105: What to Tell Yourself When You Are Discouraged

Introduction 

You're listening to Biceps after Babies radio episode number 105.

Hello and welcome to Biceps after Babies radio. A podcast for ladies who know that fitness is about so much more than pounds lost or PRs. It's about feeling confident in your skin and empowered in your life. I'm your host, Amber Brueseke, a registered nurse, personal trainer, wife, and mom of four. Each week, my guests and I will excite and motivate you to take action in your own personal fitness as we talk about nutrition, exercise mindset, personal development, and executing life with conscious intention. If your goal is to look, feel, and be strong and experience transformation from the inside out, you, my friend are in the right place. Thank you for tuning in, now let’s jump into today’s episode.

What’s in store for today’s podcast   0:48

Hey, hey, welcome back to biceps after babies radio, I'm your host Amber Brueseke and today is going to be a good episode, I think you're really, really going to walk away with some breakthroughs and some tools that you can use in your journey, because we're going to be talking about something that you will experience during your journey, during a journey towards any goal probably, and that is discouragement. And we're going to talk about how you're going to make it through that and what you're gonna be able to tell yourself to make it through that experience.

A big welcome to our new Macros 101 members   1:21

But first, I want to say a big welcome to our new macros 101 members. A couple of weeks ago, we closed doors to my signature program Macros 101. This is the last time we're running this program in 2020. And I am so excited to show up and serve the women who have raised their hand and said yes, to themselves and to their goals. And it is an honor and a privilege to be able to serve them. And if you're listening and you're one of our new Macros 101 members, it is an honor and a privilege to serve you. And my hope for those women as they go through the program is that they experience the transformation and the breakthroughs that they signed up for. Because that's what sets Macros 101 apart is that we are approaching fitness from such a different perspective than most people approach it. Most people approach it as rules, restrictions, fitting themselves into somebody else's plan. If you haven't listened to episode number 102, you are not the problem, my rant, I highly, highly recommend you go back and listen to that podcast episode because so many people have told me that it caused such a shift in the way that they're thinking. And it causes a breakthrough for them in understanding that the reason that they failed in the past, or the reason they haven't been successful in the past isn't that they're wrong or bad or incapable, but rather that they're trying to fit themselves into a program that wasn't ever created for them. And so in Macros 101, what we do a lot of is helping you to figure out how to become a macro scientist, how to customize this process to you and your body. And to set a step, have you step into a place of ownership and creation in your journey, rather than a place of rules and restrictions and somebody else telling you what to do. So anyway, I'm just thrilled to be able to, to work with these women, and to be able to serve them and coach them as they go through this transformation and the breakthrough.

Discouragement and how it happens in our journey   3:08

But one of the things I've been thinking about is discouragement, and how discouragement happens in our journey. And we're going to talk a lot more about that in today's podcast episode. But I specifically wanted you to be able to walk away with some tools in your tool belt, to be able to push past it. So that's really my goal. And as I was thinking about this new round of Macros 101 clients, and the things that we're doing with them, I had this idea of recording a podcast episode about how to make it through discouragement, because guess what, they're gonna get discouraged. And guess what, you're gonna get discouraged. It's not a win. It's not an if, it's a win. And so the more that we can talk about this, and the more I can help you prepare for that, the better equipped you're going to be to make it out on the other side. And to not be one of those women who end up just quitting on yourself and quitting on your goals. Now, we want you to never ever quit on yourself. And I'm going to give you some tools to be able to make it through to the other side. So that is my purpose in recording today's episode.

