Checking In With Your Self

Glenn Discusses the importance of taking time to check in on yourself and take stock in where you are, and where you are going! Heading down a new path and growing in your journey are wonderful, but without checking in every once in a while it can be easy to start heading somewhere you weren't intending.

Transcript

Welcome to Life,

Lessons and Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Hey everybody,

Welcome to the show.

So here we are checking in on ourselves to check in on ourselves on the podcast.

So today guess what we're talking about?

Is it checking in on ourselves?

Nailed it.

I'm good at this.

Yeah.

So we're talking about checking in on ourselves.

So we are,

So Ben threw this out there as soon as we got on today.

And it was a good fricking topic idea,

I thought.

So here we are talking about it.

So we're talking about checking in on where you are in your journey.

So,

You know,

Of course it's good to have goals and then start heading in the direction of them and fine tune your mindset,

Where you're going and what brings you joy and what you want.

And to head in that direction.

So,

But we also,

You know,

We can veer off,

We can get sidetracked.

And so it's a good idea to check in.

It's kind of reassessing where you are,

You know,

Because we grow through our journey.

So as we're growing,

You know,

We change,

Our perspective changes,

The circumstances around us changes,

Our life changes,

Our business changes,

Our relationships change.

So they're all affected by our growth and the action that we take.

So it's important to stop every once in a while and kind of reassess where you are.

You know,

One,

To give yourself credit for where you've been and all the work that you've done.

I mean,

That's a huge part of it.

You know,

We walk many miles and,

You know,

Pretend intellectually that we've taken one step and,

You know,

We sweep away our progress very easily.

We don't pay attention to it,

You know.

So it's important to see all the progress that you've made in any area of life and then to see where you are and see if you're still heading on that path that you want to be going on.

So it's,

You know,

And I did this.

I've done it a lot of times,

Actually,

But like specifically with my business.

You know,

With my business,

It was,

I guess the biggest jump was when I closed the Life Enhancement Center,

You know,

Because I was doing personal training and Reiki and life coaching and events.

And when I got the pull to leave that space,

I was like,

Okay,

Well,

I need this space.

It's,

You know,

It does half my streams of revenue here,

You know,

Like,

So I really had to look and see,

Oh,

Okay,

Well,

Where have I come?

And I knew that I was cutting back on personal training and doing more life coaching.

But until I stopped and looked,

I didn't see how dramatically that had changed.

You know,

It was in the beginning,

I think it was when I first opened personal training was like 80% of my income because that's what I had been doing.

You know,

By the time I closed my business,

Which was only two years later,

I think it was 20% of my income.

So it was,

You know,

It had completely shifted and I didn't know it had shifted that much.

And I thought,

You know,

And those numbers aren't exactly right because I was doing the events and stuff.

Right.

You know,

I didn't come to exact numbers percentage wise.

I just was like,

Okay,

Can I live without it?

Yep.

Okay,

Boy,

It's a lot smaller than it was.

And then same with the events.

You know,

I depended on the events for a certain period of time.

But then I got to the point where I was like,

Well,

You know,

What if I just kept doing like the book club and the spiritual cinema?

Then,

You know,

I could get a little bit of income coming in each month,

But I wouldn't do all the other random events that I had going on.

And I was kind of surprised that that was going to work as well.

So I was able to let go of the events,

Which I didn't really enjoy planning the events anymore.

In the beginning,

It was exciting and I enjoyed it.

By the time I closed off to it,

I was just thinking like before this all started,

I was thinking,

I'm kind of,

I'm getting sick.

I was planning events and I was like,

I don't like this.

I'm getting sick of planning all these events.

I'm not an event planner.

I don't want to be an event planner.

And I was just starting to get those thoughts.

And then like within a couple of weeks,

I started entertaining the possibility of moving out of that building.

And I was like,

Okay,

What about the events?

I'm like,

I was just thinking that I think I might want to cut back on events.

It's funny how it all coincides.

Like unconsciously,

We're aware of stuff before we are consciously.

So it all played in and I was able to downsize dramatically to where I could do Reiki if I needed to.

I still did that once or twice here or there.

