Six Months From Now....Who Do You Want to Be?

In this episode, I'm inviting you to pause for a mid-year check-in...

Not from a place of guilt or shame, but from a place of curiosity. 

This month's focus inside my Aligned Life Membership is Balance, and one of the resources I created for the women inside the membership is a guided reflection workbook. Today, I'm sharing a few of the questions from it because I think they'll help you create an intentional second half of the year.

We talk about why the stories we tell ourselves shape the results we create, and how asking better questions can completely change the direction of the next six months.

We also talk about why lasting change doesn't come from mentally beating yourself up... it comes from becoming radically honest with yourself while treating yourself with compassion.

Because six months from now, you could be living in a very different body... a different mindset... and a different life.

It all starts with asking yourself better questions.

If you're ready to stop drifting through the rest of the year and start creating it on purpose, this episode is for you.

Courtney

Currently, I work with women privately and in my monthly membership.  Click HERE to head to my website to learn more.

Transcript

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Paul, welcome to Modern Body, Modern Life, the podcast for women who want to feel powerful, healthy, strong, and confident inside and out at every age. On this podcast, we talk about becoming a woman who is fully in control of her eating and movement, so weight loss, strength, and energy become permanent. We also talk about something bigger, becoming the woman who takes her deepest desires seriously and goes after more in every area of her life. I'm Body and Life Coach Courtney Gray, and I believe you can get in the best shape of your life at any age, and when you do, it becomes a catalyst for

