3 Patterns to Avoid if You Want to Change Your Body and Life

In this episode, I’m sharing three sneaky patterns I see keeping women from moving forward with their weight loss, health, mindset, and bigger goals. 

We’ll talk about why you may be waiting for something to happen before you really go after what you want... and why learning to move forward even when you don’t feel completely ready can change everything.

Whether you want to lose weight, stop emotional eating, become more consistent, feel stronger, or simply create a life you’re more excited about... this episode will help you see where you may be unintentionally holding yourself back. 

You don’t need the perfect mindset, perfect circumstances, or perfect timing.

You can start becoming her now.

Enjoy!

Courtney

Grab a free copy of my Playbook "Take Control of Your Evening Eating" here: https://mailchi.mp/43700070f134/playbook

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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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

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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 143. Three patterns to avoid if you want to change your body and life. Three patterns really to be aware of, and I'm going to dive into each of them, and I want to really break them down so you can see if any of these are keeping you from growth, either keeping you from like growth at all because maybe you feel kind of stuck, or maybe like speeding up your progress. I definitely have been in these patterns throughout my life, and I definitely see these patterns with my beautiful clients, and when we, the first step is always awareness. When we start to go, oh yes, I'm doing that. From there, you can really dive deeper, and this is why coaching is so powerful because it helps you really understand yourself at a deeper level, and then you can actually start to make changes with a new level of awareness. So these three patterns are really keeping people from moving forward with whatever growth they want to make. Because I've coached many people, of course, on losing weight, but on making more money, on growing a business, on relationships, health, like hobbies. Just you know, all of a sudden you're an empty nester, and you feel like you don't know what to do with your time. Like there's so many different areas that we we might want to grow in our lives, and these three patterns are really very powerful, and you want to avoid them. In fact, this one, the last thing I talked about is becoming an empty nester. This, if you recently are an empty nester, or you finally have, or like you've just set down something in your life that took a lot of time. Like maybe you were taking care of an aging parent and they've passed on. Maybe you are now retired. Maybe you are an empty nest or something like that. Where or maybe you you know just change jobs and you have a lot more free time. Anything like that. Or maybe you just had this huge renovation going on in your house and the renovation is over. A lot of times, I think that these three patterns can kind of get in the way of us really launching into that next level of growth, launching into being the woman and living the life we want to live. So I'm excited to dive into it here today. I have been listening a lot lately to Joe Dispenza because I've been really upping my meditation game, which is so fun because I actually have been listening to Joe Dispenza so much that I have sent his podcast to my kids, two specifically of my boys, and one of my boys messaged me back and said, "Hey, I listened to that podcast two times. It was so good, which just absolutely delights me. So I've been listening to Joe Dispenza. If you want to get better at meditation. Joe Dispenza really is the guy to listen to. He's definitely woo woo in some of his meditations. Like if you pull pull anything up on YouTube, it's a little bit like it'll make you go, "What are we doing here? It's a little out there, but I really am loving it. I just kind of laugh. In fact, one of one of my good friends sent me something that she saw on Instagram the other day that was a woman like trying to listen to her Joe Dispenza meditation and her husband or partner were sitting next to her laughing his ass off because it was just it's a little woo woo and um it was pretty funny so Joe Dispenza is the man though if you want to get better at meditation you can also go to like Gabby Bernstein she's a little more palatable and she's lovely but I've been listening to a lot of Joe Dispenza and a lot of Eckhart Tolle, who is very deep. And I tried him a few years ago, and I was like, I can't even listen. I'm sorry, Oprah. I can't even listen to him. But now I'm listening again, and I'm I'm getting it at a deeper level. And those two seem to complement each other. And one of the things that I keep hearing and listening to both of these thought leaders in the books that I'm listening to is, they say that we get stuck in repeating feelings. We get stuck in feeling feelings over and over again. Meaning, like for me, I've really noticed lately. Oh, I spend way too much of my time alive as a human in worry. Now I'm not actively a worrier. Like you would, if you know me personally, you would never say that I'm a worrier. I'm not someone that would walk up and go, "Oh my God, I'm really stressed about this, or that's just not that's not even my vibe. You'd probably be like,"Wow, you'd be surprised to hear that. But I know internally, I spend more time in worry than I want to. And so, what Jo Despensants and Akhartolli both say is, we our bodies get used to feeling certain emotions over and over and over again. And if we're spending too much time in worry or struggle