Welcome to the Get Your Goal podcast, the place where ambitious, deep-thinking women chart their own course, exploring the mindset, emotions, and daily practices that help you get your goal your way by being unapologetically you. I'm your host, Pahla B, master certified life and goal coach and creator of the Daily 3 journaling framework.
On this podcast, you'll learn to navigate your unique path to success by using the most powerful tool in your kit, your own internal compass. Ready for the adventure? Let's go. Hello, friend. Today we are talking about the mindset block that you don't know that you have, and I think that you are going to enjoy the ironic nature of my answer for you, and I'm pretty sure I'm even using the word ironic correctly.
We'll see 'cause here's the answer. The mindset block that you don't know you have is the sentence, "I don't know." And I wanna tell you [00:01:00] why this is even a podcast topic today. I had one of those beautiful synchronicity things that happened where something came up for me on my own, and then I found it out in the world, and I was like, "Oh, this is something that I really want to talk about."
I have talked about it on some level before, but it felt, it felt more compelling to talk about today in a deeper, more nuanced way. And so here we are, talking about the sentence, "I don't know." Part of the reason why I was thinking about this is just recently I sent out a survey to my email subscribers. I like to do this every once in a while.
I feel like I used to do it more often. I haven't in a good fair amount of time, and I, I enjoy getting feedback. Like, just in general, I enjoy having interactions. I like talking with you, even though it's not necessarily talking. It's very asynchronous , but I like asking questions and getting your answers and just kinda seeing, like, "Hey, [00:02:00] what's up with you?"
Like, how can I help? You and I are both here looking for our mindset blocks and moving forward with journaling to get our goals, and I know, I know what I know, and I know what I like to talk about, but also I don't always know for sure, the irony of that sentence not lost on me, and I don't know if I'm using it correctly that time, but I don't know what might be on your mind and what might be most helpful for you.
So I do love to ask you questions and give you a chance to respond so that I have good material for the podcast and for emails and for the things that I do in my business. And one of the things that I asked was, you know, what are you struggling with most when it comes to journaling? And I found it fascinating to look at the responses, and there were quite a few of them.
I mean, it was super fun to read through all of them, and by the way, if you did respond, I have read through all of the responses that have come in so far, and I happen to know, 'cause I have sent out surveys before, I happen to know that some of you [00:03:00] take a long time to, uh, open your emails and respond to surveys.
So I will probably be getting more responses over the next coming weeks as, as we move forward. But it was super interesting because one of the things that you can do when you send out a survey is you can put all the responses into a spreadsheet, and I like to see them that way because then I can kind of sort by the answers and see a little bit more about, like, okay, if people said yes to this question, then how did they respond to this other question?
But anyways, when I put it in a spreadsheet- It was absolutely fascinating to read almost every single answer to the what are you struggling with when it comes to journaling question was some version of, "I don't know." Like, I don't know what to do, I don't know how to do it, I don't know why it works, I don't know if I'm doing it right, a- and I don't know, you know, what I'm supposed to get out of it.
Like, it was super interesting to see visually this literal wall [00:04:00] of text that was almost all, "I don't know." And it was super funny because I was looking... Not funny funny, you know what I mean. It was super interesting because I was looking at this spreadsheet a little while after I had done my own journaling this morning, and I journal with the The Daily 3, which is the free masterclass that I offer you that explains this framework for how to journal so that you can rewire your brain for success to get your goals.
It's essentially how to work through your mindset blocks, like how to picture your future, how to untangle your past, and how to create your capacity right now for what you want. And so, you know, I offer these three types of journaling, and I was doing it myself this morning, and before I had even looked at the responses to that survey, I had asked myself a question, and I don't remember the exact question that I asked I, gosh, I would tell you if I remember.
It was [00:05:00] something business-related, something about my goals. I journal about my goals. I was asking myself something or other, and the first thing that I heard was, "I don't know." And I will tell you that my own history with I don't know is that I used to, and this is what I'm really gonna talk to you about today, this is something that we are taking the deep dive about, I used to really dismiss that sentence.
