Client Story: The Stories we tell ourselves - Fact vs Fiction

A client and I were on a "walk n' talk" session in late November, when she was chatting about her "motivation struggles". I say that in quotations because, during these couple weeks of her perceived "struggles" she hit EVERY TARGET she laid out for herself in regards to her health practices. Clearly motivation IS there more than she maybe realizes! 🤔 As we walked and chatted, I reminded her how "heavy" her work had been the past couple weeks (from what she shared with me). That HAD to be taken into account in regards to how she was feeling.

I immediately thought of my self-diagnosed "insomniac" client, which I shared a story about here on the Zen Blog. Like my self-diagnosed insomniac client, I really felt like this was a STORY her mind was telling her and NOT her reality. The only thing we were missing was the concrete data to back it up. A person who "lost their motivation" (as my client put it at the start of our walk together) would NOT be hitting EVERY health practice target EVERY week like she was. All signs pointed to her mind's storytelling.

To help her see her reality for herself, we used my app that we use for routines, communication and habits, where I challenged her to track (for both of us) how she felt overall each day.

-On a GOOD day she'll mark the "Hell Ya Day" habit in her calendar.

-On a NOT SO GOOD day, she'll mark the "Meh Kind of Day" habit in her calendar.

This is a simple tracking and measurement method that requires next to NO energy or added stress.

Today, I just sent the following screenshot to my client RIGHT before sharing her story here with all of you, to point out what our tracking has shown her/us (not that she wasn't already recognizing it).

Checked days are her "Hell Ya Days" (Positive). Circled unchecked days are "Meh" Kind of Days. (Less positive)

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The Data Collected:

28 total days tracked

(Not counting the 24th as I write this, since she hasn't tracked yet)

7 "Meh" kind of days

21 "Hell Ya" Days

(1-day untracked)

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This shows my client TWO things...

1) She has had 3x as many good days as "less good" days

2) She's human

This is where TOO MANY of us get LOST, FRUSTRATED and feel like a "FAILURE"; When we listen to the stories our mind tell us, when it's at it's most vunerable. The vulnerability comes from the stress and "weight" we feel pushing down on us, sometimes from life naturally ebbing and flowing, other times from choices we make and/or sometimes just from plain bad luck that we can't control.

...NONE of it means you're "not motivated"

...NONE of it means you're "starting over"

...NONE of it means you're a "failure"

Your mind is tired. Mentally, emotionally, spiritually from life sometimes. That's OK! That's NORMAL. However, if we DON'T learn this fact and take the time to dive into what our REALITY ACTUALLY is RIGHT NOW, we'll miss the fact that we ARE doing good things for our health and wellbeing, and we ARE moving in a positive direction.

Just because something is in our mind, doesn't mean it's true.