Hi ,

I've been getting a lot of questions about the actual content of the 10-Week Mindset Makeover course (enrollment closes tonight), and so I thought I'd share with you a quickie answer I gave yesterday on Facebook ...

... AND I want to actually give you an example email from the program, below!

Lori asked about more details, here's what I said:

In the next module, we are going to be covering what's called Active Acceptance. I will be going into it further in subsequent emails, but today, I want to talk about feedback: where it comes from, how we use and a new way to look at it. 

In life, we are used to getting feedback constantly. We learn from a young age that when we do something "good" we get rewarded and when we mess up, we experience a punishment of some sort. In psychology research, they call this reinforcement. We can experience positive or negative reinforcement. 

This is the human equivalent of what we do when we train dogs. We reward them when they do well, and withhold reward when they don't act the way we want. I am sure you could quickly think of a scenario when this happened to you--based on outside feedback, you may have changed your behavior. 

People do this all the time, especially in new romantic relationships. They are usually feeling the other person out and will subtly alter behavior according to how they perceive the other person is responding. We do this unconsciously most of the time. 

We experience this as kids in school. We learn something, and then are tested on it. We get INSTANT feedback of whether we are good (A+) or bad (F). Children learn how to act so that their parents will be proud of them or not. We see kids doing this constantly--using feedback to change behavior.

So could it be all that unbelievable that as adults, we never leave this place of needing/wanting/using feedback?

This is not a problem per se, except for when we start changing our behavior based on others' feedback, and these changes take us AWAY from our TRUE SELF. (I am going to be talking about TRUE SELF (TS) throughout this program BTW)--who we are and who we want to be in the world.  Our TS is who we are at our core, without any external influences. 

This is probably the person you would become if you were stuck on an island by yourself for a month. But because of external feedback, many of us don't know our TS. That's okay, I am going to try to get you to develop yourself OUTSIDE of who you think you need to be to be accepted, loved or affirmed.

None of that matters to the TS. When we change behavior based on external feedback, we can lose sight of what we truly want, which is why it is so important to continue to ask THIS question: Am I doing exactly what I want to be doing or am I subjecting myself to something that is making me miserable? 

A simple example of moving away from what you really want is allowing your time to get more and more swallowed up doing things you don't love. We can all fall into this trap without even knowing it. We do more and more things out of obligation or guilt, rather than asking, Is this actually how I want to be spending my time? You feel as if you don't do those obligatory things, other people will be upset or not understand. It will be scary and uncomfortable. You might even feel like it's impossible to tell someone "no" or to do something different.

I get that. But here's the thing: it's not impossible to do something different. It only feels impossible because you know that the fallout will be scary and uncomfortable. You can't even think of it. EVEN THOUGH every moment you are doing it, it's taking you further and further away from honoring your TS. You know it is because you just told me it wasn't something you'd choose to be doing if it weren't for someone else.

I know that exact feeling and have experienced a handful of times in some of the biggest relationships of my life.

Is this scary? You bet! It's an example of seeking and needing continual approval. You know this because you know that if you stopped doing that thing, you'd lose someone's approval. Okay so it's scary. But life is too short to simply endure it, putting your own needs aside all the time.

Ask instead, could I find a way to honor my TS while showing up authentically in the world? When you do that, everyone wins. They might not like it at first (because it's different) but you can rest assured that all of your relationships will deepen because they'll now be built on trust, openness and honesty, rather than the flimsiness of obligation, guilt and lies.

This is an example of stopping to ask, What do I really want? 

Catch yourself. Ask, how can I change to honor my own TS, even if it means stirring the pot?

So, no homework tonight, just some thoughts to get you asking the question: Am I doing EXACTLY what I want to be doing? Or am I miserable? Simple, to-the-point, but one of the most overlooked aspects of personal fulfillment. 

*********************

Xo,

Jill

P.S. What some of the past participants are saying about the course: