Hello, friend. Thank you so much for joining me today on a little post run ramble. I've got a really good topic for us today. This is something that I think about with some frequency, honestly, because first of all, it's a phrase that I hear all the time and used to say to myself, and it's something that I realize
that I actually don't say to myself anymore, and I really wanted to share with you what I've done to work through being so hard on myself. Now, in full transparency, I, I'm literally on the fourth time of trying to start this podcast and I heard myself, I heard that mean little voice in my head, like, what are you even doing?
Why are you so bad at this? Haven't you been practicing podcasting for at this point... Oh my gosh. We are coming up on eight years of podcasting. I started this podcast in 2017. I've, I've gone through fits and starts and long periods of not [00:01:00] podcasting and all kinds of, all kinds of fun shenanigans on the way to getting here to you today, but at some point, my brain seems to think that I should have become a professional podcaster, which I am, but that I should be better at this.
My own brain was just offering me some really mean little comments as I was struggling to get started on this episode. Here's what I've learned first of all, that my process for podcasting often includes starting and stopping a couple of times because, because the intro is always the hardest part for me.
And at some point I might have like a formula for what I wanna do with that, but not right now. But anyways, here's the thing about, here's the thing about this phrase, when we say to ourselves, oh, I've just got to stop being so hard on myself. We all say it, and I think you've probably noticed at this point that stop being hard on myself as a to-do list item, doesn't actually [00:02:00] feel like actionable.
It feels kind of big and amorphous and like, like maybe, maybe. It's just a character trait that you are hard on yourself, that you are critical of yourself, that you judge yourself. It kind of feels like this thing that, I mean, I've certainly said this. You've certainly said this. We're all so hard on ourselves, and then we give each other advice like, well, how would you talk to a friend if it wasn't you in your own head or you've really got to
cut yourself some slack or I've really gotta learn how to just put these things behind me when you know I make a mistake or a mess up or, or whatever. And all of those sound like nice advice. Like again, there's nothing, there's nothing about this that isn't like, that I don't agree with. Like, yes, I absolutely agree that you should stop being so hard on yourself.
Yes, I absolutely agree that you should stop being so critical of yourself [00:03:00] that I absolutely agree that you can cut yourself some slack, that you can talk to yourself the way you can talk to yourself like a best friend. But also, but also still. None of those are really actionable, right? Like it's why we just go back to defaulting to being a little bit mean to ourselves.
And so today I really want to untangle this and help you out with it because I've noticed in my own life again today recording this podcast not withstanding. Actually, no. You know what? I'm gonna here, if you've met me, you know this is gonna happen. A little podcast within a podcast. I'm gonna dip to the side here really briefly.
There are some goals that I have gotten so firmly so well and done so much of this work on, that the things that I still think to myself in my, like my business world. In my business world, I am still currently getting my [00:04:00] goal. So I am untangling this thing about being so hard on myself. In, for example, my running world, which is where I almost always come back to because it, when in doubt I have figured it out through running.
Like I have figured out almost everything I know about getting goals through getting running goals. I feel so good and so firm and so solid over there. I literally cannot remember the last time I was hard on myself about a run. I cannot remember the last time I had what I would call a bad run. I cannot remember the last time I beat myself up about, you know, missing the mark in my training or it not going well. Because frankly, I don't miss the mark in my training and it is going well, and it always does because I've worked through a lot of this kind of stuff.
And this really is something that I would love to point out to you, that you have gotten [00:05:00] goals and you have gotten them in a way that felt good. You have created mindset superhighways in some areas of your life, and your brain would very much like to just kind of breeze over them now, because it thinks about those things so efficiently that so many of your thoughts have become subconscious.
But when you go digging around in there for those helpful subconscious thoughts, those mindset superhighways, it can really inform how you can get your current goal. If you have ever gotten any goal ever, and you have, it can inform how you are getting your current goal. Okay, so let's get back to the actual topic at hand,
how to stop being so hard on yourself. Here's what I wanna point out to you. There are two things going on here, and both of them are just absolutely your brain being your brain. Your brain is hardwired to behave [00:06:00] in certain ways so that it can be efficient, a k a, so that it can burn less energy and keep you alive longer.
