Ep. #186 Determination To Finish Strong

When motivation, inspiration and willpower runout,  
determination is what will get you through the hardest of hard times.
Set your sites on something bigger than yourself right now, and don't look back. 

Transform your relationship with alcohol by focusing on yourself. Discover how to fulfill your needs without alcohol's help. Understand your body's signals, leverage your emotions, and expand your desires for real, lasting pleasure.

Join "The Naturally Sober Woman" self-study course, where you'll learn everything I teach my clients in a compact, affordable, lifetime access package. 

Awakened sobriety! Discover how to fulfill your needs without alcohol's help, labels or missing out! Expand your desires for real, lasting pleasure.

Join The Awakened Sobriety Self Study Course, where you'll learn everything I teach my clients in a compact, affordable, lifetime access package.

Transcript

1:33

Do you ever feel like you're outgrowing alcohol, that you are longing for a deeper connection to life? If alcohol is keeping you playing small and feels like the one area, you just can't figure out you are in the right place. Hi, my name is Mary Wagstaff. I'm a Holistic alcohol coach who ended a 20 year relationship to alcohol without labels, counting days or ever making excuses. Now I help powerful women just like you eliminate their desire to drink on their own terms. In this podcast, we will explore the revolutionary approach of my proven five shifts process that gets alcohol out of your way by breaking all of the rules and the profound experience that it is to rediscover who you are on the other side of alcohol. I am so thrilled to be your guide. Welcome to your journey of awakening blackbirds seen in the dead of night. Take these broken wings, and men do fly. Oh. You've been waiting for this moment to rewrite bird fly like bird singing in the dead take the sunken eyes and learn to see all your life you are only waiting for this moment to be free black lag into the light dog black nine. day into the lead of a dark black night. Welcome back to the show my beautiful listeners. I hope that warms your hearts. That is something that Emma and I have been working on for a while and we love to sing together. So it was the first time he actually was allowing me to record him. So I was really excited to share that. briefly today, we're going to talk about a couple of things, motivation and determination. So you hear me talk a lot about compassion and curiosity. And I think those are two emotions that can motivate us, right? I mean, motivation is another emotion as well. But I think that they can create motivation or build momentum, they can at least get us in curiosity and compassion can get us through that resistance that I talked about on the last episode. So oftentimes, we we kind of take a more neutral stance to take action or have compassion to take our fear with us to move through resistance. And then when we're in motion, we create motivation, right? When it's like a body in motion stays in motion, when you get up and you get moving, you build, you build momentum, which can then be motivating or like, oh, wow, you know, look at all everything I've got done or whatever. However, things that sometimes can also just like willpower does, it has a threshold, just maybe even in one in a day, right? Or depending on your cyclical nature and maybe things there's external circumstances that sometimes keep you know, throwing themselves in front of your path, and things that are out of your control and they're kind of unmotivated. You right. It's like man, you think sometimes like no matter how hard I try, this thing keeps happening to me or you know, something shows up. It's like I make some space for myself and then something comes up and I've got to be available right now. There's some other coaching that could happen around that about like, we always choose everything that we do. But yeah, when you have obligations or like for example today I had re M it was off of school if you hear anyone in the background. I didn't know he was going to be off of school when I had scheduled the carpets to get cleaned. And a podcast interview that I had been back and forth with this particular person for a long time. And it had been like months out. And I didn't even realize these were like overlapped. And so, you know, it was one of those mornings, but everything worked out. And so, thankfully, but even if it hadn't, nothing would have been a big deal. But when it comes to alcohol, and making this big change, right, something that seems really, really big in your life right now, and it is because it has a huge impact, right? It's like this little thing on the other side of it's like this little thing, but it has the most profound impact while you're doing it, and after you're doing it, then anything will have in your life. So often what you need to start the process, and I call this a couple of things in the program, but you need determination. And the emotion that I use is conviction. But I think conviction and determination are two similar emotion. So determination is a firmness of purpose or a resolve. If you've ever practiced yoga nidra, they ask you to to state your resolve to you. It's like, what are you? Like if you couldn't quit? Right? Like, what is your resolve? What is your firmness of purpose and why? So I call this also like your unflinching? Why, and conviction can be firm conviction. I think I talked about this recently. You know, it's like that fierce, motherly love of you know, enough is enough, I know that you can do this. So get it together, at pull up your boots, and like sit down and take this time to move through this resistance. And so this is where a factor outside of you might come into play. And there might be a resolve, right? For some people, it's their children, their family, right. It's like, I knew for me, I didn't want I knew alcohol, even subconsciously was such a huge influence as I was growing up like not even in a negative way. But it became this example of just like how people operate as adults, that the natural course of things the rite of passage, right, how we celebrate how we grieve, how we do all of these things. And I had enough of an awareness that that wasn't useful. Or at least it was limiting, that I didn't want that for me, I didn't, I didn't want that to be the example for him. I wanted him to know that his emotions weren't problems, that he had a full emotional awareness. And hopefully that helps him as he grows into adulthood, that he has a different connection with his embodied emotions. So there's no blame or shame or regret. But very innocently and unintentional, it's like yeah, of course, this is what you what you do. But what I find is that it's a very limiting way to interact with our emotions, to numb them to dissociate from them, and to pretend like they're not they're considering that the emotion is the thing that makes us the most human. So for me, since I was very little, I was