Danny: 0:25

so let me take you back for a second. You remember those old school video games, like in the Nintendo 64, games that I really loved, like Metroid, which was really neat because it was sort of this hybrid between Super Mario and Zelda, which is actually the way they developed it. But what was really interesting was how you saved your game. The way you saved your game, the way you saved your game, was with these ridiculous 24 character codes and you had to scribble it down, and if you lost the code, you were having to start from scratch. But sometimes someone would hand you the cheat code and they might give you three or four of them and you try one and it works. You try another one and it works, but it doesn't give you exactly what you need, and so one of the things that this made me think about was how this works in therapy.

Danny: 1:16

Welcome to Mental Health Potluck, where everyone brings something to the table. I'm Danny Clark, a licensed clinical social worker, family therapist and recovering overthinker. This podcast serves up bite-sized mental health insights, practical wellness tips and conversations that nourish the mind and soul, and today I'm talking about cheat codes, not the kind that you enter with the game, the kind that help you navigate parenting, adulting, burnout, leadership and all those existential side quests that just come up on a daily basis. So here are 15 cheat codes, with one bonus one. That's basically a shameless plug to go to therapy, but these are ones that either I have gotten from other people, I've learned in my own therapy, or I've shared with others and seen that they've worked. So here's the first cheat code that I use quite often, not only with my clients, but with my kids and with myself, and it's that speaking less says a whole lot more.

Danny: 2:14

The fewer words you use, the more people listen, because silence signals confidence and self-control. When you talk less, people lean in more. I mean physically, they'll lean in more. It's human psychology Silence makes you seem more thoughtful, and when you do speak, your words land harder. The fewer the fillers, the more the impact. So here's number two Sleep solves more than you think.

Danny: 2:40

That's right. Deep sleep repairs your brain and your body, boosting your mood, your memory and decision-making abilities. Sleep isn't lazy, right, it's not that thing where oh, I can. Sleep is making me healthier. There's a limit to it, yes, but it is strategic. When you sleep deeply, your brain clears toxins, it restores your energy, and one of the things that happens the most is that it really helps sharpen your focus for the next day.

Danny: 3:04

Have you ever like not gotten good sleep and then everything you tried to do, any decision making, anything you had going on, was much more difficult the next day? That's because of sleep, because it's good medicine, and how you manage your sleep is just as important. As a matter of fact, when I'm with my clients, one of the first few things we sort of dive into is let's talk about how you're sleeping, because if you're not getting good sleep, then the rest of your day is already running on three wheels. So it's a big part of how do we get through our daily lives. I know some people that the way they do their sleep is like super critical, because they've seen the benefit of making sure it's always the best sleep they can get. They do much better on a day-to-day basis with a lot of things, whether it's recovering from a sickness or, you know, dealing with stress, any of that kind of stuff. It's pretty interesting really.

Danny: 3:57

So that brings us to number three, which is that one tiny habit can rewrite your story. So if you're not getting the good sleep, try to change your habit. You see, a consistent small change can rewire neural pathways. It creates like this, ripple effect on your entire life, and so small daily habits stack up into huge life shifts. Your brain thrives on repetition, so that one tiny act it teaches your mind to build a new identity. So take sleep, for example. If you are inconsistent with the time that you go to sleep every night, some nights you stay up way longer than you should, some nights you don't. If you make a tiny habit of saying, okay, every night I shut everything down and go to bed at 10 o'clock, and you do that for a little while. There's other things you might know to start to change too. So it's a huge part of our daily lives. When we are trying to improve or change something that we're doing, we take it into small pieces. I always say how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. So here's number four, since we're sticking with changing behaviors and habits.

Danny: 5:04

Discipline beats motivation hands down. Motivation is fleeting, but discipline creates habits that automate success and reduce stress. You see, motivation is like a spark it's bright but it's short-lived. Discipline builds the fire that keeps you going long after motivation dies out. And motivation will die out. We're faced with stressors, we're faced with obstacles and things that can diminish that. But consistency with discipline is what helps us go forward. So if we're trying to get better sleep, we want to be disciplined about sticking to a routine. If we are just motivated to do it for a few days and we start to see the benefit and we start to slack off from it, well then motivation won over discipline.

