Why have you set your sights on a goal? What is the motivation that is driving you? Do you have a big enough vision for that goal? One that will carry you through the times where you don’t get any “wins”?
These are important questions for yourself because it’s better to have the over riding vision to help boost you when times get tough. And times will get tough. The weight won’t fall off one week. Or one month. You’ll be seriously and perhaps unfairly criticized. You’ll make mistakes. You’ll miss the mark.
No One Does It Perfectly
No one does it perfectly and that’s not the point anyway. The point is to set your sights on something that will help you grow into the person we were meant to be. The goal is the journey, and to a lesser extent, the destination.
What Is Your Why To Get You Through It?
So if the scale doesn’t change? If your bank account is still too small? If your emails don’t get opened? If you don’t get the promotion? Do you quit? Do you throw in the towel?
Or do you sit down after a moment (or 10) when you acknowledge your disappointment and then remember you’ve made a commitment to the end result? Do you analyze what went sideways and create a new plan on how to handle the adversity?
Do The Model on A Thought
A great way to assess what happened is to do a model on your thought about what happened and what you’re making it mean.
So the scale didn’t change. Are you making it mean that you’ll never lose weight and so now is the time to throw the plan out the window and eat yourself sick? Or do assess what it is going on without judgement or self-pity and make the best decision you can with the current information you have.
Planning For Setbacks and Headwinds
In making your plan for a path forward, just remember that you’ll have setbacks, days where you’re sick and tired, moments when you do or say the thing you didn’t mean to do or say. Plan for it. Visualize yourself in a situation where things are falling to pieces and you still are the calm center in the eye of the storm because you know you’ve got this.
Above All, Don’t Quit
For sure the way you won’t succeed at whatever you’re trying to accomplish is if you quit and if you get a habit of quitting when things are hard.
Quitting quitting is a great first step. Make commitment you want and make quitting not an option. It simply isn’t something you do anymore.
What’s Your Mental Model: Enjoying sunset in Nusa Lembongan- Bali
Of the many things I’m grateful for from listening to Brooke Castillo’s work is her effective and concise distillation of the various approaches to upgrading our thoughts and our beliefs into what she calls the Model.
As you may know, there is a vast subconscious part of your brain that is constantly filling in missing details to make a coherent story out your reality, including helping you ignore facts and data that are in conflict with your current belief system and thoughts.
Your brain is constantly trying to optimize its processes to make much of your daily routine so efficient that you do much of it without conscious thought. Take, for instance, brushing your teeth. Or driving to work. How often do brush your teeth consciously, without dropping into future or past focused thoughts? Do you stand there, two times a day, and think about exactly which tooth you’re brushing and then carefully go on to the next tooth? Or do you, in fact, brush your teeth while your mind wanders to the future or the past, only to come back to the task at the end to make sure you’ve (probably) gotten all your teeth and to rinse and end the session?
And how often are you driving to work without your mind dropping into future or past focused thoughts? Likely not often, except in instances that require you to be fully present, like unusually high traffic, noticing a police car, etc.
This is by design. Your brain is optimizing all of your routine tasks so that it runs on autopilot, allowing your brain to both spend the least amount of energy and so that you don’t expend your finite amounts of focus and willpower on routines that don’t require focus and willpower.
Further, the brain can’t focus on everything so there is a process in your brain that constrains all the input from your ears, eyes, and other senses that allow for it to filter out data that isn’t required and to stop the data from becoming something you’re consciously aware of. Think of your (now subconscious) beliefs and thoughts as gateways to your conscious brain and almost anything that doesn’t fit into your beliefs and thoughts are not allowed access to your conscious thoughts.
So you must choose beliefs and thoughts that serve you. Are your thoughts and beliefs the best ones you can choose? If there are some, or many, that can be improved to help you live a happier and more joyful life, one that feels more authentic and purposeful, the Model is a great tool to help you unearth your current thinking and instead change your thoughts to those that serve you better.
A quick note, Brooke Castillo has stated that the Model‘s precepts are like gravity- no one invented gravity or can patent it, it’s just the way things work. And her Model is one way of explaining how the brain works. So she encourages wide dissemination and usage of it. We all have full permission to use it.
The Model
The Model is as follows: there is a circumstance in your life that is entirely neutral. It is. You have loads of money. Or you have loads of debt. You weigh more than you’d like. Or your maintaining your goal weight easily and effortlessly. Trump is President. There is a pandemic. On and on with current reality. It just is.
However, what you think about that circumstance is totally up to you and your thoughts drive your feelings when you think that thought, your actions are based on those feelings, and the results are derived from your actions.
Here’s the not surprising ending: your thoughts about a circumstance drive your feelings and subsequent actions and usually gets results that reinforce the thoughts about the circumstance- so your results almost always remain constant and are the same.
