{Glow Getters Podcast}Episode 66. My 7 Tips to Go Beyond Your Upper Limit
In today’s episode we’re talking about thinking.
It’s something I know I’ve had a lot of time to do over the last year because of the pandemic — being at home more, being in quiet spaces more.
I’m sure you’d found yourself with your thoughts too — maybe you’ve felt “stuck with your thoughts” or “finally, I’m alone with my thoughts!” Or maybe if you’re like me, you’ve felt both feelings and somewhere in the middle at times.
An interesting observation I’ve noticed and also heard articulated on other podcasts, like Simon’s Sinek’s episode with Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx, is that from a very young age, we’re taught “what to think,” not “how to think.”
Whoa, okay, so let’s break that down.
We’re taught what’s “socially acceptable” and what opinions we should form. We’re taught social norms and to accept what our parents or guardians tell us is the truth.
We’re taught to accept what’s before us and given to us.
But we’re often not taught to question it. We’re often not taught that if we question, learn, listen, ask why, dig deeper, that we can learn “how to think” and literally form our own opinions AND control our own thoughts.
We get to decide what narratives we create and live by.
You know that voice in our heads that’s sort of you constantly talking to yourself? Tell me I’m not alone here, right?!
When you start to take notice of that running commentary, you realize that a lot of what you say to yourself and think is just happening unconsciously. Like you don’t even know why that thought popped into your head.
This is toxic if you’re self talk is negative and you’re always beating yourself up.
We all need the ability to control our thoughts so that we can show up as our best selves. Our happiest, our most positive, our most joyful, our most resilient selves.
When something happens to you, or for you as I like to say, the way you think about it and react has everything to do with the trajectory of your life moving forward.
So in this episode, I’m going to give you my best tips for “how to think” so that you can always sort out your inner voice, find strength in what you know to be true, get curious to learn more and find out why, and ultimately ensure that your actions from your thoughts, lead you in an upward, positive trajectory rather than in a downward spiral.
I want to take a moment to acknowledge that I am not a therapist or a therapy professional, so if you need help working through trauma or other deep blocks or experiences, please seek professional help. My goal is to share from my experience as it applies to leadership and living a vibrant life, but not to replace a medical professional.
If you are taking notes or even multitasking while listening, I have a free, downloadable PDF with these tips for you so you can look back at them and even post them by your computer or somewhere where you can see them as a reminder. I am also including some inspirational digital planner stickers that you can use in your digital planner or print that go along with today’s theme. You can find all of these freebies linked in the show notes.
Alright, so let’s dive into my 7 tips for improving our mindset and re-learning “how to think.”
I’m going to approach this by using an example thought to walk you through each step.
This is a frequent thought I have, and I know now that it’s a limiting belief or thought that creates an upper limit problem.
The thought is, “Am I doing enough?” Another way I hear this thought is “I’m not doing enough.” Or “This isn’t good enough for others.”
Right away, you might be thinking — Kayla, I can’t believe you think that about yourself!
But I find we are always harder on ourselves than others. Right? Yeah. Sometimes we can’t see the same things in ourselves that others see in us, especially the good things.
Alright, so when this thought comes into my head, the first thing I do is...
1. Notice the feeling — This takes practice, and like we talked about earlier, you have to train yourself to consciously notice your running dialogue with yourself. If you think you don’t have one, you need to take some time to slow down, turn mentally inward, and be still. Try closing your eyes for a minute and try not to think about anything — essentially meditating. If you have a thought pop into your head, you have a running dialogue. It’s this voice we want to start noticing, and better yet, we want to catch it when it says something that’s limiting or negative. And we want to acknowledge it without judgement. You can even say something to it like, “Oh hey you. That was a negative thought or self limiting thought. I noticed you.
The second thing to do is...
2. Sit with it and validate yourself. Tell yourself okay, I had this thought. It’s not good or bad. It’s a thought. Let whatever feelings (visceral or emotional) come up. Our response can tell us a lot about ourselves.
So when I have this thought of “I’m not doing enough” I say okay, self, I had this thought. It makes me feel sick to my stomach. I even feel embarrassed and sometimes guilty.
These responses feel like they’ve been there my entire life. I am totally a people pleaser. I sort of always knew this about myself, but I never knew why. I’ve come to realize that part of me is just wired to want to do my best always, but I never want to let anyone down, and I never want anyone to feel upset with me. This probably comes from being the oldest child and thinking I needed to be perfect growing up. I had to get straight A’s. An A minus was devastating - I’m not even kidding. I will to this day get sick to my stomach if I think someone is upset or mad at me. My parents are and were so loving growing up, and I am not sure how I interpreted what they said or showed to me, but I know I never wanted to disappoint them.
So because I know this about myself, and let myself feel the gut reaction, I can release these emotions and let them come and go. I used to hold them inside until I exploded with anger or became super upset. I know when this happened, I’m my worse self, and I don’t ever want to be there anymore. It’s okay to feel emotions, cry in front of people, where your heart on your self.
My husband tells me I’m an emotional human who wears their heart on their sleeve, and I laugh because I used to stay so buttoned up that no one ever knew if I was upset. It’s still something I’m working on, but I love hearing that he thinks I’m just free with my emotions because that means I’m so much better than I used to be.
Maybe you’re like me and have a hard time letting go of these feeling until you think you’ve resolved the problem. This step will be really important to you so you can move passed needing to fix everything or prevent upsetting someone else.
The third step is to...
3. Get curious - I always ask myself, why am I having this thought or feeling right now? Has this thought or feeling been ruminating or did something just happen? Once I feel like I may know where this thought came from (and sometimes I can’t figure it out, but that’s okay....) I ask myself, what do I know for sure. This helps move myself from the emotional side to the reality based side of thinking.
Is the thought I have valid or is it just my negative self limiting belief?
I try to find facts and examples to pull from.
For this example, I would list out (probably physically write out or go over a mental list) of all the things I’m doing for myself and for others and why.
When I think of what I’ve got going on in my life — motherhood, being a present and loving wife, renovating our house, working full time during a busy season, building my leadership coaching business which means creating content and being on social media and catering to my clients...yeah I think that’s enough. Ha :)
So when I tell myself, you’re not doing enough — that’s not a true statement
But why do I feel this way — probably because I have an inner knowing that I have unused potential. I want to explode my leadership business and do that full time, but that takes time. Plus family is so important to me so yeah, my attention is divided between work and home and sometimes I wish I had more time for different parts of my life. That’s normal. But that doesn’t mean that right now, in this season, that I’m not doing enough.
After you get curious, you have a choice to make.
Step 4 is to....
4. Pick your path.
I heard someone talk about the idea of beliefs and how you can change them. Based on what you know to be true, you can decide if you have a belief that needs to be totally eliminated from you life. You may decide that you need a new believe to replace the old one. Or you may just revise your belief and think about it differently.
In my example, my belief isn't true. I know that I AM doing enough. Therefore, I AM enough. So really I'm going to do a couple things. I disproved my belief that I'm not doing enough and I'm dispelling that belief. AND I'm adding a new affirmation or belief that's positive and telling myself - "Kayla, you are enough. I am enough."
Step 5 is simple. Once you have your belief...
5. Visually and audibly remind yourself (mantra, affirmation, daily reminder, weekly check in). I love doing this in my planner. Every morning, most mornings, I write what I'm grateful for as well as my affirmations. I need to hear this every day because I have this belief over and over again, no matter how much I do. It's part of my mental programing and saying and thinking affirmations literally helps me reprogram my thoughts.
After this exercise, if I'm still feeling uneasy, I then...
6. Take a step back - look from a higher level. Is this really that big of a deal? Will this matter 30 years from now? Remind myself —who gets to create your happiness and live with it each day? I do, right! So I have to have thoughts that serve me. Not what I think people want me to think or be.
And lastly, I just read the book "The Big Leap,” by Gay Hendricks...You have to check this out. I actually listened to it on Audible and it was amazing. He has this concept called the upper limit. The idea is that we limit our abilities because we are afraid of success, or are guilty of leaving others behind, or for other reasons he goes into in the book.
One question I now just recently started to ask myself is...
7. Am I upper limiting myself? I think a lot of times we self sabotage with our thoughts and action because we have an upper limit. If you think you're doing this, I want you to imagine a spiral staircase that is going up and up and up. You're walking up it. Once you reach the ceiling, the staircase keeps going. That staircase is you and your limitless potential. Once you reach the ceiling, you have a new upper limit and you keep climbing toward your endless success.
You do not need to play small to protect others or because you're afraid you can't handle your success.
You deserve thoughts that serve you.
So quickly in summary, here are the 7 steps:
1. Notice the feeling
2. Sit with it and validate yourself
3. Get curious
4. Pick your path
5. Visually and audibly remind yourself
6. Take a step back
7. Am I upper limiting myself?
Thank you all for listening or reading!
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