BADASS MINDSET PODCAST

Here's how you turn a setback into a success story

• Lacy Wafer • Season 2 • Episode 43

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Ever felt overwhelmed juggling your career, your health AND your relationships, along with ALL of life’s other relentless demands? This episode is all about the resilience and mentality needed to embrace both the victories and the setbacks on the road to success.

Discover the transformative power of "observation without judgment" and how this simple yet profound approach can revolutionize your goal achievement. Whether you're aiming to lose weight, advance in your career, or transform your relationship, my experiences reveal how detaching emotions from your observations can lead to meaningful insights and effective adjustments. Hear how I managed to shed 75 lbs and finally pass that dreaded chemistry class by analyzing my actions and outcomes with an unbiased lens, and learn practical strategies to apply this mindset in your own life!

Share a personal story or submit a question you'd like answered in a future episode!

❤️‍🔥SUBSCRIBE to the podcast for weekly tips and insights to fuel your journey!⚡️

❤️‍🔥Add us on IG & TikTok @badassmindsetpodcast & @boldlylacy to connect deeper + ignite your journey and keep your growth game on point!!🤘🚀 Let’s goooo!

Speaker 1:

Hey, bestie, welcome, or welcome back to the Bold and Badass Podcast. I'm your host, lacey, and I'm fired up that you're here, because I am so tired of women feeling inadequate for not being further along in life and like they're crazy or ungrateful, even for wanting more. On this show, I'm going to help you cut through the noise, turn your setbacks into your success story and become the most bold and badass version of you. I'm talking about calling in the most exciting opportunities, experiences and people into your life and claiming the abundance that is your birthright. So if you're ready to make some serious magic happen, grab your coffee and water and let's fucking go. Hello, beautiful, happy Wednesday.

Speaker 1:

I feel like this past week went by so fast, like it's already another week. I don't know. Did it go by fast for you too, or is it just me? I've been really busy lately with all the new things, the new season that I'm in in life. I don't know if you listened to the most recent episodes, but I told you about a new job that I manifested. It's only part-time, but it's Monday through Friday, 4.30 am to 8 am, so super early mornings, which means my bedtime is earlier. I used to get in bed kind of early, like 9, 9.30, but now I get in bed eight sharp no exceptions most of the time. So my day's a lot busier. And then I'm also in school, which I haven't talked about in a while, but in my earlier episodes I talked about how I'm back in school for neuroscience. So I'm 30 years old and I graduated high school in 2012. I did go to college. Right out of high school I played college volleyball and basketball, and the first school I was at I was in school for kinesiology, and then the school I transferred to after the first two years they didn't have a kinesiology program, so I was just taking the closest thing to that, but it wasn't really what I wanted to be doing, and so that, along with some personal life things going on, I ended up taking a year off, which turned into a few years, and I eventually finished my associates in kinesiology and then decided I want to do my bachelor's in neuroscience. So here I am. I went back to school last fall 2023 fall, I believe and I am back in school now.

Speaker 1:

The thing about my neuroscience degree plan versus my kinesiology degree plan while they're both sciences, the sciences that are required for those degree plans are the exact opposite. So with kinesiology I did a lot of A&P anatomy and physiology. I believe I did some biology Can't remember, it was so long ago. But all the sciences required for my neuroscience class are, like my chemistry one and two, gen chem and O chem, physics, biology one and two all of the hardcore like heavy swinger sciences, right, heavy hitter. I don't know why I said swinger, heavy hitter sciences.

Speaker 1:

And I'll just say I'm pretty good at math and I like the idea of science. I like to know the fundamentals and the why, right. So fundamentally I like science. But also science is one of the subjects that my brain has to work a little bit harder for. I have to be really paying attention and be really conscious and intentional to understand the science, which is a big deal to me. I really appreciate understanding the science behind things, which is kind of why I'm in the career field that I'm in understanding the psychology of human behavior and how to rewire the brain and understanding the human brain. It's very intriguing and very fascinating to me. So it makes sense, but also it is a bit of a tough subject for me.