everything else: 0:39

your relationships, your confidence, your joy, because when you feel like you and your body, all of life gets better. Let's get started. Welcome to the podcast, episode 137 Six months from now, Who do you want to be? It is halfway through the year, so you can consider this podcast your mid year check in, and so much can happen in just a few months. We've got six months, so much can happen in six months, so much can happen in three months. So I'm excited to deliver this podcast. It is going to be the week of Fourth of July, if you're here in the United States. So, if you're listening, you're one of my, I think, badass listeners, who's like, "I know it's a holiday week, but I am still tuning in, and I'm really happy to have you. I hope you're doing something fun this week. I hope you're getting some time to relax with your family and friends. So, let's dive into the podcast, because truly, so much can change in just a few months. First, before we talk about where you want to be at the end of the year, which I love thinking about, like I love thinking about. Okay, where am I at now? Where do I want to be at the end of the year? But before I dive into any of this, I want to just say I want to make sure when you're doing any kind of evaluation of like where you're at now, where you want to be, it's not from like a mental whipping place, it's not from a, oh my god, it's halfway through the year, and I'm still not where I want to be. I don't want that for you. I think that when we slip into shame, which is when you're having those kind of thoughts, it slips you into shame. Nothing good comes from shame. So I want to just get curious, and from a place of I still want this, I still want this thing, I still want these things. How can I tell myself the stories? I always think if I keep coming back to something, it's something that I really want for myself. Let's, let's get curious, and let's not like at all think, "Oh my god, I haven't done something. Let's, like, let's learn, let's, let's learn and grow, my friend, let's learn and grow. So, it's the.. we've had six months into this year, I would imagine. If you're the woman listening to this podcast on the regular, you probably at the beginning of this year had some goals for yourself. So, how's it going? And again, not from a place of shame, but like, how's it going? Have you made any progress at all? I believe that there is progress, even if you feel like maybe, like at first, you're like, no, there hasn't been progress, but I think that sometimes, sometimes, in not making progress, the progress that we want, we can look and say, okay, why not, what's keeping me from making more progress, and that in itself is progress when we can get good at reflecting without shame, that really is like one of the first steps to making progress. So, if you think back to at the beginning of this year, what you had hoped and planned for this year, and you're not quite there yet, what happened? Like, what do you think went wrong? What do you think is really getting in your way? That's always a beautiful place to start, not from a place of shame, but from a place of curiosity, and from a place of deeper understanding. If you have a moment to stop the podcast and think about that for a few minutes, I want to give you the prompt to do that. It's such a gift to be able to say, let me, from from a place of curiosity, let me check in with myself. What's really going on? I had really hoped to be here. What are the things that are standing in my way? And give yourself a chance to be radically honest when you start doing this from a place of curiosity and not shame. It can be a game changer for you, because then what you start, you start really proving to yourself is, is that you can be radically honest without being mean to yourself. Oftentimes, one of the reasons why we're not radically honest with ourselves is because we have created a habit over the years of being really mean to ourselves, and so then we don't even want to look at what's really going on, but if we know we can look at it from a place of not mentally whipping ourselves. We can have so much more growth available when we can look at ourselves and say, even have, like, even whether you look at yourself between now and the past six months, or look at yourself like, oh, yesterday this is what I said I was going to do, and I didn't do those things, and you know that. You can look at that and be loving to yourself. You have so much more of a chance of doing better today after you've taken a moment and looking back and identified, like, what's really going on with you. Where do you want to roll into the last part of this year? And I'm choosing that language very intentional. I want to say roll into the last part of the year, because I want you to know that I know you're hearing me talk a lot about allowing discomfort, doing hard things, being courageous, but I also want you to know that that those things, doing hard things, being courageous, feeling discomfort, doesn't have to be horrible, we can roll with it, so when I say, Where do you want to roll into the last part of the year? Like, who do you want to be as you roll into the last part of the year? This can be fun, and this can be easy, and this can be challenging, but easy at the same time. And I know it sounds like I'm contradicting myself, but I'm really not. I mean, we've already been doing the hard work of mentally whipping ourselves, of trying to restrict ourselves, trying to tell ourselves we have to be perfect. What if we did a different flavor of hard work? What if we just got radically honest with ourselves? What if we just allowed ourselves to feel a little bit of negative emotion? What if we just really locked in and let that be fun and enjoyable, and a little bit easier than the work we've been doing, so that is more of a rolling into the end of the year. Who do you want to be at the end of this year? And you'll start hearing me talk about this. I talked about it last year. I kind of do like my messaging is very similar because it comes from my, my truth, and how I really think about things is, you're going to hear me start talking in November about how, when you end the year on fire, when you end the year being intentional, when the, you end the year enjoying your life, but also taking yourself seriously, it is so much more fun to start the year like with new goals, new aspirations, and really with a new set of evidence that you can do quote unquote hard things and enjoy your life from that little pep talk. Who do you want to be at the end of this year? I get really excited halfway through the year thinking about, okay, what are some of the things that I've already accomplished this year. How am I really proud of myself this year? Always a great place to start. Now, where did I drop the ball? Where did I tell myself this was I was going to take this seriously? And where haven't I done it? And there's been a few places for me where I'm like, oh yeah, I keep saying I'm going to do that, and I haven't done it. Radically honest about why do I still want to do it? Most of the time it's a yes. And what needs to change? Let me tell you, what needs to change. Usually our thoughts, usually our thoughts need to change. If we're looking at like something that we really want, and we realize we're not putting it on our calendar. It's got to be our thoughts. It's always has to be our thoughts and beliefs first, because if we're not putting something on our calendar, there must be thoughts in there that other things are important that we don't have time for it. What does it matter anyways? This isn't even available to me. So, do you see how we have to change those around first. We need to say, wait a minute, this is available to me. Wait a minute, I'm going to make time for this. Wait, this keeps coming back up for me. So clearly it is important. What else do I need to kick off my to-do list in order to make time for this? So, when you think of who you want to be. It literally could be as simple as I want to be a woman that stops telling herself that this isn't important. So, maybe you're actually having the thought this thing in my life isn't important. Maybe it's a subconscious sneaky thought that maybe you can uncover, or maybe your schedule, your calendar, just reflects that it's not important because you're not taking it seriously for me. Whenever I'm not taking something seriously that I know deep down is a true desire, I need to say to myself, I need to remind myself every day this is important. So this is going to be one thing you're going to get from this podcast is basically, how do we create daily habits, daily reminders of what's truly important. That's who I want to be. I want to be living more and more every single day where it's very clear to me what is important and what's not important, and sometimes those things go against what society thinks we should be agreeing as important. Sometimes it goes against what other people in our lives thinks is important. Sometimes it's the people that we love the most. So that can be kind of challenging. Who do you want to be? And I want you. Two, and I'm going to do this too, and then I'll cut this out, cut this out of the podcast, but I want you to take a moment, and I want you to pause the podcast here after I say this is, I want you to think, just think about six months from now, who you want to be, how you want to be moving through your day, what feelings you want to be feeling more of, how you want to handle difficult situations, who you want to be? I'm going to actually take a moment and do this, and then I'm going to cut out, cut out the silence. Oh, maybe I'll leave a little bit of the silence in. Maybe that would show you that I'm doing this work too. So we're going to take a moment. I'm going to keep it in. I'm going to take a moment, and I'm just going to take a beat, and I'm going to make sure I have this image in my head of who I want to be like the 2.0 version of me by the end of the year, so let's take a moment. Okay, I've got it. Definitely pause the podcast, please, if you need more time. You might need more time. I've been doing this work for a long time, so I can lock in pretty quickly. So, if you need more time, pause and spend more time, and then come back to me. Let's not wait until January to take a moment and check in. Let's celebrate. Let's get curious. Let's have some compassion, if we need compassion, and get re-fired up for what is possible for you. And I want to remind you of what I've been talking a lot about right now in June, is you can have both, you can have fun and you can have growth, you can have even more fun, and you can be losing weight, if that's what you want to do. You can be having fun, and you can have more strength. Getting, getting stronger is what I mean. You can have more fun in your life, and more awareness, more compassion, all the things you want. You really can have both. And so, one thing you've heard me talk about is my love of journaling, and I think that there is a lot of people out there that I have heard me talk about my love of journaling and how powerful it can be to change your life on this podcast, and they've told me that they have started a journaling practice. Now, you've heard me say this, but I'm gonna

say it all again: 12:19

is there is no right or wrong way to journal. You could literally have a sticky note every single day and just write one thing that you're trying to think that day on the sticky note, and then throw the sticky note away, and the next day go to the next sticky note. You could spend an hour a day journaling, you could spend 10 minutes journaling. If you don't have time to journal, I've told this to a few of my clients. If you legit tell yourself I don't have time to journal, which I would really question for yourself, but if you don't have time, I would suggest then mentally journaling on your way to work in the morning, or on your walk in the morning, if you want to do kind of a mental, a mental journaling where you just literally talk to yourself and say, this is what I want to think on purpose. How can I give myself compassion? You just ask yourself some powerful questions. There is a lot of research, though, a lot. If you Google, there is a lot of research that tells us that when you write shit down, it gets in your brain in a much more deep, impactful way than when you just think, and I wouldn't like it. That's not what it says when you Google. It doesn't say when you write shit down, that's not what it says, but that's the gist of what it says. There's a lot of research that says we learn things at a deeper level when you write things down. But here is what I have found over the years. Many times women will say, I know I've heard you talk about journaling and the power of journaling. First of all, it's a time factor. Women say sometimes they don't have time, which I would challenge that. I always try to challenge it, but I also know you are busy, I get it. But the second barrier to journaling is many women sit down with their journal and they literally just don't know what to write. Sometimes, if they do know what to write, they they'll write things they're grateful for, which is always amazing. Very often I will start with things I'm grateful for. It's a great place to start, but after that they find themselves just kind of like writing, almost like they're writing like what they're doing that day or what they did yesterday, like a reflection, and sometimes that doesn't really give them what they thought they'd get from journaling, because when you're just writing like you're telling someone about your day, that's not necessarily going to evoke the feelings that you want it to evoke. So I'm going to give you a few powerful questions to ask yourself that you can ask yourself on the repeat, so I'd write these down on the repeat to really start understanding yourself at a deeper level, so for the next six months you can really help yourself step into this next version of yourself. Now, I should say, as well, is that we are rolling into July, the Aligned Life membership. Every single month we have a different focus, and so for the month of July, the focus is balance, and it's the balance between fun and growth, the balance between compassion and really being radically honest, the balance between like noticing your aging, but also like doing your best, becoming the healthiest version at you, at whatever age you are, the balance of all of it. This is what I'm going to be teaching in the aligned membership for July, and so I decided to create a workbook slash journal to guide the women through this focus of balance in July. So, if you are in the membership, you don't need to write down any of these questions. Not only are you going to get these questions, you're going to get like 50 more. So, I created this. It's actually something I've wanted to create for a long time. It's really as a guide for women who feel like I want to journal, but I sit down and I literally don't know what to write. So, what this journal slash workbook is going to be is it's going to have different sections, and the sections are - there's a bunch of them, but this, like some of the sections are like possibility, one of the sections is compassion, one of the sections I entitled Becoming Her, which I thought was kind of mysterious and exciting, and so each of these sections has different journal prompts, different questions to ask yourself, because depending on the day, you might need something different. Maybe there's a day where you feel like you need courage, you can go to that section, maybe there's a day where you feel like you're just not really believing that what you want is possible, so you can go to the possibility section, and you can literally answer one of the questions, one of them. You can look through them, and when one kind of lights you up, when you feel that pull towards one of them, you answer one of them, or answer all of them. If you have an hour, go for it, and answer all of them, and have like a complete like shift in your body. Amazing, you can get a shift even just by answering one question. You can get a shift just by reading a powerful question. Tony Robbins says something to the effect of like the quality of our life depends on the quality of the questions we ask ourselves, and I remember him saying that at some point, and hearing it, and going, huh, and I was kind of intrigued by it, but now I really do believe that a lot of people that have lives that they're not loving, they're asking themselves shitty questions, they're asking themselves questions like why can't I ever do this, or why does this always happen to me, or like God, it's just always one more thing. Why, or how can I always do this? So, when we ask ourselves those questions, we're never going to come up with an empowered answer. So, we need to ask ourselves better questions. So, if you are in the membership, if you're in the Aligned Life membership, you don't need to write any of these down, because you are going to get all of these in the workbook slash journal, I'm actually calling, I called it, I titled the journal Conversations with Myself, and so you're going to get it, so you don't have to write any of these down. And I also wanted to say is, is I'm closing doors to the membership on July 1, so at the end of the day on July 1, I'm going to close doors, so if you have been wanting to join us in the Aligned Life membership, join us now. I would love to have you, and I'm closing doors. I wasn't sure whether