The Mind Body Project
The Mind Body Project
Sit & Talk: Stay In Your Lane
We explore why New Year hype and social media make it hard to stay focused, then map a calm plan to define strengths, set a real destination, and handle the people who nudge us off course. The car next to you isn’t headed to your exit, and overcorrection causes wrecks, not progress.
• naming two core strengths and the feelings they create
• separating your destination from someone else’s highlight reel
• seeing the full cost behind visible wins
• spotting “lane bumpers” and setting kind boundaries
• practicing course correction without overcorrecting
• replacing timelines and age myths with steady action
• using small daily habits to protect momentum
Welcome to Sit and Talk. Thank you for joining us today. If this is your first time each week, we take a topic that will help with our mental conditioning. I mean, we join our live call each week to share that with others. And if they have any comments or thoughts, then they share those with us. So thank you again for joining us for sit and talk. And let's join the live call. Alright, we'll get started. Everybody else can just catch up. So the first of the year. This is a good time for this topic because a lot of times we see everybody sharing all their things they're going to do for their new year's resolutions. Maybe it is they're starting some new drink. Maybe they're starting some new exercise plan. There's so many different things that everybody puts out there that they're starting. Unfortunately, studies and research shows that within a couple weeks, definitely by February, those are gone. No more New Year's resolution. But what happens to us in the meantime? We get kind of sidetracked about, oh, maybe I should be doing that. Maybe I should be doing this. How many times have you seen somebody doing a new diet and they just had great success with it? Then what do you want to do? Get on it. What if they have this new exercise, this new thing they're doing? Then you want to get on it. And that's very easy to do. It's just kind of our human nature. So we're going to talk about how do we stay in our lane? Because it's real easy to get off of our lane or out of our lane. What happened? And a lot of staying in our lane has to deal with a lot about comparison. But I know nobody does comparisons. No one. No one ever does comparison. Nobody ever does comparison of they can do more than me. They can run faster than me. They look better than me. They have a brighter personality than me. They got a better car than me. They got a better house than me. They have a better spouse than me. They got, you know, they get all the things, all those things can derail us from our lane very easily. So we're going to talk about how do we how do we stay in our lane? And not only how do we stay in our lane during the first of the year, but how do we always stay in our lane? And it's something that really takes some constant paying attention to. How do we continue to do that? And the first thing is we have to take note of our strengths. I think I mentioned one time, it might have been in book club, in one of them. And it took them a little bit. And that's what it is. That's what happens, is a lot of times we it's hard for us to come up with our own strengths. But think of somebody you love. Can you think of all a bunch of strengths? You can probably name five or six, maybe ten. If I asked you to think of five strengths of yours right now, how long would it take? Oh while. When really they probably are your strengths. So when you think about that, when you do, let's we won't say five or six, maybe think of one or two. What are one or two strengths that you have? And how do those strengths make you feel? Sometimes they might make you feel really happy, they might make you feel very joyful, they might make you feel very empowered. Typically, when we have a strength, it gives us some sort of feeling. They may have strengths that we don't have. As I've mentioned before, Kim has a strength of fixing things that I do not. That is not my strength, that is not on my list of strengths. And so I can go, I can't fix things like she does. I'm a guy, I'm supposed to do that. But that's just not one of my things. But you can sew, and I can't. Little known fact about me, I can sew. He does all the mending. Yes, I can sew. Thanks for pointing that out. I appreciate that. Um so I I can't I can't do the guily manly thing of putting something together, but I can sew a button on, I can sew a hole up, I can do that kind of thing. With with not not with a sewing machine either, with thread and needle. You know, I can still thread the needle, and yeah, and it doesn't come undone usually. So see, so that's a strength, and that's a strength Kim doesn't have. So, you know, we have to recognize that it's easy, you know. I can, you know, if I look at other guys that are really handy, I mean they can do all kinds of stuff. And you know, it can really get distracting if I think, why can't I do that? But I just know that's not my strength. Could I learn it? I probably could. Do I want to learn it? Not really. That seems like a lot of time and effort. It's not really time and effort in that that I want to put into. So we have to recognize that. What how does you know that I can sew kind of makes me feel good? It's kind of cool. It's something that probably maybe not many guys know how to do. I don't know. But it kind of makes me feel happy that I can do that. So we have to think about those. Maybe you're really organized. And when you're really organized and you see everything, it makes you feel really good. Like it, like this just makes me happy to see it all in place and all there. Maybe you're really good at time management. Maybe you have that down, and that just makes you happy because you get everywhere, you're not rushed, you're not late. It's just it just makes you feel good, it makes you feel empowered because you can always be on time, you can be places, you're really good at that. You can get a lot done, um, you can be productive. So you when we think about those, how do they make you feel? And sometimes maybe we have to write those down because you might think of one or two, and then it gets hard if I said how list five of your strengths, and how does each one make you feel? So we have to take note of those and recognize that others may not have those strengths, and they might not have our strengths, and we don't have their strengths, and that's totally okay because we're not all meant to have the same strengths. How fun would that be if we all had the same strengths? Not much fun. So when we can compliment each other, maybe it's friends. Maybe you have a friend that's really good at time management and you really stink at it, but they help keep you on track. If you're going out, you're going places, they help keep you on track. That's okay. And sometimes we need those friends that are have the strengths that we don't, and vice versa, we have the strengths that they don't. So the next one is if if we take note of our strengths and we recognize that not everybody has those, and we don't have everybody else's. The next one is really important. Have you ever been going somewhere and the car next to you or the car behind you passes you, and they're going probably 10 to 15 miles miles an hour faster than you are, and you really want to get where you're going. Do you ever have the tendency to get in behind them? Yes. And keep up with their speed because surely if you're behind them and the cop will get them, not you, is really what you're thinking. Because they're gonna get the first car. Yes. So you're thinking, like, this is a this is like a free pass right here. Now, how many times have you followed that car? I'm sure we've all done it. And have you that and and you follow that car and you don't know them, they're just a random car that came up behind you. How many times have you followed that car and matched their speed and stayed with them? And you both were going to the exact same place? Has that ever happened? No, like you're out on 287, on I-35, and you land at the same place? Probably not, because our lane doesn't always match up with other people's destination, and that's what we have to remember. There's maybe somebody beside us going faster, maybe they're doing something different, but their destination and our destination aren't always the same. A lot of times they can be very, very different, and and the interesting thing is, you know, you'd think it was crazy when a car got right next to you on the highway to think we're going to the same place. I mean, how many times do you think that? When they get right next to you and pass you, do you ever think we're I bet we're going to the same place? No. Probably, probably never. Especially if you're out on the highway. Maybe if you're in town, maybe if you know them, but chances are you never think that. But somehow we see things sometimes on social media, and we think we're going to exactly the same place. And so then we start comparing our lane to the person next to us' lane. But isn't that funny? We'll see that. We think, I'm sure we're going to the same place. I'm sure we want the same things. When in reality, we don't. Maybe, you know, the only point in time that you and the car next to you going on the highway were together was at that split second. You'll never see that car again. You'll never be around them. And it never dawned on you to think, I bet we're going to the same place. And the same thing is true. A lot of times, when we see those things on TV or social media, it's just a quick little blip. But for some reason, we really compare ourselves to that car next to us, that person next to us. We compare we look at the house, the car. I want the big house. I want the big car. I want lot of lots of acres. I want all these things that like they have. You know, I want somebody bring me all the flowers and and all the presents and do all the vacations and do all the things. But you think, but then do you want to be the person that works for it all? Do you want to work 80, 90 hours a week? Do you want to get a little bit of sleep? Do you want to have ulcers from all the stress about how to keep all that going? Do you want all that stuff that goes with it? Answer might sometimes be yes, but I bet a lot of the times if you dig into it, you realize, oh, I don't want all that goes with that. Man, I really like that car next to me that's on the highway. Man, that looks really nice. That costs way more than my car. But then you think, well, do I want to work to pay for it? Do I want to work to realize, oh, I just can't take it to any mechanic. I got to take it to a mechanic in Dallas, and then I have to get a rent a car, and then I have to do this, and then, you know, we think about all those things. We just look at for a split second and go, oh, that'd be cool. I'd like to have that. I I bet I wish I could get that. I wish I could go on that vacation. I wish I could have that big house. I wish I'd get those flowers. But sometimes when we when we talk about relationships, that'd be nice to get flowers like that. What we might not know is that relationship is in a lot of trouble. It's really been struggling for years. There's a lot of a lot of things going on. And you think, oh, well, I don't want all that. So when we have to realize that our our lanes don't match up. In other words, we're not going to the same place. We may be taking an exit earlier. We may be going the distance when they're stopping short. You know, we may just want the short term, we look at the short term, but we might be in it for the long term. We might be working hard for the future. We don't want the quick gains, the quick success. We're looking for how can we make an impact um long term. And we have to remember that really that, and think about that car. When you when you see all the things that distract you and you get kind of upset about, or you start comparing, think about that car next to you out on the highway. That you and that car never have ever gone to the same place, ever. And the same thing is true with all those things that are distracting you. You're not going to the same place. Now you may see some people doing similar things that you're doing. And a lot of times that's when we kind of really get really get distracted by the other lane because maybe they're doing some things, maybe they kind of have a job similar to you. Maybe they're kind of um in the same uh social group as you. Um, and so then we start comparing ourselves to, oh, well, I'm not where that person is. Like, you know, I th I thought by now at my age, I would kind of be where they're at, or I'd have what they're at. And so when we have some commonalities, that's when it gets really tough because we start thinking, well, they must be doing a whole lot better than me. As an adult, so a lot of us are 30 and over, some of us a little older, 40s, 50s, 60s. So my parents, I think I was 11 or 12. My parents were in their 40s. I thought for sure my parents had it all together. As parents and as adults. Does anybody feel like they have it all together as a parent and an adult? No, absolutely not. Not even close. And see, and many of you that took zero time to think about. It was not like, hmm, let me think about that. But we see, but but we see other people and we think, man, they have got it together. Like they're really good parents, or they're really good at adulting. But the truth is, if you were to ask them, they probably wouldn't say, I'm killing it as an adult, or I'm just an awesome parent. Because I think we think at a certain age, maybe when our kids are a certain age, we'll be a really good parent. When we're this age, we'll be really good at adulting. I mean, I thought for sure my parents at 50 really had it figured out. But they didn't because they moved away from me to get jobs in South Texas, like one mile from the border at 50. Um, and then I found out they really didn't have it figured out. They were just trying to, they were just trying to um save everything, um, from house to income to everything. So it's interesting. And as a kid, from a kid perspective, I thought, oh, they got it all together at that age. And I don't think any of us really do, but yet we look at other people and go, they must have it figured out. Like some of you that said, no, you know, not even close. Some of those that are on here too might have gone, really? I would have thought they had it figured out. Because I mean, you know, looking, looking like you do, but looking like you do and feeling like you do, those are two different things. Because going back to those strengths, you may not have some of those strengths, and you feel like, man, I'm not very, I'm not very good at that. Like sometimes I'm not very good at communication with my kids. I can communicate with a lot of people, but when it comes to my kids, it's very challenging. It can be very challenging. Communicating, you know, whatever needs to be said, it can be very challenging. So we just have to remember that our lane doesn't match up always to somebody else's destination. And we have to remember that we're not always going to the same places. We may kind of be on the same path, we might kind of be in the same lane, but our destination is different. It might be a block before, it might be a block after, it may look just a lot different. I mean, just well, this year I I got you know distracted by Lane because somebody was doing something I wanted to do. I'm like, I'm late. I should have already done that. I can't believe, you know, I don't know how to do all that. And it really wasn't, it's somewhere I want to eventually go, but it wasn't the right time. It wasn't the right exit, it wasn't the right anything. But yet I found myself comparing and getting distracted by somebody else in the lane. And the next thing is so so we have to take notes of our strengths. We have to realize that we all have a different destination. Probably if you everybody that's in comes to work out, whether it's treadmill, strength, whatever it is, booty, you probably ask everybody what's your goal? And I bet you'd get a bunch of different answers. Nobody's would probably be the same, it'd be different. If if you asked them, maybe it's inches, but it might be different inches, might be different pounds. Everybody has a different destination. Um, just like I told them in walking talk when they're actually walking, everybody was on the treadmill. They were all walking, they're all walking side by side. But the interesting thing was they were all going different speeds. Because whether they wanted to admit it or not, they all secretly kind of had a number in mind that they wanted to get to by the time the class was over. So even though they were side by side doing the exact same thing walking on a treadmill, their destination was different. And how they got there through speed and the final destination was different. And the next one is we have to be careful not to let people bump us out of our lane. Because what happens if if two cars are side by side and they start coming over to your lane, what happens? Are you gonna stay in your lane and let them crash into you? No, no, you're gonna get over. You're gonna get over, you're gonna gradually go over, and then next thing you know, you're on the knobbies. And then the next thing you know, you're in the grass, and then the next thing you know, you're in a ditch, and then the next thing you know, you're going through the pasture, and then the next thing you know, you're way off course, only because you didn't want to get hit. And people do that to us, they bump us off course, they bump us out of our