#12 Routine Optimization: Routine Tweaks That Speed PTSD Healing | Recovery Secrets Series

Welcome to the Overcoming PTSD Podcast. My name is Brad Schipke, and this is the limited series called Recovery Secrets Daily Coaching. Now, these were private sessions that I originally ran as a paid coaching program, but now for the first time ever, I'm making all 100+ sessions available for free for all of you podcast listeners. And this series is over 100 days of practical strategies that have helped thousands of trauma survivors fully heal. So make sure to subscribe because I'm dropping a new episode every single weekday until the archive is complete and you definitely do not want to miss it. So without further ado, let's dive on in.

All right, welcome everyone to our Recovery Secrets Daily Coaching. We are so excited to be here with each and every one of you. So we're super excited to be here with you all today on Tuesday to talk about some routine optimization. Now we all have routines. The question is, are they helping us achieve our goals? So in the last couple of weeks, we've talked about 2 different routines. We've talked about the evening routine as well as the morning routine. Today we're talking about how to optimize any routine. So for those of you who have additional routines, including healing routines, this is going to be a great lesson as well. So while we get everything connected up, we'll let Brad do kind of an intro here.

So I'm Brad. Welcome anybody who's new to these. I'm excited to jump in today.

So let's talk about routine optimization.

Yeah.

Okay. So it's very, very simple to optimize your routines, but it's easy to It's actually, it's easy to do too much when it comes to optimization. It's easy to over-process this, basically, to overdo it. And so when it comes to optimization, you know, the first thing that you want to think about is, like, what are my routines, right? So you want to kind of start to segment them. Now, if you don't already have routines, if you don't have a morning routine and an evening routine and a healing routine, it's just going to kind of look like your life as a whole. So you want to start to, like, pick out what are my routines right now. We do have routines for everything. Whether we set them up consciously or not. So that's kind of step 1. What are the routines that I actually want to optimize? Now, when it actually comes to doing the optimization, the first question I want you to ask yourself, what is the goal of this routine? What's the goal of this routine? If you don't know the goal of the routine, you're not going to be able to optimize. So if you don't start with that in mind, you won't be able to optimize. Only when you have the goal can you then say, okay, Now, is this right now— this is step 2— is this routine as it is right now allowing me to achieve that goal, right? So it's a very logical progression. What's the goal? Is this routine allowing me to achieve that goal? Is it setting me up for success to achieve that goal? And then from there, you're going to get— you can get binary here, right? You're going to get one of two answers. You're going to get yes, it is, or no, it isn't, right? And so optimization is is for the most part, it's going to be about making small changes. Only if you get— like, if you look at a routine and you're like, none of this is working whatsoever, then you're going to do something a little bit different. But typically, stuff in your routine is going to be working, and what you're going to want to do is change one of the variables, which we'll talk a little bit about, to optimize. So you're looking to make small, small changes so that you can get basically the best mix of things possible to get you to achieve the goal that you're looking to achieve. Does that make sense?

Yeah, 100%. You set the goal, right? You have your routine. You ask yourself, is this routine achieving that goal I'm looking to achieve? And a lot of times, like Haley said, it, it will be to some degree, right? And then basically you can ask yourself, you know, what needs to change to achieve this goal better, faster, more efficiently, whatever it is. So for example, like the morning routine, The goal that we set at least is to set you up for the day, right? To put you in the best state for the rest of your day. And almost, it's almost as, it's like a system to ensure that you have the best day possible moving forward. So you do that same system every morning to put you in the best state so that the rest of your day has the highest probability of going in the right direction, right? So that's kind of like the goal that we've set for the morning routine. And then basically what you can do is you can ask yourself, you know, is this routine, my morning routine, Achieving that goal? Is it, is it setting me up for like the rest of my day in the way that I want to be set up for, you know? And for me, that was like, I want to be calm, I want to be relaxed, I want to be energized, and I want to be focused, right? So I want to be calm, but also energized and focused because I want to be ready for my day so I can jump in and, and do all the things I need to do. And then, yeah, you ask yourself, it's, if it's, if it's achieving those goals, if it's doing those things, and then what needs to change in order to do that better? Right. That's kind of like the core of optimization in and of itself. And you'll find the importance of what we're talking about today is because again, we're talking about independent thinking, right? We're talking about you setting the goal, you asking yourself, is this achieving the goal? And then you making the change that you need to make for yourself. Right. How many people tell you that? You know, I know when I was making my morning routines, when I first started it, I was like, you know, people are just like, this is the optimal morning routine. You do this exactly to the T. You do this at this time, at this time, at this time, at this time, you have alarms for all of them. And this is the strict schedule that you need to stick to in order to, you know, you know, get the checkmark from the morning routine god. But when I reflected on myself, and this wasn't like, this took me a while to realize that I, I was doing something wrong because I was just doing this, this morning routine that was basically prescribed to me. And it took me a while to realize that it wasn't setting, it wasn't achieving the goal that, you know, it was supposed to be achieving. It made me more stressed. It drained all my energy. It made me exhausted, you know, by the end of it because I was doing all these things and I was really, I was pressuring myself so much to get these things done in the, like the short, short period of time and to be on time all the time. So it wasn't achieving the goal that I wanted for myself. So that's when I started changing the routine to optimize for my goal and for what I wanted. And then everything started to, you know, to get better. And there were, there were good things about starting with a routine like that. And like, for some of you who don't know, where to start using some of our suggestions, but it's better. Like, you need to start somewhere, and if you don't know what to do, try something and then just optimize it from there for you. The important thing though is to make sure that you're not changing things too quickly. You're not changing too many things at once unless you have a routine that's not working right. If you have a routine for the majority of the time, you only want to really change one variable, right? You want to change one thing and then, you know, wait a few weeks and then see, you know, How does that change the outcome? Or even, even a week, a week to a few weeks. And then you can see how like I changed this one variable and it changes the routine in this way. I changed this one variable, it changes the routine in this way. But if you have a routine that's absolutely not working, you can just, I had a, in business, I had, I had a mentor who would call this when you're like optimizing like advertising campaign or a marketing campaign or something that isn't working. He would call it cowboy optimization because it's like, you can just change, like if it's not working, if the, if the thing isn't working, There's no harm in changing a bunch of things until you get something that works. But when you have something that works, you want to change one variable at a time so that you basically don't throw away everything that's working. So you find the little tweaks that need to be optimized over time. So that is kind of like the essence of like optimization. What's the goal? Am I achieving that goal? What needs to change? Then changing one variable at a time, waiting a week to, let's say, 3 weeks to see the effects of that change, and then Keep going from there.

I love that you brought up cowboy optimization. I was going to bring it up if you didn't, but that, that, it's something that makes me laugh at. It's something that—

It's real though. It's like, it, it's true.

If it's not working, just like trash the whole thing and try something else. Nothing. If it's not, if it's like nothing is working, there's no harm in just throwing the whole thing out, you know? And then once you start to get some pieces that work, then you can do this optimization, change one thing at a time, see how it affects the outcome, right? So that's really, really important. Now the other thing is, The optimization never changes, right? Because life is always in flux. But the point is that, you know, life is dynamic and situations are dynamic. So you can adjust your routines and you can adjust, you know, when I was learning about routines, the way that I kind of learned was like, you're going to have a morning routine and you have to do it for life, no matter where you are, no excuses, no matter what. And that never ever worked for me because eventually something like this happened where we went away for a week or I went away with my family. And I wasn't able to do that exact routine. And so because I wasn't able to do that exact routine, I felt that like I had failed, right? And so part of optimizing routines is something I call like contingency routines. Okay. And so that's kind of what we have up here. When we're on vacation, our routines change a little bit and they're more like vacation routines. Now they still help us achieve our goals. Our goals just look a little bit different when we're on vacation than when we're not.

Awesome. Yeah, that's a really important point. Like, it's like what I was saying before, I thought I had to be perfect. I thought I had to be perfect all the time. And that inevitably led me to a point where I was not perfect and I just stopped. I just stopped doing it because it was so intense. And that's why I like, I like what, what Dale said here earlier, is it sustainable? It's like, that's, that is a major goal of a routine, right? Like a routine, a routine in and of itself is a system helps you stay consistent. Over, I like to say like a lifetime, right? So like something that will help you stay consistent with the things you need to do over a lifetime. So is it sustainable, right? That's a big thing that you want to ask yourself. Is this sustainable? Can I see myself doing this for a lifetime? And if you can't, that's something else that you can optimize for. You can optimize for sustainability. You can optimize for, like, that could be a goal, right? I want to optimize for consistency. I want to optimize for sustainability. I want to optimize for, you know, relaxation. I would optimize for energy. But this is where you start to think in, what do I want? Right? So, and everybody, everyone here is different. Everybody's at different points in their life. Everybody, you know, has different, different goals in life and wants to do different things. So for example, like somebody who, you know, is maybe retired and, you know, doesn't have work commitments anymore or anything like that, maybe it's like, I want to just, I want to set my morning routine up so I'm relaxed, calm, and peaceful, and I can you know, go throughout my day the way I want to. And then someone who is, you know, maybe younger, maybe starting a business or something, or wants to start a business or has to, has to go to work and wants to crush it at work could be, I want to, you know, wake up calm, relaxed, energized, focused, and ready to, ready to hit the day. So like it's different for, for everybody. And that's where kind of that independent thought comes in.

And it's going to be different through different stages of life. You know, again, life's constantly in flux. This is where that optimization comes in. So you can check in and say, is this helping me achieve the goal? Is this still the goal I want to achieve? Or So Brad just mentioned 2 very different goals. Energized, focused, relaxed, you know, ready to crush it. And relaxed could be the, the only thing that you want to feel in your morning routine, relaxed and at peace, you know, and you could have a kind of a combination of those things. So it's going to, it's going to be continually optimizing because, because life continues to kind of change.

