How to Achieve More and Increase Your Impact

All right, and welcome back. Today we're going to talk about one of the major pitfalls I've fallen prey to in my journey as a man and that I've witnessed in the hundreds of men I've been coaching over the years.

And it has to do with change, goal setting, and getting things done that we want to get done in our lives. In short, the problem I have often experienced and that I've really been seeing a lot in many men I work with, is we'll set these lofty goals for ourselves because we want to change something in our lives, right? And often why we want to change it is because we're living in some kind of pain.

We're not satisfied, we're not happy. We want things to be different. The impulse here is fantastic. The problem is how we often go about executing that. And so what I've seen for many men, and I've also experienced this firsthand, is that goal setting actually becomes another strategy in the end for reinforcing all of our negative and limiting beliefs about ourselves.

And what do I mean by that? Well, we'll set a goal, right? I'm gonna give up porn, or I'm gonna start working out seven days a week, or I'm gonna apply for this many jobs, or I'm gonna change my behavior in some capacity because I want to improve an aspect of my life because underneath everything, I'm actually suffering, I'm in pain. Now, the problem is if we are not actually regulated in our nervous systems in a place where our body is feeling okay, meaning just at its most, simply relaxed and alert and having enough energy and attention to focus on the things we want, then we'll often start with a bang, maybe with some of these goals, but then quickly fizzle out.

And this is where the strategy of mind over matter, something we're kind of programmed with in our culture, really starts to fail. It's absolutely a capacity we can cultivate and it's a very important part of resiliency, right? This idea that we can keep our focus on the things we want to focus on and sometimes in a sense, delay immediate gratification and service of long term pleasure.

Now that is something we do want to cultivate. The problem is if our nervous system is Dysregulated. We're already losing before we start. And I see this so often with so many men, they are actually suffering, they are dysregulated, and they think if I set this goal, I can just push through that. And what I want to talk about today is that what I've seen actually work best is a little counterintuitive.

Meaning we need to reverse the order when we focus on what would it take right now for me to feel well regulated, calm, relaxed, grounded, energized in my nervous system, literally, how do I tell my body, mind, I am okay, I am safe?

When we do that and we shift our nervous system into an actual state of availability, AKA regulation, what I've found is action often flows as a natural impulse. We are driven to take action and move when another way to put regulated is we feel safe.

I mean this safe in the sense of how Gabor Mate describes it, which I really like. Safety is not the absence of threat or conflict or stress or strife. What it is is the presence of connection. So when I say regulated, what I often mean is connected and grounded. And this is what so many men get wrong. We create this story, often powered by shame, that I am not even worthy of connection until I've taken this certain action, until I've achieved, until I've done, until I've proven to myself X, Y or Z, then I can be worthy of connection with friends, with family, with co workers, with my wife, with my spouse, with the woman I'm attracted to.

And again, here's where I want to point out that that gets it backwards. When we're dysregulated, we can't really focus and take the type of action we want. Our nervous system is actually working against us. So for guys that really want to shift things and take more action in their lives, what I often say is, you need to get connected. You need to get some co regulation in your life.

Think of this as the safety net for your nervous system. When our nervous system is stressed and either in fight or flight or freeze, it makes it really hard to take risks. We're actually in a threatened state. So what takes over is a desire for safety. Safety not in the sense I just described, but in this other sense is often the known.

So when we're in threat, sometimes what we do out of habit to be safe is to stay in a known place. And paradoxically, for a lot of us guys, the safest place to be is shame. And it's my fault. There's actually less vulnerability there than I really tried and this didn't work out, or wow, I have no idea how this is about to go.

I'm having to hold a tremendous amount of uncertainty in my nervous system. That is often the pattern we'll get into when we try to goal set and take action for change in our lives. But we're not properly regulated, meaning we're not properly connected in a place of actual safety with other people who have our best interest at heart. When we do have that type of connection present, it's like we have a safety net underneath us.

Now imagine someone learning to walk a high wire. If there's no net, it's going to be an extraordinarily stressful situation and you're probably going to learn by wearing out your body and being very timid. But if you're training, there's a safety net underneath. You're allowed to make mistakes. You can try things out. Oh, that didn't work.

This worked. This was too far in my body. This wasn't far enough. You can actually take more risks when you know there's something that will catch you underneath. This is why in this show and in the work I do, I so heavily emphasize the power of men's groups and connection. Because that group, or even that relationship, if it's a friend, a coach, a therapist, can be the safe place that we know we have underneath us so that if we fall, we know we're not going to go face first.

We will be caught. What this does is it ends up allowing us to take more risks in our lives. I've seen this firsthand with the many, many men I've worked with in my Pillars of Presence, dating and Relationships coaching program. Lots of guys who are single end up taking more risks out in the world, putting themselves out there more, asking more women out, expressing their attraction more. And even the guys in relationships, they take more risks.

And sometimes, in fact, they'll actually exit their relationship they've been afraid to do for so many years. Suddenly they feel resourced to see things clearly and know that, wow, I never saw an exit before because if I left this, it just felt like I'd be suffering alone. But now I got some community, I got people looking out for me. I think I'm going to give this a try. I'm going to start sending some boundaries in my life, in my relationship and lo and behold, some partners.

That works great. For some it does not. And it becomes very clear this relationship is unsustainable and actually over. Seen this in men taking chances to get new jobs and leave situations that were extremely unpleasant for them. Occupations where they felt really stuck or under, bosses that were just not great. Definitely seen it in health and fitness. Whether that's giving up a substance we've used addictively, weed, booze, even porn, and shifting towards health, or just taking the repeated actions we want to to feel good in our bodies.

This is such an important thing because if we don't go for co regulation first and have that safety, we're continually putting our nervous system into this fight or flight or freeze state. And that in and of itself is making it much harder for us to succeed in the things we want to do. It is not weak to have community and connection.

This is one of the bullshit narratives most men swallow and one of the negative ways the patriarchy affects men. I've talked about the myth of a lone wolf before. Yeah, it's an awesome concept. We love the imagery of it. We love the imagery of the rugged cowboy, but it's all bullshit. The wolf out of the pack dies faster. The wolf in the pack survives longer.

Humans are the same way. If you want to build true resiliency in your life, you need strong connections. You need people that can hold you. And when we feel held, we can take risk. This is one of the foundational elements of this idea of secure attachment. Right when we're securely attached, when we're young, to our caregivers, we can actually separate and take risk and go into the unknown.

When we're not, we become anxious or avoidant. We don't actually live as fully as we might. Learning to focus on your nervous system first is a primary tool for accelerating the transformation in your life. What do I need to do to send the signals to my actual nervous system that I am not in threat, that I am safe?

There are so many tools, breathwork, movement, meditation that we can do on our own. But truly the most powerful one is co regulation. It's when we link up with another human being's nervous system who says to us, whatever it is you're experiencing, that does not exclude you from connection. You are safe.

I am here with you. I welcome all of you. When that comes online, men take more action. They live more boldly. I've seen it time and time again. And it's something that so many of us at this nervous system level never really got from our caregivers, from our parents, depending on your generation, this was just the strategy, what was in vogue.

Dr. Spock, leave them in the crib and let them cry it out? It's absolutely absurd in Retrospect, this tiny blip we've lived in of kind of industrialization that humans never lived alike before and will probably never live like again. We know now we need connection and co regulation to thrive. That does not make you weak, that makes you more powerful.

I've said it before, power in the context I speak about is the ability to move towards what you want in life and eventually to help others do the same. So a man in his power is taking action, taking risks, trying things. Not all of it is going to work out. Sometimes because of choices we make as individuals, sometimes because the larger context we're plugged into.

But the important thing is the resiliency comes online when we have connection and community. And the more co regulation, connection and community we're in, the more chances we can take and the easier it is to set goals and take actions that are going to move our lives forward. Most of the work I'm doing these days starts with that.

First let's get you linked up, let's get you connected, let's get you feeling safe in the sense of connected, no matter what. When that happens, all kinds of signals flood into the nervous system. There's more of a grounded relaxed presence. It's this very simple state of kind of just okayness.

And when we rest in that, what I have seen time and time again is then a natural impulse to take action arises when I'm not under threat, I have energy to move forward or be curious about the things I want to be curious about in my life. So if you have struggled over the years to make change in your life, what I want to posit here is, rather than all the negative self talk that probably springs up in your mind or beliefs about the world, what's most likely true if you've been unable to change and keep finding yourself in the same patterns over and over, it's that you're not connected enough and your nervous system is perpetually dysregulated.

Many men I've been working with recently, I can say rather bluntly, have never been co regulated in their lives. Their nervous system simply does not know what the state of relaxed, alert and okay feels like. There is a constant, a constant calculating for survival at a moment to moment level. And that takes so much energy from our nervous system, which again takes energy from action.

When we're using energy just just to try to figure out how to survive in the moment, we do not have energy for moving things forward or taking that higher order level. And look at our lives. This is why the hierarchy of needs as laid out by Maslow is so important, right? When you're just fighting for survival, it's hard to focus on anything else. And we're absolutely wrestling with this as a cultural, as a planet right now that wow, some people have it a little easier than others.

And it's not just class or finances, it's what's the state your nervous system is brought into. What kind of stresses is it exposed to from a young age? None of this is an excuse. Once we become aware of the stresses our nervous system is in, then it's our responsibility to handle it. That's a big part of men's work. Wow. I see the ways I've been impacted by my world, by my relationships, by my growing up.

And now I got to take responsibility for getting myself nourished and co regulated. Because when I do, I can take more action in the world to create a deeply meaningful, powerful life of service, community and connection. There's all kinds of ways I want to support you in this journey of co regulation in order to take action. You've heard some of them here on this podcast and even more are coming.

Reach out. Let me know if this resonates. Jasonvolutionary Men, until next time, if you're interested in working with me around dating relationships or your masculine presence in the world, just go to Evolutionary men. Apply.