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hey what's up this is Leo for actualize org and today I really want to cover the topic of finding permanent rather than superficial solutions to the problems that you have in your life so whatever problem you might have maybe right now you've got something that you're working on with your health and your nutrition maybe you're working on something that you're not satisfied with like your career you're not happy at your job or maybe you've got relationship troubles and you've got some problems there that you're trying to sort out well all those things ultimately boil down and there is this tendency that I see out there and I'm not excluded from this at all myself is to is to look for that quick fix solution which will treat the symptom so to speak rather than address the underlying cause it's pretty deep topic so I want to I want to cover from different angles here but the reason I started talking about this I started think about this topic is actually because when I coach I have this problem that I face myself is when I'm coaching somebody how deep do I want to coach them and I almost ask myself well how how far do you want me to go with this how big of a problem you want me to help you fix because a lot of times people will come to me with a relatively superficial problem but when you start when you start getting involved in psychology start studying the self development stuff you you start to get this this kind of oh we're in the matrix kind of kind of vibe going and you start to see that ultimately all of your circumstances in life and all the problems you have ultimately boiled down it can be traced down to very root causes and all of those root causes are rooted in you so it's you that needs to be worked on if you're trying to really fix your problems and fix them permanently whereas what a lot of people do is they try to fix the problem on a superficial level so let's give us a couple of examples so that we're not all in up abstract land here specific example let's say you want to drop 20 pounds right that might seem like that's admirable goal right you want to get fit you want to be healthy you want to look nice the thing is that a lot of times the reason people fail especially with these kinds of health goals is because well the underlying problem seems like it's that you're overeating you're not going to the gym you're not counting your calories something like that something along those lines but that's the superficial problem the underlying problem is really in you and it's going to be your mind sets about food or what you're using that food to do for you so maybe you have a crummy job as a result you get very frazzled at your work you get a lot of anxiety from it so when you come home in the evening you're so dead beaten tired your work is so unsatisfying that now you're using food as a way to to basically self-medicate and to give yourself at least a little bit of enjoyment in your day because your work was so miserable and so you end up going for a tub of ice cream or something unhealthy like that so in that situation counting your calories and going to the gym and trying to just willpower your way through and trying to eat healthy just by using your willpower is not the ultimate solution that is treating symptoms of something deeper and I think this is this is very very human like is to want to treat those those conditions those top level symptoms rather than digging deeper and the reason for that is well simply it can be scary to dig deep like the way the analogy that I use here is is like think of your problems as like a big ball of yarn and a lot of times you take a loose end in this big ball of yarn and maybe it's your weight or maybe it's your job or maybe it's uh something like a relationship problem like you're hiring fights in a relationship and so that's kind of like the loose ends that you want to snip off and you want to fix well you start like pulling on it you start tugging on it and then you can just snip it off and it'll look like it was fixed but the underlying cause wasn't fixed and so what you got to do is you got to have the courage to go in there and start unraveling this little ball and it can be scary because a lot of times what happens is once you start unraveling this it ends up being a long thread so something that seemed like an easy fix ends up being a lot more work than you originally thought so like this example we were talking about with the health well let's say that that is the case for you and I'm not saying this is for everybody but for some people certainly the case that they use food as a way to to basically compensate for other parts of their life where they're not satisfied if that's the case then no matter how many calories you count if you go to the gym if you hire a personal trainer you do all this stuff it's really not going to second to solve that problem for you're always going to struggle with it and and so a lot of people will get frustrated because they tried these surface-level solutions they haven't gotten sustainable results from it and it's just draining because what's happening is you're putting more and more effort into it you're worrying about how to fix it but you're not getting any permanent solutions you're getting stuff like yo-yo diets and you're getting you're getting phases in your life where you're doing good with your with your nutrition but only when you're very dedicated and using a lot of your willpower and things are going great at work and then something bad happens and then all of a sudden it drops and you're back to where you started from and so the solution there is to really start unraveling not yarn what is the whole yarn and in this case it