In this episode, Dr. Alex Golden shares practical strategies to help you stick to your New Year’s resolutions and maintain momentum. She explores how to address emotional challenges, create balanced plans, and navigate setbacks with self-compassion. Tune in to stay motivated and make meaningful progress toward your goals!
Connect with us 👉
Follow us on IG: @becomingzesty
Find us on FB: https://www.facebook.com/BecomingZesty
Visit us at https://becomingzesty.com/
Join our 2-Day In-Person Transformation Experience & Workshop on March 8-9, 2025 Amplify Your Impact
Transcript:
Hello everyone. Welcome to the becoming zesty podcast. Dr Alex, here with you. So glad that you’re here today. We’re going to talk about not how not to lose your New Year’s momentum, which is so important to talk about, because honestly, it kind of feels like people have kind of given up on making new year’s resolutions. And a different way of saying that is, it kind of feels like people have given up trying to change, in some ways, like they’re like, Yeah, it’s hard, okay. And at the same time, while difficult, changing is a very possible process, and it is a systematic mechanism that you can learn, and then you can begin to use the whole thing of it is that we often don’t get taught upfront. And it there’s just some things to learn about it. It’s like anything else, where you have to actually understand the system that you’re working in in order to interact with it well enough, according to you, where, like, you actually feel the benefit, and your actual life gets better. And so with that kind of feeling, you know, I think it’s more important now than ever that we address any sense of hopelessness, any and all powerlessness. Because essentially that question of, you know, am I able to change? Is it possible for me? First things first, we have to ask like, why are we in that place to ask the question? And it’s relevant. Question is not a bad one, but it is one of those where we first have to start to clock that there’s lots of responsibility that we take, and that also means that we have a lot of options right anytime where we can take responsibility. It means something is possible just on our end, which is so nice because there’s a lot of things in life that we have to wait for, or something else has to happen. And so the more that we can kind of reclaim and resurrect all the stuff that is under our purview. I think it gives us a sense of that autonomy, that inner authority, and a lot of things in life get better when we feel that way. So you know that I think sets the tone for this whole discussion. The other thing that says the tone for this discussion is that I think another thing I could have called this episode is how to get out of your comfort zone and stay out. And that’s kind of the thing with change, right? Is that it’s kind of uncomfortable. It’s not that it’s not fun, because a lot of times new comes with, like, either fun and or funny things that happen, which most of us like. I mean, that’s what we’re here for, to have a good time and to experience things. But it’s more about kind of like the experience of, how much do I feel like I’m in control of that whole experience, right? Do I get to choose what I like about that comfort zone? Do I like where I’m having to push myself? You know, do I like staying out in the location where I am? And the beautiful thing about this conversation, I think, is that this takes all of what I’m saying here into account. There’s a way to execute on. On not losing your momentum and saying out of the comfort zone in a way where you are sure it just works for you. Now, other people are allowed to have problems with that, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to change either. So let’s start breaking down. How does this actually look like? What are we dealing with when people lose momentum or have a hard time getting out of the comfort zone and staying out of the comfort zone, as in, they don’t just kind of cut and run quick to come back to doing what they were before. They’re like, Screw it. It’s not working. Let me just regroup and go back and so this is the art of not living that way anymore. Now, what usually happens for people when it comes to momentum and getting out of the comfort zone, people will, and myself included, will, kind of often come to it from a place of I just realized how frustrating it is, or XYZ happened that let me know that I am lacking in an area. If that is the case, one of the best things to realize is that you’re kind of starting at the end of a cycle, and to allow that to happen, because and you’ll notice I said cycle, so there may be other times, right, that this comes up. So first thing is, we just want to say, okay, if I’m having feelings that lead me to say, you know, I need to get out the comfort zone, or I’m stuck, or I don’t want to lose momentum, we have to first acknowledge where we’re going to be coming from. And so if you’re there, it’s totally okay to realize that you want to change things in your life, and to feel a type of way about that, you just get to do it. I know I can’t provide too much more reassurance on top of that. We just kind of have to tiptoe into the waters and begin to accept our own feelings. But I can set the tone here for that is that it’s a really important part, right? And so as we often sit down