339: Stop Negotiating Your Goals

You're ready, you don't need it to be perfect. And the fact that you put it out, not being perfect gives you the feedback that you need to make it better. But you're never going to get that feedback if you don't put an imperfect product out. Welcome to the earn your happy podcast. I'm Lori Harder, founder of The Bliss Project, 3 Time Fitness World champion, fitness expert and cover model turned single self love junkie, lifestyle entrepreneur and author. Each week I'll bring you a guest or a thought that will help you bust through your fears, connect to your soul and get focused and clear so you can elevate your life, business and relationships. We don't wait until we're ready for someone to tell us we're good enough. We take what we want and we anoint ourselves, get ready to earn, own and unapologetically rock your happiness every single day. Are you with me? Here we go. Welcome back to the earn your happy podcast. And it's time for another quickie because there's always time to fit in inspiration. And at this time, I am about two days out from the Bliss project. By the time you hear this, it will have already happened. It will have been amazing. It will have been life changing for myself and everyone involved. And that's what I'm manifesting because that is the space and the prayer and the belief that I am holding right now. And for all of you who do things like this and events, that's the exact space and thought process that you need to hold for yourself and for your events and for whatever you have coming up. But what I wanna chat with you about today is about the space in between where you are right now and where you wanna go, and the space in between the decision point and, and the actual action point. Because it's very different to think about what you want and to start even planning what you want and then to actually make it a habit. And so many people who do have habits even can find that they spend so much time in negotiation land that they actually don't love their life or the habits that they have. What do I mean by that? Okay, so I've had a few different points during today and yesterday and the day before that, where I have noticed that I've been letting myself argue with myself a little bit longer than I normally do doing things like, oh God, I have to go and do this thing, but first I'm just gonna go allow this distraction and it actually causes me more pain to go procrastinate even longer than to get the things done that I know I have to do. And in my life I'm typically pretty good about this, except when big projects come up, I find that my old default response of shutting down when I get overwhelmed comes in. So I don't shut completely down because obviously nothing would happen. But what happens is I do shut down momentarily and I notice that I start negotiating with myself and oh, I could do this tomorrow, or if I do this, I could do this later on, or I can just, oh, this doesn't really matter. Maybe I won't do this as much, or maybe I'll skip that and it doesn't matter. Okay, well, it does matter. And what I'm finding is that I'm having to be hyper aware of when I'm doing this and when I have something that needs to get done, I need to not negotiate or leave that window cracked. I need to just say I'm doing this now and go and do it now. Because that time in between where I want to go is not only giving me and causing me suffering, but it's truly wasting time. And there's no time for it in a lot of our lives, especially if you have goals and places to go. So we have to start getting to the place where we are not negotiating with ourselves with certain things. So for some of you, this is going to happen a lot. If you're adding a lot of new things into your life or a lot of new goals, or maybe you're in a really busy season. So of course this is gonna be new territory to navigate. But the quicker that you can minimize and compress the negotiating period in your mind and make it a non negotiable like, nope, I'm going to the next thing, nope, I'm going to the next thing. Because if I can compress this amount of time, then I can allow myself this time in the evening. It's something that I've done for myself is okay. If I can get these next two tasks done, I can go for a quick walk and reset because I know that my energy really only lasts for like 90 minutes. So I can go and reset and get outside and come back and do two more tasks. And within that time, that would have been the time that I would have negotiated with myself, maybe looked at my phone, walked around the house, done something that doesn't matter. That's not needle moving. This is what we have to start looking at. We need to start applying the 8020 rule, especially when we, we are pressed. But if you have any new goals or if you have Something coming up or you are in a busy season, what you want to look at is the 8020 rule. 80% of results should come from 20% of your actions. So sometimes you're going to look around and be like, oh, I could go do this thing over here. And yes, it matters, but you're not gonna get 80% of your results from that action. You might just get 10% of a result from this thing that you're doing that's taking up a ton of time. So what you wanna start doing is really eliminating the things that don't get you 80% of results from 20% of the time that you are spending. So could that be done by an assistant? Could that be done by somebody on TaskRabbit, which is just, you know, somewhere that you can hire out for different tasks? Could. Could that be done by someone on upwork? Could you hire that out for someone online? And really seeing where you're spending all of that time, that's not an actual needle moving action for you. Yes, it's getting something done, but in the grand scheme, it's not a big mover. It's just more of something that has to be handled and managed, but it's not going to move you forward. It might keep you semi the same. So really looking at those things and saying, okay, am I practicing the 8020 rule? Because the reason the 8020 rule is also so important is because you want to make sure that you are using your energy on things that are going to move you forward. Because if every day you just wake up and you default to the things that are kind of there and that you need to get done, you're never going to move forward because you're going to use all of your energy on that instead of to create or to really push your business or life or your goals or your health goals forward. So, number one, the thing that you have to do in order to really stop fighting with yourself and just take action and figure out what those actions are is, is to stop needing it to be perfect. So many of us feel like, oh, I'll just do some more research on this. I'll just get another certification. Okay, well, I can't do that yet because. Or I can't submit this yet because it's not perfect. I can't put this post out. I can't put this course out. I can't do that event. I can't do this talk. I need longer. I need to work with a coach. I need to work with another coach. I'm pretty sure that I need to go and take this course on how to put on events or whatever that looks like. And maybe you do, but. But for those of you who know that, the question is, I'm not ready yet. I don't feel ready. When am I gonna feel ready? I'm just gonna help you out right now and tell you you're ready and you don't wanna do it. So you're ready. You don't need it to be perfect. And the fact that you put it out, not being perfect gives you the feedback that you need to make it better. But you're never going to get that feedback if you don't put an imperfect product out. And that is called growth. And that is called, you know, being a human is pointing it out when it's not perfect. And understanding there will be some stings when you hear something that you don't like about it or something that someone doesn't like about it. But that, that's going to make it better. And that is called life. And that is a part of business. And the more that we can remove emotion and the emotional charge from that, the more we can just see it as feedback. Do we want to take the feedback? Was it worthwhile feedback? Is it something you're actually going to use to make yourself better? Or can you say that was emotionally charged on end? It has nothing to do with me. That's not feedback that I'm going to use, thank you very much. Obviously you don't have to say that to them. You can just not use it. So number two, you need to instill a few discipline habits that really help hold all of the other ones up. So for me, I'm really observing that if I don't eat well and sleep and exercise while I am in my intense season that I crumble, I literally fall to pieces. My health, like my anxiety goes through the roof if I'm not eating well, like if I'm having a lot of chocolate or if I'm having a lot of caffeine. And when I say chocolate, I mean like really just anything sugary. You know, starting to eat bad food, that makes my anxiety even worse. Or I'm not sleeping. And then my anxiety now compounds with not sleeping and the anxiety gets twice as bad. And if I'm not moving, that also makes me feel super frantic. So no matter how busy I am, you will always see that I make time to move. Now, don't get me wrong, there have been a day or two where if I'm in a busy season, I'm like okay, maybe I cannot get out, but even then I still try to move in some way. I try to jump around the house or whatever that looks like and take care of myself with water and as healthy food as possible. Literally at least 70% healthy food. Because even if I'm seeking comfort food, I'm going to try to make sure that I'm getting in some good stuff too. Because if I do not do that, then I don't have any energy to uphold the things that I want to do and take the actions that I want to take. And what happens when I'm not taking care or when I'm not instilling those disciplines And I really discipline is a self love practice, truly like having a few disciplines that just make your life so much better is truly a self love practice. When I don't have or when I'm not eating well, when I'm not sleeping, you better believe that that argument in my head of what I'm going to be doing, like there isn't even an argument. It's like that that lower self is winning. It's like, I don't care, who cares? Like I have no willpower and I'm not going to take action. And it's almost like I start to sabotage my. It's not almost like I start to sabotage myself. So in order to get rid of that place where we quit negotiating with ourselves over and over, I really think that releasing, needing to be perfect is something that's going to free you along with instilling a few discipline habits and really looking at where your energy is spent with that 8020 rule. And just when you hear that conversation coming into your head, oh, I could do this later, I could do that. Know that that time spent in between is actually more challenging and actually more painful than taking the action because you're gonna spend so much time in that back and, and ultimately you may not win that argument where in your head hits the pillow and you feel completely unhappy with how your day went. And the thing that really makes a beautiful, fulfilling day is when you can take the action that you want to take and you make yourself proud and you've used it in service to other people. If you want to truly lead a fulfilling life, those are the things that you'll be doing every day. And if you spend your day arguing with, should I go to the gym? I don't want to eat the salad, I really want that big ass hoagie because I'm so stressed out, I didn't sleep last night. And you keep Arguing and you haven't set up your non negotiables and you haven't taken care of yourself. That is no way to live is in the argument with yourself every single day. You may not be fighting with someone else, but if you're fighting with yourself, you are in a constant state of stress. You're in a constant state of anxiety of staying the same. You can't be in that place. So just no, break the habit. That's what I, that's literally what I do if I want to change my state. I'm like, no, I'm going for a walk, I'm just gonna go for a walk until this feeling starts to subside. And I promise you start using your lunch break for a walk, start using breaks to move around, use your mornings for a walk as much as you can. And really, I mean I'm just gonna call everybody out. We have no excuse. I know people who have so many children who walk early in the morning, who get up at 4 o' clock in the morning or who get up at 3:30 in the morning, like make it a non negotiable maybe start with new habits. I'm not saying wake up at 3:30 right now, I'm start instilling habits that love you back or you're stuck in that place of arguing with yourself for the rest of your life. And you are here to be amazing. You are here to truly use the gifts that you've been given. And some of you don't even know what those are yet because you haven't instilled those, those self love, self discipline habits. And I'm telling you, if you don't know them yet, it may be that you just need to start supporting yourself and taking care of yourself and start putting those habits in that are going to support all of the other decisions and choices that you need to make in your life. So how can we cut down that argument time in our minds? Whether it's to stop worrying about being perfect or whether it's just to like literally catch yourself in the action and take action. Whether it's to start getting on a schedule and knowing that you can really only handle doing one or two tasks before you need to give yourself a little movement break whatever it is, becoming hyper aware of when you burn out and when you can get things done and just know we're all human, we can literally only do so much in a day. So when you start to burn out, you might, you might need to say, okay, so I know that I'm really good from 12 to 3 and beyond that, I'm just a big pile of whatever and making sure you get everything done from 12 to 3 and knowing that anything else is a bonus and releasing it instead of living in the argument later. I'm telling you, you want to lower cortisol and probably lose some weight. Stop. Stop living in the argument, lose a.

Lot of stress, lose a lot of.

Anxiety and possibly even get, you know, lose some weight or get so much healthier if we live in that place of keeping our cortisol way up. I'm telling you, it's crazy.

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All right, you guys, I'm sending you so much love. I am going to spend tomorrow just getting in a beautiful, beautiful state, getting ready for all of these amazing women who are coming and taking action and teaching them this and really just knowing that we are all in this together and that we also need each other. So reach out to someone. If you're lonely, that's the first sign that you need somebody, that you need to talk to, somebody that you just need to connect. Sometimes if we keep procrastinating or we're not getting things done, it's probably because we need somebody to talk to. So I'm sending you guys so much love today and I'm just beyond grateful. Like, I just take moments on my walk sometimes where I just picture all of you and I'm just so grateful because I feel connected to all of you. So until next time, everyone earn, you are happy. Bye. Bye. Thank you guys so much for spending this time with me on the earn your happy podcast. I am so glad that you stopped by. If you could take one second to share this episode with someone you think would love it, that would be absolutely amazing and we would be forever grateful. Also, please leave us a review if you feel so moved by going to itunes and leaving us an honest thought, an honest comment. Tell us what you think, tell us what you want to hear more of it would really help us us out on our journey to helping thousands and thousands of people. Until then, don't forget to earn your happy. Thanks again, guys. Bye. Bye.