Bloom Your Mind

Ep 04: Meet Me In The After

• Marie McDonald

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It doesn't matter how big our goals and dreams are.

In the face of well-intentioned friends expressing their doubt, family and coworkers looking at you like you're crazy, or even the most supportive teacher asking if you're sure this is the right thing to do, it's easy to just get stuck.

To stop. To give up. But all of that is just a reflection of the before.

A reflection based on what is right now in the before. Now, it's time to shift your mindset into what will be in the after.

In this episode of the Bloom Your Mind podcast, Marie shares the three steps she took to change her beliefs and realign her focus; it comes down to being on the right side.

Listen now to learn how you can shift out of the before you're stuck in and believe in the after. 

What you'll learn in this episode:

  • How Marie discovered two sides of change during grad school
  • How to generate belief in what you want to create or change
  • The difference between living in the before vs living in the after
  • Three simple steps to make your focus real in the now (for the after)

 Featured in this episode:

How to connect with Marie:

JOIN THE BLOOM ROOM!
We'll take all these ideas and apply them to our lives. Follow me on Instagram at @the.bloom.coach to learn more and snag a spot in my group coaching program!

Welcome to the Bloom Your Mind Podcast, where we take all of your ideas for what you want, and we turn them into real things. I'm your host, certified coach Marie McDonald. Let's get into it.

Well, hello everyone. Welcome to Bloom Your Mind, episode number four. I am having a wonderful winter right now. I am just soaking up all of the twinkling lights and the sort of, like, rest period from this really generative year. And I'm really just enjoying this winter quiet and all of the cozy time with my family. And I really hope that you are, too, or if you're listening later, you can take this moment to remember what your winter was like, what your last winter was like.

We are heading into our holiday this week and I'm just so excited about all of the little magic things that we have planned. If you are heading into a holiday, or no matter what time of year it is when you're listening to this, I have a holiday cheat sheet for all of you that I created. So, go over to my Instagram @the.bloom.coach and you can check out how exactly to get your hands on that free resource that will give you all of my thoughts on how to have exactly the holiday that you want.

But today! We are talking about the before and the after. Because when there's something you want to change in your life, it could be your relationships, your career, how you feel in your body, or the way you take things personally, or people please, or get overcome with anxiety, or whatever it is that you want to change about how you be. Or when there's something you want to create in the world like writing, or a piece of art, craft, or a business, or community, or a home, or a podcast [laugh], or maybe a different kind of lifestyle than what you've ever seen any other of the humans walking around live in life.

Maybe you want a family in a different way. Maybe you just want to be in a different way. Whatever that thing is that you want to change or create, there will always be two parts to the change. There will be the before and there will be the after. So, think of something that you want to create or something that you want to change.

Got it in your mind?

When you do, give a little hoot or a whistle. I'm just kidding, but that'd be fun if you really did it! Do it when you're ready so that you know that you're ready and now that it's in your mind, when you have it in your mind, let's just orient ourselves to where we are in time.

Right now, you and I are in what I like to call "the before." Everyone and everything around you, and even you yourself, are going to reflect back at you the world as it is before you make this change or create this thing. It is going to be in opposition to the idea that you have in your head. It's not that reality of the after, it's the reality of the before… the change that you want to make.

So, everyone, everything around you is going to reflect that back. And what that means is that no one else can see your vision. Nobody else can get it. Really. They can't get what your idea is. Not yet. They haven't seen it yet. It's not real yet. All they can see is what things are like right now.

So, if you share your initial, "Hey, I'm thinking I want to make this change." You might get reactions like this:

-       Like a confused attempt at a smile. You know, when the person that you're talking to is really trying to be supportive, but it's very clear that they either just, like, don't understand what you're talking about or aren't really into it.

-       Or maybe you could get just straight up doubt. Like someone might tell you, "Uh, that's not possible for you to create the change because you've always been like this. I know you, and this just really doesn't seem possible for you. This is just not you." Someone might literally say that.

-       Or they might give you those wide eyes. You know, the look that's like, "Ooh, but that's risky and scary, and you might fail." I'm going to do a whole episode later on, on how I love to chase failure instead of run away from it, and how I highly recommend this approach to life and love and pretty much everything about being a person.

