The Compound Effect of a Determination Mindset

you are listening to the Beyond The High Road podcast with Shelby Milford episode number 64 stay tuned welcome to be on the high road hi you guys how are you doing today I and forgive me while I put my hair back up in a clip it was doing something funky cuz those bangs are growing out and so I just had to like put it back I had a like alala up there so anyway moving along do you like my little scene today it's a christmy theme again but it's looks to be a bedroom it's another one of those YouTube ones however it's a really it's like a dream bedroom there's a library Loft upstairs Windows seemingly 360 and this fireplace that also is pretty much all glass like not even sure

how that's I don't think it's possible but anyway it's a gorgeous dreamy view the way that it's situated actually reminds me of when I was living in South Africa where I was living in Johannesburg we would go out to with my daughter's father and we would go out to the bush to this one game Resort and like for game drives for Safari it was called lion Sands it was dreamy beautiful amazing each person depending on what kind of room you got but we would always opt for cuz that's where I ended up getting married which is all whole nether story in itself it was a big mess you looking back in fact even during it was like one of those if you were superstitious one of those Omens

there was a 100-year flood during the actual day of the wedding people were getting helicoptered it was a disaster but anyway besides the point for right now I've LED an interesting life you guys but each one of the houses had this gorgeous view like this except for wasn't obviously overlooking snow but instead a plunge pool like right there and then a dry riverbed and then a actual River and the river would be hippos and what have you when monkeys will come up into the near the plunge pool all kinds of wildlife would be literally right out your window if you're watching this sort of like the how that is situated that's what that reminded me of but yeah so it was

absolutely gorgeous beautiful so you ever get an opportunity if you've ever wanted to take off going on a game drive or on Safari in Africa somewhere I highly recommend lion Sans outside of Krueger Park anyway that was like the not planned content but I did want to mention before I get into the real topic for today I was thinking right before I got on and I was looking at the Christmas theme there and then also my couple Santa Clauses and elves that I have up here and I told you guys I think I shared with you guys on uh recent episode that I haven't had a Christmas tree for some years I think I had one twice since my daughter left and both of those times it kind of felt forced I

felt like I was doing it out of some sort of obligation or need one of the times for sure because I knew daughter was going to be coming to the house and so that made sense for me because she would be seeing the tree there and her presence under the tree but then the other time that I got one yeah I did it out of I felt like some weird obligation so I wanted to visit both of those things in a very quick short blur here in fact this is one of my most requested podcast episode ideas and I know I was there too just didn't know what to do with myself around the holidays things are different should I even be celebrating is this right what message is that sending out to not only my kiddo

kiddos but also to those that are quote unquote watching that have opinions and here's what I want to say about that those people are not you people are going to have opinions there are people out there that are going to cheer you on silently there are those people that are going to courageously stand beside you steadfast supporters and then there are those people out there that are going to criticize no matter what choice you make so I just want to offer that you provide yourself the space to make your own decisions about what is right and not just do it because you think it's what you have to do or what you should do or shouldn't do I just want to let you know

that it's okay it's okay no matter what you decide to do for this holiday season for upcoming birthdays however you want truly like inside want to celebrate it not celebrate it that is exactly how you should do it I think that paying attention to how outside says you should do it is not going to serve you and it changes too I think we all get into a Groove with no matter what we're doing we build up expectations for certain areas of our lives and we just move in that direction it's done basically by habit and on autopilot in our brains and so unless we intentionally incorporate our higher thinking then we will just continue to Live status quo and live our

lives based on what we know that it has already worked in our past if your goal is to grow through this immense challenge of alienation I find it really helpful to re quently assess reassess all areas in my life like with this Christmas I asked myself I asked myself every year do I want a tree yet am I ready for a tree do I want to put lights on the house do I want to like on the exterior who do I want to spend my time with this year what am I going to buy my daughter this year all of those things I'm asking with my higher thinking brain not with the fear-based survival brain but every every occasion that these things come up I redecide what it is that I want to do because if I lean on

my habit and what my past has told me for my current decisions my current experiences then I'm only going to keep recreating what has already been and then my life is just going to continue to stay the same for instance this is a very trivial thing but I think also there's a compound effect that happens here this year I did not put lights up on the house last year and the year before that I did put lights up on the house like on the roof got up and did the lines the string lights this year I didn't feel like it in fact I bought lights to do to wrap all the trees out front and I only ended up wrapping one so it looks like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree and that is because

