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Hello there, my friend, welcome to the Mindset for Life Podcast. I'm glad you're here. And if you're here, that means you want to know something about mindset and what we're going to talk about today, the topic is self-compassion.

Now normally, my podcast focuses on mindset, and typically we're talking about positive mindset. Like how to wake up happy, how to get out of bed excited in the morning, something like that. But today, we're going to talk about self-compassion. This is an interesting new concept for some people, so I hope you'll stay with me.

Achievement, habits, routines, strategies, attitudes; these are all tools to be our best. To move forward, to achieve our goals, to do things that we never thought we could do. And they serve us well most of the time. But as you know, life is like the waves on a sandy beach; it actually ebbs and flows. The tide of our lives rolls in and out. Sometimes things are going very well. Sometimes we're succeeding. Our efforts will lead to those achievements and the changes that we want to have.

And sometimes we experience the totally unexpected. Perhaps it is that something just didn't turn out the way we planned. Or there's an unexpected stall or interruption in our progress or our plans. And sometimes it's much more. Perhaps it's a permanent change, loss. There's grief and pain. We're not really sure what to do. How do we talk to ourselves in times like these?

Over the past six months, I've had a lot of family things happening. About six months ago, my mother had a health change. And now she's at home in hospice care and everything is different. It's been a truly emotional time and not one that we anticipated or really wanted to welcome into our lives. I stayed overnight because mom's health was not good. Things were not looking great. And we just wanted to both be with her, so my sister and I were there. And I probably got about four hours asleep. I finally realized it was time to go home and to meet my husband, who was coming home from a motorcycling trip with some friends.

He had a major motorcycle accident. The long story short is that we ended up going to the emergency room and found that he had broken eight ribs on the left side and bruised a lung. He'll have many more weeks of recovery right now.

I put these two events together because one was unfolding over a long time and I was engaged in that. The other one came suddenly.

And both events with my mother and my husband were things that none of us would have wanted in our lives. We wouldn't have invited the health challenge with our mother. And we would never have invited my husband to have a motorcycle accident. Both of these things present a lot of challenges,  ongoing, and it would be easy to be self-critical of a lot of things. It would be easy to be self critical of like not measuring up to helping people, or I need to work harder. Why am I not getting enough done? Or something like that. There are a lot of thoughts that any of us in these situations could be having.

And some of us have inner thoughts that are super unkind, like a mean, inner critical thought. We might give grace to everyone else if they were in a similar situation, but not to ourselves.

We're not sure how to move through that experience.

And we might forget things. We might struggle to achieve at the rate we used to, we have to keep going to work. We might take a few days off, and then we have to get back into the flow and go back to work. There's a lot going on with all of this.

This idea of self-compassion is a really helpful antidote to all of the angsty feelings and the negative inner critic that might be coming in during situations like this, or even those feelings of deep despair that we're having. I'd like to give you a few tips. And then I'm going to talk a little bit more about sel...

Does Anything Good Ever Happen to Me?

Hey there, this is Bethanie, your coach. I'm so excited to be with you today!

I want to talk with you about saboteurs in your brain, and it's an answer to a question that some people ask themselves all the time. Are you a person who ever wonders if anything good ever happens in your life?

Why might it seem that after a good start, things eventually just don’t work out?

I have noticed that more and more people I get to know and work with, and meet, have this thought. There are people all over the world who believe nothing good ever happens to them. That things just don't work out. When they get their hopes up, or when you get your hopes up, things get in the way. Someone will stop your progress, or someone will block your direction that you're trying to go.

Whatever it is that seems to be getting in the way of your dreams, some of us have even stopped dreaming, or setting goals, or wanting to do anything new in the future.

For you, I want to speak directly to you today with some experiences that I've had in working with some of my coaching clients.

As a teacher, as an educator, I often get people in my classes who just want to learn something new. And they come, and they learn something new. In my younger professional life, it was that they would learn how to play a musical instrument. And then as I got older, and I moved into the online college world, it became music appreciation.

And even then, when people would come to learn something musical, we never really got into the automatic thoughts that we have about ourselves. Sometimes, we cover them when we're talking about your study skills. Or how you can be a better student, or how you can take this knowledge and go out into the world and do something with it. But, it's in coaching other people that I have learned so many of us have these thoughts, believing that we are bad or that we are fundamentally flawed in some way.

Or there's a reason that we don't get “picked” for things, or that people just don't like us, or maybe nothing good ever seems to really happen on its own. If it happens, it's luck.

