Ep 163 Clarity on Priorities, Setting Boundaries and Mindset – Training Replay

Episode Notes:

I have a special episode for you today with a replay of a recent training I held.  I know it can be helpful for so I condensed to the teaching portion and am sharing with you here.  Take a listen as I discussed gaining clarity on  priorities, considering worthiness, setting boundaries, and scarcity vs abundance mindset.  Please consider challenging some of the beliefs I discussed in this training and begin building awareness to decide what you want to do more of.

I had so much fun with it and will be doing more like this in the New Year – listen today and stay tuned for more.  

In This Episode:

• Overwhelm is never caused by lack of time
• Manage activities not time
• Gaining clarity 
• Worthiness hustle
• Knowing your worth
• Setting boundaries 
• Why you don’t set boundaries 
• The most important relationship you have
• Work with me:  www.michellebourquecoaching.com/connect

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Android | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS

Episode Transcript:

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to the podcast friend. How are you doing today? I have a special episode for you here this week. Last weekend, I held a training and I decided that it could be helpful to give to you today. So I have the teaching portion that I want to have you give a listen to. And I talked about a number of topics, including gaining clarity on your priorities, considering worthiness, what that all means to us setting boundaries and why we don’t as well as scarcity versus abundance mindset. And I had so much fun with it, that I want to do more of it next year. So in q1 of next year, I will be holding one call a month for free. So be sure to listen here to get all the details as it gets closer. And if you want to be sure to not miss any of the info get on our email list. Michelle Burke coaching.com Reminder, Burke is Bour qu E. And then just click on the Start Here button. put your name in, you’ll be added to the list. It’s as easy as that. And not only will you get the info on the free trainings that we’ll be doing, you will also get weekly free content. So without further ado, take a listen. Okay, so let’s get started with the teaching part of this call. And if you have any questions as we go or if anyone joins as we’re in process, please feel free to unmute yourself and ask any questions. If you’re watching this on replay, please feel free to just send me an email if any questions come up along the way as you’re watching. First, I just want to say welcome and thank you so much for taking the time to either be here or watch the replay. I know that time is our most precious resource. And I do not take it lightly, that you have taken the time for yourself to be able to watch and learn. So with that, I am going to go ahead and jump right in. For those of you who may not know me, my name is Michelle Bourque. I am a Certified Life in wheat coach. I’m also a medical device sales rep. And I’ve been in the industry for about 16 and a half years specifically with medical device sales. And I will just take a moment here to pause to kind of give you a little background as to why I do this, the coaching part of it back in 2017, when I went to get certified to become a coach. My thought at that time was I need something different. I can no longer do this job. There has got to be more to life than this. I felt so overwhelmed and I felt like work ran my life. I thought I was going to leave my device rep sales job and then start a coaching practice. But what happened was, I ended up using the tools that I learned through coaching, and I use them in my life and it changed everything. After that I actually had three back to back to back award winning years at work, I had my highest income. I started my podcast, I have my coaching practice, and more importantly, probably I’ve never felt more at peace. And I didn’t have to do it with as much wine as I used to use. So I want you to know it is possible to be able to do more of what you want in life and not have all of the overwhelm and stress. I also live in the Hudson Valley area of New York which is about an hour and a half north of New York City with my husband Mark and our dog Tucker and I am a member of what I jokingly call the cult that is peloton. So if you are out there, follow me Misha 417. Now today’s agenda, we are going to look at some simple concepts but so important for you to take the time and really consider what this looks like for you in your life and I think this is a great time of year to be able to do something like this. First, we’re going to discuss the idea of clarity. I also want to Talk about worthiness, past, present and future, I want to talk about scarcity versus abundance mindset, setting boundaries, which is super important all year. But I think especially this time of year, and then end it with the most important relationship that you may have. So let’s dive in, I want you to take a minute. And if you’re driving, listening to this on replay, or if you’re doing something in your kitchen, think about it. But if you’re someplace where you have a pen and paper, I want you to think about what your top priorities are in life. And I’m going to just give you a couple of seconds here, of course, pause and come back if you need more time. Now, I want you to also think about how you spent your last 24 hours. Write that down, think about it. And now I want you to consider and look at how those two lists actually