Podcast

77: Clearing Out Your Old Thoughts for Good

Once my clients understand that their thoughts create their feelings, drive their actions, and create their results, one thing they seem to struggle with is what to do when old thoughts that they thought they'd worked on keep popping back up.

There's some wishful thinking that, after learning the power of this thought work, that you'll only think amazing thoughts. And I believed this myself at one stage too. However, that's just not the reality. So, what can we do to make sure it's not a problem when those old and unhelpful thoughts resurface?

You are not your thoughts. So, in this week's episode, I'm showing you how to step into the role of being the watcher of your thoughts. This is the secret to so many things that we do inside my programs, and I'm bringing this concept to the podcast to help you get started cleaning up self-doubt, being risk-averse, and so many other things that stop us from creating wealth.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

Why no matter how much work you do on a thought, it will reappear from time to time.
What it means to be the watcher of your thoughts.
How accepting reoccurring fear-based thoughts held me back for so long and what I made them mean.
How to be the watcher of your own fear-based thoughts and give equal airtime to more positive thoughts.

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

Learn more about Money for Women Physicians where you'll learn the tools to create wealth.
Follow me on Instagram

Read the transcript Expand

Welcome to The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast, a podcast for women physicians who want to learn how to live a wealthy life. In this podcast you will learn how to make money work for you, how you can have more of it, and learn the tools to empower you to live a life on purpose. Get ready to up-level your money and your life. I'm your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.

Welcome to episode 77. So one of the things a lot of my clients struggle with once they understand that their thoughts create their feelings, which create actions and their result is what to do when old thoughts pop up.

And I think there's this sort of misunderstanding or maybe wishful thinking, and I had the same wishful thinking too, that once you understand that thoughts create feelings, that suddenly only amazing thoughts will come to them. Meaning once you start creating new thoughts that the old thoughts will just kind of go away and that we're going to reach some kind of brain nirvana.

And that doesn't happen. So, sorry to break the news to you. I used to think so too and I was like, “What?” when I found out that that's not what happens. Because as long as you have a human brain it's going to offer up thoughts and some aren't useful.

And so I thought I'd do an episode on how to think about this so you don't make it a problem when old, unuseful thoughts pop up, because they will. And so I can kind of still it into one sentence, is that it's what we think about these thoughts the determines how we feel, not the actual thoughts themselves. Not the actual presence of these thoughts. Kind of meta, right?

And so this requires us to understand that there's us, you, and there are your thoughts. Now, many of us think we are our thoughts. I want you to see yourself as the watcher of your thoughts, you are not your thoughts.

Now, this concept is so important when it comes to understanding and managing your risk tolerance for investing. And so this is why we spend so much time on this inside of Money For Women physicians. Because so many of you might feel afraid or have self-doubt come up for you whenever you start looking into investing in the stock market or whatever you're looking to invest in.

What if the only thing that has happened is that you believed these fear-based thoughts? I remember when I first started investing, or looked into rather, investing in real estate, immediately my brain said things like, “This seems complicated. You might lose money. This might not work out.” Lots of thoughts like that and I believed them.

And so it took me some time to actually invest in real estate because of that. And not only that, I made the presence of these fear-based thoughts mean that this was like a sign that I shouldn't actually do it. How many of you do that too? And I want to offer that there's another way to look at these fear-based thoughts.

So first I want to remind you that our brain, our human brain is specifically designed to keep us alive. And because of that, anything new is pretty much automatically labeled at possibly dangerous and a threat to our survival. I know, logically it sounds super silly, but that's just what it does.

And you may have heard me talk about the motivational triad, but one of the three things is that it wants things to be easy. It wants to be efficient because in order to maximize our chances for survival we want to make sure we have enough energy to, I don't know, outrun a lion or something if something like that actually happens to us. And so it's always trying to conserve energy, AKA it's pretty lazy.

And so one of the ways it tries to convince you that you shouldn't learn anything new that's going to take up a lot of energy is to basically offer up fear-based thoughts. And so what do you do when they come up? Because they will.

And I think some of us think that well, once I make a certain amount of money, once I have a certain amount of money, whatever that amount is for your, maybe it's one million or five million, then you're never going to have negative thoughts about money.

But that's not the case because circumstances, the amount of money you have does not determine how you feel, it's what you think about the money. And a number isn't going to magically make your thoughts better about money.

And you might think that's not true, but let's say you're an attending right now and you have thoughts that you don't have enough money or that it's not enough. But once you have a certain amount it will be fine. But just notice how your thinking probably hasn't changed much from being a medical student, from being a resident, to now being an attending.

I think many of us have this false belief that once we became attendings that all of our money problems would kind of disappear. But it didn't, did it? And so the one skill you need to learn in terms of how to deal with this, well there's really two, the first one is to just notice that it's a thought. And that you can choose to believe it or not.

I know, it doesn't seem like you have a choice, right? Once you're aware that it is a thought and something you can choose or not, then you can decide if you want to keep it or not. And many of you probably don't want to keep these fear-based thoughts about money and so you have to learn the art of redirecting your brain.

What I mean by that is you redirect your brain to different thoughts. Because here's the thing, when you have fear-based thoughts about money, you've probably been thinking about them or thinking them for decades. And so it's going to take some time and practice to not only create new thoughts, but to actually believe the new thoughts.

And so this art of redirecting our brains to different thoughts, I think of it as like these are weightlifting sets or reps. Like if you're weightlifting, I wish it was the case that you can just want a six pack and have it, but you got to do the work, you got to do the reps. And the same is true for our thoughts.

And so many of my clients create these new thoughts that they love, that they believe and then a day or two later or maybe a week or two later their old thoughts start creeping back in and they think there's a big problem, as if it stopped working. And no, all that's happened is that your brain offered up an old thought.

And think about it, it's very easy for your brain to offer up that old thought because it's been thinking it for so long it's very efficient. And so you just have to put in the time, the reps to redirect your brain to the new thought.

Another way that I can explain this concept of redirecting your brain is giving yourself or giving your brain equal airtime. So many of us spend so much time giving airtime to all the sort or negative thoughts, all the ways things can go wrong. But we don't take the time to give equal airtime to how it could be right, and how it could go so well, and what possibilities could be possible.

And I also want to remind you that it's kind of normal for our brains to focus on the negative. It's kind of what it's designed to do. Remember, it's constantly scanning for what could be wrong or what could be missing because it wants to make sure we stay alive.

And for us physicians, we're kind of experts at this, right? Because when we're seeing patients, we always have to be thinking about not just a differential, but make sure we're not missing the thing that could kill the patient or the worse thing it could be, right?

And so I actually think it might be even harder for us in some ways because in our jobs we're trained to actually do this all the time. And obviously that's a skill that works very well for us as physicians, but it's a skill that's quite detrimental for actual life, and especially money.

And so I would just suggest if this is a completely new concept for you, just take the time to give some equal airtime to different types of thoughts. Like instead of focusing on what could go wrong or what's not possible for you, what could be possible for you? How could this go well? Could it go well? Is that possible? If it is, let's spend some time thinking about how it could go well.

I already hear some of you saying, “Yeah, but…” And most of the times the yeah, but goes something like this, “Yeah, but if I think about how it could go well, the I might be disappointed.” But here's the thing, you're already disappointed right now. Do you want to keep being disappointed? Do you want to at least explore the possibility of having what you want?

And lastly, I just want to remind everyone that it is 100% normal to not want to do this. Even though logically you might want to do this. And because remember, our brains want to be efficient, it doesn't want to learn anything new, and this takes effort.

Kind of like this morning when I looked at my calendar and saw it was my day to do some weightlifting, specifically upper body. Immediately my brain is like, “Ugh, we don't want to do that. Let's just scroll on Facebook and hang out there or scroll on Instagram.”

So it's 100% normal for your brain to not want to do the work of redirecting to think about what's possible because it's going to take energy and effort to do so. And it's 100% worth the effort of doing the work.

Remember, as long as you have a human brain, it's going to offer up unuseful thoughts. And this is one of the many reasons that I have a coach that I meet once a week. And I literally refer to it as my weekly brain clean out.

Because even though I'm a coach and I know how to coach myself, I still have a human brain and human brains will always offer up thoughts that may or may not be useful. And I will sometimes believe those unuseful thoughts.

And this is one of the reasons why we offer a weekly coaching call inside of Money For Women Physicians, so that you can come and get your brain cleaned out on a weekly basis when it comes to money. Because remember we have decades and decades of unuseful money beliefs hanging out in our brains and it's going to take some time to clear those out and replace them with some more useful ones.

And as you do that, the you start taking action from a more positive place. Actions like investing in real estate or having the courage to ask for more money at your job or doing something else if medicine is not what you want to do anymore.

Because it is easier to just keep doing what you're doing now, of course it is. But if you want a different result, different outcome of where you want your like to go, your money to go, of course it's worth the work to get there.

Okay my friends, I will talk to you next week.

Hey, if you enjoyed this episode and don't want to miss out on new episodes, please hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. See you next week.

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Recent Episodes

The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast with Dr. Bonnie Koo | Losing Weight and Making Money with Dr. Amruti Choudhry

76: Losing Weight and Making Money with Dr. Amruti Choudhry

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Today, I have a special guest. And while this is a podcast all about money, my guest in this episode is actually a weight loss coach. You might think that sounds a little strange, but I've found that I meet so many weight loss coaches who have gone through the same training that I have, and the same principles and processes apply to self-improvement in both of these areas. Even inside my coaching practice, after I've been working with clients for a while, the subject of weight loss often comes up.

And so, I thought it would be fun to have weight loss coach Dr. Amruti Choudhry come on the show this week to discuss the similarities and commonalities between losing weight and making money. She's a brilliant coach and a charming guest, and I hope you'll see how you can apply the skills you've been learning from this podcast to your weight loss goals if that's something you're working towards.

Amruti is a physician turned full-time coach who specializes in coaching South Asian professionals on weight loss. We're discussing the scarcity-based thoughts and fear of failure that come up for our clients when losing weight and building wealth, and Amruti is sharing how she helps her clients maintain their weight once they've lost it, much like I help my clients manage their wealth.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

Why all the skills I've been teaching you about building wealth also apply to weight loss.
Where the fear of failure holds so many physicians back from even trying to lose weight.
How Amruti teaches her clients to use failure as an opportunity to win in the future.
Why you don't necessarily have to sacrifice spontaneity when you make a weight loss plan or a financial plan.
The arrival fallacy and how this scarcity mindset applies in weight loss and in building wealth.
Why you can't rely on external validation if you want to lose weight of maintain wealth in the long term.
How Amruti encourages people who want to lose weight to seek discomfort in the short term.

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

Learn more about Money for Women Physicians where you'll learn the tools to create wealth.
Follow me on Instagram
Dr. Amruti Choudhry: Website | Instagram | Facebook
Untamed by Glennon Doyle

Read the transcript Expand

Hey everyone, welcome. So I've been kind of messing up the number of the episodes. So I can't remember this is 76 or 77. But obviously, when you listen to this, it'll be labeled correctly. And so today, I have a special guest and so I wanted to talk about why I have a weight loss coach on a podcast about money.

And so this is why, the more I've been doing money coaching, and because I'm in the coaching world I meet a lot of weight loss coaches. Now, I'm talking about coaches that have been trained by the Life Coach School, because you do learn how to coach on weight loss, and general life coaching, and everything really.

And so what I have noticed is that the same principles, the same concepts, the process to make money is actually very similar to what you need to do to lose weight. And so I do have a very small one on one coaching practice and I actually end up coaching some of my clients on weight loss because, well, I know how to do it because I am trained on that. But because the skill set is really the same.

And so I thought it'd be really fun to have her come on, to kind of talk about the similarities and the analogies between losing weight and making money. Because if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, or maybe you're even inside my program, Money For Women Physicians, all the skills I'm teaching you can apply directly to losing weight, if that's something you want to do.

And so I brought on Dr. Amruti Choudhry and she will introduce herself. But one of the reasons why I chose her, besides the fact that she's absolutely lovely, is she has a wonderful British accent because she lives in the UK. And since this is a podcast, I'm like, “It would be so fun to have someone with an awesome accent on the show.”

Plus, she's absolutely brilliant. I'm super excited for her to be here. I hope you will learn a lot and start applying some of the skills that you've been learning on the podcast to how you can lose weight, if that's something that you want to do.

All right, here we go.

Bonnie: Welcome to the show, Dr. Amruti Choudhry.

Dr. Choudhry: Thank you so much, Bonnie. So it's such a pleasure to be here.

Bonnie: Yeah. So for my listeners who don't know you, can you just briefly introduce yourself?

Dr. Choudhry: Yeah. So I'm Dr. Amruti Choudhry, I am a certified life and weight loss coach in the UK, and a retired physician because I have become a full time coach. And I coach South Asian women, professionals on weight loss.

Bonnie: Yeah. So for those of you listening, you might be like, “Okay, why is there a weight loss coach on the show?” And so the reason why I wanted Dr. Choudhry on the show is this, if you follow me and you've been listening along, then I have great news for you. Because all the skills that I've been teaching you apply to losing weight. So it's really two for one.

And so I wanted to bring her on specifically to kind of pick out some of the concepts that we both coach on that end up being very similar in terms of the skill sets needed to either lose weight or make money. And I would say from now on when you listen to my podcast, if you are someone who's trying to lose weight, ask yourself how does this apply to losing weight? Because it's kind of the same. It's great.

Plus, Dr. Choudhry has a lovely accent so it's kind of fun to listen to her voice.

Dr. Choudhry: I love that. Thank you so much, Bonnie.

Bonnie: Yeah, so I thought the first thing we could talk about is processing emotions. Now, it's something that we talk about a lot, meaning you have to allow your emotions to come up, and feel them, and process them. I know in weight loss we talk about allowing urges.

And so do you want to just spend maybe a minute explaining what that means exactly. Because I don't think I specifically talk about allowing urges to my audience.

Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, so this is one of the topics I talk about a lot in my weight loss coaching. So basically, when people want to overeat it's normally because they're trying to buffer against a negative emotion. So what that means is they're trying to kind of push away a negative emotion and they use food to numb that out.

And what often happens is when you're feeling an urge, which is an intense over desire to eat, or do something off your protocol, or anything like that. That's what often takes them away from following the plan that they've made ahead of time.

So we talk quite a lot on feeling our urges and how to kind of be able to process them, even when they feel like you're going to die. They feel like they're so strong. And they feel like you're not able to do so.

So one of the things that I teach them is feeling your emotions and feeling your urges are exactly the same thing. It's about kind of tuning into your body, actually feeling it directly in your body, describing it, kind of thinking where they're feeling it in the body and just tuning into their body. As opposed to looking for something external to make themselves feel better.

Bonnie: Yeah, and that's definitely a skill that many of my clients – You don't coach just women physicians, right?

Dr. Choudhry: No, I coach any South Asian professional.

Bonnie: Yeah. So basically type A professional woman, right? And so, we I think are kind of taught not to feel our feelings. And something I heard from Glennon Doyle, the author of Untamed, it's such a simple sentence but it really struck me. It said, “Feelings are feeling,” it's like, okay, duh, that makes sense, right?

Dr. Choudhry: Yeah.

Bonnie: And so a lot of my clients will use food as a buffer. You know, they're in a bad mood and then they'll eat something thinking they'll feel better, or they'll go shopping, that's the flip side.

Dr. Choudhry: Yes.

Bonnie: I'm sure some of your clients go shopping, too.

Dr. Choudhry: Exactly. So yeah, the buffer could be food or over shopping. So they're normally hand in hand. And I coach a lot of women physicians, as well and it's exactly the same, basically.

So what I tend to find is that when they do one, or when they start losing weight, they may then go to another buffer. So before they learn how to fully feel their feelings, they kind of may be following their food protocol, but then they go to overspending. I mean, that happened with me and my own journey, so I can kind of feel your pain.

Bonnie: Yeah. No, that makes sense, right? You learn how to process emotions with one specific thing like eating or spending money. But then once you've mastered that it usually ends up moving along. Because I think we're always going to want to avoid feeling or feelings.

For me, it's definitely social media is my biggest vice when I'm buffering personally.

Dr. Choudhry: Yeah. And I think it's also because society doesn't teach us about feeling our emotions. it's often frowned upon. It's often kind of like, “Oh, that's quite woo. That's quite soft and mushy.” And especially as women physicians, that may not be scientific enough for us.

But when we actually get into actually tuning into our bodies and feeling it, the actual freedom that you get is phenomenal.

Bonnie: Yeah, no, totally agree. Also, I think there's this sense that if you have enough willpower or mental strength, you won't need to feel your feelings, right?

Dr. Choudhry: Yeah.

Bonnie: I think that's kind of perpetuated in medicine.

Dr. Choudhry: Agreed, yeah.

Bonnie: Yeah. Okay, yeah, so this just reminded me because I think so many of us are just afraid of feeling our feelings, certain feelings, we go to such great lengths to avoid them. And then the consequences can just be so huge.

And so what I see in my clients is they're so afraid – And this is kind of a segue into the next topic. They're so afraid of making a mistake and the consequence being losing money, they don't even try because risk is so scary to them. The fear of failing, I think, is just so high in our clients because we're type A, we got straight A's and failure wasn't an option. And especially as a doctor, failure means you could hurt a patient unintentionally.

And so do you see this in your clients? I guess the analogy would be gaining weight if they make a mistake.

Dr. Choudhry: Yes, this happens all the time. So when I'm actually coaching them, from the beginning we talk about how we're going to fail our way to success. And when they hear that initially they're horrified, like, “What does that mean? I don't want to fail.”

But actually we talk about failing forward. So like, how are we going to fail and either look at that as a win or as a learning opportunity? So what can we learn from that fail that's actually going to drive us closer to our goal, as opposed to further away from it?

Bonnie: Yeah, our society's relationship with failure is not a great model to learn from. Because basically if you think about even just our school system, I don't know how the grades are in the UK, but here an A is the highest grade and then F literally stands for – I think it stands for failure, I
don't know, I just assume that's what it means. But it's like getting an F is horrible, right? But you don't learn anything when you're always getting A's.

Dr. Choudhry: Exactly that. And so what we teach is kind of like how can we learn our way there? Because with weight loss, and I'm sure it's the same with making money, it's kind of like a lot of trial and error.

So it's not like there's a perfect route for every client. It's different for every client and so you have to fail in order to know what doesn't work for you so it can drive you to actually find what does work and what will continue to work for you.

Bonnie: Yeah, I love what you just said there. It is a lot of trial and error finding the way that works for the individual. Obviously, you and I have steps and processes that we take our clients through, but each individual journey can look so different.

Okay, so here's a good one. So another analogy is weighing yourself on the scale, you see a number. And then for money it would be either the balance in your accounts or your net worth. I guess net worth is probably a better measure. So how do you talk about that with your clients?

Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, so it normally starts off with a lot of my clients fear the scale. And we talk about how the scale is completely neutral. So it's the same kind of analogy as a bank account, say if it's negative or whatever the bank account is. And a lot of my clients think that the scale is causing them to feel a certain way, especially if the scale has gone up or anything like that.

But what we look at is how what we're thinking about the scale is actually creating our feelings. So what I take them through is, how do they actually want to think even before they get on the scales? Like what do they want to kind of believe about themselves without even looking at it?

So this kind of takes me to the belief aspect of what do they believe about themselves, even when the scale is going up or going down? With you it's probably their bank account kind of going up or down, right?

Bonnie: Yeah, I love what you just said because basically it's like we're allowed to believe whatever we want about ourselves, no matter what the external measure might be. And I think a lot of women think we're only allowed to believe certain things about ourselves if certain external measurements also line up.

And I think with weight loss especially, or just weight and body size, society just values thin women so much that I think a lot of women just feel like, “Well, I'm not allowed to feel beautiful, or think I'm beautiful, or think I'm amazing if the scale doesn't match up with that,” right?

Dr. Choudhry: Exactly. And what we actually work on is kind of body image and actually self-love first. And when you start loving your body, if you do want to lose weight, that's when the weight starts coming off.

Because when you're kind of beating yourself up into weight loss, or the same thing with you beating yourself up into making a certain amount of money, then it's never going to be sustainable. Because how you get there is how you stay there.

So if you're kind of beating yourself up for weight loss, when you get to your goal weight, you're going to keep continuing to beat yourself up. And that's just going to lead you to burnout or self-sabotage, and then put the weight back on.

Bonnie: Oh totally. And this is basically the arrival fallacy concept, right? Like I'm sure some of your clients are like, “Oh, I'll be happy, I'll feel so great about myself when I'm this weight.” And the same thing with money, a lot of people feel like, “Oh, all of my money stress and fears – Or I'll feel secure once I have this much in the bank.”

And then I just gently remind them, yeah, but you used to be a medical student where you made no money for the most part. And then you became a resident where in the US we get paid around 40 to $50,000 a year. And then you became an attending where your income like quadrupled for the most part. And they're like, “Oh.”

So I think each time there's a step up, we think we're going to feel better. But it just like, magnifies. And in fact, I will tell them if we don't clean this up right now, because the common thought for my clients is like, “I don't have enough” or “I feel insecure about money,” it actually gets worse the more money you have.

And I found this true for myself and so I really had to get to work to clean up myself. Because I said, “Because if you don't clean it up and you end up having a million dollars, if that's your goal, you're going to be afraid to lose the money once you get there. It'll just like flip the fear that you have.” Do you see this in your clients?

Dr. Choudhry: Oh, exactly the same. So it reminds me of kind of scarcity, right? So scarcity thinking with regards to money or with food. So
what shows up for my clients is that – So firstly, when they first start off it's like the scarcity of, “Oh, I'm not going to have enough or it won't be enough to sustain me. I won't be able to stick to this. I'll miss out.” Things like that.

And then when they actually start getting to goal weight it's kind of like, “Will I be able to stay here? I won't be able to stay here. I won't be able to sustain this.”

Bonnie: Maintaining.

Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, those kinds of scarcity thoughts that pop up
that we have to really work through.

Bonnie: That's so interesting, just thinking about my journey with weight. I'm pretty good at losing weight, that's not like a big deal. Although lately it's been harder. I'm sort of blaming my age, but I'm sure that's not really true. I mean, maybe it's partially true, but not the entire story.

But when I get to my goal weight, I think it's such unfamiliar territory to me and so I always end up gaining it back slowly over time. Or kind of like, “Well, I can do whatever I want now because I'm here,” but that's not really true. I found that out many times.

Dr. Choudhry: Me too. Yeah, same here.

Bonnie: Yeah, that's a different – I don't know, do you think it's a different skill set to kind of maintain where you are?

Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, I think it's kind of like what happens is you don't get the external validation that you get when you're losing weight. So when you're losing weight, everyone's saying to you, “Oh, wow, you've lost weight. You're doing so well.” You can actually see the numbers moving on the scale, which you can choose to think it's working or whatever you choose to think about that.

And when you maintaining your weight, you don't get that external validation anymore. And so you have to learn how to self-validate so that you can still maintain it as opposed to relying on the external validation.

Bonnie: Oh, that's such a good point. I don't think I've thought of it like that. So I think for money it would be a lot of us aren't used to just having money, right? Like just having it. Because I think so many of us think of money as we get it and we just, “Okay, what do we do with it?” Meaning like how do we spend the money versus just really being, I don't want to say happy, but just feeling really sufficient with having the money and not needing to do something with it.

Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, and a lot of my clients, they're just not used to being at goal weight. They just don't know what to do with themselves because the decades of their life they've been either gaining weight or losing weight, gaining weight or losing weight.

So now they have that freeness in their mind, they're like, “Wait, what do I do with all of this mind space and energy?” And all of that that they now have. So they often go and build businesses or take up hobbies or do something completely new, because they've got so much free space in their mind now?

Bonnie: Yeah, no, totally. Okay, so let's talk about the analogy – So one of the things I talk about a lot is spending plans, which is my preferred term, versus budget. And I will actually say a budget sounds like a money diet, and nobody likes diets.

So I think this is such a great analogy between money and eating plans. So, we both trained at the Life Coach School and so I'm familiar with the basic weight loss tools that they use. Although I'm sure yours are a little different.

And so one of the concepts I teach is to create a spending plan, and all that means is that we're making decisions about how we're going to use our money in advance. Where we use our thinking brain, our prefrontal cortex if you will, to make logical decisions about spending. Because in the moment, if you haven't made a decision, your toddler brain will often take over.

Kind of like they say that's why you should never go grocery shopping when you're hungry. It's so funny, because I'll make a list. I don't go shopping these days, I just get everything delivered. But when I used to go grocery shopping, even when I was hungry, I'd be like, “Well if I make a list, I'll stick to the list.” But yeah, there's something about when you're hungry you just start buying stuff that you don't need.

Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, it's so true. Yeah, totally. I now just order because I know I would probably do the same.

Bonnie: Yeah, so like how do you teach your clients about – You call it an eating protocol, right?

Dr. Choudhry: Mm-hmm.

Bonnie: So tell us about that.

Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, so it's basically the same kind of concepts as the spending plan. So it's basically using your prefrontal cortex, or the thinking part of your brain, to make decisions ahead of time for you so that you don't then rely on your primitive brain, the more animal part of the brain.

Because whenever we're relying on the animal part of the brain, it always wants us to do one of three things, seek pleasure, avoid pain, or stay how we are. And whenever we're doing that, because the primitive brain likes to kind of have routine and it likes to take the path of least resistance, it will always choose the cupcake over the avocado salad that you've got planned on your protocol.

And so if you're not planning, then you're always going to be using that primitive part of your brain. Which is why I encourage my clients to create a protocol so that they're using the higher part of their brain, so that that part of their brain is looking at their greater goals. And so they're more likely to sustain that and actually follow through when they're planning with their prefrontal cortex.

Bonnie: Yeah. And so for those of you listening you might be thinking, “Okay, that sounds great. But then what happens when you're like, in the moment?” And this is where that first thing we talked about in the beginning of podcast, allowing emotions, allowing urges, that's the skill that you have to develop to basically follow through on the plan, right?

Dr. Choudhry: Yeah.

Bonnie: And it's a whole process. Do you say process?

Dr. Choudhry: I say, process, yeah.

Bonnie: I lived in the UK for like three months and I remember loving just like all the different ways people pronounce things.

