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097: Get out of your head and into action with Elke Einhalt
2.9k Plays4 months ago
In this episode, Mia interviews Elke Einhalt, a coach passionate about empowering women to create fulfilling lives. Elke shares insights on acknowledging life phases, getting to know oneself deeply, and mastering self-talk for personal growth.
Resources
- Coach Eke's website - Elke’s website
For the full show notes, head to Life Admin Life Hacks.
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Transcript
Introduction: Life Admin Efficiency
00:00:00
Speaker
This is Life Admin, Life Axe, a podcast that gives you techniques, tips and tools to tackle your life admin more efficiently, to save your time, your money and improve your household harmony.
Meet the Hosts: Dinah and Mia
00:00:13
Speaker
I'm Dinah Roberts, an operations manager who's a recovering overthinker. I'm Mia Northrup, a researcher and writer who finds it fascinating how much we can get in our own hands and be in our own way.
00:00:26
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Life Admin Life Hacks.
Interview with Elke Einhalt: Self-Growth and Life Phases
00:00:30
Speaker
In this episode, Mia talks to Elke Einhalt about how to acknowledge the phase of life you're in and set your expectations accordingly, how to get to know yourself deeply, and why mastering your self talk is essential to growth. If you want to get out of your head and into action, listen on. Elke Einfeld is passionate about empowering women to create a life they don't want to escape by using positive psychology, cognitive behavioral therapy, and neuroscience. Coach Elke supports women to make their next chapter their best chapter through the Lifestyle Creator Program. Elke, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks Mia. How are you? I'm great. I'm great. I'm excited to talk about all sorts of aspects of creating your own life today.
Life Admin: Managing Phases and Events
00:01:14
Speaker
And I guess why we invited you on the show is the link with life admins, because it turned a life admin ebbs and flows based on what phase of life you're in. you know Depending on whether you have a partner or not, whether you have kids or not, the age of those kids, whether you're starting to help care for elderly parents, where you're at with the intensity of your career and your ambitions and other projects, know you might experience different life events and different magnitudes of life admin.
00:01:42
Speaker
And so it's important for us to be aware of the distinct phases of life that we're in and help to recognise what phase is this? what can i What can I anticipate in terms of the change? What what opportunities might be coming with this phase of life? How do you work with people to sort of acknowledge what phase of life
Maintaining Personal Energy Amidst Demands
00:02:01
Speaker
they're in? Yeah, it's a really interesting question. So one thing that is common no matter what stage you're in is how do you actually keep your tank full, particularly when you know you've got so many balls juggling in the air and
00:02:17
Speaker
You know, we we do have that. We have busy lives. We have a lot of takers of our time and our attention and often very little is left for us. So, we you know, it's an exhausting way to live. And when you're younger, you're in a young family, you know, you're chasing after young kids, you've you know, it's it's exhausting.
00:02:37
Speaker
And then as they get older, it's a different exhausting because then you sort of ah you're worrying about them where, you know, where they are. How's their mental health? Are they, you know, are they doing OK? Are they setting themselves themselves up well? And then, you know, as you then age, you then start thinking about your own health and your own well-being. And often, particularly with Gen X's, they're looking still after children and after aging parents.
00:03:05
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And so you know that theme of how do you keep your own tank full is pretty common in all the different all the different themes, stages in life. So again, how do you do that? And that's something like that is such a big question and such a powerful question to ask for yourself of what actually keeps your tank filled up. Yeah. And that's something that I have encountered with you know talking to our listeners and talking to readers.
00:03:31
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that at certain stages of life, you're so busy doing, doing, doing, working, juggling, that you actually lose touch with what does fill you up. And when you do get some spare time, you're like, I don't know, I actually want to do with myself. yeah How do people get back in touch with passions or the things that they actually do like to do, the things that do fill them up? Do you know, that is also a question throughout the different stages in life because We're so busy, and when we're so busy, we're exhausted. And when we're exhausted, like you you we can't make good decisions. And you can't make good decisions when you're stressed, depressed, or in crisis.
