Have you ever felt like you’re doing all the things to reach a goal, but you’re super frustrated and discouraged with results?
I was there just this last week. In fact, I even said to one of my coaches, “Oh my goodness! I feel like I’ve tried everything.” And she said, “Ok, slow your roll. We’ve tried 2 things.”
She was right. We all have a little brain drama from time to time, amiright?! And THIS – the brain drama – is what feels so exhausting if we let it get away from us.
So in this week’s episode, I’m sharing build some mental muscles – like recognize which “Emotional Zone” you’re in and which one you need to be in to reach your goal – so you can keep moving forward toward your goals without burning out or giving up.
I’m covering it ALL this week! I’ll see you inside! Xo, Janeen
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>> CLICK HERE to Watch on YouTube
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TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] Janeen: Hey, they’re my friends. Welcome back to the podcast. I am Janeen Alley, and I am super, super excited about this podcast today, how to reach seemingly unattainable goals. So if you’re brand new to my world, welcome to the podcast today. I have something I want to share with you guys before I dive into the content.
[00:00:20] So if you have been listening to the podcast and would love to get coached, to get coached to reach your goals, or to be coached to feel more peaceful ,or to be coached to have more control over your emotions. I mean, there’s so many different reasons why people come to coaching. If you would love to get coached by me, I have a few options to work with me and I would love to talk to you.
[00:00:45] So if you are interested and just wanna hop on a call with me and get together with me, I would love that. So you can do that by booking a call at janeenalley.com/breakthrough. Like I said, I have a few different options for people based off of budget [00:01:00] and time commitment and how much support you’d like from me as your coach.
[00:01:04] And so if that sounds interesting to you, if you’re intrigued, please book a call at janeenalley.com/breakthrough. And I, like I said, I would love to chat with you and work with you. Okay, so let’s dive into the content today. So today I’m talking to all of my listeners who feel like they have a dream that is unattainable and you’re exhausted trying.
[00:01:28] You’re exhausted yearning for something that you feel like is just not available to you for so many reasons, and oftentimes it kind of settles in on you just don’t have what it takes. You don’t have what it takes to juggle all the things that you have right here, right, right in front of your nose, and also work on achieving a dream that you feel like is just extra.
[00:01:54] okay and I totally get it. These are thoughts that we believe, And before I dive into [00:02:00] how to reach that unattainable goal, I just wanna talk about dreams for a moment because I think dreams are so important. I think we dream for a reason. I think we each have a unique set of special gifts and talents that have never been seen before in the history of the world.
[00:02:16] This is something that I believe wholeheartedly. There is no one quite like you in the world now or ever. And I think we were all meant to do really great things and I know that you are doing great things right now. Even if your day-to-day currently includes wiping sticky fingers and faces, you are keeping people alive right now.
[00:02:38] You are doing amazing things. Being a mom is an incredibly difficult job. It’s probably one of the most underappreciated jobs on the planet out there, at least from the people that you are taking care of all the time, . But I think that our dreams are designed for us. And I know how frustrating it can be to feel like you want more from your life and feel [00:03:00] guilty for even thinking that way because you think to yourself that I should be grateful.
[00:03:04] You don’t have to sacrifice being an amazing mom to work on something that is just for you. We can work on these things, these dreams a little bit at a time. I think sometimes our dreams feel like a Mount Everest, and when we’re thinking about achieving that Mount Everest, we’re thinking about moving Mount Everest into our week.
[00:03:22] As Mount Everest, that’s not gonna happen. You can do it in a way that doesn’t burn you out for sure. This is one of the things that I’m extremely passionate about and I love talking to women about, because I think our dreams are there to help us to evolve to the next best version of ourselves, regardless of the outcome.
[00:03:41] Let me say that one more. Our dreams are there to help us evolve into the next best version of ourselves, regardless of the outcome. Just the process of going for the dream can be transformative if you allow it to be. And being a mom definitely does this. If we are looking for [00:04:00] the growth opportunities, right, and rising to the challenges and doing the hard things every single day, like I know that you’re doing. And mastering our emotions and having self control, we have lots of opportunities to do that, right?
[00:04:12] I also think our dreams help us to do this, and I think they also help us to contribute in a very unique way to our communities and to the rest of the world. That’s kinda my take on dreams. , but we get discouraged really easily and we get frustrated when we don’t get the results that we want and we tell ourselves.
[00:04:32] But I’m doing all the things. I’ve tried everything. Another reason why we give up on our dreams, and this is not as obvious we become exhausted from our emotions when we resist them in the process of reaching our dreams.
