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Let Go VIP – Audio

Hello VIPs and welcome to this month’s lesson. Now, this month’s topic is a little bit different than a lot of the topics we’ve had in the past. A lot of our topics in the past have been about achievement and success, however you define success. That’s kind of, I feel, one side of the coin. Imagine you’ve got a coin, right? It means it’s one part of the whole. On the other part of that coin, it’s just a metaphor, so the other part of being a whole person, I guess or being a happy and fulfilled person, is really kind of an opposite process.

So if you think about the idea of achievement or success. Success with English, success with your job, success with your health, success, success, whatever that is for you, whatever it is you want. In general, what we’re talking about is kind of setting goals and going after them. I want to be healthier and so you’re pursuing something. You’re trying to get something. I want to get better health or I want to get better money, better job, better career or I want to improve my English. So it’s kind of pursuing something, trying to get something more; add something to your life.

All that is well and good, especially if you choose healthy goals, but if that’s all you do and I know this from personal experience myself, then life can start to become more and more and more stressful and it could even start to feel a bit empty after a while. I’ll say this; I’ve noticed myself that on one hand achieving many of my goals has given me a better quality of life. I’m certainly happy that I started Effortless English and it’s been successful, that I became a much better English teacher, that I traveled the world like I always wanted to. Many of these different goals have enriched my life and helped my life.

On the other hand, I have also found that after a while I started getting a little tired of just pursuing goals endlessly. Let’s say for the business, for example, because this is something very concrete. Let’s say the business reaches a certain level. I have a lot of freedom and we have a good number of members and they’re communicating with each other. We have a nice community. Everything is going pretty well. I’m happy with it. The members seem to be happy.

Well, you know there’s a part of me that always thinks I want to continue growing Effortless English. You know I have this idea that there are thousands, maybe even millions of students out there suffering with old, traditional, boring methods who would really benefit from and enjoy Effortless English and so with that idea in my mind I’m thinking okay, I want to keep growing Effortless English. I want to get more VIP members. I want to keep growing the business.

So, on one hand that gives me a nice motivation. On the other hand I’ve noticed that over the years I started getting a bit tired about that, right? I mean yes, it would be nice to reach more people, but on the other hand I started getting just tired. Like, you know, oh, keep growing, keep growing, keep growing. It starts to feel exhausting and at some level I start asking myself well, how much do I really want to grow? I mean I’m not trying to become some multibillion dollar company. I’m not going to reach every single English learner in the whole world and don’t want to. So I start questioning that. Like okay, well, you know, do I really have to keep growing all the time?

The same thing is true for any goals in my life. You know I achieve a goal and then okay, I’ll set a next goal. Keep improving, keep improving; constant improvement and learning. That’s very enriching and it keeps life interesting, but if you approach that in a certain way it can eventually feel empty and very tiring and I’ve experienced this myself in certain parts of my life and so we need something to balance that. Because if all we do is pursue goals and try to achieve, achieve, achieve all the time, it’s a very unbalanced approach to life.

So how do we balance that? Well, we balance that by letting go, which is the topic this month, ‘Letting Go’. If you imagine goal setting as getting, grabbing on to something, achieving something, adding something to your life, then letting go is the opposite, right? It’s letting something go. It’s subtracting things from your life. There’s a great Taoist quote, I think from Lao Tse that says the wise man unlearns something every day.

The Taoists and in some ways the Zen people too, often talk about unlearning as being the path to wisdom, not learning. So what do they mean by that? Do they want people to be ignorant and stupid? No of course, not. What they mean is this.

Over the course of our life we tend to accumulate all these beliefs, all these ideas, all this learning, all these habits and most of them are not deeply true. They might have been useful. They might be true in some circumstances, some situations, some context, but they’re not universally true. Yet, we can really start to hold on to these beliefs, hold on to these habits, hold on to these goals, hold on to all this stuff and really start believing that it’s true and that we must have it and that it’s necessary and it’s the only way. We start getting a rigid mindset where this, this, this and this is right and good and desirable and these things are bad and not desirable.

