Your Happiness Is Determined by Your Thoughts - Make ‘em good.

The happiness in your life determines and depends on your thoughts. Sure, we all get overwhelmed from time to time and it’s important to acknowledge the overwhelm. But we should never stay there for long.  Make choices that move you forward. Don't stay in the overwhelm or wallow in it. Learn to trigger the forward momentum, and then move forward again.  Here’s the key…know what you want and really live in that passion.  Stay focused so when the overwhelm hits, it doesn't throw a shadow the goal that is sitting right in front of you.

Wisdom and Chocolate is a common sense approach to Mindset Development, Self Empowerment, and Happiness. The real transformation in life begins with Celebration….so grab your coffee and chocolate…It’s time to Celebrate You!

Highlights:

Change Can Be Overwhelming AND Exciting

Wanna Be Happy?  Think Happy. 

Find Your Lane Now and Give Yourself Grace

Check out www.BetsDanko.Com to get more information on blogs, podcasts, courses, and monthly memberships.

facebook.com/betsdanko

instagram.com/betsdanko

Linkedin.com/in/betsdanko

twitter.com/betsdanko

Check out the monthly membership at BetsDanko.Com at: 

https://www.betsdanko.com/celebrateyou-information

Start your Free Trial at Kajabi today! 

https://app.kajabi.com/r/xgbNi7Yc/t/ml6ib4cv

Transcript

0:03

It's time to combine a guilty little pleasure with a new healthy habit. Kick up your feet and listen in. This is Wisdom & Chocolate. Now, I want to talk first, though, about change, because we all experience change. Basically, from the minute you come out of the womb, right? You've been swimming around for nine months, and then all the sudden, everything's dry, right? You been breathing liquid, and now all the sudden there's air to contend with, right? So from the second you come out of the womb, there's change. And as you develop, and you move forward in life, every single day gives you more opportunity for change. And even in instances where you think that you have everything planned out, and everything is completely in order and in line with what you need to get done, watch out, here comes change. Change can be a deterrent, like you're afraid of change, and it can also be an opportunity. So, let's talk about the opportunity side of things. And let's talk first about COVID. Right, our good friend COVID. That opportunity for change came and slapped us upside the head, did it not? It took away a lot of our understanding of the people in our lives, the institutions in our lives, and what our individual lives alone meant. It took away a lot of the constructs that made us feel comfortable in life, even if life really wasn't serving us to begin with. We were comfortable because we knew what was going on and what to expect. Ah, then comes COVID and everything changes. Nothing is what you thought it was. Everything is very different. And we're in a totally different landscape because of it. Because, look, see, this is something that I'm seeing online already. People are having relationships with AI women, they don't even exist. Is this healthy? Is that okay or us? People are using AI to write entire courses, to write entire manuscripts, right? They put down their main ideas, and they say, Hey, go ahead and write this for me. And so a lot of the stuff that we're consuming already wasn't even generated generated by the people who are marketing the things. This concerns me, right? But I also know that people were afraid of the telephone. People were afraid of having toilets in their houses. People were afraid of electricity being in their homes. People were afraid of computers, cell phones, Walkman. Every time something new comes along, that can change life dramatically, we're afraid of it. What does this mean? This can't be good. And it's that change, that that element of change that makes us sort of recoil and go, wait, I'm not ready for that. And that becomes overwhelming. That leads to fear. That allows us to Looking at things in a way that says, 'no, we don't want that.' Even if it may be one of the best things, the most innovative things that has ever come our way. Hello, hello, my name is Bets Danko. And you are, of course, listening to Wisdom & Chocolate. And today we're talking about how your life depends on your thoughts. Right? Some of us already are going, uh oh. No, but for real, when you're thinking things, it affects your life. So we're going to talk about that today. But new experiences strengthen us. New experiences, strengthen knowledge. They give us more opportunity to assess situations and make bolder choices. New experiences give us opportunity to expand our thought processes and our horizons. So when we're looking at COVID, yes, there were some very negative things going on with COVID, obviously, but there was also opportunity to see positive. Seeing the people who were stepping up doing what they could to help other people. Seeing people who were fighting for the rights of other people who needed a little bit more assistance. Seeing how people were pulling together to help their communities, when finally they were allowed to not be locked in their homes anymore. And this was worldwide. This wasn't just in our country. There were positive things that came from that. And honestly, even though many of us, and and I'm included, many of us had people that we were looking up to that we suddenly realized, wow, they are not the people they were saying they were. Like they're faced with with some drama and some change and some real challenge, and they are going against everything they said they stood for. Wow. Like, I had to face up to that. Some very important people in my life, I needed to completely change my understanding of who they were. And that became overwhelming. But it was also positive. It gave me more discernment. It gave me an opportunity to really assess people, their behaviors, and how they are interacting with the world around them. Because see, people do give clues about what they're really about. Just a lot of times we don't want to listen to the cues or see those cues. But in the middle of all of this, of me figuring things out, I was stressed. And I know most of us were. And there was a health component to just being stressed. Of course, I had COVID. So I you know, we all know what the health concerns there with the actual sickness, but there was this side element of stress and all of us were reacting to it in a different way. But stress can damage your health. It literally can damage. And I'm not going to get all into the mechanics of that in this particular podcast, but um, I know that we're all aware of this. The more stressed