You are listening to the Drink Less Lifestyle podcast with Dr. Sherry Price, episode number 118.

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, I hope everybody is doing great. Today I want to talk to you about making an impossible goal possible. Do you have a goal in your life that maybe it’s been on your list for a long time, something that you want to achieve and the longer you wait to achieve it the more it feels like it’s impossible? Maybe you have a goal of wanting to drink less or not have much desire for alcohol? Maybe you have a goal of giving up alcohol completely. Maybe you want to get in the best shape of your life.

Maybe you want to slow the aging process because you want to increase your health span, not just your lifespan. Maybe you want to make more money. Maybe you want to travel more. Maybe you want to get rid of the brain fog, and the low energy, and a sluggishness that you feel you’ve been carrying around and swap that for more energy and a zest for life. Whatever your goal is, I want to help you achieve it. And so that’s the purpose of today’s episode is I want to help you achieve your most important goal.

Now, we’re going to break it down into three steps on exactly how to do this. But I want you to pick a goal that feels impossible. It’s a goal that you think in your mind, yeah, I want it but I’ll never be able to achieve it. Now, I’m not talking about something that you absolutely cannot change or cannot control like growing five more inches into adulthood. As adults we are a max height, we can’t change that. We might actually shrink but we can’t change that. However most people don’t focus on goals that they know that they absolutely can’t change.

I’m talking about something that you deeply desire, you deeply want and you know it’s capable, it could happen. Now, the reason we haven’t gotten that goal is because we are living with limiting beliefs about ourselves and about our ability to actually achieve it. And this is the number one reason we don’t actually have that goal yet or haven’t achieved that goal yet. It’s because of our limiting beliefs about us achieving it. That’s so logical, when I say that it’s like yes of course. I want to lose 100 pounds and I don’t think I can. But we know that other people have lost 100 pounds and we know that it’s possible.

And maybe you have a goal where you just don’t want to drink or you just don’t want to have desire for alcohol. You just want to look at it you’re like, “Yeah, could take it or leave it.” And as I shared my journey and other women have shared their journey and there is other podcasts about people sharing their journey to take it or leave it, or to abstain completely, or just not have it be important to them. You see that people are capable of doing this. So if humans, other humans that you see in your life are capable of doing it, you know that you could develop the capability and ability to do it as well.

But the only reason you haven’t is because your brain is telling you, you can’t have what you want, or some limiting belief that is holding you back from getting there. Now, we all know what our thoughts do. If we have a belief system and limiting thoughts about ourself, guess what? They become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We start taking actions we may not even be aware of it. They might just be subconsciously and we are sabotaging our own growth, and our own evolution, and our own ability to achieve that goal.

So I want to help you break free from these thoughts. I want to help you break free from these limiting beliefs and I want to give you the process for you to be able to achieve your most important goal. Now, when we have our limiting thoughts I will tell you they feel so true but I want to remind you that they are just sentences that you have been conditioned and programmed to think over and over. And they’re just on autopilot in there. They may feel so true but they are really just words in your mind, just sentences in your mind. Maybe they’re even just phrases in your mind.

And we have been duped somehow into believing them. So today really I want to share with you how to make your impossible goal possible. And I want to share with you what I am doing in my own life as I head into the new year because I have impossible goals that I want to achieve. And so I’m setting up my impossible goal for 2023 and I’m walking with the ladies in EpicYOU on exactly how I am executing that in my life.

And so I want to share this process with you. And not only that, before we get to the process I invite you to do this so you uplevel your life and you show up as the woman you want to be. This is the process of self-growth, of self-evolution. We get to a certain phase and we’re like, “Oh yes, I’ve advanced there, I’ve advanced there. I’ve advanced there.” And if we stop advancing, or growing, or learning, or stretching I will tell you, the human is not designed for that. We love to grow. We love to evolve. We love to experience new things.

We love to conquer new things. We love to achieve new things. It feels good to us. And so I invite you to stop delaying on your most important dreams, your most important goals been and instead take this process and make it a reality in the new year, do that for yourself. And be that woman who has achieved that goal. How will that feel? I know when I think about the goal I want to obtain for 2023, how amazing I want to feel on the journey and when I’ve accomplished it. That is my goal, to feel good about it the entire way.