or anxiety or frustration or guilt, whatever, it almost becomes addicted to these feelings, and those feelings, we know, right? If we think about the model, we think about the thought model. These feelings dictate what our behaviors. It dictates what we do and what we don't do, and what we do and what we don't do affects our lives. It affects the results we're creating in our lives. So we need to make sure that the feelings we're addicted to are good feelings for many people if they would admit, and I have many clients that would admit this, that they have quote unquote struggled with body image and weight and health for a lot of their lives, and what can happen with those people is even if we get them to a place where they've lost weight and they've done it without dieting, and they are talking to themselves nicer, and all of these things, and they really are feeling beautiful results in their lives. What can happen is they can have a tendency to slip back into old habitual feelings, and so what does that mean for people who would admit that they've struggled for a lot of their adult lives, at the least. A lot of people say that they've struggled since they were kids or teenagers. But if you've been struggling for a long time, your body is addicted to that struggle. I think Eckhart Tolle calls it like the pain body. Joe Dispenza talks about it being like an addiction. You're you're addicted to a negative feeling, and if it's negative, why would we be addicted to it? Like, why wouldn't don't don't we want to naturally feel happy? No, we want to naturally feel the same way we've always felt. Any kind of change poses a threat to our brain. Any kind of change poses a threat to our primitive brain because that says, "Ooh, this is unfamiliar, and there might be danger here, and so we need to feel, think, and feel, and act in the way we always have. So again, if you're the type of person that you feel like I've always struggled in relationships, I've always struggled to make money, I've always been an inconsistent person, you need to recognize that we need to get you out of that struggle. We need to condition you to feel new feelings, which means we need to condition you to think new thoughts. What happens for so many people is they get used to the struggle. They get used to these three patterns. I'm going to dive into here in a moment, and these three patterns become just who they are, right? So the way we think and the way we feel, for most people, the way we think and the way we feel becomes a habit in itself. It becomes a neural pathway in our brain, and that becomes a pattern. It becomes who we are, and that in itself, a lot of times, keeps us stuck from making progress. This podcast is going to be important for you to really check in with yourself and see if one of these patterns is happening for you in any area of your life. So the first pattern I see, and I've seen with myself, of course, long ago, and I see with so many of my clients is waiting for the moment for things to click, waiting for an aha moment. You know that moment where all of a sudden you feel like, oh my God, I have this like up leveled level of understanding. I understand what's going on with me. I understand what has kept me stuck. You just said something, and it hit me in a way that I I've heard it before, but it hit me in a new way. These are all beautiful moments, and when they happen, they're amazing. We're so grateful for those moments. But I think sometimes what people don't realize is, is if we look back over our lives, we've had many of these moments. I think even in my business, I've had probably hundreds. If I look at myself as an entrepreneur, I'd probably over the years have had hundreds of these moments where all of a sudden something has clicked. Those moments are amazing. But what we don't want to do is we don't want to wait to take action until we have one of these moments, what I really think happens in this moment is we get this aha, we get this click, we get this deeper understanding in that moment. Someone says something to us in the in the right way that we need to hear it. I mean, that's what I'm trying to do on this podcast. Every podcast I make, I wanna I wanna be able to say something to make you go, oh my God, that's me. Oh my God, that's so true. Oh, that's it for me. Amazing, right? So I, it's a weird. It's on the one hand, I'm telling you, one of the patterns you want to avoid is is waiting for the moment for things to click. But on the other hand, I want you to have many moments for things to click. I want you to flood your life with everything I'm teaching you here. So you're clicking all the time, but I think what we want to avoid is the pattern of waiting for the moment for things to click. Because here's what I think is really going on. I think it's one of two things. I think first of all, people are really searching for good feelings. They're searching for that feeling that comes along when all of a sudden you're like, I get it. I feel inspired. I feel motivated. I feel seen. That's a beautiful moment when it happens. And when we flood our lives with podcasts like this, I know a lot of you are reading a lot of the books I'm suggesting here on the podcast. When we have those moments, it's amazing. But we don't want to wait for those moments. We don't want to wait to be inspired, excited, or motivated. Can we create more of it? We definitely can. It's one of the things we're doing in my membership. It's flooding their lives every single week with all of this positive, positive reinforcement. But we don't want to wait. I think the second thing that's happening is people are searching for the feelings that come along when they drop the shame. So they're searching to be motivated. They're