BADASS MINDSET PODCAST

The QUICKEST way to turn a negative situation positive

• Lacy Wafer • Season 2 • Episode 45

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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, that is, if you're listening to this episode on a Wednesday when it came out or just a Wednesday in general, if you're listening to any other day of the week. Happy whatever day of the week it is. I hope that you're having a great day. So far, I am having a great day. Currently I am taking a summer chemistry class. For those who don't know, I am really bad about starting every episode and just assuming that you guys have listened to every single other episode that I've ever done, and I kind of omit details, not because I don't want you to know them, but I assume that you already know them, because, duh, you've obviously already listened to all of the prior episodes the prior 40 something episodes, right? No, I got to do better about treating every episode as if you've never heard any other episodes.

Speaker 1:

So, for anyone who does not know, I am currently in school for neuroscience the study of the brain and the nervous system. It's my absolute passion. I love everything human psychology and everything to do with the brain that affects human behavior and the way that we process information, and so I originally went to college after I graduated in 2012, played college volleyball and basketball right out of high school and I was going for kinesiology. Well, long story short, I played college sports for three years, but the second school that I ended off at, they didn't have my degree plan for kinesiology. So, on the one hand, I felt like what am I doing here and wasting my time on a degree that I don't even want, because I just took the closest thing to kinesiology? And then, on the other hand, I was kind of going through some things, some life things, and felt it best to take a year off. So I took a little break, and throughout that break, we'll just say more of life happened and I did not finish that degree plan for a very long time.

Speaker 1:

After a few years, after some trauma and healing, I decided let's go ahead and finish at least my associates in kinesiology, because I only needed a couple more classes to wrap that degree up. So I did finish that. I have an associates in kinesiology and shortly after that time I got some certifications in the health and wellness field, got certified to be a personal trainer, nutritionist, weight loss specialist and a neurolinguistic programming practitioner I think that's what it's called NLP practitioner and I started coaching women in health and wellness, so women who had weight loss goals or just wanted to overall transform their health and wellness and start living a healthy lifestyle. I started coaching for that and I did that for about two years and then decided I really want to go back to school. I want to finish my degree, but this time I really want to finish my degree in neuroscience because I had really really gained a passion for the study of the brain.

Speaker 1:

Throughout the past few years of learning how to rewire my own brain and transform my own life, I healed from a lot of trauma childhood trauma, sexual trauma. I was raped in 2017. I went through a really dark period, but it was through therapy and mindset coaching, which I completely transformed my life around mentally, physically, lost 75 pounds, literally in every way imaginable. I up-leveled and transformed my life in the best way. So that is what got me so interested in the topic of neuroscience, because one of the biggest mindset shifts that I ever made in my healing journey was that happiness is not something that I have to will myself to feel.

Speaker 1:

It is a science. It is all a chemical balance in the body. If you've ever heard about hormonal imbalance, if you've ever heard about any type of imbalance in the body, whether it be like your brain, chemistry or your hormones, that is all it is. It's an imbalance within your body and that causes you to feel a certain way. And maybe, if you know somebody with a mental disorder or a mental struggle, something that they deal with all of that comes down to a chemical imbalance within the body. It's not because they are destined for a miserable life, or even because their struggles might be causing this and they're so much worse than everyone else's. All that can play a huge impact on that imbalance and the stress that our body creates. It all comes down to a chemical imbalance and neuroscience really covers that. And the stress that our body creates it all comes down to a chemical imbalance and neuroscience really covers that, and the chemical properties and processes going on. So I'm so, so, so interested in this because you can actually take a very holistic approach to balancing those chemicals and getting the body back into homeostasis.

Speaker 1:

And, anyways, I started this class, or I started on this degree plan, in the fall of 2023. So I am just wrapping up a year of being back in school and because my kinesiology degree plan was pretty different from my neuroscience degree plan, I'm not exactly starting off as a junior. I'm kind of in between sophomore and junior. Basically, all of the sciences required for the neuroscience degree plan are all of the opposite sciences that I took for kinesiology. So for kinesiology, I took A&P, anatomy and physiology. I think I took biology, but I can't remember. It was so long ago.

Speaker 1:

But for my neuroscience degree plan, it's chemistry, gen chem one and two. Organic chemistry one and two. Physics, one and two biology. It's all very science heavy, which rightfully so. I mean we're talking about the study of the brain, neuroscience it's in the name. So we're very heavy on the science, and while science has always been such an interesting topic for me, I've also always struggled with science, or at least I've always held the identity that I'm not good at science and that I am not a fan of science class.

Speaker 1:

All throughout high school, while I did pass my science classes, I struggled tremendously and I really just skated by. I genuinely don't know how I passed some of my science classes. I feel like I had more interest in biology, but with chemistry and physics, I don't remember anything from those classes and I didn't learn anything. So, with that said, coming into this degree plan and having to take a lot of science classes, starting with biology and general chemistry, I barely passed biology, but my first attempt at Gen Chem was in the fall of 2023. And I mentioned this a couple weeks ago in a prior episode. But in my first attempt at taking that class, I got maybe a third to halfway through the semester and started looking at my grades and realized, even if I made 100 on everything from that point on, if I scored perfect, I would still fail the class. So I withdrew myself from the class in attempts to retake it the next semester and get a better score. So that's what I did in fall of 2023.

Speaker 1:

At that time, I was taking a full load of classes. My plate was very full and also, not having had a chemistry class in a decade, I just wasn't really set up properly to be successful in that class. So I said, ok, I'm going to withdraw and I'm going to re-sign up for the spring of 2024. Now, in the spring of 2024, the way I adjusted and I talk about this concept all the time, the concept of observation without judgment I frequently will observe what is going on in my life, what is going well, what is not going so well, why is it not going so well and how can I make adjustments for the future to set myself up better and to have a better experience. So one of the things that I looked at is like okay, I'm working full time and I have a full load of classes. This is not really supporting me to be successful at this class. So for the next semester, in spring of 2024, I took one less class. I took the bare minimum to still be considered full-time. 15 or 16 hours is what I was in the first time. Instead of that, I did the bare minimum, 12 hours and I went. I put my work schedule down to a little more in between part-time and full-time. So I wasn't quite all the way to part-time, but I wasn't all the way to full-time. So I adjusted my life in that way and I tried again Now, through about three quarters of the way through the semester, did the same thing, was looking at the data and I saw that even if I scored perfectly on everything from here to the end of the semester, I would still not be able to pass this class.

Speaker 1:

So went through the steps, withdrew myself again and sat down with myself and said, okay, is this something that I want to attempt a third time? And if so, what am I going to do differently this time? How am I going to set myself up better and not relive the same experience for a third time? So here's what I did. I sat down, I observed without judging myself. I looked at my circumstances. I said, okay, what went really well this semester? What did not go so well? Why did it not go so well and how can I adjust this in the future to set myself up better for success and to have a better experience?

Speaker 1:

What I came up with is okay, what if I isolate this class. What if I take it completely by itself so I don't have any other classes to focus on? And also, what if I take it in a condensed time so that way it doesn't drag on and on and I feel completely burned out and like I can't keep up? What if I just put my head down for a very short amount of time, where you know how, like when you start something new, you are really motivated and you're really on top of it for like the first couple weeks, and then it starts like the excitement and the adrenaline and the motivation of starting something new starts to wear off and then you're like, okay, now the struggle of consistency and showing up comes into play. Well, what if I condense the time frame so that that doesn't come into play? Like I don't hit the point of burnout or I don't hit the point of no, I just got to will myself to show up and keep going and keep going for a whole 16 weeks, because that's a long time when you're talking about the day-to-day and consistency of showing up.

Speaker 1:

So I found a summer class and it's only Monday through Thursday. It's only for the month of July, so altogether I believe it was a total of like 18 days in class and if you take out the final exam, 17 days. So 17 days. Can I show up and go hard and really zone in and give it my all for 17 days? And I get three-day breaks right, because it's only Monday through Thursday. I'm off Friday, saturday, sunday from classes. That's pretty doable, I think, and it's the only class that I'll be in. So, yeah, I was like okay, I think I can do this.