you are, the more you're holding on to the stress in your body. You can react in many different ways - intestinal difficulties, breathing difficulties, your heart can react, you can get headaches, like there are a lot of things that happen. And the longer you allow those things to stay in your body, the more sick you become. So it's really important to identify the thing that is so overwhelming. And to find the positive components to that thing. Allow yourself to relax a little bit. Recognize, yes, I am in the middle of this stressful, stressful situation, but I do see this one positive element. I'm going to lean on that for a little bit. I'm going to give that a little bit more energy. That can help to pull you out of the stress that you're feeling. Now to bring things back to something less severe, I want to talk a little bit about my fear of being on stage. Now I can talk on stage for a really long time. I'm totally fine with that. It's singing on stage, which is really super funny for a lot of people because I'm actually trained as a singer. So to be afraid to be on stage seems really, really weird. But I have the fear because I get overwhelmed. And I allow myself to get sucked in the thoughts of - there are so many people, if I forget the words, or I forget the notes, or if I stumble while I'm on the stage, this is going to ruin the performance, it's going to ruin their experience, they're not going to get the things that they need out of it. Like I can go down a rabbit hole like no rabbit hole has ever been gone down. Like it can be sort of crazy. So I stop myself at the beginning of the hole. And as soon as my toe starts going down, I stop and I go into a meditative state and I pray. That is my process. And sometimes I don't even realize I'm not even near the rabbit hole yet, but I'm trying to, on some weird subconscious level, bring myself to the rabbit hole. And I actually get sick three days, two days before a performance. I literally get a cold. I can be around no one. I can be alone in my home, lights off, doing prebiotics and all the vitamins that I could ever possibly need, and I'll still get sick. And it's the stress that gets me there. Or if I'm traveling, every time I can be so excited about a trip, but then it's like the day before, and all the sudden, I don't feel well. I don't think I can go. Like I literally create a sickness so that I can avoid the stressful situation. Overthinking creates unhappiness in these situations. Allowing yourself to even chart a course toward the rabbit hole can make you unhappy, can create an overwhelm that will stress you out to the point where you're not even taking part of the things that were so exciting to you just moments ago or months ago. It's important that when we are faced with change, and when we are faced with overwhelming situations, or the change that brings about the overwhelm, that we look for the positives in the situations. And if you know, like I do, that I am prone to get sick before a trip, boost up those vitamins. Don't go to places with a lot of people. Make sure that you are meditating, and you're relaxed, and you're reminding yourself how beautiful this trip could be, and and all the good things that are going to come from the trip. Remind yourself of the positive. See the positive, and then keep reminding yourself. Don't allow yourself to overthink, because you don't want to be unhappy. Oh my goodness. Overwhelm is not a happiness thing. What you want is to feel peaceful in the moment. And the way to feel peaceful is to choose to see the positive. So today I'm going to talk to you about Dr. Bronner's organic and fairtrade Magic, All One Chocolate. And I know that I've covered Dr. Bronner's before, but I don't think I've ever talked about this one. This is the dark chocolate sweetened with coconut sugar cool peppermint cream. And I know you guys know, if you've been listening long enough, I ah, dark chocolate and coconut and dark chocolate and mint. Those are my two favorite things. O, M, G. for sure. And, and so this is a healthy alternative, all organic candy bar that is well worth it. And there's a really cool aspect to this. Aside from the fact that there's coconut sugar. I love coconut sugar, just as an aside. I love coconut sugar, because it's sort of like a mild brown sugar. And I just react to it so much better. It is so yummy. So the fact that this is sweetened with that, so super cool. But also another aside, this is coming from regenerative organic certified fields, if you will. And that's kind of like organic plus. What this means is when they're growing all of the elements that they need for the candy bar, they're prioritizing building soil health. So it's like holistic farming. One of the things that the modern version of farming has done to a lot of our farmland is it's kind of killed a lot of the soil. A lot of the microorganisms that are in the soil are killed by the farming practices. Now we get to make a lot more food because we're killing all the pests and all that kind of thing. But in the long run, the soil health is really deteriorating. So when people do the regenerative organic certified farming, they're building the soil as they're growing to keep that soil healthy, and allow it to keep regenerating and creating more and more and more yummy foods. So this is like organic plus, I definitely recommend you try this chocolate. It is so good. So good. Now, this chocolate brought me happiness mostly because, of course it's dark chocolate. But also because of the mint. Mint has this happiness element. It also can relax you. People who have migraines use peppermint on their necks and behind their ears and such to try to calm a lot of the symptoms of migraine headaches. And also, if you're a person who's experiencing a lot of stress, rubbing peppermint on your upper back, like across your shoulders can be really soothing. Now when we were making our feature film redwoods a few years ago, every time I would go out onto set, I was feeling stressed. And it wasn't because things weren't pulling together, they actually were, it was really lovely. But the funding came in so late in the game, that there were a lot of positions and things that we we didn't fill. We didn't, number one, there wasn't enough funding to film a lot of the stuff that was going on. But also, there just wasn't time to prepare. So when it came down to it, I was in charge of like every single aspect of the production, except director of photography and director. I wasn't in charge of those two things, which was really awesome, except that I literally got two hours of sleep every night for like six weeks. That was really difficult on my body. My body was physically stressed. And so the woman who was doing our makeup, who was just absolutely fabulous, Danielle Mock, she was absolutely wonderful at having peppermint out on the set, and just rubbing it into my shoulders, I just Oh my gosh, it was so helpful to just keep me centered, and helped me feel happy, and lower the stress inside of my body. And it wasn't just having the oils on my shoulders, it was also smelling the oils. And then yes, there was chocolate out on the set. Most of the time was chocolate covered blueberries, but sometimes I would have peppermint out there as well. And that would help me immensely. But no matter how much chocolate you eat, or how much peppermint you smear across your shoulder, sort of behind your ears or anything, in life, the happiness really depends on your thoughts. The external things can really help you to sort of calm you down and relieve some of the stress so that you can think more clearly. Absolutely. But when it comes right down to it, happiness in your life, depends on your thoughts. And relaxing, is what helps you get to the point of being able to recognize the happiness. You create a path to the happiness level that you want. Now, for me the happiness level is is acquired in multiple ways. Yes, every once in a while, there's peppermint on board. Yes, every once in a while, there's a tea, a decaffeinated tea onboard. Many times happiness comes to me by just sitting with my family. I don't even have to talk. Just the familiarity, the love, the kindness, the acceptance inside my family, just sitting with that can relieve so much stress and help me to feel absolutely amazing. But also I recognize that getting things done really helps me to feel good about my life. And I'm talking about making the plan with clarity, putting it down on paper, scheduling the time, and then following through. Like, following through is the element that really pumps me up. I am really great at organization. I'm really great at planning. But organization and planning only means something when you actually do something with your organization and planning. You know, you could put all sorts of charts all over the wall, but if you never try to move the needle, if you never actually do the thing that you've been planning, then what is the good in that? It basically sets you up for feeling horrible about yourself. I didn't get anything done. And you can think Well, I was just so overwhelmed. Now this is one that I relate to, oh, my gosh, so much. I get overwhelmed a lot. And people talk to me about you know, write a to do list, put everything down in a to do list. And there are many experts out there who say don't do a to do list. Now, this is my take on the whole thing. I will write down everything that needs to be done. And it'll normally be in general terms like, clean the house. Okay, that's very general because it's a big house. And you know, you may not need to sweep this floor, but you need to wash that counter, right? So you just put down the generals and then I will assign times to those things and a lot of times I put these in categories, so it's like, this is the stuff that really must be done. So this is my to do list for must be done. This is my to do list for get it done by Wednesday. This is my to do list for, just need to get it done sometime in the next three months. Like, there there are varying degrees of to do going on. So my to do lists, we'll have general things written in categories, and then I assign amounts of time. So if I say one of my to dos is, I've got to get this course done, I recognize that that is about 30 to 40 hours total from start to finish. That's creating the headers, creating the artwork, writing the scripts, creating the forms, recording everything, getting to the computer, putting everything in, doing test runs, like this, this is a big job, right? And if I say, oh, that's 30 or 40 hours, there's no way that's getting done in a week, because there are so many other things that must be done. So even though the time is 30 or 40 hours, in reality, we're talking about maybe three weeks. And that's with something that I already am I really solid on what it is I want to cover. If there is an idea stage that needs to be gone through like, wow, I really think that it would be so helpful for people to understand how to clean a barn around goats. Like, that's pretty specialized. I would need to sit down and really chart out what do people not understand about that? What could be the problems that people need to solve? How do we solve those problems? Like, the whole planning thing, that would be a whole other set of time that I would need to plan for. So understanding what needs to be done, and the time, in general, that it would take to get that done, is sort of the first step. Then I go to my calendar. And I will have I have like a calendar online. And I'll look at the calendar, and I'll look at weeks of okay, this has, you know, these meetings, these these projects that need to get done, I can't approach this particular thing this week, move forward to the next week. In other words, I choose the period of time when it is most logical to approach this project. So this one general line item on my to do list may need a lot of time on the calendar. And I will set aside time and a certain week. But then when I'm working on my planner, at the beginning of the week, and then each and every day, that's when I'm taking different elements of that general category and I'm plugging it into the category into the planner. So now I'm going okay, Monday, create all artwork and all headers, six hours, right? Like I already have an idea of what I want but it's going to actually take about this much time to create everything that is necessary to put on my website to offer this particular course. Now I'm looking at Tuesday. Hmm, I've got all these other things that happen on Tuesday. I've got this networking meeting. I have an appointment with somebody. I've got all these different things. So now I'm looking at Wednesday. Wednesday, okay. So I need six modules for this particular course. Today, I'm going to do a general outline of the entire course. I'm going to set aside four hours for that. You see what I'm saying? To do list was a general list. When it came to execution, it's find the time period on your calendar and now break it down even more on your planner. This is how I create a path to actually finishing a project that I wish to get finished. This is how I create a path to happiness. I know what level I want to be at. And that is getting the course done and getting out there and offering it to people. This is where I want to be so I create the path to get myself there. The To Do List is just the starting point. And then I never go back to it. It's like I'm done with it. I'm putting it aside. Now, I was telling you that I get overwhelmed. So how do we get overwhelmed if I'm so organized about everything that's happening? Well, the overwhelm comes from change. It comes from the unexpected. It comes from the things that aren't on the to do list. It comes from Oh, I've got a sick goat, or Oh, the deer have been eating all my trees, I need to go out and cover all the trees. The overwhelm comes with, I've got all this on my calendar, and now I have to redirect and take care of something else. Now many of the things in my life I'm more than happy to redirect because my family means absolutely the world to me. So if my family needs me, I will drop what I'm what's on my calendar to go help my family. But it doesn't mean that there isn't a consequence to that. There is a consequence, and that is that now I've got stuff on my calendar that I'm behind on. And so I've got to get myself back in the groove and catch up somehow. And how do I do that if I've just planned everything out and I'm no longer going back to that to do list. Well, here's what I do. The happiness in my life depends on my thoughts. So I acknowledge the overwhelm. I look at what caused the overwhelm. And then I allow myself to be human, and acknowledge that I have been overcome with the overwhelm. And then I make choices to move myself forward. So I don't stay in the overwhelm, I Don't wallow in it for very long. Normally, it takes me saying it out loud to somebody, they say something that triggers a thought inside of me, and then I'm going forward again, and everything's cool. Normally, that's what happens. But I know what I want. And because I know what I want, when the overwhelm hits, it doesn't take away the goal that is sitting right in front of me. So even if I'm overwhelmed, I'm still going to create that course. Even if I'm overwhelmed, I'm still going to start a new podcast, like there's still something that is waiting for me to get it done. And I want to be happy, so I want to succeed. And every single thing that I get done on that path to succeed is a big dopamine boost. And that happiness that comes from that is something I want to feel. Happiness in your life depends on your thoughts. So think positively. Think about what really matters. Think about the end game, the thing that you're going toward. Acknowledge what's going on inside of you, and then change the landscape inside your mind so that you see things in a more positive way. Overthinking creates unhappiness, so don't allow yourself to go there. I am determined to increase self-awareness and help people to really value what it is that is special about who they are and what they can bring to the world. And with that in mind, I designed this fabulous program called Celebrate You to help you slow down and pay attention to what's going on in your life, so that you can find value at every turn and design a life that is more fulfilling. So do a little extra. Start Celebrating You, by checking out Celebrate You on BetsDanko.Com and signing up today. So a cool thing happens when you acknowledge the challenges that you're having. And you pick yourself up and you move forward. The cool thing that happens is, you recognize that you're on your side. When you recognize that you have your own back, then your level of trust and faith in the whole world around you and in God, that jumps up too. You see, you're the one that you make the most promises to. You promise yourself, I'm going to start a diet, I'm going to start an exercise program, you promise yourself, I'm going to find a new job, I'm going to learn how to knit, you know, you promise yourself this year, I'm going to save money, I'm going to make sure that I've got retirement started. You promise yourself that you are going to start talking to an old friend that you fell out of contact with, like you promise yourself things. And you do it all the time. And if you're not starting the diet, if you're not talking to the old friend, if you're not getting a new car, not getting a new job, don't you know whatever the thing is, if you're not doing it, you're breaking your promises to yourself. And just like when a friend breaks promises with you, you stop trusting anything that you have to say. And when you don't trust anything, you have to say, who do you have to lean on? Good question, right? You need to be honest with yourself. And when you say I'm going to do this, you need to follow through. When you follow through, you have this sense of accomplishment that is just so amazing. That is the kind of overwhelmed like the positivity overwhelmed that you should, like, really embrace. I'm overwhelmed at how impressed I am with myself. You know, like I accomplished this thing. This is so awesome. That is a great sense of overwhelm. But you need to start living up to the promises that you were making to yourself. And you need to do it every day. So even if you're having something come from left field and you gotta stop what it is that you were doing, and you've got a kind of rechart everything that you put on your calendar because now things aren't the way you anticipated that they were going to be. Even when that happens, you still know where you're going. You still know what point B is and you're headed there. And don't allow yourself to fall so far off the tracks that you don't get back on and reach that thing that you've been planning on doing. Health comes from peace of mind. And in order to have peace of mind, you have to find your lane and you need to stay in the lane. And if someone takes you for a left turn or a right turn or you know, whatever, as you are driving those different directions, you need to keep in mind where that main road was because you're headed back there if you're keeping promises to yourself. Find your lane. Give yourself grace, so that if you have to go off in different directions, you're forgiving of yourself and you don't self-sabotage. And if you feel overwhelmed, because of all the things that you didn't get done that now you're adding back to the calendar, give yourself grace, and allow yourself to stay on the path. Happiness in your life depends on your thoughts. Make them positive. Make sure that the grace is active. Make sure that you are always on your side and being honest to yourself. Self deserves honesty. Self deserves honesty. So give it to yourself. Be careful, stress can damage your health. And if you're not giving yourself grace, you're basically inviting in that stress. Create a path and live happiness at the level you want. It's all up to you. It's all about choice.

