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Lesson Info

Breaking Through Limits

Ok, so let's talk about like so so little understanding and limiting beliefs is really, really important there. So pervasive and there's so crippling eso we talked about this a little bit but let's let's get get a little deeper into these and I would love you know look for the you guys the chime in at any time with what the online audience is saying, um, but genetics again and innate abilities so I, um I have no self control, you know, we already you know, I hear this all the time. Like, I don't have any I just can't control myself around fast food can't control myself around sugar um but, you know, from what we talked about earlier today, we all know know that they're relying on willpower and we know that's going to fail, so their assumption is that will power will help them is a limiting belief, but the reality is they need habits, right? Um so that's, very common example. Sometimes we have ah, invisible barriers. So these air fun we touched on it a little bit with with, you know, ne...

eding to shop and have food in the house in order, tio, get through, get to actually create a healthy dinner, right? But there could be a lot I can anyone get, uh I'll give another example, and then I want you to see if you can think of any, um for instance, I, uh um have you ever like I've had? Ah, let's see? Well, one thing you could do is it where I used to want to work out in the mornings and it is really unpleasant to get out of bed when it's really cold, and I realized at a certain point that that was one of the reasons I wasn't I wasn't getting up his earlier wasn't so excited about it, and I would, but I realize that if I put my clothes out early that air, like the night before that, I would get dressed and then I would just tell myself, ok, just get in your workout clothes and put your shoes on and like, that was all I had to dio says it can anybody else think of anything like that? Like a barrier that is invisible, that it's, actually, but you could have solved earlier buying the salad greens, and then you don't actually make the salad be great, it's just like propping them great on dh that's something that I've put into the equation like I know that I will let vegetables rot in the fridge unless they propped them immediately when I get home like I've been known to like leave my coat on and bring my purse into the kitchen with me and run into the kitchen and just start doing it so I can get it out of the way awesome awesome all right um eso another limiting belief is could be incomplete information so I hate vegetables right? I hear that a lot but typically people who make the case that they hate all vegetables have only eaten a very a small sampling of vegetables is as anybody experience is like a swell exactly so I grew up my friends actually not that bad why were terrible use your term a lot of people's parents were terrible but I like certain vegetables my parents okay cooking but I thought spinach like I just thought it was the most disgusting thing on earth like it was because they always bought this frozen spinach and it was like it was so much she and like just had this gnarly taste and like I couldn't imagine anyone on earth I thought popeye was like crazy I like I like cereal I hated that christians was like no way no way that guy's just like putting down in kansas spinach and like muscles I don't care and a lot of muscles that bad um and uh and and since I did the same thing with brussels sprouts and but of course you moved to the bay area and you you know, get a spinach salad and is like a completely different experience right? So in this case the the problem is that I just didn't have complete information I we have I made a an assumption that if I didn't like finish once that I would never like it and that's just false right? So incomplete information um oh and and another one is not identifying that they're actually alternatives so this is sort of what you were getting out earlier right like when you were saying you know do I have to cook right like well no the goal is to have a healthy dinner and five nights a week during the weekdays so you can do something else so for instance, you know the people who don't like the dread mill um and just don't exercise because of that you know, there are other options there are walks and hikes and swimming pools and bicycles and roller blades and trx or weird things like that there's all sorts of activities and you don't have to choose what you hate you know the goal isn't to suffer the goal is to do things you like and you know figuring out where in your life you can make these changes you know substitute the's beliefs and navigate your way around it to get to the end goal is it is a big part of the challenge okay, so just to summarize all that is sort of like a lot is this is a surprise all that basically building new habits really requires breaking down the beliefs that are preventing you from doing it and telling a new story to yourself like, you know, you don't feel like I'm the person who hates vegetables you really personal, like, you know, I want to be healthy that's important to me, so I don't yet like vegetables, but there's probably some amount alike there's that's just probably true, I'm going, I'm the type of person is going to explore new foods so that I can learn to like new things, and we'll talk about how does you could even get around that stuff, but telling, you know, the stories we tell ourselves about what we can and can't do, khun b told lee prohibitive in terms of getting us to move forward. Does anybody feel like they have any really strong, limiting beliefs? How are the? I'd like to throw this to online, too, but yeah, yeah, it was just you're talking us thinking about when I ten years ago when I first lost it was about thirty pounds of gain back fifteen of that, I can't get back to the higher weight, but I also realize I have this sort of ten pound thing. I could lose about ten and then I lose steam and I think I might believe is that I