#85 The REAL risk of living an Unfulfilling and Unexciting life and what to do about it

Rachel Denning (00:01.102)
Hey, all you awesome people. Welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life podcasts. I'm grateful that you're here, grateful for your time. And actually it's humbling and it's an honor. I value that you're listening and I wanna give you the goods. I think about this all the time and it's fascinating how when you get to work with so many wonderful people and you're constantly interacting with people all the time, but different people.

people from different views and backgrounds and especially in coaching. When I get to coach with people, I get to see another another layer, another perspective, another angle and paradigm that most people don't get to see. And it's a beautiful thing. It's a humbling and wonderful thing and chance to really have an impact in people's lives. And there's something that's just been as I've been studying and reading and learning and living my own life and traveling around the world and meeting with others and coaching.

there's a tremendous risk that all of us are facing. And I want to address that risk today and give you some tools and some ideas and concepts to mitigate it. And the risk is that we live an unexciting, unfulfilled, disconnected life.

And it's a tremendous risk that most people do not stop to think about.

Right. And we were afraid of getting in a car accident. Some people are afraid to fly. Some people are afraid to travel. We're afraid to try new things. We're afraid of failing. But how often do we stop and say, I am afraid to live a mediocre life. I'm afraid of living a humdrum existence.

Rachel Denning (01:58.638)
And there's a tremendous risk of that. And even more so now than ever because of all the affluence we have and all the technology and how easy our lives are and how busy they are. It's interesting. A lot of the inventions we have were invented to ease up our lives, like to give us, to buy us time, right? To have a washing machine and dishwasher.

and simple things like that, just to be able to do the things we need to do, right? And even cars, we can travel so much faster, so much farther, and airplanes, and all these wonderful things in our life. What's interesting though, is that instead of capitalizing on these technologies and these tools to make our lives better, and bring us more freedom, and more joy, and more meaning, and more fulfillment, so we can spend our times doing the things that...

really matter to us, that really make a difference to others and to us. We just fill our lives with more stuff and things and more busyness. And so a lot of us feel like we're drowning in a sea of distraction, which interestingly becomes a sea of disappointment. Because, because we were born to do great things.

and to really live whenever we're living below that, it just heats us up and we feel terrible. And we actually end up not really liking ourselves, even hating ourselves or loathing ourselves at the end of the day because what did we do? What did we do that really mattered? What did we do that really made a difference? What did we?

Did we do anything to really learn and improve and grow? Now the fact that you're listening to this changes that for this moment because you're listening to something that's here to help you learn and grow and improve. So way to go you guys, way to go. And I hope, I love, I love asking for your help to join this movement of let's share this. Let's help people have this awakening so we can all live extraordinary lives because there is a gap between the ordinary lives.

Rachel Denning (04:24.11)
that we're living and the extraordinary lives that we want to live. But if we don't do anything to bridge the gap, then we just exist.

and we go through life.

living this life that we don't love. And we spend our time organizing and planning and responding to and putting out fires and go, go, go, busy, busy, busy. And we work, work, work, and we do these things we don't like to do so we can get the money to pay for things we don't like to pay for and keep going on in this drudgery. You know what I'm talking about?

Like now a lot of you are doing great things. You're like, hey, I love what I'm doing. I love being family. I love, you know, we, we go on these vacations. We're doing meaningful things. A lot of you are engaged in humanitarian efforts and service projects and you're involved in churches or choirs or teams and you're finding meaning and fulfillment. I love that. And I praise you and I honor you for that way to go. But I want to invite all of us to consider really carefully. Are we, are we doing the things that bring us the most?

fulfillment and meaning. Are we living a life that's truly exciting? And I'm not talking about like entertainment because a lot of people are just entertaining themselves to death and at the end of it, it's unfulfilled. So it was fun, right? It was it was entertaining. That's what it is. And yet it's not really meaningful, fulfilling. And so we might be doing fun things or exciting things or, you know, joyful things, pleasurable things.

Rachel Denning (06:08.27)
But at the end of it, are you truly satisfied?

And again, this is not a matter of only doing what you want to do in life. You're just going on and doing what you want. But you know what I'm saying? I don't want to be misunderstood here like, only do what you want. Well, then we'd be sitting around doing only things we want. That's not going to bring us fulfillment or meaning. Doing the things that we have to do, we must do, that our soul and our character demands and requires of us. Living that life that lights you up.

because it matters, it matters to you and you do find joy and fulfillment in it and it's exciting but also because it really actually matters. So are you doing work that matters to you? Are you spending your time doing things that matter to you? Are you showing up in ways that matter to you? It's also easy to, you know,

step into the things that matter to us, but not kind of do them halfway, right? Or just kind of just we're there, but the lights, the lights are on, but no one's home, right? You're just kind of there, but you're not there. And that's not fulfilling either, because you might say, you know, your family's most important to me. But then when you're with your family, you're not you're not really engaged. And you might actually be doing work that you could just love and be fulfilling, but you're not really working. It's kind of there. And many of us are shying away from.

the lives that are extraordinary and fulfilling, the life we really want to live, the one we want to wake up to every day that we would love because we're actually deeply concerned about facing the challenges that may appear, about chasing down those dreams and what that might mean. And we fear some kind of collateral damage, like what could happen? Like social ridicule, right?

Rachel Denning (08:10.254)
what strain would that put on relationships financially that could ruin us. There might be the stress that I just can't bear. And so we spend our lives in avoidance patterns or we haven't learned how to really manage our minds well or manage our emotions well. And so we're stressed out, we're overextended, we're burnt out because we don't have these habits in place to keep us operating as high performers every day.

And so we just get stressed out, burned out, done, overwhelmed. And we're just like, and so then we keep plugging along right here, back to the risk I'm talking about you guys. Then we keep plugging along doing things that we don't want to do in ways we don't want to do them. Or even if it's things we do want to do, are we doing them in the way that we want to do them?

as our best selves. And so there is a tremendous risk. The risk is real. The risk is very, very real.

that you could go through life just living a humdrum existence and be disconnected and unfulfilled and unexcited. It's just blah. So how do we change that? What are some tools we can put in place? Not little tricks, not little gimmicks, but like real strategies that will give us sustained and heightened growth.

and performance that we can day in and day out. And yes, we will have hard days. And yes, there'll be some frustrating moments and some failures and losses and strain. But overall, we're going to live a life we love and be excited and enthusiastic and engaged and just love love life, right?

Rachel Denning (10:19.342)
Overall, we can do that. It's totally possible. And we love our work and we can love what we do and we can be showing up and lay down at night excited and fulfilled because we lived that day. And one of the, one of the greatest ways to do this, my friends, the, the so important and where most people are failing is in their systems and in their habits and their practices. It's interesting how often.

I'm beginning to notice now after studying this for over two decades and working with so many people and really people allowing me just to really dig into their lives and find comb through their lives like where where the missing gaps it's fascinating how many of us have systems and practices in place that actually sabotage our true desires. It's getting in the way of the thing we really want. And I've talked about this before I've mentioned it but I want you to look at every part of your life and look at the system.

And your system is simply this, even that word might be throwing you off or whatever, your practices, what are the things you're doing day in and day out that you're repeating? And it really often comes down to these small things repeated again and again and again. And yes, there's that repetition there, but that's where there's power. I've been doing my morning ritual now for like 20, 22, 24 years, something like that. And you get up and you do the same things and you do them again and again.

And a lot of people are like, it's so repetitive. I did that all last week. Do I have to do it again this week? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, you do. And you look at high performers and they repeat the things that just work. And you're like, I'm tired of doing that. Okay, well then do you want the results? Because we all repeat you guys, we're all creatures of habit and we all have practices and we all have systems and we're repeating things day in and day out. But are we repeating things that make a difference?

Or do we keep repeating things that make us angry and frustrated and unfulfilled? We can hit that repeat button again and again and again, and it just drives us crazy. At the end of a year, at the end of a decade, or the end of our lives, we're so disappointed and so frustrated.

Rachel Denning (12:36.27)
I often have the privilege of, in coaching especially, of meeting with people and they open up to me and they're honest with me. They're often more honest with me than they are with anyone else and they tell me that. They'll tell me things they've never told anybody else. And they're honest about their own disappointment in themselves and the pain they're experiencing because they keep doing things that are wrecking their lives and their relationships.

So look at your practices.

You say you want extraordinary relationships, but then you keep spending time watching sports. What's that all about? It's not investing in your relationships. You say you want to be in great health.

But whenever you have a moment to eat well and exercise, you pound your sugar addiction and scroll on social media.

And I'm not trying to guilt trip anyone here. I want to point out that a lot of us have these principles and practices and systems and habits in place that are not helping us. So here's an awesome, awesome definition that I heard recently of a system. It literally is just a simple sequence that you follow that gives you predictable results. So we all have systems in our lives. Every one of us are going through simple sequences that kick out predictable results.

Rachel Denning (14:14.542)
Very often though, it's not the result we want. And so where we're missing the mark is we want something, we want one result, but our system is producing a different result. And we're just in this constant turmoil, frustration, like what is going on? Why can I not figure this out? I want this result. I think about it. I talk about it. Why can't I get it? It literally comes down to your practices. You're these simple sequences. You're doing these little things that have a predictable result.

So as long as you keep doing that little thing, it's going to keep producing that result. And you've heard that, right? You're like, I'll keep doing the same thing and keep getting the same result. And if you think you're going to get a different result, like that's, it's neurotic, it's insane. But we don't often look at our systems, right? We don't look at the way we're tracking our progress and looking at the repetition to deliver those exceptional results that we

really want. So that's that my friends is the formula. Well, and then it fits perfectly with the extraordinary family life formula. Because the system and the practice for the extraordinary family life formula is you take the acronym METAL E T A L right and you apply it to each of the elements of the extraordinary family formula which is you your marriage your parenting.

your lifestyle and your finances, right? So you take the acronym and you apply it to each each area of your life, right? It's a simple formula and you take it and you apply it in that area and then in that area and you repeat it again and again and again, you set up these simple sequences and they lead to predictable results and outcomes. It's awesome. And by the way, if you have if you if you do not know what the extraordinary family formula is yet, please go to Greg Denning calm.

right there on the homepage, you put in your name and email and there's three videos there walking you through the whole formula and the foundation, the O P Q R S T foundation. and yeah, this is so powerful, but if we put the formula in place, that right there will mitigate the risk and often eliminate the risk of living an unfulfilling, unexciting humdrum existence life. And we have to, we have to be

Rachel Denning (16:39.15)
deliberate and intentional about it, or it will happen automatically. It's like Albert Gray said, right? If you do not deliberately form good habits, then you will unconsciously and automatically form bad ones. That's how it just works. So if we don't deliberately and intentionally form good systems, then we automatically and unconsciously form bad ones. And that's where most of us are at. And so as long as we stay in that system, which is a simple sequence with predictable results, we're going to end up actually accentuating it.

feeding the risk of living an unexciting and unfulfilling life. You with me? Boom! I mean this stuff is huge. It is powerful. As long as you stay in that unconscious automatic system that you just kind of let happen or happened to you or just kind of is just going on, it's just there. Sometimes it just appears. As long as you stay in that system and those practices, you're gonna follow the simple sequences with those predictable results.

And those who stay stuck in that, that mediocre system will get to the end of their lives and they will be filled with regret and remorse. And they will be frustrated and they will be irritable and they will be bothered and they'll have stress and turmoil and self -loathing and disappointment and they'll lack confidence and they'll lack self -love and self -worth at all.

All those results are the predictable results of those little simple sequences. So that's it, my friends, switch up the systems, look differently, like see the different angle. And if you're having a hard time seeing that, because it often is extremely challenging to see that it really is. we have our own blind spots and we're like, well, I don't, I don't know what it is. What system is not working for me? Like why?

what's what's causing the result because often it seems completely unrelated. So fascinating. Life is like that. You might have, like for example, about clarity. If you're lacking clarity in your life, you have, you have a clarity system and practices. If you lack clarity, it often leads to being very unpleasant to be around and, and you're, you're frustrated and you keep procrastinating and you keep hesitating and you're not being very productive. And so,

Rachel Denning (19:03.598)
You're over there and go like, I'm not, I'm not productive. I'm not getting results. And you often don't go, it's my clarity system and practices. I'm not very clear. So because I lack clarity, it's affecting my productivity. And if you're having a hard time seeing which system in your life is causing the results you don't want, and, and is it opposition to the results you do want, it's where coaching comes in. It's phenomenal. Like it is so powerful and it just unlocks you.

And my coaching clients, they'll tell me, it's so fun, it's so rewarding that they'll come back like, holy cow, like I'm tapping into my dreams, I'm reaching levels I never would have reached on my own, I'm motivated, I'm driven, I got accountability, I'm doing things now that I've never done before and never would have done without the coaching. It just unlocked power and potential and helps us see things more clearly. So if this is something...

that you're interested in and you're ready to level up for and you want help with, sign up for a coaching session. Go to gregdenny .com and sign up for a one -on -one coaching session or jump in right into the full coaching package or at a minimum, at a total minimum, I can say this with full confidence, at a minimum, all of you should be joining our group coaching because you get videos and training and access to all this in a private Facebook group where we can...

they were cheering each other on and asking questions and helping each other setting goals, doing the 28 day challenges. I mean, we're just, we're already, we're like in our second week of this year's 20 day challenge and it's already moving the needle for people. And they're, they're sending us messages like, holy cow, I can't believe the difference this is already creating. Because we're, we're lining up the systems that make the difference. And it's worth that investment. It's worth every investment.

to mitigate the risk, to get your practices and your systems in place so that you live a life you absolutely love. And it's sustained and your heightened levels of performance and of love and of fulfillment that life is just seriously awesome. And all of you can do that all of us can do that you have the power you have the potential you can do it. So let's make this happen right? Get after it get intentional about it.

Rachel Denning (21:29.102)
Again, I'm going to repeat this. If we do not have autumn, if we do not have deliberate and intentional systems and practices, then we will by default and unconsciously have a bad and poor systems and practices in place. So let's get it out there and make it happen. Remember we're training for greatness. Every day we're training for greatness. Reach upward.

Rachel Denning (21:55.95)
Hey everybody, thanks so much for listening to this episode. I hope you got a lot of value out of it and found some things that you can apply to your life right away. Hey, I'm being totally sincere when I say I live to help you live your extraordinary life. So I hope you'll reach out to me if you have any questions or let me know how I can help you in any important area of your life. And in fact, you know, this, this podcast is brought to you by the school of awesome sauce monthly coaching program. Take advantage of that. Get in there. If it's the,

best way to get a breakthrough to the next level so you can level up your health, your spirituality, your emotions, your mind, your relationships, your finances, business, every part of your life. Just get in there where you have a coach and a mentor, you have a supportive community to make things happen. So jump in there, take advantage of this, try it out, get in there with us and level up your life. See you on the inside. Reach upward.