424. Result Ownership

I’m Jody Moore and this is Better Than Happy, episode 424, Result Ownership.

This is Better Than Happy, the podcast where we study what the healthiest, most successful people in today’s world think, feel and do. And we leverage this knowledge to create our best lives. Are you ready, little bird? Let’s fly.

Hello everybody. Welcome to the podcast. I just got back from, first of all I went to girls camp, actually before that I went to Utah to see my sister and her family. Then I went to girls camp with our church group. And then I went to Hawaii with a bunch of my extended family. Amazing, what an amazing summer I’ve been having. But you know what is even more fun or at least as fun as all of that? Is being so excited to come back to work because you love your job that much.

I don’t know how I got this lucky or blessed because I’ve had a lot of jobs in my life and I liked most of my jobs, it’s not like I hated my other jobs. But I have never had a job like my coaching practice where I literally could not wait to get back and do at least half the things I get to do in this job. There are the other half that I sort of go, “Oh, I’ve got to do that work.” But coaching, teaching, even just being here recording a podcast I love. So thank you for being here, or else I wouldn’t get to do what I love.

Today we’re going to talk about result ownership. And I want to just dive in and point out if you’re new around here that a lot of the work I do is around helping people become aware of what they’re thinking and believing. Because I do believe that that is where so much of our power lies. That’s where everything begins. That’s where our emotions begin. That’s where the action that we’re taking begins from. That is the sort of leverage point at which we get the most traction, when we become aware of what we’re thinking and believing.

Now, that might not sound challenging, it might sound simple, but it’s actually quite challenging to become fully aware of what you’re thinking and believing, for many reasons. One of them being that we have so many thoughts happening, we couldn’t possibly pay attention to them all. Another one that many of our thoughts are happening sort of under the surface in that mostly subconscious part of the brain. Many of our thoughts are just so automatic that they come and go really quickly and we don’t really notice them.

Many of them don’t sound like thoughts at all, they just sound like us observing the world, they just sound like the truth or the reality of what is. And then I would say probably one of the main ones anyway that I see when I’m coaching that prevents our awareness is our judgment of it, our judgment of our thoughts, judgment of our stories, thinking that we shouldn’t be thinking them or believing them. And so we don’t even want to look at them.

Anyway, the key is to become more aware of what you’re thinking and believing. The key is not even necessarily to change what you’re thinking and believing. I am much more interested in the awareness piece than I am in the changing piece because it is in the awareness piece that you gain the authority over your thoughts and over your own brain to then direct it. And we’ll never get rid of the part of us that has some fear and some scarcity and some shame and all of those things are always going to be there. They’re a part of a healthy human being.

So it’s not just about getting rid of those, it’s just about becoming aware that they are thoughts and stories so that they can still be there from time to time and not direct us. We don’t want those thoughts or those emotions or those stories to be the place from which we’re making decisions in most cases. So awareness is key.

Now, how do we become more aware? Well, lots of ways. That’s what I’m trying to offer you here on this podcast. This is what we do in my coaching programs is we become much more aware, we dive in. As a coach, I help people become aware. But one of the things you can try on your own at home is to take a look at the results of your life. The results will be an indicator of what you’re thinking and believing. So I want to begin by defining what I mean by a result.

A lot of people think of results as circumstances. And that is a part of your result is your circumstances. But I want to broaden the definition to not just be your circumstances. I want your result to be your experience of your circumstances. So when we look at results, we’re going to look at circumstances, but we’re also going to look at your experience of those circumstances. We’re going to look at different parts of your life.

And the key here and the reason I’ve called this result ownership is because when you can as much as possible own your results as created by you beginning with your thoughts and stories in your mind. Then you will become extremely powerful in your own life. Let me say that again.

If you can own every result I have, meaning the circumstance and/or my experience of, it is being created by me beginning in my mind with sentences and stories that I’m believing. Then you become supremely powerful to direct yourself and your life to become what you want it to be. And that is a pretty exciting and fun place to live from. So I’m going to give you some examples here of different results that you might want to take a look at. I’m especially going to speak to maybe results that you wish were a little bit different.

