Shownotes
You’re constantly surrounded by advice about what we should be doing to live better, and the list can feel endless. But when you look at the changes you’re chasing, are they really yours? In this episode I explore how to spot the the difference between making changes for yourself versus chasing expectations set by others.
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Transcripts
Just in case you are not a woman in her 40s, I'm going to tell
Speaker:you a little bit about what shows up in my feed and some of the
Speaker:most popular posts that I see these days,
Speaker:which is usually a woman around the same age as
Speaker:me who is sort of poking fun at just the
Speaker:ridiculous nature of how much advice is coming at you from
Speaker:all angles and how some of it is actually contradictory,
Speaker:like saying, oh, you gotta focus 100%. It's all about protein, protein, protein,
Speaker:protein. But wait, also, fiber is king. And. And also you need to get
Speaker:10,000 steps, but it's not about cardio, it's actually about strength. So you need to
Speaker:make sure that you're strength training and then you need to do cold baths and
Speaker:plunges, but you should also have a sauna because it's all about hot exposure. And
Speaker:it's just. We laugh. They go viral because they are a
Speaker:commentary on the fact that we are being bombarded constantly
Speaker:with this information of how we should be living better and how we should be
Speaker:improving and all these things that we need to be doing. And when
Speaker:I see those, I'm right there with them. I am laughing at
Speaker:the just sheer volume of advice we are getting about all the
Speaker:things we have to do. And today I want to talk about this
Speaker:idea of who are you changing for and whose
Speaker:goal is it? Because sometimes I think we start to drift away
Speaker:from what's really ours versus what's someone else's. And
Speaker:we are in this culture where we're constantly
Speaker:consuming content that is made by other people. We hear other people's
Speaker:experiences. We also hear advice, and some of it is legitimate advice coming
Speaker:from professionals that can make a true difference in our life. We should
Speaker:be active, we should be eating well and sleeping well. We know
Speaker:those. But I think what can happen is that we end up with this
Speaker:huge list of all these things and. And a lot of pressure.
Speaker:And if we are not taking regular action or we don't have
Speaker:momentum in those areas, we can start to feel a source of shame. And then
Speaker:this shame can start to compound as the list grows of all of the things
Speaker:that you should be doing and you should be better at.
Speaker:And so while it's funny when we look at the list of all the things,
Speaker:it's also sort of disheartening because when you take a look, you might say,
Speaker:but I'm failing on a lot of those measures. Now, obviously I'm using the
Speaker:example of myself who's a woman in her 40s, but this applies
Speaker:to I think everyone, we constantly get advice. So I want to
Speaker:ask the question of is this really yours? I think it's
Speaker:very easy to just go through the motions, being so caught up in just the
Speaker:day to day that it's rare to pause, to stop
Speaker:and to ask yourself, is this really my
Speaker:goal? Am, am I changing for me? And actually
Speaker:a question I think that is really powerful for this is,
Speaker:would I still put effort into this if no
Speaker:one ever knew about it? Like, if no one could ever find
Speaker:out that I was putting time and energy into this, would
Speaker:I still prioritize it? Because I think that right
Speaker:sizes our expectations around what we truly care about and
Speaker:maybe what is less important. And it's not to say that
Speaker:it's not important at all, but we get to prioritize what we
Speaker:actually care about. And I think when you ask that question and say,
Speaker:would I still do this? Now, you could picture yourself on a desert island. If
Speaker:I was just living on a desert island and I knew it and I had
Speaker:accepted that, would I still make the effort to do
Speaker:this? And I think most of us would focus on some of those,
Speaker:those foundational habits. We want to take care of ourselves for
Speaker:longevity, we want to live long lives, we want to be healthy. But
Speaker:we all get to choose which direction that we focus our energy.
Speaker:And I think even though you're not on a desert island and
Speaker:you can tell other people about the things that are important to you, it is
Speaker:a really helpful reframing. Now I specifically raised this
Speaker:example because I although what I teach with the
Speaker:momentum experiment is that you know when
Speaker:you feel stuck, when you can't seem to find your momentum, or you start and
Speaker:then you stop and you keep having these repeated cycles of false
Speaker:starts. It can be really frustrating and you want to figure out where to focus
Speaker:your energy. And the momentum formula focuses on the three
Speaker:different types of roadblocks, whether that is you having a
Speaker:logical roadblock, a biological roadblock, or a psychological
Speaker:roadblock. But sometimes we can't
Speaker:quite figure out the answer because it's not even really our goal.
Speaker:And it's actually just not that important to us in
Speaker:the same way that other things are. And so you can put
Speaker:all this time and effort, but at the end of the day, you don't actually
Speaker:want to do it. And so I guess in a way this is instead of
Speaker:exploring your why not it's actually exploring your why
Speaker:and figuring out, is this yours? Is this a goal that
Speaker:you are prioritizing, that you are putting over, over other things?
Speaker:Now let's say that you do that work and you say, yes, even if I
Speaker:couldn't tell anyone about this, I would still do it. And
Speaker:even if I take the time to look at the list of things, there are
Speaker:multiple things that are important to me. And yes, I am kind of frustrated. I
Speaker:need to figure out what's going on. I think the next step is
Speaker:also looking at, okay, the goal is mine, but also what does
Speaker:that look like in reality? Because sometimes we need
Speaker:to, of course, correct or right size our expectations of what it looks
Speaker:like right now versus when I'm experienced with this.
Speaker:Anytime we're starting something new, we have this continuum that
Speaker:we fall on as a beginner as maybe more intermediate, and then as
Speaker:someone who's got this really locked down. And maybe you have an example of
Speaker:something in your life that you have actually been consistent with for a long
Speaker:time. You don't have to put a lot of thought into it, and you
Speaker:are at a more advanced stage of this
Speaker:habit, something that you've got locked down, you've got momentum, and it's just not a
Speaker:question anymore. Maybe there are other people in your life who see you doing that
Speaker:thing and they might admire you for it. And when they start with it,
Speaker:they're comparing themselves to you as someone who's been doing this for a while,
Speaker:we do this as well. We'll look at other people and we'll say, oh, man,
Speaker:I want to be like them. And we expect to get to where they are
Speaker:now right away, when in actual fact, there is this continuum and
Speaker:we get there slowly. So I think what can help is if we're feeling
Speaker:overwhelmed with one of these goals that is truly ours, is
Speaker:to start to ask, what does it look like for a beginner? And if you
Speaker:start to focus on, okay, if I want to be like a
Speaker:beginner in this, what does that look like? Because that can also help to
Speaker:just course correct what we're expecting. Because I think we
Speaker:can expect too much too soon.
Speaker:But at the end of the day, it needs to be your goal.
Speaker:And I think it's also helpful when you look at,
Speaker:you know, we also might have things that we want. Other people, we
Speaker:wish they would get better at them and they would change. It can be helpful
Speaker:to also turn it back on ourselves and just say, you know what? It doesn't
Speaker:matter what other people want, doesn't matter what other people expect. It
Speaker:just matters for me to focus my energy and attention on what it is
Speaker:that I really want. Because when you are changing for yourself,
Speaker:you have that strong why. And then you can start to use all the tools
Speaker:in your toolkit to figure out if you have resistance or if you have been
Speaker:struggling. But if you don't have that strong why, and the
Speaker:goal is not truly yours, you're changing because you should
Speaker:or because it's expected from someone else, that's where you're going to get into trouble.
Speaker:And no matter how much time you spend figuring out whether it's, you
Speaker:know, should I work on my method? Should I work on my mode? Should I
Speaker:work on my mindset? I guess the very first question is, who are
Speaker:you changing for? And are you changing for you?
Speaker:And one of the first questions that I ask myself, but also when I work
Speaker:with a client, is to say, how much does it matter? We
Speaker:rate on a scale of how important is this to you?
Speaker:In sitting down and expressing in words what this means.
Speaker:Now, that brings me to my segment about a current
Speaker:experiment. And I know over the past few episodes I've been talking about
Speaker:my experiment with Instagram in my professional life,
Speaker:but today I want to share about my next momentum experiment,
Speaker:which is actually a personal goal of mine. And
Speaker:this is around a consistent strength training routine.
Speaker:Now, this has long been one of my goals, and I know it's one of
Speaker:my goals, but I still to this day ask the question, how
Speaker:important is this to you? I also ask, how am I doing
Speaker:with this right now? If I had to give myself a grade, how am I
Speaker:doing? What grade would I give myself? But I also ask,
Speaker:what does this mean to you? So you say, it's important.
Speaker:Okay, let's describe this in words. So I want to share a little bit about
Speaker:that, because this personal goal of mine is one
Speaker:that it's been long standing. I've had it for a long time. And yes, we
Speaker:all know that we should be strong, that it helps, especially as you get older,
Speaker:you start to lose muscle mass. You start to,
Speaker:I mean, you start to also have more risk of injury. And I am a
Speaker:person who, I love to travel and I want to be mobile and I
Speaker:want to not be limited by physical constraints as much as
Speaker:possible within my control. And I know that having a consistent
Speaker:strength routine is something that's going to do that. But
Speaker:the one thing that's been consistent in my life is that I have been
Speaker:inconsistent when it comes to exercise.
