Podcast Episode #65
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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 65 of the Extraordinary Life Podcast. Since I've been talking a lot about your thoughts lately, I wanted to share what my yoga teacher Kofi said the other day during class.
[00:00:48] "The yogi is someone who takes responsibility for the thoughts that go through their mind" end quote. It's super simple, but I love that life [00:01:00] wisdom comes from so many places and often intersects. It's no wonder he's been my teacher for almost 15 years. I just love it. Now onto my main topic, which is acceptance and least effort.
[00:01:17] I'm gearing up for my Design Your Decade workshops this December, and I think that today's podcast will help clear up some common misperceptions about what planning for your goals and dreams means, and even some myths about high performance coaching in general. I want to give you some examples of how this work isn't about pushing and pushing and creating success in one part of your life and then crashing and burning in other parts of your life, or about being discontented with how things are and really not accepting and [00:02:00] appreciating the present.
[00:02:02] My brand and coaching is based upon living in an extraordinary life because what that means to me is that all facets of your life come into play. Your health, family, friends, career, learning, hobbies and whatever else is important to you. That's why we take the time to do the work in the Design Your Decade workshop, so that you're clear on what you want, not what your neighbors, coworkers, or other family members want.
[00:02:35] What you want, you get to decide, and then even if you have created a plan, you still get to decide when you want to change. Like I've been talking about lately, when you take action steps toward your dreams, it gives you information and that information may tell you that you're on the right path [00:03:00] or that you might not want that thing after all or somewhere in the middle.
[00:03:05] But without taking that action step, you wouldn't have gotten the information to change it up or to stay the course. What I'm trying to say is that creating an extraordinary life isn't a static process. Your circumstances and the balance between parts of your life is unique to you and unique to the time in your life.
[00:03:33] Sometimes you'll be spending more time and effort on family. Sometimes on career, sometimes on learning, and sometimes on your health. It probably won't ever be equally distributed between all aspects of your life, but with some awareness, it shouldn't get too far out of balance either. Now that I've cleared that up, I'd like to talk about what to [00:04:00] do when life doesn't seem to be going your way.
[00:04:03] When life happens, as it does, and when perceived obstacles block your path, or even when you've consciously chosen to focus on another area of your life for a period of time. It happens to everyone. And while the common rationale might be that you should push through and not let anything get in your way, if you truly want to achieve your dreams and if you want that to be sustainable, I think there's another way, a more balanced approach.
[00:04:39] First of all, I'd like to say that the amount of time it takes to achieve your dream, or your dreams is relative. That's why I like to think in terms of a decade. And while I do think you should spend your time wisely because every day is a gift, so please don't take that this [00:05:00] as permission to let binge watching the next season of your favorite show on Netflix or scrolling on social media for two hours a day get in the way of achieving your dreams.
[00:05:11] It's not what I'm talking about. What I am talking about are the things that negative or positive happen in your life that you might not have factored into your timeline. Sometimes you may suddenly might be needed by a sick family member or find yourself in a care taking role for an older parent. Or maybe you just had a baby and you decide that you really want to be present for a period of time.
[00:05:42] In those cases, you may make a conscious choice to slow down on realizing your dreams. But if you do make that conscious choice, it is important to keep your connection to what you really want so that [00:06:00] it doesn't just go by the wayside because that can happen too. Other times, something completely out of your own control, like the pandemic happens.
[00:06:12] No one was expecting to have the world virtually shut down in 2020. It's something that happened to everyone and it changed things a lot, some for the better, some for the worse. For example, I was talking at a networking event the other day to a young attorney who's also a young mother and she has pleasant memories of her young family all being at home.
[00:06:39] And at the same time, she also remembered those feelings of, Oh my God, we have got to get out of this house. I certainly experienced the positive and negatives myself, but I tried to manage my mind as best I could, as I've talked about in the last few podcasts. [00:07:00] So I would like to share today some examples of how I did that.
[00:07:06] And some steps that you can take when life doesn't really seem to be going according to your plan. After all, your thoughts are the one thing that you can take control of. At the beginning of the pandemic, as everything was changing around me and everyone else too, as my kids were sent home from school to learn online first for a week, then indefinitely, the first thing I did was focus on bringing value and focusing on service.
[00:07:41] I continued with my blog. I didn't have a podcast at the time. I held a few informal online workshops to help people in my networking community to help set up for Zoom and doing things online since I was already [00:08:00] accustomed to working that way. What it did was it took the focus off what was going on with me.
[00:08:09] This can be a good place to go when you're feeling frustrated or otherwise having trouble managing your thoughts because it's really hard to be in service and be focused on other people and helping them, and at the same time, focus on yourself and your own problems. A few months in, I decided to change the balance of my life as well.
[00:08:36] With two teenagers that were suddenly stuck at home with us, it seemed important to spend more time with them. Prior to that, my older teen especially, was often out with her friends when she wasn't at school or at home studying. While normally I found it necessary to hold strong boundaries around my work at home life, [00:09:00] I consciously decided to soften them and make myself more available.
[00:09:06] I also decided to focus on my fitness more. I started mountain biking again with my husband and my son because the vacancy in all of our schedules created by canceling all the social events and all the other things that we might otherwise be doing, did open up a lot of time. And it seemed to me more important to spend that time with family than on growing my business.
[00:09:35] So I made a conscious choice to coast. At the same time I was keeping connection with people online that knew what my goals were and had similar goals themselves. So in that way, I wasn't necessarily moving backwards or forgetting my dreams. Coasting can be a good placeholder [00:10:00] when you're focusing on other parts of your life as long as it doesn't go on too long and as long as you're aware that that's what you're doing.
[00:10:09] I was coasting in my business, still doing my blog and still doing those things, but not doing the extra. I was in a stage of growth in my family relationships and in my fitness. I was taking care of what was most important to me during that time, and because I was writing in my gratitude journal and writing my 10 dreams as if they'd already happened every morning, I was aware of what my priorities were, and the now, while at the same time, keeping that connection to my dreams for the future.
[00:10:45] My next shift in my priorities happened in later summer of 2020. Northern California experienced a crazy lightning event that started hundreds of fires. Some were found and put [00:11:00] out quickly, and others came together to form big fires, one of which was just a few miles from my home. At the time, there wasn't a lot of information,
[00:11:11] there was a lot of panic, and as evacuations came closer and closer to our house, we decided to move what we considered our most important belongings to a friend's home that was out of danger. While we were never officially evacuated, we did spend one night away from home because I really didn't want to leave in the middle of the night.
[00:11:34] That seemed a lot scarier to me. I had that experience of deciding to check the mail before I left because I didn't know if that mailbox would be there the next day. So we were lucky. Many people we know did lose their homes in those first few days. Others lost their homes later on. They didn't get the time to move anything.
[00:11:59] [00:12:00] Coming back after the night away, we really went into action. I was clearing branches. Any branches that were touching our house, my husband and son, they were spraying water on the wood roof and all the siding. And all the while smoke filled the air and burnt leaves and ash fell from the sky. It was scary, but staying busy helped to keep some of the fear and the dread
[00:12:30] at bay. We felt really lucky and grateful because we did have so many friends that were evacuated from their homes for weeks, and all of a sudden the pandemic wasn't really top of mind anymore for most of us. Once it settled down a bit for us at least, we had a new normal to get used to. We had been really lucky to have access to nature and open space up until then.
[00:12:58] Now, due [00:13:00] to the unhealthy smokey air and extreme heat, most of the time we couldn't even go outside, not even to walk the dogs. All of a sudden, I wasn't really focusing on my fitness either. So my next pivot in my thought process was to show gratitude and appreciation for my home. Because all of our artwork was off the walls, as you might imagine
[00:13:24] I realized that my walls were pretty dusty, and although it's not something that's usually at the top of my list of priorities, I took the opportunity to clean them. And then the next step in showing gratitude towards our home was to paint the inside. About a month before, I had tried to get a bid from the painter that had painted it the last time years earlier, but since she was caring for her elderly mother, she wasn't painting any interiors.
[00:13:58] While it seems crazy to [00:14:00] me now, over seven long weekends I painted everything but our master bedroom and bath. . I did it mostly on my own with a little help from my son with the top of ladder work. As you probably remember, I'm not too keen on heights. I've shared that before. I honestly don't know where I got the energy because I really can't imagine doing it now.
[00:14:26] But it really did help my mind and my thoughts. I felt like I was accomplishing something with the result that I could see. I found a good non-toxic paint company that I could order from online since I mostly couldn't open windows, and I just did the work one room at a time. Eventually, the smoke cleared and the weather cooled down.
[00:14:51] The kids settled into a pattern with some days being physically at school and other days online, and [00:15:00] because I'd stayed connected to my goals and dreams, my focus naturally shifted back to my business. It would've been difficult for me to do that without connections to my networking friends, making use of coaching programs myself, and of course writing those five things I'm grateful for and my 10 goals and dreams every morning.
[00:15:25] In a later podcast episode, I'll share about a time more recently when I didn't manage my mind as well because I wasn't using my tools as consistently, and I'll share how I got back on track. I don't expect myself to be perfect. I certainly don't expect my clients or you to be perfect. I will give you a hint, though I didn't get back on track alone, and that's the power of surrounding yourself with a supportive community.
[00:15:59] With [00:16:00] that, I would love to hear some of your stories about how you overcame adversity by managing your mind. Please do reach out. You can email or DM me on social media. The links are in the show notes. In the meantime, do sign up for one of my free introductory workshops. Look out for the December dates for my Design Your Decade live online workshops.
[00:16:28] Those will be coming up. I do have one-on-one coaching spots available and am starting a new cohort in my group coaching program soon. So doing any of those workshops do give you a good sample of what my coaching is like.
[00:16:45] Just remember no one's perfect and we're all doing the best we can, and I'd be happy to help you do the best you can. That's why I do what I do.
[00:16:57] That's it for now. Have a great [00:17:00] rest of your day and I will see you in here next week. Bye for now.
[00:17:05] Thank you for listening to the Extraordinary Life Podcast with writer 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 Crystal, go to Crystal Obregon.com.
[00:17:18] That's O B R E G O N, where you'll 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.