ahead and leave me a rating and review, and I’ll get yours on here soon enough. So thank you again, Olivia, for the new listeners action plans can be found at JimHarshawJr.com/ACTION.

[04:44] That’s all the show notes, all the links, everything from each episode, and there’s going to be the handful of really important links in this action plan from this episode. So make sure you get your copy of that PDF action plan. Lastly, I’m going to mention that. Just announced that my retreat is live. You can register for it.

[05:02] Now, this is initially for my inner circle only I will reserve a few final spots for a waiting list for open to the general public. So if you want to get on that waiting list. Email Paulin, my assistant, just a email assistant@newui.jimharshawjr.com. So assistant@newui.jimharshawjr.com you can get your name on the waiting list and we’ll keep you posted.

[05:24] As that availability opens up, it is going to be mind blowing. It is going to be at pick, I guess is such a cool venue. We have it’s a 338. Sprawling venue with most of it is forest there’s 10 acres of manicured lawn. We’ve got an event center as well as a lodge rate on the grounds there. We’ve got the whole thing to our freaking selves and.

[05:47] It’s going to be mind blowing. That’s all I can say at this point. So if you want to find out more details, you can go to Jim harsher Jr. Com slash retreat for details on that. Again, only open currently to inner circle, but we’ll be opening some final spots later on as we get closer to the event May 13th through 15th.

[06:05] All right. So how do you create sustained motivation and lasting change? Let me tell you a little bit about my backstory. So I grew up outside of Pittsburgh, small town kid, blue collar dad was a sheet metal construction worker. A tradesman mom was a secretary, and I figured I was going to follow in dad’s path and, you know, work really hard and wrestling never achieved any of my goals.

[06:29] I had goals to be a state champion, never won the state championship in Pennsylvania. Didn’t even get on the. And so I graduated high school with just a ton of self doubt, not really a vision for my life, but I worked hard. And luckily that little to some doors opening for me, I got good grades, not great, but pretty good grades.

[06:48] And that opened the door for me to go to university of Virginia. The number one rated public university in the country got recruited to brown and Penn and Cornell. So we got recruited to some great schools. Only because I was kind of an okay wrestler and kind of a good student and they’re like, okay, yeah, we’ll take you as a walk on.

[07:03] Right. Then get any scholarship money. I had Virginia and, uh, Ivy leagues don’t offer scholarship money anyway. So I had some good opportunities. Ended up in Virginia. We looked around and realized everybody was there. It was just smarter than me and more accomplished. I was like the worst guy in my recruiting class by far.

[07:18] And didn’t really know if I even had a place on the team and you fast forward, five years. And I graduated with an undergraduate degree and a master’s degree from a great school, number one public school in the country, like I said, and I’m an All-American three time ACC champion and I’m invited to live and train at the Olympic training center as an Olympic hopeful, complete transformed.

[07:40] From the guy who set foot on grounds of the university of Virginia five years earlier, and this sets me off onto a path of success. And so you talk about sustaining motivation and achieving lasting change. Most of my. In wrestling was failure. I failed in high school, looked around all my friends, who I was training with and training hard with.

[08:01] I mean, going like above and beyond training year, round and competing at every opportunity I had in training and practicing and every opportunity, every, just so many of those guys were going on to success and I was getting lifted. You know, most people would quit. You know, I got to the university of Virginia looked around again.

[08:17] I’m like, I don’t even belong here. Right. Academically, athletically, socially. I mean, I had like a $5 bicycle that I bought at the, uh, at the salvation army and spray painted the whole thing black. And that was my, that was my ride. UVA, you know, there’s kids like riding around in SUV’s and I got my $5.

[08:35] Huffy mountain bike. So I didn’t belong there, but, but you fast forward, like I said, and, and complete change happens, right. And how did I sustain my motivation and achieve lasting change through those five years to finally get onto the podium? My senior year, there was a framework there. I’m going to share a little bit about that framework and then kind of go through life and have a lot of success.

[08:55] I ended up becoming the youngest division one head wrestling coach in the country. And then I got out of coaching after about a decade and I started my first business and I sold that it was successful, started my second business. And I went all in on this thing and, uh, you know, do what I know how to do, which was working.

[09:12] But that led me to, you know, a failed business, struggling marriage. Wasn’t spending enough time with my wife because I was so all in on this business, wasn’t spending enough time with my kids, you know, credit card debt, you know, failed business, completely out of shape, worst physical shape of my life and, and just completely upside down in my life.

[09:31] And I got from there. To where I’m at now, which is living my dream life. I mean, I’m by dream business and absolutely love what I do. And, you know, completely transformed my relationships, my health, my business, my life, my finances, everything. And, but it took a lot, right. It’s like, oh, okay. Yeah, Jim is successful now.

[09:53] And he’s got this, this, you know, business that he loves to do and podcasts and speaking and coaching. Well, it wasn’t that. Right. I, I, there was a lot of sustained motivation that had to happen, right. And lasting change that had to happen. And so, so how did I do that? So I’m going to share with you four steps, four things that you have to have in place in your life to help you sustain motivation and create lasting change.

[10:19] Now here’s the deal. I’m not going to go super in-depth on all of these, because I have episodes that I recorded that went much further in depth. Okay. So I’m going to give you the overview and if you want to go deeper on any one of these specific areas, I’m going to allow you to do that. And I’m going to give you this specific episode number.

[10:34] I’m going to read those off, but you can also get the action plan, go to JimHarshawJr.com/ACTION and it’ll have links to all of these episodes. Okay. So number one, when I was wrestling, it was very clear. With what was important to me. Right. I probably couldn’t have stated those things as core values like I can today, but it was very clear on what was most important to me, right?

[10:56] Like core values. I wanted to be tough. I wanted to be disciplined to want to be respected when to go on to success. Like so many of my role models and mentors did before me, you know, after wrestling, they went on to success. I wanted that too. So those were the things that I valued. And number two, I had goals that aligned with those values.

[11:15] No, not goals that aligned with anybody else’s values, right? Not my mom and dads, not my teammates, not my coaches, nobody gyms, they aligned with me and this allowed me to be resilient. So number one, you have to identify your core values. And I go, in-depth on this, on how, like a specific process for doing this and episode 324 now sort of the shortcut version is.

[11:36] Look at a list of value words, you can Google this, look at a list of value words, and actually we have a list. We’ll put those in the actual link to that in the action plan too. And you can kind of circle your top 10 and narrow down to your top five and your top three, you can do that process, but there’s a much deeper, even more impactful process that would lead you through in that episode.

[11:54] So episode 324. Foundational work quick interruption. If you like what you’re hearing here, and you want to learn how you can implement this into your life. Just go to JimHarshawJr.com/APPLY to see how you can get a free one-on-one coaching session with me. That’s JimHarshawJr.com/APPLY now back to the show.

[12:17] All right, so that’s step one. Number two is creating those goals. Like I said, they’re aligned with those values, right? Not goals that align with anybody else’s values now. Yeah. When I was competing, I could have a single-minded focus. There was essentially one goal. Yeah. There was kind of like a, wanted to be, you know, get good grades and that sort of thing.

[12:32] And I did, I got really good grades at UVA, but it was more about like, let me check those boxes so that it doesn’t interfere with my training. You know, really that was, that was my goal is to, to be a national champion and, and I failed by the way, failed and ended up being just an all American, which is top eight in the country.

[12:50] Uh, wasn’t on the top of the podium. You know, if it wasn’t for aiming that high, I would have never gotten on the podium. So it was okay. Enough for me to be had that single-minded focus when I was an athlete out in the real world. That’s not the case. Right. So many things pulling at us, right? There’s, you know, relationships that we have professional and personal relationships, there’s, you know, health and wellbeing and wellness, right?

[13:12] If you have a family, you’ve got kids, you gotta pay attention to also, right. Obviously in your you’re investing a ton of time and energy there, there’s also professional goals, career goals. Like there’s so many stakeholders in your life. And so many things you have to balance. So it’s not enough to have.

[13:27] Single-minded focus. You have to have this balanced success. And I go deeper in episode 269. That’s 2 69. And there’s a whole big, clear process there. If you go to Jim Marshall Jr com slash goal setting, by the way, just goal setting, or if you Google my name and goal set and go find it. There’s a written blog post on this.

[13:44] It has also has the podcast embedded onto that page, but a really specific process for you for, for how to go about goal-setting and. You know, maybe you need to focus on goal setting in your relationships, or maybe it’s in your health, or maybe it’s in your career trying to get on stock, try to get to your next level, whatever it is.

[14:01] This episode in this blog post will help you for areas where we set goals with my coaching clients. Number one, relationships, number two, self. Okay. So self goals is a little bit nebulous. So the way we define that as is either growth or. Or fun. Okay. Growth learning a new skill, you know, getting a new certification, something like that impact is just making an impact in the world, volunteering, philanthropy, that sort of thing, and, or fun.

[14:29] They, things are just fun for you. Like fun for me, adventure, mountain biking, rock climbing, water kayaking, you know, Being in the back country, et cetera, like adventure, that’s fun for me, probably different for you. So those are really important to have goals in those areas. Okay. So I saw, I talked about relationships and self next is.

[14:48] Health and fitness wellbeing. And then the last one is wealth or work. Okay. So those are the four areas where we set goals. Again, I go deeper in episode 2 69, and this is all again, coming back to how do I sustain motivation and achieve lasting change number three. And I’m going to sort of put a bow on this at the end.