Feel free to share your aha moments and those personal breakthroughs   4:13

And I know that you're going to have some shifts in perspective, I know that you're going to have some breakthroughs and some takeaways in your own journey. And here's what I ask of you. As you're listening to this podcast. And you're hearing things in a new light or you're having those aha moments, or you're having those breakthroughs in your own personal journey. Will you please share that? Will you get on Instagram or get on Facebook or tik tok? or wherever you are and share what your takeaway was, from this episode? share how it was impactful for you and tag me so that I can start to see what kind of moments you guys are having as you're listening to the podcast. Frankly, I'm sitting in my room right now. And the kids are out playing out in the house. And I'm all alone. And I'm talking into this microphone and I'm assuming that people are listening, I see the numbers of our podcast downloads, and I assume people are listening. But what is really meaningful to me is to hear how the time that I'm taking, putting this podcast episode together, how it's impacting real women in who have real lives, who are on real journeys, who have real families, and understanding and seeing how the things that I say here are impacting you. That's what's impactful to me. So I would love it. If as you're going through this episode, you're going to have a breakthrough. You're going to have some takeaways, you're going to have an aha moment, I can guarantee that. Will you recognize that and let me know, share it on your social media and let me know what your breakthrough or your takeaway was from this episode, or maybe how you had a change in perspective. That is my favorite thing to see. So I'm biceps after babies over on Facebook. I'm @bicepsafterbabies over on Instagram, I'm not on tik tok. But, you know, you could tag me on tik tok and just say my name, but I would love, love, love to be able to hear what your takeaways and specifically how you are choosing to apply the things that we're going to talk about here.

Discouragement is not an if, it’s a win   6:09

Okay, so let's dive into this topic of what to tell yourself when you are discouraged. The first thing that I want to say is that and I kind of alluded to this, previously, is that discouragement is not an if it's a win. And just understanding that that discouragement isn't bad, it doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. It doesn't mean you could have avoided it. Like discouragement is something that is almost unavoidable if you are reaching for big enough goals. Now, if you haven't listened to my podcast episode on goal setting, my latest one that I did, it's episode number 94. Geez, I highly recommend you go back and listen to the episode, that's one of my favorites. And talking about goal setting is one of my favorite things to teach on. And if you've listened to that episode, you know that I'm really big on encouraging clients to set big, hairy, scary, audacious goals like big, crazy goals. And if you are setting big enough goals, disappointment is a part of the process like it's going to happen.

One of the problems is when we think that there shouldn’t be a problem   7:20

And so the first thing I really want to reiterate, is that one of the biggest problems is that you think that there shouldn't be problems. Okay, so I want you to just stop and take that in for a minute. One of the biggest problems is that you think that there should not be any problems, okay, which is like saying that you want to attend college and then you're surprised when you have to take tests, you're like, I didn't expect this, I just want to go to college. Okay, there are going to be problems, there's going to be discouragement, there's going to be failure along the way. And by recognizing that and going into the process, understanding that that's part of the process like that's literally the way that you get from point A to point B is going through disappointment and frustration and problems. It doesn't surprise you as much. It takes that shock value out of it. It's almost like when you know your enemy, and you know, your enemies coming. They can't sneak up on you. Because you're like, Oh, yeah, there it is. Like there's a disappointment, there's a failure. There's frustration, hey, I knew you're coming. You're part of the journey. Okay.

Recognizing your enemy   8:29

So the biggest problem is you think that there shouldn't be any problems. And the fact of the matter is, if you are reaching for big enough goals, there will be problems, there will be failures, there will be frustration, there will be a disappointment, that my friend, is part of the journey.  And when we can start to go into the process, understanding that recognizing that knowing that expecting that, then when it happens, it's not an emergency. It's not anything that's going to make you quit because you're expecting it like you knew it was going to happen. And so just having that perspective shift is so incredibly valuable because like I said, it takes away the urgency. It takes away the Oh crap, what's going on the moment and turns it into Oh, hey, there you are, hey disappointment! I know you're gonna show up. And I'm ready for you. I'm prepared. And that's the second thing that I really want to elaborate on today, as we're going through, and I'm going to share some of the thoughts that I've used in the past with discouragement and that you can feel free to use for yourself. We're gonna go through that. But here's a really big takeaway. We're having this conversation and maybe, maybe not, maybe you're right now in the throes of it and you're feeling disappointed and you're feeling that frustration right now and you're in the throes of it and that's okay. Today's podcast is going to help you. But for a lot of you, you may not be in the throes of it right now, right in this very, very moment. So we're having this conversation before it happens again. Before you come up against that enemy, and you're making a plan of attack, and how much more successful are you going to be when you know who your enemy is, and you already know what weapon you're going to use against her. Okay, and so that's what we're talking about today. Today, you're getting like, you're recognizing, hey, here's the enemy. It's coming, disappointments coming, failures coming, frustration is coming, problems are coming. That's the enemy, we know the enemy now, we're ready.

