You are listening to The Life Coach School Podcast with Brooke Castillo episode 475.
Hello, beautiful friends. I am recording this podcast, The Reset, for a class that I’m teaching inside of Get Coached Scholars so everyone is on the same page when we start.
And for those of you who aren’t going to join me in this class, this is also a very informative podcast that you will benefit from. But I want to encourage each and every one of you to join Get Coached for the month of June. And if you join right now, you will get the whole month of June included plus the extra days left in this month for a class that I’m teaching for anyone who needs a reset on their life. Anything that you want to begin again, this class is going to be for you.
So the podcast is called The Reset, the class is called 8 Pounds Down, and this is a class that I taught - I think it’s been three years. Three years ago I taught this class and it was basically for people who wanted to reset their bodies, their weight, their mind on kind of the habits that they had been living with that had maybe gotten a little bit out of hand.
And when I taught this class, it was so profound the amount of long-term change that came from intense focus for one month. And that’s what this 30-day reset is all about. And anyone can join us to talk about any area of their life and to work on any area of their life that they need a reset for.
So for those of you who are joining me in class, this is homework that really is required before we get going because it will get you in the correct mindset for the next 30 days of what we’re going to be truly focused on.
And I think sometimes we want to wait until the timing is right, or the kids go back to school, or it’s not summer and there’s not so many parties and there’s not so many things going on. And I actually thought that the month of June would be perfect because we’re in the middle of summer, especially for weight loss for those of you who want to get fit for the rest of the summer, you want to maybe lose some weight for the rest of the summer, but also because it’s probably going to be the most challenging.
There’s going to be the most going on, the less structure, the less routine, more parties, more going out, and if you can figure it out and do the reset in June, the rest of the months will be easy. And I promise that the way that I’ve set it up for you to do a reset will be easy.
I’m going to record one short video on my iPhone every single day for you to check in with and listen to and get motivated and get focused every single day. And I’m going to be doing a reset for myself too, so I’ll be sharing my own personal work that I’m doing that I think will set an example and be really helpful to many of you.
One of the most important things as we go through this process is to understand that taking 30 days to do anything has to be a setup for something that you can do long term. If I have learned anything from my 50 years on this planet is that we lie to ourselves and convince ourselves that we can do really intense, ridiculous, aggressive things for a long period of time because we want the results that that might produce. But it’s just not sustainable, and it’s just not kind.
So I’m going to take you through this process of this reset and I just want you to remember that the 30 days is setting you up for the rest of the year. We’re not trying to do 30 days, get quick results, and then not do it anymore. We’re setting it up so it can be sustainable for the rest of the year, and then many years after that to come.
And it doesn’t mean that you won’t need another reset at some other point. But if you don’t do anything too aggressive, you won’t have these extreme results in both directions. You’ll have more of a steady stream minimum baseline of standard that you have for your life.
It used to be that I would - especially with weight loss or with exercise or something like that, I would do these extreme things for 30 days. I’ll be like, “Okay, I’m just not going to eat ever, or I’m only going to eat kale.” I’m exaggerating obviously. “Or I’m going to work out seven hours a day,” and try and do these ridiculous things, and I could do them because I had the short-term discipline to be able to do them, but they just weren’t sustainable so the results were intense and then they were over. That’s not what we’re doing here.
So let me take you through the steps of the reset and how we’re going to prepare our mind to get some pretty significant results in the first 30 days that will provide the motivation and the excitement and the change that we need to continue to sustain us.
For most of us, the most significant results will be in the beginning, in the first 30 days, and that’s a good thing. We want to remember that some of the results will not be sustainable at that level, but as long as we’re continually making progress, that is the ultimate goal for long-term success.
And the goal for me and you in this process is short-term and long-term success. The short-term success will keep us motivated, and long-term success will give us the dreams that we mostly want in our lives.
As with any goal, as with anything you want to change in your life, the strategic byproduct of setting a goal, doing a reset for your body and mind, your spirit, your life, whatever it is that you want, is truly the mental work that you will be required to do in order to evolve as a human. And that will always be, I think, the highest level of benefit, which is secondary to whatever results that you’re getting within your body in terms of weight loss.
So again, come along with me on this reset ride for whatever thing you want to reset in your life. And it may be weight loss. That’s what the main topic we’ll be covering is. But for some of you it’s more exercise, for some of you it’s you want to keep your house cleaner, for some of you you want to quit smoking, you want to quit watching porn, you want to quit drinking so much. Whatever it is, you can join us through this process.