When in doubt that is how your brain is making decisions. Your brain is making decisions on staying the same by thinking the same thoughts, feeling the same feelings, and doing the same things over and over and over. So what I'm teaching you here on the podcast is how to interrupt that so that you can get a different result in your life.
AKA get your goal. The path to getting your goal is interrupting your current thought patterns, recognizing them for what they are, and making some decisions about what you'd like to do and how you'd like to get your goal. So anyways. Here are the two things that are going on. First, unintentionally, you're focusing on what you don't want, and this is something that I actually hear all of us do a [00:07:00] lot.
This is just negativity bias it. I'm not pointing fingers like you're doing something wrong. I promise we all do this very unintentionally. We tell ourselves that we want to stop doing a thing rather than focusing on what we do want to do. And in fact, even while I'm saying that, notice how your brain is like, oh, wait, what?
Like what would that even look like? Like if I wasn't being hard on myself, what would that even sound like in my brain? Do you feel how jarring that is? How interruptive it is? Yes, exactly. This is what we do around here. We interrupt the old thought pattern. Rather than focusing on what you don't want,
the trick here is gonna be focusing on what you do want. This is one of the things that we do in the Daily 3, which is my journaling framework. I've got a masterclass actually that will like really explain this part thoroughly to you, and there's a link in the show notes to go watch the [00:08:00] masterclass.
But the very first part of the Daily 3 journaling is something that I call future self journaling, and the essence of future self journaling is asking yourself the question, what do I want? And I wanna give you a little pro tip here because you might even say to yourself something like, I want to stop being so hard on myself because it sounds like a thing that you want.
But the thing to really like hear in your own brain is that that stopping word that, I'm gonna call it a negative word, and I don't mean that at like any sort of a judgment, but it's when you ask yourself to stop doing something, when you ask yourself not to do something. That is like the, the negative of it versus the the positive of it, which is, I want to do this thing, I want to go in this direction.
Really [00:09:00] hearing what it is that you want. Like how do you want to talk to yourself? What kind of a relationship do you want to have with yourself? What do you suppose it will sound like when you are being whatever it is that you wanna be? Kind, compassionate, loving, caring, understanding. Whatever you feel in your own words.
Your relationship with yourself really is up to you. But when you hear that version of it, what you want, that really is a great first step to not being so hard on yourself anymore. And it's why for me it really is why it's the first step of the Daily 3. I'll let you know that the Daily 3 really is intended to be a framework.
There's, there's science behind why you do the three different kinds of journaling. It's a five minute journaling habit that you do every day, and there's three different kinds of journaling, and all three of them interrupt your current thought patterns and help [00:10:00] rewire your brain so that you can get your goal.
Like they're, they're very goal specific journaling, as opposed to, as opposed to like regular, regular journaling, like, like creative journaling or bullet journaling, or vent journaling, or affirmations or gratitude journaling. All of those have their place in the world, but there are three really specific types of journaling that rewire your brain and help you get goals.
That's what the Daily 3 is. Where I was going with that though is that there's nothing about doing it in the order that I present it to you in the masterclass that is like better than doing it any other way. I've talked to quite a few people, uh, in my Get Your Goal Membership who have been using the Daily 3 and have really started making it their own, which is
the intention of the Daily 3 that it works with your brain in your brain's way, and that you absolutely get to mold it and shape it and work with it and kind of be clunky with it for a while [00:11:00] and let it be, let it be kind of awkward and weird until you figure out the way that feels best to you.
When it feels best to you, it's working its best for you. But so some of the people that I've spoken with are starting to use it in a different order. For me personally, my brain really likes to start by focusing on what I want because that informs the rest of the Daily 3. How you use it in your own daily life,
100% up to you, my friend. You get to choose. You get to be you. Okay. So second, the thing that's going on here with the stop being so hard on yourself. I think this one probably has a scientific name, like, you know, negativity bias or confirmation bias or, or one of the ways that our brain works, but I don't actually know what it is, and I'm making a little mental note to myself to look this up.
