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Take Time To Look At How Far You Have Come With A Victory List — Ticking your victories with drawn checked boxes

I have always suffered from a lack of self-belief and the worthiness of my accomplishments. It’s been with me ever since I can remember. I use many strategies to overpower these feelings. A major one is the creation of a victory list.

I first learned this from Jack Canfield and I want to share with you how I use a victory list and the benefits you can receive from it too. It’s like the list after creating a bucket list with all your accomplishments to date.

Unlike many lists you have to do, this one is exciting.

Here’s why and how you should do it…

Why You Should Have A Victory List?

I think it’s common to go through life and undervalue your accomplishments. Most people are caught up in their past mistakes or worrying about the future. I have too been that person. But when you brush away the negative fog that’s blocking your mind. You will find clear routes to take.

End of the day no one wants to be stuck in life by their thoughts. So the quickest way to move forward is to find a way to channel the mind and release the chemicals that make us feel good.

A victory list is just that. It allows you to remember all the times you have succeeded and embody that emotion. For me sometimes I forget I’m actually a good public speaker. When I revert back to my introverted state I somehow think I’m not a good communicator when in fact I have spoken to over a thousand people and was congratulated on how well I did. That’s a victory that can be put on the list.

Having a victory list allows you to increase your confidence and self-belief that you can achieve anything in your life.

How To Implement A Victory List

There’s a simple 3 step process I apply to get the most out of my victory list

Recall every accomplishment. When I’m writing down my accomplishments I wanted to incorporate everything in my life. Sometimes we can take for granted our childhood accomplishments of walking, reading and writing but these are major accomplishments. Even been here today on earth you have beaten between 40 million and 1.2 billion sperm cells in the race to be alive. So when your write down your victory list include everything from birth to the present.

Create your top 5. Once you have a list of all your accomplishments you can order them in any way you like. I personally but them into decades. This helps me to see them more clearly. Then I create my top 5. These are the accomplishments that I gather the most energy from. The top 5 should relight the fire inside you that you can achieve anything you set your mind to.

Keep It close to you. Keeping your victory list close to you allows you to fuel up whenever you need. Some days you might need it more than others and haveing it quick to hand is important as having fuel stops nearby when you’re driving. I have it on my phone but you can write it out and laminate it. Get creative but keep it close by.

How To Create More Victories In Life

When I looked at my victory list after its completion. I was actually proud of myself and also shocked at what I have achieved.

After all the emotions had sunk in another thought popped up. “What else can I achieve?”

This is a great question to ask because your victory list is limitless. We all have one life and getting to work on achieving all the things we want in life without fear is the way forward.

Yes Theory practice seeking discomfort. This is a powerful message. By seeking discomfort in your own life you will find achievements abound. I believe also in creating discomfort. You have the power to create your future through believing and feeling your wants into existence.

Every achievement on your victory list is there because you seeked or created discomfort in your life. Everything on your list would have been a challenge or you overcame adversity.

The victory list is the best list you have and creating the rest of your victory list will be the journey of a lifetime. Just embrace fear when you’re going after your goals.

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How To Trick Your Brain To Enjoy Hard Things In Life

I have to start off by saying I have an addiction. My addiction is dopamine. It’s an addiction we all have and is very useful for focus and learning but if used poorly can be detrimental to our health and productivity. That’s why you have to trick your brain to enjoy the hard things in life.

Today’s focus is on the dopamine hits we get from things we do that are enjoyable in the moment but when we indulge too much can have long-lasting damage to our mental health. I finish off with a clear strategy to help guide you to a life where you are not controlled by short term dopamine tasks.

What Are Easy Dopamine Tasks?

I wrote an article about social media detox that you can read here. I explained the vast benefits of why having time away from social media can benefit your mental health. It’s true for many other forms of dopamine tasks we do, such as;

Junk Food
Gaming
Internet
Phone
Streaming Services
Procrastination

Above are the worst culprits I can think of in my own life. All of them can be positive in your life as long as they are balanced and you control when you do it. What I mean by that is don’t just do them when you feel like it. Instead, you should reward yourself with them after being disciplined.

This is how people who are successful at what they do overcome dopamine dependency on the above list.

For example, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson eats healthy all week long then allows himself a cheat meal on the weekend. If you look at a successful person lifestyle you will see the discipline they uphold within their week against short term dopamine benefits.

Dophamine Fosters Distraction

Dopamine gives you the desire and motivation to do anything, especially when they’re easy and fun to do.

