Sari Swears Podcast: Can You Be TOO Kind to Yourself? (Encore Episode)

So last week, we talked about this concept that I'm giving up and that maybe you should too.

And if you haven't listened to that podcast, I would go back and listen to it because it's all about the concept of having a goal and having this goal just absolutely torture you.

In some of our cases, for many, many years, I talked about a goal that's tortured me for 20 years and just makes us feel bad and that If that is in fact the case, that you need to drop that shit as soon as possible and get on your merry life, having your fun, fulfilling, happy life instead.

Now, of course, that would bring up for many people, well, sorry, if we do that, we'll never achieve anything.

I mean, if we just gave up when things were hard, then how would we ever achieve anything? And this is also true when I was speaking at a law school recently, well, a couple months ago.

And I was talking about this concept of self-love that I teach all y'all and that I'm learning myself right along with you.

And one of the students in the class said, well, if we love ourselves as is, why would we ever get any better? So in that moment, I knew that I had to do a podcast on this because there are some assumptions y'all are carrying around with you that I think most of us are carrying around with us that are so dead wrong that That if you change the way you're thinking about change and motivation and how and why we do the things we do as human beings, this is going to change your life.

Now, the first assumption that I want to talk about when we talk about this idea that, you know, we'd never achieve anything if we just gave up when things were hard.

The first assumption is that things have to be hard, right? We, you know, hard work.

That's the big one for you trial lawyers.

You know, that's a big value of yours.

When I ask you what your value is, hard work is value.

You know, we have to be hard on ourselves, right? And that brings us really to the second assumption, which is being hard on ourselves is somehow motivating even.

That when we're hard on ourselves, that will motivate us to change.

And that brings us to the third assumption, which is the reason we have to be hard on ourselves and the reason why we have to motivate ourselves through this being hard on ourselves and being horrible to ourselves is because inherently we're lazy, right? That's the big problem, right? We're lazy and if left to our own devices, we would never do anything.

And that's why we have to quote unquote work hard and be really hard on ourselves.

It's all fucking bullshit.

And I'm going to prove it to you today in today's podcast because here's what I think you don't get, right? is that being hard on yourself is the exact opposite of what will actually create change in your life or what will actually bring new goals or achievements into your life.

So one of my favorite books in the universe is Atomic Habits by, what's the name of the guy? James Clear.

And so he talks about the science of how habits work.

And he talks, I'm going to read a little bit from the book.

He says, the process of building a habit can be divided into four simple steps, Q, A, like C-U-E, craving, response, and reward.

All right.

So he says, this four-step habit or pattern, I should say, is the backbone of every habit.

And your brain runs through these steps in the same order each time.

So last week, we talked about this concept that I'm giving up and that maybe you should too.

And if you haven't listened to that podcast, I would go back and listen to it because it's all about the concept of having a goal and having this goal just absolutely torture you.

In some of our cases, for many, many years, I talked about a goal that's tortured me for 20 years and just makes us feel bad and that If that is in fact the case, that you need to drop that shit as soon as possible and get on your merry life, having your fun, fulfilling, happy life instead.

Now, of course, that would bring up for many people, well, sorry, if we do that, we'll never achieve anything.

I mean, if we just gave up when things were hard, then how would we ever achieve anything? And this is also true when I was speaking at a law school recently, well, a couple months ago.

And I was talking about this concept of self-love that I teach all y'all and that I'm learning myself right along with you.

And one of the students in the class said, well, if we love ourselves as is, why would we ever get any better? So in that moment, I knew that I had to do a podcast on this because there are some assumptions y'all are carrying around with you that I think most of us are carrying around with us that are so dead wrong that That if you change the way you're thinking about change and motivation and how and why we do the things we do as human beings, this is going to change your life.

Now, the first assumption that I want to talk about when we talk about this idea that, you know, we'd never achieve anything if we just gave up when things were hard.

The first assumption is that things have to be hard, right? We, you know, hard work.

That's the big one for you trial lawyers.

You know, that's a big value of yours.

When I ask you what your value is, hard work is value.

You know, we have to be hard on ourselves, right? And that brings us really to the second assumption, which is being hard on ourselves is somehow motivating even.

That when we're hard on ourselves, that will motivate us to change.

And that brings us to the third assumption, which is the reason we have to be hard on ourselves and the reason why we have to motivate ourselves through this being hard on ourselves and being horrible to ourselves is because inherently we're lazy, right? That's the big problem, right? We're lazy and if left to our own devices, we would never do anything.

And that's why we have to quote unquote work hard and be really hard on ourselves.

It's all fucking bullshit.

And I'm going to prove it to you today in today's podcast because here's what I think you don't get, right? is that being hard on yourself is the exact opposite of what will actually create change in your life or what will actually bring new goals or achievements into your life.

So one of my favorite books in the universe is Atomic Habits by, what's the name of the guy? James Clear.

And so he talks about the science of how habits work.

And he talks, I'm going to read a little bit from the book.

He says, the process of building a habit can be divided into four simple steps, Q, A, like C-U-E, craving, response, and reward.

All right.

So he says, this four-step habit or pattern, I should say, is the backbone of every habit.

And your brain runs through these steps in the same order each time.