Episode 65: Things To Know for Your Mission (on Earth)

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 sixty-five of the 100% Awesome podcast. I'm April Price, and I'm so grateful for every single one of you. You are amazing! Thank you so much for listening, and subscribing, and sharing the podcast. Sometimes I kind of can't believe this is my life, and my voice is in your head somewhere out there in the world. Thank you for allowing me to take up some space in your brain, and I want you to know that I'm always trying to make the most of that space, and give you things that I really hope will help you.

So, a lot of you are thinking about signing up to try coaching, and I just want to talk to you for a minute. You keep saying you will, you keep telling yourself that you should, but have you noticed that you don't. That is because you are a human, and you have a human brain, and our brains like to talk us out of doing new things, or doing things that are outside of our comfort zone, and in particular when it comes to coaching. I think your brain is scared of two things in particular. One, I think it's scared that you can't change, right? That you're going to try this thing that April says always works, and then you're going to find it, it won't work for you, and then you're really going to be in trouble, right?

Or two, ironically your brain is also scared that maybe you can actually change, but that change is going to require work, and effort, and new ways of doing things, and the brain would just as well avoid all that work, and settle for things as they are. Even though we don't really like things as they are. What we really want out of life will require us to be new people, and the brain is a little scared of that, it has been the old person, and it knows how to do that. The truth is just as much as self-doubt gets in our way, our brains resistance to the work of change can be just as difficult to overcome.

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But, if you want something different from your life, for your life, you just have to overcome one fear at a time, and the first one is signing up for a free coaching consultation. When you're ready, I believe 100%, that you can get all the change you want, because it happened for me and my life, and my problems were as messy as they come. And it happens for my clients every single day, and as much as their brains resist change, they have me as their coach to show them where their brain is lying to them, and getting in their way. And they can then just get busy creating the life experience they want, and that is available to you to.

Okay, well this is a big week for the Price family. My daughter left yesterday, and flew to Iowa where she will be spending the next 18 months serving a mission for the Lord, and telling people about Jesus, and his glorious gospel. So, as you can imagine my thoughts have naturally been pulled toward her, and the things that she's embarking on, and all the things that await her. Now, at this very same moment, four years ago, when my son was leaving on his mission, long before I found coaching, in this kind of moment I was overwhelmed by worry, and grief, and fear. I slept very little, and I cried a lot, but this experience of watching my daughter leave has been so different for me. I don't have any worries at all this time around, and I think it's mostly because I know it's supposed to be hard for her. When my son went I was worried that it would be difficult for him in so many ways, and I didn't want it to be, right? My brain thought it shouldn't be hard, my brain believed it would be best if he avoided pain as much as possible in this life.

But, I no longer believe that, I know the truth, life is 50/50 missions are 50/50. My daughter is supposed to suffer, and I don't need to prevent it, or change it or take any of it away. I just need to witness it, and love her, and even her right alongside her when it happens, but not argue that it's not supposed to be that way. That is incredibly freeing. She can just go have her experience exactly as it has been designed for her, with all of the heartache, and all of the joy, and I just get to have the sacred experience of watching her grow, and I will always be grateful for the way coaching has changed my brain.

But, today I thought I'd do this podcast as a way of giving her some advice, and so I just brainstormed some things that I thought she should probably know as she goes to go on this mission. And I came up with 20 thoughts that I thought would help her as she leaves, and faces the challenges of a mission. And I thought that it would be valuable for you too, because my daughter leaving on a mission, leaving our home to spend time away from us, learning, and growing, and serving the Lord, is not unlike the exact experience each and every one of us is having here as humans on the Earth. We have all left our Heavenly home for an extended period of time to learn, and grow, and serve, and so I think this advice can be useful to any of us who are here on an Earthly mission, if you will, and many of these thoughts, and ideas are the most important things that she can remember, and that all of us can remember while we're here on Earth. And it's going to make our experience here on Earth that much more awesome.

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Okay so, here are 20 things I think you should know for your mission to Iowa, or your mission on Earth, in no particular order. First, it's supposed to be hard, I love starting with something inspiring! Okay, but really it is. It's supposed to be hard just as I said before, suffering was part of the plan. Somehow, somewhere, we got it into our heads that it was supposed to be happy, and joyful, and fun, and easy. And whether it's because we live in a modern world with so much convenience, and so many ways to ease our discomfort, like from air conditioners, to endless streaming options, or if it's just because our brains are programmed to avoid pain. Whatever the reason, when it's hard, we tend to think that something has gone wrong, but nothing has gone wrong, it was never supposed to be easy.

It was supposed to be 50/50. In fact, as I said missions are 50/50. Childhood is 50/50, parenting is 50/50, marriage is 50 50, life is 50/50. And when you come to the negative part of that 50/50, understand that it is there for your learning, and growth, and allow it to be there. You do not have to be happy all the time. You're not supposed to be happy all the time, not even on a mission, not even on an Earth life mission. And if you are suffering, knowing that is supposed to be hard will allow us to make peace with the idea that we are in pain in the exact ways we're supposed to be. That our challenges are exactly what they're supposed to be, and that our hardships, and trials are exactly what they are supposed to be. This thought allows us to drop some of the burden of fighting what is, and open ourselves up to accepting what we are going through, and what God has designed for our sakes.

Okay, number two, there are no difficult people. This is so good, right? And again, something that we all need to know on our missions, because we are here on Earth with other people. And other people breathe and talk and have opinions, and do things differently than us. And we think they are difficult, but there is no such thing, other people are just people. And then when we think they should be different than they are, when we think they should be more like us, then we think that they are difficult. But my thoughts about other people are the only thing that make them difficult. Everybody you interact with on a mission in Iowa, or on your mission on Earth, is doing it exactly like they should. They are doing it exactly right. You get to think about them, and their actions, any way you want, and those thoughts, and not their actions, are what creates your feelings. If you want to feel differently about other people, they don't have to act differently, you just have to think differently.

Going along with that is the thought that, love is always an option. This is the best news ever! Every single person is 100% lovable which means it's always an option for you to decide to love others, and when you do, you get to feel love. Remember that love is a feeling, and so your ability to love, and to feel love, is determined by your ability to think loving thoughts. It isn't based on the other person's ability to be loved, that is already fixed. And so, if you find yourself not loving, know that it's all up to you, the work is yours, and yours alone, to access the thoughts that will allow you to love them. Love is always an option, in every case in every situation, and it's never a bad idea, because you are the only one that feels the effects of love.

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Okay number four, there are no bad days. Okay, this is important, how you look at your day, or your life in general, and how you evaluate if it's good, or bad it's just a thought. It's an optional thought. How we choose to categorize our day, or categorize our life, or our marriage, or our mission, is just the way that we are choosing to describe it. And that description is never objective, it's not a fact, it's not just the truth. It's just an optional assessment, and we're just making it up. Now, usually when we say "Okay, we've had a bad day, maybe it's because it contained a lot of negative thoughts or emotions." But even if this is the case, we still get to decide what we think about that day. We can think it's awesome that our life, and our day contained a full human experience. We can think it's amazing that we are here, and every day that we get to have learning, and growing, and experiencing, even negative emotion, even when there are challenges, and disappointments, and heartaches, is all 100% awesome.

So, I love the way that Kara Lowentheil described this, she said, "This is not spiritual bypassing or pretending like life is always awesome. What I'm saying is sometimes life feels terrible. But I can still choose to believe that it is amazing and I am doing amazing because I'm here having a human experience part of which is supposed to feel terrible. She continues I can choose to describe that reality that I'm human having negative thoughts and feelings as being awesome rather than as being terrible. It's just good to know we have that option. That we get to decide."

You have the option to decide that there are no bad days, even when your days contain lots of negative emotion. It's your life, it's your day, and it's amazing. And in the same way as there are no bad days, the next thought is, there is no such thing as failure. This again is just an optional description of what has happened. Your brain will want to categorize your life and your mission in the good days and bad days successes and failures wins and losses. But this is just because your brain is programmed to think in terms of a finite perspective it thinks good looks a certain way. That success looks a certain way but they are all just constructs of our human mind built on ideas that we have gathered about what makes something successful. But, if our goal is growth, then there are no bad days, there are no failures, it's all just part of the infinite progression of becoming in this way. You are always succeeding, there is no such thing as failure.

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Okay number six, decide who you want to be, and then be her as quickly as possible. Okay, this is really powerful for all of us, we spend so much time wishing we could change, and be different in some way, right? We wish we could be more kind, or more patient, or more positive, or more consistent, or have more faith, right? And we're waiting to see if we will behave in a way that will make us feel like we're kind, or patient, or positive, or consistent, or faithful, but this way of going about becoming never works. We can't behave our way into becoming, we have to believe we are what we want to be. We have to think like a person who is kind in order to be kind, we have to think like a person with faith, in order to have faith. We have to think first, which means we have to decide who we want to be, and take on that identity, and think like a person who is kind, or patient, or positive, or consistent.