Be prepared with tools to face your enemy (disappointment)   10:29

And the second piece is we're going to be prepared, we're going to have tools in our tool belt before the enemy gets here that we will be able to wield when we encounter the enemy. And so that's really what I'm going to give you today is some of the tools, the weapons that again, I have personally used in my journey, because guess what, girlfriend has been disappointed before. And I know exactly as I've been there, we all get disappointed. Again, if you're reaching for big goals, you're going to have a moment of disappointment, like that's part of the journey. And so these are thoughts that I've used in my own journey and thoughts that I share with clients, thoughts that I help clients use to be able to move past the disappointment, the discouragement and into continuing their journey so that they are able to get the results that they want.

Six thoughts on what to tell when you are discouraged   11:17

So I have six thoughts that I'm going to share with you. And you can feel free to steal and use any of these that you want to in your journey, any of these that resonate with you. Just kind of imagine that you're carrying around a tool belt, and you know, take whatever tools I'm offering here that resonates with you and stick them inside your tool belt, and recognize, hey, when I get discouraged, I can pull out any of these tools that are now in my tool belt that is going to help me at that moment.

No. 1 It’s working.   11:45

So number one, the first thing that I tell myself when I get discouraged, is it's working. It's working. Like there's nothing wrong here. This is the path. And it's working. And I offer this to you that you can use as at any time in your fitness journey, in any journey that you want to believe that it is working, that this is the path that you need to go on. These are the lessons that you need to learn in order to get the results that you want. I talked about this a lot in Episode Number 28, where I talk about failure, and kind of redefining failure. And I talked in that episode about how failure doesn't exist, that you either get the result you want or you get the lesson that you need. And when you start to look at your journey, that way you recognize, hey, there are lessons between me and the results I want. Like the only thing standing between you today and the outcome that you want is a bunch of lessons. And the faster you learn those lessons, the faster you get to the result. But then what happens is we come upon one of those lessons. And then we're like, oh, I can't believe that I like coming up with one of these lessons, I can't believe I'm disappointed. I can't believe this happened. And then we end up quitting because we think it means that we're on the wrong path, we think it means that we're not doing things, right, we think it means we're never gonna get to our goal. And simply it was a lesson. It was a lesson, if we took the time to learn it, then we'd actually progress towards our goal. And so I'm always telling myself, this is working. This is working exactly how it's supposed to work, I am being presented the lessons that I need to learn to get the result that I want. And I truly believe that I truly believe that God, the universe, source, whatever you want to believe gives you the exact things that you need to create the outcomes that you want. And whether or not you're able to hit those outcomes or reach your goals simply comes down to are you willing to learn the lessons, are you willing to walk the path? And so, it's working is something that I use a lot. When I feel like I'm discouraged when I feel like maybe I'm further away from my goal that I want to be, I remind myself that it's working, that I'm doing it. That this is part of the process, and it is working.

