[00:00:00] Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Terry and I just had a fantastic long weekend in Miami Beach. We got to stay right on the beach in this beautiful resort and. It was so luxurious and we were treated by some of our dear friends so that we were able to attend a wedding celebration, and it really was such a joyful getaway, and I just hopped off of an Anything and Everything coaching call earlier today.
[00:00:39] And what I was telling them was that so much of this trip showed me and reflected back to me the woman that I've become, the woman that was capable of receiving such a generous gift, the woman who was available to be present with emotions that were challenging or moments that were difficult, while still being fully available to joy.
[00:01:07] The woman who also can recognize my value and stand in the appreciation of having a wonderful partner, but also knowing that that didn't happen by chance. It happened by choice, by knowing that the quality of my relationship, the quality of my marriage, is a conscious decision that I make every single day. And there were so many moments where Terry and I got to celebrate each other and appreciate each other. Again, all of that is reflected back to me in the work that I've done and how available I've made myself for the life that I really want.
[00:01:53] And so yeah, I'm getting excited about new dreams. We are here on the cusp of the Chinese New Year and stepping into the year of the fire horse, which by all means is saying that Leos are gonna have a fantastic year. And so I'm really leaning into that momentum for myself and enjoying it. I hope you are too.
[00:02:18] If you are listening in real time, that means that you may have attended my free class inside The Room, where we talked about The Value of Pursuing your Dreams. Because so much of what has created possibility for me in my life was really being willing to go for the fullest vision, the biggest version of the dream. And if you missed that class, just know that you'll always be able to watch the replay. If you go to kelliyoungmansingh.com/theroom. The replay is available there and you can go and watch it. Enjoy!
[00:03:01] And in case you missed it, The Room is my public space where I will hold occasional live classes. So especially if you are new to my world and you wanna experience the work in real time, make sure you go there and join us.
[00:03:16] Now there's one more thing that I wanna mention before we get into today's podcast. As I am planning out which episode is gonna come next and which concept I wanna discuss, I'm also realizing that there's just a lot of things that I've created as a coach over the last five, going on six years of doing this work.
[00:03:36] So you could have access to current ideas and topics right now that could change your life, aside from what's coming out on a weekly schedule.
[00:03:46] If this is already resonating with you, if you are hearing it in a new way, if you're starting to implement and changing your life simply through the podcast, come and join us inside of Anything and Everything. You could access tools now, that might not come out on the podcast for another 3, 4, 6 months.
[00:04:07] I just wanted to say that explicitly. You are always welcome, and whenever you join, Anything and Everything has a rolling enrollment. So your six month access begins when you join, your personal start date. You can totally be on our next live call and get access to the exact thing that you're needing in the moment.
[00:04:28] Okay. That felt important to say because we are gonna slow it down a bit. Because I realize that there are some foundational concepts that we need to discuss before we go any further.
[00:04:40] And especially if this is not new, I wanna invite you to hear it as if it is brand new. I want to invite you to deepen your understanding of this concept without brushing past it and thinking, oh yeah, I know that already.
[00:04:56] Because one of the things that I invite all of my clients to step into is really hearing everything as if it's the first time; to give it your presence and attention so that you have the opportunity to deepen your understanding.
[00:05:10] Because that's what I've found for myself in all of this work: you can understand something to a specific extent and once you take it deeper, once you embody it in an even more grounded way, there's another level of experience that happens.
[00:05:29] So I want you to be willing to go there with me. Even if it feels like, oh yeah, yeah, I already know that I'm advanced. I wanna invite you to slow it down and be curious and interested in hearing it in a new way and understanding it at an even deeper level.
[00:05:47] Because what I know to be true for myself is that many things I thought I knew years ago are showing and presenting themselves to me with even deeper understanding. And we can only get to that level of mastery when we are actually giving ourselves the opportunity to remain in a student mentality, to be interested in learning, to be curious about hearing it in a new way and asking ourselves, well, okay, how could I hear this again? How could I deepen my understanding of it through being willing to be a beginner?
[00:06:24] 'cause I always tell my clients the basics are not so basic. And even this, if you really hear it as if it's brand new, I know that it will land differently.
[00:06:36] Okay. So what we are gonna talk about today is knowing that your thoughts are optional, and knowing that you can actually think on purpose.
