Episode 140: How to Do the Things You Don’t Feel Like Doing

There are many area of life where we know what we "should" be doing...but getting ourselves to actually do them is a different story. 

Here's how to do the things we don't feel like doing.

If you prefer video, you can watch these podcast episodes on YouTube as well: https://www.youtube.com/@mindstrongfitness2541

Check out my (free) workshop, How to Fire Up Your Metabolism in Menopause and Beyond right here: www.mindstrongfitness.com

Transcript

Becoming MindStrong: 140: How to Do the Things You Don’t Feel Like Doing

0:00  
Welcome back to the becoming mind strong podcast. My name is Rachel, and I'm the founder and CEO of mind strong, where we have been helping menopausal women not just lose weight, not just get healthy, but master this skill so they don't need to end us or anyone else, so they have it for the rest of their life. Now, inside ignite our signature 12 week program, we do something called Lunch and Learns every single week. And I love lunch and learns, because not only is it our time to get together as a community, and let me tell you, there is a power in being in a Zoom Room with other menopausal women walking a similar journey, but it's a time to deepen our knowledge. We have a resident naturopath, we have a resident neuroscientist, which I love. My nerdy brain goes crazy. And then once in a while, I'll pop in and do a lunch and learn about a deeper mindset topic. So today I want to share with you one of my favorite lunch and learns we've done on a topic that was brought up time and time again. It was a popular demand topic, so to speak. And in this Lunch and Learn, we're talking about how to do the things you don't feel like doing. We call it making consistency your habit, right? Because so many of us, I, you know me and my red flagging of the word should, if you've hung out here, but we know what we should be doing. And many of us, if you've listened this podcast, we know that habits are the holy grail. So how do we do the things we, quote, unquote, know we should be doing so that we can build those habits when we don't actually feel like it. That's what we're diving into today. I hope you enjoy.

1:35  
Welcome to the becoming mind strong podcast, the official podcast of Mind, Strong fitness. My name is Rachel, and I'm the CEO of mind strong. And we are here for two things. We're here for hope in a stage of life where it feels like we are doing everything right and nothing is working. I am here to tell you you are not broken. This is fixable, and I promise there is hope. And number two, we are here for truth in an industry that is designed to keep us confused with shake systems and point systems and frozen meals. I promise you it doesn't have to be that difficult. Someone can teach you the skill of riding a bike, someone can teach you the skill of knitting, and I can teach you to master the skill of nutrition. So are you ready? Let's rock and roll. So

2:33  
we're going to break this conversation into three parts. I want to talk about the neuroscience of why this works when we want to do the things we don't want to do, and make consistency a habit. Why does that work? From a neuroscience level, we're going to talk about how to start, because we all know sometimes starting is the hardest part, right? You actually start doing something, you're like, this was not that bad. I probably should have done this like three months ago. So we'll talk about how to get started, and then we'll get into the deep dive of how to stay consistent. So in your intro modules, before your even week one modules, and ignite your intro modules, we talk about the science of habits. And if you have taken in a lot of my content, you may be sick of hearing me talk about this, but we're going to talk about it again, because when understanding the science of habits, to me,

3:24  
is the core, the number one to consciously constructing a life of our dreams. I am a big believer that so many people wake up and live the same day, day after day after day, hoping for something to arbitrarily change. Right? We slap labels on ourselves, like I'm not a math person, I'm not an athlete, or I am this, or I'm not this. And when we understand the neuroscience of habits, we can understand that we are in the driver's seat of all that, not in the driver's seat of everything, right? We can't control all of life. That's That's part of the adventure, but we are capable of what we call rewiring our brain. See, back in the day, they thought that brains were what we've learned. We thought that brains were static, right? We thought it was a true statement to say, I'm not a math person, I'm not an athlete. What science has learned that our brains are called, what's called plastic. They have plasticity to them, meaning they can change, they can grow, they can rewire. So let's talk a little bit about the neuroscience of habits. We'll talk about how to start we'll talk about how to build consistency. Every single time that we think a new thought or we take a new action, a neural connection is formed in our brain. My favorite example this because in my core, of course, I will always be a music nerd for my musician days, if I picked up the violin, I did not play well. I played the violin at like, a third grade level. So it's perfect example, because I'm not great at the violin, but let's say I picked up a violin, I'm like, Okay, this is where my fingers go to play the note C sharp the first time I do it nails on a chalkboard, right? If you have kids or grandkids who play.

