Episode 54: How to Create Anything

Welcome to the 100% Awesome Podcast with April Price. You might not know it but every result in your life is 100% because of the thoughts you think and that my friends is 100% awesome!

Hello podcast universe! Welcome to episode 54 of the 100% Awesome Podcast. I'm April Price, and I'm so happy to be here with you today. This is one of my favorite places to be, and I love that you come and join me here too. No social distancing required, isn't that a beautiful thing? So, I actually recorded today's episode before the quarantine, before all the circumstances in our lives changed so dramatically. But it has some really powerful ideas that I wanted to share with you that are as applicable today as they were before the pandemic, and the ensuing quarantine.

These are the principles of creation, and they are always at work in our lives so, I really wanted to share these ideas with you. At the beginning you're going to hear me mention taking your kids to school, and it's kind of remind you of much different days. Hopefully, they will be days that we will see again, but it also made me think how totally beautiful regular ordinary life really is, and how I never knew how to appreciate it quite like I do now. Which is a beautiful realization for me and hopefully for you too.

Anyway here you go, I hope that these ideas on creation will help you as you go to think new thoughts that will create the life you want.

01:58
So, I woke up this morning feeling so amazing about what's happening in my life right now personally, and professionally. I think I told you a couple weeks ago that I hired a new coach, and she is pushing me to look at my own thoughts differently than I ever have. And the work that I've done over the last couple weeks has given me some serious breakthroughs in the way that I'm showing up in my life, and in my coaching. I'm so excited about it, and I am so excited to share the things that I am learning with you. My clients right now are getting incredible results, and seeing things differently than they ever have.

And I'm so proud of them, and I'm so proud of the coaching that's happening in my program right now. You should come and get in on that, and sign up for free coaching session, so that you can have some of these breakthroughs in your own life. Anyway, I woke up feeling amazing because of the thoughts I was thinking. All my feelings come from my thoughts, which means I can feel any way I want any time I want, because my thoughts are always optional. When I opt to think creates my feelings, my thoughts are optional, and as you know, so are yours.

Even though we sometimes totally forget that, right? So, I want you to check in with yourself for a minute. What are you feeling? What are you thinking about? That's creating that feeling, that awareness, that you are creating your experience is the key to having a totally different experience, if you want one. So, I want you to notice that the feeling you are experiencing right now is created by a thought, before the thought. The feeling wasn't there, it didn't exist in your body, and I also want you to see that everything in your life is the same way.

Nothing in your life existed before it was a thought. Everything in our lives is first created by a thought. Everything. So, like in this moment, maybe you're out driving in your car, that car exists because someone had a thought. And then you had a thought about buying it, and the money you used to buy it exists, because you had a thought about how to earn it, and someone else had a thought about how we exchange value in the world.

04:13
And maybe that there should be coins, and then maybe later somebody else had a thought that computers could just transfer money through space, and time and we could just call it money, right? Maybe, you're going to pick your kids up from school, those kids exist because you had a thought or maybe your husband had a thought, right? But, they attend school because you have a thought. The crossing guard that you pass on the way there exists, and is there standing at her post because someone had a thought about safety, and order, and the way we should get out of school. Everything. Everything in your life exists, because someone had a thought, and then you had a thought to participate, and to make that thing a part of your life. And that is like obvious I'm sure, but, it's also so powerful, because it means that thought is the mechanism of creation.

Thought is a force that precedes all creation, and drives all creation. And what I want to tell you today is that thought becomes things. And right off the bat that kind of sounds like some sort of woo woo magic, but we can see it in reality all around us. Intangible thoughts do in fact become tangible things, become tangible feelings. They become tangible people, they become tangible vehicles. Thoughts become things. And today I want to talk about the principle of creation, and how we create anything in our life. How thoughts become things, and how you can harness this power to create the life you want, and to build those things into your life that you want. We all kind of just think that life just is, and it just kind of happened to us, right? We live in this house, in this place, we're married to this person, we have these kids, we drive this car, we do these things, we eat this food, we do this work.

