Upgrade Your Thinking, Upgrade Your Results

Most New Year’s resolutions focus on what we want to do and achieve, but very few focus on how we need to think. This episode introduces the concept of a “thinking resolution” and explains why your thoughts play a critical role in your ability to follow through on goals and build sustainable habits. You’ll learn how to identify the thought patterns that are holding you back, replace them with more effective ones, and create simple daily reminders to stay aligned with the mindset you need to succeed.

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Transcript

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Every year, countless people set goals for what they want to do and what they want to achieve. But very, very few people actually set goals for how they want to upgrade their thinking. And that's a problem because your thoughts they can drive just about everything. Your focus, your confidence, they can impact your consistency. So if your thinking stays the same, there's a good chance that your results will stay the same too. So today on the podcast, we're going to talk about a different kind of resolution. Not your traditional New Year's resolution, which is often filled with ambitious things that you want to start doing, but rather what we can call a thought resolution, a list to help you upgrade how you think and actually help you follow through on everything else you say you want to do this year. Hey coaches and leaders, I got a quick question for you. You spend a lot of time building game plans for those you lead, but when was the last time you built one for yourself? If you're looking to sharpen your leadership skills, strengthen your team culture, or find better ways to support and challenge your athletes in the mental game, I'd love to help. I'm offering a free coaching call where we can talk through your current challenges and create a simple game plan for what might move the needle most for you, your players, and your program. Most coaches I know obsess over developing their team, but they neglect the person in the mirror. This call is a chance to invest in you because a better you is going to produce a better them. And if that sounds helpful, you can grab a time at Callinly.com slash Zach Brandon. That's Callinly.com slash Zach Brandon, or just check the link in the show notes. I'd love to connect and explore how I can best support you. So when I think of a thought resolution or what we can call a thinking resolution, I'm not talking about pretending that everything is going to be great when it's necessarily not. This isn't about fake positivity. This is about being intentional with the thoughts that you practice and rehearse all the time in all the different facets of your life. Because whether you realize it or not, you already have a playlist in your head, an internal one that's constantly playing. And some of those songs, aka those thoughts, can be helpful. They remind you that you've got this, that just take it one thing at a time, one play at a time, and so forth. But then there are others where they're like that one song that you still have on your phone or still have on a playlist that you just don't really listen to anymore. But somehow it still continues to show up, but somehow it still continues to show up in your library. These types of songs can sound something like maybe I'm not ready, don't mess this up. This always happens to me. Everyone else is maybe better at this, or maybe I'm just not as good as I thought. And the crazy part is you don't even consciously hit play most of the time on these types of thoughts and songs. They just start playing automatically. So a thinking resolution is pretty simple. It's deciding what are the thoughts that I want to turn up this year, and what are the thoughts that I need to stop giving airtime to. Because just like your body, some thoughts need to be built and strengthened, and some thoughts could probably benefit from being cut out. And I think there's two kind of core reasons as to why this really matters for all of us. First is that your thoughts are never neutral. They're not just sitting there minding their own business. Your thoughts can guide your actions or even your inactions. Every thought is either giving you a green light or throwing up a yellow or even sometimes a red light. And most of us don't even realize how often we're listening to thoughts that are basically holding us back. And then the second reason why a thoughts resolution can be useful is because most people try to change their behavior without changing the way they think. They set these big goals, they build a big plan, and then they say, Well, this time it's different. I'm different. I'm gonna actually make it stick. And for a little while, maybe it does. You stay locked in, you stay motivated, you're doing the right things, you feel like you're generating some momentum, but then life happens. You get tired, you encounter some resistance, and then all of a sudden, in that moment, you're not just all of a sudden inventing these like new thoughts, you're just defaulting to the old ones, the familiar ones, the ones that have become patterns for you that you've rehearsed over years and years, and they pull you back into old patterns of reactions and the same old results. And if you feel like, man, why does this always keep happening? It's all it's not necessarily because you lack discipline. Sometimes it's because you're trying to build a new life with an old or outdated soundtrack. So what can we do with this? Let's keep it pretty simple. Imagine your thoughts are these songs in a playlist that you listen to, and every day you're listening to some. The question is, does it match the life you're trying to create? Or are you still listening to songs that don't fit anymore? Songs you've outgrown, but maybe haven't removed. A thoughts resolution ultimately begins with which ones do I want to hit play more of, and which ones do I need to just cut out and stop listening to? And you don't need to necessarily do this with hundreds of them or diff uh your entire library. Just start with a few. You just need a better soundtrack, a better playlist, more c that closely aligns with who you're trying to become and what you're trying to achieve. And then from there, think about when can you practice these? Do you need to practice them before an actual tr uh workout? Do you need to practice them before a meeting? When do you need to hit play on these thoughts maybe after a mistake, or um they're on you have them on your phone as like a reminder or just some sort of note um or sticky note that you can see on a regular basis? And within all this, I think the one last point that I think is important to kind of consider is that you're not trying to control every thought. You're just trying to be a little bit more intentional about which ones you keep hitting play on. Because at the end of the day, you can have the best goals in the world, the best plan, the best intentions. But if your thinking doesn't support it, it's going to be really hard to achieve and sustain these. So the next time you set goals for yourself, don't just set goals for what you want to do, set a standard for how you're going to think. Because if nothing about your thinking changes, then I think over the long run, don't expect your results to change either.