Up-Level Your Life with Mindy
Cultivating Confidence Through Tiny Habits and Mindful Actions with Julie DeLuca Collins
Unlock the power of action to build confidence with insights from Julie DeLuca Collins, a Tiny Habits coach who joined me, Mindy Duff, for an enlightening conversation. This episode promises to equip you with strategies to transform your everyday routines into confidence-boosting victories. Julie and I discuss the importance of recognizing that confidence stems from our actions, not just fleeting feelings. We delve into ways to create a 'success file' to cement your self-assurance and how entrepreneurs and individuals alike can tap into their inherent greatness with consistent, manageable steps.
Have you ever considered that the smallest habits could lead to the most significant personal growth? We take a look at the tiny, actionable steps you can incorporate into your life — steps that align with who you aspire to be. From the simplicity of putting on walking shoes after dinner to leveraging location-based cues, we illustrate how starting small can lead to profound transformation.
To learn more about Julie visit: https://www.goconfidentlycoaching.com/quicklinks
To learn more about Mindy CLICK HERE
Unlock the power of action to build confidence with insights from Julie DeLuca Collins, a Tiny Habits coach who joined me, Mindy Duff, for an enlightening conversation. This episode promises to equip you with strategies to transform your everyday routines into confidence-boosting victories. Julie and I discuss the importance of recognizing that confidence stems from our actions, not just fleeting feelings. We delve into ways to create a 'success file' to cement your self-assurance and how entrepreneurs and individuals alike can tap into their inherent greatness with consistent, manageable steps.
Have you ever considered that the smallest habits could lead to the most significant personal growth? We take a look at the tiny, actionable steps you can incorporate into your life — steps that align with who you aspire to be. From the simplicity of putting on walking shoes after dinner to leveraging location-based cues, we illustrate how starting small can lead to profound transformation.
To learn more about Julie visit: https://www.goconfidentlycoaching.com/quicklinks
To learn more about Mindy CLICK HERE
hey, friends, this is your host, mindy duff, and you're listening to up level your life with mindy, your number one personal growth podcast that will bring you closer to uncovering your greatest self. As a certified holistic health and nutrition coach, I created this podcast for anyone who desires to improve physically, emotionally and spiritually. I'll be interviewing experts and sharing tips and tricks that have helped not only my clients, but that have guided me on my own transformational journey. I believe that we all have a greatness that lies within. We just need to uncover it. Are you ready to level up? Then let's begin. Hi everyone and welcome back to Uplevel your Life with Mindy. I am your host, mindy Duff, and today I have a guest with me. I'm going to be chatting with Julie DeLuca Collins and we're going to be talking about oh, all kinds of good stuff, confidence and habits and all the juicy things that I am really excited to get into. Julie, thanks for being on the show today.
Speaker 2:Okay, I've been having so much fun forward to your our interview. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, let's just get in here before we do anything. How about you just tell a little bit about yourself and what you do?
Speaker 2:Absolutely Well. I am a tiny habits coach First and foremost. I also am a business and life strategist. I help women specifically in midlife be able to build a brand, a business they love, through podcasting and getting their message out there, but also creating the consistent income we are all looking for from month to month. So those are the things that I really specialize, and I love working with individuals, with yeah, and I think that I mean for me as a entrepreneur.
Speaker 1:I think this is just right up my alley. But I'm also going to just put a little caveat here for people that are listening. If you are, if you are a man or if you're not an entrepreneur, everything that we're going to be talking about here today is definitely applicable to everybody. If you're a human on the planet, this episode is going to be for you, but if you are somebody who is an entrepreneur and you kind of resonate with Julie, you might want to look her up here after you finish listening to this podcast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And, by the way and I want to make this clear for also for other entrepreneurs, because they tend to get very hesitant to niche down, but I also work with males but once you create your message and is really refined, then you're really resonating with the person and the people that you thought maybe wouldn't be resonating with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. Let's talk a little bit about confidence, because that's when I woke up this morning and I was thinking what am I doing today? Oh, I'm going to chat with Julie today and we are going to talk about confidence and I'm so excited for this conversation. As a person, I feel like I have probably an average amount of confidence.
