Episode 160: Begin to Thrive Beyond Pornography

00.00

00.00

Hey, everybody, and welcome to another beautiful mastery Monday here on the Self Mastery podcast. I'm your host, Zach Spafford. So Darcy and I just got back from Bear Lake; it was fantastic. We hung out with all of the best life coaches in the world. So if you are, Hey, I'm listening to this, but I don't need a born life coach. I don't know why you would be listening to this if you didn't need a life coach to help you quit porn. But if you were listening to this, and you're, I need a life coach to help me with whatever. Let me know.

I know a lot of great life coaches, people who are kind of amazing. And if you do need help from a guy like me from Zach Spafford right to overcome pornography, go to my website and go to zachspafford.com/workwithzach. Zach and you can set up an appointment to talk to me, and we can get to the bottom of whatever is going on for you. Because of that, I think it's an essential part of moving forward and eliminating pornography, quitting porn, and creating the intimacy that you want in your life. I also got to go to an event where a guy named Stacey Taniguchi spoke, and it was an amazing, really amazing dude; he spoke about some of the things that I often talk about with my clients. And I wanted to share with you, at least in part, his message. And I oftentimes think what we think is that we are supposed to endure, endure, to the end, endure, endure, endure, and all this endurance talk really gets you down, I think. And, for me, his message was really simple. 

Get ready to thrive. And if you want to thrive, here's how you do it. The number one thing that he said is that if you want to thrive, the first thing you have to do is you have to be intentional about how you are going to do that. And in being intentional, you are going to have to sit down; you're going to have to take some time, you're going to have to learn what it is that you actually think will help you thrive. So if you think about your day, think about okay, who am I? Who's the guy that I want to be? Am I that guy? And would I live this life again? And if the answer to that is no, then it's time to start figuring out how to thrive. So being intentional, setting down setting goals, setting targets. So the first thing before you do any of that, you absolutely must identify your values. So in Acceptance and Commitment training, the work that I do with my clients, I help them identify their values; identifying your values gives you a track to run on; it says this is who I want to be this is what's important to me, this is how I want to live. If one of your values is integrity, then that's going to inform the way that you choose to interact with the people around you. If one of your values is financial security, that's going to, you know, that's going to change the way that you interact with the world around you. So be clear about what it is, that is, your values, what values you have, and why you have these values. And if you want, you know, email me, and I'll give you a list of values the way that I've seen them laid out. 

And you can just go through, and you can start thinking about each one and decide, is this a value of mine? Is this important to me, and can you pick the values that you want? And once you start to identify those values, you're gonna have to prioritize them. Now I did an episode not that long ago, Episode 108. And you can go back and listen to this episode, a great episode; it's called overcome pornography by choosing values instead of goals. But in there, I talk about prioritizing your values. One of the main keys to having values is that sometimes we have to prioritize one value over another, the example I used in that episode for this particular item. So there are about six items in that episode. But the example I used was when I served a mission, I put my value of serving my Heavenly Father above my value of earning a living and creating financial security. So it just depends on what's going on in your life and what's important at the time, but you have to prioritize your values; you have to put certain values ahead of others. 

And once you know what values you have, it's a lot easier to do. And then the last thing that he talks about was to create a list; this is the list of the things that you want to do, the things that you believe will help you thrive in your life. You know, I sometimes think that we all believe that once I'm done, and I figure out how to quit porn, then I can actually live my life. And I can guarantee you that if you learn to thrive, pornography will become less and less valuable to you. I mean, there are some things that you're gonna want to do, a lot of the techniques that I teach, a lot of the things that I discuss in the podcast, and in the membership, those are things that are going to help you resolve your urges and deal with what's going on emotionally and mentally in the moment. 

05.28

But you also, if you want to thrive, have to look forward to what it is, is going on for you. You want to look forward to the life ahead of you. I often, you know, I want to go to Italy, I've often put out ideas. I'm, oh, yeah, I want to go back to Alaska and go fishing, I want to go to Italy, I want to do all these things. But then I put them off because kids and time and money and this and that all get in the way. And when you start to create a list, you start to see the direction that you want to take your life. So how do you create a list this is a really important component of this; the very first thing that you want to do is start with one; what's one thing that you want to accomplish, create do in your life? And then you have to take your time; you have to be willing to take a moment and figure out, well, I don't have to do 100. Right now, I'm going to just start with one. So if I start with one tomorrow and can add another one, I don't have to all of sudden create all 100 things on my list. So take your time; you know, it might take you ten years to put everything on your list that you want on your list. 

