Welcome to the Level Up Your Life Podcast hosted by the inspiring double transplant recipient and coach Mark Black. If you feel stuck this is the podcast for you. Mark has an enthusiastic and motivating attitude. He wants to help take you to, well, the next level! Special to this podcast you will receive tips regarding all areas of your life: career, personal growth, relationships, romance, finance and much more. Mark has accomplished a lot in his life and he wants to help you achieve each goal you set before yourself. Let's do it!

Mark begins this episode with a heartfelt thanks to Level Up Your Life's subscribers and commenters. Afterward, he jumps right into the meat and potatoes of this episode of the show, titled Be Content but Never be Satisfied. These words are not truly synonyms in the universe of Mark Black. What does he mean? Contentment is the ability to be comfortable. If you are content you are experiencing no crisis, fear, anxiety, or stress. You are comfortable in your skin and in your place in the world.  But it is easy to become satisfied. In this instance, he is using the word "satisfied" as a simile to "complacent." What does that feel like? It feels like life is as good as it's gonna get. There is nothing more to strive for. It is easy to feel this way and natural even to work hard and then "coast". If you choose to coast you're missing out on the fundamental need to grow. You want to find a middle ground between content and anxiety-ridden.

Why do we want to find that middle ground?

• Because we always want to be growing
• You have something to contribute to the world only in the way that you can
• • Gifts and talents in your own specific formula unique to you
• No one likes being stuck

There are two ways we can accomplish this. One is from a mentally healthy place and the other from a unhealthy place. What does that look like?

Unhealthy:

• "I will be happy when _______ happens or is achieved
• • What's the next thing? (keeping up with the Joneses)
• Making your contentment contingent upon external events
• Don't wait until everything is perfect to be okay
• • It's never perfect
• Impure motives

Mark tells a story about his heart failing at twenty-three years old. He needed a heart and double lung transplant if he had any chance of survival. He was forced to move in order to be put on the transplant waiting list and eventually was an inpatient admit still waiting for six more months. During that time he was frustrated and out of control. Those feelings lead us to feel completely powerless. It was during this time that Mark says that he realized that he could be content in this situation and hope for a better tomorrow. Tried making a normal life out of an abnormal situation while wanting something more.

Six strategies for achieving contentment but not being satisfied:

1. Start with practicing gratitude on a regular/daily basis.
2. 1. Take ten to fifteen minutes per day to go over the last 24 hours and find something you are grateful for
   2. A gratitude journal is a powerful too
   1. How far you have come
   2. Progress is motivating
3. Acknowledge yourself and growth you've already had
   1. Not about a mysterious level of perfection
   2. 1. Just be one percent better at something
      1. False satisfaction
      2. Want to improve so quickly you end up biting off more than you can chew
      3. Inevitable mistakes follow
      4. Self-deprecation
      5. End of the journey to self-improvement
   3. There are two mistakes people make trying to look for improvements
   4. Take your time and make it count with slow and steady progress
4. Look for improvement opportunities
   1. Comparison kills contentment - there will always be someone better than you
   2. 1. Looking to others for inspiration is not a comparison
5. Stop comparing

 

• Social media shows the highlight real in someone's life (Social media most often used tool in comparison.)

• Comparison leads to anger and other negative feelings

• Stay in your own lane, don't fall into the trap

• Feedback from others

• Surround yourself with honest people who will give you both positive and negative feedback about

• Patterns

• Reactions

• Areas of improvement

• Celebrate small wins

• Don't wait until you've achieved the huge milestone

• Doing this provides you with momentum

 

 

"If we're not growing then we're dying."

"Ask yourself if you are unsatisfied for my sake or for the sake of the people around me?"

"I've not arrived because there is no arriving."

"If you only want people to tell you good things you're not going to grow."

"My experience standing on the stage was very different from what the audience member was seeing."

"I got better and that's worth celebrating."

"Don't live every day like it's your last day just live every day."

 

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