Speaker 1:

So here I go, signed up for my third attempt and at the time of this recording, I have just taken my first exam and I only have 10 days left in this summer class. So seven of those days are past me. I have 10 days left. I'm almost to the halfway mark and guess what? I'm so fucking excited because I am finally going to pass this class. How do I know this? One, because I'm actually locked in and I can feel an energetic difference. But two, I scored a 90 on my first exam this go round. The last two attempts I scored less than a 50 on both attempts. I think I scored a 47 on the first one and maybe a 32 on the second one. Like it was just not happening. It was so bad, but this time I actually felt I genuinely felt like I was going to get 100. So I was a little bummed when I saw the 90, because I really felt confident. I studied my ass off, I did all the homework, I did extra credit, I showed the fuck up and I got a 90. So my point is this is my third attempt and I've made multiple adjustments to how I'm approaching this and already I'm proving to be this much more successful. But this just got me thinking.

Speaker 1:

I sit in reflection a lot. I reflect a lot over my life. I do this yearly. I have a yearly reflection and goal planning for the next year. I do this monthly. I'll reflect over the month and set up a plan for the next month. I do this weekly and I try to do this daily, but at the minimum I do every single week. I review the week and I try to set myself up for the next week. And this just got me thinking.

Speaker 1:

When I was in reflection, I could look at my journey and be upset that it has taken me this long to graduate college right. I'm 30 year old. I have been out of high school for a decade. I could have graduated college like six, seven years ago, right, with a lot of the rest of my class who did, I could be upset that I've struggled with this class this much and have not had a smooth sailing journey. But the way I have chosen to see it because we get to choose how we look at things and how we perceive the world and what our experience is going to be and this has helped me significantly throughout this process is this cute little narrative that I don't know when I came up with it, but I started saying this like a few years ago and it just has changed my whole experience with struggles or obstacles that come up in my journey, and it's. This is for the plot. It's for the plot, like. I want you to think about this for a second.

Speaker 1:

Have you ever been around the types of people where, if there is any minor inconvenience or obstacle that comes up, no matter what you're doing? You could be going grocery shopping, you could be going on a trip together, whatever it is, but the moment any minor inconvenience happens, they become impossible to be around. They just have a shit attitude. They get mad or frustrated really easily, they start to get emotional or snippy with people and they just get like a really negative energy and negative vibe and they make everyone around them uncomfortable. Have you ever been around people like that? Yeah, it's the worst.

Speaker 1:

One of my green flags that I am very proud of is that I'm genuinely one of the best people I know to be in an inconvenient situation or an unplanned obstacle with Like being calm in the middle of a shit storm. I feel like it's one of my superpowers. Have you ever seen that meme where the dog is sitting at the table with his cup of coffee and there's a fire all around him in the background and he's like this is fine, everything's fine? I feel like that's me like, literally in a lot of high pressure situations. I'm not going to lie and be like I'm always zen all the situations. I'm not going to lie and be like I'm always Zen all the time. I can say with confidence. There will be people in my life that can attest to times where that was not the case and I was very stressed or not Zen at all, but I feel like for the most part, that is my nature.

Speaker 1:

But even if it's not your nature, I feel like to a degree, you can choose to be that kind of person because nobody wants to be around the person that gets upset or frustrated or emotional after every little minor inconvenience or detour. It's just the worst. Nobody's happy and like we're all going through this struggle, we're all dealing with the same thing. So why is it worse for you? Why is it okay for you to get out of character and to be all mad and upset? Does that help anything? Absolutely not. Does it change anything? Absolutely not. If it does, then we can have a different conversation. If your anger and your upset actually makes a change in a positive way, then hey, I'll back off, I'll accept that you were right in this scenario and that can be the end of discussion. But let's be real Nine times out of 10, that's not the case and it only makes the situation worse for everyone. So I try to look at everything in my life that way now, every hiccup or challenge that I'm faced with, in order to make light of it or to make it a little less stressful. I'm always just like it's for the plot.

Speaker 1:

One of my core memories to this day that has honestly been emotionally imprinted into my brain was my second year in college, so I graduated in 2012. From high school. I went to a junior college, where I played volleyball and basketball on a full scholarship, and my second year there I also applied to be an athletic trainer. Don't ask me why I was doing the most. I'm literally always doing the most. I've always been a busy go-go-go hustler type of person. I get antsy and restless when I'm sitting still for too long or if I don't have enough things on my plate to look forward to.

Speaker 1:

So I felt like I had a little bit of extra time on my hands that year and I wanted to add one more thing to my plate, so I signed myself up for athletic training. I also just love learning more about how things work, and athletic training at the time was very aligned with my degree plan and my career dreams. At the time I thought I was going to be a high school coach, which, side note, I did for two years, but we won't dive into that, that's not the point. It was very aligned and so I wanted to learn more. So I signed myself up and basically we were at every single football practice every single football game, obviously and we had our training facility where athletes of all sports would come in to get treatment and ankles wrapped, wrists wrapped and whatever other things they needed, right? Well, one of our jobs as trainers, every single day that there was practice, was to go set up the field. If you've ever been in athletic training, I won't have to elaborate much for you to understand the significance of this, but if you've never been in athletic training or around this, then I want you to use your imagination here when I tell you how long and intense of a process it is to set up a football field With the full training crew of about 15 people, I believe is what we had.

Speaker 1:

It could take around 30 minutes and for most things that there were to do or set up, it required two people. It was a two-person job because it was heavy and hard to maneuver, so keep this in mind. There's training tables we got to set up. There's stations, we got to set up waters, and if you've ever seen those big orange jugs that sit on the football, I think we had like six or eight of them that had to be set up, and the jug itself isn't heavy, but when it's full of water, for a petite woman like myself at the time, it was pretty heavy. It required a lot of energy expenditure.

Speaker 1:

Okay, now one thing about being an athletic trainer and any sport that is played outside, is that rain or shine, you still got to be there. You still got to show up and do the thing. So one day it was pouring I mean pouring down rain and all the football players were getting dressed, getting taped, all those things right, getting ready for practice, and none of the trainers wanted to go down and set the field up Literally none, every single one of them was trying to avoid it or do something else to look like, hey, I'm busy doing this, so I can't go do that, someone else has to. Or do something else to look like, hey, I'm busy doing this, so I can't go do that, someone else has to. So on this day, when literally no one wanted to help set up the field, me and one other girl were like you know what? Fuck it, let's just go.

Speaker 1:

So we get on one of those trainer carts I don't know if you know what I'm talking about, but it's uncovered. We have all our equipment on the back. We go down to the field and I'm telling you it is pouring rain. We are getting soaked already and we haven't even started yet. Now imagine how big the football field is. Right, it's a hundred yards and we got to set up stuff on all sides and while we had the cart to get down on the field, we still had to get off and walk to set things up and whatnot. So me and this girl her name is Lily Shout out to you, girl, if you're listening to this, right now we're doing it. It's just us two. We are hauling ass and at one point we just bust out laughing and we could not stop laughing. From that point on, we are just laughing. The entire time we're hauling ass. We don't even know what we're doing. At this point we are running on autopilot because we're just trying to get it done and get out of the rain, but we are literally dying physically and hysterically.

Speaker 1:

And the whole time during that process I kept thinking this is going to be a great memory to look back on. That's what I remember. Thinking in that moment is God, this sucks. But also it's kind of fun because this is going to be so funny to look back on and laugh about. Remember that time when we did blah, blah, blah. Right, don't you have any memories like that? Or like God, it sucked in the moment. But you look back and you just laugh that it sucked in the moment, but you look back and you just laugh. That is how that was for me, and I recognized it in the moment, not just after the fact.

Speaker 1:

So fast forward to now me taking general chemistry three freaking times in the moment of studying and trying my hardest and failing. Did it suck Absolutely? But I kept telling myself it's for the plot. It's for the plot when I gained almost 100 pounds during my pregnancy and did not lose it immediately after giving birth and struggled like struggled, struggled for the first year of my postpartum journey to lose that weight until I finally got my shit together. Hey, it's for the plot. I got a flat tire once at the most inconvenient time, literally. Has that ever happened to you? No worries, it's for the plot when I trusted someone with something that was very important to me and they dropped the ball. I'm sure this has happened to you at least once. No worries For the plot. Got into a relationship with a person I thought was really great and they turned out to be not so great. You've probably done this one too, maybe even multiple times. Guess what girly. It's for the plot.

Speaker 1:

Now, I'm not saying that you should intentionally or carelessly get yourself into obviously shitty situations that you know are bad and that you know aren't going to end well, just so you can say air quotes, it's for the plot, or like write it off and use this mindset as an excuse to not take personal responsibility for your poor decisions. I just mean that when you are genuinely giving your all to life and once in a while things do happen that are out of your control or maybe they were in your control, but it was an honest mistake and not your intention for the way you wanted things to go Maybe just maybe it's not as bad as you think and maybe instead you can look at it as a way to appreciate the good things that you have going on in your life even more. Have you ever done this? I do this literally all the time, but when you get sick and then all of a sudden you realize how much you've taken not being sick for granted, I'm like I swear. As soon as I'm not sick anymore, I will be so grateful. I will never take it for granted again, like being able to breathe through your nose. You don't realize how things as little as that can make such a big difference.

