Date Yourself Instead - TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR LIFE

Episode Date: August 26, 2026

it's time to take control of your life! happy almost September xxx leave a comment if you loved this episode! i read everything.

I'm going to teach you how to take control of your life in a bunch of steps. This is your blueprint to taking control of your life and mastering your schedule, mastering your time and mastering your energy. And also just waking up with more confidence, feeling like a better version of yourself when you roll out of bed in the morning. If you don't take control of your life and you don't dictate the terms of your life and the rules of your life and claim responsibility for your life, your life will control you. Your reality is going to start to control you. Something I learned as I've matured. I've made a lot of mistakes in my 20s. I realize that the lazier you are, the more you make excuses for not getting shit done, the more you procrastinate, the more you stall on your plans and your dreams for yourself.

The worst shit gets to be completely blunt and honest and transparent. The worst shit will get because you're letting your life go. Your brain controls your reality. Your thoughts control what goes on around you. and if you're not an organized person and you're not a disciplined person and you're not a consistent person, eventually that will catch up in your reality. And I made the mistake in my late 20s of allowing my reality to dictate the terms of my life instead of dictating the terms of my reality. I got very lazy because I was going through a lot. And to be fair, we all go through

struggle. We all go through hard times. But for me, I let myself go because I was going through a breakup. And I always let guys and men and dating and relationships distract me from my mission, my purpose, and my goals. What ended up happening a few years ago was I completely lost sight of my goals and my purpose and my mission. And when that happens, everything feels messy and then everything starts to fall apart. I remember just feeling so hopeless and I was constantly digging myself a deeper and deeper hole trying to get out of the mess I had created. I wasn't working. I wasn't taking care of myself physically, spiritually, mentally. I just neglected and abandoned who I was. Ever since I bounced back from that experience, I vowed to myself never again. Would I allow

myself to fall back into a situation like that? And on today's episode, I'm going to cover some of the ways that you can take control of your life and control of your schedule and just feel really powerful when you wake up every single day. So let's go. Okay. The first thing is you have to define your non-negotiables. Get out a piece of paper and a pen or your notes app. I prefer writing everything down physically. I feel like writing it on your phone isn't as impactful

and it's not as meaningful to your brain and to your subconscious. I want you to physically write this down on a piece of paper. List out five non-negotiables you will not waver from moving forward into this next chapter of your life. This could be not tolerating certain people in your life,

not tolerating certain behaviors. This can be, you know that you are getting eight hours of sleep every single night. That is a non-negotiable for you. For me, I know sleep is mandatory. It's crucial. And it's also really important for your mental health, for your physical health. Sleep is a really big thing for me. And I prioritize my bedtime routine.

And I know if I don't get a good sleep, I am stressed out and anxious and wired the next day where I just don't feel like the best version of me. That is a non-negotiable. I need X amount of hours of sleep per night. You could also apply this to relationships. I will not allow so and so into the next chapter of my life. I will not allow this specific person into the next era of my life because it's time to take care of myself.

It's time to take control of my reality. And I don't want anyone toxic in my energetic space. Another non-negotiable could be, I won't go out during the week and I am staying sober and I'm not drinking alcohol anymore. That's a really big thing for me. I know personally when I'm really trying to get my shit together and I really know I need to get my act together and get serious about my life, I'm not drinking alcohol. I'm not fucking around. I'm not going out. I'm not staying out late. I usually don't really do

that anyway, but there was a period of my life in London recently where I was over drinking, I was over-socializing, and I was overextending my social battery. Moving forward into the second half of this year, I know for a fact that I am not doing what I was doing in London anymore, okay? When you make these non-negotiables, you are prioritizing your physical health, your mental health, and your spiritual health. There is no wavering from these things. So if you want to write more, you could write more. I could make a list of 20 or 30 non-negotiables that I have. Another huge thing for me lately is not speaking to anyone or texting anyone or giving my energy out before I go to bed and when I wake up in the morning.

