Before we get started today I wanted to ask you…

How long has it been since you did something just for YOU?⁠

Your kids are in camps and lessons and activities all summer.⁠

Is it finally YOUR turn?⁠

Like you, I have spent most of my adult life taking care of everyone else.⁠

Don’t think that for one minute I regret that, but somewhere along the way, I lost who I was and the ability to decide what I wanted.⁠ ⁠

Then, I discovered the simple principles that I teach in Camp Connection.

Over a ten-year period, I found peace by integrating each system one at a time until I finally put them all together.

I found myself again and you can too.⁠ ⁠

Camp Connection is a 5-day online email camp where I’ll send you a daily video that teaches these simple, yet powerful systems to help you reconnect to your life. They changed everything for me and I know it will for you too.⁠ ⁠

It’s so important to me to share it with you, I teach it for free a few times a year.  And one of those times is NOW!

Reserve your free spot today and I’ll get you all the information.

It begins July 11, 2022.

You can save your spot through the link in the episode description or you can go to hunkeedori.com and register there.

Now on with Episode 52.

Hey everyone.  Thank you for coming back for another episode of Overburdened No More.

It’s book club day and I am excited to talk about “Soundtracks” by Jon Acuff

If you haven’t read it yet, it’s never too late.

This is a good one.

A really good one and I don’t want you to miss out.

But I can’t wait for you forever, so I’m going to go ahead with my review and opinion of the book.  I’ll be looking forward to you sharing your thoughts on it as soon as you read it though.  So, don’t leave me hanging friend!  Let me know what your take-a-ways are. I’d love to chat with you about it.  Email me!

Let’s just start with the obvious.

Positive soundtracks are good.

If you think positive thoughts then your brain can be your very best friend.  It will help you to be more creative and full of hope.

If you think negative thoughts, your brain becomes your worst enemy.  It will hold you back from taking action on all the things that you want in your life.

Which do you choose?

I know that sounds obvious when I ask a question like that.

But what is really happening inside your head?

Are you paying attention to what is going on in there?

Have you ever got so lost in overthinking, that the life you are currently living becomes invisible?

Yes?

Oh my yes, YES AND RED. FACED. YES!!!

I get so mad every time I get pulled into this and yet I still do it.

Like, this whole last weekend.

I blame covid.  It’s actually a great excuse when you’ve had it.

My mind basically became mush but not just because of covid. 

Because I wasn’t feeling well, I let myself get drawn into a pattern of negative thinking.

Soundtracks that I thought I had let go of came flooding back into my head at full force.

All the injustice of how other people should be acting or how I think they should be acting.

How left out I feel because others have agency.

Guess what.

So do I!

I wasn’t even thinking about me.

I was thinking about what I thought they should be thinking about.

Not my proudest moments.

That’s what overthinking negative soundtracks do to us.

They hijack our lives into a completely different place that not only sends you on a backwards path to unhappiness, it forces you to focus on the unsolvable things you’ve defined as a problem and keeps you from working towards the goals you’ve set for your own life, the things you actually have control over.

If that doesn’t sound like a habit worth breaking, I don’t know what does!

That’s why I love this book so much!

It actually gives real ways to break the habit of negative overthinking.

The author says:

“The antidote to overthinking isn’t more thinking—The antidote is ACTION!”

So, he created a 30-day challenge. 

He calls it The New Anthem and this is the biggest take-a-way from this book.

He asks you to take time every morning and every night, get in front of a mirror, stand up straight and confidently say a set script he writes out for you for 30 days straight.

So I did.

I did this challenge.

 I did it for 60 days actually, I even got the mirror he suggested.  It really made a difference speaking to my reflection out loud…

It was another way to get it out of my brain and into reality like a good journaling practice does. 

Looking at myself in the eyes as I remind ME of the new things I want to believe was really powerful. 

I know this will probably shock you, but I cried a lot!  New beliefs aren’t easy to believe. 

I like his method of starting with something you’ve heard from someone else that sounds like something you want to believe. 

One of the hardest ones I worked through was this one….

“Everything is always working out for me”.

 When I first read that in his book I started bawling.  Like automatic alligator tears. 

I didn’t believe it. 

I really did not.

I’ve been working on that new belief for over a year now and I can honestly say that not only can I say it without crying, I believe it. 

Everything actually is always working out for me. 

Maybe not in the way I originally thought it would, but it does work out. 

Always. 

It’s been a pretty cool transformation that I have paid attention to as it was happening. 

Now when something is happening that I don’t really like, I say that soundtrack to myself. 

“Everything is always working out for me” and I begin to feel better.  Pretty cool!

The way I apply this now is when I’m doing my planning for the week, I write out my own soundtracks according to what my goals are for the week.  I write what I want to believe in order to makes those goals happen.  I write my own soundtracks.

It really helps when they are focused towards something you’re working on.

Sometimes small baby steps are needed to get from one thought to a more positive one.

But that’s ok, you have time.

You always have time to work on how you feel about yourself, even baby steps count!

The next thing I really liked that I wanted to talk about with you was on page 145. 

Am I focusing on the problem or the solution?

What good does it do to replay the problem over and over in your mind?

Yes, You have to identify what the problem is, but it’s the solution that makes the change.

The author put it this way…

“Are you overfeeding the problem and starving the solution?”

Brilliant thought right?

Focus on what you want, not what you don’t want.

Focus on the solution.

Stop overthinking the problem!

Take all your creativity and productivity and use that for making a solution.

Probably doesn’t feel comfortable, but when is growth comfortable?

Never in my experience.

But we’ve all been uncomfortable before.

You can handle it and so can I.

It always feels better in the end.

One last highlight for me.

He suggested matching a soundtrack that you want to really stick with a symbol.

Some kind of physical thing that you can see to remind you of the positive thought you want to have.  Something simple, portible, and small.

Symbols are a powerful way to bring about an action.

Think about logos for certain companies that you see and automatically know

Like the Nike swoosh… Just do it.

We can choose a thought we want, match a certain symbol to represent it, and train our brain to make the connection.

I have a small Bing Bong character on my desk from the movie “Inside Out” to remind myself not to lose my childlike wonder and be too serious.

Do you have anything like that sitting around?

What’s something you want to believe about yourself?

Come up with a positive soundtrack to say to yourself every day until you believe it and then you’ll have it ready to repeat it to yourself when the doubt starts to creep in. 

What could be your symbol to represent that thought of who you want to become?

Don’t you just love that!!!

Soundtracks by Jon Acuff is full of ideas just like the three I shared with you today.

I shared more in Episode 41 when I introduced the book and in Episode 47 when I reminded you to keep reading it.  Go back and listen to those too if you haven’t.  I’ll link them in the show notes.