The alternate title for this episode is "Why is the podcast only about Thinking? Don't we have to DO something to have a Successful Life?"
This episode peels back the curtain on the true force behind achieving the life you've always wanted—it's not about the 'how-to-do' but the 'how-to-think.' I share some of the most pivotal changes in my thoughts that transformed major areas of my life. Whether you've been diligently following best practices to no avail, or you're just starting on a path to self-improvement, this discussion is tailored to shed light on the missing piece of the puzzle: your thinking.
Diving into the differences between affirmations versus workable thoughts and thoughts vs. beliefs, it's the power of finding thoughts that truly work for you that make all the difference in life. By choosing your thoughts with intention, you can rewire your brain to foster the outcomes you're after. So, if you're ready to challenge the status quo of your beliefs and steer your life in a direction that resonates with you, make sure to tune in.
The alternate title for this episode is "Why is the podcast only about Thinking? Don't we have to DO something to have a Successful Life?"
This episode peels back the curtain on the true force behind achieving the life you've always wanted—it's not about the 'how-to-do' but the 'how-to-think.' I share some of the most pivotal changes in my thoughts that transformed major areas of my life. Whether you've been diligently following best practices to no avail, or you're just starting on a path to self-improvement, this discussion is tailored to shed light on the missing piece of the puzzle: your thinking.
Diving into the differences between affirmations versus workable thoughts and thoughts vs. beliefs, it's the power of finding thoughts that truly work for you that make all the difference in life. By choosing your thoughts with intention, you can rewire your brain to foster the outcomes you're after. So, if you're ready to challenge the status quo of your beliefs and steer your life in a direction that resonates with you, make sure to tune in.
Brianna Siobhan:
Hey, it's Brianna Siobhan here with the Life Then Business podcast. This episode I'm going to share with you some of my thinking about why this podcast is about thinking. So here's a question for you how many how-to resources are there out there? There's so much how-to content and it's how to do. It's not just how-to, it's how-to-do content. In fact, there's a book I can't remember the author. It's called. If How-To's Were Enough, we'd All Be Skinny, Rich and Happy, and that's the thing. There's so much how-to-do content out there, but yet we still don't do the things we need to do to create the results that we want.
Brianna Siobhan:
Think about it for a minute. Think about the different areas of your life, particularly areas of your life that you might want different results. Do you ever find yourself doing things that are contrary to the results you want? Or do you ever find yourself not doing the things you know you need to do to create the results that you want? It's not because you need another how-to-do resource. You might already know what to do. We often do. But there's something bigger going on and that's our thoughts. So, whether it is, I made a decision. I want to get stronger and I know I need to lift weights to do that, but then I never seem to get to the gym. Or I want more savings. So I'm going to decrease my spending and put that money into a savings account instead, but my savings never seems to grow. But boy, the clothes in my closet are looking good. Or maybe I've decided I want to lose weight and I have an eating plan, and yet somehow Friday night is always pizza night, followed by ice cream, followed by popcorn and a movie. You get the idea. So, whatever it is that you might be thinking hmm, I'd like to create different results in my life in this area and you know what to do. Or maybe you do need some how-to-do support to build a skill set, and then you know what to do.
Brianna Siobhan:
We often still don't do what we need to do. Why? It's our thoughts. Our thoughts get in our way. The results in your life are a reflection of the thinking that you've had up until this moment, because it's our thinking that creates our feelings and our actions which create our results. So the how-to-dos focus on the doing step. But if you have thinking contrary to that, you're never going to do it. Or if you do, it's going to be short-lived, because you're going to do it in the short term, using some willpower to overpower that thinking, and it's not going to last, because willpower is a finite resource. We run out of it. In fact, we run out of it, I think, faster now than ever before. Because that resource in our brain, we use it more than ever before in our daily lives. So even if you do do it, it's usually not consistently or not for very long, unless our thinking is aligned.
Brianna Siobhan:
So here's an example you want more financial prosperity, but you think rich people are greedy, or you think they're lucky, or you think they were born into it. Or you think wealthy people build wealth on the backs of poor working folks. Or you think wealth requires sacrificing things that you're not willing to sacrifice. Or maybe becoming wealthy will make people ask more of me or ask for money from me. If you have any of those thoughts, or those thoughts are so strong their beliefs, what's the likelihood that you're going to become a wealthy person? Not very, because you don't want to be any of those things. But if your thinking is different, if your thinking is more money allows me to express my values in a bigger way, or lasting wealth comes from providing value in exchange for money and then investing that money for the long term growth of my wealth. Or you think there's others out there who live a balanced life without overly sacrificing to create their prosperity. So maybe I can too. Those are all examples of thinking that's in alignment with the desire for having more financial prosperity. So this is what I'm talking about, with our thinking and our thoughts being in alignment with our desires. Ultimately, our thinking needs to be in alignment with the results we want. Otherwise, we're never going to get those results, no matter how hard we try. Our thinking is going to drive our feelings, actions and therefore results.
Brianna Siobhan:
For me, every major shift in my life toward more of what I want has come from a fundamental change in my thinking. I'll give you a few examples. In my marriage, I had a chunk of years there in the middle where I kept thinking does he really love me? I'm not sure he really loves me. I need to be loved in this particular way in order to feel loved, and he's not doing that. Then I changed my thinking. I changed my thinking to recognize and acknowledge the way he expresses love, which is different from the way I was looking for it. So I changed my thinking about that to. Oh, that is how he expresses love. Wow, look at how much he loves me. It completely changed my experience when I started looking for and sensitizing myself to receiving love in the ways he was expressing it, rather than thinking that he needed to express it in the ways that I thought he needed to. It completely transformed my experience and I had such an increase in the experience of love, being loved and loving.
Brianna Siobhan:
Another example is parenting. When my guy was a little guy, there were a lot of behaviors that were really challenging to parent when I used to have the thoughts his behavior is unacceptable, it's disrespectful, it's hurtful, it needs to change, and I was really focused on changing his behavior. Then I changed my thinking and I put my focus on the thought. Who he is at his core is an amazing, loving, generous, kind kiddo who's doing his very best to be a good kid and get his needs met. That's a completely different way of thinking about his behavior and it changed how I was responding to him. It changed how I advocated for him. It changed the choices we made about how we spent time with him, what his educational environment was like, how we fed him. It changed so much and how I parented and, as a result, created really different results in his behavior.
Brianna Siobhan:
Another example is in business. For many, many, way too many years I had thoughts like I have to work this hard or, in reality, overwork this hard to reach my goals so I can do the things I want to do. I can't disappoint my clients. I need to give them a high level service. Or I can't disappoint my clients. I said I would do this and so I need to follow through. And then I changed my thinking. The things like I get to build the business I want that supports me in doing the things I want to do now in my life, and no client is worth sacrificing my health for. That is a really powerful thought for me. I'm still working on that one and I still use that thought quite intentionally when I come up against situations where I have client work to do, I want to follow through, I want to provide a high level service and I have a commitment to myself to take care of my health in a specific way. I come back to that thought no client is worth sacrificing my health for, which is how I make decisions and how I show up in my business and for myself.
Brianna Siobhan:
Another example in the realm of self-care I used to have so many shoulds. I should go to bed at this time. I should get this much sleep every night. I should limit my time on social media to x number of minutes. I should follow this eating plan. I should follow that eating plan. I should exercise this many days a week. I should exercise that kind of exercise on and on and on.
Brianna Siobhan:
And the shoulds were so heavy it was very hard to do the things that I should do Because I always had a sense of feeling like somebody was telling me what to do, which I don't want anybody to tell me what to do. I don't think anybody wants anybody to tell them what to do. And it made it 10s times harder when I changed my thinking. I started telling myself things like I really want to feel amazing and making this choice in my movement is going to help. Or making this choice in how I eat is going to help me feel amazing. Or my wellness is my top priority and I get to take care of myself by doing this fill in the blank. Or my wellness is my top priority and I choose to follow this food plan because it keeps me healthy, or go to bed at this time, because a full night's sleep keeps me healthy, right, very different way of thinking, much more motivational, intrinsically motivational, to do what I want to do, to create the results I want to create in my life. You see, the power of our thoughts. Ultimately, they are what create our world.
