Bloom Your Mind

Ep 143: Transitions

• Marie McDonald

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Seasons change, and so do we. Sometimes we’ve literally got one foot in the next season, as we change from spring to summer, summer to fall. Other times we’re transition a personal season of life, from one era of ourselves to another. This episode is guides you through a process for transitions. A way to pause, witness what’s good in your life, in your world and in yourself, and design how you want to move into what’s next with intention.

You’ll learn a simple three-step practice to celebrate how far you’ve come, envision where you want to be by year’s end, and reverse-engineer the systems and anchor thoughts that will get you there.

We’ll talk about:

  • Why your brain wants to focus on your failures and how to redirect it to joy and growth.
  • How a four foot mandalorian taught me to be in the moment before it’s passed by. 
  • A guided five sense visualization to step into your future self at the end of this year.
  • How to reverse engineer your brain to get to the future self
  • How to hack your subconscious thinking to wire your brain toward your goal, and work with your conscious mind by designing systems and action steps to get you there 
  • How to design your own anchor thoughts that keep you consistent and aligned.
  • Why systems and habits are just as and sometimes more important than goals. 

Each literal and metaphorical season is a chance to recalibrate and choose our direction again and again. To make the tiny tweaks that keep us authentic and keep us on course. This episode is your invitation to use whatever transition you’re in right now, to transition intentionally instead of reactively. 

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Speaker 1:

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. Hello everyone, and welcome to episode number 143 of the Bloom your Mind podcast. Whenever you are listening to this right now, for me I am in the moment of time when we are transitioning from the summer to the fall and lots of my clients in the Bloom Room, in one-on-one, lots of my clients are experiencing that bumpy road feeling of the transition, whether they have kids that are going back into school or not, whether there are people around them that have these transitions going on in family life, or whether it's just this seasonal change from the summer to the fall that kind of has an energy to it. We're going to focus on transitioning today because I have a three-step plan for how a three-step process or exercise that you can do to process these transitions with grace, because whether you're in the middle of a seasonal change or some other transition, transitions can be sneaky. They tug at your routines. They maybe play a little bit with your nervous system, your sleep patterns, your energy, your vibe, your motivation. Maybe people get grumpy around you. Some of us just get a little bit lost, kind of like when we're in the ocean you get tumbled in a wave because everything around us is changing. Although they can feel like this, like being tumbled in a wave, they're also a really beautiful opportunity to pause, look back with intention and manage our mind to see what we want to see, what is most valuable to us, to look at as we look back and then to design how we want to move into the next season of our lives. So today I've got a three-step exercise for you, with some stories to make you laugh along the way. So today we're going to number one reflect on how far you've come as we look backwards into the last season that you're stepping out of. And then, number two, we're going to go with that one foot that's in the new season and visualize yourself at the end of the year and I have a practice for you to do that and then we will move into action, which is to work backwards to design the systems, feelings and thoughts that are going to get you to that visualized outcome. So let's go. Number one, the first step out of the three, is to reflect on how far you've come.

Speaker 1:

Oftentimes these transitions just happen on their own. We don't pause because we can't. We feel like we can't. We're moving forward. Things around us are changing and we just roll with them. When we do that, we step into the next season reactively. We're just reacting to everything coming at us. So before we tumble into what's next, we want to pause and look back.

Speaker 1:

When we look back over the last season, that we're stepping out of our brain is, by its own nature, going to fixate on where we failed, what we didn't do, what's unfinished the boxes we didn't unpack the exercise. We didn't do the goal that we thought we were going to get done and we didn't get to that. We thought we were going to get done and we didn't get to. Welcome to having a human brain. That's what all of our brains are going to do. But we have the opportunity and it is much more advantageous to us to direct our brain, to redirect it away from those negative thoughts and train our brain to see how far we've come. Where's the growth, where's our joy, where were our wins? Where are the moments over the last season where we're like oh, I did that. It happened so fast, I didn't really celebrate it, but damn. I did that.