-       And even you! You get some of those responses from other people, but even you can't know how you're going to get your idea out into the world or make this change.

Not yet. You might not know where to start. You might keep hearing a voice in your brain telling you, "You don't know how to do this." It might be this fixed mindset in there that might even tell you, "You're no good at this type of thing. You don't have this skill." Or some deep, dark corner of your mind might kind of be whispering to you and asking you, "Who do you think you are? You're not special enough, you're not worthy enough. You're not up to this. You know it's not going to work."

So, between all of the voices of outside people that just can't understand yet and all of the things that our brains do to keep us safe, keep us out of harm's way, and from doing anything that isn't guaranteed success, there are a lot of possible forces against you putting a new thing into the world or changing an area of your life where you feel stuck.

But that's cool because we've got a workaround. Today's episode is all about generating belief in your after. Your vision for what you want to create or change. And we're going to talk about how to believe in it so much that it's stronger than all the people and all the things that are going to reflect back what life is like now before your idea is real.

So, I'm going to tell you two stories. One's a before—and it's messy. I'll tell it to you. This is messy me—and an after. And then I'm going to give you a challenge for this week and some actual things that you can do to believe in your after.

So, the first part of my story is way back, a rewind to Grad School Marie. It was, like, two years of incredible work getting an MFA in painting, in studio art, making these giant paintings, and in conceptual art theory. I am a theory nerd and I love it. I love to read. I love to talk ideas. And during this time, I was making huge paintings about body image because I had this eating disorder that came very, very close to taking my life. Pretty much as close as you can come to taking my life when I was in my early twenties.

So, I was doing a lot of work on this. I wrote my thesis and made all these paintings about that experience, about chasing the ideal, trying to become the ideal and the pain and violence of that in our culture. So, these were like 30-square-foot oil paintings that were photorealistic, figurative work. So, paintings of people.

And as I shared these paintings, and this body of work and how I was thinking about it, I got a lot of feedback. I had people tell me I was too small to have anything important to say about body image. I was too wiry and thin. I had people tell me that I think and talk too fast. I had people tell me I had too many ideas. And one person—I will never forget this—sitting across from her in a café, like, sharing my heart, she was like, "You know, you should just make a video of yourself talking about all of your ideas. That would be entertaining."

I was like, "Huh, that is not very nice."

She was just trying to share an idea. But what I did with all of that feedback, and this is like messy me, I scrapped all of my work; stopped making those paintings. I made a whole new body of paintings. These were giant watercolor and gouache and multimedia-oil paintings. Really different, but at the same time, kind of about the same theme.

And then I had people tell me other things; that my work was too reminiscent of this incredible artist from the time named Wangechi Mutu, that I was still too small to make this work, to have anything to say about body image, that I was not cynical enough, I was too functional to talk about these concepts. And eventually I stopped making the work… again. I left the whole field… of conceptual art and of studio art. Now I just make paintings for myself and the people that I love. I gift them.

So, most of these critiques, they were like legitimate professors. They were trying to help. They were brilliant, brilliant people just trying to engage in conversation about how my work was landing, right? There's nothing wrong with that. But I didn't know how yet to just take people's input as points of data that I could consider and then toss out or like take to heart. You know, that they're all little pieces of data and I get to choose what to do with them, but that I can always go back to what I see, what I want to put in the world, to my inner land, where I can tend my mind and build a blazing vision of my after that will fuel me no matter what. Because I can believe in that no matter what anybody else thinks or says. I didn't know how to do that yet, so I gave up twice. It was two years of just giving up, taking it personally, giving up. But eventually, I did learn those skills.

So, the after was about a year ago. I was working in a job in the field of innovation. Innovation education, teaching people to make their ideas into real things, and teaching educators to teach children in this way, and teaching leaders to create communities where the people that worked for them turned their ideas into real things.

I loved the work, but I wanted to change. I was a vice president, helping to lead this company. A lot of people were reporting to me throughout the year and it was an organization where I had, like, a work family. Work sisters and brothers and others. Just work people that were like family, true family to me that I had been with for fifteen years. I had two small kids, a 401k, health and dental, PTO, prestige, all the things. And I decided I was about to quit my job.