line up? Are they in alignment? Or are you doing things that are not on your priority list? Because the truth is, especially this time of year, when our to do lists start to get longer. And we say we have to do all of this stuff, and we don’t have enough time. Nothing ever seems to be like we’re doing enough, right? But the truth of the matter is, overwhelm is never because of lack of time. It is always because of lack of clarity on priorities. So what I want you to consider is really kind of shifting the idea of managing time and time management to managing activities, and figuring out what is important to you, and stopping doing the things that are not important to you. And I want you to take a look at what you think is urgent, because a lot of times we tell ourselves that everything is urgent, and then what happens is nothing at all is urgent. So we need to know, what are our priorities, what do we want to stop doing. And then we might have an opportunity to see what we want to do more of. So really take the time, even over the next two weeks to look at how you’re spending your time, and how it lines up with your priorities. Because just gaining that awareness alone can open up so many changes for you. And now I also want to ask you, where on that list, did self care, self care fall? And my guess is, if you’re like any of the women that I coach, if you’re like myself, if you’re like so many of my girlfriend’s self care was likely either at the bottom of the list or not even on the list, and I want you to question why. Why is that either at the bottom or not at all on your list. And as we think about that, I want to start moving into the idea of worthiness. Because I think sometimes we tell ourselves that we need to do for everyone else. And that we’re just at the end of the list. Let me just start by defining what Worthy is the quality of being good enough, and the quality of deserving attention or respect. And I have that little picture there of the baby’s hand. Because I want you to think about a little baby born, who seems to be magnificent, right? We think babies are so perfect, 100% worthy. But then somewhere along the line, we have been conditioned to believe that external sources define our worthiness. Just gonna take a sip here, the truth of the matter is we are all 100% worthy in this moment. And there’s nothing more that we can do to make ourselves any more worthy. What happens is, a lot of times we are here, and we think we want to hustle and do and go and strive to be able to be considered successful, worthy, whatever that word might be for you. But I want us to start thinking, no matter what you do, you woke up you are here, you are 100% worthy. Now what it opens up so many more opportunities for you, and so many more options, to be able to try things without worrying about failing because we know it’s not the external sources that determine our worthiness. It’s simply us deciding. And let me give you a couple examples here of what I mean when I say past worthiness, and present worthiness, excuse me, and also future worthiness. My allergies are crazy, folks. So think about as a kid, your test scores and I want you to think about I know for me if I brought home A B, my dad would often ask why was it an A? And I don’t know if they still do this. But back in the day, they used to have bonus questions, right? So you could even get 100 on your score. And you still thought I should have got that bonus question, right? I want you to think about any time that you’ve tried to maybe lose weight, the number on the scale, let’s say you’re looking to lose 10 pounds, and you might have lost eight or nine pounds? Where do you focus your attention, usually, on the one or two pounds that we did not lose, as opposed to really celebrating the eight or nine pounds, that we did lose? We always are moving the goalposts on ourselves. If you’re in sales, think about your percent of plan number, you might hit 100% of plan, and still question and think I left over plan dollars on the table, I could have done more, it wasn’t enough. And of course, so often, we look to other people’s opinions, for our worthiness, which really does kind of go back to growing up, right, looking to our parents for approval looking to teachers for approval. But again, the outside external sources are not what determines our worthiness. And the reason this is important is because oftentimes, that is why we are adding to our to do list because we think if we just do more and do more, then we will become worthy. But that is not the case, you are 100% worthy in this moment, right now. And it’s not better there than it is here. So what I mean by that is, a lot of times, we will think when I get that promotion, when I get the partner, when I have the baby, when I get the house, whatever it is, then I will be happy, then I will be considered successful. But if you haven’t noticed, a lot of times we accomplish those goals. And yet, we still feel like it’s not enough. And we set new goals. What I want to challenge you to think about differently, is taking the time once you hit that goal, because I am all about creating new goals, and evolving to be our best versions. But give yourself the time to look back and reflect at what you’ve accomplished. So on this call, I wanted to talk about really wrapping up this year and looking towards 2022 and setting goals for the new year. But you need to take the time now to reflect back over the last 12 months to be able to look at what really worked. What did you do? Well, what can you celebrate? How are you