But if you can identify with any of these and you say, “Oh yeah, that’s me, I have that result. I must be believing or thinking something along those lines. Do not judge yourself for it. That is not what this episode is about. This is not about me pointing out it’s wrong for you to think about it this way. That’s not what I’m saying at all. It’s just about awareness, look, I have created this. That’s good to know. You might even discover that you’ve created something you don’t want and not be ready or willing or able to change it and that is still okay.

The awareness will still serve you even if you’re not ready or willing, maybe you’re too afraid, maybe it feels too hard. That’s totally fine. It’s still going to serve you to gain the awareness. I have created this with my brain because the more you own all of that in your life, again, the more powerful you become even if the area that you identify it with isn’t an area you’re ready or willing to change. Are you with me?

Okay, let’s dive in. First result that you can take a look at is your money. What is your financial situation right now? Now, again, there are some circumstances involved in the result part of what we’re looking at here. The circumstances might be when I say circumstance, I mean the facts. That’s how we define circumstances around here. They’re the facts of the situation. So I like to get sort of nitpicky in the fact line.

In other words, to even say I make $100,000 a year. I would question if we want to put that in the C line because that may be the salary that your company has agreed to pay you or that might be the revenue that you’ve brought in, in your business in the past etc. But that could all change tomorrow. You could get a big promotion tomorrow and they could double your salary. Or you could decide to shut down your business and not make that money.

So because a year is a long timeline, I would rather you give something more factual like last month I brought in x amount of income or revenue. But another way to look at the circumstance part of your money result is your net worth. What is your current net worth? Because money is an interesting one, money is a flow, it comes into our life and it goes out of our life. So to say, we have a lot of money, not a circumstance. That’s a thought or a story.

To say we don’t have much money, money’s really tight, we live paycheck to paycheck. We’re constantly trying to make ends meet. None of those are circumstances. Those are all thoughts or stories. Your result will begin with the circumstance and then your experience of that circumstance. Do you feel strapped for money? Do you feel like there’s plenty of money? Do you feel guilty because you’re irresponsible with your money, believing that you’re irresponsible with your money? Do you feel a lot of gratitude and abundance about your money?

Do you feel security and peace around your money? Do you feel really confident and proud of your financial situation? Whatever that result is, your experience of your circumstance is because of what you’re thinking and believing. Now, I know some of you are like, “No, that’s not me, Jody. I don’t even work. I stay at home. I take care of the kids, I manage the house and everything. My husband’s the one working. Our money is because of his thoughts.”

And I’m going to say, “No. We’re not going to do that. We’re not going to delegate your result to your husband because that leaves you powerless, especially if you and your husband don’t see eye to eye on things.” Your financial situation is a result of what you’re thinking and believing.

So let’s just give, I’ll give some examples that I’ve coached on commonly. Let’s say your husband has a job, you’re at home raising the kids etc. And your husband makes less money than you wish you had in your life. Your result is first of all even the circumstance, the amount of money you have but also your experience of it is because of what you’ve been thinking and believing. At some point you had a thought, I should stay home with the kids or I need to stay home with the kids or if I don’t stay home with the kids, I don’t know who will. We can’t afford childcare etc.

Or I want someone to be home with the kids or if I don’t stay home with the kids, my husband’s going to get really upset and I don’t want to deal with that so I’ll just stay home with the kids. Any of those kinds of thoughts are the reason that you’re at home with the kids and your husband’s working and making whatever he’s making. Now, again, I’m not saying it’s wrong. I’m not saying you shouldn’t think that.

I’m just saying when you own, no, this result I have created because I have chosen this. I have chosen to live my life this way and that’s the amount of money that he’s able or willing to make right now. And so I’ve chosen to have this be my financial situation. Perfectly fine, nothing wrong with it. Just don’t sit around being resentful and blaming your husband for a result that you created. That’s not going to serve you in the end.

I see this happen with women who are stay at home moms a lot and actually it can happen with men too, but I’ve coached a lot of women on this. And they’ll say things like, “I want to spend money on this thing, but my husband will say no, he doesn’t think it’s worthwhile, a worthwhile thing to invest in. He doesn’t think I should spend that money. He’s going to be upset. He’s going to say no”, etc.

That dynamic where one of you is the parent and the other one is the child asking for money is something you’ve created with your thoughts. Now, some of you are like, “I don’t think you know my husband. He’s the one, he says to me, “This is my money”, and he doesn’t even let me. I don’t even know how much he makes. I don’t even know the bank account. He doesn’t give me access to any of it.” Okay, I hear you. I’m just saying, if you have a thought like I don’t want to fight about this or I can’t possibly do anything to change it or he’ll just be really mad and it’s not worth it.

Then you’re going to continue to let that dynamic happen in your marriage and I get it. We all have thoughts sometimes like I’m just going to go ahead and let this one go. And that’s okay, sometimes that’s the best decision to make. I’m just saying, own that you have created the result for yourself even if we go to, I created this by choosing to marry this man. And it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be married to him necessarily.

It doesn’t mean that you should go get a job. It doesn’t mean that you should put your foot down and say we are equal partners and this is our money, even though that’s the truth. It doesn’t have to mean any of that. Just begin by owning, I have created this result. And maybe I don’t even need to change the circumstance part of it.

Maybe I could stop being resentful and feeling sorry for myself and get to peace around the amount of money we have and recognize that we have plenty and that we always have what we need somehow. And we always figure it out and we always will, and we’ll make more money one day. That’s one approach. You could also figure out ways to take action and create what you want in your life. I’m all for either one.

If you want more money or you want to change your money situation, or you want to have difficult conversations with your spouse and say, “Listen, I’m not okay with this. We are equal partners and we need to have equal decision making with the money.” I’m all for whatever you want to do. But you’re going to be much more effective at doing any of that when you begin by owning that you’ve created your current result instead of making it someone else’s fault. Are you with me? Again, don’t shame yourself.

Now, for those of you that have a business, money is a really simple telling way to take a look at your brain because you are the one. If you’re the owner of the business or the founder or you’re a solopreneur, then you are the one creating the current revenue result in your business. I’m telling you, this is the best news when I tell you this.

Again, if you don’t go into judgment and shaming yourself, then recognizing that where you are financially is because of what you’ve been thinking and believing is the best news I can give you. Because it means you don’t have to figure out how right away. You don’t have to know how. You don’t begin with the how, you begin with changing what you’re thinking and believing. Your current revenue in your business is the result of your thoughts about your own ability to be successful.

Or maybe it’s your thoughts about how much money your clients have or what people would or wouldn’t be willing to pay or the value of what you offer or how hard it is to figure out business or online marketing. Or whether or not it’s worth it or whether or not it will work and be worthwhile in the end or whether or not it’s important that you show up and work when you said you were going to work. Or if it’s more important to take care of the people around you that want your immediate help. There’s just so many stories in there that are creating your current financial result.

And I’m not saying your current financial result is bad even if it’s zero or you’re in the negative. Let’s just take that off the table. Let’s stop judging it. Let’s just acknowledge, the way I’ve been thinking has created this. If I want to create something different, I’m going to have to do something different, but I’m going to have to begin by thinking something different. Because if we just do something different, we’re going to be using willpower to fight against our own belief system, and we will only be able to do that for a limited amount of time.

And we don’t want limited time success and turnaround. We want permanent turnaround and success. So yes, you’re going to have to do things different, but don’t forget to bring your brain with you. I don’t even care if you start with the action if you want to. I just don’t want you to skip the part where you take a look at what you’re thinking and believing, what do you believe about money in general? What do you believe about your business, about your clients, about what you offer? Take a look at all of it because it’s all up for grabs and it’s all creating your current money result.

Let’s talk about another area. Let’s look at your results when it comes to your current health or fitness level or your body composition or your weight, however you want to think about it. Your current body composition, health, fitness level is something we would have to figure out how to define in a circumstantial way, which is actually tough to do. People like to tell me, “I’m overweight, it’s a C.” I’m like, “That is not a C my friend.” And they’ll say, “Yes, it is, the doctor said there’s a BMI chart, there’s all these researched medically approved or proven charts and graphs that say I’m overweight.”

And I say, “I don’t care, those are still tools that somebody created. They still don’t make it necessarily a fact that you’re overweight. And if thinking I’m overweight really empowers you and motivates you from a healthy, abundant, loving place to get healthy then okay, keep that thought. But if it doesn’t, if it makes you feel bad and ashamed, then you don’t have to think that. You weigh a certain amount.” You have a certain percentage of body fat and a percentage of muscle and a percentage of whatever else your body is made up of, all the other tissues and organs and water.

And that actually changes so in any given moment your body is composed of whatever it is and then it changes from minute to minute and second to second and certainly day and week and month and year. So your current body composition though is a result of what you’ve been thinking and believing. And this is very good news because as soon as you become aware of what you’re thinking and believing and aware that they are just optional thoughts and stories, they’re not wrong, they’re not bad. You don’t need to judge yourself.

You don’t need to get mad at your mom for teaching you that, don’t do any of that, just notice, I’ve been believing that this is true. I don’t know about you, but a lot of my thoughts and stories I say out loud all the time and I make them sound kind of cute and funny and I turn them into metaphors. And other people seem to like it when I talk about those things and they agree and they add on their own thoughts. And then pretty soon, we’ve really reinforced this. But it’s all optional thinking, optional stories that is creating your results.

So if you think thoughts like I just can’t stop when the food is so good or I hate exercising. I’m not athletic. I can’t find an exercise program that I like. I don’t have time. I hate drinking all that water because then I have to pee all day. These might or might not be thoughts that I’ve had in the past, just saying. I’m too old. My body hurts now. I can’t exercise the way I used to without getting really sore or injuring myself.

Or I don’t have time to cook healthy meals. It’s too much of a pain because my kids won’t eat it and then I have to make multiple dinners and I’m not good at meal planning. I’m not good at cooking, I don’t like fruits and vegetables. I only like chocolate. How about this one, I love ice-cream, I just love it. Or some people say, “I love food. I just, I can’t help it, I just love food.” These are all thoughts. These are all stories.

I’m not saying they’re wrong. I’m not even saying I disagree with most of them because again, most of these are thoughts or stories I either still believe or have at one time. All I’m saying is those thoughts and stories are creating my current result. Let me give you one example.

I’ve told this story before, you might have heard it, but I remember having this experience. I was working with Brenda Lomeli. Hi Brenda. She’s probably not listening but, Brenda, I love you. She’s a coach I worked with years ago. She helps people with their fitness goals. And I said to Brenda, “You know what? I went to my brother’s house and he made these peanut butter cookies.” If you’re listening, Gerard, you should make those again.

I can’t remember what was in them, but I remember him saying it was something really simple like a cup of peanut butter, a cup of flour and an egg or something like that. One of those really easy, three/four ingredient type of cookies, and then he baked them. And then I happened to get there right as they’re coming out of the oven and they were hot and fresh and I could smell them and peanut butter is my weakness. And I just gobbled them all up, they probably also had sugar in them. Let me add that. Did I say sugar?

Anyway, I’ll get the recipe from Gerard and we can all make them. Here’s my point. I said, “Brenda, I smelled those cookies and I could not, not eat one. They smelled so amazing, I can’t even tell you something overcame me and before you know it, I was eating peanut butter cookies.” And she said to me, “What do you think was better, the taste or the smell?” I was like, “Oh. I mean it tasted really good.” She’s like, “Okay. And maybe you ate them really quickly.” And I did and I was also trying not to eat sweets at the time. So the shame just makes you eat even more and eat them faster.

But she’s like, “What if the smell is better?” And I thought about it. I was like, “I think you’re right. I think that most foods, anyway, smell better than they taste.” Things that smell good, they smell better than they taste, especially baked goods. And she’s like, “What if you just reminded yourself, I have gotten so much pleasure out of smelling these, I don’t even need to eat them.”

And it totally shifted things for me because I used to think I can’t go to the mall because there’s Cinnabon there and I can’t smell it because then I’ll want to eat it. Now, I go to the mall and I enjoy smelling it. And I’ve shifted my thoughts and my beliefs away from if I smell it, I’m going to have to eat it, to I can smell it and really enjoy that and not need to eat it because I know the truth, which is they don’t taste as good as they smell.

So anyway, that’s just one example of how again, back to owning your result. If you can own, I have created the body I have. Now, of course, I didn’t create my height really. I would have made myself a few inches taller if I could, but I can’t. I don’t know how to control that. But a lot of the components of our bodies we’ve created. Don’t forget too, that your result is not just the circumstance, it’s your experience of it.

So my body, the circumstance of my body, its shape, size, weight, composition, etc., is much less an important part of my result line than the way I’m thinking about it, what I’m experiencing in this body. How I feel about it, especially emotionally, because when we love our bodies, we actually take better care of our bodies. And some of you are saying, “Well, I have a chronic health condition or I have chronic pain. Are you saying I created that?” Not necessarily.

I know there are a lot of factors outside of our control, you guys, but your experience of that pain is created by what you’re thinking and believing. And I’m not saying you should be thinking positively about your pain. I’m not saying that you’re wrong for being frustrated or angry or whatever you’re feeling about your health condition. I’m just saying that what you’re thinking and believing is creating that result for you. Isn’t that good to know?

Because I want you to imagine chronic pain with a story of poor me, this is so hard. Why do I have to deal with this? Versus chronic pain with a story of this is temporary, I will figure this out and I’m tough and I can handle it. And it’s natural that you wouldn’t be able to stay in that second one all the time. It’s not what I’m saying. I want you to allow yourself the full human experience. I just want you to have the knowledge that you are creating it. You’re creating your result with your thoughts and beliefs.

Now, I want to give one other example that I feel might be on your minds, which is what if you have somebody in your life that is challenging. For example, maybe you have a child with a disability that requires a lot of care and attention, or maybe has some behavioral problems that you, as the parent are left dealing with and so you’re frustrated, overwhelmed. We might say that a circumstance in your life could be, I have a child with this particular disability or diagnosis.

Your experience of that child is being created by what you’re thinking and believing. I promise you this is true. And again, it doesn’t mean you should think positive. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying the child and whether your child has a disability or your child is just a human being who is acting how children and teenagers and adult kids and all of us do. Your experience of that person is coming from your thoughts. And some of them you might want to keep, even the ones that make you feel sad or angry or frustrated.

But my guess is there are some that are available to you to question, some that are available to you to let go of. Pay attention and just again for this episode, I would just want you to own your result. My result of this experience with this child is because of what I’m thinking and believing. It’s not because of the child’s behavior. It’s not because of the child’s needs or challenges. What?

Let that blow your mind for a minute. It blows my mind all the time, and I’ve been teaching this for over nine years. But when I stop and recognize that and I open myself up to it, I can become more aware of what I’m thinking and believing. That’s the key.

Last result area I want to talk about is relationships. Take a look at your relationships in your life. What is the result for you? What’s happening in the result area of your relationships? Do you have as many friends as you want to have or are you thinking, I don’t have any friends? I don’t have many friends. I don’t have close friends. I coach people on friendship quite a lot, adults on friendship who say, “I just don’t have close friends or I invite people to things but nobody ever invites me. I always initiate, nobody seems to reciprocate.”

I promise you, it feels like the people around you are creating that result, doesn’t it? I promise you, you’re creating it with what you’re thinking and believing. Even the fact that it is a relevant topic on your mind and something that you notice or that bothers you is because of your thoughts. And again, it’s okay to have them. But your thoughts are going to show up in the results of your life in some way or another. So if you want a different result, you’re going to have to think a different story. You’re going to have to believe something different.

Here’s the irony. When we think, I don’t know anyone, I don’t have any friends here, guess what we do? We hide. We leave things early or we don’t linger anyway long to talk to people, let’s just take church, for example. I don’t have any friends in this ward. Guess what you will do if you think that? You will get up as soon as church ends and dart for the door. Guess what’s a good way to not make friends? Getting up and leaving as soon as the meetings are over before you have a chance to meet anyone.

If you think, I don’t like anybody in this ward. You’re going to do the same thing and you’re going to show up with this sort of crusty outer layer because you’re not an amazing actor or actress, you’re just not, neither am I. I might pretend, I might smile and try to be nice, but there’s going to be this sense of there’s something closed off about her. And I will not be able to connect with people from that closed off place. I will not be able to find my friends if I think I don’t have any friends.

You can’t find something you don’t think exists, you won’t. You won’t even be looking for it. You’ll avoid it. You’ll hide from it. You have to think the opposite. You have to think, I have lots of friends here. I wonder where they are. Can’t wait to find them. I bet I love most of the people here. Let me find out what’s lovable about them. I bet most of these people love me. Let me open up and connect and find my people. I bet I have a lot of people here, I have tons of friends.

Did you know that is not a fact, I have friends, I don’t have friends? Friendship itself is not a fact. It is not a circumstance, friendship is a thought. What? Let that blow your mind for just a minute. She is my friend is a thought. We can’t prove it in a court of law. We can’t draw blood and say, “Yeah, you guys are a match.” It’s just a thought, it’s just a story. People tell me all the time that we are friends and I love it. And these are people who, until they tell me that, I’ve never even spoken to in my life.

And I love being all of your friends, but I haven’t done anything to earn that, and yet I still agree with you. We are friends because you like me and I bet I would like you. And you’ve decided that we would like each other and have fun together if only we could hang out more. Friendship itself is a thought.

Even your marriage, people tell me this all the time, “My marriage is tough or we’ve struggled this year. My marriage has been really hard ever since the beginning. My marriage has been great since the beginning.” I love coaching people who say, “I’m married for the second time.” Maybe they were divorced, maybe the first spouse passed away or something. And they’ll say, “And my first husband was amazing. And this husband is amazing.” That usually is the case more when the spouse has passed away than in the divorce situation.

But I’ve coached many women who have said, “I was married before. My spouse passed away. I married again and they’re both amazing men.” And people listening on, think, that lady’s so lucky that she found two great guys to marry. But you know what I think? That lady has a brain that has some really useful thoughts and stories about husbands, about her husband. Because she was able to think and believe that about the first husband.

I have no doubt she’s thinking and believing positive thoughts, even though they might be different versions of it. She has a positive outlook on her husband and herself in relation to her husband. She has to have a lot of confidence in herself and a lot of connection with herself to have that kind of relationship, but she’s creating that marriage. She thinks it’s because she married a great guy. It’s not. It’s because of her brain. Just like if you think you married a stinker, it’s your brain.

Even if there are things that you desperately want to change, I’m all for that. I’m all for you having conversations and making changes to make the circumstances more what you wish they were. But if you’re not doing that, it’s because of what you’re thinking and believing. And maybe you are in a marriage that we all would want to think is terrible. Maybe you are in an abusive situation, physically, mentally, emotionally, etc. Staying in that marriage, not leaving is because of what you’re thinking and believing.

And again, do not start judging yourself or feeling bad about it because I know these things are complicated. So I’m not saying that you should feel bad about it. I’m just saying if you changed your thought from, I can’t leave. I don’t know where to go. I have no one. I can’t make it on my own, to I can figure this out or something along those lines. You would take a different action.

And when you’re ready, there are a lot of people who want to help you to make that mindset change and to create what you want in your life. But begin by owning, I am creating this current result in my life. And when you completely own it, you can decide if you want to change your experience of the circumstance and/or change the circumstance. Don’t just change the circumstance without owning the result, because you’ll probably find yourself creating the exact same result with the new circumstance.

Thanks for joining me today, everybody on result ownership. If you have questions, bring them to me on Instagram in my DMs, that’s the best way to reach me. If you have podcast topic requests, I’d love to hear from you too. Let’s hang out on the social medias, why not? I’ll see you there. Take care.

Coaching changed my life and I’ve watched it change the lives of thousands of men and women since, but is it right for you? You’ll only know by giving it a try. Try it out today at jodymoore.com/trial.