Quitting Porn for good Means Falling Forward
Episode 13
You are listening to the Self-Mastery Podcast, where we break through barriers holding you back from becoming who you wanna be, whether you're struggling with pornography, overeating, social media addiction, or just wanna get better at succeeding at life. This podcast is for you. Now, your host, Zach Spafford.
Welcome to another Mastery Monday. I'm your host. Zach Stafford. It is another episode of The Self Mastery Podcast. Hey, I am excited today because the topic that I'm bringing forward to, that I'm bringing up to you here today is one that I have been thinking about a lot as I have been moving across country.
And, I spent a little time living in my in-laws house, which was really fun. And now we've moved into our own home here in beautiful Milwaukee, Wisconsin. where the weather is always cloudy and it's cold and it's it's not ideally where I think I would want to be. We moved from a place called Sunny St.
George. If you don't know where that is, it's closer to Vegas than anything. And it's wonderful there because the weather is almost always perfect, except for two months outta the year where it's so hot that you don't even go outside. But the topic today is, Fall forward. And the reason I chose this topic, I was watching something about Denzel Washington and how he, he had, basically in his life there was, there had been some obstacles and those obstacles had given him the choice to either fall backward or fall forward.
And I think a lot of us, we face those same kinds of choices. We live in a world where, We face setbacks. Those setbacks can sometimes really derail our progress in the direction that we want to go. And we oftentimes see those as moments to stop. Moving forward to stop doing what it is that we love and to stop doing what it is that we want to do.
The thing that has really struck me about, the last, really, the last three, four years of my life is that I, I left a very comfortable corporate job. I chose to become an entrepreneur. I chose to go away from the safety that is, Corporate America, the perceived safety that is corporate America, and really decide to create my own reality, create my own destiny.
And there's one thing that's really important to understand that when you do that well, there's a couple of things that are really important to understand. When you. Choose to take the risks, right? Because I think all of us should be taking risks. And the question is what's your risk tolerance and how much reward do you want?
So the biggest thing with taking risks and creating something of your own is that you get . The opportunity to reap the rewards. To me, that has been the guiding force in, in why I've chosen to become a life coach, to be an entrepreneur, to, have a podcast, all these risky things where you put yourself out there and you hope that people like what you have and you hope that people believe in what you are bringing to them, but also the rewards of that are a hundred percent yours, and you get to choose how to use them.
So that means that you're not begging some boss for a better salary and you're not going to meetings that don't really pertain to your job, but you have to be there so that you can feel like, yeah, I'm contributing to my corporation, or feel like you're not missing out on something that you need to be a part of.
When in reality, those meetings oftentimes are just a waste of time. And to be honest with you, that's really one of the reasons why I left corporate America and struck out on my own. Was because I felt like I could use my time better than some manager or some boss or some guy who was really just trying to impress his boss without really thinking about the strategy and the tactics and the actual activities that I was putting time into so that I could accomplish the goals that I needed to accomplish by the end of a year.
That was the impetus. That was the moment that I decided I'm gonna go out on my own. I knew, and I had known for a long time, that nobody gets rich in this world by working for somebody else I knew and had known for a long time that to be wealthy in this country, you needed to be an owner of something.
You need to own stocks. You need to own real estate. You need to own a business, right? You need to own whatever it is, because ownership comes with risk, but it also comes with the reward of whatever profits are generated at that moment. , I said, you know what, it's time for me to start looking. So I started looking in earnest for opportunities outside the organization that I could be the owner so that I could take on that risk, but also take on the reward.
And that in turn led me to where I am now as a life coach, as someone who works with individuals who are struggling in their lives to become better, become who they want to be. And one thing that I've learned in all of that is to fall forward to become someone that you want to be. You can't fall backward.
You can't spend. all your time looking backward and thinking, oh, if it had only been this way, or if it had only been that way, or if it had only been whatever, right? You have to take charge of what it is that's going on in your life. You have to take it by the bull, by the horns and say, listen, this is who I want to be.
