You know what's harder? Not managing your mind, always feeling out of control, always feeling overwhelmed and thinking that it's hopeless and you have nothing else to do. Pick your hard, decide that this is the hard that you're gonna go in on and you're gonna give yourself enough time to figure it out.

Hey, welcome to Lessons From a Quitter where we believe that it is never too late to start over. No matter how much time or energy you spent getting to where you are, if ultimately you are unfulfilled, then it is time to get out. Join me each week for both inspiration and actionable tips so that we can get you on the road to your dreams.

Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of Lessons From a Quitter. I am so excited to have you here. This week is the third anniversary of the podcast. I honestly can't believe it. I honestly didn't know I didn't think I'd be doing it this long. I didn't know what it would turn into. I'm so glad that I am still doing it. I absolutely love the podcast. I love the community. I love you guys. It has been an amazing three years and I figured today I would talk about three lessons that I've learned in these three years. I don't know if you guys like these types of episodes. I like giving updates of like what's happening in my business. I feel like you guys like em, I like listening to other podcasters and people talk about their businesses. So we're going to go with it. I know I sort of do this, like bi-annually now I give you guys one update kind of at the end of the year and then since my anniversary is in July, I figure we'll do another one. And this is more of just like a reflection I really wanted to, I think it's easy to kind of plow through and just keep going. I am one that doesn't typically slow down to celebrate milestones or anything really. I'm just like, oh, that's great. You know, did that launch went well, let's move on. And I am intentionally trying to slow that down because I want to enjoy it more because what else is the point? And so I was reflecting back for myself, how much I've changed, how much I've learned, what has kind of been the themes that I've been picking up throughout these three years? And there's so many obviously, but I started realizing a couple of similar themes. And so I figured we'll talk about those three themes today. Okay.

So the first and most important thing that I've learned that I will never stop talking about is that your brain is a liar. I keep relearning this and it really has been the lesson that has allowed me to push forward and do this podcast, right? I think that obviously I focused very heavily on mindset, but it's constantly amazing to me how many of us just give into that voice. We think it's just the way it is. It's a narration and really understanding this concept that your brain is a liar. It just is. It's all the programming, the BS that you've picked up. And that's the first step of understanding you can change it, right? Until you don't realize that it's not the truth, you can't really work to do anything about it. And so I would say that the biggest thing I've learned in these three years is that your brain is a liar and I want to share an email I got from a student so we can talk about this concept. First of all, I get the nicest emails and messages from you guys. It absolutely makes my life. And it's the best part of this whole journey. So thank you for taking the time because oftentimes, you know, I'm just sitting here talking to myself and so it's always nice to know that resonates, but this email really stuck out and you'll see why. And I shared on my Instagram stories but I realized that a lot of you don't follow me. And that's why I wanted to do this podcast, which by the way, you should follow me at Lessons From a Quitter. But anyways, okay.

So I got an email from a person that took my getting unstuck challenge that I did a month ago. And she had taken the goal setting workshop in January and she said, I wanted to reach out to let you know that how much your challenge has changed my life in just a week. It wasn't how I thought it would change my life but God knew that I needed to hear you say more than I did. I have MS and my left leg has bothered me for years but in the last year, my leg spasms and pain just kept getting worse and started to affect my sleep. Going into the challenge I was sleeping about six hours a day, but in three shifts. I would fall asleep for an hour then be up for hours because of my leg spasms, then sleep a few more hours and then have to take a couple hour naps in the afternoon on my lunch break. I was so stubborn about seeing my neurologist because of the story I was putting on my leg spasms. If I was thinner my leg wouldn't hurt so much. If I ate better, I would sleep better. If I worked out more or stretched my leg more, I would sleep better. Now all of those things might be true, but MS was the main cause of the leg spasms. Your analogy about the car wreck got my attention. It was my responsibility to see what could be done. I saw my neurologist last Wednesday and she prescribed a medicine for the leg spasms, it also makes me a little sleepy so it's helping with this insomnia. I can't tell you how much better my leg is already feeling. I'm still tweaking my medicine to help me sleep better but without your challenge, I would probably still be feeding myself the same old BS. I plan on working the challenge to get unstuck in other areas of my life but I wanted you to know how much you have improved the quality of my life.

