There’s a fine balance in business between creating and providing something that is valuable for other people and feeling fulfilled as a creator and entrepreneur. Sometimes, we struggle with staying true to ourselves and tapping our intuition while not trying to look as much for external validation. Jason Wrobel and Whitney Lauritsen tap into this in today’s episode as they take us into their The Consistency Code course and bundle and reflect on the psychology of our tendencies. They talk about the herd mentality, doing things with consistency, setting boundaries, self-care, excellence, and success. Dive deep into the parts of your lives that are serving you or not. Keep yourself in check as Jason and Whitney share their own experiences in this conversation.
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The Consistency Code: Reflecting On The Psychology Of Our Tendencies, Self-Care, And Excellence
You may have heard us talk about our courses, The Consistency Code and Wellness Warrior Training before. If not, we’re excited to share more about them, mainly in the context of what we learned from people that take these courses. Our students often share a lot of wonderful things about themselves and get vulnerable. I feel like it’s such a gift to receive anybody’s vulnerability in general, when somebody opens up about what they’re struggling with. I’m fascinated by it.
Jason and I have studied Psychology. Both of us have fantasized about having careers in psychology, whether as therapists in a former life or in an alternate universe, perhaps being psychologists or psychiatrists. That’s one of the big reasons that we not only created this show but made these courses and started careers as coaches. We love hearing about people’s lives and supporting them, whether that’s through accountability, which is the structure behind The Consistency Code. It’s designed to keep you on track. The Wellness Warrior Training is designed to give you some ideas, inspiration, motivation and accountability for improving your wellbeing, whatever that means for you.
Sometimes that’s as simple as changing something that you’re eating, eating more or less of something, perhaps it’s working out more often. There are many factors to each of these and a little bit more in-depth about these two courses and what they are. The Consistency Code is about finding direction and developing consistency you need to stick with healthy and fulfilling habits. The experience for each student is relative to their own life. We designed this program in 2019 because we were reading through feedback from people. I think we put out a survey or something and found out that consistency was the biggest thing people needed.
They didn’t need new information. They wanted to be held accountable and feel motivated. We’re here to help you get your act together and follow through. Now, we’re experimenting with a less hands-on version of that and then we’re going to assess and see if that works well. One thing that we’re going to share in this episode is some of the things that our students have been posting in the private community that we created. First of all, everything will be anonymous. We’ll always leave out any super personal details. We’ll talk about it a little vaguely. That way, each of the members can remain anonymous, but we’ll speak about it in ways that appeal to someone like yourself as a reader and are more universal.
We also find a lot of these things that people are discussing in this community interesting. This community is designed to be an alternative to a Facebook Group. We do have a Facebook group for Wellness Warrior Training, which we’ll talk about in a moment, but we’ve been experimenting with an off Facebook group through the course software we use called Kajabi. They have a basic forum style community there where we’ve set up a place to introduce yourself to one another and then to check in daily about what you’re being consistent with.
First of all, it’s super interesting to me that most people don’t check in daily, at least not after a while. Almost every single one of the students who has been through The Consistency Code has “fallen off” the bandwagon at some point. They’ll be posting regularly and getting feedback from us and the other members in The Consistency Code and then eventually, people stop posting. I’ve actually noticed this in any community setting that I’ve been in, people struggle being consistent with posting, even when they signed up for the purpose of being consistent. As a community organizer, I’m fascinated by that and why the act of posting online is hard for any of us.
That doesn’t require that much effort or at least as much effort as doing the things that you want to be consistent with, in which case, we’ve divided it up into fitness, food, general health, lifestyle, passions and business. Those are the common categories that people want to be more consistent with. The whole point of The Consistency Code is not just to have people post about what they’re doing, but to do the work and then post about their experiences with it. Every once in a while, Jason and I have people that post a ton. When we opened up the Consistency Code after being part of a bundle sale, we had a huge influx of students, but such a few percentage of them did the work that we’ve seen. We had over 1,200 new people into this program, which is the most that we’ve ever had at one time and 3 or 4 of them are posting about what they’re doing and being consistent with it.
That’s a minor percentage. I was also fascinated with learning that statistically, over 80% of people who buy online courses, never complete them. In this case, because we were part of a bundle sale, we’ve had people that have signed up for this course received one email from us and then unenrolled themselves. I easily could have been offended by that, but it’s not going to be for everybody. We’re not in our egos like, “How come you don’t love this course that we slaved over for all this time?” It’s fascinating to me that somebody would sign up for something and then immediately be like, “I don’t want to do this,” especially with The Consistency Code. One or two people have decided to unenroll themselves from The Consistency Code simply because we mentioned that we are encouraging people to meditate daily.
We did talk about this with Ben Decker in one of the previous episodes that we have no idea what particular words, methodologies or teachings might trigger people. Not to rehash what we talked about with Ben in his episode, but I have never experienced anyone who got triggered by the idea of meditating. Certainly, we think that meditation and mindfulness are a cornerstone of well-being to manage our thoughts, our belief systems, our negative thinking, the self-defeating thoughts that we have each day, dealing with our anxiety or depression, and any kind of mental health issues. Certainly, that’s something we’re passionate about. It’s one of the inspirations of why we started this show. Our brand Wellevatr is to go beyond looking at nourishment as what’s on the end of your fork and looking at nourishment in terms of the people you spend time with, the community, the thoughts, the belief systems, the things you’re reading, the mental impressions and the mental food.
It is interesting, Whitney, to observe people. I don’t even know if I would even classify them as dipping their toes in because I have also experienced in the past and I know you have to. We’ve done many webinars, training, and live events, that there are people I would put in the category of toe dippers. They’ll try something for a very short period of time or they won’t even get their feet wet. They’ll dip their little toe in and they’re like, “Not for me.” What is it that occurs in a person’s mind after proverbially dipping their toe in that? They’re like, “This isn’t my thing.” If I reflect on this in my own life of maybe courses, seminars, live events, things I’ve been in, I’m trying to recall if there’s anything that I was a toe dipper with. I don’t think I’ve ever hit the eject button that quickly on anything I’ve enrolled for, to be honest with you.
I’m thinking about that myself too. I could definitely see myself doing that with what I perceive as free, whether it was free or whether it was part of a bundle like this. It makes sense to me. People sign up for bundles. They get 80 products like they did in this bundle that we did. They just downloaded them all to see if they’re going to be useful to them. In this specific case, I can see why there’s a lot of toe dippers. It’s different when you pay money for something, but even in the times that I’ve done that, I’m sure there are times that I perhaps have toe dipped or perhaps have put in a minimal amount of effort. From a psychological standpoint, I think about that for myself and as a coach, course creator, speaker, author and all of these things.