and do that, we will make it a little bit easier for ourselves when we get to the next step, which is the first part of, you know, momentum and getting out of comfort zone is often us actually establishing a plan. What do we want to happen? We often have some idea, you know, where financially do we want to be? Who are the players, who are the people that are going to be around us? What do you want from them? Where, what’s going on in your career, your relationships, your health, we start kind of putting together a plan and where we have to understand what’s happening there is that we are in the mental body. When we do that, we are activating our brain, our mind, our physical body, and we are often coming up with solutions and plans that involve that physical body, what you’re going to do, what emails you’re going to send, what work you’re gonna have done, you know, XYZ. So if the problem was in the thought, if it was just a lack of plan, right, then it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t necessarily be difficult to stay out of the comfort zone, right? You would just have an idea of that plan. You would write that plan down. You would do that one plan, one step at a time, and then that would be executed. But the whole thing is that the you’re creating a plan that most often includes being an identity that you don’t necessarily feel yourself to be right this second, or even if you do feel yourself to be, there’s a little insecurity about it, right? Yes, I want to move as if I’m a million dollar business owner. And how do I do that, given that I don’t have that in the bank account right now, right? And that’s where our brain starts jumping into the mental body. So the plan, while often very helpful and very applicable, the plan isn’t the actual problem, per se, right? If you could do that, and that would be no problem, you would have done that already. And so the problem that most people are having, and that we often have, is it’s a feeling problem. How do we feel about the fact that we may not succeed? How do we feel outside of the comfort zone? This is where often things like fear and anger, whatever we habitually do when we feel powerless and helpless and things like that, whatever squeeze response you have, like as in that, you know, the orange that gets squeezed makes orange juice when you get squeezed, what comes out? What is the feeling? Because so often, in this case, it is things like. Fear, will I succeed? Can I do it? Am I good enough? Am I big enough? Am I powerful enough? All that stuff? Or maybe it can be anger. I failed before. I’ve tried hard before I’ve done you know, and so that has already happened. So whatever comes out, I don’t know that personally. I I feel like it matters exactly what it is, then the whole point of it is to allow yourself to know that it’s the feelings that will derail the plan, not so much that you can’t come up with a conceptual plan and at least start trying it if it don’t work. Cool, but isn’t it the feelings of, Oh no, what if it doesn’t work? Or, oh my gosh, I just realized it’s not working. Or, oh my gosh, I just realized I failed, and now I feel bad about that. Isn’t all that so much bigger than you know, I didn’t go to the gym today, or I didn’t reach out to enough people today that all you can try again tomorrow. But that feeling of I am so fearful of my failure is where really, truly, at the end of the day, most people get caught up. So if the plan isn’t the problem and the feeling is the problem, then you may need another plan, right? And so that’s where it comes into it’s actually as simple as allowing yourself to then create and keep going to account for the feelings in your plan itself, you are essentially beginning to acknowledge from the get go, that you are someone that takes care of how you feel, and that, in and of itself, has to be added to your identity of who is leaving the comfort zone. Who here you? Who are you going to be that doesn’t lose the momentum this time, and of course, that is where you will most often discover that the plan that you made failed to account for all that stuff, right? It failed to account for the actual legitimate experiences that you have in your lifetime, and that anger, that fear, while not you know, the intention is that we don’t localize our life to that at the same time, creating plans for our life that actually dismiss that reality for ourselves is quite honestly, how people lose momentum. Now, if I had just said that up front, people have been like, yeah, yeah. Alex is all about the feelings, and that’s lovely and everything, but like, you know, I need the money, and then I won’t have the stressed out feelings. And I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it again, is that that’s not how humans really work. If your own brain knows that you’re leaving yourself unintended with things that scare the living bejesus out of you. Well, then there is no way that you’re going to trick your brain into acting differently than that. Is just letting you know, hey, this is what’s going on. And when we begin to incorporate that feeling plan of even just sitting here with this plan, I’m already trying to worry cool that should begin to set the tone of okay, fear and worry is going to be part of my plan. What? How will I show up for myself daily? How will I allow myself to remember