Transcript: Brain Inertia with Dina Cataldo

Hello. How are you doing today? I am recording this early morning hours while I have my coffee here. And I want to tell you a little story about my morning because I think you will appreciate this. If you've ever been the kind of person who seems to have it all together, and yet there's always those moments where you just don't shine.

Anyhow, I was making coffee this morning and I got my coffee altogether. Put it in the French press, put in my water. And then I got caught up on Instagram. And if you don't already see me there at Dina dot Cataldo, then please go there. And I don't want to be the only one who is on Instagram all the time. Anyway, I got caught up in all these beautiful videos and of course, you know, one thing leads to another and 30 minutes later, my coffee is still sitting in the French press. So I had to start from scratch just so you know, it happens to me too. Now, if you want to kind of know all the little quirks of my life, I share some of them on Instagram and in my stories, especially I share a lot of business tips and different mindset hacks, things that maybe you don't think about all the time, or maybe you want to think about more often.

So you can start refocusing your brain on what's important, which is mindset, or you wouldn't be here right now. Go to at Dina dot Cataldo. You can find me on Instagram there, and you will also learn all my fashionable COVID masks. So if you were there the other day and you saw my Pirate's mask and commented, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Okay. So let's talk about brain inertia. And I was thinking about this the other day, and I came up with the phrase inert thoughts. And I was thinking about this in terms of chemistry, because as you probably already know, if you've been listening to this podcast for any length of time, when we have a thought, it creates a chemical reaction in our brain that cascades through our body. And that's what creates a feeling. And so I was thinking about thoughts that are really inert ones that are complete non-starters as soon as we have them, as soon as we think them, if we don't do any conscious work to get out of them, if we don't notice them to do that work, then we'll be stuck where we've always been.

We won't make any progress in building a legal practice or improving our relationships with our partner, our family, our friends. And you're definitely not going to achieve the goals that you have. So I've chosen a fitness goal for the next couple of months. I'll share that on Instagram too. And I'm definitely not thinking any of these inert thoughts about it. I'm having totally different ones. But I'm not thinking these inner thoughts or I wouldn't be doing it. If I was doing this, if I were thinking these inert thoughts, then I would freeze and do nothing. And these inner thoughts are some of the thoughts that lay the foundation for procrastination. So why am I calling them inert? So when I was really researching inertia, I was looking at chemical reactions because that is the essence of our body chemistry and our brain chemistry. And I wanted to see some of the, the words that were coming, I was coming up with really related to this chemical reaction.

And when you want to create a new substance, if you want to create something brand new, that is affective. That is something that is usable in the world. As a chemical solution, you need different solutions that you're mixing together that have properties that are a value that will generate this brand new creation that you want to make a nurse substances have no value, right? They, I hope I'm saying that, right? There's not a chemistry nerd on here. If you are, you can feel free to email me. Anyway, these thoughts that I want to talk to you about today can be super subtle if you're not paying attention. And if you're new to thought, work, the foundation of understanding that our thoughts generate a chemical reaction that creates an emotion in our body is really important to keep in mind. So for example, adrenaline is pumped through our body.

When we have a thought that our circumstances, our surroundings are dangerous and that adrenaline causes our body to take action. In that case, it's fight flight or freeze. Those are the options with that one. So let's say you were walking barefoot across your kitchen floor at five in the morning, and you see a shadow skitter across the floor and your heart jumps in your chest. It feels like an instantaneous reaction. Like there's no thought involved what's actually happened is that you did have a thought, you had a thought that you were in danger, that there was something unknown in your home where you're usually feeling safe. And that thing is not supposed to be there. Oh, and we think, Oh yeah, what is that? So the brain generates the adrenaline that pumps quickly through our body, really instantaneous. So we don't see that pause between a thought and the chemical reaction.

And of course the chemicals quickly dissipate. When we turn on the light and see it's a roach or it's a cat, right? Then we're probably just, if it's a bug we're totally grossed out and we just figure out how to handle business from there. Or if it's cat, we look at ourselves like, “Ugh, silly, silly us.” If we change our thought about how we understand our world, then the chemicals change. And instead of being frozen, now we can get into action. Okay? So that is the same web of chemical reactions that happen in our body. Every time we have a thought and it seems instantaneous, like it's just, boom, boom, boom. It's all happening at once. So most of us go through our life, reacting to the world around us as if that is what is causing what's happening to us. But that is not what's happening.

It's our brain that is creating that reaction. We don't literally feel love someone has for us. We have a thought that someone loves us. Someone does something for us. And we have an interpretation that, that thing that they did means that they love us. Then our brain gets a dopamine hit that flows through our body. We call that love. We know that because… I know that sounded really unromantic. I'm so sorry, but that's just the way it is. That's how our brain reacts and it's human. So we know that we know that this is true because multiple people can have different perceptions of the same actions and think different things. You can see that play out in the news every single day. There are people who have 20 different opinions on the same video that we see. You can have different opinions on the same video that you see.

The same goes for the love example. I can have really loving thoughts about my friend, Stephanie, shout out if you're listening. But someone in this world can't stand her. I don't know who that person is, but it happens. So how is that possible? Because our relationship with the world with people is made up of thoughts. That's what a relationship is. It's our thoughts about another person. Everyone has different ones. So let's get back to these inert thoughts. These kinds of thoughts are going to stop you in your tracks if you want to fulfill any dream. And this episode is meant to give you some awareness around your thoughts. We're going to work backwards. No, you know what I'm going to do. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna do this, but I want you to, when you hear all of these, I want you to tally up the thoughts that you have, because as we work through this, I'm also gonna share with you some strategies to get yourself out of these inner thoughts.

So once you start noticing them, you can do something about them. That's the wonderful thing about our brains is that it has this quality called neuro-plasticity so we can change all of these old habitual thought patterns. Cause that's all, these are these inner thoughts. They're just ones that we've practiced a whole lot. We've believed are true. And now we use them all the time without even thinking twice about them. But once we get awareness around them, we have the ability to change them. So I'm going to share with you how you can begin doing that. Okay? So I've broken these down into four different categories of a nerd thoughts because these thoughts that I'm going to share with you in each of these categories have a lot of similar qualities to one another. And I want you to just kind of understand the basic, the basic thought patterns that you're going to have.

You might have different thoughts than the ones I'm sharing with you, but they are ones that are going to get you the same result. The one that's just not working for you. The one that is not getting you, the result that you want to have. Okay? So the first category, these are stalled out thoughts. They don't generate any certainty. And whenever we want to create something in the world, anytime we want to make something happen in our world, we have to be certain, we can do it, right? Like that's what was so easy about school and law school. Like even though it was so hard, those three years for, for night schools, you've got to know you are going to complete it. You are going to get it done. Otherwise you can't make it through three years of hell. So just understand that you've got to generate certainty ahead of time.

And these thoughts will not get you there to create anything. We need to believe ahead of time and create those feelings ahead of time. Remember our thoughts, create our feelings. These thoughts are going to suck the oxygen out of your dream. The first stalled out thought is, I don't know, another one. I don't know how, or I'm confused or I'm missing something. Oh, that one was my favorite. I was thinking that one for awhile. And I just, now I notice it and I'm like, Nope, my brain's lying to me. Stop it. So ask yourself when you find yourself in this kind of, you know, area of stalled out, thoughts, ask yourself questions. Like, well, what if I did know, right? What would future me think about this? This is why I'm always touting future focus. So if you listen to the last couple episodes, I've talked about really focusing on what your future self who already has the result that you want would do.

What would they think? More importantly in order to generate the feeling that they need to create the actions and the result that they want. Because we only take action from our feelings, right? Fight flight or freeze. If we have a thought that we're scared and we have fear and adrenaline running through our body, then what's going to happen is we are going to react based upon the feeling that we have. We'll jump back. We'll run will totally stop in our tracks. That is the order of events. So that's why it's so important to, to really see your thoughts here. One of the things that I also like to counteract these stalled out thoughts is focusing on a small result that I want to create in my business and then really get focused on that particular result. And I ask myself questions about it. And one of the things that I'm really digging right now is like this one to 10 scale when it comes to certainty, how certain am I that from on a scale from one to 10, that I believe that I am going to achieve my goal.

Then I ask myself, why is it that number? And how would I be? What kind of thoughts would I think if my certainty was at a 10, that is going to get my brain refocused and get out of that confusion, get out of the, I don't know, because then my brain has somewhere to go. And if I keep continually refocusing my brain every single day, my brain is going to get out of the habit of thinking. I'm confused. You can also ask yourself or tell yourself you're not missing anything. You're exactly where you're supposed to be. You need to go through this to get where you want to be. So you're never missing anything. There's never anything to miss. There's never anything that you don't have available to you. You can start refocusing your brain and finding evidence. So that, that way you are more likely to hit the result that you want.