So yeah, there's a process and what we said earlier about you're going to have to fail and make mistakes because that's just part of how you get to the other side. And I think what came to me is, you're not going to know how to do it correctly, because if you did, we would have already lost the weight or already made the money.

And so I think society just makes us fear failure so much a lot of us don't want to do it. And so we “fail” ahead of time. It's like, why bother? Because we don't want to fail and so we just stay failed, so to speak, right?

Dr. Choudhry: Exactly that. I like to think of it as a skill that you learn. So it's basically like driving a car. So when you're driving a car, initially it's like, “Ah, oh my gosh, I don't know how to drive. I don't know what goes where and it feels really clunky.” And then you go in the second time and then it's a little bit easier. Then you do it like five or six times and it's getting easier. And then a few months later you're just driving the car and it's kind of second nature.

So it's the same thing with feeling urges and feeling emotions. It does feel clunky and scary at first. But then when you do it more and more, your primitive brain doesn't then offer you as many urges when it realizes that you're not giving into them as much. And so your desire actually decreases drastically when you are going towards the urge rather than running away from it.

Bonnie: So it sounds like what you're saying is you need to put in the work.

Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, it feels hard initially but remember if there's discomfort either way. There's either the discomfort of staying the same and kind of not growing, or there's the discomfort of growth and actually feeling the short term discomfort to get the long term comfort.

So most of my clients say, “Yeah, I'd rather feel the short term discomfort to get the long term comfort.” So, yeah, all about the delayed gratification, right?

Bonnie: Yeah. So for our spending plans usually we're talking about one month increments. Or I actually have them think about what they spend annually because certain things are like monthly, but then certain things aren't.

Just for example, for a lot of my insurance premiums I actually pay once a year because it's usually a little cheaper versus paying every month, they add extra fees. But you still want to put it in your spending plan what it is monthly to make sure it adds up annually.

So I'm assuming for eating protocols you don't plan a month ahead of time, because that's kind of crazy, right? So what do you recommend?

Dr. Choudhry: So I recommend planning 24 hours in advance because that involves using that higher part of our brain to do so. I also do event plans, and plans for special occasions, plans for holidays, plans for kind of eating out because these are the situations where a lot of my clients worry.

They think, “Well I can eat on protocol when I'm actually at home or at work. But actually, when it comes to socializing and meeting with other people, that's when things may change.” So that's when we create specific protocols for these occasions so that they're kind of still able to feel in control. And kind of having gone there anticipated the obstacles that may come up, come up with solutions for themselves, and then follow through with that in actual time.

Bonnie: Yeah, that's such a great point because I think the same applies for spending. Because if they're just having a regular month where they're just doing their normal daily routine, but then when they're traveling and so a lot of my clients will be like, “But I want to be able to buy things.”

And I think it's really easy to think that these protocols, these plans are meant to be restrictive. Because that's just kind of like the societal messaging we get, that it's restrictive. Dieting is restrictive and if you're working on your money, then you have to spend less. It's like very based on restriction.

And so I teach the same concept because, for example, I have certain clients where they understand the idea of creating a spending plan, but then they're like, “But I like to just spend spontaneously.” They don't want to have to plan every purchase. I'm like, “Well, great. You can plan for the spontaneity.”

It sounds kind of ironic but I'm like, “You could put like whatever that is for you, maybe a few thousand dollars where you're just like if you want to buy something on a whim you can do that, it's just included into the plan.”

And the same thing, when I travel is definitely where I tend to get in trouble with eating. But one thing I've just given myself grace about is just because I'm someone who wants to be healthy or just maintain my weight doesn't mean that I can't eat certain things or that I can't let loose for certain times. I just can't do that every day.

So when I was in Cabo a few weeks ago I don't think I really had an eating plan. I think my eating plan was to only eat when I was hungry and to stop when I was full. I just left it very bare bones. And then I had to think about alcohol, because definitely alcohol can be, you know. Not a problem for me, but it's like, yeah, after you have one or two drinks your thinking abilities kind of go down the drain, so to speak.

Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, I know what you mean.

Bonnie: Yeah, so I've had to just be really conscious about that. Like, maybe say I will have two drinks. I actually don't even remember if I followed that or not. But I didn't really make it like a big deal if I drank a little bit more than I wanted to or et cetera.

Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, so it's similar to kind of having that plan. So what I do with my clients is actually anticipate it ahead of time and be like, “Okay, they're allowed to have whatever they want.” So it's never that I'm telling them, “You have to have this.” They get to choose their plan. And it's basically then holding themselves accountable, which is what we kind of teach in the coaching.

So they can have two drinks, or they can have 10. They can put whatever on their plan, but then knowing that they're willing to stick to that plan and when they do follow that plan, they're willing to kind of accept the consequences that may come with it as well.

So when they're going to have 10 drinks, some of them, right, “Yeah, I'm going to have 10 drinks, I'm going to really go all out.” And then they write, “Okay, will I be willing to accept the consequences of being hung over the next day, or feeling sluggish, or kind of like eating everything off protocol and things like that.

So it's, yeah, accepting those consequences and kind of owning that, which is what I teach my clients.

Bonnie: Okay. So I think there's this concept that I see a lot in eating, but also with money, is that there's good and bad food. Because I think when people lose weight they're thinking, oh, I need to only eat “healthy food,” or I should go vegetarian, or whatever the diet of the day or the year is, right?

And I think for money there's just so much morality tied to what you spend your money on. I have some clients who before they joined my program, they were really afraid that I was going to tell them that they can't buy nice handbags or that they can't fly first class.

And so I think this is such an important thing for everyone to hear, is that that is not what this is about. And that is not what eating is about. So I want to hear sort of your take and I'll tell you mine.

Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, so my take is initially they come in thinking but they can't eat that. But what we teach them is kind of like there's no good foods or bad foods. It's just foods that are going to actually serve their bodies or foods that aren't really going to serve their bodies, and it's going to be different for everyone.

And so when they kind of are able to look at that and see that they're making that choice to eat that, then it's not like, “Oh, I can't have it anymore.” It's just, “I'm choosing not to have that.” And then that takes that deprivation out of it so it's not like, “Oh, I had a bad food.” It's just that it's taking that emotion out of it and just seeing it as the facts.

So, I ate a doughnut. And so if you think of it like, “Oh, I've eaten a doughnut,” and then go into the kind of all or nothing thinking like, “That means I'm going to eat off protocol all day,” then that's obviously going to make it harder to lose weight.

But when you look at it as, “Yeah, I had a doughnut. I enjoyed the doughnut. I'm just going to go back on protocol,” then it kind of just takes all of that emotion out of it. And it makes it easier for them to look at it for what it is rather than the kind of story that we create in our brains.

Bonnie: Yeah, and all the self-judgment and shame we pile on top of that, right?

Dr. Choudhry: Yeah.

Bonnie: Yeah. And so I remember one client specifically, she was someone who loved to give. That was just one of the things that gave her so much joy, to donate to charity. And she thought I was going to tell her to stop doing that so she could save more money. And I said, “What if you learned how to make so much more money, you could give even more?”

Because I think so many of us, when we think of money, we think of cutting expenses. And I think that's the same for losing weight, is like they have to eat less food and they're going to just have to deal with it and be unhappy. And so that is one way to create more money to do other things.

But on the flip side, and I don't think there's an analogy for weight loss. But on the flip side I'm like, “So many people never consider what if they just learned how to make more money? So they could actually spend on the things they want to spend on.”

Dr. Choudhry: The analogy that I can think of is over exercising. So everyone thinks that they need to over exercise to lose weight. But actually, sometimes over exercising is detrimental to losing weight. And so the less you exercise, in terms of strenuous exercise, it can actually be better for you. So that's the analogy that I can think of not. I'm sure if it fully relates, but I think it kind of does.

Bonnie: Yeah, when I was younger, I definitely was of the mindset that in order to lose weight you have to not just eat differently, but also exercise a lot. And I remember even I still have the app on my phone, although I just use it to track my weight. But My Fitness Pal, for example, I remember I would enter the food and calculate the calories. Who wants to count calories? I'm just so glad I don't do that anymore, but I used to.

And then I remember entering the exercise and then making sure everything added up. Meaning if I ate a little bit more, then I had to make sure I exercised to negate the calories. And that's what so many people do. Do they still do that?

Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, so a lot of people do that. So we have to get out of that kind of diet mentality, the calories in calories out mentality, because it just doesn't work like that with our bodies. And so it's kind of like a lot of just reprogramming of the brain because for so many decades of our lives we've been thinking that way, right?

Bonnie: Yeah. All right, well, this was such an interesting conversation. And so why don't you tell us sort of like your top tip, and you can give more than one if you want, for those women who do want to lose weight.

Dr. Choudhry: Okay. So I'd say the top tip is probably not what you're going to want to hear. It is learning how to feel your emotions and feel your urges.

And I know we've talked about this previously, but if you can learn how to eat only when you're hungry, and only when you're physically hungry rather than when you're emotionally hungry and kind of trying to push away a negative emotion or a positive emotion, that's when you will get down to your goal weight. Because you'll be actually fueling your body with what it actually needs, rather than what it actually wants. Because you tend to lose weight when you eat what you eat, not when you eat what you kind of always want to eat, right?

Bonnie: Yeah, it sounds so simple.

Dr. Choudhry: It sounds simple and it is simple. But it's the following through that is where it takes practice. And it's like a muscle. And when you exercise that muscle, it aches initially. But then when you keep exercising, it grows and it does the exercise easily. So the more you do it, the easier it becomes. And I know that it sounds cliche, but it's true. Really, the more you do it, the easier it becomes.

Bonnie: Yeah, and I think that's why it's so helpful to have a coach to coach you during that process so that you're not doing it alone. Just having like a guide and mentor to kind of help you and understand how to evaluate things so that you're not beating yourself up. Because that's like the worst, right? Because all of us are going to come up to obstacles and then how we treat ourselves is going to make all the difference.

Dr. Choudhry: Exactly, and normally what happens in weight loss and probably in money as well, it's we feel a lot of shame when we've eaten off protocol. And shame is one of those emotions that kind of wants to hide, right? So you want to kind of not tell anyone about it, hide, kind of cover it up, things like that.

And so when you actually go towards the shame and actually kind of like see that actually the shame is not as bad as I think it is in my brain, then a coach can help you see that. Because if you aren't kind of getting coached, sometimes you would want to follow that shame and kind of hide. But a coach will actually be able to guide you towards it and feel it.

Bonnie: Yeah, so good. All right everyone. So basically, we just told you all the secrets to making money and losing weight.

Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, and it's the same, guys, as you can hear.

Bonnie: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being here. I think my listeners learned a lot. And how can we learn more about you?

Dr. Choudhry: Thank you so much for having me. So you can learn more about me by going to my website, www.amruticoaching.com. And I'm currently enrolling for a group coaching program. So if you're interested, you can either message me on Instagram, which is @amruti.coaching or message me on Facebook. I am Amruti Choudhry on Facebook. Or you can email me and you can find the details on my website.

Bonnie: Yeah, we'll be sure to link all that information in the show notes so people can just kind of click and find you easily. All right, thanks so much for being here.

Dr. Choudhry: Thank you so much, Bonnie. Bye.

Hey, if you're ready to create wealth, I want to invite you to join my program, Money For Women Physicians. You'll join a community of like-minded women physicians who are committed to creating wealth. Just head over to wealthymommd.com/money to learn more.

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Recent Episodes

The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast with Dr. Bonnie Koo | The Truth About Debt

75: The Truth About Debt

Apple Podcasts Spotify Stitcher

Lately, I've been recommending all my clients listen to a specific podcast episode by my business coach, Stacey Boehman, all about debt, specifically how she thinks about debt. As you may be aware, I love discussing this topic, and I know it's something we need to talk about more.

This podcast perfectly summed up my beliefs about debt and gave me some amazing ideas that I use in my own coaching, so this week I want to cover some of the key points and lessons from that episode so you can all get the same benefit that I did.

Join me on the podcast this week to discover a new way of looking at money and debt. I'm sharing how our emotions and societal norms have framed debt in a certain way in our lives, and instead, I'm showing you why debt is nothing to be afraid of.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

Why it's so important to understand our thoughts and feelings about money.
What debt really is and why we shouldn't be afraid of it.
How you can look at debt, especially as a physician, and see how it has served you and can serve you in the future.

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

Learn more about Money for Women Physicians where you'll learn the tools to create wealth.
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Make Money as a Life Coach Podcast – Ep #127: Thoughts About Debt

Read the transcript Expand

Welcome to The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast, a podcast for women physicians who want to learn how to live a wealthy life. In this podcast you will learn how to make money work for you, how you can have more of it and learn the tools to empower you to live a life on purpose. Get ready to up-level your money and your life. I'm your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.

Welcome to Episode 75. So, lately I've been recommending this podcast episode from my business coach where she talks about debt. Specifically how she thinks about that. So the episode is called Thoughts About Debt, and we'll link it in the show notes and you should definitely listen to it.

But since I've been recommending it so much, I thought I would do an episode on it to discuss the key points and relate it to you. Mainly because she's a business coach specifically for life coaches. And I know most of you aren't building life coaching businesses. But I definitely recommend you listen to it because there are so many amazing nuggets of information in that episode.