Knowing Yourself and Setting Boundaries
00:04:10
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I find that the key is learning deeply about yourself. But you need to actually stop and take a breath to be able to do that. And you actually need to be able to hold that space for yourself and do and use that time as a priority
00:04:27
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to do the work on yourself, like to learn about yourself more deeply, to learn about what actually triggers you. How do you get out of obligation? How do you hold healthy boundaries? What are the things that are actually draining you in life? What do you want to do more of? What do you want to do less of? Think about the thoughts and the language that you're using as well because If you would actually really start to listen to how you're talking, and if you're constantly saying to everyone, I'm so busy, I'm so busy, I'm so busy, well, your brain is going to seek more validation for you to be busy. And so being in you know being having that awareness of the words that we use, that's something that can be really empowering.
00:05:15
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and then making empowered decisions as well. But then again, that comes again down to being able to know yourself deeply and and your core values. Yeah. Okay. So you've mentioned tuning into your self-talk and what you're actually telling yourself and what you're telling others as a way to identify, maybe this is a point where I need to sit back and just go big picture again on my life and get some them sort of recalibrate. What are some other signs that you might need to take a pause and recalibrate. Yeah, great question.
Reassessing Life Direction: Knowing When to Pause
00:05:46
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Like when you feel like you are just going through the motions and you just get to the, you just end up numbing out at the end of the day because you're so tapped out, like our brains can own, you know, it gets decision fatigue. I'm sure we've all heard of that. But it's true, like our brains burn a lot of calories. like It is constantly so like predicting, looking to make sure that we're so hardwired for safety. And so the brain is always on on high alert. And so when it gets to the end of the day,
00:06:17
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you got no more decisions to make. You're tapped out. You're either sitting on the couch. You might grab a glass of wine and numb out that way. You might grab your phone and start scrolling through social media. You might flick on Netflix and just, you know, zone out there because you're tapped out. You actually just don't want to think anymore. And, you know, again, it's quite exhausting. And when you are that tapped out,
00:06:39
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there's no space left to start looking about what lights me up? What brings me joy? You're just like, sleep, like time out. and But you know, and that's the thing, this is like, what can we do to take things off our plate? And when we can say no to what's not in alignment, which again, like core values is is not what you something that you value in the moment. And core values are something very different. And when you know them and you understand the the power of knowing your core values, it actually makes making decisions moving forward really easy because it's either in alignment or it's not. Yeah. And what exercise do you take people through to identify their core value? So a lot of people don't know really what their values are.
00:07:28
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they might sort of have knee jerk reactions and say, oh, I value my health, I value my family, but they're usually much more idiosyncratic than that. A hundred percent. Okay. Anything that can be taken away from you isn't a core value. So that's why I'm saying like we will value money, but that can be taken away from us. That's not a core value, but something that is common amongst many cultures is for example, honesty. So you can choose to have honesty and being honest as a value in life. there's many For example, there's many ways to make money, right? One way is to go out and mug a guy with an expensive watch, but then that's not incongruence with honesty, right? Another way is to go and get a job and earn your income. So that's that would then be incongruence with your value. Yeah, right.
00:08:18
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So they go to distinguish between needs, things like health, things like family, they're really a core need. Yeah. Versus your values, which can be, I guess, achieved in different ways. You can
Identifying Core Values for Life Decisions
00:08:30
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live in alignment with them in different ways. Yeah. Things that your value is different to your core values. So core values like autonomy, freedom, integrity, clarity, empowerment. Yeah.
00:08:43
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And how can people get in touch with what their values are? What exercise can they do to discover their values? Yeah, I've got one actually just on my on my website. It's very simple. It's like you have a list of of values and then you keep like nutting them down. I don't recommend to have more than three to five otherwise because you have to, you know, these are the values that you're going to live by. And so you want to have very concise and very clear. I have my core values just written up here and mine are integrity, empowerment, kindness, clarity and freedom. Yeah.
00:09:18
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So it really is quite a pragmatic exercise of just working your way through a list and seeing which words resonate with you and then just sort of shortlisting them down to three or five, as you say. Yeah, because then when you come to making big life decisions, you know, for example, we like we were just talking earlier, i and know I'm about to move home. And so because my value of freedom is no longer being met here,
00:09:44
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I've got so many things that I need to do around the house to keep it maintained and in the garden and all the rest of it. So I no longer have freedom to go and do the things that I want to do now. And so coming back to my core values, says it was easy for me to make that decision to go, all right, I need to change my lifestyle to be in congruence of of what is actually going to keep my tank full because it wasn't full when I'm properly tapped out. It was leaking.
