You are listening to the Drink Less Lifestyle Podcast with Dr. Sherry Price, episode number 103.

Welcome to Drink Less Lifestyle, a podcast for successful women who want to change their relationship with alcohol. If you want to drink less, feel healthier and start loving life again you’re in the right place. Please remember that the information in this podcast does not constitute medical advice. Now, here’s your host, Dr. Sherry Price.

Well, hello my beautiful friends. You know what? I feel like screaming. Screaming with joy, do you know why? I just launched a beautiful new website and I want you to come and check it out. It is gorgeous. I’m so excited the way it turned out. I am so excited, all the features it has. And I can’t wait for you to see it.

And on my new website you will find a new free guide talking about the five steps to become a woman who can take it or leave it. And so, I want you to grab this free guide because it’s going to walk you through my five step process which helps you become a woman who doesn’t need alcohol, you can take it or leave it. My team and I have been working on these upgrades and putting together this new information for you. And I am so excited to share it with you. So please check out my new website, it’s epicyou.com.

And if you follow me on Instagram I’d love to hear your comments over there. So, as I mentioned on previous podcasts, I’ve taken all of my life’s work including the Drink Less Lifestyle program, including the How to Get Your Off Button Back program and including so many other programs. And I’ve put it all inside of one program called EpicYOU. And with the new website you will see that there is an additional program inside of EpicYOU called EpicYOU Elite.

So, I haven’t mentioned the Elite program on the podcast before. And I’ve just been offering it to the ladies who want more attention and want more one-on-one time with me. And without even mentioning it, the program is almost already full. So, if you do want to work with me more on a one-on-one level there is the EpicYOU Elite program but there are very limited spots. So, you can find out more information if you are interested in that opportunity on my website at epicyou.com.

And wait, there is more. So, I have been talking about EpicYOU for a few episodes now doing kind of a soft launch while everything in the backend was getting up and running and put together. And now it’s all come together so beautifully. My old self would have waited until everything was perfect and everything was to come out all at once. But my new self I’m like, “No, we don’t wait for perfection, we just roll it out as it’s ready.”

So, thank you to all the members who have been with me through this transition. And I’m so excited about what I am offering to all of the ladies at such a great value. And I couldn’t be more delighted with our community and how we are supporting one another.

But wait, there is more. So, I also want to tell you about a great opportunity to join me for a free masterclass. So, I’m doing this free masterclass because I know many people are coming off of summer and they are just like, “I just want a reset. I want better health goals for myself. And I really want to kick this drinking habit to the curb for good.” So, I will be teaching a class where I will tell you exactly how to do that.

And so, the name of the masterclass is How To Drink Less For Good. And it will be held on Monday September 19^th at 4:00pm Pacific Standard Time which is 7:00pm Eastern Standard Time. Now, you must register in advance. Only those people who register will be able to join the class and there are limited spots available. So again, let me just say, the date again, it is Monday September 19^th, it will be at 4:00pm Pacific Standard Time, 7:00pm Eastern Standard Time. And you must register in advance.

How you can register, you can do that one of two ways, if you are on my email list you will have received an email already talking about this webinar. And the other way to sign up is if you are in my free private Facebook page called Stop the Overdrinking Habit. I’ve posted in there about the webinar as well and with the link to register. Again, register in advance and spots are limited so maybe by the time that you are hearing this it might already be full, so, the links might have been taken down.

So, feel free to send an email message to my team or post it on Facebook page and we will make sure to give you all the information and all the details, if it’s full or how to register. I really enjoy doing these masterclasses because I love to interact with you and answer your questions.

So, there will be an opportunity where you can ask me directly any questions that you have because I am on a mission for every woman to be able to control their drinking, to be able to take it or leave it, to not have this be an issue in their life anymore. So, I can’t wait to see you at that masterclass.

Alright, so speaking of being on a mission for changing your drinking, I recently was giving a special training to the members inside of EpicYOU. Because what I’m noticing with some of the members is they want the change but they are waiting for motivation, they are wanting to feel motivated before actually embracing change. And so, I did the special training inside the program where we talked about what creates motivation. And I called it the Motivational Formula.