Speaker 1:

So I am bringing this episode to you today because I'm taking a summer class. I'm taking a chemistry summer class and I really want to be so super freaking transparent with you about my journey in school and taking this class, because this is my third attempt at this class. Okay, don't make fun of me, don't judge me, whatever, do what you want to do, but at the end of the day, I just want to be super transparent. So one, I'm not just putting my highlight reel out there for you and you're thinking like, oh, she has it all together, she has her life, everything's going great and she doesn't have any struggles or problems. That is 100% not the case and this is the perfect example of that.

Speaker 1:

So I took chemistry one, gen chem my first semester back in 2023 fall. I got about halfway through the semester and I was barely getting by, like just enough to not be failing, until I got to a point where I did the math and if I made a hundred on everything else for the rest of the semester, I still wouldn't be able to pass that point. I'm like, okay, I need to withdraw from this class because I don't want to fail, right, and I don't want it to weigh down my GPA. So did that, withdrew, re-signed up for it again in the spring of 2024. So just this last semester, same thing Got by probably three quarters of the way through the semester. Same situation.

Speaker 1:

I did better in the first half in the first, like third of the semester because I was like, okay, I remember all this stuff from the last semester and this is right before it gets hard. So I did fine, I'm scraping by about three-fourths of the way through the semester. Same situation. There's like a drop-off point for me where I'm like, okay, I was getting it, I was getting it. Now I'm completely lost. I have no idea what's going on. Someone please help. Right At this point.

Speaker 1:

I do the math, the numbers just aren't numbering and it doesn't matter if I make 100 on everything else for the rest of the semester. I am not going to pass this class. So I have to reach out, do this whole process with my guidance counselor, the people who are allowed to submit like a custom withdrawal, because it's too far in the semester to actually withdraw on my own. I have to get approved through a few people, and so I go through this whole process. They're like, yeah, we'll go ahead and withdraw you. So that was my second attempt Failing failing.

Speaker 1:

Now I could look at this and be like you know what. Maybe chemistry isn't my thing, maybe this is not my strong suit. Maybe I just shouldn't even be in this career field. Maybe I really just need to hang up my hat on this and call it a day. I've tried this twice. It's not working out for me, you know. Let's just do something else, let's move in another direction. Right, I could take that and accept it as failure.

Speaker 1:

But something I learned in my healing journey, when I was healing from my sexual trauma and all of my childhood trauma and look, it's a lifelong journey Like there was no point where I'm like, okay, I'm fully healed, but I can say that I successfully rewired my brain to start thinking and acting like the woman I wanted to be, which was confident, happy, at peace, fulfilled All these things that I didn't feel like I had. At the end of the day, if you asked me are you at peace with yourself on the inside? Are you happy? Do you like what you see when you look in the mirror? Do you have joy in your life? Are you actually fulfilled with the light that you have and the direction that you're headed? The answer was no, no, no, no, no. I didn't have any hope for a brighter future. But now I do and I rewired my brain to feel that way and to start showing up and acting as the woman who creates those outcomes. And inevitably I created these outcomes that I'm really proud of and I'm really fulfilled and happy with and I'm at peace with my life and who I am.

Speaker 1:

So I did figure this out, and one of the ways that I figured this out which I also used in my weight loss journey lost 75 pounds is this concept that I talk about every once in a while. It's called observation without judgment. So the whole idea behind this is, whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish trying to lose weight, you're trying to get a promotion, you're trying to establish a new relationship or just something in your life you have this goal and maybe the way that you are going about it, you're not getting the result that you want and you don't know why, but you're just not getting the result and it's really freaking frustrating, right. That was me in the first two semesters that I attempted this chemistry class. Look, if you're good at chemistry, stop judging. I'm not. It doesn't come natural. It's kind of hard for me and I'm doing my best, but anyways, you have this observation without judgment is separating yourself from the situation.

Speaker 1:

You're making yourself an unbiased third-party observer. You're observing the situation and you're saying, okay, what is going well, what is not going well? What could be the potential things that are playing into that? What are the factors that are making this not go so well? How am I feeling? What are some triggers that are happening right before things go south? You're really just being an observer and you're gathering as much data as you can as to why this result could be happening. And you're doing this without judging yourself, without making it mean something about yourself. It doesn't mean that you're a failure. It doesn't mean that you suck. You're doing this wrong. You're incapable, you're not worth whatever outcome. You're just taking yourself out of it, you're taking the emotion out of it and you, you're being an unbiased third-party observer.

Speaker 1:

And what you're doing, when you're able to separate yourself from the outcome and separate the emotion from the outcome, is you're able to find patterns that make this picture a lot more clear for you, because when emotion is involved, it's not super clear. You're blinded or you're guarded by the emotion. There's walls up and all you can see and feel is the emotional side of things. But when you take this guard down because there is no emotional connection now you can see patterns and data. Okay, well, when I do it this way, I tend to get this reaction. When this thing happens, it tends to make me feel this way, and then, when I tend to feel this way, I tend to react this way, and then that reaction is what caused this outcome. You're able to see things as black and white or kind of like a science experiment, like oh, a plus B equals C or however. You know you want to equate that. You kind of start to figure out one plus one equals two, two plus two equals four. And when you can start to do that, you can start to make minor tweaks to the way you approach the situation.

Speaker 1:

So for me, I took this class with a full load of classes. The first semester that I took it 2023, fall 12 to 16 hours is considered full-time. I was at 15 hours, so that didn't work out for me. So the second semester that I attempted spring of 2024, I took a 12-hour class load. I had one less class, but I still had full-time classes and it was a full 16-week semester. That didn't work out for me. So I said, hmm, okay, what is going on here? How can we do this differently going on here, how can we do this differently?

Speaker 1:

So now I am in a summer class. It is a four-week class. It is the only class I'm taking right now. It is a Monday through Thursday class and it is five hours a day. Okay, so the daily commitment is a little more.

Speaker 1:

However, there are some very significant factors that are different. The first one is that it's the only class I'm taking. I have no other classes to worry about, no other distractions, no other homework load or anything like that to worry about. So this is my only focus. Okay, I'm putting my all into it.

Speaker 1:

The second factor is the first two attempts I took at my university, where I'm actually getting my bachelor's degree from University of Texas at Dallas bachelor's degree from University of Texas at Dallas. Now this time I'm taking it at a community college this summer and the class size is much, much, much, much smaller. It's significantly smaller At my classes at my university. There's anywhere from like 200 to 300 students per class. So there is no one-on-one interaction. There is no stopping the teacher every time you have a question or need clarification. You have to have to have to have to find them during their office hours or during some type of outside of class hours to get any questions answered or any clarification. For my summer class there is maybe 20 to 30 students total I don't even think there's that many.

Speaker 1:

The lecture and lab is combined, so the class structure is set up a little different. Because it's five hours. We get breaks in between. Since there's such a low student to teacher ratio, we get to ask questions throughout. We get clarification every time we need it throughout the actual lecturing and working through everything. We can do the homework right there in class. So I get to find out did I get this right? And if I didn't, why? And I get to fix it right away. So so far I mean, look, we're only like two, three days in at the time of this recording, but so far I've already gotten a hundred on everything, because I actually have this more intimate container where I get to ask questions and I get to be more in direct contact with a professor and I get my questions answered in real time and it's just already. It's going so much smoother and I think that this is helping me so much.

Speaker 1:

Now, the big thing that I want to differentiate here is if you have a goal and you continue and continue and continue to miss the mark I don't want to say fail, because I don't think anything is a fail, I think it's all data you continue to miss the mark. At some point you might think, well, this isn't for me, I just suck at it, or it's not meant for me. There's a time to differentiate between yes, this is actually, maybe this isn't for me, maybe I need to go back to my why. What is the reason that I want this? And if the why is not fully aligned and powerful enough, maybe it isn't for you, maybe it's not aligned, maybe you do need to change your goal. But if you sit with it and you have that gut feeling like you know, that feeling of your intuition saying no, I know with every piece of my being that this is for me, so there has to be another way Then that's when you know to keep reworking the problem. Keep looking at it from a different angle. You will find the right angle.