searching to be excited. They're searching for inspiration, but they're also wanting to, I guess, have permission to drop the shame. And again, that's a beautiful thing. I'm giving you permission to drop the shame. For if you're not where you want to be in your life, there's really no shame. I love thinking at every moment that we're right where we're supposed to be. We're learning the lessons we're supposed to be learning. We are living the lives we're supposed to be living. There's always a next level for us. There's always a new day. There's always a new lesson for us to be learned, and so for that reason, there is never any shame. And a lot of times, what people are waiting for is they think they're waiting for things to click, meaning they're waiting for that shame to go away, because it's so much more fun to go to our own next level when we're not feeling shame. So many of us have lost weight, or made more money, or worked harder from a place of shame and mental whipping, but that is not sustainable because it just doesn't feel good. So that is the first pattern I want you to see. Are you in that group of people who they're just kind of waiting for things to click? They're waiting for someone to say something to go. Oh, that's it. That's the thing. I've had clients do this on calls with me. I've had clients come and say, "Oh my God, things have clicked for me. I see things so much more clearly, and I love that. It's an amazing moment, and I never want to burst their bubble, but I say I love that so much. And I said, "Keep going, but know that life is positive, and life is negative, and what we want to do is we want you to know that yes, keep getting the clicks, keep getting the aha, keep getting the awarenesses, but on a day where all of a sudden you feel like shit ain't clicking, all of a sudden you've lost a little bit of belief. Can you still show up for yourself and do the things you would do if things were clicking. If you dropped that shame, if you felt inspired, what would you do? This is one of the things we're working on in my in my membership this month is becoming the version of you who every single day you say whether I'm feeling like things are clicking or I'm feeling kind of blah. What would I do if I was like the ultimate version of me? And can you do that thing? And the beautiful thing happens is, is when you get yourself to act in a way where you feel motivated and you've dropped that shame, and you feel good when you act in that way. Even if you're not feeling motivated, it actually kind of gets you feeling good. So if you have a day where you kind of wake up on the wrong side of the bed, or you're feeling a little overwhelmed, but you get yourself to coach yourself, you get yourself to really connect with your God or your universal energy or whatever you're the future version of you, and you can connect and you can say,"Here's the way I want to move throughout my day, even if I have a headache, even if I'm worried about one of my kids, even if whatever's happening in your life, if you get yourself to live that way and to be that person, it in itself is motivating. So then, what happens is by you living your life and by you becoming the next version of yourself, you are motivating yourself, and then the clicking, the aha-it's all coming from within. So let's move on to the next pattern that I see that can really kind of keep people stuck from their growth, searching for clarity. This is a little bit different. I know that it might sound similar, but it's a little bit nuanced. It's a little bit different, but I see so many people searching for clarity. And if you really think very deeply about what's happening, if we feel like we're if we're searching for clarity, really the subconscious message is is we don't know. We're telling ourselves we don't know. We're telling ourselves we need. Something outside of us to help us get clear on something, because most people, when they're they're searching for clarity, they're not searching from within. And I used to be this way too, so I don't say this with any shame. For so many people, they're searching outside of themselves. Now that doesn't mean we don't listen to Joe Dispenza. It doesn't mean we don't listen to an Oprah podcast. It doesn't mean we don't like listen to things where we can educate ourselves and learn more. Totally, but if you are feeling like you're in this kind of constant, I'm searching for clarity. I'm quote unquote like trying to figure things out. I'm kind of seeing what my next move is going to be. There's nothing wrong with that, but really dive in. How long have you been in that space? And is it possible for you? And I want to give you permission and tell you that it is possible. Permission to, while you're searching for clarity, while you're maybe not 100% clear, can you make progress in some direction? And what would that look like? For so many people. I really believe clarity is within them. I believe that there is usually a negative emotion getting in the way, and usually it's fear. This is why coaching can be so powerful. If you're telling yourself, "I don't really know. I'm really kind of figuring things out. I'm just trying to get clear what we're really trying to do is we're trying to get sure. We're trying to believe what we truly want is possible, and that oftentimes doesn't necessarily happen. Going back to the first one, the first pattern that doesn't necessarily happen often with an aha or a click. Sometimes it can, but sometimes what happens is we can just decide. Okay, I'm not clear. I've been sitting too long searching for clarity. Here's what I think I want. Let's head in that direction. Let's not let this searching for clarity keep me from making any move at all. Because here's what