I am not immediately replying to people. I am sitting in my own energy when I wake up first thing in the morning. I go straight to the gym. I lock in. I think about my goals, what I need to do for the day. I am not leaking my energy to social media, to scrolling, to consuming content, to answering people's texts. I am focusing on me for the first few hours every single day. These non-negotiables are here to remind you of what you need to get done and how to stick true to your standards and your boundaries.

And what is important to you and what's going to get you to take charge of your life. and to take control of your life and feel good about it. If you waiver from these non-negotiables constantly, you're going to feel like crap. I can tell you right now, if you write down all of these non-negotiables and then you don't stick to them, you're gonna realize how off-track you actually are.

And this is why it's so useful and it's so important to do this because you're going to have this non-negotiable list and read it every single morning when you wake up. You're going to read it every single day and you are not going to waver from it. The next thing is knowing where you're going. Your brain needs a little bit of you're going. needs a target. Your brain needs something to look at and move towards. And this is going to also help

you feel like you have more of a purpose and it's going to help your confidence levels and it's going to give you a direction to go in, especially if you're the type of person who feels lost right now and you're not sure of your path and you're not sure of your direction. This is going to get you to a place where you feel really confident and move towards something significant. And you're moving towards an actual goal and you're not just like creating just to create content and you're not just doing things aimlessly with no end in sight, okay? If you don't give your brain a specific pinpoint on where to go, you're just going to get anxious and confused and unsure of what you're even doing. And this has happened to me before where I was creating content, but I'm like, for what?

Am I building a brand? Am I selling a product? Am I trying to get brand deals? Am I working on my podcast? You need a definitive goal. For example, when I had started my podcast, my goal was to hit 500,000 downloads in the beginning. And then it was a million downloads. And then it was three million. I kept setting numerical targets for myself. And that's how we achieved over 35 million downloads on the podcast because I was so tunnel vision about the numbers. When you set a goal and you have a future pinpoint insight, you are programming your reticular activating system to move towards this goal and to bring in everything that's going to get you to the goal. You're literally programming your brain to get you to where you need to be when you define where you need

to be. So that's why it's so important. You could test your reticular activating system by thinking of something random, like a blue car, and then see how many blue cars you see the same day. It will pull in everything you need to see and you need to think about in order to get you to where you need to go. When you have a very specific goal in mind, it gets you more motivated. It gives you more clarity. It gives you more momentum. It gives you more focus. It gives you more drive and ambition. And you're just like, this is where I need to go. This is what I need to do. It's such a a big game changer. So write down a goal, even if it's small. You can hit that target first and then move to the next target and then move to the next target. It doesn't have to be an extreme

goal. Okay? You just have to set something. The next thing is a big one for me personally. It's auditing the people around you and your circle and your friend group and who you're spending the most time interacting with. I do believe you are who you hang around. I truly, truly do believe it. I've noticed when I'm around people who share similar visions as me, I'm more uplifted, I'm more energized and I'm more inspired to keep working harder and to keep pushing myself to be better. And when I'm with people who don't understand my vision and lack the same drive that I have, I get swept up in bullshit and I start drinking and going out and not prioritizing the things that truly actually matter to me the most. So I want you to audit your circle. If you feel like

there are people in your life right now that aren't supportive of your vision, they don't understand your goals and they aren't really the best influence on your success and your future and you know it, just take a step back. If you really are looking to change your reality and take control of your life and get to the next level of your career and get to the next level of your life and completely commit to being the best version of you. Really be honest about the people around you and who you are listening to and who you're taking advice from. Who you're taking advice from is also a huge one. I take advice from very few people. The only people that I really go to are the people that I trust the most, which are members of my family, a couple of close friends. And that's

about it. The people that know me super well. That's it. Okay. I'm not taking advice from random people on the internet. I'm not taking advice from random TikToks. I see. I am trusting the people closest to me that I know really know who I am and what's best for me. It's really interesting too. And this might sound a little judgmental, but I don't care because he didn't treat me nice. So I'm not going to be nice. I spent time with a guy and I got the biggest ick from him when I saw who his friends were. He seemed normal. He seemed like a really cool person.