Speaker 1:

And for me, at this moment in time, I still feel like this neuroscience degree path is for me. So I am reworking it. This is my third attempt at taking Gen Chem 1 at the college level and I think I'm going to get it this time. I really do. I think third time's a charm for me here. But if for any reason, it were to not work out, maybe I would reconsider. Hey, maybe is this for me Because this is only Gen Chem 1. I still got to take Gen Chem 2, o Chem 1, o Chem 2, physics, biology Like I got to take all these things right. So if it continues and continues to not work, maybe I need to revisit.

Speaker 1:

But if I still have this gut feeling which at this current time I do that this is for me and this is just a hiccup, this is just a bump in my road, that when I look back I'm going to be like I'm so glad I kept pushing, I'm so glad I didn't give up, then glad I didn't give up, then you know, okay, let's just rework the angle, let's just keep trying, let's keep pushing. Eventually you're going to get it right. After enough attempts you're going to get it right. No success story ever happened, maybe one out of a billion, but no success story ever happened where the first attempt they figured it out. No mistakes, no hiccups. No nothing. No challenges. Every success happens after mistakes, after experience, after learning and figuring out what went wrong and how do we need, and you never know how many attempts or reroutes or experiences it's going to take for you to get it right. You're never going to know until you get it right. You won't know that this is the final attempt until it works, until it happens. So you just have to keep going, and that's what I want to communicate here is it's so much easier to do that when you observe without judging yourself, when you observe without making it mean something about you, about your weight loss journey, about your career journey, about your relationship journey. Whatever it is that you are trying to achieve. Take the emotion out of it. Take that meaningful connection of what it means about you out of it. It means nothing about your character or what you're capable or worthy of and look at it as data. How can you approach this differently to get a better outcome? So I hope that that translates for whatever it is that you're trying to do.

Speaker 1:

I mentioned before that I lost 75 pounds After I gave birth in March of 2020, I did not drop the pounds, as they say a lot of people do when they breastfeed. I did breastfeed for a little while. I did not drop the pounds. I lost literally the baby weight, like the weight of the baby plus two pounds. I gained almost 100 pounds during my pregnancy and I lost about 12. So I did go on a weight loss journey. It did not drop off, as I mentioned, and for the first six to eight months it was a nightmare. It was really hard. It wasn't happening for me. I was not losing the weight. I was having a pity party with myself. Until one day I saw a picture of myself and something just like clicked in my brain like oh my God, I'm disgusted with myself. It didn't feel healthy and joyful for me. I was not comfortable at that size and I was not happy with what I saw. So when I saw this, it clicked for me like I have to change something. So this is when my journey really began.

Speaker 1:

It started off by me journaling. Every time I would eat, I would journal how I felt before the food and after. So if I was craving something in particular, I would write how I felt before the food and after. So if I was craving something in particular, I would write how I was feeling, what I was craving, maybe why, if I could figure out why, and then afterwards I would write down how did I feel mentally, how did I feel energetically, physically. So I was tracking data and over time I did notice some patterns. Certain foods I would crave hot Cheetos, I would crave hot wings, and I would crave certain quote-unquote unhealthy or junk foods when I was not feeling so good mentally. And I noticed that I would have these cravings and then when I would eat these foods, I would feel like shit physically. Afterwards, I would have no energy, I would feel like total shit.

Speaker 1:

And so I noticed these patterns. Okay, if I eat these foods, this is how I'm going to feel. This is going to contribute to my physical lack of energy. This is going to contribute to my mental lack of energy or lack of confidence or whatever right. And on the one hand, it just gave me information to use to make better decisions, but on the other hand, it actually started to change. What I was even wanting Like when I realized how bad some of these things made me feel I didn't even want them anymore was even wanting. Like when I realized how bad some of these things made me feel I didn't even want them anymore. I didn't crave them as strong anymore. And then I also noticed some healthy patterns of foods that made me feel really good energetically and foods that made me feel really good mentally and physically, and naturally my brain and my body started wanting those foods more, and naturally because I was consuming healthier foods and foods that were more energetically supportive for my body. I started getting better results because my choices were more in alignment with the goal I was going for.

