#287: Enjoying the View

Enjoying the View

Hello, how are you doing today? So I wanted to talk to you about enjoying the view from where you are right now. If you have ever felt overwhelmed, rushed, pressured to get to the next big thing, to achieve that next big milestone in your life, and you feel yourself pushing, pushing, pushing to get there, but you just feel like things are going so slowly, why aren't they moving faster? This episode is gonna give you some clarity around why that's happening and what you can do to help actually make things go faster. I want you to know I have been there. Okay, so before I started my coaching practice, before I even heard about coaching, I was working full-time as a criminal prosecutor, and I wanted something else so badly, like I needed something else. And I initially thought it was becoming a foreign service officer.

And then I thought, you know, maybe it's being a yoga teacher. And then I thought, maybe it's being an artist. And I kept following all these paths and I kept working my butt off. And I, I kept asking myself, why isn't it working? Why isn't it working? And what I didn't realize is that I was not enjoying the view from where I was. I wasn't appreciating my prior accomplishments. I wasn't appreciating the personal growth I was creating in my life in that moment. Instead, I was constantly hustling, hustling, hustling to hit the next goal. What I did not see was that it was preventing me from actually achieving that goal. And it felt horrible the entire time. But I thought that that was the way it, it needed to be, that that was the only option until I achieved the goal. And then when I achieved the goal, I would feel better.

I literally thought that if I had more money, I would feel better, that if I had created the business of my dreams, that then I would feel better. But what I didn't understand is I needed to be present in my life and appreciate everything that I had. And I don't mean in a way that you tell yourself, oh, I should be happy with everything that I have. I shouldn't want more. No. And I talk about this in depth in the dark side of gratitude. I'll, I'll link to that in the show notes. But that episode is all about how we need to be going forward. We need to keep going towards our growth, but we are telling ourselves that we should be happy. And I don't want you to do that. I want you to be happy now, <laugh> with what you have, appreciating the view from where you are, and continuing to strive and move forward and grow and expand and elevate and uplevel your life.

The reason I'm doing this podcast is because this came up in a coaching call recently, and I have a client, she was telling me that she was having this experience as she was moving towards a new goal of hers to that, to really, she wanted to uplevel and she felt like she was like she needed to get there faster. And I can relate to that because I have definitely been there, that that was the theme of several years of my life. But she also noticed that she was procrastinating, that she would sit on the couch exhausted, you know, eight, eight o'clock at night, and that she wasn't actually making time on her calendar for this new goal of hers to further it along. And we talked through that. And really what was happening was that she was not appreciating all of the progress that she had made.

She actually told me, she said, you know, I don't feel like I'm making any progress. Well, I've worked with her for quite some time, so I know her brain's lying to her <laugh>. And so I refocused her brain and I said, well, what have you accomplished? Well, I'm making more money. I've been promoted. I, you know, have like this beautiful life. I get to travel. I'm fit, I'm healthy, I'm eating all the things I wanna be eating. I have, you know, all of these things that she has in her life. Not to mention the roof over her head, the the the amazing healthy foods that she has in her kitchen, right? Like she's taken care for, she has taken care of herself, and she is also thinking about her future. She's already lined things up in her finances so that she's taking care of herself and her family in the future.

Like she really has this beautiful, beautiful life right now. And her brain is telling her, you've gotta do more. You've gotta work faster. You need to do this, you need to do that. If you don't do that, then you're lazy, then you're a bad person, then you're not really taking care of yourself, then you're not taking care of your future, then you're not gonna be able to be happy and your daughter's not gonna be happy and dah, dah dah, dah. Like, that's just what the brain does, right? So if you notice your brain taking you there, know that that's normal, but here's what it's doing. I just want you to see the impact of it. So for instance, you know, for this, for, for my particular client, she noticed that when she would want to work on this new goal, she noticed that her brain said, oh, it was gonna take so much time and effort, it was really gonna be hard.

And then in her body, she felt really deflated, right? And of course, when you feel deflated, you're not inspired, you're not motivated, you don't wanna take any action at all. And that's what she found herself doing. She wasn't taking any action. She ended up maybe scrolling on social media, watching TV cleaning. And then I asked her, I said, because this is something that will happen when we're in this state, is we will not talk to ourselves very nicely. And so I asked her how she was talking to herself, and sure enough, she said, yeah, I'm, I'm just saying like, you should be doing this. You should, you should be working harder. You know, you're not doing what you need to be doing. So she was being really hard on herself during this whole process. And of course, the procrastination is actually prolonging the process of achieving her goal.