Now, if you’re a member of EpicYOU, and you happened to miss that special training, please go in the replay section where you can find it so you can watch that training. And many of the people were taking notes and I go much deeper into it in that training. So, what I’ve been noticing is that people talk about this motivation and that they want it to just show up. And we think it’s nice when it shows up. A lot of times when we feel motivated we’re excited about that. We like to feel motivated to go ahead and embrace change.

But I’ll tell you, sometimes motivation shows up and it’s not so nice like when you have a cancer scare and you’re like, wow, that cancer scare, or this injury is now making me tune into my body and seeing where I’m out of whack, where I am not taking the best care of myself. Where I am not measuring up to my own standards for my own wellness. And in times like this it’s not good to have that scare. But sometimes that scare creates motivation on the other side.

You’re thinking to yourself, I’m not going to waste another blessed day I have because something bad can go wrong if I don’t take care of this more imminently, more urgently, more seriously. And so sometimes you go through these life changes where they motivate you to pull the trigger on something. Maybe you’ve been umming and ahing about or thinking about doing but you just haven’t done it yet. It could be health related.

It could be non-health related, like I’m finally going to get the car of my dreams. Or plan that dream vacation or stop putting off x, y and z because now I have the impetus, I have the motivation to do that. But I think many of us think, motivation should just show up. Somebody should just sprinkle fairy dust in the air and help me feel motivated. And then that will fix all my problems.

So, let’s talk today about when that doesn’t happen, what then? If motivation doesn’t come magically in the air from fairy dust, now what? Are we screwed? Are we hosed? Are we like, “Oh my gosh, I’m never going to get motivation. I’m just going to have to deal with this lot in life that I have been dealt.” Well, of course not. And so, I want to talk about this motivational formula. I didn’t come up with it. I found it on the internet.

So, you can go Google it to the internet. But I want to review that information that I found. And I also want to provide a little tweak to it. So, humans have goals and desires and things that we want to accomplish. That’s natural, that is the human condition. We will have desire. We will have goals. We will want to accomplish things in our life. And that is all well and good. So, goals are great, but are we taking the actions needed to get to those goals?

And so, if you’re one of these people that feels that you need motivation to get there, let’s talk about the formula. So, there’s three parts. So, part one to the motivational formula is that you must have a compelling goal. Now, I talk about this in my new PDF that you can get on my website. That’s step one of the five steps to become a woman who can take it or leave it. You must have a compelling goal. That is what drives our desire for change. And it makes sense to have a goal because if you don’t then you’re not motivated to change. You’re not motivated to do anything differently.

And so, a compelling goal means that you really want it, it’s not somebody else’s goal, it’s your goal and it’s meaningful to you so you can call it a meaningful goal, a compelling goal. But it’s a goal that basically serves a purpose in your life. So, if you have a goal it means you want something. It means you’re leaning into your desire for something better, something bigger, something more, something different, something you don’t currently have.

And notice what I’m saying, it’s something out there that you currently don’t have and that you want. And if you want something it’s fueling you with desire for it. And generally, that’s a good thing. The thing that you want is a good thing. What kills our motivation is when we think of all the bad things, or why we can’t have it, or why we can’t get it, or what’s wrong in the world, or what’s wrong with your job, or what’s wrong with your husband, or what’s wrong with your kids, or whatever else is going wrong.

If we’re focusing on all the things that are going wrong that’s going to dampen our desire. And so, we always want to have a compelling goal. We always want to be looking towards reaching something that’s meaningful to us. And that’s what starts to drive motivation, it comes from wanting that goal. And this is why I love coaching so much because I love coaching the members in my program to get what they want. That is a life coach, go after the goals you want in life.

And not only that, I want to keep reminding you of your goals. Because if I remind you of your goals, you’re like, “Oh yeah, my brain went astray and I’m coming back to what I really want.” And when you come back to what you really want, guess what? It energizes you because you start thinking about having it. You start thinking about obtaining it. You start thinking about getting it. And that’s the feeling that’s going to drive our action.

So, if somebody tells me, “I want to marry a great guy. I’m currently not in a relationship and I want to marry a great guy.” “Great”, I say, “Let’s do that.” That’s a compelling goal. If somebody says, “I’m done with this marriage, I want out.” Great, let’s work on that goal. If somebody says, “I want to take it or leave it with my drinking.” I’m like, “Fantastic, because I can help you to that goal.”

And I love helping women to that goal because think about it, when you’re a woman who goes out and you don’t even care about alcohol, you don’t even think about it. You’re fully engaged in the moment and in your life and with your friends, or maybe you’re just at a restaurant by yourself reading a book or however you enjoy your time, it’s lovely when alcohol doesn’t even cross your mind. It frees you up so much mentally. You don’t have this emotional cloud and burden over you anymore.

And I love painting this picture for you because does that make you giddy, and happy, and joyous inside? It does me, it motivates me. And when I think of that type of woman, that’s the type of woman I wanted to be and I now am. That’s a compelling goal. You can see her, you want to be her. And I love thinking about that woman, when I was thinking about becoming a woman who can take it or leave it, I saw her as poised, who had self-control, who didn’t mind saying no to people and who stood in her own power.

And guess what she wasn’t doing? She wasn’t spewing out ridiculous comments or saying things that didn’t make sense, or forgetting sensitive information with her friends. And she wasn’t falling all over, or laughing, or cackling, and making a jackass out of herself because no one respects that kind of woman. And instead, you would hear people commenting under their breath like, “Cut her off”, or, “She’s had enough.”

But when I saw myself as this poised woman who can just politely say no, feel confident anywhere I went, and what I wanted to do for me, no matter what anybody else was doing around me, that fueled me. That made me motivated to keep going. And so, this three part formula that I’m walking you through, I totally agree with step one.

Now, let’s move on to step two. Step two of creating motivation is that you have a path that gets you from point A to point B. You have a path that gets you from where you’re at to where you want to go. You have a path towards your goal. Now, I want to clarify something here. You may have a path that’s only partial, may only get you point A to point B but maybe your path is all the way to point J, or K, or L, or Z. Now, part of this motivational formula is that you have the path for the next few steps or just the next step.

So, it’s just point A to point B. You just know maybe the next step to take or the next two steps to take. And that’s all you need in this moment. So, when I wanted to become a woman who can take it or leave it with my drinking, I knew everything I had tried up until then failed miserably. Why? Because even though I abstained, or I read the quick literature, or books, or blogs, or did fasts, or did alcohol diets, or took abstinence for 30 days here and there. Nothing was sticking. Nothing was working.

Why? Because I came back right to the same amount of drinking that I did prior. So yes, they worked short term but they did nothing for changing the long term habit. They had no lasting impact. So, I felt at a standstill. I was like, “I’m at point A and I want to go to point B, how do I do this?” And then I saw a coaching program. And I’m like, “Wait, I haven’t tried coaching yet.” So, I signed up for it and I told myself I would do everything required in that program and I did.

I was committed. I worked the program and it worked. So, I got from point A to point B or point C, but then I was in a dilemma. Because the coach I was learning from and other coaches I had known in this space were all not drinking. So, I didn’t know how to be around alcohol and just have a small amount. I wasn’t sure exactly how to allow some of it into my life because I had no role model or no coach telling me how to do that. And I was fearful, if I started up again, I would go overboard because that’s what I had done in the past.

So even though I got to point C, and I reduced my drinking dramatically. I still wanted to have better control and better define it, where it stays in my life and where it doesn’t belong in my life. So, I needed to get to the next point. And at that point, guess what? I discovered harm reduction. Harm reduction is all in this field about moderating, using less, we don’t have to abstain completely. And so, when I found these tools that’s when I got to point E and point F and that furthered my journey.

Now, I share all this with you because I want you to know it’s this type of journey. We take a few steps, we see what works, what doesn’t, we keep what works, we drop what doesn’t. And when you go from point A, to point B, to point C, to point D, another beautiful thing starts to happen. Something more powerful I find than motivation, you get momentum. Motivation, we know it’s a feeling in our body that we want to take action. But what momentum has behind it is results.