And so what really struck me is how logical she thinks about money. And that really is the key to mastering money. Because when emotions are high around money, like it is for most people, you may have heard me say that when emotions are high, intelligence is low. And so many of us have negative emotions, strong emotions around money because how we grew up and how we were socialized around money.

And so, for many of us, it's really hard to think about money from a neutral place. And so one of the skills that we all need to learn is how to separate our emotions from money. And this is exactly the work we do inside my program, Money For Women Physicians, because this work is so important. Because so many of us tie things like our self-worth, our status to ourselves and to other people, meaning how other people see us or how we see ourselves, to money.

And because of that we can't look at money logically or from a neutral place. And so one of the things I teach my students inside of Money For Women Physicians is that money is a tool. And that money comes from value. And since money is a tool, it's simply a way to exchange it for a value that we want. And debt is simply money that you bought.

And I've talked about this in previous episodes. But it warrants bringing it up again, because I think debt is probably one of the biggest things many of my clients struggle with. And since debt is simply money that you buy or bought, sometimes we want the value of whatever it is so much that you're willing to buy money to get it. That's really what debt is, that's it.

And so I hope you can see how neutral debt and money truly is. Because for many of us, including myself, it isn't neutral. We're taught to fear debt. Society tells us debt is bad, and that having it is bad, and that we should get rid of it as much as possible.

And so going back to the concept that money is a tool and we use money to buy or exchange for value that we want. And so that's what most of us did to pay for medical school, right? We wanted to be a doctor so badly that we were willing to buy the money to do so, AKA take out loans.

Another thing I want to say about debt is many of us look at our student loan balance in terms of the face value, like this is the money that we owe. What comes up for you when you think of your student loan balance, if you have any?

I'm guessing you're not having positive thoughts or positive feelings. Because so many of us are looking at the debt as what we owe. And because of what society has taught us we think it's bad or that it's stressing us out or whatever else you're telling yourself. Versus looking at that balance, at what it made possible for you to do.

It made it possible for you to become a doctor, to see patients, to help them, and to make a great living forever, until you retire. So let's do some simple math here. I'll probably mess this up, but stay with me. So let's say you have $300,000 in loans for your training. And when you finish residency, your starting salary is $250,000.

And let's say you do this for 10 years. And let's just pretend that you're not getting any raises. Because most of us don't get raises, like most other jobs. Let's just say the salary stays stagnant for 10 years. And so if you're making 250K a year, that's $2.5 million over 10 years for a $300,000 investment.

Now, like I said, I'm not great at math, but it seems pretty clear to me that it's worth the 300K that you put in, to get $2.5 million after 10 years. And that's just assuming nothing changes, that you're not doing anything else with your medical degree.

Of course, only you can decide whether it was worth it for you. But I think if you look at the numbers or money logically like I just presented to you, like whatever your student loan balance is and the return you're going to get in terms of the money that might change how you look at your debt, right? Because so many of us focus on what things cost at face value rather than focusing on the long term view on it.

One of the best things I like to ask myself is what does it cost to not spend the money? Such a great question to ask. Very few of us ask that question. We're simply looking at the price of something, and just look at the price for what it is and look at the amount of money as leaving our account.

In fact, I have an example. I was texting with a friend of mine and she was considering investing in something and she said, “But I'm really cheap and so I don't know if I can do that.” And, of course, I questioned like, “Do you want to keep being cheap? Is that something you keep wanting to do?” That's a separate conversation.

But what I did ask her is, or rather mentioned is that she was focusing on the price of what she wanted to spend on versus looking at what is the cost to not spend that money. Because she was looking to make a change.

And so I simply asked her, “If you keep doing what you're doing, you know what that result is because you're living that result now.” So I almost said, “What do you have to lose to spend that money? And what could be possible if you spend that money.”

And so I kind of want to leave you with that in terms of looking at how you spend money, looking at any debt that you may have. If debt is stressing you out, I definitely recommend going back and listening to all of my podcast episodes on debt, I have quite a few. On your podcast app, just search for debt and you'll see a few pop up.

Can you start looking at debt from a more neutral place where you just think about it logically? Like this is the amount of money took out in loans, and this is the return I'm going to get.

And also if you have credit card debt, I almost think credit card debt, well, it is more villainized than student loan debt, right? People call things like student loans or mortgages “good debt” and credit card debt is definitely bad because it's always a result of overspending. Although not necessarily, right?

And so even if you have credit card debt, and you're probably not feeling great about it, look back to what you spent your money on. Maybe it was, I don't know, a vacation for your family. And so you have to decide, was it worth buying the money for what you paid for? That's really it, it doesn't matter what someone else says, only you can answer that question.

Okay, I love you guys. I will talk to you next week.

Hey, if you're ready to create wealth I want to invite you to join my program, Money For Women Physicians. You'll join a community of like-minded women physicians who are committed to creating wealth. Just head over to wealthymommd.com/money to learn more.

Download the Transcript Share on Facebook Facebook Share on Twitter Twitter Share on Pinterest Pinterest Share on Linkedin Linkedin Share on Email Email

Get started on creating wealth. Sign up for the free video training — Money Reset for Women Physicians.

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Recent Episodes

The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast with Dr. Bonnie Koo | How to Deal with Overwhelm

74: How to Deal with Overwhelm

Apple Podcasts Spotify Stitcher

Overwhelm, especially around money, is so common for my clients. They often don't know where to start, let alone how to move forward. They might make to-do lists that they think they can get started on. But guess what? That only leads to more overwhelm.

So many of my clients spend a ton of time feeling overwhelmed. To be honest, it's pretty much unavoidable. I go through it regularly myself, and so I'm sharing some stories from my clients' lives and my own for what I believe are the most effective ways to deal with overwhelm.

Maybe you're going through a feeling of overwhelm right now, or perhaps you're putting something off because you're afraid of feeling overwhelmed. Either way, I want you to tune in this week to discover how I approach being overwhelmed, and what might be the best way for you to deal with overwhelm.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

What feeling overwhelmed, to me, actually means.
Why overwhelm always grows, unless you take appropriate action.
What stops so many people from taking action on their to-do list.
How to deal with overwhelm by focusing on your mindset.

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

Learn more about Money for Women Physicians where you'll learn the tools to create wealth.
Follow me on Instagram

Read the transcript Expand

Welcome to The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast, a podcast for women physicians who want to learn how to live a wealthy life. In this podcast you will learn how to make money work for you, how you can have more of it and learn the tools to empower you to live a life on purpose. Get ready to up-level your money and your life. I'm your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.

Welcome to Episode 74. So, today I want to talk about how to deal with being overwhelmed. So many of my clients feel overwhelmed all the time, including me. And this topic for this podcast episode was inspired by my clients and also by me in terms of what I've been going through inside my business.

So I'm going to weave in some stories I've been hearing from my clients and also examples from my life. And I'm super excited to talk to you about this today. So, so many of my clients, before they come and work with me, they tell me that they're feeling overwhelmed about money. They don't know where to start, they don't even know how to start, where to start, or even what to do.

And a lot of my clients are feeling overwhelmed because there's so much to do. They have this huge to-do list, they don't have enough time, there's this huge list, never ending list that keeps getting added to. Can you relate? Ultimately, all these thoughts lead to the feeling of overwhelm.

Now, I actually was thinking about what does feeling overwhelmed actually mean? And I think I actually looked it up and I wasn't super thrilled with the definition I found. And I was wondering, is overwhelmed a thought or a feeling? I think it could be both.

Now, it might not truly matter which one it is. But I think people are thinking I feel overwhelmed. I think the feeling in our body is a mixture of feeling anxious and paralyzed. And when I feel overwhelmed, I literally feel like I can't think, that I can't even make simple decisions. And it just feels overwhelming in my body as well.

So I guess you could say it's a thought and a feeling. But anyway, getting back to the point of this podcast, I think there are a few sort of underlying thoughts that people aren't fully aware of when they're feeling overwhelmed and feeling like they don't even know what to do. And there's two that I've discovered by thinking about this more.

So I think the first sort of underlying thought is that if we choose one thing to work on, or if we choose one thing to get started on, because I feel that a lot of advice given out there about what to do when you're overwhelmed is to just pick one thing, just get started, it's fine. Is I think we think that if we work on one thing, or get started with one thing, then we start noticing all the other things on our to-do list that aren't getting done.

And maybe also, we think that focusing on that one thing means that we aren't working on all the other things. They're related, but they're slightly different. In other words, we just get really stuck in perfectionistic thinking or also called all or none thinking.

If you really think about what we actually do when we're overwhelmed, it totally does not make sense, right? Because basically, we're thinking there's so much stuff to do, or I'm feeling overwhelmed, which makes you feel anxious or overwhelmed, whatever it feels like for you and your body. And then what we actually do from that feeling of overwhelm and anxiety is we don't do anything. And then we create the results of nothing gets done.

And so our brains like to go into all or none thinking, meaning it goes to extremes. So it's like, “There's so many things to do, so why bother?” That's kind of what I mean by all or none thinking, it's like we go to the extreme of why bother and not getting anything done, even though we so want to get things done.

And so going back to that underlying thought that if we just pick one thing, or we pick the wrong thing to work on, because of course there's a right one to work on first, that we're not getting to all the other things because they're unrelated.

But I want you to question these thoughts like what if that's just not true? Meaning what if working on one thing is actually working on all the other things on your to do list? Because, I'm sure you've heard, how we do one thing is how we do everything. And even though they might seem unrelated on the surface, I like to think that the skill sets required for the thing we're working on, are going to apply to the other things we're working on.

And so I know this might sound kind of vague, so let's give you an example. So I always talk about how I have a business coach and I also have a general life coach. And so I think a few weeks ago I started with a new general life coach.

And I was having trouble deciding what to work on first because of the thought errors that I mentioned earlier. That I don't know which one to do. And there's a right one to start with, and maybe I should focus on this, but I want to focus on that. Which basically creates the results of me on not being able to pick one to focus on.

And my coach offered me what I just offered you, which is what if working on whatever you choose, is actually going to help you on the other things? Hearing her say that just immediately calmed me down. Because I think part of the overwhelm and anxiety for me was if I pick working on losing weight, that means I'm not working on improving my relationship with my son or Matt.

So those are the choices I had. I want to work on losing some weight. I want to improve my relationship with Matt. I want to improve my relationship with Jack, and generally improve my relationships with the people in my life that I care about.

And so in my mind, I'm like, “Well, if I focus on losing weight, that means I'm not focusing on or working on my relationships.” And so she started to ask me what if that wasn't true? What if it all would equally apply? And then I'm like, “Okay.” Of course, initially my mind was like, “How does working on losing weight apply to working on my relationship with Jack?”

And she asked me a series of questions. I don't remember exactly how it went but I remember her asking me, “Tell me what you would have to learn or work on to lose weight.” I actually think I picked maybe my relationship with Jack, but it doesn't really matter because the illustration will sort of make things obvious.

But she asked me what would I have to learn to improve my relationship with Jack? And I said, “Well, I would need to learn to be present and spend time with him without my phone or getting distracted, and just spend concentrated time on that.” So being present was a skill. So then she asked, “So how does that skill help you lose weight?” Do you see what I'm saying?

And so for me, when she asked me that question, I was like, “Oh, being present will help me lose weight, because I'll have to be present about the food choices I'm making, for example.” I don't remember exactly what I said, but she kind of made me think hard about it because it's really easy to say on the surface like, “Well, they're not related.”

And then the other thing about being present that I verbalized was not only what I have to learn to be more present with my son, I have to also deal with the discomfort because sometimes it's boring to play with a toddler, let's just be honest. And so I might be like, “Oh, I don't want to do this.” Or “This is boring,” and want to do something else. And dealing with that discomfort or restlessness to do something else.

And that also relates to losing weight, because it's easy to be like, “Oh, I created this, whatever, food plan for the day to eat this.” And it's easy to get to that meal and think, “Well, but I really want to eat this” or “I want to eat more.” And dealing with that discomfort and still choosing what I said I was going to do.

So I hope that gives you a solid example of how working on one thing is actually working on all the things. And I had a client, actually, I'm thinking about weight loss a lot because I've had a few clients bring this up to me, even though I coach on money.

Did you know that money and weight loss coaching are actually very similar? In fact, I'm going to have a guest coach in the near future to talk about this because the skill sets required to lose weight are very similar to how to create a lot of money. So stay tuned for that one.

And so she was choosing between losing weight and working on a bunch of other things in her life. And then she's like, “You know, I really want to work on losing weight.” But then I noticed her brain kept going, “But I need to work on this and that.”

And so I paused her and asked her the same question. What if working on this is also going to be working on the other things? And I could just see it in her face, like her face just immediately relaxed because I think a lot of the angst or the overwhelm comes from this perfectionistic thinking.

Which makes sense because we are type A perfectionistic women, as if there's like a right way to do things and we really get caught up in we have to choose the right thing to work on. If we choose the wrong thing it's wrong and we don't like being wrong, right?

And so it makes sense that our brains do this but truly, if you can hang on to the belief that working on one thing is working on all the other things. And that whatever you're going to learn and work through to lose weight or create money or spend less is 100% going to help you on the other things in your life you also want to uplevel.