And I want to be an example of someone who thought, yes, do you see this goal, ladies, I previously thought this was impossible which just means it hasn’t had time to come to pass yet, impossible, and how I made it possible. And when I show up more powerfully in my life, it draws people in to be able to do that for their life, just like all of our emotions, they are contagious. When you sense somebody’s moving in their life you’re like, “I want that, that feels good.” And as I empower myself I’m inviting you to empower yourself to get to your most important goal.

So let’s now talk about how to make that happen. So I think it’s a three part process and this is the three part process that I am breaking down inside of EpicYOU. And this is the process that makes the impossible possible. Now, I think without these three parts it’s very difficult to make it possible. So I think each of these three steps is key. They are all needed. You can’t just do one or two, you must do all for three in order to make it possible because here’s the thing, a lot of times when we get to the goal we want to stay there.

So think about if you have a goal of losing a lot of weight, you don’t want to just put it back on. If you have a goal of drinking less, and you want to stay there, you want to maintain that drink less as a lifestyle. Nobody wants to become a woman who can take it or leave it only to backslide months, years later. It’s ideal if we keep that same consistency going in our life. And when we keep it consistent, it gets easier which I’ll talk about here soon. So we don’t want to go back into self-sabotaging behaviors around food, around drink or whatever it is that you are focusing in on.

It could even be around money. It could even be around relationships. If we have a goal to get married or be in a committed relationship we want to sustain that. We don’t want that to dissolve, at least not going into it. Maybe when we get into it we would want it to dissolve. So the first part of the process and I hope you’re following along with a pen and paper.

Now, if you’re driving or listening to this while you’re walking, or running, or on the treadmill, or in the car, put it on hold and make sure you come back and relisten to this episode because I think it would be very impactful if you write down the exact steps and how to carry this out for yourself. So I want to invite you in on that process to write it down.

So first step, I want you to name exactly what you want. I want you to name it, claim it, state it and write it down. That last part is key. You must write it down. And here is the thing when you write down what you want. I want you to write it down and be as specific as you can. Now, ladies I will tell you this is actually so difficult for many women.

I have worked with women now for years and sometimes I’ll ask them, “Just what do you want in this relationship, or what do you want the outcome to be with your kids, or what do you want the outcome to be of your life?” And they can’t answer the question.

Some women haven’t been asked what they want, or have thought about what they want, or they haven’t even tuned into what they want for so long. They have been running around helping others, helping their family, helping their kids, meeting their boss’s needs. And meeting the needs basically of everybody else in their life so that they are so disconnected from what they want, and what brings them satisfaction, progress, happiness. And so that could be a very challenging question right there.

And if that’s you, okay, you’ve got to meet yourself where we are. So always meet yourself where you’re at. And just allow some time and think about it over the next course of the week. Really sit down and think about what goal is really important to me that I want to accomplish this year. And here’s what I don’t want you to do is I don’t want you to focus on how easy, how hard or if you’ve been able to attain it in the past or not. None of that is relevant to step one. Step one is all about claiming the goal you want and getting very specific and writing it down.

And I find and here’s the truth, what I find, it actually plays out in the women that I coach is that the bigger the goal the better. Because when you have a big goal, I will tell you when you have a really big goal, think about a really big goal because I want to prove this true as you’re listening to the podcast. Think about a really important big goal you would love to achieve in 2023. Now as you’re thinking about it, what is going on inside of your body? I bet you, you might feel butterflies, you might feel a sense of excitement, you might get a little bit, ooh, that would be fun.

It generates a deep feeling inside of us that our body says, “Yes.” Notice if your body is tuning in and saying, “Yes, this goal would be so amazing to achieve.” Now, we didn’t ask if it’s possible. We just asked, “How does it feel?” And the bigger the goal, it’s going to create a good feeling inside. It can also bring up other things inside. It could bring up some fear, some self-doubt and that means you are on track because the brain might start being activated now. You’re not just tuning into the body. If your brain gets involved it’s going to start saying, “Yeah, but you can’t really do that. Yeah, but that’ll take a lot of time. That’ll take a lot of effort.”

Now, let the brain do that but I really want you to tap into the body and saying, “What does my body tell me it wants? What excites it?” Because the brain initially in this phase will certainly want to sell ourself short. It’ll want to go for a smaller goal. It’ll tell us to say, “Yeah, you’re too big for your breeches. Yeah, you should tone that down just a bit. Who do you think you are?” And I’ll tell you, by reducing your true desire and your true goal, you’re stomping on yourself. And by doing that mentally, I’ll tell you that it keeps you playing small and it keeps you thinking you deserve less.

