I challenged you to get uncomfortable this week. Now I want to dig into doing simple things that serve a bigger purpose. Giving your discomfort a purpose to work towards the vision and goals you have for your life. I want to break it down, keep it simple, and encourage you to drop your all-or-nothing mindset.
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This past weekend I did another Abundance Day (aka Yes Day) with my kids.
Last year I did this and shared my takeaways in this episode “I let my kids do whatever they wanted all day”
Discomfort on purpose
Last week I shared how we are building lives of comfort but discomfort can serve a purpose. In the episode, I shared my own experiences with this and challenged you to do something uncomfortable ON PURPOSE (#uncomfortableonpurpose)
I love to hear what you are working on (on Instagram and in the Facebook group)
Let’s build on the purpose we can give our discomfort
There is value in going out of your comfort zone, practicing that, and growing your tolerance for feeling uncomfortable
There is also value in the empowerment and drive we get when we are working towards something we really want.
If we call it a goal, does that have a stigma for you?
Do you feel like ‘goal’ is corporate and stuffy? Or maybe you feel like a goal will uphaul your whole life and bring failure and disappointment with it.
The truth is that we have good reasons to NOT set a goal
There are benefits that we get by staying where we are and not doing the work of setting a goal.
Some of them include never challenging what we believe about ourselves, never needing to face discomfort, never having to figure it out, or do the work of showing up!
Remember that a goal won’t make you a ‘better’ person
We do have this invisible hierarchy of what makes people superior. We kinda secretly think that someone who sets goals and follows through (or looks a certain way or has certain things) is somehow a ‘better person’. Let’s throw these measuring sticks into the bonfire. You don’t need a goal to be a worthy person.
Maybe goals feel like an emotional burdern, so how about the idea of ‘giving your brain a job’
Our brain is running in the background solving the negative problems we have told it to focus on (problem-minded). We have trained our brains to do this.
How about we give our brain the job of solving some positive problems (solution-minded).
Give your brain a job, call it a goal if you want
Either way, consider what the bigger purpose is for what you want to work towards.
If you feel like you don’t really know what you want in your life, use these free worksheets
Or use the Life on Purpose Workbook
In this episode I cover:
- The good reasons we have to NOT set a goal
- How we train our brain to be problem minded
- Examples of simple goals you can set this week
- How to get started with a simple purpose this week (even if you never download the worksheets or get the workbook)
- Practicing the ART OF goals and discomfort
- Showing up for one, simple thing
- How to address all or nothing thinking
- How starting small makes us more successful in the long-run
Join in with us
Share your #uncomfortableonpurpose achievements with us
Tag me on Instagram, use the hashtag, share in the Facebook group (make sure to answer those entry Qs!)
Products recommended here may include referral links to Amazon. If you click through and take action I will be compensated at no additional cost to you.
The simple pleasure of the week
I do love skincare and makeup and have tried a ton of moisturizers. I have found a face oil that is super affordable, has basic ingredients, simple packaging and it WORKS on my oilier skin too.
If you have oilier skin, you might like to use the Oil Cleansing Method (I’ve been doing it for about 8 years now)
I love the B Oil by The Ordinary. I add it into my daily face-washing. I try to make it a ‘spa moment’ and be mindful of enjoying it.
Full episode transcript (unedited)
0:05
Hi, friends it’s Shawna, your nerdy girlfriend and life coach from simple on purpose.ca Welcome to this podcast. If you are new here, welcome. I am a mom in small town Canada and I am here to help you show up for your life with presence, peace, purpose and passion because this is your life, you should enjoy it. I aim to keep all of these episodes in less than 20 minutes and just fill them with ideas and encouragement and tips that are going to help you simplify the areas of your life. Slow down and show up for the things that matter to you and become an action taker for the things that you want in your life. This past weekend, my husband was gone hunting for the week, and it was the weekend. So the kids were home from school. And when he goes hunting for that first week in September, I started giving them what I called an abundance day. And then the movie came out and told me it was called yesterday. But we call it an abundance day. I did an episode on that last year, Episode 71 called, I let my kids do whatever they want for the day. So they had another abundance day. And it had a very similar theme. There are lots of screens, and lots of sugar. And so it’s always a little bit eye opening for me to see that these are the things that my kids gravitate to, because they’re probably the things that I have the most restrictions around. And the most criteria on when they do.
1:27
So they were like it’s a free for all and but it was still really fun. It’s fun to my my daughter kept asking me why are you doing this? Why are you giving us abundance day. And I’m like, I just want to I want to spoil you like it feels good sometimes as a parent to say yes to everything. So it’s sometimes it’s just as much for me as it is for you. And it’s not something that lots of us had growing up, like did any of our parents do a yesterday or say yes to everything that we could possibly ask for within reason. So I think it’s just a really cool kind of change up and kind of like an experiment almost just to see where everyone’s at. That was really fun. So if you’re interested in that, go check out last year’s episode on that. And then last week, I talked about discomfort, and how we build up our lives to stay comfortable. And we start to grow a really low tolerance for experiencing discomfort at all. But discomfort, that uncomfortable emotion of doing things that are uncomfortable, it can serve a purpose, emotions serve a purpose. So in that episode, I shared about my experience with discomfort. And I offered a challenge to you guys hashtag uncomfortable on purpose, I forgot to give it a hashtag in the last episode. So I’m doing that now. It’s official. And there’s a thread in the Facebook group where you guys are sharing what you’re doing. Some of you guys are sending me messages on Instagram, or what you’re getting up to the things you’re doing that are uncomfortable. And on purpose. You’re doing things like letting your kids make a mess in the kitchen, you’re getting out for walks, you’re working on the workbook, you’re inviting people over, you’re changing up some of your nightly habits, there’s really good stuff in there. So I encourage you to use that hashtag on Instagram, hashtag uncomfortable on purpose, or come into the Facebook group and share about it. But I want to build on the concept of discomfort. And that is the purpose we give it giving it a purpose. Because going outside your comfort zone just for the sake of going outside your comfort zone, there’s value in that there’s value in doing that regularly, there’s value in letting yourself be a little bit more uncomfortable. And growing your tolerance to experience discomfort Little by little, so there is value in that. But I also know that it is so much more empowering, motivating and lasting when you’re working towards something you really want. And let me call it a goal. Well, at the same time acknowledging that we have stigmas around the term goal. On one hand, the word goal can feel corporate, it can feel stuffy or it can feel like something that’s going to cause you to make a 180 in your life, you’re going to have to just totally change your life and focus in on this goal. And if you fail, you did it wrong, you’re a bad person, you didn’t have enough willpower, etc, etc. So really like we have a lot of good reasons to not set goals. If you think about it. If we never set goals, we can keep the status quo, we can stay comfortable. We don’t have to do the work. We don’t have to experience the discomfort or the harder emotions that it’s going to bring for us. We don’t have to figure out all the details. We don’t have to challenge ourselves. We don’t have to challenge the limiting identities that we’ve given ourselves on who we think we are or who we think we aren’t. If you want more on that that’s Episode 76 why matters what you think we also don’t have to show up, we don’t have to follow through, we don’t have to take responsibility, we don’t have to take ownership. And we don’t have to figure out how to handle failure. Because the reality is progress is not a straight line, from the bottom to the top. It is like there’s a wonky line that goes up and down and up and down, and eventually can reach the top. And really, all of these reasons are why people hire a coach just to walk you through all of the good reasons to not set a goal and to address them one by one. So I just want to take a minute before we even move forward, whether or not you set a goal. If you do if you don’t, you are still valuable, you do not need a goal to be worthy. In this world. goals should be about seeing what’s possible about personal growth, and about making the changes that you want to make. And having a goal does not make someone more superior on this like invisible hierarchy of humans that we seem to be holding in our minds. Like there’s people who are more superior, because they have goals or they’re motivated or they’re, they look a certain way, or they have certain things that hierarchy is something that we’ve constructed, and we hold it in the back of our minds. Let’s just burn that measuring stick, shall we chuck it in the fire. Because whether or not you set a goal, it doesn’t change your value as a human. So let’s let go of the idea of a goal just for a second. And I want to talk about the idea of giving your brain a job each day. Because you have this problem solving computer, in your brain in your it’s your brain, your mind. But the pitfall is the programming we have the computer to run is often programming like we have to solve these negative problems, we have this problem solving computer, but we run a negative program. So we walk around asking questions like, Why doesn’t anyone help me? or What is he thinking? or How could I mess that up? or What else could go wrong? And my brain particularly loops on that last one? If you’re like me, and you experience anxious thoughts like I do, you know that your brain is really good at finding all the problems and all of the dangers. But just step back and consider for a minute that this is an interesting feature of our brain, that it is trying to solve things. And we’ve unknowingly given it problems to solve problems, like why no one helps us or what our husband is doing wrong, or everything that’s wrong with house or what else could go wrong. And every time your brain feels like it’s making progress with these problems, finding answers, addressing it, worrying about it, you do get some dopamine, that neurotransmitter that is associated with achievement. So I say your brain wants a goal because your brain is motivated by dopamine. It’s the reward it gets for achieving something. And you’ve probably taught it to find achievement in solving a lot of negative problems. So what if we give our brain a job of solving better problems of solving problems that help improve our lives? And a lot of therapists and coaches will call this being problem minded or solution minded. So instead of focusing on the problems, how can we focus on finding solutions, we can ask our brains a better question. How can I make this happen? Who can they ask for for support? How can I show up for myself right now in a really simple way. And the more we give our brain those questions, the more it’s going to do the work of finding the answers. So maybe it helps to frame it as a goal. Maybe this is an easy way for you to feel like you’re giving your brain a job. And as I’ve challenged you to be uncomfortable on purpose, I really want you to think about what that purpose is what you are working towards. And if you feel kind of at a loss, you don’t really know what you want or what you’re working towards. There’s a few options. There’s the live your vision, and live your values of worksheets, you can get those free from the website. There’s the life on purpose workbook as well. And these are just good ways to brain dump everything that’s in your head about what you want more of and what’s important to you. And I do encourage you to pick one goal for yourself to be the platform you use to work on being uncomfortable. And it can be as simple goal. It can be a goal for a day for a week, it can be for a month, like let’s not think about committing to long term goals because the fact is, start smaller start where you are build up some experience. And then do the work set a simple goal do the work of taking action because small steps towards big intentions matter. The small things matter. I think they matter the most. I think we don’t show up for small things often enough. And I really believe I am changed my whole life through doing small things consistently.
9:52
So that is Episode 78. If you want to hear about that small things that can change your whole life there’s a theme right so here’s some ideas have small goals you could dry. read a chapter of a book each day for the week, do 10 squats a day for a week and most of you guys are like 10 squat, that’s nothing. But I guarantee you if you start showing up for 10 squats a day, for a week, you’re gonna change how you view yourself and your buddy. spend three minutes with each kid in the morning to tell them something encouraging. Choose to hold your tongue when you feel like being defensive with your partner throughout the week. Not that you don’t have to defend yourself, but just to take a step back, think about it and do it from a calmer place. Here’s one that I like to try with my breakfast. But how about eat carrots at lunch, eat one carrot at lunch per week. clean out your car each time you leave it this week, put your laundry through each day. Some people really like to buy laundry every day, I’m more of a laundry mountain kind of girl. But you know, it’s all about picking something that fulfills what you want on what your vision is, Do you want more order in your home? Do you want more presence with your kids? Do you want to feed yourself healthier? This is why writing out that vision and values is so important. So you are choosing the right things for you that are serving your own greater intentions and purpose. So maybe you heard me talk about these worksheets before the life on purpose workbook and you’ve never downloaded them, you’re probably not going to buy the workbook. Let me help you just get started. So I want you to pause this and go grab a piece of paper, scrap paper and a pen. Just go grab it right now. Okay, now think of one area of your life like family home health work just one area off the top of your head. Don’t Don’t overthink it, you can’t get this wrong. Okay, now write three things you want this area of your life to look like and feel like posit just write three things real quick. So this is you this is you setting a vision. And the more time you spend doing this and rounding it out, the clearer it gets. So now you should have one area of your life, a few points on what you want it to look like and feel like that’s your vision. Now pick one simple thing you can do this week that is in line with that again, don’t overthink it. This whole process is about practicing the art of goals and discomfort. This is the training. So hopefully you’ve picked one thing, one thing you’re going to show up for it this week. And that’s really important for you to remember, we’re going to learn as we go, do not expect 100% this is not an all or nothing thing. And it’s really entertaining to me, like we don’t expect our friends or our kids to do things perfectly the first time. I mean, sometimes we hold them to unrealistic standards on what we think they’re capable of. But if like my son is 10, and he just joined hockey for the first time, first time hockey mom taking all the tips I can get. But I expect that this is going to be uncomfortable for him and hard for him. And he’s going to take his time with it. And he’s going to learn how to get good at it. I’m not going to expect him to go out there and just play like a hockey superstar. That wouldn’t be realistic. But when I work with women setting goals, and I tell them, there’s a lot to be learned along the way. Failure has really good data, don’t be scared of it. They don’t like that they don’t like that idea. And I think we all secretly kind of think that we should be able to do it 100% right away, we kind of put that expectation on ourselves. We really forget that there is a role that progress has in our success. There is a purpose in the 10%, the 15%, the 20%. And we forget that this matters, and that it actually creates more success in the long run. So if you can think of a goal you’ve ever made, if you have expected 100% success every time all the time. And then you mess up once what happens. What do you tell yourself, you have changed your whole emotional stance towards the goal. And you are going to have to manufacture additional discipline, willpower and motivation to go back into it. And this is cumulative. Every time you miss that 100% you’re going to need even more. So by allowing yourself the time to learn, create the habit, challenge yourself, learn the discomfort of it, by giving yourself the space to do it, you’re just so much more likely to have long term success. So I hope that you will set yourself a simple goal for the day or the week or the month and then do the work of getting uncomfortable on purpose. And I really want us to hold each other accountable to cheer each other on. I want this to be a place where you can share it so make sure you share it in the Facebook group or share it on Instagram. You can tag me or use the hashtag hashtag uncomfortable on purpose.
14:47
Let’s wrap up with a simple pleasure. And the one I’m going to share today is face oil and I know face oils having a day there’s lots of options out there. But also some people who have oily skin like I do think That oil will make our skin more oily. And actually, that’s not the case. So if you do have oily skin, you’re probably going to see the best results from not washing with soap. But using the oil cleansing method that’s washing your face with oil. And I’ve been doing this for about eight or nine years, I’m going to post a link about that I use oil to wash my face every morning and night. And I’ve also tried tons of moisturizers like I really love skincare and makeup, I really like playing with it and trying it, get the samples, you know, and the ones that I’ve often loved the most are the most expensive ones. And I’m like, I can’t really afford to spend that much money consistently on face moisturizer that I use twice a day. And then I found this face oil, it’s called B oil. And it’s by the ordinary, this is a company that sells skincare products for really affordable prices. And what I like the most as they keep it simple, you can buy just lactic acid or vitamin C, you aren’t buying like formulas, and concoctions and this is no you just going back to the building blocks of skincare and they tell you exactly what is in the bottle. And it’s super affordable. So I use the oil morning and night the bottle lasts like at least six months, a little goes a long way. It isn’t greasy, it makes my skin feel moisturized and smooth. And I just enjoy the process of going to bed at night. I’m like oil, cleansing my face with a really hot cloth. Putting that oil on doing the same thing in the morning. It’s kind of like a little spa moment for me a couple times a day. And I kind of like take my time with it and try to be really mindful and enjoy the process of just getting that hot cloth on your face and breathing. I know it’s so dorky. But I really tried to like relish in that and enjoy that simple pleasure. So I’m going to link Boyle in the show notes. And if you can’t find the show notes, I’ll tell you where they are. Go to simple on purpose.ca. Click Listen, and all of the shows are there. And some of you have emailed me and said Oh, I didn’t even know you had a blog. There’s a blog guys. There’s a decade of content, go there and check it out. So I hope to see you on Instagram. You can find me at simple on purpose.ca. use that hashtag uncomfortable on purpose or in the Facebook group. If you’re part of the simple squad Remember to answer the intro questions and if someone has invited you and added you into the group, you still need to answer those questions to get in. So make sure you’re doing that and use that Facebook group as your place to get accountability, encouragement and share what you’re doing right there. Alright friends, have a great week.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai