Ep 112: Are you enhancing or diminishing your life experience?

Are you making choices in your life that enhance or diminish your life experience?

This week on the podcast, I talk about this simple check-in question that can help you always be moving toward creating the life you want.

You'll learn:

• what values are and why they're important
• a few of the top mistakes we make in life that don't help us enhance our life experience
• a good check-in question to keep you moving toward enhancing your life 
• things you can do to enhance your life experience, rather than diminish it

Have a listen and don't forget to leave a rating and review!

Transcript

Ep 112: Are you enhancing or diminishing your life experience?

Hello, my friends, and welcome back to real, brave and unstoppable. This is episode number 112. 

And today we're going to get into. How are you moving through your life? Are you moving toward what you want in life or are you moving away from what's uncomfortable? And why does it matter?

So we're going to get into all of that in a minute. 

But first of all, I thought I would take a minute and just chit chat a little bit with y'all. I just got back from a wonderful vacation with my daughter to visit my parents in lake Havasu city, Arizona. Well, we had a great time. My sister's family met us there and we did all kinds of fun stuff. Like hike, go out on a boat on the lake, we went off-roading and my parents, like dune buggy thing. 

And then my daughter and I, on the way back to the airport in Vegas, we took the day and we just did some fun stuff. We went to a little town called Oatman, which is right on route 66, which was interesting. And we did the windy route 66 road, which was amazing. Gorgeous. And let's see what else we went to Hoover dam. That was fun. 

And then we, we had, like, we packed a lot in. Our flight. Didn't leave until 11:00 PM pacific time. And we didn't have to be at the airport till 9:00 PM. So we parked at the Tropicana hotel at the south end of the strip and we got monorail tickets. When all the way up to do the Vegas high roller Ferris wheel thing. 

We got there right. As you know, the sun was setting. So we got that view and of course, all of the lights. So that was really fun. I haven't ever really been to Vegas. I've been through there. And I don't know that I would want to spend a ton of time there, but it was really fun to see it. 

 So, yeah, we took a red-eye flight back to the DC area, got into to Baltimore around 6:30 AM. Yesterday. And, I think I'm still recovering a little bit. I don't really do those types of flights super well anymore. 

But today we're back at it back to work back to all the things. And back to recording podcasts. So, yeah. So today, Uh, we're going to talk about, are you moving toward what you want in life or are you moving away from what's uncomfortable? you know, are you filling your life with experiences that enhance your quality of life or experiences that diminish your quality of life. 

Before I started coaching, I hadn't really thought about this. there were times when my experiences definitely enhanced my life. But also times where I made choices that diminished my experience. 

And I just want to give credit where credit is due for the idea for this podcast. My lovely cousin who was talking about choices she was making and somebody had told her to ask herself if, if what she was doing was enhancing her experience or diminishing it. 

And it got me thinking in coaching, we talk about a similar concept. We talk about these choices as being toward moves or choices that bring you closer to what's important in life. Like what you value, and creating the life you want to live or be the person you want to be and away moves, which are choices that help us avoid certain experiences like uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, or situations. 

But I really love my cousin's way of thinking of it too. I love both ways, but I liked her way of describing it. 

So in this episode, I'm going to talk about this idea of choosing. Based on how the choice impacts your life experience, both from the lens of my coaching experience and the diminishing versus enhancing concept. Because like I said, I love both ways of thinking about it.

So, what you're going to learn today is number one, what are towards moves versus a way moves? Two what are values? Number three, how values help you decide if something is worth your energy or not? Four, how this cool, simple concept of enhancing versus diminishing relates. 

So first off, when I work with clients, one of the first things I do is some values work, maybe some identity work, like who am I? But values, you know, what's really, truly important to me? Why do I do this? Because most people don't take the time to really sit down and think about what's really important to them 

in how they show up in life. Is it authenticity, integrity, safety, or security, maybe joy or happiness? These simple words, after spending some dedicated time really digging in and excavating out, which ones resonate deeply, can really act like a compass in life and they can really, those were just simple words can really guide you

in the choices you make along your path. So these experiences that bring you closer to what's important. What you want the life you want, the person you want to be. They would be experiences that enhance your life. It's important to note that values are really sort of our chosen life directions. 

There are ways of being. 

They're not goals. They're not attainable. Sometimes people don't get this nuance quite right. It's common for people to say, well, I want to be better at being honest. So I guess that's a value. It could be, but it also might not necessarily be. 

So when I have clients do this work, I give them a list of a bunch of words that represent potential values. 

I've included a fun worksheet for you as a listener of this show if you visit the link in the show notes, you can visit that and download it. 

 But I give people this list of a ton of words and they represent potential values. So I instruct them to look through that list, circling or highlighting whichever words resonate deeply with them. Most of the time they end up circling a lot of words. Every time I do this exercise, I do the same thing. 

 But when we're talking about core values, we really want to narrow it down to a handful. Like three to five. So this means that you're going to have to let go of some that you think are important. It doesn't mean that the ones you drop aren't important. 

The point is that we're working towards discovering the MOST important values to you. So there could be things that are important to you that you want to work on. I have a client who wanted to be better about being in integrity. It's likely important to her, but it wasn't necessarily a core value. Some other things that resonated more were authenticity, trust and honesty, and the nuances are really important. 

So, how do we use these? I mentioned earlier values are like our compass and you can always consult your values when making a choice. 

For example, one of my values is authenticity. And I can ask myself in different situations- am I living into that value of authenticity? Am I living in alignment with that? And if I'm not, what is the discrepancy? Or is there a different choice I can make. To align with that. you know, does it mean that I'm showing up worrying about how I look or worrying about being

as good as the next person or fitting in? If I'm not living in alignment with that value, I have to kind of look at that and say, why? And I can make tweaks to, you know, show up more authentically. Another one of my values is simplicity. I tend to be a person who makes things complicated

 If I'm not being really mindful and intentional. And so if things start to feel really complicated, I can pause and say, wait a minute. My value is simplicity, and this is not simple. So what do I need to adjust here to make it simpler? Those are just a couple of easy examples. 

But that's how we enhance our life experience to move closer to what it is that we want in life. So, what about diminishing it? 

Well in coaching, we talk about these as away moves and really, you know, in life we have uncomfortable situations. You know, people, we have thoughts that are uncomfortable or that we, that don't help us, that don't serve us. We have feelings we don't like. 

We feel physically things in our bodies we don't like. And so away moves are things that we do. To avoid those feelings. I was talking with a client this morning and she was talking about how she's always the fixer. And if you resonate with that, the fixing is done to avoid the uncomfortable feelings that are are present. 

So the idea is that if I fix this, everyone will feel better. What happens though is in those situations, oftentimes we're moving away from what's uncomfortable but we're not really moving closer to what's important. A lot of times we're moving away from what's important as well. 

Another example could be you know, if you have ever been an emotional eater or, you know, you've had a glass of wine to wind down after the day. Nothing wrong with that. Just if it's something that you're doing to avoid an uncomfortable feeling. Maybe you're stressed. You need to wind down and take the edge off the glass of wine. I've been there. 

You know, that's an away move. 

So if we think about it, if we think about it in terms of experiences that diminish the quality of our lives. fixing could be one. You know, if, if you're taking on things to want to fix. You know, fix things, taking on too much. And then, you know, that's diminishing your life experience because you're always tired. 

Or is that glass of wine or two or three getting in the way of living that healthier lifestyle, that's important to you, you know, it's diminishing the experience that you want to have in life. 

So the really cool thing about this is when we simplify it like that, it's super easy to stop and ask. Like my cousin, she was like, Is this enhancing my experience or diminishing it. Super easy, right? You don't even have to do your values work. It's good to do it. However, it's pretty easy to just ask, is this adding to my, you know, life experience or taking away from it? 

So let's talk about what some of the like avoidant behaviors could be or things that might take away from your life experience. Avoiding discomfort is really, really that, you know, are you people pleasing? Like you can't say no. You know the fixer, which I already talked about that, but, you know, fixer mentality of I need to fix everything. It'll keep everything smooth. 

Um, you know, avoiding conflict, things like that. Perfectionism is another one. That's a very avoidant behavior. You're working to avoid what you think you'll feel if you fail? Or you're working to avoid feeling rejected or not fitting in, not belonging. 

Another avoidant behavior can also be related to communication, like reacting very emotionally. And it doesn't sound like it could be avoidant, but if you've ever been in a heated argument or, you know, a conflict with someone that's close to you, like say a partner, for example. I have no experience with this ha. 

