Beyond Your Limits with Dr. Christine Jehu

126. Vision, Action, Inspiration: Building the Vision for Your Life

• Dr. Christine Jehu

Share episode

Today's episode was inspired by the idea of universal intelligence I was introduced to while reading the book "You are a Badass at Making Money." Connecting to the belief that if a dream is in you, it's meant for you.

We dig into the power of casting the vision for your life, getting really clear on what you desire, and taking the first action. Success and high performance aren’t complex. They are built on a foundation of takes-no-skill action that's connected to your life's desires.

Let's not wait for a new year to make changes in our lives. Let's start today. So, tune in, share this podcast with a friend, and together, let's begin crafting the future of our dreams.

Pen to Paper Prompts:

  • What is it that you truly want?
  • If all the fears, the doubts, the what ifs were gone. If money was plentiful. What would you desire?
  • What is the first action? When in the next 3 days will you take that action?

-----------
Show some love for the podcast by leaving a 5 Star Rating & Review!!

Let's Stay Connected!


The Beyond Your Limits Toolkit:

  • Grab your Daily Pages HERE


Mental Health Resources:

  • Call 988 for Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
  • LGBTQI+ Helpline: 1-866-488-7386, Text START to 678-678


Speaker 1:

What does it look like to live a life beyond your limits? Hi, I'm Dr CJ, a copy obsessed psychologist coach and your personal virtual mentor. Too many of us are holding ourselves back, placing limits on what's possible and believing the false stories in our head that say we can't accomplish a goal or a dream. Together, we will rewrite the stories holding us back, tackle barriers and limits and build an incredible foundation for going after our goals and dreams. I'm here to support you, to challenge you and to coach you through and beyond your limits. And a quick caveat while I am a psychologist, this show is not therapy or a substitute for mental health treatment. Please connect with a licensed mental health provider for those needs. Alright, are you ready to live a life beyond your limits? Let's get after it. Hey, everyone, welcome back. We are going to dive right in today. One thing I want to acknowledge first, though, is that, in the United States, this week is the anniversary of September 11th, and you know it's interesting that I feel like the further and further we get from it, the less attention focus. Sure, things drop on social media, but those of us who lived through it, I don't know this desire to pause, and I know that we say always remember. But I think there's a lot of value in pausing and recognizing all that came with that day and those events. And we are not going to get political here or anything, but as I was writing up the outline for this episode and thinking about this idea of vision and working towards our future, it really strikes me you know, the universe is always working that. I'm sorry, I was trying to do the math because I can't remember what are we. It's over over 20 years that so many people woke up that morning with dreams and goals and visions that were stopped, were crushed and lives were taken and many, many, many lives were altered. And so I ask us one to remember for what it was and to take the time to connect to what that means for you, but to also to remember that life is short. And how many of us, when we think about the dreams and the goals that we have on our heart and the vision for what we can see our life to be, will say I'll start tomorrow or not. Right now things are too busy, I don't have time. I'll start that in the new year or at the next quarter or insert whatever next framework or timeline you have ahead of you. And so today and this week, as we remember and we continue to remember, I'm going to invite you to challenge that part of you that is nudging you to put something off, especially when we're talking about our goals and our dreams and this vision that we can be building for our future, and to make it the today, the tomorrow, the 10 years from now, everything, everything that you want and more and I know that sounds so freakin, cheesy and Honestly y'all like right it it is. If it's empty, it's it is. If it's empty, and if you're doing the oh, I'm gonna manifest, I'm gonna write things on my mirror and then you're not taking action. Yeah, it's empty, but that's not what we do here. That is not what we do here. And so all of that lead in to say I want to talk today about building the vision, really getting a good look at what it is you really want. I Took a quick road trip this weekend, just a day trip.

Speaker 1:

A couple hours down the road and I Started listening to the book you are a badass at making money by Jensen Cherrow, and this book has been out for a number of years and I've had a Handful of people in my life who've read it, who've recommended it and, for whatever reason, I Never picked it up, never downloaded it on audible, but something about One. They need to use up some audible credit so that I could cancel my subscription because I'm not listening at the rate that I that I have been in the past. That's so funny, but I am a true believer that Messages come when we're ready. And I'm not done with this book. But let me tell you, I am. I am digging every moment of it and have. I'm not even done with it and I've thought, you know, I'm gonna need to listen to this again, and this is one of those books that I I the gen reads it, the author reads it, and there's something that hits different when an author reads their own words To you and you really get their energy and the essence of what they're saying. So, anyhow, this is not a book review, for you are a badass at making money. However, I highly recommend it. But she has.