It's actually making it harder for her to achieve her goal. So to notice how the brain works is so vital to making change. If she's thinking, this is gonna be so hard, this is gonna take a lot of time, then you actually make it take longer and it's harder. That's just how our brain works. It is always going to go in the direction we pointed. And so what I did is I helped her, I pulled her back and I said, look, let's enjoy the view, and you can do this too. So if you notice your brain telling you, I need to do this, I need to push myself harder, I need to work harder, that's an opportunity for you to pull back and say, wait a minute, why am I in a hurry? What do I think I'm gonna get when I achieve the goal that I don't have right now?

Do I think it's gonna make me happier? Do I think it's gonna make me a better person? Do I think more people will, will respect me? Why do I want their respect? What do I think I'm gonna benefit from it? Do I need it? Start asking yourself these questions because when you go into a goal and you go into it from lack, I'm not enough. I'm not doing enough, I'm not working hard enough, it is going to be next to impossible to achieve that goal. And if you're one of those people who says, no, but I'm really good at like pushing through that stuff, it's really motivating to me and you feel really horrible in your body, I wanna invite you that you can do it in a much easier way. I was talking to another client earlier this week and he was saying like, Hey, I tried that thing that we talked about during coaching where I didn't make it as hard on myself when I was in a negotiation and it felt so good in my body and I got the same result, but I didn't feel horrible.

And that is the benefit of knowing how your mind works and being able to take control of it, to be able to see it and say, no, that's not the direction I wanna go. I wanna come at this from a feeling of enough, a feeling of empowerment and not depletion. And this need to drive myself harder because I think I don't have everything I need right now. That everything I need is actually outside of me and is in the future. This is something that I've needed to work on with myself, is to really bring myself into the present moment more and more and more and appreciate everything that I have, all of the safety I've created for myself, all of the love I have in my life. All of those things that I have, I now take the time to say, yeah, that's pretty amazing, good for you.

And then I still have goals, but when I go after those goals, I'm going after them in a way that is more just math, right? There's not the same drama happening in my brain. So I can look at it and say, oh, I wanna create X and then I can just figure out how to do it. I can brainstorm it, and then I put it on my calendar, and then I just follow through on it. That takes practice. I'm not saying it's not a practice. You've gotta do the practice, the work in order to create what you wanna create, but it is doable. And I think so many of us have that door closed to what's possible. And so when we keep that door closed, then we just keep doing the same old thing. But then when we have this door opened and we get some guidance and somebody helps us along the way, then we can say, oh, look, that actually is possible.

And that's what my clients are seeing, right? Like my client who is like, oh my gosh, I could do the same negotiation and I got the same result, but I wasn't angry, I wasn't frustrated, it was just me. Drama free talking to opposing counsel. That is an amazing life to be able to manage your emotions in a way that doesn't interfere with your happiness. And happiness is not you achieving the next goal. Happiness is you being clear on what you want and appreciating what you have. And I, that is, that's my definition, right? So one of the things I talk about in I talked about in my most recent masterclass, and I have the replay up, I don't know how long I'll have it up, but if you're listening to this now, it's up. You can go to dina cataldo.com/take control, and I talk about how we are taught.

We are taught that we need to achieve the next summit and the next summit and the next summit of the mountaintop. But what we don't do and what we're not taught is to get to the top of the mountain and enjoy the view and then say, ah, look at that mountain over there. Let's go over there. Versus if you notice yourself in this pattern of, okay, I've reached the summit, okay, next summit, now next summit, now next summit, now next summit. No, like, take a break, take a moment to enjoy the view. And I, I'm, I was guilty of this, right? Like when I was a prosecutor, I would, you know, we we're taught like you're only as good as your last trial. So, you know, you do one trial and you're just, oh, it was a great result. And then you just keep moving.

You just keep doing trials, you keep doing trials, and you don't really appreciate, wow, look at what I did, and I talked about this with Shannon Clark, one of my clients. I'll link to that show in the show notes too. But we talked about what you can do as a litigator to evaluate your trials. And nobody taught us that. Like nobody taught us to take a look at our trial that we just did and break down the process of reviewing what we did in a way that was positive and that would help us moving forward in our career. Nobody did that. And when I started doing that in my business, I made so much progression. Can you imagine as a trial attorney taking those steps, evaluating and then moving forward, like you just make better decisions and you keep, get, be getting better and better versus ignoring all of the work that you did, not appreciating what you did in that trial.