Okay? So obviously incredibly kind and I'm not sure I entirely deserve that. But the reason that the email stood out to me like while I was overjoyed and so happy that she got that message, right? And that the challenge and that analogy and really one reframe can help you take action in your life and really find solutions and, you know, make your life better. I'm so glad that she was receptive to that and that she went and got the help, but it just highlighted like how much we torture ourselves with these stories, how much shame and guilt and negative emotion and suffering we create by believing things that are just made up in our own mind. I'm not saying they come out of nowhere. They come, like I said, from society, we have so much deep seeded programming about our worth and being productive and being, you know, a valuable member of whatever, all this BS and like you should work out more and you should eat healthier and you should make more money in all these things. Like they come from someplace. But it's so important to recognize that, that you have that in your brain and you have the power to stop that. If you take nothing else from this podcast, I want you to understand that whenever you hear shame in your head, it's a lie. I promise you. You are allowed to want to show up differently. You are allowed to want to better yourself. You don't ever have to shame yourself ever. It doesn't help with anything. And yet, so many of us suffer for so long with these lies that we just choose to continuously repeat to ourselves. I would be better if I did this. I would have a better life if I wasn't like this. I'm not worthy enough of love because of this, whatever, all of it – lies, all of it. Your brain is a liar. And I know this because I know my brain is a liar. I think that a lot of people think that somehow it's just easier for me or I don't know what people think about like other people that put themselves out there. But I want you to know that the only reason I've gotten to where I've gotten is I've deliberately gone against that voice in my head. Which goes against the way we're naturally built, right? But I've had to learn, like my brain is going to keep feeding me lies. It's going to keep telling me things that are not true. And I don't have to accept it. I don't have to stop because it's telling me to. I'm allowed to push past that. I once heard somebody describe it, I think it was Jody Moore but I can't be certain, another life coach. Basically say that like your thoughts, it's like a dog, like your dog runs out and gets like a dirty stick. Like your brain just keeps offering you up a thought, right? It's it keeps giving you these dirty sticks. And like, you don't have to take every one. You don't have to grab it from it. The dog, right? You don't have to say like, oh, well I guess my dog brought it so I have to hold on to this. You can say, no, thank you, no no we're going to drop that. We're not going to take that one, right? That's what your brain is doing. It's like finding these things like maybe this is helpful. Maybe we should keep rethinking this. I guess this is what motivates us to work out so we should keep calling ourselves like fat and lazy. And that'll maybe for whatever reason, motivate me to want to change things. And you can be like, no, no, no, thank you. We're not doing that anymore. I think the sooner you can understand that like concept and that we all do it and this letter was a beautiful example because it was such an extreme example. I mean, maybe to her, it didn't seem extreme, right? Because I think every one of us, when you say it out loud, it probably sounds like a very extreme example. But for her it probably seemed like the truth. Like, yeah, if you took care better care of yourself, then you wouldn't suffer the consequences of this illness that obviously causes these things. Somehow it's your fault still. But we all do that. We all do it. I, every day in my coaching programs, I see people with just needless amounts of guilt and shame. If I was a better mother… If I was a better employee.. If I was a better wife… If I worked out more… If I was somehow perfect then I wouldn't have all these problems. Yes you would. Yes, you would because that's life.