And my idea was to be a life coach and just to spend deep, deep time all day long, every day helping people all the time. Like, what I wanted was if you think about something that's like really high up and you think of someone reaching for it, just, "Ahhh." They can't quite get to what they want.

I just wanted to be the one that was intertwining my fingers together under their foot and like boosting 'em up so they could reach the thing they wanted. That's what I wanted. My vision was to be a bestselling author, have a podcast, have my own coaching business. Help like hundreds of thousands of people, if I can, by the end of my life. Do public speaking and training, and lead retreats, and be of service and of value and not make it about me. That's what I wanted. That was my after. And when I first said all those things, I got feedback kind of like my grad professor's. It sounded like this, like, "Ooh, that's a lot."

It sounded like this: "Wait, you and your husband are both going to own your own business with, like, two little kids under ten. That doesn't sound good." Or like this: "Uh, those are a lot of goals. I mean, I love it. Oh, I love you, your brain, how you want to do all the things, but you know, you can't leave what you've been doing." Or just like, "Wow, really? How?"

All kinds of responses, right? But this time I let those words just come in. Come in one ear, I'd consider them; I'd, like, let them go across the screen of my mind. I'd be like, "Do I want that one? Do I have a thing about that?" Maybe I'll write it down. Look at it later. And then I'd let 'em pass back out the other ear.

It was like I consumed them and transformed them into what was helpful for me. And right now, one year later, I have done five out of the six of those things. I am not a bestselling author yet, but I have half my book written. And I promise you, I'll publish it when I decide to. I'm going to do it. I've done all the other things that I said I was going to do a year ago.

The only difference between me in grad school and me last year is that I believed in my after more than the before I was in. That before? That was the air I breathed, ate, slept, spoke, and lived. You know, the world I was in before I made any of those changes. And my after became more real to me than anything else.

I knew my why. I knew why I wanted it. I knew it was in line with all of my values. Everything I believe to be most important about being a human, about how we are all so special, and we can use our lives to create love and service and value for the rest of humanity around us through our day-to-day interactions and through the work that we decide to do.

And so, that's the world I live in today. And here's how you can do the same thing: so, think about your after. Think about the thing that you want to change or create. You might go back to, if you've listened to the last podcast, you might go back to that list of all the things you want. Really fun exercise in the last one. All the things that you want, that you have and that you don't have, and decide on one thing you really want to focus on making real.

-       And your first step is to decide why. Why do you want it? Write it down, please. Like write it down. Make a note in your phone. Whatever it is that you do, write it down. Why do you want this change? Why do you want to create your idea and put it in the world? What would it mean for you? What would it mean for the world? What would it mean for the people most important to you? Or just for others in general? What would it mean about you? Answer those questions. That's your first step.

-       And your second step this week is to think about your after. Sit somewhere quiet. Ground yourself and your body. Close your eyes. Think about what life will be like after. When you've made this change, or this creation is out in the world, what will it be like when you wake up in the morning? What will the air feel like? What are the first sounds that you'll hear? And throughout the day, what will you experience? What will you do? Who will you talk to? What will you see and smell and hear and taste and feel? Really visualize it. Take time. Have fun. It's like a swimming pool or a hot tub. Like get in there and then do that every day. Visualize your after experience, your after as if it is happening. Now do it every day.

-       And then the third and last thing is to tell yourself every day that all you have to do are two things: to believe in the after and to take action toward it until it's real. That's it. Those two things. Other people will say things and do things. You will fail a lot. You'll make mistakes, you'll get it wrong. You're going to have to start over, and that's perfect. Keep doing that, and you will get there.

We are in the before. You and me, we're standing in it. In order to create the change you seek, you have to believe in the after. Hard. And I know that you can. You've got this.

That's what I've got for you today. Big, big love to all of you. Let's go out and make our after real. I'll see you next week.

Thanks for hanging out with me, friends. If you like today's episode and you want more of them, please take two minutes right now to subscribe and give me a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, then send this episode to a friend. See you next time.