Mindset

New Year Starts Now: Decisions to make

The first episode of our New Year Starts Now series explores the decisions you've already made about yourself that may be holding you back from flourishing.

Three women celebrate as confetti flies in the air.

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Program note: Hey, glad you’re enjoying the podcast! In this episode, you might hear Claire talking about Nutritional Freedom and Foundations. Since we launched the podcast in 2020, we've undergone a makeover to improve the membership experience. For more, listen to our "And we're back! All the updates!" episode.
Transcript

Claire Siegel: You're listening to the Flourish podcast. I'm your host, Claire Siegel, founder of Flourish. We're on a mission to help women get healthy for good. Join me each week for a new episode that'll help you sustain healthy habits and nourish your body so you can Flourish in life.

When it comes to nutrition, does it feel like you know what to do, you're just not doing it? Or maybe you find yourself stuck in this annoying all or nothing cycle. If it sounds like I'm reading your diary, well, that was my diary for a while too. And it's also the story of the thousands of women I've personally coached.

That's why I created Flourish, the nutrition and body image support app made for women. If you recognize that diets don't work, but "just not dieting" isn't helping you feel your best either, download Flourish today. Your first live session with one of our credentialed nutrition and psychology experts is totally free, no credit card required.

From there, you'll continue your journey with personalized accountability and support so that once you graduate from Flourish, you'll never need another nutrition program again. So head to the show notes and download Flourish for iOS or Android today.

Coming soon!

We are in the process of adding transcripts to our entire back catalogue. New episode transcripts are typically available within 24 hours of the episode release.

 Hello and welcome back to the Flourish Podcast. We are nearing the end of the year. It is that time, and I don't know about y'all, but I, I feel like my brain is just fully in New year prep mode, so this weekend, I've got it all. I've got a note in my phone laid out with all the things that I want to to do.

I've got this like end of year checklist, so I'm gonna be cozying up with my journal, reflecting on the last year, creating my 2023 vision board, setting goals for the coming year, and then also doing all of the, I don't know all of the, the, the housework and administrative things that I've been putting off for, I don't know, probably like six months, like deep cleaning our couch and clearing out the garage and closing out old bank accounts and moving our emergency savings to a new high yield savings account.

This is not... when I was growing up, I was not aware that this is how adults spent their time. So all the, all the, uh, fun and also super not fun stuff. And I've got a pretty ambitious plan. So we'll see how much I get to, but I'm enjoying the headspace of, you know, kind of closing things out and getting ready to start anew.

And I have a feeling that if you listen to this podcast, you are probably in a similar headspace enjoying the, you know, slowness that the holiday season brings while also gearing up for a fresh start in the new year. With that in mind, I wanted to create some space on the pod to help get you into this New Year mindset early with this mini-series called New Year Starts Now.

And if this is your vibe, this episode, and the, and the ones to come, we do also have a small group program of the same name live in the Flourish app, which you can join even if you're not a current Flourish member. So inside this program, you're gonna get access to workshops and activities from me and my Flourish coaching team, and we're gonna guide you through a 2022 reflection exercise, our goal setting system, and of course we will also do some coaching on how to shift from an unsustainable or forgettable new year's resolution setting process to actually creating habits that will carry you through the years to come.

So if that sounds interesting to you, if you're looking for a little bit of a. , you know, motivation, inspiration, guidance, head to the link in the show notes and you can sign up and get started. The, the first, um, kind of like week of content will roll out on the 26th, but you can also, if you're hearing this after the 26th, you, you'll still be able to, to join and just listen into recordings and all, all the good things.

But anyway, let's get to the topic of today's podcast and that is: decisions to make. So chances are you've probably made some decisions about yourself that you are not even aware of. And part of the early work with our Flourish members is honestly at its root in some ways, really just about uncovering what those decisions are. Kind of repeating them back or, or as I always say, like holding the mirror up to those decisions and then watching, in the member as they become aware of the ways in which their, their self-talk or these identities or decisions they've made about themselves have actually just become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So some common phrases that I listen out for are things like, I'm an emotional eater. I never finish what I start. I'm all or nothing when it comes to healthy habits. If I have one cookie, I'll eat them all, or small changes don't matter. And so if these phrases feel familiar at all to you, you, your immediate response may be something like, well, I'm just being honest. It's, it's just how it is. It's just what happens.

