Changing Habits for 2025 Health Optimization
3 Jan 2025 · 40 min
In this episode of the Flipping 50 podcast, host Debra Atkinson (founder of Flipping 50 and former university kinesiology lecturer) explores why changing habits is especially challenging for mid‑life women and offers a mindset‑first framework for 2025. She opens with a sponsor plug for Blue Sky CBD sleep gels, then discusses the overload of daily thoughts (60‑70 000 per day) and how most are repetitive, leading to automatic habits that become part of one’s personality. Drawing on research from Dr. Joe Dispenza, James Clear’s Atomic Habits, and Dr. Ellen Langer’s mindfulness work, she contrasts mindless, cue‑driven habits with conscious, mindful awareness. She outlines internal resistance (e.g., ingrained cues like morning coffee) and external resistance (social pressure, family expectations), emphasizing the need for positive support versus merely the absence of negative support. Practical tactics include: noticing everyday details, breaking routines, using community accountability, and leveraging small “system upgrades” (e.g., C60 Purple Power for mitochondrial health, daily smoothies for protein/fiber, and habit‑stacking). Throughout, she weaves personal anecdotes about perimenopause, migraine‑related sleep issues, and her own habit of taking C60, illustrating how identity and thoughts shape behavior. The episode concludes with a call to action to join the Flipping 50 Insiders community, access show notes, and consider a deeper workshop on aligning core values with habit change.
Chapters
Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I have a little sleep secret I want to tell you about. Look, sleep is crucial for your fitness, but it's crucial for just plain old everyday life and function.
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What are you waiting for? Good night. So whether this is your first podcast with Flipping 50 or this is one and you tune in every single week waiting for the next to drop, thanks so much for being here. Look, it's the new year and many of us are interested in changing habits, or we think we are. This episode may make you give that second thought. Changing habits Habits, though, can be hard. The question might be, should we be invested and interested in creating habits at all?
I'm Debra Atkinson. You're listening to Flipping 50. I started this podcast over a decade ago to answer questions about fitness, menopause and beyond before you knew to ask them. The goal: to help accelerate your results with science and the practical application of proven protocols while living your best life. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than a midlife woman, and it's not just about you. But the 3 generations that you influence. My unique 40-year career, including being a university senior lecturer in kinesiology, an industry subject matter expert, and an international speaker, to founder of the first and the only exclusively made-for-menopause and beyond fitness membership in the world. Every week I interview experts behind the scenes and the science of optimal hormone balancing, fitness, and longevity, and share answers to our community's questions so you can have the vitality and the energy that you want, need, and deserve.
So of course, at the new year, we all tend to think about What happened in the past year, what we want to happen in this year. Maybe we're all coming up with a word. What's your word for 2025? And no matter when you're listening, far into the future or right here in real time, this is still applicable, by the way. So if you're listening in half a year or you're listening 3 years from now, this will still be relevant. But the question really should potentially be changing habits. Is that really the goal? So before we dive in, just wanna make a quick mention of the sponsor for today's podcast, the Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist. And if you are a health coach or a personal trainer, a yoga instructor, Pilates instructor, or any kind of health and movement instructor, this may appeal to you. If you work with women over 40, you can learn more at Fitness Marketing Academy. Debratkinson.com/menopause-fitness-specialist. We'll put the link in the show notes. It may be that our thoughts get in the way of us changing habits, getting the goals that we really want, that we say— yes, and I say that on purpose— that we say we want. So let's start here with the thoughts that we have. We have 60 to 70 1,000 thoughts a day. And depending on who comes up when you Google, you may find a different answer to that. But I really admire and respect the research of Dr. Joe Dispenza. This is one thing he mentions over and over and over again, and I highly recommend get involved in whatever you can way with meditation, whether it be from a recording you download and listen to every morning like I do, or when you're walking, as I also do, or week-long retreats or something more. But come back to— we have 60,000 to 70,000 thoughts a day. Now realize how easy that is to happen, really, when you think about it. So related to your lunch, for instance, I mean, you're thinking, number one, should I eat it or will I not eat it? And we probably Women more than men ruminate on that so much. There's probably 100 thoughts that already come up. And then what will I eat? Where will I eat? How much will I eat? And the maybe thoughts that we have about the association with the type of food that we want versus we eat, and it's endless. But then if you remember the book Mindless Eating, which came out about the research about little decisions we make, we make up to 200 about the foods that we eat. Like, what size of a plate, or a plate or a bowl, am I going to use? What size of a spoon am I going to use? Do you ever go to this silverware drawer and wonder— I always go for the big one, by the way, and when they're gone, then I go to the small ones. But I also think, how soon before I can run the dishwasher? Bizarre. All right, but you can see how quickly our decisions can add up, and we're making decisions not about necessarily big things. Most of them are related to small things, but it is the small things that can keep us on the path we're on, getting the results we're on, we're getting, or changing the habits that we have so that we get different results. And yet that is hard. So in those 60 to 70,000 thoughts we have a day, unfortunately 90% of them are the same as yesterday. Now, if you are loving life, and you're getting all the results that you want and need, and you are reaching all your goals, that could be a good thing. But if you want to continue to change, if you want to continue personal growth, that's not necessarily a good thing. So we seek, as humans, we seek habits. You wanna see the proof? The book Atomic Habits by James Clear. It's been on top of the charts for over 260 weeks. Weeks. Are you doing math? That's over 5 years since it came out. It's been in the bestseller list. We're looking for how do I do this, how do I make it better, how do I make my life more structured, simple to do, the right and the easy thing. Yet Dr. Ellen Langer, she's author of Clockwise and mother of— you know what, it's Counterclockwise. Which really talks about aging backwards before anybody else was talking about it. She is known as the mother of mindfulness. She's a professor at Harvard, one of the first female professors at Harvard, by the way. She would say getting into a habit might be the worst possible thing that we do. We're no longer— if we're doing a habit, like it's automatic, it's automated. We're no longer aware of, say, our surroundings. We talk a good game about mindfulness, most of us, like we're being mindful, like we're going to yoga, we're meditating, right? But we're not really mindful. Dr. Langer is the mother of mindfulness, she should know. But she isn't now and she never was talking about yoga and meditation. She was talking about being aware. By consciously focusing and noticing. So what did you notice today? Just think about the things you've done so far. Could you, if you have only been in your kitchen and nowhere else, could you write down everything that's on the kitchen counter right now? Now, if you keep a really tidy house, you might be able to do that. Could you Write down everything that is on your bathroom counter right now. If you've gone for a walk, could you write down 4 things that you noticed that are new or changed in your neighborhood? What's happening right now? You know, and most of us actually got up, we went through our routine, we went to the same place in the cupboard to grab a cup from the same shelf. We potentially grabbed the coffee or the tea from the same place. And we went through the same routine so much that we didn't think about it. Have you ever gotten home from work or from a trip to the grocery store and kind of wondered, how did I get here? Because you really didn't consciously think about it. You were distracted. So, or did you? Tell me, did you get to work or get home without really noticing anything? You just you know, drove and somehow you got there and you arrived. Maybe you had thoughts of what you were gonna do today, things that you were worried about or stressed about, who you were trying to talk to on the phone while driving, or couldn't wait until you got to a stoplight so that you could sneak a peek at your phone or your text or your social media. Yikes. Were you compelled to scroll at stoplights? Is that you? Even on a walk, do you find yourself Scrolling. I see you, by the way, walking out there. And by the way, I am one of those drivers that out of pure curiosity, I look around at stoplights and it is scary. It amazes me that there aren't more accidents because people are so addicted to their phones. I should include myself. Okay, also guilty. But truck drivers, teenagers, moms, couples, we're all grabbing the phone within seconds of reaching a stoplight. As if we can't just sit there calmly, look out the window, the dashboard, or even in our rearview mirror. Heaven forbid somebody might back into us. We're not mindful at all, most of us, most of the time. And I am definitely guilty. You know, I used to preach to university students for 15 years. I taught in kinesiology, and one of the courses I taught regularly required— well, several— but required pre- and post-test So I would take students over to the rec center, we would use the indoor track, and I would have them do their mile run. And we would break them into groups so that they had a partner who was monitoring their time, hopefully encouraging them. That didn't always happen that way. But now, this was back in— I started teaching in 1997 and taught for 15 years, so you do the math. But even back in— gosh, what was it— early 2000s, students were, you know, using iPods. And I don't remember if anybody was using like a disc. Does anybody remember that here? I'm sure you do. Like, but a disc, I don't even know what it was called. Was it a Walkman? I don't know. Anyway, they were so used to using that for entertainment. And in sports and exercise psychology, we call that dissociation, or dissociation depending on how you want to pronounce it. But it means you have to be entertained and you want to not be thinking about the actual activity. You want your mind to be elsewhere so you don't think about potentially how much you hate it, right? So if you've got great music, you're listening maybe in this case today to a podcast— that wasn't even a thing— that you're able to do it. Right, versus association, which would be you're actually trying to tune in to the rhythm of your footsteps, to your breath and the pattern of it, to allowing yourself actually to be aware of your surroundings. So it's associating every sensation with what it is you're doing, being there and in the moment. Now, some athletes need the association and they want to get there, probably the elite ones are actually doing just that. They're focusing on, am I in a rhythm? What's happening? Counting seconds in a stroke, for instance, if you're a swimmer, or changing the tempo of your foot strike if you're doing a tempo run and you're a runner. So there's a big difference there, but I used to preach to them No iPod during class. And then I'd send them out on either that test or we would go walking. We had a 2-mile walk and we would go through campus and come back, and that was about— it should have been about 30 minutes. So it was 30 minutes for me. You know, there are college students who could run and be back in plenty of time, but very few of them walk at that pace. So it was often very amusing. No, I don't want you to run. I want you to walk, right? I want you to walk so that we all get back at the same time. And it was so hard. I would often have to walk ahead, and then I'd walk back and pick them up and say, come on, pick up the pace, let's go. 15-minute mile, you ought to be able to do that. You are 19 years old. And here I was, I started teaching in my almost early to mid-30s, and it was like, what is the matter with But many of them were just shocked. I mean, they were like, you're kidding. I don't know how to do this. And then one day I had been a runner for 25 years with no music. Someone gave me an iPod, gave me an iPod downloaded with hundreds of my favorite songs. I started running with it. And when I got used to the physicality of actually wearing something and having a little, you know, at that point, we didn't have Bluetooth, so it was all— and I still actually to this day now will use wired earphones. I got used to all of that, and then I was like, oh my gosh. So one day I'm on a 6-mile run kind of from my house out around a circle, and at about 3 miles it just died. So I think the battery was dead. I can't even remember if it just went bad or what, but As soon as the music stopped, I stopped. I started— I was like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do? Like, like I needed to call for a ride because I could no longer run because the music wasn't there. And that last 3 miles home was brutal because I had learned to use it as a crutch. So I share this with you because this is so very important and are you tuning in and could that actually help and be a benefit versus do you need to have the dissociation or dissociation with the activity in order to do it and to get hooked and to realize how good you can feel? So very important. So let's talk a little bit about this. And one habit that I've got that I do daily, and I would say brushing your teeth is a habit. I have that habit. Flossing your teeth is a habit. I don't have that habit, and I so hope my dentist is not listening, although I'm fooling myself to think that she doesn't know. Bleeding gums, dead giveaway, right? But one habit that I have had since April of '22. Now, as we do this live, it's 2025. And, you know, that's a significant length of time, almost. So we're coming up on 3 years. But it shows you that here I am. That was at age 57. I picked that up. You can learn new habits, right? So doing something regularly every single day, and that thing that I started with C60, So C60 Purple Power is actually— I started taking it to benefit my mitochondria, to benefit all of my cells. And C60 is carbon-60. It's a molecule that was discovered back in the '90s and has a way of repairing antioxidants or, or free radical damage, the reason we need antioxidants, and doing it such that it's been known to help increase hair growth, boost libido, support mitochondrial damage, which as we all know now— and if you haven't heard me say it, you will hear it in the future or by going back into the backlog— mitochondria is your energy central. It's where ATP is produced, and you need ATP. That is like the fire for any activity that you're going to do. And I'm not just talking exercise, but I'm talking walking upstairs if you're getting breathless. Part of that is your mitochondria. Now You can increase and enhance your mitochondrial production doing exercise, significant exercise. We've seen it. Testing has showed, you know, 70-year-olds who are doing the right exercise prescription can return their mitochondria to appear like that of a 20-year-old. If you're not exercising correctly as intensely as you need to, that is not happening for you, friend. So you wanna look at this, but I also want every little help that I can get. Now, I started taking it again for mitochondrial function and found within 3 weeks my hair had new growth. Now, I have a mom who gave me great hair, so great hair and great eyebrows, some would say. You don't have to agree, don't write in. But, you know, unfortunately it also turned gray really early. And some people will say that's a deficiency. I don't know. My mom and grandma both had white hair, so I wonder about that one a little bit. But here's the deal.
Hey, this is Debra Atkinson, and there is one thing you can't do in the gym at your age, and that's get all the protein that you need. You've got to do that in the kitchen to make it easy for myself not only to get the protein but the fiber, the fruits and vegetables I want daily. I started drinking a smoothie a day 30 years ago. But when I realized all the junk, the sugar, and the extras that you don't want, that I don't want, hiding in most protein powders, that's when I finally caved in after years of saying I will never ever, ever sell supplements. Stop skipping, skimping, and sabotaging yourself in the morning after workouts by always being prepared. Look, yep, I agree, real food first, but it's just not convenient to carry a turkey sandwich sometimes. The protein— and don't forget the fiber— they kill cravings and they boost satiety, and you've got to make it easy to to do the right thing. You can use code PODCAST for 10% off your first order at Flipping50.com today.
C60 actually increased my hair growth such that my stylist noticed, improved my libido, as well as supports other things. And I will swear that you know, for— I stopped wearing glasses. I stopped wearing them and leaning on them. Now I will put them on for, you know, looking at something across the room if I need to, but I only need to if I'm super stressed or super tired. So that impacts your vision, by the way. But mitochondrial production, all of the other assets in C60— I'm going to put a link to it in the show notes. And if you use it, I would love to hear how you're benefiting. So let's talk about why changing habits is so hard. And one of the reasons is thank your personality. What? Yeah, what is personality? First of all, I'm going to quiz you. It's a rhetorical question. It's going out one to many. You're right there listening and answering, but in your head, do you know what it is? Like, what is your personality? And a lot of people would say something like, well, bubbly, fun, fun-loving, totally serious, you know, words like that. But listen to this section and then tell me if you don't agree, but your thoughts and your habits are your personality. They make up your personality. And this means like you're not stuck with personality. If you really want to change your results in this coming year, or 6 months or month, depending on when you're listening and what's important to you right now. You can, if you choose to, change the personality that right now is getting you the results that you want to change. The difference between having the results you want and not is related to your actions, right? So if I wanted my gums not to bleed at my next dentist appointment, I would start flossing. I would be a person who flosses. I would be a person who values flossing, and I think I do, but I don't value it enough to do it because I probably don't want to inflict pain on myself, and I don't want to take those extra 5 minutes, right? But that's what we think. The results you want and not what you have now is related to actions. That's what we think. But actions start with thoughts. So our thoughts produce feelings, and if we think that exercise has to be hard we're not gonna have a touchy-feely loving feeling about exercise. If we have to do something we don't like to love the body that we live in, then exercise becomes torture. I mean, in part, right? When you agree with that. So for others of you, you really like hard work, and you like it because potentially you got rewarded and praised for doing hard work, and that is a of what you believe is your personality, close to identity, but you know, not entirely. You like to be known as the person who does more than someone else because there is a because, and I'm going to read about it in just a little bit. So I am going from notes because I really wrote an extensive script to talk to you with because much of it is related to what happens when we're going through change. So whatever you are doing, exercise or eating differently becomes maybe deprivation from things that we enjoy, or going to bed earlier. If you wanna change your sleep habits, feels like we're missing out on shows that we're addicted to or spending time with family that we don't see otherwise. It's those thoughts that create the feelings we have about doing something. Feelings motivate actions, and the more we repeat the same thoughts, then we'll continue to get the same result. Keep saying things like, well, that's just me, like, I've always done that, then you'll keep reinforcing, you'll keep being and operating the same way that you are now. And that way that gets you the results you have right now, instead of what you're not getting, but you say that you want. Now, those words are important. You say that you want versus— so let's say you adapt to doing things that will get you what you want. You won't be able to keep doing the same thing. You won't be able to think in the same way. You'll have to change your thoughts, right? So the woman who indulges in alcohol daily— you've got that cocktail later in the afternoon before dinner— who wants to lose belly fat, wants to sleep better, protect her bones and get fitter will need to stop drinking the daily cocktails. But if it's become such a part of her personality to have a cocktail before dinner, with dinner, and then after dinner in order to go to sleep better, she tells herself that she will have a hard time changing her environment because inevitably she's probably having that cocktail with someone else also having a cocktail, right? But she isn't motivated enough by just wanting to get those things to stop drinking. So even though for her health she knows it would be better not to drink, if you have a habit, say a habit of not exercising, a habit of going to boot camp class that is muscle wasting, of eating keto because you then keep water weight low and you misinterpret this as a win because the scale is down, you'll keep doing it. If it's become a part of what makes you feel like you, even though you want to change. If you're a little addicted to social screens, you're scrolling social media. Since this is such an easy one to identify with, that if you can't remember where you put your phone, you begin to panic. Anybody else? Or you check your phone like 144 times a day. By the way, that is the average from reviews.org. To get that little dopamine fix that we all want from someone liking or sharing or sending you a message, feeling important. This too has been a part of your personality. So maybe a 24-hour break each week is your gift to yourself. Yeah, anybody else want to take a social break? But you might not be motivated about changing habits because they've become your personality, and changing that is what is really hard. It feels safe. It feels like home. It's what you know, even when it's not working. We will default to it unconsciously. We do the same thing over and over again. We don't recognize when we go to the same place we always go to. And I mean in our brains as well as sitting down in the morning with that cup of coffee. Where do you sit? When you sit down at your own kitchen or your dining room table, do you have a specific chair that you sit? I am the only person who lives here. Moses doesn't count. I have two stools at the counter. I always sit in the same one, never the other one, only this one. That's mine, right? I live alone. I could sleep in the middle of the bed if I wanted to, but I always sleep on the same side. Interesting, right? So what about you? What are you doing that is just unconscious? You don't even think about it, but if someone challenged you on it, like try to sit in your chair or used your mug or slept on your side of the bed, that would really kind of bug you a little bit, potentially, right? So think about how much that might be true. So we do things that create pleasure, or keep this in mind, we do things that create pain if we're used to it and it's comfortable, because maybe we've always lived that way and we're used to that little push-pull. And that is a hard lesson to learn and to realize, so just let it sit there for a minute. Even if you say you want to change things, you may be continuing to make the same mistakes over and over and actually do the things that become the obstacle to getting the results you want because it's familiar, even though it can be painful. Some of us have that because the expectation is it has to be hard. It has to be feeling like it's punishment. It can't be easy. Because that's never been true. We've gotten used to the struggle of not having what we want and we get something. We get some kind of a fix out of being in this place of struggle where we're just comfortable there cuz we've always been there. And if you're having a hard time following what I'm saying, I understand it. But essentially we have an addiction to being in a place of struggle. So deep down we may be scared of change. Because it will rock the boat for us. What if the family isn't on the same page? What if your friends aren't on the same page? What if they won't get you anymore? I mean, will you lose them if you change too much? So often women find it hard to make healthy choices or make them stick because people in social situations they're entrenched in would make it hard. Women often will say, but I'm going to be traveling, so You know, I can't do it until I come back. And I'm always curious about that because I would never think of not being who I am, not exercising regularly while I was traveling. In fact, it becomes even more important to me and sometimes a little bit easier because I can't see the laundry, I can't see other things to do because I don't have the dog and the extra chores and the— I'm not fixing my own food depending on where I'm at. So it is very interesting that once you cross that line, it becomes something of your personality, you wouldn't think about stopping that. But when you are going out of your environment, your first thoughts might be, but I can't possibly do it now because that's all already too new being over here. Here's my suggestion to you. If you are traveling, sometimes it is the absolute best time to make changes, to decide, you know, okay, I'm in Europe. I'm going to eat differently. I'm going to let down my guard and I'm going to have bread. Maybe I will have wine. And that's probably not the answer you expected from me, but Europe makes their bread and harvests their grains very differently than we do. A lot of people can eat gluten and bread in Europe while they can't here because it's much more processed. They can drink the wine there but can't here. So that's just one example, by the way. And you're getting your steps in very often when you're traveling, right? So you are being active. You just may not need to or be able to go to the gym, which is okay. Doesn't mean you're not changing your behavior overall because you are walking every day. You're becoming somebody who's active every day. So it is a perfect time to change. There's an internal and an external resistance. I want to point out what both of these are to changing. When we find changing our own habits hard, there's There's internal and external. They're both related to cues and triggers and sometimes people who, who keep us doing the same things over and over. Internal resistance happens when you say around the dinner table, you want to reduce caffeine. That's maybe one of your goals for 2025. Then you get up in the morning and you're so used to first thing you go to the coffee maker. It's first thing or the second, maybe third. Bathroom, dog out, coffee maker. Can't tell you how I know that, right? Used to be anyway. And you don't even think about it. It's just automatic. It is definitely a habit. It's a part of your personality. Or when you decide, I want to be somebody who walks over my lunch hour, and you're at work, and this is external resistance, but your officemates, or they're all going out to lunch at a spot, you know, first of all, you don't want to be left out, but they're all also they're going to a spot that you wouldn't choose based on your new health habits, but you don't want to be the one saying that. So external resistance twofold, right? You don't want to be the one who goes for a walk versus going with the crowd. You don't want to be the one who says, not that restaurant, let's do this one. So external resistance. Back to the coffee, internal resistance also would be you're out at a restaurant and someone orders coffee after dinner because the waiter just says, who would like coffee with you know, or after dinner or with dessert if that's the case, you know. And you might say, yes, I'll have decaf though. But you know, if you give in and you're like, no, I don't like decaf, I don't need— that's like brown water. At least that's my take. But you go ahead and give in because the environmental cue is there. That would be even stronger for a smoker, right? Post-dinner light up. And if somebody at your table, other people are smokers and they light up, that's gonna be really hard for for you to be in that environment where you could smell it and you want it. So the path to changing habits can be hard because of our own internal resistance. And then if we, on top of that, which is usually the case, have that external resistance, people in our house not necessarily supporting you. And here's what I've said for many, many years. There's a big difference between positive support and a lack of negative support. You actually have to have the former. You need positive support. So negative support would be like somebody saying, you know, we're used to having dinner at 5:30 and now you come home late. You come home from work and you want to go for a walk or you want to do yoga and now we're not eating until later and I really want to eat sooner, you know, and they would be really adamant about that. Not volunteering to cook dinner, but, you know, telling you that you need to do it. So that would be some external resistance. Like you're already trying to change your habit and have your clothes ready to go so that you get it in and know that you won't do it after dinner because it just gets too late. You feel too full, you know, all kinds of things that could get in your way. But that is negative support, right? Somebody is getting in your way. And making it harder for you to do it. On the other hand, positive support would be that, you know, they're like, you know what, you go for the walk, I'll prep dinner, you know, no problem, you know, I'll see you back here in 30 minutes. Or you go downstairs, you go do the yoga, and, you know, I'll, you know, take care of sticking this in the oven, pulling it out, making sure it's not burning, you So that's positive support. And, you know, asking you afterward, how did it go? And saying, I'm so glad you're doing that for yourself. This is really great. It's good for all of us. That's positive support. Now, the negative support you got, but just lack of that negative support, just being quiet, that's not good enough. Most of us need the proactive positive support. So if not somebody in your environment, you need someone else to rely on. You need a group, you need a community, you need to know other people are dealing with this too, and I'm not alone, and I can get some of the things I need from other people. I don't have to get all the pieces I need from the same people in my environment. So really important for you to understand, then make that distinction. And I want to leave you with two thoughts before we wrap up and realize that This is a big topic— changing habits, changing behavior, changing personality. You know, that's a— hello, that's not— you're not going to do that by tomorrow. But getting these thoughts in could be very helpful to enhance your awareness of what's going on. I'm also going to link you to a podcast episode that is basically— it's a workshop that I deliver on a regular basis to our members and/or private clients in a group. I've also done it to my health and fitness professionals that worked for me, because all of us, if we kind of get our core values, our core goals in alignment with what it is that we want, we can have epiphanies that things that we've said we want may not be in alignment with our core values, and it's why we haven't actually cared enough to go and get them. So that workshop, by the way, will be there for you.
It—
I have charged for it, charged $50, I've charged $100. It's been for clients who only do $5,000 VIP coaching with me, but it's there for you to listen to. And although it was delivered a couple years ago, it's still very valid and relevant. So first thought I want to leave you with: up to Maybe that changing habits isn't the goal. Just deferring back to Dr. Ellen Langer, reaching goals might be served better by not doing what we've always done that's gotten us the same results we have. What do you need to be, or who do you need to be, to have what you want? Could be the better question. What are the messages that you're saying to yourself? How are you talking to yourself? Are you nice? Are you supportive of yourself or are you beating yourself up? What would somebody where you want to be say to themselves? Who would they be? Second, maybe it's time to upgrade your system just like you would a phone or a laptop. What if you're operating on a comment or comments that were said to you a very long time ago, or even a message that you misinterpreted We sometimes twist things in our heads. We remember things in a way that they didn't really happen. And any one of us can do this at any time. So maybe you were told by somebody, somebody who is important to you, that you weren't smart or that you have to work harder than most. Maybe you realize that being seen and not heard was the safest place for you to be. And what if you carry around this idea that you have to work hard and things have to be hard to earn whatever it is that you want. And here you are decades later carrying around that basis for everything you do. You say, I'll just work harder, instead of being willing to look at different. Maybe just work differently as an option. What if it were easy, right? From Staples. What if it were easy is such a good question. What if you spoke about what you want or need and you didn't didn't just eat whatever was served? You took care of your needs. What if you said no unapologetically to invitations to things that don't serve you instead of feeling dreading going and really wanting to be in your pajamas and cozy on the couch with your puppy? I don't know who that might be. Just consider what you likely already know to be true about yourself. There's a juggling act between changing habits and having a true awareness a mindfulness in every day? What haven't you dreamed that could be true of this coming year for you? I hope I've cracked open some ideas that you start exploring. And by the way, if you are on a walk, keep going, go a little bit further and think about, are there thoughts that you have that you're thinking about putting yourself in this more restrictive box of these are the things that I have to do, where really you're looking for structure, but it may not be or have to be so restrictive. And instead it could be far easier. Explore that a little bit while you're changing habits this year. And if I can be support, come over to the show notes on this one, and I cannot wait to hear about your goals in 2025.
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