No. 2 My success is inevitable.   14:09

Okay, number two, I use this one a lot with my clients. My success is inevitable and this is going to take the time it takes. So a lot of times discouragement comes from an expectation. It comes from an expectation that we have set of how it's supposed to look. I want to reach this goal. And here's how it's going to happen. I'm going to do this first and then this and then I'm going to get this result and then I'm going to do this and then maybe they're like that's the expectation. And it's so funny because when you start to dive into how you set that expectation, you made it up. For most of us, maybe you saw someone else do it or it happened for you a certain way. And so you've created this future, this expectation that you literally just made up. And then you get discouraged when it doesn't happen the way that you made it up. And so what would it happen? What would happen if instead, when you get discouraged when you get disappointed, you remind yourself that your success is inevitable. Because I truly believe that and that's one of the things that I teach over and over and over with my clients, helping them to believe that their success is inevitable. Because when you believe that your success is inevitable, that it's going to happen, you can release your grip on the timetable in which it needs to happen. I often think that when we get impatient, and we get pressed for thinking it's taking too long, that is evidence that you don't truly believe it's going to happen. And I want you to consider that, when you 110% believe it's going to happen, you can relax on what the timetable looks like. You can relax into the thought of knowing it's going to happen like I know I'm going to get there doesn't really matter how long it takes, because it's going to happen. And so if you find yourself being impatient, if you find yourself saying this is taking too long, I want you to recognize that that's a part of you, that doesn't truly believe that you're going to be successful. And what would happen, if you chose to tell yourself, my success is inevitable. And this, this is going to take the time it takes. Any released hold on what that timetable looked like, on how long it was going to be on what was going to have to happen. And you just relaxed into the process. How would that change things for you and how would that change things for your journey.

No. 3 What am I learning?   16:52

All right. Number three, this is a question that I think is always a valuable question that we can and should be asking ourselves throughout our journeys. And that is the question, What am I learning? When you're feeling discouraged When you come up against a problem? When you're feeling frustrated? What would happen if you pause and ask yourself the question, What am I learning? If you listen to this podcast for more than a second, you know that I truly believe the quality of your life is determined by the quality of your questions that you're asking. And what am I learning is an excellent question to be asking, because it's going to cause your brain to start looking for the lessons. Instead of labeling things failures, instead of labeling things as a disappointment, you start to look for the lessons. And when you can learn the lessons, my friend, that is when things change. That's when things change in the long run. Again, what is standing between you today and the goal you have set is a bunch of lessons. And the faster you're willing to recognize, understand, and learn the lesson and move forward, the faster you're going to get to the goal. And if you feel stuck in your journey, if you feel like you're spinning your wheels. That is because you have come upon a lesson that you have not yet learned. And so life is going to throw you that lesson over and over and over again until you choose to learn it and move past it. And so if you're at the moment in your journey, where you, you just feel stuck. You just feel like, gosh, I can't make any progress forward. Ask yourself the question, What am I learning? or what should I be learning at this moment? What lesson is being presented to me that I could learn that would keep my progress moving forward?

No. 4  This is tough, but I'm tougher.   18:55

Okay, number four. This is tough, but I'm tougher. I like this one a lot. Because the truth is, that you are tough. I'm tough. We are powerful. And we are strong beyond what I think you probably realize. So yeah, it's tough. We get thrown by tough things. And, you know, I don't know your specific circumstance. But I do know that especially this year, a lot of you have been going through a lot of really tough stuff. And you know, my heart goes out to you. And sometimes we can't change those circumstances. Sometimes we lose jobs. Sometimes we have money, financial struggles. Sometimes we get sick, right? Like life throws things at us that are tough. And I don't ever want to minimize the challenges that you may be experiencing your life. But what I do know is that you are also tough, and you are also strong and you are also powerful. So yeah, what you're going through may be tough but girl you are tougher. And the more that you can come back to that place of recognizing that, like, you are strong, you are worthy, you are powerful beyond belief and you have control over how you respond to situations. It's a really powerful place to be in your life. And it moves you from being the victim, to what's happening to you, to the creator of how you can create the reality and the response that you want to whatever circumstances you are being put into. So yeah, this is tough. But you're tougher.