But I could downsize to a really small room and get rid of the whole business space.

And then again,

When I moved down to Florida,

I had to reassess again and be like,

Okay,

Should I not have an office space?

Should I not pay for an extra office space?

And it was like,

Yeah,

I'm not really doing Reiki anymore.

I'm not really seeing any in-person clients.

And I'm not going to be doing the events in my home or a business space.

So it's really,

I don't need to.

So assessing all that stuff,

It's stopping and taking a look and really,

You know,

The answers are right there a lot of times when you stop and assess.

But like a half an hour before I assessed everything,

The information wasn't different,

But I was completely unaware of it.

Until I just stopped,

Started looking at it.

Now,

If somebody were to walk up to me a half an hour before and say,

Glenn,

Do you know what's going on with your business?

I'd be like,

Yeah,

Absolutely.

I know what's going on.

And I do.

I mean,

To some degree,

You know what's going on.

But until you slow down and really assess it and go,

Okay,

Let's look at it.

What this is specifically and what does it mean?

That's when you really learn,

You know,

And we do that.

This applies to all areas of our lives.

You know,

I used to,

How many times did I have you do a food log?

Yeah.

You know,

And you know how many people,

I had most people do food logs because I was amazed at how much information you would learn when you did one.

And it's not because people think they know what they're eating.

And for the most part,

They do.

On some conscious level,

Of course,

They know what they're eating.

But until you keep track of it and you bring some structure into it and really look at it,

That's when you find,

Oh,

You know,

I didn't even realize this little aspect.

I was overlooking that little aspect.

And you don't notice that.

You know,

When I was training,

I had people who were amazingly detailed in their eating habits.

And I would be like,

Okay,

Well,

Just get one of those apps and do a food log.

It might be your,

Sometimes it's carbohydrates hidden in certain foods that you're not even aware of,

A little at a time,

Then it adds up and you're way over on your carbs or sugars or salt.

You know,

And they're like,

And I mean,

I'm talking about people who were dieting to the level of professional bodybuilders.

They weren't a professional bodybuilder,

But they were dieting and they had been working out specifically and almost as intensely as one.

And they knew their stuff and they were just stuck.

And I don't know.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong,

You know.

And then I had them keep that app and they're like,

You were right.

As soon as I did that,

There was a little extra of this and that that I wasn't aware of and the app picked it right up and said that my percentages were off of my carbohydrates or my percentages were off on my salt intake or something.

As soon as I made that adjustment,

Within four days,

Everything shifted.

You know,

It's stuff like that.

I mean,

People who are overly aware still need to assess and bring in some structure to really look closely and get it all in front of us.

And it's the same.

The other place I see this finances.

You know,

If you have no money,

Then you know you have no money.

You know,

No,

I know I have more going out than I have coming in.

Yeah.

Put it on paper.

Put it on paper.

You always learn something when you put it on paper.

When you put everything on paper,

Like you don't realize how much you spend on a coffee every day monthly until you add it up.

Yeah.

Or,

You know,

Your cable bill.

When you look and you're spending $200 on cable a month,

It's just normal because that's what you pay until you understand that like you could get life coaching for $300 a month.

And that's what you really want.

You know,

You really want to invest in your life,

But you're spending $200 a month on cable,

Which is unconscious noise.

And you can cut the cable and get it for $80 instead of $200 nowadays,

With high speed internet.

So it's all that.

This is all the different examples of.

.

.

I guess I wanted to paint the big picture of.

.

.

It's in all areas.

It can be in our business.

It can be in our finances.

It can be in our food intake.

It can be in our exercise routine.

It can be in our relationships.

It can be.

.

.

We stay stuck because sometimes we don't know where we are,

And we're not appropriately walking towards where we want to go.

And this is what helps that.

Yeah.

One of my favorite quotes that I've mentioned before on the show is,

What gets measured gets managed.

It's hard to find control and take care of things when you don't know exactly what you need to do.

Yeah.

And it's that Zig Ziglar quote that when I was starting my business,

I came across that quote and it lit up like a freaking Christmas tree.

And I had it on my website because I liked it so much.

It might still be there.

I don't know.

But lack of direction,

Not lack of time is the problem.

We all have 24-hour days.

And I saw that quote right as I was starting my business.

And I was like,

Oh my god,

That's huge.

And right then.

.

.

And I tried living that.

It was lack of direction.

I needed to have direction and focus my energies in a specific direction if I was going to achieve what I wanted to achieve.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

And that's the thing that I think is really important is the goal of most people.

This is why I thought about this topic this morning was like the goal of people that are probably listening to this podcast are that they're either choosing now to make some sort of personal growth or spiritual growth path or they have and they've been following it for a while.

Because before that is living unconsciously.

But if you stray too far down a path and you just think everything is okay,

You start to then live unconsciously in a different direction.

And the only way to really stop that is to make sure that you check in with yourself.

Right.

It is.

And a lot of times,

This is why I think consistency with life coaching is so important.

If you do decide to go the route of having a life coach,

This is something that is helped.

I mean,

It's still healthy for you to assess where you are in certain situations,

But it does help you stay on that path.

And it's sometimes what happens a lot of times with life coaching.

I can't count how many times I've given this little talk.

I mean,

I actually get to the point where I was going to type it up on my computer.

I may have even done this.

And just so I could copy and paste it into emails for people because I had this talk so many times.

What happens is you start working on yourself,

Things start going better,

You start feeling better,

You start getting excited.

And then you go,

Hey,

I'm good.

Thanks for the help.

I'm going to head off now.

And sometimes,

Don't get me wrong,

I mean,

Sometimes that's exactly what people need.

But more often than not,

What happens is our old way of thinking creeps back in.

And we veer off.

This is why I worked with a life coach for so many years.

It's our stuff,

There's emotion around it.

So it's easier to veer off the path with ourselves and just have somebody to check in a couple times a month with.

And I've gone long periods of time.

I don't even know how long.

Maybe six months or longer.

Where basically my life coach was a sounding board for the most part.

It's just like,

Hey,

Yeah,

Things are great.

I'm kind of looking at things this way and this way and this way.

It sounds like it makes sense when it's coming out of my mouth because usually I can pick up on stuff that doesn't make sense as it comes out of my mouth.

If it's in my head,

It's a little harder.

Verbalizing something always makes a difference.

Yeah,

It does.

So usually I could pick up on it and I'd be like,

Oh,

Yeah,

I'm going to do this and this the way I'm looking at it.

And I'd be like,

Oh,

Wait a minute.

That doesn't sound right.

I should be doing this and this and this.

The life coach is just sitting there listening to the whole thing.

At the end I go,

How's that sound?

Yeah,

You got it.

Okay,

Good.

But what it does is it prevented me from second guessing myself.

And it gave me the courage and the stick-to-itiveness to keep heading in that direction.

Because if I didn't have that sounding board,

I'd start second guessing myself.

Or if my thinking was,

Like I tell people,

Once your thinking starts veering off,

You don't usually notice it right away.

So what happens is you go further and further off and further off and further off.

Then all of a sudden it gets really uncomfortable.

Then you go,

Oh,

Wait a minute.

I think my thinking might be off.

Now it's still getting further and further off.

And then finally you go,

Yeah,

It's definitely off.

What do I need to do to correct it?

Then if you can figure it out yourself,

You correct it and then you stop bringing it back.

And this whole loop of going away from a healthy way of thinking,

Then recognizing it,

Then assessing it,

Then figuring out what to do and then working your way back,

That takes time.

And it takes energy and it apps you emotionally because it's tiring and stuff like that.

Staying on track is good the more you can do that.

And like I was saying,

You can do that with a life coach.

Of course,

It dramatically helps that.

But you can also do it whether you have a life coach or not by assessing yourself and taking stock in where you are.

But the only other thing I want to,

I think I have to mention here,

Don't do it too often.

You don't want to turn into the kids in the backseat going,

Are we there yet?

Are we there yet?

Are we there yet?

That's a major problem.

That's another thing that you have to be careful of.

You do not want to lead in that direction.

I've had that conversation almost as many times as I've had the other one I just mentioned.

