Below is list item number 6 from my hit personal growth article/short e-book titled 10 Ways To Be Healthier and Realize Your Best Self which will be available soon on Amazon and on www.3-pillarcoaching.com as a gift for joining the 3-Pillar Coaching community and signing up for my email list and free newsletter. I will be posting list items, or elements of them every so often so keep checking the website for new blog posts, as well as the 3-Pillar Coaching YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLmDXuROiDWJ4OQsmr_OELw) for the latest videos!

6. Get Out Of Your Own Way

Remember how we talked about wading ankle deep in our own bullshit and not realizing it’s why we aren’t moving ahead? It’s time to look down. Take a big whiff and a good long look. Get well acquainted with your own bullshit. This starts with doing a deep dive into our own programming, how it shapes our stories and inner narrative, and how that shapes the choices we make and how we show up in the world. To do this we have to go back to the beginning. I mean way back.

We all have within us what author, lecturer, and modern-day philosopher Gary John Bishop calls our “magic little sponge” (Read Stop Doing That Shit by Gary John Bishop). I borrow this concept from Gary because it is super relevant to this point in our discussion. I add some sugary optimism to it by calling it our “dirty little sponge”. You will see why in a moment. When you are born, that sponge is pristine, and everything is shiny and full of possibility. But as you grow it begins to soak up all the dirty bathwater of our collective experiences of life and things get murky. You spend your life filling those nooks and crannies and locking away disappointments, rejections, betrayals, perceived failures and so on. Then you wrap stories and excuses around it all and fight to the death to protect the very shit that keeps you stuck.

When things start to get a little too good, we squeeze some “I’m not worthy”, or “I don’t have what it takes”, or “That could never be me. I’m clearly not exceptional like those people” out of the sponge to fuel our self-sabotage machine. You are not always aware of these inner shenanigans. Most of this is going on in the haze between our conscious and unconscious sense of self. But make no mistake, that machine is chugging away in the background churning out your own special brand of self-fuckery. And if you are picturing one of the contraptions from Willy Wonka right now then cool, you’re my kind of folks.

Ok, I can tell you need some good news right about now so here it is; It doesn’t have to be that way! You can pull the plug on the feedback loop that has you running in place. This feedback loop goes like this: Our language (our words, story) and our thoughts (inner narrative) help construct our beliefs about ourselves and our place in the world, and those beliefs shape our experiences which in turn confirms our beliefs, which causes an emotional response that gets us talking and thinking and around the loop we go. Rinse and fucking repeat! You can interrupt this feedback loop at any point but the earlier in the loop the better.

To do this, you need some ninja-level self-awareness and acceptance. Let’s start with the acceptance. Real growth starts with accepting the idea that you speak, think, feel and behave in the ways you do. The saying goes, “What you resist, persists”. Graciously, and without self- judgement, accept it. Only then can you be able to observe this happening and interrupt it instead of creating a shitty experience for yourself and just reinforcing the self-limiting beliefs that sucked you into the loop to begin with.

There is something called The Two Minds Theory. I won’t go too deep into this concept because I don’t want to melt your brain. You might need it for the rest of the list. Basically what it says is that you have a thinking/feeling brain and an observing brain. When you find yourself in situations where you seem to ritually get in your own way, like complicating or limiting your potential in fitness, career, education, love, and so on, as soon as you recognize the thinking brain doing it’s dirty deed, engage the observing brain. Be utterly present with yourself and witness your bullshit machine firing up as if you were a casual third-party observer with no stake in the game (no self-judgement). Observe the feelings and thoughts, acknowledge them and kindly escort them out the back door into the ally. They had a purpose so be nice. Interrupt the loop beginning to form and begin to reframe the inner narrative (words and thoughts) in a way that challenges those self-limiting beliefs about yourself and your place in the world.

I want to list a bunch of examples here but without spending time with you in a coaching conversation I can only begin to assume what those situations might be for you and how it would play out. I have a feeling that you already know. Don’t You? Damn it, I can’t resist. I feel like a simple example is needed here.

Here is how the inner narrative may play out; “Shit I’m leaving ten minutes late again. It figures. What the hell is wrong with me? Of course I’m not gonna make this light. I always seem to hit every light when I’m late!”. Or someone cuts you off in traffic or pulls out in front of you when they could just let you pass by, then go. “WTF! Inconsiderate asshole! What’s wrong with you?”, as you honk the horn, throw up a gesture that lets them know you think they are number one, then grumble to yourself.

This may seem like it is unrelated to your self-improvement desires but it’s more relevant than you think. Interrupt that thought loop and realize it had nothing to do with you and watch your anxiety and frustration fade away. Their primal instinct of fight or flight kicked in and they acted on an impulse they weren’t even aware of that said if I don’t go right now I’m going to be trapped. Besides, you are not responsible for their dirty little sponge, but you are responsible for yours! This can be applied to what has you stuck in your goals around fitness, success, relationships, and so on. Dive deep.

Now get to work dammit!