December 29, 2023 • 27 mins
As we approach the close of 2024, this episode is not just about reflecting on the lessons learned; it's about sharing the transformative insights that will illuminate our path forward.
Jay poses a question that resonates deeply: How many of us stress about our well-being? From health and meditation to daily journals and affirmations, the pursuit of self-improvement often brings with it a surge of stress.
Jay challenges you to explore the idea of stress as a spectrum, a nuanced scale rather than a binary state. This concept is monumental and understanding stress can be a game changer for you this coming year.
In this episode, Jay unpacks the idea that sometimes the goal of wanting to be better and do better puts us under greater pressure.
Let Jay guide you as he explains positive stress, distress and the lessons he learned this year that are meant to be carried forward and put into practice. It's not just about learning; it's about application, about making these lessons a living, breathing part of our lives.
This episode is your go to to close off the year and prepare yourself for a beautiful journey in 2024.
With Love and Gratitude,
Jay Shetty
In this episode you’ll learn:
- Differentiating positive stress and distress
- Finding your center
- Top stressful events for adults
- Knowing when to be hard on yourself and when to let go
What we discuss:
- 00:00 Intro
- 03:02 The Big Lesson I Am Taking Into 2024
- 03:34 #1 Understanding Stress As A Spectrum
- 04:49 The Positive Side Of Stress
- 10:30 Living In Distress
- 17:09 #2 Finding Your Center
- 20:28: #3 Being More Compassionate And Understanding Of How Others Deal With Stress
- 21:25 The Ultimate Gamechanger
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Mental health is now talked about more than ever, which
is awesome. I mean, I don't have to tell you
that it's a primary focus of on Purpose, but on
a day to day basis, many people don't know where
to turn or which tools can help. Over the past
couple of years, I've been working with Calm to make
mental wellness accessible and enjoyable, or as I like to say,
fun and easy. Calm has all sorts of content to
(00:24):
help you reduce anxiety and stress, build mindful habits, improve sleep,
and generally feel better in your daily life. So many
bite size options from the most knowledgeable experts in the world,
along with renowned meditation teachers. You can also check out
my seven minute daily series to help you live more
mindfully each and every day. Right now, listeners of On
(00:45):
Purpose get forty percent off a subscription to Calmpremium at
Calm dot com forward slash j that's Calm dot com
forward slash jay for forty percent off. Calm your mind,
Change your life. Stop sleeping with your phone near your bed,
allow yourself to wake up without your phone, and sleep
(01:06):
without your phone because guess what, we're also scrolling just
before we go to bed, and then in the morning,
we do the same thing. Your brain has no ramp
up period. Your brain basically has no startup mode. It
has to go from zero to sixty miles per hour
and three seconds, like a sports car, a supercar. We
are pressurizing our minds today to process as much as
seventy four gigabytes a day. Hey everyone, welcome back to
(01:35):
On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world.
Thanks to each and every one of you who come
back every week to listen, learn, and grow. Now, considering
this is our last episode of twenty twenty three, I
can't believe I'm saying that it's incredible how fast this
year is gone. I am wishing and hoping that you
(01:58):
have had a fulfilled and phenomenal year, and despite the
challenges in setbacks, that you've been able to navigate and
find your way through that change. At the same time,
I'm sitting here recording this wanting to share with you
just how grateful I am that you have allowed me
(02:20):
to join you on walks, that you've allowed me to
join you while you cook, that you've allowed me to
join you in the gym. I love seeing your stories,
I love reading your reviews, and I want to thank
you for making us one of the top five podcasts
in the world globally on Spotify and one of the
(02:41):
top ten on Apple. I want to encourage you to follow,
like subscribe on the apps, share the podcast. It means
the world to me. You did that, share that news,
and thank you so much for believing and on purpose,
for believing in me, trusting me. And I promise to
continue you, to try and serve you to the best
(03:02):
of my ability. And I'm so excited for twenty twenty four.
The growth this year has been phenomenal and it's all
thanks to you. Now, I want to share with you
the key lessons that I'm taking with me into twenty
twenty four. Often at this time of year, I'll say, well,
here are my big lessons of twenty twenty three. This
is what I learned. And I did an episode like
(03:24):
that on my birthday on the sixth of September. But
today I wanted to approach it differently. I wanted to
share with you lessons that I'm taking with me, that
i'm taking forward that I believe are going to help
me in the future. Really, that's the point of a lesson,
right the point of a lesson is in I learned
that great, Thank you so much. Now let's learn a
(03:44):
new lesson. The point of a lesson is, now that
I've learned it, I'm actually going to put it into practice.
I'm actually going to utilize it in the following year.
So I want to dive straight in and this thing
I think is going to resonate with a lot of you.
And it's why it's my big lesson that I want
to take into the new year. It's this idea of
(04:07):
let me ask you a question. How many of you
stress about your health or being healthy. How many of
you stress about meditation. How many of you stress about
making sure you don't miss a day in your journal.
How many of you stress to make sure that you
read your affirmations out in the morning. How many of
(04:28):
you stress that you're not getting to the gym enough
or yoga enough, or whatever else it may be. How
many of you stress about well being. What I've realized
is that in this world of wanting to be better,
do better, grow more, learn more, which by the way,
is beautiful, it's a great way to live. I found
(04:49):
that often in that journey, we start experiencing more stress,
we start putting ourselves under greater pressure and stress, and
we have to really understand stress as a spectrum. This
is something that I'm taking into twenty twenty four. It's huge.
