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Hey there, Maureen Chana here, founder of the MindSight Academy, neurocoach to executives, leaders, entrepreneurs, and a neuroleadership trainer using insights from neuroscience to help you flourish and exceed expectations. Welcome back to another episode of Lead to Excel Podcast. This is a show designed to equip you with knowledge to understand the science of how your brain works so that you can unlock your leadership potentials with the tools to rewire your brain for you to excel, achieve high performance in every single area of your life. I am so thrilled to be with you today because I've been away for so long. I've been away traveling, doing workshops and coaching and consultancy. So it's been a hectic month. But I'm so excited to be back with you today. Now, this episode I've entitled The Limitless Woman is a Happy Woman. This podcast has actually come from a request I received to record a video for a conference on International Women's Day in Africa. And I felt that this would be quite good to actually do a podcast on it as well. So here we go. As women, we need to reshape our own perception of how we view ourselves. We have to step up as women to take the lead. The fact is that all women are beautiful and that true strength and beauty really comes from those breaks and cracks that we experience in life. Not many women are conscious of their own crowns. A lot of women go through life seeking validation from peers, from family, from the media, from men. It's a never-ending cycle. You see other women as competition. You speak lowly of yourself, dashing outright opportunities that could propel you forward. You say you don't want to be alone and then you end up looking for love in the wrong places. Many women go from heartbreak to heartbreak, blaming themselves when the actual issue has never been them. It's always been the distorted mirror. The question though is what are the characteristics of a limitless woman? And being limitless is a concept that I came to understand about 10 years ago. When I started talking about being limitless, a lot of people were telling me that no, it's not possible. And I agreed with them because whatever you believe is exactly what you get. But I know that it is possible. So let's look at some of these characteristics. A limitless woman is fearless. This does not mean that you will never feel fear, but it means that you will not allow it to rule your decisions and your actions. If you listen to my previous podcast, I talk a lot about how the emotional center, once it hijacks the brain, deactivates the thinking brain, which is the prefrontal cortex. And so that when you're experiencing fear and that fear grips your whole brain, you find that you cannot make effective decisions, which then leads to you not taking action or taking the wrong actions. The fact is that unless we make a firm decision to not be afraid, we will never be free from the power of fear. So I'll encourage you to be firm in your resolve to do whatever you need to do, even if you have to do it afraid. Do it. And doing it afraid means to feel the fear and do what you believe that you should be doing anyway. Fear seems to be an epidemic in our society these days. Are you afraid of something? Is it rejection? Is it failure? Is it the past? The future? Loneliness? Aging? Are you afraid of the dark? Are you afraid of heights? Are you afraid of life itself? Or are you afraid of death? The list of fears that people experience is endless. But you have a choice to make that decision to not let fear control you. And stay to the end of this podcast. I'm going to talk a bit on how to shift the brain from the right side to the left side when it comes to depression. And it's the same principle of shifting your brain from being in a place of fear to actually taking action in spite of the fear. Another characteristic of the limitless woman is that she's resilient. The resilient woman does not see setbacks as failures. You are not a failure because you tried something that did not work out. You fail only when you stop trying. Most of the people who are huge successes have failed their way to success. Instead of allowing mistakes to stop you, let them train you. I always say that if I step out and try something and it doesn't work, at least I know that I did something. And I also know what mistakes not to make again in the future. Recovering from pain or disappointments of any kind is not something that just happens to some people and maybe not to others. It is a decision that you make. You make a decision to let go and move on. You learn from your mistakes, you learn from your challenges. Another characteristic of the limitless woman is being adaptable. The limitless woman is an action taker. There are two types of people in this world: the ones who wait for something to happen and the ones who make something happen. Being adaptable actually starts from your mindset, it starts from what you're thinking. Because if you think that you can't, then you will find that the actions you take would be actions that will prevent you from doing whatever it is that you believe that you can do. So it's important to actually be aware of what you're thinking, because what you think creates your emotion that then leads to whatever action that you take. So to be adaptable to change or to circumstances means that you tell yourself that you can change, that you're open to change. Because I've said this so many times the brain does not like uncertainty, it sees uncertainty as a threat, and change is uncertainty. Challenges can be uncertainties. So whatever you tell your brain is exactly what you will get. I was having a conversation recently with someone, and I asked, How did you get from a place of being disappointed to now being so focused in what you're doing and extremely successful? And he said that he told himself, I refuse to fail. I refuse to not try. And even when people were telling me that this is going to be difficult, especially with the exams that I was taking and the path I was going on and things I had to learn to really achieve the success I wanted, people kept telling me it's very difficult, that many people have tried it in the past and did not succeed. I refused to take no for an answer. Even when I knew that the workload was a lot, I kept telling myself, I'm enjoying this. He said, But at first I really wasn't. But the more I said it, the more I could see things that I was actually enjoying. And that's what I call a confirmation bias. Whatever you tell your brain, it goes searching in your brain through the neural pathways in your brain to confirm exactly what you have told it. So being adaptable is also a choice. It's how you see situations and it's how you see things that will enable you to be flexible or not. When you find yourself complaining a lot about things, then question what you're thinking. Question your thoughts. Another characteristic of the limitless woman is that she has a growth mindset. The limitless woman does not live in the if-only and what if life. The world is filled with people who feel empty and unfulfilled because they've spent their lives bemoaning what they did not have instead of using what they actually have. Don't live in the tyranny of if only. If only I had more education, if only I had more opportunities, if only I had more people to help me, if only I had more money, if only someone could help me. If only I had a better start in life. If only I had not been abused. If only I was shorter. If only I wasn't too tall. If only I was taller. If only, if only, if only, if only. One of the biggest mistakes we can make in life is to stare at what we don't have or have lost and fail to take an inventory of what we actually have. I always tell people, look at what you have in your