Friends. Welcome to another episode of lessons from a quitter. I am so excited to have you for this very special episode. I know I say that literally every episode, because I am excited to have you, but particularly so for this episode, because I'm going to switch it up a little bit. I want to tell you about a little bit of a change that I'm going to do to the podcast. Don't worry. I'm still going to be having some interview-style shows where I bring in really inspiring guests to show you their journeys. But I have been meaning to start incorporating more solo episodes where I do more teaching and more coaching over the last year. I have started coaching people, as you've heard on the podcast. I do coaching programs and I do one on one coaching. And I do a lot more of these types of coaching exercises, even for free and our monthly coaching programs and the five-day challenges and then the Facebook group.

And I'm really seeing a lot of results. And I'm seeing people finally start taking steps and not just taking in more inspiration, like finally quitting the career and going after their dreams. And to be honest, I don't really have a great excuse for why I haven't started incorporating some of that content into the podcast. Part of it, as we will talk about on today's episode is mindset like everybody else, I get caught up in my own thoughts. And part of it has been dragging my feet because this is an interview-style podcast, and maybe people will be upset and maybe I shouldn't change it, but I am committed with this podcast to use it as a tool to also show you guys that everyone's just figuring it out as they go along. I say this all the time and all of our episodes, and I've been very upfront about the fact that I am just figuring out my own path as I go.

And I've always really wanted that to be part of the story because I think so often we get caught in this delusion that things have to be all figured out. And you know, if you've listened to podcasts at all like they constantly say that you can't think your way to the end of it. And I know that there's going to be many more iterations and pivots for me. And this is just one that I feel called to start doing because I think that I can help more. And then by just providing interviews and providing inspiration. And when I first started doing the podcast, I remember hearing a blogger say that you start blogging not to share your voice, but to find your own voice. And I have found that to be true over and over again for myself in this journey with podcasting, while I obviously want to help people and I'm doing this so that other people feel less alone when they are stuck in careers, that they hate.

Part of it is because I am finding my own voice. And I'm using this as a way of processing my own path and pivoting my business and processing what happened in my own career. And this is just the next step because I really think I have tools that can help you to start taking steps. And like I said, I'll still be doing interviews and I still want to provide inspiration because I think it has its place. But as I'm sure many of you who are like me will do, oftentimes we can get caught in just consuming more inspiration, right? Just keep scrolling Instagram for the quotes, keep listening to podcasts, but never actually take action or take a year or two to work up the courage to do the thing that you want to do. And I want to speed that up for you. I also mentioned in my hundredth episode that I had started a coaching certification program.

I want to tell you a little bit more about that. I'm almost done with that certification. And the reason I did it is because of, again, what we're going to talk about today is mindset and mindset has been the defining factor for me in my life. It has changed the way my entire life looks over the last couple of years. It has allowed me so much more peace and happiness and confidence in myself. It has allowed me to pursue things that interest me to shed some of the obsession I had with external validation and other people's opinions. It has allowed me to work on my people, pleasing limitations. It has allowed me to build a business and pivot a business, and it has really just changed my life. And the thing is, is that I have now seen it change the people that I work with lives and I now working with people have noticed the same things come up over and over again.
And I have always been obsessed with mindset. I got my undergrad in psychology. I had been thinking about going to graduate school for psychology and decided to go to law school, but I've always been very intrigued by how the human mind works. And I think after having studied it for the last couple of years and now going through a coaching certification program that is focused exclusively on mindset, I see the power that it has to affect literally every aspect of our lives. And so that is really what I want to start focusing on and helping you guys with your own mindset issues so that you can overcome them to do the things you want. So that's what this episode is going to be about. Actually, it's going to be about why mindset is so important. And I think for my logical friends, my left brain friends who might be rolling their eyes and thinking I don't need, I know my mindset.
I just need the tactics, or I need to know how to transfer my skills or whatever. You're thinking that it's not for you or that it's woo. I just ask that you listened to this episode because I think that you will feel different by the end of it. And from the next episode on, I will give you tools on how to work on it. But I think it requires really becoming aware of how much it runs our lives. So let's jump into it, shall we all right? Everything that we do, literally everything, whether it's dating, setting a goal, switching a career, working on your health, anything that you want to do is actually pretty straightforward. It may not be easy, but it's simple and everything is Googleable. Figuring out how to start a business or a side hustle or how to transfer your LinkedIn skills or whatever.
Somebody has talked about it online. There are a number of steps that you have to take to do it. Now let's for the sake of this discussion, let's take the example of health goals because I think most of us can relate and have had some experience with this, right? So we are constantly going around looking for tactics right there, whether it there's the newest exercise or newest diet. There's a reason that the health industry is a multi, multi-billion dollar industry. And every couple of years, new trends come out and people are constantly looking for the next thing. That might be the thing that helps them stick to their health goals. And it's almost become a joke. I guess it has become a joke when the new year rolls around and everybody makes fun of other people that are going to have these health goals.