And if you can stop all the shame and guilt and all the fear and all the doubt and you can push past it, then you can actually deal with the actual problem. You can go to the doctor and figure out what to do, right? You can make change the habits you want, but that doesn't come from shame and guilt. So I really, really want to drive this home to you in any way I possibly can. Do not believe your brain. Figure out a way if you don't do it through me, I mean, obviously you're listening to this podcast, which is awesome. Figure out a way to start managing your mind and understand that you don't have to beat yourself up. I was recently realizing this in my own journey again. I have been doing thought work for a really long time. I still suffered from a lot of like, not shame, but I think like I just accepted certain things. It's funny. I know that they’re thoughts, but I just thought it was the way I am. And I'll give you an example. I've recently pretty much self-diagnosed myself with ADHD, from TikTok videos as one does, because I really get all of my information from TikTok at this point. But I started seeing a lot of videos about women and ADHD and I would never have characterized myself like that because clearly I'm doing okay, right? I'm a high achieving. I made it through school. I can obviously focus in certain situations and who knows where I'm at on the spectrum and who knows if I even have it. Let's just even put that out there, I'm not diagnosed. But a lot of it started resonating and a lot of it started making a lot of sense for me because I have certain things that from when I was a child. For instance, I'm always like, it's always been a joke with my friends, they're like, if we're out somewhere, I can't concentrate on the conversation. Like at dinner that's being had at our table, I just can't, there's so much noise in a restaurant that I'm always looking around at what other people are doing, right? And I joke about how I'm nosy, but part of me is like, I am so deeply distracted when there's other people around like out like kind of side noise. And part of it might be that I'm nosy, but part of it is like, I physically can't, I've tried, I try so hard to focus on like the conversation in front of me and I can't do it. This is just one example. I have other examples like this. And I started realizing like maybe part of my brain is like, you know, I think it's all like, it's like a neurodiverse, right? And I think the way everybody else thinks, right. Or I have something that's like, I'm on some kind of a spectrum. Let's just say. And the reason that this is so important for me is that I've spent so much of my life hating parts of my brain or parts of myself. Like, why can't I just focus? Why can't I time block? Why can't I make to-do lists? I literally can't make a to-do list to save my life. I just can't do it. I've tried every program. I've tried every organizational tool. I've tried calendaring. I buy journals like it's my job and I never used them. I just will not stick to it. And the reason that this was, this became important to me is I started realizing like, maybe my brain just doesn't work that way, right. And I know this is going on, like my brain is a lie, right? But it's part of like, just that acceptance. Like when my brain was telling me, if you just concentrated more, if you tried harder, if you just put in a little more more effort than you'd be able to be more organized. Why can't you just put it on a list? It's not that hard, right? Just remember everything you want to put. Why do you keep forgetting so much? Why are you so distracted? Everybody else can focus. Why can't you, right? And I realized how long I listened to that voice and how long I kind of beat myself up or hated parts of me. And when I started discovering this it was really liberating because I started realizing like maybe I'm just built that. Maybe that's just the way I react to the world. And that's okay. And I don't even need to let's say get diagnosed. Or I obviously I don't need medication. That's, you know, I've, I've made it to this point in my life. I'm doing all right, but can I just accept myself? Can I stop beating myself up?

And that was like such a powerful lesson for me in, again, not listening to the lies about myself because it happens in every area, right? Like, let's say with energy or exercise, I always talk about how lazy, you know, like my story about being lazy. And a lot of this is like, what if it's just the way you're built, right? Like we're, none of us are perfect. None of us are gonna be a hundred percent in every aspect of our life. And so what if, what I lack in organizational skills I make up in, you know, persistence and big thinking and visionary work or whatever, like we all have the strengths and we have the weaknesses. And I just invite you to really kind of understand that any thought that it's like, you should be a different way than you are, is probably a lie.

And that doesn't mean that you get to like, put, like let yourself off the hook and not, you know, people worry that they're just gonna like lay on the couch all day and not do anything cause they're just accepting of themselves. But that's not how it works because human beings in general want growth. We get bored. We want ways of like using our mind in ways that feel good. And so what would it look like to kind of accept yourself, to have your own back and to not believe the lies about yourself? So I will say that over the last three years, this is the thing that I've worked on the deepest. It's been the most transformational for me and for the podcast. I mean, it's literally what I do now for a living. And I didn't realize that's what I would be doing when I started this podcast three years ago, when I started, I really wanted to share stories and share other journeys so that you all can be inspired to see that other people did quit. And other people did create lives that were bigger and better than they could have imagined. And I'm so glad I did that, but I, I didn't realize so much of my journey was going to become mindset. And I'm so glad it has because it has completely shifted my life. And I hope that it does the same for you. So number one is that your brain is a liar.

The second big lesson that I've learned over these three years, and that I've talked about often on this podcast, is that it could be so much better than you have ever imagined than you could ever imagine. In the last episode I did, we talked about catastrophizing, right? How our brain, when we are taking any type of risk or new step, it loves to go to the worst case scenario. And I wonder how many times you let yourself go to the best case scenario. How many times you let yourself think about what if this is better than I can imagine? What if it's just, you know, there's that quote – what if I fail? Oh, darling, but what if you fly? And I wonder what would happen if we gave ourselves just a little bit of airtime with that question, right? Like what if you fly? What if it's mind-blowingly good, right. Would that help subside the fear a little bit and let you take that step forward? For me, everything has changed and it's only been three years. That's not that much time in the grand scheme of things, right. Starting three years ago, I had no idea. I still have no idea where this is going to go in three years time, everything's going to be different with this podcast, with me, with my business probably. And yet it's like I feel like I'm a completely different person and it's been a blink of an eye.

So for me, what's changed is a couple of things. My relationship with money and how much money I make in this business has been probably a big change. This year, we're six months into 2021, and I've made over $140,000 already. And what's crazy about that is I was told that my big law job where I made $160,000 a year as an associate was so amazing. And I should just suck it up and not complain and work my hundred hour weeks and get an ulcer and have a ridiculous amount of stress and never have my weekends and be tied to my phone and just be happy because I'm making such a large salary, right? And now I look back and I'm like I've made basically the equivalent of that in six months, working 30 hours a week from home doing what I love doing. I mean, it's mind blowing to me, really what I take from that is don't ask for directions from people who have never gone where you want to go. Of course, people told you to be grateful for that $160,000 a year because most people aren't making that. And it's nothing to sneeze at. I'm not saying it's a great salary, but is it worth what I had to give up in order to make that? Of course not. It's not worth being miserable. And what's crazy is a lot of times we think like that's the only way to do it. And I've had to really push through my own limiting beliefs about how much I can make working for myself. And now I'm seeing like this is just the beginnings. This is the floor, right? There is no ceiling. I don't have to wait for like a lockstep raise every year and go up by like 20K I plan on making many, many times what I made in the last six months in the coming years.

And I talk about money for two reasons because it really isn't the best part of this. And I go back and forth about whether to talk about it because I don't I don't want to give off the impression that like, it's like I made it easily, like it just came. Like for me, it did take a number of years. I told you guys, like the first year I made nothing. The second year I made $10,000 and last year I made $93,000. And this year we're already at, um, you know, $140,000 so it's clearly going in the right direction. But like, there was definitely times where I was like, how was, how am I even gonna monetize this? And it's a lot of the money has come with a lot of, you know, mindset work and a lot of highs and lows. But I, I like to talk about it for two reasons.

One is that most of you are wholly undervaluing yourself. Okay. Trust me. I thought I had nothing to sell, that I could not have a business. There was no way to make this a business. My entire plan when I started this podcast was I'll start a podcast and hopefully this, I knew that the concept was like, would be popular, that people would like it. That there's enough people that would be interested, but I kept thinking, okay, well maybe I'll get advertisers to like sponsor the podcast and I can make some money that way, right? Like that was the extent of my business plan. And when people told me to like coach or do stuff, I would always be like, I have nothing, what can I teach people? And I promise that for most of you that are thinking that there's something that you can do. I just, I really, I want to talk about the money because I want you to see that there's a different world out there. Because that's what happened for me when I was working as a lawyer, actually, when I first quit and I started listening to podcasts and I would listen to podcasts about entrepreneurs and they would come on and they would talk about how much they were making.

It blew my mind. And I needed that. Right. I needed my mind to be cracked wide open so I could start questioning like, why am I doing this? If other people are out here traveling the world, making, you know, ridiculous amounts of money from their laptops, why am I stuck in this office doing something I hate? I know I don't want to do. And that was when I really started thinking like, are there things I can do? I don't even know. And it led me on that journey. And so I talk about it, one for that, because I really think a lot of you guys could do so many other things with the skills you already have or things that you're interested in. I think that the sooner you kind of open your eyes to the fact that there is a whole world on this internet that will allow you to make money as a consultant, as a freelancer, as a teacher, or as an entrepreneur, or however you want, then you can kind of get out of your own way from all the fear of like, not being able to replace it in the way that we traditionally have believed as the only way to make money.