But if you're trying to make it happen, it's just not going to work out. I want to reach out to you today because I don't believe these thoughts are true.

Here is an explanation about what gets in the way.

In fact, over the last year, I came across a system of thinking called the Positive Intelligence operating system invented by a man named Shirzad Chamine, who was a Stanford student; and he had an experience that you might be able to relate to.

He was interacting with some classmates in a group, and he learned that they did not like him. They didn't like the way he behaved. They thought he was arrogant, and they were really offended by the way he behaved.

He had no idea.

He actually did not realize the impact that he was having on other people. And then, when he got to the bottom of his thinking, his realization was that he had an inner mental “judge” that was criticizing him in his own mind, all the time.

Have you ever noticed that happening in your own mind? We talk to ourselves all day long. Our brain is constantly talking to us. It's giving us suggestions, ideas, promptings.

It's giving us inspiration, creativity, motivation, and it's giving us criticism, judgment, suspicion, fears, reasons, we should not try things. And, in some of us, that voice is exceptionally loud.

We're going to call that your inner judge. And when you try something new, and maybe you make a mistake, that inner judge might say, “that was stupid... don't do that again.”

Now, my inner judge doesn't exactly speak to me in those same words. But for a lot of people,

Develop a Mindset to Know that You Have Enough Time

Hey there, thank you for joining me on the Mindset for Life Podcast. I'm very, very excited about this particular episode, because time management is something that comes up a lot. Most people that I talk to, whether at work or when I'm coaching, or in my family life, talk about time.

Time comes up over and over. If time were a person, its ears would be burning all day long, seriously, because we're just always talking about it. So today, we're going to talk about a mindset to know that you have enough time. I was really intrigued by this. In a book I read by Gay Hendricks, who wrote “The Big Leap,” if you haven't read this book, I highly recommend it, it's about the upper limit problem.

Stretching our comfort zone, and our ability to achieve more success, feel more love, and feel more positive emotions in our life. Now we fight this.

Why? Well, there are a lot of reasons why, that I'm not going to get into today. And I encourage you to listen to some of my other episodes of this podcast. Today, we're going to focus on how you can develop a mindset to know that you have enough time, you really do.

And in my experience, it's all about your mindset. Once you have a mindset to believe that you're capable of something, that it's open to you, you can achieve anything, literally, that you put your mind to. You can really set the goals that you want to, and you can move forward. So today, we're going to talk about the feelings that we have about time. I'm going to share a lot of feelings that I have had about time in the past, and feelings that you might have about time.

I'm going to challenge each one of these thoughts and going to encourage you to consider your own thoughts and feelings about time.

Why do we think we don’t have enough time?

Thoughts are ideas that we have. Feelings are emotions. So when I say we have feelings around time, I'm really talking about like, angst, anxiety, worry, regret, fear. A lot of those things, right? One of the biggest thoughts that we have around time is that we just don't have enough of it.

Whenever you think about not having enough of something, what does that do for you?

For me, when I think about not having enough, it starts me down the path of worry. Now, I'm not super familiar with the emotion of worry. My brain worries, I have a lot of thoughts around scarcity and worry, but I don't really notice the feeling of worry.

Worry, feels kind of tight in the shoulders. It feels tight in my neck. It feels like I'm hunched over a lot, I really have to think about what that feels like. What does worry feel like to you?

Do you like that? Well, when you're worried that you don't have enough time, that it's limited, that it's finite, you're probably thinking some of the thoughts that I have thought, and here they are.

I have thought, “There are only 24 hours in this day, and only seven days a week. And no matter how carefully I plan, I just might not be able to get everything done. I need to plan wisely, or maximize the time.”

I want to challenge this today, so I ask you, is it really true?

Is it really true that time is limited, that It's finite?

In his book, “The Big Leap,” Gay Hendricks talks about playing with time. Stretching time. Always having enough time. Have you ever met anyone like this, that seems to get a lot of things done that they care about? And you wonder, where did they find the time for all of that?

They teach a college class.

They teach coaching in the evenings.

They go off and create a lot of art.

They have time to go camping,

Today' we blend discussions about mindset coaching and brain-based supplements for a complete approach to focus and energy. Join me for today's podcast interview with Jennie Post!

This episode's theme song is “Sunshine Club,” by Ishan Dincer. Used with Permission.

Like what you read here? In this podcast, I’m sharing some core principles I’ve learned in coaching that have completely changed my life. These ideas restore personal power and bring the confidence to grow our unique traits, strengths, and attributes, to live with purpose and joy as we make each day a little better. And when we do that, we're putting good into the world. Right here, you have the tools to take one small step. And with a personal coach, you can take it deeper, to make these changes a lasting part of your life. You can live your true purpose with joy, every day.

Do You Dread Waking Up in the Morning?

Hey there. This is Bethanie Hansen, your coach at the Mindset for Life podcast. And I asked you this question today to start off the podcast. This is the topic we're going to be talking about. And the question is, "Do you dread waking up in the morning?"

Now that might seem like a really strange question to be asking you. But I'm Bethanie Hansen, known as "Dr. B," educator and coach. I help teachers, leaders, and coaches stop Sunday night dread and reclaim their power and purpose.

I've discovered that leaders, teachers and coaches care about the people they lead and the direction they're headed. They care about their students, they care about their clients and their customers. Everybody wants to feel confident in their role and treat people with love and integrity, even when other people are very challenging to be with.

I've been an educator and a coach for 28 years. And in my experience, sometimes it is hard to get up in the morning because of what's going to happen the next day. Somewhere in there, a sense of Sunday night dread creeps in. And we wish there might be a day off coming up.

At the same time, we even feel guilty for thinking it.

Well, what's helped me the most have been some of the tools, strategies and thought patterns that I now share with clients through education and professional coaching.

These very same things helped me to wake up and to reduce my own stress levels, to improve my sense of overall well being, and to be able to move through tough challenges with greater purpose. Now, I don't feel "that" way anymore.

Yesterday was a holiday. I got up, and I was so excited to be awake. I remember thinking, "I've got this whole, empty day. Nobody expects anything from me. I don't have to go to work. I get to do those things that have been on my list for weeks and weeks." I did some of those things. I cleaned the kitchen.

I did the dishes, I wiped down all the counters. It had been a mess for quite some time. Not a super clean kitchen. Went over to my mother's house, planted some things. Cleaned up some pots in the backyard. Really, really enjoyed the day. It felt great, felt amazing, in fact. And then today, it was a day to go to work. I got to do some coaching this afternoon.

I was looking forward to getting up. But at the same time, I wasn't. I remember waking up and laying in bed, and thinking, "Oh my goodness, do I have to get up this early? Why did I set my alarm for this hour?"

As I thought about it, I contemplated just like pushing the snooze button. I thought I might roll over and just go back to sleep. Then, I remembered my husband asking me politely a couple of days ago not to press the student snooze button over and over again while he was still sleeping. Because I'm just going to keep waking him up, right?

So as I'm thinking about staying in bed, I'm also thinking about how to be kind to my husband and thinking in the name of kindness to my husband, I'm going to be good to myself at the same time.

And I'm going to get out of bed quickly. I'm going to shower, and I'm going to put some energy behind it. I'm going to really try to wake up with vigor. And I'm going to get excited about this day.

That did not happen either. I got out of bed, I took the shower, I was still dragging. I just wasn't feeling that great. Then, I realized it was a sunny, beautiful day. And I rekindled that energy by taking a walk outside. That did it.

That helped. I was energized. I was ready to go. I entered one of my meetings, one of my calls, and I was able to participate and get some work done. I was very excited about how the day started.

Do you ever have a day like that where you get up and you start thinking about all the ways you could sleep in,

How to Set Goals

Hey there, welcome to the Mindset for Life podcast. This is Bethanie Hansen, your coach, and I'm here to talk to you about goal setting.

When was the last time you set a goal? I mean, a clear goal, something achievable, measurable, attainable, something you really wanted to hit. I can remember having such a goal, I decided that I was going to lose a certain amount of weight.

Now, those of you who have listened to my podcast a lot, you already know that I went on a weight loss journey, during which I lost 95 pounds successfully over the course of almost a year. And then, a couple years later, I was kind of vacillating around that last 10 pounds, and I decided, let's just move it forward. So I can say  I actually lost 100 pounds. So I had to really lose about 10 or 15 pounds at the bottom, there.

And then, I lost the five more and hit my ideal goal weight. I didn't have that goal in the beginning. In fact, I didn't really care what my end goal was, I had first decided on a goal that was about, oh, 65 pounds of weight loss, I really didn't think anything else was achievable. I didn't even think it was possible. Then when I got close to that 65 pound mark, I started to wonder if I could lose about 15, more, maybe 20. More, I was pretty excited about that. And ultimately, I learned that I could lose 20 More than that 25 more, until I really hit that 95 pound mark initially. Sometimes when we set a goal. And sometimes when we're working towards a goal, we really don't know what's possible for ourselves, what we're capable of, we don't know until we get started.

So an initial goal could be something really attainable. Something that's not a huge stretch, but is aspirational for us. That 65 pound goal for me was definitely aspirational. It was a huge distance off in the dirt journey. And it took many, many months to achieve that first chunk of my goal. But once I attained that big goal, I started to see that there was another path ahead, I could also travel and another one.

Perhaps in your goal setting you've had a similar experience, or you might in the future. When work goal setting, it's first difficult to decide what the goal should be, what is a reasonable achievement, that's going to take our time and effort that's going to inspire us and make us feel really great about a challenge. And it's going to be not so far off that we feel it's a totally unattainable goal. If I had been told, when I started that journey, that I should lose 100 pounds, I would have felt very devastated. I don't think I would have started, I would have been so discouraged because I had tried to lose weight for years, nothing worked. And I could at best lose 20 pounds maybe.

So when I started on the journey where I really did lose 100 pounds, it took very small, achievable goals over time consistently practiced. And then when the achievement was reached, I had to keep going. First, I had to maintain the success of attaining the first milestone, and I had to get used to what it was like to live in that space. Then I had to keep going.

So when we're talking about goals, a lot of people talk about smart goals. Specific, measurable, achievable, time bound. Oh, what else, and timely... something like that. When we're talking about smart goals, I think what we really mean to say is let's break it down into some steps.

Let's break it down into some planning. Let's break it down into ways we can actually measure and see if you're on track to reaching the goal. Let's just say you have a professional goal.

Perhaps you want to write a book, perhaps you want to make an advancement in your career in your leadership and your teaching or your coaching. Whatever it is you'd like to attain in your goals, pick one thing, one thing you're gonna go all in for. Something you actually care about that motivates you.

How to Be Happy in the Messy Middle

"Change is hard at the beginning, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end." How can we be happy in the "messy middle?" Join me for today's episode of Mindset for Life!

Hey there. Thank you for joining me. This is Bethanie Hansen of the Mindset for Life podcast at DrBCoach.Com. I'm happy you're here. I have been an educator for 28 years now, and a coach for the last seven or eight. I'm very happy to work with you today and also talk with you about the "messy middle."

There's a quote by Robin Sharma: Change is hard at the beginning, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end. Well, what is that messy middle, you might be thinking?

That's what we're going to talk about today.

The first step toward any kind of change is awareness. And the fact that we need to change, and we know something must be different.

Perhaps it's our lives, perhaps it's our organization, maybe it's our classroom. Whether you are a leader, a teacher, or a coach, you know that there are all kinds of transitions and changes that you may navigate yourself personally, professionally, and that you might lead others through.

There are so many ways to make this change, and a lot of steps involved. But once we start the change, and we step in the new direction, and we start to get people aware, we map out that journey. We accept what has to happen, and we start to prepare for this road ahead.

Now we've got some trouble along the way, and almost immediately, we question the direction we're headed. We might hit a lot of roadblocks. We might hear people objecting to what we're going to do.

The messy middle is part of change

Let's just take the example of personal change. Have you ever changed anything personally that other people around you objected to? I have some colleagues and friends who used to wear mustaches and beard parts, I guess we call this a goatee. And some of these male friends of mine shaved off their mustache and their goatee all together. So now they look different.

My son showed up at my house this weekend, without his mustache goatee. He's had that facial hair for probably the last five years straight. And all of a sudden, he came to my house with a naked face, he had shaved the mustache on the beard. And I'll admit he looked years younger than himself.

He looked very different. I could see his whole face. I thought it was beautiful as his mother. But I could see that in the professional world, he probably looked very different to customers, to clients, to his co-workers. And actually, it presents a whole different persona, right?

Now that's a somewhat superficial change. But what if your change is going to be deeper? Like, maybe you decide that it's time to really figure out what matters most to you, and you really want to live it at work. And you want to make these changes last for yourself.

Change begins with taking stock, with awareness of the need for change

So you're going to do some kind of a taking stock exercise, like maybe you're going to map out your wellbeing wheel, or your wheel of life, or your professional leadership wheel, you're going to do some kind of inventory that will help you to know what you are doing right now, and to look ahead to decide where your gap is. And once you've discovered the gap between where you are, and where you'd really like to be, ideally, there is some change that's going to have to happen. I work with a lot of clients in my coaching practice where there are some major changes people decide to make.