And I have offered you numerous times over the years, especially when I'm talking about metacognitive journaling, like I, I give you the, the step-by-step of number one, you know, ask yourself a question, number two, write down the very first thing that pops in your head, and I'm almost certain that even in the free master class, if not in that one, I'm, I'm sure I have said it dozens if not hundreds of times every time I talk about metacognitive journaling, I offer you the even if the first thing that pops in your head is I don't know.
And I say it when I'm offering it like that kind of dismissively also, as though, [00:06:00] as though that is a throwaway sentence, as though that is unimportant or not a mindset block. But my love, it is. And I will tell you that really taking the time to recognize it for what it is can, I'm gonna say save you time, meaning that, uh, meaning that it is one of the things that you can do on your way to your goal that will help you untangle what it is you're saying to yourself.
Because I don't know if you've noticed, but when you tell yourself, "I don't know," and you're not really listening to it through, like through that metacognitive lens, when you're saying something like, "I don't know," or, "I don't know how to do this," or, "I don't know if this'll work," or, "I don't know what to do next," or, "I don't know if I'm doing the right things, I don't know what's going on," what you do from that is go in search of answers.
You go looking for somebody else outside of you to tell [00:07:00] you what to do or how to do it. You research on the internet. You listen to podcasts. No offense to those of you listening to this podcast right now, looking for your mindset blocks. Like, this is what we all do when we hear but don't listen to and don't untangle that sentence, I don't know.
It is so dismissible, right? Like, even now when I'm talking about it, you're like, "Yeah, but maybe that's not really the thing that's stopping me. Like, when I hear I don't know, that's just a placeholder. I really need to dig deeper to find the real answer, to find the real mindset blocks. I really need to journal more rather than, you know, stopping when I hear the answer I don't know."
And I'm gonna gently- I was gonna say argue. I don't, I don't love that word anymore. I have- gosh, this is, this is so to the side. I used to always talk about, like, "I will argue with you. I argue because I love, and I [00:08:00] argue because it's, you know, how I show my love for you," and I have come to understand that arguing is just arguing.
It's, it is definitely some people's love language, and I have untangled it so much in my own life about how much socialization I had about getting pushback for every single thing, like, growing up and, and how I expect to get pushback all the time, and it is something that I don't love and don't want to offer you.
I don't want it to be my love language anymore. You're welcome to argue with me if you'd like to. But what I want to offer you, like generously, this is something that I am working towards in my own life. I have some core desired feelings, and generosity is one of them. Generosity to me feels so open-handed.
It feels like the exact opposite of a lot of the feelings that I have felt my whole life about grasping and holding onto and a lot of, like, like, a lot of scarcity thinking. [00:09:00] Generosity and openness and offering feels to me the way I want to feel. I love letting go of what I was holding tightly in my hand.
And arguing to me, I mean, gosh, look at, look at my closed fists. That look, looks like arguing to me. But when I simply open and offer you that I don't know is a sentence worthy of your attention. It is worthy of noticing how often you say it to yourself and simply believe it to be true, and it is worthy of noticing what it is blocking you from.
It is blocking you, because that's what mindset blocks do. It is blocking you not just from getting your goal, like in the broad, you know, big, broad, sweeping strokes sense. Like, mindset blocks are stopping you from getting your goal, yes. But it is literally blocking you from listening to yourself. And what I wanna really offer you [00:10:00] with so much love is not that whole, gosh, that pat answer of, "You have everything you need inside of you."
And I say that with a sing-songy voice if you're reading the transcript. Please read it in that, that false saccharine, I don't believe this at all, but I'm trying to tell myself something that I don't believe. Like, you do actually have the answers inside of you. You do know yourself, but also right now you might not.
And I know that we just talked about this, in fact, I think it was literally just the last episode of the podcast, and it is, this concept really bears repeating. Not that you have access to your own answer right now, not that there's not more knowledge to be gained. There are skills to be learned. There's information to be had.
