Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 107 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! I just got back from snow skiing so it’s on my mind…
Years ago, I was skiing with a group of girls that I love, way up in Montana. Boy was that a fun trip! Unfortunately, I was the weakest skier in the group. I was new to skiing at the time and so here I am just hoping to get to the bottom of each mountain in one piece and that was on the greens! We are social animals and we like to hang in groups so when the group was like “Heidi, you’re doing so great, it’s time to move to a blue. For those of you that don’t ski, green is beginner, blue is intermediate and black is “you’re a nut if you go down it”. Just kidding black is advanced.
So, here we are, my mind is screaming “No, you’re not ready” but I’m a bit competitive and I’m also a bit of a people pleaser so I go along and say “Sure, why not”. Well, Blues in Montana are scary and I’m looking down this steep mountain that I’m about to go down and I’m thinking to myself you’re crazy for this. SO I made my way down and I made it but I didn’t enjoy it. I thought to myself “Why did you agree to this when you didn’t want to do it?” I have no-one to be mad at but myself even though I would have liked to blame someone else, I’m a big girl and I can say no, but I didn’t. But I did grow from it and I ultimately am glad I did it but I also learned so when the girls said ok Heidi, we are going to do one of the easy blacks let’s go. I said NO, I will ski this blue and meet you at the bottom. And you know what? That’s what we did and it was awesome! I didn’t have to sacrifice my enjoyment and they didn’t have to sacrifice theirs. And even though we would rather ski as a group, it’s your job to decide what is best for you. It’s your job to say “no” when you want to say “no.”
Think about it this way. When I said “No” to skiing the black diamond it was a little uncomfortable because we wanted to hang together, so it wasn’t ideal but it was ok. We all still had fun skiing the level we wanted to ski and then we got back together and had a hot scotch in the lodge at the bottom, everyone happy as can be. Now, Let’s say I said “yes” to skiing the black diamond and now I’m miserable, not having fun and maybe resentful because in my mind, they didn’t care about my feelings. Whose fault would that be? Mine. And that’s just it.
And let me say one thing. Getting out of your comfort zone is super crucial to living a “Wildly Successful Lifestyle”. Most people who are wildly successful get extremely comfortable with stepping out of their comfort zone. Only you can decide and answer this for yourself. Where is the line between stepping out of your comfort zone and doing something that is way outside of your current ability. This really takes some self awareness. Comfort is the enemy of progress, right? So, always keep that in mind when making a decision. David Goggins says to do something hard every day, well I think he said “do something that sucks every day but I thought I’d soften it a bit…Are you doing something hard every day? I don’t think I do every day that’s too much for me, but definitely every week at least. I love a challenge and I love an adventure which is why I ventured onto the blue level mountain, but I also am not going to sacrifice my happiness or my health to do something to make someone else feel good so I said no to the black diamond mountain.
Are you doing something right now that you don’t want to do because someone else wants you to do it? Do you feel resentment about it? The unfortunate thing is….and I love you, I promise, I do, but that’s your own fault. You can’t blame the other person. It’s your job to set boundaries for yourself. If you decide to say yes to something, that’s on you. Either figure out a way to enjoy the decision you made or admit you made a mistake and change it. Those are your options and think about that for a second because it applies to every single area of our life. We are also responsible for what we fill our minds with or who we letDo you maybe blame the media or politicians for the state of America right now? We each play a role in that too. If we keep watching news that is untrue, we are propping them up.
We are living in a new world right now. A world where it seems sometimes up is down and down is up. It’s more important than any time in my life that we think for ourselves and make decisions for our life and our family that works for us. The media has an agenda to keep you coming back and the best way to do that is to keep you outraged or terrified. It has gotten worse because all of a sudden they have competition in the form of social media so everyone is fighting for your attention, which can be addictive but also destructive…because lazy thinking allows you to believe everything you hear from your favorite news source. But you can’t believe everything you hear anymore because there’s no accountability in place for most media and you know what, that’s ok because we are all adults, it’s our job to turn it off or change the station if we find it to be unsubstantiated. (My husband read an official sounding story that said you have to be quarantined for 14 days if you travel outside of America and want to come back in…after doing a lot of research we found nothing that supports that and nothing that backs that up) so you have to think for yourself and be smart. How do we know if something is true or not? News is designed these days to keep you coming back. Well, Ray Dalio had an article this last week on how to identify a news source that is factual, because it’s rare. He said to ask yourself these questions.
Does the story consist of emotionally triggering unsubstantiated accusations or are the facts substantiated and the sources provided? That’s critical
Does the writer welcome or not welcome replies or arguments that refute what they are asserting and are they willing or not willing to publish them along with what they published? I find the reality of the story tends to be in the comments, people are going to let you know if something is bs.
Are the accusations in the story consistent with what has been identified and proven in the legal system? If people or groups are accused in the media of doing bad things but they haven’t been accused and judged to have done bad things in the legal system, which has a definite process to get to what is true, at least ask yourself why that is and probably don’t believe the story. This is happening on both sides of the political aisle right now.
If the writer or outlet has shown themselves to be biased, assume they and their stories are biased.
I’m going to end by saying this. We each have an inner guidance system that is designed to not only keep us safe, but also to keep us happy and growing and connected. Life is not only about being safe, it’s also about growing and being happy. We live in a world where most people are waiting for someone to tell them how to think. Living a Wildly Successful Lifestyle means having your own compass, setting your own boundaries, taking responsibility for everything you allow to hold space inside your head. And if you are listening to news that you know is biased. Turn it off, watching it only perpetuates it. My challenge to you this week is to take control of your thoughts by being extremely picky about not only what you feed your body but what you feed your mind and when you decide to step outside your comfort zone and I hope you do, you embrace it and if you don’t love it then at least learn from it you never know what doors it might open. I love you guys and I’ll talk to you in a few days.
