#74 Self-awareness for change

It doesn't matter how many menu plans or calorie counters or activity trackers you have - if never have the honest conversation with yourself. Self-awareness is the key component in creating change. It starts from within.
In this video I invite you to examine your thinking. You'll learn to 
💜 listen to your inner voice 
💜 answer your own rhetorical questions 
💜 reach for compassion and understanding 
💜 switch to a growth mindset
Create a new connection with yourself (and then with others). Start to create change.
Download the accompanying Control Worksheets here: https://livemorelife.kartra.com/page/74ws 

​Transcript
​Self-Awareness is the key component in creating change. Most diets and weight loss plans focus on what to eat, or how to move more, and don't spend time examining the habits that actually lead to weight gain in the first place. Know what I mean? How many times have you tried?

When you try and change without understanding the reasons why you've been making the choices that you have, or without learning new skills on how to sustainably create different choices, then you're going to get stuck, repeating the same old patterns. It doesn't matter how many menu plans or calorie counters or activity trackers you have, if you never have the honest conversation with yourself.
 
You come with you on your journey.
 
Now, of course, that doesn't mean you can't succeed, it doesn't mean you can't change. It simply means you have to be aware of what's really going on, what you're really doing, and why you really want to do things differently.
 
Have you ever found yourself making changes that are unrealistic or unsustainable? And then, you know, given up. Thinking you're no good at it, or you're too weak willed, you've got no willpower, you're too lazy. You're just not disciplined enough.
 
I hear this so often from clients and people I work with. It's just not true.
 
Turns out, you're just focusing on the wrong thing. You're treating the symptom, instead of the cause. I want to help you change that. Now, if you think I'm wrong, or you think (you know) you really have no idea what's actually going on, that's caused you to be where you're at - then book a strategy call with me. Request free consultation, and we can have a look at that together.
 
I was inspired to do today's video, because of so much of what's happening in the world at the moment. And all of the events of this time, have really given us the opportunity, and the reminder, to be with ourselves. To reflect on what we've been thinking on how we've been acting. What behaviours we've been exhibiting. And it is a reminder that change starts with us.
 
It starts from within.
 
And so today in this video I invite you to examine your thinking. To listen to your inner voice and answer your own rhetorical questions with compassion, and with understanding, then decide what you want to keep, what you want to change. You really can switch into a growth mindset and create new connections with yourself and with others. And you can train in new sustainable habits.
 
Hi, for those of you that don't know me I better introduce myself. My name is Brian Grainger. I'm a life coach and a weight loss coach, and I transformed my relationship with myself back in 2006, and the impact of doing that meant that I lost 50 kilograms. And I've maintained that 50 kilo loss, ever since. And now it's become, ever since then, my mission to help people transform their thinking. To help you change habits that have created weight gain into healthy new habits, so that you can not only reach your goal, but you can sustain it. You can live more of your life at goal.
 
If you're interested, you can check out more of my work and grab my 10 secrets to long term weight loss over at LiveMoreLife.com.au  While you're there you might also want to check out my other videos and grab the worksheets for this video. Once again, I've actually included three worksheets today, depending on what part of your life or what part of your self-inspection, self-awareness, you want to draw your attention to. There's one for your thoughts about yourself. Building self-trust. There's one for examining your reactions to any given situation. It's called Review, Reflect and Recommit. And there's one for examining, and perhaps monitoring your progress with, your daily habits, called No Fail Habits. You'll find a link to those worksheets in the descriptions of this video.
 
So, if you are willing to take a moment and reflect on yourself, to bring about this self-awareness, how do you go about it? So much of our lives we've created times that we're so busy or so chaotic we've got so much on, even when we're staying safe at home, that we say we never have time to stop and think for ourselves.
 
So firstly, I would encourage you to please some space, allow a little time. Get a distraction free environment as best you can, for 10 to 15 minutes. Grab a piece of paper or grab the worksheets and take a moment just to be with yourself. So often we have a little internal dialogue or internal voice running in the background throughout our day, and most of us have learned to tune it out or to give into it, or simply to ignore it.  So, I want you to think about just allowing yourself. Take a few moments. Take a few deep breaths. Settle yourself allow your mind to settle and just be present. So you can see what comes up.
 
I want to start with what might be a challenging question. That is: What questions in your life have you been avoiding answering? Why are you hiding from yourself? What don't you want to see or hear?
 
So often, we avoid making the time or we avoid clearing the space. We avoid tuning in. We are frightened. If you were willing to see and own everything...What might you be willing to explore? What would you at least give consideration to? Remember, in this process, you don't have to change anything. What if you just set your existing biases and prejudices, aside for a moment?
 
Stephen Covey says "Self-awareness involves deep personal honesty. It comes from asking and answering hard questions".
 
As I said, we're so often frightened to look because we're afraid, we're frightened we'll beat ourselves up. We'll judge ourselves as unworthy of not being good enough. This is particularly true if you've got a fixed mindset. We tend not to want to self examine.
 
And as we go throughout our day we leave our rhetorical questions unanswered. We let our habitual thoughts and patterns run unquestioned. In doing so, we become simply what we do. A facade of who we are. We spend our lives pretending to be something. Maybe something that we're not. And in doing so, we lose touch with who we are and what we really want. Have you found that to be true? You're so busy running around reacting to the world, living your life on autopilot. You've lost track to who you are. What you really believe. What you really want from your life.
 
So what if instead of criticising and judging and beating ourselves up, what if instead, you brought compassion, empathy and understanding? What if you allow yourself to be a human? With a Human Brain. A brain that has made some neural connections in a path, in the past. And it's interesting to note that every time we think a thought or take an action, every time we make a choice, we strengthen the neural pathways that we've built in our brain. Which is why so many of our choices become so automatic. We can do them without thought. And of course, that's the danger that so often we get into unhealthy or unhelpful habits and routines, without thought.
 
Now what's happened is we've made really strong neural connections. We've created, if you like, a neural superhighway in our brain. Our brain takes those patterns, and instead of having to think through every step and running every one of them, simply files away in a primitive structure of our brain called the basal ganglia. So it files away there in our basal ganglia, and that just means when we have a cue or have a trigger our brain just runs that same pathway. Again and again, straight down that superhighway without even having to pay attention. Maybe you'll have had that if you've ever gotten in your car and driven somewhere to where you always go, the way you always go there, and you've arrived without even realising how you got there.
 
If you can stand up and walk and brush your teeth and get dressed. All of those patterns are running from the basal ganglia, from those primitive structures in your brain. So to are some of our self-destructive habits. our self-criticism, our judgement. So to are some of our unconscious mindless eating responses. Our procrastination. Our avoidance. They're just neural pathways that are running in our brain.
 
The good news is, you made them. Which also means you can make new ones. When we're first creating change it's important to remember that we have - if we're going somewhere where we haven't been before - we're going to create a new destination. A new outcome. We have to take a different path. We have to remember to get off the exit of that superhighway, to interrupt the thought process.
 
When we first make new connections. Our brain wouldn't really want to do that. It's hard work, it's got to think about it. We have to apply. You have to exert some effort. So it's a bit like coming off the superhighway to take a winding, bumpy, dirt road perhaps. The more times you take it the more familiar it becomes. The stronger those neural connections. You start to make a new neural pathway in your brain.
 
So remember that when you react with your habitual responses - sometimes in a weight loss journey we call it falling in the hole. You're walking along. You're doing well, thinking about things, then all of a sudden you fall in a hole and practice an old unhelpful behaviour. Okay. Nothing bad is happening. Nothing bad has happened. The neurons that you've consciously (or unconsciously) programmed to fire, have activated. You sped along your neural superhighway. You've made choices that were the right ones for you sometime in your past.
 
Now you get to decide again. Now you get to ask are those choices still serving me? Do they lead me to where I want to go? To who I want to be? And if not, you can change them.
 
So what if you asked yourself those rhetorical questions and then answered them. Why bother? Who cares? Why am I doing this? Who am I? What do I really want? Is this what I want, now? Does this take me where I want to go? What could I do, consider, or try instead?
 
And don't leave these questions unanswered. Particularly if you're watching on replay. Pause the video. Answer those questions. Answer whatever your most common rhetorical questions are. Why bother? Who cares?
 
Why bother? Because I'm worth it. I care about the response. I care enough about me to take this time, and answer. To show up for myself. I'm willing to look at all of the things that didn't go well. All of the judgements that maybe I've had in the past that aren't serving me. That aren't serving the greater good of the world, serving my happiness and peace and success. I'm willing to examine them.
 
Can you simply be present with what is? As you do this process, as you write down your beliefs about yourself, the thoughts that you have been thinking - if you answer your own rhetorical questions - remember to do it as a seeker of understanding. To come into that conversation with yourself with compassion and empathy.
 
You are a human. You decided on some things in the past that served you then. You don't have to keep making the same decisions if they no longer serve you. So, can you connect with your highest self, your best self? Can you connect with the person you want to be? And if you want to choose to change, can you change with love instead of hate, criticism, judgement?
 
I've always found that love is a better option. It's always more likely to move us forward. In fact, there's a question from Yanni that I like that says...
 
"There's a very deep connection amongst human beings. All we have to do is open our minds to it."
 
The Coronavirus pandemic has shown us that we are all human, we are all connected. We are all in this together. And some of the horrible racism the, violence, things that we've seen, or at least being revealed to us more, in the US at the moment, for instance. By the way, don't think they don't happen at home, they do. But the horror and the heartbreak of those things, shows us that sometimes as humans we close off our minds to that connection with others.
 
We can bring it back. We can open ourselves to it again and see how we are alike, instead of how we are different. Are you willing to see that connection? To witness and observe and allow your own humanity? So often I see clients, I see people, trying to be perfect. Trying to do everything right. To never make mistakes or beat themselves up if they get it wrong. Humans are imperfectly perfect.
 
So I encourage you to be willing to explore the dark corners. To explore the disappointments. The failures, if you like, with a growth mindset. If you see talent or ability as a given - something you either have, or your lack - or if you see success as a measure of your self-worth, rather than a measure of strategic effort and learned skills, then you have fallen into the fixed mindset. That's okay. We all have both a fixed and a growth mindset about different areas of our life.
 
Good news is you can choose to switch and you can learn how to change. You have an amazing flexible brain. If you want to learn more about the fixed and growth mindsets, I thoroughly recommend the book 'Mindset' by Carol Dweck. You can start by getting into the growth mindset just by asking...
 
What is really true for me? What is simply just what I've been thinking is true up until now? What if you're willing to be wrong, about everything you believe to be true? Know that I'm not saying that you are or we're wrong. What if you're willing to be wrong? What could you learn? What did you learn from mistakes failures, misconceptions, false beliefs? What have you learned from the actions and behaviours of your past? How did you grow out of strife, trouble or turmoil? How will you evolve through your current challenges?
 
What choices did you make consciously? What choices did you make unconsciously? How was that choice for you then? Is it still serving you to make that same choice now? If not, what will you choose now?
 
As I've said before, mastery is a constant practice. Humans are in imperfectly perfect - or perfectly imperfect. We are always evolving. We are always a work in progress. That is a beautiful thing. We can always be better than we are.
 
Remember love for ourselves and for others is always an option
 
So to take some time to consider these questions, and actually write down, notice, and observe. And record your answers and decide if you want to keep them or change them.
 
If you're wanting to examine more deeply the thoughts and beliefs about yourself then grab the building self-trust worksheet. If you want to examine your reaction, perhaps unconscious or conscious to an event, an occurrence, a situation in your life, or a choice you've made, then grab the review reflect and recommit worksheet, fill that one out. Or if you just want to get to know your everyday habits. Discover how much you're operating on autopilot already. You want to see your progress for change you want a constructive plan, then grab the no fail habits worksheet. Or download all three.
 
Remember that if you need more help exploring any of these concepts in depth. Or, if you'd like some support in going into this process, this inquiry of self-awareness, then let's have a conversation. That's a wonderful purpose for coaching. That we can be here in support of you, in exploring your honest truth for you, right now. In exploring what it might be like to change, if you wish. If you're interested in that at all head to LiveMoreLife.com.au and request a free consultation. I'd love to have a chat with you and help you get to know you, even better. Remember that free consultation it's also like a strategy session. We can talk about what's going on. We can see what's actually happening for you and come up with a plan for how to go about creating change.
 
I want you to know that change is possible. You really can do it. You really can have the life, and the results that you want.
 
Okay. Well, if this video has been helpful for you, give me a like, give me a heart. If you're watching on my YouTube channel or on my video blog, then make sure you subscribe so you get notified of each new video. If you know anyone who could use hearing this message today, tag them in the comments or send them the link to the video. I really do want to help as many people as possible. I think so many people need to help, more than ever, this time.
 
Well, I'd love to hear your thoughts about this video, so leave a comment below. Let me know what you discover about yourself if you do this inquiry. What you might plan to do differently, should you choose to change? I'd love to know.
 
For now, have fun, have compassion. Enjoy creating more self-awareness and set yourself up for more successful change. Have an amazing day. I look forward to talking with you again soon. Bye for now.
 
Transcribed by https://otter.ai