Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 485 of the wildly successful lifestyle podcast! Welcome if you are new and welcome back to all my regular friends. I love all of you so I’m glad you’re here, make sure to subscribe by clicking the three little dots and then clicking follow show. That will make it so the episode pops up on your phone whenever it drops which is twice a week. And I know that there’s juicier topics out there than mindset but our brains need healthy food mixed in with all the other input it gets. My friend is always popping these little vitamin C gummies…so think of this podcast like your mindset gummy..good and good for you.
Ok, have you ever had someone tell you to “live a little”? It happened to me recently and I thought “yeah you’re right” I deserve to live a little” and so I indulged a bit, but then I got up the next day not feeling too spunky if you know what I mean. Which then had me wanting to continue to make decisions that were not making me feel great. And I thought “man it’s hard having high standards, I wish I just didn’t care so much” Would life be easier if I just didn’t care about my health or my looks or my mindset? Of course not. I would be miserable if that were the case. I realized that me wishing I didn’t care so much was a fleeting thought and it was one I definitely needed to wrangle to the ground and get a hold of because thoughts like those if we don’t wrangle them to the ground lead to more thoughts like those and then you start acting on them and that is not how I want to live my life.
There’s one thing I am sure of about us all. We are all works in progress. No matter how good you think you are or bad you think you are, today is a new day and you have the ability to be better. I’m comfortable knowing that’s how it’s always gonna be. The thing that’s so great about that is if you don’t like something about your life, you can change that. And I know some of you will say “no mine is permanent”. Ok but you can change the way you see it. Either way we are always growing and changing until we die. All of us. The cool thing about life is it’s up to us whether those changes are good changes or going downhill changes.
What matters is each one of us is responsible for our own self, our own health and our own mindset. I am constantly learning and growing so I learn new things all the time that make me better, move me forward. Now, I catch myself sometimes wishing I didn’t care so much about being healthy or looking a certain way or trying to keep my mindset positive. Sometimes I just want to do what I want to do but I also know that 3 minutes later I’m going to want to be back on track working towards being the best version of me. And you know what? That’s life. That’s how it’s supposed to be! That’s the yin and Yang. The push and pull. How would we ever grow without it? I know I’m not going to all of a sudden just say forget it I’m going to party and eat all the donuts and never work out and just watch Netflix and soak up every post on x that gives me all the dopamine and let life do what it will do. I know I’m not going to do that, But sometimes I want to. But wanting to do it and doing it are totally different things. I know enough to know the things that move me forward in a good way and the things that hold me back. The other morning there was a lot going on in the news, it’s an election year and those can be crazy but I noticed when I woke up that I wanted to jump right on x and see what I missed while I slept. Eric and I also had been to dinner with friends the night before and I had had a drink and I noticed I didn’t feel as good as I usually do probably because of that so I thought oh I’ll just let myself indulge today.
But I had indulged the night before. Indulging encourages more indulging unless you have a plan. Being the best version of you involves a plan. Because winging it doesn’t work, I’ve tried it. The two year old version of you is the one making decisions when you’re winging it. That little voice in your head says “oh live a little” may seem harmless but then it also wants you to keep on living a little….Have you guys noticed that?
when you indulge sometimes it leads you to want to indulge more, just keep on indulging? so what is it that stops you? What stops you from indulging more? What stops you is a plan. A plan that you have ahead of time so that your thinking brain is in charge, not the 2 year old part of your brain. And that plan has to include indulging periodically so that it’s realistic and sustainable. Now, I’m not telling you how to live your life but starting a plan with a 21 day cleanse where you sort of rid your body of it’s worse cravings is helpful. That’s what Eric and I did and now when we indulge we just know that was one of our two times per week we let ourselves have dessert or some wine or both but we can’t do that all the time, so we have a plan for it. There’s part of you and part of me that just wants to do what we want all the time like a 2 year old. But there’s the other part of us that is our higher self that knows what it takes for us to be the best version of ourselves. We all have light and dark in us. We all have the struggle between the two year old wanting to eat all the candy and the adult who knows that’s gonna make us feel bad and cause long term problems. The one that’s more dominant is the one you allow to be. I literally wake up every morning and my brain first thing wants to get on x and see who’s making trouble today. What drama is going on today??? Every day. But I know in order for me to feel good, to feel happy and stable I can’t start my day like that. I have to start my day intentionally. There are musts for me in order to be the best version of myself. I have to meditate, I have to journal and I have to read a few pages in whatever book I’ve chosen for my morning reading. And most days I have to fight with myself to not get on x before I do those things. There’s too much dopamine involved with social media and once our brain gets a taste of that it makes it almost impossible to meditate for me anyway. It’s not as exciting but when I start my day with my good habits which is I’m gonna say 95% of the time now, I bring to the rest of the day a calmness, a presence, an ease that I would not have had. So that by the time I allow myself to get on x my mindset is in a really good place and I can then allow myself the 15 minutes or so a few times a day. I have to have a plan still for that too. It’s very easy to get sucked in to social media and an hour or two later you’re left knowing you can’t get those hours back. Having a plan and following that plan for any area of your life is the recipe for accomplishment. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
The push and pull of life is normal, we all fight with ourselves between the part of us saying “oh live a little” and the other one saying “you’ve lived enough this week, it’s time we take care of ourself”. Having A plan will make that so much easier. Quick example. Eric and I used to have the goal to eat as healthy as possible. Ok nice goal but we didn’t have a plan, so we would eat out very day and do our best to eat as healthy as we could at whatever restaurant we decided on. But that wasn’t a plan. That was a hope. Now we plan our meals we know what our breakfast consists of and we know we will only eat out twice a week and we also know we have two times a week to have a little dessert and or a glass of wine or two. So that’s our plan and we stick to it really well because we know that’s helping us be healthy. And don’t forget sometimes the indulges will want you to indulge more and more so be careful of that. Just this morning, I had had a couple cocktails last night and this morning I wasn’t feeling like a spring chicken…I didn’t want to to any of my good routines, but I
My challenge to you today is to take a look at that area of your life where you’re struggling. What would succeeding look like in that area? Do you have a plan of how to succeed? If you don’t, then you’re wingin it and before long the two year old part of your brain is going to take back over and now whatever happens happens. It’s so easy to go through life like that without even knowing it, Ive done it, I still do it, that’s the push and pull of life, that’s part of our work to figure out that an intentional life doesn’t mean you don’t get to “live a little”, but you do have to have a plan. Share this with 3 people who deserve to “live a LITTLE” I love you guys, I’ll talk to you in a few days.
