Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - You Are What You Focus On

Starting point is 00:00:00 Well, hello there. I am Mike Matthews and welcome to Muscle for Life. Thank you for joining me today for a mini episode. I figured I would do these little short episodes every couple of weeks because otherwise the episodes can be a bit long. Interviews can be 45 to 60 minutes, monologues 20 to 40 minutes. And I don't know about you, but I appreciate when some podcasts do this, when they share little short three, five, maybe seven minute episodes in addition to the longer form stuff. And today's episode is about focus, about where you put your attention. Now, decades of psychological research has demonstrated that we construct our worldview based on what we pay attention to, not necessarily what is.

Starting point is 00:00:53 Who we are, what we think, what we feel, what we do, what we love, what we hate is more the sum of what we focus on than what is. And if you want to see this for yourself, you can do a little exercise with me. For the next several minutes, what I want you to do is look around in your environment and ask yourself a few questions and pay attention to how these questions and how this process of asking yourself these questions impacts your mood. So look around and ask yourself, what is right about this environment? Specifically, what's something I am okay with? What is something I enjoy?

Starting point is 00:01:36 What is something I admire? What is something I can celebrate? Do this a little bit, and it probably won't take long before your heart begins to warm. Now, bask in the good vibes you've created for a minute, maybe continue if you want. And then I want to turn that switch off. And we're going to do that by doing the opposite. So this time I want you to look around in your environment and find things that are wrong with it, things that bother you, things that should be improved. And if you want to spoil your mood even faster, consider who is probably to blame for all of it.

Starting point is 00:02:19 And if you don't know who or what to blame, just find something that might make sense, some even tenuous connection. Maybe it could be this person's fault or this thing's fault. Maybe it's your fault. Maybe you can blame yourself. So go ahead and do that right now. Do that for a few minutes and notice how quickly the glow fades. Now, what's interesting is, objectively speaking, nothing has changed between these two exercises. You are still occupying the same space. You are still surveying the same environment. That environment still contains the same things, the things that are both wonderful and woeful.

Starting point is 00:03:05 to those things, how you feel about those different realities is determined by your frame of mind. If you choose to see the good, you feel good. If you choose to see the bad, you feel bad. And so my point here is we have far more control over our emotions than we often think we do. And we can turn on positivity almost on command just by controlling our attention. How many calories should you eat to reach your fitness goals faster? What about your macros? What types of food should you eat and how many meals should you eat every day? Well, I created a free 60-second diet quiz that'll answer those questions for you and others, including how much alcohol you should drink, whether you should eat more fatty fish to get enough omega-3 fatty acids, what

Starting point is 00:03:52 supplements are worth taking and why, and more. To take the quiz and get your free personalized diet plan, go to muscleforlife.show slash diet quiz, muscleforlife.show slash diet quiz. Now answer the questions and learn what you need to do in the kitchen to lose fat, build muscle and get healthy. Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did, subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don't miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share,

Starting point is 00:04:45 shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscleforlife.com, and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode

Starting point is 00:05:04 and I hope to hear from you soon.

Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - You Are What You Focus On

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