Yesterday was day three of my intensive with my “mindset coach”, Brent.
One of my biggest takeaways I’ve had so far is that nearly every decision we make as adults (in life, business and relationships) is through the lens of what we learned as kids.
For example…
I grew up in a house where my mom ruled all.
Whatever she said was “the rule”.
And if she didn’t get what she wanted…
She would fill-up with rage…
And take it out on me (or someone else).
As a result of this, I got pretty good at doing everything in my power to make sure my mom was happy.
My only goal was to make mom happy.
And to not set her off.
Well think about what this leads to…
This is why I used to be such a huge people pleaser before I started working with Brent.
I had no idea how to put myself first.
Or how to focus on my own needs.
It was all about pleasing others.
And that trickled down into every area of my life.
The first few relationships I had, I basically repeated this same pattern.
I didn’t have thoughts of my own…
I just tried anything and everything to make my girlfriend happy.
Which is not what any woman wants.
It led to a lot of resentment on their part.
And all of those relationships crumbling.
But relationships weren’t the only place this stuff from my childhood affected me.
The same thing happened to me in business too.
If I worked with a difficult client on a copywriting project, I always thought they were being difficult because I was doing something wrong.
Like somehow I wasn’t doing enough to make them happy.
So what did I do?
I tried anything and everything to make them happy.
I made myself sick at times trying to always be available for the clients…
And ready to handle any problem they had.
And like I said, I thought the issues with the client were always me not being helpful enoough.
Well that wasn’t reality.
That was just my way of thinking based on how I grew up.
The reality was that they were just a bad client.
They had their own issues going on.
And no matter what I did (or any other copywriter did) they weren’t gonna be happy.
That’s what was really going on.
But I wasn’t aware of that at the time.
And I ran myself ragged trying to make them happy.
And like I said in the beginning of this email…
This all stemmed from shit that happened when I was 5, 8, 12, 14 etc…
The way I was conditioned to please my mom and to make her happy was exactly how I was relating with girlfriends and copywriting clients.
Literally the same way.
And that’s the big point I want you to take away from this email.
Most of the decisions you make in your day-to-day life now, are influenced by the shit that happened in your childhood.
It’s the same patterns.
So a lot of times instead of you making a decision as an “adult”…
You’re making decisions through the lens of a 6-year old…
Or a 12 year-old…
Which is not what you want.
You want to be in a place to make a more “adult like” decision.
Anyways…
This really stood out to me after the third day of my intensive with Brent.
So I wanted to share it.
Hopefully you got some insights from this that will help you.
That’s all I got for today.
Today is my last day of the intensive, so I’ll be back again tomorrow with some more insights.
Enjoy your Sunday,
– Justin
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