But then I saw who he was spending time with. And I was so turned off. You could just tell that his friends were not a good influence on him. And also he didn't seem to care. When you're so wrapped up in your friendship circles, especially as a guy. and you've been friends with people your whole life, I think maybe it's harder to pull away and see it for what it is and see it more objectively.

But when I saw this guy's friends and who he was hanging out with consistently, I was just so turned off because I realized that he wasn't going to be a good influence on me if he was hanging out with those type of people. And the more I spent time with him and the more I spoke to him, I realized that he was living and playing

on such a different energetic timeline than me, that there was no way it could have ever been compatible. You should be proud of the people you hang around. You should be really, really proud of the people you allow into your circle. If you feel like you're around people that are not going to have a good influence on you or they're giving you really shitty advice or they're making you feel insecure about the next steps of your life and they're not supportive of your future self, it's time to take a step back. This also ties into the next point that I was going to make. You are what you speak about constantly and you are what you talk about consistently, the power of the

word. The power of your words is everything. If you're around people who are speaking negatively or complaining or they're not a good influence on you based on the things that they say, you might fall into that trap of just also complaining and being negative and not being a positive person. And this has also happened to me where I've been around people in my life that have been so pessimistic about certain things or they've said certain things that I didn't agree with. But because I was so meshed into that circle, I kind of was just absorbing everything and like also repeating things that they were saying. And it just wasn't healthy for me. And it wasn't a good influence on me. So just be aware of one, who you're surrounding yourself with, audit your circle.

And number two, what you are speaking about and what you are having conversations about on a daily basis. What you are talking about with people consistently matters. The dialogue you speak, the things you say. Words are a frequency. Words are energy. words are power. So the more you keep saying something, it eventually can solidify and become true and manifest accordingly in your reality. So you have to be careful with your conversations and what you're constantly telling yourself and saying out loud. The next thing is something I love doing now is getting the small tasks out of the way first thing in the morning and getting the small micro things done. So you don't have any mental clutter in your head and you can just move on and tackle the bigger

things. For me, that's cleaning in the morning, organizing my workspace, tidying up and going to the gym. Getting the gym out of the way first thing in the morning is such a big thing for me. And it's been such a big game changer because if I skip the gym, I notice that I'm too tired to go later. And then I put it off and I procrastinate and then I just don't end up going and you get in the cycle of just not working out. So for me, I know if I tackle it first thing in the morning and I get that stuff out of the way, I can focus on the bigger things and I have the mental capacity to focus on bigger tasks. The next thing is accepting responsibility for your current state and then moving on and moving forward and releasing any guilt or shame or any negative emotions you feel towards where

you're currently at now. This is something that's actually easier said than done and it's something I've really had to work on within myself. I was on the phone with my dad at 4 o'clock this morning. I could not sleep and it was because I was going in a mental loop of the last two and a half years. I was so pissed off. I'm also about to get my period. So you know how it is the days before your period. You're just like extra aggressive in your brain. And so I'm on the phone with my dad and I'm like going on a rant. Keep in mind, I'm in Bali. He's in New York. So the time difference is 12 hours behind. I was just like, and how dare this person blah, blah, blah. And my dad was just like, man, you are just way too emotional.

Like you gotta just take a chill pill and let it go. Like there's nothing you could do about the past. The past is the past, move on. And it's true, right? I always preach this. The past is the past. Let the dead bury the dead. But what you can do is take steps now

to move forward and reclaim your power as a person and take control of your life and accept the responsibility for the things you didn't do and the things you didn't complete and the tasks you didn't get done. I could spend a lifetime thinking about the things I didn't get done that I wanted to do by now. But there's literally no point in that. It's an energy leak.

It's a waste of time and a waste of power that you could be using now to build a new life, to have a fresh start. This is huge, okay? Accepting true responsibility, even if someone else brought your life down. Perfect example when I went through my last breakup, which was a few years ago, I could say he destroyed my life. I had to rebuild my entire identity and concept of self-love and self-worth after that relationship. And it set me back a lot because I didn't want to work and I didn't want to do anything. And there was a lot in my life that was brought down. Even if it wasn't my fault, I know now it is my responsibility to fix the things that are broken and move forward because

I'm in charge now of my destiny and my life and I'm taking my power back, right? So you You have to understand that even if someone's wronged you and you have a setback, you still have to do something about it. You still have to take charge and reclaim your power and move ahead and move forward. There is nothing productive about rehashing the past and blaming people and pointing fingers. There's no point. I mean, other than to vent out and maybe release some emotions temporarily, there is really no point in continuing to rehash the past.

It's so much more empowering to take control back of your life and look forward and look ahead and trust that the next time you get back up, you'll be even stronger and you'll be in an even better position than you were before. I was really struggling financially a few years ago. And within one year of really honing in on my power and focusing and really laser focusing, my energy on my career, I became the most financially successful I'd ever been in one year. So in one year, things can drastically change for you if you lock the fuck in. The next thing is something I've been doing recently as I've been editing and just really

focusing on the podcast a lot more than usual. I will turn my phone on airplane mode and disappear for hours at a time. And I will not respond to anyone. I will not engage with my phone. I will not go on my phone for a set window of time. Creating this focus block for yourself where you are quite literally not touch. your phone or going on any apps or getting sidetracked with your phone at all is so good for your productivity and for being laser focused. It has helped me immensely get work done.

I've been able to pump out these episodes for you guys. I've been so focused. I've been so disciplined and I'm so zoned in on my goals because I'm on my phone so much less. And when I am on my phone, I'm using it for work and for important things that are going to help better my life. and sometimes consuming positive uplifting content that's going to help motivate me. Those are the things I'm consuming. I'm not wasting any time. I'm not messing around. So creating a focus block, I highly recommend doing this,

even if it's an hour, two hours. I've been doing two to three hours every morning. My phone's on airplane mode and I am just zoning in on what I need to get done. And by midday, I'm basically done with all of my work. The best feeling in the world is when you know you've gotten so much accomplished in such a short window of time. You feel like you're moving so fast. You feel like you're on top of the world.

By mid-afternoon, you're like done with your day. You feel just so confident and productive. And once again, this helps you feel more in control of your schedule. And you feel more confident and you feel better about yourself because you are using your time efficiently and wisely. Something I realized is that in order to feel really good about yourself, a huge thing is knowing how to use your time efficiently. Confidence comes with efficiency.

Knowing how to be efficient and get a lot of things done and get really organized and clear about where you're going and actually accomplishing your goals in a short window of time feels fucking incredible. You feel like you're ahead of the game, always. And I think that's a really big thing if you're looking to upgrade your life and excel in your career and do big things moving into the rest of this year. It's just trying to be as efficient as possible with your time. And the less time you spend scrolling and consuming and complaining and entertaining people that, don't even matter long term and entertaining toxic friendships and all that garbage, once you cut all of that out and really lock in and really prioritize your time and know where every single hour is actually going and using each hour effectively, you will become a more confident person.

And you'll feel way more in charge of your life and you'll just feel good. It's fun to go out sometimes and be social and let go and be free and have no responsibilities. But there's a time and place for that, okay? if you're looking to really lock in, you got to lock in. And if you want to go have fun and do you, that's okay too. And I've done that. And I've had many errors of my life where I fucked around and I did nothing. But this is for the people who really want to get to the next level of their life and quantum

leap and get there fast and get there efficiently. The next thing is, this is something I heard someone that I follow say on a podcast and it really stuck with me. I was watching an episode of hers last night. She was saying how she's a very decisive person. And that has gotten her so far in life and she's able to make decisions really quickly. And it propels her quickly into the next chapter of her life all the time because she's making very blatant yes or no moves all the time.