So it's like we can't nickel and dime ourselves to death and constantly,

Did I do it?

Am I there yet?

So you could set timeframes and each person is different and it depends on what your goal is and where you're headed.

But to take some.

.

.

And bringing structure into that helps.

Set a time,

Set it on your calendar.

You can do it maybe every three months if it's something general or if it's something large.

If it's something that you're trying to accomplish short term,

Then maybe you can make it whatever.

Whatever is appropriate for your particular situation.

But if it's bigger or long term stuff,

Like general self-growth or long term business stuff,

I wouldn't really do it more than maybe every three months because you'll drive yourself nuts.

I think there's also times,

As you said,

To just if something's presenting itself to you multiple times,

Then you should try to learn how to pay attention to that.

Like you said about,

I'm not an event planner.

All of these things,

These feelings keep coming at me.

Having a set time,

Like you just said,

Is amazing because you should check in regularly but not too regularly.

But then also listen to yourself if you're telling yourself something.

Yeah,

If there's signs,

Then listen.

I guess the regular check-ins are not a reason to sweep away paying attention to signs.

So yes,

Absolutely pay attention to signs.

I guess the regular check-ins are there in case you miss them.

Because really,

If I'm talking about my entire business,

That's big.

That's long term.

It could be,

I don't know,

It could be,

When did I start it?

It could be a 30,

40-year project.

Who knows?

I don't know how long I'm going to be doing this.

But something like that,

If I miss something,

An adjustment that needs to be made,

And I pick it up three months later,

Let's say I miss it right after my last assessment.

Two days after my last assessment,

I missed a sign,

And then I pick up on it three months later.

And then I acknowledge it,

I make the adjustments,

And then I continue moving forward.

That's fine.

That's completely fine.

I'm generally an action taker for the most part.

And I go through my periods like everybody else of ups and downs and all that stuff.

But as a general rule,

I'm an action taker,

And I have been for years.

So to me,

I look back and if I don't slow down enough,

I look back and I go,

Oh,

I started this business years ago.

And boy,

It was in its infancy when it was in this stage.

And then when I opened up the Life Enhancement Center,

That was a lifetime ago.

And then I see these reminders on Facebook or I start talking with somebody and I go,

Oh,

I wonder how long ago that was.

And it almost forces me into an assessment.

When was that?

And I'm like,

That was a year and a half ago.

That's nothing.

I closed the Life Enhancement Center two and a half years ago.

I think that's nothing.

I was there.

That was an entire lifetime I was in that place.

I was only there like two years.

That's nothing.

And my brain does not see it that way at all.

I feel like I've been doing this forever.

And I had that Enhancement Center forever.

And it was just such a huge part of my life.

And of course,

It was in certain aspects.

But time-wise,

It was two years.

It's a drop in a bucket of my business.

It's crazy.

It's crazy.

And I think I'm fairly aware.

And it blows my mind when I look at stuff and really go,

Look at everything that's transpired over the last four or five years.

It's nuts.

That happens to me all the time.

I was washing my hands the other day.

And I was like,

I don't remember being in this room for the first time.

This is just my house.

And it's only been my house for two years.

But I'm like,

I don't really remember the feeling of this being new anymore.

That's weird.

It feels like it's just been forever.

Yeah.

That's it.

That's the thing.

So,

It's so important for us to live consciously because we do.

A lot of our lives is unconscious.

Even in my life where we're exposed to,

I always forget the numbers,

But it's something like 35,

000 bits of information a second.

And we can't take it all in.

We pick and choose what to focus on.

And generally,

We're focusing on what we need to accomplish and what we're doing at this particular time in our life.

So,

To stop and assess and gain perspective in what we have accomplished and how far we've come,

That's the other aspect that I want to touch on as far as the assessments.

Of course,

You want to make sure you're staying on track and you're heading there.

And if your goal needs to be reshaped and revamped,

Then reshape it and revamp it.

And that's all to keep you going in the right direction in the future.

But there's something that fuels that.

And that's how we feel about ourselves.

And we can't feel good about ourselves if we feel like we haven't come anywhere.

