Overcoming the Habit of Giving Up

Welcome to This Daring Adventure podcast where we work on bridging the gap between where we are and where we want to be in order to live a bigger and bolder life. In this podcast, we will provide inspiration, tips, and skills need to make your life the adventure you want it to be. Here's your host, mindset mentor, and life coach, Trista Guertin.

Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of This Daring Adventure. Thank you so much for joining me today. This is episode 40. I'm pretty excited about 40, I think 50 will actually be more exciting for some reason, but 40 it's getting up there, so I'm pretty proud of myself, I have to say. It's been a lot of fun. It's been a real learning experience, and I look forward to creating 40 more. 400 more. Let's see how it goes. So this week I am at home in Canada, visiting all my family and friends, having a great time. Luckily the weather is mostly cooperating and just taking some time to spend with everybody that's important in my life, including my dog, Molly. it's very nice to catch up with her. She is a dog that I picked up in Iraq 12 years ago, so she's probably about 13 now. She's still going strong and we get to spend a few weeks together each year. The rest of the time she lives with my dad and my stepmom and has an amazing life. So that's always a bonus. It's actually one of the main reasons why I come home, I'll be honest. today I wanted to talk about giving up, not sticking with it. Not following through. this is something again, I've heard from several different clients and they define themselves as someone who doesn't finish things, doesn't stick it out, doesn't stick with it gives up. And so I wanted to address that briefly today because That story does not serve you. It's not empowering, it's not helpful, We use this as something to beat ourselves up about, to make ourselves feel badly, so it's serving no purpose. When we start things we get a hit of dopamine, our brain gets a reward. Our brain loves new things, We see this. We, we love new shoes. We love new purses. We love new sweaters. Well, at least I do. We love new things, so it's no different with relationships or with hobbies, activities, jobs, what have you. When we start something new, our brain gets a reward, and it loves the novelty. When something becomes familiar, when it becomes easy, when it becomes very well known. There's not that similar reward associated with it, and so our brain starts to lose interest because there's, there's no potential literally for this reward, and our brain does crave newness. It's completely normal. It makes sense that if this is happening to you, which it probably does from time to time, you're normal. There's nothing wrong with you when this starts to happen. This is a function of our brain, The important thing then, is how you decide to respond and what you decide to think and feel and do when this happens. And here, there is no right or wrong answer. You get to decide what you want to do. The important thing is that you like your reasons, and then you don't beat yourself up and you consciously, deliberately choose the story that you're going to tell about this. So think about why. if you are thinking about making a change, whether it's from one job to another, one career to another, one, hobby to another, whatever it is, think about why you want to make this change. Is it because of boredom or is it because it's hard? Is it because something looks better? Or are you just ready for a change? Again, there's no right answer here. You get to decide, and I think dropping into your body and feeling how each of those things feel when you think about them. I can imagine that feeling bored makes you a little bit more antsy than you know. It's hard, where it might make you feel a little bit more anxious or something looks better. You might be a little bit more excited, Ready for a change might be just something solid, something settled, something decisive in you. So think about your reasons, see how it feels in your body. next you wanna look at the pros and cons. What is your reason for maybe staying with it, or what is your reasons for making a change? List them out. Get clear about why you would want to take one decision or another. Again, go back to your body. Drop into your body. How does it feel? Think about if you like those reasons. Are there ones that feel stronger, that feel better, that feel more solid within you if you are thinking about staying with it? Continuing again. Do you like your reasons? Do you want to do the work? Do you see the benefit of staying with it and managing your mind and your emotions to continue to do the work? And your reasons are perfectly valid no matter what they are. Maybe it's too much work and you decide that you don't wanna do it, and that's fine. Or maybe you decide you're gonna do the work for the next six months, and then EC decide again after those, those six months. And that's perfectly okay too, that you're gonna do the work to stay with it for another six months and then look at it again and decide whether you wanna make a change or not. It's all perfectly valid. There are no right or wrong answers. You do need to know, though, that regardless of what you choose, you're not going to be happier there than you are here. Your potential to be happy is exactly the same no matter where you are. And the story that your brain will be telling you is that if you make this change, if you start this new thing, then you will be happier. But that's not true. Happiness comes from our thoughts. It comes from how we are thinking. So just be clear that you are not necessarily happier there then you are here. Your potential to be happy is exactly the same, no matter where you are, no matter what you're doing. And realize that if you make this change and start the new thing, eventually your brain will come up with the same story again, that you're bored, that you need to make a change, that that whatever is next is better and more fun. Now, when you make a decision whether to stay with it, stay with it for six months, stay with it for a year, or to make a change, whatever your decision is, you want to be clear, whatever your decision is. You want to be clear not to beat yourself up, not to indulge in regret, These are all thoughts and they may come up, but you want to refocus your brain. Remind yourself of the reasons why you decided on what you did or what you chose. And that you like the reasons, and you may have to remind yourself every day at the beginning or very often, and that's okay. Just remind yourself of why you made this decision and how you like the reason, You will have to do some work regardless of what you decide, but commit to a timeframe and then do the work. Don't make yourself wrong. Don't beat yourself up, and definitely don't tell yourself the story or define yourself as someone who doesn't follow through or who doesn't give up. You have to, in this circumstance, own your choice. Own your decision. You are making a choice. It's not something that's just happening randomly. Or due to some external forces, it is a conscious, deliberate choice and you will need to remind yourself of that very often. It can help to take a very firm decisive tone with yourself, with your brain. I often think of it as, you know, using the same tone as you would a small child telling them no, or your dog, no. You need to use that same tone of voice and same assertiveness with your own brain to refocus it. To manage it, to get it to focus on what it is you want it to focus on. In this case, it's that you've made a conscious, deliberate decision about what you want and why, and then to remind it of the reasons and do that work for whatever timeframe that you have committed to. I promise you it works. Alright, that's what I have for you today. Thank you so much for joining me. If you are interested in a private one hour coaching session so that you can try coaching yourself, we can talk about maybe what changes you want to make, what you wanna change, what you want to let go of. We can do this in your private session. It's a great investment of one hour of your time. I will include the link in the show notes and you can pick a date and time that works best for you. As I am on vacation right now, I will say that the slots are a little bit, the slots are a little bit limited, but I will be adding more once I get into August and September. I will only be offering these private one hour sessions for the remainder of the year. if you are interested, this is your opportunity to, to get in there and try it for yourself, and I really look forward to meeting you and doing a little bit of coaching. All right. Enjoy your summer and I will talk to you next week. Take care. Bye-bye.

Thank you for listening to This Daring Adventure podcast with your host, Trita gtin. We hope you enjoyed the tips and conversations on how to get excited about life Again. As always, you can head to tristaguertin.com for additional resources and to book a one-on-one coaching session. You can also follow Trista on Instagram at tristavguertin. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll see you next time.