In this episode I talk about reasons you aren't getting all the things in your brain done. I also discuss the two ways to begin to get things done.
You are listening to the modern Mormon, episode number seven. Hey there, I'm Kami Satterlee. And I'm the modern Mormon. I'm an Advanced Certified life coach who's dropped the all or nothing approach to life, and religion. I can't wait to show you how. I've got you, girl. Let's go. Hello, beautiful souls. Today on the podcast, I'm talking all about why you are not getting it done. And I specifically chose this topic because this is a hot one, especially for women, we have a ton of things on our to do list. And then we don't get half of them done. And we wonder why our brain comes up with a ton of reasons why we have, you know, I don't have enough time, I keep getting interrupted, I have other things to do. I'm tired, and we don't do it. So today, I'm going to talk about two ways to do it. And the reasons why we don't do it. So in my coaching practice, I teach what is called the model, and I adopted this from Brooke Castillo at the Life Coach School where I was certified. And in the model, I teach that there are circumstances outside of us, those are the facts. Those are things people say those are things going on outside in the world, basically anything outside of us that can be proven, okay. And then the circumstances in our life, those trigger thoughts, and our thoughts are what drive our actions. So whether we do or do not do something, okay, those would be our actions. And our actions will then determine the results that we are creating for ourselves in our lives. Okay. So when we talk about why we are not getting it done, it comes down to our thoughts and our feelings about it. Our feelings are what drives our action. So our feeling is like the fuel for our action. So if we are thinking a thought, like I don't want to do this, and we're feeling obligated, or we're feeling annoyed, frustrated out of control, that is going to determine if we end up doing it or not. So our brain naturally wants to protect us. So if we're having a thought about not wanting to do something, then our brain will find evidence as to why we shouldn't do those things. Okay, our brain doesn't like to be wrong. If it's wrong, then that means we have to do something about it. So it constantly will just tell us Oh, no, you're doing just fine. Don't do those things. No, don't get off the couch. We can wait till tomorrow, you don't have enough time, any of those things, okay? Those are what your brain will create, in order to keep you safe and staying put. And basically feeling any type of negative emotion because if you're going to go out and do something and take action, when you are thinking you don't want to, that's going to create a negative emotion. It's going to create an emotion of you having to overcome something, it's going to feel hard. So I used to be a working mom. And when I quit that to stay home with my kids, I was super pumped like I was going to be the greatest mom in the world. I was going to have breakfast all laid out on the table, we were going to do family dinners, laundry would be done. The house would be nice and tidy. I was going to play music. We were going to dance in the kitchen, all the things. And it started that way. And I was so excited because of the thoughts I had. And then day after day of doing the same thing over and over my brain started to come up with new thoughts, surprise, surprise, things like, Oh my gosh, this feels like Groundhog's Day. Why do I even spend time doing the laundry? It's just non stop. It's never ending. I don't feel fulfilled in this. This is awful. My kids never listened. Look at me sacrificing my whole life, just to stay home with them and make their lives amazing. Okay. And by the time I got to this thought it was pretty negative. So then my actions of keeping up with the house and being the greatest bomb and the dinners and all the things started to diminish. And when they started to diminish, then my brain wanted to justify that. No, you're fine. There's no point in it. And I wanted to stick to my story of I don't feel fulfilled as a stay at home mom. What's so funny about this is you could say the same thing about your job. The first time you got your job, you were so excited. You were pumped. And then as it went on and on, you started to have more negative thoughts about what you're doing. How many of you have thoughts about your job now that are like, it's overwhelming. I can't stand it. I hate the people I work with, I want to quit, I need a better job, right? It's all just about managing your own thoughts. The circumstance is the job. Everything within the job is still a circumstance. It's our brain that needs to change. It's our brain that's created those negative emotions and that is what drives our action or inaction. Okay. So for me, what I found is I made my job as a stay at home mom, so important, almost too important in the beginning. And then as I continued on with it, it became not important at all. I knew deep down I thought it was important but then all of my negative thoughts kind of overpowered that. So