Books On Purpose

Welcome to our 14th Season: Stop Self Sabotage: Six Steps to Unlock Your True Motivation, Harness Your Will Power, and Get out of Your Own Way by Dr. Judy Ho!

Action Items: for ease of reference, these are listed in the show notes as well

1. What are your values in life?  If you’ve never really thought about this before, they are beliefs that serve as a guiding principle for how they think they should behave. There is no right or wrong answer here and are unique to each person.  If this is a struggle to you, try the following: Get a warm cup of tea, put on some music that is instrumental meaning no words, get comfortable, and close your eyes.  Imagine a time when you thought that life was amazing and it would be so hard to be any better.   This may be a time that you talk about over and over again with family and friends.  Visualize that moment and everything you can remember.  After you have spent time in recollection, go ahead and open your eyes and journal everything you can about that moment. 

Then, brainstorm values that mean the most to you. This could be things such as honesty, hard working, responsible, etc.  This book has a list of common values or they’re just a search away online. After you’ve finished, see which of those values were being lived out in your really good memory. 

2. Now that you know what your values are, write them down somewhere that you’ll see them everyday. You’ll notice that once you start living in accordance with these values, life will become much more enjoyable.  As you do this actively, something you may notice is that you realize there is a value that you hold more dear than one on your list.  If that’s the case, that’s ok!  Just swap it out or add it.  The average person usually starts with about 7 and slowly narrows it down to their top 3. 

3.  Do something today to take action on the values.  If we do one thing, even if it is small, in accordance with our values then our happiness levels will steadily increase. 

Always, Always Remember,

You've got this!

-J.D. Elliott

Welcome to our 14th Season: Stop Self Sabotage: Six Steps to Unlock Your True Motivation, Harness Your Will Power, and Get out of Your Own Way by Dr. Judy Ho!

Action Items: for ease of reference these are listed in the show notes as well

1. It’s time to break out the notepad or journal.  What is the goal you want to achieve?  For greatest chance of success, have it be a SMART goal which we covered during the New Years episode in season 11. Now, what will be some of the obstacles you can forsee coming up or moments that you’ll just want to quit.  Write down what they are, and then your plan to overcome them if they do come up.
2. It’s time to create some if/then statements. You know yourself better than anyone else, so whatever usually precedes self sabotaging behaviors, create a plan in what you will do in order to ensure you stay on track. It is imperative to extremely specific while doing this, and written down plans work much better as they seem more real and concrete. 

Always, Always Remember,

You've got this!

-J.D. Elliott

Welcome to our 14th Season: Stop Self Sabotage: Six Steps to Unlock Your True Motivation, Harness Your Will Power, and Get out of Your Own Way by Dr. Judy Ho!

Action items: for ease of reference these are listed in the show notes as well: 

1. what in your life do you want to change?  Sit down and journal as long as you need to and ask yourself what the actions are, what events occur to trigger the action, and what the commonalities are. Keep a box of Kleenex near by, as it may bring up some tears if you dig deep enough.

2.  What are the positive and negative reinforcements you have in your life. Now, are there any activities you avoid due to negative reinforcement.  If so, journal about why your thought process may be incorrect about your fears or insecurities.  Remember, just because we think or feel something does not mean it is true. 

Always, Always Remember,

You've got this!

-J.D. Elliott

Welcome to our 14th Season: Stop Self Sabotage: Six Steps to Unlock Your True Motivation, Harness Your Will Power, and Get out of Your Own Way by Dr. Judy Ho!

Action items: for ease of reference these are listed in the show notes as well.

1. The next time you are feeling down or negative about yourself, quite literally call a trusted friend and tell them how you are feeling.  There is power behind speaking how you are feeling out loud to someone else, and in realizing what others think of you.
2. I encourage you to relisten to this episode and take notes on the exercise that will work for you if you are feeling down. Do you need to do the opposite of what you are feeling, maybe do a positive exercise?  The choice is yours. 
3. For next level results, have a journal or in the notes section on your phone write down everything you are tempted to do after you have a negative thought or emotion.

Always, Always Remember,

You've got this!

-J.D. Elliott

Welcome to our 14th Season: Stop Self Sabotage: Six Steps to Unlock Your True Motivation, Harness Your Will Power, and Get out of Your Own Way by Dr. Judy Ho!

Action Items: Due to the content we covered today, there are not action items for today.  I highly recommend going through this episode again, taking notes, and applying these.  I guarantee your life will never be the same. 

