Episode 20 Final
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Extraordinary Life Podcast from the creator of the Extraordinary Life Tribe, Crystal, Obregon, the self-development podcast propelling you forward toward your goals. Using science backed high performance habits. Reach the next level in your physical and mental health. See new Heights in your relationships.
[00:00:18] Gain clarity on your purpose and live your extraordinary life. Welcome your host writers, speaker and coach Crystal Obregon. Hi there. This is Crystal of Crystal Obregon Coaching with episode number 20 of the Extraordinary Life Podcast. Last week. I talked about the definition and components of living an extraordinary life, how so-called ordinary people can live extraordinary lives.
[00:00:50] And over the next few months, I'll be talking about activating the 10 human drives to help you create your own version [00:01:00] of an extraordinary life. If you want to learn more, join one of my individual or group coaching programs. I am trained on curriculum for coaching for this, or pick up a copy of Brendon Burchard's book, the charge, which covers some of these topics as well.
[00:01:19] Today, I'm talking about activating the dry for control. Now control may seem like an unlikely component of building an extraordinary life. On one hand, there is so much that's out of our control. You really can't control everything. And we hadn't learned it before. We certainly have during this pandemic.
[00:01:43] And then on the other hand, most of us have known people who are control, freaks, calling them. They're really hard to be around and they tend to make themselves miserable too. They're trying to control their [00:02:00] environment. They're trying to control other people in their lives. And that is not what I'm talking about.
[00:02:08] On the other hand. If we don't try to exert any control on our lives, we often find ourselves tossed about like a ship without a sale or a redder, one of those. So when I coach on this topic, what we do is we discuss that happy medium of the right amount of control. What that is as an individual, because like everything, it's not the same for everyone.
[00:02:40] All of this takes some thoughts, some exploration and experimentation to figure it out for you. I can't tell you what the right amount of control is for you. There are several aspects of the human drive for control. And this week, I'd like to talk about one of [00:03:00] the less obvious activators that makes us feel energized, engaged, and enthusiastic.
[00:03:08] And this is the concept of controlling for new. Now, what do we mean by that? Controlling for new simply means strategically planning the introduction of new things into our lives. Neuroscientists have concluded. That our brains are wired to seek and enjoy novelty and challenge. Your brain becomes more activated when something novel and challenging comes into your life.
[00:03:38] Your mind sharpens, it releases dopamine. It motivates us to learn. This is something that you can specifically, like I said, strategically bring into your life. You don't have to wait for it to just happen. Although I am going to talk about how it just happened in one of my recent [00:04:00] experiences and how controlling for the new really does add to my life and hopefully inspire you to do the same.
[00:04:09] So a few weeks ago I had scheduled some time up in the mountains. I love the mountains, just me and my two dogs, Ozzie and Harriet. And I had two goals. One was simply to get out of town and into nature, which is one aspect of controlling for the new, which is just getting out of the environment. You're always in the second goal was to have some creative time where I wasn't also caring for my family making meals, et cetera, so that I could have the space to do some writing and really just get a bunch of work.
[00:04:48] Well, I gave myself about a C minus on getting a bunch of work done. In fact, when I mentioned this to my neighbor, she reminded me [00:05:00] that taking time off can increase your productivity. She's been reading my weekly blogs since the beginning over five years ago. So I appreciated a little dose of my own medicine.
[00:05:12] I also didn't really realize that I was. Activating my drive for controlling for new. And I must admit that this one comes more naturally to me than others. Although during the worst of the pandemic, I really had to try a little harder, like all of us did, we couldn't travel and couldn't really do a lot of things.
[00:05:36] I drive up to the mountains a day earlier than I had planned as there was a big early season storm predicted, and I didn't really want to drive in it if I didn't have to. And I also decided to purchase a pair of snow shoes since there was supposed to be a significant snow fall. And it was too early for [00:06:00] cross-country or downhill skiing.
[00:06:01] I also brought rain gear along. That definitely came in handy. On the first rainy day of the storm and the dogs. And I had a ton of fun as the meadow paths near where I stay turned to streams and ponds and pedals. I'll be honest. The first morning I woke up and looked outside, I was really excited to hopefully see snow and it was rain.
[00:06:27] Like I said, I did use my rain gear and the dogs got me to go out several times and it was really fun and beautiful. And so, so nice in the west to get rain. My second morning. I peeked out the window. First thing and saw that at least a foot of snow had fallen overnight. It was still snowing. All the trees, everything was covered in snow.
[00:06:56] Super beautiful. And I watched it [00:07:00] snowing all day while I worked. I called it quits in the early afternoon to go play in the snow with my niece, no shoes and my dog. And I had been snowshoeing once before, but it was nearly 30 years ago. So snowshoeing would be novel and challenging for me. As I got ready to set out, I had my first unplanned adventure of the week.
[00:07:28] I went into the garage to grab the snow shoes from my car. And as the door started to shut behind me, I quickly reached forward to catch it. As I remembered that it had an automatic lock, I wasn't fast enough and found myself locked out of the house and my dogs locked inside. So I tried hard for a few minutes to get my clever dog Ozzie, to open the lever knob from the inside.
[00:07:59] [00:08:00] Since he can't. Open the door from our deck at home. He wasn't quite clever enough. Luckily I did have my boots and jacket on, so I pushed through the snowbank, blocking the garage, not easy and got to hiking. And no, I did not have my phone with me either. I did have my car key left in the car. But, like I said, there is a bit of a snowbank outside of the garage.
