Happy Free Thoughts Thursday, people.

If you have a few minutes, I highly recommend watching this Ted Talk.

It explains why being nicer to yourself actually makes you a better person to the people around you.

I talk about this idea a lot on my channel and it's one that's changed my life for the better.

5 Thoughts From Me:

1. The more you think, the less you do.

“There is an inverse relationship between things on your mind and those things getting done.” — David Allen

The obvious reason for this is that any time spent thinking about doing something is time spent not physically doing it.

Two less obvious reasons are that excess time spent thinking about something often leads to:

Overthinking—which makes a situation seem more complicated than it really is and therefore makes you less likely to take action (aka analysis paralysis).

Artificial satisfaction—when thinking about doing something in detail tricks your brain into believing you already did it.

It's best to avoid both of these. Generally speaking: think less, do more.

2.   You are not your thoughts.

"The first thought that goes through your head is what you’ve been conditioned to think, the second defines who you are." — Unknown

Thousands of thoughts go through your head every day. Research is all over the place regarding exactly how many, but the minimum I've seen is 6,000. That's 250 thoughts per hour and more than 4 per minute.

80-90% of them are subconscious and most are negative (see negativity bias).

It's dangerous to confuse those thoughts with who you really are, because you have little control over them and they're programmed to be downers.

Focus on the second thought, not the first.

3.   Most of life is addition by subtraction.

"The soul grows by subtraction, not addition." — Henry David Thoreau

When you hear "less is more," you might automatically think about physical possessions. But I think this idea goes much further than that, and can apply to:

Confidence—you'll be much more confident if you can learn to love who you are right now, rather than waiting until you acquire more money, status, muscle, etc.

Goals—it's much more effective to go all in on one goal than it is to half-heartedly commit to two.

Friends—quality over quantity.

4.   (Social) Media is inflammatory.

"Just like unhealthy food is inflammatory to your body, unhealthy information is inflammatory to your mind." — Me, inspired by Balaji Srinivasan

Unhealthy and inflammatory information is anything that causes you to feel outraged or fearful.

It's the media's job to make everything seem like your problem, otherwise you won't care about what they're saying. Don't fall for it.

Avoid inflammatory foods and avoid inflammatory information.

5.   Nothing is permanent.

“Friendly reminder that in three generations everyone who knew us will be dead. Including the people whose opinions stopped you from doing what you wanted all along.” — Alex Hormozi

Your negative thoughts and feelings are temporary.

Your trials and tribulations are temporary.

Your critics and skeptics are temporary.

Keep moving forward.

If you want more lessons like this I made a video on my 25th birthday where I laid out the 25 most important lessons I learned in 25 years.

You can watch it here or below.

Live your life to the fullest,

Chris

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