So, the other night my daughter said, "I want to be the person who really sees other people, right who makes other people feel seen, and heard, and understood." And I said, "If you have decided to be that person, think about how that person thinks. What does she think about? Decide to be her, and then think like her, and you will become her as quickly as possible." We can't wait for our behavior to prove we are someone that we want to be, we have to decide to be that person, and be them as quickly as possible by thinking like them. If you want to be rich you have to decide to be, and think the thoughts that rich people think. If you want to be at your ideal weight you have to decide to be, and think thoughts that he or she would think. If you want to be Christ-like, you have to decide to be, and become a person as quickly as possible that thinks thoughts like Christ thinks. It's a decision to think differently, and I recommend adopting those thoughts as quickly as possible.

Okay number seven, dress in layers. You're going to Iowa, you got to be able to adapt, right? Okay, and while I'm at it button your coat, also this is just common sense. But, we were watching these home movies. My kids were in Michigan, and not one of them had their coats buttoned up, like Arizona kids might not know, you got to button your coat. It's rough out there, dress in layers, button your coat.

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Okay, number eight, it's always working. One of the most common default thoughts our brain likes to offer us when it wants to save energy, and avoid pain is the thought, "It's not working. Why am I doing this? It's not even working, this is ridiculous, I'm wasting my time." Our brain by offering us these thoughts is trying to be helpful, it wants to help us conserve some energy, avoid some rejection, and pain, because when we are trying hard, and we're putting work in on our behavior goals, our brain would like us to stop and take it easy. And so, it looks at the fact that we haven't hit the outcome goal yet, and offers us the thought, "This isn't working." But this is always a lie, because it's always working, it's always leading somewhere. Things are always in motion, as I said last week, the outcomes might not be what you thought, and they might not come in the way you thought, but it's always working. Progress and accomplishment are never a straight line. When the scale goes up, when you don't get the job, when you don't hit your goal, when everyone says no to your offer, when it doesn't go the way you think it will, or the way you think it should, remember it's all working. The only problem is that you thought it would look differently here, but you were wrong about that. Know that it's always working and don't give up. Put yourself in charge of the behavior goals, and trust that the outcomes are inevitably going to occur in the exact way they're supposed to.

Okay, number nine, you are entitled to help, ask for it. You are not alone, ever. Your Heavenly Father wants to hear all your thoughts, and understand all your feelings, go to him and pray for help. I just recently talked about this is one of my Friday videos, but I want to offer it again for those of you who didn't hear it. As humans on Earth, or on missions, we are going to encounter lots of circumstances that we don't like, things that are difficult, things that are challenging, things that we wish were different. For example, the Corona Virus that we're dealing with right now. And sometimes when things don't go the way we want, or we encounter difficulties, we pray for help to change the circumstances, to change the C's of our life.

When my son was sick for example, we prayed that the rest of us would be protected. We prayed that Ethan would heal quickly, and not have complications, and we prayed that the world could find a vaccine soon. Now, notice how all these prayers were to ask Heaven, to please alter the circumstances, or change the circumstances. And as humans our instinct is to pray to Heaven to please change the C's. To please change the circumstances, right? We're like these circumstances are making me very uncomfortable, they are causing me pain, could you please help by changing the circumstances? And there is definitely a place for that.

We can pray, and petition Heaven for relief from the circumstances. The Bible dictionary says that there are many blessings which God has for us that are contingent upon our asking. And so, I think it's totally amazing for us to be able to pray for those blessings. To pray to be able to change those C's. But, I also think that we can go a step farther and get help in other ways as well. I think you are also entitled to get help with your T's, or your thoughts about the circumstances. When our circumstances can't change, or Heaven doesn't change our circumstances, even after our petitions, then I think we need to remember that our circumstances are only a problem, because we think they are. And if we can't change those, then maybe what we need help with is changing our thoughts about them.

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And maybe if we could think more like God thinks about things, and ask him to help us think like he does, then it will change the way we are feeling about the circumstances of our life, or our mission. We can't always change the C's even through prayer, even though we think it would be better if the C's were different. But, we can always change the T's and we can use prayer to help us change those T's when it feels like we can only think about things in one way, we can ask God for his suggestions on how to think about things differently.

We can ask him how he sees things, and listen for his thoughts. You are entitled to help with your C's and your T's. You only have to ask, and you are entitled to help, and going along with that, remember that Heavenly Father only gives good gifts. So, right after Christ teaches the people how to pray, he tells them that they should ask, seek, and knock, and he gives them this beautiful instruction. It says, "If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father will he give him a stone or if he ask a fish will he for a fish give him a serpent. Or if he shall ask in a will he give him a scorpion if he then being evil know how to give good gifts and to your children how much more shall your Heavenly Father give good things to them that ask him." Our Father in Heaven doesn't give bad gifts, and sometimes when we look at the circumstances of our lives we think "Hey wait! This is obviously a bad gift, right? There's been some terrible mistake, because this is a bad gift, this isn't what I wanted. This isn't what I asked for, it's not what I ordered. I didn't sign up for this, can I get a refund on this circumstance, right?

But Christ testified that our Father in Heaven only gives good gifts, and so if you are facing a circumstance or something in your life that looks like a serpent, or a stone, or a scorpion, then it is only our perception of it that is wrong. Everything from God is bread, and fish, and eggs, even the things that don't appear to be with our human minds. He knows what he's doing and he only gives good gifts.

Okay, I need to move along, number eleven, it's no one else's job to like you, that's your job. If you ever find yourself wanting someone else to create a feeling for you. If you find yourself wanting them to like you, or accept you, or make you feel loved, or appreciated, or important, or valued, or cared for, remember that is always your job, and no one else's. Other people can't create our feelings, and so, if we want to feel liked that's our job.
Okay, number twelve, the more willing you are to be wrong the better your life gets. Okay, each one of us wants to matter so much, right? Now of course we already matter, but we don't always remember that. And so, we think that if we are good, and we do things right, then we're gonna matter, and we're gonna be worthy of love. And so, our brain wants to be right all the time, we want to think that we are right, we want to think we are good, because then see we're gonna be worthy.

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But, the problem is that when we are trying to be right all the time, to be good all the time, the problem is that we try then to protect our rightness, and protect our goodness, and protect ourselves against being wrong, or bad in some way. And then as Brook Castillo says, "We walk around with our dukes up all the time." We're defensive about being wrong, and we're walking around defensive with our dukes up, and it creates the exact problems we are trying to avoid. The more willing you are to be wrong, and to not make that mean you are bad, the better your life gets, the easier your relationships get. The more grace, and compassion you give yourself, and the more grace and compassion you extend to others.

Okay, and going along with that, number thirteen, curiosity beats judgment every time. On a mission, or in an Earth life experience you're gonna have lots of opportunities to judge. To judge yourself, to judge others, to judge God even, but judgment blocks our ability to change, and do things differently. On the other hand, curiosity always serves us, instead of getting mad at yourself, and judging yourself. Ask yourself curiously, and wonder "Why I did that? I wonder why I felt that? What was I thinking in the moment that created that?" The more curious you can be, the more access you will have to the causes of your behavior. Know that every person has a good reason for acting the way they do as well. I love what Byron Katie says, "That if you thought like they did, you would feel like they do." And the more curious you can be about what they think, and feel, and do, the more understanding, and love you will be able to have.

Okay, next, you don't have to feel like working to get to work. So, as I said last week, I find that when it comes time to do the work, I never really feel like it. When it's time to work out I don't feel like it, when it's time to write the podcast outline I don't feel like it, when it's time to get up, or go to bed, or say my prayers, I don't feel like it, right? But luckily "feeling like it" isn't required. I tell myself you don't have to feel like it, you just have to do it. Your human brain doesn't want to be told what to do, it doesn't want to expend energy, it doesn't want to feel pain, it just wants pleasure, and ease, and comfort. So there's nothing wrong with you that you don't want to do it, but it's also not a reason not to. You don't have to feel like it to do it anyway, your brain might protest, but you are in charge.

Okay, number fifteen is a paradox. It's all up to you, and none of it depends upon you. What I mean by this is that you will be successful if you decide to take 100% responsibility for the results of your life. But, we are also impossibly flawed, and human, and we don't have to be perfect for God to work through us, and to create something amazing out of our lives. He is in charge of all of it ultimately, and you don't have enough personal inadequacy to ruin, or destroy his eternal plan for you or others. It's all up to you, and also none of it depends upon you.

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Okay number sixteen, you have everything you need. Gosh I love this thought! I tell myself this all the time when my brain says, "I'm not good enough or I don't know enough or I am inadequate in some way." I have everything I need given to me by God. I have my knowledge, and my experience, and my personal perspective. I have my body and my spirit, and my ambition, and even my fears, and I have been given all of it, because I need all of it in order to fulfill my purpose here on Earth. And so do you. You are fully equipped for your mission, whatever it is, and you have everything you need to reach all of your potential, and be a force for good in the world and in your own life. You don't lack anything, you have everything inside of you, and you will always have everything you need at every present moment, and that is so important to remember.

Okay, number seventeen, the worst thing that can happen is a negative emotion. Okay, this is so important to remember especially when we are worried, or scared, or overwhelmed by the what ifs in our life. Our brain wants to run away with the worst-case scenarios, it wants to tell us that we're going to lose everything, or that we're gonna be rejected, or that we're gonna fail, or we're gonna die, or the people we love are going to die. And when my brain is running away with the worst- case scenario, I gently ask myself, "And then, what if that terrible thing happens, then what?" My brain always says, "Well then we're going to feel terrible." And I'm like, "Yup." So, I want you to try this. I want you to think of the very worst thing that can possibly happen, and then ask yourself if that happened, then what? And you're going to notice that even if the very worst thing happens, all that will happen is you will feel terrible. You will feel a negative emotion, isn't that amazing? In this Earth life experience with all of its dangers, and all of its threats, and all the things that could go wrong, nothing worse can happen than a negative emotion.

That is absolutely the worst thing that can happen. And that might not be fun, but also you can handle that. You can handle it if you need to, your brain is scared, and that's okay, because whatever it is you're scared of, you can find relief knowing that at the very worst all that's going to happen is you're going to feel bad. And you know how to feel bad, and you can do it again. If and when you need to.

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Okay, next, stay in your own business. So, you've heard me say this before, but you need to hear it again. There are as Byron Katie says so beautifully, "Three kinds of business in the world. There is God's business, there is other people's business, and there is your business." Your business is only ever what you think, what you feel, and what you do. All the rest is either God's business, or other people's business, and you can leave that to them. You just need to be in charge of your business what you think, what you feel, what you do. It's so simple really, when you find yourself frustrated, ask yourself, "Whose business am I in? What is mine to control? What do I think? What do I feel? What do I do?" Bring it back to your business, and it clears up so much frustration in your life.

Okay, nineteen, it was always going to be this way. When we argue with what is when we think that it was supposed to be different, we lose only 100% of the time so, let it be. Let it be exactly what it is. It was always going to be this way, and when you make peace with that thought, and accept what is, then you can stop spending time in an argument with reality that you're only going to lose, and you can get busy deciding who you are going to be in this reality.

Okay, number twenty, grace is unlimited. I want to tell my darling girl, and I want to tell each of you that Grace is unlimited. You are supposed to make mistakes, you are supposed to make all the mistakes. A plan of happiness was to come, make mistakes, learn, make mistakes, learn, make mistakes, try again, make some more mistakes, make all the mistakes, and then he made a way for you to get back. Somehow, we think the plan is to come, don't make mistakes, or at least as few as possible, try to do it perfectly, beat yourself up for not doing it perfectly, hate yourself for not doing it perfectly, and then refuse to think you are worthy of the way back.

But Grace is unlimited. It never ends, there is nothing it doesn't cover. It is a free gift to anyone that wants it, not a free gift to anyone that deserves it. Anyone that wants it, if you want it, you qualify. If you want Christ's grace it is always, and forever available to you, nothing you do, or don't do, qualifies you for the gift. It's free, if you want it, it's yours, and it is unlimited

Okay, I know I said that I had twenty but I can't help but give you one more as you go out the door to go on your mission and that is, don't forget to be awesome! Don't forget to be awesome. Don't forget to be you, and be all of you, and love all of yourself along the way. Don't forget to get the most out of your Earth life experience by being awesome, and pushing yourself past your own limiting beliefs to get whatever you want. If you want to grow, and change, and evolve in any awesome way you want, that is your privilege as a human. Go after it, be who you want to be, live the life you really want to live, and in doing that you will make the whole world better. I love what Marie Curie said, "You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity. Our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful."

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When you rise to your own awesomeness, when you stretch yourself in ways you never thought you could, it blesses the whole world. It makes Earth life better for everyone you share the human experience with. You are here for a reason, make the most of it! And don't forget to be awesome!

I just saw this post today by Jared Hamilton and he wrote. "Losing weight is hard. Being fat is hard. Being weak is hard being disciplined is hard. Being lazy is hard. He is freaking hard. Choose your hard. "Which kind of brings us full circle to, it's supposed to be hard, and you get to decide what kind of hard it is. It is 100% up to you to make your Earth life experience what you want it to be, and you can do that by growing in all the awesome ways you want to, and help all the people around you. Don't forget to be awesome!

Okay my darling girl, and my darling listeners, I love you. The time you spend on your mission to Iowa or your mission on Earth is limited. It will all come to an end someday, make the most of it. The thoughts I shared with you today have had a huge impact on my own Earth life experience and I think they can do the same for you. 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 that I've talked about and apply them to your life. Sign up for a free coaching session at aprilpricecoaching.com This is where the real magic happens and your life starts to change forever. Believing your life is 100% awesome is totally available to every one of us. And as your coach I'll show you exactly how to do that so that you can truly love your Earth life experience the way things are is not the way things have to stay and that my friends is 100% awesome.