I'm not saying that you know everything in the world, unless you do, and hey, congratulations if you do. I don't think any of us do. But, but [00:11:00] listening to yourself is a huge part of the answer to everything you want, to getting your goal. Hearing yourself is one of the best skills that you can develop for yourself. What I hear in my own journaling when I hear I don't know.
Well, first of all, like you, if this is still you, I used to dismiss it. Like, I absolutely, uh, in fact, I think I even talk about this in my book, and I know I have talked about it in public numerous times, how the first like two or three answers that I heard when I was doing any kind of metacognitive journaling, which I used to call the two-step tool.
If you ever, if you ever go back in the archives and, like listen to old podcasts where I talk about the two-step tool, or if you read my book, Mind Over Menopause, I talk about the two-step tool. I have gently rebranded the two-step tool as metacognitive journaling [00:12:00] for a couple of reasons. Number one, the rebrand is because it is one of the three kinds of journaling that rewire your brain for success, and the other two had the word journaling in them, and I wanted it to be cohesive.
I'm laughing because that feels silly because I created this intellectual property, and then I changed it. But also, but also, the two-step tool, it's fantastic. It is metacognitive journaling. They are one and the same, and I have rebranded it so that it fits in because all by itself, absolutely helpful. I still stand by it.
You can, not should, but you can read my book and get a lot out of it. And also, it's not the only thing that rewires your brain. There really are three types of journaling that work together synergistically, where any one of them is fantastic, good for you, moves you forward, but all three of them together are how you're going to get your goal.
So I forgot where I left off with that one. I [00:13:00] was talking about the two-step tool and how I now call it metacognitive journaling. Oh, that's what it was. In my book, I'm pretty sure I even say, "Oh yeah, you know, I try and answer this, you know, whatever question I ask myself as thoroughly as possible.
Sometimes I have, you know, 17 or 25 or whatever, however many sentences." And you have probably noticed over the years, if you've been with me this long, that now I really say, "Hey, write down the very first thing that pops into your head," and here's why. I realized that the very first thing that popped into my head almost every single time, no matter what question I asked myself, was some version of I don't know.
And when you really hear that, and I remember the first time I actually allowed myself to just hear that and recognize it as a sentence, as opposed to a fact, as opposed to a truth, as opposed to, "Okay, but I'm telling you I don't know, and therefore I need to go get this information. I need to find out [00:14:00] outside of me what, what to do, how to do it, where to go, what's the right way," et cetera.
When I first actually heard that sentence as a thought instead of a fact and allowed myself to feel the feeling of it- I really, really deeply down in my bones understood what a mindset block it really was. A mindset block is blocking you from getting your goal because it is a sentence that has such an uncomfortable feeling that it creates, because your thoughts create your feelings, that you would love to avoid that.
You avoid whatever feeling I don't know creates for you, and it creates a lot of different feelings, and we're gonna get into that in just a second. But you avoid that feeling by going out and doing more research, by hopping on the internet, by listening [00:15:00] to podcasts, by asking somebody else for an answer, by looking at strategies, by watching YouTube videos, by reading books.
Again, those are all excellent resources to enhance your own understanding of yourself, b- but you and I both use them as avoidance techniques to get away from the deeply uncomfortable feeling that the sentence I don't know creates in us. The first time I actually heard the sentence I don't know as a sentence, and allowed it to be the answer to my metacognitive journaling prompt, and I felt the feeling.
The feeling that I felt that one very specific time was deeply empty. That is a very uncomfortable feeling. I don't know if you've ever... Well, [00:16:00] I don't know if you've ever felt your feelings. Welcome to it if you'd like to join me over here in the feel your feelings camp. Feeling your feelings sets you free from them.
It builds the skill of resilience. If you can feel anything, you can do anything. It sets you free from using willpower ever again. It sets you free from thinking that you are lazy or just don't have enough self-discipline. When you are willing to feel your feelings, you will be willing to do anything, and that is the path to getting your goal by being really truly you.