the beautiful thing is: 18:04

when you start moving in some direction, usually it helps you get more clear. Even if you start moving in one direction and you go,"Oh, this was the wrong direction, oftentimes when people are quote unquote searching for clarity, they're in a pattern of like saying, "I don't really know what I want. I'm searching for clarity. I just need more. You know what they're doing is they're saying to themselves, I need more information, and so they're spending a lot of time consuming, a lot of time gathering more information. And again, nothing wrong with gathering information, but I see this a lot. I see this a lot with my business clients over the years. When I have coached, especially women on business, they get certification, certification, certification. They learn more. They learn more. They learn more. They get their degree, and then their master's, and then their doctorate, and then their second doctorate. All these different things, because really, what's really happening? It's not that they're not clear; it's that they're scared, because doing new things is scary. So, if you find yourself in a stage where you are, let's just take it to health and wellness. If you've tried a lot of things in the past, and you're like, I really want to eat better and get healthier and move more and really become that version of you that you know, you know, there's a part of you that knows you're capable of being, but you're like looking and you're like, okay, I don't know if I should do it this way or do it this way, and I've tried this and I've tried this. What happens is, you're not making a decision and you're not working that decision because you could do this in many different ways. You might say, "Okay, you know what? For me, I really think for me, I'm going to eat less. I think I'm just eating too much. And this is for so many people. So many people, food is so wildly available in 2026, and it has been for many years. We are just consuming too much food, so you might say, "I'm going to focus on eating less, right? You're going to say, "Okay, for the next three months, I'm going to focus on eating less. You might say, "I'm just going to really focus on eating better. I think I'm eating the right amount. I think I just need to focus on eating better. Maybe it's a combination of the two. Maybe you're like, "I really just need to move more. I need to get my body moving more. Maybe you need to move harder. Maybe you're getting your steps, but maybe you need to really push yourself. This is one of the things I really just told myself. Okay, Courtney, I have a little tendinitis right now, but I'm like, after this tendonitis is resolved, probably in about a month and a half, I'm hoping I'm gonna really start pushing myself harder. I'm getting the movement in, but I want to go next level. I want to. I want to tell myself I'm an athlete, and what would an athlete do? Like I look at like after I work out, and I look at after my husband works out. He is like a sweaty, huffing, puffing, exhausted mess, and I want to get a little more there. I'm not that way. I'm not that way. So I want to go harder. You also might say to yourself, you know what? I want to start meditating more. I want to maybe I want to pray more. Maybe I want to get frequent coaching, and I want to have someone figure out what thoughts are getting in my way. There's so many different ways for you. To go to your next level, pick one and commit to it for three months, six months, whatever it is. From now until the end of the year, that would be a beautiful time frame. But be on the lookout for the pattern, the sneaky pattern of thinking that you need clarity, when really all you need to do is take the first step. You probably have enough clarity to know that there is a direction out there, and I'm going to give you a little a thought that I love going back to. Tony Robbins always talked about, and probably still talks about. I haven't really, I haven't really been listening to Tony Robbins lately, but he was probably the first person that really got me into self help, and he always said that there are whispers of destiny that we need to listen to now. When we think whispers of destiny, that sounds very big, like we're meant to be, like you know, like president of the United States. But I think of these whispers of destiny of just little intuitions of things that we keep saying we want to do. And so, like, is there something that you keep saying you want to do, and can you actually go? You know what? This keeps coming up for me. I think I'm going to lean into it, and be willing to be scared, be willing to have a little fear come up, and do it anyways. So if you found yourself saying for a very long time you're just not clear, remember what you're saying is you just don't have the answer. You just don't know. And I want to, I want to challenge that thought. What do you know? What direction do you know you want to go? And how might this be easy? It's a beautiful question to ask yourself. What do I know? And how might this be easy? How could this be easy? How could this be fun? So great to ask yourself. Okay, let's talk about the third pattern that really keeps people stuck from any kind of growth. Believing the time has to be right in order to make the changes you want to make. Believing the time in your life, the time of year, the circumstances must all be right for you to make the changes. And this can be very, very sneaky, my friends. I can't tell you how many people I have talked to that have said, you know what, the timing's not right because we're doing a bathroom renovation. The timing's not right because right now I am babysitting my niece and nephew at night. The timing's not right because my husband is really going through it right now at work, he's really stressed. The timing's not right because we have a lot of vacations planned. The time-I mean, I could go on and on and on. We can always find a reason in our life that the time is not right to put what we truly desire first. We can always find the reason, and here's what I want-I want this to be-I want this to be a clicking moment for you. What is actually better for you and for your overall growth is for you to do whatever work you know is your work when life is kind of crazy. Because stay with me. Here is why: if you wait for the kitchen renovation to be done when you wait for your husband to be doing well because now he's recovered from his surgery or he's things have calmed down for him at work or maybe things have calmed down for you at work or if you're waiting for your kids to do well so then you're less stressed if you're waiting for those circumstances to finally be calm we know what the reality is of life. Other shit is going to happen in your life. Other stuff is going to happen. We just know that life lifes. We just know that life is 50-50. There's going to be good things happening, and there's going to be struggle happening. So it would be better for you to learn how to put you first with whatever is going on in your life right now. This is the work. We cannot get good at taking care of ourselves in a bubble if, for the majority of our lives, we're not going to live in a bubble. Ideally, you want to become a woman who can take care of herself at a higher level with whatever is going on in your life, so the goal isn't to take really good care of yourself when things are going well. The goal is to take really good care of yourself and to take your true desire seriously all of the time, when life is amazing and when life can be hard. None of this has to be done perfectly. It just has to be done in a way that helps you get to your goals, and then helps you stay at your goals, and help you you keep going. A few weeks ago in the membership, I was teaching how important it is that we are intentional with our thinking, and I was telling them all the things I had that week going on in my lives, and it was a lot. It was a lot of this is happening. This a lot of fires. Let's just let's just keep it at that. A lot of things happening that a lot of people would go, oh my God, I'm just going to go sleep the day away. Oh my God, I'm going to have a drink and I'm going to eat all the things. But I said all of these things and. If we put all these things, if we put all these things down on paper, and we put them and say, "Okay, these are all circumstances. What do I want to think on purpose about these things? That's where I get all of my power. I get to decide on purpose. Oh my God, I can't handle this. This is too much. Or I can decide, I've got this. This is going to be okay. And when we have the ability to think intentionally, it doesn't matter what's going on in your life. You still get to decide: What do I want to eat? How do I want to move? How do I want to think about this? How do I want to support myself? That is how we make permanent changes in any area of our life. So I don't want any of these patterns to get you stuck. I want you to know that ahas and moments that click are amazing, but you can still show up, live the way you want to live on days when you're not necessarily feeling excited or motivated. When you don't feel like someone is saying something that makes you like fired up, that's possible for you. If you've been in the pattern of where you feel like you've been searching for clarity and thinking that there's the perfect program and the perfect this and the perfect business plan and the perfect anything. If you're thinking like there's a perfect way to do things, the perfect protocol, perfect anything, I want to share with you that that you can decide to have clarity today. If you feel like you've been in the pattern of like kind of searching for clarity and you're just kind of like in a bit of a waiting game, telling yourself you don't really know whatever that you can just decide either one of two things you can decide I'm just going to make a decision today and start moving in one direction, or you can say it's okay that I'm a little unclear I'm going to keep consuming keep doing my research but I'm going to make sure at the same time I am moving in the in in some direction and think of Tony Robbins like Whispers of destiny, like whispers of like whispers of intuition. Let's just head in that direction, even though maybe you're not totally clear yet. And then the last pattern: if you find yourself thinking that your life has to be like everything has to be aligned for you to start really putting yourself first, because any time things go wrong, you kick yourself off of your to-do list. I want to advise that's not true. It's just simply not true. That really, you becoming the woman that eats in a way that she's proud of, that lives in a way with your daily habits in a way that you're proud of, that moves in a way that you're proud of, depending on what doesn't matter what's going on in your life. That's the goal. That's the goal. So these are three patterns for you to avoid, for you to be able to really grow and go to your own next level in any area of your life. If you loved this podcast, if you felt like, oh my gosh, this was a good one, I would love for you to share it with a friend. I would love for you to share it with a friend. It's one of the best ways that my podcast gets more reach and helps more people is when people say, "Hey, girl, listen to this podcast. It was a good one. I hope you have a lovely, lovely Tuesday. For information on how we can work together, head to modernbodymodernlife.com to schedule a consultation with me. I'm currently coaching women privately, and I offer group coaching programs.