How to Actually Change Your Life

Everyone wants to change, but lasting transformation rarely begins with motivation.

In this solo episode, Sam Weber explores why meaningful change starts when you’ve finally had enough of living the same patterns. He discusses the role of self-compassion, forgiveness, purpose, and the importance of taking small, consistent steps toward becoming the person you want to be.

Rather than chasing external success, this conversation asks a deeper question:

Who are you becoming?

If you’ve been feeling stuck—or you’re ready to make a meaningful change—this episode offers a practical framework for moving forward.

What is The Bigger Why?

The Bigger Why is a long-form podcast exploring meaning, growth, mindset, purpose and the decisions that shape a life and drive behavior.

Hosted by Sam Weber, the show features unhurried conversations with founders, CEOs, authors, creators, artists, actors, investors and thought leaders about focus, ambition, failure, regret, triumph, philosophy, personal growth and the stories behind success, sacrifices made, lessons gleaned and wisdom embodied along the way.

00:00:00 Speaker: Really starts with hitting bottom homeless, living on the streets, addicted to drugs. I treated myself in a way that I would not want someone else to be treated and gone along doing the same thing and getting the same results. Being able to be more present, being able to take more risks, being able to live a more fulsome and freer life. Hey, Sam Weber here. Thanks for tuning in. Uh, today I want to speak a little bit about the question of how does one go about changing their lives. Seems like a really big question. How do you change your life? How do you go from where you are to where you want to get to? Um, now you might be asking yourself, well, what makes you so qualified, Mr. Sam, to give me advice on where I should be going or what steps I should be taking, uh, to make changes to my life and who said my life needs any changing? Um, well, if you're watching this video, I assume you're looking for some guidance or some assistance. And so just very briefly, uh, to touch on sort of my brief experience, um, in the last, I would say five or six years, I have been obsessed, uh, to the point of insanity, almost obsessed with, you know, what makes me tick? I really started with the fundamental questions, um, you know, looking inside and trying to figure out why I'm engaging in certain behaviors. At the time I was quitting smoking, that's, um, what led me on a sort of this path, um, of, and I hate to use the word self-actualization because it's so overused nowadays, but, um, this path of trying to, um, move myself in another direction, you know, I had this vision that, um, my life was not playing out as I wanted it to be. And so I felt sort of afraid to take risks for things that really aren't all that scary, such as making this video, putting out public content and other sort of things that really shouldn't be all that scary. But at the time were. Um, and so the task of getting rid of that crutch of cigarettes for me was a very, very, very challenging experience. And to do that, I leaned a lot upon the wisdom of various books and podcasts. Um, the Rich roll podcast being one of them. Um, and so I've spent a ton of time kind of delving into the issue and sort of my thoughts on the subject after sort of digesting various sources, uh, and thinking about this a lot. Is it really starts with hitting bottom. Um, and it doesn't necessarily mean something drastic has to happen to you where you are actually at the bottom. The ideal is you. In an ideal scenario, you get to a point where you don't hit the real bottom. Um, but to you, it feels like you've hit bottom and whatever that bottom actually means will be very different for each person. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're homeless, living on the streets, addicted to drugs. It doesn't necessarily mean, um, that you've exhausted all your money. Uh, doesn't necessarily mean that your family has left you, doesn't necessarily mean that you've completely blown up your life. Um, it can simply mean you've reached a point where you've had enough, um, you've felt that you've gone along doing the same thing and getting the same results and wondering why are things not planning out as I had planned? So odds are when you were younger, you had a certain vision for your life. You had a certain way that you thought your life would go. And then at some point Along the lines. You just put one foot in front of the other and you let life take you where it was going. Only to wake up and say, well, this is not really how I envisioned things. Um, I thought of thought maybe I would be farther along. Um, and we can, you know, maybe in a different, um, episode, sort of discuss what we mean by farther along. What are you benchmarking against? You're sort of comparing yourself versus someone else. So I shouldn't really give the impression that you need to be anywhere else other than where you are. Um, but if you are in a place where you think yourself, you know, I've, I've been struggling with this issue, whatever that issue may be. And maybe for me it was cigarette smoking for someone else, it might be, you know, a drinking problem for someone else, it might be a gambling problem for someone else. It might be a porn addiction. Uh, for someone else, it might be, uh, an eating disorder for someone else. It might just be they feel that they would like to be more active or just more, um, in their own body, in their own mind. Um, being able to be more present, being able to take more risks, being able to live a more fulsome and freer life. Um, to do that, you need to, to start with be fed up. Um, and you reach a place where you say, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to have to start making some changes. And I assume by watching this video, if you're still watching this video, you probably have hit that point. Um, now ironically, I'm going to guess this isn't the first time you've hit that point. Um, it was certainly that way for me. Um, you know, I tried quitting one hundred thousand times, um, before it actually stuck. And I would say that even though you've heard this message a thousand times before, it's really a matter of not giving up and being extremely