Will Ferris

My favorite clip from my conversation w/ @quese on Episode 8 of the Podcast. 🌊🙏🏻Understanding that no matter how long you are somewhere... it is always worth it to create bonds and friendships.

Often times people shy away from setting goals because when you are indecisive.. or passive.. you don’t necessarily have a fear of failure arrise. That fear of failure is often so strong for people that they’d rather live in constant anxiety and reactivity.

The essence of healing and growth is RESPONSIBILITY. Responsibility is the most important skill for self mastery.. and without it you cannot change. Learning to make choices and understand the consequences of those choices is a transferable skill to any aspect of life.

Responsibility does not mean blame... In fact, one of the greatest ways to take responsibility of a situation is to forgive. When you value responsibility over anything else, you have the power to learn and evolve. Even if that means forgiving someone that wronged you.

You can blame and make excuses all day, but your external reality and outcomes are really just guiding you to take full responsibility of your life. Stop distracting yourself... and learn to take responsibility in all circumstances and see just how quickly you grow.

Mental skills offers you a chance to build confidence in moments of uncertainty rather than compulsions (checking, coping, or controlling)… When you need and seek less certainty to do what you value, spontaneous play can return.

Relying on outcomes to give you 'confidence' is a sure fire way to be inconsistent. How you process and assimilate the information of your outcomes is how you build inner confidence. When YOU choose the filter for your outcomes, you can be free from external opinion/results.

Without the ability to re-conceptualize patterns, meditation and mindfulness practices can often become compulsive habits for people. Mindfulness is a great way to build awareness, but to actually explore the thought patterns and re-frame them is FAR more beneficial.

Self-Knowledge brings Self-Fulfillment. When I work with clients we spend a lot of time doing writing exercises to directly consider mental patterns and emotions. Most only spend their time digesting information INDIRECTLY. True change can only happen from direct experience.

Mental Health and Peak Performance starts by constantly considering what you want to BUILD, not what you want to fix. You would never go to a swimming pool saying 'I want to learn NOT to drown...' No. You would say you want to learn to SWIM... Same goes for any other skill!

Two direct paths to being able to take RESPONSIBILITY of any given experience... 1. FORGIVENESS 2. ACCEPTANCE

I believe that a great metric to see progress in your mindset is... Whether or not your process of re-conceptualizing beliefs, thoughts, and emotions is helping you PLAY more. If you aren't seeing more joy and freedom from your inner work, you probably need to pivot.

It's why spending time exploring ones origin story and intrinsic meaning for the sport or activity they participate in is essential. If you lose that, you are easily controlled and swayed by outcomes and opinions of others.

Many high performers confuse this. The desire to improve starts to become watered down when they get external validation and success for their activities. They start to question if their even actions matter if they don't get an external reward for it.

The constant desire to improve and get better is far different from the constant desire to control and seek outcomes. When you can integrate the difference, you are free to enjoy the journey and experience freedom during it.

People often set goals in hopes that if they achieve it, it’ll make them lovable or worthy of belonging. Goals are great, and achieving them is awesome. But they will never ‘fix’ or ’save you’. How can you be for yourself what you think achieving your goals will do for you?

Build your own internal communication of confidence! After each workout, training, or game... Jot down -1 area you gave MAX effort -1 area you progressed (even if just 1%) -1 success This helps lessen the minds negative bias and teach you to build confidence intrinsically.

Sports can most definitely bring meaning and belonging.. but if your outcomes are the REASON you feel like you belong - then there is an unhealthy dependence. How can you find that within so sports can merely be another expression for belonging, not the source for belonging?

Victim consciousness is so debilitating because from that lens, the only possible solution for your problems is outside of you. That leaves you powerless to growing unless outcomes or other people change. When you can take responsibility - you can empower YOURSELF.

You can't heal from the same state of consciousness that made you sick. If you do not take the time to consider the narrative and stories you tell yourself, you will more than likely be stuck in perpetual patterns of thinking and emotions.

How well do you handle uncertainty? Confidence (Con-fidence = WITH-FAITH). To build confidence you must be able to put yourself in uncertain situations and stay aligned to value based actions.