Speaker 1:

So I want this to translate to whatever situation it is that you have whatever outcome that you're wanting, that maybe you feel like you're missing the mark by a little. You are not getting the outcome that you want. You're maybe not having the experience that you want. And I want you to think of it from an unbiased third-party observer's perspective and say OK, well, what's going really well here? What is maybe not going so well? Where am I missing the mark? How am I feeling during this time? What events or sequence of events are leading up to this response? That is maybe getting me this negative result or not getting me the positive outcome that I want, and what can I possibly tweak? What can I tweak in this equation? And then you just try it and that's the thing.

Speaker 1:

Maybe the tweak that you make and you try this new attempt, maybe that one isn't the right equation either, maybe that's not the right formula, maybe that one's not going to get you the outcome either. But then you just do the same thing. You observe for a period and then you tweak, and then you try again, you put into action, you observe for a period, you look at the outcomes you're getting. Maybe you need to tweak again and then you put into action your new plan. That's all it is. It's just a formula, it's just data tracking, observing the data and then coming up with a new formula and seeing if that works, because eventually you're going to find the right outcome. As you start to get better and better results, you'll start to notice what is contributing to those results and then you'll start getting closer and closer to that desired outcome until eventually you figure out the formula.

Speaker 1:

So, as of right now, my first attempt did not work, so I tweaked it, and then my second attempt did not quite work. It worked better than the first attempt. I had fewer classes to worry about and then I got a little bit better results, but now I'm taking it all by itself. It's the only class I have to worry about and I have more attention and already I'm getting better results. But we're going to hold tight. I still have 16 days left of class.

Speaker 1:

Pray for me, send me all the good energy. I'm speaking it into existence, I'm speaking life into my positive outcome and I'm speaking positive energy into that. But I think I genuinely think I'm going to do better this time, and so my goal for you is to take away what can you observe in your life as an unbiased third-party observer and how can you implement these steps into that process to, one, make it less emotional and, two, make it a little more enjoyable and less about you as a person and more about you just getting the result you want. Let me know if this is clicking for you. Okay, I hope that you enjoyed this episode.

Speaker 1:

If this was helpful, please take a minute, find me on Instagram at Boldy Lacey and send me a message. Let me know if you have any questions at all, if you need any further clarification, and let me know what goals you're working on, what you've been able to observe without judging yourself, what tweaks you're going to make and what your new plan of action is. You can use me as a silent accountability. I have found that sometimes, even if nobody is reaching back out to me to hold me accountable, just putting it out into the universe and telling someone what your goal is and what your plan of action is, it adds a level of realness to it and will give a level of accountabilityness to it and will give a level of accountability to you subconsciously to make you actually follow through. So use me as that source. I will obviously respond back so you don't have to worry about it just being a one-sided thing, but use me as that accountability if you need to.

Speaker 1:

And lastly, if you got any value out of this episode, you know I would be so, so grateful for you if you took 30 seconds or less to write a five-star review for the show. It truly helps with searchability and, of course, rankings, which who doesn't want? But it really will help for that visibility for anybody else out here who needs to hear this message. So we all would appreciate it so so much if you took the time to do that. All right, thank you so much again for tuning in for another week. I love you so much.

Speaker 1:

I hope you have an amazing week and I'll see you next Wednesday. Thank you so much for being here and, queen, give yourself a high five for showing up and committing to be the best version of yourself for you and your people. You are such a badass for that. If you got anything good from this episode, would you send the love back by DMing me on Instagram, at Boldly Lacey, letting me know exactly which part resonated with you? These types of messages empower me to keep showing up, and they also help me understand the types of conversations you really care about. All right, bestie, we'll talk again soon, but for now, it's time for you to step up and start being the badass that we both know you are.