persistent. Um, and you may just hear the message again from someone else in a different way, but more importantly, at a different time or place in your life, things mean something else to each person, not on a constant basis. The same thing doesn't necessarily mean the same thing to you in all circumstances. You may hear something at one point in your life and then have a different vantage point. As you go through life and have other experiences, you reflect upon those events and then realize, um, through another lens what something means. And maybe, you know, at one point you weren't actually ready or you were ready, but something else came about and derailed you. And so it really starts with the willingness to say, okay, we've done things a certain way. Let's not dwell on the past and we're going to go and try to make changes. Now, when I say not dwelling on the past, it doesn't mean not to do something like therapy or not to reflect or do introspection or sort of revisit traumas or when you're ready, um, or figure out and feel emotions and, um, sort of, you know, stuff them down. That's not at all what I'm trying to say. Um, but it means willing to forgive yourself and be compassionate with yourself to say, okay, I've made some mistakes. I have treated myself in a way that I would not want someone else to be treated and that I wouldn't treat another person. But yet for some reason, I have felt okay mistreating myself. And so it's reaching a point where you say, going forward, we're going to do things differently. Um, and so the first step is reaching that low point, so to speak, um, as demarked by some kind of recognition that we're now turning the page, we are going to be forgiving of what we've done up until this point. Because I think without compassion, the guilt will really continuously, um, try to pull you downward. And so it's saying we're going to be compassionate, we're going to move forward. Um, and now we're going to do things differently. And so I tend to like to think about things as having a true north, and the true north is the direction that we're going in, but we hold it somewhat loosely. And so, you know, you may hear some people speak about, well, let's think about what the goal is, and then let's reverse engineer that and map it backwards. Um, I tend to do things a little bit differently. I tend to think about what is the direction I want to go in, um, with some end destination in mind. I want to get to a certain place where this is how my life looks. These are the qualities of the person living that life. Um, you know, what are the attributes of that person and let me work towards getting those attributes. Um, and then it's taking one step and another step and another step and putting one foot in front of the next foot in front of the next foot and just continuing to go while holding the North Star loosely. And I say loosely, because the ultimate goal can shift and as you go through as you go through the transformational process, you may realize that what you thought you were envisioning was actually something completely different. And so, for example, when I quit smoking, I didn't have on my list, hey, let's go out and make a video such as this, some sort of monologue where you're going to be explaining your vision, your journey, your, your, your personal life. That certainly wasn't something that was, um, you know, in the cards from the design at the outset. It was something that along the line along the way, um, I became passionate about, uh, the sort of subject matter of self-help and, um, um, betterment, um, and sort of psychology and purpose and philosophy and theology and all these things really go hand in hand, um, and really interplay in many various ways. So I didn't have this as a goal from the outset, but somewhere along the line I got along the lines, I got excited about it, and then I wanted to share it. And so then it became something. Well, now we have another thing that we're sort of bringing into the fold. But, um, so it's holding that North star loosely and then, um, sort of thinking of it, thinking of it as like rungs on a ladder, but the ultimate destination is sort of a TBD, you know, where you want to go. You have sort of this loose vision. And the question is in every action that you take, um, is that bringing you closer to the person you want to be? Uh, is that bringing you closer to the realization of the, of the way you want to live, of sort of your hopes, your dreams, your desires, your passions. And the answer is yes, then great. And the answer is no, then no. And it's really as simple as that. And sort of seeing where the journey takes you. And, and a lot of it, um, is really sort of letting go and recognizing that the world kind of works in a, in, in mysterious ways, as they say, um, where you can only control what you can control at the moment. You can't really focus on the outcome. It's really much more about the process. And you hear this all the time in the fitness community where you know, it's about falling in love in the process and the legal world. We always say sort of, you know, the reward for doing good work is more work. It's about, you know, if you want to make music, the reward for being able to make good music is just you get to make music. It's, um, you know, it's, it's, it's falling in love with what you're doing and feeling like you're going in the right direction. And the truth is, if you're doing the things that you're supposed to be doing, you will feel good about yourself and you will feel good about the trajectory that you're on. And ultimately, you realize the end goal wasn't really what you wanted. So if your end goal is, hey, I want to live in this really nice, expensive, lavish house, I want to have a really nice car. You know, it's probably not those things per se, which you want. Um, you know, you probably maybe are looking for validation or maybe you're looking for self-worth or maybe you're looking for purpose, or maybe you just want people to see you. You know, there could be all kinds of various real underlying motivations at play. And when you figure those out and you work through those, you may wind up realizing that, you know, I don't actually necessarily need those things. Um, I'm much more happy and content and self-satisfied with who I am as a person that you realize that the targeted objectives weren't actually the real objectives. Um, but rather there was something else at play. And so that's why I say hold it loosely, because you don't really know what the goal really is. Like, for example, if someone says, hey, I want to go to Harvard Law School. Um, and then they might study really hard, you know, do extremely well on their SATs, go through college, do well on Lsats, and then they may apply to Harvard and not get in. Um, will they be let down? Well, what do you think's going to happen to that person if they really studied hard and they and they worked really hard. If they don't get into Harvard, maybe they'll get into Yale, maybe they'll get into Stanford, maybe they'll get into Columbia. And it wasn't that the goal was to get into Harvard. The goal was really to get into a higher education system that was going to set them up for success in the profession of law. But if you really unpack that, it may not have even been that those were the real goals. Maybe the reason why you wanted to be a lawyer in the first place was because you wanted to stand up for social justice, or you wanted to make a change in the world, or you wanted to have, uh, you know, some sort of meaning and purpose. And so you really were after meaning and purpose. And maybe somewhere along the way you find meaning and purpose in something else and realize that you actually enjoy that other thing more and you wind up doing that other thing. So, uh, it's a long way of saying that if you do what you're supposed to do, and when I say supposed to, I don't mean any kind of third party external source. I'm not saying supposed to because your mother said you're supposed to, because your father said you're supposed to, because your kids, your sister, your wife, or even your religion says you're supposed to. I'm talking about because, you know, at your core, this is what you're supposed to be doing. Um, which is great because you already know, you already know what it is you're supposed to be doing. If you really, um, listen carefully and quietly. There's that voice inside that's telling you where you want to go and what you're supposed to be doing. And if that voice isn't there, it could just be that you've been sort of numbing yourself for so long. Um, with materialistic things. Um, you know, it could be you're numbing yourself with video games, you're numbing yourself with Netflix. It could be you're numbing yourself with food. It could be numbing yourself with cigarettes. You know, it doesn't have to be the obvious ones like drugs or, um, things of that nature. It can be just numbing yourself with the ordinary things that society will tolerate. Um, and whether or not, you know, society is something that's accepting of it is more of a social construct rather than, you know, do you feel comfortable being in your own skin? Do you feel comfortable being yourself? And so there's a lot of talk about, you know, in literature and on social media about being yourself. We want to see you. And it's sort of this Western idea of kind of, um, be yourself, but the, the, the, um, the idea is really that an idea that's centric to this philosophy of the individual sort of having, um, you know, having this divine divine, I should say, uh, spark or an inherent self worth, I guess, I think would be a better way of putting it that each human has a inherent self worth, which isn't, you know, objectively, objectively delineated by what your accomplishments are or things that you could point to in a wall. You know, it's very easy when you're seeking kind of status to compare oneself to someone else and say, look, I have either more money or I have more pedigrees or higher degrees, or if I have achieved X, Y, and Z. And those are just easy, simple ways of benchmarking. But if you strip all those away and you say, well, if I don't have any of those things, what do I have, then you're really you don't have the true self worth or recognition that you do have self worth. And so, um, in some, the process, the process for really making life altering changes is actually quite simple. It's coming to a place where you feel I've reached bottom. This is the end of the line. This is where things stop. The buck stops here, but we're being compassionate about it. We're saying we're forgiving ourselves for the things that we have done. We're not dwelling on the past. We're not afraid to revisit it or, um, sort of do the hard work of, of, of excavating, you know, the underlying emotional, um, traumas, so to speak. And we, you know, call them the little t's not necessarily major events, but sort of the things that, um, were triggering for you and forgiving yourself for the things you've done in the past and being willing to move forward. And then and moving forward, you have this vision, this goal of where you want to go of the type of person you want to be. And it's just taking one step at a time, putting one foot in front, front of another, and just making the daily small decisions day in and day out. Um, just asking the question, is this helping me or is this hurting me? And it doesn't have to be big, big, big goals. It could be if you want to start running, going to buy sneakers. And now, okay, I know I need to buy sneakers now. I want to research what sneakers do I need? So right now your goal is literally just what sneakers should I be getting? You're doing a little bit of research to figure out what kind of sneakers you're getting excited by it, and then you're getting the sneakers. And now your goal is, okay, how do I run? What kind of training protocol should I have? Or maybe you just start off walking and maybe you're just going to say, I'm going to walk around the block, you know, one time today. And then then you walk around the block twice and three times. Then slowly but surely you'll see. You'll make one positive change that will lead to another positive change. And then you'll look back over a longer period of time, and you'll be surprised as how far you can go. Um, so thank you. If you're still watching this, I really appreciate you tuning in. And, um, I'll be making more of those would greatly appreciate any support. Um, if you want to subscribe to the channel to see more of these, uh, any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Bye.