It sort of feels like removed from the creation, and the architecture of our lives, but all of it. The house, the spouse, the kids, the car, the activities, the food, the work, all of it started as a thought in our mind, before it ever was, which is like kind of mind blowing, right? It means that even though we weren't even aware of it, the life we are living is an act of creation. It was created by us, there is nothing default about it, it doesn't just happen to us. Everything we see, everything that makes up our life is there because we have a thought or because somebody else had a thought. And I don't say this so that you can use this against yourself. I don't say it so that if things aren't what you want them to be that you then blame, or judge yourself, or get mad at yourself, or tell yourself that it's all your fault, right? That just isn't useful. I say this, so that you can use this awareness to understand that you aren't ever just at the affect of all these factors beyond your control. If you know that you are creating your life, you can be so much more purposeful, and deliberate about what you are creating, you can create on purpose.

07:23
So, I want to give you a little story, a little example to show you a little bit better what I mean. So, the other day I was on a call with my coach, and all of her clients, and once a month she offers a "mastermind" where we get together, and she teaches us, and coaches us on our businesses. We all have different kinds of businesses, and on our call that day she was coaching someone on their action plan in their business for the month of March, and as they were finishing up my coach said to her "It sounds like your setup to have a great March." And my colleague said "I hope so." And my coach stopped her and said "Hey, who's in charge of that?" And what she pointed out, and what I want to point out to each of you, is that you are in charge of the March that you have. You are in charge of the life that you have, you're in charge of all of it. Like, if we just hope that we're gonna be happy, and have a nice March, or if we just hope that we're going to lose weight, we just hope that we're gonna get out of debt someday. We just hope that we're going to have strong relationships with our kids, and our husband, or we just kind of hope that we're gonna have this strong spiritual practice, or wish we had one.

Then we have put ourselves in kind of a powerless position. It's like March just happens to us, our life just happens to us. If it's just up to the universe, or fate, or luck, or the roll of the dice, or the stock market, or the world, or the CDC, then we're in trouble. Then we're all just victims at the whim of everything outside of our control, but on the other hand if it's up to us, then that is where we get our power back. We take charge of our month, we take charge of March and April and 2020 and our whole life. And what I want you to know, and this might be even more important to recognize, is that whether or not you know it's up to you, and whether or not you recognize that you are creating it, it is up to you, and you are creating it.

So, even when we think it's not up to us, it is. So, if my colleague has a good month it's not up to her bottom line, or the number of cells she makes, or whether or not people decide to buy her product. If she has a good month it will be created by the thoughts she is thinking. That's crazy, right? We never think of it like that, and I know it's really hard to get our minds around, you're like "April, but she doesn't control the world. She doesn't control what other people buy."

We are all pretty sure that our results are kind of out of our hands, and then our results are because of other people's decisions, or because of what's happening in the world. So, I know this is a huge shift to make in your mind, but the truth is that every result in your life right now is because of the thoughts you have thought that has created your life. The accumulation of all those thoughts, and all those feelings, over all those years have created your results, and have created the life you are living right now.

10:20
So, let me see if I can show you this with another example. So at the beginning of the year I set some goals in my business, and then I created a plan on how I thought I would achieve those goals, right? And then I got to work, and about mid-February as I was looking at the results that I had created this year, I was a little frustrated because I had different expectations. I had expected different results from the actions that I was taking, and maybe some of you can relate to, right? Maybe some of you set some goals in another area of your life, and six weeks into the year you started to notice "Hey, something's off here. My results aren't what I thought they'd be." And so I talked to my coach about this as I said, "It's not working. What do I need to change?" I said "Is it a strategy problem, or is it an execution problem? Like is it my plan or is it the way I'm trying to carry out the plan?" And she said "It's a belief problem."

And I was like, what? I thought that wasn't one of the options. I was like "Is it a strategy problem or an execution problem?" And she said "It's always a belief problem." And I was like "No I don't think so. In this case, I don't think so." I said "I believed in my goal when I set my goal. I totally believed in it." And she said "You might have thought that you might have believed that when you set the goal, but you don't believe it now. It's a belief problem." She said "When you started this conversation the first thing you said to me is, "It's not working." And what I'm telling you is that's the problem you have, this thought that, it's not working. And that belief isn't working. "I said "But it's not." And she said "As long as you believe that, as long as you believe the thought, it's not working, you will continue to create the result of it's not working in your life."

Now I want to point out a couple of things here, first this is the power of coaching, this is why I have a coach, because I don't even notice that "it's not working," is a thought to my brain. It's not working, feels like the truth, it feels like what is happening feels like a true story, and so it feels right to think it. But remember the premise of this episode is that our thoughts create all of our results. Whatever my current results are right now in terms of my goal is a reflection of the thought I'm having about it. The thought was "it's not working," and it's not working creates the result of "it's not working." It's like shocking, right? So, secondly, I want to point out that the problem was not that I didn't ever have the thought that I could achieve my goal, the problem was that I didn't keep believing it.

13:08
I didn't keep thinking the thought, I didn't keep practicing the thought. I didn't think it when things went differently than I thought they would. I didn't think it, and practice it enough when I was taking all that action, I didn't think about it when I re-evaluated my strategy, and my actions. In fact, I didn't even evaluate my strategy, or my actions because there was no need to evaluate it when I just knew it wasn't working. Do you see? If I believe that I can achieve my goal, then when things go differently than I think they're going to, then I get curious and I can evaluate from a place of belief, like I know I'm going to reach my goal, why do I need to learn, or change, or do differently now? It's so much different when I'm coming from a place of belief, rather than a place of it's not working. So, there's so much power first, and understanding that as you look at your life, if you don't like a result you have in any area, it's because of the thought you're thinking. Your thoughts always generate your feelings, then your feelings drive your actions, and you end up with results. So, for a moment look at your life, not with blame, or judgment, but just total curiosity. These are my results, that's interesting. If you don't love all the results you see it's because of how you're thinking, and you only need to think, and feel differently in order to change those.

So, let me give you another example, I have a client who came to me because he wanted to be able to manage his time better. He said "I have so much to do, and I never feel like I'm doing the right thing, whatever I'm doing it's the wrong thing. When I'm with my family, I think about all the work that I'm neglecting. When I'm working I'm worried about all the things I'm missing at home, and how I'm letting all these people that I love, and I'm letting them down, and I just can't get a handle on it."

Now this client like many of you sees all the obligations, and the work, and the people in his life, that they are dictating how he spends his time, and how he has to divide up his life, and he feels like none of it is in his control, right? He tells me "There's only so many hours in the day, and there aren't enough." And this just seems like a fact, right? This seems like it's not working, there's only so many hours it seems true, and it seems totally out of his control like the universe is in charge of how much time he gets. He has something to do with the Sun, and the orbit of the Earth, and the rotation of the planet, and they're all in charge of his results, which leaves him feeling completely powerless.

15:36
Now, if we understand that every result in our life is because of our thought we can look at his result of not having enough time, and trace it directly to the thought, that there aren't enough hours in the day. He's like "But there aren't. And I said "There aren't enough hours in the day only because you think there aren't." This is like such a trip for our brain, but it's not voodoo magic, right, because this is how it works when we think there aren't enough hours in the day, then we feel frantic, or desperate, or anxious, or in scarcity. And then when we're frantic or anxious or desperate, then our resources are scarce, our actions hurried, and unfocused. We don't focus on the present, because we're too worried about what else needs to be done. We're distracted, and sometimes we have to do things twice because we're just like frantically running from thing, to thing, to thing. You forget things and we end up misusing the time that we've been given, our thoughts drive our feelings, our feelings drive our actions, and this is how every result in our life is created, and we end up with not enough time.

So, in this case I invited my client to take total responsibility for his lack of time, not from shame, or judgment, like "I'm managing it so badly." No he had already done that, he had already tried that, and he had blamed others, he had blamed himself, he done it all. What I invited him to do was to drop the blame, and just take responsibility, yet thinking he didn't have enough time had inadvertently created not enough time.

So, I said "What do you want to think instead?" I gave him some options, there's plenty of time, I own my time, I choose how to spend my time. By the end of this session, he decided on "I create time," and as long as he believes he creates the time he needs, then he generates the feeling of calm, and peace, and surety, which changes the fervor of all of his actions, and gives him a completely different result.

17:44
So, now you might be saying, "Right, but like how do I do that. How do I think differently, so I can feel differently, so I can create different results?" Well first you should hire me to be your coach. If you heard last week's podcast then you know that the first step in changing our thoughts, is to know what you're thinking now, and be willing to be wrong about those thoughts. Sometimes when we've had a belief for a long time, we don't know how to see it any other way, we don't know how to see that were wrong about it. And this is where a coach can make all the difference, because they show us where we might be wrong about what we have just assumed is true.

Just like my coach said to me "It's not working, isn't working." So, you can hire me, and I'll help you see where you're wrong, and then I'm going to ask you to take responsibility for your result and not blame yourself. But just test the theory, and just kind of own the idea, like if I really do create my results with my thoughts, what do I need to think instead? What do I need to stop thinking? As we talked about last week, and what do I need to start thinking, in order to get different results? So I have to laugh you guys, because just now, as I was creating this outline about how our thoughts create our results, I had my weekly appointment with my coach. And as we were ending the call she asked "So how many new clients are you going to talk to this week?" And I was like "Is that up to me?" And she like laughed and I was like "No really, is it?"

Because here's the thing, this is so easy for us to forget whatever result we want in our lives it's created by a thought. If I want to talk to 10 new clients this week, it's totally up to me. So, whatever result we want is up to us and what we think about it, knowing this can change everything for us, right? Because what action do I take when it's completely up to me? And then what action do I take when I just hope something will happen? It's completely different, right?

So, we need to first take responsibility that all of our current results are because of our current thoughts. And then we need to decide what we want to think instead. If I want certain results in my body, or my business, or in my relationships, or in my budget, or in my confidence, or in my job hunt, or in anything, I have to assume that I have been wrong about what I'm thinking, and decide what I want to think instead. And after that, once we decide what we want to think, we have to be willing to practice the new thought, we have to practice thinking something new in order to get new results.

20:28
Remember, the same thought, the same brain that created your current life, will not be the same thoughts, and the same brain that will create the life that you want. You have to be willing to give up the old ones, and then practice thinking new ones. And let me tell you, your brain is going to protest, it will say, "But it's not working," it will say, "But I don't have enough time," it will say, "But he doesn't love me," it will say "But they never listen to me." That's okay. Your brain's going to protest, it's going to go back to those old thoughts, you just have to keep practicing the new ones. It's like Abraham says "Your belief, is just your most practiced thought."

So, I want to give you two metaphors to kind of help you as you do this work of practicing new thoughts. So, the first one is the idea that we need to train our brain to think new thoughts. We need to train our brain to believe something new, so that we can get different results. And in many ways this is like training a new puppy. So, I don't know if you've ever trained a new puppy, but when we got Auggie I spent a couple months training him, a couple months that lasted a really, really, long time. Where I was sure he was never going to figure this out, and I would just follow him around, watching him, making sure that he wasn't going to have an accident somewhere. So, when you're training a new puppy you have to keep your eyes on it all the time. We had this rule that if I couldn't keep my eye on him he had to be in his crate. Otherwise, you know exactly what's going to happen, if you aren't watching, the puppy's going to pee on the floor.

Now when this happens the puppy has an accident, you don't get mad at the puppy, the puppy is just doing what puppies do. You are in charge of the puppy, and it's your job to show the puppy that we go outside. So, when the puppy pees on the floor, we don't get mad at the puppy, we just move him outside. We show him where we go, and we do this over and, over and, over again and, eventually the puppy learns we don't pee in the house, we got to go outside. Now it's the same idea when you're training your brain to think something new. It's going to have accidents, it's automatically going to think the old thought, it doesn't know any better, right? We don't need to get mad at the brain, or get mad at ourselves for thinking old thoughts, we just need to remind ourselves, "Yeah, we don't do that in here. We don't think that thought in here." And then we move it outside of our brain, you stop thinking it, and you move it outside, and think your new thought on purpose.

23:02
So, I like a few things about this analogy. First, your brain is just doing what brains do, right? The puppy is just doing what puppies do, it's not personal, it's not because your brain is broken, or damaged, or defective. We don't have to get mad at it, or frustrated with ourselves, or judge ourselves, we just haven't trained our brain yet. And then, next when we're training our brain, we have to keep our eye on it all of the time. If you get busy doing something else, you will notice that your brain likes to go back to the old way of thinking, and you have to be vigilant about it at the beginning. You have to be vigilant about your new thought, you have to watch it.

And finally the last thing that I want to point out is that it's your job, it's not the puppies job. It's your job to put it outside, puppy doesn't know any better, and it's your job to manage your brain. You can't just tell it once, or twice what to think, and then expect it to do it. It's your job to take the old thought, remind yourself, no we don't think that anymore, put it outside. It's your job to take the old thought outside, as long as is necessary, until your brain learns the new way of thinking. Now, I want you to try this, I want you to try putting the thought outside, instead of wallowing in it, or nursing it, or fondling it as my coach says. We sometimes use our old thoughts, kind of like a security blanket, and we wrap ourselves up in the old thought, and it's kind of comfortable. But if you want a different result you've got to be willing to be uncomfortable, and think something else.

And it is uncomfortable. You have to go stand outside with the puppy, in the cold, and then in the middle of the night, and sometimes it won't go, right? You're standing out there, and you're like "Please just pee," and it won't. When you're trying to stop thinking one thought and practice a new one it's uncomfortable. Brooke Castillo calls it "The river of misery," if that doesn't like sell you on it I don't know what will, right? The river of misery, there is discomfort, and it's because of the cognitive dissonance, the difference between what we're trying to believe, and the reality that we're living in. So, you just have to expect that for a while it will be uncomfortable, until you have trained your brain to think and believe something new.

So, the other day my coach gave me another metaphor that has helped me immensely understand this discomfort and kind of navigate it. It's really been helpful for me and I want to share it with you. So, I want you to imagine that you're old thought is like being in the cave. And I know I've talked to you about being in the cave, the cave is where our lower brain loves to hang out. It likes it, because it's safe, and warm, and we're protected from predators, and dangers in there, and our brain always wants us to stay in the cave, and never leave right. It's like "Let's never try new things, let's never make podcasts, let's never build new businesses, let's never try and repair relationships, let's never do anything scary, or vulnerable, or risky, or hard. Just stay in the cave." So I want you to imagine your old thought like the cave, it's what you've always thought, it's comfortable, it's safe, and your brain really likes to be there.

26:14
Now, I want you to imagine your new thought like a beautiful new house. It's so lovely, has these high ceilings, and it has wood floors, and it has all this gorgeous lighting, it has beautiful furnishings, and a farmhouse sink, and a fireplace, and big windows. It is a gorgeous home. Your new belief now will create your new reality, and new results for you, is like this house. And whenever you think this new thought, you're going to find yourself in this beautiful house, the problem is your lower brain your primitive brain is certain that you don't belong in this house. It's uncomfortable in this house, right? It's constantly telling you "You don't belong in this house, and you need to run out the front door, and go back to the cave." It tells you that "This is a house for other people. This is a house where the disciplined, and the smart, and the worthy people live, and you don't belong here." And it's like almost terrified to be in this beautiful house, and it begs you to go back to the cave.

Now, I want you to think about an area of your life where you have a goal, or just an area that you want a different result than you're getting now. Like let's take body image for example because it's really easy to visualize. You want to love your body, and take care of your body, and in order to do that we have to think a thought like "My body is amazing, or I love my body. "This is the house thought, it's beautiful there. But when we go into that house, and we think "My body is beautiful, I love my body," when we go in a house our lower brain is like "We don't belong here. Have you seen your body? Let's go back to the cave, let's go back to thinking, it's too late for our body, or my body is not acceptable, or I'm fat, and I always have been, like let's go back to our old thoughts." And our brain begs us to return to the old thought, because it's comfortable.

Whatever we think the new thought we feel and act differently and this is uncomfortable at first, and our brain is like "Let's just go back. We don't belong here. Let's just go back to the cave and just continue to hate our body." And even though it's not fun to think about our body this way, and those feelings don't feel good, they do feel familiar. They do feel comfortable, like even though it's not beautiful like the house, it is comfortable in the cave.

Now, for me I've been working on my belief that I'm a coach who has a waitlist because I want to be the very best coach that I can be, and I want to be an incredible coach for my clients, and be excellent at my craft. That's my goal, and so, I want to be able to measure my progress towards that goal, and so I've decided that as my skill as a coach grows, my practice will grow, and eventually, I will become a coach with a waitlist, like a waitlist of people who want to work with me. Now, when I think the thought "I'm a coach with a waitlist," my brain says "I don't belong there." My brain says "Someone else belongs in this thought, somebody else belongs in this house. We belong in the cave. I'm much more comfortable thinking it's not working," and my brain likes to show me how much better suited I am to live in that thought, "It's not working," then to live in the thought where "I'm a coach with a waitlist."

29:18
Here's what I want to point out to you, and this is kind of like magic, the only thing you have to do to stay in the house, is not leave. You don't have to be worthy of the house, you don't have to belong in the house, you don't have to own the house, you just have to stay in the house, by not going back to the cave. You just have to keep practicing, and keep thinking the thought that opens the door allows you to go in the house, instead of running scared out the front door back to the cave, right? And your brain will want to, but the more time you spend in the house, the more times you put the puppy out, the more times you think the thought, the more comfortable it becomes.

So, the other day I had a really long day where things didn't go the way I wanted, and I was taking Auggie for a walk and my brain just kept wanting to tell me "It's not working, I'm not working, I don't even know how to make it work, right?" It just kept like showing me the cave like "Let's go back to the cave," and over, and over, again I put the thought outside I told myself, "No, I'm thinking that, I create all my results. I coach with excellence, and that creates a practice with a waitlist. I create all my results and I'm in charge of that."

So, I've kind of mixed my metaphors there but you get the idea. My brain just wanted to fondle the old thought, "It's not working." It just wanted to wallow in it, and feel sorry for myself, and wrap myself up in that old cuddly thought. And I just wouldn't let it, I just kept redirecting, and redirecting that whole walk. I kept putting my thought outside until my brain finally gave up. And staying in the house, staying in my belief, truly did feel so much better, it gave me hope rather than discouragement. It gave me possibility, instead of resignation.

Now, your brain will tell you that the cave is more comfortable, but it's lying about this. It's just the negative emotion that you're familiar with, it's just the negative emotion that you know, like maybe it's shame, or discouragement, or blame, or self-pity, whatever your emotion of choices, maybe anxiety. It doesn't feel better in the cave, it doesn't feel better than the discomfort of thinking something new. It just feels familiar, it's like the devil, we know. As we put the old thoughts outside, and we choose to stay in the house of our new belief, we're going to start to generate new feelings. If I stay in the belief that I'm a coach with a waitlist, then I'm going to generate feelings of confidence, and excitement, and motivation, and all of those feelings are going to change the actions. They're gonna be such different actions than the ones that are coming from discouragement, when I'm thinking "It's not working," my actions are gonna be different, and that is going to give me different results in my life.

32:03
It's not voodoo, it's not magic, what we think, we create. Thoughts become things, if the thing I want is a coaching practice that the waitlist, I got to think the thoughts. If the thing I want is amazing connection with my husband, I gotta think the thoughts that are going to create that thing. What I want you to know is that every result in your life is 100 percent, because of the thought you think. So, if you look around your life and you see results that you don't love, recognize that, not in a judge mental way, but in an empowering way. That they are only that way, because of the thoughts you have thought, which means they are optional. And any time you're ready to have a different outcome in your life, you only have to think a new thought, and then be willing to practice it over, and over, and over, again until it becomes the house you live in. And that my friends is 100% awesome! I love you for listening and I'll see you next week.

Thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today. If you want to take the things I've talked about and apply them in your life so that you can love your Earth life experience. Sign up for a free coaching session at aprilpricecoaching.com This is where the real magic happens, and your life starts to change forever. As your coach. I'll show you that believing your life is 100% awesome is totally available to every one of us. The way things are is not the way things have to stay

And that my friends is 100% awesome!