Now, there's an analogy that someone told me a long time ago about soccer balls. And maybe I've said it on the podcast before, but worth seeing again. Imagine you're on a field and there are four soccer balls. And there's a goal on the other side, I don't know how many yards away, but you've got to kick it several times to get there.

And the rule is you only get four kicks. And so you can either kick one ball four times and get it into the goal. Or you could kick each ball once and make some progress, but not a whole lot. And that's why focusing on one thing, you get things done so much faster.

Because not only that, there's no such thing as multitasking, even though we all think we can. And there's science behind what's called task switching, where if you switch your tasks, it causes your brain to slow down significantly. I like to just tell my clients when I'm explaining this analogy, you just get stupid temporarily when you're task switching, basically.

And that's why I'm a huge fan of batching. I tend to record about three podcasts at a time. I'll plan and then record all at the same time so I'm kind of in the mode of creating episodes and recording them all at the same time. Because I'm kind of doing a similar task over and over again so there's less time being stupid and task switching.

And so it makes sense to focus on one thing versus trying to focus on lots of little things. If we stop telling ourselves that picking one thing means other things aren't getting done, because that's just a lie, you're going to feel so much more relaxed. And you'll only have to focus on one thing.

So let's summarize how to deal with feeling overwhelmed. I think the first thing is to notice that it's only because you're thinking you're feeling overwhelmed. And you're having thoughts like there's too much to do, I don't know where to start.

And the second step is to remind yourself that you only have to pick one thing. And honestly, it doesn't matter. So if you still are having trouble picking the one thing because you think there's a right thing even though I just went over there's no such thing, just flip a coin or eeny miny mo, it really doesn't matter.

And then you get to work on that one thing. And believe that working on this is going to help you work on the other things at the same time. Whatever you're learning or having to do is going to apply to those other things and will actually make those other things go faster.

And going back to the soccer ball analogy, in case you're still not on board, it's like if you kick that one ball across the finish line in the four kicks, then you know, “Oh, I need to kick this way to really make those kicks count.” Which helps you get those other balls across the field.

So I hope this was super helpful. This was helpful for me to work out in my brain for myself. And I hope this really helps you banish overwhelm and get you going. I'll talk to you guys next week.

Hey, if you enjoyed this episode and don't want to miss out on new episodes, please hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. See you next week.

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The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast with Dr. Bonnie Koo | A New Way to Plan Your Goals 2.0

73: A New Way to Plan Your Goals 2.0

Apple Podcasts Spotify Stitcher

I just got back from an incredible experience with the mastermind I'm a part of in Cabo, and I've got a couple of episodes planned in the future around my takeaways from that trip. But one thing stuck out for me in particular and it actually relates to a previous podcast episode. And while it's something I've talked about before, this message is so important.

I'm bringing you a replay of a previous episode of the podcast, all about belief plans versus your to-do list. And at the end, I'm going to go through some new ways I've been able to think about this topic after the week I just had with my mastermind.

Join me on the podcast this week to discover the power of having a belief plan. I'm sharing how I plan for my goals step by step using the self-coaching model, how my thoughts on this subject have evolved over the past few months, and how we're here to help you with this inside Money for Women Physicians.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

Where I see so many people getting caught up in the how and their to-do list when it comes to creating their results.
Why the how should never be your starting point when trying to achieve a new goal.
Where a belief plan will change everything on the journey to achieving your goals.
How my thoughts on this topic have evolved since I recorded this episode originally.
What you can do to create the kind of plan that really moves you towards your goals.

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

Learn more about Money for Women Physicians where you'll learn the tools to make practicing medicine OPTIONAL.
Follow me on Instagram
Stacey Boehman

Read the transcript Expand

Welcome to The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast, a podcast for women physicians who want to learn how to live a wealthy life. In this podcast you will learn how to make money work for you, how you can have more of it and learn the tools to empower you to live a life on purpose. Get ready to up-level and your life. I'm your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.

Welcome to Episode 73. I'm so glad you're here. And thank you so much for listening to this podcast. I was recently reading some of my podcast reviews and I came across one that I wanted to read and couldn't agree with more, the ending part. So this is from not a brain surgeon. I'm assuming this is a female physician, but hard to know.

“I've heard lots of podcasts on money. But hearing it from another woman MD matters. It makes a big difference. Frankly, it is the one thing women need to talk about more.” I couldn't agree with you, more not a brain surgeon. We need to talk about money and not have it be taboo, or weird, or impolite. Because not talking about it keeps women from making more.

And so many of you listening now are relatively new to the podcast. And so I would love it if you're listening now to make sure you subscribe so you don't miss another episode. A new episode comes every Thursday. And I would absolutely love it if you wrote a review on iTunes, which is the podcast app on Apple. Because it helps other women find this podcast and well, we need more women to create wealth.

So, speaking of creating wealth, I just got back from a week in Cabo, Mexico where I spent time with my business coach in a mastermind. And so some of you know this, but just in case you're new to me, I am in a business mastermind and we meet every quarter. But twice a year it's a bigger meeting because we also meet with another mastermind.

So I'm in the $2 million group mastermind. And then there's a 200K mastermind, both run by my business coach Stacy Boehman. And so it was three days of 200K, the live event. And then we had about one and a half days for the $2 million group.

We are a smaller group of women, I think we are at 15 now. We were previously 12, and so three more joined us, which is so exciting. And we actually tallied up the amount of money the $2 million group mastermind has created in the first half of the year. I guess until mid-August, so a little bit more. But that's just when we happened to me. And it was something like $13 million, which blows my mind.

And so I know many of you listening are mostly physicians and hearing that number might just sound super crazy. And first, I just want to say it's okay if it sounds super crazy. And I would just be curious about what comes up for you when you heard me say that number.

Did you feel like it was weird or it was bad? Or something negative about women making the kind of money? Or were you genuinely excited? There's no wrong answer. There's no right reaction. But the one that automatically popped up in your brain, that's worth examining if it's not something positive.

And so I do plan to do an episode with my biggest takeaways from Cabo. But I need a few days to kind of let it settle in and process. But, of course, it was amazing. I'm always so inspired when I spend time, masterminding with my fellow mastermind sisters and my business coach because we, including my business, we are such an example of what's possible in terms of what women can create in the world when it comes to money.

But the thing I want to do first was to actually revisit a previous episode I did. And this was actually, I think, the first episode of 2021. Episode 41, a new way to plan your goals. Because the focus of that episode really hit me when I was in Cabo.

Now this episode is about belief plans versus to do plans. So I want you to listen to this again, we're going to play it for you. And maybe it's new to you since many of you listening now are new to my podcast. But this message is so important. And then I'm going to go over some new ways I think about this from my week in Cabo. So let's do it.

So, I know a few weeks ago, I talked about how to do a year-end reflection. And so, I hope you've had a chance to not only listen to it, but also to do the work.

You know, I think it's so important to really reflect on how the year went and to celebrate all the things that you've accomplished, created, et cetera. You know, this is something that women do not do enough. And I think specifically, people like us, female physicians, we're really bad at celebrating our accomplishments.

And so this is a time of year when everyone's making new goals or talking about resolutions. And I want to talk about it in a way that maybe you haven't heard before.

Now, I love making goals. I love achieving goals, believe me. But recently, I've actually been doing something a little different. Not in place of, but in addition to.

So, instead of making my list of goals that I want to accomplish, I also create two belief goals. Belief goals are basically a to-do list for our brains. It's a to-do list for our brains to believe in something new.

Now, if you recall the self-coaching model – I'll go over it briefly right now – where our thoughts create our feelings, our feelings inspire actions, and our actions create results. So many of us think about creating goals as focusing on the R line, or result line.

We want to create the goal; we want to put that in our R line. But then, we naturally only focus on the A line, the action line. What do we need to do to get there? And this is totally normal, right? But since you're listening to this podcast, you're at least somewhat familiar – or at least I hope so by now – with thoughts and beliefs, et cetera.

And notice that the self-coaching model starts with the T line, not the R line, not the A line. Because if we don't work on our beliefs, which are just thoughts that we're repeating over and over again until we believe them, it actually doesn't matter what you actually do in the A line.

Let me repeat that. If you don't get your beliefs in order, it doesn't matter what you do in the A line. Because the A line does not actually create results or the goal. Thoughts do. And this is such an important concept because I see so many of my clients get stuck in the how of getting to the R.

When you're getting stuck on the how, meaning if you can't see the clear path to achieve something, which is basically figuring out what your actions are to get to the R, you somehow believe that it might not be possible.

In the coaching world, we call this how greed, meaning getting stuck in the how. So, an analogy I like to use to illustrate this concept is – this is for those of you who are married. But if you're not married, think about a dear friend in your life.

And could you have told me how you met this person before you actually met them? No. You can only tell me after. And so, honestly, the same goes for any goals you may have.

For example, I have a business goal to create $750,000 in gross revenue in 2021. I could easily go right to the how. And it's not that it's not useful or important. That's not what I'm saying. But what's more important is to ask myself, what do I need to believe to create this goal?

Now, of course, I have worked out the math in terms of how am I going to get to $750,000, in terms of the math. But what's more important is what do I need to believe to make that math work?

I'll tell you what thoughts won't work. Thoughts like, “I'm not really sure I can do that. I hope I can do it. Fingers crossed.” Because you have to literally become the person that does the thing you want to do, versus the opposite.

So many of us think it's the other way around, meaning you think something like, “Once I make that money,” like the $750,000 I picked, “Then I can feel confident.” But how it really works is you need to first believe that you can do it. And maybe there are thoughts like, “I've got this. It's done. Of course I did.”

And these types of beliefs make me feel confident, relaxed, and certain. These feelings, confident, relaxed, and certain, these feelings can then fuel the actions that I need to take to achieve the R line.

Even knowing the self-coaching model, it's so easy to forget that feelings come from thoughts. Feelings don't come from results. They don't come from circumstances, which may have been a result you wanted in the past.

Just like, for example, I think I thought I would feel better about money or I'd feel more secure once I became an attending. Didn't we all kind of think that? That all of our money problems would get a lot better, if not all better once we made the big bucks.

But for a lot of us, that isn't true because it's not our salary. It's not the balance in the bank account or the retirement accounts that determine how you feel. It's what you think about the balance in those accounts, et cetera.

And I don't know about you, but for me, the goalpost just keeps moving, Once I became an attending making multiple six figures, I was like, “Oh, maybe I need to get out of debt before I can feel better.” And then once I became debt-free it was like, “Well, maybe I need to reach a million dollars in my retirement account.”

And it wasn't until I learned about thought work and coaching that I realized that it doesn't matter what the result I have in my life, I create feeling secure, not the balance in the bank account.

And so, this kind of reminds of what I talked about several episodes ago called The Retirement Myth, where I talked about the concept of the arrival fallacy. So, taking that concept and melding it with the belief plan, I think, shows you why the arrival fallacy happens.

So, just in case you haven't listened to that episode or need a fresh reminder, the arrival fallacy is a concept of, “Well, the goalpost just keeps moving.” Because it doesn't matter what happens. It doesn't matter what you have.

It's ever the thing you achieve that actually creates the feeling of whatever you're searching for, happiness, contentment, peace, et cetera. That comes from within. That comes from your thinking and that is what you have control over ultimately.

All of us think that life will be better once we achieve the goals. But like I just said, we know how short-lived those nice feelings are. I remember when I got into my med school of choice, Columbia University. I remember when I meshed into dermatology. I remember getting that first attending paycheck.

And yeah, it felt good. But it didn't last very long. Because here's the truth. You're still you when you achieve those things. And I don't know about you, but I used to hate it when people would tell me, “You know, it's not about the destination. It's about the journey.”

But I've come to learn that it's really true. But what I really think it is, is that it's about how you grow and who you become in the process of achieving the goal. And so, I look at goals very differently now. I don't think of it so much as achieving the goal to be happy. I think of it as I need to create a goal that's going to allow me to grow and stretch, that's going to almost force me to do so in the process. Because otherwise I'll be the same person. And it's just so much more fun when you grow versus staying stagnant.

So, how do you actually put this belief plan thing into motion? So, if you've created some goals or things you'd like to achieve, that's awesome. And I encourage you to do so. One thing I do want to say about creating goals in a time frame is something that I take to heart.

We overestimate what we can achieve in the short-term and we grossly underestimate what we can achieve over a year, over five years, and over a lifetime. Now, that said, I just recommend not getting attached to having a goal happen by a certain timeline.

Focus on what that person, meaning that person who has achieved the goals, which is you just in the future, what does she or he believe about herself then? That's kind of what you have to do to figure out what you have to believe in order to achieve your goals.

I also want to offer to you that a lot of us think about what we can achieve based on how we did in the past. And I know that's a totally normal thing for us to do. I just want to point out that what you accomplished or didn't accomplish before today really has nothing to do with what you can achieve in the future. And I'm going to do a whole episode on this concept. But I just want to offer that to you in case you're immediately telling yourself, “Yeah, but I haven't been able to so far.”

And my question to you is, so what? What is you not having done whatever thing you want to achieve so far have any bearing on what you can do in the future?

And so, I really want you to think about that person who has achieved the goal that you want to achieve. And think about what does that person believe about themselves? Answering that question for yourself will really help you tap into the belief that you need to create and believe to achieve your goals.