No. 5  Quitting won't get me there any faster.   20:41

Okay, number five, quitting won't help me get there any faster. Because let's be real. That's usually what disappointment leads to right? You set an expectation, it doesn't happen, and then you feel disappointed. And then what, a lot of times, then we quit. That disappointment leads to quitting. And it's such an ironic thing. It's so funny that our brains do this, right? Because it's so ironic, we want a result, we feel disappointed in what happened and so then we quit, which is the only way that you're literally going to guarantee you never get the result, right. Like, you quit. That's 100% certainty that you're not going to get the results. Right, you'll miss 100% of the swings you don't take. Same concept. But it's so funny that that's where we go. We feel disappointed and so then we quit. And now we're never going to get to the result that we want. We're never going to hit the goal when we quit. And so yeah, you're going to feel discouraged, you're going to feel disappointed, and you're going to feel frustrated. But you can tell yourself that quitting is not going to get you there any faster. In fact, it's the only way to guarantee you will never get there. And so yeah, at any point along the journey, you can always choose to quit that is always available to you.

Proactive quitting vs. Reactive quitting   21:58

And I'm not even saying that quitting is bad. Like, I think sometimes we should quit. I think making that choice from a place of power and a place of prioritization in your life and from a place of putting a priority on the things that are of the highest value to you. I think that is an empowering place to be when you decide to quit something. Okay. But that's different. That's proactive quitting, versus reactive quitting. Proactive quitting is you weighing what's most important to you, you weigh your values and making a decision based off of that's proactive quitting, I'm always in favor of proactive quitting. Reactive quitting is when something happens and you reactively quit because of that, okay, quitting won't get you there any faster. And so if you get to the point where you're considering quitting, make sure that you're proactively quitting and that you're actually sitting down and thinking about it. And it's not just a reactive Oh, my gosh, I feel so discouraged, and I'm just quitting. I can't do this anymore. Okay.

No. 6  What is the next best choice that I can make?  22:59

And then number six, and this is another excellent question that you can ask yourself at any time. This is an excellent question to ask yourself, even when you're not discouraged when you're just taking steps and actions in your journey. And that is the question, what is the next best choice I can make? Now, I find a lot of times that women are getting better at falling off the horse and saying like, okay, tomorrow's a new day. Okay, tomorrow's a new day, start over tomorrow. Which is awesome. That's way better than I'll start over next Monday, which is also way better than all start off over next month, which is also way better than I'll start over next year. Right? So, you know, if you're to the point where you're like, able to like fall off track and say, okay, it's fine. Tomorrow's a new day, I'm starting over tomorrow. That's awesome. But what I want to offer you is that you can start over at any moment. And when we get to the place where you recognize that like at any moment, you can make a choice to start over. At any moment, you can ask yourself the question, what is the next best choice that I can make that will move me forward in my journey? You're going to get a really good answer to that question. And what would happen if you just continued to ask yourself that question throughout the day, at this moment, right now, what's the next best choice I can make? And then you know, you do it and then now it's like, Okay, awesome. What's the next best choice? And notice, I don't say like, what's the perfect choice? What's the ideal choice? What's the only right choice? Like what? No, no, What is the next best choice that I can make right now? And if you continue to ask yourself, that's a powerful question. You continue to ask yourself that question. My friend, you're going to be successful, like your success will be inevitable because you will take the action that will make it so.

Free downloadables of these thoughts @bicepsafterbabies.com/105  24:58

So I want to do a little recap and have these things that you can tell yourself, I want to recap them. We also decided to put these together in a free downloadable. So if you're like, ah, I want to take these tools and put on my tool belt, but I'm like, sure I'm gonna forget them. Do you have a download Amber that we can like to put this into download? A heck yes, we do. So if you go to www.bicepsafterbabies.com/105, that will be the show notes page for this episode and on there will be a free download where you can have all of these thoughts that I'm giving you of what to tell yourself when you're discouraged all in one like cute little document so that you can kind of file it away, and have it at the ready. Have those tools at the ready, those weapons are ready to pull out when discouragement comes around. Because we've already talked about it's not an if, it's a win, and the more prepared you are for when that happens, the more successful you're going to be continuing to move forward in this in the face of disappointment in the face of discouragement in the face of frustration. So you can go and download that at www.bicepsafterbabies.com/105.

