Forward Progression

Hi guys. My name is Donny Rouse and you are listening to the podcast One Life Forward Progression. A lot of people, when they think of success, they think of success as this linear line that literally just goes straight out right to your goal. But if you know anything about success or if you've achieved a goal, you know that that is not the truth. Seldom is it a straight line, if anything, if in fact that path is like filled with booby traps and things that are going to throw you off course. So if you go in with the idea thinking that it's going to be this smooth ride, then you're kidding yourself. And likely you're going to get thrown off the course, never to return, because you're going to be dismayed, you're going to be a little bit jaded and think that you're not able to achieve whatever it is you're setting out to do in the first place. But, but I want to give you kind of a few steps from a personal experience that I had to kind of overcome that to see when you know what it is that you're going for, how do you stay on track? How do you make sure that you keep that forward momentum even when it seems like you're taking one step forward, two steps back? And what I found in my own journey is those three things. One is to first practice self love because it's so easy to kind of beat yourself up after you take a misstep. Like, what the hell was I thinking? Why did I do this? But that doesn't do that, doesn't help anybody, and especially doesn't help you. The second thing is to see where you're getting thrown off and make an adjustment, develop a new strategy around that. And then lastly, getting back on the course, getting back, playing the game again. Last month I was dealing with COVID 19 and the journey. I had said in one of my blogs that the journey was one of the best experiences of my life. Not that it was easy going through because it was more of a mental battle than it was anything else. But it was the realizations, these simple truths that came about as a result of going through that 10 day period of quarantine and, and the symptoms I had experienced, as well as getting reacquainted with my goals and all the things that I want in life. Because it's so easy day to day, when you're doing your daily thing, if you're not setting the time at the beginning of your day to start to focus on the things that you desire and make small steps towards those, it's very easy to get thrown off. It's very easy to get in the routine and forget what it is you're going for in the first place. So as a result of doing this, of experiencing COVID 19, two of the areas that I will touch upon in this episode is one, the area of my health and the second was getting back on track to what I was creating called the One life Experience. It's a course that I've been working on for probably the last couple years. I've been wanting to do it for more than a couple years, but I hadn't been putting the effort in. But that's for later. So let's start with health. As a result of going through the symptoms and not feeling my very, very best, it literally said, okay, this is where I have to put my energy. This is the area that needs the focus right now in my life. So as a result, I started adopting. I watched different Netflix things like Game Changers, which I think it was okay made, but I really think they really, really did push for, for vegan lifestyle. And I could have done a better job at doing that. But nevertheless, it did spark a little bit of change in my own life. So I started doing a little bit more plant based meals. I would say the majority of my meals are actually plant based and what I felt from that, it's kind of a mix. Sometimes I feel like the strength has dropped off, but I also feel a little bit more clarity and a little bit more pep in my step. So I made the decision to focus on being a little bit more plant based than normal, which is majority of my meals right now. Second, I picked up different activities such as growing my wheatgrass. I started growing wheatgrass and I start resuming doing two shots of wheatgrass in the morning, two shots in the evening. If you're not familiar with the benefits of wheatgrass, they say something like two shots of wheatgrass is the equivalent to like two or four pounds of vegetables. It's something ridiculous like that. And so if you can get two shots, you're getting a lot of veggies in. So that's something I'm resuming and with the course I'm creating. And I'll kind of tie it all in because it seems like I'm jumping to do something else. But with the course I'm creating, it's about creating very, very clear vision for your life as well as all the reasons why you want it, the belief systems, all that stuff. And when I was doing that. So I came up with this clear vision. And I said, okay, well, this is what I have to be like. The food is life, right? Why I am what I eat, right? So just like the food, you. The things you feed your mind will impact how you think. The things you put in your body are going to impact how you feel. So as I was thinking about this for the good part of the week, it was like this last week, like, all my decisions were pretty much, like, right in line when I would find myself saying, I'm too tired to prep my lemon juice for tomorrow morning so I could have, like, warm lemon juice or do to juice. I don't even know what the heck I was juicing. Semi celery juice. I would say, no, no, this is what I'm committed to. I'm going to do it now. I'm not going to make any excuses. So I was going really, really strong, and then all of a sudden, I. One night, I don't even remember what was happening during the day, but I said, you know what? I'm really in the mood for ramen. But I didn't just start with. I mean, ramen's not that nutritional, if any. I think it's very high in sodium, but