Your brain always, always, always, always naturally defaults to [00:12:00] lumping things together. Your brain would always rather see something as a category versus an individual item. And so what's going on here, when you're saying, I, you know, I, I gotta stop being so hard on myself. You're treating it as though it is a thing, like being hard on myself as though it is a thing, but it's actually
a category of things. You have individual sentences that you are thinking at specific times for specific reasons, a k a, your brain pulls them up because they have the most emotional resonance. And hearing that each individual sentence is an individual sentence is the antidote here. When you are treating again unintentionally, this is never judgment, but when we, all of us talk about being hard on ourselves as though it is a thing as opposed to many things, [00:13:00] it's part of what keeps your brain doing the same thing over and over and over. Your work here
is to hear. There was two different kinds of hears, by the way. One of them was HERE. Your work here is to hear HEAR, that you are thinking an individual sentence. Looking at one thought at a time, by the way, is the second part of the Daily 3. It's called, I call it metacognitive journaling. It's where you stop your brain from thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking
and focus on one sentence at a time. And I, I hear the argument in my brain because this is something that I know a lot of us think. First of all, it's hard for me to focus my brain. It's hard for me to stop my brain from, you know, keeping on going down the thought thinking track. It's hard for me to hear just one sentence at a time.
Yeah, absolutely. Because that's the way your [00:14:00] brain is supposed to work. Your brain automatically, efficiently, will just keep thinking the same thing over and over. Will just keep thinking until you stop it and ask it to focus. Metacognitive journaling is something that you are capable of doing. It is something that we as humans can do, but don't do automatically.
Again, the Daily 3 really teaches you how to interrupt your own thoughts so that you can intentionally get a different result in your life. When you hear yourself being hard on yourself as individual sentences, oh, that was stupid. Oh, that wasn't my best. Oh, I can't believe I would do such a thing.
Individual sentences can be looked at, can be understood as [00:15:00] thoughts, and you can feel the feelings that they create. One at a time is the way to untangle this knot of thoughts that we all refer to as being so hard on yourself. And this really is the path to not being so hard on yourself is to recognize that there's a way that you'd like to speak to yourself, AKA future self journaling, asking yourself what you want versus focusing on what you don't want, and then hearing the individual sentences and releasing them by releasing their emotional resonance. When you
recognize one individual thought and feel the feeling that that thought creates without behaving from it, it interrupts your brain, and your [00:16:00] brain will then find a different thought to think. This is the essence of rewiring your brain. This really is something that you can do intentionally. And I offer it to you that you can do this five minutes at a time.
The Daily 3 helps you interrupt your thought patterns, helps you see a different future for yourself, literally with future self journaling, helps you untangle the group of thoughts that you are thinking by seeing them as individuals. And also something that we didn't really get into with this podcast episode, but a, a secondary part of this is really acknowledging every time you speak to yourself differently, every time you speak to yourself in the way that you
wanted [00:17:00] to, versus coming back to that old saw of, oh, I've got to stop being so hard on myself. One of the arguments that I hear is that, oh, this work is gonna take such a long time if I tackle these thoughts individually or if I, you know, only do five minutes a day. And what I really wanna offer you here is that doing this work
in small doses every day a little bit at a time, and interrupting your brain's patterns versus trying to make a big, broad sweeping change across the board, I've stopped being so hard on myself. Working at it a bit at a time is actually the most... I am trying to come up with the right word. It's not the most efficient, but it is.
It is the best way. [00:18:00] It is the permanent way. It is the way that actually works. I gotta tell you, I'm drawing a complete blank on how I thought I was gonna finish that sentence.
We would all rather make a broad sweeping change than change one tiny thing at a time. But changing one tiny thing at a time is actually the path to permanent change versus, I think about this all the time. I used to watch. I used to watch The Biggest Loser long before it got debunked as like basically all a fraud, and essentially because they weren't working on any of the mindset stuff, like it was not a permanent change for so many people.
And one of the reasons why it was not a permanent change for so many people is because they would make such huge changes. You know, go in and just completely clean out your pantry. Go from completely sedentary to running a marathon. Like your [00:19:00] brain actually makes permanent changes when it makes smaller changes at a time, and it really is what I offer with the Daily 3.
I highly recommend that you go watch the masterclass next. So that you can actually put this into practice in your life. When you understand exactly how it works, you, my friend, can stop being so hard on yourself. Thank you so, so much for listening today. I'll talk to you again soon.
