Episode 71: Healing your Relationship with Yourself-Speaking Truth, Managing Thoughts, and Keeping Promises
What You’ll Learn
Speaking Truth (08:05)
Self-Talk (10:20)
Making and Keeping Promises (11:47)
Recap (14:35)
We've been giving tools all month for getting a deliberate start.
Reflecting on your past experiences…
How you can learn from that?
How you can grow using that (already hard won) knowledge?
Jim Kwik Knowledge isn't power until you use it!
Setting new expectations…
Who do you want to be?
Where do you want to go?
Is there anything holding you back?
And Goal planning…
How are you going to get there?
What commitments are you making to yourself and your family?
Does it align with your season and capacity?
Next we did a 2 part series where we unpacked why our goals fail and why they succeed specifically for mothers.
Then we tackled discouragement (because hello discouragement is ALIVE and WELL in motherhood and even in the world right now!). We taught you how best to meet those challenges where they are, as well as exactly how best to check-in with yourself regularly so you don't lose your sanity or your identity.
Today is where the pursuit meets possibility.
Henry Ford said, Whether you think you can or you think you can't...you're right.
We can give you all the tools in the world, but if you don't truly believe in YOU...
Defeat will always win.
If this speaks to your heart...but your mind is still throwing shade. Stick with us because...we're speaking directly to you today.
There's a pretty big movement of woo lately...but maybe it's not all as crazy as it sounds.
There's real science backing studies focusing on a growth mindset perspective. This is because our mindset plays a critical role not only in how we cope with challenges, but…how we see possibility, and that is powerful!
in 2015, Dr. Dweck said, “In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.
What that means is that if you adopt a growth mindset...you increase your chance of becoming the best version of yourself AND pursuing what matters most to you.
This is so important because motherhood is rich with feelings of defeat and inadequacy.
Now...maybe you just heard all that with a skeptics mind...
or
Maybe you didn't grow up in a home that was really encouraging...and already you feel defeated...
But we don't just want to convince you it's possible...we want YOU to convince you it's possible.
And here's why...because if you're struggling with a growth mindset, chances are, your inner trust got injured somewhere along the way.
If I was a betting lady, I would bet your 8-year-old self was pretty good at keeping promises...
If you wanted to write to a friend, you had a note for her the next morning at the bus stop.
If you wanted to finish a book, neither sleep or the fear of getting in trouble stood in your way.
If you want to learned how to jump rope, you jumped in.
If you wanted to plan a backyard circus...by gosh, you planned a backyard circus!
But somewhere along the way...you stopped keeping promises to yourself.
It could have been the result of childhood disappointment or embarrassment....
It could have been financial struggles...
It could have been when your promises didn't fit the capacity you had to offer.
It could have been when someone else put you down for the promises you made to yourself.
It could have been when life got in the way...but instead of starting again tomorrow...you gave up.
It's not that we can't achieve without a growth mindset, but it does mean that the discouragement will likely be more than we were prepared to endure. And we need to build up a resilient mindset because it's not hard to lose months, even years, to discouragement or feelings of failure in your motherhood and your goals. When really, meeting resistance is just part of the journey, for every single one of us.
Cultivating a mindset that will help us cope with the challenges and endure in the messy middle starts with building up our personal trust again...our inner trust.
It begins by speaking truth and changing our self-talk and by keeping little promises to ourselves again.
Surely we have your interest piqued and you're asking...okay, I'm in, so now what...how do I actually do those things?
Speaking Truth (08:05)
Let's start with speaking truth...
We need to set the tone for our days, but we need to do so honestly, or our minds will just provide every ounce of evidence against it.
If you wake up and say, I'm an amazing mom and I've never made a mistake...your brain is hard wired to go into overdrive and delve up any time you DID make a mistake. It's an evolutionary response in fact, because there was a need for our brains to protect us like that early on.
So we need to find a truthful statement that aligns with this growth mindset we've been talking about...
Something like: I don't know what today will hold, but I'm capable of handling what comes my way.
Momma, someone handed you a baby in the hospital with NO instructions. If that isn't proof you're a capable human...I don't know what is. Your brain has evidence of you being capable day in and day out. You found shoes that no one else could find. You fed humans when it seemed like there was no food.
