What's up guys Sean cobra here of the live transform podcast Over the next two weeks while I launched this podcast, I'm going to be dropping one episode per day. Then I'm going to drop back to one episode per week. The first episode is an introductory episode explaining who I am, my background, my knowledge, my experience. The second episode is all about goal setting. That's going to be followed up by progress tracking, then building habits, doing the things that you enjoy doing consistency, restricting, temptation, meal preparation, accountability, crap foods, getting started and building momentum along with hierarchy of value, motivation, direction and your environment. Now, if you go back and listen to each one of those topics again, they are all relevant Or optimizing your performance and your everyday life. It's not just to do with health and fitness. Yes, I am a strength conditioning coach that is my background, that is my specialization. However, I'm a coach first and foremost and I need to optimize the other 23 hours of the day so that I can get the most out of my clients for that one hour that I'm with them.

I'll also be answering some of my followers questions that have posted questions on my Q and A memes and I'm going to incorporate those answers into the pertinent episodes. Mm Yeah, you're welcome to today's episode, which is all about the hierarchy of value. An overview of today's session. We're going to dive into defining values. One, then we're going to go into the difference between values and beliefs. Then we'll discuss how to establish what your hierarchy of value is, which will then determine where you should be focusing your time and effort on your daily practices. Uh then we'll discuss the understanding that your values are going to change over time and through the seasons of life, depending on where you're at and what's going on. Then to round out the episode, we'll talk about matching your expectations to your commitment level, okay? And I'll give some examples throughout the session of how I use this in my life, Let's get started.

Most people have had the experience of setting New Year's resolutions and not sticking to them. One of the biggest reasons for failure is setting resolutions, which you're not 100% aligned with. If your resolutions are not aligned with your values, your motivation won't last. You may even find yourself doing things that sabotaged the goals that you thought that you wanted. So unless you're absolutely clear about what's important to you, it's worth taking a little time to get clear about your values and then list them in an order of priority. This is something that I do progressively throughout my life, as things change in my life, as circumstances change. For example, when uh you know, obviously this lockdown happened and I wasn't going into work and you know, I didn't have that purpose of my job and coaching people, then I had to sit down and readjust my values, okay? Because the circumstances had changed. So I needed to change my mindset, I need to change my purpose, my direction, my focus on the things that were within my control. If you're not 100% clear and you don't have clarity around what your underlying values are, then you're going to be floating through life and you're not really going to know where you should be focusing your time and energy.

I mean we've only got a certain amount of hours in the day, so in my opinion, we should be fucking making the most of that. We should be focusing our attention on the things that are going to bring us happiness right now, Happiness is it's a it's an emotion, it's not something that we should be chasing, but we should be looking for things that bring us fulfillment and make us content. Because along with those is what brings achievement, a sense of accomplishment, a sense of purpose and joy and all of these things contribute to overall happiness. The happiest people in the world are those that do the things that they love and bring them contentment and fulfillment every day of their life. They're not looking for holidays are not looking for the next thing to bring them happiness. They're fucking doing those things every single day because they're clear on what their values are. They understand what brings them that contentment, that sense of purpose, that achievement, and they're doing those things every day Now, that's a massive difference from the average person who is constantly on the lookout for the next external thing that's going to bring them happiness when I lose X.

Amount of weight, then I'll be happy when I make this much money, then I'll be happy when I have three kids and a wife then I'll be happy. Well that's not the fucking case. You're never going to be happy if you're constantly searching for something you need to find happiness within. And that starts with defining your values and then aligning your actions and your behaviors with those values because your values really determine what your actions and behaviors are, that's going to build habits, that's going to build routines. And then those habits and routines then reinforce what those values are. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. So many people set goals but then they go and sabotage their goals, their actions, their daily actions, their habits, their routines are sabotaging their efforts because they haven't clearly defined what their values are. They don't have strong enough why as to why they're doing something okay. Most people set these fucking Vegas fuck goals and they have no driving force behind them. They just think that they want something, They haven't actually asked themselves those deep hard questions why am I actually doing this okay?

