The Single Biggest Lie We All Tell Ourselves That’s Holding Us Back From Reaching Our Goals

Micheala Barsotti:

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode, Paul and I are so excited that you choose to listen to us each week. And if you’re new here, we hope that you will stick around. Just a quick reminder, before we dive into today’s topic, if you find this episode valuable, share it with a friend, this really helps us towards our goal of reaching more people and spreading valuable information to help all of you achieve true transformation from the inside out so that you can show up as your best self. Before we dive in today, I would love to just kind of talk about a couple of community wins, Paul. So can you kick us off what’s something you’re excited about or just you want to celebrate in the community?

Paul Salter:

Yeah, there’s one lesson that comes to mind that is in one of the first modules of the online course component for the 5% community that really seems to be giving people this big moment. The lesson is called toxic turning points. And there’s been a handful of people in the last, I don’t know, week to two weeks who have mentioned this particular episode, really being an enlightening moment for them. And in this toxic turning point lesson we walked them through some past experiences in their life that really laid the groundwork for them to have a turning point, if you will, in whether it’s their relationship with food, how they view themselves, their body image issues or challenges, maybe scale related issues. And it’s just so cool to really see firsthand how these people are utilizing their past in a positive and productive manner and not just letting it define them, they’re going back and finding these moments like, “Oh shit, this is where everything changed.”

That’s just a lie. I’ve been telling myself since that point. And then obviously you and I are there to support them and beginning to learn from that opportunity to begin changing in their self talk. I think it’s just so cool that all of our members are experiencing that moment, because that was a really powerful style of learning for me when I really understood how to harness my past to help me be more productive, to accelerate my growth in progress. It’s by no means easy by any stretch of the imagination, because you can unearth some deeply emotionally charged beliefs and memories, but boys are powerful. So I’m just really excited for our community members who have courageous enough to give that lesson their 110%.

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah so powerful. And just something that’s so often overlooked. We don’t take the time to really, to deep and think about this stuff.

Paul Salter:

How about peel the onion layers back?

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah, I mean layers. And I just want to shout out our fundamentals members. I mean, because it’s so cool… So most of them started in December and it’s really cool to see all the tiny transformation that are taking place. Little habits it’s like they never had their lunch lockdown and now they’re nailing lunch or all of the things that they came to us originally with. Like they didn’t have much structure and now how much structure they’re gaining is just fantastic and it just makes me so happy to hear.

Paul Salter:

Yeah. I mean, let’s shout out Barbie, like that just cover us too.

Micheala Barsotti:

I know.

Paul Salter:

She’s kicking ass. She came to us eating one huge meal at some random hour in the evening. And that was the only time she ate. And now she’s eating like three times per day. Her energy is 10 times better. She’s now feeling like she has the energy and she’s making the time to exercise because she’s developing this structure that is unique to her. It is very simple. It’s not over complicated, but she’s got like these regular intervals during the day where she is moving, she’s eating, she’s hydrating and it’s a night and day difference. And just only how she’s showing up in the community, which has been so wonderful to see.

Micheala Barsotti:

So cool. And I just think too, it’s awesome because we have so many different people at so many different levels. Like we have a lot of people that come in into the community and the fundamentals where they have a strong background of macros and they’ve tried a lot of different approaches and things. And then we have other people, like her, where not really unsure what macros are, has no background on that. And that really speaks to the individualization that we bring to each member, meeting them where they’re at. And it doesn’t matter where you’re at in your journey. Like there’s always a place for you in our programs.

Paul Salter:

Absolutely. It doesn’t matter like where you are now. You just need to get clear on where you want to be, where you’re going and where you are now, so that you can actually take those appropriate action steps to getting there. And for all of you listening, hey, if you are really looking to feel more confident in control, maybe even just at peace with some of your own nutrition decisions when it comes to building that unique, simple, sustainable framework of nutrition plan, learning how to adjust it, to lose weight, keep the weight off for good. Check out the 5% fundamentals program. It’s a hell of an awesome community. And it is probably the most in-depth education you will find on all things, building your own nutrition plan and adjusting it to lose the weight and keep it all for good. And of course we’ll link that in the show notes below, or you can hear Micheala and I talk more about it on our respective Instagrams or the 5% Weight Instagram, which is brand freaking new and you should be following tons of outstanding content there with Micheala leading the charge.

Micheala Barsotti:

All right. Are you ready to get into our chat today?

Paul Salter:

I am. I’m excited about this one. Take it away.

Micheala Barsotti:

Today we are talking about the lie that we often tell ourselves, “I don’t have enough time.” And how many times have you caught yourself being like, “Oh my goodness, I can’t believe it’s already a new month.” I just said this morning, right? We’re already heading into the second month of 2022. Wow. Time flies by and so many of us live our lives wanting to do whatever the thing is or be better at something. But we failed to actually take action on it. And we work with so many women that they’re running a family. So their days are just long and busy with dropping kids off. You have a full day of work yourself.

Then you have to run your kids to all these sports extracurricular activities. Then you have to make dinner for the family and do bedtime. And we get it like the day just goes by so fast. And what happens is we find ourselves just saying like, “Oh, I’ll do it tomorrow. I’ll do it next week. Next month is going to be better. I’ll have time to do it next month.” Right? These are the excuses that we tell ourselves. And we don’t mean to make these excuses. They’re not intentional. We really do want to take action. But you have to ask like, why is it so challenging to follow through? And I want to kind of kick us off where with a little exercise today. So I want you to take out a pen and paper and if you’re driving or you’re walking, maybe come back to this later, but just take a mental note for now.

I want you to write down all of the things that you want to do, but you really can’t seem to find the time to do them right now. So whatever those things are, all those little tasks, maybe you have a project you want to start whatever it might be. And then from there, I want you to take one of those examples and write down X, whatever the example is, is not a priority to me right now. So for instance, if I’m working on a project, I might say this project is not a priority to me right now. And then I’m going to ask you like, how does that sit with you? And of course, this is not meant to be an episode where we just start throwing daggers at you right off the bat or make you feel like crap. But I think it’s a great way to put things into perspective because I’m super guilty of this too.

There’s so many tasks that I have in my head that I plan to execute and take action on. But yet I find myself at the beginning of each week, I’m like, “Oh crap. I haven’t really done much to move the needle yet.” So I this is definitely a relatable topic that we can all at one point or another, be like, “Oh yeah, there’s that thing that I really want to do, but I just haven’t yet got started on it.” Paul, can you weigh in here? I know that you are the master of productivity, but like tell us where would you start with somebody who’s continuously saying that they want to do the thing, but they just don’t have the time right now?

Paul Salter:

Yeah. It’s an interesting point because my way of navigating this conversation has evolved over the year. To be candid, I think it’s evolved in a bit more of a candid and harsh way, if you will, by just really speaking transparently that if you say you want to do something over and over again and are failing to take action, you just simply don’t want that enough. And I think where I’ve grown in handling this conversation with not only myself, but with people we work with is like, it’s okay to admit you don’t want something bad enough. Oftentimes especially with social media today, we see all these people having this success or buying this material good. And it’s like, “Oh, we want that. We’re going to take this action to get X, Y, and Z.” And we have to kind of circle back to, do we really want that?

I think it’s so easy to outsource our wants based on what everyone around us in environment, in our social circles is wanting, having, achieving or experiencing when at the end of the day, most it, if not all of those same things might not actually be in alignment with what you want, because if you truly want something, you will stop at nothing to make it a priority to actually get it done. So when it comes back to saying, I don’t have enough time, no, you just don’t care enough. And I’ll be the first to say that’s okay. But if you really think you do care enough, you would stop, take action, readjust your schedule and work tirelessly day after day. And I can say this, having worked with people who have six, seven, literally eight children, full-time jobs in grad school, two jobs, et cetera, who are still finding time. And rather they’re making the time to take care of themselves, get X, Y, and Z done still have time for a hobby, to attend all 17 million of their children’s events, extracurriculars, et cetera, still be a present spouse. It’s just about gaining clarity on what you want? And then the kind of the second follow up is why you want it?