Oh my gosh, ladies, you need to hear this. You deserve so much more. I want you to play big, bigger than maybe you’ve ever played before in your life. I really want you to think, wow, what would feel so amazing to me to be able to accomplish this year? And when you think about it, it kind of blows your mind. You’re like, “Wow, if I achieve that, that’s really impressive.” And that would feel so amazing and so epic to do that.

I mean this could be anything, really anything. It could be a new relationship, getting married, getting divorced, losing a ton of weight, feeling strong and getting super fit, giving up alcohol or just not wanting it. So you can have tons more energy and zest for life. Maybe it’s to write a book. Maybe it’s to move closer to your kids. I don’t know what it is but what lights you up, that would be so important to focus on for 2023. And as I mentioned, the bigger the better.

And I think as women we really need to hear this because somehow if we grow too big that means others will be harmed. And that’s simply not the case. No one suffers when you get the life you want. Actually people around you benefit more. So don’t limit yourself. As I already mentioned, limiting yourself makes you think you don’t deserve it and nothing could be further from the truth.

We all deserve to live a life achieving our goals and dreams, all of us. It doesn’t matter our background, what we’ve experienced, what we haven’t experienced, where we came from, what our current circumstances are, none of it matters. And the bigger you set a goal for yourself, change requires that you show up differently whether it’s a small change or a big change. So if you have to show up differently anyway, setting a bigger goal is going to help you show up bigger. And you’re going to be fueled by some of that excitement to get that goal to where you’re going.

And if you don’t have enough excitement and if you don’t have enough, your body fueling you forward, you won’t have enough oomph or enough guts to overcome the current inertia of not doing anything about it. So a lot of people want to make this strictly a head game. And when you make it strictly a head game, I find it gets harder. I should want it. Logically it make sense that I cut back on drinking. Logically it makes sense that I care about my health more. And notice how that makes your body feel.

If it’s solely a head game, we’re not using what, 75/80% of our body? I mean what’s our head? I mean we’re not talking the weight, our head weighs a really lot, but just the amount of space, the percentage of the body, the human head’s a very small portion. We need to bring the body along. And I’ll tell you, when you can create good energy inside your body it’s going to want to move towards that goal, hands down, fact of life. So we want to overcome that inertia that’s like, yeah, yeah, who do you think you are? You’re never going to get there. It’s going to be too tough.

Whatever the limiting beliefs are we have to overcome that. So in this step, notice how it’s moving you towards your goal and not creating more stuck-ness. And we’re inviting the body into this. It’s not just a head exercise. I tell the ladies inside the program, inside EpicYOU, “You can’t just make it be a head cognitive exercise because you will only limit yourself. You will really limit yourself.” And this is how we become when we overdrink because we are checking out of our body. We’re like, “These emotions, they’re not safe, let me just leave these behind and drink them. I’ll just drink them away.”

And so we become more and more disconnected with ourselves. So let the body’s sensations come up and let your brain go wild and just tell you how it’s not possible, “Well, that’s the goal, we know it’s not possible, thank you brain for showing up but this is what we want.” And your brain, there’s nothing wrong with it. It just wants to keep you feeling safe and playing small because it feels safe to be there because it’s what’s known. It’s just what’s familiar to you at the moment.

But staying in that familiar place, doesn’t really allow us to grow, and evolve, and experience newness, new things, novelty which so many people crave. So a big impossible goal stirs you up and you may experience some excitement and fear, or excitement and self-doubt. That means you’ve tapped into something good. That means you’re on track my friend. You’ve got some fear. You’ve got some self-doubt but yet you’re kind of excited.

Now, if the fear and the self-doubt aren’t showing up, maybe your goal isn’t big enough. Maybe it won’t require much of a fundamental shift in yourself. And so the actions that you would take from that won’t be as significant, won’t feel as impactful and won’t move the needle all that much. I mean if we’re going to pursue something and pursue one thing, I want you to go all in on it.

Okay, so let’s recap where we’ve been, let’s review step one. Because we cannot move on to step two or step three because they won’t work and they won’t make sense. This is a logical format. We must start at one, then go to two, and then go to three. So we need to make sure you’ve done step one to its entirety, to set you up for your best success. So to summarize, step one is to write down your specific impossible goal and put that goal where you can see it daily.

Maybe it goes on a post-it note and you hang it on your mirror so you see it every time you brush your teeth. You see it twice a day or however often you brush your teeth. Maybe you put it on your computer and you have it there, every time you log in to use the computer. But I want your brain to see this goal because I want your brain to be reminded. Our brains are so easily distracted. It’s like squirrel, it’s off chasing another thing. It’s like, forgot to get that Christmas present. The trashcans, got to take those out. It’s like, got to go pick up something, do something, research something, whatever.

The brain is always off to the races. We have to bring it back in especially for something that’s so important, something like your health, something like breaking a bad habit, something like getting the life that you really, really want. Because I’ll tell you, ladies, we are all on limited time and we can’t just keep pushing things off to the next month, the next week, the next year. We are deluding ourselves to think that it’ll be easier then. It won’t. So as you’re writing it down I really want you to make sure it’s specific.

Getting healthy, not specific enough. Drinking less, not specific enough. Losing weight, not specific enough. Getting married, not specific enough. Finding a partner, not specific enough. And the reason you want to specify a bit more to this is because you’re optimizing it for your benefit. So if it’s to get married or find a partner, what qualities do you want in that partner that are a must for you? Get more specific. If you want to drink less, why? Why is that important to you? Because if you don’t put down your why, and you don’t see it in the bigger scheme of your life, you know what your brain will tell you? “One more won’t hurt.”

But do you notice how your brain might not say that if you’re out and about and operating a car? You’re like, “Yeah, one more could hurt.” So notice how you want to optimize this so you’re helping your brain see it in the grander context of your life. So I want you to think about how would your life really change if you really cut back on alcohol, if that is your goal? Now, also part of this process, I want you to focus on just one goal. Oh my gosh, we need to really constrain and just focus on that one goal. I want a single focus.

The brain will want to write three, five, maybe more goals. I want you to pick just one. And here’s the thing, when you accomplish that one goal you can move on to the next one. It might not take a whole year to accomplish that goal and that’s great. We accomplish one and then we move on to the next. And do you know why that is? It’s because of that soccer ball analogy.

Have you ever heard the soccer ball analogy? I don’t know it exactly but it goes something like this. You get 20 kicks. So you get 20 kicks at a soccer ball. Well, if you have 20 different soccer balls and those are representing 20 different goals and you kick them all once, you have used up all 20 kicks. So you got a little bit of progress on one goal, a little bit of progress on another goal, a little bit of progress on another goal, a little bit of progress on another goal. So you see how that plays out.

Now, if you have 20 kicks and you just have one goal, one soccer ball and you keep kicking that one soccer ball 20 times down the field. Just think how much further you get on that one goal. A lot. And so you want to pick one goal so your brain just focuses in on it. Now, here’s the thing that’s so beautiful about picking one goal and going all in on it, just that one goal. You learn so much kicking that same goal 20 times than you would learn from diluting it to 20 different balls with one kick each.

Maybe you have an obstacle of getting around a player as you’re kicking that one ball down the field and guess what? You learn that because you got 20 kicks on that one ball. You learn how maybe you attempted something and it didn’t work. So you’re going to get back up and do it again because you still have 18 kicks left. Now, it’s not only useful to get to your goal quicker and see how you can be successful by going all in on one goal.

It’s also the way to keep your brain focused because if you have too many goals the brain gets overwhelmed. It starts looking at your to-do list and it all looks like it’s the same priority and everything needs to get done, and all 10 items need to get cleared off. It doesn’t give you that single focus to say, “What is my power move?” And that’s where we get to step number two.

Step number two, if you’re writing it down, plan for how you’re going to achieve that goal. This is about making your goal actionable. So when you were just writing it down, when we’re getting very specific and we’re saying, “This is what we really, really want.” We’re taking that from an idea only in our brain to making it actionable. And so we’re pulling it out of our mind, sticking it on paper and now we’re talking about the action steps that we need to do, which are the power moves.

I talk about power moves on a previous podcast. I love feeling empowered in my life. It’s a feeling that fuels me to do the most healthy things in my life, the things that really matter to me in my life. When I feel empowered, I’m always taking the best action in my life and that’s why I call them power moves. So if you’re losing weight, if you’re wanting to get stronger or more tone, or you’re wanting to drink less, what are your power moves that get it done? And here’s what I want you to also ask, not just power moves, if that phrase is not hitting you, what are you doing?

Because we can’t just be thinking about it. We have to be saying, “What will I be doing about it? What actions will I be taking?” Now, it’s not just what actions you won’t be taking because here’s the thing. When the brain just thinks about all the things it’s not going to do to, it’s not going to eat ice-cream, it’s not going to be drinking much, it’s not going to be eating sugar, not going to be snacking or eating after seven o’clock at night, or all the things it’s canceling out which that may be part of the formula. Your brain wants to focus on what will it do.

So for me, I love listing it out. I love putting it on paper. And I love seeing it because you know why? When I see the actions that get traction for me and I’m very clear about that, it fuels me. It tells me what exactly I need to do to get the progress that I want. So these power moves are actions that get you traction, they actually matter, they actually move the needle on drinking less, on losing weight, on becoming more financially secure, whatever your goal is. And financially secure, again is too broad. We need to make it more specific.

And so these are my power moves and I love writing it down because I also get to cross it off. That feels like a sense of accomplishment each and every day that I get to cross that off. So it’s that dopamine hit that I look forward to. And it’s how I fuel myself because I fuel my body with quality food just like I want to fuel my brain with quality thoughts. And when you have quality thoughts and quality feelings and they’re aligned, you take quality action, you take the action that’s going to get you traction towards your values, what matters most and what’s important to you.

So if I know my brain loves dopamine hits, I’m going to feed it the dopamine hits I want to be feeding it, not the ones through sugar or alcohol that I don’t want to be feeding it. And this is how it keeps it fun, this is how it keeps it exciting for me and that’s how it makes it easier for me to do. And when it’s easier for me to do I see that I get progress. And when I get progress, that starts to create momentum in my life and that generates more progress. And then I get to celebrate that progress.

So do you hear all these positive emotions that I’m generating for myself? And I’ll tell you, the brain and the body like to experience positive emotions. So if there’s a way that I could get more of that in my life, let me do it, let me apply it. Now, I just want to stop there and say we are all going to have days where we just don’t have those thoughts and feelings that are aligned. We may feel emotionally drained some days because we’ve been hitting it hard, or doing it too much, or overextending ourselves. And so those days will come.

So I’m not saying this is foolproof and you’re going to feel good all the time. We just can’t live like that. It’s impossible to live like that. And that my friends, is truly impossible. But this is a process that you learn to grow and learn that your feelings don’t have to dictate your actions. Because you realize by stretching yourself that some of the negative feelings will come in because now you are viewing yourself differently.

You are stepping outside of how you normally see yourself and so that’s going to cause some growth and some stretch for your mind. Which is a beautiful thing because it means you’re raising the bar on what you deserve in your life. It means you’re raising the standard of your life. Now, naturally your brain will want to take you right back to where you are in that caged box, in that prisoned mind which thinks you have to live over there. You can’t live in this land of plenty over here.

And I think of it like the crab that’s in the bucket with the other crabs. It’s like you’re the crab that wants to escape this problem, this old identity and you want to get that new identity and become that upleveled version of you. But then there’s a crab that’s pulling you back down into the bucket because that’s what crabs do. And when you look behind you, you see the crab and it’s actually you. So you’re the crab trying to crawl out of the bucket and then you’re also the crab trying to pull up yourself back down and say, “No, these are the limiting beliefs and I need to stay in this limiting belief bucket.”

And so we’re always talking about inside EpicYOU, the strategies to stop being the crab to yourself, to allow for more progress so you can be more like a butterfly or a snake. They evolve to the next version of themselves. A caterpillar doesn’t have the capability or the ability to fly, but a butterfly can. The next version of itself can, it has the abilities, it has the capabilities, it has the skills. And a snake grows a new skin. It sheds its old skin. And so just like them, we can evolve to the next version and develop new skills in the process.

And this is why coaching is so valuable. Even my coach will show me how I’m being a crab to myself. I’m pulling myself back down. I’m pulling myself into the land of my limiting beliefs. And that’s only going to keep me not showing up as the woman I want to be. And so if I’m pushing and stretching for a new identity, and a new version of me, she helps get me there, she helps see how I’m being a crab when I can’t see it.

Just like I help my clients see how they’re being a crab and pulling themselves down into these old limiting beliefs rather than freeing themselves and being the woman they want to be. And I love saying this because I’m pragmatic, I’m logical. I’m sure you are too. And if we see how we’re being our crab to ourselves, I want somebody to point that out to me. I want somebody to say, “Hey, look at that. Do you want to keep doing that? Because if so, it keeps creating the same, Sherry and you told me you want to grow to this Sherry.”

And I’m like, “Oh, yes, I just see how I’m being my own crab and pulling myself down into a lower deserve level.” So I reach out for help. I get a coach who can help me realize how to get to that next level because I am results focused, because I want more from my life. And I think that’s a beautiful thing. So I’ve learned a great concept from Ben Hardy in one of his amazing books. He has many amazing books but one of his books is called Who Not How. And it hit me just at the right time when this book came out. So we often need a who in our life, not just the how.

So we need somebody that’s going to help us get to that next level for ourselves, that next version of ourselves. So I can apply this from when I wanted to learn how to run a half marathon. Now, I say I wanted to learn how. We know how to run a half marathon, you put on sneakers. You go run for 13.1 miles, boom, that gets it done. So I knew the how. I knew how to do it. I knew what it required. I knew what it took. I knew the date of the race I wanted to run. I wanted to run a course that was nice and flat because I did not identify as a runner. I was a couch potato.

So when I wanted to run that race I signed up for somebody who can help me. I signed up for the who, not the how. I wanted help staying accountable to the training plan. I wanted help with how should I fuel myself when I’m on these races because I have never run that far in my life. What do I eat? What do I drink? How much water should I take? How much is too much because I don’t want to cramp and I don’t want injuries. How do I know when pushing myself is too much or too little? And I can research that all on the internet.

I can find out a lot of that for myself. But I really wanted a who for all the intangibles, somebody I can develop a relationship, join a team where I can run with other people and there’s camaraderie in all of us who were sitting on the couch and now we’re going to be running a 13.1 mile race. And I can’t get that from reading about it on the internet. So I needed a who and that who also believed in me. That who has helped other people who were sitting on the couch, run a half marathon. And when they told me they can help me get from sitting on the couch to running a half marathon I needed to believe that they could help me because I wasn’t fully believing in myself.

So I needed a who and they helped me create a plan. And they were there for support and they were for help. And I’m so thankful they were because without that help and support I don’t think I would have done it on my own. So think about who you want to help you on this journey, who do you want support from? If you’re kicking the soccer ball 20 times down the field, this one goal, are you wearing cleats, are you wearing shin guards? What’s helping you? Are you staying hydrated? What’s helping you move that ball down the field 20 times?

It’s like asking yourself, what would help me be most effective in carrying out this goal and carrying out this plan? Go all in on yourself, it means you’re going all in on you. When you go all in on the goal, means you’re going all in on you. The greater the commitment, the greater the success. And to say it a bit more impactfully, the greater your commitment, the greater your success. And we know that that’s a fact of life. So that is step two, creating the plan, finding your who’s.

And then that brings us to step three which is systematize it because we all know that humans are creatures of habit. We have patterns. We have routines. We have rituals. We have schedules. We have morning routines and evening routines. And even if they’re not well-defined we kind of know how we operate each morning. It may be not our ideal but we know how we operate. We have eating schedules, sleeping schedules, work schedules kid’s schedules which all means we all follow systems. We all follow a calendar. We love to be systematized. We love freedom but we love that there is a system.

We know when the sun’s going to rise. We know when it’s going to set. We like to know the weather. We are creatures that love some systems. We shop at the same grocery stores. We go to the same restaurants and we probably choose similar foods each and every week. We are habitual and we like our systems. I love my planners. I love my calendar. So if you have a goal that you want to keep and maintain, and hang on to, it makes sense to systemize it.

So let’s go back to my example of training all those months to run a half marathon. So on the training schedule we were to devote our Saturday mornings to doing the long runs with the team. And so I was there on Saturday. I systematized it. Every Saturday I knew I would be doing my long run with my team, whether I was running, or walking, or doing a combination of both, or just complaining. I showed up and I ran every Saturday on the long runs. But there was one Saturday I couldn’t make it because I was going to be visiting one of my good friends in South Carolina.

And so before I booked my trip I said to her, “I’m coming out but I need Saturday morning to go run and can you help me find a flat path to run for five miles?” She helped me. She supported me. I looked at the map ahead of time and I knew exactly where I was going to run. And so I systematized all those runs on Saturdays because that was the scariest part to me. I knew I can run three miles. I knew I can run five miles. I’ve done that in the past. But the scariest part to me was doing those long runs.

What if I cramped up? What if everybody went ahead and left me behind? How would I fuel myself? Did I have enough water? How do I carry it all? And so when I signed up I knew I had to systematize that part. It had to be a non-negotiable for me because when I committed I knew that would be my most difficult challenge. Because when I wake up on Saturday I knew my brain would say, “You don’t want to do this.” And it would make excuses. And it would justify the reasons to stay in bed and one Saturday won’t matter, you can miss it. I knew how my brain works.

And so I had optimized for results and when you systematize, you optimize for results. Also when you systemize, after a few months of doing this my brain started saying, “On Saturday mornings you run.” I was a non-runner before and all of a sudden over time my brain saw me as a runner. My identity has shifted because I systematized.

So in part three of executing on your goal, I want you to systematize particularly difficult parts or what you can. And there’s another advantage to doing this, over time it creates cognitive ease. You’re no longer debating if you should do it or not do it. Your brain just naturally clicks into place and says, “This is what we do.” And so you start changing your subconscious mind and where this is automatized. So it’s easy to do. There’s less mental effort that goes into it.

It’s just something now that you’ve put on your calendar and it’s systematized, or you put on your schedule, or you put into your day, or once a week, or whatever it needs to be so you become that person. So ladies, this is how you make progress, massive progress in one area of your life. How do you feel when you don’t make progress and go after the very important things that matter? I’ll tell you, none of us feel good. You don’t feel good. Humans like to involve and achieve new things and new states of being.

And having this progress elevates your life. You go from feeling stuck and empty, or like something is missing, to feel like you’re evolving and feeling epic. Because we all get to a certain point in our life, I don’t care if you’re in your 20s, your 30s, your 40s, your 50s, your 60s, your 70s, your 80s, your 90s, whatever or beyond, that we’ve reached a status quo. And that status quo is great in some areas of our life but in other areas we desire more. We want to uplevel because humans are progress seeking species. We want things to improve. We want to solve problems and that my friends is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

So as I close I want to remind you that taking the impossible goal and making it possible will require that you move from the security of what you already have to freedom. So on this journey remind yourself that you’re choosing freedom over security. Why don’t people break the habit of overdrinking? Why don’t people go after their goals? Because it means they have to leave the security of where they’re at right now or the security that they find in alcohol and move towards creating freedom from it. And this is scary.

And as you know on past podcasts, I’ve said, alcohol was my comfort. Alcohol was my friend. Leaving any amount of alcohol behind in the beginning was really unnerving for me. I got anxious. I got uncomfortable. I got really mad because I wasn’t drinking to suppress those emotions and so here they all are, full stop. Hello, they all show up. But I desperately wanted my freedom from it more than I wanted the false security that I was getting from the drinking.

I mean how really was alcohol helping me be secure? It really wasn’t. It was just an illusion. It was just a mind numbing substance that kept me disconnected from what was really going on in my life and with myself. Alcohol doesn’t keep us secure. It’s an illusion that we live under. So I wanted to create a different life and a different version of me which meant I needed to define that for me. And that meant starting at step one, defining that goal.

And here’s what I want to offer to you. If you want help on how to do this and you need someone who’s going to keep you accountable to your most important goal I can help. I can help you achieve your drink less lifestyle. I can help you become a woman who can take it or leave it. And then you can apply this process to other goals in your life. It’s like rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. And that’s how you get progress in your life. Becoming the next version of yourself is a beautiful thing.

Alright my friends, wishing you all love, peace and prosperity in this new year and cheers to accomplishing our amazing and epic goals.

If you want to change your relationship with alcohol and with yourself, then come check out EpicYOU, it’s where you get individualized help mastering the tools so you can become a woman who can take it or leave it and be in control around alcohol in any situation. EpicYOU is the place for women who want to be healthy, confident and empowered to accomplish their goals and live their best life. Come join us over at epicyou.com/epicyou. That’s epicyou.com/epicyou. I can’t wait to see you there.