Speaker 1:

So think about the last few months. Where did you choose connection over productivity? Where did you choose to do the thing that was in line with your values? Where did you choose productivity in a balanced way? When did you feel joy in your body in that way? That's like I am being who I want to be. I am in this life, I am in this moment, experiencing this, and I'm being who I want to be. Where were those moments, no matter how tiny? And then how did you grow, even in tiny, messy steps? Pause, pause this episode for a minute, if you need to, and observe those things in yourself. When we do this, we will kick ourselves into a higher functioning part of our brain that will be able to look forward in a way that's much more effective. We will generate feelings and chemicals in our body that are beneficial to our body, and we will be more likely to anchor the moments that we were acting in the ways that we want to, that we did move forward in the ways that were in line with our values and who we want to be. We'll anchor those in a way that we're more likely to do them again.

Speaker 1:

So I'll give you an example, this summer I did not do every piece of work I thought I would. I thought that me and my assistant were going to move these scripts that I'm writing forward and I'm doing a bunch of recording and creating some new programs for all of you, and I wanted to get these scripts done. Kind of while I was traveling in August and I just each time when I could have been working on my trip to the Sierras in a cabin in the woods, I made a conscious decision to read fiction books with my family. Instead, all four of us were sitting around. I read 10 books this August instead of moving that work forward. But the deal was.

Speaker 1:

The thing I'm celebrating is that I intentionally chose that. I chose balance and connectivity. I chose an August that was relaxing and rejuvenating and so connecting with my kids and my husband instead. My exercise routine it was about 50% of what I had planned. My exercise routine it was about 50% of what I had planned. I really was on it for most of this year and then I planned to keep that going. I did about 50% of it. I took some runs, you know, I got exercise, but I did not do what I thought I was going to do again. I chose that intentionally. I made a conscious choice to prioritize sleeping in with my kids and reading and going on slower walks with them, and I'm so glad that I did so. I'm looking backwards and, instead of beating myself up, I'm looking at how many times I can celebrate making choices that were in line with my values and knowing I didn't do it unconsciously. I actually made the choice intentionally and thought about a plan for how I could get on the track that I want to be on again. So that is an example of what I'd love for you to do, and there's one more thing I want to just invite you to do here, which is to look back at the last season with the lens of nostalgia, for now we had.

Speaker 1:

Our last adventure of the summer was to take my son for his birthday to a couple of theme parks. He dressed head to toe as Harry Potter head to toe and we were at Universal Studios in Hogwarts, in Harry Potter theme land, and I was dying. I loved it so much. People are just walking by him his, you know admiring his little outfit and him as a wizard in Harry Potter land. They selected him to do this wand fitting, and in these moments I was just. I was so aware of a tiny person that I love being in their like utopic surroundings. His body language changed. He became harry potter.

Speaker 1:

Then we went to disneyland and at disneyland he dressed I kid you, not head to toe as the mandalorian one day and as kylo ren the next day, and his body language can completely shift it again, y'all. So we're walking through star land, the cantinas, and like this whole world that's set up, and his body language is just massively Mandalorian. He is totally Mando and the next day he's Kylo Ren, and he's like opening sliding glass doors with his hands, with a force, and he is Kylo Ren in that moment. People are walking by us grinning and giggling and just stoked to see this tiny version of these characters walking around, owning it. Right, and here's the deal. It feels like he'll be like this forever and he will not. I mean, who knows, maybe he will, but that might be the last time when I get to have one of my kids dressed head to toe completely in their imaginary world, right?

Speaker 1:

So I'm looking back on those days, doing the opposite of taking it for granted, right? I'm just thinking, damn, I love this. What are all the things I love about it. I love it for him, I love it for me. I love the looks on people's faces. I love the prep where we pack his costumes. I love it all so much.

Speaker 1:

So look back on the last few months. Where can you practice nostalgia? For now Things feel eternal, but they are not. Next year might be different, next month, next week. How can you drink in the moment before it slips into memory? Pause for another minute and do that for yourself. Celebrate how far you've come and cherish the things that are passing by. All right, that's step one. Number two visualize the end of the year. So we shift from this looking back to looking forward and we get into design thinking mode. Close your eyes, still yourself, take in a deep breath to the count of four, pause in that still space at the end of the breath and release the breath. Picture yourself at the end of the year, december. You've done it. You've accomplished exactly what you're envisioning, what you most want to accomplish. Maybe it's in your health, maybe it's in your business. Your life circumstance, your relationships, your projects, your ideas turned real as you visualize yourself having accomplished it.

Speaker 1:

Look around you in your mind's eye. What do you see, listen, what do you hear? What are the sounds that are around you? Who is there with you? What do you smell, taste, feel? And then, most importantly, what is the one word emotion that describes how you feel. Is it fulfilled, is it powerful, is it charged up, is it free, is it just happy, is it at peace? Drop down into that feeling in your body, turn down your thinking mind and drop into that feeling. Where is it? Is it in your chest, your belly, your shoulders? Does it buzz, does it glow, does it hum, does it have a color?

Speaker 1:

Really, take a minute to anchor the feeling and from that vantage point, your future self, looking back, ask yourself what actions did I take on the daily? What are the monthly actions I took? What are the systems that were in place? What routines helped me to get here? Think specifically about what little tweaks you made to the things you've been doing now, to the habits and routines that you have Little tweaks or big changes. What are the things, as you look back, that got you to where you want to be? And what we're focused on here is systems over goals. Okay, not I want to write the book, but I wrote for 30 minutes four mornings a week. Not I want to be fit, but I walked after dinner five times per week.

Speaker 1:

In the book Atomic Habits, james Clear talks about systems over goals. So how helpful goals are in determining the North Star of where we want to go? How helpful goals are in determining the North Star of where we want to go? But that, really the thing that differentiates those that accomplish the goal from those that do not, are the systems in place. So we want to really look at what are the systems we need in place to get to where we're going to get that feeling to become a reality in the external life that we're experiencing. We can generate the feeling anytime we want. What are the actions and the things we need to do and the habits and the routines that will actually let it emerge organically at the end of the year? And step three, before we close out, is to work backwards. We're going to reverse engineer it From the future we've designed and envisioned. We've decided on the actions we need to take to get there, in order to take those actions consistently.

Speaker 1:

What did you have to feel? Another one word emotion. Maybe it's committed, maybe it's clear, maybe it's steady or grounded or disciplined or focused. What is it? Maybe it's steady or grounded, or disciplined or focused. What is it? In order to feel that way and take those actions? What thought do you have to think? What thought created that feeling for you? One simple sentence.

Speaker 1:

We went through this whole exercise in the bloom room and here are some of my favorites, straight from the beautiful brains of my Bloom Room members as they visualize the rest of their year. Here are their thoughts At the end of this road is less burden, more success. Just stick with the plan, follow the path. I can do this. We've got this. We're going to do this. This feels so good.

Speaker 1:

Find your thought, reverse, engineer where you want to go during this next season and find the thought that will get you there.

Speaker 1:

So much of what that all depends on is our thinking. Our actions come from the thoughts that we have in our mind. Our actions come from the thoughts that we have in our mind, these regenerative thoughts that then cycle through our feelings in our body, create our actions and then come into the actual life that we have. By creating the idea made real, the thought cycles through our body and our actions and then becomes real. It comes into fruition because of all of our unconscious bias and the way that our brains work. So choose the thought that will get you where you want to go. Reverse engineer it. That's your seasonal transition practice.

Speaker 1:

Number one reflect and celebrate how far you've come. Practice nostalgia for now and celebrate how far you've come. Practice nostalgia for now. Measure the gains. Number two visualize yourself at year's end with your five senses generating the feeling that you will have when you've accomplished what you most want to do. And number three work backwards to design the feelings, systems and thoughts that will carry you there as the season changes. Remember you're not behind. You're right where you need to be. This is the part where you learn exactly what you need to learn. This is the part where you shift gears.

Speaker 1:

Each season gives you a chance to recalibrate, to choose again, to design your life, your actions, your being, with intention, in the way that's most authentic to you, most in line with your values. All right, y'all Go to it. Try this exercise. Let me know how it goes. I can't wait to hear the words, the systems, the anchor thoughts and visualizations that you choose. That's what I've got for you this week and I will see you next week, if you like what you're hearing on the podcast, you got to come and join us in the Bloom Room. This is a year-round membership where we take all of these concepts and we apply them to real life in a community where we have each other's backs and we bring out the best in each other. We're all there to make our ideas real, one idea at a time. We'll see you in the bloom room.