Speaker 1:I don't feel overly confident. I don't feel super meek and need to always hide in the shadows either, but I definitely feel I've been thinking about this a lot more lately that more confidence just really could help me in my own life in a lot of different ways, and I'm sure everybody else too. So I'm curious about your take on confidence and how it can help people in their lives.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for asking this. After habits, confidence is my second favorite conversation to have. I think that there's a lot of misconceptions when we are talking about confidence. You tend to think that confidence is a feeling that she's got it. When I was in corporate America and I got a promotion, a lot of women would come to me and say, hey, I wish I was as confident as you are. And the reality is that there is a level, like you said, of confidence there.
Speaker 2:I'm a firstborn, so of course, I'm very outgoing, I'm extroverted, but the confidence level really comes from finding evidence that you're capable to do whatever it is that you're doing.
Speaker 2:If you think about when you learned to ride a bike or when you were learning to walk, you weren't a master at anything, but the confidence started as you started to see yourself okay, I can do this a little bit more, I can step out. And for many of us, we're always looking for the feeling as opposed to looking at what we're capable of doing and saying got it. This is what I know, or this is where I want to be and this is how I can move forward a little bit more at a time. And when you see someone that's very confident. The difference is not necessarily that they have more confidence than you do. The difference is that they're willing to be uncomfortable and do the work and keep going and you persevere and you're consistent in your actions and that again sort of like it's a. It's a little thing that feeds off of each other. The more skills that you get, the more confident. The more confident you are, the more motivated, and that's what really sets confidence apart and that's how I like to define it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, I love that. I just I jotted down a little note here and I wanted to share it, just to kind of highlight something that you said Confidence comes from finding evidence that you're capable. I really like that and I think, if we all think about that, that's true. I mean obviously very true. If you think in examples in your own life, I've even thought, like, because there's days where you just you're not feeling it, you're just feeling down. And how many of us on those days when we're remembering?
Speaker 1:what to do we call up our best cheerleader or we, you know you've got everybody, hopefully has that friend or your partner or a parent or whoever it is that you can call to like kind of pump you back up. I've even thought that you know it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to like have a little I don't know, like a file on my computer or something.
Speaker 2:I keep a little, I don't know, like a file on my computer or something. I keep a little book. I keep a little book and I call it my little evidence book, and I make my clients do the same, because there's going to be days that you need to be reminded when you call somebody. I like to talk about that as being your believing mirrors. Sometimes you just have to borrow belief from somebody else that knows what you're capable of, sees things that we tend to kind of minimize and feel that imposter syndrome or that inner critic come out. So it's a great, great tool to be able to use, to have either a little evidence book or to write it down somewhere and also to call someone that you care about that can remind you of what you're been doing and how good you are at it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that. I wrote that down too, boy, I'm going to have a page full of notes. Julie we're only six minutes in.
Speaker 1:I wrote sometimes you have to borrow belief from somebody else. That's absolutely true and I just like that perspective of it and I like highlighting that and making it known that, yeah, that's okay, that's a thing that humans need to do sometimes, just like you need to do everything else Absolutely the potential in other people. So I'm in a group and I know a lot of women who maybe they're doing X as a career, but they really have this dream to do Y right, and I can see it like, yeah, you should absolutely do that, That'd be perfect for you. I can just see it crystal clear.
Speaker 1:But when it comes to my own life, it's really hard to have that same clarity and that same, you know, confidence and belief in myself. It's so much easier to see it in other people. So I like that idea of, yeah, you might need to borrow that belief from other people sometime just to kind of get you going. So, yeah, so that's one one little way I guess that we could gain some more confidence. But I'm really curious to hear all of your tips and tricks on gaining more confidence in our lives.
Speaker 2:Well, the topic of confidence again is something that we tend to not understand 100%, and there is an intersection. Confidence is found in the intersection of your consistent action and that evidence that you're doing For me, one of the reasons I became a Tiny Habits coach and Tiny Habits is a book written by Dr BJ Fogg. Most of the habit books that you have read the Power of Habit, Atomic Habits, all of the research behind those books really come from Dr Fogg's research. He is the founder of the Behavior Lab at Stanford University. He's been doing this for over 20 years. I knew that there was a piece missing when it came to habits and I wanted to learn more.