at first I was just going to keep doors open when I started the membership, but I decided to close doors because I really want to lock in and work and do this work together with all the women in the group, and not worry about bringing people in, not worry about introducing new people and getting people into the private podcast, making sure people get their journal, all the different things. I just really want to focus in and focus on loving and teaching and coaching the women in the group. And then doors will open again at the end of July for you to join us in August. So we'd love to have you. So let's dive into these questions, and these questions can help you really change where you're at by the end of this year. I'm going to share one question from each of the sections. If I shared all the questions, we'd be here for three hours, like it'd be like a Joe Rogan style podcast. These questions are going to help you slow down, check in and really get back in the game, if you want to live your best life and body, as well as have the most fun summer ever. Okay. First question, What story am I telling myself right now? I would pause, and I would actually answer these questions in real time. I would put them in your phone or whatever, I'd record them, but I would definitely pause to answer while you're listening too. So, what story am I telling myself right now? And there's a lot of stories, but we're looking for a story that is probably stopping you. Maybe you have some good stories, like, oh my god, I'm so grateful, that's a beautiful story, that one is serving you well, and it's great to notice that that is serving you well, but what story are you telling yourself about where you want to be for the next six months? What story are you telling yourself about what's available to you? What story are you telling yourself about where you're at now that we've been six months through the year, and first of all, two. If you're listening to this podcast and it's like October, maybe it's not July, and you're listening in, all of this applies. So, wherever you're at in your year journey, all of this applies. So, what story are you telling yourself? And then the second kind of little baby follow-up question to this is, is this true? Is the story true? And most of the time we normally say no to most of these stories, because stories are not truth, the stories are just things we're telling ourselves, that's what makes it a story. For something to be true, it has to be factual, it has to be able to be proven in a court of law. So, is this story true? Most of the time, you're going to say no, and then you can actually say, what story would serve me better? What story do I want to be true? Okay. Next question, what would it look like to have both? Right now, you're thinking that there's only one option for you, possibly, that's part of the story you're telling yourself. For a lot of women, especially during the summer, they tell themselves they can either have enjoyment or progress. But what would it look like to have both? Who would you be if you had both today? Who would it be if you had both by the end of the year? Like, so what I mean is, if you started allowing both today, where would you be at the end of the year? What kind of woman am I becoming? This can be like a little in your face of a question, because we're always becoming something, whatever you're doing today is it's a compounding effect, right? The way you're thinking, the way you're acting, the way you're talking, the way you're moving, the way you're eating, the way you're drinking, it's all part of your becoming, and it's all compounding, and it's leading you to a direction. This is what I realized years and years ago, I was very slowly gaining weight, very slowly starting to drink more, very slowly just acting in a way that I was like, I am not headed in a direction that I like. We have to see the compounding effects of what we're doing. We might as well guide the ship to a place we want to actually end up being, so what kind of woman am I becoming? A very powerful, in-your-face reckoning type of question. Next question, what evidence do I already have that I can do hard things? This is so good. And my first thought, for those of you that are moms, my God, is it the hardest job on the planet? I truly believe that, and even if my husband were sitting here right now, and I don't think he would give me a look, because I think he would actually agree, but even if he looked at me like, "Oh, why isn't parenting? Why is it mothers? I don't think I think he would agree, but there is just.. there is a level of hardness by being a mom, I, you know, I could go into it, I could do a whole podcast on it, but, my God, we can do hard things, and when we think about mothering, we can do hard things for our kids, can we do hard things for ourselves, and is it your time, for so many, the women, for you listening to this podcast, it's we have more time to do for ourselves right now. So many of me and my friends, we definitely are getting more time. Our kids are growing up, they don't need us like they used to. We're not necessarily driving them all over the place, and if you are, that's okay. And you can still look at this question and answer it in a way, but for so many women in midlife and beyond, we actually have more time in the day to devote to our self-care. We just don't know how to do it, because we've never done it. So it's really powerful to find evidence that we can, that we've already been doing hard things. So now, can we just do hard things for our own welfare? Next question, how would feeling this discomfort, whatever discomfort right now you know is your job to feel. So, how would feeling this discomfort get me closer to what I desire? How would feeling this flavor of discomfort, whatever it is, is it being willing to feel a little wanting, is it being willing to feel a little urge, is it being willing to feel a little sadness, is it being willing to feel like your brain's telling you you're missing out, but you decided you're not missing out because you really have goals that are important to you, and so that level of discomfort, how would it get you closer to what you desire? Great question, What is going well that I've not given myself credit for, and