different today than you were this time last year? How are your relationships different today than they were last year? How is your career different today than it was last year? Because the truth of the matter is life tends to be 5050. It’s half positive. And sometimes it’s half not so positive, right? What happens is we often think we should not feel the negative, quote unquote, negative parts of life. And I say quote, unquote, because all emotions are neutral, it is okay to feel sad. It is okay to feel grief, it is okay to feel anger. It’s called being a human. And it’s called showing up for the full spectrum of what is the human messiness and amazingness of life. And if we start to accept that, and process the emotions, it moves us forward so much faster. So remember, it is not better there than it is here. And the reason that’s important is because we really want to take a look at where are we in scarcity mindset, and where are we in abundance mindset? Where is it that we can grow from knowing we are exactly where we need to be right now? Again, scarcity mindset is that thinking that we have that we’re not doing enough, we’re not smart enough. We’re not thin enough. We’re not rich enough. And we just keep trying to hustle, right hustle to that worthiness if that’s what we’re talking about here. And let me just take a moment to pause because I am all for a good hustle. But when I think of hustle, I think of it as an empowering energy. Now, it has not always been that way. And if you look up the word hustle, it means hurriedly and unceremoniously and for those of you who want to be able to do more of what you want in life. permanently and unceremoniously does not always mean productive, and hurriedly and unceremoniously tends to line up with our idea of gaining our busy badge of honor. I have been a proud number in the past of wanting the busy badge of honor, but I have to tell you, sometimes in life, we have to slow down. In order to speed up. We have to slow down to know what our priority Are, we have to slow down to decide where we want to spend our time, we always have enough time. And when we tell ourselves from a scarcity mindset that we do not have enough time, we are lying to ourselves. And if there’s one thing that you take from this call today, I want you to really challenge that belief, challenge the belief that you don’t have enough time to do things. We do not have to do anything. And if you want to take another moment here to just gain some awareness, it could be a fun exercise to look at, where do you tell yourself, you have to do certain things, and write out that list. There may be things like I have to take care of the dog, I have to take care of the kids, I have to take care of work, I have to do the dishes, I have to make dinner. And I want you to really question that, do you have to? And the answer is no. Because not everyone takes care of their kids. Not everyone takes care of their dogs. Not everyone is so conscientious about their job, we choose to do all of that stuff. And from that mindset, we have so much more power over deciding what it is that we actually want to do. So where in your life now? Are you abundant in time? Where are you doing what it is that you want to do? And where is it that maybe if something canceled, let’s say off of your calendar, you would be super pumped. That’s important to note, because that’s telling, right that is telling us that maybe you didn’t want to do it in the first place. Which brings me to setting boundaries. And again, I want you to just take a moment. And if you have to pause if you’re watching on replay, please feel free. And I want you to really consider where it is that you are not setting boundaries right now. Where is it that you would like to set boundaries? But you have not? And ask yourself why that is? The truth is, what happens a lot of times is that we are much more likely to people please. It is something again, that we have learned to do very well through the years, right? We have people pleased our parents, we have people pleased our teachers, we have people pleased our loved ones, our friends, our bosses, it’s pretty simple to do now, because it’s such a habit for us, right? It is so easy to just do do do for the approval versus having to stop. really consider do I want to do this? And I want to take a moment for you to think about this. Do you ever even ask yourself what you want to do? It can be a challenging question, especially when we’re always looking to do for everyone else. And this is the perfect time of year to stop and consider that. Where are you saying? Yes, yes, yes. When you really mean? No, no, no. And I’m going to be honest here because saying yes, yes, yes. And people pleasing is very similar to lying, right? Like we say, Yes, sure. I’ll go out to dinner with you. Yes, sure. I’ll stop at this door and grab that for you. And then feel resentful inside because we don’t really want to do it. Why are we afraid to say no? Oftentimes, it comes down to we don’t want to disappoint the other person. Because then what would we feel? And I want you to think about that. What if you did disappoint somebody else? Then what do you have to feel versus just going going going right? Just keep on people pleasing, doing doing doing and just keep everything inside you. That’s building up the stress, the overwhelm the resentment until you finally get to a boiling point, I want you to consider as you’re starting 2022, that perhaps one of your goals is to start setting boundaries. And it can just be a small boundary to start. It could