Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 267 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast. Thanks for listening! It means a lot to get to hang out with you twice a week, it’s really just 10 minutes to get our heads in the right space and hopefully it influences your life in a good way.
In episode 266 I talked about us all having a puppeteer in our head that pulls the strings and how we really need to realize we control him.
He is programmed by what we’ve taken in our whole lives. Some of the things he tries to keep us safe from our beliefs we’ve held since we were kids. Maybe a parent told you you would never amount to anything and you’ve never forgotten that. For some that was a challenge to become great for others, they believed it and so it became a prophecy, it became true because you keep playing that like a record player over and over and over. I’ll never amount to anything. That thought will have you sabotaging success at every turn because your brain wants to make you right.
The actions we take every day are because of how we feel and how we feel comes from how we are thinking. That’s why it’s so hard to take consistent action when we have a thought that is conflicting to the action taken. You can change your activity but until you change your identity, the activity will be temporary.
So you can say I hate the gym and still make yourself go to the gym but eventually you’ll find a reason to stop because you keep telling yourself you hate it. And you can’t lie to yourself either by saying I love the gym. You can however soften it, by saying, I love the way I feel after a workout. If you keep telling yourself that, now you’re on your challenging your identity of hating the gym.
I don’t know if you’ve seen the holiday, it’s a movie that I love. I watch it every year around Christmas. But the main actress is a movie trailer writer and so of course her thoughts show up as a movie trailer about how her life will play out. But she bucks those thoughts in that movie and because she does she starts living the life of her dreams.
We are all walking around with thoughts in our head. 60,000 per day average and 80% of those are negative. And if you’re initial thought is no way, not me. Then yours are much more subconscious than you realize or you’re a freak of nature. I’m not here to tell you your life. I just want to show you how your mind is creating the life you currently have and if you’re not happy with that life, you have to go a little deeper then simply trying to motivate your way into a different life.
And look I love a motivational speech, I love hearing them, I love reading them, I love writing them and I love giving them. I love them.
I was talking to a friend and he said he kind of hates motivational speeches and I laughed and said that’s funny, I don’t think I’ve ever met one I didn’t love.
But motivational speeches will only take you as far as your mind allows.
They can get you into temporary action, no doubt but when life happens, your thoughts will pull you right back into that cave which is why it’s so important to be aware of them and also aware of your identity. How you think of yourself. What success looks like for you. How hard you’re willing to work for what you really want. How uncomfortable you are willing to be.
During my toastmasters meeting this last week there’s another girl in our group who is also a speaker and man she’s great, I asked her during our last meeting what she did when she wasn’t feeling motivated, how she got herself going and she said I look for a quick win. Then she said something that woke me up. She said pre Covid I would reach out to 20 people per day about speaking engagements, she was rocking the world but just like that Covid brought it all to a halt. She said now Im getting back into it with reaching out to 5 people a day. You guys. She’s not waiting for someone to knock on her door. She’s going after it and hard.
That woke me up because I realized I want speaking engagements and I’ve never considered going after 20 people a day to get them. So now that idea is marinating and I’m thinking ok what do I need to believe to put myself out there like that? I need to believe I’m good enough. I need to believe I add enough value to be paid to do what I love. I need to believe my message is so powerful that everyone would benefit from hearing it. I need to believe in me before I can get anyone else to.
I take little safe steps out of my cave all the time. My first paid speaking engagement was so stressful for me. You know what my puppeteer told me after that speaking gig? It’s not worth it. It’s too scary. You don’t need to do that. You have your podcast. You have Instagram reels, that’s good enough. But it isn’t. Thats playing small because I’m afraid. Afraid to fail big. Afraid to tarnish the carefully curated image I’ve created. And look it’s ok to be afraid. If you’re not doing something that scares you, you’re not growing. So when you’re working on a big life, You’re gonna be afraid. It’s what you do when you’re afraid that matters. The best speakers in the world still get nervous but they do it anyway. Your fears don’t go away, you just face them. You learn to dance with them, so to speak. We think something is wrong if we are afraid, but no, I think something is wrong if you’re never afraid, because that means you’re taking easy street. Tony Robbins says the big problem most people have is they think they should have no problems. You’re going to have them, you just get better at dealing with them. Kind of like my sister that shunned me, Ive talked a lot about that in different episodes. That isn’t going away, that’s part of my life, I can’t erase it from my mind, but I have learned how to be happy even though that is a part of my life I don’t like, Im not giving that the power to make me unhappy any longer. So we are going to have problems, but we have to learn to live along side them and still find a way to be happy.
Because feeling alive and playing full out is intoxicating. I can say that because I felt it. I felt that when I gave my first public motivational speech. And then I went back into my cave. And from the safety of my cave I wondered when’s the next person going to come knock on my door and want me to speak to their group? Because if they seek me out, I must be good enough for them to ask. If I go put myself out there, I risk rejection. I risk feeling very uncomfortable. But now I know, I have to do more than Im doing. The question for myself is How uncomfortable am I willing to be to realize my dreams?
Guys, our comfort zone is not where it’s at. And if you’re a driven, ambitious person like me, you are constantly having to get out of your comfort zone because eventually doing what scares you a few times, it doesn’t scare you anymore. I was scared shitless the first time I did Go Ape out at Shelby farms. It’s one of those treetop adventures where you are harnessed but your basically waking right ropes at the top of tree lines and then zip lining to the next one. I’ve now done it probably 6 times and I’m not scared at all. Now I’m just trying to see if I can beat my own time. That thing you’re scared of doing? Do it a couple times. You’ll be scared at first and then you won’t be anymore.
What are you holding yourself back from doing? For me, I know what I need to do. And I’m scared to do it. But just like motivational speeches, I also like challenges. I like to challenge myself. Most of the time that’s how I grow. And hearing someone say the way they get speaking engagements is by going out and asking for them, asking 20 people a day! I haven’t been doing that. What are you not doing? What is it that you need to be doing to realize your dream? Maybe you know what it is, maybe you don’t, but put yourself in the room with people doing big things and you’ll start doing them too.
You have a belief about yourself. We all do. Challenge that belief if it’s holding you back. Remember episode 172 “ I’m a person who can poop anywhere”. My friend who used to have a painful problem when she traveled because she could only go to the bathroom in her own house, well she shifted her identity to I’m a person who can poop anywhere. She recently told me she was able to go in a bathroom at the gym where there were lots of people around. I laughed and said maybe we need to throttle that back a little bit. I was joking of course but when you make an identity shift, anything’s possible, if you want it to be.
What possibility do you want to make a reality? Success isn’t going to knock on your door and be handed to you on a silver platter. It doesn’t work that way. Knock and the door will be open, Seek and ye shall find. Ask and it will be given. These are age old truths that sometimes in our culture of comfort we forget. I challenge you to step out of your comfort zone this week and do something uncomfortable towards realizing your dream what ever it is, stepping on the scale, saying your sorry, asking a mentor to lunch, Whatever it is you’ve been holding yourself back from, step out of your comfort zone towards it, it gets easier I promise….You’re meant to hear this message. Share it with one other person who needs to hear it.
I love you guys! I’ll talk to you in a few days!