Speaker 2:What Dr Fogg says is that many times we are relying on motivation to actually get us to do the habit. Right, that consistent action, but when motivation leaves us, we end up then not doing the work or not showing up. Think about what happens every New Year's Day. Right, Everybody's at the gym, I'm gung-ho, I'm going to lose that weight? Oh no, but then when life starts to happen, individuals start not showing up and then, when you don't show up and do the work, you are not getting better, so you are not gaining that confidence and at the same time, that inner critic or that voice or that sabotaging voice is saying oh, you couldn't do it. Look, you failed. And then we don't show up because we don't like the discomfort of doing something new but also of not being as good enough. So that motivation is not going to get you to do the thing. So for that reason, we want to go ahead and create habits that are sustainable.
Speaker 2:The anatomy of a habit is A, the action, B I'm sorry, A is something that's going to prompt you and B is the behavior and C is celebration. So we want to go ahead and find the areas of our life that we are already doing something that we've automated. Our brain loves to automate. Think about the times that you've driven home and you're like how did I get here? So that's exactly what we want to do. We want to find the areas of our life in which we are already doing something right. So, for instance, if you are getting dressed in the morning and if you leave your shoes next to where you usually get dressed for the gym, then the tiny habit could be I'm going to put my shoes on for the gym and then you celebrate.
Speaker 2:There's so many different areas in which we can tack on the new behavior, and the more that we continue to do that new behavior, even though it might be tiny, even though our brain is telling us oh, how is that going to make a difference? What you're going to start to see is that we feel a little more confident because we did it. We didn't have to rely on that motivation, we relied on just automaticity, right Doing. The actual behavior and little tiny habits are like plants when you put these seeds down, they're going to start to grow because you feel, oh, I put my shoes. I might as well, you know, go for a walk or or head to the gym or do a little something. That, again, you can build upon and continue to find that evidence and know that you can look back and say, oh, look, what I've been doing. And again, it's an automation and not something that you're relying on, on that motivation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, that's interesting. So really, when it comes to confidence, we just need to build better habits, absolutely. And then in completing those habits we feel more confident. So I'm assuming that this could go in any area of your life. So, and I'm just kind of thinking out loud here area of your life so, and I'm just kind of thinking out loud here, so let's say if I am not very confident in my business, but maybe I just can't think of a habit there.
Speaker 1:Can it be that maybe my habits that I'm creating in my fitness life can also help me creating more confidence into my business world?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and this is behavior. Design is very important, and this is one of the things that I do with my clients, right, when we are starting to build a business and you talked about the women who, maybe, are sitting doing the thing and they want to do something else, but they're afraid because they don't even know where to start first, second or third. Many entrepreneurs, as we're starting out, we want to do it all. We want to have big dreams that, oh, I should be doing this already. Right, all of the things. The first thing that we need to do is, again, if you're finding evidence in another area of your life that you're successful and you're celebrating because, by the way, that is how the brain automates behavior is by making us feel good. When we feel good, the brain says, oh, I want to feel like that again, let me do that again. So, if you start to look at, oh, you know, I am capable and reminding yourself of your wins when you're starting to do some of the behavior that you need for your business. So, for instance, I hear from entrepreneurs I don't know where my day went. I was so overwhelmed I never got anything done, right? So then let's talk about. What are the things that we can automate? Well, the first thing that you can do is your action. Your anchor moment when you come into the office in the morning is that at when I sit at my desk. That's the behavior. That's already an automation. Right, I am going to open my calendar and look at my calendar for the day. Right, that's the little habit you're tacking on, and then I'm going to celebrate. Now, if I have my calendar open already, mindy, I'm probably going to look at what's ahead and kind of start to plan out okay, what do I need to get done? Right, and this is how the habits begin to spread and you begin to create that new behavior.
Speaker 2:But it's mostly about being aware, finding the things that you're already doing and then really looking at the person that you want to become. If you want to be productive, if you want to be someone that does XYZ, find that vision and begin to move forward and work toward the aspiration. If I want to be a healthy person, right, I need to go ahead and eat. Well, I need to drink water. Those are very basic things.