lane, and sometimes people you really love, um, because they go, uh, I don't know. That's that's that's kind of risky. Um, I don't know if you should take that chance. Do you really want to do that? Um, you know, sometimes as parents, um, even as we get older, um, parents want to keep us safe. Um, so they maybe don't want us to do certain things, but take those certain chances. I mean, maybe we do that with our kids. Um, we go, oh, you know, even though we sometimes talk about taking those chances, taking those opportunities, we might tell them sometimes, oh, I don't know, because we want them to be safe. And we so people can bump us from our lane with good intentions. It's not that they're being ugly and nasty about it, they are really meaning well, but they bump us from our lane. Did you ever have a goal in mind and really felt that you could do it and let somebody kind of talk you out of it? Yes, and they're they're lane bumpers, so you know it's you know, a lane bumper is something you don't really realize sometimes at the time. You know, if if you're if you're doing bumper cars at the carnival, you know when you get hit. Yes. Yes. I mean you're gonna get hit and everything's gonna shake. But a lot of times when we have lane bumpers, we don't know that we got bumped. It's really coming from sometimes a place of love, of caring, of concern. But when we have sometimes when we have big goals, big destinations, there'll be people that say, Well, you can't get there like that. You can't do that. And and sometimes the interesting thing is they can't see our big destination, they can't see where we're going, they can't see that in their mind like we see it. So it's not because they're being ugly or being mean, it's just because they can't visualize our destination. Our destination is in our GPS, not their GPS. And so we have to be confident, rely on those strengths that we listed, and realize that they might not have those strengths like we do. And so they're basing their decisions on their own experiences instead of maybe what we are capable of. And so when we do have in those occasions when we do have lane bumpers, the last one is if we weave, we have to get back into our lane without over-correcting. Because sometimes what does overcorrecting cause? A wreck. A wreck. Yeah, it causes that. Well, when when you when you overcorrect, right? Well, the other person overcorrected and ran me off the road, and and that and they can do that too. So that so when you overcorrect, it's gonna it's gonna cause some problems. So when you go from one extreme to another, now you got some real issues. So you know, we we've talked about it before and we call it course correction. So, in other words, if you're in your lane, you're going to your destination, and you weave a little bit, course correction, you can get back on the road. If you detour a little bit, it might just mean a detour means you go around the block and you come out the other side of the block. It's just a weave. It's it's nothing, it's nothing that you can't get back on track with. So sometimes when we do have lane bumpers, people that really care about us, and we kind of move over a little bit, or we or we get sidetracked, or we don't go towards what we want. We realize it, and then we go, you know what? I need to get back on that. So it may it may be, let's say, maybe family said, you know, you're exercising a lot. I mean, I think you're a little bit fanatical about those stars. That's it's kind of nuts. You kind of need to kind of rain in a little bit, and you need to be home more. And so lane bumper, and you go, okay. And then after you know, then you realize I need to get back in that. So the so getting back into back into your lane means you're doing a few more stars. Overcorrecting meaning goes, well, I'll show them. I'm gonna be there all the time. That's an overcorrection. Because what then does that happen? What happens? Then you get into arguments, huh? And burnout. And burnout, burnout, arguments, all kinds of things happen when we overcorrect when we go, I'll show you. I'll show you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna show you what you can and can't tell me what to do. And that's what a just a simplification of an over-correction looks like. Where the weaving goes, uh they I'd stopped coming and I only went like twice a week. But now I'm just gonna go to one class a day, and and so they bumped you and you weave and off a little bit and you got back on track. You didn't overcorrect and start getting 10 stars a day. It was just, I'm gonna go every day, get one. So that is how we can weave back in without overcorrecting. So the challenge really is are there some areas, one area, maybe a couple areas, that you find that you have a hard time staying in your lane? And if so, can you start to focus on the strengths that you have? How do they make you feel? What is your destination? And you don't even have to really worry about what theirs is, you just have to remember what yours is. You're not concerned about their journey, you have to be concerned about your destination, and then as you're going on it, don't let people bump you. And if they do, just weave back on, don't go all in or nothing, weave back on. Any any thoughts, comments, or questions about staying in your lane? And just the most important thing to remember is the car next to you out on the highway, you have never ended up in the same place. Ever. And the same is true with people, things, all of that. It may look similar, but it is not the same. They are not the same inside as you are, you are not the same on the inside as they are. Your thoughts, ideas, feelings, they're not the same. So everybody will end up at a different destination. So make sure that you're lined up with your destination. And thank you to each of you for joining us on Sit and Talk. And we'll forward to seeing you right here next week on Sit and Talk.