Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 239 of the “Wildly Successful Lifestyle” podcast! Are you ready for this one? I’m really feeling it today so I hope you’re ready, because I am and we have so many amazing opportunities waiting for us. There has never been a better time for us to know how to be successful, to know how to be healthy, to know how to make our relationships the best they can be. You know why I say that? Because within seconds because of technology that information can be at our fingertips. Everything we need is there, we just have to know exactly what we want and then line up with it.
Lining up with it could mean putting ourselves in the right place to meet the right people, it could mean joining a group that holds us accountable each week for taking the action we know we need to take to get the results we want. Who and what we surround ourselves with is a really really big deal.
There are irrefutable studies showing we are what we consume, physically and mentally and we are heavily influenced by our environment. We are being programmed every single day. You don’t control the fact that you are being programmed, that’s part of the human experience, but you DO control how you’re programmed.
There are so many examples I can give on how we are programmed every single day. Just knowing that you control how you are programmed can actually help you decide what you’re reading, watching, who you’re hanging with if that all lines up with what you want in life. Does it empower you? Is it making you better?
So if we are being programmed let’s be intentional about it right?
I was listening to a ted talks this week and the speaker was giving an example of how easy it is for us to be influenced or programed if you’re a country music kind of guy or girl and that’s what you listen to in the car to work and back, that’s just what you’ve always have done but your car breaks down and in the shop so your neighbor who works with you says hey ride with me so for the next 5 days you’re riding in her car and she listens to jazz music on the way and back from work. At first you hate it and it’s annoying but after 3 days you’re tapping your feet by the fifth day you’re humming it in the shower. I bet you can think of something like that that’s happened to you. I’ll give you an example of how that showed up in my life.
Way before sparkling water was a thing here, it’s what My husbands family drank in Germany. 15 years ago We were visiting for 2 weeks, which is one of my favorite things. I love them so much. We actually have our own little apartment on the top floor of their house which they have stocked with water and fruit and chocolates and new pjs. It’s awesome. But the water they had stocked was all sparkling. At the time I didn’t drink it and didn’t like it at all. Sparkling water In German it’s wasser mit gas. So I asked Eric if he could ask his aunts to get just regular water, or in German Wasser kine gas. They do not speak English so he did his best to convey that. The next day we had an entire case of Light gas, still sparkling just lighter. I was definitely not going to worry them again so for 2 weeks I drank lightly sparkling water. When that ran out I drank the full sparkling water. Well once I got back home the regular water didn’t taste as good and guess what? I’ve been drinking and loving sparkling water ever since. We are very programmable by what we do. It’s the law of conformity.
Peter Sage describes it as this.
“The law of conformity is the 95 percent law. If you hang out with nine motivated, go-getting, positive individuals you’re going to become the tenth. If you hang out with nine people who use recreational drugs, sit on the couch and eat Haagen Dazs and KFC, you’re going to become the tenth.”
This may have triggered some thoughts about things that are programming you.
We all live in reality. You probably aren’t always going to be around positive, healthy, happy, driven people and reading or watching good positive stuff, but can you work some of that in? Can you make sure that every day you listen to SOMETHING that makes you better? This podcast is a good example. There are others out there too. I’ve got you covered on Monday and Friday. You could add in Brooke Castillo’s podcast on Thursday and then maybe let Brendon Burchard fill up Tuesday and Wednesday.
These are all short inspirational podcasts that you can listen to while you’re driving anywhere. That’s an easy way to get some positive stuff in. And maybe your friends and family don’t represent the health goals you have so maybe you join a class at the gym and meet people working towards the same goal you are. I love group fitness especially for that reason. And maybe you’re like me and no one you know is working towards the same business goals you are so you join or create a mastermind. I just created one. It’s over zoom but that’s ok, I’m excited about it because these are like minded people working towards similar things as me and we will work together to help and keep each other accountable.
Thanks to Covid, most of us are used to Zoom now so it’s fairly easy to find a group of people that are working towards the same things you are, you only have the entire world to search through. One of the girls in my mastermind group lives in Tanzania! Literally across the world.
You’re only limited by your own thinking and that expands to everything you’re doing. The world truly is your oyster. We can’t use the old excuses anymore. They don’t work. The internet has made the other side of the world closer than ever.
So think about yourself and any habits you’ve picked up lately. Are they making you better? Small daily habits may not seem like a big deal until you look at them from a bird’s eye view. These habits become our programming. You can program your life by creating better habits. 100 calories too much per day doesn’t seem like a lot until you look at it from the year view. That’s 10 extra pounds you’ve put on. Do the math, it’s true. Buying things on your credit card that you don’t pay off, a $100 bathing suit will cost you $300 by the time you pay it off . Spending 2 hours a day watching the news…that’s 730 hours you could have put towards improving your life. What could you do with 730 extra hours of time for yourself? The next time you say you don’t have time to work out or eat healthy, add up how much time you spend scrolling social media or watching Netflix or the news…these are all programming you but on someone else’s agenda.
My challenge to you this week is to simply notice the programming taking place in your life. The commercial with the croissant that makes you want a croissant. The news about a war in another country across the world makes you feel unsafe here so maybe you change what you do that day. The girl on Instagram that had that cute outfit on and it made you want to find one just like it so you shop. These are all subtle but programming nonetheless.
Being programmed is part of life. Being aware of who or what you’re programmed by is all you.
I love you guys, I’ll talk to you in a few days.
