Welcome back guys! This is episode #015 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. If you haven’t done so yet, please hit that subscribe button so you never miss another episode. Today’s topic is: Old Ways Won’t Open New Doors
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YOU know what I’m talking about. You do the same thing over and over again and wonder why nothing is ever getting better. Albert Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
You can apply this lesson to any area of your life. We all have goals, or rather I should say dreams. Some of us turn those into goals, and others only think about doing something. What happens is that unconsciously, you’re doing the same thing over and over and while you may see some progress, it’s slow at best and frustrating.
Let’s look at this is the context of physical health. This can be fitness or nutrition. Let’s say you want to lose 20 pounds. So you start exercising and you see some progress but then you plateau. And then instead of changing something up, you keep doing the same thing over and over again until you quit because you don’t see any progress. You might tell yourself that you’re just not meant to lose the weight or whatever other story you come up with. It’s too hard. But what you don’t realize is that if you want to lose weight, you may also need to change your nutrition habits. So instead of looking into this, you’re done.
Or let’s say you want to train for a race. I’ll use myself as an example. I’m currently training for my second marathon and there are some things I learnt from my first one that I will carry on to this one. In order to have the energy I need to train, I need to make sure I’m getting enough sleep every night. I stay hydrated every day because well have you ever tried to run while being dehydrated? It’s not fun. You get cramps. It’s hard. Now running a marathon is hard enough already, I don’t need to make it harder on myself. Alcohol? Uh uh. I would rather give up alcohol completely and feel better during training season than have the occasional drink. I’ve done it before and have regretted it every single time. So why would I continue something that’s hurting me and not helping me achieve my goals?
What other area would this work in? Relationships. That’s a big one. Have you ever continued to have the same conversation over and over with your partner and yet nothing seems to change? Contrary to popular belief, this is not normal. This is two people NOT doing the work. Relationships exist to help make you more conscious, but when you fight it, that’s when you struggle. If nobody changes, nothing changes. And it also doesn’t take both people to change, though this is generally ideal. When one person does the work alone, it forces the other person to also do the work because they will become so uncomfortable that they will have to make a choice. Do the work or walk away. You choose if your relationship is worth it but I’m guessing if it wasn’t, you wouldn’t be in it. A basic example of this would be when one person feels unheard by the other. This is very common. It can be caused by a few reasons. The listener doesn’t have any active listening skills. They hear what they want to hear, not what is actually being said. Or maybe the person doing the talking is not being clear on what they are trying to say because they haven’t learnt how to communicate what they need clearly. The speaker can do a couple different things here. They can learn to communicate more clearly and use different words. They can also ask the other person what they think they’re saying. For someone who is not used to communicating, being asked about what they hear and having a deeper conversation is EXTREMELY uncomfortable and this is where their work will come in. It’s possible though.
Another area where this applies is with your mental health. There are many of you that have negative self-talk out there, and you guys, seriously, it’s time to stop that. You’re amazing and you should talk to yourself a lot nicer than you do. You can blame others or accept that this is just how you are and there’s nothing you can do about it, but I’m telling you guys, this is NOT TRUE. If you try something different, you CAN change your self-talk. What most people don’t understand is that you can’t only change the words you tell yourself in your head. This goes deeper. You have to change your subconscious. And while this is no easy feat, especially after YEARS of being so disrespectful to yourself, you can do it. Now if you knew how to do this already, you would have done it. But you don’t and that’s ok. We don’t know what we don’t know until we know it. It’s also important that you know that if you surround yourself with other people who think the same way as you do, you will never learn a different way either. Pay attention to the people closest to you and how they talk to others and to themselves. How often do they talk down about themselves? This is not a good sign. If you want to change, you have to be open to listening though. Anyone can change. What matters is how bad do YOU want it? If you’re ready to change your life send me a DM and let’s get started TODAY!
Every problem you have, has a solution out there but we’re conditioned to figure things out on our own. Why would you spend so much time trying to figure out how to do something that someone else has already done? That’s makes no sense. But I’ll tell you why. Pride. Shame. Ego. YOU GUYS! We are not meant to do this on our own! We are meant to help each other. Someone who is further along than you will NEVER shame you or not help you with something they have overcome. Let’s take this down to something super basic. After you learnt how to ride a bike, if someone wanted some help, would you ever turn them down? Of course not! People like helping other people. Why? Because it feels good!
If you want something different in your life, or want to feel different, you need to be open minded enough to be willing to learn a different way. Because old ways won’t open new doors, no matter how you try and how much you do it. Nothing changes if nothing changes.
That’s it for today guys! Please share this podcast with someone you know and help share my message. Remember to love yourself first. You know yourself better than anyone else and be confident that you will make the right decisions for how to live YOUR best life. If you’re looking for more motivation to achieve YOUR goals in life, join my Facebook group! You can find it in my profile on Instagram @valcpoirier. Also, tag me in your stories with my podcast and what you think or what you’re doing while you listen to it and I’ll share it right back in mine! You are worthy and you are beautiful and I truly appreciate you all.
Keep reaching for your goals guys….you got this! See you next time!