10 Life Changing Lessons I Learned in The Last 12 Months (Birthday Special!)

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A lot can happen when an accident doesn't. Visit MazdaUSA.com to learn more. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services. This episode is brought to you by Orange Theory Fitness. One of the best investments you can make is in your own strength. The choices you make today can help shape how you feel for years to come. Orange Theory Fitness provides a one hour workout to build strength, burn fat, and build muscle. With an expert coach guiding you every step of the way, head to orangetheory.com/on purpose to learn more and get your first class free. Orange Theory Fitness helping people live longer, more vibrant lives. Terms and conditions apply, see web page and studio for details. You think saying no will let the other person down. Well guess what? When you say yes when you don't want to, you let yourself down, and you let that person down. And in the long term, you actually end up building resentment. It's better to say no and continue to have a relationship. Then say yes and resent the relationship. The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. He won the only Jay Shetty. Hey everyone, it's Jay Shetty. Welcome back to On Purpose. It blows my mind that millions of you chewing in every single day to listen and to watch. Make sure you've subscribed to my YouTube channel so that you never miss a video. And make sure you've subscribed on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts so that you don't miss a drop. I've got so many exciting things coming your way. Now it's a very special episode today because tomorrow if you're listening to this on the 5th of September 2025, tomorrow the 6th of September is my birthday and every year I love to do a reflection introspection episode. Today I'm going to share with you lessons I've learned in the last 12 months. There are about life, people, relationships, I'm going to give you the biggest ones that I've taken away. These are real lessons that have come from lived experience, come from my own mistakes, come from my own challenges and struggles and I love doing this episode for you every year because it really gets me into my own heart and mind and I get to open up about it with all of you. I always find that birthdays become about parties, they become about gifts, they become about presents and time with the people you love and those are all really beautiful things but for me they're also a time of taking stock, evaluating, auditing and looking at my life, making sure that I'm moving in the direction that I want, that I'm serving my mission and purpose in the way that I want and that I'm showing up for myself and the people I love in the way that I want. It's a beautiful annual ritual that I love to do and I'm so glad I get to share it with you all on the podcast. So here are the top 10 lessons I've learned in the last 12 months. The first one is helping less can actually help more. This one is so hard to say as a coach. It's so hard to say as someone who's always trying to help others. It's so hard to admit as someone who wants to see others grow and I'm sure you're the same. When you love someone, when you care about them, you want to help them, you want to be there for them, you want to show up for them, you want to solve all their problems, you want to fix everything but here's what I've learned. Often when you try to help others, you can actually end up hurting them. You hurt them not because of you helping but because you're helping ends up enabling them. It ends up making them depended. It makes them feel that they're inadequate to make the chains themselves. It makes them feel that they can't depend on themselves. They have to depend on you. It makes them feel that if you're not around, they might not know the answer. Really powerful leaders make people believe in themselves. You're not trying to get people to believe in your advice. To think that you're a great person because you're always around, you want people to reconnect with their own intuition, their own gut instinct. When you're busy solving, fixing and helping everything, they never get the opportunity to do that. Ask yourself when you're helping someone. Are you giving them the opportunity to help themselves or are you taking it away? When you're trying to support someone, are you assisting or are you trying to solve everything for them? When you're trying to be present for someone, are you actually trying to fix and control everything or are you just there for a helping hand? It's so counterintuitive but it's true. Over helping creates dependency. Studies on learned helplessness show that if you rescue people too often, they stop building resilience. If you always rescue someone when they're in danger, they don't develop the skills themselves. If you always fix things for people, when they're struggling, they don't learn to fix it themselves. If you're always rushing to help someone, when they're going through a challenge, they may lose the ability to help themselves and you may hurt them instead. Your best intention could actually cause someone long-term pain. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is step back and let someone stumble. Real coaching isn't carrying someone up the mountain. It's reminding them they have legs. We think helping people is always noble but sometimes help is just disguised control. Think about that for a second. When you jump in too quickly, you teach people that they can't handle life without you. When you carry their load, they never build the muscle to carry themselves. When you do everything for someone, they develop learned helplessness. When people stop trying because someone else always steps in. Your rescuing can rob them of resilience. Your fixing can steal their chance to figure it out. Your guidance can block them from developing their own inner compass. Helping someone can actually hurt them. Trying to fix someone can actually make them feel more broken. When you rush to solve, you send a hidden message. You can't do this without me. It can turn love into pity. It can turn care into control. Support doesn't mean solving. Love doesn't mean fixing. Compassion doesn't mean control. Helping someone can hurt them. Fixing someone can break them. Carrying someone can weaken them. Protecting someone can trap them. Saving someone can silence them. People don't grow when you do it for them. They grow when you believe they can do it themselves. They don't need your rescue. They need your trust. They don't need a fixer. They need a witness. Someone to say I saw you do that. And I'm here to watch you do it again. I'm here to give you a helping hand. If that's what you need right now. But realizing that you don't want to take away their opportunity. It's almost like saying, Hey, I'll be with you at the gym, but I'll lift the weights for you. That wouldn't make any sense. Right? I can be with you at the gym, but I can't lift the weights for you. I'll be with you by your side, but I'm going to do the diet for you. It doesn't work that way. You can't transfer your sacrifice into someone else's success. You can't transfer your discipline into someone else's desire. you can't transfer your work into someone else's worth. They have to have the discipline. They have to do the work. They have to make the sacrifice. You can be there by their side. You can't do it for them. This is a huge lesson that I've learned this year. And I've realized it's a painful one because my nature is don't want to see people reach their potential. And I want to speed it up for them. I want to solve it for them. I want to accelerate it for them. But I've seen time and time again. When I step back, when I'm present, when I'm there, that person builds a confidence like they never could have if I did it for them. And that's actually more beautiful to watch and observe. And I've seen it this year. And I've actually said it to people, hey, I am ready to help you with whatever you need. But one thing I've learned about growth is that I believe you genuinely have the ability to grow yourself. You don't need my advice. You don't need me to tell you what to do. You actually already know it inside of you. I want you to connect with that and watch how empowered they feel. Make people believe in them, not in you. That's the goal. Lesson number two is something that I've heard this year that really resonated with me. Saying no is a full sentence. We think yes keeps relationships alive. But research on boundaries shows the opposite. People who can say no clearly are more trusted and more respected. Every yes that betrays yourself erodes connection. Every no that protects your truth deepens it. No isn't rejection. It's honesty in its purest form. Now we all struggle saying no. Think about the last time you struggled saying no. Saying no is so hard because it triggers the fear of rejection. Humans are wired for belonging. Evolutionary psychology shows rejection once meant literal death. Exile from the tribe. You've been kicked out. That wiring hasn't disappeared. Saying no feels dangerous because our brain interprets it as risking disconnection. Another reason why we struggle to say no is something known as the guilt reflex. When you say no and think about this the next time you do it especially the people close to you your brain actually releases the stress hormone cortisol that mimic the discomfort of guilt. This is why so many people all of us we over explain or we apologize right we're soothing our own nervous system not just the other person because we're now feeling a sense of guilt. But here's what happens when you say no. It builds self-respect. Studies on assertiveness training show people who practice saying no report higher self-esteem and lower anxiety. Every no is a small vote of confidence that your time energy and needs actually matter. This happened to me the other day. I was actually with a friend. I hadn't seen them for a long time and they were telling me about some really deep struggles they were having in their life and someone wonderful came up to the table who wanted a picture and to say hello and I said hey I would love to do it right afterwards but I just need to be present with this person right now and my heart sank. I didn't want to say no I get so happy when I bump into your little airport restaurants wherever I am. I love it. I really enjoy seeing you all and I felt so bad saying hey you know what I'll do it later but I can't right now because the person I was talking to was sharing some really emotional difficult stuff that they were going through and I wanted to be present for them but having done that I could tell how much it meant to the person with me and I really hope the other person understood. It wasn't that I was being mean it's not that I didn't want to do it it was just that I was trying to draw a boundary that was important to me and it's really hard it's really hard every night out of ten times I would say yes immediately but learning to say no was so important. The other thing is that when we say yes without alignment it actually breeds resentment think about this for a second when your friend asks you for something and you want to say no but you say yes to people please you say yes because you don't want to let them down you say yes because you know they might overreact what ends up happening in the long term you end up thinking gotta hate this person I've got to go do this thing for them today I've got to get through this thing today oh my god I got to do this thing it's made into resentment if you say yes without alignment it actually breeds resentment social psychologists find that when people say yes out of obligation it leads to cognitive dissonance a clash between values and actions over time this erodes relationships more than an honest no ever could you think saying no will let the other person down well guess what when you say yes when you don't want to you let yourself down and you let that person down and in the long term you actually end up building resentment it's better to say no and continue to have a relationship then say yes and resent the relationship by saying no you protect the quality of your future yes people begin to trust your yes more because it's no longer automatic boundaries create credibility a woman my mom worked with once told me she had spent her entire life saying yes yes to family yes to her kids yes to her community she was the person everyone leaned on birthdays last minute babysitting emotional support learning money cooking meals you name it if someone asked she said yes but behind the yes she was exhausted she felt invisible in her own life she told me I didn't even know what I liked anymore I only knew what everyone else wanted one day her daughter asked her to watch the grandkids again after she had already canceled plan twice that week to help something inside her broke for the first time in 30 years she said no not today I need rest her door was shocked upset even guilted her and that old fear came flooding in what if she loved me less what if I'm needed less but something surprising happened the world didn't fall apart her daughter figured it out and for the first time she spent the day doing something just for herself reading walking and sleeping without apology and later her daughter admitted at first I was mad but then I realized you've never said no to me you deserve to that single no rewired the entire family dynamic her daughter stopped assuming she'd always be available her grandchildren learned by example that boundaries are normal and the woman herself she told me that no felt more like love than all the yeses I gave for decades saying yes constantly had made her resentful saying no finally made her relationships more honest sometimes the most loving thing you can do for others is to stop betraying yourself learn to say no learn to say not now learn to say this doesn't work for me learn to say I can't carry that today learn to say I need space learn to say I've changed my mind learn to say I deserve better learn to say yes only when your whole self agrees because every fake yes is a quiet betrayal and every honest no is an act of respect for you and for them lesson number three that I've learned in the last 12 months is your attention is your real bank account I noticed a few years ago how when I started using TikTok my attention started to diminish and it took a lot of effort to bring it back I was someone who loved reading books I was someone who loved getting into deep journals and articles and all of a sudden I saw myself looking for eight seconds of joy entertainment and speed of consumption and I started to realize my attention is my real bank account because what makes or breaks your life is where you spend your attention cognitive psychology calls this attentional control and it predicts success better than IQ think about it billionaires go bankrupt but someone who can direct their focus can rebuild your attention isn't just currency it's compound interest. Neuroscientists call our attention a limited resource. Every time you focus, you spend mental energy. Like money. You can invest it, waste it, or lose it. Unlike money, you can never get it back. Psychologists have found that people who learn to direct their attention intentionally, what they read, what they notice, who they give time to predict life satisfaction more than income or IQ. Stop wasting your attention on people who don't value yours. Stop wasting your attention on problems you can't control. Stop wasting your attention on scrolling through strangers' lives. Stop wasting your attention. It is your greatest wealth. When I think about my attention, I think about it like my bank balance. There's only a limited amount you have to spend. How are you going to use it? How are you going to direct it? How are you going to focus it? How are you going to allow yourself to not be consumed by unnecessary things? Let's say someone did something really bad to you. Let's say someone wronged you. How much time do I want to waste? Trying to solve that. How much energy do I want to spend trying to get an apology? How much time am I willing to give away? I never get back. Hoping that person will realize what they did was wrong. We waste hours, days, weeks of our life on things that won't make a difference. The next time you're upset by something, ask yourself to I really care, even if I get the result I want. Will it really matter? Or is there a better use of my time? Is there a better use of my energy? Before we continue, let's take a quick breather and listen to some of our sponsors. Hey, it's Jay Shetty, and I'm so excited to share. We're launching a brand new subscription on Apple podcasts. That means if you want more on purpose, more inspiration, more tools, more depth, you now have the option to subscribe and unlock bonus content from our incredible guests. And don't worry, the main show is still free for everyone. But if you're someone who wants to go even deeper and support the show, this is for you. Just here, try free on Apple podcasts and join our growing community of purpose-driven listeners. I can't wait for you to check it out. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. We talk a lot about intentional decision making, and that extends to the practical stuff too, like making sure your coverage actually works for your life. State Farm is there to meet you where you are, and they know how sweet it is to feel good about your decisions. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer, availability amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. This episode is brought to you by AG1. 