Releasing your mindset blocks, understanding yourself, rewiring your brain and your body to work together to get your goal That feeling of empty, like deeply empty, like literally hollowed out inside. Like I didn't have a brain, I didn't have organs, I didn't have sensations, I didn't have my soul, [00:17:00] I didn't have myself.
That emptiness of being, of essence, of spirit was awful. I, I don't say that, like, I say it lightly 'cause I am laughing. I laugh at myself every time I mention how terrible feeling your feelings is because here I am saying, "Hey, feel your feelings," and then I tell you that they're terrible. The first time you feel your feelings, like the first time for lots of things, will be terrible.
I really want you to know that. You're not doing it wrong if it doesn't feel amazing. You will get better at it. It will get easier, and you will learn. Not even learn. You will come to embrace it. It is such a challenge to feel your feelings, and if you are like me and you like a challenge, even though it is, you know, right there in the word, challenging, you will come to enjoy feeling your feelings in a way that is as difficult to explain to non-runners why [00:18:00] you like running or non-writers why you like writing, even though sometimes it feels like a wrestling match when you are writing.
It will feel like how to explain to people who don't like to crochet how satisfying it is to get the stitches just right. Like When, when you don't do something and it feels daunting, and then somebody says, "Oh yeah, the reason I love it is because it's hard," it feels really strange. Like, why would you enjoy that?
But, but you and I both like a challenge, and I will offer you that feeling your feelings is a challenge. Allowing yourself to hear the sentence, "I don't know," and recognize it as a mindset block and feel the specific feeling that that specific sentence, wherever it is and however, whatever kind of q- question you ask yourself, will set you free.
It is challenging, and it is worth it. Now, here's the thing about [00:19:00] the specificity. Let's talk about this. "I don't know" is a big, broad, generic statement. Like, I don't know, when I say that, like, I don't know, it has no feeling attached. I mean, it's such a neutral, meh, sort of a, a situation that you might be thinking to yourself, "Okay, I'm not gonna get anything out of this."
And you're not wrong, because you're never wrong, but also you're not right because, because we are both all the time, but also because there is no specificity attached to it. When you are asking yourself a very specific question, for example, what do I think about drinking water? This is the one that always comes up for me.
I had such a hard time drinking water right up until I didn't. What I heard for years, literally years, "I don't know. I don't know why I don't like drinking water. I don't know." When I allowed I don't know to be the sentence that I was listening to and actually feel the feeling of I don't [00:20:00] know for that specific incident, for the specific I don't know why I'm not drinking water even though I, as a personal trainer, absolutely understand what hydration is, as a runner know how crucial hydration is, as a weight loss coach understand the mechanics of drinking enough water to keep all of the rest of your system moving so that when you are, you know, eating, uh, the right amount of calories for you and exercising the right amount for you, not like there's a standard right amount, but for you, for your personal situation.
When I understood intellectually all of the reasons why a person, I'm gonna go ahead and say should drink water, but I personally was not, and I was telling myself I don't know why I don't, what I felt was stupid. Stupid. I had all this information, and I [00:21:00] still didn't know why I wasn't drinking water. And for me, if you are new here, the word stupid had a, a feeling to it that was, like, deeply shameful.
Like, in my family of origin, being stupid was essentially the worst thing you could be. Like, it was, it was the biggest insult. We weren't allowed, me and my siblings were not allowed to call each other stupid because it was, like, the worst word you could say. So that feeling of stupid was heavy and hot and just...
I wanted to hide my face. It was, it was shame. It was like my whole body was on fire. Obviously, I would rather go read 12,000 more studies about why drinking water is good for you and try to use willpower to make myself drink water than feel that feeling. But once I felt that feeling of the sentence, I don't know, the feeling of shame that it created, I released myself from not [00:22:00] knowing, and I finally was able to hear a lot of the different, like, I'm gonna call them reasons why I wasn't drinking water.