Speaker 2:So, for me, knowing that I wanted to become that healthy person and that drinking water is part of it. I needed to automate the behavior of drinking water, and that was one of the first things that I started to do. So now, if I'm drinking water, it becomes very easy to look at the other areas. Well, what else can I do to help me continue to go in that new behavior? And that's how we typically work with individuals to help them achieve what they want, by creating the tiny behaviors that then spread and allow them to feel confident and help them be able to automate it. So it's not something that it's hard relying on motivation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So, and I just again want to highlight that these are tiny behaviors, it's not you know, a lot of times we think of like the big goals and you know, or maybe it's even something like working out every day. I suppose for some people could become a tiny habit. But there's tinier habits you can break that sucker down even smaller to. If you're struggling to just do that, like you say, getting putting your shoes. You know, I think in the Atomic Habits book I know he has some example of just. You know, even if you want to start taking walks after supper, you just start by putting your walking shoes on after supper and you don't even go for the walk until that becomes like a normal thing, and then you.
Speaker 1:Just that's what you do you finish eating supper and you put your walking shoes on. Well, okay, maybe now you just put them in the driveway, but yeah, yeah, you got to make it easy.
Speaker 2:So, for instance, if you're finishing supper and you have, like I have a two-story home, right, so I may be putting everything away, that's my automation. I'm putting things in the dishwasher. But if I don't have my walking shoes where I can see them, then it's not going to happen, even though that might be the little tiny habit. And then when I'm getting ready for bed and I see the shoes in the bedroom, I'm like, oh no, I didn't do it. So that's a little bit also where people go wrong. So make sure that whatever habit you're doing is also the habit that it's location-based, right. So make it easy for yourself and think about if, for instance, I have a client that wanted to practice the guitar after supper Very basic example but again the guitar was in another room.
Speaker 2:So she never, really, you know, connected those. So then I said well, what do you do typically, instead of playing the guitar? I go into the living room and I watch TV. Perfect, leave the guitar there. So then all of a sudden, she walks into the living room. She's like, oh, I'm going to open my guitar case and start, and that little bit of movement forward is the one that then creates that automation for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I like that, I like that. You know, it's just those tiny, tiny little little habits and I think it almost it sounds like you need to just make it too easy for yourself, right? Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Because, it would be way better to go okay, well, that was too easy. Obviously, I'm going to succeed at this every single time. But then okay, so now, when you're confident with that, then you just make it a little bit harder, versus, well, I'm going to stretch and grow Like you're going to stretch and grow through this process regardless. Yeah, but make it easy on yourself.
Speaker 2:Absolutely and, by the way, this is one of the things that Dr Fogg really talks about. Our brain is going to say that's not enough. How is that going to help me? I'm never going to get it done, yeah, yeah, the reality is that you want to set up yourself to not fail, right? So if the behavior is tiny and you're like, oh, I might as well do it, it's just, I'm opening my calendar. That's just the basic thing. So, therefore, you don't have to rely on that motivation again for that. You're actually never going to fail on not opening your calendar because it's so, I might as well do it. I'm here, right, it's sitting here, and that's what we want to go ahead and create, so that, even on the days that you don't even want to look at your calendar, but you opened it, you're still successful at what you set out to do and you're never making yourself feel bad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm just curious. You mentioned drinking water and that you've started drinking more water through. You know some tiny habits. I am wondering if you'd be willing to share, because I think that's a really common thing, that people don't do enough. So tell us, tell us, yeah. So this is my favorite thing.
Speaker 2:I'm surprised I didn't even talk about it to begin with. One of my favorite habits is drinking water, obviously, and it was one of the easiest habits to adopt, mainly because I have three dogs. So when I get up in the morning, the first thing they want to do is run outside. So when I come downstairs to let them out, my anchor moment is that I open the door, let them out. So when I let the dogs out, typically nine times out of 10, I have left my water jug by the sink next to the door. So I open the door I'm seeing it and then I fill up my water bottle as my behavior, and then I celebrate. And now celebration is the part that people don't understand. I'm not having a dance party in the kitchen I could, but I typically will say something as simple as like good job, julie, you did it. Or, alternatively, I'll look at my dogs and I'm like oh, look at them, how cute they are outside, right, and then that makes me feel good. And immediately my brain is like wow, let's keep doing this. I like that feel good, adrenaline that I'm getting. So that's what we want to do Now.