I want you to write it down right now, take
(05:10):
a screenshot. I want you to explain this to a friend.
So I was learning about this idea of how it
can be helpful to look at stress as a scale,
as a spectrum, rather than I am stressed or I'm
not stressed. Really, there's actually a scale. At one end
(05:31):
there's you stress spelt eu s t r ss U stress,
and at the other end there's distress. Now, let me
explain these and define these for you. When you look
at the word you stress, what it means is a
positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance,
(05:55):
and emotional wellbeing. Right during positive stress, you stress, such
as working hard at work for a promotion or feeling
like you've got the reward of a vacation, feel good
chemicals called endorphins are released. Now, I don't think we
talk about this a lot. What we talk about is
(06:16):
at the other end of the spectrum, which is distress,
and the definition of distress or the meaning of distress
is great pain, anxiety or sorrow, acute physical or mental suffering, affliction, trouble,
et cetera, et cetera. Right now, I think what we're
(06:36):
used to experiencing and what we're used to referencing when
we talk about stress is this idea of distress. So
you stress helps you break through from your comfort zone,
It helps you take on new challenges, it helps you
find motivation, whereas distress is the stress that makes you
feel overwhelmed. It's what affects your mood. It's that negative
(07:01):
type of stress that affects your sleep. It's almost like
when you're stressing about sleeping well, or you're stressing about
the fact that you're stressed when you're not sleeping well,
and that perpetuates itself. So I want to look at
stress as a spectrum, and the lesson I'm taking through
is I need to make sure which level of stress
(07:23):
I'm putting myself under. This is about the stress you control,
the stress you allow yourself to experience. Are you putting
you stress onto yourself or are you putting yourself in
positions of distress? Are you putting stress on yourself to
feel better? To encourage yourself to motivate yourself to move
yourself forward, or are you putting stress on yourself, being
(07:46):
critical of yourself, saying you're not getting enough done, You're
too far behind, right, you haven't done enough this year.
It's really really interesting to me because research suggests that
chronic stress contributes to high blood pressure, promotes the formation
of artery clogging deposits, and causes brain changes that may
contribute to anxiety, depression, and addiction. And more. Preliminary resets
(08:11):
suggests that chronic stress may also contribute to obesity, both
through direct mechanisms causing people to eat more or indirectly
decreasing sleep and exercise. Now, I know you're listening to
me already, going Jay, this is stressing me out. How
many of you are listening right now? And the reason
I exposed you to that definition is because we're used
(08:31):
to hearing something like that and putting ourselves under distress.
So we hear that and our response is, oh crap,
oh my god, I'm not sleeping enough, I'm not exercising enough,
I'm not not not right. Whereas you, stress is actually saying, well,
when I work out, when I push myself to work out,
(08:52):
I actually feel better afterwards. You know what, when I
actually sleep earlier, I know that I'll be happier tomorrow.
Your allowing yourself to recognize that success follows your stress, right,
You have an understanding that when I do something that stressful,
it leads to me being successful. And when I say successful,
I don't mean materially or financially. I'm talking about the
(09:15):
fact that you see an intrinsic reward in why you
sleep early, in why you exercise. So it's now not
when I don't sleep early enough, I don't work out enough,
I don't eat healthy enough. It's actually saying well, when
I eat healthy, I feel better, my gut feels better,
my digestion's better, I feel more energized. I really want
(09:36):
you to take this deeply on board, because I think
so many of us are living in spaces of distress
and not recognizing just how tiresome it can be to
keep stressing yourself out. We keep letting stress get the
better of us, or stress gets the best of us
(09:58):
because we put ourselves under this stress. And I've realized,
whether it's my work goals, my financial goals, my spiritual goals,
my emotional goals, I have recognized that putting myself under
distress only makes me less productive, less effective, and less impactful.
How many times this year be honest with me? How
many times this year did you put yourself under too
(10:21):
much stress? Raise your hands, not your heads? How many
times this year, be honest with me? Did you not
allow yourself the benefit of the doubt? How many times
did you not cut yourself some slack? How many times
did you make yourself feel worse? What I've found is
that guilt blocks growth. Guilt does not lead to growth.
(10:46):
Guilt blocks growth. You may have that instant response if
I want to be better, Notice how that's a positive
statement versus I'm not good enough. Notice how you're saying
the same thing, but you're not right. Look at that scent.
I want to be better. I am going to be
better versus I'm not good enough. How do you think
your mind and your body react to those statements? When
(11:11):
you look at the common internal causes of stress, there's
a natural pessimism and negative outlook on life. Hence the
statement I'm not good enough. What you'll realize is that
we're all living in one of these two modalities. We're
either living in new stress or distress. Right, So, if
you're in distress, you're saying, I'm not good enough. I'm
(11:32):
going to be negative about stuff. If you're living in
new stress, you're saying, you know what, I'm going to
use stress to motivate me. I recognize the value of it.
Another common internal cause of stress is the inability to
accept uncertainty. Now here's what we do when we put
ourselves in distress. We're basically saying, there should have been
(11:52):
a certain result, there should have been a defined, conclusive result.
And without a defined conclusive result, we're like, well, we
must be failures, we must be wrong. Another common internal
cause is rigid thinking a lack of flexibility. This one's
really really interesting to me because often we think that
(12:16):
rigid routines and patterns are good for us. And, by
the way, they are good for us. Having a morning
routine is fantastic. But if you stress that you missed
a day of your morning routine, or maybe you stress
because you missed a aspect of your morning routine. Right,
you're doing the whole thing. You're meditating, you're working out,
(12:37):
you're journaling, and then one day you missed journaling. All
of a sudden, you're throwing it all out. You're saying,
oh gosh, like just messed up one day, you got
called into work early one day, you had to stay
up late for work one day, and all of a sudden,
you're going, God, I just wanted to be able to
stick to my program. I don't have any flexibility, right.
(12:58):
That actually causes more stresses us having this belief that
I have to do the same exact thing every day, which,
by the way, isn't realistic. I want to ask you,
what activity could you say you have done every day
of your life forever without fail. It's probably breathing, brushing
your teeth, and showering, And even that third one for
(13:21):
some of you may be questionable, right, but hopefully we
brush our teeth every day, we breathe of course every day,
and we shower every day. Those are three things that
you can say, yes, I've done those three things pretty
much every day of my life. Beyond that, what else? Eating?
Of course, drinking water, of course, the obvious things. But
beyond that, if you took away the basic necessities sleeping,
(13:43):
if you took away the basic necessities, what could you
say you've done every single day of your life? It's
very hard. And so when we get into these rigid
routines and patterns and we say to ourselves, for the
rest of my life, I'm going to do this every day,
every single day. I have to do this because if
I don't do this, I'm not going to feel good.
I'm not gonna feel at my best if I don't
do this. Notice how different that is to a mindset
(14:05):
of saying I feel better when I do this, versus
I'm not gonna feel at my best if I don't
do this. That's distress you stress is I always feel
better when I do this. I'm happy when I do this.
I get to do this. Notice how rigid thinking actually
just compounds stress. So I'm not saying don't have rigid patterns.
(14:28):
I'm saying, have a different relationship with your rigid patterns.
Have a different relationship with your morning routine. It's not
a must. It's not a I have to. It's not
a if I don't. It's a I get to. It's
a this makes me better, it's a imagine what's possible. Right.
As soon as you see that rigid thinking and lack
(14:49):
of flexibility leading to negative self talk, start to become
really mindful Another common internal cause of stress is unrealistic
expectations or perfor fectionism. Now people often look at perfectionism
as something to strifle. It almost makes you feel like
you care more. Right. I've often had people say to me, well, Jay,
if you don't believe in perfectionism, does that mean you
(15:10):
don't care? And what I've realized is actually, caring too
much can make what I'm creating worse. It can actually
make me more anxious. It can actually make me less
able to do the thing. I'll give an example even
with on purpose, if I'm extra stressed about a guest
I'm about to have on I actually believe I have
(15:31):
a worse conversation. I feel that I have better conversations
when I've prepared enough but not over prepared. And that's
the word I want to share with you. I want
you to look at your life as how can you
prepare but not over prepare? How can you create but
not overcreate? How can you think but not overthink? Notice
how it's when we add the word over overthink, overcompensate, right,
(15:56):
over prepare, That's when we're like, well that's a bit
over at the top, Right, that's the feeling. So when
it comes to deepening developing a healthier relationship with our
perfectionist mindset. I'm not saying, see, this is what we
do as humans. We oscillate between two extremes. We go, oh, well,
I was a perfectionist. Now I'm just gonna do whatever
(16:17):
comes out. I'm just gonna be quick. And by the way,
that is the process to get back to the middle.
So if you meet a friend or if you find
yourself oscillating between two different extremes, chances are you're actually
trying to find your middle. You're actually trying to find
your center. And finding your center is a beautiful thing.
(16:41):
So I'll give an example. If you're someone who was
a people pleaser, and now you're saying, really eye boundaries.
And often when we see our friends do this, we go,
oh god, they're like overcompensating. But no, we almost have
to do that in the beginning. If you as someone
who's a perfectionist, you might just need to fail every day, right,
You might just need to fail every day. You might
need to take on a minithing every day that allows
(17:02):
you to break through that desire to be perfect and
make everything add up and make everything stack up. Notice
how we have to almost move from one extreme to
the other to find ourselves in the middle. In order
to develop a healthy relationship with anything in the world,
we have to find our center. We have to find
the middle. But in order to find the middle, we
(17:25):
often have to swing from left to right a few times.
And as we swing more and more, we start to
settle in the middle. I want you to ask yourself
with stress, how many of you go through this with
stress where you stress yourself out and then you take
it really easy. And then when you take it really easy,
you're like, oh, no, I'm taking it too easy on
(17:45):
myself far I need to stress myself out again. That's
where we're living our unhealthy relationship with anything in the world,
even with our partners. It's like I see my partner
every day. I don't need to see my partner all year, right,
It's that middle path, It's that middle ground. The Buddhy
used to talk about finding your center. This has been
a big, big lesson. I'm taking into next year finding
(18:07):
my center with everything I do, trying not to be
an extremist, but trying to find my center. But actually
I take that back, using being an extremist to find
my center, not avoiding being an extremist. And by the way,
when I say extremists, I mean the idea of I'm
being really healthy, I'm being really unhealthy. I may have
to use that in order to find the middle. And
by the way, if I judge myself for saying, oh
(18:30):
my gosh, I've been too stressed out recently, or I'm
not pushing myself enough recently, that is that process of
finding your center. Find your center now. I wanted to
raise this because I think a lot of us don't
recognize something about how all of us are experiencing lots
(18:53):
of different stress. And I wanted to raise this because
there are ten stressful life events. According to a study,
they found that these are the top stressful life events
for adults. Number one death of a spouse. Naturally, going
through the death of a spouse can be one of
the most stressful events of your life. It affects children
(19:15):
if you have them. It affects a relationship you've developed,
It reflects a sense of identity, It impacts your ability
to think about your future. There's so much that is
affected by that. If you've been through that this year.
I want to send my prayers in love to you,
but I please, please, please, I want you to give
(19:37):
yourself some grace. Number two on the list is divorce.
I feel like divorces become so common these days that
we've become somewhat desensitized to it. We just assume that
if someone's divorced, it's like, yeah, you know I people
get divorced, get on with it. And it's like, I've
interviewed people on the podcast this year about going through
(19:59):
divorces and how difficult and challenging it is. Right, it's
so challenging emotionally, mentally, spiritually from a family point of view.
Another one that's on this list is death of a
close family member. Of course, so many people went through
this during COVID, and of course this is a regular
occurrence for so many of us around the world. And
(20:21):
what I find is that we have this get up
and go attitude where we almost want to walk it off,
shake it off, right, so I get up the next
day and move on. And often we even put on
a brave face. We have to put on a brave
face for family members, for children, for friends, whatever it
may be. And it's not that easy. Next on the
(20:42):
list is injury or illness natural for that to be there.
Next is job sorry, Next is marriage. Marriage is one
of the most stressful life events. Moving in with someone,
it's one of the most stressful life events. But we
underplay these things and we say, what's wrong with me?
What am I doing wrong? Why is everyone else getting
(21:02):
it right? I'm sharing all of these with you to
help you realize that if you've been going through stress
this year, it's natural, it's normal, and I don't want
you to look at it as a weakness. I don't
want you to think of it as I'm so weak,
I'm so lost. Right. The next one is job loss,
of course makes sense. And then retirement as well. Maybe
you have a family member or a parent going through
(21:23):
retirement and maybe they've been acting a bit different. I'm
also sharing these because I want you to be more
compassionate to other people. This is a big lesson I'm
always taking into twenty twenty four is this idea of
recognizing how different people deal with stress, noticing how unique
and personal your relationship with stress is and how unique
(21:46):
everyone else's relationship with stresses. I was talking to someone
else the other day and they were talking to me
about how one of their family members is struggling with
their health and the other family member is in denial.
And I was saying that, well, sense of denial is
coming from a sense of fear and care. It's not
coming from a place of hatred or disregard or being negligent.
(22:09):
It's actually coming from a place so they're so worried
or scared to accept the truth. We don't often think
about it like that, right, this idea of we're so
scared of people the way they deal with stress. So
let's move towards you stress. Now, A couple of things
that have really helped me in my journey with stress is,
first of all, making a list of all the core
(22:32):
triggers that I regularly experience of stress. A lot of
people think that avoiding stress or not thinking about it
makes it better, but actually exploring it and getting to
know it better is actually what makes all the difference.
So when I'm not feeling stressed, I'll make a list
of what are the things that regularly stress me out.
It could be a person, it could be a place,
(22:52):
it could be a project. Now I'll create a response
that's going to help me deal with that. Right, I'm
going to create a plan to help me deal with that.
So let's say I get stressed when I'm invited to
a social event. Okay, great? What am I going to
do in order to make that social event more meaningful,
(23:13):
more purposeful, more thoughtful, more valuable. Am I going to
seek one person in the networking space to make sure
I connect deeply? Am I going to practice breath work
before I leave? Am I going to make sure that
I've thought about my outfit two weeks in advance, not
two hours in advance? Right? What can I do to
support myself in the common occurrences of that situation? I
(23:36):
find preparing for stress when you're not stressed is much
better than trying to solve stress when you are stressed.
A lot of us wait to were stressed to have
to solve it. The second thing that's made a huge
difference in my life, a big, big, big difference is
not sleeping with my phone near my bed. This has
been a game change. I know I've said it before,
but I'm saying it again. Stop sleeping with your phone
(24:00):
near your bed. In twenty twenty four, leave that phone
in another room, get a real alarm clock, allow yourself
to wake up without your phone. And sleep without your
phone because guess what, we're also scrolling just before we
go to bed. So not only do we get to
bed thirty minutes later, we're also going to bed with
all of those ideas, and then in the morning we
(24:22):
do the same thing. Your brain has no ramp up period.
Your brain basically has no startup mode. It has to
go from zero to sixty miles per hour in three seconds,
like a sports car, a supercar, and it's not trained
to do that. We are pressurizing our minds today to
process as much as seventy four gigabytes a day. And ultimately,
(24:44):
what I'm really sharing here is this idea of knowing
when to be harder on yourself and when to let go.
This is wisdom, knowing when to push yourself and when
to hold back. And here's what I'll say to you.
If you can push yourself positively towards a goal you
love with motivation, that's brilliant. If you're starting to push
(25:08):
yourself out of negativity, condescending language, negative self talk, that's
when you need to hold back. I want to thank
you so much for listening to today's episode. I hope
that stress and your relationship with stress is deeply improved
in twenty twenty four. Everything we share here is to
(25:28):
help you positively work on yourself, not negatively hold yourself back.
I promise you that twenty twenty four are on Purpose
is going to be an even more phenomenal year. I
want to thank you for following, for subscribing, for leaving
a review. I promise you there are so many exciting guests,
so many more solos. Thank you for trusting me. I
(25:51):
am wishing you an amazing end to twenty twenty three,
and I'm praying, meditating, and wishing for you to have
an abundant, joyful, and phenomenal twenty twenty four. Challenges will come,
but we'll navigate those together. Stresses will come, but we'll
navigate those together. Know that I'm here to help you
(26:15):
be directed, guided, and find that inner voice within, and
I'll always be here on Purpose every Monday and Friday.