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That's w-a-y-f-a-i-r.com. Wafer, every style, every home. Welcome back. Now let's continue this incredible conversation. Lesson number four is that achievement without alignment feels like failure. We think success guarantees full fulfillment. But psychology shows when your achievements don't match your values, they feel hollow. That's why people hit milestones, the promotion, the house, the wedding, and feel emptier than ever. It's not that the house, the wedding, or the milestone wasn't important. It's that, did you connect the two of values? Success without alignment isn't success. When actions and values don't match, the brain experiences internal conflict. For example, I value family, but I spend all my time at work. I value creativity, but my role only rewards efficiency. This dissonance, this distance, creates stress, anxiety, and eventually burnout, even in successful people. This is what I've learned this year that really blew my mind. I want you to remember this. You'll become successful by what you get. You'll become happy by what you lose. When you get a new job, a promotion, a new level, you'll feel successful, but you'll only feel happy when you lose. When you lose envy, when you lose ego, when you lose greed. It's when we lose that we become happy. Because for years, I used to hear people say, money doesn't buy happiness. And I used to think to myself, well, it's really easy because the people who often say that are the ones with money. And so that didn't make sense to me. And also I saw people with money who are happy. I saw people without money who are happy. So I said, okay, well, that doesn't make sense either. So what was it? What I saw is that it didn't matter what you did have or didn't have in terms of things, in terms of success. But it did matter what you did or didn't have internally. So if you had money, but you had envy, you weren't happy. And if you had money, but you didn't have envy, you could be happy. It was the lack of envy and the lack of ego that guaranteed happiness no matter what position you were in. Because those were the two traits that pushed away love and relationships. If you're ego-tistical, you turn people off because now they don't wanna be around you. And if you're envious, you get turned off by people that you don't wanna be around. When you have arrogance and ego and bravado, you push people away. When you have envy, you do the same thing. You can't be friends with someone you're envious of and no one wants to be friends with you when you're an ego-tistical. You lose the most valuable part of human life which is human connection and relationships when these two qualities take over your life. As much as we're working on what we get, we have to work on what we want to lose. Mastering ego and mastering envy are a daily practice. They're a daily habit. You will be so much happier if you reduce your envy. You'll be so much happier if you reduce your ego, not just increase your output, not just increase your productivity, not just increase your efficiency. I promise you give attention to that part of your life. I focus on that part of my life a lot. I call it the seeds and weeds. I think about envy and ego, like weeds in the garden of my life that I have to uproot, that I have to take out, that I have to purify, and you feel so much better for it. Lesson number five, the people who frustrate you teach you the most about you. The noise is on random, psychologist call it projective identification. The traits we can't stand in others often mirrors parts of ourselves we haven't accepted. That controlling boss, maybe it reflects your own fear of letting go. People are mirrors, not just irritants. It doesn't mean that they don't have that problem and what you're seeing isn't real. It's that you may have it too. Your triggers are your teachers. Your jealousy is your guide. Your anger is your mirror. Your irritation shows you your wounds. Your defensiveness reveals your fear. Your impatience exposes your expectations. Your sadness highlights your values. Every reaction is a revelation. Every trigger is a teacher. Life will keep sending you the same lesson until you learn from it. Lesson number six, kindness is remembered longer than achievement. Ask people about their mentors or loved ones and they rarely recall accomplishments. I doubt you'll end up at a funeral and hear about someone's accomplishments. I doubt you'll end up at a 70th birthday and hear about someone's accomplishments. I was actually just at a dear family friend's 70th birthday a couple of weeks ago. No one talked about his achievements and he has plenty. They recalled moments of kindness. They recalled moments of genuine sincere connection. Behavioral science shows emotional memory outlasts factual memory. People forget what you achieved. They don't forget how affectionate you were. People will remember when you are kind. People will remember when you were caring. People will remember when you listened without rushing them. People will remember when you showed up when no one else did. People will remember when you forgave them at their lowest. People will remember when you believed in them before anyone else did. People will remember when you stayed calm while they fell apart. People will remember when you gave them dignity instead of judgment. They may forget your wins. They may forget your work but they won't forget your energy. And even if they do forget all of those things, they'll be one that remembers. And the most important thing, you will have lived a clean energetic life. We don't do those things to be remembered for those things. We do those things so that we can go to sleep peacefully. You clean your energy internally so that you can live in a clean place. Right, you don't clean your home just because people are coming over. You