Let's talk about feeling discouraged. Those times when life isn't going
the way that you want it to, when maybe you're not as far along
as you thought you should be, or when things aren't happening,
the way you expected them. And, you're feeling kind
of frustrated about that. You're feeling down about that. We're going to talk about what we
can do when you are feeling this way and five things that are going to
be important for you to remember so that you can get yourself unstuck
from feeling quite so discouraged and be able to get back up and keep
going and keep moving forward and keep learning and growing and expanding, because that is such a big
point of why we are here in the first place. I think you're
going to get a lot out of these. They are ones that have really helped
me when I felt kind of down and discouraged, and I'm just
help me get back out. So looking forward to sharing
them with you. If you're new here, welcome to our incredible little
corner on the internet. Take a second. Introduce yourself in the comment
section below. If you're back again, say hello, I really love being able to connect
with all of you and love seeing the conversations that you all are having
with each other down in the comment section as well. Either way,
my name is Julia Kristina, and I am a registered clinical
therapist, a researcher, a coach, and the creator of my membership
community,The Shift Society, that you can get more information
about in the description as well. You want to come and be a part of that
community with us. It is incredible. And the people in there, incredible. I help heart centered go-getter people
break through the crap that is holding them back so that they can like
themselves and their lives more every day. And it can be really tough to like
yourself and your life when you're feeling discouraged, when you're feeling stuck, when things are not going the
way that you want them to go. So I'm going to talk to you about a few
tools that you can use and a few mindset shifts that are going to be really
helpful to get you unstuck and get you moving forward again, so that you can be learning and growing
and expanding and experiencing the life that you want in the
short time that we're here. The first thing that I want
you to be really mindful of, if you're feeling stuck, if you are stuck in kind of the overwhelm
stage where you're like there's so much to do, and I just can't do it
all. I don't know where to start. As soon as I look at everything
that needs to get done, I get completely overwhelmed
and then I don't do anything. And this is a bit of perfectionist brain. This whole kind of made up idea that
the only way to move forward is to do it all and to do it all
fast. And then of course, that kind of feels terrible. All this
pressure and all these expectations. And so then we just get
stuck and don't do anything. So there's a very simple antidote
to that one. And your brain, especially if you're an
over-functioner or perfectionist, your over-functioning perfectionist
brain is going to hate this, but I want to invite
you to do less. Do less. Do less, but do less consistently
and do so much less that the amount that you end up
doing has to be something that feels easy, or at least not that hard to do. So your brains are going to be
putting up all of this resistance, thinking that I can't possibly do
this also, I'm going to do nothing. So then just let yourself
do something a little bit, because a little bit
consistently is way more effective than doing nothing ever. It's not rocket science,
but it's so funny how, when we have these expectations that we
should do this all and achieve this all and accomplish it all this all, and we
should have even maybe done have done so, so much by now. So then we're sitting in that regret and
we're judging and criticizing ourselves for having not done it, which makes it even more unlikely
that we're going to do anything. Do less. Do it consistently.
It's not go big or go home. It's go small to moderate
and make it sustainable and doable. And then the next thing to remember when
you're feeling discouraged is that the only place that you can be,
is where you are right now. Now this might sound totally
obvious. Of course, Julia, I can't be anywhere other
than where I'm at now, but we do this as human beings. We spend a lot of our time in the
future, thinking about the future, trying to control the future,
trying to anticipate the future, trying to get to the future
as quickly as possible. Or maybe even more commonly, we
spend a lot of time in the past, feeling guilty about the past, regretting
the past, overthinking the past. And when we are doing that, we are preventing ourselves from
being able to be present and be able to move forward. This is something that comes up often
for people when they start learning the tools in The Shift Society. When they start going through the
process that I teach in there, and they start being able to feel more
in charge of their minds and emotions and ultimately their lives when they start
feeling better and liking themselves more and having healthier relationships
and showing up differently in life and creating the life that they want. There's this moment that a lot of
experience where they start to regret the fact that they hadn't
learned this stuff sooner. They start thinking back to
the years of their lives, that they have lost to struggling
with whatever it is that they've been struggling with. And so there is this grieving
process of, you know, I wish that I had known this sooner. I could have had different
for however many years. I could have had better
for however many years. And it's completely normal to grieve
what could have been in the past. That's a normal human experience and
there's nothing wrong with feeling sad about it. Being able to say, like, I'm
sad that I didn't know this sooner, that I didn't have the awareness, the
tools, the understanding, the resources, the support. It's completely normal
to feel sad about that. However, sitting and blaming ourselves
and regretting and beating
ourselves up and hating on ourselves for not being able to
do something that we didn't even know was available to do, that we couldn't have done no
matter what it is in your life, sitting down and regretting the past.
