Lori Youngdahl Steady and Strong

It’s not what you look at it’s what you SEE.
Perception is your reality.

What do you “see” 👀every day?
Your brain is making calibrations on what it will have you do and how you will react and what you will believe and feel … based on what you “feed” it.

Our cute little 🧠 brains love to go to work finding evidence for questions and puzzles we present to it. It looks for confirmation of things we tell it.

I’ve always enjoyed quotes and back in the day even bought a 4 inch thick book of quotes (pre internet … yes I’m that old )
I was so fascinated by how other people saw the world. I’d read the quotes and go “ omg that describes my LIFE”!
So I started putting little sayings and quotes all over my house (wayyyyy before that was a cool thing on Etsy ).
What I didn’t realize until recently was those words … were feeding and keeping open my belief in what’s possible in my life.
So why does this matter?
What we “feed” our mind matters.
If we want to remind our brain of good things - we have to do so on a regular basis (like daily).
For over 17 years I’ve had the “what I hope for my kids” mantra on my fridge. Anyone who was grabbing leftovers or the bottle of ketchup saw it. Me. Their dad. The kids themselves.
Now that I’m empty nesting - I look at that and can say it was a good guiding principle. My kids are out of the nest … why do I still have it there? Because I still want it and still want to focus my mind on ways to bring that into my life.

Getting clear on what you DO want eliminates the noise and drama of what you don’t want in life.

Write down what you want to create in your life.
Post it where you can see it several times a day.
Don’t make a big deal of it.
Just look at it.
Notice what happens.

Let’s talk about the “s**t storms” 💩🚽that show up.
We do our best to practice remaining calm. Seeing the positive side. Seeing the possibility. To not react.
But when the s**t storm shows up we ask ourselves “are you F ing kidding me?????!”
Reality check in:
The s**t storm isn’t what has you upset.
It’s what you think about it, the story and context you created about it.
That’s just your brain. Trying to protect you.
You still have a choice in how you interpret the s**t storm.
Sometimes I say - hmm maybe not a s**t storm after all… I was a bit reactive (button was pushed).
And sometimes I say : “yep. Definite s**t storm. I don’t want to feel any other way about this bc it just sucks and I just can’t spin this as positive because that would be super lying”.

Let’s just be real and truthful about what we are willing to tolerate (but don’t like ).
One of my fave little exercises is to ask myself:
Will this matter tomorrow ?
Will it matter next week ?
Will it matter next month?
Will it matter 5 years from now ?
When I’m 99 ( I fully intend to live this long ) will this matter ?
Does this influence where I’m planning to go in my life?
Perspective can be such a calming influence.
It is a skill set worth developing to be able to step back and look at the “problem” and honestly answer these questions.

What is something that you do to help yourself gain a healthier perspective ?

Are you failing ahead of time?
Since we've been talking about "mistakes" this week, it's worth talking about FAILING AHEAD OF TIME.
This often happens to people who have made mistakes in the past who are judging and shaming themselves for the mistakes.
Here are some common things I've heard from clients:
- I'm terrible at picking "healthy" people to date
-My resentment (of other person) ruined everything.
-I knew there was a problem, I should have gotten out (of the relationship) sooner

When this is going on, you don't trust yourself.
You make decisions from a place of fear instead of from a place where you trust yourself to make good decisions for yourself.

Stop it.
You can handle making mistakes.
You can handle (and process) the negative emotions from making a mistake.
You can make mistakes and still be worthy, successful, loving, a good mate, kind, trustworthy, peaceful, vibrant.

I talk to far to many clients who believe that one (or a series) of mistakes DEFINE the "kind" of person they are years later.
NOT TRUE.
We get to decide:
-if it's a "mistake" in the first place
-what we want to make the "mistake" mean (what story we create about it)

YOU HAVE CHOICE.
What mistakes have you made that are still 'haunting' you today?
Have you questioned whether it was truly a "mistake"?
Have you learned anything useful from it?
What if that mistake was always supposed to happen?
Name one useful thing about the "mistake" that you have taken forward in your life.

Do you allow yourself to be human?
Humans make mistakes.
Never met a human who doesn't make mistakes.
Some humans make same mistakes many times.
Doesn't make them unworthy.

OWN the mistakes.
It's SAFE to own your mistakes.
It's HUMAN to make mistakes.
Your WORTHINESS has zero to do with any mistakes you make.
Watch out for that mean voice inside you who likes to keep pointing out the growing list of mistakes! Tell that voice "your opinion is noted."

If you are a person who wants to grow, then you'll have to get really good at owning your mistakes.
Don't make owning look like shaming & blaming yourself.
That's not useful.

Let your mistakes INFORM your life but not DEFINE your life.

ASK USEFUL QUESTIONS:
How can I grow from this mistake?

Welcome to my page !

I’m Lori Youngdahl - so glad to meet you!
Watch this quick video + drop me a message if I can help !

Said goodbye to my dad today. He was The best dad . Connecting with family and telling dad stories was

Believe without knowing the HOW.
Ever built your own tiny box to live in (mentally…emotionally) and you talked to yourself saying things like :
You can’t do that.
People will discover you’re a flawed human.
Just pretend everything is ok- you can fake it.
Maybe I’m just stuck here.
If I put myself first … totally selfish.

What if we could do hard things,
Without guarantees
Making tons of fails (and it’s ok)
AND still believe that even though I don’t know what the f*ck I’m doing - I can still get to where I want to BE.

Self doubt n. Lack of confidence in oneself and one’s abilities.
Every person I’ve ever met has “some” self doubt. 🙋‍♀️
I used to freak out and think I’m not being “strong enough “ if I was feeling self doubt.
Then I realized it’s NORMAL.
Now I think if it like a part of my body , kinda like a birthmark - I don’t totally love that it’s there but I accept that it’s part of me and it doesn’t have to be a problem.
I can have self doubt and still get s**t done.
I can have self doubt and still make solid decisions on things that seem big and scary.
I can have self doubt and still be a strong resilient woman.
I can have self doubt and be a kick ass mom.
I can have self doubt, make big mistakes and still be a great person.
So yeah. Self doubt… maybe YOU should be worried about ME.