Finding true work-life balance 🌺

What if in this lifetime you can achieve everything that you ever wanted, but you didn't even reach for it because you didn't even try? My video has found you just in time for you to start because what you are is what you do. I want you to level up so high that you have to reintroduce yourself. But I also need to warn you, once you become this new ideal version of yourself, you can't slip up. You cannot afford to go back to your old self. So let's stop wasting time. I'm going to get straight into it. You're going to want to work in silence so that your success is the noise. By the time you're done implementing all the concepts in this video, you're going to shock everyone. You're even going to shock yourself. But don't be too surprised when that happens because you deserve it. Basically, what's going to happen is you're going to stay very low key for a bit. You're going to set some time aside during this 90 days to work on yourself. And I mean really work on yourself, which inevitably you're going to improve. And then you're going to come back and become unrecognizable. But in the meantime, as you grow in silence, let people talk, let them wonder about what you're up to because they have no idea what your plans are. And honestly, that's for the best. You don't need anyone else's opinion about this or have anyone doubt you or question you. In Sun Tzu's The Art of War, this is exactly how you sneak up on the enemy to win the war because you're not giving them intelligence. Keep that to yourself. I don't know your life, but let's just pretend that the enemy refers to everyone that gets in your way of your own self-improvement journey. Don't tell anyone your plans and stay low key about it so you can come booming down like a lightning strike and come up on top and win. I'm going to teach you the exact 90-day plan that I followed to crawl out of my rock bottom and find success in the best version of myself. So last year, I went from an absolute mess in my rock bottom to becoming a very disciplined and productive person in only a few months. But I was in the dumps. I was going to bed at 8 a.m., waking up at 4 p.m. I was binge-watching TikTok, eating junk food, and basically I was wasting my time and my life away. It wasn't a sustainable way for me to live, so I knew that something had to change. One of the first things that I started with was changing my diet, and any kind of change is always the hardest in the beginning. So one way to make habits stick is to make it as easy for yourself as possible. And one of the ways that I make it easier on myself so I can focus on me is with a food delivery service like today's video sponsor, HelloFresh. HelloFresh is here to kickstart the new school year with food packed with fresh ingredients. Everything comes to your doorstep pre-portioned for less hassle. If you use my code, you're going to get free breakfast for life while your subscription is active. Don't let food boredom keep you from rebranding yourself and reaching your fullest potential. HelloFresh lets you easily customize your delivery every week so you can mix and match your lifestyle options to suit your needs like fit and wholesome, family-friendly meals, quick and easy meals, vegetarian, and so much more. And with HelloFresh, you also get to choose from over 30 calorie-smart and protein-smart recipes. Everything is tailored to your schedule. You can pick anything you want every week, including the option to skip a week if you're traveling or if you're on vacation. And as the seasons change, so do their seasonal menus including pumpkin spice. So you can always get all the in-season flavors and ingredients. So you can click the link in the description or use my code MAYALICEP10 and get 10 free meals plus free breakfast for life if you're in the U.S. Outside the U.S., you will get a local discount that will be applied to you. And thank you so much to HelloFresh for sponsoring this video. And if anybody around you has called you a weirdo or spazzy or obnoxious or anything similar to that, those people definitely don't matter. They definitely don't deserve your energy. And they're going to keep putting you down regardless of anything that you do about it. I promise. And by the way, if those are the same words that you use to describe yourself, try to speak more kindly towards yourself, which I'm going to explain why in a bit and maybe put a positive spin on it. Like for example, I may be loud, but I'm also easy to talk to and people find me comforting. Or I may be high energy, but I'm the life of the party. Or even I may be shy, but I'm very observant and I'm very self-aware. I think that when you finally find the confidence out of your own rebrand and being more comfortable with yourself and also generally becoming a more positive and less serious person, that's what really helped me level up. If you are comfortable with who you are, people will definitely know this and appreciate that rebrand. Okay, let's start with my biggest and most important chapter. And this is the key to become so secure in life and everything that you do. You don't even need to rebrand so much as expanding your current brand. It depends on who you want to become. So you own the things you cannot change, but always look to improve. It's like how Apple sold computers and then they added smartphones and then tablets and watches and AI or whatever. They don't need to change who they are completely just to sell new products. They're still Apple. They use the same brand and design identity, but then they also expand on it. They're creating their own universe. So create a universe of you, become your ideal version of yourself and think deeply about what that looks like. And then visualize it to