Yeah, 100%. Next thing I want to kind of dive into is the different variables that you guys can optimize. You will notice with us, what we do is we, we push you guys to think independently. Like we will give you frameworks, we will give you formulas, we will give you tools, we will give you even examples of things that you can implement in your own life. But at the end of the day, we want to push you guys to think, what is best for me? What do I want to do? Right? So like, what is my goal for this routine? What is my goal for recovery? That's what we talked about yesterday. What is my goal? What is your goal? Right? What do you want? So a lot of what we do is we try to just push you into thinking, because I mean, I was like this a lot in certain areas. I'm still like this and I have to catch myself and like be like, slow down, think for yourself. You can, you can come up with the solution or what you're looking for. But a lot of times we look for people to solve our problems so we don't have to do any independent thought on our own. And that's kind of a humbling thought, you know, like we're always looking for somebody else to solve the problems for us and we don't really do too much thinking for ourselves. And I won't get into that as I talk about some, some other topic, but that's something that we want to push you guys a lot. And you'll hear that come up again and again and again. Like the foundation of everything we teach is independent healing, self-reliance, and pushing you to build the life you want to build, right? Because we don't know you, like what you want. And a lot of times we don't even know what we want. So like, it's, it's hard enough knowing what you want. It's like, we don't know what you want. It's impossible for us to know what you want. So with that, I want to dive into some like different variables that people can optimize. So different things that people can look at and be like, okay, these are the things. In my routines that I can change to optimize it, right? So there will be internal things, there'll be external things, and then there'll be actions that you do, right? So the most obvious one is, is the actions, right? So like the actual things that you do in your routine, right? So going again with the example of the morning routine, it could be like, first I get up out of bed, then I shut off my alarm, then I brush my teeth, then I make coffee, then I go to the gym, then I meditate. And then I come home, take a shower, and that's, those are the actions that I take. So you could, you could change the sequence of actions that you take to optimize the best sequence of actions. You could swap in and out different actions to try to make the routine better. So that's one variable right there is the actions. Next variable is kind of external things and in your, in your environment, right? So those could be people, places, things. And a big thing that I've learned on my routine journey is that my routines are very much ingrained and based around my environment. It's like you get used to the environment that you build, you know, basically in your home. And it doesn't mean that you can't, like, I don't know why I even thought of this, but like, if you're, I was like thinking maybe one of you guys are like a traveling salesman and you can never, like, you never have a home base. So I was going to say it doesn't mean that you can't be consistent in an environment that's constantly changing. That's what I was, that was my intent with that. But external things, right? So again, I'll give you an example with me and my morning routine is like I have my journal right next to my bed, right? Actually, that's for my evening routine, but I have my alarm across the room, right? So I get up out of bed, that's, and that's me optimizing my environment for my routine so that it makes it easier for me to get out of bed. And then I make my bed right when I wake up. And then next to my alarm, I go shut it off. I have my gym clothes laid out right next to my alarm. So it It's right there. I don't have to think, okay, what am I gonna wear for the gym? It's right there. The decision's already made and it's right, right there, optimized right next to my phone. So I don't have to think about it. I don't have to have willpower or anything. So I turn off, turn off my alarm, grab my gym clothes, and they're stacked in the exact way that I wanna put them on. So I have my sweatshirt, my t-shirt, my shorts, my, my spandex, and my socks. Actually, I don't, I put my socks on last, but then I have a hat as well. So I take my socks and my hat off and then I put everything on in order and then I'm good to go. But that's all habit now. Like, I don't even think about it. Like when I put it away at night, that's how I put it away. And then I, I go into the kitchen and I know exactly where my protein for my protein shake is. I know where my protein powder is. It's all in one section. They're all in their own containers. I know exactly how many scoops I'm gonna do, and then everything else is laid out there. And then at the gym, I know exactly what I'm gonna be doing. So I know the exact routine I'm gonna be doing. I know the exact meditation routine I'm gonna be doing.

I know exactly where I'm gonna go.

And my environment around me is supportive of those routines. So what you want to do is you want to look through and imagine yourself going through your routine and removing all the resistance, removing all the obstacles that would prevent you or that would get you off track or cause you to have to think and make a decision, right? So you don't want, you don't want your routine to be filled with decisions. You want the decisions to be all pre-made, right? So that's kind of like the external environment element of optimization. So we talked about the actions, the environment, and then there's also like the internal thoughts.

Before you jump into internal, can I just make one comment?

Oh, 100%.

So, you know, Brad, Brad's saying like you wanna picture yourself going through your routines and this is part of optimization, or also reflecting on what in your routines has tripped you up, has caused some resistance. Brad's saying you wanna think as little as possible. You wanna know exactly what's going to happen so that you don't have to make decisions. In that moment. So it could be something as little as, you know, you get to the point where you're ready to start the car for us because it's cold out, right? Or you're getting ready to get in the car, right? And where are my keys?

Right.

You know, where are my keys could very well be the thing that kind of trips you up and you're like, I can't find my keys and you go back to bed. So that's what he's kind of talking about, looking for little things like that. Or him saying like, where, you know, where are my gym clothes, right? So if you work or if you live maybe with someone and you maybe get up before them and you Maybe don't want to turn a light on while they're still asleep to find your stuff. Or you thought you had your yoga pants or your shorts or your spandex or your workout clothes ready, but they're actually in the laundry and you have to— all these little things can add up to kind of trip you up, right? And maybe you thought that your blender was clean, but it's actually dirty in the dishwasher, so you can't make your shake that morning.

Yeah.

So these are the things that I just wanted to point out externally to look out for that will, and can very often trip you up and cause that resistance enough. And if you get enough of those things that cause resistance, it's really going to put a damper on the success of your routine. So I just wanted to point those things out because I'm glad you brought those up. Yeah.

You want to take on the internal?

I love the internal. Yeah. Brad's talked about the actions and the external, like the environment and the actions. Now, what internally do we think needs to be happening during our routines? How do we want that to look? So I love this. It's an element. It's really easy to miss this element, this internal element, but it's Vital, crucial, super, super important. So it's, it's going to be all about controlling and directing what's going on up here, right? Controlling and directing your thoughts. And so you want basically your internal world to reflect your goals and to reflect having success during that routine. And so it can be little things, but you just want to make sure you're not fighting yourself internally for these routines. So when you're getting out of bed, if you have some thoughts that are like, I hate working out, I don't know why I have to do this, this is the worst in the world and you're forcing yourself to do this, but you're fighting yourself internally, it's going to be a lot harder to have success. Now, it's not impossible, but you can control and reframe what's going on internally to be positive, to be switched to gratitude, to be supporting you in these goals, right? And so something I used to say to myself, and I still sometimes do, especially when I'm not feeling well or, you know, maybe I'm traveling, so I'm out late or whatever, I want to make sure I get up and hit my routine or hit my workout. Is I'll say to myself, Keely, just get vertical. Just get vertical. Because I'm not trying to convince myself to go and do a 1-hour workout that's a boot camp workout, right? Which is eventually where I'm going to. I'm just trying to get myself vertical, you know, from horizontal to vertical. That's all I'm trying to do. Okay? And so what that internal world can look like is just supporting the next step, the next step, the next step, right? So I, you know, when my alarm goes off, I'm like, Keely, just get vertical. And then I get vertical. Okay. And then I'm like, let's just put our gym clothes on, right? I'm like, great. Okay. So that internal voice is supporting what you're doing. And then as I'm getting ready, some things— now, again, you don't always need this and you'll kind of grow out of this, but sometimes you still will kind of just need to remind yourself these things. You just want that internal world to support your goals externally. I would say to myself, I've never, ever regretted going to a boot camp workout. And I work out with a group of women. I've never, ever regretted going, even when I was super tired, or in the past, not so much anymore, didn't feel well, or was up late, you know, traveling, whatever it was, I've never ever regretted going to a workout. And so I'll say things like that. And I'll say, you know, I'm so grateful that I get to get up and that I have the ability to go and work out my entire physical body. You know, not everyone has the ability to be able to go and do something like that. I'm surrounded by a great group of women. You know, I think about why I want to work out, who I want to be as a mom, who I want to be as a role model to different people. And so really, the whole theme is you want your internal world to support and enhance what's going on when you're trying to reach your goals externally. And so it can be as simple as supporting the next step. Let's just get vertical. Let's just put our clothes on. Let's just get in the car. Let's just start the car. And it can be a little bit bigger— positive self-talk, right? I deserve to work out. I deserve that. My family deserves that. You know, I'm doing these things because I want to be a good role model, because I deserve success, because, you know, I want to be the best I can be. Different things like that.

Yeah, that's all amazing. Just looking at that next, that next little step is so powerful because like how many, how many people here are like, they wake up and then they think of everything they have to do in the day, they get overwhelmed, they hit snooze, or they just turn off their alarm and they go back to bed and that's it, right? Right. That used to be me. It's like you think about everything you have to do in the day and then you get So overwhelmed, you stress yourself out so much that you don't want to do anything, but really you just need to do one little thing. And this is, this is how I would think is like, Cameron says, like, just get vertical. For me, it was like, all I literally have to do right now is like, I just need to get up and out of bed. And if you remove all of that, that mental noise, it's like, how hard is it to get yourself to just stand up? I can do that. That's very easy. Like, if you just like remove all the emotion, all the stress from it, what are you really doing in your morning routine? It's like, oh, I'm just standing up. And like, oh, I'm just walking over to my alarm. You know, it's like the actions are very simple and, but compressing them down to the very small timeframes is extremely helpful. And something that I would do in the beginning too is like sometimes you, when you do create a routine and let's say it's a new workout routine or whatever it is, you do put a lot of pressure on yourself because it's more than you've ever done before. Something I wanna say too is that you can build up to that routine. So let's say like you wake up at, like you wanna wake up at 5:00 AM, you wanna do this relaxation exercise and you wanna hit the gym. That's your new, that's your new routine, your new morning routine. But when you think of it, you get a little bit, a little bit overwhelmed. What you can do is like if you wake up at, let's say you, you, the next morning when you go to start the routine, you wake up at 5:00 AM, you go to shut off your alarm, you go do your relaxation exercise, and then you get like really overwhelmed and you're like, I really don't wanna go to the gym. Or whatever, you can take the pressure off and be like, okay, I woke up at 5:00 AM. I haven't done that ever. I did a relaxation routine. I've never done that before. That's a huge win. And again, I want to shift. I want to make sure that I'm shifting people's, or I'm shifting your focus on progress, not perfection. If you're not absolutely perfect, that's okay. And even if you like, you miss a few days, like that's like, you want to look back over the week and be like, even if I just got one day, that's a win. I did one morning routine better than I did the week before. And it doesn't mean you should give up. It just means for this week, let's aim for 2. Well, let's aim for 1.5. You know, like if I, if I just do that, then I'm, I, I'm at least getting consistently better. Obviously we wanna aim for, for longer-term consistency, consistency with everything, but sometimes we can fall off and we can beat ourselves up a lot and then not ever really jump back on the horse. So we wanna look back and be like, and, and, and reflect on the wins that you had to make sure that if you do fall off the routine or whatever it is, You see the progress that you've made by just taking that action. It's, it's a win. It's a step forward. And then just jump right back on the horse because it's, it's not, it's not a big problem.

