You Become What You Think About
Most of the Time

The 5 AM Miracle Podcast, hosted by Jeff Sanders

Episode #534: You Become What You Think About Most of the Time

Jeff Sanders
What are you thinking about right now?

Outside of my voice and this podcast, what do you tend to think about?

Is it helpful or harmful?

Does it move you forward or keep you spinning in circles?

Is it positive and uplifting or negative and self-reinforcing?

What you think about most of the time matters more than you could possibly imagine.

And the content of this episode possibly contains the greatest personal development lesson of them all.

This is the 5AM Miracle, episode number 534.

You become what you think about most of the time.

Good morning and welcome to the 5AM Miracle.

I am Jeff Sanders and this is the podcast dedicated to dominating your day before breakfast.

My goal is to help you bounce out of bed with enthusiasm, create powerful lifelong habits, and tackle your grandest goals with extraordinary energy.

In the episode this week, I'll break down one of, if not the greatest personal development lessons of them all.

Why your beliefs and thoughts are more powerful than you can imagine.

And how to change your thoughts, especially if you're caught in a spiral of negativity, fear, and worst-case scenario thinking.

Let's dig in.

So, I'm going to date myself here, but I used to own a car with a CD player.

That's right, I know I'm a really old guy.

In fact, I used to own multiple cars that each had CD players.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, when I owned these cars, I had these CDs that I thought would exemplify and optimize the time I had in those cars.

Initially, yeah, they were music CDs.

My favorite artists.

Britney Spears, for example.

That's not a joke, by the way.

So, I graduated from the pop music of the 90s into personal growth CDs as I entered into my 20s and began to discover the power of personal development, and especially the power of what Brian Tracy calls a "rolling university."

And so I would listen to Brian Tracy, Darren Hardy, Jim Rohn, Earl Nightingale, some of the classic personal development speakers of the last three, four, five decades and more.

What I was doing back then, and what I've continued to do ever since, is change my thought patterns.

One CD at a time.

One album at a time.

Yes, I've since graduated to having a fancier iPhone with lots of different audio books and podcasts and audio programs, but I still listen to those same CDs that are just digitized now on my phone.

But the point is, is that I optimize the time I have to consume amazing information.

I would argue, and maybe this is a little bit, I don't know, not as humble as it should be, but I would argue that my podcast here is an example of one of these types of programs.

That you listening to this show specifically, The 5AM Miracle, which has been devoted to personal development since day one, is an example of an audio program that can help you change how you think, change your actions, change your habits, and ultimately change your results.

And I say that to say that you are an example of someone who's doing the right thing.

And I know that's my personal take on this, but what you're doing is being intentional about the life that you want.

You are changing your thought patterns.

You are changing, ultimately, what you get out of your time because you're allowing more positive, encouraging, uplifting, action-oriented content into your brain.

Most people don't do this.

Most people do not spend their time consuming information that will change them and move them forward.

You know, recently I was in the sauna at my gym, and I know I tell a lot of stories about the sauna at my gym, but it's an awesome place to be.

I was talking to this random guy, a stranger to me, and he was asking me about working out, and ultimately we discussed, you know, what kind of music do you like the most when you lift weights?

And what I told him was, is that, you know, I have a few favorite artists.

Linkin Park is a good example of that.

It's high energy.

I love it.

I really lift better weights when I have awesome music like that.

But then I also went on to say, most of the time, though, I'm not listening to music when I lift weights.

I'm listening to my favorite podcasts and audio books.

And he stopped and he said, "Wait a minute.

You listen to audio books and you lift weights.

How in the world is that helping you to lift more weights?"

It's a valid question, too, and I basically answered him by saying, "What I want from my workout is not just to build bigger muscles.

I'm not at the gym to just improve my physical fitness.

I'm also here to improve my mental fitness."

And that might sound kind of cliche.

It might sound kind of kitschy, but it's true.

When I'm at the gym, it's me time.

I'm going to improve my life both physically and mentally when I'm there.