Let’s recap  26:05

So the six things that, six tools, six thoughts that I'm offering you to tell yourself when you are discouraged are number one, it's working. Number two, my success is inevitable. And this is going to take the time that it takes. Number three asking yourself the question, What am I learning? Number four, this is tough, but I'm tougher. Number five, quitting won't get me there any faster. And the last one, number six, what is the next best choice that I can make? And you're starting to see now, how when you already have these tools ready, when you already have these weapons ready when you already know your opponent, and you're prepared and you're ready, that disappointment is just going to be a little blip on your journey. It's not going to be this big chasm that you can't cross, it's just going to be a little blip. And you're going to recognize it, you're going to say how disappointed you are? Welcome to the party! You're gonna whip out your tools, and you're gonna move past it, and it's just gonna be a little blip instead of throwing you completely off-kilter. And, you know, moving you into the area of quitting and not reaching your goals.

Takeaway  27:21

So I hope that one or more of these triggered something for you, gave you a change in perspective. And maybe one of these really resonated hard with you. And it's something that you're going to remember the next time you feel discouraged. The next time something doesn't go your way. The next time you set a goal, and you fall short. Again, if you listen to podcast number 94, about goals, I have a very, maybe I don't know unique perspective on goals that if you're not falling short of your goals, you're probably not setting big enough ones. Okay? So falling short of your goals, in my view is a really good thing because it means you're stretching higher, you're reaching higher, and you're pushing yourself to grow faster. But if you're experiencing disappointment, if you're experiencing frustration, that's part of the deal. It's part of the process, it's part of what you signed up for. If you don't want to feel frustrated, if you don't want to feel disappointed, then don't set goals. And if you don't set goals, you're just gonna stay comfortable, you're gonna stay in your comfort zone. But what you're giving up is you're giving up the ability to grow.  And so if you want to grow, if you want to become somebody new, if you want to do things that you've never done before, you have to be somebody that you've never been before. And this process of taking action, feeling discouraged, not hitting your goals is a part of the process. You want to stay comfortable. It's awesome. You will stay exactly the way you are because growth does not happen in the comfort zone. And there is no comfort in that growth zone. Okay, so you're here, I know you're here. Because you want to uplevel because you want to reach new goals because you want to become a better version of yourself. That's why you're here. Those are the people that I attract. And because of that, you're willing to get uncomfortable. You're willing to go through frustration and disappointment recognizing that it's part of the process. It's a requirement for up-leveling yourself. It's a requirement for reaching higher, it's a requirement for growth. And that's the price that you pay. But guess what's on the other side of that. A new you, an up-leveled version of you, a you that can show up bigger in your life, a new you that can do things that you never thought were possible. A new you that is able to raise your children, support your family, go back to school, like be awesome in your career, whatever that looks like for you being an amazing grandmother. It allows you to be that person that you know is possible for you. And that is incredible. So my hope is, is that you're walking away from this episode feeling inspired, and even more well equipped to deal with this process to deal with what life gonna throw at you and to deal with disappointment and things that are going to happen along your journey. Thank you for listening. Again. I'm hoping that you had an aha moment I'm hoping you're gonna take away and I'm hoping even more that you're committed to sharing that and tagging me in it and letting me know, what was your Aha. What are you going to put into practice? Right? It's one thing to sit here and listen to this podcast. It is another thing to take what you learn and put it into action. So how are you taking it and putting it into action? I would love to know come hang out with me over on Instagram, @bicepsafterbabies or Facebook, biceps after babies and let me know. That wraps up this episode of biceps after babies radio. I'm Amber now go out and be strong because remember my friend you can do anything.

Outro

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