Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 216 of the wildly successful Lifestyle podcast! How ya doing out there? It’s a crazy world right now but guess what? You’re ok. And you can handle whatever is going on I promise you that and the more you get control of your mindset the better prepared you will be to handle the stuff going on outside. Just a heads up..We’re going to school today guys…so get ready…I love us though.
I was in the gym locker room in the gym this last week and there was another girl right next to me. I don’t know her but I’ve seen her there several times so I said hello and asked how she was. She said ‘‘hungover at the moment, but I did it, I got my workout in’’. My husband and I both accomplished that but he is hungover every day so he is constantly having to work through it every morning.” Now, I’m not sure why she told me that, maybe she knew I wouldn’t judge her. Because all I felt was love and empathy for her. Prior to Covid and lockdowns she was getting into a great rhythm at the gym. She, like most people, dealt with the last 2 years by buffering. Distracting from the reality that we found ourselves in. Often we go on vacation for a week, maybe two so we are off our normal routine for that time and when we get back we have to make a little effort to get back into our good habits and routines.
Anyway it’s an effort but you fall right back into it. But 2 years of being off our routine? 2 years of uncertainty, lockdowns, masks, bitterness, bossiness, frustration. That has caused a lot of us to have to really work super hard to stay conscious and present and get our workouts back where we want them and our drinking back where we want it and our mindset back in alignment with the good things in life. We have been so focused on viruses and control and which state is the best to be in right now and where is it possible to travel without being in quarantine jail or having a tracking device. It sounds foreign even saying it out loud but here we are. That was and still is for a lot of the world our reality for the last 2 years. And everywhere you turn Covid is used as an excuse for poor customer service, for the lack of high standards, for shelves being bare and gas being high. For flight attendants turning into the police and for depression, suicide, obesity and alcoholism to be rampant. It’s all valid, it hasn’t been easy for anyone. I believe there’s a fix but it’s not collective..it’s individual. The fix is YOU. It’s ME. Each of us is deciding right now. That’s it. I’m done with excuses. No more blaming Covid for my poor gym habits. No more excusing bad behavior because of Covid. They may not want to say it’s done but it’s done.
It’s time though for us to get back in complete control of Ourselves. It’s time to stop blaming the past two years for where we are now. It’s time to get clarity on how we want the NEXT year to look and who we want to be at the end of it. That’s it.
Yeah we picked up a few bad habits and lost some good ones. Ok. Get it together and decide. Who are you now? I’ll start:
I’m a person that works out 5-6 times per week and limits alcohol to two days or less. I care deeply about my health and how I show up for myself in every way.
I’m a person that focuses mainly on things that lift me and make me better.
I’m a person that lives intentionally and authentically, I do what I say I’m going to do. . Especially in my relationships.
Healthy, authentic and focused.
Those are my three words that will help me remember who I’m going to be over this next year.
Doing the things that are good for us truly makes life easier in the long run. Short term good feelings don’t last and make life harder such as spending more than you make, drinking alcohol to the point you lose your senses. Consistently Eating food that your body has no idea what to do with and feeds any illness you may get or have. Sugar feeds Covid, sugar feeds Cancer, sugar feeds most diseases. You have to starve that monster.
And I know it’s hard and I know your body wants it and your brain tells you it’s ok this one time but that’s the part of your brain that’s impulsive and emotional. Your primitive brain will justify your bad habits every time. Good news though..you also have a part of your brain that makes good sound decisions. You just have to plan a little more to use it. And by the way, you control your brain. It may not feel like it sometimes, most of the time but you DO control it. Be honest. You COULD say no to that cookie, to that 3rd drink, to that purse you know you can’t afford right now, you COULD say no. Your brain can do nothing without you taking action. It takes your cooperation. So when your brain says have it. You can actually choose to allow the urge of wanting it without acting on it. We do that all the time. You drive by a donut shop and resist the urge to go in. You want to ring someone’s neck but you resist the urge, you want to order dessert but you resist the urge. Urges like that have a lifespan. So allow for the urge, know it’s going to feel uncomfortable for a moment while you’re resisting it but once you resist it a few times you start getting good at saying no. Eventually you’ll get good at noticing and resisting the urge and that will be your habit instead of just always giving in to every urge you have, or at least the ones you think are harmless.
Think about it this way. If you have children this will be easy to understand. Your 4 year old is impulsive. He wants what he wants and most of the time you’re having to reign him in. He loves chocolate milk shakes, left up to him he would have one at every meal. But he can’t drive, and he can’t reach the blender to make one so without your help he is SOL for those that don’t know that’s shit outta luck. So obviously you say no to every meal milkshake because that certainly isn’t in his best interest. You have an inner child, which is your primitive brain that wants you to go on Facebook when you have things you need to be doing, or maybe your inner child wants all the bread when the waitress puts it down or wants to buy that thing you know isn’t in your budget at the moment. You have control over that inner child if you allow that urge to be there, you feel the tug and you allow the discomfort and you resist the urge. Then the urge goes away, maybe you have a persistent inner child…that’s ok.
Eventually it will get the message that you’re in control and we plan our food or we plan our budget and it doesn’t matter if the bread is sitting there or not. You aren’t going to eat it because you aren’t allowing your inner child to run the show anymore. You’re in control. You would never let your 4 year old make all the decisions, so why would you let your inner 4 year old make all the decisions…yeah, he or she wants to veg on Netflix instead of going to the gym or eat a whole bag of cookies or spend 3 hours on twitter, they want to do whatever they want to do of course they do but you would never let your 4 year old do it and the same should go for your inner child. You DO have control of it.
And if it’s not in your best interest you’re not doing it. And look just like we sometimes swing through McDonald’s for dinner and then turn the tv on for the kids just so we can have a little downtime and once in a while of course that’s fine but you wouldn’t want to do it every day! My inner child would eat reese’s peanut butter cups every day or the no bake chocolate oatmeal cookies my mom makes. My inner child would stay on Twitter for 3 hours. But that doesn’t line up with what I want for my life. So I am getting really good at noticing those urges and looking at what I’m trying to avoid or just noticing I’m not hungry, it’s just a craving. I’m able to notice the urge, allow it and just say no, sometimes I sound l say no out loud like I imagine you would to a child. It’s quite effective as long as you’re not in public. I’m not trying to get anyone put on the radar for crazy. It’s not perfect of course. I am not yet perfect on the only drinking alcohol twice a week and I’m not yet back to the gym like I want but it’s heading there quickly and working through these episodes with you guys helps me a lot and I hope it helps you too.
Nobody is perfect. Everyone is working on something. Everyone has a primitive brain that justifies doing things that aren’t in their best interest but guess what? Everyone also has a prefrontal cortex that makes good decisions. That says no to the bread, the alcohol, the 3 hour Twitter escapade, we all have that too. We just have to decide who we are and what exactly we want and then say no to as many things as we can that don’t line up with our goals.
My challenge to you today is to get clarity on who you want to be this next year. Then start noticing the urges you have that don’t line up with that. You have the power to say no when it doesn’t line up. Who’s the boss here? You or your inner child? You wouldn’t let your 4 year old make all the decisions because you love him and want what’s best for him and you know he will be better for it. The same should go for you. You can have anything you want, you just have to be bigger than your inner child.
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