just cannot break that barrier getting below a certain weight limit and I'm going this is probably line my efforts or have harder now because I just don't have the desire to do that to work out today it was doing right you don't think I could do it and I think I'm too old for it but there's another one yeah it's just like I was thinking I'm too old for thinking I really just don't think I can put forth that effort of when you're showing twice a day you gotta put on makeup and all this crap like I just I'm realizing all that stuff is running the back of my head but what I'm saying to myself is, um all this stuff hasn't worked so I don't want another diet I don't want another exercise plan I kind of half heartedly go out after stop so you made a bunch of really good insight. So for one um there's this belief that you sort of can't break that ten pound barrier but there's sort of the secondary limiting belief that unless I do the to work out today and I'm too old for that there was like sort of threes his compound in there um great insight and so can you think of a way you would approach that different now um, I'm at the place where I can let go of working out twice today because I really I would like to enjoy what I do in that at that time I was very competitive, so it was worth it to me, but I'm not in that place now, so I need to find something I like versus whatever bandwagon people are on lately. I'm saying I can totally relate to this by the way, I used to run marathons, um like I used to say I did it to be skinny, like it's I mean, it's there's some wonderful things about training for an event and like there's, a lot of adrenaline and then you get camaraderie with the other people who are in it gosh, it's exhausting I mean, the amount of training you have to dio and how you know it's just like it's hard to do that forever, and so I actually did come to a place feels like I'm going to stop doing to our workouts every day, and I'm gonna work out like a normal person just I do thirty minutes of sort of basic cardio, whatever I'm in the mood for and then also some strength training and that's enough turns out, but and also I actually another thing I was when I when I got a normal workout regimen, I also actually malala's hungry so I was over eating a lot when I was training and so that's that's angry too and that's those were the exact kind of inside like you don't need like there are I could do it without two to work out today you know you could do that work today so it's just me right it's just a matter of figuring out where that is where it can be on we'll get into more of those specific techniques to get there anyone else have any insights about their own beliefs? Yeah, so up until about a month ago I had like, a strong limiting belief that I couldn't cook and that anything I did buy like any vegetables were just going toe go to waste I wasn't gonna actually use them, but I've been cooking a lot in the last month and I'm very excited about it I feel like I can, but I feel like there's, that old habit of like the I can't cook was stopping me from putting a comprehensive shopping list together and so that in my head the putting the shopping list is a chore and I'm aware that that's putting the shopping list together in my head is still a chore and so I need to switch that not into being a chore, but I haven't been able to do that yeah um asaad a bit of encouragement um as you get better at cooking, that shopping aspect gets streamlined because you'll get eso once you have the sort of the basic stuff in your pantry and you have an idea of what the fresh stuff you can cook on a regular basis without tons of energy actually I recommend everybody put together some like a pile of home court recipes for this with the exact same logic that's behind home court habits is like you just needed like a handful of super easy, super tasty things that you can just count on and then the rest of the cooking khun b more experimental at least you got the basics down and so when you're in that sort of streamlined flow of cooking, shopping becomes like super easy so I don't make lists anymore I used tio but it's not you know, so the good news is if you can spend a little bit of will power too get the shopping list in order to enough to build the cooking habit. The shopping habit will come find a way of saying seeing a cap from my calories is actually a limit for them. They know how I should eat, but seeing a number to fall under really discourages them oh, I love it, you know that's an interesting one I well, I want to kind of talk about that a little bit because so I have had this was one of my limiting believes I didn't believe that I couldn't diet this was one of for me this is one of the hardest ones and a lot of my readers I get this lies like I know the data, I know the will power doesn't work, I know that I should be building habits, but like when you really want it, achieve your goal faster and, you know, dieting can usually do that it's a really difficult to actually believe that you can eat carbs or like rice or even bread, which, you know, I'm totally fine with all those things now, but for me, early on, it was really difficult to give up that mentality and guest four, five, six, nine, nine saying on this actual I found really said to thank you for sharing this, they're saying my limiting belief is I would really like to run, but I'm afraid everyone driving by me is judging me how I look running on dh, that is, that is a very limiting belief, you know, it's funny, I am I love creative life, and I I once watched a creative live about public speaking and public speaking is one of those things it's, like people have generally rating it, they'd rather die e like speaking, I'm there like less afraid of dying than public speaking and one of the great lessons I learned I learned from that lesson with bill who peter was that he was like, you know, you're up there and one of the reasons were also scared because every everybody thinks they're being judged he's like I've got good news and bad news a you are being judged but be nobody cares get over yourself like you I mean like somebody might ceo but like lighten up like like we're all funny and doing silly things and I really I think that it's good to be aware of that and I know it can be really difficult to overcome their actually therapists that can help with that sort of thing that which I totally recommend if you have one of those things words like preventing you from living your normal life you're that insecure like that's definitely we're talking to somebody but yeah at a certain point like it so it's that fixed mindset like at a certain point you got to get over yourself and be ok with stumbling when I think about ah baby like when they're like learning to walk like they don't like stop trying because they fell over like it's how everybody learns how to do everything and you know one of the essential tenants of that is you have to be ok with being not perfect all the time so thank you for sharing that was a really interesting point from kim win who says I don't think I can sustain my healthy plans long term I can usually do them and be successful for a few months but then I fall back and gain more weight than I lost that seems healthy not to do it at all but we talked about that a lot already so that so the willpower breakdowns that's actually I would say that's actually it's a limiting belief in this sense what's limiting is that the belief that you need willpower that if you had more willpower that you would be able to overcome those problems I'm gonna guess this person tuned in a little later and didn't hear the whole section on on habits but really if you focus on habits that is long term behavior change and it requires that you actually don't use willpower so that's really important? Yeah erica angela in the chat room says eric have you don't like putting together a shopping list? You should try e mails I don't know what emails is but presuming it's a website where you can order food may god shop on a bender thank you, angela chock full of answers awesome so right be aware that these the's limiting beliefs creep up on you and they that they can also be overcome all right so now I want to talk a little bit about motivation superfund, superfund and so there are two types of inflection points that happened when behavior changes so first you need to go from I don't care tio yeah, I should probably do that, you know, like yeah, that's a good idea I would like to do that one day this is the intellectual inflection point, so this is your rational brain saying yep, I really don't wantto have diabetes or yeah, you know, I really don't want to gain any more weight, and the word we use to describe things like that is why she is should until they do that because sometimes it should totally call my parents more I should totally cook at home or I should totally start going to the gym. Um, you probably noticed change never happens at that point. The other, uh, essential point for habit change or for behavior change is getting to an emotional inflection point. This was the key because emotional inflection point is when you go from I should totally do that. Teo, I have to do this and I need to do it right now. It's the part of where your brain isn't telling you like your rational brain is no longer calling the shots it's when you're emotional brain takes over and by the way that's the only time we ever do anything the only time we ever do anything is when we have an emotional reason to do it and our national brain just rationalizes that reason but you need to get to the emotional inflection point because that's the only place that change actually happens so keep that in mind um and also keep in mind that we have competing motivations right that you know so when you're like I should totally do that the reason it doesn't become a priority is probably because there's something else but you also care about this saying this is more important on dso these competing motivations can often break down your very best intentions anybody had experience with that I think everybody I think come on guys um yeah so so let's talk about where these motivations come from so there are two sort of drivers I mean I like these air like we know in the cartoons or they have like the little angel and the little devil on your shoulder that's those air you're like that's the definition of willpower right is a competing motivation like competing motivations trying to say pickles and it's usually between your current self your president self who wants the cookie who is in a hot state is being triggered by something is like drop being driven by stress or some other thing to do something now and your future self which really wants to be healthy happy have lots of money and like do all those have all those things that like a responsible past self should have created for them um and so it's really important to understand that these are always going to be there so let's talk about specifically the present self let's talk about our impulsive goals if you're starving if you're really hungry nobody makes good decisions when they're hungry like judges are worst judges when they're hungry there's lots of data on this so you need blood sugar this is a must you know this is a very physical and emotional place and you're never going to beat this with your best intentions so that's a strong one stress is another one these air needs like I'm stressed I need comfort you can't put this off like our our brains will let us put this off and if there's a competing should motivation is not gonna win I'm bored and I need a distraction anybody here procrastinate everybody know don't press me um so often that means like are sometimes are over border even when we've worked too hard are mine needs arrest um you know, when we talked about that cookie experiment earlier uh he needed a break to socialize a little bit and that was in need at the moment and so sometimes it could be something like that being tired and needing energy you know this this could be a powerful motivator can also be a powerful d motivator to do other things