Speaker:And it's. I'm learning more about myself as I go.
Speaker:Now, I could do an entire separate episode about this, and I am not going
Speaker:to do that, but I am going to give you the Coles notes version, which
Speaker:is that since teenage years, when I did start
Speaker:getting involved with strength training and getting stronger,
Speaker:I have gone through these periods of being very consistent and then completely
Speaker:inconsistent. And what seems to happen most of the time
Speaker:is injury. For me, I'm someone who gets easily injured. Even as a
Speaker:kid when I was active, I was in dance and synchronized
Speaker:swimming and gymnastics. I would get injured a lot. And
Speaker:I always knew that I was hyper mobile. It was very
Speaker:flexible, very bendy. But it really wasn't until
Speaker:recent years that I learned more about the hypermobility
Speaker:spectrum disorder. And on the far extreme, there's something
Speaker:called Ehlers Danlos syndrome or eds. And I
Speaker:am actually currently working with doctors to figure out where I fall on
Speaker:that spectrum. Because it's not just about injuries to your joints. There
Speaker:are other ramifications for connective tissue with your body. And
Speaker:so I, I finally know about this thing that I didn't know for so long.
Speaker:Now I share that because one of the challenges I had is
Speaker:that I had no concept of this
Speaker:condition and that it's really about connective tissue. There's a deficiency
Speaker:with your connective tissue. And so someone who's hypermobile, they are
Speaker:really bendy and so they can do things like
Speaker:touch their thumb to their arm. I don't know if you can see, see that.
Speaker:So that would be an example. It also makes sense why I was in dance
Speaker:and gymnastics and synchronized swimming and all of those. I could do all the party
Speaker:tricks. But it also means that there are complications.
Speaker:So it does mean you can get injured more easily. However, for
Speaker:the last, say, 20, 25 years, I have been participating
Speaker:in things that I didn't realize made me more prone to injury.
Speaker:And so I would go through these cycles of being active, getting injured. Then I
Speaker:would go to physical therapy and then start seeing professionals to get help with it.
Speaker:Then I would go right back into it. Unfortunately, a lot of these
Speaker:professionals I worked with never connected the dots that it was a connective tissue
Speaker:disorder. Now I know that. And so when I go
Speaker:into this experiment, I am really looking at it with more information
Speaker:about myself. But at the end of the day, I
Speaker:have to sit down and say, why does this matter? Before I look into it.
Speaker:Because if I'm being really honest, I have some hesitation
Speaker:around doing this. Now, that's more of the psychological stuff. And I will share about
Speaker:that over the coming weeks as I share about this current experiment of mine. But
Speaker:for today, I just really wanted to talk about the goals and
Speaker:the goal. It is my own goal. It is something I want to change just
Speaker:for myself. If I lived on a desert island and no one could know
Speaker:about it, I would still want to be strong and try to reduce the
Speaker:chance of injury. Do I want to compete? No.
Speaker:I just want to make sure I have fewer injuries, that I take care of
Speaker:myself and that I can live a vibrant life and have stamina and
Speaker:that comes from having a regular routine.
Speaker:I also am taking into account what that looks like when I picture that
Speaker:goal over a long time. It's not to be the best of the best. It's
Speaker:not to be the strongest ever. It's for me to be stronger enough so
Speaker:that I can feel the difference in my life with stamina, with posture and being
Speaker:able to live a full life.
Speaker:What I'm going to do over the next few weeks is talk a little bit
Speaker:more about what I am doing now, given more information,
Speaker:given that I'm working with my doctor and professionals and I've got
Speaker:referrals specific to hypermobility and
Speaker:specific to your joints and your connective
Speaker:tissue. Then I'm exploring method and mode through a
Speaker:completely different lens. But also as a person who's had a lot of injury, I'm
Speaker:going to be also taking a look at mindset and doing a lot of that
Speaker:work and I'll be sharing that with you over the coming weeks. But
Speaker:if there's anything I want you to take from today, it's
Speaker:who are you changing for? Because it should be you.
Speaker:And if you're struggling at all, ask yourself the question, is this something
Speaker:that I would do even if no one else was around? Because
Speaker:having a really strong why that comes from you and you alone
Speaker:is going to help you to find your momentum and keep it.
