BRAIN CROPS - with Chelsea Myers

There seems to be this misconception out there that if you put things off, if you procrastinate, if you hang out in indecision land for a while...that you’re not really hurting anyone. That it’s not really a problem. Every day offers a finite amount of space for you to create whatever you want to create...to stretch further than you’ve stretched before...to expand beyond your current levels of comfort, skill, or ability. If you are sure you want to improve your situation, if you know you want something more...then I want to challenge you, right now, to commit to doing things differently. And what that looks like is going to vary from person to person, but what will be the same and what you can implement right now is a healthy dose of self-discipline with your time. Now, let's get to work.

Just like everything else in life with an opposite, owning the good things in your life comes with the counterpart of owning the bad things. All of them. Whatever you don’t like - whatever’s not working for you - whatever is causing you pain is 100% on you. And that is SUCH GOOD NEWS!!

Our minds put things into buckets - categorize things - as “right” and “wrong.” Where the things that look good, feel comfortable, are easy, and pleasurable are, of course, the “right” things. And the things that are out of the ordinary, cause us to do extra work, aren’t as we would have them be are the “wrong” things. And our brains do this constantly. Constantly scan our environments and label the things in them. And those “wrong” things can, without our even noticing, become hyper-focal points for us. We notice them and keep noticing them, and spin on them, and become increasingly aware of and often bothered by them. Which is NOT very fun! Interrupt brain… As directly as if it was under your authority - because, by the way, IT IS - and quite literally saying, “Stop. Focus on everything that is good about this situation..." It will generate a different type of fuel and it will ignite a better “mood” than the alternative focus. This Works!

Ideas don't create results - Actions create results - Actions come from decisions - In order to create the life you want to live you have to decide to make decisions that align with what you want. 

Working with the significant other when you don’t want to anymore. If this is you, when I bring up working together, what is the feeling that hits you initially? Don’t filter it, just take note of the most dominant feeling that you notice when I talk about working with your person. And before we go any further into this topic, I just want to point out that you know… You know if your situation is working great for you and your spouse or significant other. But for many of you that’s not the case. And that’s okay! In fact, since you’re aware of it, you’re in the power seat.

Self-Care and Selfishness... What is the difference? Where is the line? Why does it matter? What I know to be unequivocally true is that if you don’t take care of yourself, you’re not going to be 100% for the people around you. You must decide what you want and know what you need. Then plan for those wants and needs in a way that feels best to you.

In order to change how you feel in your life you have to change the way you think about the steps along the way. You must change the way you think about your experiences. How you think about your journey. Part of your journey is noticing that other people are on a journey too. When you cross paths with a given person you might have thoughts or opinions about what that person is saying or doing. It is at this point that a lot of us get sucked into a pitfall of Shame.  Our brains naturally seem to think ahead and determine a worse case scenario and decide that it is probable and if it does happen the experience will be unbearable.  In a nutshell, our brain jumps to a conclusion and trys to project us from any discomfort. We then begin to experience  Shame... in advance of the experience.  Many times we start off feeling confident and comfortable in our decisions but as we begin to think about how we might be viewed by others; we begin to feel Shame. We think about how others might view us.  Shame holds us back from progress and enjoying life. Shame causes us to enter a holding pattern with decisions and goals. We simply stop moving forward. 

Comparing ourselves to ourselves is a common thing and it can be a bit of a grey area, because there are times that comparing our growth or our production from one week to the next can be helpful to gauge where we’re at - what we’re doing well, and what we need to do differently. But then there’s this other facet of comparison to ourselves that isn’t useful. It’s where you take something you’ve done well or are capable of doing well and you take that good thing or that potential to do good and use it as a weapon against a less productive, or less successful experience. Stimuli comes in, the brain figures out where to put it, makes connections to other pieces of similar information, and before you realize it you’ve made a comparison - drawn a conclusion - about yourself or someone else in relation to yourself or someone else. So if you notice that happening, you notice yourself observing and then thinking on something that smells like comparison, you can - if you want to - simply acknowledge the thought and then direct your brain to do another activity. It will respond to your direction. 

I want you to imagine that there’s a fountain flowing with water that you want - you’re thirsty - You’re holding a bucket that you want to fill with the crystal clear liquid coming out of the fountain BUT!! Instead of getting right underneath the fountain - instead of positioning yourself with direct access to the liquid you want - You’re holding your bucket underneath the bucket of someone else who is thirsty - someone else who wants water - someone who you want to have water, too So you hold your bucket out, right underneath theirs, and you watch their face with anticipation as their bucket begins to fill And you have some ideas...

Like many other things we get better at, making choices is a skill. And making good choices quickly is incredibly valuable! A hurdle I see in many of my clients, and its not just my observation, a lot of you tell me that you are aware… that you put things off, avoid making decisions on things, or decide and then second guess yourselves… a lot. There are two areas you can look at when you’re trying to get to the bottom of a pattern of indecision. The first is to clarify your goals - your dreams - your desired results. The more clear you are about what you’re after, the easier it will be to make a plan to get there. Now the other thing I coach on a lot is reasonableness. Some of you do have a clear idea of what you want and you do have a clear plan to achieve it. But... Your plan is unreasonable. It doesn’t agree with the other parts of you and of your life. This leads to what I coach on most and that is Getting Rid of Overwhelm and Avoiding Burnout. If you’re done with feeling overwhelmed, if you refuse to burnout and you’re ready to make the necessary changes, then we need to talk.