Are you ready to level up? I'm Michelle Johnson, a business coach, business owner, corporate manager, wife, mom, and a juggler. All the things, I would love to help you juggle all the things that are important to you. How do you stay and achieve your goals? Join me in the mindset corner. Hey, welcome back to another episode of the mindset Corner. Today's my first time recording for you from the caravan. So a lot has happened since I've spoken to you last. I am currently living in my new house, which is our caravan. So we're getting ready to travel around the country in about three and a half months. And so we've decided to move into our caravan and live locally so we can start to get used to the change and get our kids used to living in the van before we actually get on the road. So it's been a very full on couple of weeks we've moved house, we've cleaned out our old house, we have pared down our belongings from quite a big four bedroom house down to basically a one room studio apartment, which we're calling the caravan. So everything's actually going really well this week, and we're feeling really happy with the change, which is great, we wouldn't would have been a really disappointing day for everyone if we had now realized that this was not the right decision for us. But we did put quite a bit of time and effort into making this decision in the first place to change our life to go traveling. And so what I wanted to talk to you about today was how you can use some of the processes that we've used in order to make big decisions in your life. These are the kind of questions that I asked myself when I'm trying to make a decision. And I'm basically like, coaching myself to become aware of my own mindset and how I might be holding myself back. And to shift my way of thinking to something different. I'll put these questions in the show notes for today so that you can also use these questions in your decision making process. So the first question that we asked ourselves, was what is important to us? And actually, we weren't deciding whether or not to live in a caravan. At this point, the decision was just more about where are we going with our life? And what do we want to be doing. So during the height of lockdowns and the impact of COVID, last year, it really forced us to think about what was important to us. And what we realized was that what's what we say is really important to us is our family and making the most of our life, and fulfillment. But when we looked around at what we're actually doing day to day, we were kind of working really hard. And in the end, those other values, were taking a bit of a backseat. So we realized most of the quality time we had with our children was, you know getting up in the morning and rushing them out of the house, and then getting home in the afternoon and rushing them through dinner and bath and reading a quick book and putting them to bed. And it wasn't really the fulfilling life that we wanted for our family. And I mean, obviously, we came up with a fairly extreme solution to this problem. But you could easily make some small changes in your life to achieve some of the same outcomes, if that's a problem for you as well. So once we knew what was important to us, it was easier for us to make a decision about where we wanted to go. So what could we do in our life that would put our family first that would give the hard work, so to speak, a bit more of a backseat? And obviously, we also had a bit of a logistical conversation about practically, can we actually do this financially? Can we do this? And once we had decided that, yes, we could do all those things, then we actually had to make the decision about whether this was something we were going to do. So we went into the second part of the decision making questions, which is a pairing of questions I like to use. The first one is what will happen if you do this? And the second question is what will happen if you don't do this? So for us, what will happen if you do this, the best case outcome would be that we would go on this trip around Australia for a year, we would have great family experiences, we would be living in line with our values. We would get to experience things that some people never get to do and get those once in a lifetime sort of experiences as a family and also just to spend more time together where we're not working and going to school but really being able to make deeper connections and increase our sort of cohesion if you like as a family unit. So That was what will happen, if we did make the decision to go caravanning and then what will happen if you don't? So we thought about, well, how dissatisfied are we with our current life. So, you know, right now we are feeling just this kind of grating feeling that we're not quite doing what we should be doing. But if we don't go, it's likely that we'll just continue to get what we already have which, okay, that's not necessarily a horrible life or, you know, really bad outcomes. So it's just acknowledging, if we don't do this, we'll just continue to get what we already have. And we will have to live with that decision into the future. And, you know, look back and be happy with the fact that this was the choice that we made that we had the opportunity to go and we decided not to. So the next question that I asked myself was, have we done something like this before? So can we make the decision based on experience? And yes, we had done something like this before. So a few years ago, my friend was getting married in Darwin. And we decided to drive to Darwin and make a road trip out of it. This was before we had kids, I should say. But we drove to Darwin, which took us about two weeks there and two weeks back, it's about 48 hours of actual driving to drive to Darwin, if that's something you're thinking about doing. So don't make that decision lightly. But that was one of the best trips that we've ever done one of our best holidays. And I think, knowing that made it easier to make the decision to go this time, because we knew that we had done that before. And we had enjoyed it, we enjoyed being on the road, we enjoyed the unpredictability of the travel, we enjoyed driving. So we knew as a couple that we would enjoy it. But what we did to help us make the decision was that we took the van away at Christmas last year as a bit of a trial period. So the kids only had a few things with them. And we tried to kind of simulate what it would be like to live on the road and only take the things that we would have