If you're paying too much attention to what other people are saying and doing, then you start to lose your sense of self. Share on XAnother example is I’m writing another eBook about coffee and it’s a subject matter I’m passionate about. It’s also going to be launched in a bundle sale. This has been a season of bundle sales for me and Jason. If you don’t know what a bundle sale is and haven’t heard us talk about it, let me clarify. A bundle sale is when you and a variety of other people, like course creators, authors combine their products and services together for a small fee or a big discount. For instance, in January 2021, Jason and I are participating in our final bundle sale together. I’m putting my new coffee eBook in another bundle sale. It’s a crossover. The bundle sale that Jason and I are part of is worth $13,000. It is an insane value. I can see how somebody would see that and think, “I’m getting so much value. I better take advantage of everything,” but it is psychologically challenging for us to do it all and not everything is going to appeal to you.
I even went through and looked at all the different products that are in that specific bundle sale and not everything fits for me. I don’t like the coaching or the teaching style of every person. I don’t necessarily need those things in my life. Maybe I’ve done them before. Maybe I’ve tried them and they didn’t feel right for me. Maybe I’m not ready for them. There’s a lot of factors that go into this. I’m fascinated by The Consistency Code though because it’s an accountability program. You can be consistent with whatever you want when you enroll in it. Yet, if many people are saying they need consistency and accountability, and we say, “Here you go. We’ve provided the structure for you.” I’m like, “How is that not for the majority of people?” That’s the big question for me.
As a developer, I’m thinking like, “How can I make this better and easier for people?” The other fascinating thing is we’ve asked people for feedback and few people even provide feedback. It’s one of these head-scratchers of like, “How are you supposed to improve something for somebody or for somebody else if you’re not even getting feedback about why it’s not working for someone or why it’s not a fit?” This is an insight and not only what we’re learning from people, but also what it’s like to create anything, whether it’s an eBook or a physical book, a course or a speaking appearance. A lot of these things that we’ve done have resulted in similar experiences.
It’s a challenge and this bleeds into a larger consideration that I’ve been sitting with a lot reflecting on not just what we’re releasing with Wellevatr in terms of our courses in our content and how we engage with our audience. Also, with the stuff that I have been putting out content-wise. There’s this interesting balance of wanting to create things that are going to be useful and valuable for the people who are consuming our content. There’s also this balance of you and I feeling fulfilled as creators, artists and business people. I find that it’s a challenging balance sometimes because we’re trying to find a fine line between what we think is going to be useful, valuable and resonant for the person on the other end of it who might buy the course. Ultimately, do we look at what we’ve created and feel excited about it? Do we feel joyful about it or maybe to a lesser degree proud of it?
I’m not sure if that’s a necessary requirement, but what you’re bringing up brings something up for me within. Sometimes it feels like a shot in the dark. We have also surveyed our audience and had some wonderfully detailed responses when we’ve sent out newsletter surveys and received some feedback. Even that, gaining those insights into what people are struggling with, what they’re concerned with, and as we’re going to get into some of these comments and posts from the community we have online, we’ve interwoven those messages, insights and perspectives. Even then, sometimes it’s like crickets like, “You were verbal in the surveys and giving us feedback. Where are you now?”
It’s a challenge for any business owner who has a public-facing business and you can even imagine the food industry too. When you’re revamping a menu, I remember working in the restaurant industry and when I was working at cafes and cheffing, we would get feedback from patrons like, “Why did you take that vegan omelet off the menu? Where is that pumpkin cheesecake? Can you bring that back?” You start to get a sense of what people want, but when you bring those things back or you incorporate people’s feedback, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee sales. It doesn’t necessarily guarantee success if you bring back the proverbial pumpkin cheesecake. This is hopefully giving the readers a little bit of insight into some of the challenges we experience as creators and business people of how do we give people what we think they want or what they’ve told us we want, but also do things that regardless of how well they sell that you and I feel good about what we’ve put out in the world. That’s a balance we’re still trying to find.
This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about, which is tapping more into my intuition and trying not to look as much for external validation or feedback. I saw an interesting point on TikTok. I feel like that phrase for me is becoming cliché like, “I saw something on TikTok.” That is probably one of the most common things I’ve said on this show, but it’s true. I see a lot of interesting things on TikTok that made me think, and one that I saw was pointing out and making fun of how TikTok watchers collectively when we go to the comment section and how frustrating it is when the comments are turned off on TikTok, which is rare. Every once in a while, people do that. They might’ve had a bad experience. They might’ve felt bullied or overwhelmed. There are many reasons why you might turn off the comments.
This happens on a lot of platforms, YouTube, for sure, but on TikTok, one of the things you do is you look at the comment sections to see what people are thinking and saying. Sometimes I go to the comment section because I’m curious about other people’s perspectives or their questions, or maybe there’s a second part to the video that somebody posts. There’s a lot of different reasons that you go to the comment section. One of the big reasons that were pointed out in this video I saw was that a lot of people go to the comments section as a way of figuring out how they feel about a video like, “Until I read what other people think of something, I don’t know how I think about it.”
This is true for a lot of us on social media. We are looking to see what other people are saying and doing as a way of figuring out what we want to say and do. I think that it is human nature, but it can also be a slippery slope because if you’re paying too much attention to what other people are saying, doing, what their opinions and feedback are, then you start to lose your sense of self. I’ve experienced this a lot and I’m trying to do less of that. I am also trying to develop more of a mindfulness practice around it. It’s tricky.
I don’t know that I necessarily do this. It’s interesting that you bring this up, Whitney, in the sense that people are looking to comments to see how they feel about something. That’s very odd. It reminds me almost of the lemming theory of the herd mentality of, “How does everyone else feel? That’s how I feel.” It also reminds me of assessing subjective things like art, music, books or any kind of creations that are out there and how you can have a whole gaggle of people that are like, “This album sucks. I don’t like this artist. I don’t know what all the hype is about with this particular book,” but many times, I’ll investigate music, book, or a piece of art that’s put out in the world. Sometimes, I like it. It’s completely antithetical to what the masses say about it. There’s something in me that as part of my natural rebelliousness, that’s been an aspect of my personality ever since I was a young child and was also nurtured by my mother who was like, “Do your thing. Be rebellious.”
It’s not a rule for me, but it’s almost like when I see a lot of people doing something that’s popular or widely accepted, I tend to have a natural skepticism or rebelliousness or want to do the opposite of what I see people doing. It’s interesting that you bring up this mob mentality of, “I’m going to look at the comments and see how I feel.” It’s antithetical to how I feel about things. It reminds me, you laughed when we were texting like, “You’re obsessed with all the people moving to Austin, Texas now.” It is fascinating to me how many people I know from New York and Los Angeles are moving in droves to Austin. It makes me not want to move there simply because it’s the popular thing now. Many people are doing it. I’m like, “I am not moving there on principle alone.” This whole thing about looking to other people’s feedback and comments to see how I feel, it feels so counter to how I operate in the world. It’s very odd. It’s almost like alien what you’ve shared with me. I’ve never ever heard this before.
