Episode 100: Awesome, Life-Changing Thoughts

Episode Summary

There is so much power in the compounding effect of taking small one action in our life and then repeating it over and over. This idea is especially powerful when it comes to our thoughts because changing our thoughts is just like changing anything else in our life. We do it by thinking one thought and then choosing to think it again and again—until it is the only thing our brain knows how to think.

Over the last five years, I have been able to change my life significantly, and to do that the ONLY thing I changed was my brain. In this episode of the podcast, I’m sharing some of the most awesome, life-changing thoughts I’ve chosen to believe, and I’ve invited my clients to share the thoughts that have changed their lives as well.

Whatever result you want to create in your life, you just need to think the thought that will create it. That is how you create an amazing life—choosing one awesome thought at the time.

Episode Tools and Questions

There is so much power in repeatedly thinking a thought. Thoughts that we think over and over become the beliefs that create real change in our lives.

If the thoughts we think aren’t creating the results we want, we can choose a different thought anytime. It can seem impossible to learn to think a new thought, but that’s only because we don’t understand that the hardest part is thinking it for the first time. After that, it’s easy to think the thought again and again. Soon, it’s the only thing your brain knows how to think.

In this episode, I’ll share the most awesome, life-changing thoughts from my coaching clients as well as my own favorite thoughts. Change comes from thinking one thought at a time, and all that stands between you and the life you want is a thought.

1. You are not your brain.

2. There is no better version of you.

3. You're doing it right, even when you do it wrong. (And so are they!)

4. I'm okay with being 100% awesome.

5. Discomfort is the only thing between me and the life I want.

6. The best investments I make are in my own head.

7. I create all my results.

Episode Notes

My group coaching program: Made for More

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James Clear, Atomic Habits: "Repetition unlocks value. The value of your first workout increases the more you exercise. The value of your first article increases the more you write. The value of your first conversation increases the longer you stay in the relationship. Day one continues to compound. 

Brooke Castillo, The Life Coach School Podcast

Episode Transcript

Welcome to the 100% Awesome Podcast with April Price, you might not know it, but every result in your life is 100% because of the thought you think. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome!

Hello, podcast universe! Welcome to Episode 100 of the 100% Awesome Podcast, I'm April Price. And I have to say, when I wrote episode 100 at the top of my page today, I felt a little bit amazed, and a little bit honored, and a little bit proud of getting to this milestone. And I am sincerely grateful to every single one of you who has listened to one, or all of the podcast episodes over the last couple of years. In that time, the podcast has had almost 100 thousand downloads. And while I am so proud of that number and quite frankly, a little bit amazed by it, I am also just seriously so glad, and humbled if even one of those downloads helped someone, and made one person's Earth-life experience a little bit better. And I feel really privileged to be in your podcast list, in your ears today, and hope you know how much I love you, and appreciate you.

So, like I mentioned last week, I just want to reiterate how amazing one small action in your life can be if you choose to repeat it. So many of us think that our goal, or our dream life, like our perfect physique, our talents, our projects, whatever it is that we want to create in our life, that thing sometimes feels so far away. Like when you're at zero episodes, 100 seems very hard, and very far away. But you aren't going from 0 to 100, you are going from one to one to one to one. It all just happens one step at a time, and no, you can't get to 100 from 0, but you can get there from one, and then one more, and then one more, and then one more.

And I also just want to remind you that the biggest jump isn't from 1 to 100. The biggest jump is from zero to one. When we move from not doing, to doing even one thing, that is the biggest leap we can make. That is the biggest change you can ask from yourself. And if you take that one step, then you just have to repeat that step 100 times, or a thousand times, or however many times it takes, right? It's like the guy who set the world record for running 30 marathons in 30 days, right? Remember what he said, he said, "I wasn't running 30 marathons. I was running one marathon 30 times." And if we can really understand that there is so much more that we can create in our lives, we just have to do one thing repeatedly over, and over again, one thing at a time until we reach our goal.

3:15
So, I think this is especially powerful when it comes to our thoughts. So many times people will tell me, well, I can't think something new, I can't change my thoughts, I've thought about myself in one way my whole life, and I just can't change that. But changing our thoughts is just like changing anything else in our life. We think it one time, and then we think it again, and again, and again. We think a thought one time and then we repeat it. And admittedly, the biggest jump is from not thinking it to thinking it for the first time, right? That jump from zero to one, when it feels utterly impossible to believe. But after that, it's easy. It's just a matter of thinking it again, and again, until it is the only thing our brain knows how to think. And there is so much power in the compounding effect of repeatedly thinking a thought. And today, since it is the 100th episode of the podcast, I thought I would share my favorite thoughts. The thoughts that I think significantly changed my life, because I decided to think them one time, and then kept thinking them until I believed them.

So, these are some of my most awesome thoughts, and I am so excited to share them with you. I hope that you will pick one or two of them to start thinking, and then repeat thinking so that they can change your life too. And I thought that since over the last 100 episodes, you have probably already heard my favorite thoughts many times, that it might also be nice to hear from some of my amazing clients, and hear their thoughts. The thoughts that have made the biggest impact on them, and change their life because they decided to think the thought once, and then repeated that, and kept thinking it. So, I asked my clients if they wanted to share a thought with you that has made a life changing impact on them. And so, you are going to be able to hear some of those thoughts today. So, without further ado, here are some of the most awesome thoughts ever, according to me, and some of my amazing clients.

So, I want to start at the beginning, the very first thought that I think can change things for you, okay? And that is, of course, recognizing that there is you, and then there is your brain, and they aren't the same thing. Here is the way my client Merri describes it. "I love you, April. Exclamation point. Exclamation point. I just wanted to say I'm so grateful for the coaching program because it has helped me realize that my brain is just an organ like any other organ in my body. And that it is a filter between my spirit, and my physical body. And has been so incredibly helpful to create the life that I always wanted. I love you, April. Thank you so much for being brave enough to become a coach, and being brave enough to take every step that you have needed to take in order to bless my life."

Can I just say, before we go any further, what a privilege it is to be a coach? I love my job, I love my clients, I am so proud of what they are creating in their life by changing their thoughts. And they are going to share a lot of nice thoughts about me here in this podcast. But don't be fooled, I am just the coach. They are the ones doing the work, they are the ones changing their lives, and I am so grateful for them sharing their life changing thoughts to help you today.

6:57
So, to piggyback on what Merri just said, I want to share the thoughts from my client, Kelly, who had a similar life changing experience with this same thought. So she wrote, "Last week, when April's podcast came on, without realizing I was doing it, I found myself dancing in my bathroom to the intro music. That theme song is catchy." Let's just pause for a minute, and give a shout out to the theme song, right? I seriously, you guys, I love it so much. So, I'm glad some of you love it too, And then she said, "I think when I hear that song, my brain just knows that it's in for some goodness. One of my biggest aha moments came listening to April's podcast. I realized that I am not my brain. I know that sounds so basic, but the realization that my brain is an organ in my body, and not who I am, just kicked off a little internal revolution in how I think about myself. I even told April my brain is an identity thief. It's been trying to make me think that its transactions are mine. It's been an empowering shift in my mindset, and I'm so thankful."

Okay, so I love that both Merri and Kelly have gotten so much out of this thought. And I don't know myself why this is such a profound realization, but it was for me as well, because here's the thing. When we think we are our brain, then we think that we are the problem. But when we understand that our brain is separate from us, an organ with a very specific biologic function, then we can stop making what our brain says mean things about us. We can stop taking our brains word for things for one, and we can stop thinking that we're doing it wrong and that we're a mess. And then, we can just start to watch our brain, and stop judging ourselves for the things that our brain thinks, and then take charge, and manage that brain. It is seriously one of the very most powerful realizations you can have. You are not your brain.

For me, I can still remember when I was listening to the Life Coach School Podcast for the first time and I heard Brooke Castillos say that, "There was a good reason I wasn't doing the things I wanted to do in my life. And it wasn't because I was bad, or broken, or undisciplined. It was because my brain didn't want me to do any of those things." And I was like, wait, what? I am not my brain, and my brain doesn't want to do what I want to do. And it was just like this profound moment for me. I like stopped vacuuming and I sat down on the couch like, totally stunned. And then, everything in my life started to change with that one thought that I am not my brain, and my brain doesn't want the same things that I want. That is a life changing thought.

The next thought I want to share with was submitted by my client, Kate Schiro. "April has taught me, and helped me so much. But I do remember one of the very first times she coached me. She taught me that the best version of me that I was wanting to become, was no better, or no more valuable than I was at that very moment. And that blew my mind. You always hear people talking about becoming your best-self, and being the best version of you, even in coaching certification. But it can actually be a really sneaky way to say that you're not good enough that you need to change. April showed me that. Of course, we want to change, and grow, but the motivation for that can be that we want to have certain experiences in our life. We want to feel certain feelings, and we want certain results, but not because we think we need to change in order to become enough."

10:35
Okay so, this thought that Kate is sharing is so powerful, and I want to talk about this thought next, because as soon as we figure out that we are not our brain, we start to realize, like, holy cow, if I can manage my brain that I can do anything I want. And suddenly all those things that we've always disliked about ourselves and wanted to change about ourselves, we look at those and we start realizing, hey, I might actually be able to change these things. I'm just doing them because of my brain and I could fix that. And this is what happened to me.

So, I want you to picture this, I had tried for years and years to change. I had tried to be the version of April that I wanted to be for years, and I had failed. I had failed in a million ways. I did all the diets, I made all the resolutions, and I hated myself in all the ways I can think of, right? And I failed and I had kind of given up. By the time I heard Brooke's podcast, I kind of just like thrown in the towel, and just accepted, like, this is it, I suck, and that's it, right? And then I hear her say, like, "You are not your brain, and your brain doesn't want what you want." And suddenly I was like, wait, I can fix all this, if I can just manage my brain enough, I can clean up my life, and finally be good enough, and finally be acceptable, and finally be okay with myself. And I hired a coach and I got busy cleaning up my mess. And then, one day my coach was talking about how no person was better than another, that no person that had ever lived was better than another person that had ever lived. And this rang true to me, because I believe that we are all God's children, that we all have infinite worth in his eyes. But then she said something that sort of blew my mind. She said, "And just like you can't be better than another person, you can't be better than you." And I was like, wait, what? And she said, "There is no version of you that is better than another version of you."

The version of you that does it all right, and the version of you that does it all wrong, are equally valuable. You can't be better than another person, and you can't be better than you. There isn't a better version of you anywhere. No matter what you do, no matter what you accomplish, no matter how you act, there isn't a better version of you. And like Kate, that thought changed everything for me. I was no longer in a race to clean up the mess that I was, and be an acceptable version of me. Yes, like Kate said, I could have any life experience I wanted, but that would not make me better, I was already there.

So, speaking of messes and loving all the versions of me, that brings me to my client, Kirsten's thought. This is what she wrote, "Working with April has been life-altering. She has helped me shift my thoughts in so many ways. One group of thought she suggested that has been a game changer for me is, I'm supposed to do it wrong, by doing it wrong, I learn how to do it right. It's not a problem for God that I did it wrong. He knew I would. And he also knows it is how I will learn to do it right. She writes, I no longer beat myself up for being imperfect. I am able to enjoy my life's journey more, and enjoy the journeys of those around me as I think those thoughts about others, specifically my children. It's not a problem that they did it wrong. That's part of how they will learn to do it right. My job is to teach, and love, and provide consequences when needed. Thinking these thoughts on purpose has helped me to show up in my life in the way I have wanted. I have gained immense confidence from choosing my actions instead of reacting as a result of the shameful, fearful, and overwhelmed thoughts my brain used to think on default. I love the life I'm creating as I learn about myself with April."

I love what she says there, that she has confidence in choosing her actions instead of just reacting to the shame, and fear, and overwhelmed that she was feeling before. And isn't it amazing how I thought like I'm supposed to do it wrong, that kind of sounds sort of negative can give us such incredible results. Like all the anxiety, and pressure, and shame just disappear when you understand that. Of course, you do it wrong, and that is not a problem. All our actions are just flowing downstream of our thoughts. And when we understand that this is totally okay that we did it wrong, without shame, or judgment, or self loathing, then we can look at the thoughts creating those actions, and change them if we want to. And that is so powerful.

15:14
So, again, for me, I had a very similar experience to Kirsten when it came to coaching. I had all these stories about how I had ruined my life, and my kids lives, and I was a hopeless mess. And the thought that changed all of this for me was, I'm okay with being 100% awesome. Now, you know, that is probably my favorite of all time, because it helped me see that I am a 50/50 human half of the time, I'm doing amazing, and half of the time I'm making a mess of it. And that is exactly how it should be. That is 100% awesome, and I'm okay with it. Instead of needing to be perfect, as Kirsten said, or meet all these conditions I had for myself, or wait until I was no longer a mess 50% of the time, I just got to acknowledge that all of me was 100% awesome, as I was. And I could just be okay with that. I could stop needing to wait to be good enough, or wait to qualify to be an awesome person. I could just be okay with being 100% awesome right now as I was. Just like Kate, and Kirsten have pointed out, ofcourse we are doing it wrong, but doing it wrong, isn't wrong. Doing it wrong is the way. And you don't have to wait to approve of yourself, or to reach a different version of you to know that you are 100% awesome right now.

You don't have to wait until you do it right to think that I am supposed to do it wrong, and I'm okay with thinking I'm 100% awesome even when I do. That is life-changing, because it gets you out from under all your shame, and self-loathing, and allows you to actually change the things you want to change, and love yourself as you do it. One of my other clients, Heather, loves this thought as well. And she wrote me, "You really are 100% awesome, and thank you for teaching me that I am, too. I want all of you to know that this is a thought I think all of you should have for sure."

The next thought I want to share comes from my client, Lindsay. She wrote "A thought that has changed several of my relationships in my life is they are doing it exactly right. Instead of thinking the other person should be doing it differently. I think this thought, and it allows a whole lot of peace, and room for both of us to continue to be ourselves. I feel love instead of frustration."

Lindsay is exactly right. They are doing it exactly right. And this same thought changed my relationships as well. So my version, of course, you've probably heard 100 times by now. Have I mentioned it in every podcast maybe, right? But the thought that changed my relationships, was, she supposed to be angry. And again, this doesn't sound like a super positive thought, but it was for me because it allowed me, to allow my daughter to be who she wanted to be. Isn't that gracious of me. It allowed me to allow her to choose, which she gets to do, of course, anyway. But suddenly, I dropped my resistance, and anger to her anger. She got to choose anger, but I didn't have to. And just like Lindsay said, she is supposed to be angry, she is doing it exactly right. If I thought what she thought, I would feel what she feels, and then I would act like she acts, and she gets to choose that. Now, what do I want to choose?

And I know you think that you know how the people in your life should behave. Then we even think that we know how the people in the world should behave. But we don't get to choose any of that. We don't get to decide, only they do. And when we truly understand that they get to choose, and that whatever experience they choose is exactly right, the exact choice they need to make in order to learn to choose. And the more we can understand that they are doing it right, then we can ask ourselves, okay now what? Now who do I want to be? And it frees us up like to stop needing them to be different in order to feel okay. We are always in charge of our own emotional experience no matter what. And she's supposed to be angry, helped me to see that finally. And she's supposed to be angry, helped me to see that.

19:47
Okay, the next thought that I want to share was submitted by my client, Denita. I'm Denita Brehmer, and I used to have a story that I didn't have enough time. I had a to-do list a mile long, things that I wanted to accomplish in the world, and I could never figure out how to accomplish them. The thought that changed my life is time is never the real problem. I now recognize that I spent all my time figuring out how to get more time, instead of figuring out how to create the things I wanted to create. Now, when I hear myself thinking there's not enough time, I stop and think time is never the real problem. And that helps me see what emotion, or action I'm avoiding. This gets me into taking real action, and creating everything I want in my life so much faster."

Okay so, I just want to build on that thought that is shared because one of the thoughts that really changed my life was the thought that, discomfort is the only thing between me and the life I want. Like all the things I really wanted were just on the other side of all the discomfort my brain was creating for me. So, for Denita, her brain was using time to avoid all the discomfort of building your business, or starting her podcast, or doing the things she wanted to do in her home. Her brain was trying to avoid all the energy, and vulnerability, and uncertainty that was involved in that. And so, her brain used this thought that she didn't have enough time to avoid all that. And one of the most powerful things for me was understanding that my brain was creating enormous amounts of negative emotion. Emotions like dread, and inadequacy, and fear, and shame, and incompetence to make me stop whatever goal I was pursuing. And if I was willing to feel bad, there was nothing that I couldn't accomplish. If I wanted to build a coaching practice, I just had to be willing to feel inadequate. If I wanted to change my diet, and increase my strength, I just had to be willing to feel uncomfortable. If I wanted to publish one more podcast on my way from 1 to 100, I just had to be willing to feel confused, or ashamed, or scared about what people would think. Everything I want, the life I want to live is always on the other side of discomfort created by my own brain, of course. But if I am willing to feel bad, there is nothing that I can't have.

Okay finally, I want to end with a couple of thoughts from two more of my clients, Thessaly and Jennifer. So, the first one comes from Thessaly, this is what she wrote. "In response to this request, I want to say that my life has changed because of Apple's coaching. She taught me how to think differently, which naturally changed how I view my world, and everyone in it. I was in a dark place before I started her coaching. Then on a whim, I signed up for a free coaching session. Even in that 30-minute meeting, I could see that her coaching was exactly what I needed to get me out of my rut. She has taught me how to see things differently, things that I have believed about myself and about others for years and years. She's patient, and professional, and very relatable. I told my husband that April's group coaching was the best investment we'll make all year."

I love this thought, and I actually have the same one, and that is that I believe that coaching is the best investment I make. I spend my money on a lot of things, and I believe that the very best thing I ever spend my money on is my mental, and emotional help. And when I look at my life, and how different it is today, how much more love, and peace, and joy I feel, I believe it was the very best thing I ever spent any money on, period. I would trade every material possession I have for the things I have learned through coaching, for the thoughts that I've been able to adopt. Like in a heartbeat, I would make that trade because I can create everything I have over again 100 times over. But what I have learned through coaching is the most important thing in my life. It has given me a life I love, and I will always be grateful for it. And every time I invest in coaching, I think this thought that this is the best investment I can make. And so, it keeps changing my life over and over and over again.

24:07
Okay last but not least, Jennifer wrote this. She said, "Since beginning my journey of coaching with April, a thought that has changed my life, is that I have the power to make my life what I want it to be. Just like Glinda the good witch in The Wizard of Oz, helped Dorothy see that she always had the power to transform her life. April has similarly helped me realize, and tap into my own power. For most of my life, I lived as a prisoner to my thoughts. I am patiently waited for people to change, for circumstances to change, and for myself to change before I could truly be happy and fulfilled. I was never fully happy because I gave my power away, and had no idea it was inside me all along. April helped me become aware of my thoughts, get curious about my thoughts, and then proactively change my thoughts to ultimately change my feelings, my actions and my life outcomes. I am a work in progress, and I am incredibly blessed and grateful to have April coaching me through it all. But this one thought, I have the power to make my life what I wanted to be, has set me free. I am no longer a prisoner to people circumstances, or my own perceived limitations, I am free.

I have to say that kind of makes me want to cry, because that is why I became a coach, because I felt the same kind of freedom when I found coaching. And I wanted to make sure that as many people as possible knew that this was available to them as well. I felt exactly like Jen did, trapped and waiting for everyone, and everything else in my life to change. And at the same time hating myself for not loving my life like I should. And when I learned that my thoughts were the source, and the solution to my problem, everything changed for me. Like for me, there was no more life changing thought than this one, that I have the power and agency to choose my life experience. And I do that through my thoughts. Every result in your life is 100% because of the thoughts you think.

You think the problem is outside of you and it isn't. You think the solution is outside of you and it isn't. The way our brain filters, and interprets the world is creating the problems, and the solution is to see yourself separate from that interpretation. To go back to Kelly and Merri's thoughts at the beginning, and then to understand that you have the God given ability to choose something different any time you want. There is no better news than that.

So, I want to close today by reading you part of an email that I sent to my clients the other day kind of sums this up for me. And if you aren't on my email list, what are you even doing with your life, as my daughter would say. You could have thoughts like this in your inbox all the time, so you should sign up, and you can get on that list by going to my website. Okay so here is what I wrote.

Five years ago. I was thirty-five pounds overweight, heavily in debt, living in a rented house, and was so worried, and miserable, and defeated that the only way I could sleep at night was by watching hours and hours of QVC. I thought I had ruined my most important relationships, permanently damaged my children, and made too many mistakes to ever be happy. Today my life is different in every way. I know that sometimes you hear me say you can get anything you want out of your life experience and it feels impossible. It sort of feels like that might be true for other people, but it's probably not true for you. That's what I used to think too. But none of the things that were true for me five years ago are true today. Every aspect of my life is different and the only thing I changed was my brain.

I found coaching and then one thought at a time I changed my brain. You don't need knowledge, or skill, or financial prowess. You don't need discipline, or willpower, or good genetics. All you need to change everything is to recognize your power, to choose your thoughts. And when you start making different choices in your mind, everything else changes. I am not special, I am not smarter than you, or more talented than you are. More naturally positive than you, I am not more gifted, or more educated, or more capable than you. I am just a woman who has figured out my God-given, unalterable ability to create the life I want through the choices I make with my thoughts.

28:48
It is as simple as that. Things can be completely different by changing this one small thing. That is what I mean, and what Jen means about understanding your power to create the life you want is inside each one of you. Okay, so you've heard some amazing thoughts today, and here at the end, I want to offer you one more suggestion in regards to your thoughts. As you've heard these thoughts, some of them might have resonated with you, others maybe not. So, how do you know what thoughts to adopt, and think, and what ones to let go of? And I want to offer you to see how the thought feels when you think it, and then look at what result that thought will create in your life.

So, sometimes we tend to talk, or think about thoughts as like bad or good, like this is a good thought, that's a bad thought. Like even the title of this episode, "The Most Awesome Thoughts Ever." Like, sort of implies that some thoughts are awesome, and some are not, right? And they want to be sure to tell you that thoughts are not good, or bad. Technically, they are not awesome or un-awesome, okay? Thoughts are actually just choices, and those choices have results. And we can decide if we want to keep a thought, or think a thought by looking at the result it is giving us. So, I just saw this post on Instagram that reminded me of this and the post was about food, but I think it applies just as well to our thoughts. And so I'm going to hijack it here, and apply it to our thoughts. And it said, just as a painter does not say a certain color is good or bad, they all have their purposes, and place on the canvas at different times. So, our thoughts do not have good or bad value. They just have different purposes for different times.

So, whatever result you want to create in your life, you just need a thought that will create that. Every result matches a thought, and so you can evaluate whether or not you want to think a thought, and repeat thinking a thought, based on the results it creates for you. That is how you create an amazing life, one thought at a time. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome! I love you for listening to 100 episodes, and I'll see you next week!

Thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today. If you want to take the things I've talked about and apply them in your life so that you can love your Earth-life experience, sign up for a free coaching session at aprilpricecoaching.com. This is where the real magic happens and your life starts to change forever as your coach. I'll show you the believing your life is 100% awesome is totally available to every one of us. The way things are is not the way things have to stay. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome!