Feeling Behind

Welcome to This Daring Adventure podcast, where we work on bridging the gap between where we are and where we want to be in order to live a bigger and bolder life. In this podcast, we will provide inspiration, tips, and skills you need to make your life the adventure you want it to be. Here's your host, mindset mentor and life coach, Trista Guertin. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of This Daring Adventure. Thank you so much for joining me today. Today, I wanted to talk a little bit about feeling behind. It's easy when we set a goal for ourselves, or I think this happens in our careers, in our lives in general, maybe we see other people around us, our close friends and family could be buying a house, it could be getting married, it could be degrees, it could be family, it could be business related, or it could be a personal goal that you set for yourself. And the idea that, you are not where you should be, and I use should in quotes, and that somehow you are behind. let's take for instance, I had a client the other day who had set a goal, a money goal, for herself and her business for The quarter and she was feeling behind, she was a month into the quarter and feeling basically inadequate and that her target was unachievable, even though she still has two months left in the quarter and She was at 20 percent achievement of her goal, but in looking around at some of her colleagues, other people who were in business, competitors, had more clients and the type of clients that she wanted. And she had this overwhelming sense of disappointment and discouragement and jealousy that she didn't know what to do with. And at that point she was feeling like she was never going to reach her goal. So what I recommended was that she needed to allow for those feelings and actually just feel them. The best way to go through an emotion is by allowing it and feeling it. We always have a choice as to how we want to respond to a feeling. We can try and resist it and push it away to keep from feeling it. We can react to it, which looks like a tantrum. It looks like slamming doors, yelling, not speaking to the person, getting really frustrated and angry. It could be by numbing and buffering, which means that we try to avoid feeling the feelings by over using certain things. It could be shopping, it could be gambling, it could be eating, it could be drinking, it could be drugs, it could be anything over the amount that we normally would be able to enjoy it, and so that it has a net negative effect. Instead of just having a scoop of ice cream, we have the entire container. That is your clue that you are trying not to feel your feelings. But the fourth way is to actually feel the feelings, to allow it to be there in you and to process it through. An emotion is a vibration in your body. It is harmless if you allow it to be there. It will move through you, typically pretty quickly, sometimes within a few minutes. Sometimes we have different circumstances that maybe elicit a stronger, bigger emotion that may take some time to move through and to process. Grief, despair, sadness. Sometimes those take... A longer time to process, but for what we were talking about with my client in terms of disappointment, discouragement, and jealousy, allowing those things to, which means sitting with it, feeling it in your body, you can typically move through them relatively quickly, sometimes it can be a few minutes, and sometimes it can be a day or two. And also, these emotions have a message for us. And sometimes, looking at what the message could be, what are the thoughts creating these emotions, and what can we learn from them? And are they serving us? And what we want to do is allow ourselves to feel whatever emotion that comes up. If it's disappointment, you allow yourself to feel the disappointment. Sit. Get comfortable, take a few deep breaths, and find where that disappointment is in your body. How does it feel? Where is it located? What does it look like? Does it have a color? Does it have a shape? Allow it to be there, knowing that it's just a visitor, it's temporary, and it cannot harm you. Sit with it. Breathe into it. And just focus your mind on the space where that emotion sits in your body and allow it to be there. Then you want to do the same thing with any other emotions that may have come up. For her, it was inadequacy, jealousy, and discouragement. So you go through the process, allow it all to be there. Sit with it. If your mind wanders off while you're sitting there, just bring it back. It's okay. It's like a meditation. You just Find your mind wandering and you just keep bringing it back. Bring it back to that place in your body where you're feeling that emotion. Allow what you're feeling. Don't dismiss it. And love yourself through it. Give yourself that time and that space and that attention that you need. Then, once you've processed these emotions and allowed them through, they will have dissipated. You can start to look at the thoughts that have created these feelings. Why are you feeling disappointed? Why are you feeling inadequate or jealous and discouraged? Journal. Journaling, writing down what your thoughts are and exploring. What is the thought that's causing those emotions specifically and where did they come from? So her thought in this instance was that she was behind. And she had an idea of how much she wanted to make in this But without the emotion, she is able to think a little more rationally about the situation. Knowing that, for instance, if you have a money goal for a quarter, you