And I always find that kind of laughable because we are discouraging people from setting goals because they don't stick to it, but it's not the goal. That's the problem. We should all have goals. We all need something to focus on. Human beings aren't evolved for growth. We feel the best when we are pushing ourselves to do something that we haven't done before. We should all be doing that. That's not the problem. The problem is that when we start doing a new exercise regimen or a new diet or whatever it is that we have committed to a far health goal, all of the thoughts come in, right? It starts with, I'll never stick to this. I'm too lazy. This is too hard. This will never work. It's not even worth it, I'll die without chocolate or alcohol or whatever the case may be. The problem is that we never deal with our actual emotional issues around food and exercise, which so many of us have so many.
And so it brings up a lot of negative emotions that we haven't dealt with. And we want to feel better because we aren't taught how to process emotions. And so we instantly want to relieve the negative feelings. And so we turn to get that quick dopamine hit. And how do we get that? Oftentimes it's with food or with not working out and watching Netflix instead, or doing something that is going to make us feel better. And so we quickly give up on this goal that we had because we never actually dealt with the thoughts. We didn't deal with the mindset around food and exercise. And so we gave up on our goals without ever actually giving it a chance. And the problem with this beyond the fact that we don't hit that goal is that it's not as though you just go back to square one and it's like, well, that didn't work.
All right. I guess I haven't lost any weight or I haven't gotten whatever the outcome that I wanted. We actually ended up becoming worse off. We beat ourselves up, right? We start going down this shame spiral. And we reinforce the story that we tell about ourselves that we're not motivated enough, or we're not disciplined enough. We look at other people and compare ourselves and just think that they have more willpower and there's something wrong with us. And we keep going to the next exercise or something because we, I don't know. We think that this future version of ourselves like we have this idealistic version of ourselves that one day, we'll just figure it out. It'll click. And one day I'll just stick to it and I'll get over all these weaknesses. And somehow it'll work, even though we haven't done any work on figuring out like why it hasn't worked or what I need to do to make it work.
We just keep going with the flow. And then we end up being worse off each time. And it reinforces the story, which is really the most dangerous part. Because then with each future attempt, you have that thought in the background of, you're never going to stick to this. You are not disciplined enough. Remember how you failed the last time it's too painful. People are going to laugh at you, right? You just it's nonstop. Now I want to note because I know for a lot of people, weight loss and health goals can actually be, are very emotionally charged and can be triggering in a way. And I want to even take a step back to understand that even our belief that we need to lose weight or exercise or look a certain way is driven just by thoughts. Now, of course, those thoughts have been put into us by society, right?
We've been programmed by what our society has deemed standard of beauty. And I talked about this more in the episode on implicit bias. We've all internalized these ideas because we've been shown them from birth on, but I just want you to understand that it's literally just the thought that's it. And in every period and in every country, that thought is different. And what people Revere as beautiful is different, but wherever you are and whatever society you are exposed to, you end up adopting that. And then that drives all of these actions and it drives so much pain and suffering for people because they don't actually know how to deal with the actual mindset. And that's the same exact thing with your career or with changing a career or really with anything, the actual tactics are figure-outable as Marie Forleo likes to say everything is figure-outable right.
Figuring out how to transfer your skills or how to update LinkedIn, starting that side hustle. It's just literally a bunch of steps. And if you didn't have all of the thoughts, you could just do the steps, right? You could set up the business and if it failed, it'd be fine. It's like, Oh, I tried this marketing technique that didn't work. Let me try this other one. But obviously we know that we don't act like robots in that way. Right now I talk about this on the show. A lot about all these themes of fear. If you're feeling fear of regret, worrying about what other people think. But I just want you to see that, like all of these things that are stopping you are your thoughts and what I see over and over again with my clients and with the people I coach is that is the only thing that is stopping them.
People think that it's not having a plan or not having enough money, but that's rarely ever the case. For instance, taking the example of a financial plan, I get that as the number one objection of why they can't quit is because they make a certain amount of money or they have a certain amount of debt or whatever is related to money. And it's funny because money is actually one that is very easily figure-outable. I'm not saying that it's, I'm not going to take time or it's not, it can't cause some pain in and of itself, but it's literally figuring out how much do you bring in? How much can you save? Where can you cut back? How many years do you need? Maybe you need to save for five years. Okay. You're going to be working for another 30. So why don't we get on this plan?
But when I push with my clients, oftentimes they don't even, they've never even looked at their numbers. They don't even know. They don't know what they can cut back. They don't know how much they're actually spending. They don't know how much they're actually saving. And right now, like I said, even if you Google there's tons and tons of communities, of people that are dedicated to teaching people how to pay back debt to start side hustle so that they can start saving up more of a runway to quit their jobs. There are tons of these types of plans. So why is it that we don't even look at our numbers? We bury our heads in the sand because money is another thing that causes so many negative emotions in us. We have so many stories tied to money that it becomes overwhelming. So we don't even deal with it.
And then we just continue in these jobs that we're miserable in without actually making the plan and making the step by step because we don't want to deal with the thoughts. And so when you're looking to change your career from what I've seen, the number one thing that will get in your way are the thoughts of what if it doesn't work? What will everyone say? What if I regret it? What, why can't I just be happy work? Isn't supposed to be all fun and games. I guess this is just my lot in life. I can't walk away after all this time. I'm too old. I'm too young. I'm not experienced enough. I have a family that I've taken care of, whatever it is you get the point it goes on and on. And the reason I think that this topic is so important is because it never goes away.
As most of us know, our minds just never take a break. It's always running. And we have the glimmer of hope that I want to offer you is that you can learn how to manage it. And that is the only way forward because our brains like to trick us into thinking that once we get there, once I just figure this out, then I'll have a car. Then I can do it once I know what I'm passionate about once I know what type of career I want, once I figure out how to start that business. But at every next step, there's a whole new set of mindset issues. So it goes from like, I have no idea what kind of business I want to start to. No one will ever buy this product or this will never work. Or people are going to laugh at me when I put this out on social media.
And then once you put it out there, it's going to be like this isn't growing fast enough. How much longer can I sustain this? Or one of my customers, aren't happy with what I'm giving them. All of my customers are going to go away, whatever it is. There's the saying new levels, new devils. It's in every stage of your life. For me, for instance, with the podcast, when I started it, I've talked a lot about the fact that I had all of these thoughts about what are people going to say? What are my ex-lawyer, coworkers going to say? I was so scared to put it out there. And I thought if I put it out there and then I'll be fine, then I'll have all the courage. And then I put it out there. And I started down the rabbit hole of comparing myself to other podcasts.
And why isn't it growing fast enough? Do people even like it? Should I even keep doing this? Even though I was literally getting emails from people constantly telling me how much they appreciated and loved the show, my thoughts were, it's not growing fast enough. I need it to be bigger. Where is this even going? What am I even doing? And then even now I was just telling you at the beginning of this episode, that part of what I've held off on and even doing solo episodes or my own thoughts of what, if people don't want to hear this, I've only ever done interview-style shows. Should I even really be teaching about this stuff? And I know how to observe my thoughts and I know how to manage my mind. And I still have a lot of these thoughts. I still have to go through this process, but I want you to see that it's not about just switching a career because what happens is oftentimes people switch their career and then they're still unhappy and they don't know why.
And it's because you took all of the same mindset issues that you had at this career to the next one. So you still don't know how to set up boundaries. You still haven't gotten over your people-pleasing. You know, you're still running yourself ragged and putting yourself last. And so you feel exhausted. So no matter how fulfilling the job is after a while, it's gonna run you down. And so until you can start dealing with the mindset, none of the other stuff actually matters. And so I know that can seem a little bit overwhelming, but what I want you to understand is that there is a way to manage your mind. And the problem is that we're never taught how to manage your thoughts and how to process our emotions, which is mind-blowing. When you think about it, the fact that as children, we should have been told how to manage our mind and we aren't.
And so we're just at the mercy of this monkey mind that is stuck in fear and doubt. And I think that most of us don't even realize that we are not our actual thoughts. A lot of us think that it's just a narration. It's just like seeing the world as it is. And even a little bit of thought into that kind of shows you, that's not true. Every one of us sees the world colored by our own biases and insecurities and upbringing and societies and programming. And so that is why so many of us see the same facts in wildly different ways. And so it's not as though we're just seeing the world as it is. We are seeing the world as we are. And we are not those thoughts. Like those are just programmed through, like I said, society and also our experiences and our past thoughts, and our brain finds patterns.
And so understanding that you are not your thoughts and the fact that you can change those thoughts. And it's not just a set thing is a huge, liberating discovery because there is a way to manage it. Now, a statistic that I just read, which is mind-blowing and scary is that we have up to 60,000 thoughts a day. And the vast majority of those are subconscious, right? Obviously, because we are calm, our brain is constantly going and taking in all of the stimuli around us. And we're not usually aware of it, but over 80% of our thoughts are negative and 95% of them are repetitive. So when you think about that for a second, we just have a constant negative loop playing over and over again while it's mind-blowing. I think it's not surprising for most of us because we're aware that all day, all night, we have this negative loop going on.
It's a constant drama of: I'm not good enough. I didn't do as well enough. My life's not together. Why am I not happy? My life's a mess. How is everybody else together? When am I going to figure it out? All of this stuff right over and over again. And that's why I focus exclusively on mindset, because it is literally everything, not just for your careers, but in every aspect of your life, from relationships to your health, to your friendships, to your career, to happiness, all of it. And if you let me, I want to help you change it because it has been life changing for me. And I want everybody else to feel the peace that I feel right now. And so I'm going to spend the next couple of episodes giving you tools and tricks on how to process emotion and how to observe your thoughts and how to start changing them. So that's it for this episode. I hope you're as excited as I am with the direction that the podcast is going to go. And I would love to hear your thoughts. So make sure you reach out and let me know. And I will see you next week for another episode.
Thank you so much for listening. I can't tell you how much it means to me. If you liked the podcast, please rate and review us on iTunes. It'll help other people find the show. If you want to connect or reach out, follow along on Instagram and Facebook at lessons from a quitter and on Twitter at Twitter podcasts, I would love to hear from you guys and I'll see you on the next episode.