Speaker 2:Obviously, I am only going for filling out my water bottle. I am not going for drinking all of it or getting that first sip, but obviously, if I fill it out, the first thing I'm going to do is drink some of it. And then, of course, if I'm drinking it, I'm going to celebrate that I bring my water bottle here to the office and it's sitting here. The other thing that I tend to do is another anchor moment for me is when I finish a conversation on Zoom, I drink water. That's an end, of course.
Speaker 2:What's happening is you are then drinking water, you're going to the bathroom and I have another bottle close to where I will see it. So you make it again. These clues for yourself, that kind of prompt you to do the thing, that are the thing that pushes you forward. But overall, don't start big. Don't say I'm going to drink a gallon of water. Maybe all you want to do is drink a couple sips of water before you have a meal, and that's another anchor moment, too that you can use. Yeah, drink a couple sips of water before you have a meal, and that's another anchor moment, too that you can use.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that idea of the celebration and I think it's interesting, as you were saying, that sometimes you might say, you know, good job, Julie, you drank the water. But sometimes you also might just look at your dogs and and I you know, on the one hand, you know, my first thought is like, well, but that's not really connected to your water. But then it doesn't matter, does it?
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter, it's like Pavlov's dog it's, you know. You ring the bell, you get the food. You ring the bell, you get the food, you ring the bell and the dog starts to salivate whether there's food there or not, just because of that association. So really you're just trying trying to invoke that feeling. Your brain doesn't care necessarily what is causing that feeling, it's just the trigger moment happened, which was you took the drink of water or filled up the water bottle or whatever it was, and then you felt had a good feeling right after it, exactly, and your brain doesn't know the difference, right the same way in which you could be really annoyed.
Speaker 2:And then all of a sudden, you smile, and and a lot of times I'll like start smiling when I lived in New York City. This is a really funny story. When I lived in New York City, I had a car and I drove to work back and forth and many times when I got home I had to circle around for a parking spot and I remember being so stressed after having to circle, maybe 20 minutes, 30 minutes an hour at times, right, and then all of a sudden I thought you know what I am going to smile through the process and every time I was driving around, oh, this is so great, I'm looking for a parking spot, all it takes is one. And all of a sudden my brain is like taking away some of the stress because I was giving myself a little bit of. It was annoying, it was not, it was a little bit ridiculous, but I always tried to smile.
Speaker 1:And then my brain started to reset itself. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting, and yeah, our brains are just fascinating actually when you stop and think about it, and it's also interesting that I can sit here and use my brain to have this conversation about how my brain doesn't know the difference, when clearly I mean what's going on here, but that that is how it works. Yeah, but that's absolutely how it works, so that's really really interesting. So okay, so the celebrations, I think that's and there's 101 ways to celebrate.
Speaker 2:I'm sure there's more, but typically you know little. Things like think about the feeling that you get when you open an email and you have good news. Things Like think about the feeling that you get when you open an email and you have good news. You're like, oh good, Think about these little moments in which there's excitement. Right, you open the window and the sun is shining. Oh good, it's not going to rain today. These are the things you want to adopt into your life as celebrations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I like that. I think that's probably what's missing for most of us is that? I don't know very many people that consistently. I mean, maybe once in a while you might go, oh good job for me.
Speaker 2:I actually did what I said I was going to do.
Speaker 1:I think we're more likely to. Oh well, finally, you did the you know have that more negative like attitude, and that's how our brain is wired.
Speaker 2:Our brain is wired for the negative. So we need to move past that negative biases that our brain has and really start to rewire it and create some of these new neural pathways by giving ourselves the opportunity to feel good and then, rather than the negative behavior running in a neural pathway, that it's a highway in your brain. You're starting to create new routes, new highways, and this is the one that you're going to start using. You'll never delete or change the other one, but you're starting to create new routes, new highways, and this is the one that you're going to start using. You'll never delete or change the other one, but you're really continuing to go down the new path. And then, if, for some reason, you revert to old behavior, it is easy enough to jump back to the new thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, oh, absolutely, I love that. So talking about habits makes me think of goals and I'm just curious as to know what you think about this. Why don't people reach their goals? What's the number one reason? What do you think? What's going on?