Speaker 1:

But what I'm trying to get at here is maybe this can just be a perspective shift for you to remember that without the contrast of the lows, the highs wouldn't feel as good and a life without any conflict, challenges or plot twists would be boring as fuck and not fulfilling. Since when have you ever seen a movie or at least a highly rated movie where the characters are just happy-go-lucky, nothing bad ever happens, everything goes right, there's no growth to be made, there's no obstacles to overcome and they just live happily ever after? From the beginning, all the way to the end, it doesn't exist, right. Why? Because that would be boring as fuck, they wouldn't sell any tickets, they wouldn't make any money, there wouldn't be anything to relate with, there would be no meaning in that, and that's all. Because there was an emotional journey to be taken.

Speaker 1:

So from now on, whenever you're faced with a challenge, an obstacle or wrench in your plans or any minor inconvenience, I want you to stop and ask yourself is this actually the end of the world? Is this actually going to ruin my entire life? Because I know that's a narrative we like to tell ourselves. We start to overthink, overreact, imagine the worst case scenario, but let's sit back and ask ourselves is this actually true? Has this actually happened yet? No, okay, we're fine.

Speaker 1:

Then it's for the plot. And then I want you to take it a step even further. I like to ask myself this question when I'm really feeling the weight of the struggle, or if I'm faced with a decision that feels really big, feels like it could change the trajectory of my life, or feels really difficult to make. I'll ask myself, if I were an author writing the story of my life and this just happens, just insert whatever's going on in that moment that is causing turmoil or struggle in your life, what would be my next move? What action would I take next? Or what attitude would I have this character, the character being you, what attitude would I have this character take on? And then you just roll with it. Whatever that answer is, that's what you do, that's the direction you go next, and then, as I like to say, charge it to the game, just write it off as part of the plot. It's all for the plot, babe.

Speaker 1:

Nothing in life has to be that serious. It's only as serious as we make it. So, when it comes to the areas of your life that are less than ideal and you feel like I don't know how I got here. I don't know where I turned wrong, but I know this is not what I want and I feel like I'm failing. I want you to remember this A life without struggle is a life without fulfillment.

Speaker 1:

A life without pain is a life without pleasure. A life without challenges is a life without change. A life without setbacks is a life without success. You're not failing. You don't suck. You're not destined for a miserable, joyless life of struggle. All of these twists and turns are just part of your meaningful story. It's all for the plot. You can breathe and you can release in, knowing that you are worthy of positive outcomes and while your path may not be perfect, it is perfect for you and your worthiness is not up for debate.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so I want you to take a big sigh and let that stress melt away, let that tension melt right off of your muscles, put a big smile on your face, breathe in energy and remember how powerful you are and how powerful your mind and your body is. You were born with everything you need to succeed. Your body is wise far beyond your years and your brain is malleable. It's coachable. You can train it to operate any way that you want it to A little bit of consistency and intention, you can do this, girl. I love you so much. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for tuning in.

Speaker 1:

If you enjoyed this episode or resonated with any of it, I would love it if you shared a story with me about a time where maybe in the moment it was a huge struggle for you, but when you looked back on it and reflected on it later, it was laughable, or you saw the value in that experience. Or I'd love to hear about a current stressor in your life that you are choosing to release, that you are charging to the game and writing it off. As for the plot, you can do that by sending me a message on Instagram at Boldly Lacey, or there's a little question box in the show notes of this episode. If you click on that link, you can share it with me there. It'll shoot to me as a text message. I would love to hear from you and connect with you on a deeper level in that sense, and if you have any questions or want further clarification on anything, feel free to drop that there in the question box as well.

Speaker 1:

All right, the last thing I want to say is, of course, if you got any value out of this episode. I would appreciate it so much. If you took less than 30 seconds to write a five-star review. It helps the show tremendously with searchability and, of course, rankings, but in any capacity that you can support, I am eternally grateful. All right, I hope you have an amazing rest of your day and week and I will see you again next Wednesday. 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.