in the beginning I had to be the supermom super wife. And in the end it was none of this stuff even matters. I don't need to actually do this, okay. those type of things are what keep us from doing and getting done, the things that we want. So those two extremes you what you actually want to be doing is meeting somewhere in the middle where I'm committed to this, I want to be the best stay at home mom that I can. But I'm also going to take some breaks if I need to, and I'm not going to put myself down about it. Okay. I actually got coaching on this very topic when I was going through coach training. And one of my thoughts was, I don't feel like doing any of this stuff. And my coach said, so what? And it totally just almost knocked me out of my chair. She was like, Who cares? If you don't feel like doing it? Are you committed to it? Is this something you actually want to be doing? Do you want to be a stay at home mom, and it blew me away. She's like, there's a bunch of stuff in life that we don't feel like doing. So what do it anyways, if you want the end result, then do it. And I think that's what our brain tries to tell us is like, if you don't feel like doing anything, then you shouldn't have to do anything. But that's kind of what keeps us entitled, feeling like we deserve things in life. But we don't want to put out the effort. We don't want to take the action to actually do them. And the action is actually what makes us have the fulfillment and the joy from doing it. I actually learned from Jody Moore, she was my coach that anytime that you start making something about yourself, then you're going to hate what you're doing, make it about others. And when I realized that I want to make it about my family, I want to be a stay at home mom, because I see importance of it in my children's lives, I want to be able to take care of my family, I want to be able to supply them with meals, I want to be able to have them come home to a clean house, I actually want to do that. But when I made it about myself actually doing the tasks, then I felt terrible. So it's easier to get things done. When you stop thinking about yourself. When I hear this term from women, I just can't get it all done. It comes from an emotion usually of overwhelm. And I feel like we love to put anxiety and overwhelm on ourselves as if the world will stop if we don't succeed in our tasks. And that's just ridiculous. So in the coaching world, overwhelm isn't an indulgent emotion. And it's one of them, that keeps us stuck. It actually keeps us from actually doing anything. So we love to stay in that overwhelm, we love to stay in that indulgent emotion because our brain then can be like, Oh, see, it was too much, you're doing the right thing. And we avoid taking action, and actually getting anything done. Therefore, we avoid having to feel any negative emotions, okay? So anytime you're sitting down, and you're thinking, Oh, I can't get anything done, just understand that this is your brains way of keeping you confused. If you stay confused, you don't take action, you don't have to feel any negative emotions, and you're good to go. You don't have to change evolve, you don't have to do anything. Here's the problem with not getting anything done is in the moment, we feel good about it. But the second that say your family comes home, your husband comes home, all of a sudden, you feel that anxiety of I didn't get anything done, okay. And this is where we put other people's opinions in front of our own. And this is what also leads to inaction. This is a shaming ourselves for doing a crappy job. Okay, so those are some examples as to why we are not taking action. But let's talk a little bit about how we start to actually take action. And there are two things that need to be in place in order to get anything done. Number one, you need to have a system to do it. And number two, you need to know how to manage your thoughts. Okay, so just like I explained that our thoughts are what are actually giving us our results. Our thoughts are what are driving our actions or inaction, we need to be able to manage that. So when I talk about having a system in place, what I'm talking about is having a consistent schedule that you use to manage your workflow. And I don't care if you have the most, you know, craziest, busiest job in the world. Or if you are a stay at home mom, you need to look at both of those as if they are your jobs in the day. And there needs to be a system in place on how you run your job, how you manage your time, okay? If you want to stop the inaction, you need to start using your front brain to make the decisions you need to be intentional about what you're doing. So in order to do this, you almost have to outsmart your lower brain. We do this by planning ahead. If you want to stick to a schedule, there needs to actually be a schedule in place. Now I know some of you are like, I can't even create a schedule. There's no time, I just have too much to do. Okay, this is your brain. The second that I say make a schedule. This is your brain instantly going into that overwhelm, so that you don't actually have to create a schedule, you will know that