Elizabeth: Hey, everybody, and welcome back to the Primal Potential ...
Elizabeth:
Hey, everybody, and welcome back to the Primal Potential Podcast. I am Elizabeth Benton. Thank you so much for coming to hang out with me for another episode. I hope you enjoy this one. I'd really love to see your feedback maybe over on the show notes page at primalpotential.com and let me know what you think of this episode because we're taking a different approach. I'll tell you why. I'll give you a little insider scoop into my life and my process and how I function as a business owner and creating lots and lots and lots of content whether it's for the Fat Loss Fast Tracks or this podcast or the Daily Motivations Podcast or the blog or the email or you name it, anything. One of the things I try to do every evening is pose a question to my subconscious. I heard somewhere that you should never go to sleep without making a request to your subconscious because it is working while you sleep and we can have it work in our favor. I have this little journal that I keep by my bed and more days than not, I'll scribble down a question in it. Sometimes it's just something that's just nagging on my mind and this helps me not stay awake and perseverate on it. Other times, it's something related to something I haven't found an answer to yet and I just want to remind my brain to keep working on possible solutions while I sleep. Last night, before I went to bed, I wrote: What do people need to hear? How can I really make a difference? In the podcast I'm going to record tomorrow, in a meaningful way, how can I add value to the lives of the people that tune into the Primal Potential Podcast in a way that will make an actual difference for them? That's all I wrote. I went to bed, woke up this morning, and one of the first things I spent time on this morning was within my Fat Loss Fast Track Facebook groups. The Fat Loss Fast Tracks, I've got three of them, two veteran groups, one rookie group, going on right now. There was a great conversation, really just a comment actually, in one of my veteran groups that resonated with me and I thought, "This is it. This is the thing that I need to talk about in the next podcast." One of the best parts of the Fat Loss Fast Tracks are these private Facebook groups where we kind of go through the journey together. I've been a part of a lot of different Facebook groups over the years and when it comes to ones that are focused on improving your health, whether that's weight loss or fitness or whatever, there tends to be a lot of the commiseration like, "Oh my gosh. I went totally off the rails this weekend. How do you get back on track?" That's not what our Facebook groups are. I mean, there's a time and place for that sort of thing if that helps you, but I think it sort of keeps people stuck in the same cycle of good/bad. The thing I love most about the Fat Loss Fast Track Facebook groups is that they're really much more productive and proactive and positive, really more about taking great care of yourself and always coming back to a place of self care. I'll tell you what came from that and this podcast about the foundation of fat loss. I think that that idea of self care has really gotten too lost, completely lost maybe even, in the noise of weight loss and diets and detoxes, fasts, and
cleanses and fixes and workout programs. We've sort of lost the core, the essence, the foundation, as I see it, of progress of goals related to ourselves and that is to take care of ourselves, right? Value ourselves. It's become too much about not liking yourself, not being enough, trying to kind of hate your way to a body you love, wish you were something else, punish yourself for the things that you've done, really feel the need to make up for your food choices or earn rewards. I just think that's totally the opposite of where we need to be coming from if we really want to make progress. It took me way too long to learn that you can not hate your way to a body you love. You can't. Going back to this comment in the Fat Loss Fast Track that kind of triggered this for me. Somebody just commented on a post that said, "I love this group's theme of self care and self love and how fat loss is merely an aspect of that, really a byproduct of it." That's what I want to talk about today because too many of our attempts to change defy self care. They go against self care. We try not to listen to our bodies. We try to overpower our hunger, right? We try to white knuckle our way through cravings. We resent our bodies and the messages they send instead of really listening. We focus on everything that is not enough about who we are or how we are or what we do. I recently shared on a podcast, one of the last ones of 2016 or one of the first ones of 2017, I can't remember, about a breakthrough that I had over the course of 2016 which was I win when I work with my body and I lose every single time I try to fight against it. It is not, nor will it ever be my brain against my body. We are on the same team. One of the reasons that so many of us struggle is that we haven't grasped that yet because we are resenting ourselves because we're focused on what is not enough and we are denying who we are and what we are, trying to create something different instead of being kind to ourselves. When we go into this notion of weight loss and diets and quick fixes and detoxes and fasting, we aren't looking to take care of ourselves, we're looking to ignore ourselves or escape from ourselves to create someone or something new. That's just not the way. It's just not the way. Even if you get results in doing that, in ignoring yourself or trying to escape from yourself or coming from a place of "I hate my body so it must change", even if you get results that way, you're going to miss out on your life in the process and when you get to that place, if you get there, you get that result you wanted, it's not going to be good enough. It's not going to be good enough because you've never accepted yourself so it's never going to be good enough and you haven't learned the importance of taking care of yourself maybe because you don't realize that you are worth taking care of. All growth and progress comes from a desire not to escape yourself, not to transform yourself, but to take care of yourself. That is the foundation I want all of us to build. I get how hard it can be because many of us, myself included, many of us are or have been lacking self respect. We feel ashamed of our past attempts or our failure to do the work up til this point. Maybe we don't like what we see in the mirror. I know that begs the question: How do I value self care or how do I ever learn self love when I don't like who I am or what I am?