You start seeing that you’re getting traction. You start seeing that you’re getting results. And momentum feels a little more powerful in my body and my brain loves to see results that something is working. So, when they talk on the internet about this three part formula, part one I talked about, must have a compelling goal.

Number two, is you need a path. You need the how on how to get from point A to point B, from point B to point C, what’s working along the way and what’s not.

Now, part three of this formula that you can find on the internet is something I actually don’t agree with and we had a long discussion on this inside of EpicYOU. So, point three is, or step three is that confidence will get you from point A to point B. Here’s why I disagree with this formula and I want to tell you why. Not everybody is confident that they can get from point A to point B but yet they do.

So even though they’re not confident they’re out there taking action. They might be filled with self-doubt. They might be filled with just doubt in general. They might be skeptical. They might be uncertain along the way. I certainly was, I didn’t know if this coaching program would help me. There was no way for me to predict the future as if this would help. So, I don’t think confidence is needed to get you from point A to point B. I mean think about it in other realms of your life.

Are you confident when you start a new job or a new career right out of college, or maybe you switch careers, and are you confident doing it when you first start out? Are you confident with a new business that you just launched? I know I wasn’t confident launching this podcast, launching my business. How about a new relationship, are you confident that that new relationship is going to go where you want it to go?

I see this in my daughter as we’re switching to a junior high school. She’s starting a new school and I’m sure this will happen at high school and this will happen in college. She’s not confident in her abilities, not everybody is confident when they start something new. So, I think confidence gets overblown. And I really don’t think you need it to be successful. And here is maybe a little more into that story.

If you are like me and you identify as somebody who’s more introverted, more shy, doesn’t like to wear the lampshade on their head at a party. That’s not how I would identify myself. When I hear the word ‘confidence’ I immediately start thinking, that’s not me. And it may be just in the way I view confidence. It’s somebody who’s extroverted or confident in their skin, or likes to put themselves out there. And even though I do that, it’s not my comfort zone.

I’m thinking confident people don’t have discomfort doing it. And so maybe it’s the way I view confidence. So, I took that part of the formula and I tweaked it a few times for the members inside EpicYOU. So, the first upgrade I want to make to this formula is I love step one and step two but step three I would change that from confidence to saying believing in the possibility in yourself to obtain the goal. Because if confidence is a word that doesn’t really resonate with you, I think belief in myself is what I needed and that’s what got me started doing this podcast.

It was believing in the possibility that this is going to help so many people. And when we were discussing this minor tweak, the members in the EpicYOU program are like, “Yes, I relate to that too. That sounds so much better. I can see how I can believe in the possibility of losing the weight, of becoming a woman who can take it or leave it”, or whatever goal that they are working on actively right now.

So, I like this tweak to the formula but I want to even tweak it more because I think there’s something more powerful we can say in step three that will further increase motivation. So, in my motivational formula, my step three is taking action through power moves, your power moves. These are individualized, customized, unique power moves that work for you. They are the actions that get you traction towards the goal.

Because there are many ways to accomplish a goal. I mean think about the goal of losing weight. So many people do it by so many different paths. There’s not just one path to lose weight. Some people do cold plunges and saunas, and get really into exercise. And some people do diets, and diet plans, and supplements, and powders, and shakes, and clubs, and organizations. And there’s all of that out there. And then some people don’t do any of that but yet they all can lose weight.

Because the path is not the same for everybody, it’s what power moves, what actions that you take that get you traction towards your goal. Now, I’ve tried some of that to lose weight. I tried the powders, the shakes, the clubs, the organizations, the boxed meals. And it didn’t lead to sustainable weight loss in my life. And I didn’t even like some of the food, some of the supplements, some of the side-effects I got. It wasn’t sustainable.

So, we are all unique which is why power moves should be unique. So, I loved as we were going on the call and sharing our power moves that help us move towards our goals because that is the most important information and that is what’s going to drive motivation. So, for example in my life, a power move for me would not have been abstinence when I first started cutting back on my drinking. I didn’t want to do it. I was closed off to the idea.

I didn’t want to cut out alcohol from my life for eternity and I just wanted to be a woman who can take it or leave it. And people thought I was cooky for wanting that. People were saying I can’t have that. So, they weren’t resonating with me. I didn’t feel they were my people. I didn’t feel understood. People told me I couldn’t go backwards with an alcohol problem. And guess what? People were wrong about me, people thought I couldn’t, but it turns out I could.

And how did I learn that? By not giving up, by being committed, by being willing to try something new, by being willing to put my butt on the line and get out there again. And here’s the beautiful side effect, benefit, strategic byproduct that came from all of that, is that people look at the action. Everybody wants that action whether you drink or you don’t drink. People want to be somebody who doesn’t want to drink.

But by doing this process you know what benefits I have gotten? I no longer have that debilitating inner voice critic that’s telling me, if I fall off or I have an extra drink that I’ll never get back on track, why bother, nothing’s going to work, you’re a loser, you suck, you shouldn’t try this. You knew this wasn’t going to work, you can never trust yourself around alcohol again. And that voice would be so loud in my head after having too many drinks.

And guess what that did when that voice showed up? It kept me down. It kept me depressed. It kept me from trying again. And yes, it kept me drinking, and overdrinking. And that voice in my mind ran the show and it ran my emotions, and I let my emotions run the show. And I let it get the best of my actions because I didn’t know the tools that can break it. I don’t have that anymore. I’m more excited about losing that inner critic than I am about my drinking. I mean that was much bigger. That was an emotional mental burden totally gone.

And so, when I do slip up or fall back, or whatever the terminology is, I get right back up because that inner voice is not keeping me down. I was talking to the ladies about this because for September I had planned to do no drinks. And Labor Day weekend we went to Breckenridge, we had a beautiful time with our friends celebrating 50^th birthday parties, and celebrating, and going out, and going hiking. And drinking was all around me. And I’ll tell you, I did great. I didn’t even have desire for it. I didn’t want to imbibe. I didn’t want to engage. I just didn’t want it.

It was so easy for me just to be around people who are drinking a lot and I didn’t partake but I was home for Labor Day and we decided to throw a backyard barbecue, a nice impromptu. And I decided to have two drinks. I didn’t fall on my plan of zero for September. But then I got up on Tuesday, again that inner voice isn’t there criticizing me, telling me what a loser I am, how I’m never going to get this, how it’s not going to last. I just said, “Oh okay.” And it’s back to this process.

And I haven’t had any desire for it but I’ll tell you what, the mental chatter would have kept me drinking years ago, and that backslide would have lasted a lot longer. And it was only two drinks, in the past it would have been way more than that. So, I’m looking at all that progress that I’ve made. And the best part is I now know my power moves. I now know what keeps me going. I have the formula, I have the process.

And when you have that you can keep going. And if you stop you can get back on track again. So, my friends, these are the three steps for you to learn and practice so you can create your own motivation and not wait for it to fall on you from the sky. Not wait for outside factors or life circumstances, or things to magically line up for you that it creates that feeling inside. You can create it for yourself. And when you get going you get momentum.

And I want to point out how this process is so simple my friends. I’m not saying it’s easy, but I am saying it’s very simple. Don’t listen to your brain if it’s telling you, this is too hard, I can’t figure it out. And if you can’t figure it out, come join EpicYOU. Let me help you figure it out. Let me help you get to where you want to go. Be that woman who can take it or leave it.

And make sure it’s not just fear talking in your head. Let the fear be there. Fear is not a problem. Fear is only a problem if it’s stopping you. Don’t let it stop you. Take action. Make power moves. And if you want my help, come join our amazing community at epicyou.com. The ladies and I would love to help you. It’s my favorite place to be. Alright my beautiful friends, go out and create your motivation and I’ll see you next week.

Thanks for listening to Drink Less Lifestyle. If you’re ready to change your relationship with drinking now, check out the free guide, How to Effectively Break the Overdrinking Habit at sherryprice.com/startnow. See you next week.