Welcome to the Mindset Coach Academy podcast. I'm Lindsey Wilson and I am a high performance mindset coach, a mom, a former professional athlete and an entrepreneur. I help coaches and high performers optimize their mindset to improve their coaching, their performance and those of their athletes and their lives. Here you'll learn all about mindset, how to live it, how to teach it and how to sell it.
Hi all and welcome back to the Mindset Coach Academy podcast. My name is Lindsey Wilson and we're talking about anticipating obstacles today. And you know, it's funny because this is, I think the third or fourth time that I've sat down in my office and tried to do this podcast. And wouldn't you know it, the podcast about obstacles is the one that there are so many obstacles to actually getting it recorded. And I think that it's just ironic that it seems like the things that I teach show up in my life.
I don't actually think that it's ironic. I think it's my brain. This is where I mine things. This is where I get my ideas and like real life, real challenges, real everything.
And so I'm here today, I may get an interrupted again. There may be some big obstacles, but I think it's apropos of what we're talking about. So here's what I want to say about obstacles. We just did a whole workshop on this in our Insider Mastermind, which is our mindset coaching students that are now running their businesses as certified coaches. And we talked about anticipating obstacles because regardless of what your goal is, so a lot of them, their goal is going to be something around making money as a mindset coach and having a successful business. So let's say their goal is to make 100,000 a year as a mindset coach. But maybe your goal is to run a marathon or maybe your goal is to get in better shape. It doesn't really matter what the end goal is. This process of really taking the time to anticipate obstacles is so, so valuable.
Because here's what happens. I think a lot of times when we have a goal, we think that we need all of the positive emotions to get motivated to be inspired to feel good about moving forward and get over all our crap and our fear. And we don't want to spend a lot of time sort of what we perceive as the negative space of thinking about obstacles.
Because obstacles can also feel like failure, right? Like I'm anticipating it or thinking about it too much or manifesting it. And so I think a lot of times we think, I'm not going to think about that. But what happens when we don't think about the obstacles is we have a very unrealistic belief about success or about the progression and how linear it's going to be maybe. Instead of having a more realistic view and solving for things ahead of time. So I think we can get surprised by obstacles if we don't anticipate them. And I think we can bring more on without solving for them ahead of time. So the way that I think about obstacles is I think about them in sort of two ways. One are like the more tangible obstacles that you can think of. That would be like, you know, it's going to be hard to train for a marathon because I have a full-time job. It could be, it's going to, you know, one of the obstacles to building my business is I have kids at home.
Right? Those are like, those are real tangible obstacles. Then we have, there are feelings about those obstacles. And I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second, how we feel about those obstacles, which may be able to be solved in the moment, but also may be something that we just have to know is going to happen. We are going to feel a certain way about those obstacles when they come up. But then the other side is intangible obstacles.
And this is the one that I think sneaks up on us. At some point in running your business as a mindset coach, you will have massive self-doubt. That is an obstacle that I can a thousand percent guarantee will happen.
At some point training for your marathon, you may not feel like going out for a run. That is an obstacle that will probably happen. So how can we anticipate these so that we don't always have to solve for those problems in the moment? Because solving for them in the, in the moment often has us going back to whatever's comfortable, right?
And whatever feels right in the moment, which may not be right for us accomplishing our goal. So for me right now, one of the obstacles for me running my business, excuse me, is sick kids. Okay. So let me talk you through how I have used this process to think about solving this. Okay.
So sick kids at home, we've just had about two to two and a half weeks of either me being sick, actually longer than that, because my husband had COVID, me being sick or one of our four children, if not multiple, being sick and being home from school sick. Okay. So, but this is not a surprise, right? And if anybody has kids, like we know at some point during the winter, they are going to be homesick. Like it would be a miracle if that didn't happen, right? So for me, I know this is going to happen, which helps me in the moment realize this is just part of it. Like I have to bake that in. So here's how I solve for it ahead of time though.
I know it's going to happen. So I batch content ahead of time, which means as I'm doing this podcast, I'm doing like four others. So that come January and February, if the kids get sick, or I get sick, or whatever, I have content already done.
Okay. So it is solved to the, to the level it can be solved ahead of time. That doesn't mean it's not difficult. When I have children home, it doesn't mean it's not difficult when I'm sick. I still have feelings about that obstacle in the moment that is going to happen. But when I think that through one, having some of it done ahead of time, my content allows me to not have such big feelings.
Okay. So they play off each other, not have such big feelings when I'm not getting that much done. I can kind of relax into it a little bit more and be like, well, I'm already ahead. So if I miss work today with a sick kid or myself, it's okay.
But I still may have feelings. So I can anticipate ahead of time, what do I need to do in those moments? Maybe it's call a friend. Maybe it's a plan for when they are sick. Maybe it's saving the iPad for them to use that during those times when I actually do need to get something done. So it's thinking about it ahead of time, trying to solve it, but also recognizing I'm going to have feelings above that. And we can anticipate those so that we're not surprised and it makes it easier in the moment. Okay. Now, so those are the more tangible pieces.
Other parts of that would be like, okay, so I have a full-time job and I'm trying to run a marathon, which means there's going to be times when I feel like I don't have time to train or whatever. How can we solve for that ahead of time? We know that at some point it's going to happen. Maybe there's some communication that we need to do with our team. Maybe I need to have a partner that's I run with. So maybe I need to do it at the same time every day.
Maybe I need to do more on the weekends than the week. You get what I'm saying. We have to anticipate these obstacles because if we are surprised by them, it is very hard to deal with it effectively in the moment. Our brain's going to choose the path of least resistance. And it's not a discipline or willpower thing that sometimes can override that wanting comfort in the moment, but it's not very sustainable.