I'm going to speak plainly and I understand that this might offend some of you. I understand that it's bold. I also believe it's true. Ready? I'm probably going to mark this episode explicit as soon as this comes out of my mouth. Stop being a dramatic dick. Yep, I said it. Stop being a dramatic dick. The self talk in your head about your body, about your choices, it's like mean girl table in high school and you're creating it yourself. With every ounce of love and respect in the world, grow up. Grow up. Do not be the mean girl to yourself or the mean guy. Right? This is not just a woman thing. Guys do it too. 100% of the reason you are not prioritizing self care and/or self love or you're not even sure it's possible for you is because of the negativity you create. Yeah, it's you. It's you and that's good news because you can change it. Your negative thoughts drive this problem. You're being a dick to yourself all the time. Grow up. I'm not saying you have to be like, "I'm beautiful and I'm wonderful and everything is great," but at least stop being a dick. I'm not here to suggest that you can stop the thoughts, but you certainly can redirect them. You certainly can replace them and it doesn't have to be with, "I'm beautiful. I'm thin. I'm sexy. I'm confident. I'm happy," because if those things aren't true, don't say them. There is zero value in lying to yourself. Come on, don't be a jerk to yourself. At a minimum, begin with, "I want to take care of me. I want to take care of me. I want to learn how to take care of me. What does that look like for me today?" What does that look like today, to take care of me? Because right now, your negativity is the biggest problem and overcoming that, overcoming the negativity that you create so that you can embrace and live in a place of self care, that is the foundation required for any of your health, fitness, or fat loss goals. That self care, it's going to look different for all of us. I'll tell you how some of it looks for me, but it should and it will look different for every single one of us and it will also evolve over time. Self care for me is about my physical space like the things around me, my desk, my bedroom, my bathroom, my kitchen. It's about order. It's about sleep. It's about working out. It's about not creating drama with my thoughts, being gentle with my thoughts, reminding myself that my thoughts can't hurt me, that my unhappiness is always a result of fixating on things I don't want. I try to encourage myself the way I'd encourage a kid who was having a hard time. It will be all right. You're all right. What can you do today to take care of yourself? You got to keep in mind that your body is yours and it has nothing to do with anybody else's. You're not competing to become more like someone else. You're working to become the best you that you can be. Part of how I encourage myself is: What can I do today to be the best me I can be? What does that look like today? I'm not trying to create some 90-‐day plan or some five-‐year objective to becoming like a supermodel. No. What does it look like today to be the best me that I can be? If anything, you're just trying to become the best you.