In fact, a lot of us wanna avoid it because we get so emotionally charged that we don't even wanna look at what we did, and we don't wanna evaluate because we're afraid we're gonna beat ourselves up and create a lot of shame around that. So of course you don't wanna do it, but when you learn the skills to manage yourself emotionally, you can do those evaluations and then gain so much valuable information to progress. And so bringing it back around to, if you're setting a goal in the future and you want to create something in the future, let's take a look at what you're doing right now and appreciate it and say, oh, okay, how did I create this? What's going really well right now? And just start looking at it. This is what I do with my business, right? So if I am looking at my current business and I wanna grow it, I'm gonna start with what's working Well, what am I doing that I really like?

What am what am I seeing? What results am I seeing that I've created that I am just jazzed about? And then once I get into a mental space where I am grateful for where I am, I'm appreciative, I'm looking from my mountaintop out onto a sea of other mountains and I can appreciate the view, then I can say, okay, well what's next? And maybe I can go pick that mountaintop way over there in the west, but I, if I do that, if I pick a goal from a place of me not being enough, of me not being happy where I am, of me needing to prove myself to other people, it feels horrible. I did that for a lot of years. I do not recommend it. Instead, what I recommend is that you appreciate where you are right now. You enjoy the view, you tell yourself all the things you're doing right, right now, and don't let your brain tell you that you're not doing things right.

The fact that you're a lawyer, you're listening to this episode, you have more financial resources than 99% of the population on the planet. I am telling you this right now because my brain would like to tell me the same thing sometimes, and I remind myself, no, take a look at what you have. You have more than enough. You are a hundred percent safe. You have everything you need. You are providing for yourself. You are providing for your family. You have a beautiful life. You have beautiful friends, you have beautiful family. You have all the things you need, all the conveniences, they're all here for you. And you created this life with your brain. If I had nothing on this planet, I still have my brain and I can start from scratch. My brain, my emotional resilience. Those are the most powerful things to me. Those are my my most important assets because you could take everything away from me and I can always tap into myself.

I don't need anything outside of myself to prove anything to me about what I'm capable of, because I know I'm a hundred percent capable. And if you don't believe that in your bones, I want to invite you to try something different, to try what I am mentioning in this episode, to really appreciate where you are, to really enjoy the view from where you are, and think about all of the amazing experiences you have created for yourself over the years. Because make no mistake, you created them. I'm also going to link to another episode in the show notes called believing in yourself as the Powerful Creator, because it takes practice to recognize how we create things. And that's such a beautiful practice to be able to see, oh, this was something in my mind I created. Remember, let me take you back to the beginning of this episode when my client was thinking like, oh it's gonna take forever.

It's gonna take a lot of time, it's gonna take a lot of energy. And her brain then created a situation in which it was taking even more time, and that it was going to take even more energy. It was gonna be harder because the thoughts we think matter, the way we think about situations is going to play out in our actions and in our results. So if you notice your brain is telling you, I need this thing outside of myself to prove my worthiness, to prove my value, to prove to myself that I belong, or anything that is outside of you, I want you to start questioning all of your thoughts. And I'm gonna be telling you more about how to set goals and how to really think about goals in my upcoming half day event. And you can sign up for the wait

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for slash 2020.

And in that half day event, I'm gonna guide you through making this math, you know, making any goal achievement, just about doing it for fun, doing it to show yourself what's possible, to open up the door to what's possible versus doing it from fear and scarcity, lack, like very different experiences. I've experienced them both. And I prefer <laugh> going at it from a fun way than a way that I'm experiencing scarcity. So you can sign up for that. And if you want personalized help, just like I'm helping these other clients I talked to you about on this episode, walking you through how to achieve your goals in 2024 and beyond, I want you to book a strategy session with me. I invite you to book a strategy session with me at dina cataldo.com/strategy session. And on our call, we're gonna talk through what's going on in your brain right now, and whether or not you sign up with me, you're gonna get some insight into the thoughts you are thinking into, the ways you are being in your life that are producing your current result and preventing you from upleveling your life. And then you have the option of deciding what you wanna do about it.

Alright?

So I hope to hear from you soon. I will definitely be talking to you soon on this podcast. And I hope you have a beautiful week. Bye.