Speaker 2:Well, number one, they don't write them down. They have these goals. They're like oh, I want to lose weight. Well, how much? By when? How are you going to do it? There's no plan behind it.
Speaker 2:Goals are outcomes that you want for your life. The outcomes that you want for your life are also based on the vision of what you want the bigger picture to be. So, for instance, for entrepreneurs, they want to make a successful business. Well, what does that mean? Right, Because they want to have the freedom and flexibility that their own business brings them. But maybe you want to go ahead and distill that into what does successful mean? What does that mean to me? Okay, well, I want to have 10 clients by, you know, maybe the end of the first 12 weeks, and I love running my business in 12 week years. If anybody hasn't read the 12 week year, make sure that you go and get that book. It's an amazing book by Brian Moran and it really helps you.
Speaker 2:Rather than going big or go home right, Setting a goal for the entire year Most of us have set it in the past and then come November, December, we're like oh, what happened? We've never revisited right. November, December we're like oh, what happened. We've never revisited right. So if you create a goal that is based from your big vision, second, you write it down and then third and this is the main key you want to go ahead. And if this is the goal, what are the actions that I need to take to get to that goal? So, if my goal is to get 10 clients, well, let's see, I'm going to need to maybe do networking, Maybe I need to tell people about what I do, Maybe I need to nurture an email list and send emails. So you write everything that's possible and then you take those actions and you actually put them into your calendar. You decide when you're going to do it and it's not by osmosis that you do the thing right, Because we like to automate things. So if I'm going to network and I'm going to put in my calendar, I'm going to network every Tuesday at 1 pm and then at the end of the week.
Speaker 2:You also measure the progress of the actions, and measuring progress is not about beating ourselves up for what we didn't accomplish. It is just a number. It is data. Data can drive your actions and get you closer to the goals, and that's where a lot of people go wrong with goals and, by the way, if you're tracking what you're doing, it can help you course correct, right, it can help you. Like, if you're navigating with a GPS because you have a goal of getting to, let's say you know, a museum in another town You're going to be navigating. If you're not looking at the GPS and you're just kind of driving in this road, you may not get off the right exit or you may go the wrong turn. You need to be able to look at where you are and recalibrate to continue to go in the direction that you need to go, and that's where goals tend to be what people don't achieve because we're not measuring, we're not writing, we're not creating a very concise plan and also fixing the plan if it needs fixing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I like that emphasis on you know, looking at the data and it's not to say, oh look, you didn't hit your goal. You suck at this Like that's not. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And you know, mindy, a lot of people like, for instance, with a weight loss goal, people are like, oh, I'm going to weigh myself. And then they look at the scale and they think, oh my God, look at that number. It's not where I want it to be. And then you go into that spiral of beating yourself up and the reality is that the number and the scale is very neutral. It's not good or bad. What is happening is that you are assigning a feeling to what that number means. You're assigning meaning the same thing with anything else in your life or any goals. The numbers, the tracking of things is very neutral. What you assign and what you think about that number, about what you're doing, is what really is going to drive you as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and really I mean it's helpful to zoom out and take kind of a more black and white approach to reaching these goals, because that's going to actually help you reach your goals more easily If you can take some of the emotion out of it and just look at it and go, ok, how did I, how did I do? At the end of my week or three weeks or whatever it is, and then go, wow, I didn't know, it's not working at all. That's where you can go, okay, why isn't it working? And you can go back like you say in course, correcting okay, this, this doesn't work, let's do something different and make those changes. Otherwise, you're just going to keep feeling bad about yourself and beating your head against the wall or keep doing the same things and being frustrated.
Speaker 1:Why isn't this working? We've all been there.
Speaker 2:As I'm talking, I'm like hmm, pot kettle.