clean it so that you can live in a clean home. You don't clean your mind for everyone else. You do it because you want to live in a clean place. To huge one. Lesson number seven, people change more from being understood than being corrected. We think people need better arguments. In truth, people need better listeners. Studies on motivational interviewing show people change when they feel heard, not when they're lectured. Understanding opens the door that correction keeps locked. Sometimes the best people get the worst of us. And the worst people get the best of us. The kindest people get our pain. And the meanest people get our joy. The real ones get our silence and the fake ones get our performance. The loyal ones get our doubts and the disloyal ones get our trust. The ones who stay, get our frustration and the ones who leave get our patience. We give our apologies to strangers and our harshest words to the ones closest. We hide our tenderness from the safe ones and hand out our smiles to the ones who have hurt us. That's the tragedy of human behavior. We misplace our best energy. What I've realized is that we all lecture the people closest to us. We think if we tell them what to do, they'll finally get it right. The reality is people are looking to be validated, heard and seen. You may say, I know what they're going through, but have you ever asked them? Have you ever talked to your partner and just said, I want to hear from your side how this feels. I want to know why it is that you keep struggling with this. Not in a demanding way, in a curious way, in a genuine way. Remember, people change more from being understood than being corrected. People change more from being loved than from being hated. People change more from being validated than pushed and judged. Lesson number eight. This one blew my mind and it's from one of my favorite authors of all time. We remember endings more than middles. It sounds obvious, but stay with me for how it applies to life. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman has a rule called his peak end rule and it shows that we judge experiences not by how long they lasted but by the peak moment and the ending moment. That's why a single kind goodbye or one cruel exit defines the whole relationship in our memory. The peak end rule is a psychological principle discovered by noble prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman and his colleague Amos Twersky. It says we don't judge an experience by its average or total duration. We judge it by two moments. One the peak, the most intense part, whether good or bad and number two the end, how the experience concluded, everything else fades into the background. So Kahneman did a famous cold water experiment that proved this. Kahneman's put their hand in painfully cold water for 60 seconds. In a second trial, they put their hand in cold water for 90 seconds. But in the last 30 seconds, the water was made slightly warmer. It was still cold but a little less painful. Logically, the second trial should be worse, 90 seconds of pain instead of 60. And most people preferred the longer trial because the ending was less painful. The brain didn't remember the full timeline. It remembered the peak and the end. Now what does this mean for us in our life and our relationships? One cruel goodbye can overshadow years of love. I'm sure there's someone that you loved on, that you cared about, that you did so much for but because you didn't end on good terms, they hate you, right? Because you didn't end on good terms, they talk bad about you. Because you didn't end on good terms, they say hurtful things about you to everyone else. Right? I'm sure you can relate. And one kind act at the end of someone's life can heal decades of distance. We don't carry the full record. We carry the peak and the ending. Now how does this apply to work? People rarely remember the dozens of average meetings. They remember the one inspiring keynote and how they felt when they left the company. And what about daily experiences? Whether it's vacations, weddings, concerts, people remember the highlight moment. And the final moments, a bad flight home can sour the whole vacation. We think life is measured in hours and days. But memory measures life in moments and endings, end things well. Always leave people and places better and happier than you find them. Don't let things end on a bad note. Number two, design peaks. Don't aim to make everything perfect. It's intentional moments, a surprise note, an unexpected thank you. One unforgettable experience. Peaks matter more than perfection. Number three, manage endings in conflict. Even if a conversation is hard, end it with respect. Simply by saying I care about you, even if we disagree, can change how the entire interaction is remembered. So there you have it. Those are the lessons that I have learned in the last 12 months. And as every important teacher has said before, you repeat what you don't repair. You repeat what you don't reflect on. You repeat what you don't release. You repeat what you don't reveal. You repeat what you don't reframe. You repeat what you don't respect in yourself. And you repeat what you don't take responsibility. ability for. Patents don't disappear with time. They disappear with work. So I hope you always remember to try and do that on your birthday. Take a moment to do it. I hope these have helped. Thank you so much for listening and watching. Remember, I'm forever in your corner, and I'm always rooting for you. If you love this podcast, you'll love my episode with Lewis Hamilton. Lewis and I talk about why you should stop chasing society's definition of success and how to be more intentional with your goals. You don't want to miss it. It's not about being perfect. It's about just every day, one step at a time trying to be better, trying to do more. 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