may not necessarily earn that money in equal amounts day by day. It will come in various amounts at different times, and it is possible that you could make it in a relatively short time. You could go an entire month, and then start bringing in the money. You could bring in the money on the last day. The idea that the possibility exists out there, that the money may come in at different times, in a different amount, and then... It is possible that it could come in all within the last month, exists, if you believe it, and if you can allow for it. You can find evidence for it. Look at other people who have done similar things, or perhaps you've done something similar in the past. Refocus your brain away from that scarcity mindset and that negativity and the problem mentality that our brain tends to default to. It wants to find reasons why this won't work. It wants to find reasons why it's not possible. It will tell you all of these things. Refocus it. Reason it through. Then you want to think about what does behind even mean? It's possible that's not even a thing. It doesn't exist and that you are actually only going to be behind if you tell yourself that you're behind and what are you behind of? It's basically an arbitrary deadline that you created. you don't know what the future holds. You don't know what's going to happen. And we like to set a goal for ourselves. We like to set an end date for ourselves because that's the work that we want to do. It channels our energy. It focuses our attention. But it's completely made up and we're really just guessing at that point whether we can do it in that period or not. And our opportunity is to see what we're capable of and to push ourselves and to grow and to learn and to try. And that's the experience. It's who we become along the way. whatever you set for yourself, it's just a guess. Being behind is not a thing and I tell my clients that if you set a goal for yourself, say it was this quarter and you get to the end and you haven't exactly reached your goal, you can just roll it over. You can just keep going and go until you reach that goal. There's still opportunity there. There's still growth. There's still so much you can learn when you do this work. And question, what benefit is your brain getting by believing that you're behind? And it is nothing more than just trying to slow you down and protect you. But you don't need that protection. The brain thinks it's doing you a favor. But in actuality, this is a holdover from when we were living in caves and we were trying to conserve energy, seek pleasure and avoid pain. But today that's no longer necessary and it doesn't serve us. So the next time you hear yourself telling you that you're behind, that you're not going to reach your goal or that you should be further along than you are. Take a pause, understand and become aware of what emotion is coming up for you. Allow that emotion and process it through. And then take a look at your thoughts that may be causing those emotions and reason your way through them. Use your prefrontal cortex. Be rational. See What thoughts are not serving you and if you can start to shift to other thoughts that may be more helpful, But understand that being behind is not a thing. It's an artificial construct that somehow we have picked up and we use against ourselves. It doesn't exist and Your power is in realizing that. You can set a goal. You can go after it. You can learn. You can grow. You can achieve things that you never achieved before. And if, for some reason, you get to the end date of your goal, and you haven't achieved it, just roll it over. The end date is arbitrary. Being behind is not a thing. Focus on yourself. Focus on the work that you're doing. Focus on your growth and your capacity and where you want to go. You don't need to compare yourself to anyone else. Stay in your lane. Work on becoming better than who you were yesterday. Focus on growing and achieving more this year, this month, this quarter than what you did previously. And that's the importance. It doesn't matter what anybody else has done. It doesn't matter what anyone else is doing. Your experience, your opportunities are here in front of you. And are created by you. All right. That's what I have for you. If you would like to talk more about setting goals, achievement, what your capacity is and what you want to create, especially as we go into the last two months of the year and gear up for 2024, I invite you to a one hour private coaching session with me. The link is in the show notes. You can get on my calendar, pick a time and day that's suitable for you, and let's talk. You can bring any issue that you wish, and coaching is one of the most powerful ways to help you accelerate your growth and your development and learning. It is one hour completely devoted to you and your life. So please join me. I would love to meet you. I would love to talk to you. Thank you so much for listening. If you have a moment to rate, review, share, and subscribe, I would greatly appreciate it. Otherwise, I will talk to you next week. Bye bye. Thank you for listening to this daring adventure podcast with your host Trista Guertin. We hope you enjoyed the tips and conversations on how to get excited about life again. As always, you can head to tristaguertin. com for additional resources and to book a one on one coaching session. You can also follow Trista on Instagram at tristavguertin. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple podcasts. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll see you next time.