[00:04:47] And this is one of the things that I’m touching on today.
[00:04:50] Anytime we are trying to reach a dream, I want you to be very aware of the zone of emotion that you are in in the moment. Okay. You’ve [00:05:00] probably heard of the comfort zone before, right? We’re doing things in the comfort zone that we are familiar with and we love this zone. We all do.
[00:05:07] We feel comfortable in our homes. We feel comfortable doing things that we don’t feel are challenging for us. We feel like day-to-day things, and the interesting thing is oftentimes things that at one point felt challenging to us can move into our comfort zone over time as we become more confident with that thing, right?
[00:05:29] The next zone is of course the zone of discomfort. This is our growth zone. This is where we stretch. This is where we kind of have these aha moments and we really can see what we’re made of is in our discomfort zone. An unmanaged mind is going to jump ship from the zone of discomfort for sure.
[00:05:47] Our primitive brain wants to freak out and think that everything has gone wrong as soon as we step into this zone of discomfort. And we start feeling these emotions like anxiety or fear or disappointment or [00:06:00] frustration, we’re like, I’m out. But, this is the key! A managed mind watches our life experience inside of the zone of discomfort, and it notices these uncomfortable emotions and gets to work anyway.
[00:06:17] So what I tell myself is, "oh, I see. I’m feeling afraid. I’m worried what other people are going to think about me and my work, and I want it to be good." And I take a deep breath. I watch my brain think that thought. I feel the emotions that come up as I say that thought to myself and I get to work. That is the key.
[00:06:37] Okay. The third place that I wanna talk about is the terror zone. This is not a growth zone. This is where your sympathetic nervous system is over the top. Your fight, flight, or freeze is totally heightened and you are terrified. I mean, that’s why it’s called the terror zone. This is not where you want to be hanging out.
[00:06:55] This is not where you want to be exploring how you can share [00:07:00] your beautiful message if your brain has got the bells and the whistles and the red flags and looking for the lifeboats. That’s not where you want to be hanging out. So if, for example, speaking on stage is inside of your terror zone, but you have a beautiful message to share with the rest of the world, you wanna be thinking about how you can get that message out to other people without
[00:07:22] terrorizing yourself in the process, . So that could be sharing your message on Zoom. It could be creating courses that people can consume. It can even just be in writing a book. Like there’s so many different ways that you can get your message out without speaking from stage. Okay? So you wanna be thinking about, okay, how can I move out of the terror zone into the zone of discomfort?
[00:07:44] and hang out there and continue to grow even when you’re scared, because that’s when you can move forward with a managed mind. Okay. When we’re trying to go for a goal that feels unattainable, we often feel like we’ve just put in so much work and we’re not gonna get there, like I mentioned [00:08:00] earlier.
[00:08:00] And sometimes we’ve tried these things over and over again and not gotten the results that we’ve desired. and it’s frustrating. I totally get it because we have put in work. Energetically and emotionally it feels like we’ve climbed a mountain. But when we take a look back, we’ve only tried one or two things.
[00:08:18] I literally did this this week. I was talking to one of my coaches and I was like, oh my gosh, I just feel like I’ve tried everything. And she’s like, "slow your roll. We’ve done two of these." so I totally get it. But when we’re at this stage, we are in a very reactive state of mine. We spend a lot of time resisting the discomfort.
[00:08:39] I felt like I had failed. We feel like we tried and we are frustrated. We think there’s something wrong with us. We think we’re never going to get there. And oftentimes, if we don’t take a moment here to really think about what we’re thinking about, we often give up. We just think that our dreams aren’t for us. We just write them off, and we stay [00:09:00] in this hoping phase.
[00:09:01] We stay in this wishing phase. Listen to me very carefully. Hope is not a strategy. Do not give up on your dreams. You want to continue to try things and to take action. And the reason why I’m pointing all of this out is because you want to get clarity on where your energy is going. Why does this process feel exhausting to you?
[00:09:25] It’s usually because you have an unmanaged mind and an unmanaged mind is tiring because we’re just white-knuckling our way through the process. We’re gripping. It’s holding on for dear life. You don’t want to feel self-doubt. You don’t wanna feel afraid or embarrassed or like you don’t have your stuff together.
[00:09:45] And it’s tiring because you have these conflicting thoughts happening and swirling around in your brain. You want to achieve something great. But at the same time, you don’t want to .Think about that for a moment. You [00:10:00] want to have amazing health, but you want to eat the treats, okay?
[00:10:04] Or you want to continue to scroll on Instagram instead of making yourself a salad, okay? And then at that point, you’re starving and you’re going for the first thing that sounds good or the easiest thing to eat. . Right? And, and not only that, not only do you have these conflicting desires, but you’re also beating yourself up in the process.
[00:10:21] You’re not saying nice things to yourself. And slowly this starts to wear you down. This whole process. All of the swirling emotions and thoughts that are happening in your mind, okay? And it feels tiring. Another thing that we do, because we all love to stay safe, we all love to stay in that comfort zone, is we’re hoping that the same actions that we’ve gotten good results with in the past will work again.
[00:10:46] And sometimes they don’t. In fact, most of the time they don’t .Because things change, right? Your body changes, your metabolism changes, the market changes, your kids change. Like there’s so many things that are not the same as they were [00:11:00] a year. Or five years ago, or five days ago, , right? It’s not the same.
[00:11:05] And we don’t know how to pivot, and this can be really tiring. We try the same things that used to work. They don’t. We hope they’ll work, but they don’t. We tell ourselves we don’t know what to do and we give up. you think about parenting for a moment I remember for many years kind of that quiet wrestle with my children during church, hoping that they would be quiet and they weren’t. And trying to figure out strategies to get them to sit still and be quiet while we were in church so that I could listen and hopefully glean some kind of spiritual insight that would help me through the upcoming week. That was what I hoped . And some, some weeks I was unsuccessful. And other weeks things worked. And the thing was is as soon as I had a week that worked, I’m like, okay, we’re gonna try this next week. It’s gonna be amazing. And I tried the same thing the following week, the thing that worked just seven days previous and it didn’t work,[00:12:00]
[00:12:00] And this is okay because we expect it.. Particularly as parents of little kids. Little kids are changing so fast that this is something that we adapt to as their parents, right? But when it comes to reaching personal goals, we don’t like this. We get our knickers in a twist when something doesn’t work. We want this to be different with weight loss, for example, we don’t want to go through the trial and error phase. We don’t want to go through the phase of managing our minds because it’s hard. But I want you to be really clear on what’s difficult. It’s not collecting data, for example, what’s working in what’s not working.
[00:12:38] We’re just making observations about that, right? If we are recording food and we’re recording our weight ,that’s actually a very simple thing to do. What’s hard about that is the drama in our minds. One of the things that I tell people all the time is, you know how to eat well. You know how to be healthy.
[00:12:56] Putting healthy food in your mouth is not the hard part. It’s the [00:13:00] drama, right? Because that is the part that feels exhausting. An unmanaged mind is very exhausting. and it feels like we’ve tried everything because of this mental marathon that we’re running. Right? We might be two weeks into our diet and it’s just like, oh my gosh, I’m done.
[00:13:19] I’m over it. , or maybe two days into our diet and we’re like, I’m done. I’m over it. I don’t wanna do this anymore. Let me just tell you what you are doing matters. The actions that we are taking to reach our goal matter, they totally do, but they matter because we are gathering data.
[00:13:37] They’re not mattering because they’re gonna drive a result. Actions don’t drive results. Our thoughts do. But when we can gather data based off of what it is that we’re doing, we can see what’s working, what’s not working, and what we can do better. And like I was just saying, our thoughts and our emotions matter more.
[00:13:57] That is what’s ultimately driving the bus. It’s the thought and [00:14:00] the emotion behind what you are doing that matters the most. Because all of the data in the world won’t matter if we are too afraid or ashamed to look at it. If we’re too afraid to write down what it is that we actually ate.
[00:14:15] because of that conversation in our mind. Or we’re too afraid to step on the scale and record the numbers, or we’re too afraid to look in the bank account. So often we exhaust ourselves by what we’re thinking. Our brains are often like wild stallions when they’re not managed. Our brains are here and there and everywhere, and they’re all over the place, and it doesn’t seem like we can harness these specific thoughts to take a look at what it is that we’re actually thinking and compare it to what it is that we need to be thinking in order to reach the goal. When we are more aware of our thoughts and we are living a more aligned life, we aren’t as burned out. Objectivity my friends is peaceful. Reactivity is very stressful, and it’s very overwhelming and it’s very [00:15:00] tiring. . So I recently had a weight loss client. She really struggled to believe that she could lose weight, which is very common and she didn’t want to record her food or her weight, and she had a lot of reasons why.
[00:15:12] She told me it took too much time. She didn’t like doing it. She wanted it to be easier. Okay. Those are all thoughts and I totally get this because we all do this in our own way, whether weight loss is your goal or not. I know for a long time in my business, I didn’t wanna post on social media because I felt like it took too much time.
[00:15:30] I didn’t like it. I felt like I messed things up. I wasn’t good at it. But it’s really challenging to reach a goal without any data, without any numbers, or without any information on what it is that you’re actually doing. If you aren’t looking at what you’re eating and how much you weigh, you don’t know what to change when you’re not getting the results that you want.
[00:15:50] Okay? And you can apply this example to any goal that you’re trying to reach. And I know when you’re doing this to yourself, when you’re avoiding tracking your data, you’re like, "oh, I know what to change." [00:16:00] But do you? This is the thought that she had. Oh, I know what to change. I know what to do differently, but it’s not what you’re doing.
[00:16:09] that’s going to make or break your results. It’s what you’re thinking. And if you don’t have the data, you can’t go back and track your thoughts or your emotions. If you are aware of what food and at which time you’re eating it, then you can analyze why you ate it or why you didn’t eat it, which emotions that you were feeling, which thoughts that you were thinking.
[00:16:30] If you don’t have any of that, you’re just hoping that this week you will do better than the week before. And like I said, hope isn’t a strategy, , it’s not. one of the thoughts that she told me was, I just don’t wanna record it.
[00:16:44] Recording your food is actually the really easy part. It takes you 30 seconds to record what it is that you’re going to eat. Knowing which foods to eat is also the easy part . I’m guessing if I asked you, okay, create a healthy menu for yourself, you could do that. We all know what to [00:17:00] eat. Whole foods, lots of fruits and vegetables,
[00:17:03] not a lot of processed things, all of that, but knowing and doing are two different things. Why don’t we do the things that we know? Why was it so difficult for me to post on social media for a while?
[00:17:18] It’s because of my thoughts about it. Because what I actually believed about myself. That I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t have what it takes. If we don’t think that we can accomplish something, that’s what I want you to explore. I want you to find those thoughts. Managing the mind drama is what’s hard.
[00:17:38] but this is what we need to look at because this is the driving force behind the results that we’re getting. And this is why you can take action and not get the results that you’re looking for is because those subconscious unmanaged thoughts drive the bus. And we end up self sabotaging every single time.
[00:17:57] So if you’re going through the motions and you’re telling yourself, [00:18:00] I, I just don’t think this is going to work, or I’m never going to get this. Or Why should I even bother? when it doesn’t work, you’re like, see, I told you so. instead of thinking, oh, I know this is gonna work.
[00:18:11] Okay, let’s just see what’s not working currently and how can we pivot? And I’m going to do this until it does work. I’m gonna try this until I get a result that I want. Let’s go. Okay. This is what I have been doing all month. And it’s interesting because, and this is a key point, so if you’re multitasking, I want you to come back to me. Being aware of what we’re thinking is important. Like doing the, the mind work that I talk about on the podcast is really important and, and finding those thoughts and feeling those emotions and all of the things.
[00:18:41] But you will never in your life get to a point where practicing awareness means that you won’t ever feel these emotions ever again. I think sometimes we think that enlightenment means that we are going to feel peace every second of the day, but that’s not what it means.
[00:18:58] It means that you are [00:19:00] at peace with what is. You are at peace with the anxiety. You are at peace with the overwhelm. You are at peace with the panic. okay, and these feelings, you are doing the work to process and to feel, won’t stop showing up. You are going to continue to feel my friend. But the thing is, is you just allow the emotions to be there. That is where you want to get inside of the zone of discomfort. You want to notice that the emotions are there and you want to breathe into them and get to work anyway. Because as long as we have a brain, we are going to continue to be dramatic from time to time.
[00:19:41] I think so many of you are waiting until these emotions go away. I had a client that used to tell me about, I just don’t want to . Listen, you make a plan for your life and you schedule it on your calendar and that time and day arrives when you’re supposed to sit down and get to work,
[00:19:57] "I don’t want to" shows up in my brain too. Welcome to being [00:20:00] human. This doesn’t go away. I do a lot of things during my day that I don’t want to, that are in alignment. with what it is that I really ultimately wanna do. From my highest thinking and from the way that I plan my life when I have my quiet space on Sunday and I’m thinking, okay, what is it that I really want?
[00:20:15] And coming back to those dreams and coming back to those goals, and then planning my life from there. And then just planning for the rest of the week, not wanting to do it , because in the moment we normally don’t want to. But listen, you do this all the time too .You are living the dream. Sticky fingers wasn’t part of what you visualized.
[00:20:34] I totally get it, but you do sticky fingers all day long. Maybe you don’t have littles like me anymore, that you’re cleaning up sticky fingers. But there’s a lot of things about parenting that are equivalent to sticky fingers. Okay?
[00:20:46] The key through all of this is to learn how to become the watcher of your thoughts and emotion. and do the hard things anyway. Get to work. Despite the fear, despite the [00:21:00] anxiety, despite the stink that your brain is putting up. okay? All of those emotions, those uncomfortable emotions are happening in one model. You can put fear in one model . That’s an emotion that you’re experiencing in the moment. That’s happening in one model. You can see it, you can see the thought that’s generating the, the fear.
[00:21:19] At that point, you wanna push pause in this model, right where that emotion is, you can watch the fear, and you can watch the thought and you can intentionally move into another model and you can tell yourself, okay, I’m experiencing this, experiencing this fear, and it’s okay. I choose to get to work anyway. That my friend is the key.
[00:21:42] I want you to just breathe into the emotion. I want you to be aware of it, and I want you to get to work anyway. That’s what we do. This is not resistance. This is allowing the emotion to be there as you work. I think sometimes we notice a thought or an emotion and we wanna wait until it’s gone.
[00:21:59] until [00:22:00] we’re in that zone where the, the ideas and the emotions are flowing and you’ve got your game face on and you feel motivated and really inspired, and you have love for all the people and yourself. This does not happen , this, this rarely, rarely happens. Anytime you’re doing something new, you are going to want to expect to be inside of that zone of discomfort.
[00:22:24] But you don’t wanna be inside of the zone of discomfort with an unmanaged mind. You are going to self-sabotage every single day of the week. You want to be inside of the zone of discomfort with a managed brain, and you wanna watch and feel what’s going on. I’m working with someone right now in my business that is not the biggest financial investment that I’ve ever made, but it feels emotionally very scary to me, and I have moments where I’m panicking. I’m literally waking up in the middle of the night like, what if this doesn’t work?
[00:22:55] I am doing the work to intentionally move through that cuz I don’t wanna be [00:23:00] working from that terror zone. So I’ll journal and I’ll meditate about it and I’ll practice feeling and I’ll move my body and I’ll go on walks and I’ll lift the heavy weights and I’ll do yoga and all those things and just watch that emotion until the panic settles down into anxiety.
[00:23:15] And I know if I’m anxious about something, I can show up anyway. I can do the work. It’s totally doable at that point. This is where I wanna be, is inside of my growth zone. So you want to watch yourself. How do you do this? You have to practice. You have to have moments in your life where you are intentionally slowing yourself down and taking a look at one thought at a time and how that one thought leads to an emotion and how that emotion drives actions,
[00:23:44] unintentional actions maybe in the past, like walking away or giving up and of course you can see the results that you’re getting from that. And so doing this practice after something has happened, after you’ve overeaten or after [00:24:00] you’ve spent money or after you’ve had a crazy week, you can intentionally practice after watching the thoughts, watching the emotions as if you were there. Maybe two days ago or five days ago.
[00:24:14] You get better at doing it in the moment. , you get better at noticing the emotion in the moment, seeing the anxiety or the fear or the frustration or the insecurity or the self-doubt or whatever is there. You get better at catching those thoughts while you’re thinking them and feeling those emotions while you’re feeling them and taking action anyway. Because as you practice those emotions, you know they’re not gonna kill you.
[00:24:39] And that’s the most important thing. So yes, a hundred percent our thoughts matter, but when we are in the zone of discomfort, when those subconscious fear thought, are operating without our awareness
[00:24:52] they are so powerful. But when you notice them, it’s like you flip the light on, you’re like, "oh, I see you fear. [00:25:00] I see you today. I understand why we’re afraid. It’s because of this, this, and this. It’s all right. Let’s get to work." It’s almost like I kind of feel like I’m just putting my arm around that fear or that anxiety, and I’m like, let’s go.
[00:25:14] We’ve totally got this. We’ve totally got this. We can show up. We can be afraid and we can do this anyway. All right, my friends. That is what I have for you today. I hope this was helpful for you on your journey. If this was helpful for you, I would love it if you shared it with a friend. And if you would love to get coaching on this, you would love to take the information that I share with you on the podcast to the next level,
[00:25:36] please reach out to me to get coached and see what your options are as far as working together. I would love to meet you. I would love to hear your story. I would love to hear what it is that you are struggling with in your life, and if I can help you, I 100% will do everything that I possibly can to make it work.
[00:25:53] All right, my friends. Have a beautiful rest of your week. We’ll talk to you soon. see ya. Bye.
