Welcome back guys. This is episode #001 of To Take It Or Leave It, a podcast to help you change the way you look at things end your mental suffering and give you some motivation and inspiration to live your best life. I’m so glad you’re here. I’m Val Poirier and I’m your host. Please hit that subscribe button so that you don’t miss an episode. You can also leave me a review on Apple podcasts to help my podcast stay visible. Today’s topic is nothing changes until you change.
Subscribe to the podcast
Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | TuneIn | Deezer | Stitcher | Amazon
Have you ever wanted to do something different in your life? And you have gotten all the information about how to do this, and then you’re wondering why nothing is changing. But the key point is change doesn’t happen without action. People want a different life, but they don’t do anything different to get it. Change requires you to do something different and change is hard. It makes your body and your mind go into an uncomfortable state where you have to push through that in order to make the new behavior comfortable.
It’s not going to be easy, but it’s going to be worth it. And you can’t expect a different outcome. If you keep doing the same thing. Everything changes once you change. You’re not stuck, you’re just committed to certain patterns of behavior because they helped you in the past. Now those behaviors have become more harmful than helpful.
The reason why you can’t move forward is because you keep applying an old formula to a new level in your life. I know that back in 2018, I wanted to run a marathon. And in order to run a marathon, I had to change some things about my life. I had to change my nutrition. I already eat fairly healthy, but I had to do better because training for a marathon takes a lot out of your body and a lot out of your mind and I needed to make sure that I was allocating the right energy to my body to do that. I also had to pay attention to where I was spending my time. Training for a marathon, there are some long runs and I couldn’t keep up the pace of my life if I wanted to train for a marathon. I had to let some things go.
One thing that I didn’t struggle with was motivation, but I am very good at figuring out what I need to keep moving forward. And, you know, I would go for my runs and I would listen to music and the music would help me. I also had a very strong why, and if you don’t know why you want to do something it will be very hard for you to make the necessary changes in order to do that.
I know that sometimes people think that change is going to just happen. If you just keep going on with life and you don’t have to put in any effort and it’s going to be easy. But there’s nothing easy about change, guys. You’re rewiring your brain when you change or create a habit and that’s not easy. It has to be intentional.
You should be really proud of yourself for the work that you’re putting in. Something else that was really important to me was to become better at public speaking. To help me with motivational speaking and life coaching Toastmasters is one way that I work on that also this podcast and some other videos that I post. And I know that, you know what, I am totally prepared to suck at something new in order to get better, because you can’t have an expectation of yourself that you’re going to be good right at the beginning, because anything that is worth it takes time and effort to get better at it.
Some people I have heard, some people say, well, this is just how I am, I can’t change. And that is the wrong way of thinking. That’s an old belief pattern and you can unlearn old ways of thinking and beliefs and you can learn new things. A lot of it has to do with your mindset and what you tell your mind, because your mind is programmed to protect you. And it’s programmed to protect you from pain. And sometimes pain is just being uncomfortable. And so some ways to trick your mind would be to change your self-talk. Change what you tell yourself. I can do hard things. I know that when I was running training for the marathon, there were lots of runs where, you know, it was hard. I am not kidding. And I had to do a lot of self-talk. A lot of, I can do hard things. This is worth it. This is what I want. I can put in the time and effort. I can get better. And you know what? My long runs got easier and easier throughout the training program because my body adjusted and my body got stronger and my mind got stronger. If you want something you have to put in the time and effort to get it, you can put things that you learn into action and keep learning.
Some obstacles that you might encounter with change are motivation and there are lots of different places to find motivation. If you know somebody who has already done what you want to do, find out what worked for them. Also, we live in a world with social media and there are a lot of motivational speakers. And that’s what they do. They give you motivation to achieve your goals. Some of the other obstacles that you might have are where to find information about the goal that you want to achieve. So we can talk about this podcast. I mean, what do I know about podcasting? I knew absolutely nothing about podcasting until I decided I want to start a podcast. And so what did I do? I went out and found information about what I needed to do to start a podcast and people who have been where you are now want to help you. People want to see you succeed. And there is a lot of information out there. You don’t always have to pay for it. I know sometimes finances might be an obstacle for you, and if you really want the information you can find it out there.
Another obstacle you might have is discipline. The discipline with yourself to change. And this is why I suggest that if you’re trying to change something about yourself or achieve a goal, which requires you to change your behavior, your routine, your habits, it’s important to start small. And as you start small, you will build momentum and you will increase the discipline that you have with yourself. If you try to change everything all at once, you’re likely setting yourself up for failure because your body and your mind are going to struggle with that. So start small. And sometimes it’s even about starting with something that is insignificant, make a small change in your life and just be very intentional about it.