Meditation and mindfulness are cornerstones of well-being to manage our thoughts, belief systems, and negative thinking.
Maybe that’s because you don’t use TikTok as much as I do. Maybe it’s also an effect of being on there. Part of the reason that I’ve looked at the comments is that it is interesting to see how people react. A lot of people say clever things in the comments section. It’s almost like another layer of entertainment like, “This video was funny, but what are the comments going to add to it?” People are clever and that’s the big appeal of TikTok for me is that it does show how clever people are. There’s a creativity that people exhibit on TikTok that I haven’t seen anywhere else because it forces your brain to work differently when you have that short amount of time, just like Vine, but I was never that into Vine.
I’m sure it’s similar to that and it’s not the way that my brain and creativity work. If you haven’t noticed through this show, I tend to be long-winded. We have long episodes for a reason. I prefer the long-form. Doing the 90-minute episode is easier for me than doing a fifteen-second video on TikTok. It takes more brainpower for me to think that way. Some people are the complete opposite. Some people can write these incredible comments. I’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of praise for my comments a few times. It’s quite annoying now based on how TikTok works. I have posted a few comments over the past year that I’ve been on this platform that has gone viral.
Literally, tens of thousands of people have liked my comment. This is the number one comment because they go up the feed. The top comments are always at the top, right underneath the video and then the less popular comments are further down. You’re basically voting up comments. I am this one comment on that a viral video that months and months, if not getting close to the year mark. People have been liking this comment and it’s annoying because you can’t turn off that notification. It’s a curse because every time I open up TikTok, I have notifications from people liking one of my comments that went viral. There’s a little validation and you’re like, “I was clever. I left a popular comment or the most popular comment of this video is mine,” but it doesn’t serve me much beyond that. It’s not like I’m getting more followers or making more friends through that. It’s like this little serotonin boost or whatever and then I’m annoyed that I have many notifications.
Have you written TikTok to ask if they can create functionality where you can turn it off?
I’m sure that they’re working on it because it’s a well-known annoyance. In fact, it’s become a meme in itself but oftentimes, when somebody leaves a popular comment underneath that comment because you can comment on people’s comments. It is like a forum. A lot of people will comment on a popular comment, RIP to your notifications. It is great that this comment is popular, but your notifications are all going to be about this comment. It’s a well-known issue on TikTok.
In some ways, it’s disincentivized for them to change this because if we talk about what you and I have discussed many times about attention being the most valuable currency with digital media now, what incentive do they have to change it? By you getting bombarded with notifications every single day, what does that mean? That means you’re spending a longer amount of time on the app consuming and responding. To me, it’s like they could probably be getting tens of thousands of messages like, “Please change this,” but it’s antithetical to their business model as a social app to change this because it might mean you’re going to spend less time on the app. Why would they change it?
That’s a good point. They probably won’t for that reason. It makes me want to use the app less, but maybe I’m in the minority that. It’s annoying. My only system is to ignore it, but it’s hard to ignore the notifications because even if you turn them off so they don’t come up on your home screen, for example, every time I open the app, there’s a little red number with a notification symbol and my brain always goes, “Maybe somebody liked one of my videos.” It’s like, “Nope, it’s not my video. They’re liking my comment on somebody else’s video.” That is a segue back into the main purpose of this episode. Forums, in general, a lot of them are designed so that you can like people’s comments and I struggle a lot.
I wonder if this is one of the reasons that people have trouble posting in groups whether it’s Facebook, Slack or different community platforms. It’s sometimes hard to verbalize what you want to say. It’s hard to verbalize feedback. A little behind the scenes about how we run our business, Wellevatr is that I have a hard time responding to emails. I’ll often ask Jason to do it because I feel like his brain functions differently than mine in terms of putting your thoughts into words. I don’t know why it is that my brain struggles with this, but that’s like a form of communication that I get overwhelmed by. Maybe it’s not a struggle. It takes so much effort that I get drained by it. It might be an introvert thing. Do you think that could be the case, Jason, you’re being extroverted? Do you think that you have a bigger interest in it or you’re more practiced with it? What is it that makes it easier for you to leave comments and respond to emails than me?
I don’t know if it has to do with the extroversion part of it per se. I’ve never associated my writing abilities or my abilities to translate my inner thoughts to a written word or a typed word. It might if I sit with it, but my initial hit with your question is no. When I sit down to write, I’ve gotten into the habit, whether it’s an email or responding to comments in our personal forum, like The Consistency Code community that we’re going to dive into and talk about some of the comments and questions and feedback in there that we think could be useful to the readers. I think I’ve just trained myself to sit down in front of a comment, an email, or a blog post, even though I haven’t been super active with writing blog posts, but I’ve been active with our emails and our newsletter. I’ve trained myself to not give a fuck and just write whatever comes out and then, “I can edit it. I can revise it.”
When I was young, I noticed that I always liked writing and communicating through writing. I remember when I was in high school, I noticed that the inner editor would come in too quickly. I would sit down to write and then the voice in my head would be like, “This sucks. You’re going to start a sentence that way.” I’ve continued to practice making sure that I can get thoughts out and vomit my ideas out and then allow the editor to come in later rather than vice versa. That’s more of it rather than the introversion versus extroversion framework. I feel like I’m getting better as a writer at allowing the idea to flow through and then editing it, revising it or minimizing it later. As opposed to when I was younger, the editor would come in right away and put the kibosh on a lot of my creativity. It’s not that way every single time I sit down to write, but most times, it is where I’m like, “Fuck it. I’m going to say what’s on my mind and we’ll figure it out if it makes sense later.”
That certainly could be the case. Perhaps that’s why people struggle to share things in the written word because it feels solidified. Even though you can go back and edit it, luckily, most platforms allow you to edit your comment or even delete it. Some people don’t have this issue. Some people can flow as you do, Jason, some people for worse. They go on there and they may say critical things. They don’t have any censorship of themselves. Perhaps they’re writing a ton more than you can read. There are many different things that we witnessed through being on all these different platforms and running all these different programs. You get a lot of different types of people and I find it super fascinating.
Over time, with consistency, small changes will add up to big things. Share on XI would love to dive into sharing some of the things that we’ve learned about people through this. We’ll talk about both The Consistency Code and Wellness Warrior Training. I’ll share with you first a little bit more about the Wellness Warrior Training. It was the first course that we created for Wellevatr. If you don’t include something that we had worked on behind the scenes. If you didn’t know this about our history, Wellevatr was originally designed to help wellness content creators, course creators and speakers. Anybody that was working in that field, we were originally going to support them with growing their businesses. It was going to be more focused on the professional side of wellness.
Over time, as we were experimenting through our newsletters and social media, we realized that people wanted support for their well-being. We made this big pivot and that’s where Wellness Warrior Training was born. It’s interesting because I’m thinking about the history of it. It is also possible that we made the Wellness Warrior Training course for a bundle. Does that sound right? I know we launched it with a bundle years ago. Is that the whole reason that we made this course, to begin with?
I don’t think it was the sole reason for doing the bundle. It was part of it. The greater reason was after 9 to 10 months of launching the brand, we realized that we didn’t want to have such a niche focus. I remember having conversations with you about creating content specifically for wellness entrepreneurs. This is also an ongoing consideration of people say like, “The riches are in the niches and that you should get super narrow and super targeted.” For some people, that works well. At a certain point, before we recorded and launched the Wellness Warrior Training, I remember feeling constricted by thinking, “We’re going to reach out to wellness entrepreneurs to optimize their business and get their messages out there.”
I didn’t feel that passionate about doing business training, content creator training, or things like that. As a coach, I didn’t feel excited about it anymore. I feel much more excited about the broader, more expansive conversations we are having here and having on social media. The Wellness Warrior Training was the first big pivot for us in saying, “We’re not going to focus on this narrow, specific niche of wellness entrepreneurship. We’re going to blow this out into a broader conversation about what is the examination of well-being on a broader level, not just for business, but for individuals getting clear about why they want to feel better and how to feel better.” To me, it was almost like putting our proverbial stake in the ground and going, “We’re not going to do the previous iteration of this brand. We’re going to do a full pivot.” To me, that was more about it than creating it to be included in the bundle. That’s my recollection of it.
I was looking through the history of it and we launched it with a bundle in 2018. It feels like the Wellness Warrior Training has been around longer than that and Wellevatr hasn’t been around much longer because we started it in June 2018 and we did this course in November 2018. That was close to that pivot time. I remember you picking out the name of the course, but we were working on the course and releasing it week by week through that bundle that we did. I’m almost positive that it was created for this bundle, which is interesting because we’ve been talking about our experiences with bundles and all of that. The Wellness Warrior Training feels like our grown-up child and The Consistency Code is our newer kid and maybe our show is also a child of ours.
Each of these endeavors that we’ve had has been such a fascinating journey as business owners. For those of you who haven’t heard of the Wellness Warrior Training or checked it out before, it’s a pretty in-depth online course. It’s about helping you with your personal well-being so that you can thrive physically, mentally and spiritually. We include daily mindfulness practices that are all around elevating your mood, creating more clarity and creating sustainable feelings of purpose-driven joyfulness. A lot of this copywriting can be attributed to you, Jason. It’s a ten-week curriculum and we give these audio lessons. We have new students in the course, thanks to a bundle sale we participated in. They’ve been sharing some wonderful things in the assessments. You have an option to fill out these little assessments at the end of each week.
For ten straight weeks, almost as if you were in school, if you have good associations with that structure, you can fill out these little self-assessments that teach you a lot about yourself and manner. They were fascinating and that was the inspiration for this episode, even though we haven’t even gotten to this yet. First, we should begin with some of The Consistency Code comments and things that we’re learning in there and then we can talk about the Wellness Warrior Training. I’ll begin with one. I posted something inspired by a quote from a book, which is from Genius Foods. It’s a wonderful wellness book that you can get. The author, Max, had a great paragraph in there that said, “The dietary change is among the hardest things to accomplish for most people. We bring to every meal the accumulation of years of habit, societal pressure, and cultural norms influencing both what we and our bodies seem to want.”
I thought that was well articulated. I posted something inspired by that in The Consistency Code. I wanted to acknowledge the fact that being consistent with something like dietary change is challenging for those reasons. We need to give ourselves credit for these changes and also know that over time with consistency, small changes will add up to big things. That was one of the main reasons that we created this course. A lot of people feel challenged with instant gratification. This is one of the comments that we received.
Even though this member of the course has been a vegan for five years, they explained how that instant gratification, that desire for a certain taste can be tempting and they’ll end up eating things that don’t make them feel good. They might even be vegan plant-based foods, but they might be full of sugar and they don’t react well to sugar. In my case, sometimes I eat gluten, even though I know gluten makes me feel awful, but that instant gratification is such a draw to me.
That’s one of the reasons that I benefit from consistency. I’ve found that if I do something small once a day, every single day, for at least a few weeks, I’m more likely to stay on track with it than if I do something every once in a while. It doesn’t become a habit. We’ve talked about this in some episodes and the whole science behind it. In fact, this is included in The Consistency Code program in the training that we offer within that course. We get into all this as research about habits and how to develop them and stick to them.
I don’t know if this is related. Who knows what’s related? I’ve been trying to reduce my sugar intake. I’ve mentioned this on the show in several episodes of that, I’ve had issues with sugar addiction in the past and I’ve been mindful not to overindulge in it. It is maybe a break in the consistency where, not just mental reasons and being mindful of my addictive tendencies with sugar, but wanting to reduce inflammation in my body while I’m recovering. I might post this in the community now that I’m speaking it out loud. Last time, I had a vegan pop-tart and I had some ice cream. I had a significant amount, more sugar than I have in a while. I’ve been feeling a ton of anxiety.
Last time, interestingly I made a break in the consistency that I’ve been doing with eating low-sugar anti-inflammatory foods. I overindulged a little bit because I was feeling a ton of anxiety and feeling like I needed some comfort. The important part about it was not beating myself up afterward. I did it and I thought to myself, “That’s a lot more sugar than you’re used to eating.” Also, being fully aware of the fact that I was eating it for emotional comfort, that I just needed something satisfying in my body to shift my state of being. I don’t feel any danger necessarily of perhaps falling down a slippery slope and eating a ton of sugar, which I haven’t. For some reason, I remember being fully aware of like, “This is not anti-inflammatory. This is a ton more sugar,” but the important part for me was not beating myself up afterward or making myself feel a sense of shame for doing it. I think I’m going to post that in the community because it will be of benefit to people.
Diving into some of the comments here, Whitney mentioned that there are some people that are extremely active in the community. What I’ve been noticing is there some stuff about mental health in there, which is something that I’m particularly passionate about. It’s not necessarily food or fitness. Although Whitney mentioned in The Consistency Code Community, there are different sections in our community where people can comment on things. One thing that I am interested in is people’s comments on meditation, mindfulness and mental health. One of our contributors and our students in there said that she’s been trying to meditate more often and she’s been carrying an abnormal amount of tension in her body and that it takes her longer to reach a state of feeling relaxed but not asleep. I think this is an interesting thing because I certainly have been reading a lot of studies about the mental health challenges, stress and anxiety during the pandemic, which we are still very much in at the time. It’s important that we share resources with each other about stress-relieving techniques or how to deal with anxiety.
We received an email also from someone about how they’re having a physical issue with their body and can’t quite seem to get to the bottom of it. Their doctors don’t know what’s going on, but they’re convinced it’s something serious. We’re going to start seeing a lot more of this. One of the things that I think is important and useful about a form and a community like this is that people don’t feel so alone in what they’re going through. If they’re confused, stressed out, or they’re feeling like they can’t figure out what’s going on with their body or having trouble sleeping, one of the biggest things is talking to people who’ve gone through something similar or who might have other resources.