Here's another harsh truth that stings a little bit and certainly stung for me but I wish I had learned it so long ago and I wish I had believed it so long ago. I think it takes some time to come into full belief of this. No one else's love will ever be enough if you don't love yourself. No one else's love will ever be enough for you if you don't love yourself. It doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't even happen quickly, but it won't happen at all if you aren't willing to do that work to say, "Okay. What does it look like today to take care of myself? What's just one thing I can do to take care of myself?" Maybe it's just cleaning your kitchen. Maybe it's just cleaning your bathroom. Maybe it's going to bed early or not having ice cream after dinner. It's okay if it's just one thing, but you can't get to that place if you don't start. I don't think you can necessarily turn off the dramatics in your head but you certainly can begin to say, "All right. I'm on my team. What can I do today to take care of myself?" When you find yourself thinking these thoughts that are just straight up rude, harsh, and dramatic, juvenile, you can say, "I'm a grown up and I take care of myself. What does that look like today?" One big change that I made in terms of my why, because it used to just be I want to lose weight, I want to lose weight, I want to lose weight, now I don't eat well for my butt or my hips or the tag inside my jeans. I don't well to have lean arms or to lose a certain amount of weight by a certain timeframe. I don't eat well so that somebody else thinks I'm pretty. I eat well because I feel better when I do and I want to feel my best. Self care is about what makes you feel your best, not in a particular moment, but overall. I don't work out for a great ass, although I mean, bring it. I'm ready. I'm a butt girl, but I don't work out so that somebody else thinks I'm sexy. I work out because it makes me feel my best and I want to feel my best. Some other things that are a huge part of self care for me, because guys, I understand, it's a hard road for me too. For over 30 years, I legit hated myself, legit. Everything about me, to me, wasn't good enough. It's an effort. It's a practice. If you don't start, you'll never get there and there's no reason you can't start. A huge part of it for me in this practice and this evolution, because you never arrive, you're just always working on how can I take care of myself, how can I respect myself a little bit more, gratitude is a huge part of it. That doesn't mean that I have to think any body part is like perfect in order to be grateful for it. I can just be grateful for what it does for me, grateful for what my body allows me to do, and also being grateful for my mind, for my desire to improve, for my desire to reach my potential. I practice gratitude constantly, especially when I'm feeling down about myself. I'll ask, "All right. In this moment, what do I have to be grateful for?" About me, not like the weather, not the roof over my head. What do I have to be grateful for about me? Then finding ways every day to make myself proud because I think being proud and feeling gratitude often times go hand in hand, at least for me they do. Another huge part of how I take care of myself is coming back to a place of belief. I'm not talking about faith, although you can go there. I'm talking about belief in me because whether or not I've gotten there yet, done it yet, or
whether or not you've "done it yet", whatever it is for you, belief that I can, belief that you can, knowing that I can, that it's possible. I have a sign on my desk right now, I'm looking at it actually this second, that says, "Impossible to discourage. Everything is possible." To me, that means it doesn't matter where I've been or what I've created up until this point because where I go from here is totally in my power. Guys, today, this day right now, whenever you're listening to this, no matter what time of day it is, today is full of chances that are disguised as choices. That's good. I'm going to write that down. I'm going to make note of this 16:49 time. Seriously, though, it's so true. Think about what that means. Today is full of chances that are disguised as choices. What do you with them? Another way that I really practice self care, and I know a lot of people are going to be like, "Oh well, now you've gone off the deep end," I meditate. I'll be honest. I do this because I'm a little crazy. I'm a little crazy or a lot. I am a thinker and I care deeply about people I know and even people I don't know. Sometimes my emotions can take me out of the present so I meditate to kind of come back. Now, I get meditation, it's a reason they call it a practice. Nobody's really great at it. I've not met anybody that's like, "I'm an awesome meditator." Kick that excuse aside because I could be like, "I suck at it." Doesn't matter. I do it anyway. I rarely meditate for more than five minutes at a time because I'm excitable and I get ideas and I want to get up and get moving, but when I start to feel negative, down, or if I start to worry or excessively plan and think about the future, beat myself up for things that haven't gone as I intended, I stop what I'm doing and I slow down, even if it's to just count to ten while I breath or count ten breaths. Even if that's all it is, it settles me down. Even if all it is is focusing on one thing for which I'm grateful, that's all it is. Sometimes ... What book is this? Joy on Demand maybe. I imagine that my mind is a snow globe that's been all shook up, which is sometimes what it feels like inside my crazy brain, and as I breathe, I just imagine all of the thoughts kind of settling down. It doesn't take more than a couple of minutes. Another thing that's a huge part of self care for me, which I really believe is the foundation for any health improvement, is I take care of the space around me because I know that order around me helps create order within me. My office used to be a total like nightmare, chaos. My bedroom would be too. My closet, my laundry room, often times my kitchen. The lack of order around me created unnecessary chaos within me. It created more of a sense of stress and pressure that was totally optional. Easy to fix. Now that I know that having order around me is this easy thing I can do to take care of myself, I prioritize that and, as I remind my Fat Loss Fast Trackers, it is much easier to keep up than to catch up so I spend a couple minutes every day staying on top of it. That's a huge part of it. A couple other things that are a huge part of self care for me, doesn't mean they will be for you. I don't stay up late watching TV. I honestly feel like there is no
