Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 135 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! If you are new, scroll down and subscribe. I have 2 episodes each week, one on Monday and one on Friday just in time to get your week started in a mindful way and your weekend off to a good start. While you are at it, give me a 5 star rating if you love the episode, it makes a huge difference in the podcast universe, you’re actually helping other people hear the message when you do that so thank you.
Most people and I don’t think you’re one of them by the way, because I bet you are a free thinker . But there is a mass group of people especially right now that is simply reacting to every single new thing they hear without any thought as to how they really think of it. So many jump onto the latest crisis or outrage. The media says jump and they ask “how high?” The distraction box (also known as the TV) is numbing people into thinking they are living by watching other people on tv live. The gadget you hold in your hand is responsible for a lot of people not reaching their goals because the habit of scrolling is the new drug. It is hard to stop and it causes you to miss out on things you would feel better if you did like exercise, face to face connection and nature. I picked up my phone just this morning to listen to my morning podcast and Instagram was open, I started scrolling and then I went wait a minute, I was opening my phone to listen to a podcast not go down a rabbit hole, which is sooooo easy to do. 3 hours later, we wonder why we have no time. It’s crazy.
We have come to a point where we as a society worship those that have 20 million followers. That’s how some even define success.
That’s great. I don’t want to undermine the people making things happen because that’s not fair to them. Applaud those people but that isn’t the only definition of success. I looked it up and Success means “the favorable outcome of something attempted.” The original meaning is basically a happy outcome.
That guy with 20 million followers. Would he be able to be happy if Instagram or Twitter decided he didn’t have those 20 million followers anymore? Maybe he would, I don’t know, I hope so Because they do have that power, just to take it away. That’s why it’s so important to get the feelings we are searching for externally, to feel them internally first. Then if it happens externally great but if that goes away we are fine because we already feel it with no external validation.
When I first started my podcast, ok I’ve talked about this before. I really wanted to have a certain number of listeners. Once I really was spending so much time on mindset, I did a thought download where I broke down why. Why did I want a certain number of listeners? When I dug deep and I was honest with myself it was so others would be impressed and I’d feel seen, I’d feel valued and I’d feel worthy. So I realized I obviously needed to focus on feeling those 3 things (feeling seen, valued and worthy) internally because then they are truly mine and no one can take that away. It’s an extremely empowering feeling to know this about myself. And look, it was a little embarrassing for me to write that down in my journal that I was looking for others to be impressed with, but knowing what the feelings are that you are searching for externally can make you realize what you need to be working on internally. That’s a good thing to know. My definition of success with my podcast now is one person at a time and it started with me.
We get to define what success means to us. Because how many favorable outcomes or happy outcomes do we have every single day? I would venture to say quite a few if you list them out. Yesterday I exercised, meditated and journaled. Success. I got to spend lots of time with people I really enjoyed…which was a happy outcome…which is the definition of success. Recognizing the small successes and celebrating those put us on the path of ultimate success especially if you have clarity of what you want.
You have a path a journey that is as unique as you are. No one else on this earth is going to have the same path. So you know what that means? It means you have to be in tune with yourself. You ultimately are the only one that truly knows what you want. We need to be spending a little time each day truly working on our self and what we want for the day, for the week and even the year. We have to be tuning to our own station, so to speak. You know how we used to listen to the radio and if you were on channel 99.5, you were listening to whatever signals 99.5 were sending out. You didn’t go to 99.5 to hear the music that 88.3 plays.
The media, Netflix, Facebook are on channel 99.5 and so are a mass majority of people. Just following like zombies the latest crisis and reacting to it. They are trying to define success for you. They are trying to tell you what you should be thinking about, who you should be outraged at, what you should be afraid of this week and it will eat up your time and your brain will buy into it every time. Which doesn’t feel good. That isn’t going to show you your unique path because it’s designed to keep you addicted like a drug so that you keep coming back and just like a drug, it will steal the joy from your life… because you have so much good that is waiting for you.
You want to feel joy, to feel alive and inspired every single day? You can, but You have to tune into the channel that is playing that tune. You have to live as your authentic self. And sometimes we are off track to the point that we don’t even know who that authentic self is. That’s where meditation, journaling, and exercise really come in handy for me and that may not work for you, but there is something that WILL work, you just have to play with it a bit. Maybe it’s walking in nature, sitting in the sauna, spending time with people that make you laugh, listening to an awesome podcast. Find something that will get you tuned in to feeling really good and then you are building momentum for that. You will start seeing it everywhere.
If that channel is at 88.3 and you’re tuned there a majority of the time you are going to pick up so much momentum that you will amaze even yourself. And at first you will want to go back to 99.5 because your brain misses the drama, but after a while, you will see it is all just noise. It’s just like a muscle you are building in your physical body, it will be uncomfortable at first but eventually you will crave the calm, inspired feeling you get from tuning away from distractions.
My challenge to you this week is list 1 goal you are working towards externally. Figure out what feeling you think that goal will give you. Ask yourself how you can feel that internally first. Second, write down 3 things you can do every single day that will tune you into the channel of feeling alive and inspired. You’ll be amazed at the feelings you can create when you are dancing to your very own tune. I love you guys and I’ll talk to you in a few days.