to process this feeling, what works for me? How can I refine that plan of processing emotions that I feel regularly more quickly. How can I get it more aligned to me? How can I approach my life more authentically? How can I approach my feelings more authentically? These are all the things that keep momentum. These are all the things that allow you to withstand staying out of the comfort zone. Otherwise, it is for most humans, it’s the feelings that come and it makes you feel like, you know, start, you know the feelings first, but then usually translate the physicality. People start saying stuff like, I can’t breathe. I’m just so overwhelmed. I just feel like there’s a huge weight on me, you know, and they start really, actually feeling the pressure of these feelings. They’re not small. And so when you have something that big and you have no plan for it, that’s where your brain can play the trick on you to say that feeling is bigger than you are, and anytime that one of our problems, we view ourselves as smaller than that problem, it is almost always certainly going to be followed by a negative emotional state and a disempowering. A mindset. So if we can allow ourselves to keep the perspective of the problem is a feeling, feelings can have plans, and a plan can get refined until it works for me. That is where I think the real short answer is to how to not lose momentum. That’s really the understanding of working with yourself, where it is just truly authentic to you, how you’re living. It works for you, and that’s why, when you decide to do something that is out of your comfort zone and is a bit of a reach and a push. It does allow you to withstand the difficulties there, because if you are going along difficulties and other people are talking to you about stuff that you feel like is hard, and other people are behaving in ways that are difficult to cope with, and then you act that way towards you too. Well, gosh, then you know, we’re all just doubling down on the things we already struggle with. Our best bet is to remain in the land of re parenting ourselves, if you were also the ideal parent for you, how would you want to be spoken to if something happened that day and you’re frustrated? What would that ideal parent say to you on the phone if you called them? Could you try saying it to you today? And of course, I know it feels kind of funny up front, let’s just say that right away. And the newer we are to this, the weirder it feels. But you got to ask, right that weirdness is it worth losing the momentum over if we don’t manage our own feeling compass and don’t manage the emotional states. So often it is us who answers for that responsibility you know, and takes that on of saying what happened there when that did not occur. So in order to not get derailed from life, creating more space for your emotions, to have that planning, for to have that strategy, to allow it to integrate into the bigness of your life, right? Even just having a plan for things like having a meltdown, and I that’s actually a true state for me. I have such a hard time allowing myself to have a hard time, that I had to sit and think it through. I had so much judgment and shame and guilt about having feelings to the point where I felt like I was struggling with them, and yet that is one of the most common human experiences that I’ve come across, doctoring and coaching all that business. So that is what I mean by when we treat ourselves in this way, when we think through our life in this way, and we begin to account for all of ourselves, all of the aspects of ourselves as part of that plan. This is where it’s hard to derail you. It’s hard for you to derail you, but it’s also hard for life to derail you. And one of the most fun aspects of that is hard for people who are like kind of miserable to be around, to derail you. And that’s one of the more frustrating things that I think people feel a type of way about so the people in your life that may be the, you know, human equivalent of the mental Gremlins for you, or however you perceive that to be, it actually also helps that process, because if we can withstand our own mental kind of hate and the things that we do to ourselves most of the time. Other people don’t even stand a chance. You know, we can really withstand anything and everything that they throw at us. So I’m sending you lots of love while you think this through, while you approach yourself with a lot of gentleness and compassion. Give yourself time if you need no shame in that. But keep putting one foot in front the other, because your future self will be so thankful that you kept that momentum up and that you kept putting one foot in front of the other no matter what it was that you needed, no matter what it was that came up for you. And you’ll look back and be like, Wow, I actually took care of myself through that whole process. That must mean I’m really that kind of person, and that Aha, is what I want for every single person on this planet, to for them to see themselves like that, for them to get to know themselves like that, and then to go act like it, because that’s how we’re going to get some really incredible breakthroughs going on on the planet, and how we’re. Gonna make this whole place a better place to be. So sending you lots of love throughout all of this. I’ll see you on the next episode.