Always, Always Remember,

You've got this!

-J.D. Elliott

Welcome to our 14th Season: Stop Self Sabotage: Six Steps to Unlock Your True Motivation, Harness Your Will Power, and Get out of Your Own Way by Dr. Judy Ho!

Action Items: for ease of reference these are listed in the show notes as well

1.  Think about a trigger you may have.  What is the earliest memory you have of it?  How did that experience impact you, and how has it impacted you from that moment onwards?
2. The following is a week long activity, which if done will yield a significant profit in insight.  Take a card or in your journal, write down several time frames thought out the day such as 9 am, 12 pm, 3 pm, and  6 pm.  Then, set an alarm for the times.  Each moment the alarm goes off, write down what you’re thinking and feeling, and what you think the reason behind it may be.  After doing this for a week, you’ll be able to see which thoughts and triggers you struggle with the most.  The power behind this is that by knowing where you are struggling, you’ll be able to address the triggers when they show up and not lead to self sabotage. 

Always, Always Remember,

You've got this!

-J.D. Elliott

Welcome to our 14th Season: Stop Self Sabotage: Six Steps to Unlock Your True Motivation, Harness Your Will Power, and Get out of Your Own Way by Dr. Judy Ho!

Action Items: for ease of reference these are listed in the show notes as well

1. How do you do with automatic negative thoughts?  Do you do a good job at squashing them, or do you entertain them to the point ants are destroying your house?  
2. Are there any saboteurs that you hear about and think, ouch, I do that? If so, it’s ok.  We all have them, and there is power in awareness.  Instead of beating yourself up, take heart in knowing that this is common to everyone and you can take steps towards improvement, resulting in improved relationships. 
3. If you struggle with comparison or would even compare yourself to a compare-aholic, I highly recommend getting the book Measuring up by Renee Vidor.

Always, Always Remember,

You've got this!

-J.D. Elliott

Welcome to our 14th Season: Stop Self Sabotage: Six Steps to Unlock Your True Motivation, Harness Your Will Power, and Get out of Your Own Way by Dr. Judy Ho!

Action Items: for ease of reference these are listed in the show notes as well

1. Think of a goal you have a really hard time achieving.  Now, take that goal and apply the SMART concept to it.  If you want to hear this more in depth, go to the New Years episode where we talk over each element, but a SMART goal is specific, measurable, attainable, realistic or results oriented, and time bound.
2. Consider each element of LIFE.  Low or shaky self concept, internal beliefs, fear of change or the unknown, and excessive need for control. Journal about which of these has impacted you and your goal in the past.
3. One thing Dr. Ho’s clients do which has been really successful is to choose a go to song that strengthens their weak element whenever they are struggling.  An example of this is one woman struggled heavily with internal beliefs due to her weight.  She chose the song Fight Song by Rachel Platten to encourage her whenever she felt like giving in.

Always, Always Remember,

You've got this!

-J.D. Elliott

Welcome to our 14th Season: Stop Self Sabotage: Six Steps to Unlock Your True Motivation, Harness Your Will Power, and Get out of Your Own Way by Dr. Judy Ho!

Action Items: for ease of reference these are listed in the show notes as well

1.  When we were covering self sabotage, is there anything that made you feel triggered?  If so, I encourage you to get into a quiet place and journal about that and try to figure out why it bothers you so much.
2. If you do self sabotage, I want you to have grace and mercy on yourself. Power can come through knowledge, and now that we covered the reward and threat systems, do the following: write down how you self sabotage (reminder: don’t beat yourself up).  Then, brainstorm how you feel rewarded and threatened by that behavior.  Finally, brainstorm how you can bring the lists in equilibrium. 

Always, Always Remember,

You've got this!

-J.D. Elliott

Welcome to our 13th Season: The bottom of the pool: thinking beyond your boundaries to achieve extraordinary results by legendary author Andy Andrews!

Action Items

1. Does what you say you want out of life line up well with your daily actions? Do you at bare minimum do what you know to do?  If the answer is a no, sometimes, mostly, or always, the importance is understanding where you are and being transparent with yourself. 
2. Just like a hammer cannot build a house by itself, a book will not produce life change unless someone hears the idea and takes action on them.  If you have skipped the action items in the past episodes, I highly encourage you to take the time and go through each one, and then take action on what you discover about yourself. 
3. Celebrate.  We just finished Andy Andrew’s legendary book, the bottom of the pool.

Always, Always Remember,

You've got this!

-J.D. Elliott