That process tends to happen over a lifetime, that’s why when we think about it, if you think about a very young person, a child, and you think of an old person, generally, we would imagine that the old person is less flexible, is probably more likely to be bitter, more likely to have very hard fixed ideas, a harder time learning something new and being open to new things, whereas a child is very open and is very adaptable, very, very flexible.

Why? Because the child hasn’t accumulated years and years and years and years of beliefs and hurts and disappointments and habits and goals and all of this stuff.

So we have to balance goal seeking and achievement. We don’t want to become hardened. We don’t want to have our minds become inflexible and narrow. We don’t want to be so obsessed with certain goals or certain things or a certain way of living that we lose our flexibility and, ultimately, our happiness. So letting go is the process of unlearning, of cleaning out your mind and body and emotions and it’s very freeing and it feels really good and it’s very, very necessary and as we get older it’s even more necessary. It’s very necessary to consciously do it.

You can imagine and I know if I look back in my own life we all have difficult painful experiences. If we hold on to those they can really cause us a lot of problems. You know let’s say oh, some girlfriend or boyfriend broke your heart and then if you hold on to that experience or hold on to that hurt then maybe you never trust men or women ever again. Or let’s say you try a business and you fail and then you just focus on that failure.

You hold on to the failure. You hold on to those feelings of embarrassment or shame or whatever it was and so then you never try to start a business again because of that, because you’re holding on to it.

We can also hold on to certain old ideas and goals that no longer are good for us, right?

I mean some people, for example, maybe when they’re young, very young, may have the idea I want to be rich. I want to be super rich and I’m going to be super successful.

I’m going to become a stockbroker and make millions of dollars and so they go about doing that in this very focused aggressive way.

Then achieve that and they’re just working, working, working, working and making money and they become super rich, but at some point they lose all their happiness.

They’re no longer happy. They’re constantly super stressed out and maybe deep inside they really want to live a more artistic, creative, relaxed life, but they can’t let go of that goal. They can’t let go of the identity of being a stock broker and being rich and making all this money, right? They’re holding on to it so tight that they can’t even be open to other ideas that might make them happier.

It could be the opposite too for that matter. Somebody could live a really relaxed free life with no money at all and eventually really get to a point where living in that kind of constant financial stress really is no longer good for them. It doesn’t make them happy anymore and they really need to get focused more on achieving some economic stability, but they can’t because their identity is that I’m this free-spirited person and that’s who I am and, again, not able to let go.

We need to really focus on that, so this month and really we probably should do this more than once a month or more than one month a year, we really need to have the idea of flushing out, letting go. You imagine you’ve got all these ideas and fixed things in your head and we want to just kind of like pour water through them all and get a lot of them out. We want to unlearn, let go of old beliefs, let go of old emotional hurts, let go of goals that no longer serve us that don’t make sense for us anymore, that don’t really give us happiness anymore.

I’ll give you a personal example. With Effortless English I targeted a certain number of members that I wanted. I created this goal. I want to have this many VIP members by the end of this year. Well, in the past that kind of goal really motivated me, but I found that I just started feeling kind of miserable whenever I thought about it. I was going about it aggressively, trying all these things to try to bring in more VIP members and I just kept getting more stressed and more stressed and it really wasn’t happening. I really wasn’t getting close to that goal.

Everything was happening super, super slowly, which was making me even more stressed and I kept focusing on it. Then I realized that’s all I was focusing on and I was losing my general enjoyment of my life because I was so obsessed with this goal. I finally realized well, this goal, I made it myself so I can just let go of it. It’s not necessary.

I don’t need that many members financially for myself and our community doesn’t need it. We already have a good number of people who are quite happy with each other.