The Model is written as follows:
Circumstance (C): neutral facts that can be verified
Thoughts (T): your thoughts about the C
Feelings (F): the feelings that come up based on your T
Actions (A): the actions that you take from the F based on the T
Results (R): what happens after the action taken
An Example of the Model:
Because weight loss is easy to model and so many people invest massive amounts of thought, will, time, money and energy into losing weight, it’s a good example.
Unintentional Thoughts about Weight Loss Model:
C: I’ve never been able to sustain my weight loss for more than a few months.
Note: this is a fact. Thoughts such as “weight loss is hard for me” or “I should weight 135 lbs” or “I want to weigh 135 lbs” or “I’m not good at losing weight” are not circumstances and possibly aren’t true. Certainly they are not neutral facts. All of those are thoughts. And any judgements about this circumstance is a thought.
T: I’ve never been able to lose weight easily. Weight loss is really hard for me and I’m not sure I can do it.
Note: This is what may come up for you when you take the neutral circumstance. There may be many thoughts that you’ll want to model in order to upgrade and change them.
F: Anger. Blame (on your parents, your genes, your past). Victimization. Blame. Lack of control, of pleasure. Deprivation.
Note: The thought that” losing weight is hard for you” doesn’t serve you and instead drives a lot of disempowering feelings. I can see no empowering feelings flowing from a thought that weight loss is hard.
A: Trying a new diet and cheating on it. Cheating on the new plan and then quitting the plan. Changing to a new plan. Not planning on all.
Note: the actions the flow from disempowering thoughts and feeling are going to keep you stuck and, in fact, continue to reinforce the thought that weight loss is hard.
R: Weight loss either doesn’t happen or isn’t sustained (reinforcing the thought and the associated belief)
Intentional Thoughts about Weight Loss Model:
C: I’ve never been able to sustain my weight loss for more than a few months.
Note: The circumstance shouldn’t change. You’re not trying to change the circumstances to suit your thoughts. You’re trying to change your thoughts about the circumstances to better thoughts. Trying to change your circumstances helps you avoid your disempowering thoughts, which lead to continued disempowering feelings, actions, and suboptimal results.
T: What’s happened in that past has no bearing on my ability to lose weight.
OR I’ve never understood what’s driving my self-sabotage and now I do/will.
OR I’m absolutely committed to losing weight. I will not quit on myself.
OR I now trust myself to follow my new plan.
Note: Any of these thoughts are better and lead to much more empowered feelings and actions. You do have to believe these new thoughts, which may take some work and additional thought modeling before you can truly believe them. It’s ok. You have the time and there is no rush to live your best life. The process is the point.
F: Powerful. Committed. Loving. Resilient. Responsible. Focused (Etc). Willing to fail and keep to the plan.
Note: These feelings help you take feel good and take action from a much better place. These feelings don’t drive actions that keep the status quo.
A: Quit dieting and commit to a new way of eating. Take stock of current eating without judgement. Stumble through a cheat and immediately recommit. Try a new supportive podcast to keep me motivated. Create a plan for eating that is achievable from where I am now. Continue examining my thoughts and beliefs.
Note: With actions stemming from powerful feelings, you can continue to reach for better feeling thoughts that keep driving better actions and results. Follow your thoughts and keep doing the model!
R: A more permanent change about examining my thoughts. A better outlook. Better feelings and likely -weight loss.
The Key Is to Manage Your Thoughts
The truth is that the mind likes routine, no matter the routine. It take some planning, new thought, and commitment to surmount the mind’s preference for an old routine. But once the new, more supportive routine has been practiced enough times, then the mind is fine with that new routine being the new normal. It’s a bit tricky, but you can change your thinking and change your life.
Practice and Write It Down
I suggest practicing with the Model on a daily basis for 30 days, minimum, or habitually for the rest of your life as you’ll continue to uncover thoughts that don’t serve you. You can first write down your current thoughts in a stream of consciousness way in a journal. Then choose any of them that speak to you and do the Model on that thought.
It’s important to write it down so that it’s there in black and white and that your brain doesn’t trip you up with vague or sloppy thinking. Which it so wants to do to keep you from changing the current routine. Your brain is looking at your life and saying, “you’re not dead or in danger so that is working. Don’t change it. You may be miserable and unhappy but you’re not dead.” So it’s happy to keep tricking you. Writing it down helps your conscious mind see the truth.
This is a simple, quick overview and I hope it helps. I love it and use it daily myself.
I have some time these days, during our Covid19 lockdown. Not that much more than I did before, given I’m taking care of 5 year old twins. But there is some time now that the kids can entertain themselves so I’m catching up on some oldies but goodies.
I have a friend, Hema, who posted at the beginning of this year that she intends to go deep on all her programs and books rather than wider and keep buying new books and spreading herself too thin.
I think this is a great idea. I’ve spent a great deal of money on programs and books I haven’t finished. So I too am finally starting (and finishing!) books that have long been on my bookshelf or my Kindle.
The one I’m reading right now is the Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford. In the past, I might have read the book but not done the exercises. Now, I’m chapter 6 of 10 and I’ve actually done the previous chapters’ exercises. It’s been enlightening.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I do pray daily to have the veil lifted from my eyes so that I can know the truth and be shown my blind spots. So this book is extremely helpful already, just half way through,in illuminating the way I’m denying my shadow self and rejecting and fiercely judging those who exhibit my shadow self. I love what the exercises are showing me.
Two things she said helped me really visualize the deepening process.
1 – she said that we are like castles and we have many hundreds or even thousands of rooms in ourselves. As children, we have no shame about these rooms whether they’re hateful, childish, loving, mean, funny, joyful, or selfish. We just are. And then the people in our lives tell us that some aspect of ourself is wrong and unacceptable. To survive, we turn off the light and lock the door to that room. As we age, we forget that we even had that room and hide the key. Like taking a coin when we were young and hide it. We wouldn’t remember where we had left if 30 years later, or even that we’d done it.
She quotes Gunther Bernard, “we choose to forget who we are and then forget we’ve forgotten”.
I did the exercise for the chapter and I could feel the rooms light up. Not that I know them yet but I could see and feel the lights flicker on- through the suggested visualization. Very cool. I love breakthroughs.
2- if you spot it, you’ve got it. I’m paraphrasing here, but she points out that if something really bothers us in someone else, it’s because we hate that about us. She gives a great visual that it’s like our chest is giant space for electrical outlets. For aspects of ourself that we’ve integrated, there is no charge when we ponder the concept of how the other person is acting. But for things we despise in others, it’s like there is a cord that plugs directly into our chest and we get an electrical surge whenever we think on this attribute or ponder the person.
Through her exercises, I am able to see that I’m all the things I’ve spotted and judged in others. And it’s so clear through her exercises.
I also see that the things are I truly admire in others are the flip side. I also have those qualities and attributes in myself.
I highly recommend her book and doing the exercises. You likely will find it quite illuminating to your shadow self (see what I did there? ROFL).
I recently read a post on FB about how now is not the time to keep exercising or learning how to play an instrument, because of anxiety and stress about the coronavirus.
This is, of course, a perfectly valid way to live your life. Give your brain free rein and let it freak you out and hijack how you spend your days. Living in fear, passing on fear to others, and making decisions out of fear (or stress or anxiety).
Or you can clean up your mental hygiene and give yourself permission to not freak out or indulge in your anxiety, even if the REST OF THE WORLD IS.
You simply (simple but perhaps hard to do) change your thinking about the situation. Rather than stress about what you can’t control, allow your mind to tell you what it fears, acknowledge that, and then consciously search out the opposite of the fears of what your brain is telling you. For example, you can say that the economy is tanking and global recession and job loss – feeling the total fear and anxiety from this. You can then look at where there are bright spots; government stimulus, grocery stores and online businesses doing really well. People able to continue working at home, helping neighbors, and more.
You Have 30 (or 60?) Days. What Will You Do With It
You have 30+ more days of this lock down. Do you really want to stress out and over eat and over drink to manage your anxiety? Or do you want to maybe come out of the lockdown with the ability to play the piano? Or having lost 8 lbs? Or having read your full reading list? Or having all of your closets organized and your house finally deep cleaned?
After spending a week coming to terms with our new reality and allowing myself to freak out a bit and come up with a new normal, I’m excited about all that I can accomplish over the next month. I personally have set my goals and I’m looking forward to working on a bit of them each day, until the 30 days is up.
Anxiety Gets You Nowhere
Anxiety will keep your brain laser focused on all the threats outside. Update your thinking by updating your thoughts, whatever that looks like for you. All you have in your control are your thoughts about your circumstances. Get excited about how you can use this opportunity for changing habits and updating behavior.
Set Your Goal
To make it easier, come up with one goal for the next 30 days. Because it’s easy and measurable, I will use the example of weight loss. Many of us are over eating right now, unable to get to the gym or our yoga class, and the fridge is RIGHT THERE every day all day. So you’ve got 30 days, or 4.25 weeks. That’s say, an 8 lbs weight loss for the month. Or you can organize all your closets this month. You’ve got 8 (or 5 or 12) closets, that means two per week of it’s 8 closets.
How to Set and Keep Your Goal
Set out your measurable goal. Break it down into bite sized tasks (no pun intended).
If it’s weight loss, what is your plan of attack? Will you be reducing your carbs? Will you be using intermittent fasting to kick start your weight loss? Get specifics what what will change. Then plan for tomorrow. If you’re doing IF (which I do), plan for your window opening and closing tomorrow and stick with it. Plan your meals (and for your family’s if applicable).