excuse for that. In this day and age of on demand and DVR, there is no reason in the world to de-‐prioritize yourself for the sake of television, none, zero. Completely an easy fix. When I stopped watching TV at night, more specifically, I don't usually watch anything after like 9 unless there's a really good game on that also includes one of my teams. I'm not going to watch some good game of somebody else's teams. That has been a major shift for me because rest changes everything. If you focus on any one thing, stop being such a dick to yourself. Seriously, you don't have to be a princess. You don't have to be all sweet and lovey, but at a freaking minimum, be respectful to yourself. Make that a priority of practice. It's not a one and done decision. It is something that you practice. It is something that you practice. Most of you listening, you do not speak to yourself or about yourself with much respect at all. I really believe that the foundation of fat loss is taking care of yourself. If you focus on taking better care of yourself, being kinder to yourself. You will be amazed by what happens as a byproduct, including fat loss, including happiness, including improved finances, improved relationships. Once you start to emphasize self care, the game changes. You can start today whether it's 7 in the morning or 7 at night or 11 at night. Today is full of chances disguised as choices. So much of it has to do with the drama you create in your head. Decide that you will not battle yourself anymore. You will not create an environment of disrespect in your head or in your heart. You will grow up and treat yourself with respect because any goal you pursue will be undermined if you don't respect yourself. This is not a decision you make and it's one and done. It is a practice that you decide to live and I hope you decide to live it. I know I've mentioned, as we wrap up here, I know I've mentioned the Fat Loss Fast Track a bunch in this episode and I've been getting a lot of emails. It is closed right now because it kicked off on January eighth. The next Fat Loss Fast Track will be sometime in April. There is a wait list up now. I will link to it in the show notes over at primalpotential.com. The URL is primalpotential.com/spring-‐ 17-‐waitlist. That's spring 17 waitlist but the words are hyphenated. I'll link to it over on the show notes at primalpotential.com. If free is more your thing, that's totally cool too. I really hope that you have checked out the all new, totally free, Daily Motivations Podcast which is live right now in iTunes and Stitcher. It's still pending approval over on Spotify. Hurry up, Spotify. The Daily Motivations Podcast just launched a couple weeks ago and it's Monday through Friday, short, less than five minute, daily messages of encouragement and empowerment to help keep you focused on what you really want. I hope you will check that out. More than anything, I really hope you will start to prioritize treating yourself with the respect that you deserve because that is the foundation of all change. Love you guys a lot.
Hey, everybody, and welcome back to the Primal Potential Podcast. I am Elizabeth Benton. Thank you so much for coming to hang out with me for another episode. I hope you enjoy this one. I'd really love to see your feedback maybe over on the show notes page at primalpotential.com and let me know what you think of this episode because we're taking a different approach. I'll tell you why. I'll give you a little insider scoop into my life and my process and how I function as a business owner and creating lots and lots and lots of content whether it's for the Fat Loss Fast Tracks or this podcast or the Daily Motivations Podcast or the blog or the email or you name it, anything. One of the things I try to do every evening is pose a question to my subconscious. I heard somewhere that you should never go to sleep without making a request to your subconscious because it is working while you sleep and we can have it work in our favor. I have this little journal that I keep by my bed and more days than not, I'll scribble down a question in it. Sometimes it's just something that's just nagging on my mind and this helps me not stay awake and perseverate on it. Other times, it's something related to something I haven't found an answer to yet and I just want to remind my brain to keep working on possible solutions while I sleep. Last night, before I went to bed, I wrote: What do people need to hear? How can I really make a difference? In the podcast I'm going to record tomorrow, in a meaningful way, how can I add value to the lives of the people that tune into the Primal Potential Podcast in a way that will make an actual difference for them? That's all I wrote. I went to bed, woke up this morning, and one of the first things I spent time on this morning was within my Fat Loss Fast Track Facebook groups. The Fat Loss Fast Tracks, I've got three of them, two veteran groups, one rookie group, going on right now. There was a great conversation, really just a comment actually, in one of my veteran groups that resonated with me and I thought, "This is it. This is the thing that I need to talk about in the next podcast." One of the best parts of the Fat Loss Fast Tracks are these private Facebook groups where we kind of go through the journey together. I've been a part of a lot of different Facebook groups over the years and when it comes to ones that are focused on improving your health, whether that's weight loss or fitness or whatever, there tends to be a lot of the commiseration like, "Oh my gosh. I went totally off the rails this weekend. How do you get back on track?" That's not what our Facebook groups are. I mean, there's a time and place for that sort of thing if that helps you, but I think it sort of keeps people stuck in the same cycle of good/bad. The thing I love most about the Fat Loss Fast Track Facebook groups is that they're really much more productive and proactive and positive, really more about taking great care of yourself and always coming back to a place of self care. I'll tell you what came from that and this podcast about the foundation of fat loss. I think that that idea of self care has really gotten too lost, completely lost maybe even, in the noise of weight loss and diets and detoxes, fasts, and
cleanses and fixes and workout programs. We've sort of lost the core, the essence, the foundation, as I see it, of progress of goals related to ourselves and that is to take care of ourselves, right? Value ourselves. It's become too much about not liking yourself, not being enough, trying to kind of hate your way to a body you love, wish you were something else, punish yourself for the things that you've done, really feel the need to make up for your food choices or earn rewards. I just think that's totally the opposite of where we need to be coming from if we really want to make progress. It took me way too long to learn that you can not hate your way to a body you love. You can't. Going back to this comment in the Fat Loss Fast Track that kind of triggered this for me. Somebody just commented on a post that said, "I love this group's theme of self care and self love and how fat loss is merely an aspect of that, really a byproduct of it." That's what I want to talk about today because too many of our attempts to change defy self care. They go against self care. We try not to listen to our bodies. We try to overpower our hunger, right? We try to white knuckle our way through cravings. We resent our bodies and the messages they send instead of really listening. We focus on everything that is not enough about who we are or how we are or what we do. I recently shared on a podcast, one of the last ones of 2016 or one of the first ones of 2017, I can't remember, about a breakthrough that I had over the course of 2016 which was I win when I work with my body and I lose every single time I try to fight against it. It is not, nor will it ever be my brain against my body. We are on the same team. One of the reasons that so many of us struggle is that we haven't grasped that yet because we are resenting ourselves because we're focused on what is not enough and we are denying who we are and what we are, trying to create something different instead of being kind to ourselves. When we go into this notion of weight loss and diets and quick fixes and detoxes and fasting, we aren't looking to take care of ourselves, we're looking to ignore ourselves or escape from ourselves to create someone or something new. That's just not the way. It's just not the way. Even if you get results in doing that, in ignoring yourself or trying to escape from yourself or coming from a place of "I hate my body so it must change", even if you get results that way, you're going to miss out on your life in the process and when you get to that place, if you get there, you get that result you wanted, it's not going to be good enough. It's not going to be good enough because you've never accepted yourself so it's never going to be good enough and you haven't learned the importance of taking care of yourself maybe because you don't realize that you are worth taking care of. All growth and progress comes from a desire not to escape yourself, not to transform yourself, but to take care of yourself. That is the foundation I want all of us to build. I get how hard it can be because many of us, myself included, many of us are or have been lacking self respect. We feel ashamed of our past attempts or our failure to do the work up til this point. Maybe we don't like what we see in the mirror. I know that begs the question: How do I value self care or how do I ever learn self love when I don't like who I am or what I am?
I'm going to speak plainly and I understand that this might offend some of you. I understand that it's bold. I also believe it's true. Ready? I'm probably going to mark this episode explicit as soon as this comes out of my mouth. Stop being a dramatic dick. Yep, I said it. Stop being a dramatic dick. The self talk in your head about your body, about your choices, it's like mean girl table in high school and you're creating it yourself. With every ounce of love and respect in the world, grow up. Grow up. Do not be the mean girl to yourself or the mean guy. Right? This is not just a woman thing. Guys do it too. 100% of the reason you are not prioritizing self care and/or self love or you're not even sure it's possible for you is because of the negativity you create. Yeah, it's you. It's you and that's good news because you can change it. Your negative thoughts drive this problem. You're being a dick to yourself all the time. Grow up. I'm not saying you have to be like, "I'm beautiful and I'm wonderful and everything is great," but at least stop being a dick. I'm not here to suggest that you can stop the thoughts, but you certainly can redirect them. You certainly can replace them and it doesn't have to be with, "I'm beautiful. I'm thin. I'm sexy. I'm confident. I'm happy," because if those things aren't true, don't say them. There is zero value in lying to yourself. Come on, don't be a jerk to yourself. At a minimum, begin with, "I want to take care of me. I want to take care of me. I want to learn how to take care of me. What does that look like for me today?" What does that look like today, to take care of me? Because right now, your negativity is the biggest problem and overcoming that, overcoming the negativity that you create so that you can embrace and live in a place of self care, that is the foundation required for any of your health, fitness, or fat loss goals. That self care, it's going to look different for all of us. I'll tell you how some of it looks for me, but it should and it will look different for every single one of us and it will also evolve over time. Self care for me is about my physical space like the things around me, my desk, my bedroom, my bathroom, my kitchen. It's about order. It's about sleep. It's about working out. It's about not creating drama with my thoughts, being gentle with my thoughts, reminding myself that my thoughts can't hurt me, that my unhappiness is always a result of fixating on things I don't want. I try to encourage myself the way I'd encourage a kid who was having a hard time. It will be all right. You're all right. What can you do today to take care of yourself? You got to keep in mind that your body is yours and it has nothing to do with anybody else's. You're not competing to become more like someone else. You're working to become the best you that you can be. Part of how I encourage myself is: What can I do today to be the best me I can be? What does that look like today? I'm not trying to create some 90-‐day plan or some five-‐year objective to becoming like a supermodel. No. What does it look like today to be the best me that I can be? If anything, you're just trying to become the best you.