All right. The second category of these inert thoughts are blaming thoughts. And these thoughts make you feel like the victim in any situation. And while all inner thoughts deprive you of power. I think that these are some of the ones that create some of the worst feelings. And at least this is where I allowed myself to suffer for a really long time. And once I got out of feeling them, I was a hundred percent better. Like I felt a million times percent better. Now this is how they show up. We think things like, you know what? That person should have done something different. They should have taken out the trash, remembered our anniversary invited me to the party, et cetera. If they really cared about me, if, if they had done X, then it would have showed me. Y right? Another thought they make me angry.

They make me annoyed. They make me stressed out another one. They are so annoying or obnoxious or rude or inconsiderate, whatever the thought is. There's two things to recognize here. First, we tend to project our thoughts and our personality traits onto others. So we can't see it in someone else. We can't see someone being annoying or rude or inconsiderate, unless we're, we've done the same thing, unless we have had the same thought about ourselves too. So how are you being annoying, obnoxious, rude, or inconsiderate? That's one question to ask yourself to get it, this, this thinking where you usually really projecting everything we think about ourselves, and maybe you're gossiping about the person that you're you think these thoughts about to your family. You're spending time thinking horrible things about the other person, and then maybe you're even beating yourself up about it for good measure.

And you're then being super inconsiderate to yourself. Wouldn't you say? So the second thing to recognize is that when we think this way, we are ignoring reality. We think that someone or something in the world should behave differently than it is. And when we fight with reality, we are always going to lose. We cannot make someone into the human. We want them to be, even if we can coerce them or cajole them into being the human, we want them to be for a short time. It's never going to last because that is not who they are. We can't think their thoughts for them. They have their own set of thoughts. They are going to create their own reality. Okay? They're going to do their own thing. When we begin accepting people for who they are, then we can make choices about who we want in our life and who we don't from a place of love for ourselves, rather than trying to manipulate the world.

There's much less drama. When we think that way, look, I wanted to manipulate all the people. I wanted them to make me feel better by doing things that were not in their nature. And that's just not how it works. You've got to let people be themselves. And the great thing about this is that we in turn get to be ourselves. We get to think the thoughts we want to think. We get to be the humans we want to be. But until we take full responsibility for how we show up, we're just going to be a victim and we're going to blame everyone else. So when you see these thoughts, recognize them and start doing the thought work here, asking yourself these, these questions that I'm suggesting to you to begin making the shifts that you want to make. The third category of these inert thoughts is giving your dreams, the brush off.

That's really the way that I can phrase it best. These are really sneaky thoughts. They pop up because you know, they seem just so innocent, right? They seem real. They don't just postpone your dreams. They make sure you can never make them happen because you're always putting yourself off. They're usually a product of us not valuing ourselves more and not being connected with why we want something in the first place. Thoughts are thoughts like these are I'll start later. I'll start tomorrow. Next week. I don't have the time. I'm too busy. I deserve some chips. I deserve another glass of wine. I plan. I deserve to skip this workout to skip the time I planned for my business. I'm not the kind of person who fill in the blank. I'm not the kind of person who can wake up early, can eat more. Veggies can stick to a routine who uses a calendar who can take a vacation dot, dot, dot.

First off with any goal, you have to know your why. If you're just starting this work, write it down where you can read it daily. I actually have, you know, I've been doing this awhile, but I have a post. It's not a PostIt, it's a postcard next to my bed. And it has one phrase on it. And then on the back I write down, like, it's like three sentences of what I want. And then it keeps it fresh. Every time I make my bed in the morning, it's there and I can read it in the evening. When I go to bed, it's there and I can read it. It keeps my brain focused on my why. And my goal, just keep refocusing your brain. You can do that with this, this why practice. So just recognize your brain's going to want to give into these excuses.