Brianna Siobhan:
I know lots of how to do's and a few might sneak into this podcast, but the reality is, I think how I think about the topic or how I think about the how to do's is a lot more valuable than the actually how to do instructions, because without the thinking, all the doing is still not enough. And the reality is there's actually lots of versions of how to do's that might work in a given situation, and what works for one person might be different for another, but they usually have some commonalities in their underlying thinking that leads to sustained success. So it's my thinking that I'm here to share, in hopes of it being valuable to you. Now I want to make a distinction between affirmations versus workable thinking. When I talk about the power of thinking, I'm not talking about affirmations. Affirmations are statements that I wish were true, but I don't actually believe them. A workable thought is something that I actually do believe, at least a little bit. So it is actually true for me, even if it's just a little bit. So here's an example to illustrate.
Brianna Siobhan:
Many years ago I think it's been at least a decade now I wanted to train for my first triathlon, and so I was trying to come up with a thought that would support me in making the choices I needed to make to follow my training plan and be ready to complete my first triathlon. And I started with an affirmation, and it was something like I'm a strong, healthy, fit triathlete. The problem was I wasn't. I wasn't a triathlete yet, and I actually wasn't all that fit yet either. And so every time I said that affirmation, there was a responding voice in my head that said no, you're not. And that was the truth, and that was the thought I believed, and so I didn't do the things. It didn't matter how many times I said I'm a strong, healthy, fit triathlete. It didn't make it true just by saying it or thinking it, and it didn't inspire me to make the choices to become it. So I changed it from an affirmation to a workable thought. I came up with a thought, and it was something like I'm a committed triathlete in training, improving my fitness with each workout. Now, this was true. I was a triathlete in training and every workout did increase my fitness. So that was a thought. It's just tweaked a little bit, but it made it true. So when I thought that thought, I believed it. It made it more powerful and it inspired me to do the training and I successfully completed my first triathlon. So the distinction between an affirmation and workable thoughts is super important. So everything that I have to say about my thinking and sharing my thinking and the power of thoughts is really about workable thoughts, thoughts that we actually can believe, so that we're not just getting sucked into affirmations that really are not true and don't get us anywhere.
Brianna Siobhan:
I also want to make a distinction between a thought and a belief, and actually I think they're more similar than most people give them credit. Most people say a belief is something that's true, or at least something that's true for me. I think a belief is just a thought that's been repeated enough times that I think it's true. I believe it. I believe that thought because I've thought it so many times, but it may or may not be true. The real, true validity or truth of it is completely separate from it being a belief, because belief is just a repeated thought. I thought this has been repeated so many times. We believe it to be the truth.
Brianna Siobhan:
So when we look at beliefs, the question I always come back to is is it working for me? And what I say? Is it working for me? What I mean is is it supporting me in living the life that I want and creating the results that I want? If so, great, I'm going to keep thinking it and I'm going to keep believing it because it's working for me. It's helping me create the life I want. But if the answer is no, it's not working for me it actually is not helping me create the results I want and live the life I want Then I get to change it, and so do you.
Brianna Siobhan:
So if you have thoughts that you've thought so many times over and over, they've become beliefs, but they're not working for you, you get to change them. Everybody gets to tell you what to think or what to believe, but you, you get to choose the workable, believable thoughts that work for you. It actually doesn't matter what anybody else thinks, because you know what. They can't read your mind. So you get to think and believe anything you want and they don't even know, unless you tell them, of course. So you get to choose your thoughts and you get to repeat the thoughts that you want to hold as beliefs. You can be very intentional in this and intentionally repeat those thoughts to create new beliefs.
Brianna Siobhan:
This is what science calls neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity means our brain, our actual physiological brain, can change based on how we think. This is the power of thoughts. We can actually change our neurology with our thoughts. So we get to choose our thoughts. We get to create the beliefs we want. We get to physically rewire the neurons in our brain to make it easier to think the new thoughts that we want to turn into beliefs over time.
Brianna Siobhan:
Our thoughts drive our feelings and actions and therefore our results. Our thoughts create our lives, our world. They're so powerful. This is why I don't think you need another how To Do podcast. It's why I'm here not to tell you what to do and actually not even to tell you what to think, just to share my thinking, to spark your thinking, so you can be more intentional in choosing your thinking to create more of what you want in your life. So if you think it might be useful to continue hearing my thoughts to spark your own thinking so that you can be more intentional in choosing your thinking and creating the life you want. Then continue to join me on this journey and subscribe to the podcast. Thanks for listening.