[15:06] So stay tuned here. Now in episode 152, I talk about the environment of excellence. Okay. There’s an environment that is just automatically built in whenever. Alright, NCAA division one college athlete at a power five conference school. There’s just an infrastructure around you. Right? I had coaches, I had nutritionists and strength and conditioning coaches and athletic trainers and a sports psychologist.

[15:30] And you know, all these people around you, academic advisors, all these people around you that are helping you move towards your goals. There’s an infrastructure there. Listen, it doesn’t exist in the real world unless you create. You have to create it. You have to figure out who those people are. And it’s not just people.

[15:48] It’s, what’s the media that I’m allowing into my life. I actually have an acronym for this, and I’ll just briefly touch on that because I go deeper in episode 1 52, but the acronym for the environment of excellence is M a P S maps. You have to know your maps, just like you needed a map to get from point a to point B.

[16:04] You have to have your maps in place so that you can get from where you’re at in your life to where you want to go. And part of it is so N stands for meeting. Hi podcast. And why not? Right. Social media or lack thereof. Right. Are you following the right people on social media? Do you have a list of like positive influence or should you just delete social media or, you know, when you watch TV, is it stuff that’s just pulling you down as a negative or you overdosing on the news?

[16:29] That’s media a is for area like the physical space around you. If you’re watching the video of this or watching a video clip of this on social media, you’ll see that. You’ll see that I’m standing up. I have a standing desk and I stand up and I sit down throughout the day. I just popped the buttons and boom, I go up and down.

[16:44] It helps me feel more and more creative, more energized. I don’t have to get up and walk around and break my focus. I can just keep on rolling. So this is my area. I have my goals posted right here in front of me. I’ve got my whiteboard beside me. I got my water and coffee right here. Like this is my physical space around me.

[16:59] And it’s. For success P is for people. Are you talking about that in S in this acronym of maps? S is for speech, the talk that we have, like the, the self-talk and the out loud talk, right. W what are the words that you’re saying? Like, do you have mantras, like, yeah, sure. That sounds kind of weird, but like, guess what world-class performers pay attention.

[17:19] To their talk and their self-talk and the words that they use to others. Are you telling people? Yeah, I’m just not good at such and such, or I hate, I hate working out. I hate waking up early. I’m not a morning person or, you know, my boss is a real jerk. I just there’s, you know, I’m really, I’m stuck in this industry.

[17:34] Gosh, this pandemic really been a setback now, you know, I can’t connect with people because we’re working from home and, you know, really, you know, hinders me in sort of my networking. No, Find a way around it, right? Change your language. Like I can do this. I am doing this. I’m getting better at this. Right.

[17:50] Your language is important. So that’s the environment of excellence. M a P S right. Episode 1 52. Now, how do you sustain this? Right? You go, okay, Jim. That’s nice. So you have goals, right? And you have these core values identified in his environment of excellence. How do you sustain the motivation? But okay.

[18:06] Here’s how you do it. Number one, you crystallize your core values into some kind of mnemonic, right. Something that helps you remember the mnemonic just means memory device. It might be an acronym. It might be words that all start with the same letter for me. It’s faith, family fitness and fun. Right?

[18:21] There’s also with the same letters. It’s easier for me to remember. Not all those words started with an F when I first discovered my core values, but I found the right words that fit, like for me, adventure comes up when I do my core values exercise, but adventure is fun for me. Fun starts with an F. It’s easier for me to remember fun.

[18:38] Listen, if you’ve done the core values work before, you know, and I, and I bump into you on the street and I say, Hey, what are your core values? And you go, oh, hold on. Let me, let me go. Look, I got them. They’re saved on my phone. Hold on, let me pull them up. Or I got them written in a notebook at home. I’ll tell you when I get home.

[18:49] No, that’s pointless. Like you have to have them top of mind for you. Right? You got to have those crystallized. So you can make the big decisions in the small decisions, right? The, from like, should I eat that donut to the big decisions of like, you know, like what my job and everything. You lean on your core values, those help you sustain motivation and create lasting change another one micro goals.

[19:12] Right? So we talked about the goals, but what about actually breaking these goals that are like year long goals or ten-year goals and down into these actionable things that you can do monthly. Right. If your goal is to like, you know, sign up for a gym membership, that’s not a goal. That’s a to do list, right?

[19:29] You can do that next week. Right? If your goal is to update your resume, that’s not a goal. That’s a micro goal. That’s a smaller thing that you can do next week. So we call them micro goals. These are smaller things that you can do that will move you towards the larger goal. Right? One thing I do with my clients when they meet with me or their Pathfinder coach that reveal your path coach on at least a monthly basis and review their goals and their micro goals.

[19:54] And if you’re just setting your goals and you put them up on a shelf, you’re not going to have sustained motivation. You’re not gonna have. Lasting change the environment of excellence. I talked about this, the S the media area, people speech, like when you do that, when you were in the right environment, when you were surrounded by the right people, when you’re saying the right words, when you optimize your physical area in space, around you, when you’re listening to the right media, this helps you by default sustain motivation and create lasting change.

[20:23] Right. Like Olympic athletes don’t work out with a bunch of other mediocre people who are really not even interested in their sport. And, uh, just, just not motivated by the same things. No, of course. I mean, that’s silly. It’s silly to even consider that. But what about you? Are you hanging around the right people?

[20:39] Do you have an optimized environment? Do you have clear goals? Do you have a, a vision for your life? Like have you done this work? And I talked about camera and heroin. We’re going to have him on the podcast real soon, and that is going to be an awesome episode to make sure you’re subscribed if you’re not already on and on an email list, because I’ll email you on Monday, the Mondays, these podcast episodes come out, I send you the link.

[21:01] So it shows up right in your inbox. If you go to JimHarshawJr.com/ACTION, again, to get subscribed to the list and get these, just reduce the. You’re getting this stuff delivered, but Cameron, Harold is going to talk to us about vivid vision. How do you create that vision for your business and for your life?

[21:17] And you have to have that vision. When you have that vision, then you can create sustained motivation and lasting change. And like I said, on a daily, weekly basis, even monthly. Yeah. Your motivation is going to go up and down. It can look like the stock market, like over time. Yeah. There are blips, you know, it goes up and down day to day, week to week, month to month.

[21:34] But over time, You want to be trending in the right direction. And if you don’t have this framework in your life, you’re not going to get there. Period. This is a universal framework that I just shared with you. We call it, reveal your path. Nobody else in the world has put this framework together. Quite like I have through this four step framework that everybody, you know, there are people talking about certain bits and pieces of this, but this is a universal framework that you can use and apply to your life.

[22:02] Whether you’re, you know, Trying to, to, to break into a new industry, whether you’re trying to, uh, start that side hustle. Right. I went through that. I went through being at the bottom. I told you I was broke and broken. I had that failed business and struggling marriage, and I was out of shape. And all the sudden I had to create sustained motivation and lasting change by putting this in place in my life.

[22:25] I actually discovered this framework at that moment when I was at the bar. Realizing that I had a framework in my life when I was performing at the highest level and I re-instituted, or re-installed this in my life. And it changed everything. I mean, my goodness, it seems easy. A foregone conclusion that Jim standing here talking to you on a podcast with, uh, a great business and getting to work with companies like Spartan race and some of the other super fast growing companies in the United States and Canada, actually with one of the fastest growing companies in Canada is, is one of our clients right now.

[22:56] Yeah. It’s not a foregone conclusion that I would have ended up here. It’s just not, there were a lot of moments where I thought, gosh, maybe I, maybe I can’t make this happen. Maybe I should just quit. Maybe I should just hang it up. But those were momentary, right? I had the right people around me, the right media influences the right optimized area around me, the right people in my life there.

[23:16] I was using the right speech and self-talk, I had a vision for my life and core values and goals that aligned with those values. So I was resilient. I was consistent. I was motivated. It created. Sustained motivation and I achieved lasting change. And you can too, if you want to go deeper on this, check out these episodes that I talked about, I’m going to have all those in the action plan.

[23:38] If you want to talk to me about how to implement this into your life, go to JimHarshawJr.com/APPLY. We have an amazing community of people. If you’re a right, the right fit. Fantastic. If you’re not, I’m going to give you a ton of value on this call either way. You’re going to get a ton of value and a lot of clarity, but no.

[23:55] We have an amazing community and we’re bringing them together at the retreat in may. I can’t wait. All right. I think I just put a bow on everything. That’s all you need this simple framework. Thank you for listening. Again, give this a screenshot, give it a share, make a comment or reply on social media. So I know that you’re out there.

[24:13] I look forward to. Thanks for listening. If you want to apply these principles into your life, let’s talk. You can see the limited spaces that are open on my account. JimHarshawJr.com/APPLY where you can sign up for a free one-time coaching call directly with me. And don’t forget to grab your action plan.

[24:33] Just go to JimHarshawJr.com/ACTION. And lastly, iTunes tends to suggest podcasts with more ratings and reviews more often. You would totally make my day. If you give me a rating and review those go a long way in helping me grow the podcast. Just open up your podcast app. If you have an iPhone, do a search for success through failure selected, and then scroll the whole way to the bottom where you can leave the podcast, a rating and a review.

[25:01] Now I hope this isn’t just another podcast episode for you. I hope you take action on what you learned here today. Good luck, and thanks for listening.

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