5:00  
The violin. It is not pretty when they're first starting out, because my brain does not have a neural connection in how to do that. I'm floundering in the dark trying to figure this out. But if every day for the next few weeks, I get up, pick up my violin, put my finger where it goes, pay attention that I'm in tune. Do it again. Do it again. Do it again. Every time we repeat a thought or action. This stuff called myelin is acting like cement, and it's coding, coding, coding that new neural connection that was hard to say new neural connection. So learning that note where my fingers go, neural connection formed in my brain, not a very strong one. It's brand new. But as I repeat the action. And this is true of thoughts too, that neural connection is being myelinated like cement being laid until eventually, with enough myelination, you could shake me out of my sleep in three in the morning. I might punch you in the face if I'm frightened, but I could pick up my violin. I could play a C sharp without second thought, because my brain is wired for that habit, for that neural connection.

6:05  
Now our brains are powerhouses right there. What is the stat like? We only actually take in, I think it's like 10 or 20% of our day. It is naturally filtering out, filtering out what we've trained. It isn't important.

6:18  
So our brain, in its busyness, is always looking to put things on autopilot. It's like auto pay for our bills, right? No one wants to sit down anymore the first of the month and go through a laundry list of what we have to pay. We can set it and forget it, and it makes our life easier.

6:35  
Our brain is always looking to do this. It is always scanning and saying, What are they doing day in and day out. So I can take some of the stress off of me. I can just put it on autopilot, and I can stop thinking about it. What can I set or forget?

6:50  
So the beautiful thing, and the dangerous thing, is that our brain is always forming habits, whether we're conscious of it or not.

7:00  
My favorite example of this is brushing our teeth, right? I don't think any of us came out of the womb like chomping at the bit to brush our teeth. We had external pressure. It was your parents, your guardian, your grandparents, like poking you every day. Do you brush your teeth? You brush your teeth? No, go do it. Go do it. Now, if I said, Hey, how was brushing your teeth this morning? It's like what I don't even remember, like I just woke up and did it, because that is a deep, wired habit, but it didn't start as a habit. It's one we consciously built with that accountability until our brain wired for it. Now that I consider that a positive example, I hope that we're all brushing our teeth on a regular exam a regular basis. This is true also, though, of this stuff that we maybe wouldn't consciously choose. I'll give you a really popular one. In our world, you walk past a mirror. You don't consciously notice anything that happened, but next thing you know, you feel like garbage about yourself. And if we could, like, do the if you ever saw the movie, The Matrix like slow motion, it down. What happened for a lot of people, is we walk by the mirror. We caught a glimpse of ourselves. We had some kind of thought like, oh, I can't believe this is my body. Now, how did I let myself get like this? We walked past the mirror, because that all happened in a split second, and now we feel like garbage. How did that happen without our conscious thought? Because we have repeated that thought process so many times over the years that we don't even know that we're doing it right. So I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole right now, but something I love to teach is the T, F, A, R, loop, the thoughts, feelings, action, results, loop that ties into this. If you haven't listened to that podcast, it's one of my favorite because what's happening is we're feeling something, and if we trace that feeling back, there was a thought, How did I let myself get like this? Or whatever your version is, that thought is an autopilot habit wired into your brain that was myelinated because we have repeated it over and over and over again until our brain said, You know what? She thinks this every time she walks through a mirror, walks by a mirror, not through her mirror. That would be painful every time she walks by a mirror. Let's make this a habit. Let's stop thinking about it. Let's just do it every time she walks by. So my point in that example is that we need to be careful. The vast majority of us, if we take a look at the areas of life where we are kicking butt and taking names, we've probably put some conscious effort into building habits around that. Right? If you're a great manager of your team, if you're a great spouse, if you're a great parent or grandparent, you probably put a lot of time and effort thinking, How do I want to show up here?

9:37  
If we look at the areas of our life where we don't feel so great about it, we probably haven't developed habits around it consciously. We probably have a lot of habits that we wouldn't have chosen, but we just kind of do right If your marriage is in a rut, this is not true for everyone, but a lot of times it's habits. It's that we've gotten into the habit of talking to each other or not communicating the way that we'd like to, and now.

10:00  
Just on autopilot. Our brains wired that way. If you have road rage, right? That is a habit. Someone cuts you off. Your brain doesn't even think you just react, because that's how it's wired. It doesn't mean we're destined to be that way. It means we need to shine the light of awareness first. We need to consciously unwire those parts, meaning we stop doing them, and the best way to stop doing them is to replace them, to rewire our brain with the habit that serves. Is this making sense so far?