you're in overwhelm if you're constantly worrying that you can't get it all done. If you're working on something but you're easily distracted or your brain is thinking about something else. Okay? This is you trying to stay put this is your brain trying to stay confused. So you stay in overwhelm and you don't actually create a schedule that you might have to follow if you do so I don't like labels. But when somebody is doing things that I just mentioned above, they label it as add ADHD, okay, and I'm not saying that those things don't exist, but of course as a life coach I believe in the power of managing your brain, okay? So if you've trained your brain to perform this way, if you've trained your brain to feel overwhelmed, and you've trained it to think certain thoughts, when you go to sit down and do a task, or you're distracted, and your brain is constantly all over the place, you've not created a thought that has it focused on things, then, of course, this is going to happen. Of course, you know, you wonder why you can't get anything done. So I like to plan ahead, plan a schedule, and practice intentionally following that schedule. If you're intentionally sitting down, despite the fact that your brain doesn't want you to, you say I'm committed to this, I'm doing it anyway, I believe that you can actually retrain your brain to get stuff done. So by not having a system in place, or a schedule, that is what's actually causing you to waste so much time in your life. If you're this person, and I'm actually raising my hand right now, that is me, you probably spend a lot of time buffering and doing things that are actually unproductive. So anytime somebody says I don't have enough time, that's their brain lying to them. That is their brain trying to stay confused. Chaos is created when we don't have a plan. And when our brain feels chaotic, it likes to go to like, see, I just don't have time for this. So I'm currently building my coaching practice. And creating a schedule or my brain likes to say finding time to create a schedule has been such a struggle for me. And so when I've actually got coaching on this, and I really researched it, I found out exactly what my brain was doing. So I came up with a thought personally, that making time to create a plan is an investment. If I do this, I know that I will get that time back in the week, like throughout the week, 100%. Because before I was staying confused, I was staying put I was staying in, I don't have time for this, I have too much going on, I have too many thoughts. I can't gather my thoughts. I don't know the next step in my business, that type of thing, keeping me from actually doing anything and from actually creating the money that I want. So the more that I can plan and then follow through on those plans. That's an investment for me and for my week. And I have to share one of the funny ways that my brain totally likes to keep me just stuck. I have gone through so many planners, I've actually ordered a ton of different planners, and then my brain was like, No, that doesn't work. Those aren't the type of planners that you need. That's not the type of business planner that you actually need. So we need to get another one. I kept doing this, until I finally managed my brain around it and was like, What are you doing. And so I just started getting to work, I wrote down all my ideas. And then I started planning them throughout the week. And when I do this, I like to actually plan my free time first. So I plan date night, I plan time to that I want to just read for myself, listen to podcasts, time that I want to actually just chill, scroll my phone, post things on social media, like I plan all of that first. And then I go in and I put in all the things that I would like to get done. And that's from housework dinners, being a mom all of that. And then also my business. And by doing this, I have created so much freedom. And not just in my schedule, but in my own brain. So when I talk about having a system and managing your brain, this is what I'm talking about. Managing your brain means staying committed to the things you want to get done managing your brain says, even though you don't want to get it done, you're going to do it anyways. Okay, managing your brain means taking the time to sit down once a week and plan out everything for that week. And then knowing that you're intentionally going to stick to it no matter what your lower brain comes up with. And what I love most about sticking to a schedule is that the more that you stick to those intentional thoughts that you've pre planned ahead of time, the more that you have the awareness, and you become kind of the watcher of your brain and see all the crazy stuff that your lower brain comes up with. And when you're able to do this, then you can actually apply it to all the different areas of your life. So when these negative thoughts come up, you're like, Oh, that's the same thought I had when I was going to go make a plan. When I was going to go create a schedule. That's the same thought my lower brain brought up to me Oh, it's weird. I wonder where else I'm doing this in my life. Okay, that's where you start