SELF-DISCIPLINE AND YOUR SELF-WORTH

EP #31

 

“Do I need a life coach?” You’re listening to Episode 31, with Rhiannon Bush

 

Welcome to the Do I need a life coach? Podcast. We’re here to discuss the ins- and outs- of the life coaching industry and give you tools to use, to see for yourself. I’m your host, Rhiannon Bush. Mother, management consultant and a passionate, certified life coach.

 

 

Something that keeps coming up for me more and more lately is how linked our self-discipline is without self-worth. And for those of you hearing that for the first time, just give it a second to sink in. Process. Consider the possibility that maybe that’s true. For those of you who are fairly self-motivated and can do things you say you’re going to do, even when it’s something you really, really don’t want to do, you’ll know that what I’m saying is true.

 

Self-discipline is this concept where I believe you can use it to get motivated, to drive harder and achieve things you never thought you were capable of because you decided you wanted it, you wanted it badly enough and knew strongly enough what having it would give you, and so you went after it, tunnel-visioned, no matter what.

 

Or… self-discipline can be considered as this self-whipping thing we do, where we use it to almost harm ourselves and punish ourselves out of a place of not feeling good enough, or worthy, or satisfied with our currently results. So keep that in mind as we’re going through this today and please try to use this for good, and not for evil. This is just a concept, a thought to think about, something to ponder and decide now or later, how you feel about it. Ok?

 

Self-discipline doesn’t have to be this task master. It doesn’t need to be a stick approach with ourselves, it can be done, gently, and kindly, and with love. The way that this is showed up for me in my life is in my 20s I would definitely use the stick approach when it came to dieting and exercising. I’d exercise in the morning when I went to the gym before work and it was often a punishment for the food I’d eaten the night before. I almost weaponised my workouts. And sure, there were elements of that that served me based on the fact that my workouts were intense, and I would work out a lot harder. I once had a colleague of Damien’s – a PT who was super ripped, unbelievably fit and really took pride in looking after himself, say to me “you workout like a demon”. It was one of the greatest compliments I think anybody’s ever given me.  Working out hard has always felt great… after the workout, but sometimes it also felt like a punishment. And sometimes, I even let that be the excuse to eat whatever I wanted, knowing I was going to work out the next morning. This is not a demonstration of value. This is reward-punishment, reward-punishment in a vicious cycle that went on for years.

 

Also, the stick approach, or the taskmaster is a very masculine energy. Now when I say this, if you’re rolling your eyes at me, the most feminine woman can have a masculine energy. I’ve heard energy described as “masculine is when things leave the body” for example when we breath out, do a poo, push out a baby, burp, etc. And feminine energy things enter the body – when we eat, inhale, and I wanted to say make love but I’m hesitant to say that one considering some of the clients I’ve had and knowing the sexual experiences they’ve encountered. So that’s one theory on defining masculine and feminine energy.

 

When I think of masculine and feminine energy I think of masculine energy being quite dominant. Not necessarily in a negative way, but in a powerful, proud, “I’m here” type of way. This is why women can have masculine energy. Feminine energy is nurturing. Not weak or vulnerable, but caring, kind, and also strong. It’s the lioness who looks out and takes care, but also drags cubs back in line for their own protection and development. Feminine.

 

As I’ve been evolving, what I’ve realised is that where my focus has been and what I’ve paid attention to hasn’t always served me. I’ve been focused on how fat I felt or how negative things were, or the lack in my life, and instead by shifting my focus to things that were positive, wins I was having, to the things that were going well and being grateful, I was able to really step into that thankfulness and appreciation for all that I am and this body I have that’s enabled me to do so much, for all that I do have, and for the life that I live. And when I come from that place, I genuinely want to treat myself better. It’s far easier. It’s the carrot. When I treat myself better from that place, I feel valuable and worthy, and it comes from a place of abundance and resourcefulness. Instead of this punishing cycle that I’d had going on before.