halfway through I honestly was like who am I doing this for this year I had the one tree wrapped was getting ready to do the couple other palms and I was like I'm not doing this for me I'm doing this because I think I should and so I stopped I stopped I mean I left the one tree but I just decided you know what no I don't feel like doing it and not because I'm this year not because I'm B humbugging it's because I truly just didn't feel like doing all of the things now inside I did put my Garland I have some Elves that you can kind of see here and some stuff over where you can't see and then the other room but yeah so I did definitely do some seasonal things

throughout the house because that made me happy but I'm constantly reasking myself like who am I doing this for and why am I doing this because it makes me feel good and sometimes my answer will be like I'm actually doing this for my daughter or for my mom or for whoever I don't want to do these things but I know that they would want me to do these things or that it's for their benefit we're talking about my daughter do I really want to do the things no but I my desire to do those things for them is more than my desire to just not do them for me basically what I'm saying is sometimes I do choose the other people's desires over my own but that's because I

know and I've weighed the pros and cons and the the benefit of doing the thing outweighs the cons of not doing that hopefully that makes sense so this actually that little holidays thing really does tie and very well to what I want to talk about today and hopefully I can keep it succinct and offer you guys the most benefit possible but there are a lot of thoughts I have about this now that I'm getting into it so back when I was living in Texas up on the hill there was a period of time there when I thought the goal was to within six months have my daughter back at home again and so of course the order was written so as to be interpreted misinterpreted in multiple ways so the

weeks kept passing and 6 months came and then it was gone and even though I had completed said requirements in order to have this enforced we were to go back to court and so I needed this team of what I I had hoped to be advocates for me and my daughter to come together and for things to start working as in my mind as they should there was this deep sense of urgency and the attorney that I had at the time would always tell me that he was waiting on something to be filed and he would always just pass the buck and tell me that it would be done next week and so each Friday had this overwhelming feeling of like failure and impending due helplessness hopelessness because

nothing was getting done another in my mind another whole week had gone by and nothing had moved on the case in my mind my ex was getting away with murder every week that went by my daughter was getting a week older and then her birthday would come up this will make me cry thinking about it but like her birthday would come up and then another birthday would come up and these Milestones these weeks these months I would look back on and nothing would get done I was in this like holding cell of life waiting for things to happen with my case in order for me to make any moves outside of the case or even for the case I wasn't even advocating for myself at the time because in my mind I

was telling myself that these people need meaning my team of Advocates needed to get their acts together so that that the case could get back online and once that became a well oiled machine then I could get on with my life again I'm sure that this sounds familiar to some of you out there if you've ever been waiting for pretty much anything but especially when it comes to the Civil legal system so I sat and wasted years of my life at least five and a half years like that I'm really gonna say it was more like seven years of watching waiting hoping numbing that was my little cycle and on the side of course in the beginning part of that sevenish years the other guy I

was with was making things more exciting in my life right and not necessarily in a good way but that was to me like the perfect storm if I look back on it now of this survival brain life that I was living and that I was addicted to actually I I hated it I it was such a painful existence but I was addicted to it and that is because our survival brain the way that it operates is on that motivational Triad that I talk about seek pleasure avoid pain be efficient right those three things are really what runs the survival brain and so because I was living in a survival state for all of that time I felt stuck I felt stuck I felt blocked I was too addicted to the adrenaline from that

kind of living that I didn't know how to it's like trying to get out of a moving car It seems impossible to stop it or to get out at the right time so what of the questions I get asked at least a few times a week is Shelby how do you do it how can you be so positive and I tell you it's not a magical sounding answer it has been this Compound Effect I think that it is not just one thing it is all of the daily little things that have added up and caused me to change the way that I think on the regular everyday basis the minutely hourly basis I have made and you hear me talk about this all the time about changing the way that your brain thinks on default and choosing a more effective way of

thinking that serves you that is it it's not a sex sounding answer but it is truly what has changed everything in my life when I was at the point where every Friday would come I felt shattered on the inside if I bring myself back there right now to that place I feel that emotion it shattered me every Friday because I knew another week had gone by that nothing had gotten done with my case nothing had gotten done in my life I was only getting older this is was my thinking back then as I was only getting older and everything in my life was staying the same or gotten worse and so it was also a compound effect of having like this negative experience after negative experience just piled on top of

one another to create one big cluster I got so sick and tired like physically sick and tired and also emotionally mentally sick and tired of that negative Compound Effect happening on my life life was happening at me around me away from me even and that I wasn't the one doing the creating I looked outside at other people and how they were doing and you know people always say that Instagram and Facebook are bad for our mental health but honestly I'm just this is just coming to me now I haven't ever given it more thought but I think social media for me at that time was my Turning Point meaning like I was looking at other people whether their lives looked as

pretty away from Instagram as they did on Instagram is no matter to me because for me looking at other people living their lives and doing things with themselves going on vacation killing it in business having friends and family that were supportive and around just doing like the everyday things those are what motivated me back then right it was like wait a second look at all of these people doing all these things and then here I am and my life has remained the same in some areas and only gotten worse as a result of it staying the same in all areas so I think that was a big eyeopener to me and I didn't I couldn't live like that anymore I literally was like I don't know if it was a one

defining moment it was just a bunch of those built up that and that's how I think it is most of the time for all of us we always want to think it was this one oh moment now I did have one of those moments and I've shared that with you when I was on that run and I ran that miraculous 10 miles when I saw my whole vision of who I was going to help and all that stuff that yes there was one moment other than that all of these other things these other realizations s were just a conglomeration of like a buildup of many different little baby realizations each Friday all of those Fridays building up finally broke the camos back that's when I started taking all the tests the

personality tests and then looking into coaching schools and the rest is history but it took me making a step doing something and being sick of of living the life that I didn't want to live anymore and then it took my commitment my dedication my determination to continue on to trust that no matter what that I was going to get somewhere that I was going to keep on even when it got hard because what I think our advantage is here y'all is that we have been through some of the hardest I think in my mind a human will ever have to go through a parent could ever go through and so we know what hard is right we know what that is so for me it was like I can do difficult I've done difficult

my entire life really but especially during this whole alienation thing so difficult to me I was like if I just kept viewing the new difficult as like that's okay I can do difficult it it was no problem for me that's how I saw back then I was like I can do this I will figure this out so even though I didn't know what my end result was going to be back then I consistently I made one commitment to myself that I was going to change this and I made this silent commitment to my daughter as well like I'm not going to remain here this is not what I'm going to be modeling for her the way that I was and it wasn't how I wanted to model for myself and so that one very conscious decision to start

moving in a direction and start finding answers for myself led to a lot of little commitments to myself to continue on no matter what so I'm not sure at what point that I stopped dreaming as maybe as a kid or maybe it was in young adulthood but I know I got very good at not dreaming at not looking forward to my future and I didn't ever realize that I was doing that or that I wasn't doing that until I was asked about this in coaching school I may have shared parts of this with you a while back but the first coaching school I attended this was one of the questions that was asked of us to share with the group is like what are your goals what are your dreams what have

they been and have you achieved them and blah blah blah like I really was dumbfounded like wait a second this is just a few years ago that I was like wait you're telling me that people actually dream people have goals that they do achieve you have dreams that you like entertain in your brain that you may not live out but you want to see what's possible for you and that's a thing like to me I thought that that was a waste of time like why would you do that why would you tempt yourself torture yourself by thinking about things that you will never ever make come true because they're impossible like they were never in the cards for you I was of the mindset that there were

things that each of us were dealt the hands that we were dealt and anything outside of the hands that we thought that we had what was the point why would you even try to consider anything else so I was the only one in my group in my the class the coaching cohort of maybe 30 other people that didn't have dreams that didn't have goals that was an eye opener I was like oh my gosh I am the exception to this so the majority of people out there at least in my coaching school anyway really truly believed in creating their lives for themselves as opposed to living with the hand that they were dealt and so although I didn't change it right away my mindset about that right away over time going into the

next coaching school and doing the work with my own coach on it I now have an entirely different way of thinking about that and I truly believe that we are dealt many hands throughout life we may have certain cards but we're able to change our hands by how we play the hand that we have this current hand will determine the next hand and then how we play that hand will determine the next hand you absolutely have the power I have the power you have the power to determine what your future is and so we may not obviously can't fix the past and what we have right now is the hand that we have to play how you play this one will determine the next one in the other mindset that past version of me

mentality it's never really worth it what's the point anyway why even bother trying this is the hand I was out this is my future this is my past this is my today this is my future with that attitude you remain in survival brain you remain in that Triad of seek pleasure avoid pain be efficient constant and this is the mentality that so many people in today's world live in and will live and then die in they will never get out of their survival brain they will live this way throughout their life and just go and do the what they're thinking the next right thing is in front of them and keep continuing to live their life and have life happen at them and just constantly being in that

reactive phase cause effect cause effect like Fielding things that happen in their lives that can happen with you or you can decide to start living life in a creation spot in a place where you are the one who is determining your next hand and it all depends on tiny decisions that you're making each day and so that is how you do it that is how I do it that Compound Effect builds up over time we're a year into this podcast just over a year into this podcast and now there's this is the 64th one and 64 is not a lot but I remember when I started this back last October thinking that 10 when I got to number 10 was a lot I was really excited about that and it was a feat at the time and I loved I

Still Love episode number 10 and nine and eight and seven I love them all just because I know how much how hard I worked how much time each one of those episodes takes me is a lot it's many hours for each week in order to come up with this podcast for you but that has been my dedication my commitment my determination that has been behind this this whole project of doing each one of these episodes every week and for 64 episodes now I have shown up every week albeit some days is 12 hours later than than it should be still I am I've made that commitment to myself to put this content out and then also I've made this commitment to you guys I want other parents who are in

this boat to not feel alone to feel that there's a sense of community to feel like there is hope out there that it is possible to do this right but one episode wouldn't have done it even 10 episodes wouldn't have done it still I think 64 episodes won't do it there needs to be more but it all happens with each one of these little itty bitty decisions not just the decision for one episode it's like all right what am I going to be doing next week the week after what do I think that you guys would really love and what would really help you how can I deliver that message in the most effective efficient way and then of course then after I come up with that content and I have to edit it and

then I have to write the show notes do the podcast artwork and all of these things that are involved so many steps put it up on YouTube put it up on my website upload it to the Spotify site I know y'all don't care about all these steps I just want to illustrate for you guys how many tiny little decisions go into determination into a commitment that eventually add up to episode 64 of this podcast a year and change later and hopefully all of those I mean thousands and thousands of tiny little decisions in this o just over a year time that have hopefully in the end positively impacted your life so what I'm getting at here is that it doesn't happen overnight when we're

living in real time it feels like things aren't happening fast enough for you maybe reunification isn't happening fast enough maybe you want to build a business or get better at whatever it is that you're doing and it doesn't seem to be happening fast enough I want to remind you that it is a compound effect it's all of these tiny decisions to override your survival brain that wants to seek pleasure avoid pain be efficient and choose the thing that is going to cause you to grow when it comes to your dedication in commitment to changing your life for the better and making things happen in your life it is decisions every single moment of every day all of them matter any time that you

feel yourself going back into survival brain and thinking this one time won't matter or maybe I just need to take a nap or maybe I should finish that bottle of wine tonight because why not it's just this one time it's the holiday I deserve it that is all survival brain and so what you will get out of it even if you don't reach your goal whatever the end all goal is if you continue to make the choices based on your higher thinking right away from your survival brain the person that you become as a result of going after the goal is what matters in my mind anyway you become a much stronger much more evolved version of You by continuing on and staying committed even when it's difficult even

when it doesn't feel convenient for you developing the skill of staying determined I think it is a skill when you choose determination you're really choosing to stay steadfast even when the going gets tough determination is your ability to deal with the fails and keep going knowing that you the faith that you can still accomplish what it is you want to accomplish whenever I became a coach I thought the second that I got my certification that my phone would start ringing I thought oh surely I'll just get clients just like that they'll just come to me everything will just fall into place it never happens that way in fact I thought that back when I was waiting for the stuff to happen with

court I thought that the second that I did all the things with all of the courts really my ex's wishes I thought that the second that I complied that he would somehow like be knocking on my door I really truly somewhere in my brain I'm sure I've shared this craziness with you before I pictured him at my front door in my house on the hill him and his wife being like all right cool we're we're all good now as if that was ever going to happen it wasn't things weren't going to come to me in that way I had to make happen I had to believe when believing was hard when the belief I wanted to believe wasn't believable you know what I'm saying it is exhausting in the beginning too when

you're taking those steps and you're learning new skills and you're doing something outside of that survival brain it takes energy it does it takes brain energy and it takes your body's energy because it's something new so if you're stuck in that survival brain that Triad then going against the grain and away from efficien your body will want to fight it because it's trying to work for you it just doesn't understand that by staying in survival brain mode it's only keeping you alive it's keeping you on the hamster wheel so stepping off it's going to feel clunky it's going to feel like there's more resistance it's going to feel like I don't know what I'm doing

this feels awkward this feels wrong you will know that you're on the right track and that you're using your higher thinking when you are not making decisions out of desperation or Rush once you get good at stepping out and doing different things then your brain will use that that will become a default and it will not take nearly as much energy in fact hardly any any energy at all because your brain will now have made that the default it it'll be used to Switching gears quickly and not meeting the resistance you won't be fighting it mentally in your brain each time you switch each time you adjust your sales in our survival brain we become hyperfocused on objects on

problems and then we only focus on that therefore causing us to feel stuck because that is all we can focus on we can go from this problem to this problem to this problem back to this problem in order to move out of survival brain and into your higher thinking you must start drawing your attention less to those fear objects problems and focusing more on a greater bigger picture for yourself and for your focus in the world as opposed to focusing on only your problems instead focus on how you want to feel what you eventually want to create what you would need to feel in order to get there and that's why I chose mindset of determination for this topic today because really that's what

it all boils down to it's no matter What Choosing to pursue even during adversity continuing on trusting and knowing that no matter what so long as you stay determined remain determined you will get to that goal no matter what it is okay that seriously it's true all determination is is a steadfastness and willingness commitment to stay on the path to whatever goal that you have created and maybe it is not like with me wasn't one particular goal it was much more abstract right I knew I wanted to evolve and better myself and help other parents that was really that was like still is the goal there are times where I do completely change directions and reassign my focus

so anyway I think that that's what I have for you today is that just the next week or so up to 2024 it might be helpful just to look at what do you want to make 2024 for you because if you are like how I was how every Friday would come up maybe it's a monthly or maybe it's even yearly thing for you you're like another Year's gone by and nothing has happened I haven't moved forward in the way that I would have hoped I would have I'm not where I thought I would be at this whatever age you are right or nothing's happened with my case and it's gotten me down I feel helpless hopeless stuck right if you feel like there's not hasn't been any movement in your life

that is because you have not yet set the goals and dared to dream for yourself so that is what my hope is for you in this next couple weeks is to take this time over this holiday to really assess like what do you want to create in 2024 for yourself what do you want to feel how do you want to feel in 2024 what is the goal for your overall emotion in 2024 and I know that sounds like I don't know about woo but so especially maybe for some of the dads out there that are listening listen your emotion our emotions are every human the emotion that we feel is what drives our every action which ends up producing our results every action that we take is because of emotion emotion is always

responsible for causing you to act in whatever way you do okay which will produce your results so even for the dads out there emotion is everything so determination feeling committed like the emotion of commitment of dedication of Drive of self-encouragement all of those things those are emotions that will get you moving get you in the head space cause you to move forward mentally and emotionally and physically actually literally move forward okay so just what do you want to create for yourself in 2024 what is it going to take to get you there what emotion would you need to feel to create that result for yourself remembering The Compound Effect right end results don't just happen it's all

of these little tiny things that like build this perfectly well-oiled machine that is will turn into the autopilot in your brain so it is work in the beginning we only have so much brain power per day and I don't mean that to sound limiting but I I mean that so that you can remember that and use that to your advantage save your brain power for where it matters instead of spending your energy your brain energy your energy your body's energy hyperfocusing on your problems instead shift over and start using your prefrontal cortex and start focusing on the greater purpose of your future okay all right you guys when is Christmas I think that this is when I tell you Merry Christmas Happy Christmas

happy Hanukkah happy all the the holidays because Christmas is next Monday and so then I you guys I will talk to you right before New Year's okay so have a wonderful wonderful holiday no matter how you're spending it and yeah I hope you guys really consider what your going to do with your 2024 oh and you guys too the support group is this Thursday at 7:30 just shoot me a message I will um send you a zoom link if you want to come beyond the highroad gmail.com okay all right bye thanks so much for listening today guys I'm honored that you chose to share your time with me if you like what you've been hearing and you want more come join me in the new monthly membership we retake the concepts that

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