In the case of this post, someone underneath said, “Have you tried something called suboccipital release to see if it helps with your headache?” That’s interesting to me because I have no idea what the hell a suboccipital release is. I want to google that and figure out what it is because that gives me an opportunity to learn. Maybe that’s a technique I need to use before bed or if that’s something that I can find a practitioner to teach me what that is. It’s cool in the sense of people banding together in a community of teaching people about techniques or nutrition tips or whatever the case may be. That’s one of my favorite parts about it is you and I being in there learning from other people and what they’re doing in their lives.
It is important to know that we’re not just there to lead people through something, coach them, and support them. We’re also there to participate. Usually, when I do some course, program, or activity, that’s inspired by my own wants and needs. Another post that I thought was wonderful in The Consistency Code was around boundaries. I love this one specifically because a lot of people struggle with boundaries, but until somebody steps up and talks about their experiences, you might not even recognize how sometimes you can feel uncomfortable setting boundaries personally, or professionally. Even getting to this place of feeling shame, embarrassment, or guilt for setting boundaries and being gentle on ourselves as well. Most times, setting a boundary is a form of self-care, but it’s not a subject matter that I think people talk enough about. I think it’s increasing in popularity, but it’s still not super common.
There are many nuances in this conversation around boundaries. I’ve noticed that sometimes people set up a lot of boundaries almost as an overcompensation for feeling like they’ve been taken advantage of in the past. I’ve noticed that with people like, “That’s a boundary.” All of a sudden, everything’s a boundary in life and like anything else that we teach or espouse or that Whitney and I are students of ourselves, it’s about finding a balance. One can erect a lot of boundaries out of a trauma response versus perhaps an intuitive sense that something isn’t working for them, they don’t feel honored, or they don’t feel respected. It’s a nuanced very fine line between trying to overprotect ourselves because of past trauma, current trauma versus honoring our wants, needs and desires. I know this might be a tangential offshoot, Whitney, but in terms of boundaries, how do you feel about that? What have you observed with yourself in terms of, “I’m doing this to honor or respect myself versus an over-protective, trauma reaction?”
This is a deeper subject. Maybe we should bookmark this for another episode. We can go on and on about this and we’re getting closer to the end of this episode. I would love to pick that up and be a teaser for another one to go deeper into. I guess that in itself is setting a boundary of knowing. Once you open up the cork of something, you got to be ready to consume it all at one time.
I wanted to dig into another section of The Consistency Code. The comment section under passions is the one interestingly that has the least amount of comments at this moment. I wanted to dive in there, and it looks interestingly like people have some cool stuff. It’s the least number of comments, but some deeper ones in here. Another person talked about needing to create more space in their life for their passions and the lifestyle thread of the community. They mentioned the house project and finishing that will help them be able to do more of that in an area. This person is an actress and a filmmaker. Having room to record is vital, but what to record? She mentioned she had writer’s block during the pandemic because she usually goes to coffee houses to write.
That’s something that Whitney and I love to do. That’s where Wellevatr was born in many coffee houses in LA. There is something about the energy that keeps her mind active, whereas staring at the same walls with the same person, not so much. This is interesting because as a reflection, I don’t know that I’ve been as creative as I’ve wanted to be, whatever that means. I had this grand vision during the pandemic of recording all of these songs and finishing more songs for my record. I’ve played music, but I haven’t finished any of those songs. It’s almost like, “How to stay creatively engaged and stimulated in the same environment?”
Certainly, one of the biggest things that I miss is going to coffee shops, going to concerts, collaborating with other musicians or artists. I’m in my house 95% of the time. Sometimes I walk into my office and I see the podcasting equipment, my guitar, my piano and I’m like, “I don’t feel like doing any of this shit.” The comment we received in this passion section is it’s tough. I’m curious how you have felt in terms of being in the same environment over and over again. Has that stagnated your creativity or blunted it to a degree? Do you feel less motivated not being able to go out to coffee shops, concerts and places where maybe you would get some external stimulation? Does that resonate at all with you?
I wouldn’t say so mostly because being introverted, I get more energy being alone than I do being around other people. I find that very draining. I also did my cross-country trip where I was traveling a ton and in all sorts of different environments for months. I don’t know if those environments added to my creativity as much as I thought they were going to. I thought I was going to get so much done and I was going to do all of these things. Instead, I feel burnt out. I don’t know if it’s from the trip or not, but I’ve been experiencing burnout intensely for the past month. It’s been tough for me. I think that I need to do less and that will help me ultimately. There’s also something to be said for the collective energy and sadness that we’re experiencing as a world now that’s impacting us differently.
Most times, setting a boundary is a form of self-care. Share on XThat leads me to a couple of other things before we move into Wellness Warrior Training because there’s so much in The Consistency Code. If you’re interested in this and you want accountability, but you also want to learn from this community of people who share so much, that’s a good reason to check out The Consistency Code. We priced it at a very reasonable price. If you can’t pay that or you need something lower, never hesitate to ask us. We’re open to making something work for you. It’s not something that we’re giving away, but it is something that we can talk with you about and have some sort of a sliding scale by the way.
That’s true for a lot of our work. It never hurts to ask and not just with us, but with anybody. You would be very surprised by what somebody is willing to do for you, especially during these times where things are very different. People are more accepting, understanding, and trying to be more helpful. If you’re thinking you don’t have all the money to pay for something, don’t hesitate to ask us and keep an eye out for the bundle sales. As we’ve mentioned, we have another one coming up. There were two other things that I wanted to touch upon myself with The Consistency Code. One was an interesting one that you commented on, Jason, from somebody who said that they’re a personal trainer, a coach, a teacher, an instructor that is having a hard time being consistent in their own practices.
You had this wonderful comment, Jason, about how even with the practices that we know and have been doing for years or decades, it is still a struggle. I love that you reminded people in this group that this is a safe place to admit it because we also have a tough time with this. I get burnt out and I have trouble doing anything. I can go through and try all the well-being practices that I know how to do and sometimes they don’t feel like they’re working. Sometimes I don’t want to be consistent. Sometimes I don’t want to do those things. It’s not about having the answers. It’s not about getting it right all the time. Part of consistency is coming back to something even when you stopped doing it.
Maybe you know that it benefits you to meditate every day, but you don’t meditate every day and you might fall off the “bandwagon.” A great example of this in my personal life is I haven’t worked out in over a month. The last time I worked out was at my parents’ home before I drove back to Los Angeles. I’ve had a hard time getting back into the yoga practice that I used to do at least a few times a week. I think about it almost every day, but honestly, I’m exhausted most days. I don’t even know why. I think I’m truly burnt out and I need even more rest than I’ve been giving myself. No matter how much I sleep each day, I still feel tired. No matter how many times I try to refine what I’m eating and drinking, I feel tired. Sometimes your body and your mind are going through something and it’s asking you to rest.
Instead of judging myself, panicking and worrying about like, “I haven’t worked out for weeks,” I’m allowing that to be okay. I’m giving myself that grace and that patience and that in itself is consistent practice. I know that one day I will want to start doing my yoga again. One day, I will feel more energy. I might just need to take that pause. This ties into two different elements of looking at consistency from the opposite viewpoint and to your point in your comment, Jason, that even when you know how to do something, how it benefits you, the why’s and every element of it, that doesn’t mean that you’re going to be perfect at it, even if you’re a teacher.
It’s important for us to be gentle with ourselves. I’m going to paraphrase it because I don’t have it in front of me, but there was a comment that I reposted from our mutual friend, Pamela on her Instagram page that said something to the effect of, “Prepare yourself for all the year-end like, “Lose the quarantine weight and getting shaped for 2021. Start the new year off right and finish the year strong.” The comment was like, “Don’t listen to all of this bullshit because if you are healthy, your body is functional and you’re doing okay, that’s enough.” Don’t fall into this year-end marketing schemes of the prototypical stuff of how we get marketed all of these new year’s programs of like, “Here’s this gym membership and this coaching course. Start the new year strong.”
Pam’s point with this comment was like, “You’re okay just as you are now. So what if you’re 15, 20, 25, 30 pounds heavier? You’re alive, hopefully, healthy and have your wits about you. You’re doing great.” We need more of that. We have been putting out messages and reposting stuff like that. I’ve been sharing stuff like this, “Let’s not fall into the pattern of beating ourselves up. Why do we need to start the new year strong? Why do we need to finish 2020 strong? Why do we need to strive for losing fifteen pounds?” In her point and the messages that I’m seeing that hopefully you and I are spreading in our own way is like, “Fuck all that. If you’re okay, healthy and doing relatively okay like that, let it be enough. You’re enough as you are.”
I’m saying it because I had a moment where I looked in the mirror and I’m noticing how imbalanced my body is after my surgery. The fact that I haven’t worked out since early November because my body’s needed to recover from the surgery. I was judging my body. I was looking at the weight that I’ve gained and how my body is literally out of balance. I have this gigantic scar on my body now. I am feeling awful about myself. I had to turn it around and be like, “You were in a motorcycle wreck and you had major surgery. Who fucking cares if you’re fifteen pounds overweight?” We need to get into a habit, and I’m encouraging the readers of adopting the mantra of, “Fuck it, who cares?” Do your best and be gentle with yourself because we are in chaos now.
It’s an incredibly important reminder, even when we’re not in chaos, we should still be gentle with ourselves because each of us goes through ups and downs. I’ve said this many times. We don’t always have as much control over ourselves as we think we do. We are fragile human beings. Sometimes we feel stronger or weaker than other times in our lives and that’s okay. This is one of the big reasons that we are not fans of hustle culture because trying to hustle all the time, regardless of your circumstances can lead to a ton of burnout and one of the reasons I feel that way so often. I tend to feel burned out towards the end of the year and towards the beginning of the year. December and January are harder times for me and I’m trying to give myself more grace.
The last thing I want to touch upon before we move on to a few of the wonderful things we’ve been learning from our students from the Wellness Warrior Training is an overlap, but I have been experiencing this with The Consistency Code. It’s because we have many new students in there for which we’re very grateful. We definitely had more need and sometimes more pressure to do more ourselves. I think this is twofold for us sharing here on the show. One, we like to give the readers a peek into who we are and in behind the scenes of our business, but also perhaps you can apply these same lessons to your life in whatever context because each of us, whether we’re students, parents, business owners, or employees, whatever you’re doing with your life, this is going to apply somehow.
I wanted to be honest about this, but also like to touch on this without judgment and lightly. Sometimes, Jason, there’s a lot of pressure for you and me to do a lot as coaches. This is where the boundary setting comes into play is this idea that people will get in their heads about how they want you to show up for them. It is almost like a not-enoughness feeling that I get sometimes. There’s been a couple of comments in The Consistency Code about, “Why aren’t you guys responding faster? What does this mean? I don’t understand.” There’s sometimes an intensity of wanting a lot from us and more than we had set ourselves up to give.
Unlimited Power: The New Science Of Personal Achievement
This is interesting, again, in many factors of our lives. This could certainly be true with a teacher, a therapist or parents. There are many circumstances in our lives where we went into it, thinking it was going to be one way, but the person that we’re working with, helping out or caring for is expecting us to give a lot more than we’re prepared to give. That’s always interesting. I’m curious what your thoughts are, Jason, because it’s like, “I don’t want to disappoint anyone. I don’t want to let someone down. I want to support them, but simultaneously, I have to take care of myself. I have to look out for myself too.” Sometimes we forget that coaches, speakers, authors, trainers, teachers and parents are living their own lives.
Their whole lives do not revolve around helping us when we’re in that role of being cared for or trained or coached or whatever. They’re going about their own life with a lot of other things on their plate too. It requires some mindfulness and some patients, unless they’ve specifically said, “We’re going to give you everything you need, an unlimited amount of support.” Maybe you’re getting an extreme amount of money, but it’s not really about money. Each person has only so much that they can give. It’s interesting for me in times as a coach, when somebody keeps asking for more than I can give or want to give and that conflict within me of being afraid of disappointing them or not being enough for them. I’m curious if you’ve experienced that Jason.
I’ve experienced it not just in the context of our programs and also individual one-on-one coaching, but I’ve experienced it in our business where I feel like there are times when you’re on fire about something and I’m tanked and I’m like, “I can’t do this now.” There’s a fear of disappointing you as my business partner, which is a similar feeling to sometimes feeling about our students or our clients. It’s a tricky thing because, on one hand, we have agreed to show up for someone, whether that’s in our business, a client, or a student, whatever the case may be. For me, it’s almost not a conflict per se, but somewhere in the context of a conflict of, “I want to be in integrity with my word and showing up for this human being as I’ve agreed to do.”
Also, realizing that whether it’s burnout or surgery, recovery or just feeling tanked energetically, “After we get done with the show, I need to go rest. I can’t jump right back into work because my energy gets drained because of my physical state.” It’s a tough thing because I don’t want to disappoint people, but at the same time, if people get annoyed with me for not doing things in the timeframe I’ve said I’ve done, or if they expect how I ought to show up, I have to let it go and say, “I’m sorry that you feel disappointed.” I don’t know, Whitney, in some ways like the gift of being in this accident and this post-surgical recovery is me not feeling guilty about dropping the ball from time to time because I’ve beaten myself up unnecessarily in years past about how I’ve perceived, maybe dropping the ball.
It’s not that I’m apathetic to it or don’t care, but I realized that if I don’t allow myself to get the sleep I need and the rest I need and take a step away from the computer and tending to needs, I will put myself in a very precarious position with my health. We have both experienced burnout to different varying degrees. We’ve experienced sickness by overworking ourselves to varying degrees. I think one thing that I’m mindful of as we get to this year’s end because there’s a lot of people wanting a lot of shit. We have a lot of promotions we’re doing from the bundle to our amazing holiday giveaway that’s coming up. I have other things that I’m contracted for from YouTube videos to other promotions and things like that. It’s like, “It’ll get done when it gets done.”
I know some people might get triggered by that. Some people might be like, “You said you were going to get it done.” I’m like, “It’ll get done in the timeframe it gets done.” That doesn’t mean six months from now, but in summary, I find myself having to retrain people to not be so demanding like, “If you’re displeased with my performance or you’re displeased with my timeline, sorry. I’m not saying that to be again reticent or dismissive, but my number one priority now is taking care of me. That has to be the number one priority.”
That’s part of the whole boundary setting. Sometimes you have the opportunities to do that and sometimes you don’t. I imagine being a parent. You can’t always say to your children, “You’re going to have to wait.” Sometimes their needs will come before yours. Sometimes as a coach, as a trainer, as a therapist, as whatever else work that you’re doing, you have to step back and take care of somebody’s needs before you take care of your own. It’s a balancing act and it goes case by case. We have to remember to be mindful of what the other person is going through. I think that’s what communication is all about. Letting somebody know, “These are the expectations. This is what you can expect from me and I’m going to do my best and we can talk about it. As we move through these things we can adjust and I’ll let you know when I’m feeling burnt out. I’ll let you know when I can do more and I have more energy.”
I think also giving each other that grace though is giving people the benefit of the doubt. I get very triggered when I feel like somebody doesn’t understand me or doesn’t feel like they’re being mindful of my needs. If I perceive somebody as being selfish or unaware, uh, that makes me feel a little bit resentful, but sometimes you have to ask people to be respectful of you. Sometimes you have to be clear about your boundaries because they might be very innocent and asking for more. Everybody has different versions of boundaries. It’s an ongoing thing and that’s what communication is there for them. As we begin to wrap up this episode or before we do, I do want to touch upon some of the wonderful things that we have read in the Wellness Warrior Training week one assessment.
We have a new batch of students who are going through the program week by week. As I said earlier, they have the option of doing this assessment. I read some wonderful things in here, Jason, I don’t know if you’ve seen any of this, but I wanted to share some. We have questions to help each student reflect on the lessons that they’re learning and put them into action. One of the questions is, what does excellence mean to you? What does success mean to you? Here are some of the responses we’ve received.
One is, “Excellence is being the best I can be at something. Success is knowing that I put my all into it.” Another person said, “Excellence is living with integrity, self-discipline kindness, consciousness and intentionality. Success is doing my best in the many arenas of my life with the appropriate balance and effectiveness and meeting the needs of those who rely on me,” which is a nice complement to the boundaries we were just talking about.
The third one I want to read is, “Excellence and success, or when I’m managing my work home, personal life and self-care with equal focus and attention. I am usually good at two of those things at a time, but rarely three or all four.” That’s another great response that ties into this conversation. It’s hard for us to be great or even good at work, home, our personal life, our self-care, all of that and how they overlap each other and what they mean for us doing achieving all of that constantly at the same time is a challenge. I love that this person acknowledged that sometimes they can handle two, but two of them have to go by the wayside for a little bit. You can only do two at a time. Clarity and that acknowledgment, awareness and self-understanding are the keys.
We're never going to reach a perfected state. We're never going to reach a state of non-disturbance. Share on XThis reminds me of people that I’ve met over the course of my life, who will excel dramatically at one area of their life, whether that’s making money, investing, scaling a business or more specifically, musicians or artists that are absolute savant or incredibly talented at one particular thing. Perhaps they have a strained relationship with their family or they can’t necessarily seem to make a romantic relationship work for a long period of time. Maybe they don’t take very good care of themselves in terms of health and wellness. This is such a human vulnerable thing to talk about where there’s this idea that one ought to optimize or excel in every aspect of their life. We have talked about this, Whitney, with some of the training we’ve done. Certainly, there are some coaches and “thought leaders” that espouse this of like, “Try and excel in every aspect of your life.” Is that even fucking possible? Can we dig into that for a minute? I’m saying it, it’s not that it’s impossible, but it almost sounds like, is that even realistic for a person to do to excel in every aspect of life?
Probably not. I believe anything is possible. There’s likely somebody out there, but for how long? The big question is we often put people up on a pedestal because of something they’ve achieved one time or for a certain period of time in their life. We’ll then tear them down if they stopped doing those things and the media loves to expose celebrities like, “Remember when so and so was in their heyday? Look at what they’re doing now.” They don’t look physically the same as if anybody looks the same throughout their whole life or, “Their career is down the toilet.” Even when we were talking about one-hit wonders, we like to shame somebody for being successful for a short period of time like, “That’s success didn’t last. The jokes on you.”
Part of this conversation too is this ongoing pressure to constantly sustain the actions or the amount of work hustle balance that we have in our life. Back to my point, I’ve been doing yoga off and on for many years. Luckily, that has taught me that I go through phases. Sometimes I will do yoga every single day. Sometimes I will get up at 5:00 in the morning to do yoga. It is the same thing with my sleep. Sometimes, I go through phases where I sleep late. Now, I’ve been getting up at an average of 10:00 AM and that feels kind of late to me like “The whole world has started their day, except for me,” which is probably not true but in my mind, I think that.
I’ve had a lot of romantic partners that point out this quality about me because they see me and my sleep schedule more frequently than most other people, aside from my family. My family does this too. A lot of people have commented on my sleep schedule and I’m like, “I know by now that I go through phases where sometimes I like getting up early at 5:00 AM. I’ve gone through phases of waking up early so I can do great yoga classes. I go through phases where I’ll wake up at 10:00 AM.” Sometimes even later, God forbid, because that’s what I want. That’s maybe what I need at that time.
Am I going to beat myself up for not always being perfectly consistent with my lifestyle? No, because I’m going through those changes. Maybe I’m not one of those people. There are people to answer your question, Jason, who have been getting up at the same time every single day for most of their lives or have been consistent with their work. Maybe some people have a different relationship with consistency than me and it’s great. Good for them if that feels good to them, but I suppose there’s no shame and not being perfectly consistent all the time.
I’m laughing because I’m examining a lot of the phrases, verbiage and rhetoric that gets passed around with like, “Be a high performer and be a high achiever.” I remember one of the very first Tony Robbins books I read years ago. It was Unlimited Power and there’s a section in there where he talks about the principle of CANI which stands for Constant And Never-Ending Improvement. I remember feeling so much like every aspect of my life had to be in that framework of constant and never-ending improvement. My health, my finances, my investments, my relationships and my creativity. It feels like so much pressure. I’ve realized that I’ve used a lot of these principles of high-performing, high-achieving constant never-ending improvement to put a level of expectation and pressure on myself that I’ve been able to achieve.
That’s one of the reasons that I destroyed my vision board for the first time. I’ve been doing vision boards since 2006. I was constantly doing a list of aims and goals, constantly doing a vision board, some of which came true, some of which didn’t, but I’m realizing that some of these mechanisms and these tropes in the coaching industry have in some ways backfired. I’m not throwing Tony under the bus or anybody else that we’ve read books or followed. It’s just that some of these frameworks don’t resonate anymore.
I don’t want to read their emails. I don’t want to implement their programs. I don’t want to be in this constantly growing, moving and optimizing. I’ve burnt the fuck out on all of it, to be honest with you. I don’t care about optimizing now. I don’t care about constant improvement. I just don’t care. I might care again or I’ll recreate the frameworks in a way that works better for me and that’s more sustainable. To your point, Whitney, I just feel like this mentality of more, better, faster, different, improved and optimized. I don’t want anything to do with it now.
It’s important to be aware of what serving you and what’s not serving you. One of the things that we teach in the Wellness Warrior Training is about creating a personal affirmation for yourself. It is interesting to read through this because sometimes I feel like affirmations are a little cliché. It is like vision boards and all of that but it depends on your relationships with that word affirmation. Maybe that serves you to say things out loud or write things down. I’ve experimented with this a lot. If you take the pressure off of it, for me, if I don’t think of affirmations in terms of like getting what I want, but instead think of affirmations in terms of feeling good at that moment, then they tend to have a more powerful effect. I want to read some of the personal affirmations that people have created in this course.
One of them makes me feel good reading so I guess this one works for me. This person says, “I am a good, decent, kind and generous person.” Who doesn’t want to hear those words or say those words out loud? Maybe some that don’t resonate with everybody, but to me, that feels good. I like seeing those words. I like saying those words. That affirmation works for me. Another example is, “I am capable of making good choices and becoming the person I want to be.” We are capable of that, but you have to define what does the word good means in the context of good choices. Hopefully, you’re not shaming yourself or perceiving yourself as making bad choices. I’m a little sensitive to the word good, even though in the other line, I like that context of good in that first affirmation, but in the second affirmation, when you pair the word good with choices, I get a little triggered by that.
I’m like, “Does that mean I’m making bad choices?” Affirmations are fascinating. Another thing that we have in this first week of the Wellness Warrior Training is gratitude. I think gratitude is incredibly important. Each of us kind of being aware and defining what we’re grateful for is helpful in getting through hard days and focusing on what we perceive as good. What we perceive as bringing us joy is helpful. Another section in this assessment and the last one that I’m going to share is around listing five touchstones in your life that help you instantly connect with your joy. We provided a few examples and I want to share a few that our students have shared. For us, we said, “Playing with animals, dancing in the kitchen, singing in the car, making a great meal or taking a walk outside,” saying those out loud makes me feel good.
The Consistency Code: There are so many permutations and variations of this perfected life that somehow, we’ll reach a state of non-disturbance.
That brings me joy thinking about doing those things, which shows the power of something like meditation, simply thinking about or visualization, more accurately. Visualizing yourself doing something can bring you joy. Maybe a visualization practice might work well in that scenario or meditating on being outside. Some of the other touchstones that our students have shared is running, being with children, eating a great meal, reading and Lego-building. It seems like we have a lot of parents in this course, watching a great movie, spending time with family and going to the mountains. Being aware of these things that bring you joy and also making sure that you’re doing them often enough is important. These are a few things that you can use now.
If you have not yet enrolled in the Wellness Warrior Training, stay tuned because it is going to be part of a bundle. We will be talking about that in January 2021. Stay tuned because we often run sales. As I said before, you can always ask us if we can extend a discount to you. Oftentimes, our answer will be yes. Not always, but we try to make them accessible to you. I wanted to leave you off with a few things to wrap up some of the things that we’ve touched upon. One is finding ways to connect with your joy. Another is focusing on gratitude, trying things out, whether it’s creating affirmations for yourself and seeing if that works for you. If it doesn’t, then don’t do it. Setting these boundaries, as we’ve talked about is key and working in your communication. What are some other things that we’ve touched upon, Jason that you want to leave the listener with before we end?
Getting clear about boundaries and being gentle with ourselves and looking at ways in which maybe we push ourselves too hard or expect too much. The biggest thing is realizing that we’re never going to reach a perfected state. We’re never going to reach a state of nondisturbance. When I say that in my own summary of all these teachings, Whitney, is there’s an idea that if we get to a certain weight or a certain level of fitness, a certain lifestyle, a certain number in our bank accounts, or our investments or a zip code or the right house, the right car or the right partner. There are so many permutations and variations of this perfected life that somehow, we’ll reach a state of nondisturbance. “I’ll never worry about my weight. I’ll never worry about feeling weak. I’ll never worry about feeling unloved again or unworthy.”
If we examine this pursuit and how many businesses and things operate this way with this idea that by making our lives more perfect or optimized, that we’ll never be disturbed again. It’s one of the biggest delusions that runs us in our society. Realizing that if we just be easier about it and gentler about it and treat all of this as we have said in the past on the show, as a series of experiments and practices, I feel like if I frame things in a way that this is just another experiment. This is just another opportunity for me to practice. It takes the pressure off of trying to make my life perfect or constantly be optimizing everything. If you can frame the things that we about on the podcast or maybe some of the things you’re learning about as experiments and practices, I find that it takes the pressure off and allows us to freely explore, trying new things in our lives.
We leave this episode. We hope that you received some potent takeaways here. We’re always learning along with you. It’s one of the reasons that we do this show is Whitney and I are always making constant discoveries from our own psychology, our own minds, our own lives. One of the most remarkable things in doing these courses in these teachings in this coaching is we’re always learning right alongside you. We don’t ever position ourselves as experts or gurus or people that have ascended to a certain level of mastery. We are students of life just like you. Thank you for always being with us. If you want to reach out directly, you can email us at [email protected]. That is also our website.
You will also be able to enroll in the Consistency Code and Wellness Warrior Training. We have a ton of wonderful free resources. If you haven’t visited our website yet, go on and dig in. It is a smorgasbord of goodness in many facets of life. We hope you dig in there and take advantage of all the great stuff on our website. We’re on all of the social media handles. We’ve been ramping things up on Instagram and doing more on TikTok. Follow us there. We’re also on Facebook, YouTube, and all the big platforms. Until next time, thanks for subscribing if you’ve already done. If you haven’t, go ahead and subscribe because we release three episodes every single week. I don’t see any sign of stopping anytime soon. We’ve got more goodness for you coming soon. Thanks for being with us as always and we’ll catch you soon with another episode.
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