it tastes great. And so I made Japanese ramen as well as some Japanese dumplings. And as I'm going about doing this, I'm like, yeah, you know what? I probably shouldn't be like that. The voice chimed and said, donnie, this is outside of your meal plan. This is outside of your diet. This is not what you want. And it's also not going to make you feel good. Because I know whenever I have that, I usually feel rather dehydrated the following day because of the sodium content in it. But I did not listen to that, and I had it anyways. Post eating the ramen and the dumplings, I started, like, feeling bad about myself. I was like, you know, why did I do that? Why did I do that? I know that it's not good for me. I know my body really didn't even want it, but I did it anyways. Why did I do it? Truth was, I was craving it. It was more of an emotional thing. I had worked the entire day, so I was like, this is a gift for myself. So I told myself or lied to myself. And then also, it was easy. I had been prepping all my food for the last few weeks, so I was very disciplined about what I was eating. But then there comes a time when all that where I'm like, you know what? I am tired of Eating that same, even though it's not always the same thing. I'll make variations with regard to the carbohydrate I'm eating or the protein I'm taking in, which has been plant based as well as the green. But nevertheless, I was craving variety. So when I noticed this, this is when the first step came in, I said, you know what, let me be easy on myself. I've been really good this entire week and yes, I deserve to give myself that freedom to indulge in things that bring me pleasure without having to overdo it. When I thought about that, when I looked back at the week and I said, well, you know, well, how was the rest of the week? What improvements have I made to my health? What things did I put in place? I was able to get some perspective on like just the actions I was taking and I was able to be more kind to myself. So when you think about it, when you're beating yourself up or when you're kind to yourself and you look to yourself with compassion, what makes you feel better? Which one is going to leave you more likely to make response or a smarter decision going forward in the future? Well, I mean, I guess it depends on how big of a, how much you're like really bashing yourself. But one is going to make you feel better and one is going to move you forward with feelings of, you know, of feeling just better about yourself. Secondly, the strategy, right? So why did I reach for that in the first place? It wasn't part of, it was just because of convenience. And if you've heard me talk about health before in the past, one of the big things I'm a big proponent of is prepping your meals. Because when you prep your meal, there's no thoughts that have to go into it. You know what you're going to eat and you know when you're going to eat it. Right? I didn't. I prep the meals for my day. I do about five or six meals a day. So I prep everything for the morning, but come the evening I'm like, ah, well, I could, you know, I could always just make a salad that doesn't take any time. I don't need to prep that, but when I do that, I will eat it. When I don't do it, I fall into the trap of reaching for something simple such as ramen, which is not really that simple because it takes a lot of prep time to make the ramen when I can literally just take a handful of lettuce and dice up some vegetables. Right. But it's almost like the mind gets weak and then thirdly, getting back on course. So what did I learn from that experience? Right. So it doesn't matter what you do. You don't beat yourself up over it and you look at what the causes were and then you correct, well, like now I'm not gonna, you know, if I. If I'm gonna allow myself that cheat day because. Right. Otherwise, I mean, I do get some pleasure out of food for the most part. I think food. Food is energy and I try to just get macros that are going to build muscle and get me feeling good. But I do like to dabble in and enjoy it too. So I will make those meals where I can cheat for maybe a meal. Not overdoing it, but cheat for a meal. And to get everything else I need to get my needs met. So this way I could continue back on track. I'll give you one more example. This second example was about this course that I'm creating. So I've been doing. If you've paid attention to or if you've seen any of the episodes I've done, I've been promoting my live your one life with Donny Rouse in the past. And I was doing a workshop around it. So what I want to do is improve that. And the whole point was like, I want to connect people with their vision. I want to get people passionate about life as well as see where they're getting hang up, hang. I came to speak, show them where they're getting hung up, as well as create strategies to show them how they can get to their dream and how rather than get sidetracked and think that it's impossible, that the process is rather simple and it's one of learning, but I hadn't done that in a very. I hadn't picked up the course material in a very long time. And part of the way that I'm doing this is I'm actually doing it for myself as well, where I'm actually, I'm going through my own life. It's the new year, so I'm like, you know what? Let me revamp all of my goals, all of my visions. And in the process, I could fine tune the course. The workshop that I was doing, the course I'm reading, but I hadn't done it in a while, Right. I put it down, and the more you put something down, the further. The more distance you put it seems like it's further and further away. So I was like, oh, man, I can't believe I didn't feel like, doing it. So I started getting mad at myself for not doing it as well as just kind of beating myself, because I should be devoting more time to it. Right? Right. I would say, okay, I'm gonna do it this day. But then all of a sudden, that day would come, and I'm like, you know what? I really don't feel like it. You know, I'm not in the mood to do it. If you ever say that to yourself, you have to trick yourself into just doing anyways, even if it's for a minute. Because by putting your concentration there, what happens is you start to get some momentum. I'm gonna do a different episode just on this phenomenon. And so just by training, just like your mind, whatever you do, over and over, you start to create a path in your mind, like in the. Your. I can't even think what the thing in your mind is called. But anyways. But it starts to become easier and easier each time you do it. So I picked it up. I said, you know what? I'm just going to pick it up. I'm just going to put two hours to it. Two hours. Two hours actually flies by. And then said, okay, well, what is. Then I just kind of gave you the answer for what the strategy was. Whenever I would feel like, all right, I don't have the time to do something. Well, I'm like, how about five minutes? No, not five minutes. How about two minutes? And just by devoting that little bit of time, I get my head into that space, and all of a sudden, I start to build that momentum again. Same thing I'm doing on these episodes. You haven't seen me doing Facebook lives in a while because I had fallen out of the habit of doing it, and I lost the momentum, and I'm going to do one every single day now for the next week just to build that momentum up. So this way, when I do it, whether I post bi weekly, tri weekly, or just weekly, I have that momentum again. So I realized, you know what? All right, then it's just about creating that time and getting back into that momentum. And then obviously, that puts me back on course. By doing that over and over, it puts me back on course towards my goal, which is to link my coffee ritual with people, getting people to think about their lives proactively and create those lives that they desire and they dream of. And so that is it in a nutshell. So in the end, I want to leave you with a few questions. Think of a time where or think of a goal that you currently have in Your life, What is it that you're striving for where you just don't seem to be able to make progress towards it? What kind of things do you say to yourself when you're not taking the actions that you know you should? And you're, I mean you should with like, if you can't see I'm making like little quote quotation devices in the air should take. And how do you respond to yourself? Now? I want to just kind of flip the perspective. Imagine the person you were being critical of was a loved one, right? How would you respond if it were someone extremely important to you, someone you want? I willing to bet that you would respond with care and compassion. So my next thing you know, why not next time you do that, I want you to show care and compassion to yourself. Secondly, whenever you fall off course, whenever you hit one of the little speed bumps that send you off in a different direction, realize what happened. What was it that set me off in that direction? And going forward, how can I course correct? What strategy can I put into place so this way this doesn't happen again? Maybe it's a mantra, maybe it is taking a different type of action, creating linkage in your brain that says, okay, when this happens, do this. Of course it might not be easy in the beginning, but the more and more you catch yourself, you start to build that habit, you start to build a new routine around whatever it is that you're doing. And then lastly, connecting back with that course. Think about your life, right? Anything worth doing is going to require you to break through some kind of barrier, right? Because you have to do things that you haven't done before in order to achieve the thing that you want. So you have to remain extremely focused and know that there's going to be bumps in the road. If you think of something you're very proud of, likely without a doubt, if there's something that you're extremely proud of, it's because you had these hardships that you had to get through, but you were so extremely focused that you made that goal. Now let's rewind back and look at whatever it is that you're having that struggle with. How clear are you about that goal, about that vision, the thing you're trying to achieve? Because I believe that if you're, if you find that you're getting thrown off and you're getting discouraged, look for more clarity. Try to get even more clear about the thing that you desire, the thing that you're aiming towards. As you start to do that, as you build your reasons why. That is what's going to push you forward. That's what's going to break through that wall and keep you on track. So I hope you enjoyed this episode, guys. Thank you so, so much. I realize you could be listening, doing a million things, but you ch chose to be here. So I am truly grateful for you taking the time. I hope this makes you think differently about the the paths that you're on and the struggles that you may come up against. If you like this, please share it with your friends and family. Hit subscribe on your podcast player so this way you don't miss a single episode that I put out. And if you have any questions you could do so, you can send them to me via Instagram at Donny D o n N Y R A U s Again D o n N Y R A U s Or you can visit my website@donnyrous.com you could submit a question there or you could sign up for our mailing list. So the next time we do one of our workshops, especially the live your one life workshop, which is going to be amazing once I drop it, you'll be notified there. So I hope you enjoyed this. God bless and I will see you again soon.