Some of these changes actually push some people out of their lives and invite in new people.

Some of these changes invite people to change careers altogether. I remember a woman about three years ago. We did a values inventory in session number two,

How to Raise Your Happiness Set Point and Reduce Perfectionism

Join me for today's episode of Mindset for Life!

This episode's theme song is “Sunshine Club,” by Ishan Dincer. Used with Permission.

Like what you read here? In this podcast, I’m sharing some core principles I’ve learned in coaching that have completely changed my life. These ideas restore personal power and bring the confidence to grow our unique traits, strengths, and attributes, to live with purpose and joy as we make each day a little better. And when we do that, we're putting good into the world. Right here, you have the tools to take one small step. And with a personal coach, you can take it deeper, to make these changes a lasting part of your life. You can live your true purpose with joy, every day.

Laser focus, to calm your overwhelm.

Join me for today's episode of Mindset for Life!

This episode's theme song is “Sunshine Club,” by Ishan Dincer. Used with Permission.

Like what you read here? In this podcast, I’m sharing some core principles I’ve learned in coaching that have completely changed my life. These ideas restore personal power and bring the confidence to grow our unique traits, strengths, and attributes, to live with purpose and joy as we make each day a little better. And when we do that, we're putting good into the world. Right here, you have the tools to take one small step. And with a personal coach, you can take it deeper, to make these changes a lasting part of your life. You can live your true purpose with joy, every day.

10 Strategies: How to Change Your Mindset and Achieve Success

This episode will share 10 strategies: How to change your mindset and achieve success. You might be wondering what mindset is. Or if it's even possible to change it. I've got you--We'll talk about a growth mindset, ways to try changing your thinking, and tips to be successful.

Welcome to the mindset for life podcast. This is Bethanie, your coach from DRBCOACH.COM. Here on the Mindset for Life podcast, we look at ideas that help you reclaim your power and purpose in life, relationships and work. This podcast is for you if you lead, teach, and serve others, you want things to get a little better each day, and you're ready to focus on your mindset to make it happen.

Hey there, welcome to the podcast. This is Bethanie Hansen. And I'm so glad you're here. We're going to talk about how to change your mindset so you can be successful. I'll give you 10 strategies on how to change your mindset so you can achieve success this year, this month this week. We're going to talk about these 10 strategies that will transform your mindset and unlock all of your beautiful, untapped potential for your personal growth, and even your professional achievement. You could make some life changing strides toward achieving those dreams you've always wanted to move towards. And it all starts by shifting how we think about ourselves and about our goals.

Considering the Possibility of Changing Mindset

It is possible to overcome limiting thoughts or limitations that you feel you have, while embracing the challenges on the journey towards success in life and in work. Let's get started. So I'm going to give you three things. One is how you can unlock your potential to achieve success by adopting a growth mindset. And the second thing will be how to transform your negative self talk into positive affirmations to boost confidence and self esteem. And the third one is to surround yourself with positivity, and develop healthy habits, seek support and celebrate success, some little things that will help punctuate this journey for you.

As an educator and a mother and a coach, I have often been asked about mindset, not specifically using that word, of course. But it is: "how do you have a positive attitude?" Or, "how do you change your belief about something?"

And that can feel really difficult for people. Honestly, I think mindset is the toughest thing we could possibly work on changing, because it's sort of subconscious. It's the way we look at the world. It's the attitude we have, our outlook. And creating a positive attitude and outlook is what we're aiming for here.

One of the ways that we can recognize our mindset is just noticing the way we perceive something like, what do we think about it? Is it hopeless? Is it hopeful? Is there a possibility?

You can start by recognizing negative thought patterns and attitudes, and then create a way to transform those into a positive space. One way you can do that is to step out of your comfort zone, that could mean that you're going to try something new, or get up earlier in the day part your hair on the other side, it could be a very small thing.

And you could set achievable goals to foster some mental emotional, physical growth. And you can also surround yourself with inspiring people. That's one of the most important things I advocate all the time, self care habits like taking walks, and talking things through with other people. And also noticing and reflecting in gratitude on your life and your experiences. All of these things are going to help you think about a mindset.

And also to change your mindset to a growth mindset or a more positive mindset. It is possible to change a mindset,