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Hi there, Maureen Chana here, founder of the Mind Sites Academy, NeuroChur-to-executive leader, entrepreneur, and neural leadership trainer using insights from neuroscience to help you deliver results by learning to work smarter, be in control of your brain, manage yours and other people's emotions, change behaviors, flourish and exceed expectations. I am so pleased to be back here with another episode of Lead to Excel Podcast. Our topic today is are you stuck in reverse? You know that feeling of being lost while you're driving down an unfamiliar road? One minute you're driving along with no problem. Suddenly you realize that you've taken a wrong turn and you're now heading in the wrong direction. The question is what do you do when this happens? Do you continue driving down the wrong road further away from your destination? Or do you look for the next convenient place to possibly stop and turn around? This is where many people have found themselves this year. Maybe you feel lost as if you've been traveling in reverse. I want to assure you that you can change your direction, but you must first have clarity about where you're going. Many people have set off on their life journey, which could be career, business, but with no clarity about where they're going. Now, I talked about taking the wrong turn in life. The problem is that many people, when they take the wrong turn, do not even realize that they've taken the wrong turn because they didn't even know where they were going in the first place. They're just going along with the flow. This has led to many people become emotionally, mentally, and physically stuck because they don't know who they are, they don't know what they want, and they don't know where they're going. When you realize that you're in the wrong place, stuck in reverse, when you should be moving forward, what do you do? Many people panic or simply collapse and give up. You might be feeling at this point with everything that has gone on this year, that you're out of fuel. How do you then pick yourself up? Or even pick up the pieces of your life after suffering a great setback or massive discouragement? Is there a way out of the storm that seems to have caught so many people by surprise this year? Again, the answer is yes, there is a way out. But also there's another group of people who are so busy, focused on achieving the things that they believe will give them a sense of self-importance, status, and recognition. They've shifted their lives into overdrive, not considering their true purpose or core values. These examples have led to so many people looking through their mirrors and looking backwards. Instead of looking through the windshield of hope and possibility, they are stuck in reverse and moving backwards. And this is because you've probably believed the lies, the false stories, the limiting beliefs that have ended up lowering your self-esteem or changed the focus of where you're meant to be going, so that you now feel as though you never move past the point at which you're at. So this time of the year is always a good time to stop and reflect so that you can identify where you're at. If you've become stuck in feelings of defeat and disillusionment, if any of this describes your life, then I want to assure you that you're not alone and there's a way out. If you feel you've shifted your path and you're going in a different direction, it's time to move back onto the right path to take you where you want to go. But you must start with finding out exactly where you want to go. And the reason for this is because many people are living on autopilot. You know that feeling of where you're happy being unhappy, and that's because our subconscious brain, which drives 95% of what we do, is on autopilot, so it goes through the routines that we have. For example, when you wake up in the morning, what is the first thought you have? Do you focus on the past, thinking of what you don't have, what you could have done, how you were feeling before, memories that bring negative emotions to you? Because if these are the first thoughts you have, which can happen quite easily, especially if you get up in the morning and you pick up your phone, look at WhatsApp, listen to the news, immediately takes you back to a lot of the negatives, or you can even start thinking of those negatives yourself. What you're then doing is connecting those thoughts to the emotion from the past, which were negative emotions, and the routine starts again. That thought creates the emotion that then leads to the actions you take, and you find that you're presently living from your past, and this is where many people have found themselves. The best way to predict your future is to create it, so instead of living in fear that you can't predict the future, because this is the reason I've heard so much this year that what's the point of planning when there's a lot of uncertainty? But the problem is that if you do not plan, which is creating your own future, then what you're going to be living on is those memories stored in your subconscious, which will then end up driving your thoughts, driving your behavior, driving your actions, and that will then determine the outcomes that you get. So instead of living in fear that you can't predict the future or fear of uncertainty, take control by planning your future. And it's worth remembering that fear actually sets off the stress response, which then creates the anxiety and worry and then prevents you from even making effective decisions. The key is to think about what you want, what you want to achieve, what you want to be, what behavior you want to adopt. Start visualizing it so that's mentally rehearsing it in your brain. This act will wire your brain to look like you have already achieved it or you've already done that thing you want to achieve. This will then prevent your brain from relying on the previous record that it has from the past because you have created new information that can now be described as a map to your future. So the more you repeat this thought process by mentally rehearsing, you will find yourself thinking, feeling, and behaving differently till it becomes familiar to you and you've created a new reality for yourself. Have Eka says the number one reason most people don't get what they want is that they don't know what they want, and this is very common. Many people don't understand what their what their purpose is, they don't even understand what their core values are, they don't understand what they want. This becomes challenging when you want to make decisions because you can only see the world through the filters of your own beliefs, of your values and your purposes, and the filters through your the memories that are stored in your subconscious brain. As we come to this time where we celebrate Christmas, it's a good time to stop and be grateful for life and spend time thinking about the things you should be grateful for, and then take time to reflect on who you want to be. Always talk about self-awareness as the first step in emotional intelligence. Having that self-awareness is what will give you clarity, clarity of who you are and where you want to go. I talk a lot about setting goals. Many people put it off and think it's not important. I cannot stress enough the importance of setting goals, especially at this time where there's a lot of uncertainty in the world. Think about it if you do not plan for what you want to achieve in 2021. Internally, there is no plan, and then externally in the world, there is uncertainty. So you can imagine the lack of planning that you have internally, and the lack of planning in the world combines together to create a lot of confusion, frustration, anxiety, worry, fear, all the negative emotions. But when you have a plan, even if there's uncertainty in the world, because you know where you want to go, because you know who you are and what you want to achieve, you can now navigate through what is happening externally because you are in control of where you want to go, and you're not being pushed around by life. So basically, you're not being a victim of circumstances because you are in control, you know where you want to go, and yes, it might be challenging getting there. You might have to take a turn, you might have missed your your path, you might have to take a different turn. But the key is that you're going somewhere and you know where that place is. When you come to the place where you realize that pleasing the world is impossible, you will become free to learn how to please yourself, and this is what I will leave you with today. Come to the place where you are pleasing yourself and not the world because that will give you so much freedom to do what you have been created to do. Who are you? Why are you here? What is your purpose? What legacy do you want to leave at the end? Clarity will enable you to realize that you have been created for a purpose. God has a plan for your life. Do you know what it is? What is holding you back from being who you should be or doing what you should be doing? So, as we come to this time where we celebrate Christmas, take this time to take that control back. Take charge of your life and be intentional about what you're doing. Think about what you're thinking, focus on what you want because what you focus on expands, it creates the future you want, and do not be a victim of life and don't be a victim of circumstances. So I wish you all a very, very Merry Christmas. It's a Christmas that is different, but you know what? Don't focus on what you don't have, on what you're missing out on, on what you're losing. Focus on what you want. Be grateful for what you have. Focus on the things you have and where you want to go. Make the most of this Christmas. Don't let it be a time of sorrow. Make something worthwhile out of it so that you don't end up being miserable and a victim of this whole circumstance. Have a fantastic time this Christmas. I sincerely wish everyone a very blessed holiday. And I look forward to seeing you in the next episode, which will be our last one before we get into 2021. And as usual, if you haven't subscribed to this podcast, remember to subscribe to it wherever you listen to it so that you do not miss an episode. I've got a lot of interesting podcasts coming out soon with great guests that you won't want to miss. And next year, we're going to have so many exciting, interesting, insightful podcasts. So do subscribe and I'll appreciate your comments as well. See you in our next episode. Bye for now.