Hi guys! Welcome to episode 172 of the wildly Successful lifestyle podcast! How about that title? You won’t regret listening to this episode, I promise! In fact, you might even want to share it if you feel inspired…who couldn’t use a good laugh?
So, I was running on the treadmill this week and it was kind of hard, I was feeling like my energy was low and then I remembered the thing I have been telling myself about my fitness journey. I’m a beast when it comes to the gym. How do beasts show up? What does a beast look like on a treadmill?
Well it isn’t what I was doing, but something happened when I remembered that and there was a shift in the way I felt which made me turn the treadmill speed up faster and then it made me realize that I can do more weight than I’ve been doing because I’m showing up in the way I believed a beast would show up. It actually changed my feelings which changed my actions, which ultimately changed my result. All from a thought. All from the thought and the belief that I’m a beast.
We have so many thoughts and being aware of them is really important. Because they are the reason we succeed or maybe don’t even try to succeed. I hadn’t really thought about my thoughts around the gym or my workouts affected me. I had some pretty not so good thoughts around my ability at the gym.
I used to say “I’m innately lazy, so if I’m not working out with a trainer then I will do the very least I can to get by”. How am I going to show up with that thought? Our brain likes to be right so it is constantly looking to prove that what you are thinking is correct. So, when I am on the treadmill with the thought that I’m innately lazy and will do the least to get by. It will be stuck at 5 miles per hour and I will feel tired the entire time. I probably would do the least I had to and then reward myself by going to the sauna. But when I throw a twist in there and have the thought that I’m a beast then my brain is like well, you better get it together because we got work to do…speed up!
It made me really think about the other areas of my life and what I need to think, what I
Need to believe to show up in the way I ultimately know I want to?
I have another friend that would say “I don’t like people very much.” And she is really fun and people like her very much. And she said it Jokingly of course but it was kind of something she would say regularly. Ha I laugh because when you constantly tell yourself that, your brain is looking for all the things in other people you don’t like instead of the things you do like and you know as well as I do that we can always find something we don’t like in a stranger because when you constantly look for something you will find it or something like it.
I always get passed up for promotions because they don’t like me
-you’re gonna search for things that confirm that
This next one is a big one for people right now. It’s easy to think this but it’s only true if you only look at the bad.
The world is so bad and it’s only getting worse
-This country (And I’m talking about America right now, but it applies to you in Canada or Europe or Japan, all the places where you’re listening). Our world has survived wars, Spanish flu, ebola, Civil war, the great depression. Our founding fathers were brilliant and when writing the constitution they thought of everything. We’re ok, we’re gonna be ok, we are nowhere near living in the worst time of this country, nowhere near it, the media will have you believing something different but you don’t have to listen, and you don’t have to buy into it. Look around you.
The best is yet to come. And when you believe that, you look for reasons to confirm that and I gotta tell you there’s a lot of reasons. IF you can focus on the negative and feel bad, you can just as easily focus on the positive and feel good. It really is that easy. I read an article that someone was talking to a friend in China and she said that nobody there watches the news because they all know it’s propaganda so they just go about their daily life, enjoying it the best way they can. Even Anne Frank wrote “Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy” You’re ok. You really are, the best is yet to come, so let’s change that thought of the world being so bad and switch it to the best is yet to come because it is.
I know that was heavy so in the spirit of lightening things up and because I find this next belief hilarious…oh and if you’re eating maybe skip ahead but I had a friend, and this was a real problem for her. She constantly would tell herself she couldn’t go to the bathroom anywhere but her own house and she would tell me the same thing and I was like, well that’s just silly. She even looked it up because we like to confirm we are right, but she looked it up and it’s a thing. I think they have a name for it “shy bowel syndrome”. She was like “see it’s real”.
Remember we look for confirmation all the time! So when she would travel it was a real problem because she wouldn’t go to the bathroom for days. She literally couldn’t. Finally I said “I think that’s all in your head. You need to stop telling yourself that. You need a new belief about yourself. So we came up with a new thought and now she has created a new belief and she has become a person that can poop anywhere. That’s what she tells herself “I’m a person that can poop anywhere” and I kid you not, she literally can now. I can’t make this stuff up. She called me the other day and her husband was taking her to the airport for a trip and before she got out of the car he said and remembered “you’re a person that can poop anywhere!” Oh man, I laughed for an hour, It’s actually one of my favorite stories.
But it shows the power of our thoughts. Even the little ones. It may not always be as easy as that but it could be, don’t ever limit yourself to the beliefs that are holding you back. But in order to change them, you have to be aware of them so my challenge to you today is to take one area of your life where you feel like you’re stuck and brainstorm all the thoughts and beliefs you have about that area. Just write them all down. There may be some good ones, but tucked away there might be some that are the reason you haven’t been moving forward. You may not even know they’re there until you write them down. And then choose a statement that you can believe. It has to be believable to you for it to work, like I’m a beast, the best is yet to come, or “I’m a person that can poop anywhere. I love you guys and I’ll talk to you in a few days!