Really, I realized that while it would be nice to reach that goal it’s not necessary. It’s not necessary for my happiness, it’s not necessary for our existing members and I just said okay, forget it, I’m not going to worry about this anymore and I just let go of it and I decided oh, I’m just going to focus on enjoying making lessons and having a very nice VIP Program that we already have and if it grows in the future that’s great. That reduced my stress quite a bit and raised my happiness level. So sometimes instead of achieving a goal to be happy what we really need is to let go of a goal or to let go of a belief or to let go of a habit, just to let go of something.

Mahatma Gandhi had a great way of talking about this. He said “Just do your job then let go.” Do your job and let go. In one of the Learn Real English lessons I talked about this a bit. It’s one of my favorite quotes from Gandhi and it’s a general idea I think in Hinduism in general that you don’t focus on results so much. You actually focus on the process. The way we would say this in typical, American, Western language would be this. We’d say this. We’d say focus on the process not the end result. Focus on making an excellent process rather than just the final result.

In sports some coaches will take this approach. So what does that mean? Like, for example, John Wooden the famous UCLA coach, he was famous for just focusing on the process of practicing. He just wanted his players to focus on, you know, dribbling the ball better and better, very, very well, shooting the ball very well, practicing very hard, playing every game with all their heart and all their ability and he didn’t focus on winning. He never talked about winning. He never talked about the final result, which is I want to win a lot of games and win the National Championship. He never talked about that result. He just focused on the process, the thing that would make them good players and good people.

As a result, in fact, they won a lot of National Championships. His team and he as a coach have the record for the most college basketball National Championships in the United States. He was an amazing coach, but he focused on the process. If they lost a game he didn’t yell at them because they lost a game. He just talked to them about the process. How well did they play? Did they try hard? Were they using their skills the best they could?

Sometimes they lost to a better team and he would just say you know you played a great game. I’m happy with the process. I’m happy with how you did it. That team was just better than us, so don’t feel bad. Likewise, because his teams were quite good, they would beat another team that was much lower in skill level, but the coach would not be happy. Coach Wooden would not be happy. He would actually be frustrated with them.

He would say you didn’t really concentrate well. You weren’t trying your hardest and doing your best. You beat that team just because their skill level is less than you, but you did not really play your full potential.

So this is just a great way. You know one of the things I like about Coach Wooden, number one, he was truly excellent and number two, he was not one of these coaches.

He wasn’t stressed out. He never yelled and screamed at his players. He seemed to be a genuinely happy content person and when they interview all his ex-players they all say the same thing. They really loved him as a person. They say that he made them better as individual people and that he helped them be happier people not just better basketball players.

So, of course, it is possible to get success just by focusing on the end result and a lot of coaches do that. You know win, win, win, win, but if you notice a lot of those coaches do seem kind of stressed out and miserable, right? I’ve noticed that. The ones that are always screaming and yelling and they’re obsessed with just winning and if they lose a game they’re super angry, right? They’re not typically happy people. Their players don’t look too happy either.

So I like this idea that Gandhi talked about. Just do your job with excellence and then let go of the result, because sometimes you can’t control the result. You can’t control what other people are going to do. You can’t control the surprises that will happen in the world. So the result is not totally in your control. What is totally in your control is how you do something.

So in Gandhi’s case, he was resisting and fighting against the British and he focused on doing that with maximum integrity, with a maximum feeling of peace, yet strength. He couldn’t always control how the British would react or what was going to happen in world events. You know World War I came. World War II came. He couldn’t control all of that stuff, but he could focus on just how he was going to be as a person and, of course, eventually, he and the rest of India did win. They did prevail. So the idea is don’t cling to results, focus on rather an excellent enjoyable process. So let’s talk about this in terms of your English, because it’s a very simple and practical example.

Now, on one hand we have a lot of people who really focus on the goal. Like I like to speak exactly like AJ, you know, and speak like a native speaker. They’re obsessed with this goal and they focus on it, focus on it. Now, at some level that’s okay. It’s good to have big goals. I want to encourage you to dream big. However, if you become too obsessed with that here’s the measurement.

