Podcast Episode #50
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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 writer, speaker and coach, Crystal Obregon. Hi there. This is Crystal of Crystal Obregon Coaching with Episode Number 50 of the Extraordinary Life Podcast. This week, I'm going to share something I'm working on in my own life.
[00:00:43] In fact, I expect that I will always be working on examining how my thoughts and my beliefs are affecting my results. I've also been sharing these ideas with a friend of mine, and I promised her I would talk more about this [00:01:00] idea in one of my podcasts.
[00:01:02] Once again, I've talked about this before that it's so much easier for me as a life coach to see where thoughts impact the results of my client's lives then it is to see it in my own life, but that's really the work. That's also why I try to be in communities of people that share these common ideas. And I also have coaches or masterminds to help me with this myself. I learned this way of examining my thoughts and how this works from my mentor, Stacey Boehman,
[00:01:40] who learned this from her mentor, Brooke Castillo, who's really the creator of what's called the model. It's a good way to bring together other teachings around this topic and a simple way to explain how your thoughts do [00:02:00] you create your results. I'm going to lead you through it the way I understand it and use it, which is mostly in my head, although I'm beginning to use it also in my daily journaling, because writing it down, writing my thoughts down really makes it more powerful and it makes it easier to see where it's affecting my life and my results.
[00:02:26] And then after that, I'm going to share a few ways that you can work on upgrading your thinking. This is the idea. We start with our life circumstances because everybody has circumstances of their life. For example, your circumstances could be your age. It could be how much money you have in the bank where you live.
[00:02:50] Are you married? Are you single? Do you have kids? Are they young away at college or ground? It can be really tempting to [00:03:00] think that your circumstances are wet cause your results. Because even though all of these things can be true or they can be facts. The kicker really is, is that they don't actually have anything to do with your results because older people can have a new career and be really successful as single mom, raising kids, she can be really successful or in great shape or whatever it is that she was.
[00:03:32] So, if you can get yourself out of this, thinking that your circumstances really don't have anything to do with your results, what's happening in your life, whether you're succeeding or not, because it can be very tempting to blame your thoughts, your feelings, your actions, and results on your circumstances.
[00:03:52] Just stop doing it because this puts you into a victim mentality instead of a responsibility [00:04:00] mentality. Taking responsibility for creating your results and creating your life, empowers you to be in charge. So think about it, please. If you're blaming your circumstances or anything, or anyone outside of yourself for what's happening in your life, it's taking you out of the driver's seat.
[00:04:24] I saw a therapist for a few years. It was more than a decade ago. I stopped seeing her because as much as it was nice to go somewhere and how someone agree with me that my husband should be doing this or that I had friends to do that I had friends to be on my side and I realized that I really wanted to be empowered to change myself instead of having my happiness be relying on someone else changing.
[00:04:56] So I left that therapy relationship and [00:05:00] I really gradually trained myself to own my thoughts and feelings and actions. Because once you get into that habit of deciding that you alone cause your life it's, it's actually the opposite of harsh. It's incredibly freeing because what it means is that you can change it.
[00:05:21] You can have the life that you want. If you really think about it, you probably already know that the only person that you can change is yourself. Even if you need some reminding sometimes after your circumstances or your thoughts, you actually alone have control over your thoughts. You get to decide what you want to think.
[00:05:45] No matter what's happening, no matter what anyone else does, no matter what's happening in the world. These are your thoughts alone. Something I want to bring into is that your beliefs about the world can impact your [00:06:00] thoughts. And often you did form many of your beliefs when you were under the age of seven, just based on what you saw going on, maybe in your family or in your school or your community before you could really discern whether something was true or not, or, you know, decide whether you wanted to take on that belief.
[00:06:22] You probably will come up against beliefs that are hanging out in your subconscious mind, affecting your thoughts. So an example could be that if you grew up without much money, you may have adopted a belief that rich people are greedy. You may have accepted that as a truth without giving it much thought.
[00:06:45] And so that could be a limiting belief, because if you want to make more money or want to bring more money into your life, and you believe that rich people are greedy, then you may sabotage your success [00:07:00] because why would you want to become a greedy, rich person? The truth is that some rich people are greedy and some poor people are greedy and some rich people are generous and some poor people are generous.
[00:07:14] It's just really a thought and that's why it's good to examine them. Another way that your thoughts come in is really when you have those negative self-talk thoughts in your head, they can also put you into more of a victim mentality. And this can be anything from not believing that you could do something like I could never do that.
[00:07:40] To thinking something like you get a flat tire on your way to a job interview and you think, oh, bad things always happen to me as opposed to switching it around to positive, like, oh, I got a flat tire. Maybe that actually saved me from getting in an accident [00:08:00] two blocks down the road. You just never know.
[00:08:04] I'll come back to thoughts a little bit more after I explain how they work with these other parts. The next part is your thoughts have an impact on your feelings. If you think that someone is taking advantage of your good nature, you might feel resentful. Like in that example of the therapist agreeing that my husband needs to do more feeding that idea, or that thought that I was being taken advantage of.
[00:08:37] Another example of how your thoughts and your feelings are related is that if you think that you can't lose weight, no matter what you do, you'll feel discouraged. And if you think that you can't ever get ahead financially, then you'll feel resigned to a life of just getting by. So it's that feeling of being resigned [00:09:00] or that feeling of being discouraged?
[00:09:02] And I hope you can see that it's really your thoughts that created those feelings. Not someone else's actions, not a true story, not whatever is going on in the world. You might think that your thoughts are the true story, but they aren't. You're just seeing the situation through a filter of past experiences or unconscious beliefs.
[00:09:21] Like you haven't been successful losing weight before, so why would you be successful now. So now I want to move on to how those thoughts and feelings can impact your actions or what you actually do. The steps you take. Let's say you have that thought that you can't lose weight no matter what you do. So you feel discouraged.
[00:09:48] And so then you decide not to follow a healthy meal plan and not to exercise because you don't think it'll work anyway. And so the result is that you [00:10:00] don't lose weight, but let's say instead that you choose to think that, whether you lose weight or not, you will have more energy and feel better, if you follow a healthy meal plan and exercise.
[00:10:16] So you shop for the ingredients to make the healthy meals and you make dates with friends to go for walks or to go to the gym or to do some other exercise. And the result is that you have more energy, you feel more enthusiastic about continuing with eating well and spending time exercising with your friends.
[00:10:39] And so, without even thinking about it, you actually do begin to lose a pound here and there. So the result actually is losing weight. So can you see how your positive thoughts cause you to take the actions that created a positive result. And now [00:11:00] I'll take another example from when I told you I was seeing that therapist way back when. I came home from those appointments feeling heard, and I felt like she understood what I was saying.
[00:11:13] She was on my side. Yes, my husband should help out more with the kids, the cooking, the cleaning, blah, blah, blah. I don't remember how I was supposed to persuade him to do it, but that was just the part that I remembered. The result was that I just became more resentful. It didn't have any kind of positive impact really, except for in those moments of feeling heard.
[00:11:42] After that, we saw a couples therapist, she suggested one that we get a house cleaner, also that we go on more date nights, hiring a babysitter. The other thing that she suggested was that my husband [00:12:00] hire someone to help a few days a week with his mom. This was much more helpful, all of those suggestions, because did I mention that while our kids were young all the way up to, almost five years ago, my husband was completely responsible for taking care of his aging mother that was in an assisted living facility.
[00:12:24] Clearly, yes, I had the responsibility for the young kids and he did help out. He was actually a very present dad, but he also had this stress of taking care of his aging mother. I was actually able to change my thoughts about my husband. He wasn't twittling thumbs, while I was taking care of toddlers. He actually is a very caring man who took care of his mom.
[00:12:52] I mean, every mom should be so lucky as to have someone with that would take care of her to the [00:13:00] extent that he did. He's an only child. With those thoughts in my mind, I could be more compassionate towards him and help him feel more supported while also recognizing my own feelings of overwhelm and having compassion towards myself and then getting outside help when I needed it.
[00:13:22] Those actions that came from those thoughts and feelings actually contributed to a healthy marriage, instead of one full of tension.
[00:13:32] How do you turn those negative thoughts around? Sometimes it does feel really hard. The evidence you're seeing around, you might show that things aren't working, that they're not going well. And how can you not believe what you see? So I'll share a couple of tips to upgrade your thinking or to turn your thinking around.
[00:13:57] The first tip is to use [00:14:00] affirmations or afformations. Affirmations can help you turn negative thoughts around and also help you build a habit of saying what you want. For example, instead of saying, I'm exhausted, you could tell yourself that "my energy creates my reality, but what I focus on is what I manifest."
[00:14:23] That's a Gabrielle Bernstein quote. Instead of telling yourself that you're stressed out, you could say I'm capable of anything I set my mind to, one step at a time, I've got this. Find an affirmation that really resonates with how you want to feel versus how you do not want to feel. So another example is that every morning, I write in my journal as part of my 10 dreams.