determined to have the fullest experience of life possible. And in many occasions, that was through the experience of mind altering substances, alcohol being the majority of them. In my younger years, I, before I started drinking at all, I consumed marijuana on a regular basis, and I've tried many other mind altering substances. So for me, that was like, what I thought some experiences were, again, finding out through my journeys on the spiritual realms of different more esoteric modalities and deep devotion, connection with the natural world connection with my son connection, just intimacy with myself, my partner, the divine. Again, that was very limiting, because it is a not sustainable. Be. And again, there's no judgment because people, you know, do what they need to do. And some people use certain things for lots of different reasons, right. But for me, it was very limiting. So the question is always like, why, right? Is there resistance to not using this thing? What's your why and is it something that you're willing to try to do on your own? So for me, it was limiting I had those experiences and then I was like, moving on to having the access and the availability to other experiences. So I've been determined with my resolve To never limit my capacity for an experience. And that is only really truly comes through our thinking, right? Our thoughts are what really limit what we think is possible. And it's something, you know, I feel really fortunate that I was born with, like, I never, I never thought, Oh, I can't do that I really have never had that thought about anything. So things there, you know, but now on the other side of alcohol and being older and being exposed to many things, and being open to new perspectives, my determination has shifted, because I'm having dreams and goals and that are just really for their for enjoyment. They're for fun, for fun. They're for survival, also, to meet my basic needs, but mostly for the experience of it. And it's, you know, it's a balance, it's practice to get the ego out of the way and to remember, like, nothing's gone wrong, this is just another experience. Right? So my determination and my resolve to never quit on myself. And to really know, with deep honesty, why I would like what would be a reason that I would quit anything, because that was something that I that has really been a huge, huge goal and mindset shift for me since I was younger, where I was able to quit a lot of things maybe even encouraged. And, you know, that's fine, too. And so I have had to really work on pushing through kind of like, I don't feel like it. And they talked about that. A couple of episodes ago, probably several now about that success switch, right? That success begets success. And when you have a strong resolve and you have strong determination, you can move through impact like that is going to what's going to hold you your unflinching, why past motivation, past willpower, right? Like those things can. They're sometimes just not there. But the determination to just know like, quitting is not an option. I mean, it is but like, in my mind, it's not right. And failure, like is just part of it, right? So you can in quitting and failure to two very different things. For me, failure is part of the process, quitting is not an option. So if you can get comfortable with those things, then your determination to change your relationship with alcohol to to give yourself the opportunity to really live a life of full embodiment, full awareness, full alignment is what's going to get you there and just know like, I can change my mind at any time, right? So, what is your what is it the unflinching? Why like you have to come in it with a heartfelt intention of this determination. Why does this really matter to you? And towards towards the positive, right? Not just because alcohol is bad for me. But like, what does that mean about you in your life? So see if you can find some of that conviction that unflinching why that determination, see if you can really anchor into that for yourself, and you might already have it. This is something I find is we we alcohol is such a strong habit that we kind of override all of the other skills and ways that we're already like you're already successful in so many areas, you already have such strong conviction in so many areas. And find one of those things that you were just like no, like, I there's no way I'm quitting this right. It's like, I mean, even your children, right, like if you have children or a marriage and really what is that why and how can you how can you let that fuel you? And how can that be you know, for you? I mean, really if you need any determination, it's that life is short. And I only get one shot at this and I'm going to give it my all right I want to know at the end of the day I did my absolute best experiencing every facet that this human experience had to offer me. So get out there write it down. Really let that emotion fill you up even get like even get a little angry like that. That emotion can be really powerful sometimes to just like yes, and let it fuel you All right. So the next time you need it, and you've been going strong, and maybe that motivation for whatever reason, dips down, you can tap into your determination. And you can remind yourself of the deep, deep, unflinching why, and your firmness in your purpose and your resolve. And that might be because like, you have this big passion project, right? Like you have this goal. Like for me now with my business. It's like, I want to get this message in my method into as many hands as possible, because I think it's so unique. So life changing, I'm the only one that can deliver it. And however I do that, whether it's through one on one coaching through the podcast, writing a book, like all the things I'm not giving up until I know, and I really should probably define what that looks like for me. I mean, I know I want to write a book. And I really think doing a TED Talk would be really cool to maybe some national news coverage. So maybe that's when I'll know right that I've, I've made it. But it doesn't matter because every day this message is reaching you. And I'm so so, so grateful that you showed up today for yourself to be part of this community to be part of this sphere. So welcome to the circle. Welcome to your journey of awakening. I hope you have an amazing day. Imagine taking the podcast every week to the next level, with achievable goals and an action plan tailored specifically to your needs. Finding personalized support is how you gain control of your destiny. And my private one on one coaching program. Fast Track to freedom from alcohol, you get your own personal cheerleader. That's me every week helping you get clear, stay curious and committed to what matters most versus resigning again and again to your habitual patterns. Every big change starts with one Next Step. Schedule a complimentary call with the link in the show notes or on my website Mary Wagstaff coach.com to get a new perspective on an old habit