[00:06:47] I know that this can sound very cliche or very, I always think of like elementary school, when you had those posters in your classroom, that sounded like positive statements. But if you're really willing to dive deep to understand this concept, it will change your life
[00:07:09] The reason why I know this is so powerful is because a lot of times people will come to me and they've been going to therapy, they've been doing all the things, but their life isn't changing.
[00:07:23] How could that be true? That they could be talking to a therapist and venting about their life, or even being really curious, gaining awareness, learning, but their life still isn't changing?
[00:07:34] This is the power of your thinking because if your thoughts and feelings are not changing, your results will not change either.
[00:07:46] Even if you get temporary relief from sharing your truth or from finding a new perspective, if you don't really understand on a foundational level that you can think on purpose, you will still be at the whim of your thoughts and your emotions.
[00:08:07] And I know this because that used to be me too.
[00:08:10] And again, this is not a dig at therapy 'cause I have a great therapist now that I love working with. But if you're not conscious about choosing your thoughts, you will not be conscious about choosing your life.
[00:08:23] Your thoughts are the number one thing driving your experience of your life on a day-to-day, moment to moment basis.
[00:08:33] When I learned this tool from my coaches, I was completely blown away. Because I had done so much of this work on myself by starting to be aware of my thoughts, starting to be mindful of thinking in a more positive way, but I still was missing the piece that I could think on purpose.
[00:08:55] Okay, so if this is where you are, know that it's not a problem. And even if you've been using this idea in your life to get to a more neutral or a more positive place, know that this will change everything when you know that the only thing getting in your way is your thoughts.
[00:09:15] When we talk about thinking on purpose, it's really a couple of things.
[00:09:22] It's understanding that thoughts will come up and we have the opportunity to create our relationship with the thoughts.
[00:09:34] If you've been doing this work, I'm sure you're familiar with the metric that we think up to 60,000 thoughts a day. They're happening at rapid speed. And if you're not thinking on purpose, you'll recycle a lot of the same thinking, a lot of the same belief system that you had the day before.
[00:09:52] If you don't make any changes, you'll keep living a similar life with similar thoughts, creating an a similar perspective of who you are and how you perceive yourself, circumstances, the world around you. All of that is being created in your mind by your perception.
[00:10:18] And a lot of our thoughts are unconscious. Like we're not choosing them, they're just happening. And I actually think this is a really good thing because it's actually the opportunity itself.
[00:10:30] When you are available to witness your thinking, to become a loving, neutral observer of your thoughts, you'll start gaining insight into your current perspective about any given subject.
[00:10:46] The other thing that's interesting about becoming an observer of your thoughts and stepping into the option of thinking on purpose, you start realizing that while your thoughts are an indicator of where you currently stand, you also get to choose on purpose the relationship you have with your thoughts.
[00:11:12] When you start choosing your relationship with your thoughts and knowing that they're not a truth of the universe, but they're neutral data, then you can also soften your emotional experience of your thoughts.
[00:11:26] Now, this is where I am like trying to slow it down because again, I know that many of you have been doing this work, but I want you to hear it in this way.
[00:11:36] Your thoughts and feelings are always connected, and I want you to think about your thoughts as sentences. Sentences that you are thinking because you've been exposed to them. Maybe through your childhood or from your upbringing, or even from school, from your community, you have sentences in your brain that you've picked up along the way.
[00:12:02] When you are not aware that these are simply sentences, you could start using your thoughts against yourself. And I see a lot of my clients do this, when they get panicked and attach meaning.
[00:12:14] They're like, oh my gosh, I'm thinking this terrible thing about my husband, maybe my marriage is falling apart. Maybe something bad is going on. Maybe I am really far behind because I'm still thinking these thoughts three years down the line. Maybe I'm not cut out for this, because I hear my mind telling me that I should be believing in myself more.
[00:12:37] And so sometimes those sentences can be interpreted as facts, as evidence that we're not where we should be, that something's wrong, that shouldn't be happening.
[00:12:52] Instead of really understanding that whatever thought you are thinking is because you've practiced thinking it, but if you don't assign meaning to your thoughts, you get to create this layer of observation and curiosity.
[00:13:11] I might think a thought about Terry and say, that's really interesting. What is that telling me? I could be really curious about the perspective that I'm attaching to, which gives me the freedom to change it. I might watch Terry do something and think, Ugh, he's doing it the wrong way- of course that's gonna create a negative experience.
[00:13:36] If I let my thoughts keep going without changing them, without realizing that I can think on purpose, I might develop a mood about my partner. I might unintentionally carry along some judgments of him because I haven't interrupted and chosen to think on purpose.
[00:13:59] This happens all the time with actors when they start thinking, oh my gosh, I'm going in for auditions and I'm not getting called back. Like my career is going downhill. And they don't realize that's a thought they're thinking that they could choose to challenge, that they could choose to question and ask themselves well, wait a second. Is that true? Is that what I actually want to believe? Does that thought add value to my current life? Does it add energy to how I feel? And is it contributing to an energy, a mood, a feeling that amplifies what I wanna create in my life?
[00:14:41] This is what thinking on purpose actually is.
[00:14:46] To be so aware of the thought feeling combos, which is gonna be a whole podcast in itself , but when you're really understanding that you can think on purpose, it's the energy of like plug and play. I want you to imagine what would be different if you were like, Hey, I'm a stick figure drawing with a thought bubble over my head, and regardless of what's happening, I can actually choose what I wanna think.
[00:15:16] Again, I'm saying this with so much love because at a time in my life I didn't know I could do that. And when I started working with this skill, this tool, to a level of mastery, what changed is that I started gaining awareness of my thought feeling combos, which created emotional agility, which is another concept we'll dive deeper into on another podcast.
[00:15:41] That is what allows you to know that you don't have to stay in any given perspective. That if something happens, you don't get attached to a thought that becomes a belief. Because a belief is just a thought we keep thinking. Like, well, I'll never make that much money because I'm not that smart or I'll never run a business because I hate the responsibility or whatever thought we've chosen to think about ourselves. Anything could be different once we start practicing new thoughts, which creates new core beliefs.
[00:16:16] So for this specific episode, before I get ahead of myself, I want you to be willing to think on purpose.
[00:16:26] I want you to slow down and zoom out and say: what are my thoughts?
[00:16:31] When I was running my program that was specifically for performers, I would have them do this exercise. I'd be like, what are your thoughts about auditions? What are your thoughts about the industry? What are your thoughts about your talent? Because whatever those thoughts are, they're contributing to the energy of your career. The same is true regardless of whether you're looking through the lens of being an actor or not.
[00:16:55] Whatever thoughts you are thinking on a regular and consistent basis are creating the flavor, the experience, the emotional perspective of how you're living your life.
[00:17:07] And so if you wanna have a different experience, if you wanna get what you came for, you have to be willing to change your thinking and to actually think on purpose. And when you do, in the beginning, it's gonna feel like you're telling yourself lies or it might feel like you're presenting thoughts that are not as familiar to your brain or to your perspective, but that's how we grow.
[00:17:31] A person who's making $30,000 a year is not thinking the same thoughts as someone who makes $30 million a year. A person who is struggling to find the love of their life is just not thinking the same thoughts about love as someone who's happily married.
[00:17:50] This is how we start creating our experience more of the time. We start realizing that we can think on purpose.
[00:17:59] So your assignment for this week is to just be really curious. Start listening in on yourself so that you have neutral data that lets you know where you currently stand.
[00:18:11] If you can start being curious about: what are the top three thoughts that I think every day?
[00:18:16] Once you start becoming aware of what you're thinking regularly, and take on the responsibility of choosing to think something different on purpose, that's how you will actively change your life very rapidly.
[00:18:32] Okay, so if you want to do this exercise in many areas of your life, you can totally do that. You're gonna do what I call a thought download, and you're just gonna write on the top of the paper. Maybe it's money. You're gonna write all your thoughts about money. Or maybe it's your career, or maybe it's love, or maybe it's yourself, right? Your thoughts about you. You're gonna write them all down and you're just gonna look at them, and then you're gonna ask yourself, okay. Are these the thoughts that I want to think on purpose? Do these thoughts add value to my life experience? Do these thoughts propel me forward? Do they empower me? Do they add energy to my life? And if the answer is no, you're gonna ask yourself what thoughts would I love to replace them with?
[00:19:20] Alright, that's what I got for you this week. I'll meet you back here soon.