It is an opportune time to do two things at once, both of which push me forward in a very dramatic way.

What you think about most of the time defines who you are.

And you can ask yourself some very simple questions to try to figure out where your life is headed based upon what goes through your mind every day.

What do you think about most of the time?

Where does your mind wander when you get bored?

What do you tend to do when you have free time?

What areas of study are most interesting to you?

Who do you hang out with?

Who do you idolize?

All of these things are pointing to the direction your life is heading.

There's very common phrases about, "I can predict your future if I know the last five books you read and the five people you hang out with."

Those kinds of phrases are true because they're based on the idea that our influences matter.

Our consumption matters.

What we allow into our body, what we allow around our body and into our mind, all of these things impact who we are becoming.

And so it's up to you to ask the question, "How do I improve the quality and quantity of all of those consumables?"

How do I surround myself with the most positive, uplifting, action-oriented people and materials and resources that I possibly can to the point of it not becoming overwhelming?

There is a point where you can cross where this is happening too much.

I reach that point many times.

When you really get into personal growth, you're going to find yourself obsessed with consuming and then less focused on action.

There's going to be a balance we're trying to strike here between consuming awesome content and doing awesome things.

If things really play out, I think the ideal balance is about 80/20, 80 on action, 20 on research and growth.

It's a very heavy focus on action.

The kind of action you take, the strategies you have to choose intelligent actions, well, that's based on the knowledge.

That's based on you understanding what your goals are and how you're going to approach making those things come to fruition.

So let's really break this down.

If you want to achieve these big goals, you want to be an action-oriented person who's also consuming the best stuff, and you agree with this premise that you become what you think about most of the time, then this episode is going to be absolutely what you want to hear right here and now.

This is going to be a life-changing moment.

I don't say that without meaning it.

I do mean that.

This is life-changing material.

This is not my idea, also.

The concept of you become what you think about most of the time stems from the late, great Earl Nightingale and his audio program, audio record at the time, called The Strangest Secret.

You can buy this as a book.

You can download it, I think, for free online in a lot of places.

It's old, and it's pretty awesome.

It's definitely dated, so be aware of that.

It's not modern-day PC kind of content.

It's very male-centric.

It's very patriarchal.

But it's also very, very good.

If you let go of some of the old-school stuff and let in the core message that resides there, it is excellent.

So in The Strangest Secret, Earl talks about this concept that you become what you think about most of the time.

And the way he breaks this down is very straightforward, and I think that there's a lot of truth to it.

Now, you can disagree with the premise.

You can disagree with all the points that he makes to get there.

But what's almost impossible to argue against is the underlying foundational principle that thoughts become actions, actions become habits, habits produce results.

If you change the way you think, it will, without question, change the things you do.

The core of all of this ultimately is your belief system, your identity, and how that stems into the thoughts that you procure in your mind.

And you might think, "Well, my thoughts are not up to me.

They are reactionary.

My brain just produces thoughts kind of without my control or consent."

And the intention behind what Earl is arguing here is that even if there is an element of humanity in our existence that is reactionary, that is not within our control, that we have a lot more control than we are led to believe, and that whatever thought patterns we have in our minds today, they can change, they can evolve, they can improve, they can grow, and they can lead us down a different path as time progresses.

The only question is, will you adopt this philosophy as truth in your life and let it change the way you move forward?

Or you can choose to ignore it.

You can choose to decline it and continue down a reactionary path.

I have seen that in myself, in my own life, that a reactionary path really leads me to my own worst tendencies.

I tend to make worse choices.

I tend to get worse results.

But when I'm intentional, when I have a plan, and I set a goal, and I set out to achieve it, I tend to be more successful even if that initial goal was never achieved.

When you make the argument that you become what you think about, you are making the argument that your thoughts are way more powerful than most people realize.

That every single day when you are choosing an activity, whether it's to watch a certain TV show, read a certain book, go to a certain job, all of these things are optional.

All of these things are choices.

You can choose to not watch TV.

You can choose a different book.

You can choose a different job.

You can choose no job at all.

Everything is a choice.

I think that that is an underlying foundational reality that most of us do not acknowledge.

My second book, "The Free Time Formula," opens with this concept that all time is free time.

We don't tend to operate that way.

We don't tend to think of our life as filled with that much potential and choice.

We tend to think of our lives as pretty boxed in.

"Well, I have kids, so I have to do X, Y, Z to take care of them."

"Well, I have this job, so I have to be there at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning."

You don't have to do anything.

There are no have-tos.

Everything is a choice.

Now, yes, some choices will lead to certain consequences if you do them, but that's what we're opting into.

Other choices have potential benefits as well, but we choose not to pursue those sometimes.

Everything is a choice.

And when you think of life as being that kind of open, that kind of optional, potential-filled, amazing platform for you, that blank slate for you to fill in, you get to think about new and amazing things, brainstorm new potential awesomeness, and then go make it into reality, go pursue these things that just blow your mind.

You get to think bigger, dream bigger, take bigger actions, and then the results follow.

But it all stems from your thoughts.

It all stems from this neural activity in your brain every day.

And if you believe that what I'm saying is true, that you have a choice to think differently, and you begin to take different actions, and then you experience the newer and better results, then it reinforces this process that you can continue that journey to think newer and better things and get newer and better results.

[Music] Every thought and belief reinforces your identity.

If you think you're a loser, you will find examples in your life right now to prove to yourself you are in fact a loser.

However, if you think, believe, and act as though success is destined for you, you will also prove yourself right and become wildly successful.

I'm not going to argue those are facts, but they're as close to a fact as I could possibly state.

Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.

Good old Henry Ford said that many, many years ago, and he was right.

Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you are right.

Once again, if you think you're a loser, you are.

But if you believe and you know in your heart you are a winner, that success is destined for you, you will think and act in a way that makes that possible.

And my challenge to you is to change that thought pattern, to change that potential, to set a new goal, and to become the kind of person who would achieve it.

No, you're not that person today that's the point of a goal, is to strive to push you forward, to draw you into a new identity.

But we have to start with something that sounds almost impossible to achieve, almost ridiculous.

We start there and we let that magnetism draw us to it.

We let ourselves move in that direction with all of our potential.

But if we don't believe it, if we don't think about it, if we don't brainstorm the possibilities of how it could be possible, and we continue down the path we've been on, we continue to get the results that we've been getting so far.

Every thought and belief reinforces your identity.

Change your thoughts, change your beliefs, change your identity, all of that leads to better choices, better actions, better habits, and better results.

Now to put all of this into context, our challenges can reveal our character.

And if you want to know where you are now, to know what kinds of thoughts that are currently in your brain, go do something that's really difficult.

Go experience something that's so hard, it's impossible not to look yourself in the mirror and ask that question, "Who is this guy?"

I've been in those moments.

Sure, decades ago when I intentionally took on ultra marathons as a personal mission of mine, I had to face some demons during those years when I was pushing myself to the brink physically and mentally.

I've also experienced those emotional roller coasters through having kids and buying a home and running a business and having financial challenges and trying to figure out how to brainstorm my way out of difficult scenarios.

All of these challenges reveal who I am in the moment, and it's up to me to ask the question, "Who do I want to grow into to not only get out of this current scenario, but then to take on bigger and better challenges as life goes on?"

Because my intention is not to avoid challenges.

The obstacle is the way.

It's an awesome book, by the way.

And if I choose bigger and more difficult obstacles on purpose, if I opt into those challenges and I say yes to them, well, then yes, it's going to reveal more of my own weaknesses.

It will reveal more of my character in those moments, but it's also going to reveal my strength.

It's going to reveal the potential I have to do better.

Yes, the areas of growth.

Yes, the things I need to improve upon.

But it's also going to reinforce the things that I am very good at, the things that I excel at.

And if I double down on those and I amplify those successes, I get more success in those arenas.

The challenges we choose to take on will initially reveal who we are in that moment, and sometimes that's not a pretty picture.

As a simple example, it's literally looking at yourself naked in the mirror and looking at your flaws and being upset with the results and then saying, "Okay, I don't want to be this person anymore, but here's the action plan to move forward.

Here is how I'm going to think to become not this guy that I see today.

What would an excellent athlete do?

What would a world-class person in my industry be doing?

How can I become more of the best, more of myself?"

And the answer stems with, "What do you believe is possible for you?

And how can you change your thoughts to align to that potential?"

You change your thoughts.

You change your tendencies.

It all becomes possible because it starts with where you are now and acknowledging that the way you've been thinking has led to this moment now.

Your previous thoughts years ago led to becoming you now, in this moment.

Therefore, the thoughts you're going to have these next few years are going to define that future version of you.

So now let's break down how to change your thoughts.

If you truly want to go down this path, if you truly want to become this different and better version of you, first, take an inventory of your current thoughts.

Are they good or bad as a general rule?

Are they helpful or harmful, productive or useless?

Most of us tend to have thoughts that fall into these general patterns.

We tend to think of the world as potentially a very scary and dangerous place or a world filled with opportunity and potential.

We tend to flow in one of those two directions.

The question is, where do you want to be going to?

I know for as a simple example here, I have been in a season of life where my future did not look all that positive.

There are a few examples that I'm going to discuss later, but I had a few big challenges to overcome.

And my tendency was fear and worst-case scenario thinking and imagining, "Well, if all these bad things were to happen, my life is going to fall apart."

But guess what?

It wasn't helpful.

It didn't serve me.

The negativity, the fear, the worst-case scenario thinking, it didn't lead to creativity.

It didn't lead to energy.

It didn't lead to positivity or awesome action.

It led to more fear.

It led to more negativity.

It led to more nonsense.

My thoughts that were negative in nature led to more negative thoughts.

It was not helpful.

So what changed?

What changed for me in the last couple of months in a very significant way was going back to the basics, back to my roots.

Yes, back to those personal growth CDs.

I literally listened to them on repeat about two to three months ago, over and over again, until it changed my thought pattern, changed my perspective.

You know what happened?

I did change my thoughts.

I did change my habits, and I began to get more creative, see possibilities, see opportunities, and began to pursue them like crazy.

And now things look very hopeful for me.

The projects I'm working on, the new goals I've set, the new vision for who I'm becoming, it's incredible.

And it all stems from such a simple place of just change these thoughts.

Stop going down these dead ends.

Stop going down these self-reinforcing, ranting, awful places.

This rumination that takes place, and we just keep thinking about the bad stuff over and over again.

It's not working.

If you're there now, I can tell you it is not your answer.

Your answer is going to lie in changing that thought pattern, into breaking that cycle.

Now, it's easier said than done.

I'm not going to lie.

It is hard sometimes.

But what makes it easy is you change what you consume.

Listen to a positive podcast.

Listen to an awesome audio program.

Consume the material that points you in the direction you want to go.

Go learn something new.

Gain a new skill.

Hang around people who are really kicking butt, and just copy them.

Do what they're doing.

That's it.

Yes, of course, you're going to cut out the bad sources in the same time.

The news, television, or entertainment.

People, podcasts, audiobooks, anything that is filled with sources that draw you down.

I'll use a good example in all of this.

The true crime genre is one of the most popular podcasting genres in existence right now, and has been for the last few years.

True crime, as entertaining as it may be, does not serve you.

It does not make you a better wife or husband, a better business owner, or brother, or community member.

You're not better off because you listen to a murder mystery.

There are plenty of examples of bad sources of consumables, let's say.

Books, audio programs, TV, you name it.

If they're not serving you, you don't have to cut them all out completely.

Life has some wiggle room here.

But take an inventory.

How much of your life is filled with that, and what if it had less?

And then what if you could replace that with some better sources?

With those personal growth audiobooks, with amazing podcasts, with music that fires you up, that gives you the energy and vivacious awesomeness that you need to go do that next action that maybe before you didn't have the guts to go pursue.

I will also make the strong argument that a huge part of my recent growth was directly facing some of my fears and doing the activities that I previously thought were not for me.

And I taught myself that that was a lie, that these things are for me, that there are fears I can overcome, there are skills I can gain, there is a new life that is possible if I am ready and willing to change.

The same is true for you.

Overcome what you think about, and if what you think about is negativity, you will get more of that.

But if what you think about is opportunity, possibility, positivity, and opportunities that you can pursue now, you will brainstorm those ideas, begin to trial and error them, test them, experiment with them, see where they take you.

And where they take you is going to be way better off than where you are now.

Now, if you want to automate more of this process, of course you can in the sense of consuming positive materials wherever you go.

Yes, of course, in the car, at the gym, while doing household chores, mowing the lawn, taking a walk, going for a run, all these things all the time.

The real goal here is to shift how you live every day in small pieces, little bit by little bit, but ultimately adding up to you doing the kind of activities that stem from the positive thoughts that were changed.

Now, the fourth step to change your thoughts is to decide upon a specific intention or goal.

And the real idea behind this is alignment.

It's to align your thoughts towards that thing that you want, to focus your energy and positive thinking about the actions that lead in a specific direction.

This is about focus.

It's about deciding here's what I want and here's how I orient my life towards it.

Making a decision has a powerful impact.

If you are waffling back and forth between ideas, never really choosing something specific, always in this limbo of "I don't know what to do, therefore I do nothing."

You tend to get more of that.

You tend to get more of the nothingness.

The goal here is specificity because that is so much easier to grab a hold of and take action towards.

That's so much easier to then feel like you're doing something because you actually are.

And so if you are in that awkward place of "I don't know what to do," make a decision, even if you have to guess, even if it's arbitrary at first, because an arbitrary move is going to be better than no move at all.

[Music] Step number five to change your thoughts is to then learn more about your goal.

And yes, this will include more of the consumption of materials, but the difference is we're going to pivot.

We're going to pivot from general personal growth content that's just inspirational.

You could argue this podcast is an example, and it's going to get much more targeted towards the exact goal you've set for yourself, whether that be a fitness goal, a business goal, a relational goal.

You're going to learn more about that thing specifically.

Let me go back to the example of my recent season of personal growth.

It started in a general vague sense, and then it got real specific real quick.

I read a couple of books and listened to some programs that were just generally uplifting, that provided kind of a rah-rah speech that I needed.

And then with that, I began to dig into, okay, here's the actual goal I want, and here's a book about that goal.

Here's an action plan related directly to the thing I want to achieve, and then I go do that specifically.

And then all of a sudden, I don't need the general rah-rah anymore.

I just need to do the work.

And that's enough for me to feel better because I'm seeing the progress in real time.

So now my thoughts are directly oriented towards the action that actually makes the difference, which then, of course, allows me to pursue that 80/20 principle of 80% action and 20% kind of rah-rah personal growth and professional development that helps to reinforce that action that matters the most.

And the last step, number six here, to change your thoughts is to physically move your body in the process of this transformation.

So let me use a good example.

I said before that I like to physically move my body at the gym while listening to audiobooks.

I like the physical fitness and the mental fitness to happen simultaneously.

There is some science behind this.

I'll have to go pull it out for another episode to actually get specific here.

But let's just, for the sake of argument today, lay down this framework and this idea that physical movement in the act of doing the thing you want is reinforcing.

If you live in your head all the time, you're going to stay there.

If you physically move your body, the action you're taking becomes tangible.

Even if the action you need to do is on the computer, it's digital, it's reading, it's consuming, physically moving your body while doing so will make you feel as though this is more of a visceral activity.

It's more 360 in nature.

I need to pull out the science behind this to make my point more solidified.

But just take my advice of the grain of salt today, that this is powerful.

Physical movement tied with the action is more powerful than the action by itself.

It works.

I love the idea of doing a physical fitness activity with a personal growth thought process simultaneously because it just helps to reinforce and re-ingrain that idea into my mind, into my body, into my soul.

It's powerful.

Now, for the sake of argument, let's imagine that you've been in one of those negative thinking spirals that I referred to earlier, and your goal is to pivot your thoughts in the moments when negative thinking shows up.

What do you do in those moments?

You've caught yourself that there is this worst-case scenario thought that showed up.

There is this fear that just crept into your mind.

What do you do?

The first strategy is a mental bicep curl.

If you know Dan Harris' work from 10% Happier, you have heard this concept.

It is a meditation technique, but it's also one that you can use basically any time, any day.

A mental bicep curl includes acknowledging the negative thought that just showed up, and then you let it go.

You acknowledge the negative thought, and you let it go.

Acknowledge the fear, the worst-case scenario, and you let it go.

The mental bicep curl is an initial acknowledgement of the negativity and an intentional, proactive thought process of just detaching, letting the thought flow away.

Then if you do what I think is actually the next most important thing, it will work even better.

The next most important thing is to replace that negative thought with something positive and action-oriented, to as quickly as possible catch yourself in the spiral, stop, and pivot.

Stop the negativity and move.

Go do something that's beneficial, that's awesome, that's uplifting, and move yourself in the direction of something that is tangible and beneficial.

That, to me, is the mental bicep curl taken to the next level.

Negative thought shows up, let it go, and replace it with something beautiful.

Now, the second strategy to attack negative thinking when it shows up is to write down a positive action that you can take in the future.

So you may not be able to take action in the moment, but you might be able to write down a positive idea to take action on very soon.

This also plays into the getting things done strategy of emptying your brain, and so you can get these thoughts out of your head, get it onto paper, and that also helps you to let it go.

Empty your brain of all the negativity or even write down the positive thought, and that's going to help you then think about more of those positive thoughts as you go forward.

And yes, you can then schedule those future positive actions onto your calendar and act on them later, but this initial process of just emptying your brain and writing this stuff down, which could be through journaling, it could be through a brainstorming session, or just in the moment, just jot the idea down and move on, all of this allows you to take action in the moment, especially if a negative downward spiral is taking place.

And then the third strategy you could do if this negative thinking is starting to take hold is to physically move your body to take action in the moment in a very visceral way.

I'm talking about push-ups, running, just screaming, whatever the thing is that moves you towards something tangible and positive right now.

The faster you get there, the better.

This will change your thoughts because you have just forced change in the moment.

This is powerful, and it works so well.

So I hope that this conversation has sparked some new thoughts for you.

This is not the end of the conversation on this concept.

You become what you think about most of the time really deserves more attention than I'm giving it here, but I will make the argument that this is absolutely one of, if not the most powerful personal development lesson that I have ever learned myself.

It is one that challenges me every single day to grow and improve and to be more positive and to be more action-oriented.

You may think of me as the kind of guy who's already doing those things well, but I will tell you that is not true.

It is not as true as it needs to be.

There is so much room for growth, so much potential that could be realized.

My mission for myself is to embody this as much as I can, to change my thoughts and to change who I become because of my newer and better thoughts.

I would hope the same thing is true for you.

[Music] And for the action step this week, take inventory of your thoughts.

What do you tend to think about most of the time?

Once again, is it positive and constructive or negative and harmful or possibly just useless, fluffy or pure entertainment?

The more you know about your thoughts, the more you know about what to do to change and improve them.

And odds are that you need more time thinking about what you want and a lot less time thinking about your obstacles, fears, and excuses.

Make the pivot and change your life forever.

Now be sure to subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app or become a VIP member of the 5AM Miracle community by getting the premium ad-free version with exclusive bonus episodes at 5ammiraclepremium.com.

That's all I've got for you here on the 5AM Miracle Podcast this week.

Until next time, you have the power to change your life, and the fun begins bright and early.

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