Instead of overthinking and over analyzing and spending days, weeks, months, picking apart things and trying to figure out the best move, she just moves. She just goes. And I also remember hearing this on a podcast. I think it was Edmielette's podcast where he said making a decision is always. always better than making no decision and stalling and freezing. If you stall and you freeze and you don't make a decision, that can turn into days, weeks, months where you're literally frozen and you're getting nothing done and you're getting nothing accomplished. The best thing you could do

is make a decision and then make the decision right. Okay. This really applies to career and business things. If you make a mistake, you can course correct later. That's what he was saying. If you make a mistake, you can course correct later, but make some sort of move. Create movement. Do something. You will always eventually figure it out and be led to the right destination. And you'll be divinely guided where you're supposed to go. That is just something that really stuck with me because I was very indecisive growing up. That really hindered my progress in my career. I think I was always just like doubting myself and hesitant and fearful to make moves. When technically I could have made some sort of move and then course corrected later. A lot of it also stems from fear of the unknown, right? We don't

make moves because we're afraid of what happens next. And if we don't see what happens next, it can be scary to take the leap. But as I've gotten older, I've really realized the power of making a decision, being more decisive, doing something to get the energy moving in whatever you're making a decision about. So it's very important and it'll make you feel more in charge and taking tangible control of your life and being like, this is what I want, this is what I don't want. This is what I'm doing. This is what I'm not doing is way more productive than not doing anything at all. The next thing is an important one. It's to stop over explaining yourself. This can apply to literally any area of your life. But for me, I know it was to other people about

what I was doing next with my goals or what I was doing next in my life. And if I didn't want to hang out with someone on a specific night, I would start going into these tangents of like why I couldn't see them and why I couldn't hang out. And I'm like, what am I doing? Why am I over explaining myself to people. I don't need to do this. I can just say yes or no. I can't hang out tonight. Done. Yes, I'm free tonight. Done. You don't have to explain yourself to every fucking person that comes into your life. If you don't want to do something, no is a final sentence. If you want to do something, do it. You don't have to overexert your energy in trying to people please and make everyone happy. And you never should feel guilty for doing you and prioritizing yourself. Bottom line.

So I think this is a huge thing that I've taken in my 30s and it got a lot easier for me to just cut people out to just do my own thing and focus on myself and not feel guilty about it. The thing about over explaining yourself too is it makes you look fragile and easy to manipulate. And I'm going to give you an example because I just recently went through something. I was dating someone and he kept asking to see me, but I just didn't want to give up my work time. I was like, I am locked in and I was like typing out a paragraph about to tell him all of the things I had to get done. And I was just like, why am I doing this? I don't even know him that well. And I could just say, I'm not free.

That's it. Like you don't owe anyone grand essays and explanations of why you can't see them or why you can't give your time to them. If you have other priorities, you have other priorities. I know for me when a guy has not been interested and not wanting to see me, he wouldn't even answer me. Right. So I'm like, it's okay to just say I'm not free. It's okay to be short and polite and you can be nice and you could always be a kind person. Okay. It's really easy to be kind, but you don't have to feel guilty for not over explaining yourself.

It really does cheapen your authority as a person when you're constantly over-exerting your energy and like coming to your own defense being like, I can't do this because X, Y, Z and I can't make it tonight because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You don't need to do that. You just don't. You don't owe anyone shit. That's my take. That's my opinion. Okay. You can agree if you want. You don't have to agree, but this is just from my experience. And I feel like being direct and polite and being brief and straight to the point is good enough. The next thing about taking charge of your life and being a powerful human being, okay, is keeping the promises you made to yourself. This is such a big one. Keep the promises you made to yourself.

If you said you're going to go to the gym, you're going to the gym. If you said you're not drinking this week, you're not drinking. If you said you're going to bed early, you're going to bed early. If you said you're going to get all of your work done before the weekend, you're getting your work done. This is going to tell your brain that you trust yourself and that you're reliable to yourself and you're holding yourself accountable and building self-trust is going to make you feel really good about yourself and make you feel like you're more in control of your life. If you say you're going to do something and then you don't do it, in the back of your mind,

it's going to eat at you and it's not going to feel good and it's going to haunt you subconsciously and then consciously. I've done this to myself before where I've said I'm going to do something. then I didn't do it. And I just felt like this little pang of guilt in the back of my mind, like I should have probably done that or I should have been more productive or I feel like I let myself down, okay?

Commit to the promises that you made for yourself. Commit to the promises that you promised yourself. The next thing is always setting aside time for your own thoughts and self-care. I think self-care has got to me through the hard moments of really grinding and working and feeling like I was gonna burn out, treat yourself to a massage once a week.

Take an hour just to go for a walk and listen to the silence of nature. Do something that's really nourishing for your soul, okay? If you live near a body of water, go by the water and recharge your aura. Take a nice bath or a shower and detox your aura by like, I literally will scrub my body sometimes when I'm really stressed out after a really long day. I just keep telling myself, I'm cleansing my aura from the day. I'm cleansing my aura. I'm detoxing my energetic field.

Everything is energy and sometimes when we're really stressed out, when we have a lot of work to do, when we've had really busy days, it's still important to prioritize self-care and health and making sure your mental health is in a good place. And we want you to feel recharge by the morning. So if you have even five or ten minutes before you go to sleep and you're in the shower, just like rinse your body and just tell yourself, I'm cleansing my aura from the day, I'm recharging, I'm cleansing my aura and I'm replenishing it with good, about. abundant golden energy, just make sure that you are still prioritizing your piece and carving out some time for you every single day as you are working on yourself and building yourself. Okay. A huge thing I've also learned from being in the New York hustle culture is that you need to do self-care.

You need to take care of yourself. You need to still nourish your soul to prevent crashing out and going insane and burning out because everything should feel balanced, right? everything is a balance. And even though you're working really hard and you're doing really big things with your life and your career and you want to be at the top of your career, that's fine. And you can do that and I'm all for it. But at the same time, don't neglect your spiritual health and don't neglect your mental health.

Okay. Everything in balance, everything in moderation. It is still a really big piece of the puzzle in being successful. True success isn't just about making a certain amount of money and hitting a certain goalpost career-wise, it's also about feeling really happy within and feeling really grounded and peaceful from within. This is why I also had spoken about just not being on my phone when I first wake up in the morning and just journaling and spending time with myself and giving myself the first few hours of the day to just be with me, be with lists, right? Have a hot coffee and meditate or journal

or go to the gym and be really in my own energy. I've given myself that window of time for my mental health and it's been such a game changer in being more productive and getting shit done and really feeling stronger and more energized coming into the episodes and coming into work and feeling like I can do it all, right? I'm laying the foundation for my career for being at the top of my career by making wellness and making my mental health and my spiritual health a priority in my life and also just learning how to conserve my energy. As I said, I'm not giving all of my energy out to other people and messaging people all day and gossiping and talking about crap and consuming pointless content online.

I'm really protecting my peace and my energetic field throughout the day in order to show up in my career properly. And it's really, really been helpful. And I hope this episode can help you guys if you're looking to upgrade your life, take control of your life and step into your power. This is probably one of my favorite episodes I've recorded recently. So I'm really excited to put it out. If you enjoyed this episode, feel free to drop a comment on Spotify.

I read everything. Also be sure to check out my masterclasses. the link is in the show notes below. Thank you guys as always so much for listening to the podcast. It really does mean the world to me. Also be sure to follow it on Spotify and share it with a friend if you enjoyed it. I love you guys. Thank you so much as always for being here and stay tuned for future episodes.