might be like well you're using food to to compensate for another part of your life so it's work so really the underlying problem there is the work that you have and so all the sudden now to fix this problem if you really want to fix it you have to have the courage to start to think okay if I need to fix my work before I can fix my nutrition then really to fix nutrition I got to fix my work and so how do I fix my work what's the real problem with the work and so now you start to unravel that thread and maybe the problem at work is that you have an overly demanding boss who doesn't listen to you and again though that is like a superficial problem because the underlying problem is probably something deeper so in that case underlying problem might be why are you get at that job in the first place why are you tolerating an overbearing boss that doesn't really value your input why do you have to do that is it because you don't have the ability to go out and get a different job maybe it's that you might say well the economy's bad right now I'm not expected to be able to just land a new job that quickly and I have bills to pay I have responsibilities so it's it's not like I can just go and quit my job and that might very well be true in your situation but then I have to say if you really want to resolve the whole issue then you got to address that problem why is that the problem because it's certainly the case that their jobs out there right now even if the economy is not perfect the question is what is preventing you from getting them or for applying to them or what is it that's keeping you attached to this over overbearing boss is it because you have some emotional issue where you're not able to confront him and bring up your own issues and bring up your disagreements with them so in that case maybe it's something along those lines maybe you're not feeling very confident yourself and so then that issue needs to be addressed or maybe it's not that and maybe it's simply just that your boss is being an ass but you don't have the leverage to do anything about it because you're at this job and you're afraid of losing it you've got bills to pay and so there's that problem and you don't have easy means of going to a new job well then that is the problem the problem is that you are so locked in that it's really limiting your choices and things you can do in your life so what you got to do is then I would say the real solution is to get that part of your life handled why is it that you have so few job options when other people around you can have potentially a lot more and they don't have that problem well if that's the case then maybe for you it's going to be something like you don't have the skills to apply to a better job or maybe you don't have the industry connections that you need to apply or maybe you're afraid of going and doing some some rigorous interviews and you don't like the whole interview process and you're not you don't feel like you're prepared for it your resume is not polished up so all these different factors and again all those factors can have deeper underlying causes so skills let's say you don't have you feel like you don't have the skills to get a better job than you currently have well solution to that is to acquire more skills right just keep on raveling that yarn so what you got to do maybe you got to go back to school maybe you got to take an online training program maybe you got to start reading up by yourself and spending part of your time at home when you're off of work boosting up your own skill set so that you can can shoot for those better positions you don't have to tolerate your boss anymore and so you see it's like a cascade and if you really want to solve the problem permanently remember what we started off at was not a career problem we started off with a health problem but then that health problem was tied to your current job and then your current job is really tied to the fact that you don't have the right skills and so therefore you need to go back to school that might be the case that's just like one example but then this this is I think this is illustrative of a really pernicious problems that we tend to have in our lives so whether this is with your health or with your career with a relationship it always tends to be like that and what I would submit to you is that all of it ultimately boils down to you so whenever you think you have a problem that's out there out in the world maybe someone's being mean to you maybe someone is not treating you nicely maybe you're not earning the kind of money that you want to earn maybe you're jobless maybe you're not having help that you want to have or anything else like that thing more permanent and and more permanent means what is it about you that you need to change in order to overcome that problem forever so what could you do so that you would never have to worry about your health does that mean fixing your job okay so then what do you need to do to fix your job so you don't have to worry about your health and your job all the sudden that means you got to get a better education okay so now you got to have the courage to bite that bullet and I think that's where it's really tricky is because well most of us don't really want to unravel that yarn because of the fear that that is there right and we we secretly know that the answers a lot of times are more involved than we want to admit that they are and because of that that person that has a health problem probably understands that health problem is somehow related to their career or to their job and then it probably understands that for some for some reason that's connected ultimately to something even deeper which might be the lack of education skills and maybe