[00:08:30] They hadn't gotten around applying that yet, and I didn't have a shovel. So I walked to the lodge where there were people that could help me with that. But there weren't people that helped me with that. I must've dismissed them. They weren't there anymore. But I did see a couple coming out and they were walking over to where the security office was.
[00:08:54] So I did find somebody there that knew someone that knew somebody that worked in [00:09:00] lodging. And so she was able to get. And you key code it's six numbers. So I cannot remember six numbers, not when they're different, every time it all took about an hour or so first adventure done. My dogs were relieved. If you can imagine, there are so excited to go out in the snow.
[00:09:21] They were also not going to let me get off the hook for going out for a snowshoe. Even though I felt like I had already gotten a bunch of exercise. So we did go out on the meadow for about an hour. The snow was super deep. Every step was effortful in the heavy snow, but I managed to not get stuck, even though one of my dogs kept stepping on the back of my snowshoes.
[00:09:49] Because they definitely wanted to follow in my path. And the next day around noon, I took a work break and we got out for longer [00:10:00] in the meadow and somebody had been, I think, cross country skiing out there. So we had some tracks to follow and that was a little bit easier. And by the next day I was ready to expand my horizons before.
[00:10:17] My plan was to snowshoe near the shore of my favorite lake. But when we drove there, I found the parking lot full of snow and closed off for the season. So I decided to drive on up to the top of the past since I was already out and about. And there were a few cars parked and a few people getting ready to do something.
[00:10:43] So I parked. And chatted with a few of them to find out what they're up to. They were going to be going back country skiing and wrecking that I could snowshoe in the same direction without problem. From my time downhill and cross country skiing. I [00:11:00] hadn't done any that I would consider off trail or back country, but I am familiar with the area from hiking, although I usually start from a different trail head.
[00:11:13] So I decided to go snowshoeing from there. And I hope that I wasn't being stupid since I haven't told anyone where I was going and have since been told that. If I'm in that situation again, I should just leave a piece of paper with my plans on it, written on it upside down on my car seat, just in case.
[00:11:36] So next time and now, you know, to. So we headed out and I was happy to find a good path from previous skiers winding through the woods. So it wasn't the super deep snow, which was nice. And while the trail wasn't super busy by any stretch of the imagination, there were a few people out, so I felt pretty safe.[00:12:00]
[00:12:00] And I wound through the woods for a while, happy to be out, doing something new and then came out of the woods and was in complete awe all the mountains that were really familiar to me from hiking in the summer. We're completely covered in snow. I recognize them. I knew pretty much where I was and I was in heaven, just so happy and full of joy and gratitude.
[00:12:29] Like seriously, I can almost cry right now. It was just so great to be out there. And it was so fun. It's like going hiking, but with snowshoes, I had only planned on being out for about an hour before getting back to work. But I really wasn't ready to go back after 30 minutes. Plus I was pretty sure that the lake that I always hiked to must be just around the corner or the [00:13:00] next one or the next one.
[00:13:02] I really wanted to reach the lake. It was a little further than I thought, but I did reach it. And I came out on its shore when I actually had thought that I was up above it and that I would just look down. And it was really beautiful, not iced over yet. Although I could see several other lakes in the distance, one that was iced over, that's familiar to me, my adventure completely energized.
[00:13:32] You know that feeling. I hope you can hear it in my voice when you're just so excited about something. I mean, I'm feeling it again, just thinking about it. And it's been a few weeks that it does. It just gives you this energy and motivation for other things too. I was also very tired by the time I got back to the car, it was two and a half for three hours that I was out there.
[00:13:59] But [00:14:00] it was something new when I tried to think of a good example of controlling for new, this popped into my head immediately. So new novel, challenging. It really checked all the boxes. And of course my dogs were happy too. And when they're happy, I'm happy. When I came home the next evening, I felt like I really had gotten a reset, even though there wasn't just this huge amount of writing and work I got done, I got enough done.
[00:14:33] And it was just nice to have that time away, to appreciate my family, to feel inspired, to get back to work at my usual desk and just have something. Back to you. You can see how novelty and challenge can be a powerful motivator. [00:15:00] It can bring good feelings of pleasure and engagement into your life. So now I want you to think about what you can schedule into your calendar that would make you try something new.
[00:15:15] It doesn't have to be snowshoeing. It could be dancing language or cooking classes. It could be a weekend away to someplace new could be trying a new restaurant. Just give it a try to see what lights you up. Let me know. You can always send me an email [email protected] or direct message me on social media.
[00:15:44] I would love to hear what you try and that's it for now. If you want even more help creating an extraordinary life, join one of my Design Your Decade interactive workshops this [00:16:00] December, or do the do it yourself version on your own time. The link will be in the show notes. Have a great rest of your day, and I will see you back in here next week.
[00:16:12] Bye for now. Thank you for listening to the Extraordinary Life Podcast with Ryder and coach Crystal Obregon. We'd love to connect with you outside of the podcast, too, to find more helpful insights, show notes and more about. Go to crystal obregon.com. That's O B R EG O N, where you will also find info for the Design Your Decade workshop.
[00:16:34] This workshop will help you to stop drifting and start creating until next time. Be extraordinary.