Take your time, think it out, and be clear about what it is that you are looking to accomplish. And then here's something that's really really, really important. Whatever your choices are, whatever is on your list, it cannot it must not conflict with the values that you've written down. So if one of your values is to have integrity, and someone asks you to, you know, be part of an organization where you know, the integrity is not there. But another one of your values is financial security, and you know, they're going to this organization is going to create financial security, you have to be willing to say one of my values is going to be met, but another one is going to be in deep conflict here. So I'm not going to make that choice. So your choices cannot conflict with your values. If they do, then you're going to put yourself in a position to be valueless. Essentially, the next thing that you have to do with this list is you you have you can't put anything on it that you've already done. You know, I've lived in Europe, I've lived in the United States, I've lived in Alaska, I've lived in a lot of different places; I can't put I want to live in any of those places on the list. I mean, it's not necessarily that I can't go live in those places. But putting them on the list isn't necessarily what this list is about. Because when we put stuff on the list that we've already accomplished. 

Now, if you want to re-accomplish it, I guess you could put it on the list. But if you put stuff on the list that you've already accomplished, you're defeating the purpose. Because when you are looking to thrive, you have to be looking forward to bringing into your life right now those things that are so valuable that you really want to do that you really want to accomplish. Okay? Another thing you cannot do is you cannot take this off the list; whatever it is that you've got on the list has to stay on the list. Okay, so how do I decide what it is that I want on the list? How do I create this list? How do I begin the process of putting this list into play? Well, the first thing I would say is to ask yourself some questions. What do I want to accomplish? What do I want to learn? Who do I want to meet? Where would I visit? What would I try?

8:59  

What or who do I want to become as you make this list? What you're really doing is you're saying to yourself, This is the path I want to take forward. This is what's going to bring meaning into my life. This is how I'm going to look forward to the life that I want to live so that I don't fail in my life at feeling fulfilled. A lot of times, guys come to me, and they have gone through the motions all their lives. They've done all the right things. They've checked all the boxes. They do everything that they believe they're supposed to, and they forget to put into their lives. Something that has meaning, something that's just for them, something that helps them be calm and feel alive. And too often. This means that when they're down or when they're frustrated, or when they feel lonely. They turn to pornography because it feels good and it's just for them, and it's only for them, and they never share it with anyone else. And I can understand that feeling. I know that feeling for myself. 

But I can also tell you that if you want to create a life that's worth living, the one where you really thrive, you have to do it in a meaningful way. Too many men that I work with do not have anything that they do that's meaningful for them. I want to say that again; I know there are a lot of wives who listen to this. And maybe some of your wives are out there. And you're saying, Oh, well, my husband does something meaningful. But maybe, and maybe he does. But maybe your husband doesn't. Maybe you're, well, he doesn't have time, or he doesn't have this, or he can't. Because of that. I want you to be really aware and really clear. If your husband, or if you as a man who's struggling, especially with pornography, but in life in general, feel you have a thriving life. It's probably because you're not being intentional; it's probably because you don't have something that you're doing, something that you look forward to, something that is important to you, that isn't about someone else, but that is 100% about you. So if you want to thrive in life, choose to thrive, you have to choose to thrive, you have, you know, we talk about the agency on this podcast all the time. And I'm telling you if you want to thrive, you absolutely have to choose to thrive, then identify those values, prioritize the values, and then make a list of things that you can do. That is, that's going to be interesting to you that you're going to want to do. That's, that's important to you. And it only starts with one; you start with one thing, put that thing on the list and start working towards it. And the number of things on your list doesn't matter; nothing on your list.   if you have five things or 10 Things, it's not there's no competition. 

11.23

If you want to put 100 things on it right now, you know what those are great. If you don't know what they are, just wait, and take your time. But you can't take anything off that list. So you got to work on it; you got to be willing to say, I'm gonna do this, this is for me, this is going to happen. And then, of course, nothing on that list can conflict with your values. And the more you live that, that thriving lifestyle, the more likely you are to be able to leave behind the ways in which you cope with your emotions and your disappointments and your frustrations, which is a lot of the reason why lots of men and boredom, right? This is why we choose pornography often. Okay, I hope this has been helpful. I hope you will do something. Make a move. I used this quote this week as I spoke at a life coach event up in Bear Lake. I said, What's the most important step a man can take? And if you know that, if you know that quote, great. I love it. I'm so glad you're here with me. If you don't know, that quote is from a guy named Brandon Sanderson. He wrote a book. And I can't remember which book it's from, but it's from the Stormlight Archives book series, it has a character named Dallin in that book. And he finds out that the most important step a man can take is just the next one. 

Take the next step. Make a move. You've got this. I'm here to help you do it. I'm so excited about what you can do. Alright, my friends. I will see you next week. Have a great week. Talk to you then. Bye. Thanks for listening to the Self Mastery podcast every day Darcy and I work with amazing men and women to remove pornography from their lives and relationships. If you're ready to take the next step in your journey, let us help you sign up for a console at zachspafford.com/workwithzach with me. And you can set up some time for you or your spouse to meet with me or with Darcy, and we can help you get started on your Self Mastery journey.

Listen to the Full Episode:

Enjoy the Show?