Something else that you might struggle with, or that might be an obstacle for you is other people’s opinions. And you know, this is really big for me. Other people’s opinions used to matter a lot to me and I wouldn’t openly say, well, I care about other people’s opinions but my behavior reflected that for sure. And I finally realized that I cared so much about other people’s opinions because I hadn’t accepted myself. I hadn’t accepted my flaws. I hadn’t accepted that I wasn’t perfect. And once you accept that about yourself, it’s a constant reminder of it doesn’t matter what other people think about you. What matters is what you think about you and it doesn’t matter what other people think you should do in your life. What matters is what you want to do in your life.
You know, everybody is busy living their own lives and they’re going to do what makes them happy. And why shouldn’t they be able to do that? Because that’s what you want for yourself is you want acceptance and you want to be able to just live your life the way you want to live your life without judgment. And I know that sometimes when you are going to make a big change, let’s say you hang out with a bunch of friends that don’t exercise and you decide, Hey, I want to get in shape and I really want somebody to come on this journey with me, this fitness journey with me. And your friends, maybe that doesn’t interest them. That’s not part of their journey. So they don’t want to do that with you. You’re going to have to go out on your own and do this. If it’s something that matters to you and you might struggle with your friends, not wanting to spend as much time with you because your interests have changed. And it might be that you have to go out and find other people that have this common interest with you so that you can keep going towards your goal.
Some other obstacles might be overthinking and we’re all guilty of overthinking. It’s part of how we were brought up, I believe. And a couple of ways to stop overthinking is meditation. Meditation slows your thoughts down and lets you be present in the moment. And overthinking is usually caused by a lack of being present and a lack of enjoying your own life. Because at the end of the day, guys, it doesn’t matter how much you think about something you can’t control what happens. There is a quote by Arnold Bennett that says any change, even a change for the better is always accompanied by discomforts. And this is true. We talked about this earlier. Change requires you to do something different and doing something different is always uncomfortable at first. And why is it uncomfortable? Because once you do something over and over and over, it becomes a habit and you don’t even really need to think about it. It’s ingrained in your subconscious. And then when you try to do something different, it’s not in your subconscious yet, it’s conscious and it’s uncomfortable because it’s something that your body is not used to doing. But when you do it over and over and over, it becomes part of your subconscious.
Sometimes, all it takes is for you to change the way you look at things. And what I mean by that is maybe you’ve always looked at a certain situation a certain way. And when you can have a conversation with somebody that is really good at giving you a different perspective on something maybe that you’re struggling with, or maybe you hadn’t looked at it this other way, but when you look at it this other way, The problem goes away. So it’s important to talk about your struggles and get different perspectives so that you can maybe change the way you look at things.
When you make a change to achieve a goal in your life, you will have pride in yourself. You will have increased self-confidence and self-esteem. You will increase the fulfillment you feel in life. You will have more belief in yourself. You can improve your life by making small changes over time, you will smile more and you will have more inner peace. Isn’t this something that sounds really appealing to you guys. I know this is something that each and every one of us have the ability to do. You may not have the tools you need yet, but you can get them. I have belief in you and I can cheer you on and help you stay motivated when it gets hard. That is something that I love doing. And you know what guys, it’s going to get hard. It’s important to have a community of like-minded people behind you to keep encouraging you to live your best life.
Today I’m asking you to make one small change in your daily routine. Start with something very small. Maybe you put your coffee mug on the counter every day when you’re done drinking coffee. Try putting it in the dishwasher instead. I know this seems really insignificant and it’s not about the change in habit. Like it’s not specifically about the coffee mug on the counter and putting it in the dishwasher because really that’s really something small. But when you start with something small, you build momentum and you build confidence in yourself. And that’s what you’re looking to do today. I believe in you.
So that’s it for today guys. Please share this podcast with someone you know and help share my message. Remember that you know yourself better than anyone else and be confident that you will make the right decision for how to live your best life.
You can follow me on Instagram @valcpoirier. And take a screenshot of what you’re listening to and tag me in your stories with what you think. You can also send me a DM with your feedback. I love hearing from you and it helps me improve the podcast. It helps let me know what you guys want to hear about.
Keep reaching for your goals, guys. So you got this. See you next time.