Yeah. Celebrate the successes big time and watch what's going on internally. Like Brad said, like, you know, if you've ever trained, like I remember training Shiloh when he was a puppy and, and that's what you're looking for. You're looking for progress. You're not, the first time you tell a dog to sit, they don't speak the language that you speak. They have no idea what to do. Right? And so you don't expect to say, sit, lay down, fetch, all these things, and then to just do them, right? You kind of taper up to these things. And if you've ever trained an animal, you'll know that you start with more simple, basic exercises, things they naturally do, and then you taper up to more complex and more complex and more complex tasks that they, you know, they vary in complexity. They, they build on themselves, right? And so you can do that with your routines. If eventually you wanna work out 5 days a week, You know, and you can just get yourself up and to the gym one day a week for now, right? And then 2 days a week and then 3 days a week. Celebrate those successes. Celebrate the fact that you're getting closer to your goal than you were before. And I want to point out one thing because I love that you brought this up, Judy. I just, I caught the word frustration, right? So Judy shared, you know, when we were asking about internal, like saying something like, you know that you can do this and not get frustrated when things don't go exactly as planned. Talk to yourself, talk yourself through this. We have a lot of kind of mantras that, you know, we use and you'll hear 'em throughout the coaching and stuff like that. Things like relaxed action, just get vertical. Now you can make your own kind of mantras up, right? Like something I used to say to myself is you do not have to be perfect. You're allowed to be a human being. You're always going to be a human being. It's okay to be a human being, right? And I would just talk to myself like, hey, just go make coffee. Hey, just get in the car. Hey, like, just don't worry about the whole big picture. Just take the next step and don't worry if it doesn't go well because you're a human being and you're working towards, you're working towards making a lifestyle change. That stuff doesn't happen overnight.

So I have one last thing before we can dive into the Q&A. One last thing in regards to the internal inputs. So again, I'm going to recap kind of what we talked about today, but in regards to the internal inputs, you also want to be aware Of what's affecting your internal inputs, right? And I noticed this when I was listening to even like music, certain music, audiobooks or podcasts, or when I go to the gym, the radio that would be on or the TV that would be, that would be playing in, in the, in the gym, those things would affect my, my mental state in either a positive way or a negative way. So you wanna be aware of how me, like your external environment actually influences the way that you're thinking in the morning. And, you know, when you first wake up, you're not like as mentally sharp as you are, you know, a few hours into your day. So you're, it's easier to allow those things in and it's easier to allow those things to affect you without really realizing it. So you want to be, you want to be aware of it. So an example of that is, this was actually just a few weeks ago when I went to, I went to the gym. I think it was like on a Saturday, Saturday morning. So it was just me and some other guy in the gym. And I was working out and the radio was playing just like the regular radio. And there were, it was just like this, this section of the radio that was all commercials and all like just talking like a talk show type thing. But really the talk show was just people complaining about certain things or certain topics. And it was starting to like get in my head like a little bit, not like, like bad, but I was like, I don't wanna be thinking about these things right when I'm starting my day, when I'm doing something good for myself. Like I don't want these things flowing through my mind. Like I show up to the gym to do something good, not to hear all this negative stuff. So what I did is I went over to the stereo and I turned it off. Like, I didn't ask anybody, I just turned it off. I'm like, this is, this is it. And then some other guy like who worked there came in and then turned it on. And I went up to him and be like, hey, can, is it okay if we turn this off? Like, it's, it's all commercials. I, I just don't want to listen to that. And he is like, yeah, sure. So like taking control of your, your environment and being aware of what influences your mind and your internal world is, is really important as well. So I'll just do a quick summary of everything just to recap it all together. We talked about optimizing your routines. You want to identify what the goal is for the routine. You want to ask yourself, is this routine achieving that goal? And you want to ask yourself what needs to change, right? Then you also want to be aware of the different variables that you can change. So your actions, your environment, your physical environment around you, external things, and your internal, internal thoughts and what influences your internal thoughts. So action?

So action time is to— I want you to reflect on your routines, right? And so in the past couple of weeks, we talked about evening routine, we talked about morning routine. Some of you will have a healing routine. Any kind of routines that you have, it's not limited to those 3 routines, but reflect on them and work to optimize them. Ask yourself, are these achieving the goal that I want them to achieve? And start to make changes and make a time as well to reflect on these changes every couple of weeks. Just You could just sit and think, you know, is this, is this helping me achieve the goals that I, I set it up to, you know, and what needs to change if it's not? So start to optimize those routines.

So yeah, look at your routines, go through that framework. What's the goal? Is this achieved yet? How can I improve? And look at the different variables to optimize it. Start with one.

Start with one. Always start simple. Keep your focus on one thing at a time. That's how you're going to have success overall. Change one thing at a time and even one routine at a time. You know, when we start to make a ton, ton, ton of life changes, we only have so much energy. Think about your energy like a battery, right? If you are putting that in all different places, it's, you know, it's gonna be, it's gonna be dispersed and you can kind of almost spread yourself too thin. I don't typically like, you know, like sayings like that, but you can kind of spread your energy too thin, rather your focus too thin and deplete your energy a lot faster. And so then not have success in all of those things. There's an old, I think it might be a Chinese Ace proverb, you know, if you chase 2 rabbits, you lose them both. That kind of mindset around this. Focus on one thing at a time, master it, then move to the next thing, master it, then move to the next thing. Because in the scheme of things, it's actually going to be a lot faster.

A heck of a lot faster. All right. Barbara says, I really identify with getting overwhelmed and not knowing where to start. My clutter and the thought of clearing it overwhelms me. I'm not sure why I can't just start with 10 minutes a day. Any advice? Yes. So I had this, I had this problem for a while, a long time, and it took me kind of several passes to kind of get it down to a point where I am now, where I still feel like, I still feel like I have too much stuff, but it's, if you saw it, it would be like, that's not that much stuff. But there's kind of different ways that you can go about it.

Right.

I would encourage you to, if you, if you have the motivation and the inspiration to get started, start at least at one room at a time. Right? Pick one room that you're going to go through. And I, I, I personally recommend going through in its entirety from start to finish in one sitting because you gain the momentum of completing that task. You don't have to like restart, you know, and go back in there and be like, oh my gosh, I have all this stuff to do. But also you're keeping it down to one room. And if one room seems too overwhelming, do one closet, you know, or do one dresser or whatever it is. But I would recommend starting with one segment of your house. Going through everything that you have, right? And then separating it into 3 piles, right? One is I'm going to keep, one is I'm going to donate, one is I'm going to throw away, right? And the great thing about those 3 piles is that like, obviously we want to get rid of a lot of stuff in the donate and throw away, but that way you don't have to feel bad about getting rid of stuff. You can be like, okay, I'm going to donate it. Someone else is going to get good use out of it because a lot of times we have a lot of emotional attachment to our physical things, and that can be an easy way to let go of stuff. It's like, I'm going to donate this stuff. And I know near us there's Big Brothers Big Sisters. They would take all of our donations. You know, we just put them up in boxes and they would take everything away. I don't know, you could probably find something near you or a Goodwill or a Salvation Army or whatever else that you can just bring it to. Or even sometimes they have like the Big Brothers Big Sisters would come by and pick everything up for us. So that's a great way to do it. And It also removes a lot of pressure from you, you know, so like you don't have to get rid of a lot of stuff. Like the goal is to get rid of more stuff and push yourself to get rid of more stuff if you, if you're just like overflowed. But that's what I would do. And then, you know, put everything else away in, in the way that you want it. And what you'll find is that the first pass that you go through a room, you won't get up, get rid of everything that, you know, you, you probably need to or could, you know. And obviously this is an individual Like you can get rid of as much or as little as you want. And I'm not trying to press you to go into any sort of like minimalist lifestyle or anything like that. Like you, you choose what you want to do. I can say my life is better with less stuff. And when I got rid of most of my stuff, I didn't miss it. You know, like I think like, I, I'm going to miss this or like, this was a gift and I feel like I need to hold onto this for the rest of my life because it was a gift, even though I'll never use it. In those cases, I would, I would like basically convince myself, be like, not convince myself, but I would say to myself, someone else can get use out of this when I'm not getting any use out of it. And that's why the donation is really important. It's like there's somebody out there that could get a lot of use out of this. And, you know, I really appreciate and I'm grateful for this person for giving me the, giving me this gift. And now basically I get to give this gift to somebody else. So that's a way that helped me kind of move that because it was hard for me to get rid of stuff in the beginning. But I would start small. I would recommend going from start to finish, but if you can't go from start to finish, I would start with something smaller and then do that start to finish. So like a, a dresser or a closet or whatever it is, doing that from start to finish, because that will give you the momentum to kind of move forward with that. That's kind of my recommendation. What do you say?

Yeah, I have some different thoughts on that. You know, so this, this is something I struggle with quite a bit. And I would say the most important thing is to watch what's going on, you know, up here in your head, like watch the way that you're speaking to yourself, you know, because overwhelm typically comes from, we think we need a certain skill level to do something. And we believe that our skill level is below that enough to create a gap. Right? So I'm overwhelmed because I think that I need to be at this level, but I think that I am at this level. And so there's a gap that needs to be filled when that's not the case really at all, right? There's no special skill set that— almost when it comes to anything, but when it comes to cleaning or organizing, excuse me, or anything like that, we're all very, very capable of doing that, right? And so I'd watch what you say to yourself most importantly, and talk yourself through this process. Like, Like, lay on the self-talk. Like, and this is something I had to do. And even when I get rid of stuff, it's kind of still something I do. You know, I just got rid— I am a flannel person, right? Like, you see me in flannels all the time. And because I'm a flannel person and I have so many amazing people in my life, they continue to gift me flannels, right? Until, like, I looked through my closet this year, I was like, I have more flannels than any one person could possibly ever need. And so I'm going through and I'm getting rid of them and I'm like, oh, I love this flannel, it's so great, but like, I don't wear it anymore. And I'm like, you know what, Kay, listen. Listen, someone is going to love this. Someone is going to get all the joy that you got out of this, and they're going to love it, and it's going to make them feel good, and I'm going to donate it to them. And I would just watch kind of that talk. And something I used to say too is like, Keely, be ruthless. Be ruthless with this, okay? Like, you can do this. Like, this stuff is not serving you. This stuff is taking up space. It could be adding value to someone else's life.