even that is connected to something deeper like maybe you have a deep limiting belief about how smart you are inherently or a limiting belief about how good you can do if you go back to school and so that is preventing you ultimately from getting this whole chain of awesome things to click for you in your life see the nice thing about unraveling that whole thread even though it's it can be scary the nice thing is that it also does usually involve multiple facets of your life and when you start getting one thing into place and then another thing into place and another thing into place all of a sudden it's like everything is firing on all cylinders for you and your solutions are permanent so now that you let's say you go back to school and let's say it's hard at first right so you might need to invest a couple of years to get some sort of degree so during that time it might seem like you're not making a lot of progress but once you do get that degree all the sudden that base that foundation is in place so now that opens opportunities for you now that's a permanent solution and so what does that open an opportunity for well now you can go and apply for better jobs that's the next level and so you get that piece of the puzzle in place and it might take you six worth six years worth of apply lying that means six years probably more like six months of applying to get a good job so you can spend six months applying you're going to go through that some of that work in the labor involved in doing that and then all of a sudden you land that nice job that you like that pays you well and where you're also treated right well and you have a job in a position that you're satisfied with and so now all this and that's in place and then the next element then suddenly opens up to you and once you have a job that pays you well and that you're happy at well now all of a sudden your evenings are free and instead of coming home from work dead tired and emotionally drained you come home from work and you're energized because you had a good day and now we'll the sudden that allows you to to do other things all of a sudden you don't have to rely on on food to fix your your emotional issues at work and maybe your relationship now improves as well because you're more positive you're not bringing the negativity of work into the relationship so that element improves and see all the sudden by pulling on that one you want one thread from that ball of yarn what we did is we went through we found all the problems we fix them systematically and now you've got a real permanent solution to all those and I think that's what most people do not do is they don't follow that kind of process because let's be honest it takes a lot of work right how much easier is it to to go and read some sort of yo-yo some fad yo-yo diet like the the six-week juste all juice diet in in Cosmo and just follow that and use that as your solution to the weight problem rather than thinking about all this stuff trying to eliminate your limiting beliefs about how smart you can be and how good you can be in school actually going back to school paying for for tuitions to school going through that whole process getting your degree finally then going through the whole job interview market process again finally finding a new job getting comfortable that job and getting all of those place pieces in place and only then maybe adding in elements like nutri proper nutrition all this other stuff so how much more complicated is that it's like a thousand times more work right that's true so I'm not I'm not throwing any illusions out there I think it does take more work to find permanent solutions the nice thing though is that a the permanent so that that work that you put in will let's say amortize over time so it's it's something that you're going to reap benefit from much later without having to do a lot of work to maintain it so once you've got that education you've got it all of a sudden you can apply for new jobs and better jobs for those of your life because you're you've got that diploma you've also got the skills you learn there so that's a nice thing when you got a new a new job that pays you well well that kind of bumps your salary grade up right and usually once that salary grade goes up it's easier to maintain that grade and then ask for higher salaries at other jobs or even your existing job when when it comes time for promotions that sort of thing so now all the sudden you're earning more money as a result and that money you might be earning for ten twenty thirty years so you're just you're raising your standard of living and then what is pasta made possible by raising your standard living all sudden let's say you can now afford to eat healthier food whereas you couldn't before and now all of a sudden you can afford your gym membership and maybe you can buy yourself an elliptical if you want to exercise at home and maybe you can move into a better apartment that's going to make you feel nicer about yourself in some nicer city that has cleaner air and so that's going to improve your health and so you see all these things are put into place and as you do that you start you're genuinely love your life because these are elements that are important to you and that are there and it's like you're building you're building something real rather than just putting a little patch on a problem here a little patch on a problem there so quite involved right probably not what you wanted here I think this is why often times you don't hear this is because most magazines most books most bloggers out there most self-development gurus motivational speakers they're not going to tell you these things they're not going to tell you the hard truth of this why well it's hard