I hope you loved this episode. If I had to pick like the most important episode that I have so far my on podcast, it's probably this one. And I want you to all consider that the only reason you don't have the money you want is because of what you're believing, aka your thoughts.

And this is exactly the work we do inside of Money For Women Physicians. We examine all of your current thinking, which is basically not creating the money you want. And you start learning how to think like a rich person who has a lot of money.

Now, I know it sounds so easy. It's simple, but not easy. Meaning you have to do the work, right? We don't get what we wish for. We get what we work for. And that's the work we do inside of Money For Women Physicians.
And so that's truly it, it's only your thoughts. I love you and I'll talk to you next week.

Hey, if you're ready to create wealth I want you to invite you to join my program, Money For Women Physicians. You'll join a community of like-minded women physicians who are committed to creating wealth. Just head over to wealthymommd.com/money to learn more.

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The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast with Dr. Bonnie Koo | 5 Reasons to Be Rich

72: 5 Reasons to Be Rich

Apple Podcasts Spotify Stitcher

A friend of mine recently asked me why I wanted to be rich. And this question really got me thinking. So, I came up with five reasons to be rich, and they might surprise you a little.

If you consider this question, you might be thinking you want to be rich because you want to help people, or something along those lines. And that's an amazing reason to become rich. But it's this kind of justification that actually holds so many women back from declaring that they want to build wealth. And this is a problem.

Tune in this week to discover my reasons for wanting to be rich, and why they are perfectly good reasons just on their own. I'm sharing how we have been conditioned, as women, to always come up with some noble reason why we want to make money, and why we need to start thinking differently.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

My 5 reasons to be rich.
How we have been socialized as women to need some kind of justification for wanting to be rich.
Where else, as women, this comes up in our lives besides money.
How to decide on your own reasons for wanting to be rich.
Why your reasons for wanting to be rich are 100% up to you.

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

Learn more about Money for Women Physicians where you'll learn the tools to create wealth.
Follow me on Instagram
Brooke Castillo

Read the transcript Expand

Welcome to The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast, a podcast for women physicians who want to learn how to live a wealthy life. In this podcast you will learn how to make money work for you, how you can have more of it and learn the tools to empower you to live a life on purpose. Get ready to up-level your money and your life. I'm your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.

Hey everyone, welcome to Episode 72. So today's episode was kind of inspired by a really short text conversation I was having with a friend of mine, when she asked me why I wanted to be rich. Now, I'm going to tell you what I told her, but it inspired sort of, well, this episode, and it got me thinking.

So I came up with five reasons to be rich. Notice, I didn't say five reasons why you should want to be rich. And these reasons are probably not what you think. And of course, there's a bit of a hidden agenda here or hidden lesson. And so here are the five reasons and then we're going to get going. You ready?

Number one, because you want to. Number two, because it's your birthright. Number three, to be an example, either for yourself or for the women after you. Number four it sounds fun. Number five, why not?

Now, notice, I didn't give reasons like because you want to help people, because you want to create a company that's going to make a lot of money that will in turn help people. Or give money away or change some oppressive systems in place. And you might be wondering why.

Now, those are also amazing reasons too, but the reason why I lead with these other types of reasons is because as women we are socialized to need a legit, justified, righteous reason to do anything. Have you noticed? Obviously, I'm talking about money, but this applies to anything we do as women.

If you ask a woman who doesn't want children, why she doesn't want children, she usually gives you a lot of reasons. Versus simply saying, “I do not want children.”

As an aside, I've noticed that we tend to judge women who don't have children. I mean, people will say to a woman without children, “You'll change your mind when you meet the right guy.” Or people tell me, as a mom of one, “Why aren't you having a second? When are you having a second?”

But if you asked a man the same question, why don't you have children? And if he simply replies because I don't want to, we don't usually keep questioning him and get the “real answer.”

And so when a woman says she wants to be rich, well, women don't usually say that because she's often met with side eye. And because most of us think we need a “really good reason” to want to make money.

If a woman said, “I'm in it for the money,” I'm pretty sure you're going to have a negative opinion of her or that statement. And frankly, I probably would too, because my human brain will automatically be like, “Well, that's messed up. Well, that's not a good reason.” Because these are sort of like belief systems that we've just inherited our whole lives because we live in a patriarchy.

And so I often find a lot of my clients who are either creating businesses or wanting to invest in real estate, they'll always say, “Well, it's not just about the money, it's to do this.” Which I always find strange.

Now, I'm going to go on a little tangent right now because money is what is going to give you the ability to do whatever you want to do with the money. Right? It's as if they forget that money is the actual tool or vehicle to create the change that they want.

Now, I work with women physicians and most of us are creating or actively making a difference in this world. Whether it's working as a doctor, whether it's creating their own company or creating some movement, or leading missions elsewhere, right?

But all those things require money and I don't know if it's we pretend it's not the money that helps us get there or I think we're annoyed or embarrassed that money is the actual tool that gets us there. But you have to realize that if you're someone who owns a business, including myself, and even if you have a nonprofit, they all require money to run and grow.

And we, as a society, as a culture, probably all cultures but I don't know every culture, right? But most cultures villainize the pursuit of making money. And I think it's because money is tied to issues of morality because many of us grew up being told that the pursuit of money is bad and that it changes you and it makes you greedy.

And people with a lot of money in the media are often villainized. I see so many people villainizing really rich people. Why is it bad to be rich? Now, when you really take the time to sort of pick this topic apart, it doesn't make sense. At least it doesn't make sense to me.

I heard one of my coach mentors, Brooke Castillo says that it's not being in it for the money that seems to be the problem, it's only if that's the only reason why you're doing it. And the thing is, even that isn't “bad” right? It's just that, at least for me, money in itself, like if that was the only reason I wanted to be rich, I don't know, that's just not a good enough reason to me. Not good enough for like other people, but for myself. It's not compelling, like okay, I have a lot of money. And great, I have a lot of money. Now what?

And it's not to say that I want, or anyone should want, a lot of money just to spend it or do things. But if that is the sole reason, there are very few people where, at least, I think that's probably not the sole reason, because it's simply just not compelling enough. And what I've learned is that we, as humans, we are most, I'm not even sure if happy is the word, but we feel most alive when we are growing and giving.

And so the pursuit of money just for money doesn't quite hit those things. I do think that if you want to make a lot of money, if you want to be rich, it requires a lot of personal growth. But I also know that we get so much joy and pleasure by giving, by making a contribution. And I don't even mean just like giving money, but making a contribution, making a difference in the world.

And so what is my lesson here? My lesson here is that don't conflate wanting to be rich as a bad pursuit. And don't think you have to justify why you want to be rich.

Now, coming back to the original question, when my friend asked why I wanted to be rich, this is what I texted back. I said, “I want to see if I can do it. It sounds fun and why not?”

At this time, I see money as kind of a game, but a game with myself to see what I'm capable of. Because like I said, I've learned that there's a lot of personal growth that has to happen in order to create a lot of money. I guess you could say that I'm in it for the growth, but really does it matter?

At the end of the day, you and I get to decide why. And we get to decide if we like our reasons. Of course, I have lots of other reasons too. Oh, I just caught myself notice how I said “of course” because I'm trying to justify to you why I want to be rich.

But I don't feel the need for you to approve of my reasons. And I just find that often we lead with these reasons that we think will be more socially acceptable as reasons we should give publicly. And what it really comes down to is this, is being unapologetically you.

That is truly what I want for all of you. And to me this means being you, even if it means letting people down. Being you, not having to give people a reason to like you, envy you, or whatever. It's like being you, and I'm not saying not caring what other people think, but it's being you and love being you even when people don't like you.

Not everyone's going to like you. And that's fine. We don't need everyone to like us. We just need our loved ones, our friends, whoever to like us.

So I'm going to leave you with a few questions. Do you want to be rich? If you do, why? And when I ask why just notice what your brain offers. Notice if it's trying to come up with legitimate reasons to be rich, whatever that means anyway.

But I want you to list all the reasons. And notice how you feel or what you're thinking when you're thinking about reasons that seem “selfish.” And feel free to borrow any of the ones I just gave you.

So just to recap, the reasons I gave were because you want to, because it's your birthright, to be an example, it sounds fun. And why not? Now I'm going to add another one because I think the answer I gave to my friend was actually not in those five. And it was to see if I can do it, which basically means to see what I'm capable of. That, to me, just feels so compelling. I just want to see what I'm capable of doing.

And even if I don't get the goal, at least I know that I tried. And I know that so many of you are afraid of trying and failing, so you don't even try. But I think what's worse is regret. Is to have the regret that, “Oh, I should have tried. I wish I tried.” So ladies, go get that money. Don't feel like you have to give anyone an amazing reason for wanting it. And I'll talk to you guys next week.

Hey, if you enjoyed this episode and don't want to miss out on new episodes, please hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. See you next week.

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The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast with Dr. Bonnie Koo | Mom Guilt

71: Mom Guilt

Apple Podcasts Spotify Stitcher

As women, we're socialized throughout our lives to take care of everyone else, and then, if there's anything left over, maybe we can take care of ourselves too. We're conditioned to listen to the opinions of others and disregard our opinions about ourselves.

This needs to change because these beliefs we have as women are only magnified when we become mothers. This is especially true for breadwinning moms where this shows up as serious mom guilt. And it's not only impacting how you show up as a parent, but also your bank balance.

Tune in this week to put your mom guilt into perspective and see how you can pursue your goals, earn more, and invest how you want to without it affecting how you show up as a parent. Prioritizing yourself will look different for everyone, but by the end of this episode, you'll see exactly how you can do this work in your life.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

How we've been socialized to think we are selfish if we're not the perfect mother, whatever that means.
Why indulging in mom guilt will limit your ability to create wealth.
The thoughts that you may never have questioned that contribute to mom guilt.
Why you actually owe it to your kids, especially if you have daughters, to prioritize yourself more.
How to put your mom guilt into perspective and stop it from limiting your earning potential.

Listen to the Full Episode:

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Learn more about Money for Women Physicians where you'll learn the tools to create wealth.
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Suze Orman

Read the transcript Expand

Welcome to The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast, a podcast for women physicians who want to learn how to live a wealthy life. In this podcast you will learn how to make money work for you, how you can have more of it and learn the tools to empower you to live a life on purpose. Get ready to up-level your money and your life. I'm your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.

Welcome to episode 71. So in this episode I'm mainly talking about moms. But even if you're not a mom I still want you to listen because you are not immune to these thought errors.

So first I want to say that as women we are socialized to basically take care of everyone else. And then if there's anything left over maybe we'll take care of ourselves too. We are socialized to care deeply about other people's opinions and not care, or even have an opinion about ourselves. And well, we need to change that.

And these types of deep-seated beliefs we have as women are only magnified if you're also a mom. And that's why there's even a phrase mom guilt. This is why many moms stop dreaming. Because we often think that if we do dream and go for it that it will be at the expense of our families.

Not only that, other people believe this about us. Other women too. It's just like in the air. And we are socialized to believe that we are selfish if we are not amazing mothers, whatever that means. But basically society thinks it means we should be not working and have a full-time job, we should just be home with our kids and not do anything else.

So, in case you're wondering, how does this tie in with money? Keep listening. So first, there are two quotes that kind of struck me and were sort of the inspiration for this episode. And so the first quote is a composite quote from speaking with so many moms, mostly single moms or breadwinning moms.

It goes something like this, “I'd love to do something like start a business or do something else. But I don't have the energy because of the kids and I'm the main source of income. I just need a job where I can go in, work hard, and earn a good living.”

And whenever I hear some version of this, first I just want to say it just breaks my heart. Because it comes down to what I think are to belief errors, that we can't make more money without sacrificing something. Whether it's time, or time with our families, or our families, or being a mom. And that it's going to take a lot of work. Which related to what I just said before is going to be part of the sacrifice.

Now, here's this other quote and this is from Suze Orman or is it Suzy Orman? I always forget. But I'm sure you guys all know who she is. She's a sort of well-known financial expert that's on TV and has written lots of books. And so this is a quote I read by her that really struck me. And this is in regards to what she sees as the biggest difference between men and women with regard to money.

She says, “Women will always think, especially if they have children, that their money is for their parents, their spouses, their brothers, their sisters, their pets, and everybody but them. Because a woman's nature is to nurture. Men, on the other hand, know absolutely that the money they make is for them. They don't have trouble saying no, they have no problem keeping it for themselves, investing it for themselves, and not sharing it with their spouses.”

I'm actually going to read that quote again so that it sinks in. Okay, here we go, “Women will always think, especially if they have children, that their money is for their parents, their spouses, their brothers, their sisters, their pets, and everybody but them. Because a woman's nature is to nurture. Men, on the other hand, know absolutely that the money they make is for them. They don't have trouble saying no, they have no problem keeping it for themselves, investing it for themselves, and not sharing it with their spouses.”

I don't know about that last part about not sharing with their spouses, but the rest of the quote I do agree with. And so we are more likely to think that the money that we create isn't for our enjoyment, but it's for everyone else's enjoyment, or that we need to make sure we take care of everyone else.

But we all know that the real truth is that we can't take care of others well if we don't take care of ourselves. If we don't put ourselves number one. Yes, even you as a mom. Now, I just want to say that prioritizing yourself will look different for everyone.

For me, it looks like this, I personally need lots of time alone. I need time away from my family, I take trips without them. This year alone I think I've taken three. Now most of these are for business, like my business masterminds and retreats that I attend. But I always schedule extra time for just me at these things. In a few weeks after this podcast comes out, I'll be going to Cabo, Mexico to meet with my business mastermind and I'm going to be gone for seven nights by myself.

Once a week, my mom who lives nearby, takes my son Jack for the evening. This is me and Matt each other's alone time and then time for ourselves to work on our relationship. And I can't tell you how amazing it is to wake up and have that morning time to ourselves. I have so many clients and friends who have not even had an evening away from their families, let alone a solo trip, or even a solo trip with their partner. And so if this is you start small.

Now, I can already feel some of you feeling uncomfortable about prioritizing yourself. And so I want to just tell you that this is normal. We women, especially moms, we're not used to doing this. Like we're literally socialized not to. Meaning that we literally think that taking time for ourselves, putting ourselves number one is being selfish, it's bad, and we shouldn't do that. And we should be prioritizing our families.

And here's what I want to tell you, this might sound harsh, but hear me out. What kind of example are you showing your kids if you don't prioritize yourself? Especially if you have daughters. Because then we just keep the cycle of women not prioritizing ourselves, right? And we need to break the cycle, the socialization.

What if we get to show our daughters that it's okay to prioritize ourselves. It's okay to take care of ourselves. And this goes for whether you have daughters or not. I don't have daughters; I only have sons. And the example I'm showing him is that it's okay for a woman to put herself first, to take care of herself first and that it's normal.

Not that it's even okay, that it's normal. Because if we do this for ourselves and we have children, they grow up thinking this is normal. And I can't think of a more beautiful example to show our children this about taking care of ourselves.

And so going back to that composite quote that came from single moms and breadwinning moms about not being able to make more money without sacrificing their families or time with their families. A lot of women think, a lot of moms think that if they have a dream of creating lots of money, lots of wealth that it's going to come at the expense of their families. So I just want us to question that. Is that even true?

And if you remember my last episode, are you willing to be wrong about this? Maybe we're wrong about having to sacrifice because what I do know is that if you don't do something different, nothing is going to change.

Meaning what if just maintaining the status quo of just working, about putting your head to the ground, picking up more shifts, what if that is actually sacrificing instead of doing something new? Doing something different that over time can actually create so much more time for yourself and for your families.

And so, how can you carve out some more time for yourself? How can you take care of yourself? What would that look like? Would it be texting your friend to go out for dinner? Would it be organizing a group brunch with your local girlfriends? Would it be scheduling a weekend trip with your friends? Would it look like planning a weekend getaway with your spouse? It's going to look different for all of us. Okay, everyone, I will talk to you next week.

Hey, if you're ready to create wealth I want to invite you to join my program Money For Women Physicians. You'll join a community of like-minded women physicians who are committed to creating wealth. Just head over to wealthymommd.com/money to learn more.

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The Wealthy Mom MD Pocast with Dr. Bonnie Koo | Wealth at Any Net Worth

70: Wealth at Any Net Worth

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Today's podcast was inspired by the Health at Every Size movement. This is an approach to health that encompasses more than just looking at the scale to determine how healthy you are, using self-love and acceptance instead of fat-shaming to promote healthier habits. We know that shame doesn't lead to better health, and this goes for how we think about wealth as well.

Is there a specific net worth that defines wealth? And does not having that net worth mean you're not wealthy? Truthfully, net worth is just one data point. So today, I'm sharing my thoughts on what it means to be wealthy, and why I believe we can experience wealth at any net worth.

Tune in this week to discover why your net worth is just one aspect of your level of wealth. So many of you think your student loan or consumer debt means you can't be considered wealthy, but I'm showing you today how it's possible to be wealthy, regardless of your net worth.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

Why using one data point to decide what wealth means is so problematic.
What I've decided wealth means for me, and how to decide what it means for you.
How to do the work to start feeling wealthy at your current net worth, no matter what that number is.

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

Learn more about Money for Women Physicians where you'll learn the tools to create wealth.
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Health at Every Size

Read the transcript Expand

Welcome to The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast, a podcast for women physicians who want to learn how to live a wealthy life. In this podcast you will learn how to make money work for you, how you can have more of it and learn the tools to empower you to live a life on purpose. Get ready to up-level your money and your life. I'm your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.

Welcome to episode number 70.

So, today's podcast was inspired by the Health At Every Size movement. Now, you might not be familiar or ever heard of this so let me give you a little bit of background on it. So first of all I just want to say I am not an expert at this movement but I learned about it in my advanced certification for feminist coaching with Cara Loewentheil.

And so my understanding of this movement, the acronym is HAES, which stands for Health At Every Size. Basically my understanding is that it is an approach to health that encompasses more than just looking at the scale to determine your health. Because if you think about sort of general beliefs that we have as a society is that fat people are unhealthy and thin means you're healthy.

But hopefully you know that that's not entirely true, meaning you can be thin and very unhealthy. And so basically, it's looking beyond just the number on the scale to determine your health. And it's a movement that uses self-love and self-acceptance instead of fat shaming to promote healthier habits and change.

The last episode I briefly talked about how shaming and judging others and ourselves is not a useful way to create positive behavior changes. It doesn't work. And so I still have an episode planned on money shaming so look out for that in the future. But remember, shaming someone, whether it's someone else or yourself, is not an effective way to change behavior.

Okay, so why am I bringing up this Health At Every Size movement? Well, the more I thought about it, it got me thinking, how are we defining wealth like health? Meaning, is it a specific net worth? Does reaching that net worth mean you're wealthy? Does not having that net worth mean you're not wealthy?

And I actually got really excited when I started thinking about this because using weight as the only or main marker of health is so problematic because it just gives you one data point. And your numbers, like your net worth et cetera, also data points. It's just one way to measure wealth.

So I think first we probably need to define what wealth means. And for many of us it comes down to math or money. I also want us to be on the same page that wealth is not a destination, just like health isn't. Meaning that just like health, wealth is a way of being. It's a way of living and experiencing life.

Like if you're exercising and lifting weights to lose weight, to become healthier, it's not like once you reach that certain weight you can stop doing that and remain healthy or keep that six pack or whatever it is. And so I feel the same way about wealth. Money is only one aspect of it. Your net worth is only one aspect of your wealth.

Your net worth or the presence of debt or any other marker that you may have been measuring your money by in itself does not determine if you're wealthy or not.

Now, I'm focusing mostly on net worth but I know so many of you are using the presence of debt, particularly student loan debt or consumer debt, as a way of feeling bad about yourself in regards to money. Meaning that many of you have conflated having that type of debt with being bad with money.

Now, don't get me wrong, markers are useful but if you're solely using them to determine whether you're wealthy or using your weight to determine whether you're healthy or not it's just such a very limited way of looking at the big picture. And it also kind of relegates us to data points. And I don't know about you, but life is just so much more rich and complex than that, than just your net worth.

So, hopefully by now you're familiar with how I like to define wealth. How I define wealth is not just having tons of money, which is super fun obviously and I love having money and making it and spending it. But it's also having purpose, meaning being fulfilled as a human being and having peace of mind. Which is why I chose it for the subtitle of my upcoming book, Defining Wealth For Women: Peace, Purpose, and Plenty of Cash.

It's about having emotional wealth and material wealth. It's about being present to life, taking it in, enjoying having the human experience. And money is really just one aspect.

And ultimately, money is a tool to help me have these experiences. Now, I love me some money, I love spending it, I love having it. But money in itself is not the same thing as wealth. You got me?

All right, back to that phrase, health at every size. And so the term I came up with is wealth at every net worth. And so my challenge to you is how can you feel wealthy now at your current net worth? Because this is sort of the fallacy that all of us have, once we get there, whether it's the destination of wealth, or a certain net worth, or a certain weight. Or maybe when you meet the guy, get married, have the kids, that when you get there that you will be happy, content, feel secure.

Now, the ironic thing is that it actually is the opposite, meaning that you need to actually feel that way now. Because when you get there, that destination, that change of circumstance in itself is not going to magically make you feel better. Because thoughts create feelings, not circumstance like your net worth.

How many of us thought that we would feel so much better about money once we became attendings because we knew we were going to triple or even 5X our income? And how many of you are still worrying about money and having thoughts like, “I don't have enough right now”?

And so I want to remind you, when you were a medical student and not making any money you had enough. When you were a resident making between 30 and $50,000 a year you had enough. We need to get present to that now, not later.

And in case you're wondering, “How does she know that I had enough as a medical student or a resident?” Because you went through it and were okay. Meaning you had enough to eat, you probably had clothes. You were probably warm. You probably had a place to live. That what it means to have enough, to be able to take care of your needs.

Notice that these new circumstances of having money as a resident or if you're an attending did not magically make you feel better or magically secure about money. Because circumstances do not magically change your feelings or your internal world. It's what you think.

And so this internal work to align your thoughts and feelings no matter the circumstances, this is the work we do inside of Money For Women Physicians to get your inner emotional world to match now, not later. Why are you waiting to feel better later when you can have access to that now?

And so some questions I want to leave you with regarding this concept of wealth at every net worth is, how can you start feeling sufficient right now? When I mean sufficient it's to believe in your bones that you have enough right now.

Because so many of us have error, “I don't have enough. It's not enough or it could be more.” These are all similar ways of thinking that thought, “It's not enough, it could be better.”

How can you truly feel that you have enough right now? Remind yourself, do you have a home? Are you warm? Do you have enough to eat? The thing is I know that you have all those things and way more than that. And yet we're telling ourselves we don't have enough. We're telling yourselves it should be different.

But if we keep doing that then we don't get to be present to what we actually have now, to be grateful for what we have now. To be happy, to enjoy the experiences and what we have right now. And it's so easy to do that because it's the way our human brains work, we get used to everything we have.

And so maybe initially you were ecstatic by becoming an attending and maybe you upgraded the way you live and bought new cars or whatever, or took some nicer vacations and then you got used to it and forgot. And it's okay, we all do that.

But how can you remind yourself that you have enough? That you have actually more than enough. That you are sufficient, and that you can access this feeling of sufficiency no matter how much money you have in the bank, no matter how much debt you have or don't have.

Remind yourself so that when you do create more money, as your net worth increases you can get present to that too and celebrate it and feel amazing about it. But you have to feel amazing about it right now. I hope you found this concept super useful and I will talk to you guys next week.

Hey, if you enjoyed this episode and don't want to miss out on new episodes, please hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. See you next week.

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The Wealthy Mom MD Pocast with Dr. Bonnie Koo | Are You Really Behind?

69: Are You Really Behind?

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So many of my clients talk about being behind. It's actually one of the most common limiting beliefs that people come to me with. And if you've ever had this thought, it's important that we start the work of unpacking it because no matter where you are right now, it's not true.

There are a few reasons why so many people start thinking this way when they see the progress or money their peers are making. But I'm breaking it down for you in this episode and exploring this belief because that is the only way this unhelpful thought pattern will ever disappear.

If you're stuck in the belief that you're somehow behind where you should be in your progress, I want you to listen in closely this week. I'm unpacking what we mean when we tell ourselves we're behind, how to reframe this idea of where we should be, and how to see that behind is just a thought that isn't serving us.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

Why we tend to have this thought that we're behind.
How to question yourself and reframe the belief that you are behind, no matter who you're comparing yourself to.
The impact that believing you are behind actually has on your progress.
How to stop if you find yourself comparing and despairing.

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

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Read the transcript Expand

Welcome to The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast, a podcast for women physicians who want to learn how to live a wealthy life. In this podcast you will learn how to make money work for you, how you can have more of it and learn the tools to empower you to live a life on purpose. Get ready to up-level your money and your life. I'm your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.

Hey everyone, welcome to Episode 69.

So today I'm going to talk about something that you definitely need to listen to. Of course, obviously, if you're listening right now you are listening, but you know what I mean. So many of my clients talk about being behind. That's probably one of the most common limiting beliefs that my clients have, is that they are behind.

Now this is in the context of money. And so I've been thinking about this. And thinking about, number one, why are they thinking this? I mean, it's kind of obvious, right? But two, how can I break this thought error down in a way where after I break it down for a client, you, it'll disappear? And so I think I've got it and I'm super excited to share it with you.

And so another version of saying “I'm behind” is “it's too late.” And there are a sort of few facets or angles to this belief, in my opinion. First, what does being behind even mean? How are you defining it? I really want you to answer this question for yourself. Because last time I checked, there wasn't a universal official manual that says, “By this age you should be here.”

So I think it's really important for us to define what does being behind mean? And also where should you be? So if you are behind, where should you be instead? And I think a lot of us haven't even thought about that latter question. Like where should I be if where I am now is behind?

Now, obviously, I can't read your mind but I'm guessing that most of us are thinking we should be where most of our other colleagues or friends seem to be at. Now, you can't see me but I put quotes around “seem to be at” because really, you have no idea where they actually are at unless you actually know the balances of all their accounts and what they do with their money.

So then how are you actually even deciding these things? Because when we look at other people, maybe our colleagues or friends or neighbors we're mainly looking at how they are spending their money publicly. Like what kind of car do they drive? What kind of house do they have? Maybe what schools do their kids go to? What kind of clothes are they wearing? What kind of bags do they have? What kind of vacations are they taking?

But you have to understand that these are what I call displays of external wealth. And all that means is that they are spending money on things you can see. But all of us conflate external displays of wealth, external displays of spending with their actual wealth. And I just want to remind you, they are not the same thing.

Another way that we tell ourselves that we are behind is by something called compare and despair. Now, I didn't create this term, I'm sure you've heard this before. But all of us do this. All of us compare ourselves to other people and then feel bad about ourselves, hence the word despair.

So first, I just want to say we all do this. It's human nature. Our status in the world is seemingly important to our brains. It goes back to the caveman days, right? Our status, being part of the tribe, being accepted, it seems really important to our survival. And so how many of us have gone down the compare and despair rabbit hole? You can't see me, but I'm raising my hand too.

So I'm going to give you some of my top tips to stop this compare and despair cycle. Number one, limit social media. This means not Facebooking, not Instagramming when you're bored. Now I'm not necessarily saying stop looking at social media. But you don't need to look at it all the time, or when you're bored.

Number two, when you notice that you're comparing and despairing I want you to take a deep breath and pause. And remind yourself that nothing has gone wrong. It's just your silly brain thinking that this is a big deal. You're not behind.

Number three, I just want to remind you someone else is comparing and despairing themselves about you. Take that in for a second.

Now, here is the problem with comparing and despairing, besides the fact that it feels horrible and we just feel terrible about ourselves. It's that when you're spending time in this, this means you're not focusing on growing yourself and spending time on you.

What I'm trying to say is that it's just not a great use of your brain thinking time. In fact, I would say it's completely useless. Meaning feeling terrible about yourself, beating yourself up, it never produces anything useful. But we all do this.

In fact, I have another episode planned where I'm going to talk about shame. And there's been a lot of judgment and shaming during the pandemic. And I actually witnessed a fight, a verbal altercation where I live. I live in a large, I guess, multifamily luxury building. And I watched this verbal altercation.

I'm not going to tell you the specifics, but basically the person who was upset just started yelling at the other person. And then there were some not so great words exchanged. And what struck me as I saw this altercation was that we somehow think that doing that, treating someone that way is going to result in the behavior that we want to see.

Now, I'm talking about this in the context of someone saying words to someone else. But this applies to how you talk to yourself as well. Because when you're comparing and despairing, you're basically not being nice to yourself. And for some reason we think somehow this is going to be useful.

Now, when I say useful, I mean going to result in some kind of net positive result, behavior, I don't know. But using that example of that altercation I witnessed, and I'm sure when someone has said not so nice words to you, it doesn't work. It doesn't work.

And so comparing and despairing doesn't work. That's my point. I know, it took me a long time to get there, but that's my point. Comparing and despairing does not do anything useful for you. Because really, the only thing or person you should be comparing yourself to is you.

Are you growing? Are you expanding? Everyone's on their own journey. I would say it's really only useful to compare if it's going to inspire you. And if you find that you don't do that automatically, and I don't think any of us do, but you can learn to start doing that for yourself. And this is where limiting social media is going to be really important for you, and spend more time focusing on your own growth.

Okay, now I want to talk about another aspect of the “I'm behind, it's too late” that I think will be really useful for you. So, when I thought about this limiting belief, the whole I'm behind or it's too late, it's only true if catching up will be hard or take a long time. And I think it's really the long time part that we focus on when it comes to it's behind or it's too late. Kind of meaning like it's too late to do anything about it. It's too late to catch up.

And as I thought about this more, I realized that I think this belief error comes from another belief error that's so common, and that it takes time, a long time and effort to make money. It makes sense, meaning that if you believe that it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort, and that it's hard to make money, then you will continue to believe that you are behind. And perhaps even believe it's too late and that it's hopeless, so why bother?

And so what I'm seeing is that if someone has been doing what they think they should have been doing, like putting away a certain percentage of their income for retirement like everyone else for years or so, then they tend to think this. Meaning I'm behind, it's too late. Which would make sense if you believe that it takes a long time and effort to make money or to invest.

But what if you're wrong about it taking a long time to create wealth? By the way, that is one of my favorite questions to ask myself when I want to disrupt a limiting belief. The question being, what if I'm wrong about this? Am I willing to be wrong about this?

And that could apply to even that thought error, “I'm behind.” What if I'm wrong about being behind? What if I'm wrong about thinking it's too late? Am I willing to be wrong about this?

But back to the original question, what if you're wrong about it taking a lot of time to create wealth? Are you willing to be wrong about that? Because what I'm seeing is that most of us have accepted that life and money go like some version of this, we go to school, we study hard, we get a job, and then we get paid an annual salary that's more or less fixed, and maybe we get raises.

So of course, you think it's too late, of course, you think you're behind. Because when you think that your salary is more or less fixed and you can't increase it, and you think that the only way to take care of your money, take care of yourself is to have put a certain percentage of money away for years and you haven't, then yeah, I would believe I'm behind, too.

So my question to you is, are you willing to think something different? Are you willing to be different? Are you willing to be uncomfortable? To try and fail, and fail? I'm painting such a rosy picture here, right? But that's what's required if you want to disrupt the status quo and do something different to create more money than you ever thought was possible.

What if you're wrong about it taking a long time to create wealth? I want to encourage you to dream big. What if it's not too late? What if you're not behind? What if you're just getting started? What do you want to create? How much money do you want to create?

I want you to answer these questions without thinking about how you're going to do it. Because that's what's going to stop you from dreaming big. Because your brain is going to think, “Well, I don't know how I would do that. So I don't think it's possible.”

What do you want to create? Just start with that question. Start with all the questions I've been asking in this podcast so far, actually. But I really want you to think about that. How much money do you want to create?

Alright, I'll talk to you guys next week.

Hey, if you enjoyed this episode and don't want to miss out on new episodes, please hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. See you next week.

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The Wealthy Mom MD Pocast with Dr. Bonnie Koo | The Truth About Motivation

68: The Truth About Motivation

Apple Podcasts Spotify Stitcher

When it comes to recurring tasks, it's so common that we struggle for the motivation to carry them out. Sound familiar? Of course it does. We've all been there. And on today's show, I'm sharing what might be a surprising take on the whole motivation conversation.

I've talked about motivation on the podcast before, but I'm taking the discussion a little further on today's episode and framing motivation in a different way entirely. I had a client ask inside my program Money for Women Physicians about how she could cultivate more motivation. And what I told her will definitely surprise you, and hopefully, inspire you.

Join me on the podcast this week for a new perspective on motivation. I'm sharing what we choose to make a lack of motivation mean, why it's ultimately not a problem if you don't feel motivated, and how you can show up even when the idea doesn't exactly light you up.

What You'll Learn from this Episode:

How our brains make not feeling motivated a big deal.
Why motivation might not be as important as you currently believe.
What happens in our brain when we decide to show up even when we feel resistance.
How to choose to show up, even when you don't feel motivated.

Listen to the Full Episode:

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44: What Nobody Tells You About Motivation
Jody Moore

Read the transcript Expand

Welcome to The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast, a podcast for women physicians who want to learn how to live a wealthy life. In this podcast you will learn how to make money work for you, how you can have more of it and learn the tools to empower you to live a life on purpose. Get ready to up-level and your life. I'm your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.

Welcome to episode 68.

So, I think it was the last episode that I talked a bit about a process goal versus a destination or a milestone goal. Now today I want to talk about motivation. Now, I already talked a bit about motivation before, I think it was episode 44. And we'll put that in the show notes so you can reference it if it's been a while or you haven't listened to that one yet. And now I want to sort of continue that conversation.

So recently on a group coaching call inside my program Money For Women Physicians, we do these weekly live coaching calls. They are by the way for lifetime access. And this topic came up actually with one of the members who was asking me to coach her on how to feel motivated.

Now, I don't remember the specifics but she had this recurring task she has to do and she basically told me that whenever it's time to do it in her schedule she doesn't want to do it. Does this sound familiar? Of course, we've all been there. Myself included.

And so what I told her may surprise you. This is what I told her, I said, “Okay, I'm happy to coach you on this and help you create some new thoughts.” Which she had done some of that already on her own. And I said, “There's actually another option that many people don't consider.” And so I asked her, before I even said about this other option I asked her, “Why do you think you need to feel motivated to do that task?”

And so I'm asking you this question for whatever that thing is that you've got to do but you don't want to. Like maybe it's clean up your office, for me it's clearing out my closet.

Now, on that episode on motivation, episode 44, I talked about focusing on the end result of the task versus the actual task. Now I'm here to tell you that that's not even necessary.

Let's go back to that client who wanted to feel motivated. So when I asked her that question, “Why do you need to feel motivated?” She paused for a few seconds and said, “Hmm, I never thought about that actually.”

And so that's when I presented the second option, that being motivated isn't actually required. What if it's not required to feel motivated? And what if we just expected to not feel motivated when that time comes? Because she told me, every week she puts it on the calendar and then when that time comes, I think she's got a timer, she's like, “Ugh, I don't want to do this.”

I think what happens is that there's something we have all the best intentions to do and then when it comes time to do it, we don't feel motivated. Our brains say, “I don't want to.” And then we think it's a big problem because we aren't feeling motivated.

But if you just expect that this will happen, that you're not going to feel motivated, well then you won't be surprised by the lack of motivation. Because really, so what if you don't feel like it? Feeling like it isn't required.

All right, sure, it's nice to have for sure. But it's not required. Because listen, if you're always expecting to feel motivated to get shit done, you're going to be waiting a long time.

Now, this doesn't mean that you don't coach yourself and spend time creating some motivating thoughts because our thoughts create our feelings. Motivated is a feeling. I just find that so many people don't consider that this other option is available where feeling motivated is not required.

Now, the episode, I think it was the last one where I talked about my goal of losing 10 pounds and instead, I decided to make it a process goal of developing the habit of working three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

And I'll tell you, pretty much every time it's time to work out, actually, every time so far, guess what? My brain says, “Don't want to work out.” And it immediately finds all sorts of other things that we can do instead. Like all of a sudden let's check email, there might be some important task to do.

But every time I do it anyway, despite my brain's objections. Despite never really wanting to work out, something happens. And this is important, I create more self-trust. I start to learn how to trust myself to do the things I say I'm going to do.

And each time as I develop this habit, this habit of doing things because I said I was going to do it even when I don't feel like it. The mental friction decreases.

Now, to this day, it's only been a few weeks, my brain hasn't said, “Yay, let's lift weights!” But the I don't want to voice gets a little quieter each time and I have so much less drama. I expect my brain to offer resistance whenever it's time to work out.

Like this morning, today is Monday and my brain, as usual, said, “Let's not work out.” In fact today my brain was pretty successful in distracting me for about 30 minutes. But I got on the bike and worked out anyway.

And so as you develop this habit, as you learn to trust that you'll do what you say you're going to do, you waste so much less time too. A lot of my clients, I coach on money not on time, get a lot of questions on time management. Time does not need to be managed, but your mind does.

I find that most of us waste a lot of time because we don't want to do things. And then we spend a lot of time arguing with ourselves or doing something else instead. But if we just did the thing that we want to do, even when we don't want to, you're going to find so much more time in your day to relax or to do nothing.

So here's my suggestion, the next time there's something you want to do, but then when the moment comes you don't want to do it. Remember, motivation is optional. It truly is.

Now, on a related note, I find that a lot of my clients think that at some point certain thoughts should just stop happening. Meaning your brain should just stop offering certain thoughts. And they're surprised when I tell them that's not the goal.

Again, it would be nice if that happened, just like it would be nice if we could feel motivated whenever we want to. I mean you can, remember it's just thought work. But sometimes it's just easier to just not deal with the thought work and just do it anyway.

And here's the thing with thoughts, negative thoughts, unuseful thought, they don't just stop happening in your brain. The difference between someone who “manages” their mind is that they understand that their brain is always going to offer unuseful thoughts like, “I don't want to do this. This isn't a good idea.” Especially when you're trying something new, especially when you're an entrepreneur.

The difference is, the person who has learned to manage their mind understands that those thoughts aren't a problem, that it's okay that they're there. So it's kind of similar to what I'm saying about motivation. It's great if you're feeling motivated, but it's also fine if you're not.

We always have the option to believe or not believe our thoughts. And when it comes to feeling motivated, I mean, the thought that you would need is basically I want to do that, or I want this. Or some version of that. And so when your brain offers up, “We don't want to do that” it's fine. You don't have to listen to your brain. You don't have to believe what your brain says. You really don't.

And so here's some of the things that I like to tell my brain when it's offering up thoughts like, “We don't want to do this. Let's do something else. Let's watch Netflix.”

Actually, I pretty much watch Amazon Prime. I'm currently watching the show Billions. If you haven't watched it, it's so good.

My two favorite things to say is, “Thanks for sharing, brain. We're going to do it anyway. That my second favorite thing I think I heard this from Jody Moore actually, it's “Settle down brain.” So whatever works for you. I think it's good to pick a little comeback to your brain when it starts having a tantrum basically because it doesn't want to do something new, like workout.

So I hope this was useful. I hope this helps you do the thing that you've been avoiding. And I'll talk to you guys next week.

Hey, if you enjoyed this episode and don't want to miss out on new episodes, please hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. See you next week.

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