How to be the Best Version of You [Podcast]

Welcome to the Kokoro Health and Fitness podcast, where we cover topics about the mind, body, and spirit to help you become happier, healthier, and ultimately the best version of yourself. I’m your host, Joe Miller, owner of Kokoro Health and Fitness, a small group and personal training studio located right here in Atlantic Beach, Florida. Today’s topic is about becoming the best version of you. I will discuss self-assessment, motivation for change, why to become the best version of yourself, and steps you can take to become the best version of yourself.

*A quick disclaimer before we get started. This channel is for informational purposes only. Our goal is to help create a stronger, healthier, happier community of mentally, physically, and spiritually fit individuals by providing information for discussion that has helped us and our clients both personally and professionally. If you are in need of immediate help at this time, we recommend that you seek a medical professional and not just rely on advice from some random dude on the internet.

Self-Assessment

Let’s move on to today’s first topic self-assessment. I’m going to read you a little blurb that I wrote while coming up with this podcast.

Honest self-assessment is the first step to becoming the best version of yourself. Your foundation has been laid for your entire life up to this point. That sometimes means that we need to rip that foundation up and lay a new one. With a newly built foundation, you can begin building the new you.

Pretty straightforward. If you have a s***** foundation, rip it up. Build a new foundation. I promise that if you do that and you take positive small steps that are consistent, it’s going to help.

Some good results from a self-assessment could be motivation for change. Motivation is where it starts, but discipline will take you all the way. The best version of you is the current one today that’s working on becoming the best version of you. It sounds a little inverse thinking, but if you’re regularly doing things to become a better version of yourself, then that day’s version is the best version of you and it’s a lifelong journey. So get used to the process and you can learn to enjoy it.

So for self-assessment, some of the questions that you want to ask yourself:

• Are you happy?
• Are you physically capable?
• Do you embrace the spiritual practice, the mind, body, and spirit?

It’s exactly what Kokoro means. It’s the essence of mind, body, and spirit. That’s how we train people and that’s how we live our lives.

Are you happy?

So let’s round it back to the first one. Are you happy? This is a very simple question to ask, but it can be a very complex answer. Some people will see someone with less and see them smiling. And then you’ll see people with everything. And they are miserable. Happiness is purely intrinsic, but it is influenced by external factors.

Another thing that can affect your overall happiness. How are you eating? If you eat like crap, you feel like crap. Sugary drinks, excessive alcohol, smoking, hard drugs, all of these things while in the moment they make you feel kind of nice. Ultimately, they’re not doing you any favors. They’re just masking or completely berating your actual happiness. And then you rely on those things to make you happy.

Do your emotions swing freely? Do you find that you’re very quick to anger, very quick to become sad? Act very impulsively because you can’t control your emotions. Now, I’m not a doctor, but I will say that if you have a lot of swinging, probably not very happy because nobody is happy, that’s swinging constantly. Happy- sad – mad – glad… That is just not a fun way to live. So having those extremes would be a sign that you’re probably ultimately not happy. Got to get up here right.

Are you physically capable?

The second main question is, are you physically capable? Now, this comes in a variety of things. So what somebody would consider physically capable, somebody else would say, that’s impossible for me. So it’s all relative. Some key areas that I consider universal are:

Are your daily tasks easy or difficult? That’s a pretty straightforward one. If your day-to-day life is too difficult for you to do. Maybe getting in a little better shape, and making it physically easier would be a positive thing. I’m not talking about your work if you work outdoors, but your things around the home, picking up the kids, groceries, cutting your lawn, just cleaning your house, and getting up and down out of your chair. If those things are all very difficult for you, you need to take a hard look at your lifestyle and maybe start taking positive steps to make those easier. I guarantee you that if your daily tasks become easy and they no longer become a burden physically, mentally they’ll also be easier to do.

Are there things that you wish you could do but don’t feel like you really can? You just see people that always just seem to be able to do stuff and they’re always outdoors doing this and that, and they don’t hit the gym all the time. You don’t need to. You just need to be active. And that’s living an active lifestyle. But if you want to go hike the Grand Canyon one day, but don’t even like walking down a flight of stairs, maybe consider getting on a Stairmaster a couple of days a week. Something like that is a small step to get you toward that ultimate goal. So if you go see it instead of just hanging out on the rim, you can go down and hike it. It’s really awesome. I promise. It’s great. The river is extremely cold.

Next part. Do you have physical confidence? Physical confidence is very important. Do you walk like this or do you walk like this? Chest out, head up, eyes forward. Looking people in the eye when you shake their hand, that is physical confidence. Those are things to consider. When you see somebody who is strong and confident and happy, they typically do those things. They walk upright, they shake hands firmly. They look people in the eye when they speak. And that’s something to consider.

Next part, do you want to be there for your kids, your grandkids, your family, and for friends, both physically and mentally? If you are that physically fit, happy person, not only are you being there for them when they need a helping hand, but you’re also there when they need a shoulder to cry on. Because if you’re happy, you have that emotional security and then they can rely on you not only physically but emotionally. That is irreplaceable.

Then the last part comes down to, do you eat in a way that promotes your physical health? Just like mental health, if you eat like crap, you will feel like crap. Just put the junk down. It’s pretty straightforward. Nobody is forcing you to take what’s in your hand and shove it in your mouth and eat it. For most of us, that is 100% in our control is what we consume. You’re consuming excessive amounts of sugary drinks, alcohol, chips, sugary things like sweets, candy, and all that, or eating too much fried food. Those are all really bad for you. Your body is a survival machine, so it’ll let you live, but it’s not going to be very good. And if you clean up your diet, it will also help you physically and mentally.

Do you embrace a spiritual practice?

The third question to ask yourself is do you embrace a spiritual practice? Now, this is a recent development for me in the last few years, but I’ve noticed a dramatic shift in my overall happiness level after developing a spiritual practice, and feeling basically more whole is how I can describe it now.

I don’t push this on anybody. Whatever your spiritual practice means to you, that’s great. I found personally that it’s been very beneficial and some questions to ask yourself about your spiritual practice if you do have one, how often do you take time for it? Pretty important question. It’s if you don’t actually practice your spiritual practice, it’s not very beneficial.

Would you like to improve at it and does it serve you? Having a spiritual practice that doesn’t really resonate with you internally. Say following something you were following since childhood and now as an adult, you don’t really agree with, you just do it because now it’s a habit. If it’s not serving, you maybe find something else. Again, this is entirely up to you, but that’s something to consider if the spiritual practice that you’re doing does not bring you happiness at all and it’s a burden to do, then why are you doing it?

That pretty much wraps it up for the self-assessment questions. Quick roundabout, are you happy, are you physically capable, do you practice something spiritually? That’s not all-encompassing, but those are the things that really work for me, and those are the questions I asked myself when I was really assessing my life a couple of years ago.

Why become the best version of you?

The next part is why to become the best version of yourself, pretty simple, why do you want to do it?

I say do it for yourself. You feel confident, you feel accomplished, and whole. I promise, if you feel confident, accomplished, and whole spiritually, you’re going to be a pretty happy person. And that is a great step to being the best version of you.

Do it for those around you. If you’re the best version of yourself, everyone gets to experience that, not just you.

Life is better when you’re better. It really is since life is all about perspective, if you are happy and you are the best version of yourself and you’re enjoying life, life is better. It’s not all doom and gloom, I promise you. It is better when you become better.

Fourth reason. Live life to the fullest in your own way, not just exist and wait for it to end. There’s a big difference between living and existing, and if you are happy and you are confident, you are whole, and you are going to live life. You’re not just going to exist anymore and just do the same thing over and over again that you feel sad about and it doesn’t really make you happy, but you do it anyway because you feel stuck. You can see how that is really draining. Go against the grain and live life as long as you’re not harming others, then do it. Who cares?

Now the why to become the best version of you… those are just four examples that I believe in, you have to figure that out for yourself. You can do that by asking yourself the questions in the self-assessment.

Tips To Become The Best Version Of You

Now let’s move on to some steps to become the best version of you.

Mind

1. Step number one, focus on the things that you can control. As soon as I realized that I just needed to focus on what I can control, life got a lot smoother, almost instantaneously. So what can you control?
   • You can control your mind, man. What’s up here?
   • How you speak. Words are powerful. Once it’s said it can’t be taken back if you truly love someone and then you say I hate you one time, that’s what’s going to stick. So even jokingly control what you say, control how you talk to yourself. If you’re constantly saying I’m an idiot, I’m dumb, I’m doing this and doing that well, if you say it enough, you’ll believe it. Even if it’s little sayings. But that is something that I completely cut out in the last couple of years was all negative self-talk. And that’s something that even in the gym that when there’s negative self-talk, I reframe that and shifted it into something positive. Like when a client says, “Man, that was a s***** set”, “hey man, there are no s***** sets. You didn’t get all the reps that you needed, but you showed up and put in the effort. You should be proud of that hard work”. See, that’s taking “Hey, that was a s***** set” into “Hey, you’re trying really hard and failure is just a part of it”. Turning those negative things into a positive spin is not denying reality, it’s simply re-addressing how you look at it.
2. Next, remove all negative connotations to things. Instead of “Oh man, I have to do this or I have to do that”. You get to do this, you get to do that. Why? Because you’re alive and you’re physically capable and you get to do things you get to go to work because it gives you money, which then you can provide for yourself and your family. You get to do those things because you’re capable. Not everyone can. You shouldn’t compare yourself to others, but you should also count your blessings.
3. Get rid of negative self-talk. If you’re not nice to yourself, who else is going to be?
4. Next, start focusing on the do’s instead of the don’ts. If you focus on all the ways that something can fail, more than likely it’s going to fail. But if you focus on all the ways you can succeed, then you have a higher probability of succeeding. Winners don’t think about losing, they just think about winning. If you focus on winning, more than likely you’re going to be a winner. Now, that doesn’t mean that you win every situation or every scenario, but having that positive mindset makes a gigantic difference in your total outcome.

Body

So we cover the mind. Let’s talk about the physical self. What can you control?

1. You control everything that you consume. So what you eat, what you drink, the media that you watch, and the books that you read, all of those are in your control. So if you find yourself fired up all the time and then you look at your browsing history on YouTube and it’s all stuff that fires you up, maybe unsubscribe from some of those channels, switch the things that you like instead of focusing on watching it and letting it rile you up and piss you off and I’m going to comment mean stuff on it instead of doing that… [swipping motion with hand] That’s it. That little thumb motion right there, just skip on by it. It doesn’t serve you to allow that stuff to make you angry all the time.
2. Next thing you control is sleep. You can control your schedule when you go to bed when you wake up. Now, of course, this is dictated by life, but generally speaking, get on a schedule. You’re curious about how to check out our first podcast.
3. Next, you can control your exercise if you have limiting factors. That is unfortunate, but there is always something you can do because you are in control. You may not be able to afford a gym, but you have outside, go on daily walks. If you can’t run, walk. If you can’t lift heavy weights, lift light weights. It doesn’t really matter. Every barrier that you put up on yourself is just that a self-imposed barrier and a limitation. You can control what you do to exercise.
4. Next your body language. I’m leaning in right now. I’m talking I’m trying to make my point very clear. If I was doing this pretty crappy body language, right, that tells me that I’m closed off and not very interested, leaning forward when somebody is speaking shows them interest.Walking with your chest, proud, your head up, showing confidence. You can control that. And you don’t have to be confident to walk with confidence. But walking with confidence will certainly help you get confident.

Spirit

And the next thing is your spiritual practice.

1. You can control how often you practice.
2. Who you practice with.
3. You control why you’re practicing it.

You don’t have to practice anything if you don’t want to. And the thing that you’re currently doing, if it doesn’t serve, you do something else. Plain and simple, just don’t hurt people. That’s pretty much it.

That pretty much covers the steps. Very, very brief summary. Your mind, that’s the ultimate factor. Control what you say to people and how you say things to yourself, control what you consume, when you sleep, when you exercise, and your body language actively do your spiritual practice.

Conclusion On Becoming The Best Version Of You

In summary, are you happy? Are you physically capable? Do you have a spiritual practice? Why you need to do this is for yourself first and foremost, then for others around you. Because life gets better and live instead of existing. And then lastly, mind how you speak to yourself and others, take care of your body, and have a consistent spiritual practice… If you want to, obviously, so you don’t have to. Once again, I am not a psychologist. I am a human being, just like you and I have found ways to become happier, healthier, and more successful and I’m simply sharing that with you and my clients.

If this helps you, that’s awesome. If you don’t like it, okay, that’s fine too. It doesn’t really matter at the end of the day, because that’s kind of the whole point, isn’t it? Find what makes you happy.

So thank you for joining me in talking about how to become the best version of yourself. This is just the tip of the iceberg, but I hope you did find value in this and if you did, please give us a like and subscribe and share this with a friend who may benefit from this as well.

We hope you have a great day. Remember the happiness, the state of mind.

Today’s topic is about becoming the best version of you. I will discuss self-assessment, motivation for change, why to become the best version of yourself, and steps you can take to become the best version of you. 

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This channel is for informational purposes only. Our goal is to help create a stronger, healthier, happier community of mentally, physically, and spiritually fit individuals by providing information for discussion that has helped us, and many clients, both personally and professionally. If you are in need of help at this time we recommend that you seek a medical professional and not just rely on advice from some random people on the internet.