Fierce Encouragement

When Perfect Isn't Possible: Walking Toward Authentic Growth

• Mark Walker • Season 2 • Episode 45

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Sometimes the most powerful insights come when we step away from our carefully planned routines. Walking through my neighborhood, surrounded by summer's cicadas and butterflies, I decided to record this episode without notes or structure—and that vulnerability became the perfect backdrop for exploring how we can transform our relationship with ourselves.

We all struggle with negative self-talk. It's hardwired into our biology, this tendency to focus on what's wrong rather than what's right. But fierce encouragement offers a different path: recognizing our efforts, embracing our imperfections, and speaking to ourselves with the compassion we'd offer a dear friend. Through raw personal stories—including a painful moment when parenting overwhelmed me—I share how expanding the space between stimulus and response has transformed my ability to choose my reactions rather than be controlled by them.

The most transformative question you can ask yourself is disarmingly simple: What's the most aggravating thing in my life right now? By identifying your loudest pain point, you create the opportunity for targeted growth. I introduce two powerful practices to support this journey: "collecting turnarounds" (a three-step process for interrupting negative patterns) and "targeted thinking" (maintaining focus through transition moments). These tools have helped countless clients—from corporate executives to struggling parents—claim their freedom to shape their responses to life's challenges.

Whether you're wrestling with anger, procrastination, relationship difficulties, or creative blocks, remember that courage isn't about fearlessness—it's about feeling the fear and taking deliberate action anyway. I'd love to hear how these tools land for you. Check out the link to my upcoming Awareness Lab if you're ready to deepen your practice with a supportive community. How might your life change if you committed to fierce encouragement for just one week?

Speaker 1:

Hey there, this is Mark and this is this week's episode of the podcast Fierce Encouragement. If you're new here, this podcast is about how we can talk to ourselves in an encouraging, compassionate and positive way, instead of defaulting to that negativity that seems so easy and actually is a biological predisposition that we have. So fierce encouragement is about recognizing the good that we're doing in the world, the positive things and the ways we're showing up and, most importantly, how we can continue to practice and use some tools and have more of that fierce encouragement in our life, for our own good, but also for our families and friends and our work. Today I'm trying something a little different. I'm away from my desk and I thought I'd take this podcast episode out on the road, so I'm taking a walk in my neighborhood. You can hear the cicadas singing in the trees, I'm seeing butterflies and insects and the green from the summertime here where I live, and of course, I can hear the lawnmowers and the cars going by as well.

Speaker 1:

But I thought I'd try something a little more improv today, and I guess that kind of brings up some things as I think about this episode. I don't have any notes in front of me, I don't have an agenda or a plan or things that I wanted to cover, but I do want to share how much of a struggle it's been to create this podcast, how much difficulty and vulnerability it takes to show up here and record. In fact, I've probably started and stopped this live episode two or three times because it feels really vulnerable and I'm not sure what to say. And I guess I want that to inspire you to go after your creative projects, to have that one crucial conversation or just to get better in your mind that you can take on those difficulties, that you can take action and make progress, no matter how small, if you just keep going, if you just keep going With that improv wisdom, kind of coming online and really thinking about what I wanted to share today. A lot of things are flooding into my mind right now and if you're a creator or ever tried to create anything sing a song, do artwork or maybe just show up more creatively and invest it as a parent or a co-worker we all know that it is really hard to practice being present and vulnerable and open-hearted, especially with ourselves. So really that's my message today how can you practice and let it flow instead of trying to be productive all the time or have it be perfect or have it be ideal.

Speaker 1:

So many of the clients and conversations that I have through the weeks and with people who are struggling and people who are thriving, it kind of revolves around this self-identity and this self-image that we have. Sometimes it sucks, in fact, I've had a newer client this past month or two. They're a president of a company and they're really winning at the game of life materially. But when we started to unwrap the difficulty or the difficult points of their life, we really saw deeper into some of the struggles they have not giving themselves permission to make mistakes, not feeling connected to their family and their kids and maybe even going back to some of those old wounds they have around money and their difficulties as kids. And this isn't to throw stones at anybody, it's quite the opposite. I want to encourage you to find out where the pain points are in your life.