I don't mean going well, like I mean we can say that well, there's two ways to think about this. On the one hand, sometimes if we just think about something in our life that is going well, like I can look right now and say all three of my kids, they're. Really, doing well, and so we can give ourselves credit for that, because we're bad ass moms. We can also just be grateful for that. Take a moment and say, "Whoa, this is great right now. But we also can take credit for, like, we are doing well in some areas. Are we giving ourselves credit? Are we living in the gain. A few months ago, I did a book review, all on the book, The Gap and the Gain, and it talks about us thinking about how far we've come, as opposed to how far we have to go. It's a perspective on how we can think about our progress, and so what is going well that I've not given myself credit for get you into the gain, it's what they talk about. Many of us, they talk about in the book, is many of us are living in the gap. We're saying, okay, we want to eat better, we want to drink less, we want to lose weight, we want to get stronger, we want to go off our medicine, whatever that is. And we look at how far we have to go, which is causing us pain, which is in the gap, we need to be in the gain, in the wow. Look, how far I've come. So, what is going well that maybe you have not given yourself credit for? If you're like me, you need to get better at giving yourself credit for stuff. I've been getting better and better at that, but historically I just haven't been good at doing that. Our brain does not always tell us how great you are. Our brain does not tell us, "Wow, we're doing so amazing. Our brain is always scanning for how we're not doing a good enough job. It is biased to the negative. It does this to keep us safe. It does this almost kind of like we got to be always watching for anything that could potentially be dangerous. It really is a primitive survival technique, so we need to force ourselves to give us credit for what we are doing well, what is going well, for what we have accomplished. Next question, what would make this the best month yet? I mean, just take a moment, what would make this the best month yet? And I will add, it's okay if it feels like you went to something really selfish. It does not have to be serving the world, it does not have to be serving our children and our families. What would make this the best month yet? I know that there are some of you out there that just said to yourself, if I could lose five pounds, or if I could just drink a little bit less, or if I could just start working out, because I keep telling myself I'm going to work out, that's okay, that can be massively important to you. Sometimes we say something like, sometimes we have this initial response to answer that question, but then our brains like, yeah, but you should be thinking about something that's going to change the world, but you know what, we change the world by changing ourselves, because imagine for just a moment, I'm going to take a pivot for a moment, imagine for just a moment that you do this work with me, and you end up at the end of the year going, holy shit, I have really grown in the last six months. Imagine how that will ripple effect to the other people in your life. Imagine how you might be an example of what's possible to other people. Imagine how you will, in order to do that, have to learn some tools that you now don't know, and how those tools can help you in other areas of your life. Imagine if you even just got a hold of some of your habits, your daily habits, like being on your phone less, on going to sleep a little bit earlier, on eating a little bit better, on moving your body a little bit more. Imagine on how that will have the ripple effect in your own life, and how it will ripple out to other people, and imagine the positive emotions you will be living in, and we know positive emotions affect everything. The whole world is built up of an energetic emotions, and the more positive emotions are felt, it's I believe its effect, it's felt worldwide, its effect galaxy wide, I believe the emotions affect all things. So, back to the question, I got very big there, but what would make this the best month yet? And how awesome would that be? And how it would affect the rest of your year, the rest of your life. Last question for you today, what do I want to keep doing that's working for me. Often we are thinking about what is not working, we're thinking about what we're not doing, we're thinking about how we're failing ourselves, we're thinking about how we're not good enough. Our brain goes to the negative by default, but what can you be proud of? What are you doing that is working? What are you doing? Maybe that's working a little bit, but you can double down on it. You can pour some gasoline on it. If we ask ourselves some better question, even just one. If you took these questions and just asked one of these questions to yourself, especially in the morning. It can make you feel a little bit better. You can answer it in a powerful way. You can get a little bit inspired, a little motivated, a little confident, and it can radically change how you show up for yourself that day. This is how we change our lives by one question at a time, by one moment at a time, by one day, one month at a time, so if you've been listening to this podcast for a while and wishing we could go even deeper, if you feel like you're loving it, but you want to go deeper, that's exactly why I created the Aligned Life membership. The topic again is balance for the month of July. If you want to get the gift of this beautiful journal I created, journal slash workbook I created. Join us for the month of July in the Aligned Life membership. We'd love to have you. We go deep on all of this because insight, it really does change the way you think, but practicing it every single day changes your life. And to join the membership, there's a link in the show notes, but you can also just head to Modern Body Modern life.com forward slash membership. Have a great Tuesday. For information on how we can work together, head to Modern Body Modern life.com to schedule a consultation with me. I'm currently coaching women privately, and I offer group coaching programs.