your best ability because your entire reality hinges on this. So ignore your current 3D world for a second because this is the ideal world that you're going to be creating for yourself. Your interpretation of life is a projection of your self concept. So make it a really good one. And then forget about taking action for now. We're going to save that for later. Focus on changing your beliefs first from the deepest parts of yourself. People who are so concerned with taking action nonstop, they don't realize that your belief system is way bigger than taking action because it's how you see your entire life. So once your beliefs change, you're not going to feel like there's anything else to do because you see everything based off of the self concept that you've created. The keyword here is to be. It will always go back to who you are being because at the end of the day, every single thing is just a story that you've decided to live and you are the source for that. You are the author of your own biography. So take this really seriously. This is your life to be or not to be. This will make it easier to dismiss any kind of lies that people say about you or gossip when you understand that you're the only source and it's about forming your identity. Only you have the truth about yourself. You and your reality are just the result of what you have accepted as the truth. So once you set your beliefs into stone, everything else is going to follow you. Don't wait for reality to happen. Reality is waiting for you to take the lead. So understand that your whole life is a projection of your self concept. It's the foundational beliefs that you interact with on a daily basis, meaning the way that you see the world and that becomes your entire life. When an aspect of your self concept changes, your reality shifts and it shifts immediately because your views about everything is going to change. For example, an insecure person interprets everything in an insecure way and that identity creates even more insecurity. And since this is how they view themselves, the assumptions and thoughts that go along with it is going to also naturally happen. And because they are insecure, they will say things that an insecure person will say and they will do things that an insecure person does. Like for example, I don't believe that person deserves success. I don't think I deserve to have that kind of relationship. They will constantly undermine themselves and also other people around them. And that's just the end result of being an insecure person. If they change that part of themselves and stop getting in their own way constantly, then they are going to stop focusing on whether or not other people deserve success or whether they think that they deserve the best relationship. And those are just examples, but you see this everywhere with people that you know. Change your self concept and your views on everything will automatically shift. You're not gaining anything from your own current physical reality. You're creating it constantly in real time by your feelings, by every single thing that you think and what you believe in, how you feel about yourself. But I have to tell you something. You can feel what you feel, but you don't have to accept it as the truth. Shocking, right? I don't listen to my feelings anymore. I empathize with it. I understand it and I understand why I feel the way that I feel, but I don't let it lead me. And if I know that my reality is what I've accepted as the truth, So tell me, why do you keep focusing on the things that you don't want? The only reason why it's still there or whatever, whether it's your insecurity or your people-pleasing behavior or the people around you is because you keep validating it with your thoughts and your awareness of the situation. This applies to every single thing. Like for example, in my video about finding financial independence, I noticed this one thing that keeps coming up with a lot of people in the comments is that they keep validating that lack mindset for money, saying things like, I have to work three jobs in order to secure food for my family. I cannot save money if I don't make enough. Or you're wrong that money is unlimited. It's actually very limited and rich people take everything away from me. Like, are you reading back your own comments? Sometimes I just, I don't even want to waste energy. My energy continuing to explain something that you're not going to want to undo in your head because unfortunately that's a you issue. I'm just being honest. If you're not hearing what I'm saying, why are you even wasting time watching my videos? Like I'm here to hopefully help you realize things about yourself. So that's why I'm like this. It's also crazy to me how some of the most beautiful people in the world have the most awful self-concepts. I don't mean just physically. I mean like the kindest, sweetest people in the world. Please just like no more of this bad self-concepts. It must be abolished right now. Like there's no way that you're so cool and interesting and pretty and funny and creative and there's no one else like you and yet you get so sad when someone doesn't text you back and you think that it's not a privilege to date you or to be friends with you and you think that if someone doesn't text you back within a day that they don't like you. I'm kind of going into specific things here but you need to realize this thing about the physical world. Your physical reality is created by both your past decisions as well as your past circumstances. Things that happened to you, things that you decided to do but everything in it is actually neutral. It can't tell you anything. It can't validate you. You can create thoughts right now about it that makes you think that it's