Here's another harsh truth that stings a little bit and certainly stung for me but I wish I had learned it so long ago and I wish I had believed it so long ago. I think it takes some time to come into full belief of this. No one else's love will ever be enough if you don't love yourself. No one else's love will ever be enough for you if you don't love yourself. It doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't even happen quickly, but it won't happen at all if you aren't willing to do that work to say, "Okay. What does it look like today to take care of myself? What's just one thing I can do to take care of myself?" Maybe it's just cleaning your kitchen. Maybe it's just cleaning your bathroom. Maybe it's going to bed early or not having ice cream after dinner. It's okay if it's just one thing, but you can't get to that place if you don't start. I don't think you can necessarily turn off the dramatics in your head but you certainly can begin to say, "All right. I'm on my team. What can I do today to take care of myself?" When you find yourself thinking these thoughts that are just straight up rude, harsh, and dramatic, juvenile, you can say, "I'm a grown up and I take care of myself. What does that look like today?" One big change that I made in terms of my why, because it used to just be I want to lose weight, I want to lose weight, I want to lose weight, now I don't eat well for my butt or my hips or the tag inside my jeans. I don't well to have lean arms or to lose a certain amount of weight by a certain timeframe. I don't eat well so that somebody else thinks I'm pretty. I eat well because I feel better when I do and I want to feel my best. Self care is about what makes you feel your best, not in a particular moment, but overall. I don't work out for a great ass, although I mean, bring it. I'm ready. I'm a butt girl, but I don't work out so that somebody else thinks I'm sexy. I work out because it makes me feel my best and I want to feel my best. Some other things that are a huge part of self care for me, because guys, I understand, it's a hard road for me too. For over 30 years, I legit hated myself, legit. Everything about me, to me, wasn't good enough. It's an effort. It's a practice. If you don't start, you'll never get there and there's no reason you can't start. A huge part of it for me in this practice and this evolution, because you never arrive, you're just always working on how can I take care of myself, how can I respect myself a little bit more, gratitude is a huge part of it. That doesn't mean that I have to think any body part is like perfect in order to be grateful for it. I can just be grateful for what it does for me, grateful for what my body allows me to do, and also being grateful for my mind, for my desire to improve, for my desire to reach my potential. I practice gratitude constantly, especially when I'm feeling down about myself. I'll ask, "All right. In this moment, what do I have to be grateful for?" About me, not like the weather, not the roof over my head. What do I have to be grateful for about me? Then finding ways every day to make myself proud because I think being proud and feeling gratitude often times go hand in hand, at least for me they do. Another huge part of how I take care of myself is coming back to a place of belief. I'm not talking about faith, although you can go there. I'm talking about belief in me because whether or not I've gotten there yet, done it yet, or
whether or not you've "done it yet", whatever it is for you, belief that I can, belief that you can, knowing that I can, that it's possible. I have a sign on my desk right now, I'm looking at it actually this second, that says, "Impossible to discourage. Everything is possible." To me, that means it doesn't matter where I've been or what I've created up until this point because where I go from here is totally in my power. Guys, today, this day right now, whenever you're listening to this, no matter what time of day it is, today is full of chances that are disguised as choices. That's good. I'm going to write that down. I'm going to make note of this 16:49 time. Seriously, though, it's so true. Think about what that means. Today is full of chances that are disguised as choices. What do you with them? Another way that I really practice self care, and I know a lot of people are going to be like, "Oh well, now you've gone off the deep end," I meditate. I'll be honest. I do this because I'm a little crazy. I'm a little crazy or a lot. I am a thinker and I care deeply about people I know and even people I don't know. Sometimes my emotions can take me out of the present so I meditate to kind of come back. Now, I get meditation, it's a reason they call it a practice. Nobody's really great at it. I've not met anybody that's like, "I'm an awesome meditator." Kick that excuse aside because I could be like, "I suck at it." Doesn't matter. I do it anyway. I rarely meditate for more than five minutes at a time because I'm excitable and I get ideas and I want to get up and get moving, but when I start to feel negative, down, or if I start to worry or excessively plan and think about the future, beat myself up for things that haven't gone as I intended, I stop what I'm doing and I slow down, even if it's to just count to ten while I breath or count ten breaths. Even if that's all it is, it settles me down. Even if all it is is focusing on one thing for which I'm grateful, that's all it is. Sometimes ... What book is this? Joy on Demand maybe. I imagine that my mind is a snow globe that's been all shook up, which is sometimes what it feels like inside my crazy brain, and as I breathe, I just imagine all of the thoughts kind of settling down. It doesn't take more than a couple of minutes. Another thing that's a huge part of self care for me, which I really believe is the foundation for any health improvement, is I take care of the space around me because I know that order around me helps create order within me. My office used to be a total like nightmare, chaos. My bedroom would be too. My closet, my laundry room, often times my kitchen. The lack of order around me created unnecessary chaos within me. It created more of a sense of stress and pressure that was totally optional. Easy to fix. Now that I know that having order around me is this easy thing I can do to take care of myself, I prioritize that and, as I remind my Fat Loss Fast Trackers, it is much easier to keep up than to catch up so I spend a couple minutes every day staying on top of it. That's a huge part of it. A couple other things that are a huge part of self care for me, doesn't mean they will be for you. I don't stay up late watching TV. I honestly feel like there is no
excuse for that. In this day and age of on demand and DVR, there is no reason in the world to de-‐prioritize yourself for the sake of television, none, zero. Completely an easy fix. When I stopped watching TV at night, more specifically, I don't usually watch anything after like 9 unless there's a really good game on that also includes one of my teams. I'm not going to watch some good game of somebody else's teams. That has been a major shift for me because rest changes everything. If you focus on any one thing, stop being such a dick to yourself. Seriously, you don't have to be a princess. You don't have to be all sweet and lovey, but at a freaking minimum, be respectful to yourself. Make that a priority of practice. It's not a one and done decision. It is something that you practice. It is something that you practice. Most of you listening, you do not speak to yourself or about yourself with much respect at all. I really believe that the foundation of fat loss is taking care of yourself. If you focus on taking better care of yourself, being kinder to yourself. You will be amazed by what happens as a byproduct, including fat loss, including happiness, including improved finances, improved relationships. Once you start to emphasize self care, the game changes. You can start today whether it's 7 in the morning or 7 at night or 11 at night. Today is full of chances disguised as choices. So much of it has to do with the drama you create in your head. Decide that you will not battle yourself anymore. You will not create an environment of disrespect in your head or in your heart. You will grow up and treat yourself with respect because any goal you pursue will be undermined if you don't respect yourself. This is not a decision you make and it's one and done. It is a practice that you decide to live and I hope you decide to live it. I know I've mentioned, as we wrap up here, I know I've mentioned the Fat Loss Fast Track a bunch in this episode and I've been getting a lot of emails. It is closed right now because it kicked off on January eighth. The next Fat Loss Fast Track will be sometime in April. There is a wait list up now. I will link to it in the show notes over at primalpotential.com. The URL is primalpotential.com/spring-‐ 17-‐waitlist. That's spring 17 waitlist but the words are hyphenated. I'll link to it over on the show notes at primalpotential.com. If free is more your thing, that's totally cool too. I really hope that you have checked out the all new, totally free, Daily Motivations Podcast which is live right now in iTunes and Stitcher. It's still pending approval over on Spotify. Hurry up, Spotify. The Daily Motivations Podcast just launched a couple weeks ago and it's Monday through Friday, short, less than five minute, daily messages of encouragement and empowerment to help keep you focused on what you really want. I hope you will check that out. More than anything, I really hope you will start to prioritize treating yourself with the respect that you deserve because that is the foundation of all change. Love you guys a lot.