It's not convenient for me right now. I don't want to. It feels sloshy. I don't like the way it makes me cold. I'm laughing at myself yet again. I drink room temperature water because I used to try and drink cold water because there's a lot of information about, like, cold water can be good for you, and people always tell you cold water is so refreshing.
You go to a restaurant, they give you water with ice in it. As it turns out, I personally don't like cold water. I prefer my water to be room temperature, and I never, ever would have discovered that if I wasn't willing to listen to myself and what I want and what feels good. And if I would've just kept reading the studies and telling myself, "I don't know why I'm not drinking water," well, part of the reason I wasn't drinking water was 'cause it was too cold.[00:23:00]
You are telling yourself unintentionally, let me take all the blame out of that sentence. You are unintentionally telling yourself you don't know simply because you've been socialized to believe that other people have the answers. And whatever feeling is attached to your specific I don't know is deeply uncomfortable.
But that is the way to release yourself from the mindset block, all mindset blocks, but from this one specifically, the mindset block of telling yourself that you don't know. When you allow yourself to hear that sentence as a sentence and not a fact, when you allow yourself to write it down in your journaling or not write it down, just hear it in your head, either one is completely fine.
They're both right. They're both good. They're both journaling. Journaling doesn't have to be writing. That's a, that's a topic for another day. But when you allow yourself to recognize I don't know as a mindset block [00:24:00] I want to offer you actually a plan for how to do this because we are so deeply socialized, you and I both, to believe I don't know as a fact instead of a mindset block.
I really want to offer you that jumping directly into feeling your feelings might be too much too soon. I've offered it as an answer, but it's actually kind of step two. Step one is to simply observe how often you're telling yourself, "I don't know," without listening to it, while, like, absolutely dismissing it as an unimportant sentence or hearing it and simply believing and behaving from it instead of stopping and observing it.
When I first started actually listening for it and allowing myself to write the words I don't know in my journal instead of going looking for something deeper, searching for 12 more answers before I found the real, and that's in heavy air quotes, answer, the real mindset block, allowing myself to simply answer the question, whatever the question was, with I don't know [00:25:00] and feeling that feeling, it took me a while of observation before I was even capable of sinking into the feeling of it.
Observing a thing changes a thing, and really allowing yourself the time. I want to give you a, um, I'm gonna say a likely timeline. I, it may or may not be likely for you. I will tell you my timeline. I observed myself saying I don't know for probably a minimum of six months, and it might have been longer than that, before, before I even tried to feel the feeling of it.
Now, to be fair, this was a while ago. This was before I was regularly journaling. I mean, this was a couple of years ago. It was... I was mostly regularly journaling, not like I do now. Now, I really do have a daily practice. I really allow anything to come out of my pen or onto my keyboard or wherever. Like, I, I have developed such an open, [00:26:00] generous relationship with myself that I can hear anything that's in my brain up to and including the sentence I don't know.
But for me, it took me at least six months of just observing, just noticing, oh my gosh, I tell myself I don't know a lot, like everywhere. I tell myself I don't know, like, as a complete sentence. I tell myself I don't know how to do a thing. I tell myself I don't know if such a thing will work, which for me created such a, a feeling of, like, worry or anxiety or sometimes even panic.
I don't know what to do next created a feeling of lost for me. I don't know if I'm doing the right things. Oh my gosh, that one came up for me constantly. Constantly. 'Cause the feeling that that sentence creates is wrong, wrongness. Ugh. That one's, that one's a tough one. That one's a tough one that is absolutely worth your time to feel through.
Um, I didn't very often s- tell myself that I don't know what I'm thinking or I don't know what I'm feeling. It is something that I hear a, a good fair bit from [00:27:00] my audience, from the people that I coach inside my membership, uh, the people that I work with. I don't know what I'm thinking or I don't know what I'm feeling, very common.
Generally speaking, for me, that would probably create a feeling of, like, helplessness. Um, one of the things I actually still hear in my own journaling sometimes is I don't know what that will look like. I don't know what that will feel like when I'm trying to imagine something in the future. That one's a very, that one's a very interesting mindset block, like they all are, because it sounds so true.