You can probably relate to your partner hitting a nerve. Right. And so what's the first thing that we do? We feel like oh, something's wrong with me. Or like, you know, I did that wrong or they're attacking my character or 

a lot of times, unless we're skilled in effective communication, which most of us are not. Even if we understand the concepts of that, it's stuff that takes a lot of practice, but, um, you know, we react emotionally because we want to prove that that's not how we are. That's not right. That's not, you know, we want to avoid the feelings of discomfort that come with that sitting there. If that makes sense. 

Self-sabotage. Is another one. 

 One example of self-sabotage that I think is so interesting is people who have the fear of success. It's like, they will unconsciously sabotage their success in little ways, because they're really kind of afraid of like, what happens if this does work? It's a really common thing. 

Pessimism is also another like fear pattern that is a way of avoiding like, I guess, failure or disappointment. You know, it won't work out anyway. So why should I try? 

Saying yes to everything. I already mentioned people pleasing, which is essentially the same thing, but saying yes to everything, because you don't want to deal with the feelings of somebody being upset with you. You know, I mentioned emotional eating or drinking, using substances to check out or numb out. Those are things too. 

It might even be just simply stuffing things down. Not wanting to talk about things, avoiding conversations, avoiding feeling feelings. 

So we just talked about a lot ways that we might, maybe not intentionally -most of the time, not intentionally choose what enhances our life experience,but. A lot of people will ask me, yeah, but how do I in the moment like it just, it's comes and goes so fast. Like how do I, how do I stop and actually think about it?

And yes, my friends, this is the part, right?So, what you wanna do kind of slow the moment down. And sometimes we have plenty of time to think about this stuff, right? And can ask ourselves the questions. But it takes awareness, right? so one of the ways that I like to. Really help people get this in their heads is to practice mindfulness. 

Mindful awareness and being mindfully aware means that we just come back to the present moment and just notice what we're thinking, what we're feeling, what we're doing, going on around us. Maybe connecting with our a little bit. It doesn't mean that we're in the yesterday ruminating about what we think we should have done better and we're not worrying about the future. Like, what am I gonna have for lunch tomorrow? That’s probably not something that most of us stress out about. But you know, the point is we're not living in the future what ifs, right? We’re bringing ourselves back to the present moment and just noticing what is present in the here and now. 

And then, to further that we're doing so non-judgmentally. We're just observing our experience. And the reason why this is so helpful is I mentioned awareness. It helps you notice what tendency is and helps stop and ask yourself, does enhance my experience or diminish And what would enhance it instead? So mindful awareness. Practicing that over and over and over again. 

It's great to practice it every day when things are normal and easy. So then things are more challenging, you know, in the, in the moments do feel like speed and you aren't able to stop and think, you know, your muscles are already kind of built for that. It's like, it's like exercising. It's like lifting weights. 

Like you don't just go and, you know, you don't just go for the 50 pound dumbbells to do bicep curls. Like you gotta start small, right? So you start easy and you build. So I also wanted to share some examples of, you know, I, I shared some examples of how we avoid discomfort and how that doesn't necessarily help us choose things that enhance our lives.

But I wanted to also share some examples, just a few examples of, you know, places where you could choose the enhancing option versus the diminishing option. going back to perfectionism. I'm working with a client who a couple months ago, he had an opportunity to presentsomething, his peers and some of the other, grad school professors, I guess.

And, you know, he had the opportunity to say yes or no. So he easily could have said no because public speaking is not something that he's comfortable with. And also he kind of feels like, you know, he's a fish outta water in his grad school program. Long story. So he's got some insecurities there and he could have chosen not to do the presentation cuz he didn't have to do it. But he did stop and ask himself, what is the thing that moves me closer to what's important? And he did the presentation. So he chose something that was in line with what he values, something that enhanced his life. 

Another example - we’ll go back to people pleasing saying yes to everything. I have a friend who is afraid to say no and she overextends herself all the time and she's always ending up kind of regretting it cuz then she doesn't really have time for her own. Self-care, her own, you know, her own stuff. so saying yes to everything is avoiding feeling uncomfortable, like worrying about disappointing others or, you know, or what are people gonna think if I say no. But it's definitely not enhancing her experience. You know, some self-care time or me time might really help her enhance her life, right? 

Another example, final example is let's say that you're someone and you're in a group of people and they're all being really gossipy and that's not really, you know, steps on your value of kindness or authenticity, cuz it's not really authentic for you to talk about people behind their backs. and so if you're in this crowd, like, you know, to jump into the gossiping, it's sort of like the easy right? Itavoids the feeling of not fitting in. So if you do that, you're fitting in, but it's not moving you towards those values of kindness, authenticity.so,you know, being in that group of gossipers, it would probably be diminishing your life experience.

It's like an away move. 

Whereasif youyou choose to. You know, leave the conversation or you know, say something that could be very uncomfortable. But the long run, it is enhancing your life experience because you are moving towards something that's important. 

So to wrap everything up in a nice little bow for you, today. We talked about the choice we have when it comes to something.You know, do we wanna take steps towards what's important, our values, or what enhances our lives? Or dowe wanna make the away move, the avoidant, move and diminish our experience? Now, I do wanna be. That sometimes, sometimes avoiding is not a bad thing. The question is really, is this workable?

Does this work for me? You know,  the example of emotional eating,avoiding uncomfortable feelingsgenerally is not gonna be a workable thing cuz it steps on your value... Like if you have a value of being healthy or, or, you know, handling your emotions in a healthy way. You know, that's generally not like a workable avoidant solution. Now, do we sometimes just need check out?

Yes, absolutely. 

And sometimes that's workable, right? That's a good question to to ask yourself too. 

Before we  end, I wanna tell a story that I actually got, it's one of my new favorite stories and I actually got it from a book called The Confidence Gap by Russ Harris. It's about, it sort of illustrates like what it means to live in alignment with your values. 

So, let's just say there are two mountain climbers. And their goal is to reach the summit of the mountain. So climber A, they are on a mission. The only thing they care about is reaching the summit. That's the only thing they care about. They wanna do it as quickly as possible. So they just, you know, forge ahead. So they're, they don't really notice anything on the way. They're not really, you know, they're just living in, let me get to my goal, and then they do it. They get up to the  top and, you know, get their picture taken, whatever.

And then it's like, okay, I'm done. Back to the bottom as quickly as possible, so you know, very much on a mission. So climber B also has the goal of reaching the summit, but climber B is also excited do this climb because they want to really develop their outdoorsy skills, further their climbing, their technical climbing skills. they wanna connect with nature, you know, they might want to just have some time with the fresh air, stuff like that, right?

They have some other things they wanna experience along the way so, you know that climber. Like I said,

still has a goal for reaching the summit, but along the way they're experiencing these things that are important to them.

So climber B gets to the top and you know, really soaks in the summit and then heads back. Again, like connecting with nature, working on their skills, all you know, all those things. So now let's just say that neither climber A nor climber B are able to reach the summit. You know, like it's one of those days where the weather window is just not conducive to reaching the summit.

So climber A is gonna be really bummed out and maybe even sees it as a failure because they didn't reach their goal. That's it. They didn't reach their goal. But climber B, sure are they disappointed? Of course. So they’re they're managing the disappointment. However, they've also really gotten a lot out of their journey because they've been connecting with nature, they've been working on their skills, all the things that are also important to them.

So the reason I share this story is, a lot of people I work with come to me when they feel stuck and they don't, they feel like they're going through the motions of life. And that can happen when we sort of wanna check boxes and kind of, you know, we're living the life that we think we should live and we get kind of stuck in that, right?

It's kind of our normal routine and we just get to a point where we don't feel like it's working, but we don't know how to get out of it.

 Knowing your values, knowing what's important to you,  even if you don't reach a goal,  if you think about it as a process, you know, some goals you're not gonna reach.

So how can you bring in, you know, the things that are important to you? How can you set goals that align with what's important to you, things that enhance your life experience.

So I just wanted to share that story because I think that it's important and, really a life-changing mindset to be able to think about like, how do I step through my life keeping what's important to me close? And see how that enhances your life experience. 

So my friends, that is all I have for today. apologies for such a long wait for this podcast episode. I've been watching my podcast downloads go down and down and down because I haven't put anything new out for a while, so I'm trying to figure out how to make that change. Having a hard time with the schedule, to be honest. So I'm being kind to myself and, practicing all of the things that I teach my clients. So patience with me and eventually we'll get back on a regular podcast schedule. 

Thanks for tuning in. If you would be so kind is to go leave me a rating and a review on whatever podcast streaming platform you're, you're listening to me on, I would so much appreciate it. It helps other people find the show and then I get to spread this message to more people. 

So thanks again for tuning in. I will see you next time.