Speaker 1:

She talks about this idea of Universal intelligence, and I'm not going to do it justice, but what really hit me about this idea of universal intelligence is that we are meant to have or go after what comes to us. So this idea of If you, if you think it, you can be it there's another phrase there and it's right on the tip of my tongue but I'm not able to access it right now but this idea that that If it's in you, it's for you, right? So this idea of for her she's talking about money and it's you know, if you, if you have this idea to make a million dollars in whatever business it is, then it's, it's there for you to make the million dollars in whatever this business is right. If you're selling Pillow shams, I don't know, I've got pillows all around me to help with the sound here. So that's, that's what we're going with, right?

Speaker 1:

So this idea that if it, if it's in you, it's for you and I've heard this over and over and over again, but it was something about how she, how she packaged the message in her, in her book that it really hit me differently and honestly, I think it hit me, I. It hit me differently because I am in a place to hear it and a place to receive it and it really had me thinking. You know, I again it was around money and so it got me thinking about wow, what is it that I want to do with my life as it pertains to money. How do I want to feel In my life when it comes to money? What has been blocking me, right, what is keeping me from going beyond what I ever thought was possible? And so I, I sat down with this idea to Do some vision, casting around money.

Speaker 1:

And, honestly as I, as I got specific about what I wanted to do, I got specific about money it opened up a realization for me, right, and that, and and a recognition that I have been holding onto a lot of blocks over the last few years, right, this desire and this belief for myself of a life that I wanted has always been really, really clear and was blocked by this situation. And yes, hear me out, I am one of those people that believes that we can take matters into our own hands and face the barriers in front of us, and it's not always going to be easy, and we are really resilient, capable beings, and so the if there's a will, there's a way comes to be. And I wasn't necessarily taking action because I was blocked by a situation, and we're not going to, we're not going to dig into all of that, but what I'm sharing now and if you listened to last week's episode, you might be able to pick up a little bit of what I'm putting down. I have, I have changed my circumstances and I have changed my situation and, through a lot of healing and continued healing, the pieces of my life that I have always wanted and started to think weren't possible, I'm feeling it again, and I'm feeling it on such a different level that I'm moving. I'm honestly moving through the world differently. I have a clarity about me that is so different, and so I'm reconnecting to this idea of building a vision. And so you know, like I shared last week, you may not be going through a really profound change in your life, but it never. It doesn't mean that we need a big shift in a situation or a relationship or a job or anything like that to reconnect with our vision, to recast what we desire for our life. And if you've been here for a while, you know I am a huge, huge proponent of vision casting. I always have been, and I guess I want to talk about it more today because I'm feeling so much more reconnected to my truth and to what I want Out of this life and at the same time, there are a lot of pieces of this vision that I have that I have no freaking clue how it's going to happen, but I feel to the core of my being that it's going to be possible and I don't exactly know how it's all going to unfold. And for the first time, I'm okay with that. The first time I am okay with that.

Speaker 1:

I am a planner and I talked to a lot of students about this right when they're looking to graduate and they tell me I don't know how I'm going to get there, and I'm saying no shit like how? How are you meant to know when you have lived your entire life in a school system, regardless of the school system you've been in? When you finished kindergarten, they told you to go to first grade and you continue on to the grades be after that. And then, when you finished high school, you came here to college and we have just followed systems after systems and lived in this semester week by week, test to test, to where we don't have to think about creating a structure or thinking through what it might look like this step after this step, because everything's been laid out. Yeah, you might not know all of the content, but if you read the syllabus, you know what's coming next, and I think a lot of us get stuck when we're faced with an opportunity or a time in life or a situation that doesn't have that roadmap, especially if we are living in a space, in a career that has a very distinct pattern, a routine and a rhythm.

Speaker 1:

And even if it's not your life, there's probably a rhythm and a pattern to the life of someone close to you, right? So I think about those of you with children and you may not be the one in school, but they are and there are elements of your life that revolve around this rhythm, and I've said it before that I feel like COVID, for me, forced me into even more. Listen, I love a rhythm and I love a routine. You know we're all about building the habits here, and sometimes we have to shake them up, and so this is an invitation as all of these episodes are right Invitations for you to look at your life a little differently.

Speaker 1:

Maybe you have a massive vision and there might be a spot of your life that you haven't vision cast. My life has been so focused on my career that I've had a loose vision casting for parts of my personal life, but I never got as specific as I was with my career and so personal life, finances. Maybe it's a business that you want to start right, and you've said it loosely. Maybe you've got that vision board and you've got you know CEO on there and for you, that CEO of your own business, but the what of the business, the how, like none of that has come together. You just know I don't want to work for the man anymore, I want to be my own boss. So this is my invitation to you to come alongside and build a vision. And we have what? September, october, november to four months, less than four months in the year, and so it could be really easy to say, yeah, this time of the year goes by really fast and we got the holidays and this and the other. I'll focus on this in the new year. No, we are not waiting till the new year's kind of people you are here to grow, to stretch yourself and to take action, and so I want to invite you to step into this vision building with me.

Speaker 1:

And as I think about this right, it takes absolutely no skill, no skill to visualize and vision cast right. And some of you might be thinking well, I don't, I don't want to make a vision board bubble Like listen, we're not getting a poster board and gluing pictures to it. If that's what you want to do, awesome. We can vision cast by putting pen to paper and writing out what it is we desire, right? So it doesn't take any skill to visualize, but what it does take is action. It does take a connection to the true desire, right, honing in and being honest with yourself of what it is you really want.

Speaker 1:

While we're setting aside fear and doubt and let me not even say setting aside right, we are casting through the fear and doubt. And so I would say have two pieces of paper side by side as you're starting to vision cast, so that you can write down the fears and doubts on a different piece of paper so it doesn't get intermixed with your vision. But we also want to put them down once they get out of our head and to it makes it real in a way that diffuses the power from it. Right there, often times when I do exercises like this with clients and I tell them, ask them, tell me your fears, tell them, tell them to me and they'll say it out loud and they'll go. Well, that sounds silly. I'm like, okay, and is it true? And they're like actually no, right. So when it lives in our head, it's allowed to take root. Right, it's living rent free in our head and getting the F in the way. Right, we need to evict that. So let's put it on paper to get it out of our head, and then it gives us that opportunity to truly challenge the fears and the doubts, to see that, hey, they don't really have a place here. So it takes action. It takes that connection, that true desire to connect with the true desires Sorry, my words are getting all jumbled and then a never-faulting willingness to take the first action.

Speaker 1:

Okay, because there's always going to be the next first action. So here's what I want you to ask yourself. Right, the pen to paper prompts for this week are what is it that you truly want? Let your mind go wherever it can in these moments, right, what is it that you truly want? And if all the fears, the doubts, the what ifs, if all of those were gone and if money wasn't a thing right, money is plentiful what would you desire? What would you desire?

Speaker 1:

And then, what is the first action? What is the first action when we look at what it is you truly want, what this vision is that we're casting. What is the first action that you can take and when in the next three days will you take that action? I almost said five days, but honestly, we're not here to play small. We are not here to play small, and I recognize that an action that you might need to take could conflict with your job, duties and all of that. So I'm not going to be one of those people that says put your pen down, go, do it now. Right, because logistically you may not be able to. Okay, but if you can take that action now, do it, do it. That first action may be putting the vision up on your wall. That first action may be sending a message to a friend and saying hey, this is what I truly want. Okay, I want to share. Oh sorry, my dog is eating a plant. Hold on, jackson, stop it. What are you doing? What are you doing? Come on, get out of here. Uh-uh, get out of this room, go. You cannot eat plants. Okay, we're totally leaving that in there, because I think that was really hilarious. My vision is for my dog not to eat my plants so funny, he's never done that before.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I like to share this story about a client that I worked with, and obviously I'm not going to give you all of these the details, the bright confidentiality and things like that, but it really gives the power of of casting the vision, and casting the vision at a time when things were not going well. So I was working with this college student. I had the privilege of working with them through their entire college career and when I first met this student, they were really lacking a desire to live and there were protective factors, this, that and the other and reasons why they stayed around. And they basically said to me hey, you've gotten till graduation to convince me to live. And I was like cool, let's go. So we did some vision casting and when I told them, they rolled their eyes to me, rolled their eyes so hard and I was like listen, I know it sounds, I know it sounds farfetched. I know you absolutely don't believe me that this will have an impact, but just humor me, right? I know that this that this student was kind of a rule follower and would complete an assignment if you gave it to them, and so I said I want you to cast this vision right. So if you think about where you are a year after graduation. Where are you living? What job do you have? Like? Paint the picture to me of the home you're living in.

