Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 265 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! In case you haven’t heard it yet today. You’re doing alright, Don’t quit. You may think you can’t go on or it’s not working fast enough, but you are stronger than you think and you only fail if you quit, and you’re not a quitter. You are beautifully made.
Humans are so beautifully made. We are magnificent in the way our brain works in the way our bodies work and the way adapt to our surroundings.
The good news about humans is that we adapt really well. I think we all saw that with Covid. Zoom is something we all use now and that’s not going away. The bad thing about humans is that well we adapt really well. Again Covid. How quickly some just embraced staying home, isolating. How quickly we were conditioned to fear other people. I’m hopeful that one will fade.
So yes, we can adapt and that’s a good thing. But we also can adapt to something that we don’t like and just accept it as “just how it is”. How many times have you said that in your life? That’s just how it is.
Or an even better one “that’s just how I am”.
We grow up and somehow we get assigned these labels that we think are our destiny. When really it’s just a behavior we learned from growing up in a family where we had to adapt, where we had to take on a role to survive.
But this is a behavior you’ve adapted to not who you are. Behavior by definition even confirms this. The definition of behavior is literally: the manner in which one acts. So your behavior isn’t you it’s a role you’ve taken on, like an actor. To take it one step further the definition of actor is a person who behaves in the manner of a character.
So my question to you. Do you like the role you’ve taken on? Because now that you know you aren’t your behavior, it means you have the power to change it. That role where you’re always late. That role where you don’t like to work out? That role where you’re a picky eater and would never eat a salad. These are roles you’ve taken on and your body has adapted to. Because your body adapted to sleeping in, of course it’s going to revolt when you start getting up at 5am to get your workout in. Of course your
body revolts when you introduce salad, it’s used to hamburger and French fries and that’s what it wants.
Maybe you’ve always been a people pleaser, that’s a role I adapted to when I was a young adult. So much so that I married a guy when I was 19 that I knew wasn’t right, but he was the right religion and that pleased my parents because I was well on my way of being cast out away from everything I knew because I couldn’t adhere to the rules. so I got married to fix that. To please everyone around me. My new husband had some real twisted ideas but hey, he was the right religion. Eventually I realized I didn’t even recognize myself anymore. I had adapted to a role so well, I was losing myself. The religion of my family and my former husband did not resonate with me but I was staying in it to please everyone else, in the meantime I was miserable, overweight, unhappy and felt like I was losing my mind. So one day I just decided. I can lose my mind on their terms or I can step away from this mess of a life…maybe I still lose my mind but at least it will be on my terms.
And here I am today. Married to the man of my dreams. Living life on my terms. I didn’t lose my mind. It hasn’t always been easy and it wasn’t without casualties. I lost friends and one of my siblings will have nothing to do with me because I’m no longer part of her religion. My relationship with my parents is good, a little shaky sometimes but if I’m being honest, I’ve created some of that in my head.
The easy thing would have been to adapt to that people pleasing role and stay where I was in the religion, married to a guy who was just as lost as I was. It’s easy short term to maintain the status quo, but where would I be now? I don’t even like to put my head there. The good news is I’m sure I would have adapted. The bad news is, I’m sure I would have adapted. humans adapt. That’s what we do. But That means we can adapt to what we don’t want or we can adapt to what we do want. One is easy short term, but very hard long term. The other is hard short term but much easier and better long term.
Being wildly successful means living life on your terms. It doesn’t mean a dollar amount, it doesn’t mean a certain weight, or a certain number of likes on Instagram, it means you are living life on your terms and you are happy with the direction it’s heading. You’re not ever going to be done and you can’t get it wrong. You know why? Because everything you’ve done has lead you to right here, right where you are. If you hadn’t done that awful thing you wouldn’t have learned that valuable lesson, which made you stronger. If you hadn’t taken that wrong path, that right path wouldn’t have been so lit up for you. So you see, it’s all ok and tomorrow is a new day. You deserve to be happy and you deserve to live life on your terms. Society will tell you it’s selfish, but society will criticize you for everything so you may as well do what’s right for you and you’re the only one that knows what that means, not your mom, not your professor, not your friends, YOU.
You don’t have to adapt to a life you don’t like simply because it’s what you’ve always done. Next year is going to happen whether you’re happy or not. Whether your living life on your terms or not. So why not go for it. Stop acting and start living the life you know deep down you’re meant to live. Most people have adapted to mediocrity because that’s the norm. But your not normal. You’re not average. Stop acting like you are.
And remember, your body may revolt at first to this new change but you’ll adapt, you’re friends and family may even revolt to this new you, but they’ll adapt too.
My challenge to you this week is to ask yourself. Do I like where I’m heading? Am I living life on my terms? Am I creating the life I want or am I adapting to a life that just happened along the way? It’s never too late and your never to old to change a behavior, to take on a new role.
We are evolving and adapting every singe day we’re alive. The question you have to ask yourself is : Do I like where I’m heading? If the answer is yes, stay the course, if the answer is no….then what behavior do you need to change to turn the ship? The next time you start to say that’s just how it is or that’s just how I am, stop yourself and say, no, That’s just how Im behaving, that’s not who I am.
I love you guys, Ill talk to you in a few days.