00:10:12
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So yeah, so you mentioned before, you know, there are signs that you need to get big picture on your life, recalibrate. We talked about tuning into your self talk, recognizing when you're numbing out. And what came to mind for me also is, is noticing when you're out when you're so raw that you're just reacting to every little thing. And I know on previous podcast episodes we've talked about, you know, angry mummy syndrome, angry anyone syndrome, but you just, you're just so raw and you're just reacting to everything because there's no, there's no buffer. You just, there's no room to respond. There's no headspace of time to regulate yourself.
00:10:50
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So that comes to mind as another sign that you might want to to go a big picture. That's huge. But yeah, that is absolutely a huge when you, you know, when you find it really hard to recalibrate yourself, that's quite an extreme case. Like, and unfortunately, we let ourselves get to that point before we do anything about it. yeah you know, before we have that, you know, those shock responses, you know, and if you've just lost it at at your kid who, you know, was just being a kid and then you're so disappointed in yourself for doing that. And, you know, how about we actually pull ourselves up before we get to that point? Does that mean asking for more help and more support? Does that mean changing our circumstances that we're in? Have we got too much on our plate? Are we saying yes to too many things?
00:11:39
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And why are we doing that? Do we need help in learning how to say no? Yeah, let's talk about that for a while. You mentioned, you know, getting in touch with your personal boundaries and learning to say no.
Personal Boundaries: Self-Care and Wellness
00:11:50
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How does that help us? Well, i've actually, let's talk about what boundaries are. because I think a lot of people aren't really aware of what personal boundaries are. How would you describe them? Giving yourself permission to look after yourself. It's a conscious decision that you need to make about saying my health, my wellness is a priority.
00:12:09
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because without that, I'm actually no good to anyone, let alone yourself, right? This is something that I'm really passionate about and and it just works so beautifully in with this question, which is learning how to self-coach yourself. When you've gotten to that point where there's no space between your your reaction to your response that's when you're like you're pretty far gone. Your central nervous system is so frazzled by that stage. And so learning techniques on how to give create more of that space, like something's happened. It's actually ah a cognitive brain therapy model, so CTFAR. So you've got a circumstance, your thoughts dictate how you feel about it, which lead to how you're going to act to it, which gives you your results. So when we can actually start going, okay, I have a human brain,
00:13:02
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It's built for survival. It's built for safety. And you know you can't override that. We are hardwired to seek safety. And so when we have too much on our plates, our brains can't cope. like we're We're so scattered in in trying to keep all these balls up in the air.
00:13:21
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and look after everyone else's needs like something's got to give yeah and it's usually our mental wellness that goes first. I like to think of of boundaries as you know you're drawing the line of what you will and won't put up with like what's okay by you and what's not and it can be you know to do with you know, emotional boundaries of how you want to be treated and how you want to be spoken to. And they can be ah physical boundaries around your personal, your physical space. And we all, I guess during COVID and a different experience of physical boundaries, because suddenly we want people to keep further away from us than we had in the past. And in terms of your property boundaries, what people can touch or use like your stuff, I know in in some households as
00:14:08
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Lots of kids, you know, they are always testing those property boundaries around, this is my stuff, don't borrow my stuff, don't touch my stuff. But it can happen as an adult as well, especially with kids borrowing your stuff or between adults. There's financial boundaries around who's using what money and who has control and access to what money. I think it can be really easy to just not really be aware that sometimes when we do feel scared about something or vulnerable or resentful,
00:14:36
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or angry about something, it can be because of there's been this boundary violation. And we've, we've misdiagnosed it as something else. But it's really this boundary that's being crossed. And it's ah a moment where we can reset the boundaries and learn to say no confidently and without guilt, which can be very hard to do. And I guess also there's that idea with big boundaries, we have rigid boundaries.
00:15:01
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where it's like, you know, you keep people a little at arm's length and you tend not to ask for help. You tend not to outsource. You kind of get into, I can do it all mode. Or people on the other end of the scale who have really sort of porous or permeable boundaries where they're in people pleaser mode and they say yes to everything and they want to be agreeable and help everyone and take so much on and both of those extremes can get you in trouble in terms of you've got a lot on your plate because you've either doing it all yourself and not asking for help or you're saying yes to everybody and helping everybody else and and kind of abandoning your own needs and your own need for rest and downtime. Yeah, I think
00:15:42
Speaker
what you that last sentence, what you just said, I think women have been socially programmed to ah abandon themselves because that's what, you know, being a good mother or friend or daughter or whatever is. It's to be likable,
Societal Expectations and Internal Validation
00:16:00
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it's to be accepted, it's to be, you know, and that's where that external validation comes. Like, you're so worried about what other people are going to think of you,
00:16:09
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So you do whatever you think that you have to do to please them and then you lose yourself. That's external validation is like it's a multi-billion dollar industry to keep us feeling, you know, unworthy. And you can do that by saying all the plastic fantastic on social media, right? You can see it by that That Barbie movie explained it really well. like It's so expensive to be a woman. like We get paid less, yet we get charged more for things. It's that message. like It's in the air that we breathe and until we become aware of it and and how it impacts us on our daily life, it's really hard to actually change it and take our power back. you know and Something that you mentioned before about you know kids crossing boundaries and all you know ah all the rest of it is ah we teach people how to treat us.
00:17:02
Speaker
you can check in with your body. Like we're so up in our heads most of the time, but when we can drop down into our body and we feel that discord, like if if we've been treated unfairly, like we'll feel it, like it doesn't feel good, but then we'll brush it aside and we'll just, you know, we'll keep the peace. We'll make sure everyone else is okay and we'll suck it up and we'll just, you know, we'll deal with it, but you can only deal with so much. And then you get to that point where you do lose it. And then everyone's like, oh,
00:17:33
Speaker
It's like, what's going on over there? yeah I guess next time you feel that feeling, and you do, you feel it visceral, you feel it in your body when your boundary has been violated in some way. That's the moment to tune in and go, oh, okay, this is a boundary violation. This is what's going on here. This is why I'm having this response. And to then take a moment to think, okay, well, what is the boundary? What would I like the person to do instead or not do instead? And then actually articulate that. You actually have to say something.
00:18:03
Speaker
And that's when it can be, you know, it requires some but bravery because it might be a new boundary that you haven't discussed with that person before. You know, you're articulating your need here. They might not have heard it or it might have been something that you talked about a long time ago, but they've forgotten it or they've been ignoring it.
00:18:20
Speaker
So it does take some bravery to then have that conversation and explain, you know, I need you to do this or I need you not to do this. And and and follow up on the consequences so that if it does happen again, you state it again so that change can actually happen. Well, that's exactly right. And a lot of times we don't say things because we don't want to have those hard conversations. You know, you just mentioned the word change and, you know,
00:18:51
Speaker
It's a simple word, but to actually instigate it into your life means giving up the familiar. And again, because we're so hardwired for safety, we seek the familiar and we stay in our comfort zones. Even if it's like tapping us out and it's not like no longer serving us, we end up you know choosing the familiar over and going through the discomfort of changing the circumstance to make it better.
00:19:19
Speaker
Yeah, I heard someone the other day describe they've been listening to the podcast for a long time and they hadn't really put anything into action. So I think a lot of time we consume information about something, and we think about it and she said, I finally put my big girl pants on and I'm going to, you know, do the thing. And that was her way of sort of explaining, I know it's going to be uncomfortable and I'm going to have to learn and I'm probably going to fail and it will be annoying and whatever, but I'm ready. So it was a sort of,
00:19:48
Speaker
The big girl pants, I felt like it was like she was armoring, putting on the armor to brace herself with this going through the change. But it's really what is required when you have to to decide, all right, I'm going to have the self-discipline.
Living True to Your Values
00:20:00
Speaker
I'm going to believe in myself and I know it's going to be uncomfortable. And I'm going to do it because what's waiting for me on the other side is worth it. It's just not uncomfortable. It's not really change. Once you've tasted living in alignment, there's no going back.
00:20:15
Speaker
What do you mean by that? Explain that for people. When you know yourself deeply and you can call yourself out when your brain's inspiring and it's doing its, you know, that survival thing and you can just learn to go, yep, thanks. That's just the human brain trying to keep me safe.
00:20:38
Speaker
You can be quiet now because that's, it's those thoughts that will spiral in your brain that you will constantly overthink. So then you'll procrastinate and it's once you've learned, and this is where, like, as I said, ah like learning the self coaching, it's like learning to coach yourself to go, okay, that's just my brain. I don't have to believe those thoughts. Those thoughts are not me. Those thoughts aren't necessarily true.
00:21:03
Speaker
because then you get yourself out of that that heightened state. And once you're out of that, then you can actually start thinking rationally. And then be curious, experiment. The other thing the brain loves to do is to catastrophize. And it thinks everything is a zero-sum game. It's like, if I do this one thing, then that's it. Everything else ceases to exist. And I don't have any other. And I'm stuck in doing just that. It's not true. And that's constantly questioned. Is this thought true? yeah And then is it a helpful thought? So you know can I think something that is actually going to move me closer to, like
00:21:43
Speaker
can't think of an example now that's really frustrating. I was just thinking last week literally this happened to me where this opportunity had come up a months ago and it had several conversations with this contact and it was sort of going nowhere it was like two steps forward one step back and then last week I was suggesting that we have another meeting and I went into a full spiral about, I thought this is never going to happen, that I really want me. Like I just, I thought, and I caught myself, I was like, geez, where did all, where did all those voices come from? They just lurk in the background waiting to, to prop up. And I, and I had to think, am I just, am I overthinking this? I'm telling myself stories.
00:22:23
Speaker
Then I reached out to a few friends and said, I'm having a full spiral about this. And they came back with some great advice. And they were like, what are you talking about? Like just, you know, that clarity, that perspective. Cause I was basically about to do a move that would have been total self-sabotage. And they're like, do not do that. Just, you know, follow this path. Let's talk a little bit more about self-sabotage. What are the common forms of self-sabotage that people take? How can they overcome them or avoid them?
00:22:52
Speaker
Yeah, well, believing unhelpful thoughts, like those thoughts that ah start spiraling that you know, because you don't feel good thinking those thoughts. And so a really powerful question to ask is like, is this is this helpful? We all have fears come up, right? But then play it to the end.
00:23:12
Speaker
I was just like, OK, I expected this person to behave this way. They haven't. I'm in limbo. They're not getting back to me. I'm freaking out. I really want this to happen. And then you're like, OK, I'm going to I'm going to do this thing. So, OK, I'm going to you know send them an email and you know hold them accountable because they said they were going to do this, this, this, this, this. And you know I'm going to send that off and then play out that whole fear and then how do you think they're going to respond to that text and then how could that go and that could either stimulate the action or it could then alienate them further and you could then further sabotage it like play it out all the way to the end like that whole fear that because often it's all irrational thought when we are in that self-sabotage mode because again they're safety thoughts
00:24:02
Speaker
journaling is really, really helpful. And again, coming back to your core values, when you know your core values, then it's really easy to go, okay, I'm out of I'm out of alignment now. So this would then not be a move with me being in integrity, you know, moving, you know, if I would behave this way, this this is not how I want to show up. Yeah. And then you know, just thinking about that. So one of my life core values is wisdom, like drawing on the knowledge of others and that's come before us instead of trying to reinvent the wheel. And that is why I kind of reached out to some friends who I consider wise just to give some input because I recognized that I was was spiraling and there was this sort of fear talking.
00:24:44
Speaker
And that was what helped bring me back into alignment. It was drawing on that and thinking, okay, yeah, this is a much wiser path if I was to head in this direction rather than my adolescent self having a tantrum, basically. And that's what the brain does. It is. It's like a ah untamed toddler going on a rampage and it's very reactive. And that's the, you know, the beauty of like what you just said. Like when you've learned to self-coach yourself, you can then bring yourself down.
00:25:11
Speaker
And you can reach out for that help and support because when it's, you know, when you're inside your head, it's very hard to be objective about what's going on.
Redefining Success Through Life Phases
00:25:21
Speaker
True. So, you know, I'm sure there are listeners who are listening to what we have to say and they are contemplating change in their life or they're recognizing there is a need for change. And some of that comes from thinking about what success looks like for them and having a new definition of what success looks like for their life or for this phase of life, how can people redefine their sense of success as they're sort of getting into their 40s or getting into their 50s or 60s? Because it looks different at different phases. Get curious and experiment. Just try a whole bunch of different things. Like think about when you were younger, what was it that you used to love doing?
00:26:04
Speaker
Like, did you used to love playing with clay and making, you know, weird things? And, you know, that was really fun for you when you just enjoyed it because you were, you know, look for moments when you're in flow, when you're just, when it's effortless and when you feel like inquisitive and, you know, you're, you're, you're wanting to move, like follow that.
00:26:26
Speaker
that's that's something that's a really good sign that you can you know and if it's not for you again pivot it's it's not a zero-sum game just try different things be curious oh i've always wanted to know about that and this is like i've always wanted to know about i don't know oil painting or i always wanted to learn about permaculture or i always wanted to learn how to do bonsai trees or what are you know, get curious, find out what, you know, reach out to people, join groups, like connections and relationships are super, super important to our wellbeing. and And I think that's something that, you know, when we're not feeling great, we tend to isolate ourselves, and we sort of don't want to engage with people, and we sort of start to shut down. And that's not helpful. And it's the opposite of what we need to do to get to get out of that. And
00:27:21
Speaker
I think that's the thing, you know these days it's so easy you know just to stick your nose in your phone or flick on Netflix or whatever and shut the world down. and so and like When you can keep your tank full, think about things like the more connected you are to your future self, the better decisions you'll make in the today. So if you can picture yourself 20 years from now, what would that, ah you that's 20 years older, what advice would they be giving you now? Such a good journaling prompt. You can sit with that and you can like journal that
00:27:56
Speaker
any time that you actually need to tap into your inner wisdom, like we've got so much inside of us, but we've forgotten to tap into that inner wisdom and to be able to move ourselves past these feelings of being stuck. We Our brains just keep on telling us all the reasons why we can't do things and look for all the problems to every solution. i Get curious. Give it a go. If it's not working, it doesn't matter. Pivot, change, experiment, try something different. I think one of the things our brain often tells us is it's too late. You're too old. You can't change that now. I just need to stick with this. I just need to ride this. And it's funny when you do sort of future casts and you think about 10 years in the future, you think, oh, I couldn't, you know, it is too hard or I can't get there. I can't.
00:28:45
Speaker
make it to be successful enough in the 10 years. But if you stop and look back 10 years and what was happening in your life 10 years ago, so much would have changed. So much would have changed. And you probably possibly couldn't have predicted a lot of it. But if you and like just recognize the magnitude of change that's happened, it should make us excited for the magnitude of change that could happen 10 years, you know, that for the next 10 years. But it's hard to remember that. It's hard to to shut down that voice that's telling you, you're too old and it's too late. Yeah. And that's the thing, like, I mean, that's the thing with limiting beliefs though, right? Nobody can give them to you. You make them up all by yourself. They often come from childhood about how we've been conditioned and, you know, we can, you know, hear those voices in our head. But, you know, does that feel good? And that's like, check in with yourself. Am I in, you know, is this thought actually lifting me up or is it like putting a lid on me?
00:29:45
Speaker
How do you want to live? Like, do you want to get out of your comfort zones? Do you want to challenge yourself? Do you want to grow? Or I'm just in my comfort zone. I'm going to stay there and I'll just put up with it. Like, what feels better to you? oh I know what I'm up on the edge of my comfort zone all the time.
00:30:04
Speaker
pretty much all the time and sometimes it's a little bit exhausting but it's exciting to me and I think it is because I'm a curious person and I love learning, I love reading and I just sort of just chasing the next thing, the next thing that's going to be interesting to me. Yeah, the the more you get comfortable being uncomfortable the more your world expands.
00:30:29
Speaker
And the more you just try different things than you do, like what you just said, like you just give it a go. Like, what's the worst that can happen? And then play it out. Those fears, play them out, play them out to the end. And then you usually you end up realizing, I'm like, okay, that's just really irrational thought now.
00:30:49
Speaker
So what's the first step that someone can take? Whether it's to do with, all right, I need to change the way I am approaching life admin. and I've been listening to this podcast for months. I need to start taking some action or it might be to do with their career. I need to change what I'm doing because what I'm doing now is not serving me anymore. Or it might be changing some other area of life. What's the first step you would suggest that they take? If you begin with the end in mind, like That's where, you know, get in, know yourself, get in touch with your core values, like find those out and then look at the big picture. What is, you know, holistically, if i if you look at at your life, if you can zoom out and if you were to look at, you're up on a balcony and you're looking down at your life, what would you like it to look like? What would you like to be doing? What does your ideal, you know, month look like? What does that include? your What does your ideal week look like? What does your ideal day look like?
00:31:45
Speaker
and think about those things um and write down all of the things that include in that and it could be, you know, you know, having a massage, you know, once a month. It could be doing yoga a few times a week. It could be having your own time out to journal once a day. It could, you know, think about all the things that will fill your tank up, all these tiny little things and then collect them, like write them down and so that they compound into the life that lights you up.
00:32:14
Speaker
then bring yourself back to today and go what's one thing that I can do to move myself forward, what's one thing that I can do that's going to be a step in the direction of making that life, of creating that life. I love that Elke so everyone has permission to Fantasize a little bit. Have a vision. Just take some time to daydream and set a vision for what that ideal life looks like. And it's reminding me of a quote. I have this quote up here from Alice Walker, who's an American novelist and poet, and she says, look closely at the present you are constructing. It should look like the future you are dreaming. So just putting one little thing into place today that is helping construct that future that you're working towards.
00:32:57
Speaker
I love that saying. And then that's the thing, whatever you're not changing, you're choosing. And so make it a conscious choice. You know, live your life on purpose and, you know, take ownership of your life. Like you're, you're a more powerful creator than you realize. And whether you believe like on that energetic level of that with, you know, with
Programming Your Brain for Change
00:33:20
Speaker
manifestations, there's actually science backing that up.
00:33:23
Speaker
because the way our brains work, and it's called the RIS, the Reticular Activating System, it's like your brain, when it has something that it's been programmed into, like when you go, all right, I actually want to start learning how to do ceramics.
00:33:39
Speaker
you've actually programmed your brain, that's something that you want to do, it will then start looking for opportunities for that. And it'll start scouting it. It's a classic example, and I'm sure everyone's heard of it, when you go, I'm going to buy a new car, and it's going to be an Audi, or it's a, you know, I want to get a, they don't make them anymore, but like a TT Audi, for example. And then all of a sudden you'll start seeing them out on the roads. That's your ah RIS system working. And so you can program your brain,
00:34:08
Speaker
to start focusing on what you want to create. But that has to be intentional. And you need to actually know, like, what is it that you want to do? And that's where getting to know yourself really deeply, which comes from knowing your core values to be able to make those empowered decisions to start creating that that space for yourself. Yeah, plant those little seeds and then your brain will look for opportunities to to water them and nourish them and make them grow.
00:34:37
Speaker
Beautiful. That's a lovely place to finish. Elke, thank you so much for sharing your experience and ideas with us today. It's a pleasure. It was absolutely my pleasure to be here. Super fun. I could talk about this all day, every day.
Conclusion and Resources
00:34:51
Speaker
So where can our listeners find you if they want to hear more? Jump onto the website, which is coachelka.com.au. So Elka is E-L-K-E. There's master classes on there. There's some free downloads that will help you take a step in the right direction. So lots of goodies on there. Thank you so much Elka, and we'll link to those in the show notes too. Thank you so much for your time today. My pleasure.
00:35:16
Speaker
Thanks for listening. Show notes for this episode are available at lifeadminlifehacks dot.com. And if you're a fan, please subscribe and share the love and tell a friend or review us in your podcasting app. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.