Speaker 2:Well, we've all been there and it's human and we need to normalize, right? There's four N's, and one of my coaches and mentors shares this all the time. Her name is Corinne Crabtree and she talks about the four Ns. First, we have to notice, right, notice that we're beating ourselves up. The second thing is we need to normalize. Hey, I'm human, this happens. And then we need to neutralize those thoughts Like neutralize the time that you're telling yourself you're not good enough, or measuring yourself based on somebody else's standards.
Speaker 2:And last, you need to think about what is my next best step? If I messed up, how can I get back on the wagon and keep going? The other thing when it comes to goals is if your goals are not aligned to the vision, which I already said it's not going to be easy for you to move forward because, on a daily basis, we are going to prioritize the things that are important to us and if that vision and that goal are not aligned, your priorities, to move forward in that direction is not going to happen yeah, yeah, oh boy, you just gave me a lot to think about julie, in regards to my own goals and everything I would encourage everybody that is listening to this podcast.
Speaker 1:Once it's done here, take just a hot second. Don't just skip right to the next podcast or scroll on social media. Take just even just two minute pause and think about how this whole message sat with you and what came up for you the most. Like as Julie's sharing her examples. What was the habit where you're like, ooh, that's me in my weight loss journey, or that's me in my business, or that's me in XYZ, you know, think about that and then you don't have to do it right now, but like, come back to it and sit down and okay all these things that Julia shared. How can you actually start to make some of these tiny changes in your own life? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And you know, by the way, it's not just about the actions that you know are very concrete, it's also for the actions that maybe they're very ambiguous, right? So, for instance, one of the things and I talk about this on my TED Talk is when we are uncomfortable, that could be an anchor moment that reminds us, hey, I need to take a 1% step forward, I need to try this a little more. And then you're starting to gain that evidence that, oh, okay, I was able to take that first step, Let me keep going. And again, that discomfort that we're all going to feel when we're trying something new is a great way to remind yourself that that's the season or the time or the moment to step out a little bit more than before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, I really like that. I like that idea of the 1% step forward, because I've shared this before on my podcast a ton, so I'll try and do it quickly, but I had a mentor share this with me once. That just has really stuck with me in terms of our comfort zones and our growth. So, again, if you can imagine a rubber band wrapped around each of your fingers and the one is stationary and here's your comfort zone, and as you're doing whatever it is that you're doing make, doing these habits and working towards these goals you're stretching that rubber band. Well, at some point it gets super stretched out and that's uncomfortable and so the tendency is to want to pull it right back.
Speaker 2:Pull it right back to the comfort zone.
Speaker 1:But if you can shoot that rubber band forward now you've created a new set point, a new comfort zone. You can keep going. But when you're at that point where, like you say, it is uncomfortable, the idea of keeping to keep going forward is sometimes too scary or sometimes whatever. There's a lot of resistance there, just like on that rubber band. But I like the idea of just giving yourself permission to just go 1% forward, just like the time, just one thing I don't have to do so.
Speaker 1:I had this goal and I thought I was going to do like these five things. That is just too much. I'm feeling super uncomfortable. I'm just going to do one or half of one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And, by the way, mindy, I don't know if you've heard of the book the Gap and the Gain, and that's another book that I would recommend to your listeners. The Gap and the Gain the premise, and that's by Dr Benjamin Harding and Dan Sullivan. They co-wrote this book and it's been really life changing, not only for me but for my clients, because I love teaching this.
Speaker 2:Now, the gap is when we are at point A and we need to get to point Z. Right, that's the gap. And most of us are going to get to point B and say, oh, my goodness, I still have all these letters to go to get to Z. That's the gap. When we're focusing in the gap and that, all the things that we still get to do, we're not going to feel good. But the gain is if I look back and I say, oh, wait, a minute, point A is behind me, look how far I've come, I've made progress. Then that's what's going to keep you to continue to show up, feel more confident and move forward in that direction. More confident and move forward in that direction, and be okay with knowing that you're only measuring how far you're come Now, how far you would still want to go, because sometimes the horizon keeps moving.
Speaker 2:So we can't be focusing on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm glad that you mentioned that, because, yeah, that's so true. How many times in our life have we set this goal and we start going towards it and then we realize, hey, I don't actually want that anymore, because I want this other thing that I didn't even know was a possibility until I started on this journey towards this first goal, and now I see, oh wait, though, now I want to go that way. So you're right, it really is, I don't want to say pointless, but it's not to your benefit necessarily to be focused on that end goal. And we all know that achieving that end goal, you know when we're constantly just well, when I get to this next thing, then I'll be happy, then I'll be you know when you're doing that, chasing that, that's not going to.
Speaker 1:That never works. You never feel completely fulfilled when you get that thing anyway. But I think that we all will probably feel more confident and happier when we can look back and see how far we go. Again, that's talking about building that confidence, having that little book that you were talking about of, like all the evidence of things that you look at what you can do. You're amazing. And look at the things that you already are doing right now and that just helps build.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, we came full circle. Julie out and that just helps build.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, we came full circle.
Speaker 1:Julie, absolutely, you're a good question asker interviewer, I love this. Well, I do have one final question for you. I've been calling it my question of the month, but I think it's been more than a month. But I don't care, because I love hearing people's answers to this. So I've been asking everybody what is one thing you wish everyone on the planet would do in regards to their own well-being?
Speaker 2:You know the one thing that I feel that makes a big difference in my life and a lot of times we take for granted, and that is to really just pause, be aware, take a breath. And we live in a world in which is a constant go, go, go, go. And a lot of times when we're moving in such a fast direction and we're not pausing, we're not taking that pause to see how far we've come, or maybe like where do I need to go? Or okay, this was just you know this crazy thing. I need to take a pause and see what I'm doing, right.
Speaker 2:When we don't pause, then we continue to build this. You know, just stress for ourselves. Take the pause, look at what you want to do, look at what you're doing and just breathe. Meditation I know that for many years I thought meditation was crazy. No way, no how, I can't shut my brain off. But it's not about shutting your brain down. It's about allowing your brain to be in the moment. The only time that we are in the present moment, not in the past of what we did and not in the future of what is yet to come is when we sit still and take a breath. That breathing and being aware that you're breathing is keeping you in that moment and that will help you propel you forward. It's going to equip you for better relationships. It's going to give you a little bit of peace, a little bit of bandwidth as well, if you're giving yourself that pause.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, I love that suggestion and I would even say, definitely do that. Do the pause regularly. But if you're somebody that, after listening to this podcast, is like, oh, I want to sit down and kind of reevaluate some of my, my goals and whatnot, do that pause first, because you're going to come at it from a different perspective and with a more clear mind.
Speaker 2:So love that advice?
Speaker 1:Great Well, julie, I am just wondering where people can find you if they have listened to this and like maybe they're like me and wrote a page of notes. I have, like, let's see, I have three book suggestions and two great quotes and a couple yeah, so if they are like oh yes, this Julie lady, she's, she's on it. Where can we find you?
Speaker 2:Well, easy enough. I'm Julie DeLuca Collins on all of the social media platforms and if people are interested in learning more about tiny habits, they can go to my website and that is go confidently coachingcom, and I have a couple resources there that you can learn tiny habits. You can actually do a five day coaching session with any of the coaches from the tiny habits academy and it's free and nobody tries to sell you anything, but we can walk you through that. So go confidently coachingcom.
Speaker 1:And if you want, the resources for tiny habits is forward slash quick links, so that's where you can find me, yeah, very cool, and I will, of course, put some of those links in the show notes so they can find you with the click of a button. Julie, thank you so much for being on the show today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me, mindy. What a great time. I'm excited that we have an opportunity and I can't wait to see what amazing things your audience are able to do, because they got all this wisdom from you and you having the show, yes.
Speaker 1:And if you are someone that is listening and making some changes, don't hesitate to reach out, even if it's boy. Reach out three months from now and tell me how you're doing, tell Julie how you're doing. We would love to hear all about the progress that you're making on these habits based on some of these things that we have talked about today. So, wherever you're at today, I hope you are having a fantastic day and I will catch you on the next one. That's it for today. Friends, if you enjoyed this, this episode, don't forget to subscribe or, even better, leave a review and let me know what resonated with you the most. The more you tell me what you love, the better I'm able to create future episodes with even better content. I'm sending you so much love and light. I'll see you in the next episode.