Right.

You know, if it's not adding value to your life, it's taking value from your life. So I really watch what's going on up here and, and just really reinforce that you can do this, that you are capable. Like, hey, I can do this. You know, all I have to do is this one shelf. And I would section things off, you know, like as much as you can section things off down to the drawer if you want to. All I have to do is this one drawer. That's it.

Yeah.

That's all you have to do is that one drawer. All I have to do is the top of this dresser. That's it. All I have to do is this other drawer. That's it. All I have to do is this one shelf in this one closet. That's it. You know, or, you know, take out 10 hangers. All I have to do is deal with these 10 things. That's it. So then you are chipping away at it, and then you can, you can really lower because, you know, we can think it takes a certain skill level to be able to walk into a house and declutter it and clean it and organize it. And we have to be Marie Kondo, right? And that's not true. That's not true. We don't need that skill level, right? Skill level. We, we have that skill level and we can approach things kind of piece by piece and one at a time. So that's, that's where I would—

Recommend Marie Kondo. Watch this. She got me into—

she's great.

Honestly, she's the one that got me into it in the first place. I didn't even read the whole book. I just read like one part of it and I was like, I'm gonna do that.

Just read the title.

A little bit more than that. I love that. That's, that's a great question. Alrighty, let's see what else. Also, some people like Bonnie and Joe, they're saying, you know, put on some good music. And what I wanna say too is like, make the, make the task enjoyable as much as you can. You know, pull out a drawer of your dresser, sit on a comfortable couch and go through the things.

Like we have, we call it a cleaning party.

Yeah. Make it a cleaning party, right?

Make it a party. Have a good time.

What you'll find too, and I think it's very important, like to, you know, even if it is just one drawer to start it and to finish it completely, because then you'll get the, you'll get the basically the dopamine hit, but you'll get the rewards of completing a task and completing tasks is so important for momentum, for wins, for everything else like that. So complete a task, complete a task, complete a task. And something that I would say to myself is like, I don't start a task that I don't finish.

Right?

So make sure when you start a task, you finish it completely, even if it's just a single drawer. Go through it. I completed that. And then what you'll, you'll find that you'll feel really good after it. What?

You'll feel really good after it. After.

You'll feel really good after it. And you'll actually look back and be like, that was kind of fun. I kind of want to do that again. Because you get a good feeling from, from it. And then you'll actually start to enjoy the process. Like I, like now I want to go through all my stuff at home now because I'm like, it feels so good. It feels good to get rid of stuff. It feels good. Like all of that clutter around you is a weight on you. Like Kayleen said, if it's not adding to your life, it's taking away from your life. Like all that stuff that we think is that important to us is actually taking away so much from us. Yeah.

So Tyrone's sharing, I love how, how much personal development you guys incorporate into this. So much value I didn't expect. You'll notice there's a lot of foundations from a lot of different kinds of areas in this journey, which is really, really cool. So I'm glad and welcome, Tyrone. I'm glad, I'm glad you see that and it comes through because it's, it, it changes the whole lifestyle. Carla's sharing, I really like the idea of setting a time limit for cleaning, cluttering, decluttering a house. I find that once I get started, I do more than anticipated. It's amazing what you can get done in actually 5 or 10 minutes.

And then that becomes your new standard, you know, because it like, for some reason it is overwhelming. Like even 5 minutes, you're like, oh, I, you have all this resistance to go clean or to put stuff away or whatever it is. But the 5-minute, literally like a 5-minute timer at the end of the day just to put things away really quickly. Like that will start to feel really good to you. You'll wake up and be like, wow, it looks really good in here. And then that, if you keep doing that, will become your new standard. Like right now it's like we have this certain standard that we don't fall below, where in the past it would've been chaos.

Life is a lot different now reflecting on it.

Yeah, it's, it's very different.

Yeah, it, it becomes habitual and that's the whole point of the kind of the lifestyle. Okay, this is a good question. Judy just kind of shared like, I know I need to change my routine before bed. I think I need more quiet. So had your procedures since doing the coaching in your sleep? And you just kind of mentioning it was like frustrating. I did do some meditation yesterday for about 15 minutes, which is more than I've done. My eyes actually started moving after a few minutes, so back and forth. So the big question here is, and there's 2 things I want to press on, can you have rapid eye movement during meditation and is this okay?

Yes.

This is something we're actually going to talk about on something called bilateral stimulation as a relief tool. Now there's a couple of different ways you can do it. Eyes is absolutely one. So the short answer to that is yes, absolutely. And since it's happening naturally, let it happen. The other thing I want to mention is the recovery journey is full of ups and downs. There's good days, there's bad days, there's all sorts of in-between days. We we do as human beings, we get greedy when we start to have good days, and it's okay to feel this. When we start to have good days, we want those good days forever, and we're like, "I'm doing so well." Blah blah blah blah. And then inevitably, inevitably, when a bad day happens or when something like this happens where you know you have a sleep problem or sleep disturbance or a flashback or or or you know you get triggered or something like that, and you know you. You're kind of in that pain, it can really mess with your mindset. But I want to reframe that because it's part of the journey to experience those things. So, you know, when you're having all this success and all these good days and you're feeling good and you're doing what you need to take care of yourself and then something happens, it's not because you're doing anything wrong. It's part of the process for it to happen. And those things actually need to happen. You need to get through those things, learn lessons from those things. It's part of the journey to have good and bad together. And so the less you beat yourself up, the more you say, OK, this happened, and take away the big meaning from it. It doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. You keep working. You keep doing the things to take care of yourself. And those things are going to happen less and less. And we're going to get to the process, and we're going to get to all sorts of different things. But you just keep focusing on the journey, knowing there are going to be parts on the journey where, for lack of a better term, you fall down. You have bad days. These things are going— they're going to happen. And when you can just take that in stride and say, OK, this is part of the process, it's a lot easier to move forward from that. Yeah.

Know that those obstacles, they're inevitabilities. Like there are going to be things you don't like wanna face. There, you're gonna face, you're gonna hit problems you don't wanna have, but those are inevitable parts of the process that everybody goes through. And when you know that, it's almost like you could project out into the future and be like, okay, like if you could look out into the future and see every problem that you had to face in order to get to full recovery, you'd be able to accept that and be like, okay, I like, no problem. I can do that because I know what the outcome is going to be. We all have those problems and obstacles. And like Kayleen said, a lot of times we, we blow them. We make it this, this really big thing. We blow it out of proportion and it can ruin our, our day, our week, everything, our, our total mindset, our whole worldview. It could cause us to lose all hope, but really all those things are inevitability. You're moving in the right direction. You're trying. And sometimes that will dig up some emotions, some reactions. And that's normal. And actually what you'll learn on this journey is that you'll come to learn that pain is your friend. You'll come to learn that pain is a good thing. It's telling you the exact thing that you need, you need to be working on, the exact thing you need to process. So I agree with 100% that, that Kayleen says.

Yeah.

With that.

Yeah. Be careful about like, you know, it doesn't take away how, how painful it is, but no, it sucks. Just, just be careful about making everything, having your whole world Rely on the shoulders of a bad moment because your world is a lot bigger than that moment. Nancy sharing, so helpful to hear examples of internal dialogue we can say to ourselves to get started and keep going. Self-talk.

Awesome.

Self-talk, self-talk, self-talk. Lay on the positive self-talk. So I think that's all we have for questions. Just fantastic.

Yeah, I think that's it.

That was perfect, perfect, perfect timing. Amazing questions, as always. I mean, as always, I want each and every one of you to walk away knowing that you are capable, right? So when we talked about— Overwhelm. Now, this happens a lot on the journey, right? We think that a certain skill level is needed and our skill level falls below that. And that's almost never, ever the case. It's almost never, ever the case. Again, we think that a certain skill level is needed and we think our skill level is down here, when in reality, they're on the same playing field. And it's just— I really want you all to walk away with the certainty and the knowledge and the confidence and the feeling of empowerment that you can do this, This journey, I don't want to dismiss that it's challenging and that it's going to be emotional and at times it's going to be uncomfortable. And I hate to use the word painful, but it's a tough journey. And at the same time, I want you to know that you are capable and you have the skill and you're building the skills right now. Nothing that we talk about requires a high level of education. All that it requires is action. And each and every one of you have the skills to put these things into action. I just want you to walk away with, with that knowledge and with that feeling of, of empowerment that, that you can do this regardless of, of what it is. Again, you can optimize the routines, you can create the routines, you can do the releasing of emotion, you can do the, you know, on Thursday we're talking about damage control for relationships. All of that you're more than capable of doing. Okay.

I love that. No, that's, that's a great way to close it out. Yeah, you guys are capable. Like, I don't know, a lot of the world tries to tell People like us that we're not capable, that you need somebody else, that you need, you need to be dependent on somebody else to, to save you, to heal you, to whatever it is. You have everything you need. You have all the skills. You don't need somebody else. Like you have the power within you. You just have to realize that and see that and really seize it and trust yourself. Believe in yourself. I was almost gonna say, because nobody else will, but like, there, we will, we do.

We will.

But like, we believe that you guys can do this. And that's the whole thing is about empowering you guys with the things With the tools that you need to create that you want, the life that you want. But you guys, you guys got this. You guys just keep showing up. You keep putting in the work. You're going to keep seeing the results. Like, I know a lot of you guys, we've only been doing this for what, 2 and a half weeks? And, you know, people are already seeing amazing, amazing results. So keep doing the work, you know, know that you got this and remove all that pressure, man. Like there's, there's too much pressure. We don't, like, you don't need the pressure to, to, to take action and to do well on this.

So.

Keep up the awesome work. And thank you guys so much for showing up today. It was great seeing everyone, each and every one of you guys on here. And I hope you guys have a fantastic rest of your day.

All right. We love you. We believe in you. Remember, there's a lot of amazing stuff to stick around for. So absolutely stick around. Keep taking action. Keep rocking and rolling. And we'll, we'll see you soon.

Hey everybody. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you want to learn more about how you can coach with me directly, there's a link in the description you can check out. There's absolutely no pressure. The main thing I wanted you to get value from this episode here, but I hope you have a fantastic day and I'll see you in the next one.