Even if you set your morning up for success...there will still be moments you need to reaffirm your mindset.
Here's a truth that you can repeat in those moments anytime it's necessary.
I didn't ask for ________, but I accidents happen and they don't have to rob me of my peace.
And for when your head hits the pillow at night and you start to run through the moments that feel like failure, or all the items on your to do list are playing on repeat...be gentle and tell yourself...
I did the best I could for today and that is enough.
Self-Talk (10:20)
The next thing we want to look at here is changing our self-talk and that begins by asking good questions.
Bernard Meltzer said "Before you speak ask yourself if what you are going to say is true, is kind, is necessary, is helpful. If the answer is no, maybe what you are about to say should be left unsaid"...It's worth noting that if this is how we should look at speaking to others, then why would the way we speak to ourselves be any different.
A shorter quicker version of this is one of my favorite takeaways from Jon Acuff in his book Soundtracks, and it's:
Is it true, is it helpful, is it kind?
So let's unpack some self-talk using these questions...
Let's take an all-too-common mom-thought…
I just can't do this.
And run it through our questions…
First, is it true? Is there real evidence that you actually can't do it? If you're honest with yourself, haven't you been "doing it" this whole time? Or, if this is a new challenge, how do you know yet that you can't do it (why not give yourself the chance to learn).
Is it helpful? Is this statement helping you or your kids? Is it serving you in becoming the best version of yourself? Is it encouraging you to show up?
Is it kind? One of the best tests for this, is would you say it to your child? Your friend? Or your 8-year-old self? If not, then you shouldn't say it to yourself!
Making and Keeping Promises (11:47)
Finally let's speak to building the foundations to trust yourself again.
This is not some big act of renewal…when trust is broken (even with yourself), it takes many small actions to build that bridge again, plank by plank.
This isn't disappointing news…that you can't fix it overnight…this is good news!
As moms, we don't have the energy to throw towards giant gestures, what we DO have is little spaces in the margins of our motherhood to work in small promises that we can actually keep to ourselves.
Consider when you last trusted yourself…how long ago was it? Take yourself back there and think what links you with who you were then…
For example, when I was younger, I was very artistic…I drove my mom nuts with my constant doodling and erasing (so it looked perfect)..
Maybe keeping a small promise to myself looks like getting back to my creative side
Instead of saying, I'm going to start water coloring again, we want to pull back and bring this to the smallest promise possible. So small and simple it's almost impossible NOT to do it. Maybe the progression looks like:
I'm going to sketch something from my pinterest board
I just want to doodle anything sometime in my day
I'm going to pick up a pencil every day
You might think this sounds ridiculous, but we want it to be STUPID simple for you to do this…
So stupid your brain asks, why are we even doing this...
If prayer is your thing…"Good morning God"
If running is your thing…Tapping your running shoes with your foot each morning.
Again, this seems stupid simple, but here's what happens when you do this...
You begin to build that bridge plank by plank and you renew that inner trust. You begin to stay committed to showing up for YOU. You build up YOUR belief in your ability to do hard things. And the hard things no longer stop you in your tracks, because you trust yourself to get you through.
RECAP (14:35)
Whether you think you can or you think you can't...you're right.
You can have all the tools at your disposal, but if you don't truly believe in YOU...
Defeat will always win.
This whole growth mindset thing isn't as woo or crazy as it seems
And we don't need to prove it to you, because YOU are going to prove it to you.
Cultivating a mindset will help us cope with the challenges and endure in the messy middle and it begins by speaking truth and changing our self-talk and by keeping little promises to ourselves again.
We speak truth by swapping negative scripts playing in our mind with truthful statements that offer encouragement instead of despair.
We change our self-talk by interrogating our thoughts with good questions
Is it true?
Is it helpful?
Is it kind?
And finally we build the foundations to trust ourselves again by keeping stupid simple promises to ourselves.
Invitation (15:31)
Choose one of these steps to try this week...start with the one that seems the absolute easiest to tackle. Make a commitment to give it a chance, and then let us know if you need encouragement on the way.
If you haven't tried the Deliberate Start yet, send us an email or message us on IG and I'll send you the link for Free sneak peak pages.