under those circumstances and try and like live off grid and see how everybody went with it. And that went really well, the kids had a really great time, we had a good time, we could see that we could live like that and be really happy. So that was a way to kind of trial, the decision to see if it was the right thing for us. And that helped us to answer the question, have you done something like this before? And to be confident that we could replicate that those two situations in this situation? Next, I would ask myself, can you act as if you already have it. And that was another thing that we managed to achieve by doing the trial trip, because when you can act as if you're already doing that, you can start this process of like identity change, which helps you to really see yourself actually in the situation. So like, the best way to change any habit or make a change in your life is to think about that change at a level of identities. So think about the person that you are and if I think about myself, as somebody who loves adventure, loves doing different things loves taking calculated, but I love taking risks. And so if I know all those things, then my identity is more aligned with where I'm going. Whereas say if I thought of myself as somebody who loves stability, and that I don't like to take any risks, I would probably make a really different decision. So if you can act as if you're already doing it, that's probably an indication that it fits well, with your values in the way that you think about things. Next question is, what will you get if you don't do it? This is a really interesting question because it talks to something called secondary gain. So by not doing the thing that you really want to do, what will you be getting? In this situation, if we decided not to get in our caravan and go around the country for 12 months, what we would be doing is kind of satisfying our innate need to stay comfortable we would be Yeah, really focusing on just doing the same thing in our life, which would probably keep us feeling very safe and very comfortable and predictable in our life, which is something that your brain kind of looks for in order to feel, you know, safe in a survival sense that things are predictable, and you can you know, you'll you know, have food and shelter and all those kinds of things. So, it's important to be aware of that. Like, what are you getting by not doing it? And do you actually want that it's kind of like this Sometimes when you're really aware of a process that you have that you want to change, for example, like, I used to always go and eat chocolate when I wasn't feeling good about something or feeling a little bit anxious, and being aware of that process helped me think about like, why am I getting this chocolate? Ah, this is secondary gain, I'm avoiding the problem or the anxiety, and I'm not addressing it. But I'm kind of also getting some gain out of not doing that, because I'm letting myself eat this chocolate. So that's a fairly simplistic example. But it's important to be aware of what you're getting in the situation either way, so that you can be aware of your decision making process as well. Then I would ask myself, what are you actually afraid of? Sometimes situations feel really overwhelming, like, everything is a problem, and everything is overwhelming, and everything is contributing to this. But if you really ask yourself, what exactly what specifically am I afraid of in making this decision, it can really help you think about solving one or two questions instead of like a million small problems. So what was I actually afraid of in making the decision to go? For me, the big things were like the financial impact, and then the impact on our kids. So we had to think about, you know, could we live with those risks? Why am I really afraid of that? And what's, you know, is that realistically a problem? The other question that goes nicely with this one is what's the worst that could happen? So, the worst thing that could happen would be that we went and we spent all our money, and maybe we came back in, in debt or with no money. And then we can think through Well, you know, could we still recover from that? Could we still get back on our feet? And we decided, yes, we could, what would be the worst impact on the kids? Well, maybe they would get homesick, maybe they would experience some instability. But then on the other side, they would probably become more resilient, they will learn lots of things, they will experience things that they wouldn't be able to get otherwise. And in the end, those things were more important than being afraid of the instability and so on. So it's good to think about when like, when you're in that fear state about whether or not you should make a decision to make a leap into something is, what is the worst that can happen? And can it be reversed? So if you take this leap and make this decision, is it possible to just change your mind again, and a lot of the time, we feel like these things are super permanent, and there's no other option and you know, the outcome is predetermined. But actually, there's very few situations that you can't get out of, if you realize that it's not serving you in the end. So I hope this has been a helpful insight for you in how to make big decisions in your life. And some questions that might help you narrow down what's going on for you in your mind when you think about whether or not these decisions are right for you. As I said, I'll put all these questions in the show notes so that if you're facing a big decision at the moment, you can have a look and work through those questions to help you. And if you really are stuck and needing another perspective, you can always book in a one on one coaching session with me via the website, the mindset corner.com forward slash coaching, and I'll be more than happy to help you through your decision making process. Thanks for joining me today on the mindset corner. If you're enjoying the episodes, please share it with your friends on socials. And if you love today's episode, please leave me a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify or wherever you choose to listen. It really helps people find the podcast. If you'd like to learn more, visit the mindset corner.com. There you can check out my current five day course last to mind boss which is always available for you to lift up your mindset to the next level. Okay, see you next time and have a fantastic day.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