obviously um and feeling powerless this one's interesting if somebody feels slighted or um you are out of control if you feel out of control around food and you sort of um we're out of control or somebody put you down at work or makes you be little's you in some way people will often turn tio ah away tio to combat that with feelings needing to feel satisfaction and someone like they felt like they were put down and need to feel like important again and so we will go seek these things out when we're in those hot moments and these are always going to take some priority you're going to have to address them in some way the issue is whether or not you need to address them with food or or some other destructive behavior versus something that's more productive um but sometimes you know we are going to have to make decisions right and that's where we tend to break down and I'm gonna help. I want to help you get to a place where you can call on your future self call on your higher goals and actually use them to get through some of these just through some of these issues and make that better decision as opposed to making the more self destructive decision so actually let's let's let's do a quick brainstorm about some of your higher goals because everybody has different reasons they want to be healthy so you want to start you wanna wait what's your goal why don't you were energy that's great! I'm gonna write these down so energy it's a great one well, I want to look good when I take pictures you look good when you take pictures they call myself I want someone else yeah on other people's photo and don't look good by the way I'm going to stop right here and just say that that is totally valid so I feel like, um we all want to look good and for some reason is very popular online to say that that's not important or that that's somehow superficial or that um you know, there's this sort of I I hear a lot that like I'm kind of above like, I don't care how I look I just want to be healthy and honestly, I want to call b s on those people. I mean, I think it is important like how you look at how you feel like you look has a huge impact on your confidence, which means that impact how you talk to people, which means impact, how people perceive you, which in which means it impacts how easy your life is. So I think this is really important, and I think people who tell you that it's not or that they don't care are sort of missing the point and belittling something that actually matters a lot in our life. So I thank you for saying that like a lot of people wouldn't be brave enough to say that they care how they look all right um uh performance in terms of just being able to do everything at an optimal level because I'm feeling really good and you want to be just like to say you're at your best you just want to be be your best mine would be the same actually there that's awesome yeah I would be your best and look good and looking for okay honey because they're all great I mean for me like I said before I think being lighter on a bike when you're climbing I mean, those are two activities that I enjoy yeah, they're not when you're heavy you can't be as competitive with a great plan it's great plane yeah a zaid I would like to look younger look younger yeah yeah yeah and feel good you know you don't want to ever have any reason to visit the doctor and feel good that's a great point I want to do all of those things and I want to live longer. Yes, I agree with all of a mom but I want to manage like my auto immune symptom okay? So just general uh specific health and I'm gonna add one myself and that I am I don't want to just live longer I want to live better like I'm terrified like my grandma is sick right now and she's just in bed all the time and it's like she doesn't want to be there you know I could really tell and so I want to avoid diseases that would make that you know, being alive less fun I'm just saying I want to set a good example from also good one may be a role model these are amazing anybody, anything else all right? These air awesome is they're fantastic and these air all absolutely true like you've you can accomplish these things you have you have an amazing life where you have an awesome life um but these are all the these in my experience all go in the should category right? Like I should totally I should totally avoid diseases you know I should I should told me feel lighter I would love you know I would love that that sounds great, but you know if these are the things that makes it they're easy toe want but hard to attain and I'm one way you can actually get past that should to your emotional inflection point is try to remember exactly why I remember why you want this thing so you know I want to avoid disease but that's so vague and weird and not helpful what I really want is tio be active when, like I'm starting my like I'll get I'll get it some serious therapy action on for you guys right now I I was in school till I was thirty you know? I was in school for a really long time, so I just now feel like a grown up, so I don't want to have kids immediately, so I'm going to be an older mom if I ever decide to have kids and I want to be around and active to still see a family grow up right like that's important and that is so much more of an emotional reason than avoid disease, you know? I mean, so you know, a challenge that you will have and when if you want your higher goals toe ever help your impulsive goals be satisfied and a more healthy way is it's really important that you figure out a way to call on these real reasons? Right? So lets them let's do a few more of these because I, uh I think they're really valuable I mean, I'll just pull all these out of these air basically, um the ones we had but let's, um so why do we really want more energy, anyone more energy, more active to be able to be more social, be able tio two more things and not be lazy to be alive productive to be productive um but like why do you want to be productive um so that I feel that my time is not wasted and why don't you want your time to be wasted because I want tio have a valuable life valuable if rather than having a wasted life so it sounds to me like you're you're saying you want to spend your time doing things that make your life awesome sure okay so you want em uh but like what's still what's the goal for I mean like uh you just think that will impact every aspect of your life for is theirs well, so it's your values his ability to do what rather than say I don't have the energy for that so you want to able to do everything you want to do yeah okay do you want you want it's big and there's emotion? Um why why do you want to look good um because I want tio be confident with myself because that confident will help me improve like make me feel good that I'm doing that progress ing and oh what like when you feel confident so you envision like you say thin you look good how does that change your life so that actually I said I don't have to worry about this and I have more like entity to focus on what I want to do I see one more energy to is I don't know it just like I do want to look good but it is because I feel I don't know good right now right but and then so that I can nail this I think so that I can just focus on are you annoyed cross it off your list yeah yeah so that I can just do something that more matters I think to spend your time on things that have a higher but because you don't have a time of you don't want to be spending time worrying about your physique yes ok but I I was tryingto first I think you look great but I'm not but I was trying to get it sounds like they're I think you're getting at something like feeling confident in high alone like I talked about earlier it changes how you interact with people and that massively in includes a quality of life because you feel respected on and you feel um power empowered yeah yeah so I'm gonna go with um respected empowerment because I think that was the real reason because that's that's that's the real emotion behind it like you don't want to feel helpless or like weaker around other people um you guys I think I feel like you guys both have the same as you want to elaborate a little bit on what be your best means er for me it's it's when it comes down to one sentence make the most impact impactful dent on the universe so, um I have the most meaning looking back on my life having no regrets being my best self for everyone around me um including myself so you have a strong desire tio give back to the world and sounds like so I think that's it that's big actually uh um I think that I'm whenever you confined a motivation that's bigger than yourself those always have a huge impact in terms of an emotional encouragement to actually make a change. You know, it's one of the reasons vegetarians don't cheat on their diets right? Because they believe something about the world that's bigger than them. Um let's see if we can find a few more, um but live longer is a good one. Why? Why do you really why do you want to live longer? I was thirty before I had my kids. And so none of fmr anywhere close to having children of their own. And my youngest said to me the other day, you know, you really do need to get healthy because and he's always encouraging me, he actually gave me a copy of your book is I like it was introduced you so but, you know, I like to be around for grandchildren yeah, um and I think, you know you made a good point about not just live longer, but have a good quality of life. You don't want to live longer so that you're tucked away in a nursing home, waiting to die in bridge and active active, but you want to be part of their lives. Yes, yeah, absolutely it's so you can see like that, like that's an emotional reason to do something like that is so not worth, like a cheap cookie from, like, the grocery store, you know? I mean, like that so that's an easy decision, you know, but when you're like, oh, yeah, she's holding on eat that cookie like that's something that's not motivating. Um, anybody else have anything to add to any of theirs? Yeah, yeah, I'd really much rather manage my health, the man and sickness okay isn't managing my father sickness, it's just a prescription for death, and I'm not interested in inflicting that on anybody or myself. So that's actually a really interesting point. A lot of people are motivated, they don't want to be a burden to their families because they've had to take care of loved ones. And when you think about how much you care about your children and how much you care about your spouse like the last thing most of us want is to put a huge weight on them you know both financially and energetically and just we don't know if he wants to be that person and so that is a powerful, powerful emotion that we can tap into awesome you guys did great on this one was great oh and the role model one to um it's another similar like you can look into the future and you're like you know, you know your own struggle lt's right? Like for instance like for me for a lot of like when I have kids they will not know about diets will not you know, because I we have struggled through that myself and I wouldn't wish that on anyone you know, so the values that I teach my children I want them to be in line with what I know to be good for them and be good for their happiness and and you know, when you when you're on the opposite of the spectrum when you're unhealthy you don't wantto teacher killed kids that either because you know what a struggle it is you know, hard it is to work through weight problems and health problems that come from it so awesome awesome brainstorm guys good job okay, so the take home message here is instead of uh, remembering what you should do when you're when you're fighting those impulsive goals remember, you must remember why you really, really wanted, remember what? That emotion is and think about it and think about how important that is to you versus, um, you know, being angry or whatever. And and then as you do that, then suddenly you're motivated to find strategies around all those impulses we talked about go with powerful, powerful stuff.