If it’s your closets, look at your closets and really catalogue mentally what’s in there . Allow your brain to start working out what should go and what should stay. Allow your brain to work on how to solve what you’ll do with the stuff that needs to go. Will you trash it? Will you put it in the garage to give away? When do you have time to start organizing? Two per weekend? 1 hour per day? Let you brain loose.
Use visualization each morning and night to keep you motivated and focused. Really imagine the scale at the end of the month showing you the new weight. Feel your body and how much better you sleep and how much looser your clothes will be. Really get into it and allow yourself to feel the buzz. Your brain will get to work while you sleep, helping you come up with ways to solve this puzzle.
Think of the closets and how much lighter you’ll feel being able to use the closets quickly and easily and that you’re no longer burdened with items you don’t want. Picture them as complete neat and tidy. Again, your brain will get to work while you sleep, helping you come up with ways to solve this puzzle.
Keep Changing Your Thoughts to Those That Serve You
If your brain comes up with something about how you can’t get it done, notice your thoughts and upgrade the thought. Allow it to be and allow it yourself to acknowledge it as it really it. And then change the thought to one that will serve and empower you, allowing you to feel better.
Rinse. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat. You have 30 days to use. Use them to serve you.
And then do the work. Open and close your IF window. Use the weekend to clean your closets. No excuse. Just do it. It’s 30 days.
After a week of two of freaking out and moving from that to acceptance, I think a healthy next step is to look at what good can come of being isolated and at home. I know that for some this means a total loss of income and for other this means a total loss of cherished routines, connection, space from children and partners, and so much more. Yes, there is often much loss going on right now. But there can and should be some good things that can come from this.
I think you can look at the next 30 days (Virginia just implemented a 30 day lock down so I’m going to use that as an example). I’ve personally be social distancing for nearly two weeks already so this will be about 7 weeks of social distancing. Gulp.
#1 – Stop feeding your mind with scenarios of doom, virus statistics, and negative input without also consciously feeding it an equal amount of uplifting and positive input to help you maintain your mental health.
Of course you’re going to want to stay connected to what’s going on. But if you spend an hour on FB or Insta and an hour researching the daily statistics, then you’ll also need to spend two hours on positive input. That’s four hours a day which is nearly impossible so cut out the time you’re spending researching the doom and gloom and on social media. Instead, cut it down to one hour and then spend one hour a day on the positive angle. I suggest spending a half hour a day listening to Brooke Castillo’s podcasts where she’s helping put what’s happening into perspective through describing what the brain does in times of danger and stress and ways to reframe the problem. Highly recommend! Then find another 30 minutes of uplifting content, from Marie Forleo to Martha Beck to sitting in meditation and quieting your mind.
You can also plug into the Mystery and the Divine for 30 minutes or longer using the techniques I wrote about in this post. All of it will help your mind from going all flight or fight on you.
#2 – Set up a goal for the next 30 days that you want to accomplish.
For me, I’ve decided that because I can no longer head out and do my daily yoga, I will use this next 30 days to build up my home practice.
I’ll be honest in that, although I’ve spent years practicing yoga, I don’t actually have any of the pose sequences memorized. I just rely on my teachers to guide me and keep me moving. But now, I’m going to learn a 90 minute sequence by heart so that I can have the sequences memorized when I return to group classes when this ends. I’ll start with surya namaskara A, then B, then C (the sun salutations), then some balancing poses, some stretching poses and end with shivasana.
I love balancing half moon and wounded deer poses so I’ll be sure those and some of my faves and my least faves are included.
I have some old injuries and I’m going to add in some strengthening routines so I can strengthen and stretch my core muscles, including my core, my psoas, my hip flexors. A recent visit to a physical therapist revealed that I haven’t been engaging my transverse abdonminis muscle (TVA) so I’m going to slow down with my yoga and exercise routines to ensure I’m engaging my TVA.
I’m also going to prioritize ensuring healthy eating habits because I know that I have a tendency to eat out of stress and boredom. So even if I don’t lose any weight over the next month, I can at least not gain weight.
#3- Notice What Habits and Mindsets You Have That No Longer Serve You
So I’ve begun to dig into the positives that can be revealed by this time of slowing down. I see how much I’ve rushed around in my life trying to get the kids here, this shopping done there, and meet self-imposed deadlines. And none of it was required. I see that even when this is over I can slow down and let some of the busy-ness go.
What have you noticed about your life that you can see changing?
Yes, this quarantine can have some positive outcomes too, (besides the health one).
I have some time these days, during our Covid19 lockdown. Not that much more than I did before, given I’m taking care of 5 year old twins. But there is some time now that the kids can entertain themselves so I’m catching up on some oldies but goodies.
I recently read a post on FB about how now is not the time to keep exercising or learning how to play an instrument, because of anxiety and stress about the coronavirus.