It's a normal thing to grieve the past, but to beat yourself up over the past is
going to keep you stuck because you're spending all your time and energy hating
yourself for what you did or didn't do instead of being focused on, present with, and intentional about
what you are doing now, because that is what you can manage. That is what you have say over. That is what you can do about it. The next thing to remember when
you're feeling discouraged, and just as a side note,
when I say this one, it might feel like a bit
of a punch in the gut. I know it did for me the first time
that I understood this concept, but it was also one of the most
valuable things that I've ever learned. And that is that just because you want something, it doesn't mean that the
world owes it to you. And so often we think, just because I have a desire
for this thing, for the success, for this relationship,
for things to go this way, I should be able to get it. And maybe
it's not even a conscious thought. I know for me, it wasn't a conscious thought until I
found myself working towards something and it wasn't happening the
way that I wanted it to it. Wasn't easy as I thought it should be. It wasn't coming together as
simply as I expected it to. And I felt entitled. I felt entitled to get a result
that I wanted just because I really wanted it. And I was willing
to put in a little bit of effort. But life never promised that it would
give us what we want just because we wanted it. It also didn't promise that
we would get to what we really want, that we would be able to have the things
that we want and create the life that we want to be feeling, how
we want to be feeling and, and creating the success that we want to
create with a little bit of effort and a lot of enthusiasm. More often than not,
when we want something, it takes continuous, intentional effort. You don't have to break your back. I'm not saying that you have to get out
there and you have to, you know, blood, sweat, and tears until you get what
and where you want in your life. But it doesn't just happen
just because we want it. We're not entitled to any
result just because we want them badly. But the chances are pretty good that
if we are willing to continue to show up, to continue to do the work, to continue to be intentional and put our attention on the things we want the most, we will be able to move in that direction. And I'm not saying that it
can't be hard sometimes, I'm not saying it can't
be super discouraging. I remember I've talked a little bit
before about my journey to get into grad school and become a therapist and how
much time it took me and how hard it was for me to just get into grad school. And then I finally got there and I
finally felt like, okay, I'm here, I'm doing this. Now I'm
going to become a therapist. And then now I'm going to have all
the options of all the great jobs, whatever I want, because I have paid
my dues. I've worked so hard already. And life is like, nuh-uh, that's
not the way that it works. You don't just get to do some and then
think that you're going to coast for the rest of it. There's the next
step? The next process. Yes, you're going to go to grad
school, but there aren't, there aren't that many jobs for people
graduating with Master's in Counseling Psychology. And at least there aren't that many decent
jobs and the competition is going to be high and you don't just get to get
the job just because you have a degree. There's other criteria there. So I remember learning this and
luckily I learned this, you know, early enough I got out of my
sort of delusional cloud of entitlement that it was just going
to all be smooth sailing from here. And I sat down and went to
work to figure out, okay, what do I need to do to get a job
working in a good job with a good organization, working with people
that I want to be working with, working on issues that I want
to be helping people with. Okay, what is it going to take? And then I
spent the next six months to a year, volunteering, and
networking, and connecting, and applying, and following up, and all of the things until I got
a position. I got what I wanted. And then even from there,
it's not just that like, okay, I got this job and now it's
smooth sailing. Then it was okay, what do I want for the
next stage of my life? And just sort of understanding that
learning and growing and expanding, are always going to be a part of our
existence if we want to have a rich and rewarding experience in life, that human beings were built to learn
and to grow and to experience and to expand. And because of that, there's
always going to be some tension. There's going to be
times of periods of rest. And we are going to spend
some time coasting, right? Of course there are seasons for
rests, there are seasons for coasting, there are seasons for just
taking a step back and being, and then there are seasons for growing, for showing up for working, for putting in effort for participating. And just knowing that that's
just the way that it is. And I think when we really just understand
that to create the life that we want is going to take intentional,
consistent effort over time. Then when it does, it's not as
hard because we're expecting it. When we kind of know that
this is what's required, then it's not this rude awakening.
And there's not so much, there's not so much resistance
because they're like, Oh, this is just what it takes.
I'm not doing anything wrong. There's nothing wrong with me that
things aren't coming super easily. This is just what it takes. And moving into this place of acceptance
means that we are removing the resistance and it actually
does make it easier and it makes it happen faster
- a little bit. I mean, obviously you're not just
going to go sliding through, but it is going to make it easier. The next thing to remember when you're
feeling discouraged is this right here, this mass, what eight pound
mass, it's eight pounds, six pounds? I can't remember. This brain of ours is
actively working against us. It thinks it's working for
us, but more often than not, when it thinks it's working for us,
it's actually working against us, meaning that the human brain science
shows that it has a natural negative bias. So our brain is always
looking for the downside. It's looking for the danger.
It's looking for the threat. We actually just have to work on
our brains to get it to a state of neutral. And now I say
that this it's, you know, not super helpful in most of the
things that we're doing in our lives. Most of the things that we're taking on
most of the ways that we are interacting with like most of the
ways, we're just, just, we're going through our everyday lives,
just existing, this negative bias. Isn't super helpful. It thinks it's being helpful because it
thinks it's anticipating everything that could go bad. Maybe everything that's
bad about you, maybe everything that, any threat, right? It's trying to
protect you. It's trying to preserve you, trying to keep you alive. Because if you were just sort
of like skipping through life, thinking that everything
was great and wonderful, and there was no problems
ever, then, you know, maybe you'd walk into a forest,
find some berries and be like, Oh, those are wonderful, beautiful
berries. If they're beautiful, they must be delicious. So I'm going to
eat them. And then, well, chances are, that's not going to go so well. So our brain has this
negative bias to be skeptical, to take a step back to assess, I
don't know about this, is this okay? Is this going to be safe?
Is this a good idea? So it's there to protect us. But where it's not helpful is with most
of the things that we are doing in our lives are not an actual
potential threat to our lives. That might be a little bit uncomfortable.
They might be a little difficult. We might have to make
ourselves vulnerable. We might have to let ourselves be seen. We might have to let ourselves
be open to criticism or judgment, but that is not a threat to your existence. So knowing that
your brain has this bias, your brain is probably going to
want to talk you out of things. When you have goals, when you
have dreams, when you have plans, things that you're working on,
things that you are building, there will be this negative
bias that's going to come in. You sure you're cut out for this.
Do you really think you can do this? What if it all fails? What
are people going to think? This might be a terrible idea.
To see what your brain is doing, see that your brain is trying to protect
you and let your brain know that you're actually okay, that you've got this, that you can handle some discomfort.
You can handle some judgment. You can handle some failure.