 

I see the same thing with most clients I work with. When they can begin to balance their feminine and masculine energy better, and some may have varying degrees but usually when clients begin working with me, their balance is way out of wack. When clients come to me they’re either pushing and punishing, usually in a very unresourceful masculine energy and their feminine is absent. This is the usual and in this state, the feminine energy can’t come in and nurture, which means if my client is female, she’s stressed, she’s pushed and pulled in every direction, she’s serving everybody else before herself, she’s tired, she’s run ragged and she’s exhausted. She’s holding it together but she’s on the brink and she knows it. If my client is masculine, this looks like a lot of ego, nit-picking, self-centredness. It does show as a lack of vulnerability, he can’t be soft because he’ll usually view ‘soft’ as weakness. Soft means he’s unable to truly connect with others, on an emotional level because he’s living in his head, not his heart or gut and he’s just driving forward. Full-force forward and railroading everybody in his path. When he takes this home, it looks like disconnectedness with his partner, a distant relationship with his kids and a lack of intimacy everywhere because while he may find sexual release, it’s exactly that – a release, not a connection, not an emotional experience, but a way of exuding power and control.

 

For me personally, this war was with my weight, with my work, finances, many areas of my life, there’s been some sort of stick approach that I’ve tried in my life. If you don’t know about the carrot and the stick approach it’s a metaphor and in case you haven’t worked it out by now, if you need a donkey to move you can do it by hitting it with a stick – not nice, or you can entice it with a carrot.

 

For the coaches listening, this seeds into moving toward or moving away when we speak about motivation. So anything we want we will move toward, as in we’re incentivised, and we are seeking pleasure, so we will move towards it, or we will move away, which is usually away from pain or a negative feeling we don’t want to experience. And we will always be moving one way or the other – towards, or away.  You personally will have a preference as well. We all move away from pain and towards pleasure, but you will often have a way you view the world which will lean more to towards pressure, or away from pain. All the things that I used to do, generally, when in my masculine, were away from pain. And when we’re moving away from pain, typically, that is rooted in scarcity and lack. Whereas when we’re moving toward, it’s from a place of abundance and sometimes enlightenment and often it’s for the outcome of a reward or achievement.

 

If we go back to using getting to the gym as an example, for people who don’t go or aren’t in the habit of going to a gym, when they start out, will find it difficult to get in there. This can be for many reasons, it is a multifaceted hurdle to overcome from a neurological perspective, and if telling somebody “hey, just get in the gym” worked, nobody would need a coach. A big reason I never used to want to get to the gym is that for the most part, being in the gym hurts. Physically. Exercising hurts. It feels difficult on our bodies, especially when we’re not in the habit. I ran up a flight of stairs the other day, in heels I wear to work, carrying my 18 month old girl and honestly, my body felt so heavy and sluggish. So hard. But all the weights, the cardio, the sweat, or planking, whatever it is you dread in the gym… it hurts. At the very least, it’s work. When I had breaks from the gym – usually because I’d been sick or injured, getting back in there was like this dark looming storm cloud. A week or so after begin back I was loving it and back int eh swing but after having that break, it was the last thing I wanted to do and so I’d put it off. And in a particular mindset, getting into the gym or working out is optional. So a lot of people don’t go to the gym or exercise. I had to change that for myself. I had to treat the gym like a meeting at work. I’d never show up late to a meeting at work, ever. And I had to hold myself to that same standard to get to the gym. When I did that it was a gamechanger. It made it much easier.

 

Getting back to moving towards or moving away from motivation, because that reward comes after we’ve been in the gym – immediately after, like when you’re showering when you’re a bit sore in a good way, or weeks later when you’re starting to notice your musculature or your energy levels changing, or even the fact that you’re not hating getting yourself in there… you’ve got to do the hard stuff first, to then get the reward. And that’s the same as anything really.

 

Find a way to do the hard things, the thing you don’t want to do. Motivate yourself toward or away, however it works best for you initially to get started and then you can switch it because the reward will come afterwards in the way of self-satisfaction, pride, endorphins, sometimes dopamine, depending on what it is, but a genuine, internal, great feeling that you’ll never get from eating food or drinking. It’s something nobody can take away from you, ever, because you gave it to you. But it takes time to build up that mental fortitude, and it takes suspending disbelief and having faith that you’ll see it through for yourself. It takes almost reassuring your brain ahead of time, that if you do the hard thing, you will get that reward, you will feel good, you will feel proud, you will grow and change and love yourself in a way you didn’t before.

 

Which is why, when you think about valuing yourself and considering yourself worthy enough to look after and to nurture and treat well there’s less resistance. Getting in the gym, doing those exercises, sticking to the hard thing or that thing you may be a bit unmotivated to do initially, is that much simpler and less emotional. Because it comes from a place of honouring yourself and deeming yourself worthy enough to stick to what you said, and see it through. To honour your commitment to yourself, stick to your word, and have authenticity within that.

 

When you do that, you’ll start burning that Ecoya candle you were gifted for Christmas. You’ll start using that fancy body-butter that costs more than you’d pay for it because you’re worthy now. You’ll start taking pride in what you wear, how you look and how you present to the world. Everything shifts when you decide you’re worth looking after.

 

I have a friend, well I had a friend, we’re not friends any more, unfortunately because she is amazing, just one of those friendships that faded. Jacinta has been a dancer whole life, she’s absolutely incredible – at dancing and as a human and she is just unbelievably positive, driven, and determined. She is incredible. And over the time I’ve known her or have been connected to her in some way, I’ve watched her transition and transform, from strength to strength as she discovers more and more about who she is and who she wants to be.  

 

For those who know her, we can see her level of honouring herself and the person she wants to be, and who she truly is. She’s just blossomed and levelled up, levelled up, levelled up, and I think from other people‘s perspectives, it’s easy to see somebody like Jacinta on social media or in life and use that to beat up on themselves, and also feel like they don’t measure up, but what I would like to offer is that those changes for most people are incremental. When you meet somebody that’s amazing and confident and rich, which Jacinta is, that didn’t happen overnight. That didn’t happen in the space of 24 hours. That took dedication, commitment, ongoing work, and MANY times when I’m sure she didn’t feel like getting in the gym, but she did anyway. Where she didn’t feel happy, or energetic, or strong. And she got into the gym anyway. And the result of that is what we all see now. An incredible body that she looks after, that is extremely toned and lean, and the confidence she has because of the work she’s put in and what she’s been through, emotionally, while doing that work.

 

The confidence has grown as her dedication and commitment and self-discipline has. The confidence is often secondary. It takes courage for us to take initial action. It takes faith and determination. Confidence comes after we have evidence of our success, no matter how minor it may be. Incrementally, one day, at a time, from a place of self-love and valuing who we are now (not when we are who we dream of being), and deeming ourselves worthy to ourselves.

 

So my quick question is what are you not having that you want to have? Is it a ripped body? Is it weight loss? Is it the relationship? Is it the kids? Is it the highflying career? Is it your own business? Is it financial freedom? What is it for you?

 

My second question is what do you need to do to have those things?

 

And my third question is who do you need to be? If you think about somebody you know like Jacinta, your version of Jacinta, what feelings do they feel on a daily basis? And what do you need to do to have more feelings that you think you’ll have, once you’ve achieved what it is you want to achieve?

 

Do you need to be a carrot or the stick with yourself? What are you currently being out of those two? If, you were to use a carrot instead (if you’re using a stick) and move towards pleasure, and do it with more ease and more self-love, and valuing who you are truthfully, and without apology, what would you demonstrate more of to the world?

 

Because it’s who you are being today, in every moment that gives you want you want, and moves you towards, tomorrow.

 

I’ll see you next week my friends.

 

 

 

Hey! Before you go, I always find reviews really helpful when looking for new information or insights…

 

I you’ve found this podcast valuable, please take a minute to write a quick review about what you’ve found most beneficial for you, so other people can benefit from your insights, and listen in too. I would LOVE that!

Also, if there are any topics you’d like me to cover specifically about life coaching or the life coaching industry, visit rhiannonbush.com to contact me. Thanks for joining and I’ll see you in the next episode of Do I Need A Life Coach?!

 

 

Please note, this transcription may not be exact.