Achieving goals as a spiritual practice: how to change your thoughts

You can have any thought you want to have, about anything.

It's profound if you really think about it.

Debt? Any thought.

Your job? Any thought.

Your family? Any thought.

Your business? Any thought.

Climate change? Any thought.

The thought you choose next will determine what you create, and how you experience your life. If you believe you're capable of anything, you set yourself on a trajectory of success.

If you believe you're fundamentally not good enough, you put yourself on a trajectory of suffering.

When I first started my business, I wrote a note in my phone that said, “Going into business with myself is fucking awful because I'm in business with my own mind, and my mind is a slippery, judgmental asshole.”

It's interesting, isn't it?

Who was the slippery, judgmental asshole? And who was the one observing the slippery, judgmental asshole? How could I be both the one bullying myself, and the one being bullied? How could I be the slippery asshole, and the one observing the slippery asshole? Who is the one that I call, “I”?

Changing how you think is not an academic or intellectual pursuit—it is a spiritual practice.

It's an intentional practice of stepping out of your own suffering—out of your story of who you are and how you think the world works—so you can notice what is happening to the thinker. It requires you to spend more time as the observer, and less time as the observed.

Changing your thoughts is a practice of remembering who you really are and what you're here to do. It is the most compassionate, loving skill you will ever learn.

The external cannot change the internal, the internal must first change for the external to respond. The world can't make you feel better, you must first feel better, and give that peace to the world.