How to Stop Feeling Like Sh*t (Even When Life Sucks) | Ep 269

You don't feel like shit because of your circumstances. You feel like shit because of how you interpret them. I really believe that we create these underlying emotions with our own irrational thoughts, which means that if we create them, then we can also uncreate them.

What's up guys, welcome back to Build and today we are going to talk about how to stop feeling like shit. The reason I want to talk about this today is because I have had a rough couple of months and I think I've been pretty transparent about that with

My audience and people who listen to my stuff, I don't like to hide things. I feel like hiding things, there's a quote that I heard once and it was, shame only exists in the dark and so i don't like to hide my problems and i know it's easier to talk about things once they have resolution but i actually find it easier if i'm just open with everybody and i really think that i promised here i would show the good the bad the ugly

the exciting, the not so exciting, the boring, the sexy to everybody that follows me and so this is me doing that. And today I was really struggling because I was like, wow, I have not been the KSBA podcast recently. What am I going to talk about? And so I was like, I really want to talk about what I'm doing mentally right now when I'm not feeling my best, right? Like I'm physically not feeling my best.

and it's draining me you know obviously emotionally and mentally to not physically be able to do everything i want to do and I started re-listening to some books that really anchor me. I listened to a lot of Albert Ellis and Stephen Hayes. I'd say those two are very big anchors for me.

And I started writing down what I need to do and what I... can do in those moments and in these times versus what i feel like is happening because what i recognize is that most people think feeling like shit feeling sad depressed anxious whatever is just something that happens to you right like it's the weather you know you wake up and suddenly it's like oh i feel like shit i'm so anxious i'm so sad i'm so depressed

But the truth is, it's like way less mystical than that, right? And the truth is actually much more empowering, right? Because you don't feel like shit because of your circumstances. You feel like shit because of how you interpret them. And that's really what I want to talk about today because that's been what I've been reminded of in this season of my life.

And I really believe that we create these underlying emotions with our own irrational thoughts, which means that if we create them with our underlying irrational thoughts, then we can also uncreate them, right? And so... transparently i've really been struggling with how do i show up positively how do i show up and get myself out of a fear state like i'm scared things are happening to my body that aren't

things i'm used to i'm dealing with things i've never heard of before and i'm just trying to figure out how do i get out of this and i also have a surgery coming in two weeks and it's like this impending fear because

I'm worried. How's it going to go? Is it going to resolve everything? What if I have surgery? It doesn't resolve everything. And I find myself, my mind, wanting to spiral in these different directions. And so I really ask myself this question, which I hope will help you because it's the question that...

it's gotten me through like the hardest times my entire life which is what is good about What can be good about this? And I'm getting a little emotional thinking about it because that question... you know, saved me from really spiraling at different points in my life where I felt like, gosh, what is this all amounting to? Like, is my life ever going to be good again?

And you know, of course, here I am today, and it did get good again, and I just happened to be going through another rough patch. But that question helped me so much. What can be good about this? when i asked myself that i said well i can get better at practicing what i preach

There are already things I practice, but I can get even better. I can help people even more. I can help people who are in different types of situations overcome these things versus more limited ones when I have limited experience. And I think really the second thing that came to mind when I asked myself, like, what's good about this is my ability to feel compassion for others has expanded. so vastly.

You know, when you are transparent about what's going on with you, and this is the biggest gift, what happens is people then are transparent with you about what's going on with them. And so I've had countless people reach out to me to say, hey, how are you doing? I share what's going on and then they share what they're going through.

and what's clear to me is that most people don't have somebody they can talk to about the things they're going through they don't have somebody that they feel they can tell these things that they feel ashamed of too they don't feel like they have somebody that they can talk to about their fears and about the things that they don't want to say out loud. And it's just opened up this space in me that I didn't know I had to feel so much compassion for others.

And so when I ask myself, like, what's good about this? What can I learn? That's one thing that I don't think can ever be taken away is just the compassion that I have. And I think for anybody here who's gone through a health challenge, had an accident, suffered with anything physically, the second thing that's, quote, good about it is that you recognize what's really important in life.