And once you understand why you're doing something then you determine what your values are. And once you've determined your values and if those values are strong enough driving force then the fucking why is there then all you need to do is figure out the how what are values? Your values provide? The motivating force behind your actions, they are. What gets you out of bed in the morning and determine how you spend your time. If something is not important to you, you're not going to spend any time in pursuit of it. Your values are also the criteria that you use to decide whether a particular action is right or wrong. They guide your daily decisions and provide meaning in your life. This guidance usually happens at a more or less unconscious level. You usually know if something is right or wrong without having to think about it too much. We acquire our values in the course of our upbringing from our parents, peer groups, education and the information that we take in from the media. We also modify our values in the light of the conclusion that we draw for ourselves from life experiences. Some values will be more important to you than others.

The most important values will be the ones that have the most say in how you use your time. So the next step in clarifying your priorities is to establish your hierarchy of value which is what we're going to go into in a moment. But before that we need to understand the difference between values and beliefs. An important first step on the journey is to understand the difference between values as opposed to beliefs or behaviors, put simply our values are the core principles that define us, whereas our beliefs are those ideas that we believe to be true and our behaviors, our actions and the things that we do or don't do. It's important to recognize that these aspects of our personality occupy distinct levels. Our core values reside at the center of who we really are. Those less important, reside nearer to the surface where they are more easily subject to change or persuasion along with our beliefs and behaviors. Right? So our core values are are fucking driving force. Those are the underlying principles which then shape our morals and then our morals then shape our beliefs and then our beliefs then shape our behavior.

So the core values are those that are fucking deep down that don't really change too much throughout your life. You might only have a number of core values, but then throughout your life through the seasons of life, then they're going to move up and down the list depending on what's going on, beliefs and behaviors. On the other hand, they can change every day from day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year and that's going to depend on, you know, your life experiences things that are happening in your life, how you react to them, how other people treat you. Um you know, financial situations, relationships, circumstances, et cetera. So I believe some behaviors will change over your lifetime. And I'm sure you can look back at certain times of your life when you're like, I used to believe this and my behavior is reflected that. But now I don't believe that anymore, my environments changed and I've learned from those lessons. Your core values are not easily influenced by external circumstances, whereas your beliefs and your behaviors, uh for the most part, going to be determined by these external sources.

So it's important to understand that, you know, our environment plays a massive part on who we are and the decisions we make our mindset, how we perceive the world etcetera. So I'll discuss the effect the environment has on your mindset, your personality uh literally your whole life in an upcoming episode. Um, but I say that because the people in your life and your environment has a massive impact on you as a person. Uh I'm sure everyone's heard the saying you are the some of the five people or you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. That's true. You are a product of your environment, but you also create your environment. I've seen this numerous times. I've got friends that live all over the world that come to Thailand and they love it here because they're like, I'm I'm such a different person here. You know, I love who I am when I'm here, but then when they go home, they fall back into those old traits. They hang out with the same circle of people and they become the person that they don't want to be because that's their environment and that brings out certain traits in them.

So I'll discuss the environment in an upcoming episode. But it is super important to understand this because it has a plays a massive part on who you are as a person and it's not just the people around you. It's everything, it's what you consume. It's what you eat. It's how you interact with other people. It's the books you read the podcast, you listen to the news, you watch um literally everything has an impact on who you are. However, when you have strong values then you're much, you're much more critical thinker. You understand that certain things are going to serve you and certain things are not going to serve you and then it's much easier to start being a little bit more ruthless and saying yes to the things that are going to be serving you, making you a better person, bringing out the best in you and it's much easier to then say no to the things that people and the circumstances that are not bringing out the best in you. I ruffled some feathers a couple of weeks ago when I posted on my social media platforms that barring death, illness and financial hardship.

The people that are struggling the most through quarantine are those that have no purpose outside of work. They've placed so much emphasis on who they are as a person by what they do and who they interact with. And once lockdown happened and people will quarantine and they didn't have that purpose, they didn't have that interaction, They lost their self identity. So I think there's gonna be a lot of health implications that come out of this whole covid um thing, but I've got a few messages from people saying, man that's pretty harsh and I'm like, well, you know what, like you if you're offended by that, then you're probably the fucking person that needs to hear it the most. So an example of some of my core values, our integrity, humility and fulfillment. Those are the driving forces behind why I do what I do. Uh integrity has always been a massive one for me, particularly in the military and even more so now. Um and I'm one of those people that the reason this is the reason why I'm putting out this podcast is because there's so much fucking bullshit information out there and look, this podcast is costing me money, you know, I had to pay for all the equipment, I paid for the mark, we've got the headphones, I bought myself a new laptop.

Um all the different hosting platforms, the intro music, et cetera, et cetera. You know, this podcast is costing me money. I'm not fucking making anything off it, but I'm doing this because integrity and authenticity in the fitness space. The health and fitness space is fucking few and far between, which is unfortunate. You know, do I blame these influences? End quote influences for putting out this bullshit information where you know, you can get six pack abs in eight weeks or fucking lose seven kg in seven days or whatever, like that's all bullshit. I mean, it's all marketing gimmicks. It doesn't help anyone do anything. Do I blame those people or do I blame the people that are buying into it, right? It's supply and demand. So my goal with this podcast is to bring some fucking integrity back to the health and fitness space because this is my passion. This is what I love doing, right? So it pisses me off that there's so much bullshit information out there that people buy into and these influences don't give a fuck about you as a person, there are only concerned about their bottom dollar. So this is my integrity. That is driving me to start this podcast so that I can bring some fucking integrity back to the health and fitness space and I can create myself as an authority.

I can build myself as an authority in the health and fitness space, someone that people can fucking trust and go to for good quality information and you know, some time down the track. Then I will look at potentially monetizing this. Hopefully I, you know, people trust me and they go, right, this dude knows what the fuck is talking about? Maybe I'll buy a program of him. Maybe I'll get some online coaching from him or whatever. Okay, that is that that will come later on down the track. But for now I want to put out good quality information and I'll be the fucking first person to put my hand up and say, all right, if I said something wrong or I didn't quite have my facts, right then I want you guys to call me out. Okay, send me a fucking D. M on instagram at codes underscore. Pft. Call me out on something or, you know, point out if I've made a mistake so that I can fucking correct myself because my integrity is what drives me. So what you'll need to do to find out where your core values are, is to sit down with a pen and paper and just block everything out. No distractions, leave your phone off, et cetera, and just write down anything that comes into your mind.

What's really fucking important to? Okay, you might list 10 to 20 things that are really important to that you think are your core values, your underlying principles that drive your actions and your behaviors, right? So go through 10 to 20 things then ask yourself the hard questions, okay, which one of these is most important to me. You know, if I'm looking for a partner, if I'm looking for other people in my life, you know, what am I looking for in relationships, what what am I looking for in a business partner, Right? What am I looking for in myself? These are your core values. These are the things that are most important to and these core values help you make decisions around every other area of your life, right? This it doesn't matter whether it's relationships or finances or career or um whatever education, um your core values will dictate your actions and your behavior is so becoming clear on them is super important. Once you've done that, then you can start asking yourself, you know, what's what the important areas of your life, I might be, your health, your fitness, your career, your finances, relationships, education, okay, then what you need to do is prioritize those things are on a scale of 1 to 10.

How much time, effort, energy do I want to dedicate to my health and fitness? If it's only a four? Because, you know, my family, my education, et cetera is a much higher level, then that's okay, okay, I can dedicate a four to my health and fitness. So then I need to adjust my expectations to match those commitment levels. If relationships are the most important to me, then, you know, obviously if I want to build a family and um, you know, set up my future, etcetera, then my relationships might be a 10, I might be focusing the majority of my time and effort on to that area of my life. Okay, which means that other areas of my life might take a little bit of a hit. Obviously if I'm building A relationship and I want to continue my family name, then you know, that might be a 10, but then I'm going to need to make sure that my finances are in order so that I can do that. So we're not putting the relationship under stress. Right? So the finances might be an eight, then the health and fitness might be a six. Education might be a four, so and so forth.

Okay, so um, understanding what these values are and then prioritizing them so that you can actually implement daily habits, actions, behaviors into your life is going to set you up for success. All right now, things are going to change your values will always be there deep at the root of everything you do, but your priorities are going to change over time. So an example of this is a six week trip that I went on before the covid crackdown, uh, flew to Japan for a couple of weeks and caught up with some of my old army mates weren't snowboarding for two weeks. And you know, my health and fitness uh in Thailand is pretty much always my number one priority followed by um, you know, my, my coaching and my education and then relationships, etcetera, etcetera. But once I went to Japan went snowboarding over there with the boys, nurturing those relationships was more important to me than training. So instead of, you know, dedicating time to go to the gym or hitting some training after we've been snowboarding all day. You know, I much preferred to nurture those relationships.

And myself and the boys would go to the answer and after a big day of snowboarding, we'd sit there and we'd have a couple of beers and talk shit and have a good time and nurturing those relationships was more important to me. Then the boys left, I continue traveling around and I ended up in Japan for a few days and then I ended up in bali and uh you know, I caught up with some friends over there and and then training was important, nurturing those relationships was important. Then I flew back to Australia and spent some time with my mom and My mom is awesome. She drives 45 minutes each way to go to the gym. So you know, we'd sit in the car and head to the gym and we'd have good conversations and then we get to the gym, I put my headphones in and go and train. So those priorities were changing. Um as we went, you know, nurturing those relationships and having good conversations with my mom was important on the way then when I was at the gym, you know focusing on myself and um removing any distractions and turning my phone off and shit like that so that I could just focus on me was important as well. So um you know, your priorities are going to shape your actions and your behaviors throughout your whole entire day.

Okay. And like I said, that's going to change from day to day, week to week, month to month after I spent a few days at my mom's place, then I drove up to Byron Bay for my yoga course. I did my two week intensive yoga course up there, you know, and I was catching up with some friends there, there was 10 veterans on the course that the Australian government had provided a partial grant for, to get us trained to um basically teach that style of yoga or yin style of yoga um as an alternate therapy for PTSD. So um for me that education portion was then my priority. That was what I was focusing my time, energy and effort on. So you know, I had a few beers with the boys here and there throughout the course, but I wasn't getting on the pierce and I wasn't going crazy because that education component was important to me whilst the education was important to me, my health and my fitness was also important to me. So you know, we're sitting around um mostly doing theory based work, there was a lot of practical based work as well. Um but whenever I get a break, I had a set of rings, I had some bands, some of the boys had some kettlebells and things like that.

And you know, we get a 30 minute break here and there and I would make sure I got, you know, 5 to 10 minutes of good quality movement in because that was still important to me. So something is always better than nothing. Okay? And once you understand what your values are, it's much easier to define what's important to you and we should be investing your time energy and effort. Your priorities can and will change over time. So the values that are most important to you in a particular area of your life will change over time as your circumstances change, We all go through the seasons of life where certain things become more important and then become less important at other times. So for someone who is heavily in debt money may be high on their scale of values, okay. But once they have a comfortable amount of cash in the bank, then that money would probably be less important. And other other values may move up the list. So if you're, if you've just started seeing someone for example, and you're building a relationship, you're getting to know someone, then that might take precedence over your health and fitness and making sure that you fucking track your calories and your energy output, etcetera, you know?

So um periodically checking in on what your values are and what's most important to is it's essential to make sure that, you know what you're doing is serving you and in line with what is actually most important too. You know, being clear, having clarity around the things that are important to at the time through different circumstances is essential for getting the most out of your life. So periodically go through this process every now and again, you know, it might be every month, every three months. Generally, every court is probably a good way of doing this because again, you know, we kind of work with the seasons and and figure out what's going to be important to you for the next at least a couple of weeks to a month of your life. So then you can adjust your actions and your behavior is to align with what your values are at the time. Nobody else can tell you what your values are. Nobody else can tell you what's important to. You need to do the work. You need to sit down with a pen and paper and actually write down things that are important to you and ask yourself those questions like deep down what's actually fucking important to me? All right, what's important to me in myself?

What am I looking for in other people? You know, what are the, what are the traits that I'm looking for? What are the values that I want from the people in my life and the people around me and that rounds out the episode on your hierarchy of value. During the next episode we're going to be going through motivation direction, the two different types of motivation direction, moving towards something and moving away from something, what the differences between those two and when and how we can implement those two tactics depending on where we're at and what's happening. So you guys there, if you enjoy the content that I'm bringing to you guys, please help me spread the message and life save, share and subscribe and pass this off to your friends, your family, anyone that's relevant in your life that it could potentially help and please make sure you leave a five star rating and review much. Love Guys piece