So we want to create this ability to anticipate the obstacles and solve for them as much as possible. I mean, a good example of this for, let's say, being healthy is one of the obstacles to being healthy is if I have chocolate-covered pretzels in the house, I end up eating all of them. I'm not talking about myself, just somebody else, a friend.
I'm asking for a friend. So one of the ways to solve for that would be not by the damn pretzels. Right? You see what I'm going with?
Like these are simple, simple things that help us solve ahead of time for obstacles that here's the thing. We know they're going to happen. We know they're going to happen. Okay. Now let's talk a little bit about the intangible obstacles that I touched on earlier. So a lot of this is our own mindset, our own thoughts about the goal. At some point, we need to realize that one of the biggest obstacles to running a marathon is not getting injured, although that's going to be one of them probably.
What are we going to do when you're injured or have a little injury or something like that? That's going to be an obstacle. But one of the obstacles to the marathon or the business is I'm not going to feel like doing it. What do we do when we do that? What do we do when we have a thought that is an obstacle?
You guys, this is real. What are we going to do when we want to quit? When are we going to do when we have all kinds of doubts that this is ever going to work out? And this is why so many of our students stay in our mastermind because being able to anticipate that our brain is going to try to eff this all up for us is really a smart thing to do. So we know that at some point that's going to happen. So again, with the marathon thing, maybe that's again a running partner or a trainer or something that you can't maybe you pay ahead of time to have a trainer. That's going to keep you on track so that your brain doesn't take over. On the entrepreneur side, it's okay when I have doubts.
One of the obstacles is during launch time, I'm going to have massive doubts. I know this is going to happen. It happens to everybody. So then I can't solve totally for that, but I can anticipate it happening and give myself a plan for when it does. So one of the things we talked about in our group was having a post-it note on your wall that has a plan. For instance, I'm going to get some peer coaching. I'm going to work out. I'm going to go for a long walk when I feel those doubts.
I'm going to call somebody. These are really simple solutions. They're really simple. They're free.
Anybody can do them. But the problem is if we don't anticipate it, we get in the middle of these problems and we can't see the forest from the trees. Again, this is just our natural, how our brain works. So it can be really helpful to when you have a big goal, sit down and think of all the obstacles. I would actually just take a piece of paper, take a piece of paper, I'd write my goal on the top.
Then on one side, I would write down the more tangible, kind of holding your hand. Not really, but holding your hand obstacles like time, money, childcare, whatever. Those things that you can name a little bit easier. Then I would think about the mental obstacles. Then I would think about next to each one of them, I would think about the things that you can solve ahead of time and the things that you can maybe plan on solving during it.
A lot of that's going to be your thoughts and your feelings during it. But again, it's going to be like, okay, one of my obstacles is I'm not going to have a lot of time because I have kids at home. So I need to figure out a certain amount of hours of childcare to get to my goal. This is what I need.
How am I going to get it? Solving for that ahead of time. So this can be a really helpful exercise. I think what it does is then it gets you okay. It's like your brain always knows that these things are going to come up. In the back of your brain, even as you're excited about your goal, even as you're feeling motivated and inspired, your brain still, there's part of it in the back that's like, yeah, but what am I going to do when it's pouring rain out and I have a deadline at work and am I still going to be able to do that marathon training then? And if you've thought through all the contingencies of all the obstacles, I think your brain can kind of settle into the goal and it believes it more because you've done your due diligence.
It can be like, okay, she's thought through everything. This isn't a pie in the sky. If everything goes perfectly, then we're going to get to the goal. No, no, we've thought through all the twists and turns. We have a very realistic idea of how hard this is going to be. We totally understand that these obstacles are going to come up and we have a freaking plan. Imagine having a plan, like going into something that's big and scary and new and like, I don't know if you have a business partner and they've thought through everything.
They're the ones that have been like, okay, if the power goes out, if the internet goes out, if this goes out, imagine having that person, you would be so grateful and be like, okay, now I can feel that like, rah, rah, let's do this. I'm inspired. I'm motivated. Without that big question mark at the back of your brain that's like, yeah, but you haven't really thought through how hard this is really going to be. So then when it gets hard, your brain can be like, see, we go, I knew it. I knew this was going to be hard. Instead of like, yeah, we already knew this was going to be hard. We have a plan for this. We already know what we're doing. There's no stopping. This obstacle isn't a surprise.
This is just part of it. And how much comfort and safety can your brain feel about this goal knowing you have done your due diligence, knowing you've thought through every twist and turn and dotted all your eyes and crossed all your T's. Imagine the safety going for your goal. You can go for it full bore because you've thought of everything.
Imagine that. So guys, anticipating obstacles. Take your goal on one side of right of lying down the middle on one side, right down the more tangible obstacles, childcare, money, time, whatever. And on the other, right down the mental obstacles, the wanting to quit the doubting it's going to work out the fear of failure. All of those are obstacles and they are real. And then talk about solving them when you can, or if you can't solve it right now, have a plan for when it comes up because you know it's going to come up, right? Anticipating obstacles guys. It's one of the best things you can do to actually go hard for your goals. Hey, come on over to Instagram. Let me know how anticipating obstacles has helped you. Let's see at Lindsay Positive Perform.
All right guys, that's all I got. Hope you enjoyed this podcast. Please review it, subscribe, share it with a friend, give us a five star review.
All the stuff, we would love it. Thanks so much guys. We'll see you again soon.
Bye for now.
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