This is how I wanna live my life, and this is what I'm gonna do to get there. And that's why you hear me on a podcast. That's why you hear me. Coaching people so that their lives can get better. When I was a seminary student, I, we had seminary down in our basement at our house in Waukegan, Illinois, not too far from where we live now.
And Mike . My seminary teacher, I've mentioned him before on the podcast, David Stewart, he would come to our house, traipse down into the basement. He would bring chocolate milk as many mornings as he could manage it. And we would, and it was the most delicious chocolate milk, let me tell you. And I would roll outta bed at, one moment before the.
The class would start stroll down into the basement in my pajamas. Thankfully, at that time I was wearing pajamas. Brother Stewart, David Stewart, he brought one thing to that class that I don't think is in any other class. He brought Chumba Womba, and if you're not familiar with Chumba, Womba it, they have a song and I don't, I think they're like a one hit wonder.
They have a song called, Tub thumping that goes something like this. I get knocked down, but I get up again. Takes a hell of a lot to keep me down. Chumba Womba was our theme song for seminary. It brought to me the realization that if I want to be great, if I want to succeed in this life, I'm gonna get knocked down.
But the key is not staying down. The key is to get back up every time. and go forward. Fall forward. When you get knocked down, fall forward, fall in the direction that you're trying to go. And by the way, that doesn't mean you can't change directions. You know a lot of things in this world. They will change your direction because of necessity of your, you're changing wants in the world of your changing circumstances.
That's okay. There's nothing wrong with changing direction. The only thing that. You should be worried about is falling and not getting back up. So how do you do that? There's a couple of key items that you need to keep in mind as you look to change your life and become the person that you want to be.
One is understand that movement isn't necessarily progress. And what I mean by that is, you know that meeting that I told you about at the beginning of the podcast, that was movement, that was creating work for work's sake. That's not progress. Progress is putting into place the actual items that you need to do to achieve the targets that you want to achieve.
And on that note, there's really one way, just one way to do that, and that's to plan and execute and plan and execute, and plan and execute. There is nothing else out there that's gonna do this for you. Planning and executing. Those are the two items that every entrepreneur, every businessman, every Fortune 500 company, c e o does.
They plan and they execute, they plan and they execute. And you might put in there, execute, adjust, plan, execute. But it's the same. It's essentially the same. It doesn't matter. You spend the time laying out the direction and you execute on the little things that need to go that, that you need to take you in that direction.
That's it. So listen, if you're stuck, if you're sitting in that spot and you're saying, okay, what do I do next? Where am I? Where do I go from here? Why do I need to put together a plan so that I can start becoming the person that I want to be? Whether that means you, that you're changing your, your life path from, a corporate life to a, an entrepreneur life.
Feel free to gimme a call. That's something that I've lived through. That's something that I've done. Feel free to set up a one-on-one appointment. If. What you're trying to plan is just trying to get out of pornography. Use your addictive behaviors, take some time. Set up a session with me. I would love to chat with you.
I would love to help you fall forward when it comes to how do I stop using pornography, or how do I stop using food to buffer or video games to buffer, whatever it is. And that process of planning and executing will help you fall forward and put you on the path to where you want to be, the direction that you want to go.
All right guys. It's been a wonderful Mastery Monday. I'm excited to always talk with you. I really appreciate those of you who listen to this podcast. I didn't realize this till just now, but this is the 13th episode, so lucky number 13. Feel free to write us a review. Take some time, share this podcast with someone who could use a little bit of assistance in moving in the right direction.
Thanks, and we'll talk to you next week. Hey, thanks for listening to the Self Mastery Podcast. Every day I get requests from people who are looking to change something in their life. If that is you, if you need help overcoming your addictive behavior like pornography use, sign up for a free mini session at zachspafford.com/workwithme.
That's zachspafford.com/workwithme. I'll put a link in show notes for you to follow. Also, it would mean the world to me if you were to leave a review for us. Wherever you get your podcast, it'll go a long way to helping others find us. Thanks again.