And if you have those two things in place, you can be limitless unstoppable. And my favorite word, unfuckwithable in taking action to get that done.

Micheala Barsotti:

Yep. I think like this is one of the biggest, I guess objections we have with people that are interested in working with us or working with a coach in general. It’s like, they just talk about, “Oh, but now’s not the right time. In a few months, it will be better. And then I can start focusing on this.” But the reality is, I mean however, you approach your healthy lifestyle, it should never just take a backseat one month, no matter how busy you are, right? Like that’s part of figuring out how to make it work for you. And that kind of brings me into a strategy that I want to talk about or just a point I want to make I guess is, making sure that you establish your priorities in this season. So going off of what you just said, like there are certain times where things are more important and then other times where those things are not quite as important or they’re not at the top of the to-do list and that’s okay.

So like you said, being okay with it is the first step, but really getting clear on like what you’re of focuses and priorities are in that time. Perfect example I can give, I always go back to the moms because we work with so many of them, but come the fall, right? The end of summer, they’re getting ready for their kids to go back to school, sports are starting up, life is just becoming a lot crazier. So you might have to shift things around a bit. How many times do people completely fall off with workouts? That’s a great one because they don’t feel like they have the same hour to commit anymore. It’s like, well then maybe you do 20 minutes, two times a week. And in the springtime, when you have a lot more, maybe you’re hitting a full hour. That doesn’t really matter. It’s the fact that you’re making it happen in just a way that works for you in that time.

Paul Salter:

Absolutely and shameless plug of our own podcast. Like we have an entire episode dedicated to navigating what so many of us struggle with, which is that kind of perfectionist or all or nothing mindset, which a mom might relate to. In that example of if I can’t go to the gym six days a week for 60 minutes, I might as well not go at all. No you’re absolutely right. This is a season that you are in. Maybe you need to scale back at your workout structure is three times a week for 30 minutes and you and I both know very well, that is significantly better than a zero times per week for zero minutes.

Micheala Barsotti:

Definitely. Yep.

Paul Salter:

And I think one more thing I want to add Micheala too related to coming back to this common excuse of I don’t enough time, is a lot of that’s rooted in fear because what if you did make the time and you did experience the positive changes? Like everything, you’ve heard me say this a million times just rooted in chasing a feeling, whether you covered it up with wanting to lose weight, achieve a monetary goal, a certification, whatever we’re really just chasing the feelings associated with that achievement. I think so many examples of indecision and lack of action can ultimately be traced back to fear of feeling better because it’s going to require us to step outside our comfort zone. And that’s really, really scary for most people. So when you say you don’t have enough time, not only is it not a priority, not important to you, you’re not clear on why you want to do that, but you’re also likely afraid and that’s okay. Every single person who’s had the most success in the world at anything in life, was also afraid. But that doesn’t mean it deterred them from taking action. They just took one small baby step, had a little win, did another baby step and then slowly but gradually accumulated into a big snowball of positive progress.

Micheala Barsotti:

Right. Yeah. It’s the baby step especially with new things that we want to approach or a routine that we want to lock in place. We often think about chapter 100 of what that looks like and we immediately think that we need to get there. It’s like no, we need to start with chapter one. Just pick that one thing and start doing it. You’re going to be so much more successful if you just make time for it, whatever that looks like. And with time doing a time audit can be really helpful for you. This was something that I did when I was going through my precision nutrition certification, I think it was level one, but they had us do like a time audit one of the first dates because this is such an objection with people.

And it was really eye opening for myself to see where I’m spending my time. You don’t realize how much time is wasted throughout the day. How much time do we spend scrolling social media and get sucked in there? Or we plan to watch one episode of Netflix and it turns into four or just like all the little things that we do in a day. Not that we don’t have the right to do those things. Of course we do. But when it comes down to priorities and there’s this thing that you really want to fit in your schedule, well, then you have to make choices and sacrifices sometimes. And that might mean putting something aside. For myself, I had this excuse that I didn’t have time to read. And that is kind of what I was leading with for a while. But it turns out I made a goal that I’m not going to watch TV on the weekdays because I want to read my book and I know if I don’t have the TV, I’m going to do that. And yeah, I made a small little sacrifice, but turns out I have plenty of time and I’ve been able to read a book full through. So that’s good.

Paul Salter:

Yeah. I love that. It’s one of my non-negotiables too, like Monday through Thursday, no TV, no shows nothing. And I remember too kind of a similar example back that was like about a year ago, I noticed I was just feeling a little overwhelmed with my workload for whatever reason. And I similarly took the time to complete the time audit and realized for 30 or 45 minutes, not once, but twice a day when I was eating, my lunch and my dinner. I would be sucked down the ESPN rabbit hole or the YouTube rabbit hole. And I had the best of intentions of stopping after 10 minutes. But like I said, it was 30 often 45 minutes, twice per day. And I wondered why I could not actually get that done. So I made a quick little change that I couldn’t go on to ESPN or YouTube until after 6:00 PM. What do you know, I stopped feeling so overwhelmed, more got done. I actually had time to relax in the evenings.

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah. And Paul, we just came to a realization for myself with my productivity throughout the day that I know I was telling you that I was feeling overwhelmed because I was getting off track with… As notifications come through, I respond to them immediately. So our business is on social media. So we do a lot of responding on there plus my text stream is all clients constantly texting me. And so I kind of always treated these notifications coming in is like urgent. I have to get back to them immediately and I would stop what I was doing and do it, but I didn’t realize how much of a barrier it was creating and throwing a wrench in the productivity of what I was doing in that moment.

Paul Salter:

The flow state. Not even scratching the surface. I know I was so happy we had that light bulb moment.

Micheala Barsotti:

And then another one I kind of want to touch on is making a realistic to-do list. This one was also mind blowing for me. And this is another one Paul, you just have given me such great ideas and help with all this. But I’m a little bit newer or very new to the working from home life and being able to create my own schedule. So oftentimes I feel I don’t have enough time in a day, but really it’s like, I’m not prioritizing what I should be. And with the to-do list, creating like three big rocks for the day. So this is what I do now is… The night before I plan out my three things that I want to get done, no matter what, if my day goes to complete shit I know that if I got those three things done, I won the day. And this is so helpful because I used to make this to do list and I would write down all the things that I wanted to do in a day.

I would sometimes not even get two of them done. And because they have no direction. We have too many things. This goes back to baby steps. When you have too many things, you just are not successful. You don’t get them done. And there’s always tomorrow to do the extra things, but those are like the cherry on top. You have to hone in and focus on what those couple of things are. Do you know for you, your workouts, you really want to make those a priority again. Then maybe you start scheduling those in first thing in the morning. And that is one of your big rocks or whatever it might be.

Paul Salter:

Absolutely. And I think kind of connecting on the dots right now, bringing this full circle. We kick things off with the number one, excuse, we are all guilty of defaulting to, which is I don’t have the time. And we’ve just walked you through are so many tangible action steps that you can begin implementing now to arrive at a place in which you are surprised by how much time you actually do have. And I couldn’t agree more gaining clarity on what exactly you will do with your time is incredibly powerful. And I’ll be the first to admit I take it to the extreme. I kind of have an idea of what I’m doing every 60 minute block from about 5:15 AM to at least seven or 8:00 PM most nights of the week.

And you don’t have to go that far, but just having three priorities in which you don’t do anything else until those three little to-dos are done, you’d be surprised to how that really accumulates, if you’re clear on what those priorities are and making sure they are in alignment with the big goals you’re chasing within a month, two month, three months, you’re going to back and be like, “Oh shit, I just accomplished so much because I was clear on what I was doing every day and getting those three tiny things done every day, slowly accumulated.”

Micheala Barsotti:

Yep. Last one is creating boundaries. This one is like we all know, we hear this word thrown around all the time, but how often do we, or this is just something that I think we can all get better at, asking for help, saying no more, just protecting your time so that you can actually follow through on what you say you’ll do. I’m going to throw my mom out there. For example, she’s the first person that comes to mind because she is a ‘yes’ woman. And she says yes to everybody else, but she’s done that for her whole life, but it’s resulted in her saying no to herself. This is something we always preach to. The 5% is like every time that you go out of your way and do something for somebody else, not saying ever do anything, but you are in one way or another saying no to you. And if you have specific goals or things that you’re trying to achieve that time is very important.

And you should treat that as if it’s a doctor’s appointment or if it’s a very important meeting for your child or anybody else that you care about because that is a form of self respect and is following through and putting up those walls and being like you know what? I can do that, but I can’t do it at this hour because I already have a commitment with myself.

Paul Salter:

Selfish selflessness. I mean you have to be selfish to be selfless. I mean I’m a huge believer in that and actually two things to add. Like I literally just got finished exchanging messages. I was with another person I’m trying to connect with on Instagram, Cody Mcgrew. And he literally told me, “Hey, I can’t connect right now because I’ve got X, Y, and Z on my plate. Let’s look to postpone.” And he was just… Perfectly demonstrated how like hey, here are his priorities right now. He handled it in the most mature professional way possible, but basically said like, I don’t have time to connect over coffee and get to know each other yet because I’m moving X, Y, and Z taking place. And it was an excellent way of just showcasing boundaries. And the second example I’ll add to this point is like I’m notorious for this.

Like I don’t have my phone on for the first three, sometimes four hours per day. I don’t check email. I don’t get on the social media until I get my big three done. And I realize not everyone can go to that extreme, but finding a way to protect your time with your phone in the other room and your phone on airplane mode, no email for even 30 minutes. Again, you’re going to be surprised how much you can actually get done. And it’s just a way of reinforcing to yourself that whatever it is you’re obtaining or trying to accomplish is a priority when you take that action to block the time out for that specific action step.

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah. So good. Well, I would love for you to kind of walk everybody through, because I’m newer to this approach, but I heard it on a podcast once and it really just resonated with me in the sense of like, this is really powerful if you use it, but it’s an approach to time management to help you just focus on important things. So can you talk about it a little bit more? It was in the book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Paul Salter:

Yeah. Fantastic book and fun fact. Long ago, I wrote an article called Seven Habits of Highly Effective Long-term Weight Maintenance, something like that, that I mirrored off of Stephen Covey’s seven habits. I’ll go find that article. It was such a fun one to write, but yeah, the way he breaks down this organizational and prioritization strategy is helping you to differentiate between two characteristics of whatever you are struggling to make time for. And the first one, is it urgent? It’s either urgent or not. It’s that simple. It’s a quick black and white question. Yes or no. And secondly, is it important? Again yes or no? So by answering these two questions, you can begin to better organize the task at hand that you do, or maybe you learn, you actually don’t really want to pursue and accomplish. So if you think of your basic, four quadrant chat, if you drew a big cross on a piece of paper, you’ve got four different quadrants and you put urgent on one axis and important on the other and then or not urgent and unimportant the other opposite end of that.

So basically you’re left with four quadrants. The first one being that something is urgent and important. Obviously this section should garner most of your attention and energy until you get whatever is both important and urgent finished. And then if we move to this second quadrant, so if I’m looking this on a piece of paper, the upper left quadrant is quadrant one, and that is urgent and important followed by quadrant two, which would be not urgent but important. So with this section, maybe you can take an action step to delegate or prioritize or put on your calendar when you’re going to take care of these action steps. But because they’re not urgent, they don’t need to be done yesterday. Or even today, maybe it’s three days, maybe it’s three weeks. And if we go down now to the bottom left quadrant three, this list of tasks, they’re urgent, but they’re not important.

And this is where we kind of get into the social media and email communication world. It’s those activities that are maybe… They’re important and urgent because they notified you like, “Hey, an email came in. Hey, a message came in. A DM came in, someone commented on your feed.” Whatever. But when we sit back and reflect for a minute, they can wait. They’re really not that important. And this is where a lot of us get trapped into it’s that shiny object syndrome. It’s something quick Russia dopamine to steal our attention. And then lastly, quadrant four bottom, right. We’ve got something that is not urgent, not important. It’s your trivial minuscule stuff it’s eventually going to get done. You can probably outsource it or not do it altogether. But by going back to one of the earlier steps, you shared Micheala. When you make a good list of what you have going on, you can use this four quadrant framework that Stephen Covey outlines to better label your to-do list between what’s urgent, what’s not, what’s important and what’s not.

And using this four quadrant strategy, you’re going to be able to visually see, “Oh, this is what’s really important and urgent right now.” And it basically tells you and holds your hand to identify where you should spend your time and energy first versus, “Oh, you’re wasting your time with A, B and C. How can you delegate this or eliminate it all together?

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah. I love this so much. I’m definitely going to start taking advantage of it.

Paul Salter:

Yeah, absolutely. There’s something we teach too in the 5% community that I personally use that was kind of shaped and influenced by this, but I call it the OPDE method. Where basically, I’m taking time to organize and prioritize, but I’m really keen on looking to find things I can delegate or eliminate altogether. So if I can get less on my to-do list, it sets me up for success to be able to accomplish what is now a shorter to-do list. So once I have all of my tasks, which same thing, my organization and the OPDE is a big thought download.

So O organize P is prioritized. What is important in time sensitive? And then D is delegate. E is eliminate, what can I get rid of? What can I pass off to you to Naomi, to Haley? Or what can I think and be like, “Oh, we don’t actually need to do that.” Or it’s not that important, we’ll just get rid of it kind of. And that too, it goes to shorten the to-do list. I realize I can make time for X, Y, and Z. There is enough time and it helps contribute to more progress at an accelerated rate.

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah. Bottom line is that if you feel like time’s the barrier, you have to start checking in with yourself regularly. You do you actually not have time for something? Or are you just prioritizing the wrong things? You have to switch your thought process from, I don’t have the time to where can I make the time? Because at the end of the day, your issue is not that you don’t have enough time. It’s just that you’re not using the time that you have wisely. So start asking for help start saying no more often, create those boundaries. And when you do, you’re going to realize that you actually do have the time for the things that are important to you.

Paul Salter:

Yeah. And I’ll second with that too, a lot of our problems can be solved or we can have a therapeutic effect on ourselves just simply through like radical honesty with ourselves. You either do, or you don’t want what you keep talking about. And again, if you don’t actually want to eat more or eat better, excuse me, exercise more. That’s okay. No one is judging you just be honest with yourself. So you don’t keep setting these lofty expectations only to fall… Never follow through and end up falling short and feeling more frustrated or like a failure.

And then if you are really clear on like, this is what you want, ask yourself why you want it? Get clear on what success looks like, what happens when you achieve it? And then you just commit to it. Period. Like we just spent, I don’t know how long this episode was, but ample time sharing so many strategies to help you find more time. So you can feel like it’s easier to make the time, but the bottom line is if you want something, you’ll stop at nothing to make it a priority. So just be honest with yourself.

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah. Boom. That was so good. Love it. I feel like we covered it all. Anything you want to say or?

Paul Salter:

No, just take ownership. And like I said, medical honesty is really powerful. It’s not easy to do, but if you could be honest with yourself, whew you’ll have done.

Micheala Barsotti:

Definitely. Well we thank you guys so much for tuning in today and listening to us, we hope that you found this episode valuable. And if you did again, we appreciate it. If you would share it with somebody who you would also think would find this valuable. And if you have not already, don’t forget to leave a genuine review in rating on apple podcast or wherever it is that you listen to this. And other than that, we’ll see you guys again next week.