Day 12: Habits
Our brains are on repeat.
How we do one thing is how we’ll do everything.
Our way of be-ing in the world is the same from one situation to the next.
It’s something that I watch for in my clients.
I watch for their way of be-ing and how it may be causing them trouble.
How it may be showing up uninvited to the party.
Let me show you what it can look like.
When a potential client says “I want to stop procrastinating and make stronger decisions for myself.”, but then wants to wait to move into coaching until it feels like a better time, or until they can figure out if it’s the right time, I like to show them their thoughts. They’re typically thinking something that makes them feel bad, and when they feel bad they’re indecisive, stuck spinning, and taking little action (which is the EXACT opposite of who they want to become.) These thoughts cause them to procrastinate and not decide.
When a current client says “I can’t afford that. My husband makes all of the money.” I can tell that they really believe it. I did at one point!
They believe that the circumstances are out of their control.
I remember a big shift that happened for me was realizing that I could make what felt like a larger financial decision without telling my husband. I signed up for a program that cost $2000. It was before I had paid off another program (that he knew about) that cost $18k. I knew that this $2000 program was the next step that I needed for my growth. I also knew that if I did the work I’d make the money back eventually, but the plan was to do it within 30 days.
The same day I was thinking about joining and how to join, I got an email from Paypal offering me a working capital loan. I decided to apply and if I qualified I’d join the program. Done! I hit submit, qualified and purchased the program. I immediately got to work and did make my $2k back in less than 30 days. Now the program felt free and I was a lifetime member! Best investment ever.
I told my husband after the fact “you know how I made $6k last month? it was in part because I did this thing without telling you. I invested in myself. Guess what, he wasn’t worried about the money I’d spent because it was already paid back. He was more excited about how it helped me generate more income.
Another way that I see this show up is with jobs and people pleasing.
When you’re used to being a people pleaser you really really care about what other people think of you.
In a job situation, it can present as staying way too long at a job that is not meant for you. A place that you no longer want to be at. The people pleaser may eventually be let go and then they feel very upset and unnappreciated. They may take it personally that their boss didn’t like them very much or didn’t respect their boundaries. When we look a little closer what we usually discover is that they didn’t like themselves very much and they didn’t respect themselves enough to set boundaries. They didn’t appreciate themselves enough to move on when it wasn’t working. They didn’t appreciate themselves to speak up when they were unsatisfied.
We teach people how to treat us. How we show up in one area is ineveitbly how we’ll show up in another.
It’s part of why coaching can help. When we recognize a repeating pattern in ourselves, we start to see it in multiple areas of our lives.
If we’re a victim of circumstances, we tend to be a victim in our relationships, on our jobs, to our eating habits, in school. It can leave us feeling sad, anxious and powerless. All we need to do is practice feeling and acting differently in one of those areas and they will all begin to improve.
Our way of be-ing changes when we try on something new.