Dopamine loves short term rewards that keep us coming back for more. We know this be true by just looking at our lifestyle. For instance, when we play a video game we know we’re going to enjoy it straight away or when eating sugary food we know we are going to instantly enjoy it. Whereas a book or a healthy diet will reward us later. That’s why it feels so much harder to do. The same goes for anything worthwhile in your life in the long term.

The battle is much harder in the 21st century. There are so many things pulling us away from long term success. The people in the highest seats of power know this. Facebook is a master at it and pulls the strings of its users like puppets. But it’s not just Facebook, it’s all social media platforms, news outlets, food businesses, gaming companies and the list goes on.

When we think of boredom it’s not the best feeling to have in the moment. So now people fill that time of boredom with distractions. But boredom is a good thing as it facilitates creative thought and purpose to move forward. That quiet time at the moment is a positive long term strength. You’re just not rewarded from it instantly.

What The Science Says?

As we are focusing more on understanding how to combat the dopamine realise for short term gains, so we can better manage them to refocus on long term gains.

The study I found was researched by Pernille Mette Damsgaard and is a great read here. In short, it shows how addictive dopamine is when we get it easily. The mind of the rat just wanted more and more of it. The part of the brain that it was activating was the mesolimbic reward system. This system is activated by anything dopamine-related and can easily form addictions for highly stimulated activity. For example, the use of drugs is the most highly addictive.

The signs of addiction are real and the forming of long term habits can change the neural plasticity of your brain. This is why it’s of importance to identify parts of your life where short term dopamine benefits are holding you back.

(I have to state that if you reading this with a drug addiction seeking professional help is of the most importance as we are just focusing on the list I provided above.)

How To Trick Your Brain To Enjoy Hard Things In Life

1. Identify What Habits You Want To Change

This is unique to everyone. So you have to review your life of what’s holding you back from long term gain. Is it the urge of daily sugary sweets or the need to always look at your phone for messages? Whatever is identified as a problem make it the first point of protocol.

2. Make It Easy To Begin

Like anything new making it easy to achieve increases the likely hood of it being done tenfold. So if you want to spend less time on social media, for example, have one day out of the week where you don’t go on it. By making it easy you will also be rewarded by dopamine for your efforts. From there make it two days a week or just 1 hour every day. Again it’s unique for you.

3. Create A Reward System

Using dopamine to your advantage is important. So creating objectives where your mind knows it’s going to get a reward is great for motivation.

That can be having a list of things you have to do before you can play the game.

Another example is that you don’t eat any junk food for 6 days but on the last day eat as much as you want. I do this and the urge to eat junk food is all but gone as the dopamine effect is less effective.

For every task, you want to start taking back control. Devise a reward system plan to propel you into action.

4. Have Detox Days

After the first few weeks of acclimatising yourself to the change of your habits. You should go a whole day of full detox from everything you deem to be a short term dopamine hit.

Replace this with walks in nature, meditation, alone time for reflection and journaling.

I will tell you for a fact you will be refreshed and purposeful. It’s like going on holiday for the mind. This will produce huge results for your life and it will give you back control of your thoughts and actions on a daily basis.

5. Create A System That Works For you

This article isn’t about giving up Netflix or never eating chocolate. They can provide quick short term gratification that adds value to your life. What this article is about is not letting these dopamine hits control your life and what you are meant to do.

Once you have followed the above. Creating a monthly system of when to have detox days and reward systems you’re going to do. Allows you to focus on doing the hard tasks like creating your own business, tidying up your home or reading that book you keep putting off. Then you will see long term dopamine at work when you are rewarded for your efforts in huge amounts.

Health, Wealth, Wellbeing & Mindset

By implementing everything above you will definitely see some major changes. I know I have.

Since strategising my junk food intake, I have lost weight and become healthier. When rewarding myself with game time I focussed more on my business and become wealthier. From achieving more long term dopamine hits based on the hard work I feel fulfilled and happier in my life. Finally, since I have taken control of my short term dopamine hits that hindered my life. I have developed a mindset that puts me in the driving seat of where I’m headed.

I hope this helps you in your life

With Love & Gratitude

A Final Word From The Future Mindset

I hope you enjoyed today’s article How To Trick Your Brain To Enjoy Hard Things In Life. I hope the article has helped in some way.

If you want to take your mindset to the next level how about scheduling a 30-min discovery session to chat about your current status, results you want, and next steps. Don’t hesitate to contact me at adam@thefuturemindset.com

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