10:29  
Okay, so we need to understand neural connections, because the US that exists today, the me, the you, the best friend that exists today, we are a result of our neural connections, the things we love, the things we'd want to change. It all comes down. It sounds kind of robotic, but it's true, we are a result of our neural connections, which means if we want to build new habits, at the root of that, it's consistency, because as long as we stay consistent, we will myelinate a new neural connection. I always think of this in three parts, habits are the holy grail. Habits are who we are and what we do. How do we stay how do we build habits? We stay consistent. How do we stay consistent? We start with accountability. We're going to talk more about that in a second. Make sense? Okay?

11:17  
So let's start with how to start, and then we're going to talk about the consistency part. Because if we want to build habits, to build habits, we have stay consistent. One of my other favorite podcast episodes, I think it's technically called, why you need to stop trying so hard. But we, in our world, we always call it do the bare minimum. So if you're someone who doesn't work out and you're interested in it, your coach is probably going to do this mindset exercise with you that we call do the bare minimum,

11:42  
where most people I'm going to consciously use the word wrong. I'm very careful about where I use right and wrong, because what does that mean? In my opinion, what most people do wrong is especially when it comes to health and fitness, but not only in any area of life, especially health and fitness. What most people do inefficiently, I'll switch that wrong to inefficiently is they try to go zero to 100 right? I've never worked out a single day in the past five years. Today's day one, I'm going to the gym for an hour and a half a day, five days a week. And by day two, we're walking like a baby giraffe. We're like, screw this. I can't even sit down on the toilet. I'm never going back to the gym. It doesn't work like that, right? Same thing. If we're going to take up a new hobby instead of, like, dipping our toe in and seeing if we like it, we're like, well, signed up for a year long pass that cost me my life savings, and let's hope that I enjoy this thing. We are so conditioned to go zero to 100 especially in this health and fitness world, that we're setting ourselves up for failure. And when we set us ourselves up in that way, not only will we not stick with it, but it makes it really hard to start. If you're someone who's not in a consistent workout routine, the thought of going to the gym for an hour a day, five days a week, like that is a major where am I going to find an hour a day, five days a week? I've never done this before, so it's easier to not start than to try to rearrange our entire life for something that's not realistic for us.

13:07  
So one of my favorite when I say exercises, I mean this, I'm trying not using to use the word mindset, one of my favorite brain exercises is called do the bare minimum. And some of you may have done this with your coach. Some of you may want to do this with your coach. All of our coaches are trained in this. So you can, you can you can ask them to do this with you when, let's say, Jane Smith says, Hey, I joined Ignite. I got the snowball rolling down a hill just with nutrition alone. Because we know nutrition is 90% of this game, because humans are pleasure seeking creatures. As we start to feel good, we're not going to say, I feel incredible. Let me not do anything else. We're going to say, I feel incredible. What else can I do? So we go to our zoom with our coach, and we're like, I'm ready to start. Put me in coach. Literally. How do I start working out?

13:53  
This is where we do the bare minimum. Do the bare minimum is a feeling exercise, not a thinking exercise. Okay? We can do it together right now. So you're going to sit in your chair, if you're comfortable, closing your eyes you can, otherwise, you can just kind of gaze at the floor softly. We're going to do our best to relax our shoulders. We're going to take a deep breath.

14:13  
And by the way, if you're already on a consistent workout routine, do this about something else, about the the room that you've been saying for 10 years that you'll organize. It doesn't matter the topic. Okay, we're going to ask ourselves, what is the bare minimum I can commit to this week?

14:29  
Now what's going to happen is that first thing that flashed in your mind, that's the answer, because you're going to feel ease in your body. I can go for a 15 minute walk once a week. But what's going to happen immediately is that little inner monolog is going to spark up and be like, Are you kidding me? You have 50 pounds to lose, and you think 115 minute walk a week is going to do anything? Who are you kidding? You're wasting your time. Blah, blah, blah, down the rabbit hole, nope. Trying to be an overachiever in this exercise is undoing the exercise.

15:00  
It is ruining the exercise. The point of this is you will feel it in your body when you have the answer that is so seemingly simple it's too good to be true. That's the answer. When you start feeling any kind of tension, we have ruined the game. Okay, that's part one. What is the bare minimum I can commit to this week? Someone, if you want to throw some of your answers in the chat box, that would be fun too.