I'm so grateful to those of you who listen to
us every day. Appreciate you deeply. Sending you so much
love to you and your family and your loved ones
from my heart to theirs. Thank you so much, signing
(26:36):
off and see you in twenty twenty four. This episode
is brought to you by Masterclass, and I've got some
exciting news. This month, My masterclass on Navigating Change is
(26:57):
live on the master class platform. Go to masterclass dot
com forward slash navigate change to tune in now.
Mental health is now talked about more than ever, which
is awesome. I mean, I don't have to tell you
that it's a primary focus of on Purpose, but on
a day to day basis, many people don't know where
to turn or which tools can help. Over the past
couple of years, I've been working with Calm to make
mental wellness accessible and enjoyable, or as I like to say,
fun and easy. Calm has all sorts of content to
(00:24):
help you reduce anxiety and stress, build mindful habits, improve sleep,
and generally feel better in your daily life. So many
bite size options from the most knowledgeable experts in the world,
along with renowned meditation teachers. You can also check out
my seven minute daily series to help you live more
mindfully each and every day. Right now, listeners of On
(00:45):
Purpose get forty percent off a subscription to Calmpremium at
Calm dot com forward slash j that's Calm dot com
forward slash jay for forty percent off. Calm your mind,
Change your life. Stop sleeping with your phone near your bed,
allow yourself to wake up without your phone, and sleep
(01:06):
without your phone because guess what, we're also scrolling just
before we go to bed, and then in the morning,
we do the same thing. Your brain has no ramp
up period. Your brain basically has no startup mode. It
has to go from zero to sixty miles per hour
and three seconds, like a sports car, a supercar. We
are pressurizing our minds today to process as much as
seventy four gigabytes a day. Hey everyone, welcome back to
(01:35):
On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world.
Thanks to each and every one of you who come
back every week to listen, learn, and grow. Now, considering
this is our last episode of twenty twenty three, I
can't believe I'm saying that it's incredible how fast this
year is gone. I am wishing and hoping that you
(01:58):
have had a fulfilled and phenomenal year, and despite the
challenges in setbacks, that you've been able to navigate and
find your way through that change. At the same time,
I'm sitting here recording this wanting to share with you
just how grateful I am that you have allowed me
(02:20):
to join you on walks, that you've allowed me to
join you while you cook, that you've allowed me to
join you in the gym. I love seeing your stories,
I love reading your reviews, and I want to thank
you for making us one of the top five podcasts
in the world globally on Spotify and one of the
(02:41):
top ten on Apple. I want to encourage you to follow,
like subscribe on the apps, share the podcast. It means
the world to me. You did that, share that news,
and thank you so much for believing and on purpose,
for believing in me, trusting me. And I promise to
continue you, to try and serve you to the best
(03:02):
of my ability. And I'm so excited for twenty twenty four.
The growth this year has been phenomenal and it's all
thanks to you. Now, I want to share with you
the key lessons that I'm taking with me into twenty
twenty four. Often at this time of year, I'll say, well,
here are my big lessons of twenty twenty three. This
is what I learned. And I did an episode like
(03:24):
that on my birthday on the sixth of September. But
today I wanted to approach it differently. I wanted to
share with you lessons that I'm taking with me, that
i'm taking forward that I believe are going to help
me in the future. Really, that's the point of a lesson,
right the point of a lesson is in I learned
that great, Thank you so much. Now let's learn a
(03:44):
new lesson. The point of a lesson is, now that
I've learned it, I'm actually going to put it into practice.
I'm actually going to utilize it in the following year.
So I want to dive straight in and this thing
I think is going to resonate with a lot of you.
And it's why it's my big lesson that I want
to take into the new year. It's this idea of
(04:07):
let me ask you a question. How many of you
stress about your health or being healthy. How many of
you stress about meditation. How many of you stress about
making sure you don't miss a day in your journal.
How many of you stress to make sure that you
read your affirmations out in the morning. How many of
(04:28):
you stress that you're not getting to the gym enough
or yoga enough, or whatever else it may be. How
many of you stress about well being. What I've realized
is that in this world of wanting to be better,
do better, grow more, learn more, which by the way,
is beautiful, it's a great way to live. I found
(04:49):
that often in that journey, we start experiencing more stress,
we start putting ourselves under greater pressure and stress, and
we have to really understand stress as a spectrum. This
is something that I'm taking into twenty twenty four. It's huge.
I want you to write it down right now, take
(05:10):
a screenshot. I want you to explain this to a friend.
