Are you playing victim to your own decisions?

Episode 508
Wildly Successful Lifestyle

LISTEN TO: Are you playing victim to your own decisions?

Hi guys welcome to episode 508 of the wildly successful lifestyle podcast! What’s up!?? I hope you are healthy both mentally and physically. I hope that you’re realizing that you don’t have to be miserable even when miserable things happen to you. It’s not about what happens it’s about how you look at what happens. It’s also about taking responsibility for the things you think. Because like Micheal Singer pointed out in the “untethered soul”, you aren’t your thoughts, you’re the awareness of those thoughts.

You are the one always in the background observing those thoughts. It’s so good to remember this because our thoughts are really what matters in this life. They can make us a victim or they can empower us. I had a good example of it this last week. I was talking to my little sister Molly when I heard myself say “well I can’t decorate for Christmas completely yet because mom and dad (who don’t celebrate Christmas) are staying with me Sunday night. It was funny because as I said that.. there was a pause from both of us because that wasn’t true and we both knew it.

So I quickly changed the statement to make it true. I laughed and said wait “I won’t allow myself to full on decorate because mom and dad will be here”. She laughed and said exactly. So I took full responsibility for my decision to wait because I would rather wait a week to decorate than feel super awkward around my parents. It’s those little subtle statements we make sometimes just to ourselves that keep us frustrated and irritated and feeling like a victim. Being with my parents is one of the things I love most in the world, they’re great but at one point when I had the thought that I couldn’t decorate because of them, I had a moment of resentment for them coming. I was creating all of that in my head by playing the victim to my own thoughts. You see how we create problems in our life? It’s so subtle and so easy to do without realizing it. Once I took responsibility for it being my choice instead of blaming it on someone else I felt empowered. I could have decorated, I chose not too. How many times a day do we do that without realizing it? We say things like “I can’t work out today. I’m too busy” or I can’t lose weight over the holidays because of all the parties” or I can’t enjoy this because I have too many other things to do.” When are we going to just take complete responsibility for the decisions we make? We torment ourselves daily when realistically we decide every day what’s the most important things and what’s not.
That’s what it’s all about isn’t it? What we make a priority, what is the most important thing in our life is how we make decisions. My yoga instructor Laura told me the other day that her friend called and said I really want to come to yoga class today but I have so much to do, laura asked her well will doing yoga make you feel better or just add to your anxiety? To which she said “today it will add to my anxiety” so Laura told her not to sweat it we will see you next time. We make decisions all day every day and the peanut gallery meaning the chatter in our head will have a lot to say about everything we do or don’t do. Taking responsibility for the decisions we make is a great way of shutting the commentary down. Once I corrected myself and said I’m not allowing myself to decorate, all the chatter stopped because I chose what I wanted to do. I stopped blaming my parents and owned my decision because it was my choice. Seeing my parents and not feeling awkward about it was more important than keeping my decorating schedule. Accepting responsibility for the consequences of your decisions is one of the most empowering things you can do. Now some of you may be thinking but you wanted to decorate and you should have been able to do what you wanted to do and your parent should accept you as you are. This is a great example of Brooke Castillo from the life coach school saying we “should” all over ourselves and sometimes we “should” all over other people too. But the reality comes down to priorities. We each have our own priorities and it’s not any of my business how you line up your priorities and vice versa. Family is one of my top priorities and I try to work most things around that, it doesn’t always work but it’s what I shoot for. If you think about it, every decision we make is a choice. And it’s a choice based on our priorities. And a lot of times our mind or the chatter in our head has a lot to say about those choices and usually it’s either beating ourself up or beating someone else up that we think is the reason we made the choice. Taking ownership of the decisions we make allows us to stop being a victim to our decisions.

My challenge to you today is to boldly take responsibility for every decision you make. Take ownership and you’ll notice your thoughts will be very different than if you blame someone else or worse play victim to your own decisions. Share this with 3 people who deserve to be level up their mindset. I love you guys, I’ll talk to you in a few days!!

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