telling you something and it's giving or it's taking away value from you but you are the only person attaching a story to everything. Your perception of the physical reality is what gives it life. It's 100% dependent on you. Things show up the way they do because of what you accepted as the truth and when it comes to things like manifestation, that is all imagination. When you embody the state of your wish already fulfilled, you instantly manifested your desire in your imagination already and that's what makes it real. That's why there's no need to convince yourself that you have it in the physical reality. When focusing on your imagination is what's going to take you to your goals. If you have it in your imagination, the physical world will bend to you. It will reflect everything back to you and the irony is that the 3D realm, your physical reality is going to start giving you everything that you want instantly the second that you stop focusing on your current reality and that includes all your negative self-talk like So before we even talk about discipline, don't ever be afraid to start anything. There's no reason to be afraid because nobody will ever say all the right things to the right people. Everyone has said something very embarrassing and it's better to say something than nothing at all. Everyone has made mistakes and that shouldn't scare you into becoming a hermit and not do anything with your life. Take calculated chances, meaning that with anything that you do, make sure that all the upsides are better than the downsides. And move on if you need to. You will know in your heart if you will regret it if you didn't take that chance on yourself. Life is too short, you guys. There is really no reason to hold back on anything and don't ever take yourself too seriously. Be a bit unserious. The specific person that you're so into, for example, is probably just afraid of coming off awkward and as nervous as you are. It's so much easier said than done but just by putting yourself out there and taking the first step to do anything at all, you're doing way better than the other 90% of people who are just too afraid to even try. But guys, let's face it. Once you start, you need to have discipline. And discipline is all about the habit forming game. That's really what it is. Discipline is what's going to carry you through even when you don't feel like it. You are the gamer and every time you choose discipline, you win that day. And day by day, you build it up incrementally. But you can't have it if you don't mentally and internally shift. Sometimes you just have to stop feeling sorry for yourself. Like whatever it is that you're lacking, everyone lacks something. But so what? Stop the victim mentality and actually change in the inside so that you can move on and focus on the discipline aspect of it. So after I read these two books and they're called Atomic Habits and The Slight Edge, I was totally sold on the idea of incremental progress. It's the only thing that has ever worked for me and it makes sense. Forget about all these magical quantum leaps that solve everything overnight. The only overnight solution is your self-assumption, your self-concept. That's the true quantum leap. Everything else is just straight BS. If you're waiting for motivation to get you started, stop it. It's too fickle. Motivation can be good if it's there already, but it shouldn't be the entire foundation of the habits that you're creating because motivation doesn't last. And it definitely won't be there for you every single day. And when it's gone, you also lose all the habits that you built on top of it. So build habits based on discipline and willpower. The key distinction isn't telling yourself, I'm going to exercise for 30 minutes every day because I want to be healthy, but rather it's saying, I'm going to discipline myself to work out every day because that is simply who I am and that's my purpose. And because I have purpose, I also have enough willpower to always be doing that. Whatever your goals are, make it so that the only way you can't lose is if you don't do it. Even if it's just doing one push-up a day, make your goals so achievable and so easy that there's no way you can fail as long as you try and you see progress. Some might even say, well, doing one push-up won't make a difference. I mean, maybe if you only do it one time, but the reality is that you'll probably go beyond doing one push-up. So there's this one trick I learned from Atomic Habits is where if you just put on sneakers to go to the gym, you will already have won half the battle. That alone will make you want to be at the gym. Once you have the willpower to get down on the push-up stands and complete one, you will often find yourself thinking, well, I can do another one and I can do another one. So you'll probably exceed your target, which not only will boost your confidence to do even more, but it will also give you a sense of accomplishment. If you remember anything at all, just remember the one thing that I'm saying in this video, you can't fail unless you don't do it. There's no reason to be afraid of failure. Like the most successful people that we all know has failed harder than anyone. And guys, I'll let you in on a huge secret. I'm a loser. I lose a lot. But what matters is, and the only thing that matters is, I win a lot more than I lose. And of course, in this journey of rebranding, I'm also naturally very interested as to how our brains can affect our self-improvement. Most people think that dopamine is the pleasure chemical, but it's really more about wanting or the way that your body creates that motivation. And that all becomes desire and it's well and good. But what if you can actually use that dopamine to your advantage and achieve whatever your goals are? It's really simple. Imagine you have an animal brain because you do. Make the things that you want to do less of more unappealing to you so that you can get less dopamine from it. In fact, try and find ways to make yourself dislike doing those things. And then the things that you want to do more of, make yourself love those things so that you can do more of what you love and less of what you hate. The whole theory is easy, but there are a lot of things that we're always doing subconsciously that's kind of getting us hooked on things like social media, being chronically online, things like that. Sustained exposure to elevated dopamine levels is what happens when you play a video game for 12 hours, which will lead you to fewer dopamine receptors. And those fewer receptors will result in less motivation for you, and decreased mental sharpness and wittiness and quickness of thought. You literally become number, dumber, and slower. I remember when I was so addicted to video games, I would lock myself in my room for a week and 12 hours a day was like the minimum. I was also falling behind on school. I was feeling hopeless and depressed all the time. And I was also so tired and so drained all the time. And it's like, I wonder why? Given that there's so many activities and substances around us that spike our dopamine levels to unnatural levels, we need to become so much more mindful of the things that we're consuming and also our consumption patterns. The things that we eat, the things that we drink, what we do around time. Corporations and industries, entire industries, exploit this all the time to keep you hooked on their products to have you IV'd in and become addicted. Like I always say, think about this monkey, for example. This is the perfect illustration of what I'm talking about. Rate his setup, go ahead, because it's all of our setups. We need to break out of this matrix. It's hard because our constant flow of dopamine keeps us so comfortable and we love comfort, right? That's not the point of this video. If you want to rebrand and transform in 90 days and you have something ruling over your life that's slowing you down, identify what that is and then break its grip on you. If you're like, oh no, how do I do that? Change your self-concept, go back to the first chapter of this video and then use your discipline. That's how you're going to rebrand. Limit the daily activities that constantly flood your system with dopamine but don't actually add more value to your life in any kind of meaningful way. Keeping yourself from being bored and then doing nothing is not really the kind of value add that you think it is. For example, I used to love looking at Instagram memes all the time. My friends would like send me stuff and I'll be like looking at memes all day like, haha, is this you? Like really, what's the point of that? Is that really adding more value to my life? Aside from like a quick haha, you know. Now I actually unfollowed most if not all of those accounts because why do I even care? What is it adding to my life? Is it worth it? Usually not. Tell those friends, sorry, I gotta focus. If they really care about you, they're going to be like, oh, okay, you do you. You know, I support that. By doing baby steps like this, you're going to eventually get back to a more natural balance of dopamine receptors and making it easier to focus on other tasks like reading or learning to play an instrument, the things that actually matter to you. What if we replace our dopamine addictions with flow? So flow is itself a form of meditation where you're doing something and you're so engrossed in it that you spend hours passionately just working on it. And this could be a painting, could even be homework, but you don't even want to stop until you're done. The concept of flow is actually life-changing. When you're in flow state, you're completely so absorbed in whatever you're doing. And there's a book called Flow, the Psychology of Optimal Experience that really drives home the importance of having specific challenges for ourselves that actually match our skill sets. It also helped me differentiate between things like what's giving me pleasure and what's actually giving me enjoyment. Pleasure is very easy come easy go, but superficial and doesn't give us real value. Hours of doom scrolling, for example. Enjoyment, on the other hand, it helps you grow. It gives you joy. It gives you purpose. So these days I fill my days with activities like reading and making YouTube videos and working out and all that can become my flow experience. And each day I do extremely basic bullet journaling where I write down my goals for the day and how I'm feeling. So bullet journaling is basically just like writing down bullet points of how my day went. Super simple. But the magic happens when I list all the positives and all the negative activities that I've done. If I give it a basic color code like red and green, for example, it lets me see at a glance how my day went, where I did good, where I slipped up, what can I do better. There are a ton of journaling apps out there that are free, by the way. And the minute of journaling a day will help you identify whether you're trending towards progress or not. So if you're stuck in the rut, know that change is possible. You just need to become aware of what you're doing. And it doesn't even need to be overwhelming. And you can make it as simple as you want. You can even use a notes app. You can use a physical journal. If you work on small steps consistently, it can take you very far eventually. But if you have no willpower, even the slight motivation to get even started and get going, you literally cannot have discipline. When people say have discipline, it means to like have the mindset that even when things are uncomfortable or they suck, just continuing to go through the motions and do the action anyway and stick to the plan. The issue with this is that usually it requires a bit of incentive to keep going. That's kind of one downside of it. And hopefully you can relate to this. Like I remember when I used to have chronic depression and I went from someone who was extremely disciplined, like I would be somebody who would rarely miss a workout into becoming a person that literally would have zero motivation or absolutely no willpower to even get out of bed in the morning. And I had zero incentive or motivation or ability to move forward despite how many be more disciplined quotes were running through my head. And this is why this advice doesn't work universally. And you really need to find out what works for you or why a certain thing doesn't work for you. Find out why that is. Because for a person who is severely and chronically depressed, just saying become more disciplined might not always work for you. There's always underlying neuro biochemical and structural changes that will happen to your brain, especially when you're under depression. And the severity of it can vary very drastically depending on your own individual biology and all of that, which can in some instances quite literally prevent you from having any ability to be disciplined. So this advice is nice and will likely work for a lot of people. But generally, I realized that something like this will not work for everyone. And the fact that reality is very nuanced and things are generally a bit more complicated than just catchy one-liners and self-help advice. And yeah, I also think that a lot of people who have never been depressed before have no idea what it's like to have zero motivation, zero ability to become disciplined. And in those cases, it's so individualized that quite honestly, the best thing you can do is to just get professional medical and mental health help. I know it sounds cliche, but it's cliche for a reason. That's what they're there for. The strategies, the medication therapies, and all the medical interventions that are required to tackle each person's situation at that level are so nuanced and so individualized that a lot of generalized advice may not be helpful or accurate or applicable or even detailed enough to address them. There is a thing from Atomic Habits where they say to show up on the bad days. Let's just say that you have an existential crisis, for example, or depression, and all you want to do is to sleep and do nothing. Do you think that people can go on with willpower? In that case, I disagree. Personally, discipline is what I really have to rely on when my motivation is flagging and any type of sudden changes won't last forever. It really needs to be built on momentum and purpose. And the secret to getting that momentum is to have patience and to be kinder to yourself. Always remember, you are a human being. You're not a machine. Every day will look different for you and your best is going to look different every day. Some days, if I go for a walk around the block and I say to myself, that's the best I can do for now, that's the best I can do. No state is ever permanent, including all the bad states, including the depression and all that. But the real way to work towards your goals and do that rebranding is by forming habits through discipline. It can be hard, I know, but it's very worth it. It's worth everything because the difference is motivation says, I'm really feeling this right now, so I'm going to do it and I feel inspired to go after it. But discipline says, I'm not feeling this right now, but I still want whatever this is, so I'm going to keep pursuing it and I'm going to do it anyways despite how I feel. With discipline, you ignore your feelings about anything and you ignore how you feel and where you can get up in the morning. Yeah, I mean, becoming disciplined requires a total shift in mindset before anything else. Personally, for me, learning psychology and philosophy helped me understand why I need to be disciplined and get all of my ish together. You need to break the cycle, especially if you're going through depression or trauma. You need to break that cycle. And the first step is realizing and doing the inner work. And if you can't do it, at least try to fake it till you make it. At least try. There's a new study that actually shows that babies learn to imitate others because they themselves are imitated. The more a mother is sensitive and empathetic to the baby and imitates and mirrors her six-month-old child, for example, the greater that child's ability at age 18 months to be able to learn to imitate others. So imitation is the start of the cultural process towards becoming more human. Isn't that so interesting? I mentioned this in a lot of my videos, but always seek to have role models in your life, even if they're not literally in your life, and learn to imitate any aspect of what you like about them so that you can give yourself the first push to expand on yourself and eventually reach that rebranding moment that you're aiming for. So guys, I'm hoping that a combination of all of these tips and all of these knowledge that I'm passing on to you can help you in your rebranding journey because really at the end of the day, it is all about what you want and getting the motivation and the focus and the discipline to start, as well as the knowledge of what all of these things mean and what the difference is between all of these words, right? Anyways, I wish you guys all the best in restarting your journey of building a new self-concept for yourself. And as always, I appreciate you all and I'll see you in the next video.