I'm just being objective about my tendencies. Hey, that's totally fine. I am not here to argue with you about your past patterns of emotional eating or having an all or nothing approach to healthy habits or the fact that you probably have tended to discount the power of small changes. I'm sure that these are all very accurate descriptions of your past patterns of behavior, but that is all that they are, and it's also all that they have to be.

Descriptions of past patterns, not decisions you actively make about yourself in the here and now and into the future too. So I, um, recently heard two quotes. I, I've, I've struggled to find exactly who they should be attributed to. Um, but Tim Ferriss is basically as close as I can get. And regardless, these quotes feel really relevant to share here.

The first is, how am I complicit in creating the conditions? I say, I don't want. Whoa. I'm gonna say that one again and just let it, let it simmer for a second. How am I complicit in creating the conditions? I say, I don't want who, that question, when I heard it, I was like, oh yeah, that's the one

There'll, there'll be times that I call my mom and I'm, I don't know, complaining about some thing and she, bless her, will hold the mirror up to me and remind me and, and demonstrate to me the ways in which I am very complicit in creating most of the things that I complain about. Most of the conditions that I say I don't want.

Right . I remember, um, we used to do, uh, Sunday evening coaching calls every single Sunday for probably a good year or two. I was doing group coaching Sundays at 7:00 PM Central time, and I did not like it. It at all. You know, it was such an interrupter, um, of, of my, of my weekend, of my personal life, of what we all like to be doing, you know, typically on, on Sunday evenings, which is relaxing and preparing for the coming week.

And it just really put me in a mindset that was not aligned with how I wanted to be spending my Sunday evenings. And yet, That was a condition that I was completely complicit in creating, and that was such a light bulb moment for me recognizing I created this condition. So let me uncreate it just as an example.

So that's the first question. How am I complicit in creating the conditions I say I don't want? That is a game changing question.

The second here is, what are the stories I tell myself that interfere with self love? what are the stories I tell myself that interfere with self-love? For many of us, the answers to these questions lie in these sentences.

These decisions that we've made about ourselves are these identities that we've taken on based on past patterns. You'll often hear me describing this as using your past against you rather than using your past for you. As you head into the new year, and in fact this, this episode is coming out, I think on the 22nd or 23rd of December, so we can start this before the clock strikes midnight on January 1st, because why wait, why punt this until the next year? Why not start this now?

I want you to consider, now that you have this awareness, what are the decisions you want to make about yourself? Can you go from this decision of I'm an emotional eater to, I have my own back when challenging emotions arise. Or I'm learning to have my own back when challenging emotions arise.

It's really important when we are doing thought work, which is really all this is. When we're doing thought work that we're not just plugging in platitudes and toxic positivity and BS that you're,  that you don't believe that your, your brain knows is not real and true to you. So that's where inserting something like I'm learning to, I'm working on, I'm open to can be really helpful and more honest to yourself.

So again, going from I'm an emotional eater to, I'm learning to have my own back when challenging emotions arise. Not I'm an emotional eater to I don't eat my feelings  because for one thing that doesn't even get to the root of what emotional eating is really all about. Emotional eating is not an eating problem.

It is a emotional processing problem or a, um, unwillingness to process, challenging emotions or a not knowing how to process challenging emotions. All right. You can go from I'm all or nothing when it comes to healthy habits. I'm finding a sustainable approach that works for me. How about that as a decision for yourself?

How much more empowering and value aligned is that identity for you? You can go from thinking and believing and deciding that small changes don't matter to something like, I'm proud of the improvements I'm making no matter how small, I've been working on this with a lot of my members right now, especially during the holiday season, where it's truly for most of us, not the right time, I mean, frankly, I don't know that there's ever a right time for like a total life overhaul, January included. But the holidays, if there were ever a time, it's probably not the time.

So we're working on these small changes, for example, eating breakfast or including a source of protein at breakfast, it's like a really small change at its surface. And I don't think we also give ourselves enough credit for the level of, of work, kind of the deep internal work and also just the practical work that actually goes into making some of those small changes. You know?

So I think that's another piece of the puzzle here is recognizing that small changes aren't small. Small changes aren't easy. They're really challenging. Um, they can be really challenging. And so I encourage you to decide to be proud of the improvements that you're making no matter their size. Especially if, like I said, this decision of believing that small changes don't matter. If that's not serving you, which I'm guessing it's not, then let's decide something else.

You can go from this decision that if you have one cookie, you'll eat them all to something that sounds more like I trust myself around all food. Or if that doesn't feel believable right now, it's, I'm learning to trust myself around all food. I'm learning to trust my body to tell me what it wants. I'm learning to feel and respect my fullness cues.

I am, I'm working to create food neutrality. My goal with this podcast is not to change the way that you think overnight , or through the course of one episode. That is just not  reasonable. Um, it's just, it's, that's not how this works, right? Because think about it, these identities are decisions that you've made.

You've decided again and again, and again and again year after year, year after year after year, you have so much evidence to support it, and I'm asking you to make a decision that you probably don't have as much evidence to support. Maybe you have almost no evidence to. So again, my, my goal here is not in the course of 10 minutes to get you to instantly start thinking differently about yourself.

That is ultimately the goal. And I know that it can happen for you with time and intention, but if nothing else from this episode, what I hope that you get is an ear for the decisions you've currently made about yourself. , right? Because potentially before this episode you were rattling off those decisions, those beliefs, those identities:

I'm an emotional eater. I never finish what I start. You are rattling them off without even being aware of the fact that you said them, and also the more importantly, the impact that these statements make on your current and future behavior. So you are in a an unaware state potentially before this episode.

My goal is that by bringing some awareness to this pattern and inviting you to become open to an alternative, well now you're in an awareness state. Now you will... your ears will perk up when you hear yourself stating those decisions. And I will caution you by saying that sometimes the awareness state is really challenging because it's like you're digging up all this stuff, you're digging up and, and really looking for maybe the first time in this new light at these decisions, these identities, these beliefs you have about yourself that are not serving you.

And that can feel, like I said, really challenging, but we can't change what we're not aware of. So you go from lack of awareness to awareness. And the next change is awareness and an insertion of this new decision or new belief. That is just amazing progress. Get to get to the place where you have the old thought or you, you again, you make that old decision, you notice it, you pause and you insert a new decision instead.  Progress is not, oh, I no longer think of myself as an emotional eater ever. . That may be what we're, we're working to get you to, but it's okay that it doesn't happen overnight. It's okay that it doesn't happen in a 15 minute podcast.  Because guess what?

Small changes do matter, and you should be proud of the improvements that you're making no matter how small. And you should be proud of the improvements that you're making, not only in the the behavioral outcomes that you're engaged in, but also in the shifts in the way that you think and feel about yourself and the world around you.

So as homework for this episode, I want you to sit down and make a list of all the decisions you want to make about yourself. Set a timer for five minutes and write down all the decisions you want to make about yourself starting now, not starting in the new year, starting now. And if you want some more support, actually kind of bringing these decisions into your, your active thinking and active living, join the small group program. Join New Year starts. Now we're gonna have it linked in the show notes below. Um, one of the activities that we're doing that I'm super excited about is this identity audit and a habit download. And again, it's all about bringing this awareness and then actually turning that awareness into action.

So that's what we're gonna be doing for the rest of December into January, um, inside of Flourish. So, like I said, if that sounds up your alley, join us and, and if not, we're, we're here on the pod for the next few weeks, talking more about these mindset shifts that are going to be so much more supportive to you through the new year and beyond than setting some, you know, kind of arbitrary, unsustainable, or forgettable resolution.

All right, that's what I've got for you today. Thank you so much for being here, and I will talk to you next week. Bye y'all.



Claire Siegel:

Thank you so much for joining me for today's episode of the Flourish podcast. If you enjoyed it, please take a second to leave us a five-star review or better yet, share it with a friend. And if you're ready to start your own journey to get healthy for good with accountability from expert coaches and the support of an incredible community, head to the show notes to get started on your Flourish journey.

I'll see you in the next episode.

Featuring
Headshot of Claire Siegel
Claire Siegel
RDN, LD
Co-founder, CEO
Claire Siegel is the founder and CEO of Flourish. Claire has made it her life’s mission to help women create a sustainable approach to their physical and mental well-being.
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