be that you’re not cooking dinner every night of the week. When you say no, you open up more yeses. And a lot of times when we are thinking about saying no, we focus on what will be missing out on who we might disappoint versus thinking about what could be available. If I say no, how can I maybe help others in a different way? How can I maybe help myself? How can I have more time? What is possible? If I say no, it’s a shift on how we look at things. And again, that’s what all this work is right? It’s really considering becoming aware number one of what our current beliefs are. And I have to tell you, a lot of times our current beliefs come from past beliefs that have been given to us right It could be from parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, and we just collect it in our suitcase. And we take it along with us all of the baggage as if we have to. Today’s the day that you can just stop and let go of some of that baggage. What is it that you want to keep? What is it that you want to believe? We get to believe anything we want, there are beliefs that are so ingrained in our bodies, that we think they are truths. And I want you to start questioning that if you are feeling stuck, if you are feeling overwhelmed, if you’re feeling that you never have time to do anything you want, start getting clear on what’s going on in your mind. And a very simple activity that you can do in order to gain awareness around this is just take some time to start journaling, you just write out in the morning, everything that’s going on in your brain, it doesn’t have to be in any nice, neat order, literally, I just get a notepad and start writing all of the crazy, all of the good, the bad, the ugly, and then it gives you the opportunity to be the watcher to be the observer to look at what is going on in your brain. And then to be able to decide, is that really useful? Do I want to continue thinking that, because what happens is, our brain has a reticular activating system, which will find evidence for what we believe to be true. So for example, I have for the longest time believed that you have to work hard in order to make money, you have to be working hard in order to be considered noble in order to be considered a good person. Is that really true? There are some people that do not work as hard as I do that are quite generous, that make a lot of money. So do I want to keep believing that? Or do I want to find evidence to believe that it can be easy to make money, you don’t have to work super hard to make money all of the time. And you can be a really nice person who makes a lot of money. That could also be true. So write down your thoughts, look at them, question them, what else could be true. And then you start practicing on purpose, believing that new thought that builds the new neural pathways in your brain to start finding evidence for the new belief that may be more useful in your life. And then I want to close up because I think it’s important if we’re looking for the most useful thoughts in our life, to think about the most important relationship that we have in our lives. And that, if you might not have guessed just yet, is the relationship that you have with yourself. And of course, I have to put the picture of the little pup here. Because you know how much I love dogs. If you follow me on Instagram, if you don’t ask Michelle Burt coaching, you see all sorts of pictures of Tucker. But think about the way we talk to our dogs, we talk to our kids, we talk to our girlfriends, it is with such compassion and love. And amazingness. Right, is that a word amazing Enos versus how we often talk to ourselves. And the fact is, we are with ourselves more than anyone else ever in our entire life. And if you start putting your thoughts on paper, you can actually see what it is that you’re telling yourself. And sometimes you might be a little afraid of what is actually in there. Because we would never talk to our loved ones, the way we talked to ourselves. And think about some of the examples that I talked about in the earlier slides around worthiness of test scores of weight. If your girlfriend said she lost nine pounds, you would be like, That is awesome. What did you do? Tell me everything. You wouldn’t say? What happened to the one or two pounds that you were looking for? Really get clear on hearing what is going on in your brain because that is the most important talk track that you will ever have. And I know for years, I have tried, many of the women I work with have tried, perhaps you have tried thinking that if you just beat yourself up enough, then you will be quote unquote successful, but it doesn’t work that way. Again, it’s a scarcity versus abundance mindset. When we can love ourselves. We build more love within ourselves, we are able to give it out more. self care is not selfish. Self Care is imperative for you to be able to give your best version of yourself. So this time of year, I want you to really consider starting to put self care at the top of your list and I don’t care what that looks like. It does not have to be bubble baths and massages. It can be that You take 10 minutes to just breathe, it can be that you take 10 minutes to hide in your car, if that’s where you have to start. It can be that you get a workout in, it can be that you’re sleeping on a particular day, like, what does self care look like for you? And how can you start implementing it into your schedule, start putting it on your calendar, as if it is the most important appointment that you have with your top CEO. Because you are the top CEO of your life, and we need more women taking care of themselves, to be able to have a ripple effect. And you know how much I love a ripple effect idea. And you know how much the work I do here, I want us to be able to make changes, changes for generations to come. But it starts with us. And it starts with taking the time to take care of ourselves. And then you start to look at your to do list, you start looking at everything you have said yes to and decide, do you still want to say yes to that? Are you willing to be courageous enough to say no? Are you willing to be courageous enough to have difficult conversations with people, when you tell them? No, I am not able to do that this time for you. And be strong in knowing that you have your own back because it is going to open up so much more opportunity for you to be able to do more of what you want. Now, I will take some questions as we’re closing out here. But I want to first have you also think about your future self. I think this is such a fun example. As you’re reflecting over the past 12 months and closing out this year, and looking at everything that you did. Thank your past self. Right, thank that woman who has done everything to get you where you are today. Take a moment to acknowledge that in the present. And think about what your future self looks like. What is it that you will want to have accomplished this time? Next year? Who will you be? How will you be different? And just start even with one goal, because as you build the skills for one goal, it’s like a recipe. It’s the method, you can take it to any goal after that. Think about what that looks like? What happens on any given Thursday night for your future self? How does she show up in the mornings? How does she say no to people? How does she do more of what she wants? Take some time to really think about that. Even if you’re driving in the car, and you turn off the radio, and just take some time to think about that. How do you think she’ll feel when she has accomplished that, and start embodying that feeling now, because like I said, it’s not better there, you don’t just all of a sudden arrive to the goal and start feeling that way. We have to feel that way. As we’re taking action. And we have to visualize the way that we get to that goal, because sometimes there will be obstacles, and that’s okay. Sometimes it is not going to feel so great. It is especially not going to feel so great when we have been people pleasers all our lives. And now we’re telling people No, that’s what we have to be willing to feel. That’s the 5050 that we have to know it’s okay to feel. It’s okay to feel some shame. It’s okay to feel some guilt. It’s okay, there’s nothing wrong with it. And as we are willing to feel that we will move each moment towards our next evolved self. And when you start back over, whether you’re looking at goals on a monthly or quarterly or a weekly basis, you will have grown to be a different person. So you will be starting from a new point and learning all over again. And it’s so much fun. So again, I want you to think about what have you accomplished this year, celebrate yourself, give yourself some time to really notice what it is that you have done. I want you to think about what does your life look like next year? And how is it that we start implementing those changes on a weekly, quarterly, monthly daily basis in order to get there. And I am going to be holding more calls like this more teachings throughout next year. So that we are able to have time together to connect that we can have time together to teach to put goals together to really look at like how can we make our lives different? And in doing that? How do we do change the lives of the people around us in the most amazing way. So, quick sit. Next steps in case you are not familiar, I want you to go to wherever it is that you listen to podcasts. So it could be Spotify, iTunes, whatever search, it’s your time, you can have free content there. And again, I’m going to be aligning some of the themes of the monthly calls that we’re going to do along with the podcast. And if you want to get on a call to connect live for free, just get together and find out if it makes sense for us to work one on one privately, go to Michelle Bourque coaching.com, forward slash connect can set up a call, again, there’s no obligation, it’s a free call, we just look at where it is that you’re at, what is it that you want to accomplish? Does it seem to make sense for us to be able to work together? Alright, so I am going to stop the recording here. And this is what we will share with everyone and then I want questions from any one. Okay, friend, I want you to really please consider challenging some of the beliefs that I discussed in this training in order to gain awareness and decide what you want next year to look like. What does your future self want? How will she feel once it is accomplished, and then start acting as if it is already good as done and take action from that energy to day and if you want to take action on doing some one on one coaching, I have four spots open to start in January. So if you’re interested in learning more, head to Michelle Bourque coaching comm forward slash connect and we can get on a call now discuss what it would look like there is no obligation The call is free. We just take a look at where you are, where you want to be and then decide how to have some fun doing it along the way right? Okay, that’s what I have for you today. Let’s circle back next week but for now, stay safe and make it a great day. Take care