THROWBACK: Creating Lasting Change

Here’s an episode from the past that still rings true today for creating ANY change that lasts. It’s what we do CONSISTENTLY over time that creates the results you see today. So what you do today creates the results you see years from now. 

What are you creating? What needs to change? 

Transcript

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Thinking you could do the minimum work and still receive the maximum benefits, that is so privileged. I just heard Kristen Boss say that this this weekend at our global conference in Anaheim, California, and it stuck with me and just like punched me in the face. Because how often are we as humans wired to do the least possible work with the minimal amount of effort as possible, but we expect to get the best results, right? I mean, we know the saying, work smarter, not harder. Um, which is true. I say it all the time myself of work smarter, not harder, right? Like there are things, systems, routines, all of those things help our lives to run more smoothly and help us to not have to expend extra energy. But it doesn't mean that we're still skipping out of doing the hard work and showing up, right? It just means that we're following a system so that we're not wasting our energy and resources running around, wheels spinning, all of that stuff, right? So I wanted to talk today about change and what is required of you in order to produce change in your life. The biggest thing is nothing changes if nothing changes. So I want to challenge you right now to think about where do you want to be a year from today? This could be in whatever area it is that you are really working on right now or that you're really wanting to grow in. So maybe it's your business, maybe it's your health, maybe it's your marriage, your relationship with your spouse, maybe it is financially. You know, maybe you want to get out of debt or you want to earn another stream of income. Whatever it may be, pick that area and think about where do you want to be a year from now? And get really specific about it too. You know, what in a year from now, what is it that you want to be celebrating? Do you want to be in the same place that you are now? Frustrated that you didn't change anything, so nothing changed. Uh my guess is no, that is not where you want to be, right? I'm thinking about this in my life too of you know, where do I want my business to be a year from now? Um, where do I want my health to be a year from now? You know, right now I am a surrogate for a lovely couple that we've become such dear friends with, and you know, my health has been interesting through this. I am so thankful that I have the nutrition to nourish my body that I do because I know it's making a huge difference, and I'm feeling it already, but I know that it's making a huge difference in the development and growth of this precious baby as well. But things have looked a little different for me when it comes to fitness and movement in many different ways. I am huge, as you know, if you've left listened to me for any length of time into resistance training, specifically, you know, weight bearing, lifting weights, um, you know, lift heavy sis, that's me. Um, with getting our heart rate spiked up, but I'm not a cardio queen, and that's not me. I've learned a lot and grown a lot over the years, and to me, exercise is meant to energize us and not kill us, and that doesn't mean that we don't work hard and show up during those exercises, right? And give it our all because that's how you get benefits and experience those results down the road when you do that consistently. But at the same time, with this surrogacy, I had to take off pretty like all forms of exercise for I think it was like oh two months, three months, I don't even know, but it was a lot, and it was it was a struggle for me because I was taking all these meds, and the meds were affecting my hormones, and it caused me to gain some extra weight in a way that I never have before, um, you know, so I was dealing with that, and I know that we have to put in the time and the effort in order to get the results that we want, and I wasn't able to, um, and so that was that was frustrating for me, and so I've really had to change the way that I show up, and once I was cleared for exercise again, you know, things are different. My body is different, you know, things are changing, and I this isn't my baby, so I'm not gonna probably push myself or test my limits as much as I would have done with my own children. Um, and so I've had to really rethink that and you know, to give myself some grace through that, but also to still find ways to keep working hard and challenging myself in a way that's safe and effective for all of us, right? And so when I think about this, if nothing changes, nothing changes, it really comes down to a lot of mindset as well as action. You know, we can work on mindset all day in our perspective. So, in my example of the surrogacy and I guess you could call them setbacks in my own mind. Um, if I approach it as a woe is me, and well, now my life stinks, I'm so held back, like all of these things, that would have totally changed the way that I approach the whole situation, right? But instead, I said, you know what, I'll do what I can do, and we will celebrate the movement that I get and that I put forth each day, um, and that perspective was totally different. But then I had to pair it with action, so it was this mindset shift, but also paired with action because if we just sit here and we stay stuck in this dream zone of this is what I want, and this is where I want to be a year from now, but we don't actually pair it with action, consistent action over time, then nothing is going to change. So it's not just changing our mindset and our perspective and the way that we look at things. A lot of times, I will encourage people to focus on changing how they view themselves. So if you've ever read the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, you know that in order to implement effective and lasting change, it's really about changing how you view yourself. So if you were trying to quit smoking, instead of saying, Oh no, I'm quitting, you would say, I'm not a smoker, right? And that totally changes the perspective. And so that's something we have to think about when we're when we're thinking in this sense of affecting change. So the the way that we implement change is through that mindset shift, but action is really the key to moving the needle forward in any area of our life. And so the way to make sure that the change that you're doing is going to be something that you can consistently do. And when I say consistently, I mean can you do it in times of high stress? Because if you can't, or if it causes more stress, then it's not going to be effective in the long term. It's not going to be effective in the long haul. And that's what you want, right? We don't just implement change for a short amount of time, we implement change in small steps that we can build on over time, and that's really the key to making changes last. And the reason that I say that it has to be something