Recently I was listening to my favourite podcast- The Life Coach School by Brooke Castillo on the way to Port Macquarie, and she has an amazing episode about Thoughts to Believe.
It got me thinking- what are the thoughts that we choose to believe that can be real game-changing thoughts?
We have thousands of thoughts every single day. And some of those thoughts are just the same old thoughts that just go round and round…
…What am I going to eat? What am I going to wear? All of those types of thoughts.
Then we can have these thoughts that I like to call “game-changing thoughts”
Where you actually believe something and you choose to believe it, you choose to think the thought even if part of you may not believe it.
The way I define game-changing thoughts is they change the way you feel, the way you act, and the way you behave, which therefore changes who you are as a person.
Our identity comes from the way that we see ourselves in the thoughts that we think…
…It’s not from our circumstances, It’s not from our childhood or from who other people have told us that we should be.
Our identity comes from our thoughts.
I’m fascinated with thoughts because thoughts shape us thoughts our actions, our feelings, our results, our habits, it all starts with our thinking.
Brooke Castillo always talks about cleaning up your thoughts and doing “thought downloads” to really observe your thoughts as the observer and say…
…Okay, this is what the thoughts are, am I happy with these thoughts? Or do I need to decide new thoughts?
This whole concept of we can be very intentional with our thoughts, as opposed to just letting thoughts just randomly come into our mind.
Believing them just because we thought them doesn’t mean it’s true.
This train of thought taking you in one direction doesn’t mean we have to be victims of that kind of thought.
Even thoughts that we had, many years ago, we decided them when we were five or seven or 10.
Which is when we made a lot of our life-changing decisions about who we are.
We can basically look at those and go- is that thought given me the result that I want? If not, what should I be thinking about?
What is the person who has the result that I want? My future self? What is she thinking about? What is she believing?
Maybe you want to make 100 grand a year in your business. Going into the identity of that business person who makes 100 grand, What does he or she thinking about?
What are the thoughts that he or she has on an everyday basis…
…because what if I start thinking those thoughts now in order to become that person that I’m moving towards In the future.
When it comes to our thought life, we can either randomly let our thoughts come up, we can just go with them, we can indulge them we can just see where they take us.
Or we can be really intentional.
That’s what I call game-changing thoughts.
I have three for you that I choose to believe that have been real game changes in my life.
1. The Future is Better than the Past
I love this thought because it creates so much possibility and so much opportunity, and so much creativity.
If the future is better than the past, then all of the amazing experiences that you’ve already had. All the beautiful memories, everything that you’ve created up to this point, it’s going to get better.
It’s so countercultural. Our culture is always talking about anti-aging and how things are getting worse as we get older, and I don’t believe it.
I feel so much happier now than I did five years ago, even two years ago.
I feel like my life is getting better and better and better. Because every year I get more knowledge, more experience, more wisdom, more skills.
Every year I’m learning and growing more. So it feels like every year my life gets better and better and 2019 has been my favourite year so far.
It’s because of this thought that there was always more, there’s always better that I always thought that coming up to 40 that I was going to be depressed. That I was gonna do something about 40 that felt so old to me.
I felt the same when I came up to 30. I thought 30-year-olds was so old.
I remember that when my sister turned to nine, and I was five, I remember thinking that nine was so old.
think we’re always going to think that the next decade that we turn is so old.
I’ve just embraced the past and I’m so excited about getting old. I’m excited about the wisdom that comes with age, year after year.
That I’m going to have more and more money more and more impact, the more lives changed, the longer I’m alive.
So I say Bring it on, and it’s exciting, and it’s a thought that makes you feel good.
If you want to know if the thought is game-changing or not. Does it make you feel excited or motivated or inspired or passionate, whatever those beautiful positive emotions are?
You know whether your thoughts are spot on based on how you feel. How you feel is a benchmark.
I know it sounds overly simplistic, but I talked to so many people that are feeling rubbish.
They don’t realise that it’s their thinking that’s actually driving that feeling. It’s not that person, It’s not that circumstance, It’s not that situation.
It’s what you choose to say to yourself. It’s what you choose to believe.
2. The Discomfort of Growth is Better than the Discomfort of Staying the Same
When I was a personal trainer I used to say to people all the time.
Choose your hard.