And so I want you to see that as like a possibility. I also want you to know that it's okay to want money because I struggled with that for a really long time. And I think our society gives such insanely messed up and mixed up messages with money. I talked about this on the episode about money. It's like, we're taught to go for that American dream. And everybody is like hustling for it. And that's why we're all working. We all want money, but then we're all super ashamed to want money. And we're really taught that, like, if you're a good person, you know, money's evil and you don't need more than exactly what you need to survive and whatever, all this other BS that I really accepted. And I really thought like, if I was going to be good and not greedy, then I should not need more than like, kind of the bare minimum, maybe a little bit more than the bare minimum. But like, you know, middle-class like, um, not too much. And it's just so insane. It's such an insane thought. Like I just started when I started realizing me not making money, doesn't like magically give money to the right people. Doesn't mean like that single mom, all of a sudden gets money or that homeless person gets a house. Right. There's always money flowing in our culture, in our society. And I would rather it flow to me then other people that already have tons of it. Right. And I think there's a lot obviously we're not going to get into in this episode, I have lots of thoughts on like the current late stage capitalism that we're in and the fact that there is no safety net and or government regulation where there should be. Those are all discussions that should be had. I think a lot of the problem in hoarding wealth is not for people that are making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year or even a million or 2 million or whatever, even 10 million. It's really the hoarding of wealth by the hundreds of millions, billion, and billionaires in our, in our society. But I just say it because there’s like so many of us want it and then feel so guilty. And I want to normalize the fact that it's okay to want it. It's okay to want to have cool experiences and to make life easier for yourself and to have the freedom that money provides you and to be able to make sure that you and your family are okay. And it doesn't, you know, I think in the beginning I thought I do want it to go to me because I think I'm a good steward of money. And I think I would use it in a good way, in the sense of like I donate and I try to use this for opportunity for other people, but I don't even think that's the, you don't have to want to do that. And I I'm working on myself. Like it's okay to also just want to have money, to experience things, to buy nice things, to go out to nice dinners, to go on trips or whatever the thing is that you want. And I think we don't do ourselves a service by trying to act like we don't want it. Like, I can't tell you how many people come to me and say like, I just want to be happy. I want to find a job that I want. I don't need to make that much money. And it's like, well, why not? What is that much? And why don't you want to make as much money as you can? And then again, when I say as much as anything as you can, most of us are not seeking, yeah. I want to make hundreds of millions of dollars, right? Like it's like as much as, as I can may mean $300,000 a year or $500,000 a year, a million dollars a year or whatever.

And so I'm getting more used to talking about that because I think it's important because I think that you sabotage yourself when you feel guilty about making more money and you don't go after the success. If you think money is the root of all evil. And so we have to kind of fix that within ourselves in order to allow ourselves the desire so that we can go after it. And the reality of it is I think in our culture and our society, the way it is set up, I think would I like a situation where there's more quality and more people have access to what they need, of course, but when it's not like that, then I do want to have the safety for my family, for the people that I can help, um, that safety and freedom comes from money. So, and I'm explaining, I think I'm explaining all of this only because my natural inclination is not to keep talking about the amount of money I make, because I don't think that's important. It's not that important to me. Like I'm much more interested in the impact that I'm making and how many people I can reach and how many people are taking this work and actually changing their lives. And the money is great, I think that I need to charge for my work. Not only because it provides value and it will allow me to do this work, but I think there needs to be a level of buy-in from people because when you don't pay. We don't value free things. So if I give free classes, like I give free coaching every month and not a lot of you show up. But when people pay, they show up. And so anyways, I say all this, like the money is fabulous, but it's definitely not the best part for me. And yet I still think it's important to talk about because I think that we need to start normalizing women making more money. We need to start normalizing that we can make more money in other ways that we can use our brains to teach things, to create our own businesses. It doesn't have to be the way that it has always been. And I want you to see that as a possibility. And if I can be an example of that, then I am happy to be. But the best part of this has really been seeing you guys change your lives. Like that letter that I read is just one example of like the constant emails and DMS I get. And I cannot tell you how insane it is to me and life affirming. Like it is the best part of this journey. And I'm so proud of myself for three years ago for starting this, because I could have never imagined how good this part could be about the fact that like people actually listened to me and that I can maybe help them see it in a slightly different way. And that slightly different way might just change everything for them. It's so mind blowing. It's so cool. It's like the biggest honor of my life. And it really is what gets me so excited about growing this and continuing to do this work and finding other ways to reach you guys and finding other ways to explain concepts in kind of easier or different analogies so that you really kind of start understanding that so much of the suffering that we're putting ourselves through doesn't need to be there and we can allow to live lives that are more ease filled and more peaceful and joyful. Really I think when I talk about like, it's so much better than I could have ever imagined, that is what I'm talking about. When I get on these coaching calls and I hear people really start like speaking up for themselves and take ownership of their work and start getting promoted and change jobs and start that business and not let imposter syndrome stop them and stop beating themselves up. It's like everything. It's literally just the best gift I'm given over and over again. So I thank you all so much for trusting me and for listening and for putting it to use. I'm so proud of all of you. And I'm just so grateful that I get to be a small part of your journey. And I can't wait to see what else we accomplish together over the next couple of years. So number two really has been that this is the best. I mean, it's so much better than I could have imagined. And I just, I want you to think about that when you're thinking about the thing you want to start, or the thing you want to, the thing you're dreaming about the thing you don't even know what it is, but it's something and you want to start like planting the seed. I hope that you realize that it can be so much better than your brain will even allow you to see at this point. And it's so worth going after. And finally, number three, the third lesson that I have over the last three years is that most people, the thing that most people lack is patience.

I know that this podcast is all about quitting and I am all for you quitting things that are no longer working for you. But I think a lot of times we're quitting for the wrong reasons. Okay. And part of the awareness of your brain and your mind is really understanding what are your reasons for wanting to quit? And I think too often, like we're quitting because it's not happening fast enough. Okay. And I get this all the time, whether I get it from my coaching students and they want like to learn how to manage their mind faster, like they want to learn how to change their thoughts. They want to learn how to think new thoughts. They don't understand why they still, you know, are engaging in these negative emotions or just in building a business. I see people that start a blog or a podcast, and then it's not working in six months. And it's like, well, this is it wasn’t. Well I'm not good at this. No one's responding. It's not working or whatever. And they use those thoughts as a reason to give up. And like, there is a, you know, there's statistics that like for podcasting, I think it's like it's called pod fade. And most podcasts quit after like eight episodes. For blogging I think it's like six months or something like that. And again, I think that there might be a lot of people for a lot of valid reasons. Like they might try podcasting and then realize they don't like it. And that's totally fine. That's a great reason to stop doing something, right. Like we should all get in the habit of stopping things that we don't like doing, or we don't enjoy it. But if it's because it's not happening fast enough, if it's because like you feel sort of entitled to something happening within that time and it's not happening, you're quitting for the wrong reasons. And I've been looking back and kind of observing myself. And the one thing I am very proud of myself for, and I realized, I didn't realize I had this trait, but I realize now is I am persistent as hell when I want something. Right. Like I can really push through for a long period of time of delayed gratification if there's something that I think is important. I did it with law school and becoming a lawyer. I did it with the photo booth company. I did that slowly over three or four years. I'm doing it now with the podcast. And I'm noticing for a lot of people is that they just take themselves out way too soon. Right. It's like, they're not in it for the long haul. And I want you to understand that most of the time, it's just consistency that keeps some people getting to that success and other people not, it's not that they're better. It's not that these have some special talent. It's just that they didn't give up. And I see this with again, with podcasting, like for me the first year was really, it was a whole year of me just figuring things out. And I think for a lot of people at that year mark, it would have been like, well, nothing has happened. I didn't make any money. I didn't really have a large following at the time. I didn't have a large audience. And so it's easy to just think like, I'm not good at this. Of course I wasn't good at it. Right. It was my beginning. I'm still not good at it. I'm still figuring it out. But I knew I wanted it bad enough that I was like, well, I guess I'm going to keep going until I figure it out. Right. I didn't make it mean anything about me. I didn't make it mean that it's impossible. And I promise you, I know there's like all these, what are the sayings? Like 80% of it is just showing up or whatever the cliche is, but it’s cliche for a reason. And I think if there's something that you truly want to get to half the battle is just consistently showing up. And so I'm noticing with people. And again, like I said, like with my students, I see a lot of people getting frustrated because it's not happening. Like thought work is not happening fast enough. And I want to give you an example. Like for me, I've been working on one thought, one thought for the past year, one of my main indulgences is indulging in overwhelm. Like the feeling of overwhelm and the thought that I don't have enough time. Okay. It's been a constant source of resentment and anger and overwhelm and frustration for me my whole life. And I realized it all comes from this thought that I don't have enough time. And that thought creeps up in everything I do. And I only noticed this because I started journaling and I started becoming conscious of my thoughts. And I started self-awareness and I started realizing like, it comes up in everything. I'm resentful because I have to make dinner because I don't have enough time to then work on my business. I'm resentful that I have to work because I don't have enough time to play with my kids. And all of the stuff like this, just this one thought took me out of being present, made me feel overwhelmed every day. It made me feel like I wasn't getting enough done. It was just a lot of source of frustration. And the thing is, is I've been practicing that thought for decades. And so it's not going to go away instantly. Intellectually I understood that like I have enough time, even when I have the time I'm procrastinating or I'm wasting it. And yet my brain just kept going back to I don't have enough time. I don't have enough time. There's not enough time. I'm wasting time, whatever. And I would go back to overwhelm. And so for the last year, since last summer, I've been working on this one thought. I keep picking another thought to just keep redirecting every day, every day, keep practicing it right. Every day I go back to there's not enough time to feeling resentful, to feeling angry. And then I can just keep redirecting. Right. I've had a million coaching calls on it. I've journaled my heart out over the last year. And it's just like right now I'm finally in a place where like I can say I don't feel that overwhelm anymore.

It's amazing how now I can quickly, my brain just goes like of course I have so much time. Right. It didn't start there. A lot of it just started from like very low level ladder thoughts of like whatever time I have is okay. Like I'll I'll make the best of it or whatever. I don't even remember a lot of my original thoughts that I would practice. But every day I would practice feeling satisfied at the end of the day, I would just say like, I am so proud of whatever I accomplish today. Even if it was nothing. I'm happy that today I got to rest instead of doing work, whatever I ended up doing, I would take a moment to feel satisfied. So I could start redirecting my brain to constantly not feel frustrated and overwhelmed. I would start practicing thoughts. Like when I was making dinner and my brain wanted to go to you should be working. I would just redirect and be like, no, this is exactly where I should be right now. I love making dinner. I'm so grateful that I have this time to do it. Right. I kept practicing it. And I finally started like really believing it. I started believing like, of course I love doing nothing on a Saturday. There's nothing else I need to do. I have plenty of time to sit and read this book. I have plenty of time to relax. I don't even need to get up and clean. I don't I don't have to feel overwhelmed. I like, it's fine. I would rather spend my Saturday relaxing. And it's only now after a year that I'm starting to really see the fruit of that labor and really understand that I can rewire my brain. And it's more evidence to me that I can really manage my mind but it doesn't happen instantly.

And I'm constantly getting people, being like, well, I still feel overwhelmed. I'm like, of course you do. Of course you do. You've practiced that for decades. Try practicing another thought. And so I think like my parting advice for anybody, anything through these three years for myself is like, if you can work on just that patience of whatever it is you want, whether it's building the business, whether it's managing your mind, whether it's being more present in your life, finding more joy, quitting your job, whatever. If you can take a little bit more of a long view of it, if you can stop needing things to happen this week or this month, or you're going to quit it, if you can start telling yourself like what's going to happen in the next three years for me, where do I want to be? Is it hard? Of course it is.
You know, I always hear people say like, it's so hard to constantly work on my thoughts. I'm like, of course it's hard. You know what's harder? Not managing your mind, always feeling out of control, always feeling overwhelmed and thinking that you're that it's hopeless and you have nothing else to do. Pick your hard. Decide that this is the hard that you're going to go in on. And you're going to give yourself enough time to figure it out. I promise you that if you stick to things consistently you will change your life. Don't quit before you gave yourself a chance to figure it out. So that is my wish for you, my friends. It has been an amazing three years. I cannot wait to see what happens over the next three years. Like it's so fun. I used to be so scared of uncertainty and not knowing and you know, all the other stuff. And I think one of the biggest gifts I've given myself and kind of the most liberating thought I've developed is this idea of the fact that I have no idea what's going to happen over the next three years. And that's the most exciting thing that I could possibly. It's so exhilarating to think how much possibility there is, how many experiences I'm going to have, how much more I'm going to grow, how much more, you know, negative emotion I'm going to have to experience to get there, but what a different person I'm going to be in three years. And I hope that you join me on that journey and you are a completely different person in three years, and you don't recognize yourself. It's like the best compliment when someone tells you you've completely changed. Good good, I'm no longer doing the things that don't serve me anymore. So come on this journey with me. Thank you for coming along this this far. I've had the best time over the last three years and I can't wait for the next. I will see you guys next week.

Thank you so much for listening. I can't tell you how much it means to me. If you liked the podcast please rate and review us on iTunes, it'll help other people find the show. If you want to connect or reach out, follow along on Instagram and Facebook at Lessons From a Quitter and on Twitter at QuitterPodcasts, I would love to hear from you guys and I'll see you on the next episode.