You can handle things, not going perfectly because
you're not going to die. If any of those things happen. The next thing to remember when
you're feeling discouraged, this is such an important one. We do
this all the time in The Shift Society, is to celebrate all wins. Perfectionist brain often tells
us that it doesn't count unless it's monumental, unless it's the
biggest deal, unless it's the best, unless it gets the gold star, unless it wins above all else,
we're not allowed to celebrate. And I know I've struggled with this
one so much that I don't let myself celebrate. I have these big ideas and
big goals and big dreams and big plans. And I forget to let myself
celebrate the little things along the way. I forget to let
myself just acknowledge myself
for the courage it took, for the grit it required, for the
consistency I was able to give, for the determination I showed
for the effort that I put in. Even if it's a little bit,
even if the result is a little bit, even if the win is a little bit,
even if the shift is a little bit, celebrate it, acknowledge it,
be proud of yourself for it. Because the thing is,
when we don't do that, then we are less likely to
want to try things, to show up, to build, to grow, to expand, to experience because it doesn't
feel as good as it could. Right? If you had a small child and
they came to you and they were like, Oh, look at this little Lego figurine
or whatever that I built. And you were just like, yeah,
whatever it could have been better. But did you actually like
construct an entire house yet? You haven't built a house that's
just Lego. That doesn't count. Come back to me when you have,
you know, designed, framed, constructed an entire four bedroom house. The child's going to feel
pretty discouraged and probably, maybe even not want to
build Lego houses anymore. Instead of acknowledging that and
be able to say, hey, that's amazing, good for you. How does that feel? What
was that like to put in that effort? And then to be able to have this result, to be able to see this
thing in front of you, experience this growth, this shift. Celebrating everything is going to make
it so that you are going to want to keep going because it feels good when you grow. It feels good when you win.
It feels good when you shift. It's not rocket science,
it's just human behavior. We do more of behaviors that are rewarded, and less that are punished. The next thing to remember when
you're feeling discouraged is that you can't criticize
yourself into feeling good. So interesting how often we do
this when we are struggling, when we have failed, when something
didn't go the way that we wanted it to go. When maybe even we said
something that we didn't mean to say, we judge ourselves,
we criticize ourselves, we beat ourselves up,
we scrutinize ourselves. But that's not actually
a catalyst for positive behavior change. Now, not saying to
put your head in the cloud and be like, Oh my gosh, it's no problem. There's no
problems ever. Everything I do is fine. Life is fine. Everything's
fine. It's good. It's all good. I'm not saying that because that's
just a way of bypassing life and preventing ourselves from
having learning opportunities. But we use our mis-steps,
we use our mistakes, we use our failures as things to grow from, as
opportunities to learn from. And so if something happens the way
that I didn't want it to happen, if I could sit and beat
myself up about it, I could sit and feel terrible about it. And then I'm just going
to stay stuck doing that. Or I could look at it and be
like, Hey, not my finest moment, not my best performance, not what
I was expecting what would happen, not what I wanted to happen.
What am I going to do with this? How am I going to learn from this? What am I going to take from
this? And then I get unstuck. Then I am able to move forward. But if I'm sitting around in a bunch
of self hatred, self-flagellation, that's the only thing that
I'm going to be doing. So you can't judge and criticize
and hate yourself in to learning and growing, expanding, and moving. Many of us have really not good relationships with ourselves.
I'm going to say it flat out. We have bad relationships with ourselves. We have unhealthy relationships
with ourselves because of years of being A-holes to ourselves, years of being terrible to ourselves,
years of criticizing and judging, blaming, and berating ourselves. It's really hard then to trust ourselves
because it's really hard to trust someone who is always so cruel
to us, always so unkind to us, always so critical and judgmental of us. It's hard to trust someone who treats
us that way. And therefore it's hard, impossible, to trust ourselves
because of how we treat ourselves. So learning how to build self-trust is a practice of learning how
to be better to ourselves in several different ways.
And in order to do that, I have a step-by-step guide,
The Steps to Self-Trust. You can get that, it is
in the description below. Get access to that, those key steps to building a more
trusting relationship with yourself. That also includes how to
talk to, and treat yourself, how to respond to yourself when things
aren't going the way that you want them to. When you're feeling down
depleted and discouraged, that guide is going to be really helpful, really shifting life shifting for that.
You can get that in the description. Also get on the wait list for The Shift
society for when we open up registration again. The link to that
is in there as well. Always good to have you here. Subscribe
to the channel if you haven't already. If you liked the video, like it. If you think other people would find
this helpful, share it with them, and then let me know if you share it so
that I can thank you because that means a lot to me. Always good to have you
here. Until next time. Take good care.
