Highlights for Change the Inside and the Outside Will Follow
- What is true and what’s not (0:35)
- Learning how to change what you think (2:15)
- 13 great lines that shaped my better way of thinking (3:40)
- How about you? (5:55)
Change the Inside and the Outside Will Follow
In the 7+ years that I’ve been a life coach, I’ve found this one thing to be absolutely true—
If you change the inside, the outside will follow.
What’s True and What’s Not
I had spent my life trying to change my body, but my body was just a symptom of my thinking. I said horrible things to myself and believed horrible things about myself. I called myself vicious names and told myself I was lazy, fat, out-of-control, unlovable, and unworthy.
None of that shit was true!
The only thing that was out of control was the bullshit going on in my head.
I am worthy. Why am I worthy? Because I’m alive! That’s it. I don’t need to do anything or prove anything to anyone to be worthy.
But we believe the stuff that goes around in our head, and we don’t examine it. We never look at it. We never question it. We never ask ourselves, “Is that true?”
We get messages from other people, and we take on their values and their beliefs and their opinions and their criticisms … we take them all on and try to figure out how to make everybody happy, and you can’t. It’s impossible. No matter what you do, you can’t make everybody happy.
I realized I had to stop looking for validation and acceptance outside of myself the way I’d always done. I wanted to please everybody around me so that I would be seen as acceptable and worthy, and I made myself crazy because, let’s say it one more time—
You can’t make everybody happy!
Learning How to Change What You Think
So, along the way, without even knowing it, I learned to change my thinking – especially once I became a life coach. What got me through a lot of hard times was learning how to think a new way.
Learning how to think a new way is like being a baby who is learning how to walk. You’re going to fall; you’re going to stumble; you’re going to take one step and fall right on your butt – in other words, you’re going to go back to your old way of thinking. Your old way of thinking is like a neural super-highway … it’s like the Autobahn in your brain. It’s a well-worn groove, a well-worn path.
Here’s another way of looking at it: thinking in a new way is like walking in two feet of fresh snow. It’s a lot of work! It takes a lot to lift one leg up and then the next to keep moving, moving. moving to the bottom of the driveway … but it’s a little easier to come back up because you can step in those footsteps you made on the way down.
In fact, every time you go back and forth over the tracks you made before, it gets easier and easier to do … you’ve stomped down the snow, you’ve made a path. And at some point, you might get out your shovel to move the snow, and the sun will dry what’s left on your path.
That’s what it’s like to think a new way. It’s not easy. And so, we have to remind ourselves how to get back to that new path we’ve made, because the old one is so, so easy to go back to.
13 Great Lines that Shaped My Better Way of Thinking
My way of getting back to that new path was quotations I had seen or heard that deeply resonated with me. I loved them because they gave me hope and kept me going, and they reminded me, “Oh, right! I don’t want to think like that anymore. I want to think something new.”
Here are some of the new thoughts I said to myself on a regular basis that have become my new way of thinking about myself, others, and life!
- My body is just the way it’s supposed to be.
- I am changing the way I think and how I speak about myself.
- I am a work-in-process.
- There is no rush. There is no timetable. There is no finish line.
- It’s never too late.
- I am an amazing person, and no one will care what size my pants were after I leave this earth.
- If I was supposed to be different, I would be.
- I’m learning new ways to think.
- My story will help someone who is struggling.
- “When you know better, do better.” ~Maya Angelou
- “What other people think of me is none of my business.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt (That’s one of my all-time favorites!)
- No matter what I do, someone will criticize me, and I can’t make everyone happy, so I just need to make myself happy.
- I’m losing the weight of other people’s expectations. (My personal motto, and another one of my favorites!)
This is my new thought process, my new pattern! It’s not like I don’t think in the old way at all, it’s that I catch myself quickly being critical and go, “Ugh, I don’t like thinking like that,” And then I switch to something new and better.
How About You?
So, what stories have you been telling yourself? And which of those stories are keeping you stuck?
What beliefs are you not examining? What are you accepting as the truth, buuuut … maybe it’s not?
Here’s my challenge for you: What if you could let go of all the things that are holding you back?
Without them, what could you do? What could you accomplish? What could you become? How happy could you be? How much joy could you have? How much success could you accomplish if you got out of your own way?
When you change the way you think, it changes the way you feel. When you change the way you think, you’re changing the inside, and your outside will follow.
TRY THIS:
Step 1: Make a list of 10 amazing things about you.
…and when you’re done making that list…
Step 2: Make a list of 10 more!
Trust me! You have WAY more than 20 amazing things going on with you. These things don’t have to be about perfection; they can be anything.
Your amazing things might include—
- The way you text a friend when they’re struggling, or
- How you interact with someone at a nail salon, or
- The way you take care of your neighbors when they’re sick, or
- How you keep your friend’s children when they need a ride or your friend is ill.
We do amazing things all the time, but we discount them because we think, “Well, everybody does that…” Trust me on this, too: No, not everybody does it.
So make your list of 10 amazing things about you, then make your list of 10 more, and start seeing how that makes you feel.
You can also take some of the things that I listed above and incorporate them into your daily thought process and just see what happens, see what changes … and remember: Change takes as long as it takes.
I’ll leave you with one more great quote–
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
~Theodore Roosevelt
Have a great day! Keep enjoying your summer, and I’ll talk to you soon.
xoxo,
Shawna