They go, “Oh, it’s so hard doing lunges, It’s so hard during burpees, it’s so hard making a healthy meal and I go “yeah, it can be hard. Absolutely. So can being overweight and so can feeling crap about yourself and so can not fitting into that dress when you’re going to your Christmas party.”
It’s really hard to buy a new wardrobe and it’s really hard to have health issues and gut issues. They’re both hard.
So choose, you don’t have to do anything you want to do.
I know my job as a personal trainer was to push and motivate.
But I said it’s your choice. You told me you want this body you told me you want to feel great.
They’re both hard, but one of them is a really short, growth hard and who would rather growth hard than stagnation hard.
That pain of stagnation, that pain of staying the same and having to grit.
I hate that feeling more than anything. I would rather the feeling of being absolutely exhausted from working really hard than that feeling of being exhausted because you’re just brain dead.
I would rather that tiredness that comes from being alive and on purpose and doing cool stuff in the world any day over the pain of staying the same.
Choose your hard.
For me, it’s doing the plan, doing the hard habits, doing things even when I don’t feel like it.
I’d much rather have the pain that comes with that than the pain that comes with staying the same and staying stuck.
3. Nothing can Happen that I can’t Handle
I love this thought because it’s helped me get through so many things.
I do so many crazy things sometimes. And I think, Wow, why am I doing this?
I did three events in three days last week. They were all brand new events.
I had so much going on in the lead up to them that I had to write theme really close to the event.
I had to write all the PowerPoints and the workbooks and come up with everything.
I’m doing five events in two weeks. I’ve never done five events in two weeks…
…for me, it just felt really hard and I thought it was going to be so hard it actually wasn’t.
It was way easier than I thought it was going to be. I thought I’ve done four events in three days and doing a workshop twice a month is no big deal.
It’s like at the gym when you raise the bar.
I remember when I did my first squat at 100 kilos at triple figures, and I never thought that I could be the kind of person who could squat 100 kilos….
…I just never thought that that would be possible, I found even 50 hard.
But I started doing incremental changes. I just kept putting little plates and little plates and little plates on. And just over time, suddenly I was at 100.
It wasn’t like I tried to make this massive leap.
It was just incremental change by consistently showing up to the gym year after year. And it took a lot of time….
…But that incremental change raises your bar, and then it almost makes everything else seem easy.
I like putting my hand up and saying yes, taking fast action and just saying bring it on.
If someone asked me, and it’s an opportunity, then I’ll often just take it because I’ll figure it out.
Even if it’s super hard. Having this thought of, whatever happens, I’ll handle it means I can bring many bigger projects than I would if I was stuck and I was worrying and feeling anxious and fearful about what might happen.
I don’t really think about what might happen. I just think whatever is going to happen, I’ll handle it.
I see people having a lot of drama and stress over things that maybe I would have a few years ago.
But now I’m solving bigger problems here. I’m doing bigger things than I used to. Those things that used to bother me back then, now I’m just like, bring it on.
I’m a leader if something needs sorting. I’ll handle it.
Having that thought of, whatever happens, I’ll handle it. It just gives me a lot of safety and security.
All we’re trying to avoid is a feeling and if you’re willing to feel any feeling, if you’re willing to experience any emotion you will take on any challenge because the worst that can happen is a feeling.
I put myself in uncomfortable feelings regularly.
Feelings of vulnerability and shame and booking so many events even though I don’t know if people are going to show up.
But I would rather that and feel so alive and so on fire, then stay in comfort because I don’t think I’m going to be able to handle it.
Leaders have this mindset of I’ll handle it, I’ll do it or whatever it takes to do it. So that’s been a game-changing thought for me.
So just to recap:
1- The future is better than the past – game-changer
2- The discomfort of growth is better than the discomfort of staying stuck
3- Nothing can happen that I can’t handle
I encourage you to take on these thoughts if you like them, practice them, give them a go write them down if you like them.
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Hello Kat,
Oh my goodness, how did you get so wise??? My major takeaway from this content is the third thought…
I have found myself over the last little while stopping myself from doing things because my thoughts have been I can’t do that, what if I fail, what if I look stupid doing it, etc.
I am going to make this my mantra:
“Nothing can happen that I can’t handle”
Thank you for being amazing
Jodi xx
Hello Jodi,
Oh thanks so much for sharing, I really appreciate that!
I’m so happy to hear that you are going to resist those negative thoughts and have taken on the new mantra.
All the best with it! This is truly a game-changer 🙂
Thanks again for your message
Kat xx