15:27  
Here's Step two. As you're putting your answers in there,

15:32  
step two is going to feel super cheesy, and rainbows and glitter and unicorns II. That's a word unicorns II, and it is neuroscience. Let's say it's I love the 15 minute walk once a week. Yes, I love it. That's always my example, because that's a perfect one to start with. I'm going to encourage you to be specific. So move more is a great step. What does that look like? Does that mean I'm going to aim for 3000 steps a day? Maybe I'm doing 2000 I'm going to aim for 3000 maybe I'm doing 2000 I'm going to aim to do that consistently. Our brains work really well with target goals as opposed to general goals. So the more specific we can be here, the better. I love it. Keep dropping, keep dropping them in there when you do your your minimum, okay, so I'm just going to stick with your 15 minute walk once a week. We are going to throw ourselves an internal party. Okay? You don't have to do it externally if you want to. That's great if you have a super supportive party, like a partner, get them to throw a party with you. And the key is, we want a dopamine release, and there's a reason for that. So I went for my 15 minute walk. I get back, I'm like, You know what rock star, you promise yourself you're going to do it. You freaking did it. You don't need to go buy yourself brownies. You don't need to take yourself down. Need to take yourself dinner. It's not a not a 40th birthday, 50th birthday, 60th birthday. It's a little internal celebration, because what's going to happen is that your brain is going to release dopamine. And at the root of almost every decision humans make is we're looking for a dopamine release. The reason that's important is next week, when it's time for your 15 minute walk and you don't feel like it, which you won't, because we haven't wired in our habit yet. Now we can pause and say, You know what? Remember last week? Remember that little 15 second party that I had after my walk. Remember how good that felt. I want more of that. Give me my give me my feel good drugs. I'm going to go for my 15 minute

17:23  
walk. The beauty of do the bare minimum. I love all these in the comment box. This is awesome. And I love the specificity, specificity of this. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

17:35  
The beauty of do the bare minimum is that instead of pushing a 50 pound boulder up a hill, as we try to do so often in life, especially in the field of health and fitness, right? Zero to 100

17:46  
we're getting a snowball rolling down a hill, because humans, at our core, are pleasure seeking creatures. Right? If you've watched my workshop, I talk a lot about Freud's pleasure principle, which, 10 years later, I still can't say that for Freud's pleasure principle, which states that, as human beings, if we have a pulse and a heartbeat, this is human nature. We are designed by nature to avoid pain and seek pleasure. So when we do something that feels good, we're not going to go, Holy cow, that was incredible. I'm never doing it again, right? You see a great movie. What do you want to do? You want to tell everyone to go see it. We're going to go watch it a second time. If we have a food that we love, it's not like that was the best food in my life, never eating it again. It's how can I get that feeling again? So when we do our 15 minute walk once a week, what's going to happen organically? We don't have to push step two is, maybe it's a week later, maybe it's three weeks later. Doesn't matter. You're going to say, You know what? That feels easy. What else can I do? And maybe that goes to 215 minute walks. Maybe it's a 30 minute walk once a week. Maybe we take some little, little dumbbells with us on our walk and be like the what do they call power walkers at the mall? We're going to naturally say, What can I do next? Because that is how humans are designed.

19:03  
The power in this is you can truly do a major life overhaul in a way that actually works, because we're not trying to overnight it. We're not trying to go zero to 100 we're letting our human nature flow with it. So one day, we wake up and we say, Holy cow. Who is this person that's got some bicep bumps? Where did that come from? And if you followed the trail back, it started with 115 minute walk a week, because we're flowing with human nature instead of fighting against it.

19:33  
Make sense.

19:35  
Now, let me tie this back to where we started, and then we're going to go on to the third part of this. As you're doing the bare minimum, you are repeating, repeating, repeating in action, and as you organically add more actions to that, you are repeating and repeating and repeating the action. So guess what you're doing? You're forming a habit. So there will come a time it feels far fetched and crazy in the beginning. It's like I can't even imagine myself being.

20:00  
A worker out or consistently, but there will come a time where you're just like, oh, it's Wednesday. It's when I go for my walk, and you won't even think about it's like brushing your teeth, because your brain has been wired that's been myelinated in those neural connections through that time and consistency.

20:17  
All right, we're going to take this one step further. So now we understand the neuroscience of habits, or we've we've re we've myelinated what we already know. If you've watched that video, listen the podcast. We've talked about how to get started now. The title of today is how to do things you don't feel like doing, making consistency a habit. So if we want to form habits, we know by now we've said it a gajillion times in the past 21 minutes that we need to stay consistent. That's easier said than done, right? If we could just flick a switch and stay consistent, life would be a lot easier. It doesn't work like that.

20:54  
The one thing I think most of us have learned by now in life is that the answer is not motivation real quickly. As a former teacher, differentiated learning is real. So if right now you're listening to this episode as a podcast on Apple podcast, Spotify, iHeartRadio, wherever get your podcasts, know that it also exists in video form on YouTube. Similarly, if you're watching me right now on YouTube, know that this episode also exists as a podcast on all the platforms, so however you take in information, best know that we've got you the podcast exists both in podcast form and video form. We'll link both in the show notes below, so you can learn however you learn best. Now let's get back to the episode. I'll use myself as an example. I've been weight training for 10 years. I don't even know how I'm old enough for that statement to be true, but it is. But it is true. I've been weightlifting for 10 years. I work out five days a week. Of those five days, there are probably three that I don't feel like doing it. And sometimes I tell people that, and they're shocked, because that's a really long time to not feel like doing it. And that's not consistent. There's some weeks I'm just like, get me to the gym. That's not That's not usually the case. It's more like, do I feel like it today? Do I not feel like it today?

22:06  
And more weeks than not, I still go five days a week.

22:11  
What I do not do, and I am not a fan of because I understand psychology and human nature is I am never a jerk to myself, meaning the inner monolog in my head is never you. You overweight piece of garbage. Get your butt to the gym, or nobody's going to love you, right? I would never talk to myself like that, because, number one, it's not going to work if I feel terrible about myself, I'm going to sit on the couch and eat potato chips. I'm not going to go to the gym. And number two, as we've already talked about, we make decisions in life based off a dopamine release that has not given me a dopamine release that is beating my self esteem into the ground

22:49  
my I'm going to go off kind of on a side tangent here, and then we'll get back to consistency, one of my favorite analogies, when we do we do a lot of work around the inner monolog in your head, right? I think especially as women, we've been so conditioned to believe that the reason we're high achievers is because we we beat ourselves into being there like we push ourselves. You're not good enough. Do more. Do more, do more. And we have a lot of proof that says that's true, right? We live in a society that rewards us for head down get things done.

23:21  
The reality is that being a jerk to yourself is we think this is our cap, that is our that is our floor, when we can start retraining our monolog to be our best coach, instead of a raging jerk, what we thought was our top becomes the basement. And my favorite analogy for this is, if I said to you right now, I'll say it to you and don't filter. Just pop it in your head. Who is your absolute favorite teacher growing up? The one that just popped in your head unfiltered. I have asked this to 1000s of women over the years. What I have never heard is they made me feel like garbage about myself, right? They berated me. I've never heard that. What I have heard is they were my toughest teacher. They set the bar the highest, and they made me believe that I could reach it right. So if that's true in an education setting, why is it any different in life, in how we speak to ourselves?

24:15  
So I say all that that was a long winded way of saying, it's Tuesday. I had a live workshop. All I want to do is sit on the couch and have a glass of whiskey, maybe make some popcorn, watch a movie. My brain wants to turn off. I'm going to show you the exact conversation that I have with myself quite frequently, multiple times a week. Okay, let's think this through. Do you have to go to the gym right now? Absolutely not. The world is not going to end. Suomo is not going to love me any less if I don't go the world's not blowing up. Ignites, not going out of mind. Strong's not going out of business. We do not have to go to the gym. Cool. That's option A

24:55  
and I know that I didn't go on Monday, and I.

25:00  
Know that if I miss two days in a row, number one By day three, my energy feels like garbage, like I am struggling to get up in the morning. It's really hard to get to the gym on day three, because now I'm like, Oh, this is nice. Do we just sail through the rest of this week? I know that my I just I feel icky in my skin because I don't have the same confidence that I typically have when I'm working out consistently. So no, I don't have to go, and if I choose not to, let's accept the fact that we're choosing this other path. We're choosing less energy tomorrow. We're choosing less comfort in our skin. We're choosing just feeling a little bit icky tomorrow. Are you okay with that? This is literally what I say in my head just much faster than this.

25:42  
And some days I'm okay with that, right? This is not a magic switch that every time I have this conversation I go to there's plenty of days I'm like, yep, weighed the pros and cons and whiskey wins tonight, like it has been a day, and that's what I'm choosing. And more days than not, I'm just like, oh, you know what, you're right, even though I'm not like forcing myself, it's this feeling of your right? It's like, No, I don't want to go and I know how much better I'm going to feel on the other side of it. Now, the last piece to this conversation goes back to the neuroscience.

26:15  
Every time we make a decision, we're going one of two directions. Do I want to myelinate the neural connection that says I work out five days a week? Or do I want to lessen that myelin and go the path that says I work out when I feel like it, which because one of those is getting myelinated, there's a belief system that says I only work out on days I feel like it, and a belief system that says I figure out a way to get my five days in. Which 1am I choosing? And for me, that's usually what cinches it now again. Doesn't always mean I go, but it's like, you know what? I feel okay that if I don't go today, I know I'll get back tomorrow. My schedule is open. I'm going to be more well rested. That's okay.

26:56  
All of this comes down to the power of choice. I said in the beginning, we're kind of grouping together a lot of a lot of a lot of different podcast episodes. One of them is called the power of choice. That's what this comes down to.

27:08  
There's a term in psychology called reactance, which simply means, as humans, we do not like being told what we should, shouldn't, must, must not, do

27:20  
not, long term, right? It's the difference between your partner saying, take out the trash. It's like, excuse you, right? Or like, Hey, babe, could you do me a favor? Like, I've got these two tasks to do. Could you grab one of them for me? Because I have a lot of my plate right now. Which one would you prefer? Like, oh, yeah, of course, I'll help you out, right? We want autonomy. We want the power of choice. That's true with how we speak to ourselves, saying You better get your your butt to the gym. You just made this investment in Ignite, and you're wasting time. If you don't go to the gym four days a week, it's never going to work. You're going to feel like garbage. It's not human nature. We're moving in the opposite direction

27:55  
when we can weigh the very realistic pros and cons, and I'm going to emphasize realistic there, right? We are all intelligent human beings. You cannot BS yourself. You cannot say the world is going to end if I don't go to the gym, get your butt there like we know that's not true. So it's not going to be effective when we can weigh the really realistic pros and cons, the world's not going to end. I do not have to go. This is not a must. This is not even a should. There's nothing in life we should do. It's the power of choice and always light with the dark. Everything in life has light with the dark, right? You want to go through a healing stage faster? We absolutely can. You're going to gain a lot of weight. We can go slower. It's slow, it's tedious, it's annoying, and we're going to minimize that, hopefully zero, right? Everything in life has light with a dark it's our job to choose which is more important to us when we can give ourselves that option.

28:49  
That's where we step into our power. That's where we step in with our human nature. Last thing I'll say about this, there's days it's a bit of tougher love. I'm going to group in another podcast here. I have one called tough love versus giving yourself grace. There are days that I'm a bit tougher on myself. Tougher does not mean I'm a jerk to myself. There are literally zero days where I berate myself and say, you have to you, should you? Must you insert negative thing? Never zero because I've done a lot of this work, and I teach this work, and I've trained my brain not to and there are days where the conversation I'll give you a real life example. I was in Vegas for a work conference last week, and the conference started at 8am I am not a morning worker. Outer I hate swomo. Loves morning workouts. I like you could hold a gun to my head, and I would still consider if I want to go to the gym or not. Do not enjoy it. That was extreme, and my options were, I can wake up at five, get to the gym at 530 so I had time to shower, put on big adult clothes for a conference, and then Uber to this conference, or because I wasn't going to have time after the conference, because we still had to work and have dinner and be human. I.

30:00  
Or I could not work out for the three four days I was going to be there. So I did my power of choice, I did my neural connections, and then at some point I was just like, You know what? This was my literal conversation. You were going to feel like absolute garbage if you come back from this conference on Sunday and you have not worked out since Tuesday, like you're going out to eat every night. You're having a drink with dinner every night that you're there, which I don't like. I'll have an occasional drink at home, but not not four days a week. Like you're gonna feel like crap if you make this choice. And so I did. I woke up at five, went to the gym. Don't tell someone I said this, but it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. Actually, kind of enjoyed it. I'm not going to become a morning worker outer but I felt great. I got back on Sunday, I had the usual like, if you've ever been to Vegas, where they pump things into the hotel, so like, you feel awful. Regardless, you can hydrate as much as you want, you still feel terrible. But that was the only terrible I had to deal with. It wasn't the terrible of missing that many days of workout. So the tough love was like, hey, yes, you still have a choice, but I don't recommend this one. Like, you are going to feel like garbage. It's not a, might, might. It's a, it's a you will. And it was like, All right, fine. It's like, when your kids, your grandkids, roll their eyes at you, and they're like, fine, because they know you're right, but they don't want to say you're right. Like, sometimes I do that with myself, and then I just do it. So let's recap and put this into an action plan, and then I'll save lots of time so we can answer any questions. Thing Number one, I come back to neural connections about everything in life that is a true statement, everything in life, if I want to take up a new hobby, if I want to practice something in my company that I am not good at, and I'm starting to feel overwhelmed. I always start with Okay, of course. I suck at this because I do not have neural connections around this. I have no idea what I'm doing. I feel like I'm flailing right now. What is the bare minimum? I'm going to combine these. What is the bare minimum that I can take to get started here,

31:58  
from there, repeat, repeat, repeat. I am not going to try to add on. I'm not going to try to speed up the process, because being an overachiever is going to ruin the game. I'm going to focus on consistency, consistency, consistency, until my brain and body, which they will 100% of the time, says I'm getting pretty good at this, or I'm actually enjoying this, or I'm feeling pretty good, what else can I do? And we take the next step. I

32:27  
don't care if you're learning how to use Excel in your in your business, if you're taking up boxing as a hobby, if you're starting a workout routine and ignite, if you're learning how to track your macros, what is the bare minimum step I can take, and we just focus on time and consistency.

32:45  
At some point that time and consistency will wire your brain for a full fledged habit. Now the name of the game is, how do I keep it? How do I keep myelinating that neural connection to get the results that I want? And the answer to that question is the power of choice. There is nothing in life that's a should, right? Should you be kind to your server? I mean, I hope so, if you have a good heart. But is the world going to end if you don't? No, there's no shoulds in life. Please be kind to your your server. There's nothing in life that's a should. There's unless you created an atomic bomb. There's nothing in life that you could do that would blow up the world. There is only the power of choice. The more we can lean into that power of choice by weighing the light with the dark, weighing the pros and cons. Do I have to know and realistically, here's the positives, if I do, here's the negatives. If I don't, which one do I choose today?

33:44  
Last step that I'll say to this, and then we'll, we'll do Q A

33:48  
whatever choice you make, you move on. And this is so important, because I think, especially as women, I'm going to, I'm going to stereotype here, but I think we do it, we tend to ruminate, right? We make a decision. It's like, Well, should I have oh, I should have gotten there's where the shoulds are we. We talk a lot about shooting on yourself, S, H, O, U, L, D, I N, G, right. I should have gone to the gym. Why didn't I do Nope, you weighed your pros and cons. You made a decision, and you move on with your day. Now we can learn from it, right? Let's say we've done two days of the power of choice, and both days, we decided not to go to the gym. And day three, we feel like garbage. What we're not going to do is beat ourselves up. Now the conversation becomes okay. Really leaned into that power of choice. There, made some choices. Don't feel so good. So how about today? Because I still don't really feel like going. I just feel like garbage today when I write way my pros and cons, let me push on this bruise a little bit, not beating myself up, but push on the bruise of like, Yep, this is what it feels like to go multiple days. How about today? I try making a different choice, and then maybe we're a little tougher on ourself that day three, to get back into the habit tougher on ourself, I'm going to keep.

35:00  
Repeating this does not mean we berate ourselves. It means we hit that moment of like, this isn't our best interest. Let's do this today.

35:08  
So whatever decision we make, we live with it, we move on, and we can use it as data. The next time we make a choice, maybe you chose to go both days. Day three, you wake up, you feel incredible. You're doing a little like bicep rub in the morning, and you're like, Oh, this is nice, awesome. Let's use that as fuel when it's time to make the decision again, I don't feel like it, yeah, but remember how good that felt? Okay, I'll go right. We are pleasure seeking creatures. We are always going to make the decision that brings us the most pleasure and the least amount of pain. So the steps we can take to reinforce that pleasure is how we keep the snowball rolling down a hill.

35:49  
For more information on mind strong fitness, or to apply for a free one to one strategy session with my incredible all female team, visit www dot. Mindstrong fitness.com. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai