Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 422 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! I want you all to know one thing. If you ever feel like no-one is rooting for you to win, I just want you to know….I’m rooting for you to win….I’m rooting for you to be the best version of you that’s possible. Sometimes we can feel so alone in life and I want you to know you’re not alone, we are all connected. The reason you’re listening right now is because someone loved you enough to send this episode or maybe you stumbled upon it on Spotify or Apple and by stumbled upon it, I mean the Universe put it right there just for you. And not only am I rooting for you, I’m grateful to you for listening. Thank you….
So I love to get dressed up. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I especially love to Get dressed up and go out. I love it. And I will start thinking about what I’m gonna wear depending on the event, months in advance. It’s so funny I used to ask Eric what he was going to wear to the party this Saturday, it would be Monday and he would look at me like I’m insane. He would say I’ll know Saturday ten minutes before we leave. lol. Ok fair enough. I guess that’s the difference between men and women. But it matters to me what I wear. I feel completely different when I am dressed in an outfit that I love and that I feel amazing in. I would go as far as to say we all do. Now this is not an episode on clothes I promise, but the reason I am talking about it is this. My husband sent me a quote by Elizabeth Gilbert. It said this “ you need to learn to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. This is a power you can cultivate, if you want to control things in your life work on your mind.” When I read that it literally stopped me in my tracks. I don’t know about you but I was never taught not one time that I could pick and choose the thoughts I have. I went through my whole life up until about the time I was 40 having no clue that my thoughts were optional. I really didn’t know or really even consider that my thoughts were something I could completely control until probably the last maybe 5 years because I’ve done so much mindset work and coaching that my self awareness is pretty much front and center most of the time.
If you had read that quote to me 10 years ago that I should choose my thoughts the same way I choose my clothes I would have looked at you like you were crazy. It would have gone in one ear and out the other because I just thought our thoughts are just automatic. We don’t control them. They control us. And that’s exactly what they do, unless we know they’re there. Unless we are aware of them. Our thoughts will wreck our day and we won’t even know it. Have you ever gotten up walked in the bathroom after sleeping, looked in the mirror and thought oh my god you’re so old or ugly or gross? And then you brush your teeth and while you’re brushing your teeth you remember that argument you had with your partner and now you’re getting mad all over again and then you walk to the kitchen to get your coffee which reminds you that you’re almost out but you have to be at work by 8 and so you hope you remember after work which you probably won’t because you’re so forgetful and then while you’re trying to decide what to eat you tell yourself how fat you are you shouldn’t be eating anything….. those thoughts, the ones that come so automatic because you’ve been beating yourself up for so long, you no longer even notice it, those thoughts, they aren’t your only option. They’re just the ones you’re used to having over and over. Just like the comfortable sweatpants you’ve had since college, they are there because you’ve never taken the step to change them. You may be like me and didn’t even realize you could. But I’m here to tell you you can and you must if you are ever going to be truly happy. James Clear said in a recent X post that “a surefire way to make a bad situation worse is to continue replaying it over in your mind. The damage is done. The only thing that matters now is making the best choice given your current position. Such valuable advice. It’s not that bad things aren’t going to happen or that we stick our heads in the sand, it’s all about how we choose to look at it and what we make it mean.
The subtle thoughts that we have affect every decision we make. They affect our mood, our relationships, our work, our health, they affect everything in our life. And the idea that we are never taught that is insane to me but you know why we are never taught it? It’s because the people teaching you from the time you were born don’t know it either.
So don’t be mad about it. Just be glad you’re hearing it now. Because once you know it, now you can start noticing it. And once you notice, you become aware of it and being aware of it is the first step to changing it.
Our heads will create turmoil all day long that doesn’t exist in reality.
Why do you think someone who is so thin all you see is skin and bones but they throw up any food they eat because they think they’re fat? Why would they do that, they are already so thin..they do it because their brain is telling them they’re fat. They look in the mirror and their brain distorts what they see to show them they are fat, when in reality anyone on the outside sees skin and bones. That’s the power of our thoughts. They will distort anything to fit the narrative. Our thoughts really are the reason we do anything but we just let them flow freely without being checked because they’re so automatic and have just always been there. But do they have to be?
So, CAN you choose your thoughts the same way you choose your clothes? Yes you can and you must if you ever want to live a truly happy life your thoughts have to be on purpose. You have to think on purpose. Hard at first, much easier as you get the hang of it, and it’s never gonna be perfect, you’re still going to have to set yourself straight regularly.
We’re never going to be perfect at it because we have input and influences from every direction and that sways are thoughts, just as much as our peer group or what we spend time looking at online sways the clothes we wear.
I talked in an earlier episode about needing to clean out my closet. I did clean it out. I only have clothes in my closet right now that I love and that I wear. I love to look at chic outfits on Pinterest or Tumblr so that my eye is drawn to dressing that way. I know we tend to dress to the caliber of our peers and I also know I have a few people that love to get dressed up like I do but Im around some that don’t. Now, I love them, I don’t care, but that’s not how I want to be. I feel good when I’m dressed well. Dressing well makes it easy to feel good when I go about my day. I choose my clothes carefully. That matters to me.
But I choose my thoughts even more carefully. Because my thoughts are also constantly being challenged and influenced. By what I see. By what I watch or read by whom I’m around. We are extremely influenced by our surroundings and if we aren’t constantly aware of the thoughts going through our head, then our life is going to be like a roller coaster, riding the highs and lows of everything we take in. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
If I’m feeling sad or angry…the first thing I do now is check what I’m thinking about. What has my attention? Have my thoughts been hijacked? I was feeling a little irritable the other day, which is out of character for me and after giving it a little thought, I realized I had been replaying a conversation I had with my big sister in my head and also creating lots of scenarios that weren’t great, mostly where I’m the victim in the scenario….those thoughts obviously weren’t serving me so I changed them. Instead of making the conversation mean something awful, I thought what can I make it mean that serves me and serves my sister too?
Changing our thoughts literally will change our mood which literally will change our life if we keep it up. We can decide how we want to feel and then go about doing the thing and thinking the things that make us feel that way.
And look, Im a born optimist so I can find something positive in just about any situation and often do. But when it comes to myself and my family I notice I tend to go a little negative rather than positive, but noticing has helped me flip the script. If I can’t come up with a thought that serves me on a certain topic, then I change the subject in my mind.
You can do the same thing. You know you feel more confident and bold when you’re wearing a really amazing outfit, it’s really no different than when you’re thinking amazing thoughts. In the story Anne of Green Gables at one point Anne is riding on a bus to meet her new family and she is dressed in the clothes that the orphanage had given her which were tired and tattered, which she said made her feel a little bad about herself but when she noticed she was thinking negative thoughts, she got right to the business of imagining herself in a beautiful blue tailored dress with gloves and lovely shoes and it set her mind right in the exact spot she wanted to be. She immediately felt more confident. The only thing that ultimately needs to change is our mindset if we truly want to be authentically happy.
My challenge to you today is the next time you’re getting dressed in the morning, is to not only dress yourself in something that will make you feel fabulous but also decide to think only thoughts that will make you feel good too. So yeah, the outfit you choose affects your mood, but your thoughts create your mood. Share this with 3 fabulous people, I love you guys, I’ll talk to you in a few days!
