You are listening to My Freedom Grove podcast with Gretchen Hernandez, episode 108.

Welcome to My Freedom Grove podcast. The all inclusive podcast that teaches mindset and business tools. We'll help you rise as your authentic self. Be unshakable with your emotional freedom and unstoppable in achieving any goal and living your purpose. I'm your host, Gretchen Hernandez. If you want to put your mental health first in life, relationships and business, you've come to the right place.

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Hi, my strong friends. Hey, do you ever find yourself using self-defeating sentences? Do you even recognize when you're doing it? Sometimes we really need someone to hold a mirror up in front of us so that we can see that we're doing it.

Your Words Create Your Reality

Why would you even wanna do that though? Why would you want someone to hold a mirror up in front of you say, ah, you're using self-defeating sentences? It's because when you're speaking those sentences, you are creating your reality for yourself.

All those things that you're thinking that you don't want to become the things that you actually get, even if you didn't want it. It's because you're speaking it into existence. If you're looking or around at your business or your life or your relationships right now, and you are realizing that it's not what you want it to be, it might be time for you to check the sentences that you keep saying to yourself.

Or the sentences that you're saying to other people are they self-defeating sentences? Are you speaking out into the universe the things that you actually don't want?

That's one of the things that I do with my clients using the clarity steps. We purposely are changing around the language. Instead of writing out sentences on the things that we don't want, we're writing out sentences on what we do want. Because when you're speaking what you actually want into the Universe, that's what you end up having come back to you.

From a mindset standpoint, it also aligns your thoughts with the great feelings that will actually drive the actions, the correct actions to get the results that you actually want. If you find yourself saying these self-defeating things of results that you don't want in your life, and you're focusing so much on that, those thoughts are gonna create a different set of feelings for you, maybe angry or stressed or overwhelmed or panic, and then your actions line up directly from those feelings. And it creates that result that you didn't want.

So stop it.

I only have to say that because I'm almost talking to myself here, too. See, I went for a drive last week. I have a gorgeous, gorgeous drive along highway one to get up to Fort Bragg, where I do all of my major shopping, where I get my hair done. So last week I had a hair appointment and I indulged in listening to an audiobook because I love listening to audiobooks and podcasts on my long, beautiful drive.

And I was listening to Jack Canfield. He has a book called The Success Principles. He acted as a mirror to me, I didn't even realize that I was so caught up in some self-defeating sentences that I was not getting the results that I wanted. Now, although I use the clarity steps on myself, I don't have a coach that is using my own tools on me.

So sometimes having someone catch me and go, whoa, girlfriend, see those words that you're saying right there. Nope. You're gonna go into your clarity steps and you're gonna write this in the way that you actually want it to be.

I was grateful that Jack Canfield was there for me. He doesn't even know I was listening to him. In fact, I think this book was probably written like 20 years ago, but he was doing it for me. And I was so grateful. He is also a huge proponent of the law of attraction. What you speak is what you get. So you have to be careful that you're not speaking about the things that you don't want.

What I did on that drive was to pick one thing that I was working on. I didn't think about my whole business, my whole life, my whole relationships, like the whole ball of wax. That's just too much all at one time. To make all of this work really well, you constrain it down to just one thing. And so I took the one thing and I started practicing, like, what are all of the things that I would actually want to believe?

What are things that I've never even considered believing in relation to this one thing?

And that was a really interesting question. What are the things that I've never considered believing about this one thing? Now I know that if I get really, really specific, even if I don't believe it right now, it's something that I can practice. It's something that I can start to look for evidence to see is this believable? Is this possible? How do I make this possible? And to catch myself from saying, oh no, that's not possible. As soon as I throw that in of, oh no, it's not possible. It won't be possible. The same is gonna happen with you, too.

Catch These Self-Defeating Sentences

Think about that one thing, what is it that you've never even considered might be possible for it? I'm gonna share just a couple examples of some self-defeating sentences that you might catch yourself saying.

"I don't know if I'll be good enough."

If you allow that sentence to run through your, your head, you're probably going to feel a little nervous, maybe a little fearful. That's gonna hold you back. The actions that come out of nervous and fearful. Are you doing something either partially or you're doing it, but you're shaking so bad. You can find some other ways of believing about whatever that task is or that activity.

Instead of, I don't know if I'll be good enough, what are some other things that you can think? What could be possible about this task? And you don't even have to use the words good enough if you don't want to, but you might. Maybe this task or activity is going to be more than good enough for 20% of the population.

I was recently talking with a client about a technique that she had learned. She's learned the highest quality technique, and now she's going to get out and she's going to create a product using this technique, but there's a little bit of the good enough worry there. If we go with that thought of this will be more than good enough for 20% of the population. How is that true?

And so one of the things that I brought up to her is you've gone through the training for how to make this high-quality thing. But as the rest of the world? Would they even know the difference between low quality and high quality?

Now, someone that has had the training, their ears are tuned for it, right? Their eyes can see the high quality, but the majority of the world has not gone through that kind of training. They wouldn't know what the highest quality was. They're just gonna see something they've never done it, so of course, it's gonna be better than anything they could have done. It's gonna be great quality in their eyes.

Could that thought that this is going to be more than good enough for at least 20% of the population be true? Probably.

What if your thought could even be that this is more than good enough for at least 80% of the population, that might also be true. What becomes possible when you switch out and have a thought like that?

For anyone that's thinking about getting a new job, there are always those fears of, oh, what if I'm not good at this job? But again, if you're having those kinds of thoughts, guess what you're gonna do. You're going to create feelings for yourself that generate actions where you're not good enough for that job. Again, showing up shaky, making a lot of mistakes that you wouldn't normally have made. And then you end up with a result of, yeah, you're not good at that job. You don't want that for yourself.

You can turn this around and get really creative in your thinking. Instead of a self-defeating thought, like, I don't know if I'll be good at this job. What if you thought I can be as good as a trainee? After all, anyone that comes into a new job is going through a trainee period, right?

Attending An Event That You Know Will Be Triggering

What if you are getting ready to go to an event that you know will be triggering. Or maybe there'll be something there that you don't want to consume could be a food or a beverage, or maybe there's a conversation that you don't want to have. You have all sorts of self-defeating sentences going into that event.

You're thinking, I don't know if I can handle this. Well, if you're having that sentence, I don't know if I can handle this guess what's gonna happen. You're not going to be able to handle it. You're going to create feelings for yourself of anxiousness, fear, anxiety, worry, all of those things. And then in your actions, you might have avoidance of going to the event at all. You might have avoidance of the conversation. 

You might get there and obsessively look at the thing that you're not supposed to have, or that you didn't wanna have. And you're gonna drive up your urge, or you're going to create a whole shame spiral for yourself that causes you so much depression that you want to go and consume something to try to calm yourself.

Your result is you're not gonna be able to handle it. Instead, we wanna turn those sentences around believing the things that you actually want to have happen.

If it's an event, what are all of the things that you can think of that you actually do want to have happen? What are things that you've never even considered possible for that event? Let's take the, the food idea. What if you believe that the event is going to be so much fun, that you won't even have time to eat. You'll be so busy doing all of the fun stuff, food is an inconvenience for you.

This was actually a really good thought that I've used several times and it's proven itself true so many times. Have you ever considered what type of activities you go out and do in the world where it is so much fun that you forget to eat? I know there's a lot of us in the world that think is it even possible to forget to eat?

But I've actually had events where it's like, no, it really is a nuisance for me to eat. I don't wanna take away from my fun and pause to go eat, I just wanna do the fun thing. And those conversations that we want to avoid, because we think, whoa, this is gonna be uncomfortable, what are other ways that we can think about those conversations, where it ends up giving us a really great feeling?

Maybe using a different sentence like I wanna go learn something about this person that I've never learned before. That could be totally different as opposed to, oh my gosh, this is gonna be a horrible conversation with this person. You don't wanna create having a horrible conversation. That's gonna ruin your event. You're not gonna have a good time with that person. But if you switch to something you do want, which is to learn something new and fascinating about that person, all of a sudden you're gonna learn something new and fascinating about that person. You're result is that you're actually gonna have a good time with them.

"I Don't Know If Anyone Will Pay That Price For This"

Let's talk business for a second. I work with a lot of entrepreneurs coming up with their business models, their products and services, their pricing plans, their profit projections, and their processes so that it makes it super easy to run. And we take care of their mental health, so that it's like a win-win across the board. One of the most common sentences that I hear is, "I don't know if anyone will pay that price for this."

When we have that thought then of course it causes a lot of uncertainty, a lot of fusion, a lot of concern. And our actions is we start to just kinda waffle back and forth on our prices. Maybe we negotiate down for different little one-offs here and there. Or we just don't even put the offer out there at all because we've got ourselves so worried that no one is going to pay for it, that we just don't even offer to anybody.

So our result is, of course, they don't pay for it. They don't even know it exists. Or they don't pay your original price because you never gave them that option. The cool thing is starting to have some very big success stories.

I'm hoping that I can bring a success story episode to you very soon. I wanna check in with them first before I share all of the details.

But I had one client this week who made $87,000 in one day because she believed in her product. That's pretty phenomenal. We've only been working together a little over two months now, but we had a lot of those thoughts that we had to switch around. And we also had to get very specific about the pricing and what goes into it. But the thought, the thought that had to get changed around was going from, "I don't know if anybody will pay for this" to "I want to find the clients that I actually wanna work with that will pay for this."

It's a subtle shift, but it, it was super effective. I mean, look at her results. And she's not the only one.

I have another client that I started working with last year that also had kind of those same thoughts of, well, when I get clients here, they don't wanna pay the price, right? It's like, she'll let them know during their meeting. Here's all the stuff that they wanted to do. This is how much the price would be. And then it's like sticker shock. And the people are like, oh, well we had to flush out some details in her process so that people already knew up front an idea of how much it was gonna cost. So if it really wasn't in their budget, that they wouldn't even start go going down the path of spending time with her. Because as business owners, we need to focus our time on the things that are going to generate us revenue.

If we're meeting with tons and tons of people that are not qualified for our pricing, then it's not gonna be a winning solution for anybody. It's not a good use of anybody's time. Everybody walks away feeling kind of sad and defeated.

When you switch your thoughts around to, I'm only going to bring in prequalified candidates into my process, things change. You have different feelings. The actions you take are different. The actions that we took were to, as I said, flush out some of the details in her process so that it really is bringing in people that are qualified.

Her end result is she's made over $50,000 in her first two months of 2022. It all starts with changing the way that we're thinking. We wanna take out the things that we are believing that are not gonna give us the results that we want and purposely pick thoughts that we do wanna believe.

You Can Create Your Own Reality

Even if we just have to get extra creative and start thinking of things that we've never even considered before. Some of these thoughts might be totally out of left field. You can create your own reality. Think about the results that you actually do want. Write it out in detail. Think about once you're already there, what will you have believed about yourself? What will you have believed about your processes, your products, the way that you interact with other people? If it's even in your life, what would you have to believe about your life so that you can actually create that reality?

Start catching yourself. When are you speaking in self-defeating sentences? Catch yourself because we need that mirror in front of us. And we don't always have our coach with us. For some of you, you haven't even considered having a coach yet, which strongly I advise that you get a coach and you know, I'm here for you.

But even if you don't have a coach, maybe you go and you listen to this Jack Canfield book and it catches you. It has that mirror. Maybe you ask someone in your life to be that mirror for you to just say, Hey, if you ever hear me saying these self-defeating type of sentences, can you tell me? Can you hold that mirror up and just say, oh, you're saying it again. And it doesn't have to be in a blaming kind of way. It could even just be with laughter. It's just like, woo. There. You said it again. There it was, you know, it's like, it could be as innocent as saying the color yellow. You're just asking someone, Hey, anytime you hear me say the word yellow, can you just let me know? That way it's that mirror? And it catches, you stops you in your tracks.

And you're like, oh, that's right. Gretchen said that if I have thoughts like this, that's the exact reality I'm going to create for my self. And I don't want that. You might even want to use a journal and write it down. What were those sentences that you caught yourself saying throughout the day or that somebody else helped point out for you? Write it down! How many times are you saying these things? Even just observing yourself is a pretty powerful technique because then you'll start to see it.

But oh my gosh, I've been the one saying all of these things and yeah, that's what my reality is right now. I don't want that reality. I want something different.

So what would be your technique for when you do catch yourself for finding a different thought? Something that you actually can believe in? Right? Because we wanna sometimes do those thought bridges too.

Of course, we wanna believe the great, wonderful thing, but maybe it's hard to get to. So maybe you have to start off with baby step thoughts of new little things that you can believe about yourself or something that's possible, just so you can get away from this other one. Go to something that's more neutral and believable, and then you can start to work your way up towards a thing that is really, really great.

"I Can't Handle This, I'm Gonna Overwhelm Myself!"

My final example that I wanna share with you, have you ever found yourself thinking, oh my gosh, all of this is just too overwhelming. I can't handle it. I'm gonna burn myself out or I'm gonna cause myself a mental health crisis? I'm there too. I just wanna tell you, I created an IBS attack for myself the other day. It's awful. When we start having those thoughts of, oh my gosh, I have so much, I'm gonna overwhelm myself. I'm so scared.

For me, I was saying I'm so scared. I'm gonna have an IBS attack. I said that like three or four times that day. In fact, I even wrote it out in a Facebook group with some other coaches that I was talking with and you know what happened? I created an IBS attack for myself. Totally unnecessary, but it was because I kept focusing on thought that something was too overwhelming and I was worried I was gonna have an IBS attack.

So I created it. I was successful at it! That's not what I wanted.

It was a good reminder for me to be aware and catch myself anytime that I'm saying sentences like that to stop right then and there. And write down what I actually do want. I want calm and peaceful amount of activities so that I have a calm lifestyle.

It's really important to me. I don't like having IBS attacks. I don't like having stress and anxiety. I'm going to be very intentional about how I'm thinking about things so that I don't create the thing I don't want.

My friend, if you would like some extra help in someone to hold up a mirror for you to help catch you when you're having those self-defeating thoughts that are gonna give you results. You don't want know that I'm here for you. I have a couple of one-on-one spots that are going to be opening up pretty soon. If that something that you would like this extra help on, then I encourage you to reach out. My spots fill up pretty quick, so if you're interested then head on over to the contact me tab on my website. There's a calendar there where you can schedule a date and time for us to have a free consultation.

You can tell me what's going on in your life or what's on in your business. And we can figure out what is the right approach for you. And we can help get you the results that you actually want. All right, my friends have a wonderful week and I will talk with you soon. Bye-bye.

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Thank you for listening to My Freedom Grove podcast.  I can't wait to work with you directly. I'll help you to be your authentic self, to have amazing relationships and to live your purpose. I invite you to check out Unshakable Men and Unshakable Women. The Unshakable programs will give you all of the tools, the coaching and the community to help you rise in life, relationships, and business. To learn more, go to my freedom grove.com/workwithme. I can't wait to see you there.