to sell to you right would you rather get the the seven-day diet that's going to help you drop 20 pounds effortlessly or would you rather get the 2 year plan to reform your whole career and your education in order to prevent you from having to rely on food as an emotional crutch you know if if you're comparing those two super on a superficial level which most people tend to do when they're kind of shopping around you're always going to go for the quick fix and unless you've tried a lot of those quick fixes then you probably haven't been burned enough by them to start to appreciate the the awesomeness and the value and the power of finding permanent solutions you know I've in my own life I've tried a lot of quick fixes I think I've always been kind of intuitive and understood that a quick fix is is not going to it's not going to ultimately do it for me but there are there parts in my life where I sure I've gone for quick fixes because I didn't want to either admit that I had a real problem I was burying my head in the sand or I even did admit it but I thought that there was an easier way just because you know we're all trying to conserve energy we have a limited time if there is a way to do something fast and effective by all means do it but if it sounds too good to be true and life experience is telling you that it's probably not going to work for you and that you need to dig a little bit deeper go ahead and first of all go through that digging process right really start to ask yourself well what is what is it going to look like for me to solve this permanently you know if I want happy in my relationship what is it going to take for me to solve this permanently if I'm unhappy at work for whatever reasons what is it going to take to solve that permanently probably is going to start with some self-reflection so you have to start to think about well what is about my relationships that's consistently not working out maybe you have a string or a history of unsuccessful really relationships and maybe you discover that it's communication skills or maybe you discover your you have a bad choice in in dating partners and so they're definitely resist the to put the burden on the other person and try to focus it back on yourself so it's like why do I choose these people what is it about me and then start inspecting your limiting beliefs start inspecting your habits and getting those resolved because once you get those resolved the rest will take care of itself right I have this analogy that I talked about down below in the article here about about like growing a strong healthy tree if you're trying to do that then you want to focus on the root systems because the root system of the tree is what's ultimately creating the ability for that tree to be big and towering and lush and green and healthy because what if what you do if you want a healthy green big strong tree and what you do is you plant a seed and then you neglect to to take care of its root system and all you do is you prune the leaves and you maybe spray it with some pesticides and you make it look pretty that might superficially get you some some immediate results but over the long run you're not going to get that strong healthy tree to grow the way that you want it to because if the roots are damaged if the roots are not planted in the right soil if they're not tended to then they're not going to be able to take in the right nutrients that's going to support the growth of that tree they're just not going to be even be able to be strong enough to to support the kind of bulk that you want in that tree so there has to be there's like a proportion between how extensive the root system is and how big the tree can grow and the analogy that I'm making here is that it's really the same for your life and your life and all the circumstances in your life I want you to see those as branches and leaves and the tree is you so you are the tree you are the root system and so all your inner beliefs all your thoughts all your habits all your patterns all your attitudes those are really the core when you fix those when you start working there then you start to see that you're developing a strong nourishing support system for the rest and of course most people discount the importance of the roots because they're not very glamorous they're down there covered under the ground you don't see them they're not pretty people are more focused on the nice flower the nice fruit that you get from the tree or the nice foliage but not what's necessary to sustain that so think about where in your life that's true and I encourage you to summon the courage to start unraveling that thread and looking for permanent solutions rather than quick fixes because if you're like me and if you're like a lot of people out there then you've probably tried the quick fixes and they have not been satisfying they've not been effective and if you do this even though it's more work ultimately you're going to create a sustainably happy life and all that work you put in it's going to be like dividends that it's going to be paying off to you for the rest of your life get your career in place get your finances in place get your fitness in place get your relationships in place and all of that means getting yourself in place so fix all the problems within you all the issues that you have to allow you to fix those things and by no means am I saying not to not to have what I call kind of outer game solutions so obviously you're not going to just drop 20 pounds just by getting a good career you're probably going to need to actually go to the gym as well and you're probably going to need to eat healthy as well but those things will click into place for you once you get other elements solved you