What's In and What's Out

It’s been a tough week for coaches in the NFL. The playoffs are in full swing and right now there are a lot of coaching changes happening across the league and lots of talk about who’s in and who’s out.

Just like in fashion or in NFL coaching, our thoughts go in and out of usefulness. There are times when we decide that thinking one way has got to go and it’s time to make room for something new.

In today’s episode of the podcast, I’m sharing what’s in and out for me this year, especially in terms of what I really want to believe right now, what I want more of in my life, and what I’m ready to part ways with. This week I’m talking all about the tradeoffs I’m making in my life in the hopes that it will inspire you to think about the ones you want to make.

You can’t get everything. But you can make trades for the results you really want so you can have your own version of a well-lived life.

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 thoughts you think. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome.

Hello podcast universe! Welcome to episode 247 of the 100% Awesome Podcast. I'm April Price and I am your host and your coach today, though maybe not for long, right? It's been a tough week for coaches, at least at least in the NFL, right? You might not know this about me, but I really like football season and I really like sports radio during football season. And I like listening to sports broadcasters and and all of that and all the analysis and the drama and the stories. I really I don't know, there's just something about it that, that I really, really enjoy. And the football season, if you don't know, is coming to an end. The playoffs are in full swing and there are a lot of coaches looking for new jobs right now. There are a lot of empty head coaching spots and a lot of movement and a lot of changes, and I was joking with my husband that this is a bad week to be a coach, right? And so, there's a lot of people out and there's a lot of people in and all kinds of changes I had, and that kind of inspired the podcast.

Today I want to talk about ins and outs. I want to talk about what's in and what's out for me, what's working for me right now and what's not, what I want more of, and what I'm ready to let go of and get rid of, right? Like, what new things am I bringing into the organization and what am I parting ways with? Just like a lot of NFL teams right now. And so, you know, just in general, I think for all of us, actually, it feels like the season for it in January, generally, we start to feel sort of at least I do that it to like go through everything and get rid of stuff and go through the closets and be like, you know, I haven't worn this for a year, right? I don't really need this.

And sometimes we do that with our habits as well. And we kind of look at like, what's in for me right now? What do I want to let go of? And and so, I thought it might be fun to kind of talk about what's in and out for me right now. And I hope that it will inspire you to think about what's in and what's out for you right now. What do you want to hire and what do you really want to let go of and and part ways with? But before we get to that, you know, what I think is always in is taking care of your mental and emotional wellness and having a coach to help you do that. I really feel like a coach helps you have your most well lived, most well loved life. And so I just as usual, want to invite you into coaching. And I say as usual because I usually talk about it on every podcast, but I want you to just really hear me and not just think about it as like, oh yeah, yeah, that's what she always says. But I really want you to think about the difference that it can make in your life. When you think about what you want to add and what you want to get rid of, I really want to encourage you to think about adding coaching.

And I have a couple of spots right now. The way that I run my coaching program is that you can join for as long as you need it, and it really is customized to what you need. So when you join, you can decide to either work with me every other week and we can visit and have a coaching session every other week, or you can decide, no, I really want to work hard on some things and have that accountability. And I want to meet with April every week. And so you can make that decision, and then you can work with me for as long as you need to. I had a couple who wanted to really change the way that they were communicating and resolving conflict in their marriage, and they came and worked with me for just a couple of months and found such big changes and were able to change the dynamic in their relationship, and they were ready to just move on within a couple of months.

And so I just want you to know that you are invited, and if making changes is really in for you this year and to feel better about yourself and your life is in for you, coaching can be one of the most powerful things you can add into your life. And like I said, we'll customize it to help it work in the best way for you. So I work one on one with my clients and I would love to work one on one with you. And if you're interested, you can email me at April at April Price coaching.com. Or you can get more information, as always at my website April Price coaching.com.

And you can sign up for a free coaching session there and just talk about where you are and what it would be like to coach with me and just see the difference that it can make. So that is available to you there. Okay, on to the episode. What is in and out for me this year. And let me just say before we get started, just know that if my ins and outs don't match your ins and outs, they don't line up or even if they're exact opposites. Right now that is 100% okay. Like so many times when it comes to what's in and what's out.

We're looking outside of us to know what's in style, right? What's in, what's out, what's cool, what's not, what's right right now according to someone else. And I really want to invite you to not look outside of yourself for these answers. No one could know what's appropriate and right to be in or out for you right now in your life, like what's in and what's out or just thoughts. They're just someone else's thoughts, right? Like I heard that this year in in fashion, ballet flats and metallic pants are in.

And I was like, yeah, no, neither of those things are in for me. Right. Those are just in because someone else thought they were. But you don't have to agree, and we can really be tempted to think that someone else knows better than us what we should be doing. You know, like right now in the NFL, with all of these changes in coaching, like every single commentator has a different idea about what is right for any particular team. Right. But like, they don't actually know these are just their thoughts. And when it comes to your life, no one knows better than you what should be in or out of your life, including me.

Like what's in and out for me may not be what's in and out for you. And that's okay. These are just my thoughts about what I need and what I'm ready to get rid of here in 2024, and I'm just sharing them in the hopes that they will inspire you to do your own evaluation and make your own list and decide for yourself what is taking up space and time and effort in your life that you're ready to let go of and what you want to make room for.

Okay all right, so number one, what's in for me is quiet and in particular, really quieting the outside world and outside opinions so that I can amplify my own internal eternal voice. And as I said last week, I've really I've been doing what I'm calling Dry January, where I have removed all the social media from my phone, and I really limited the apps that I use and the amount of time that I'm on there, like I'm really limiting my activities. There's no googling on my phone. I'm allowing myself to listen to two other podcasts every week. No social media. I'm only checking my email at very specific times during the day. And I have to say like, it's only been a few weeks, but I don't know if I ever want to go back, right? Like the effect has already been so positive.

The quiet has been so nice. And so yeah, what's in for me is quiet. Quiet when I'm putting my makeup on, quiet when I'm cooking lunch, quiet when I'm sitting at my desk. Right, like maybe that doesn't sound too appealing, but it's what I've decided that I need more of in my life. And I'm just learning to be patient and allow that quiet in my life and and letting go of the need to be constantly entertained, you know? So, sometimes that means that what's also in our feelings of boredom or confusion or or discomfort with that quiet, and I'm just making room and space for that. And of course, that means that what's out are other people's voices and opinions, and also the surprising amount of anxiety that comes with all of that, like increasing the quiet, has really allowed me to get rid of a lot of the anxiety that I was feeling day to day. I had no idea that that I was kind of having this low level feeling of anxiety all the time, and that that has gone away. That is out for me right now. And, you know, I'm doing all of this to be able to tune into my own voice and my own wisdom and my own creativity and my own ideas.

And to be honest, there hasn't been a lot of that yet. Like, you know, it just it's kind of just quiet. So I'm just thinking that, like removing the voices of stage one. And for too long I was prioritizing other voices above my own. And that meant that inadvertently, I was dismissing my own ideas and creativity. And, you know, my brain is just not used to like, off bring it, right? And so, I'm just needing to be quiet right now, and hopefully my own voice will start to get louder as we go along. All right okay number two, what's in for me this year is really facing my fears. And there have been a lot of things in my life that I have put off because I'm too scared, right? Too scared of failure, too scared of looking dumb, too scared of not knowing how to scared of being a beginner. And this year I'm really facing and allowing my fears to be there instead of trying to avoid them. And so I have a lot of examples of this, but I think one way to really make it clear and descriptive to you is to just like describe my experience with cold plunging.

So, a couple of months ago I took this little class on cold plunging just because I was interested. Like just like you hear about it all the time. And I was just interested and I decided to start trying it in my pool. And when I started, my pool was like. Only about 60 degrees. Like it was really pretty warm in comparison to like, most cold plunges, but just getting like accustomed to that and getting used to the the fear that my brain created every morning when I was cold, plunging. And now my pool is at about 40 degrees. It hasn't dropped into the 30s yet.

The lowest it's been is 40.1 degrees, which for me is really cold, right? But I'm just every day practicing facing that fear. And what is so fascinating to me and what I've learned over and over again doing this, is that the fear is always worse than the experience itself every single time. Like, my brain is so scared and coming up with a million excuses and like, really, really resistant to like, you know, doing the plunge and getting in there. And then once you're there, yeah, you have those few moments of like deep shock where you just have to breathe through it, and then it's just sitting there and experiencing it, and there's actually nothing to be scared of. And your brain is sending all these signals and all these pain signals and saying, oh my goodness, like, we need to get out of here now. And you're like, actually, brain, we're okay. And what I have found is that the fear is so much worse. And having this experience and really facing that fear has allowed me then to apply it to all these other things that I'm scared of, right to my writing and to aging, which I'm going to get to in just a minute.

And these other things that I've been scared to do and recognizing that, like my brain and the story and the resistance is so much worse than the actual experience and what is out as I face my fears and allow my fears to be there and just move forward anyway, what is out, surprisingly, is sort of this. Just like I said before, low level, unidentified non-specific anxiety. So, what I've found is that I am so much calmer all the time. I face this one fear in the morning and then I am so much calmer all day long and even into the evening, like I used to get in bed and just feel so much non-specific anxiety. Just anxiety for like no specific reason. I couldn't put like my thumb on exactly why I was feeling so anxious and all day long sort of feeling like this anxiety, this, this hustling, desperate anxiety that just kind of like. Was sort of chasing me all day long, and that has gone away as I have like head on, faced my fear and done this cold, blunt.

All of this like low grade, non-specific anxiety has like laughed. And it has been such a revelation to me. And it just makes me think that when I let my fear get the best of me and I avoid the things I really want, it actually doesn't remove the fear. It just sort of spreads out into this anxiety that like, seeps into all my life. It was like when I wasn't facing my fears head on. They never had any definition. They never had an end point. They never got resolved. I never got to the other side of it. And so this has been a really fun learning experience for me. Well, actually, maybe fun isn't the word, but it's been a very revelatory experience for me. Okay. Number three, the third thing that is in for me is nuance. And what is out is black and white binary thinking. Okay, so the example that I want to give for this is for a long time I've been thinking about transitioning my hair, and instead of continually dyeing it, I've been going gray since my very early 20s.

And I just keep, you know, dyeing my hair. And lately, I just feel like it just feels so counterintuitive to what I want and what I want to believe and what I want to create in my life. And I've just really been wrestling with this decision. Like, do I just keep doing what I'm doing? Or do I go gray and in my brain, my brain had kind of made these two ideas is like one or the other, right? I'm either going to be old or I'm going to be young. I'm either going to look good or I'm going to look awful. And I had these like two horrible options in front of me, right? Like I was like, I didn't want to keep pretending. But at the same time, like, I wasn't sure that I was ready to just be old. Right? And like, I was just like, I can't keep living like this. But then also I can't face the alternative. And I just felt like in my brain it was like one or the other, and I needed to decide. And as I was talking to my daughter about this, who does hair? She's just like, she started sending me videos and pictures of a slow transition.

And what I realized in talking to her and talking to my own stylist is that there are a million ways to get there, there are a million variations, and it's not one or the other. It's not beautiful or ugly. It's not old or young. It just like it can evolve with me. And I want to be clear here, I'm not talking about hair, right? Like I'm talking about the way that my brain sees the world in that. Like it has to be one or the other. And I think there's just, like so much more nuance in our lives, even when it comes to the things that that your goals and the things that you're striving towards, your brain thinks there is like one way to get there, and that if you're not doing that one way, then you're doing nothing.

And what if that's not true? What if you can allow for, like the multitudes of options, the multitudes of roads to the place where you want to get to and really finding what's right for you along the way. And so what's in for me is like allowing the nuance and allowing the evolution and the development of me, and letting go of the idea that there is only one way, that it's either one way or the other, and really just opening myself up to other possibilities.

And that brings me to number four. What's in for me is aging energetically and enthusiastically and proudly and loudly and powerfully. And what is out for me is pretending like I am just done. Pretending that I am only worthwhile if I am young, and pretending that I am young. This year I turned 50 and like I know. Listen, I'm only halfway through my life. I really believe I have a good 4 or 5 decades ahead of me, and I have just become so aware recently of how much of our worth, especially as women, is tied to our fertility. And like traditionally, when you think about the history of the world, what women were worth is like what they could produce, the offspring that they could produce. And so, like whether or not we're aware of it that philosophy has like seeped into our culture and like our worth is only there as long as we are fertile, as long as we are able to produce children.

And so as we age and who and we are no longer able to produce children, notice how society still expects us to pretend that we are so that we can still be important, so that we can still have value, so that we can still be worth listening to. And I have noticed that my brain says, okay, you're old, and now you just have to accept that diminishment and kind of disappear, right? And I find myself so like up in arms about that and also just aware of like how much I still am buying into that philosophy and that idea myself and how I just can't pretend that that is true anymore.

I can't pretend that my worth is only in my fertility, and I refuse to participate in that societal philosophy. And so I've really, like, made it a point this year. What's in for me is nurturing positive thoughts about who I am and my contribution, even in the aging process and in fact, the contribution of all women as they age. And at some point, I'm going to do a whole podcast on our thoughts about aging, because we have so many that we are unaware of that have just been like passed down since we were little children.

And we heard stories about like the old hag in the woods, right? But for now, just know that, like for me, what is in is like enthusiastically and proudly and loudly aging. And what's out for me is thinking that aging is a problem, that I am a problem as I get older, and that I need to pretend like that is out for me. Okay, number five, what is in for me is being my number one fan is being my number one cheerleader. Really nerd? Cheering and practicing and using.

Encouraging, loving thoughts about myself. Really trusting myself, really liking myself. And what is out for me is proving and earning my own approval. Okay, so I spent a lot of my life thinking that I wasn't capable, that I was just, you know, incapable that I couldn't do the things I wanted, that I couldn't have the things I wanted. And then when I found coaching and I figured out, oh, all of that is in my mind, and I found my agency and my ability to choose for myself and started to feel like, oh, I can create things for myself.

I kind of got in this place where I was like. You know, so empowered and so excited about my agency that I was using it to prove to myself that I could, to prove to myself that I was good and I would like, use my accomplishments and the things I was doing in my life to prove to myself that that I was valuable and good. And while I think like believing that I could, and using that to prove to myself that I could was was a good thing and was better than believing I couldn't. I think that there's a step beyond, and the next step that I have really been nurturing and deciding, like, okay, this is it for me is recognizing, like I have agency to create and I have capability to create, and I don't have to do any of that, create any of that in order to earn my own approval.

Like I am going to be as encouraging and loving and warm as I can be as I go to create these things in my life, and I'm not doing any of them anymore to earn my own love or respect, right? I don't have to earn my love and respect by the things that I do. I just get to give it to myself unconditionally. And in fact, that love and respect will fuel me to create the things I want. Like it's shifting, getting love and respect as the reward for accomplishing thing and shifting that love and respect as the fuel for accomplishing the things that I want.

And every goal I have this year, everything that I want to create this year is being created from that kind of energy. Like that's the baseline requirement is love and encouragement and warmth from me as I go to do them.

And this really again started with the cold plunge. Like that cold plunge was so uncomfortable, I had to decide ahead of time. As I was going in there and I was facing my fears, I had to decide ahead of time, what am I going to say to myself the whole time I'm in there? What am I going to tell myself when it hurts? What am I going to give myself as I do this uncomfortable thing? And it was the answer always was. I'm going to tell myself how proud I am. I'm going to smile at myself. I'm going to love on myself. I'm going to be so encouraging every moment of that pain. And that exercise has just been so useful in every area of my life. So being my number one fan, love, warmth, encouragement like that is so in for me right now and I am done proving and earning my own approval.

The last thing that's in for me is just joy, for Joy's sake and really pursuing my interests, my desires, my curiosity, my creativity. Just because I want to. And what's out for me is the need to be productive. So, I think for too long I've been really, like, not necessarily skeptical of my interests and desires, but like, okay, but what is that going to give me? Why do you want this thing? And really trying to understand why I wanted it and if it was worth it. And now what's in it for me is to stop questioning why and just pursue it like it doesn't have to turn into anything. It can just be there because of the joy of it. So the other day I got this email from a local florist and they were having this little class on terrariums and how to create a terrarium with succulents. It was like Friday afternoon, a couple of hours you can come to the shop and like learn how to create your own terrarium. And when I read that email, I was like, oh my gosh, that sounds fun. I want to do that. And right after that my brain was like, why? Like why? What's that going to do? What's the point of that? Like, you're not a gardener.

Like, why? Why? Right. Like, what is that going to give you? And like, that was the flag for me. I was like, nope, what's in is doing what I want. What is in is doing something just because I want it doesn't have to turn into anything. It can just be for the joy of it. I signed up and I went to that class and it was so fun. And every time I walk past my kitchen table and I see that little terrarium, like it brings me so much joy. And yeah, it did create something, but it didn't need to.

It doesn't have to have a measurable result or benefit for me anymore. Like it doesn't have to be productive for me to pursue it. Desire is enough. What's in for me is, is tuning into that and paying attention to that and really doing the things that bring joy just for Joy's sake. Okay, so that's kind of my list what's in and what's out this year. And I want you to notice something about these in and outs. I want you to see that for every one of them there are trade offs.

Right? Just like in the NFL, they have to make a trade and they can't have it. All right? They can't have all the coaches. They can't have this coach for the regular season and this coach for the playoffs. Like no. They can only have one. You can't have both and you can't get everything. But you can make trades. You can make trades for the results that you really want. The other day my husband was planning a trip and he was like, he came to me. He's like, so I spent all of the budget on the accommodations and the rental car and he's like, do we have any more budget for some of these excursions? And I said, if you want, right.

Like if you want to make a trade like you look at the rest of the budget, are there things in there right now that you want to make a trade for those excursions? Right. Like if you want, there are trade offs to be made and it's the same in your life when you're like, is there room for these things in my life? Yeah, if you're willing to make a trade. I was also talking to my son about this because he's doing dry January as well and is getting off social media, and we were kind of talking about the trade off there, and he was talking about he keeps feeling like he's missing out on things, like he's missing out on things, being off social media, and he's missing out on what's happening in other people's lives and, and the thoughts that other people are having.

And then he said, yeah, I know that I'm missing out on those things. But before I was missing out on me, I was missing out on my life. Right? Like, now I'm missing out on knowing about other people. But before I was missing out on knowing about myself. And like, that's the truth. There are trade offs. Whatever is in is going to create things that are that are out for you. And so whatever's in or out for you, like, no, that no, there will be trade offs. You can't do everything.

And when you bring one thing in, you're going to have to let go of something else. You can't have it all. But are you making the trades that give you the results that you want to have your version of a well-lived life? Those are the trades you need to make, the trades that will get you to the goals that you want so think about that. Think about the elements of a well-lived life and decide what's in and what's out for you. Those are the trades you need to make. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome. I love you for listening and I'll see you next week.

Thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today. If you're serious about changing your life, you first have to change your mind. And the best way to do that is through coaching. I work with my clients one on one to help them change their thoughts and their feelings about themselves, their lives, and their challenges so that they can live a life they love. If you'd like to work with me one on one, you can learn more and schedule a free call to try coaching for yourself at Aprilpricecoaching.com