So step one of the reset is called awareness. And what we need to do is increase the awareness over what we’re doing. Most of us need a reset because we’ve gone slightly unconscious in some kind of area in our life. Maybe we’re just not aware of what we’re eating. We’re not aware of every bite that’s going in our mouth, and all of a sudden we’ve gained weight, or we just don’t feel healthy anymore.
Maybe we are looking at our body and it’s not as toned as it used to be, it’s not as flexible as it used to be because we just have unconsciously stopped doing those things that we know will add up over time to the results that we ultimately want.
So the first step is really doing an audit of yourself truthfully. What are you actually eating every day? Now, the number one key to any kind of awareness audit is you have to do it with love because the reason why we lie to ourselves about what we’re eating is, one, we don’t want to stop eating what we’re eating, and two, we know that we will beat the crap out of ourselves if we were really aware of what we’re doing to our bodies, our minds, our spirits.
We’re afraid to tell our own selves the truth because we know we’ll beat ourselves up. So that’s why step one has to be complete love and truth. So the way that we’re going to do this is an audit of every single thing that went into our mouth yesterday. Every single thing we ate.
Now, the reason I say yesterday is because we don’t want to edit it. As soon as you put attention and awareness on something, you’re going to use your conscious mind, your prefrontal cortex to make better decisions. But we really need to understand what has gotten us to this place. What have we been eating that’s gotten us to this place?
And we can understand it with love and truth and really look at, “Oh yeah, I have started snacking when I’m not hungry after lunch in the afternoon, or I have been going to Starbucks every single day and buying that milkshake that I call a coffee, or maybe I’ve been eating dessert at night, maybe I’ve been going out to eat a lot and not really paying attention and just telling myself it’s fine because I’m out to dinner.”
One of the things that we’re going to talk a lot about in the next 30 days is staying conscious no matter where we are. Not making excuses. “Oh, well, because I’m here I’m going to do this, or because I’m on vacation I’m going to do this.” It’s having your life set up so you don’t have to change your consistent habits. Your consistent habits are livable enough that you can do them on vacation, you can do them when you’re at a party, and you can still enjoy your life and participate in life.
So step one is we got to get the awareness. So whatever it is that you are wanting to reset with, what is the truth about what you’re doing now? How much are you exercising? How much have you been doing yoga? How much have you been working on getting your house clean the way that you want? What is the area of your life? How much porn have you been watching? How much TV have you been watching? How sedentary have you been?
Tell yourself the honest to God truth, but you have to promise yourself that the truth will be laced with love. There’s no beating yourself up here. There’s no reason to beat yourself up. You do not need to beat yourself up in order to be motivated. That will not work long term. If you beat yourself up to get motivated, you’ll have to use willpower. It won’t be sustainable, and you’ll go right back to the same place.
Step two is now that you have kind of an awareness of where you’re at, what your current habits are, what your current activities are, what you’ve been eating and how you’ve been eating, so just look at yesterday. What is the pattern of what you’ve been doing?
And then number two is what do you want to be doing and why? Now, let me give you a very important caveat to this. We are not talking about what you want to do without considering what you’re going to need to do it.
And this is very important because a lot of times we’re like, “I want to weigh 40 pounds less,” but we don’t consider what’s going to be required of us in terms of our lifestyle and our activity level and what we’re willing to eat or not eat and what we’re willing to do or not do in order to achieve that result.
So we’re not pie-in-the-sky-ing this at this point in terms of what we want. We want to consider not just the result we want in our body, what we want to weigh, but also the lifestyle we’re willing to commit to in order to maintain that.
So a lot of times, I’ve seen people pick goals and here is one of the things that I think is really important to consider is a lot of people tell me that it’s not possible for them to lose a certain amount of weight. They’ll be like, “I can’t weigh 40 pounds less.” The truth is you absolutely can. And a lot of the work that I’ve done, strictly with weight loss, has helped people lose weight and get to that point where they never thought they could get, and then come back if they want to and adjust their lifestyle to that.
So it’s get down to that 140 pounds, let’s stay focused, let’s work. This is what I do with my people in my masterclass. That’s not what we’re going to do with this reset though. With this reset, we’re going to consider what is the lifestyle and the body weight that I want, and make sure we’re considering both parts of that.
So we’re considering I want to lose eight pounds this month, then I’d like to lose another 40 pounds, but I’m not willing to do the work for that 40 pounds, so I’m going to go with 20 pounds, whatever it is.
It’s the same thing with money goals. When I work with people on their money goals and they say, “Oh, I want to make a million dollars but I’m not willing to do the work to do that, I know I’m not willing to do the work to make a million dollars, I’m not willing to do the mindset work, I’m not willing to make the offers, I’m not willing to do all those things,” tell yourself the truth about that.
So that’s what we’re going to do when we’re picking this. What do you want and why. Too many of you have given up on what you’ve wanted because you’re way too focused on the result and not the work that you’re willing to do to create it.
So maybe you’re not willing to do the work to lose 40 pounds, but you’re definitely willing to do the work to lose 10. So that’s what we’re talking about here.
So for example, you may say, “I want to lose 10 pounds and I’m willing to give up eating snacking in between meals, and I’m willing to give up sugar and flour, and I’m willing to do some intermittent fasting five days a week, and I think that I can get that result with that level of activity.”
Now, for those of you that haven’t done my weight loss work, I will be talking about all the different tools that we have in order to lose weight and the ones that I think are the most effective and the most sustainable for the long run.
I’m not interested in you committing to doing something for 30 days and losing eight pounds, and then gaining it all back the next month. That’s just not useful. It’s just not good for your psyche, and it’s not useful for evolving yourself.
I’m not interested in weight loss for the sake of weight loss. I’m interested in weight loss and paying attention to overeating and paying attention to overdrinking and any other habit that you don’t want to be doing for your own personal evolvement. That is the most important piece here.
So number one is where are we now? Awareness with truth and love. Step two is what do you want and why do you want it? And what you want includes what you want to weigh, what size you want to be, where you want to be physically, but also what you want your lifestyle to be like.
A lot of us could have the body that we want if we were willing to work out twice a day and eat very lean clean food all the time, but most of us aren’t willing to give up the lifestyle that we have where we like to have a joy eat, we like to have dessert every once in a while, we like to build that in, and have the body that is really healthy and really compatible with the lifestyle we want to live, so it’s that balance.
Number three, 30 days committed, we’re committing to 30 days of a reset. It is a jumpstart that will get us going to patient progress after that. The most important part of this reset is getting your mind ready to sustain the results that you’re going to get.
Anyone can lose eight pounds in 30 days, right? Anyone can do that. You can even just use willpower to sustain that. That is not what we’re talking about here. The reset is to reset your mind, reset your focus, reset your understanding of what it takes for you to maintain these changes.
It will be exciting and fun to get quick results. That first 30 days will get you going, you’ll feel better, you’ll feel thinner, you’ll be able to get in different clothes. All of that is part of it, but that’s not the end game. That’s the beginning game of the rest of the year.
So step three is really committing to that 30 days of mental work. One of the most challenging things that I have when I get on calls with each of you and we’re going to have a call a week, we’re going to have videos every single day the month of June, but we’re going to have a call a week talking about this reset, talking about how to lose weight and getting eight pounds down.
One of the most frustrating things for me is people asking, “What exactly should I eat today?” You have to make these decisions for yourself. If I’m telling you what to do, then if you don’t have me, you don’t know what to do.
So a lot of this work is about figuring out what works for your body, understanding hormones, which I’m going to talk about and teach you, understanding your neurotransmitter, understanding your behaviors so you can work within the constructs of your own hormones, your own body, and your own brain to create a formula, a pattern that works for you.
Some students I work with do intermittent fasting and they just love it. They feel great, they feel energized, they feel strong. Other students I have that do it, it doesn’t work for them. They don’t like it in their lifestyle. They don’t like the way it feels. That’s great. We’re going to figure out what works for you.
And the way that we do that is by creating a little bit of tension, a little bit of change, a little bit of awareness, and we practice and experiment and see what best works for you. And it’s amazing, especially with weight loss, what comes up for us emotionally.
Because so much of weight issues are not overeating problems. They’re under-feeling problems, instead of feeling our emotions. Boredom, frustration, agitation, dissatisfaction, we’re just having little snacks instead of feeling that vibration in our body.
Those snacks just dull those vibrations and so if we can learn how to feel better, not just feel better, we’re going to feel better, but also feel our feelings better, it will make stopping overeating so much easier. We’re going to talk a lot about that.
And of course, that applies to anything we’re doing to escape. Whether it’s Netflix or social media or drinking or smoking or vaping or whatever it is that you’re doing to try and escape that emotional fabric of your life, I’m going to help you with over this next 30 days.
Step three is really the commitment to that. And then step four is the daily work of mind preparation for increased patience, increased resilience, increased failure recovery, increased honesty, self-care, and self-esteem.
One of the most important things to creating long-lasting results in your life is to love yourself and feel really connected to your body and to your emotional life and to your cognitive life and take it seriously, at the expense of other things, at the expense of all the escapes that you’re trying.
When you think about the little pleasures in life and how much they kind of round out a well-rounded life, when you start overusing pleasure, especially false pleasure like cookies and candies and milkshakes and fast food and that sort of thing, that becomes something that’s truly at your own expense, you’ve actually taken the pleasure out of it.
I’m not about taking pleasure out of your life, but I’m about you understanding that it doesn’t have to be false pleasure that comes from instant gratification with food or with any other substance. You can have long-term pleasure that comes from creating dopamine in your own brain naturally instead of getting it artificially. We’re going to talk a lot about that over the next 30 days.
So for any of you considering a reset, thinking about what it is that you want to have and change in your life, where you’ve maybe got a little bit lost along the way, here are the four steps again.
First, where are you now? Where have you lost consciousness? Where are you overeating, overdrinking, over-anything? Tell yourself the truth. Look at yesterday. Look at last week. What is the truth about what’s going on for you? And do it with love and compassion.
Number two, ask yourself, what do you want? What’s the result you want? And what’s the activity you want to sustain in order to produce that result? Be honest with yourself. And why do you want it?
Number three, make the commitment to do a 30-day reset. I want to invite you to come do it with me. Go to TheLifeCoachSchool.com/8PoundsDown. Join Get Coached Scholars for the next 30 days. I’m going to be taking you through this process daily.
And the fourth thing is go through the process I’m going to take you through for mind preparation for sustainable results in your life. I really want to encourage you if you’ve never worked with me directly that it doesn’t really matter which topic you want to do.
For us, we’re going to be talking about losing eight pounds in one month, we’re going to do the 30-day reset for 8 Pounds Down. But what you learn in that course, what you learn by working with me in that month you’ll be able to apply to all other areas of your life.
So when you do a reset for yourself, and just doing this process, even if you don’t join the class with me, even if you just do these four steps and you get your mind ready based on the work that I’ve taught you in this podcast, you can make changes in your life that doesn’t leave you feeling like you won’t be able to sustain them. That is the worst feeling.
To lose eight pounds in one month and gain it all back the next month is a terrible feeling. We want you to be able to lose the eight pounds and then maintain it if that’s what you want to do, or continue losing if that’s what you want to do. But do it in a way that really promotes self-care and really helps you learn the tools and skills that you can then apply to any other area of your life.
I started in weight loss, but then I applied that weight loss to drinking, I applied that weight loss to working, I applied it to making money, I applied it to loving in my relationships, I applied it to maintaining my household and managing my employees, to all the things. Being able to reset my mind, focus in on what I want, and then move forward from there.
If you right now are feeling lost, if you’re feeling like you haven’t had a direction, if you feel like, “Yeah, it would be nice to be able to lose weight, it would be nice to be able to do all these other things,” and you just feel like you don’t really know where to go, I want you to consider that this reset is really just you programming your GPS.
You’re just putting in the destination and getting the directions to get there. And once you get there, once you follow the directions and you get there and you see that you can achieve that result, then you can do it yourself next time. You’ll know which way to turn, you’ll know which way to go, you’ll know how to program your own GPS and you won’t have a dependence on any specific diet or any specific person. You’ll be able to depend on you and do a reset in your own life whenever you want.
Okay my friends, TheLifeCoachSchool.com/8PoundsDown. I am so excited to spend June with you. I am actually going to be traveling to amazing places all through June. Very tropical, amazing sights, and as part of my daily videos, I’ll be sharing those travels with you.
And I wanted to do it, I wanted to share my travels with you because I work when I’m traveling and the time zone difference that I’m going to be dealing with, I’m going to be at these amazing restaurants, I’m going to be on vacation basically and I’m still going to be able to make this reset happen in my own life, so I thought that would be a great way to share it with you. Plus it’s kind of fun to see the behind-the-scenes of my life and what I’m doing too for some of you I know.
So join me inside. TheLifeCoachSchool.com/8PoundsDown and let’s change our lives in 30 days. The nice way, the kind way, the loving way, and the sustainable way. Alright, I’ll see y’all inside. Have a great week everyone. Bye-bye.
Hey, if you enjoy listening to this podcast, you have to come check out Self-Coaching Scholars. It's my monthly coaching program where we take all this material and we apply it. We take it to the next level and we study it. Join me over at the TheLifeCoachSchool.com/join. Make sure you type in the TheLifeCoachSchool.com/join. I'd love to have you join me in Self-Coaching Scholars. See you there.