that you can do consistently, especially in times of high stress, is because if you find yourself in times of high stress and you can't do it, you're gonna go back to your typical fallbacks, you know. So if you're working to eat healthier and you know, that requires a lot of time and meal prepping, that's probably not gonna be so effective in times of high stress when you actually need to be eating healthiest the most. But what would be more effective is do you have something that's simple and quick and easy and convenient that you can fall back on at any given time that actually reduces the stress in your life. Because what you don't want is you don't want to add more stress, you don't want to overwhelm yourself in a way that's gonna lead to to burnout over time. You know, and there are times in our life where we have seasons of sprinting where we're working really hard and fast towards something, and you know, that's awesome, but we always have to remember that we can't always be sprinting. You know, you can't sprint a whole marathon. Now you might have a marathon full of sprints spread out, but it's not gonna be consistently sprinting the whole time, and so that's why small steps work all the time, every time. And so, you know, if you're building a business right now and you're doing a sprint, great. You're still gonna be doing the same actions in that that you would do in any given normal time. But you're just doing more of them and you're taking more time to do them than you typically would. You're exerting more energy, time, and resources in a way that you wouldn't typically do, but you still have the same fallback habits and actions all the time. Um, you know, so one example of this for me and my health was when I after I had three kids in three years, I was, you know, completely exhausted and depleted of nutrients, and what I really needed was to nourish my body, and um, I was so stressed that trying to do something like taking a whole new meal plan on that you know, as meals I wasn't used to cooking or prepping or whatever, that was just not gonna work for me. But at the end of the day, I still needed to nourish my body, and so what actually worked as effective habit change for me that totally changed the results that I'm experiencing today, still nine plus years later, was that I needed to have a protein shake and switch out my vitamins every day, and that's something that in times of high stress I can fall back on. It's not something that overwhelms me, it actually is something that reduces my stress, and so that's why it has worked and why it's been effective, and why it's led to big changes over time. And not only that, but it's such a small step that it's something I can consistency build consistently build other habits on. So, back to what we started talking about is if nothing changes, nothing changes. And now we're talking about that piece of action. So, what is one thing you can do that is going to move the needle forward in the given area that you want to experience results and big changes one year from now? And that's the question you need to answer yourself. And if you don't know what that is, or you don't know what is actually going to move the needle forward, you know, you're you're gonna be able to decide if the action is going to work in your life, if it's gonna reduce stress, if it's gonna not lead to burnout, right? But you might not know exactly what action to take. And so this is why you should always seek out someone who is where you want to be, who's already done the work. And they also need to have a very similar life and lifestyle to your own. You know, if you are trying to implement workouts, but you're hiring a trainer who doesn't understand the logistics and um everything that goes along with having kids, that's probably gonna be a challenge for them to give you steps that are gonna work with your life. But if you were to hire a coach, let's say in your business who may be in a different season than you are now, but who has already walked through the season that you're in and is going to understand where you are, they're gonna be able to help you take action and you're gonna be able to weigh if that's something that you can consistently do over time, and that's gonna lead you to those big results and changes a year from now that you want. The other thing when it comes to effective change to take into account, so we've already talked about mindset, shifting that, we've talked about taking action, something that's simple you can do over the long haul, especially in times of high stress. But the last piece that I want to talk about is making sure that you give yourself enough time. Too often we set really big goals for not enough time, and we just don't allow ourselves the amount of time that we actually need in order to see the results that we want, or even start to see progress towards where we want to be. And I mean, look at exercise. Really, it takes at least three months to start feeling and possibly seeing a difference. But I would say six months to a year is really what you need to give yourself in any goal that you're working at. At least six months. But the bigger the goal, the more time you need to give yourself. And the worst thing you can do for yourself is to keep looking at where you are now versus where you want to be. Instead, just like the gap in the gain, the book, go read it, it's great. Focus on the progress. Look where you started and look where you are now. And remember that it's about the things that you can control, it's not about the things you can't control because if you focus on those, you're gonna be frustrated and you're you're just not going to want to continue. And it's not about feeling motivated because there are gonna always be days and times where you don't want to show up, but it's about the discipline. It's about the discipline of these habits, it's about these small actions, these small steps that you can do consistently. And if you want to go faster, you're just doing more of those small steps with more energy and resources and time. And if you're in a high stress situation where you need to fall back, you're just doing those actions at at least the bare minimum, but also remembering that it's okay sometimes to consistently do the things that are going to maintain us, and we don't always need to be moving forward. But if your goal a year from now is to experience change, then you're going to have to change something now. And it's not gonna happen overnight. That's why you're giving yourself a year. You're going to have to do it consistently over time in order to see the results that you want. The biggest reminders: do not overwhelm yourself, do not take on too much. Always take your big goal and work backwards and break it down into those small actionable steps that you can control. You can't control the results, but you can control the things that you're doing every single day. So I would love to know what it is that you're working towards and hear more about your goal of where you want to be a year from now. So leave a note for me or connect in my Insta bio, and I would love to hear from you.