Have you ever tried to build your own web page, or build your email list, or make your first sale online, or sell a class? It can be confusing to build and patch together all the systems to sell and track within your own business. But here's the secret: 31:31

Kajabi. I love Kajabi. It is the most popular system used by influencers creators and thought leaders out there today. Over 100,000 People use it to build and sustain their businesses and have made over $4 billion collectively while using Kajabi. You don't have to jump in all crazy-like and try to figure out a bunch of different systems and technology. Kajabi helps you do it all. It's an all in one system. That's why I use it. Simple. You can build your web pages, blogs, podcasts, membership sites. You can create checkout pages and offers to accept payments. You can host your videos, online courses, and live trainings. You can finally start your email lists, newsletter lists, and build marketing funnels all in one place. It is so easy, and it's all in Kajabi. They make it easy with tutorials, live webinars, support articles, and even templates that look amazing. Head over there and try a free trial, head over there and try a free trial. Just head to the bottom of this podcast info and click or cut and paste the link. It's Kajabi. Try it for free. Did you know most creators have over 10 different tools to run their systems online? That's just a time drain. Your customers have to log into a bunch of different systems in order to fully follow you and worse, you and your teams are all in different places trying to track and figure things out. Who wants that right? Kajabi is your CRM, website builder, email provider, payment system, your whole business in one place. Upsells, offers, checkouts, funnels, analytics, memberships, masterships, everything in one place. If you're passionate about your business and your brand, start a free trial. Head to the bottom of this podcast and click on or cut and paste that link. Click the link and get started today. Experience the Wisdom that helps to Motivate and Empower you in relationships, business, family, and most importantly, self-celebration, getting the picture? It's wisdom and it's all about you. Want to hear the Chocolate? Tune into Wisdom & Chocolate weekly.