Your brain thinks these things are real, but they're not. And you have to be conscious enough to catch it in the act and use tools like really practical tools, like a postcard next to your bed or in their breakfast nook or wherever. You're going to see it regularly to keep your brain on task. The second thing here is that anytime you notice this, do something like taking a baby step towards what you want, right? When your brain is telling you to skip a workout or start that new routine tomorrow, take a baby step, tell yourself you're going to, you know, walk to your room. And then when you're at your room, tell yourself, you're just going to put on your clothes. And then when you put on your clothes, then tell yourself, you're just going to put on your shoes. It'll make it really easy for yourself to follow through on your goal, have healthy food in the house, have your work area set up and clean.

Like you want to sit down and work because it's just so lovely there for yourself. Make working towards your goal. Fun. Ask yourself how you can do this. And your brain is going to come up with the answers you need. Okay? The last category here of inert thoughts is defeated. This last category is also very sneaky. Like the first category, they just, they don't generate certainty. And it's, they're always going to seem like you're just reporting the news. When you think these thoughts, you're not going to think anything of it. You may not even see them. That's why I'm telling you them here. So you can keep your eyes open your ears, open for them. Okay? Here's the thoughts, the defeated thoughts. It's not working. It's never going to work. It's not happening. It should be moving faster. I should be doing more. It's taking too long.

Okay? These kinds of thoughts are so not helpful. It is working. Tell yourself that, write it down, create evidence that it's working journal on it. So often we have these thoughts that in our business, especially like our business, it's not working. We're doing all the things. Why is it? Isn't it moving faster? I'm scheduling posts. I'm emailing people. I'm, you know, doing videos. I'm doing a podcast. I've got this free master class. I've got XYZ going on. Why is it not doing what I think it should be doing? Okay. Here's the thing is your business is likely working in so many ways that you just don't see because your brain is focused on the thought that it's not working. So you've got to be really conscious about this. You've got to write down what's happening. Like people are scheduling consults. I signed clients, clients who respond well to me, you know, all of these different things, all this evidence you can build and focus on that evidence.

You can journal on this, write a page or more on where it is working. What is working in your business. Instead of thinking it's not working, what is working, you can do this with any goal. Look for all of the evidence that it is working. This is not Fu thinking, ignoring all the bad stuff, right? We're not ignoring the bad stuff. Neurologically. We have to focus on what we want to create the feelings that we want to take. The actions that are going to get us the result. If you stick with your old inner neurological thought patterns, you're going to generate the same negative emotions that generate the same interactions that will give you the same old result to change anything. You've got to change this from the inside out. Ironically, things progress faster in our business and our lives. When we take the time to do these focused activities, to really recognize what's going on in our brain, we can strain, evaluate.

Then we can tweak our thoughts and our actions. You can only see what's happening when you slow way down and you do less. So that can counteract the thought that you should be doing more, right. Things should be moving faster. We can not manipulate the outside world. I want to bring it all back to this. Okay? All of these inner thoughts, I want you to know these thoughts are not helpful. And physically trying to manipulate the outside world, physically, meaning like with our words, right? Telling somebody, for instance, Hey, you should be doing that. That's gonna make me happy. You know, physically trying to do more work in our business to try to get the results we want. Instead of doing the mindset work, that's manipulating the outside world. We can do it. It is possible. I see people do it, but it is exhausting.

I used to do this and it was just exhausting. And it is not fun. When you work on yourself, then you're going to create the result you want. And then you're not exhausted, overwhelmed, and stressed. We can't do this work alone. And when I heard about coaching, I was like, what is this? Is this going to help me? Like, what exactly is this coaching thing about? I know people hire coaches, but is this something that's going to work for me? What are we even going to talk about? I had so many questions about it, but when I did the coaching, then I realized it's working on my brain. So if any of this resonates with you, if you're like, yeah, that's what I need. Book a strategy session with me. I will walk you through what coaching is all about. You can ask it how to work with me.

If that interests you book a session at Dina, cataldo.com forward slash strategy session. And if you found this helpful, I would love it. If you spread the word, if you share your screenshot of you listening to this podcast on Instagram, tag me @Dina.Cataldo to let me know. And I would love to connect with you there. Okay? I'm going to enjoy my coffee and I hope you get to enjoy the same. I will talk to you next week. Bye.

If you love what you're learning on the podcast, imagine how you'll evolve. When you start implementing what you're learning, you can learn how to work with me to do just that by scheduling a free strategy session, go to Dina, cataldo.com. That's Dina cataldo.com. Talk to you soon.