Speaker 1:

And so, begrudgingly, they went and did their homework assignment and came back and told me about, you know, this type of city. There wasn't a specific city. I've let that slide, but knew it was going to be a city, an apartment complex. They wanted a certain number of bedrooms and this, that and the other, a few amenities, this type of job, and definitely wanted to have a patio, and out on the patio they would have a chair and a small table next to the chair and on it would it would have a potted plant. How funny is that? That the dog was just trying to eat.

Speaker 1:

The plan. Here we are, universe, I'm telling you. And so I said okay, so how can we start taking action towards this? Right, it was okay. Well, I'm just going to, I'm going to pick a city that meets this criteria and I'm going to see what types of jobs are there in my fields and maybe what internships are there. And let me just look at some apartment complexes to see Is there anything that you could do to bring some of that physically into your space and slowly, over the time that we worked together this student reminds you this is their first year of college.

Speaker 1:

I worked with this student for four years. By the time they came to graduate, they told me I said remember that thing you made me do? The apartment that I got is that apartment and they had actually got, like, purchased the potted plant a couple of years before and so, while at a point at which life did not seem convincing to stay around, didn't know where it was going to take them literally if they would be around. We did this vision casting and, while they were appeasing me initially, we got to a space where it became the roadmap. It became the roadmap and that's what this is. It's the roadmap.

Speaker 1:

When we can cast the vision, when we can get as granular as I'm gonna have a porch and there's gonna be a chair and a table and I'm going to have a potted plant and the color of the pot, then we can take action. We may not be moving into that apartment tomorrow, but we could go to the store and get a plant and get a pot. That is action that takes no skill. Yes, it requires resources, I acknowledge that, but that's not buying a house. We're looking at most $20. If you've got to buy a whole box of pot, whole bag of potting soil and this, that and the other right Within reach, and that takes absolutely no skill, okay. So, and for you naysayers out there, and you can take a pot, a plant, and put it in there and throw some more dirt around it and then you gotta water it. Watering takes no skill, takes commitment takes no skill. Okay, you see where we're going here.

Speaker 1:

We're looking at the vision, we're getting granular, we're facing the fears and doubts and we're moving beyond them. And then we're taking the asking ourselves what is the first action? What is the first action? What is the first? Takes no skill action Because success and high performance, it's not complex. We, as humans, make it seem like it's complex because of the fears and the limits. Right, those self-imposed limits that are holding us back.

Speaker 1:

The foundation is takes no skill action and taking that action creates the habits. And when we have the habits, what that does is it decreases the chaos in our life. It creates patterns and creates ingrained pathways that are then followed right, these habits. It's habitual. Right, we get up, we put our pants on, we do the things right. When we have these habits and these rhythms and these rituals in our life, we just follow them. It's like autopilot and when we're on autopilot it reduces the energy expenditure on trying to find the motivation. It reduces the energy expenditure on trying to get going Right. Everybody talks about oh well, when I have the motivation. Spoiler alert high performers and successful people don't have more motivation than you do. They have implemented takes no skill action which created habits which decrease the chaos and increase their rhythms and reduce the bullshit energy expenditure so that they're taking action every day. That's why, in the daily pages, we have five takes no skill action to do every day, because the idea is that's creating the habits and creating the rhythms for our life that get us moving. A body in motion stays in motion. We have to create the energy. The energy just doesn't show up.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so we're building the foundational habits for the healthy life and to do that we need clarity of vision, to know where we're going and in what direction. To take the first action. Okay, so that's my challenge to you this week, my friends. I've got those journal prompts for you. They'll be in the show notes. Get your daily pages. This is a great use of the daily pages space, right, to get in and dig in and ask yourself the big questions. And then you could shift the gratitude page into your action taker page. Right, you could add takes action on vision at the bottom of your daily tracker and just kind of add an extra line there. Okay, let's do this together.

Speaker 1:

We're not waiting for the new year and let me tell you I have a really cool idea of what's coming in the new year on the pod Woo, it's gonna be good. But we're not waiting. We're not waiting for the new year to dig in, to find the vision, to start making the habits and decreasing the chaos in our life. We're doing it now, today. Okay, so put that pen to paper.

Speaker 1:

I'm gonna ask you to share this podcast with a friend. Share it with them right now. Forward it to them, send it directly and then please, if you would leave a five star rating and review. This really helps get the word out about the podcast. And if you don't know what to write, all I want you to put in there is hey, I'm taking the first action and if you feel so bold, share what that action is right. Inspire someone. Let's get out there and inspire one another. I'm so thankful that you're here. I can't wait to see all the action that's gonna be taken. As always, I love you, I'm proud of you and we will talk so soon.