hands. Be resourceful, focus on the solution and not the problems. See possibilities. Don't spend your life thinking, if only you had something else, then you could do something worthwhile. Someone actually said, and I like this, if only is a thief of what could be. There's another saying that where the mind goes, the person follows. If you pay more attention to your thoughts and choose to think on things that will help you instead of hinder you, it would release God's power to help you to be the limitless, confident woman that you want to be. Think positive, think growth, think happy, think limitless, and you will be a confident, limitless woman who is a happy woman. Another characteristic of the limitless woman is she's positive. Many women say that they want to be confident, but the fact is that confidence and negativity do not go together. They are like oil and water. Being positive or negative is a choice. It's a way of thinking, a way of speaking, and a way of acting. Either one comes from a habit that has been formed in your life through repetitive behavior. Positive thinking can change your current situation. It's been said that 90% of what we worry about never happens. And I don't understand why people assume that being negative is more realistic than being positive. Thinking negatively makes you miserable, so why be miserable when you can be happy? And being limitless begins with self-acceptance. You've got to accept yourself. I encourage you today to be content with who you are. That does not mean that you cannot make progress and continually improve, but when you allow other people to become a law or a rule, you will continually be disappointed. No matter how good you look, how talented or smart you are, or how successful you may be, there's always someone that you will find out there that will be better than you. So being limitless is doing the best that you can be with what you have to work with and not in comparing yourself with others and competing with other people. Our joy should not be found in being better than others, but in being the best that we can be. So stay on your own lane. Another characteristic of the limitless woman is that she is emotionally intelligent. And being emotionally intelligent literally means to be able to manage your own emotions and help other people manage their own emotions. It's being aware of what you're thinking and being aware of your emotions, it's being able to control your emotions so that you are in control of the actions that you take, you're in control of the decisions that you make, you're in control of what you're thinking and what you're doing, basically. You can see from all these characteristics that to be limitless starts with being in control of your mind, of your thoughts. And to be able to do that, one thing I would say is that you've got to be careful who you surround yourself with. I said previously, and I'll reiterate this: there are women who feel so bad about themselves that they get involved with men or other people who will hurt them because they believe that that's all that they deserve. So learn to separate your who from your do. Making mistakes is something that as human beings we will always make. But the fact is that we are still God's children and He has a great plan for each of our lives. Don't be a people pleaser. Anyone who tries to keep everyone happy all the time never fulfills their own destiny and cannot be happy. So I'm going to explain to you now how to shift your brain to the left side to overcome that feeling of depression. And I'm doing this because a lot of people you hear saying, Oh, I feel so depressed, I feel so low, I feel so sad. So, what I'm going to teach you is how to overcome that feeling of lonelin' or being sad, because when you stay in that state for a long period of time, there's a more likely tendency for you to now progress into being depressed. The left frontal lobe of the brain promotes positive feelings and the ability to take action, while the right frontal lobe of the brain promotes passivity and negative emotion. The underactivation of the left frontal lobe has been associated with depression, mainly because when the left frontal lobe is underactivated, the right frontal lobe is activated, and it's the right frontal lobe that scientists have linked to depression. So it's important to realize that when you're feeling low, it means that your right side of the brain, your right prefrontal cortex is probably activated. So making an effort to put yourself out there that means to take action will then activate the left side of the brain, and this will help lift you out of that depressive state or depressive mood. So because the left prefrontal cortex is action-oriented, when you feel low, what you can do is go for an exercise, take a walk, just do something to alleviate that passivity because you find that when you're feeling low, you want to coil up in bed, you want to close the blinds, and you know that that is reinforcing what the right prefrontal cortex wants, which is passivity, not doing anything. So the key is to start thinking positive thoughts. The key is to start asking yourself the question, why am I feeling low? and changing the story you're telling yourself, change the narrative, but also take action even though you don't feel like it, because that will enable you to activate the left prefrontal cortex and get you out of that state. There's so many other ways to help you to shift your brain to the left side, you know. And I call this the ability to rewire your brain. And some of these are thinking positive thoughts, looking at what you're telling yourself, constructing those narratives so that you're moving them from negative to positive, do some exercise, jog, or even just get up and do something different that will create some form of movement in your body. The key here is to be limitless, you've got to be in control of what you're thinking, you've got to change the negative narratives that you're telling yourself, and it's remembering that you have the choice, you've got the choice and you can do it. Sometimes you might need help, sometimes you might need to just speak to someone to help you. But if you're not even aware of what's happening, then you can't do anything about it. Be aware of what you're thinking because when you change those narratives, you can become the limitless woman that you want to be, and all this will enable you to be a happy woman as well. So I hope you've enjoyed this podcast on how to become a limitless woman and a happy woman. Thank you again for tuning in, and remember that you have a choice to change the way you think and the way you feel. We will always be faced with change and will always be faced with challenges. But how you view them and how you take them and the narrative you give them determines your action, determines your success, and determines your mental health state. As a woman, you have the potential to be a high-performing leader in any area of your life, but the choice is yours. So I hope that this has provided you with concrete tips and tools to get you to the top and also keep you there. I would love to hear from you. What is your biggest takeaway from this episode? And also remember that if you haven't subscribed to this podcast, please do so wherever you listen to this podcast. It will also help other people find the podcast so that they can also be helped to change their lives to achieve what they want to achieve. So please do leave a review. I would really appreciate it. And if you have topics that you love me to talk about, let me know. It would be lovely to hear what you're thinking or things that you want to know about so that I can do topics on those as well. So I look forward to seeing you in the next episode. Have a fantastic week and see you soon. Bye for now.