If you find yourself feeling frustrated and unhappy because you’re not reaching that goal fast enough, because you’re not getting closer to it fast enough, that means something is wrong and you need to let go and what you need to do instead is focus on the process, right? You’ve got the goal, fine, just kind of push it to the side and let it go a little bit and say okay, you know what? Hopefully I’ll get to that goal, but most important of all I’m going to focus on the process of learning English and I’m going to create an excellent and enjoyable process. Well, what would that mean? What would that mean an excellent process?

For example, maybe one thing you would decide is I’m going to focus on having maximum concentration every time I listen to the lessons, because I know that some of the time my mind starts to wander and I start looking at other things and I’m not really totally focused on the lesson. So instead of worrying about this goal that I have for next year or five years from now or 10 years from now, which isn’t making me get better or happier, I’m going to focus actually just on this moment, every moment, every day that I’m actually listening to English and I’m going to focus on having maximum concentration. And each day I’m going to try to have better concentration so that I’m really truly focused and listening every minute that I’m listening to English.

Another thing you could focus on to have an excellent enjoyable process, you could decide here’s something else. I notice I’m kind of tired. I’m kind of like sitting back. I’m not really smiling when I’m listening to English. You know emotionally I’m down. So I’m going to focus on having a very peak, positive, emotional state every time I listen to the lessons, every time I listen to any English at all. I could do that by I’m going to focus on pulling my shoulders back and having my head up and smiling.

Maybe I’ll use an iPod and I’ll actually go out walking or I’ll be in my house and I’ll walk or I’ll jump or I’ll move around in some way so that I have more energy and more positive emotions as I’m listening to English because I know over time that will help me improve faster. So then I’ll actually do a better job each time I’m studying English and listening to English and I’ll feel better and happier and more emotionally positive every time I’m listening to English and I know eventually that will get me a good result. I can’t control exactly when that’s going to happen, but I know it will.

It’s a much more relaxing thing instead of every day you’re getting frustrated because I still don’t speak English exactly like AJ does. I still don’t speak English like a native speaker. Oh, my God, when will I ever do it, aah! If you do that too much you’re going to be so stressed and frustrated and then you’ll just end up quitting. Even if you don’t quit, if you reach your goal you’ll be miserable. That’s not very good, reach your goal and feel unhappy.

Rather, if you focus on totally enjoying every moment that you’re listening to English, doing it with maximum focus, maximum concentration, maximum positive emotions, then you’re going to enjoy it each day. You don’t need to wait until five years from now or one year from now to be happy, be really happy and totally involved now. Just like John Wooten’s team, because you do that, you’re actually more likely to reach your goal faster anyway. So you’re going to let go of some of that stuff.

So here’s what I want you to do this month. I want you to make a list of things you’ve been grasping, trying to get, in all different parts of your life. It could be in English, other things you’re learning, jobs, economics, career, relationships, health, whatever and make a list. Okay yeah, these are things I’m really strongly trying to get. Make a big long list and then what I want you to do is identify two or more of them that are not making you happy and let go of them. Decide you’re going to let go of them.

I’m not saying let go of all your goals. Sometimes it’s great to have big dreams and goals, absolutely, but I want you to identify a big long list and then I want you to choose.

I’m sure that on your list some of those things are actually just making you feel more stressed and that’s a sign you need to let go of them, at least for now. You can always come back to them next year.

So that’s your homework. Write a big long list of all the things you’re trying to get in all those categories of your life that you’re really pursuing aggressively and you really want really badly and then I want you to identify at least two of them, maybe more, that are no longer making you happy, that those goals are really not making you feel excited about your life and you’re not really enjoying them and I want you just to let go of them.

Mark them off your list, stop thinking about them, let go of them and relax.

That’s it. So this whole month is really about letting go, relaxing, simplifying mentally, mentally simplifying. Let go!

All right, I hope you enjoy that process and I’ll see you again.

Bye-bye.