We feel like crap because we're just like,

Oh,

I'm just doing what I do.

It's like what we're just talking about.

Like our recent past,

We don't give it any credit or conscious focus.

It's just,

Oh,

That was history.

That was so long ago.

It's like,

No,

It wasn't that long ago.

And look at how much we've accomplished in such a short period.

If somebody said,

Oh,

Well,

Work hard for five years and you'll get here.

Most people would do it if they could actually see where they're going to land.

And this also might be an aspect of being an entrepreneur.

I mean,

When you've got your own business,

You're working all kinds of weird hours and doing things.

It's not nine to five.

So next thing you know,

You wake up and you've actually gotten something for all the busyness that you've gone through.

But really stopping and going,

Where have I come?

In personal growth,

I think the biggest,

I see this in a lot of different ways,

But I think the biggest way is really stopping and looking back on your life,

Like when you first started working with the Life Coach or when you first started your spiritual walk.

Like why did you start your spiritual walk?

There's a general rule,

There's one reason.

Suffering.

As a general rule,

That's the only reason everybody starts deciding to change everything about themselves is because they're suffering and they're sick of it.

They're sick and tired of being sick and tired and they start finally doing the work.

So go back to that time.

How did I feel on a daily basis?

How depleted was I?

How hopeless was I?

How drained was I?

How overwhelmed was I?

And don't wallow in it.

Be careful,

That's a doorway to misery,

So don't dive through.

But just open it up and look and just go,

Oh my God,

I was pretty unhappy on a moment-by-moment basis.

Now with the work that I've done,

I walk through life pretty peaceful most of the time.

And if I do get donkey kicked off my path by some circumstance that catches me off guard,

Most of those I can get back on track within an hour.

That's insane.

These things that would dictate how I felt for days and weeks and months and sometimes years,

I can reassess and transcend in a matter of hours now.

Or days.

That's profound transformation that we really have to see because unconsciously our brain thinks that when we're on a spiritual walk,

We're going to be floating above a cushion 24-7 and just nothing is ever going to hurt us.

And we're going to float around the globe,

Touching people with our magic finger,

Blessing them and bringing all love and eliminating suffering.

This is the unconscious picture that we have if we don't really look at it and get realistic about it.

So subconsciously,

We're kind of comparing ourselves to some ridiculous vision like that.

And we never get there and we wonder why.

So to stop and assess and go,

Wait a minute,

Really,

What's a realistic goal?

It's to walk through life with peace and joy and happiness and not be controlled and whacked around by our circumstances all the time.

I'm kind of there.

You know,

Like,

I mean,

Congratulations.

Pat yourself on the back there.

Feel that.

Give yourself credit.

Let it become part of you,

Which is the other podcast we did.

Be the person you're trying to become.

That's what this assessing is like,

Really.

Take stock in where you are and allow yourself to be what you've been working so hard to become.

Right,

Ben?

Man,

I'm trying.

Yes,

You are.

All right.

So that is going to be it for this episode,

Glenn.

Thank you very much.

Tell the people where they can find you.

No.

Oh,

All right.

Then I will do it.

No,

I'm just kidding.

No,

They can find me at glennambroz.

Com.

Everything's there.

Links to my vlogs,

Blogs,

More podcasts,

Depending on where you listen to it.

There's a lot of podcasts out there.

And on my website,

It gives the links to all.

.

.

Everywhere where you can find them because certain places I can only upload so many.

So it's.

.

.

Yeah,

If you're looking for all my information,

That's a great hub.

And patreon.

Com is right there as well,

Where you can get video versions and really become part of supporting the teaching and the community we have here.

With Glenn Ambrose Life Coaching.

So check it out.

Check out glennambroz.

Com.

And I guess that'll do it.

Is that it,

Ben?

That's it,

Man.

All right.

All right.

Thanks for listening,

Everybody.

We'll talk at you soon.

Glenn is available for life coaching sessions.

To book an appointment or for more information,

Go to glennambroz.

Com,

Follow him on Facebook and Twitter,

Or click the link in the description of this episode.

.

Reviews

Awesome chat, really helpful, thanks Glenn and Ben 💜 x