So I was learning about this idea of how it
can be helpful to look at stress as a scale,
as a spectrum, rather than I am stressed or I'm
not stressed. Really, there's actually a scale. At one end
(05:31):
there's you stress spelt eu s t r ss U stress,
and at the other end there's distress. Now, let me
explain these and define these for you. When you look
at the word you stress, what it means is a
positive form of stress having a beneficial effect on health, motivation, performance,
(05:55):
and emotional wellbeing. Right during positive stress, you stress, such
as working hard at work for a promotion or feeling
like you've got the reward of a vacation, feel good
chemicals called endorphins are released. Now, I don't think we
talk about this a lot. What we talk about is
(06:16):
at the other end of the spectrum, which is distress,
and the definition of distress or the meaning of distress
is great pain, anxiety or sorrow, acute physical or mental suffering, affliction, trouble,
et cetera, et cetera. Right now, I think what we're
(06:36):
used to experiencing and what we're used to referencing when
we talk about stress is this idea of distress. So
you stress helps you break through from your comfort zone,
It helps you take on new challenges, it helps you
find motivation, whereas distress is the stress that makes you
feel overwhelmed. It's what affects your mood. It's that negative
(07:01):
type of stress that affects your sleep. It's almost like
when you're stressing about sleeping well, or you're stressing about
the fact that you're stressed when you're not sleeping well,
and that perpetuates itself. So I want to look at
stress as a spectrum, and the lesson I'm taking through
is I need to make sure which level of stress
(07:23):
I'm putting myself under. This is about the stress you control,
the stress you allow yourself to experience. Are you putting
you stress onto yourself or are you putting yourself in
positions of distress? Are you putting stress on yourself to
feel better? To encourage yourself to motivate yourself to move
yourself forward, or are you putting stress on yourself, being
(07:46):
critical of yourself, saying you're not getting enough done, You're
too far behind, right, you haven't done enough this year.
It's really really interesting to me because research suggests that
chronic stress contributes to high blood pressure, promotes the formation
of artery clogging deposits, and causes brain changes that may
contribute to anxiety, depression, and addiction. And more. Preliminary resets
(08:11):
suggests that chronic stress may also contribute to obesity, both
through direct mechanisms causing people to eat more or indirectly
decreasing sleep and exercise. Now, I know you're listening to
me already, going Jay, this is stressing me out. How
many of you are listening right now? And the reason
I exposed you to that definition is because we're used
(08:31):
to hearing something like that and putting ourselves under distress.
So we hear that and our response is, oh crap,
oh my god, I'm not sleeping enough, I'm not exercising enough,
I'm not not not right. Whereas you, stress is actually saying, well,
when I work out, when I push myself to work out,
(08:52):
I actually feel better afterwards. You know what, when I
actually sleep earlier, I know that I'll be happier tomorrow.
Your allowing yourself to recognize that success follows your stress, right,
You have an understanding that when I do something that stressful,
it leads to me being successful. And when I say successful,
I don't mean materially or financially. I'm talking about the
(09:15):
fact that you see an intrinsic reward in why you
sleep early, in why you exercise. So it's now not
when I don't sleep early enough, I don't work out enough,
I don't eat healthy enough. It's actually saying well, when
I eat healthy, I feel better, my gut feels better,
my digestion's better, I feel more energized. I really want
(09:36):
you to take this deeply on board, because I think
so many of us are living in spaces of distress
and not recognizing just how tiresome it can be to
keep stressing yourself out. We keep letting stress get the
better of us, or stress gets the best of us
(09:58):
because we put ourselves under this stress. And I've realized,
whether it's my work goals, my financial goals, my spiritual goals,
my emotional goals, I have recognized that putting myself under
distress only makes me less productive, less effective, and less impactful.
How many times this year be honest with me? How
many times this year did you put yourself under too
(10:21):
much stress? Raise your hands, not your heads? How many
times this year, be honest with me? Did you not
allow yourself the benefit of the doubt? How many times
did you not cut yourself some slack? How many times
did you make yourself feel worse? What I've found is
that guilt blocks growth. Guilt does not lead to growth.
(10:46):
Guilt blocks growth. You may have that instant response if
I want to be better, Notice how that's a positive
statement versus I'm not good enough. Notice how you're saying
the same thing, but you're not right. Look at that scent.
I want to be better. I am going to be
better versus I'm not good enough. How do you think
your mind and your body react to those statements? When
(11:11):
you look at the common internal causes of stress, there's
a natural pessimism and negative outlook on life. Hence the
statement I'm not good enough. What you'll realize is that
we're all living in one of these two modalities. We're
either living in new stress or distress. Right, So, if
you're in distress, you're saying, I'm not good enough. I'm
(11:32):
going to be negative about stuff. If you're living in
new stress, you're saying, you know what, I'm going to
use stress to motivate me. I recognize the value of it.
Another common internal cause of stress is the inability to
accept uncertainty. Now here's what we do when we put
ourselves in distress. We're basically saying, there should have been
(11:52):
a certain result, there should have been a defined, conclusive result.
And without a defined conclusive result, we're like, well, we
must be failures, we must be wrong. Another common internal
cause is rigid thinking a lack of flexibility. This one's
really really interesting to me because often we think that
(12:16):
rigid routines and patterns are good for us. And, by
the way, they are good for us. Having a morning
routine is fantastic. But if you stress that you missed
a day of your morning routine, or maybe you stress
because you missed a aspect of your morning routine. Right,
you're doing the whole thing. You're meditating, you're working out,
(12:37):
you're journaling, and then one day you missed journaling. All
of a sudden, you're throwing it all out. You're saying,
oh gosh, like just messed up one day, you got
called into work early one day, you had to stay
up late for work one day, and all of a sudden,
you're going, God, I just wanted to be able to
stick to my program. I don't have any flexibility, right.
(12:58):
That actually causes more stresses us having this belief that
I have to do the same exact thing every day, which,
by the way, isn't realistic. I want to ask you,
what activity could you say you have done every day
of your life forever without fail. It's probably breathing, brushing
your teeth, and showering, And even that third one for
(13:21):
some of you may be questionable, right, but hopefully we
brush our teeth every day, we breathe of course every day,
and we shower every day. Those are three things that
you can say, yes, I've done those three things pretty
much every day of my life. Beyond that, what else? Eating?
Of course, drinking water, of course, the obvious things. But
beyond that, if you took away the basic necessities sleeping,
(13:43):
if you took away the basic necessities, what could you
say you've done every single day of your life? It's
very hard. And so when we get into these rigid
routines and patterns and we say to ourselves, for the
rest of my life, I'm going to do this every day,
every single day. I have to do this because if
I don't do this, I'm not going to feel good.
I'm not gonna feel at my best if I don't
do this. Notice how different that is to a mindset
(14:05):
of saying I feel better when I do this, versus
I'm not gonna feel at my best if I don't
do this. That's distress you stress is I always feel
better when I do this. I'm happy when I do this.
I get to do this. Notice how rigid thinking actually
just compounds stress. So I'm not saying don't have rigid patterns.
(14:28):
I'm saying, have a different relationship with your rigid patterns.
Have a different relationship with your morning routine. It's not
a must. It's not a I have to. It's not
a if I don't. It's a I get to. It's
a this makes me better, it's a imagine what's possible. Right.
As soon as you see that rigid thinking and lack
(14:49):
of flexibility leading to negative self talk, start to become
really mindful Another common internal cause of stress is unrealistic
expectations or perfor fectionism. Now people often look at perfectionism
as something to strifle. It almost makes you feel like
you care more. Right. I've often had people say to me, well, Jay,
if you don't believe in perfectionism, does that mean you
(15:10):
don't care? And what I've realized is actually, caring too
much can make what I'm creating worse. It can actually
make me more anxious. It can actually make me less
able to do the thing. I'll give an example even
with on purpose, if I'm extra stressed about a guest
I'm about to have on I actually believe I have
(15:31):
a worse conversation. I feel that I have better conversations
when I've prepared enough but not over prepared. And that's
the word I want to share with you. I want
you to look at your life as how can you
prepare but not over prepare? How can you create but
not overcreate? How can you think but not overthink? Notice
how it's when we add the word over overthink, overcompensate, right,
(15:56):
over prepare, That's when we're like, well that's a bit
over at the top, Right, that's the feeling. So when
it comes to deepening developing a healthier relationship with our
perfectionist mindset. I'm not saying, see, this is what we
do as humans. We oscillate between two extremes. We go, oh, well,
I was a perfectionist. Now I'm just gonna do whatever
(16:17):
comes out. I'm just gonna be quick. And by the way,
that is the process to get back to the middle.
So if you meet a friend or if you find
yourself oscillating between two different extremes, chances are you're actually
trying to find your middle. You're actually trying to find
your center. And finding your center is a beautiful thing.
(16:41):
So I'll give an example. If you're someone who was
a people pleaser, and now you're saying, really eye boundaries.
And often when we see our friends do this, we go,
oh god, they're like overcompensating. But no, we almost have
to do that in the beginning. If you as someone
who's a perfectionist, you might just need to fail every day, right,
You might just need to fail every day. You might
need to take on a minithing every day that allows
(17:02):
you to break through that desire to be perfect and
make everything add up and make everything stack up. Notice
how we have to almost move from one extreme to
the other to find ourselves in the middle. In order
to develop a healthy relationship with anything in the world,
we have to find our center. We have to find
the middle. But in order to find the middle, we
(17:25):
often have to swing from left to right a few times.
And as we swing more and more, we start to
settle in the middle. I want you to ask yourself
with stress, how many of you go through this with
stress where you stress yourself out and then you take
it really easy. And then when you take it really easy,
you're like, oh, no, I'm taking it too easy on
(17:45):
myself far I need to stress myself out again. That's
where we're living our unhealthy relationship with anything in the world,
even with our partners. It's like I see my partner
every day. I don't need to see my partner all year, right,
It's that middle path, It's that middle ground. The Buddhy
used to talk about finding your center. This has been
a big, big lesson. I'm taking into next year finding
(18:07):
my center with everything I do, trying not to be
an extremist, but trying to find my center. But actually
I take that back, using being an extremist to find
my center, not avoiding being an extremist. And by the way,
when I say extremists, I mean the idea of I'm
being really healthy, I'm being really unhealthy. I may have
to use that in order to find the middle. And
by the way, if I judge myself for saying, oh
(18:30):
my gosh, I've been too stressed out recently, or I'm
not pushing myself enough recently, that is that process of
finding your center. Find your center now. I wanted to
raise this because I think a lot of us don't
recognize something about how all of us are experiencing lots
(18:53):
of different stress. And I wanted to raise this because
there are ten stressful life events. According to a study,
they found that these are the top stressful life events
for adults. Number one death of a spouse. Naturally, going
through the death of a spouse can be one of
the most stressful events of your life. It affects children
(19:15):
if you have them. It affects a relationship you've developed,
It reflects a sense of identity, It impacts your ability
to think about your future. There's so much that is
affected by that. If you've been through that this year.
I want to send my prayers in love to you,
but I please, please, please, I want you to give
(19:37):
yourself some grace. Number two on the list is divorce.
I feel like divorces become so common these days that
we've become somewhat desensitized to it. We just assume that
if someone's divorced, it's like, yeah, you know I people
get divorced, get on with it. And it's like, I've
interviewed people on the podcast this year about going through
(19:59):
divorces and how difficult and challenging it is. Right, it's
so challenging emotionally, mentally, spiritually from a family point of view.
Another one that's on this list is death of a
close family member. Of course, so many people went through
this during COVID, and of course this is a regular
occurrence for so many of us around the world. And
(20:21):
what I find is that we have this get up
and go attitude where we almost want to walk it off,
shake it off, right, so I get up the next
day and move on. And often we even put on
a brave face. We have to put on a brave
face for family members, for children, for friends, whatever it
may be. And it's not that easy. Next on the
(20:42):
list is injury or illness natural for that to be there.
Next is job sorry, Next is marriage. Marriage is one
of the most stressful life events. Moving in with someone,
it's one of the most stressful life events. But we
underplay these things and we say, what's wrong with me?
What am I doing wrong? Why is everyone else getting
(21:02):
it right? I'm sharing all of these with you to
help you realize that if you've been going through stress
this year, it's natural, it's normal, and I don't want
you to look at it as a weakness. I don't
want you to think of it as I'm so weak,
I'm so lost. Right. The next one is job loss,
of course makes sense. And then retirement as well. Maybe
you have a family member or a parent going through
(21:23):
retirement and maybe they've been acting a bit different. I'm
also sharing these because I want you to be more
compassionate to other people. This is a big lesson I'm
always taking into twenty twenty four is this idea of
recognizing how different people deal with stress, noticing how unique
and personal your relationship with stress is and how unique
(21:46):
everyone else's relationship with stresses. I was talking to someone
else the other day and they were talking to me
about how one of their family members is struggling with
their health and the other family member is in denial.
And I was saying that, well, sense of denial is
coming from a sense of fear and care. It's not
coming from a place of hatred or disregard or being negligent.
(22:09):
It's actually coming from a place so they're so worried
or scared to accept the truth. We don't often think
about it like that, right, this idea of we're so
scared of people the way they deal with stress. So
let's move towards you stress. Now, A couple of things
that have really helped me in my journey with stress is,
first of all, making a list of all the core
(22:32):
triggers that I regularly experience of stress. A lot of
people think that avoiding stress or not thinking about it
makes it better, but actually exploring it and getting to
know it better is actually what makes all the difference.
So when I'm not feeling stressed, I'll make a list
of what are the things that regularly stress me out.
It could be a person, it could be a place,
(22:52):
it could be a project. Now I'll create a response
that's going to help me deal with that. Right, I'm
going to create a plan to help me deal with that.
So let's say I get stressed when I'm invited to
a social event. Okay, great? What am I going to
do in order to make that social event more meaningful,
(23:13):
more purposeful, more thoughtful, more valuable. Am I going to
seek one person in the networking space to make sure
I connect deeply? Am I going to practice breath work
before I leave? Am I going to make sure that
I've thought about my outfit two weeks in advance, not
two hours in advance? Right? What can I do to
support myself in the common occurrences of that situation? I
(23:36):
find preparing for stress when you're not stressed is much
better than trying to solve stress when you are stressed.
A lot of us wait to were stressed to have
to solve it. The second thing that's made a huge
difference in my life, a big, big, big difference is
not sleeping with my phone near my bed. This has
been a game change. I know I've said it before,
but I'm saying it again. Stop sleeping with your phone
(24:00):
near your bed. In twenty twenty four, leave that phone
in another room, get a real alarm clock, allow yourself
to wake up without your phone. And sleep without your
phone because guess what, we're also scrolling just before we
go to bed. So not only do we get to
bed thirty minutes later, we're also going to bed with
all of those ideas, and then in the morning we
(24:22):
do the same thing. Your brain has no ramp up period.
Your brain basically has no startup mode. It has to
go from zero to sixty miles per hour in three seconds,
like a sports car, a supercar, and it's not trained
to do that. We are pressurizing our minds today to
process as much as seventy four gigabytes a day. And ultimately,
(24:44):
what I'm really sharing here is this idea of knowing
when to be harder on yourself and when to let go.
This is wisdom, knowing when to push yourself and when
to hold back. And here's what I'll say to you.
If you can push yourself positively towards a goal you
love with motivation, that's brilliant. If you're starting to push
(25:08):
yourself out of negativity, condescending language, negative self talk, that's
when you need to hold back. I want to thank
you so much for listening to today's episode. I hope
that stress and your relationship with stress is deeply improved
in twenty twenty four. Everything we share here is to
(25:28):
help you positively work on yourself, not negatively hold yourself back.
I promise you that twenty twenty four are on Purpose
is going to be an even more phenomenal year. I
want to thank you for following, for subscribing, for leaving
a review. I promise you there are so many exciting guests,
so many more solos. Thank you for trusting me. I
(25:51):
am wishing you an amazing end to twenty twenty three,
and I'm praying, meditating, and wishing for you to have
an abundant, joyful, and phenomenal twenty twenty four. Challenges will come,
but we'll navigate those together. Stresses will come, but we'll
navigate those together. Know that I'm here to help you
(26:15):
be directed, guided, and find that inner voice within, and
I'll always be here on Purpose every Monday and Friday.
I'm so grateful to those of you who listen to
us every day. Appreciate you deeply. Sending you so much
love to you and your family and your loved ones
from my heart to theirs. Thank you so much, signing
(26:36):
off and see you in twenty twenty four. This episode
is brought to you by Masterclass, and I've got some
exciting news. This month, My masterclass on Navigating Change is
(26:57):
live on the master class platform. Go to masterclass dot
com forward slash navigate change to tune in now.
Host
Jay Shetty
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