Danny: 5:52

But you can't have discipline without the confidence to do what it is you say you're going to do. You see, because number five is confidence is self-trust and action. When you can keep your promises to yourself, it builds internal integrity, it strengthens your sense of control and confidence comes from doing what you say you're going to do. When you show yourself that you can be trusted, it sort of rewrites your brain to believe you're in control and that control helps change habits, helps improve your life and can help get through difficult, stressful times as well, because you trust yourself to get through these things.

Danny: 6:30

Number six is that confidence is learned. It's not like a gift. You see, everyone struggles with self-doubt. But stepping into discomfort builds authentic confidence. Nobody's born confident. It's built by pushing past the discomfort again and again until it feels natural. So while you might feel like, oh well, if I was only confident, I could change these habits, well, you have to lean into this discomfort in order to build the confidence, in order to get through the habits. So they all connect in a lot of different ways. We're not just given confidence, and the way we're raised can help foster confidence, but it's still something that we have to learn and we can change at any time.

Danny: 7:20

This brings us to number seven that no one is watching as much as you think they are. We live in a life of chaos and mistakes and error and suffering. There's a thing called the spotlight effect, which is basically this belief that others notice your flaws, but in reality, everybody's busy noticing their own flaws and being worried about that. Other people see their flaws than they are worried about what flaws of yours they see. It's really sort of this way of building self-criticism. Self-criticism can diminish our confidence. It can diminish our ability to stay focused. It can also diminish that motivation that helps us create the discipline, to create the habit to make our lives better so we can get a full night's sleep.

Danny: 8:07

Which brings us to number eight. You see, when we have these times where we're losing confidence or we make a mistake, we can cling to it for a long time. So number eight is let it go. Most things don't really matter. Your brain magnifies minor issues due to negative bias, but letting go rewrites it for resilience. Your brain loves to overreact, but letting go of small stuff teaches it to focus on what really matters. That's resilience and training. And the one thing you don't hear a lot of people talk about with resilience is self-resilience is basically a do-over. It's a get out of jail free, cardjail-free card. It's a way of saying okay, made a mistake, let's move forward. If we overreact, if we stay focused on the negative side, and that this one misstep is going to change the course of whatever it is we're trying to do, going forward in such a way that it's far beyond the reality of things, well then that's not resilience. That's falling victim to our own problems. So letting go is the biggest gift you can give yourself. Which brings us to number nine.

Danny: 9:14

Showing up, especially on tough days, is really critical for resilience. You see, taking action despite discomfort rewires your brain to associate effort with resilience and growth. Success isn't about feeling ready, it's about showing up regardless. That's how your brain learns resilience. So, knowing that it's going to be tough or that you're going to have some challenges, but still moving ahead. That's where resilience comes from. Just like we talked about discipline and confidence, same with showing up and resilience. It all ties together. It's just different ways of wrapping it up in different kinds of pretty bows. Here's number 10.

Danny: 9:49

Learning to say no guilt-free I will often say no is a complete sentence and a perfectly reasonable answer. Saying no advocates and activates healthy assertiveness, reducing stress and reinforcing your boundaries. When you don't want to partake in something. Saying no doesn't make you a villain. It makes you someone who respects your own time and energy. So learning to say no and not feel guilty about it is a big part of growing in self-confidence. Brings us to number 11. How you let people treat you sets the tone. You see your boundaries teach others your value, reinforcing self-respect and resilience. You see people learn how to treat you by what you tolerate. When you enforce healthy boundaries, it tells the world you value yourself and they'll respect you for it more. Which leads us to number 12.

Danny: 10:41

Don't waste your energy on arguments. People argue to assert control, but letting go preserves your mental resources and peace. So when you set those boundaries, you can sometimes introduce arguments, most arguments are ego traps. Letting go isn't giving up, it's conserving your emotional energy for things that matter most. So pick your arguments, pick your times when it's important to advocate for yourself. But just arguing for the sake of arguing, that's simply an ego trip. And circling back to number one, saying less means a lot more. Just like they say, better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt. So now we've reached number 13, which I think is a pretty important one.

Danny: 11:20

Calm is a hidden superpower, you see. A calm mind activates the parasympathetic nervous system, helping you think clearer and act smarter. Staying calm during stress isn't passive, it's powerful. It keeps your brain in problem-solving mode instead of panic mode. The calmer your response, the more control you hold. So emotional regulation rewires your prefrontal cortex, strengthening your ability to stay composed, which is why in therapy, we work on emotional regulation. So reacting calmly shows you're the one in control and it keeps the power in your hand, especially in an argument.

Danny: 12:02

Number 14 is listen more than you speak. Now, that's not the same as speaking less. You see, active listening fosters trust and connection and it's creating psychological safety in relationships. Okay, if people feel like they can talk to you, it's because they feel like you're listening. And when they feel like you're listening, then they feel valued. And that's because listening is magnetic. It makes others feel that value and opens doors to connection, trust and unexpected opportunities. And when we're talking about active listening, it's not a matter of just sitting there deadpan face listening to somebody. It's actively listening, reacting to what they're saying, looking at them and keeping eye contact and making sure that they know you are engaged and listening fully. Now, that can be hard if somebody is a little wordy or if somebody has personality of droning on about things. But if you can stay focused, the better it is for your relationship with that person. So number 15 is probably critical for everybody to think about, especially in the world where we get so distracted.

Danny: 13:11

Time is your most valuable currency. There is nothing more expensive than your time. So invest it wisely, because you can't earn back time once it's spent and your choices shape your life. Time isn't just money, it's more valuable. Spend it like the rare resource it is because it's the one thing you cannot get back in any way, shape or form. And so when we are finding reasons to procrastinate or we're looking for things that we want to do instead of what we need to be doing, or the discipline to stick with something becomes wavering. We have to remember that the time we're taking away from what it ever is our goal is is time. We don't get back, and nothing tells you more that the value of your time is important than when you lose the time or you lose the people that you had the opportunity to have time with, or you lost the people that you had the opportunity to have time with, or you lost the opportunity to do something you wanted to do because you spent it doing something else. So that's probably one of the most important.

Danny: 14:13

And the last one is that you want to heal your wounds or hurt others. If you don't heal your own wounds, if you don't work on your own stuff, then what happens is you hurt those around you. Unresolved pain leaks into relationships through projection, resentment and defensiveness. Hurt people, hurt people. It's science we know. A lot of the research indicates this. That's why we see generational trauma. We see these patterns of behaviors where one generation has the same essential mental health issues than another. While some of it is hereditary, a lot of it is behavioral, because we're in an environment where unhealed people are causing people to be unhealthy, and healing your own wounds is the best way to stop the cycle and create healthy connections. Which is why and it is an obvious plug going to therapy can be one of the biggest cheat codes of all times.

Danny: 15:03

Therapy can be difficult, but it also is very supportive, and it's one of those places where, if you find the right therapist, the one that understands and can appreciate what it is that you're dealing with, that's a golden ticket to a better life. It's not a matter of I have to go to therapy because there's something terrible happening in my life. It can be I go to therapy because I'm trying to get a better job. I go into therapy because I want to learn how to have more confidence when I'm in interviews, or I'm going to therapy because I have difficulty working with a certain group of people. There can be a lot of reasons why we go to therapy, and it doesn't have to always be that I'm depressed or I'm anxious or I'm stressed. It can be simply because you want to improve in something, whether it's weight loss, whether it's to reduce the amount of time you procrastinate, or whether it's just to excel in the career that you're working with. That's what therapy can do for you.

Danny: 15:56

There's a lot of reasons why people go to therapy, but there's a lot of reasons why people don't, and the ones that don't go to therapy sometimes are the ones that are actually hurting those around them without even realizing that's happening. So I encourage everyone to give it a shot. So there you go 21 cheat codes that won't unlock invincibility, but they just might unlock clarity. These aren't life hacks. They're mindset shifts, and the beautiful thing is that you don't have to master them all. Just try one this week, see what happens, and when you find a cheat code that really works for you, share it with somebody. That's what living is all about Sharing what you learn, giving somebody else the gift of what it is you had to go through to improve and better yourself. Thanks for being here with me today. I'm Danny Clark, and this is Mental Health Potluck, where everyone brings something to the table, and today that something was a little pixel-powered wisdom for the road. See you next time, thank you you.