Tag: life coach

Dumb Enough to Believe

The fire in my heart is to support and encourage people to believe that they can accomplish their goals. I heard a quote from Dave Ramsey that really struck me he said:

My parents told us we could do anything. And we were dumb enough to believe them.

I was glad I wasn’t driving when I heard this quote. Because I stopped in my kitchen to think about what he said. He was talking about his parents and the way they raised him and his siblings. His parents continually told him that he could do anything – and he believed them.

I know that I haven’t always been the type of person that thought anything was possible. I spent YEARS afraid of everything. I tried to hide the fear from my kids and encourage them to go and experience life. And now I am starting to believe what I have been telling them.

I can see the amazing things that are out in the world. I can see that it may be scary to start something new but it is exhilarating too.  It can seem overwhelming and confusing trying to figure out what to do next but it is exciting to take a step into the new.

What have you been thinking about trying? What would you like to change about your life? What excites you? I would love to hear! And I would be thrilled to help you on this journey. You can reach me by contacting me here.

Let’s be dumb enough to believe that we can accomplish anything!

Mind Reading

The way we think directly effects the way we feel and the things we work towards in our lives. I have learned so much going through anxiety but also becoming certified as a life coach. One of the things I have learned is the different thinking traps that we can fall into.

Because these thoughts are common, so common we sometimes don’t even know we are trapped I decided to do a series on them. I want to help you see the traps so that you can avoid them.

The first one to discuss is mind reading. Mind reading is where you assume what someone else is thinking. I do this All. The. Time. Especially with my husband. I assume that he is mad at me because he is quiet. I assume that he is upset with something I did because he spent lots of time upstairs after work.

I got caught in this trap Tuesday. I was feeling a little off and I felt like my hubby was upset with me. I had no idea why he might be angry but I was going down that road. As I started to work out why I was feeling this way he sent me a text thanking me for being a good wife.

I laughed out loud when I got the text because of where my mind had been going. I assumed I knew what he felt. And I was going through my mind trying to find evidence to prove that he was mad at me.

How can we avoid this trap? We have to ask or we have to be patient enough to wait for the other person to say something. Mind reading is probably the biggest trap I fall into. I remember my counselor asking me how I knew someone was mad at me. When I had to admit that I didn’t know he would remind me that the only way I can know someone’s feelings or thoughts is to ask them.

I know that it can be annoying to ask all the time are you mad at me. But that is the only way you can know the truth. When you start to realize that everyone doesn’t hate you it is easier to start fighting against that trap without having to ask all of the time.

I mentioned that before I got the text from my husband I was starting to work through why I thought he may be upset with me. I write out my feelings when I am lost so I had started a diagram as to why he could be upset. This helps me to see what I am thinking and also to see if there is any truth to what I am thinking.

Not one of us can read the minds of others. And for that I am grateful! Don’t be afraid to ask what someone else may be thinking. It is worth it to not be stuck in a panic attack.

Getting My Brain Moving

I get stuck inside my brain. It is worse in the mornings. As soon as I wake up the anxiety is telling me it is going to be a horrible day. Then I start telling myself that I just want to stay in bed and not deal with all of the stuff. I pull the covers over my head like a kid trying to fend off the morning. It hasn’t worked yet the mornings keep coming.

I decided that I didn’t like fighting the mornings so I began looking for ways to make my mornings better. I don’t think that I will ever be a happy morning person but I have come up with some ways to get my brain moving and unstuck from the life is horrible routine. I don’t do all of these every day but I have used all of them to help myself. I hope that you can find something here that will help you.

I try and exercise every morning. And yes it is incredibly hard to get out of bed when I am already grumpy to go do something else hard. But when I do I get the endorphins and all the other good feeling hormones moving through my body. I am able to have some time by myself before I need to start waking up kids. I feel like I am ahead of the game because I already got something done.

I eat something with protein. I love food but if I don’t have some protein I am setting myself up for more problems later in the day. Also I know that I get hangry so I try to eat regularly throughout the day.

If I am feeling especially off and I can’t figure out what is wrong I start writing. I don’t think about grammar or about making it make sense. I just write until I can get all of the feelings out of my head or get down to the root of why I am feeling off.

Along with writing I make lists. Often when I start to feel overwhelmed and anxious it is because I feel like life is out of control. Making lists helps me to feel more in control, I can see what it is I need to get done. It is true that I may either lose the list or never look at it again but all of that stuff is out of my brain and I don’t have to think about it anymore.

I play the grateful game.  Sometimes in the morning I feel guilty because I have so much yet I am unhappy. Instead of letting that guilt fester I start naming the things I am grateful for. This helps me to combat the anxiety and the guilt at the same time.

Finally, I try and be compassionate with myself. I have a hard time in the mornings, that is a fact. So I take care of myself, I work to find things that help me make mornings easier. I give myself grace when I have a hard morning. I quit judging how good of a person I am by how much I have gotten done. I let myself have a hard morning.

Wear it or Wipe it off?

Last Sunday for church we had what is called Stake Conference. That means that all the wards or congregations in one area meet together. We have talks from the leaders of the Stake but also the members.

There was an older gentleman who spoke and told the following story. He grew up on a farm in Eastern Idaho, his parents were sharecroppers so they all had work to do on the farm. Each morning him and his dad would get up early to milk the cows. This story takes place in the winter and he explained that the end of the cows tail would get full of “stuff”. That is all he said to explain about the cow’s tail. However, the cows tail was full of frozen cow poop, pee, mud, and whatever other gross stuff picked up around the farm.

As he sat down to milk this cow, for whatever reason, the cow slapped him in the face with it’s tail. The gentleman was mad and called for his dad. He expected his dad to be as upset as him and say that they would get rid of the cow. His dad, though, just looked at him for a minute and then said, “Well are you going to wipe it off or are you going to wear it?”

He wiped off the muck and started his milking. He said that he had thought about what his dad said for the rest of his life. Life sometimes hits us upside the head with muck and when it does we have a choice. Are we going to sit there and wear the muck or are we going to wipe it off?

I thought about this in relation to my own life. I know there have been too many times where I wore the muck for way too long. I was mad and I wanted everyone to know that life wasn’t fair for me. Then there have been times where I decided to just wipe it off and go on.  Both choices require work – the decision we have to make is where do we want to expend our efforts.

Do I want to spend the limited time and energy I have being mad? Or do I want to spend the energy wiping off the bad things and moving on?