[00:14:52] That's something that I teach in my Design Your Decade course. That I am an extraordinary wife [00:15:00] is one of them. And then the other one is that I am an extraordinary mom. So when I write that in the morning, I can examine my actions or what I'm doing that day. And I can think about how I can make that statement true in that day or in that moment. It really does help because I'll know if I'm not doing my part to be an extraordinary wife or an extraordinary mom. But what it does is it, it's just that relationship when I'm thinking that, because I'm trying to be an extraordinary mom.
[00:15:36] Chances are my husband is going to sense that, and he's going to try and be an extraordinary husband. So taking it one step further is turning your affirmation into an afformation, which is a slightly different way of doing it. An afformation is asking an [00:16:00] empowering question. Empowering questions, then unleash your ability to take action and express who you really are.
[00:16:08] They really do work with your subconscious mind. So using the previous example of being overwhelmed, you could ask yourself, why do I achieve anything I set my mind to? And it might seem a bit out there, but it puts your subconscious mind into a thought loop of trying to figure out why you do achieve anything you set your mind to, and then it sets that up as a fact, in your mind, instead of the supposed fact of being overwhelmed or not being able to do what you set your mind to do, you can use those things to reverse what your subconscious mind could be telling you.
[00:16:54] Just make sure that your affirmation is positive and empowering and [00:17:00] repeat it to yourself whenever you feel like you're going down a negative rabbit hole or do it as part of your, your morning routine or some part of your day. There is a great book that dives deeper into afformations by Noah St. John. It's definitely worth a read. I'll put that link in the podcast notes.
[00:17:26] The second tip is to try breathing exercises. I also mentioned this last week, when I talked about overcoming fear. Breathing exercises can have an almost instantaneous effect on your body. When you focus on the flow of air in and out of your body, it can help turn on your body's natural relaxation response.
[00:17:49] And then within minutes you can start to feel more relaxed, more centered and more in control. In fact, breathing exercises can even [00:18:00] lower your blood pressure. You can do the breathing exercises on their own, or it can be part of a meditation or yoga practice. And I did last week, I did talk about box breathing, but there are many apps out there. The Calm app is one that I use that have different breathing exercises.
[00:18:25] The third tip is to take action. So it's putting yourself really in front of the thought. But sometimes it does feel like you simply can't change your thinking to find your way out of a problem. And that's when finding one small action that you can take will help you to begin solving the problem or at least moving forward.
[00:18:49] And this is huge because nothing beats stress like taking action. For instance, if you feel tired, come up with one thing you can [00:19:00] do to feel more energetic and then do it. Maybe it's setting an alarm on your phone for every 45 minutes to remind yourself to get up and walk around. And I would highly recommend that.
[00:19:13] Or maybe it's going for a walk next time you want to lie down for nap. Maybe it's just standing up right now and jumping up and down 10 times or doing some jumping jacks. Making those changes can just help you feel more control over your situation. And that's exactly what you're looking for. And I'll add a fourth here because I know I can get caught in a negative loop when it feels like I'm not getting enough done.
[00:19:47] So the fourth tip is to be realistic in the short-term. Make sure that your daily or weekly goals are actually achievable and realistic. [00:20:00] Some of the most successful people in the world have a daily to-do list with just one to three things on it. Just make sure that these are your highest priority action items.
[00:20:12] And I also want you to notice that I didn't say that your big long-term goals and dreams need to be realistic. I want you to go after what you really want in the long-term. Like I say, in my Design Your Decade course, that people overestimate what they can do in the short term and underestimate what they can do in the long-term. Have those big goals and dreams.
[00:20:41] Make sure that your daily steps are achievable because otherwise you will get discouraged.
[00:20:49] Those are four tips for upgrading your thinking. If you are feeling depressed and truly overwhelmed, I do highly encourage you [00:21:00] to talk to your doctor or a mental health professional to get help. If you're having regular everyday stress or overwhelm, and you're feeling stuck as a result, experiment with these tips, you can start turning things around today.
[00:21:18] If you want some help turning your thoughts around and creating the life you really want. Please reach out to me or schedule an appointment to chat, to see if we're a good fit to work together. I do have a few one-on-one coaching spots open to start right away. And then in the fall I'll be opening my Extraordinary Life Tribe group coaching program up for enrollment again.
[00:21:48] So my contact details are in the show notes. I hope this was a good introduction into The Model as Brooke Castillo calls it. That's it for [00:22:00] now, have a great rest of your day, and I will see you in here next week. Bye for now. Thank you for listening to The Extraordinary Life Podcast with writer and coach, Crystal Obregon.
[00:22:13] We'd love to connect with you outside of the podcast, too. To find more helpful insights, show notes and more about Crystal. Go to Crystal Obregon.com. O B R E G O N, where you will also find info for the Design Your Decade workshop. This workshop will help you to stop drifting and start creating. Until next time, be extraordinary.
