Jay Shetty

For some it's a walk that has no destination, no podcast.

For some it's a physical practice, not for the fitness, but for the specific experience of being fully in a body rather than fully in a mind.

For some it's cooking a meal slowly and without distraction.

For some it's reading a physical book for 20 minutes before sleep instead of the screen.

The specific anchor is less important than the non-negotiability of it.

The research on self-regulation by Roy Baumeister and others consistently shows that the people with the strongest self-control are not the ones who use willpower most.

They are the ones who have structured their lives so that the most important things require the least willpower to protect.

They've made peace the default, not the exception.

One anchor every day.

Not when you have time.

You'll never have time.

But before the time disappears into everyone else's needs.

The third practice.

This might be the most upsetting thing I'm going to say today.

And I mean it seriously.

You are allowed to disappoint people.

Not cruelly, not carelessly, but deliberately, lovingly in service of your own truth and your own capacity.

The research on chronic people pleasing by psychologist Harriet Breaker in her book, The Disease to Please, found that compulsive people pleasing is not a personality trait.

It's a survival strategy.

It developed because at some point, making other people comfortable felt safer than honoring your own needs.