to learn to take care of your mental health. Nowadays, it is so easy to just be lazy. I mean, we can order our groceries, we can have somebody clean our house, we can do even our business. We don't even have to leave our house, we can stay put in our pajamas and half of the businesses are just online now. Mine included. But because of this, it's easier for our brain to get lazy. Okay, it's easier for a brain to feel more entitled that we shouldn't have to put forth any effort if we truly want results. The more it wants to stay put and it doesn't want to actually take action. We need to stay ahead of our lower brain. If we want To accomplish our goals, and become the person that we actually desire, I love that quote that says choose your heart. Meaning it's hard either way, whether you do it or you don't do it. But what type of heart Do you want one that creates results and grows you as a human, or one that makes you just kind of stay content in life without actually having to get out there and feel any type of emotion. So when I talk about being intentional, you need to choose to be intentional throughout the entire process. So if you intentionally decide that you're going to sit down and make a schedule, your lower brain is going to say, I can't stick to this schedule. And that's where you intentionally decide, I'm sticking to the schedule no matter what. And you guys, your lower brain is like a kid on an Xbox. He is having the time of his life, he doesn't want to get up and do any housework on Saturday, he doesn't want to leave that spot. He wants to sit there and play Xbox, and he probably would all day and all night, if you allow him to write, is this your kids? Or is this just mine, your brain needs to be managed, your lower brain needs to be managed. And by doing that, you need to be intentional. That is how we get it done. That is how we create a schedule. That's how we manage our brain. And that is how we take action. And we start to get the things done that are on our list. It's not rocket science, it's not anything you probably have never heard before. But all it takes is managing your brain. Understanding that it's gonna tell you to do the lazy things, if you can look into your brain, and you can see what it's actually creating for you. This is when we start to get a grasp and be intentional. This is when we start to get the results that we actually want. And this is when we start taking action in our lives. And the effects of being intentional are more confidence, better relationships, more things done, more money, better business, you're more intentional parent, you start showing up as the parent you actually want to be when you start managing your mind. Okay, it starts showing up in all the different areas of your life. So to start this process, I always tell my clients that I'm coaching to become the watcher of their brain. Now, if you go to do something, and your brain says, I don't want to, I'm tired. And you sit down, get curious with your brain. Oh, I'm so interesting that I don't want to do this. It's so interesting that I feel tired. Do I actually feel tired? What am I thinking? Okay, the more that you can be a watcher, the more that you start to understand your brain and the more you understand it, now you can actually change it, your brain can only truly focus on about three tasks at one time. So if you're one of those people that's got things coming in all over the place, you got text messages, kids schedules, emails, stuff from the school, and it's just like sports, everything is just so overwhelming. Yeah, your brain cannot handle it. And so what happens, it creates chaos, okay, and now you're just kind of all over the place, you're not intentional, you're not accomplishing anything you want to you're probably late to a lot of things, you miss a couple of things, you're, you know, having your relationships kind of fail, because now other people who depended on you are not very happy about it, okay. As soon as you can get a grasp of this, the better your life can be. And if you're not used to managing your brain, I have found that it can be hard for my clients to just instantly believe that they are someone that can create a schedule, and that they can actually stick to it. And so I like them to just give equal airtime to both sides. Where have you seen the possibility that it's happened has it happened for other people to create schedules and stick to it? Have you in your past been able to do this. And when they do that, then the bridge thought is it's possible that I could create a schedule and stick to it. And because of that, they start living into that emotion, they really start living out of that model, that intentional model. So when you start to live intentionally with these new thoughts, your brain will start to find evidence to them being true or being possible, which will lead you closer to taking action, which will lead you closer to getting it done. If you're ready to drop the all or nothing in your life, then I would be honored to be your life coach. Head over to the modern mormon.com to start your journey in becoming the confident authentic and best version of you.