It's the future. I can't know the future. I'm not a mind reader. I'm not a, you know, I'm not a, oh my gosh, what's the word? Psychic. I don't know the future. It sounds so true. Mindset blocks always do. Mindset blocks always sound like logic. They always sound true. That's the funny thing about them. When you recognize, "I don't know," or any of its variations, I don't know, I don't know how, I don't know if, I don't know what, I don't know why, I don't know when, I don't know where, all of them, when you [00:28:00] allow yourself to simply observe, you will probably be as surprised as I was at how often that is actually coming up for you, that it is everywhere all the time in every single bit of journaling that you are doing.
And what I really want you to take away from that is, like, a complete lack of judgment. First of all, it's why I'm telling you, hey, it took me six months of recognizing it and just observing it before I could do anything with it, and also this came up for me every single day in every single way. I really wanna normalize for you that this is nothing to be ashamed of.
This is nothing to judge yourself for. It's just socialization. This is a thought that you have in your head. It's completely okay. And also, it's a mindset block that you can do something with. Here's what you do. You observe. Step one is observe. Really notice that you are telling yourself that you don't know, some version of you don't know.
I'm gonna say all the time, that's an exaggeration, and hear it, hear it how you [00:29:00] hear it. Then step two, when, when you are ready, but also you can gently ask yourself to do something that you don't necessarily feel ready for. You get to decide exactly how much challenge feels challenging to you and how much challenge feels overwhelming to you.
The truth of it is, I was trained, I was trained back in the day when, when faced with the sentence I don't know, I, I was taught as a coach to ask my client, "But what if you did know?" And I will tell you that for me, even, even if you have heard me say that, in fact, I probably have a podcast that says that.
I was definitely parroting what I had learned without really putting it into practice myself. But what I learned in my own brain was that when I asked myself, "But what if I did know?" I was met with even more of a brick wall in front of me. That, that question of, "But what if you do know?" often for me just shut me down completely.
Don't worry about that. When you are ready or when you are ready to challenge yourself in a gentle, loving way, you can simply feel [00:30:00] the feeling that will help release that sentence from you, and then you can gently explore What if you did know? Like, what, what is on the other side of I don't know? And, and right now, right now, if you have, A, never heard the sentence I don't know as a mindset block, or B, felt the feelings of I don't know, you very likely just went into, like, a big brick wall or some kind of, some kind of, like, anxious, swirling sort of a feeling.
When I ask you what's on the other side of it, what's on the other side of it is some other feeling that you probably haven't felt before, some version of, like, certainty or solidity or knowing. I mean, I'm saying that, and all kinds of us are, like, scooting back in our chairs like, "Ooh, I don't know." I know.
I get it. I do know. Hey, this is something I do know. It can [00:31:00] feel really deeply uncomfortable to think of yourself as a person with the answers. And, and you really do have, here we come back to it, the answers that will serve you to move you forward. The answers for getting your goal are inside of you, and right now they're hiding behind this mindset block, the wall of I don't know.
You have the tools when you're ready to use them to observe, to feel, and to explore gently what's on the other side at your disposal. My friend, I really hope this was helpful for you today, as so often is the case, and I thank you very much, first of all, for answering my questions. If you are one of the readers on my email list who answered the survey questions, thank you so, so much for that.
I love interacting with you. I appreciate all of the questions that you asked and the statements that you gave me. I [00:32:00] appreciate how much trust you have in me to share with me your answers. I know that when I ask questions, it can feel very vulnerable, and I really appreciate that. I appreciate you. Thank you so much for listening today.
I'll talk to you again soon. No matter where you are on your goal-getting journey, I'm here to help. Get started by watching the free Daily 3 Masterclass to learn the simple journaling framework that rewires your brain for success. Move forward with confidence at your pace with one of my goal-specific guided journaling experiences.
And when you're ready for immersive exploration with fellow travelers just like you, you belong in the Get Your Goal membership. Find it all and join the adventure at getyourgoal.com.