Speaker 1:

So my meditation teacher from years and years ago, one of those first retreats that we went on, I recall him saying what is the most aggravating thing in your life right now? What is the thing that is throwing you off and sabotaging and making your life difficult? Those are my words, but his prompt was there and it still resides and I find it's a really powerful prompt for all of us. So take a few moments and ask yourself what is the most loud thing that is really making me emotional or creating havoc in my life. Making me emotional or creating havoc in my life For me it was and still sometimes continues to be is my anger and my temper and my frustration. When we start to find, or we find, that loudest, most bright thing that is in our life that might be sabotaging us. No-transcript and have it be a priority for the next month or for the next year. Really get curious about how you can work with your anger or whatever your saboteur or difficulty is when we make effort to see what's bothering us and seek out solutions. We are bound and seek out solutions. We are bound, we are actually attached to making movements and changes and growing in that area. Now it might not seem like it, as we're progressing day by day, week by week, but only when we stop and pause and look backward and say, hey, I've gotten a lot better at controlling my temper.

Speaker 1:

Or, for me, feeling that frustration and anger that came from driving, and especially at that point in my life, the frustration and anger that came from being a dad, and I was going through some old journaling today and some writing that I was doing for a book that I have yet to get out there. But one of the things that I had a little lump in my throat after rereading it today was well and it's hard to share this there was a day when I was so frustrated with my boys that I hollered out I don't even like being your dad and that makes me really apprehensive to even share this recording. But I know I'm not alone. I know I said it out of frustration and anger and a really unskilled emotional place at that time. But I want to offer that up to you, number one you're not alone.

Speaker 1:

Whatever you're struggling at with your anger, with your sadness and depression, maybe with that giving up attitude, whether it's your exercise program or looking for a new job there is a way through. The science of hope tells us that, and I've been sharing this with my son recently. The science of hope instructs us to see not just arriving at that predestined goal that you want to achieve or go towards, but to know that there's many pathways, many ways we can arrive or strive to take those first steps on that journey. So I'll ask you, where can you relax a little more and give yourself some grace and encourage yourself to take one step towards it today, in this moment? And if you're listening to the podcast for that reason, great, but I'd really encourage you to pause, maybe pause the recording, maybe break out your journal. What is the one thing, the one area if you focused on it for the next week or month that would show the most improvement in your life? What's the one thing that, if you did it, it would change a few other areas in your life.

Speaker 1:

One thing that comes up for me and my clients a lot is that work on our exercise, our food and, of course, our mind state, fierce encouragement, is nothing more than changing our attitude when troublesome things come up in our life. Can we encourage ourselves in those moments, or do we give up and do more surfing or more Netflix or more of our addictive behaviors? More Netflix or more of our addictive behaviors? And I say this with a ton of vulnerability you are not alone. You are certainly not alone in the struggle to get a little better, and I think that's the big message for all of us when we struggle is to realize we do have a choice in that moment between the activity and our mental reaction or reflexive reaction. We can pause and choose a different way, a different attitude, a different mindset or even different words or perhaps no words.

Speaker 1:

When we train in that moment between that stimulus and our response to it, when we expand that space, we are literally claiming our freedom, our freedom to change our lives, our freedom to change our relationships and that ability to practice in that small moment to gain that wealth of our lives. And I know this sounds like a lot of woo-woo bull crap sometimes, and it can be if that's the way you interpret it and internalize it. It can be if that's the way you interpret it and internalize it. But think about the other side. When we take this not as gospel but as a prompt or a call out from deep within you that you want help with your anger, that you want help with your energy or your exercise, that you want help being a better parent or a better spouse, when we take that action or take that attitude and claim that freedom in between stimulus and response, just know we can encourage ourselves fiercely every day if we're doing that. We can encourage ourselves fiercely every day.

Speaker 1:

If we're doing that, when we live with that moment-to-moment awareness and step into that space, we can change our lives. And it takes a certain amount of courage. And to hearken back to the very first episode as I slowly approach my 50th episode what is courage? So, if we're going to say fiercely, encourage yourself. Well, encourage means to have more heart, the virtue or the strength.

Speaker 1:

Courage doesn't mean to run into traffic and hurt yourself in order to save others. It's quite the opposite. It means to feel the fear and the difficulty and the stress and the sadness and it means to take deliberate, fierce action anyway. Action anyway. Again, it doesn't mean an imbalance in our actions towards overdoing it or maybe underdoing it and wishing and dreaming something would happen. But fierce encouragement is the heartbeat of our ability to change and our awareness really sticking to, becoming more alive in the moment, noticing how we react internally with our attitude. Well, that is the heart of fierce encouragement, that's the heart of our lives, that's the ability to claim our freedom as we move through our lives, our freedom as we move through our lives. It takes a ton of courage to be beaten down every day, whether it's by our job, or maybe a friend a so-called friend who's not really helping us, or maybe it's our spouse or our family, where we feel alone. It takes a ton of heart and courage to pause, take a few minutes and connect with what's really important to you and, most importantly, to make that space between the event and our reaction and give us that ability to shape our future, to claim our freedom, and wherever you're at listening to this, well, it's taken me a ton of courage to take this episode out on a walk.

Speaker 1:

There's something about well, and I'm not sure if any of you have connected with any of my work, but I've played music for years. I've had the joy of being in plays and musicals and being on stage, and I've also done a lot of speaking and training through the years of my professional life and, of course, now as a coach and a podcast host and a facilitator for workshops. But I guess I wanted to share that it doesn't come easy to me it really doesn't from people that will say like, oh, you're so natural or you seem so at ease when you get up to play guitar or when you decide to host a workshop, and I just want to share this. It is almost like a slow crawl through glass every time I sit down to write or to create or to think about how I can bring a new episode or a new concept to my students and my clients, and to kind of give up here, as you hear the cars and the birds and the cicadas to give all the idea of perfection up for me. Right now, getting out of my office and doing this on the road, live well, I guess I just want to share with you.

Speaker 1:

It takes a ton of courage to be creative and to trust that inner part of yourself and again, I don't have notes, I don't have an agenda here and I kind of feel like I'm naked and I'm trying to wrestle with it but at the same time, to allow myself just to be present and really talk with you and encourage you to step towards what the most important thing that you could work on is, a tool or a practice that you could bring into your day, and it's something that's really helped me and it's kind of like a combination of tools that I've learned from my coaching program. As I duck under a tree here, it's called collecting turnarounds, so I would prompt you. Maybe it's tonight or this day or even the next hour or the next week. Take that number one thing that you want to work on and get more curious and encouraging about how you can interrupt that cycle of negativity or of things that might be pulling you down. So the idea is this Collect turnarounds, notice that you're off balance.

Speaker 1:

Off balance, notice that the saboteur, or the difficulty or the negativity, has come in and is dominating the conversation in your head. The second part would be to prompt yourself with a positive thought. Maybe it's remembering this episode and telling yourself and the cognitive behavioral therapists tell us this all the time have one phrase for yourself that you can go back to. Maybe it's something like I got this and I can get after this one more time. It's not easy, but noticing it and then having your prompt or your vocal saying that you can use is a very powerful tool and use it. Use it just like you would a tool in your toolbox. And then the third part is just to feel that change afterwards, feel the momentum that comes from you pausing and telling yourself that you got this. This pain, this difficulty will set you free.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, collect turnarounds, use that three-step process. And at the end is something I like to tag on, which I've gotten from great coaches, and it's called targeted thinking. I'm really good at spinning off and having 10 things to do and then not getting any of them done, or at least one of them done. So something that really helps me is just asking myself now what needs to be done. If I complete a task or finish a project, or even just finish that email, asking myself now what needs to be done, use that tool of targeted thinking to help you drive through your day Attack, or at least be observant of the difficulties that you're facing and get really curious and open-hearted with yourself about how you could collect a turnaround and at the end, ask yourself now what needs to be done. These two tools can really drive and change that difficulty that you find yourself in. That difficulty that you find yourself in whether it be recording a podcast on the fly or having that better relationship with your kids, or maybe, just maybe, learning how to fiercely encourage yourself instead of giving up and diluting your energy with more comfort and hedonic pleasures.

Speaker 1:

I really appreciate you taking the time to listen to this and sharing this walk with me. Please reach out. There's some links in the show notes. I would love to hear how this landed for you and, of course, keep fiercely encouraging yourself. This might seem goofy and silly, but really, the more energy and presence and awareness that you bring to your fierce encouragement, collecting turnarounds, using targeted thinking, these tools applied can shape and shift your life in ways that are unforeseen. So thank you again for sharing your time.

Speaker 1:

This has been Mark, this is Fierce Encouragement. And, of course, if you're aware, I'm sorry if you're interested in having more awareness and sharpening your own awareness, check out the show notes. There's a link to the next Awareness Lab that's coming up. I would love to host you there and the rest of the people that are in my group, and we could work on some of those deeper callings and those deeper trainings. But for now, I really appreciate you. Wherever you're at in the world, have a good day, a good evening, and we'll talk to you next time on Fierce Encouragement. Okay, take care, bye-bye.