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I don’t even know who said this originally but I love this quote, “It’s a slow process, but quitting won’t speed it up.”

My life coach, Brooke Castillo says, “Quitting is a habit and justifying quitting is a skill.”

What we practice the most is what we get the best at doing.

And that goes for everything…if you are practicing overeating, you’re getting better at overeating.

If you’re practicing over drinking, you’re getting better at over drinking.  If you are practicing at over spending, over working, over anything, that is what you are getting really good at.

If you are in the habit of quitting, then you have been practicing quitting.

If you’re practicing justifying why you’re quitting, you’re getting better at that.”

There is no reason to continue on the course of quitting things and then justifying the quitting and your brain will always try to talk you out of things.

It’s your brain Motivational Triad to seek pleasure, avoid pain and conserve energy.

“Stop quitting and start getting stuff done” is more than my tagline…it’s my thang!!”

Now, go be a goal setting, goal getting, goal digger!!!

Link to Transformation Tuesday Facebook Live:  The Impossible Goal Steps 1-3 and MTO Goal Setting

I am planning a horse break.  Yes, planning a horse break.  From riding and from my goals of riding.  I did it last year too and it’s time to plan for my break this year.

I am still in the planning stage but it’s coming, I can feel it.

If you know me, you know that there is very little that comes between me and my ride time.

So why do I do it?

I want to be able to talk about how important it is to give yourself a break, to step back from your goal, to re-evaluate, to look at your goal from a different perspective.

In order to talk about it, I need to do it?

I spend tons of time talking about goals and the mindset for achieving goals. It could give you the impression that I don’t believe in taking a break.

I think taking a break is incredibly important and here is why.

Burnout is real! It’s real and it robs you of joy and it is totally preventable.

Perspective is key when you are pursuing a goal. When you are all in it, perspective is hard to find at times.

Sometimes it’s time to push and sometimes it’s time to pull back and relax, reflect and regroup.

For me, the thought of taking a break can provoke fear and anxiety.

Here are the thoughts that are causing the emotions:

• What will I do with myself?
• Who would I be if I didn’t ride every day?
• What would happen to my horses?
• Would they lose their training if I gave them time off?
• Would I remember how?
• What will happen to my body?
• Will I lose my riding fitness?
• Will I lose my confidence?
• What would people think?
• Would they think I was not committed?
• Would they think I was lazy?
• Would they think I had quit?

Sometimes we get so caught up in thinking about our goals and acting upon them that we unconsciously just start going through the motions.  We start doing things just to do things but not because it serves a purpose

Worse, we forget why we are doing this to begin with and exactly what are you going for any way!

You lose perspective.

So what did I experience taking a break?

• I am still me even if I don’t ride.
• I am still horse crazy but now I have tons more room in my brain to be creative and do more!
• My horses do not lose their training, in fact, they get better with a break.
• I have struggled to get through the sore muscles of taking time off but I love the awareness that I feel in my body while getting back into shape.
• People did think I had quit and that’s OK! What they think is not my business any way.
• I love having the time to reflect on the last few years and what I have learned and how I have grown.

Reflect

I love thinking about the future with my girls, Kit and J J, and what I am excited to teach them and experience with them this year.

Dream

I love visualizing my future rides and mentally preparing for the work ahead as we move up the levels.

Ready

Now go be a goal getting, break taking goal digger!

note: Thank you Angie Stokes for the use of your image. Much love!

Having a manual for others is one of the most damaging things we can do to ourselves and to our relationships.

I know, I am speaking from experience here.

The manual is a book of expectations that we have for others.  It’s our manual, but it’s for them. They don’t even know we have it  We feel like they should just know.

In fact, if we have to actually tell them, we make that mean something.  I mean after all, I they loved us, they “should” know.

The manual describes how we would like this person the behave so that we can feel good, feel better and be happy.  It seems harmless, and we feel justified to have these expectations of other people.  I mean, don’t we have a right to expect things from our spouse, our friends, our boss or our co-workers.

Yes, but…

Here’s the problem…

Any time our happiness is tied to someone else’s behavior or our expectation of what they should do, or how they should act, we are sure to be disappointed.  In fact, I think having a manual for someone is “premeditated resentment.”

…and, it’s giving all of our power to someone else, and they have no idea what to do with it.

“Other people’s behavior has no impact on us until we think about it, interpret it and choose to make it mean something.”-Brooke Castillo, The Life Coach School.

Here are a few of my manual expectations:

• He should act more cheerful when I call
• He should call me more
• He should help me with the horses
• He should walk the dogs once in a while
• He should be more understanding when I am feeling overwhelmed
• He should hold my hand more often
• He should plan more dates
• He should offer to help me, he knows how much my life has changed moving here
• He should…

These are all thoughts that were causing resentment.  I was not only wallowing in it, I was smearing it everywhere I could.  I was dragging it with me to every conversation when I was describing “how things were going.”  I was walking the dogs in resentment, I was cleaning stalls in resentment. I was describing my life in resentment.

Every single time he failed, according to my manual, I could feel more and more resentment building.  Spontaneous combustion was right around the corner.

We think that if someone knows us and loves us that they should just know and if they know, they should just do.  When they don’t, we pout, we sulk, we show up snarky, we close down, we start looking for evidence that we are right and they are wrong.  We roll around in self-doubt and self-pity, disappointment and resentment.  We go down a road that is a path to relationship destructions.

We don’t even know that we are showing up creepy and needy when we do this crap.

I stopped the pity party and started seeing that even if he would have done all of those things, I would still not be happy.  That’s my job, my responsibility.

When you are in a space that you just aren’t happy, you really think that someone or something can bring it up for you.  They can’t, nothing can, it’s your job, it’s your responsibility.

When we have a manual for someone, it’s just a matter of time before they let us down, don’t do what they should or say what they should, act how they should.  It’s just a matter of time before you start resenting.

Click here to watch Transformation Tuesday Facebook Live replay where I talk about expectation hangover and the manual and how it is “premeditated resentment.”

When you find yourself going down the road of executing a manual, here is help.  This worksheet will help you define the manual you have for someone so you can throw it out.

Welcome to “Emotional Adulthood.”  Ready to go deeper?

Work with me and let’s get you goaling.

Everyone is talking about “The Impossible Goal”.  It’s in all of the success magazines, all of the self help guru podcasts and all over the media with the new year being so new.

Here is why…

As humans, we tend to set goals in alignment with what we believe that we can achieve.  Our brain likes that very much.  We already know how to reach that milestone, we already know how to show up as that person…it’s easy!

Here is a thought for you…what we want is in the future and what we currently believe is from the past.

If we want to create a different future, we are creating something that doesn’t exist in our past and yet, we are constantly looking backwards for evidence of the possibility for future outcomes.  That will never work.

We have to create new beliefs in order to create new results.  We have to think new thoughts until they become our new belief.  It requires that we believe in something that we have never believed before…before the evidence.   It requires that we believe the impossible is possible before we see the evidence.

Brooke Castillo, my life coach teaches that old beliefs resist new vision.  We can’t believe opposing things without being very uncomfortable.  So we stay with what we already know,

But here is the thing.  You get to believe anything you want!  You are the CEO, the CFO, the COO of your brain and what you want to believe.

Listen, everything you are looking at right now was once not possible.  But someone believed in the impossible before there was evidence.

The Wright Brothers believed they could fly a plane before there was evidence of a plane that could fly.

Henry Ford believed in the impossible idea of everyone owning their own personal vehicle one day.  Back then, that was impossible.

Think about it.  Everything we look at today was at one time not possible.  But that didn’t stop the thought of the thing.  It didn’t stop someone from believing before the evidence was available.

Watch my Facebook live from Transformation Tuesday and learn all about The Impossible Goal.  I share what mine is and how much growth my impossible goal generated.

Now, go be an impossible goal setting, impossible goal getting, goal digger.

How do you know if you have an attachment to negative emotions?

What are the three most prevalent emotions that you carry around all day? If people would use emotions to describe you, what would they be? How do you describe yourself using emotions?

First of all, it’s normal to have negative thoughts and emotions.  It means that you are human.  In fact, negative thoughts and emotions do serve a purpose.  I mean, it would be really weird to greet devastating news with a smile and joy. 

So what’s the big deal then?

It becomes a big deal when we get attached to negative thoughts and emotions and we wear them like a cozy robe and fuzzy slippers and we use them to describe who we are.

Literally!  It becomes a big deal when we feed our negative thoughts with comfort food and a yummy bottle of wine.  Before long we go shopping…online, in our robes, eating our comfort food, binge watching Mad Men or Orange is the New Black.  

Now, don’t get me wrong, sometimes that is the best way to spend a cold winter day, on purpose, not at the effect of our thoughts and emotions. 

So, what to do…

Remembering the Model:

• Thoughts Trigger Emotions,
• Emotions Fuel Behavior, and
• Behavior Drives Results

Question your thoughts! Be very curious about your thoughts without judging.  Just because you believe something is true, even if you’ve believed it for a long period of time, that doesn’t mean that it is actually true or that it has to be true for the future.

You don’t have to believe your thoughts! 

Your rain wants to prove your thoughts true, all of them, even the wrong ones. 

But here’s the thing: When you believe something is true, you tend to look for things that support those truths and ignore what does not. Beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies.  So if those beliefs are helpful, then YAY! But if you want to experience something different, you have to prove to yourself that something different is possible.

Replace your thoughts! There’s nothing wrong with choosing to have a positive thought. Just know that the negative thought didn’t matter in the first place, it probably wasn’t true and it doesn’t “mean” anything about you. 

When you jump on “negative” thoughts and reject them in a knee-jerk way, you’re saying to yourself, “I’m not good enough. If I were good enough, I wouldn’t have had that thought in the first place.”  This is as negative as the initial thought. 

People think that “thinking positively” is the first step, but first we must become aware and accept that the only reason we feel bad in the first place is because of our thoughts.  Then, try some new thoughts on for size.

New truth! I love positive affirmation but you have to ease into it.  The last thing that you want to do is tell your brain more lies.  Your brain will reject the information and then you will be back where you started. 

Start with the original thought and build bridge thoughts.  Over time, you will have transformed your thoughts and emotions. 

For example; if you have a few pounds to lose, it does no good to look in the mirror and say, “I am never going to have the body of my dreams.”  It also does no good to say, “I have the body of my dreams”.  There is too much of a gap between those two thoughts and your brain will reject the new thought.  Your thought bridge might start with, “I am working on the body of my dreams.”  Building a thought bridge will take time and practice but you will be amazed at how quickly you will replace old thought habits with new thought habits that better serve your purpose.

Now, go get some thoughts that serve you!

Ready to get goaling? Click here to work with me.

Worry, anxiety, self-pity, confusion, self-doubt and overwhelm, busy, boredom…all indulgent emotions.

They seem harmless, they seem real, they seem to serve a purpose…they do not.

There are more indulgent emotions, these are just a few that I have worked on myself and they are the most common.

These emotions are habit forming, we even use these emotions to describe who we are…”I am just a worry-wart, that’s just who I am.”

We get attached to indulgent emotions even if they don’t feel good to us, they are familiar and familiar feels comfortable.

They become distractions from other emotions that actually need to be addressed.

Just like we turn to food or drink to buffer from emotions we don’t want to feel, we indulge in overwhelm, worry and anxiety as a distraction to keep us from feeling the emotion we don’t want to feel…fear!

Why does this matter? Because our emotions are the fuel for our actions and actions drive results…it’s everything. If we want to show up as our highest and best self, if we want to live by design and stop living by default, if we want to up-level our results this year, we need to work this out.

Not all negative emotions are bad. It’s not about being positive all the time. I am going to talk all about overwhelm this Tuesday on my Facebook Live Virtual Goal Setting Workshop, “Transformation Tuesday”. Click here to get the notifications.

Now, go be a goal getter!!!

Ready to get goaling? Click on Work With Me.

Make a decision that nothing is too good to be true.

Decide on purpose to come from a place of abundance.

Decide that anything is possible.

Don’t get attached to “the how.” Stay focused on “the what.”

Ignore your inner critic but trust your intuition.

Let go of things that don’t serve you.

Write it all down.  Your goals, your thoughts, your feeling about your thoughts, your thoughts and feelings about your goals…all of it!!!!

Now, go get goaling!!!!

Are you ready to up-level your results, click here.

Success is earned through challenging, mundane, unexciting, uncomfortable, unsexy, frustrating, laborious and sometimes defeating work.  Freaking hard work!

Success is achieved through the compound effect of doing it every day.  Showing up 1% better today than yesterday.  Doing it again tomorrow and every day after that.

Success is accomplished in the thoughts that you think, the uncomfortable emotions you are willing to feel and the action, the massive action that you take.   

Success is made one choice at a time. 

• The choice to make one more call to close the deal,
• The choice to turn around and say I am sorry instead of storming out the door,
• The choice to drink the water and pass on the cookie,
• The choice to let it go,
• The choice to see the other side,
• The choice to keep going when you feel like quitting,
• The choice to be tired and scared and lonely and do it anyway,
• The choice to get up and work out and eat clean even when it’s hard, especially when it’s hard,
• The choice to live the human experience fully and intentionally and by design.

Trump your brains motivational triad of seeking pleasure by seeking growth, of avoiding pain by being willing to be uncomfortable, to conserve energy by taking massive action.

Now, go be a goal setting, goal getting, goal digger!!!!

Ready to get goaling? Click here and let’s get to work!

“I knew it was too good to be true,”  “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

What terrible thoughts!  Unfortunately, I have thought it and said it myself.

It’s a skeptical view-point and a scarcity mindset that something seemingly fine must have something wrong with it.

It’s a belief that nothing is as good as it seems, or worse…that you aren’t worthy of receiving anything so good and favorable, so it must not be true!!!!

Now I am not talking about things that are false being true, I am talking about legit, real things feeling too good, and/or being so close to what we want that we back away because, well…”it’s just too good to be true.”

So we fail ahead of time because we don’t want to be disappointed.  We don’t go for the job, or invest emotionally into the relationship or jump into the new business, even when we see evidence that we are on the right path, we dismiss the evidence as, “too good to be true.”

That thought is just a thought put there by your brain as an effort to keep you safe, from feeling fear and rejection and feeling anxiety, it’s your brains motivational triad at work, and that’s OK. 

Doesn’t mean you have to listen, doesn’t mean you have to respond, and it doesn’t mean it’s even true.

The truth is that “nothing is too good to be true” is a thought that you can choose to think as you approach your goals and objectives. 

As you start down the path of up-leveling your life, becoming your future you, you are going to come face to face with opportunities and advantages.  Recognize them and take them.  They are not too good to be true, this is the way that the universe works.

Try thinking the thought that “nothing is too good to be true” over and over, write it out over and over.  Feel the peace that comes from thinking a thought like that, see if you  start seeing opportunities and advantages coming your way.

My husband and I made a major life decision last year and almost as soon as we decided the “what” the “how” started presenting itself.  We started seeing opportunities that we could explore, and take advantage of.  We didn’t get emotionally challenged or charged by any of the several opportunities available.  We didn’t dismiss any of them as too good to be true either.  In fact, our approach is that we are open to all of it and nothing is too good to be true.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” It’s true!

The science behind it is tied to your thoughts. Your brain wants to prove your thoughts true. Think the thoughts on purpose that you want to see come true.

It was still scary, but fear is just a vibration in the body, it doesn’t hurt.  It is exciting and excitement is just a vibration in the body as well. It was hard but only when I thought the thought, “this is hard.” When I focused on how easy things were coming together, guess what? Things came together very easily.

I proved all of my thoughts true during the entire process. Now, that doesn’t mean that I was proud of every moment. Not at all! I am still human. But for sure, I was very aware of my brain proving my thoughts true.

What makes you feel good or bad, is the thought that you choose to think. 

Somehow, we humans got the idea that we should only have good thoughts and things would be easy and fun and daisies and rainbows in pursuit of our goals and dreams.

That’s not true.  Pursuing your goals and dreams is scary, and exciting and hard and requires growth and you get tested and you fail, you learn and you try again and you grow again and then you get there and think…huh, that wasn’t so bad, what’s next?

So my friends, nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, is too good to be absolutely true!

Now, go be a goal getting, goal setting, goal digger!!!