And for me, I think that's been really anchoring with my content and with how I run my team because what's important to me is helping others. It's empowering people to stop being victims of their lives and instead take charge of their lives. To feel empowered, to understand that they have more control than they think. They have more influence over how they show up.

and that circumstances don't have to define us. And it also reminded me that the reason I started making content was to show people the good, the bad, the ugly, everything. And it's really inspired me to be more transparent about everything going on because it's in those moments where I feel like, gosh, I wish somebody was more transparent about their moments that I say, well, at least I can be that person for somebody else. It reminds me, you know, it doesn't matter how many views it gets

It doesn't matter what people say. It doesn't even matter what my family or friends think of the things I put out there. What matters is that I'm fulfilling my mission, which is I really deeply want to help people not feel so alone. And I think at the end of the day, the reason that I can see all of this happening to me and think What can be good about this is that I'm just going to have a bigger capacity to help others and I will be able to be that person for them that I didn't have for myself.

Because I think a lot of people want to talk about what they've gone through. But I think it takes another level to talk about what you're going through. and allow people to watch it in real time. And that's been a complete mindset shift for me because it takes way more courage for me to be honest than it does to hide something when it comes to something so personal.

And it's in those moments that even though it feels like there's so much I can't control in my life, what I can control is how much courage I have on a daily basis. And so that's me just sharing when I think about what's good about this when I'm having a hard time. That's recently what's been on my mind.

Now, what I do want to get to, though... is the framework that I've been using to I feel myself getting pulled into the the hole the pit the pit of shit, when I start to feel like shit, what I've been able to do for myself. Because, you know, I have a business to run. I have a team that relies on me. I have people who are looking to me for my leadership. I give myself grace.

But I don't want to stay feeling like shit. I don't want that to rub off on them. I don't want to be miserable and allow myself to feel miserable just because it's easy. You know, I want to show people what's possible and I want to show my team and everybody that looks up to me.

how to handle something really hard well. Here's the first thing that I had to do, and I've done this multiple times over the last few months, is I have to identify my bullshit beliefs. Okay, so what do those sound like? I have to resolve this soon, otherwise everybody's going to think I'm a failure. People will really have to treat me fairly or I can't stand it. This has to resolve in the next 30 days, otherwise it's unbearable.

Here's the truth about that. These are all bullshit beliefs and none of them are facts. They are demands that we make of life and they set us up to be miserable.

So for me, when everything started in January, I had this mentality of like this better resolve in a week. This better resolve by tomorrow. This better resolve in a month. Okay, this better resolve in six weeks. And it kept... feeling like i was just missing the expectations and what i realized is it's because i put a bullshit belief i believe that i should be able to resolve this issue in a matter of weeks

And it turns out it's going to be a matter of months, if not years. And I didn't know that going in. But what it did is it set me up to be miserable. It set me up to feel like shit because it was a false belief. It's not a fact. Right? None of those things were facts. They were just demands that I made of life that were rooted in literally nothing. I have no evidence to support them.

And so whatever you're going through right now, you have to ask yourself, what unrealistic bullshit beliefs are keeping you fucking miserable? Right? What bullshit beliefs are keeping you depressed? What bullshit beliefs are keeping you frustrated? Keeping you anxious? Keeping you angry? I think anger is a really insidious one because anger is essentially feeling as if something is not just or fair. Well, if it exists and it's happening, it is what it is. Life isn't fair.

And I think fear is another one, which is like we think, oh, it gets to a certain point. It's like, I can't handle it. I can't handle more of this. It has to stop, otherwise I'm going to be too freaked out. It's going to be too much. I won't be able to stand it. It's like, well, what actually will happen? You'll feel really anxious.

and you'll still survive, right? And so what's helped me a lot has been going through these bullshit beliefs that I have about this time in my life and just uncoupling them. and saying, you know what, I don't have control. It's gonna take what it's gonna take. I can't put a timeline on things. I can't control what's gonna happen, and I can't control how people are gonna treat me because of it. And it is what it is.

i'm going to survive now the second thing we want to do is once we've identified them right we don't just have beliefs we get to choose if we want to keep them or not and so what i ask myself is is this belief logical Yes or no, right? And then the next question is, is it useful? Is this belief useful to me?

Because the reality is, okay, what's the worst case if it's true? And if it's not, it's like, would you really fall apart? Would the world completely collapse? It's like most of the time the answer is no, right? You can handle it. You've handled worse. but your brain loves to catastrophize and lie to you. But the next piece is, even if it's true. even if it's logical. Is it useful?

And if something is not useful, why bother practicing belief in it? It's like if you believe my boyfriend's cheating, And it's because I'm not a good enough girlfriend and I'm not pretty enough, right? Okay, well maybe that is why he's cheating on you, but is that a useful thought? Can you do anything about how pretty you are? Can you do anything? I mean, maybe nowadays, but is that helpful for you? Is that going to make you feel good?

And something that I use to test this, right, is I ask myself, like, is it useful? And it's like, yes or no. And then I'm like, okay, how does that feel in my body? I know it sounds ridiculous, but it's like, I think about how does the belief feel in my body? And if it feels really bad in my body, then I'm like, I don't think it's useful because it's weighing me down. It's constricting me. It's shrinking my life. And that, my friends, is not going to help.

Now, once you've challenged them, you want to replace them with better ones, right? So instead of saying, I must win, this must resolve in four weeks. I would say I'd prefer to win. I would prefer if this resolves in four weeks. Instead of life should be fair, let's say life is what it is and I'm going to deal with it. And so we want to replace these shitty beliefs. with ones that are true and durable.

right and so they can stand the test of time they will remain true no matter what you do to test those beliefs and now i want to be clear this is not about being passive it's about having mental flexibility. Because when you have really shitty beliefs that are very catastrophizing, they're very should, must, have to, they make demands of life, we become very rigid and we become very scared and we shrink our lives.

right? And so what we want to do is once we've challenged those beliefs, ask ourselves if they're useful, then we want to replace them with better ones. My favorite word to use is prefer. I would prefer to do this.

I would prefer to have that. I would prefer to do it this way. Why? Because I have lots of preferences, but it doesn't mean that those are demands I make of life and that things have to be that way, otherwise I will be miserable. And so I feel much more... calm when I say the word prefer rather than should must have to. So try it for yourself. Think about something where you're like, I have to, and instead replace it with, I prefer.

It's way more helpful and you will immediately like de-escalate your emotional state.

Now, the fourth piece from that is one that a lot of people like to argue with me on, but you've got to act your way out. Okay, here's the kicker. You are not going to feel like doing anything and you've got to do it anyways. Now, why is that? Action is going to create evidence and then evidence is what builds confidence. Confidence kills shitty feelings. That's it. That's why.

So no matter what, if you want to stop feeling like shit, if you want to stop feeling depressed, if you want to stop feeling anxious, scared, angry, action creates evidence. Evidence builds confidence. So you don't wait until you feel good to do something. You do something to feel good. So for me, for example, I did not want to make this podcast.

I have been very happy in my hole of not speaking with people and isolating myself. And I said, okay, no, bullshit, do something. What can I do? And I made a short list of five things on this Sunday afternoon that I could do to feel better.

Now, does that mean that I'm going to feel completely amazing? It's going to resolve my issues? No. But I knew I could take some action. That action would create evidence that I can take action no matter how I feel. And then that evidence builds some confidence. And you know what? I do feel a little better. I do feel better knowing that I kept a promise to myself, despite how I feel and despite the circumstances that are going on right now.

Which leads me to my fifth step, unconditional self-acceptance. This is probably the biggest lesson I've had to learn in my entire life. which is that we are not our performance and we are not our approval rating we are ourselves we're flawed we're fallible and we are still worthwhile And that is a very hard thing for people, especially high performers, to allow to sink in. Because the reality is that your worth to this universe isn't on trial every time you make a mistake.

You can screw up, you can fuck up, you can make all sorts of things, mistakes, and you can still admire yourself, you can still adore yourself, you can still love yourself, you can still kick ass. And I don't think that that's weakness. I think that that's actually really, really, really deep strength. And so amidst all the shitty feelings, You're taking action. You're building evidence, which leads to confidence. Once you get just a little bit of that, remind yourself.

that it's okay not to be perfect. It's okay to feel shitty at times. It's okay to follow the steps to get yourself out of it. So to recap this. We want to call out our rational beliefs. We want to dispute them, almost like a lawyer that's cross-examining. We want to swap them with something that's rational. We take action before we're ready, and we accept ourselves. And we accept what happens with no strings attached. Right. And so if

You're in it right now. If you're feeling frustrated, if you're feeling stuck, if you're tired, if you're sad, I want you to know something. One, first one, you are not alone. You are not fucking alone. I am there with you. I do not feel great. I am sad. I am frustrated. But, I'm not broken. I'm going not broken. You're just believing a lot of lies that your head feeds you.

And if you were to take out all the mental drama that you have around the circumstance that's making you miserable, you might realize it's not even as bad as you thought. So I hope that helps. I hope you have a great walk, workout. day, whatever it might be. If you know somebody who's feeling shitty right now, go ahead and send them this podcast. I hope it helps them just a little