Hello, friend. I'm gonna tell you right here at the very start that today's podcast is intentionally short for two very specific reasons. Number one, I am trying out new audio recording equipment today, and I have no idea what this sound is gonna be like and whether or not I'm going to like it enough to put it on the podcast.
I'm going to put it on the podcast. I'm gonna say no matter what, unless it's like literally just the absolute worst ever. But honestly, I have put some pretty bad audio up on the podcast before, so, so we'll just see about that. But also, the second reason is that my son is getting ready to go to work here in just a little bit, and I really, I had this on my mind and I wanted to tell you this story and talk to you today and, and I can actually already hear
in my own voice, and I'm sure you can hear it too, that having started off with this, "I've got other things on my mind," that you can hear that I'm not fully present. And it is my intention to be fully present for you here on the podcast. So let me take a quick [00:01:00] moment because I really do wanna tell you this story
about something that did not happen to me at all. Yesterday, I had the fascinating experience of overhearing a conversation as I was getting ready to go for my long run, and it got me to thinking like literally the whole time. And I actually was going to podcast yesterday after my long run, except for the fact that it was a long run.
And let me tell you something about making adaptations for any kind of endurance. When you are making adaptations... here, let's have a little quick side note here. When you are making any kind of adaptation, like specifically physical adaptations, but physical or like mental and emotional adaptations, when you are intentionally like thinking in a new and different way or behaving in a new and different way,
it's uncomfortable. And I'm sure you've noticed that, but especially for a runner who is making endurance adaptations, like it's exhausting. I was [00:02:00] so tired at the end of my run yesterday that I had, I had a lot of brain fog. I felt very, like I wasn't gonna be able to get a complete sentence out, let alone a complete podcast.
Turns out that I actually had some more to think about the situation that I just got back from a walk. And so this is now a post walk ramble instead of a post run ramble. And I feel a little bit clearer in my head. Maybe. We'll see. We'll see. In any event, yesterday, I was getting ready for my long run
and I was doing my warmups, uh, outside of my car because I drive to a place where I do a long run and where I do my long run is on this really, really beautiful, it's the American River Bike Trail, which isn't just for bikes. It's actually a multi-use trail, but the, the common vernacular calls it a bike trail.
So. There are a lot of people on this trail, like so many crowds of people. It's over 30 miles right along the American River. It's super beautiful. I [00:03:00] love running there, like I love running there. There's lots of bicyclists, lots of walkers, lots of runners, lots of dogs, lots of parks along the way. Lots of beautiful scenery.
I run over a couple of different bridges. I get to see the river, I get to see the ducks and the geese and the wildlife, and this is absolutely fantastic. So anyways, I was standing outside of my car instead of, you know, doing a warmup inside my house like I would do for most of my runs. So I was standing outside my car,
I was doing my, my warmups and I saw this group of bicyclists getting ready to go for their ride. And there was two men and two women. And yes, part of this is a discussion about the patriarchy and, and how men and women do things differently. But honestly, I don't even think it's entirely about that.
Here's what happened. They were getting ready to go for their ride, and they had a couple of different routes that they were very obviously choosing from, and I was just far enough away that I couldn't overhear the entire conversation, but I heard enough of [00:04:00] it that sparked this whole topic in my head.
One of the women started the conversation by saying, I think we should do this route and then this route, and here are the reasons why. And immediately one of the men started questioning her, and it was so interesting to me because while I was listening, I felt my body's reaction to having somebody question a decision that you have made.
This is very common in my life, in my family of origin, I would, I would go so far as to say it's the way we showed love in my family of origin is that when somebody would say something, somebody else would question them. Like that was our absolute pattern and it's very interesting to me how I was so normalized to that behavior that I actually have created it in my family
now. When I [00:05:00] say something, my husband will ask me questions about it. When I say something, my kids will ask me questions about it, and I do the same to them. And it's something that I have become a lot more aware of recently that I am actively and intentionally working to change. So, here's what happened.. The other person in their group questioned the first person, and I was listening very carefully because what I heard in my own brain was some version of "The decision you've made is wrong.
You are stupid. This is a bad decision. We shouldn't do that because..." Because all kinds of things, like really specifically for me, it's about being stupid. That's like a very, very old, old, old self concept that I have worked through, i'm gonna say about 95% at this point, but still not quite a hundred.
But sorry, I [00:06:00] just totally distracted for a second there and I might even edit this part out, but I totally got distracted because this is new recording equipment and I am looking at the recording and I'm not sure if it's still recording. I certainly hope it is. Okay. In any event, in any event. I felt my body's reaction, my feelings based on my thoughts about having somebody question a decision, and because I felt it so quickly and because this is something I have really been working on in my own life and really been paying attention to in my own life,
I started listening a little bit more carefully. Yes, I was still getting ready for my run, but I started listening a little bit more intently and a little bit more carefully, and here's what I noticed. The person who was questioning the original decision never actually said the words, "that's a bad decision."
Never actually said the words, "you are wrong." Never [00:07:00] actually said any kind of like, "you are stupid," or "This is bad," or "We should never do anything you say." Like none of it was, none of it was actually, in my opinion, and this is what I'm gonna share with you today on the podcast, none of it was actually really questioning her decision.
Here's what I have noticed in my own life and what I wanted to share with you today. I truly believe that there is no such thing as a bad decision. That that is always, always, always an opinion. There are decisions that we make and we qualify them, we judge them, we judge ourselves, we overthink them both before and afterwards, calling them bad decisions based on the outcome.
And here is [00:08:00] the thing. The thing. The most important thing I can maybe ever teach you, except that's not entirely true. There are lots of important things I can teach you, but here's one of them. When you are making a decision, you are actually making a guess about the future. It is a guess. You literally cannot know the future.
What you can know is your intention. You can, if not in the moment. At least afterwards, understand the thought and the feeling that drove your decision. And the thought and the feeling that drive your decision is never bad. You can at any point in time understand your both conscious and subconscious intentions for making a decision.
Sometimes [00:09:00] we will make a decision from urgency, from trying to get away from, from trying to solve a problem that's not really a problem, that is really just a thought that we're having, and that creates an uncomfortable feeling. And then we try to get away from that uncomfortable feeling. And then, and then quite frankly, unsurprisingly, the results that we get
are not what we want. And really being able to see that the results that we get are A, a reflection of our thoughts, and B, not entirely within our complete and 100% control can really help us stop saying that we are ever making a bad decision.
Really specifically, when I was overhearing this conversation, the objections that the second person was making were things like, [00:10:00] it's gonna be really hot later today, because it was, it was really hot yesterday. Oh my gosh. It was so, so hot. They were talking about how hot it was going to be, that's out of their control.
They were talking about how the traffic could be bad in this particular part of their, their path or in that particular part of their path. Well, traffic has nothing to do with them. Traffic is not under their control. People are either driving someplace or they are not, and it's other people. We are not in control of other people driving someplace or not driving someplace.
Just in case you were not clear about that, we are never in control of other people. So the the things that, the objections that the other person had were, all of them, because I was listening very carefully. I was like, what are, what are your objections here? All of the objections were about things that were not in any of their [00:11:00] direct control.
The other person who was questioning the first decision was also afraid of making a bad decision, of making the wrong call, of having it turn out badly, and the things they were worried about were not under their control. This is why we tell ourselves that we've made a bad decision when things don't turn out the way we wanted them to 'cause of things that are outside of our control.
Other people, actions or reactions or, or anything. When you make decisions, you are almost never making a one-to-one complete 100% correlation kind of decision. Life is always more complex than a simple, I'm going to do this, and then this will be the [00:12:00] specific result of it. Except for things like turning on a light switch, that decision, I'm gonna turn on this light switch and the light will turn on.
Okay. But even that, oh my gosh, even that's not in my direct control. I'm thinking about this. This is a terrible example because of course there's the electric company, there's the wires, there's birds on the wires, there's lightning strikes. Like there's all kinds of reasons why when I turn on a light switch, a light may or may not turn on. Even that is not 100% within my own control.
There's always, always, always more complexity to it, and yet our brains are so determined to judge us, you and me, us overthinkers, us ambitious overthinkers. We want to turn on a light, have it be 100% in our control, and have it always turn out exactly the way we want it to. But it doesn't sometimes. Here's, here's the two parts of what I really wanted to tell you today.
Number one, when other people question your decisions, [00:13:00] we always make it mean something about us. Like always. It's a great opportunity, when somebody questions your decisions, to really hear your own overthinking, your own self-judgment, your own mindset blocks. When somebody questions your decisions, they are very likely, and I'm not gonna say a hundred percent, you know, people do things, people are people, so why should it be?
Yes, I know Depeche Mode. You are definitely singing that now. Anyways, people are people, I'm not saying that every single person, every single time is always just living in their own world and thinking about their own fears about making a bad decision. But honestly, 99.9% of the time, that is why they are questioning you.
And what you have access to when somebody questions your decisions is your interior monologue. What are you making it mean about yourself? And by the way, that's an excellent journaling question. If you'd ever like some self-reflection journaling, I do offer... I do offer self-reflection [00:14:00] journaling in addition to the Daily 3, which is like very specific goal getting journaling.
This is, goal getting, but it's a little bit more on the edges of goal getting. It's understanding why we do the things we do and why it's so hard to make decisions about our goal. Understanding that when somebody else questions you about your decision that you are making it mean something about you.
Having access to what you are making it mean about you is so, such good information. That is, that is how I hear how often I judge myself for again, the, the sentence that I hear in my brain a lot about I'm stupid. That part of the conversation is point one of what I'm making: when other people question you,
it's a fantastic conduit to being able to hear what you are saying about yourself and your decisions. And [00:15:00] the other conduit to being able to hear what you say to yourself about your decisions is hearing how often you tell yourself that you have made a bad decision, that you are bad at making decisions, that it's better to, you know, let other people make decisions or defer to other people or, or make decisions from urgency or, or any kind of anything that you tell yourself about your decisions to really be able to pick it apart.
Understand why you are telling yourself that. The truth of it is on your way to your goal, you are going to make decisions. You are going to make lots of decisions. I yeah, you are. You're gonna make lots of decisions. And really hearing how you talk to yourself about your decisions is a big part of getting your goal.
It's gonna be a big part of what you untangle and understand about yourself, on your way to your [00:16:00] goal. You are a person who makes decisions. And can tell yourself that your decisions are good if you so choose to. There is nothing about your past decision making that you have to judge yourself. In fact, there's nothing about anything you've ever done that you have to judge yourself for.
I, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that judging yourself is the problem and never, Hmm. I don't love to go with nevers. I'm gonna say it anyways. Judging yourself is the problem, and it is never the solution. Being able to understand yourself, understand your decision making, understand the thoughts and feelings that are driving your decisions before they are made, and understanding the thoughts and feelings that are
[00:17:00] ruling your life after you've made a decision. Really getting clear on all of that can be the thing that moves you forward towards your goal. Okay, I'm gonna wrap that up. I told you it was gonna be short today. Thank you so much for listening. I'll talk to you again soon.
