endorphasMIC
Join Erica each week as she delves deep into all things wellness, fitness, nutrition, entertainment, entrepreneurship, and spirituality. These intimate, deep, and often intense conversations go beyond the traditional podcast. They are designed to provoke, educate, inspire, and empower you to discover, uncover, unlock, and unleash your best, most authentic self.
To live. To feel alive. Because I can. Because I’m human. Because my humanity demands it! Movement. We weren’t wired this way by accident. Our physical and mental health is by design, dependent on movement. We are designed to feel good when we move because survival depends on movement. This was an obvious truth when hunting, gathering, and farming; our existence depended on our ability and desire to do survival tasks, so our bodies are chemically and hormonally designed to make us feel good when doing them. It is a much less obvious truth in modern society, but no less relevant. The endorphasm is the moment during movement you feel anything is possible. Clarity. This podcast is the exploration of movement as the foundation for a productive, fulfilling, rewarding, most excellent life.
endorphasMIC
Feeling stuck or dissatisfied in your current situation?
What if chasing perfection is actually holding you back from true happiness and fulfillment? On this episode of Endorphasmic, we tackle the complex journey of change in both personal and professional spheres. Discover how the relentless pursuit of an ideal can become both a source of anxiety and a powerful motivator. We'll help you recognize when it's time to leave toxic environments and make courageous decisions that align with your true desires. By examining the internal and external factors at play, we emphasize the importance of addressing personal issues before making any major life shifts. Change may be daunting, but it's an essential step in your hero's journey towards a more intentional and fulfilling life.
Feeling stuck or dissatisfied in your current situation? We're here to guide you through evaluating your opportunities for change. Learn how to pinpoint specific frustrations and categorize them into things you can control, influence, or must accept. We'll walk you through creating a list of criteria for your ideal new opportunity, covering key aspects like compensation, culture, and work environment. Our insights will help you objectively compare potential opportunities to your current situation, ensuring any change aligns with your long-term goals. And remember, leaving positively is crucial—don’t fall into the trap of constantly searching for the next big thing without finding satisfaction. Join us for this insightful discussion and arm yourself with strategies to navigate pivotal moments in life.
Welcome to Endorphasmic, where we talk about all things endorphasm. I am your hostess, erika Porter. Let's talk about change. Change can be both unsettling and it can be terrifying. However, change can also be something that we become addicted to. We never stick with anything because we're always in search of the elusive perfect and I say that in quotes the perfect job, the perfect relationship, perfect neighborhood, you name it. But then we realize that these places are filled with people, including ourselves. So perfection is kind of far from possible. So how do we know when it's time to make a big change? How do we decide if we should stick it out in the cubicle or, metaphorically, light it on fire? So I think it depends on the situation.
Speaker 1:So when you're swimming in a toxic cesspool of swirling crazy. So, for instance, have you ever been in a job or a relationship or a life situation that feels like you're trying to swim upstream in a swirling cesspool of toxic crazy? Instead of paddling furiously and putting your head back in the water, maybe it's time to swim for sure and get the fuck out of there. Sometimes we become so used to the swirling sickness that we can't even smell it anymore, and especially in dating relationships or jobs relationships, I think, can be the trickiest to spot the crazy, because sometimes the feeling of love can blind us to the reality. And if you're paddling around in a swirling cesspool of crazy, it's time to swim for your life. Another consideration is when the direction is leading you the opposite of your destination. Are you on a well-paid path where you're making great momentum, yet you're heading in the exact opposite direction of where you want to go? And this can be the toughest and scariest and most courageous change anyone can make. When everything on the outside tells you that you're doing amazing, that the real stuff on the inside is desperately trying to get your attention. We all go down unexpected paths full of twists and turns, where we don't see exactly how it will end up, yet we know it's headed in the general life direction that we want. That's not the path that I'm talking about. I'm talking about the path where you know exactly where it's headed and it's not where you want to go.
Speaker 1:Believe it would be a sacrifice of sometimes finances, comfort, your stuff and the known, and making a change to unwedge yourself from something comfortable is far from comfortable. You want to live your life based on stuff or safety, or do you want to live intentionally, trying to truly live your life. There's a great quote from a retired football defensive end. His name is Robert Quinn and he, I think, states it perfectly. He says "change is hell, yet not to change, to stay on the path of slow death, is also hell". The difference is that the hell of deep change is the hero's journey. Think about that. For a second Change is hell, yet not to change, to stay on the path of a slow death, is also hell. The difference is that the hell of deep change is the hero's journey, and I think the most dangerous job you can have, or even life situation, is a comfortable one that is slowly loading you away from all the things that are truly important to you. The longer you stay in it, the harder it is to escape. I want to live my life where I'm serving the world my signature sauce, if you will, that unique mix of ingredients inside me that gives the world a flavor that no one else can. What about you?
Speaker 1:So I think first part of making any kind of big change is obviously starting with yourself. I think, before making a big external shift, what internal changes do you need to make so that you don't end up in the same situation as before, just dressed up kind of in different clothes. I think one of the biggest lies we can tell ourselves is if only, if only I could change jobs, if only I could get a divorce, then I'd be able to really pursue my dreams, then I'd be really happy. Yet you change jobs, you get divorced, you get hired somewhere else, you remarry, whatever it is, and then you find yourself just as miserable as you were before. Maybe you're always fantasizing about some big change that's going to fix everything, when the real hard needed change starts with you and the monsters that you're trying to pretend don't exist in the back of your closet. Change can be held, but if you're willing to make the deep changes in you before you change your circumstances. Those are the changes of a hero's journey. And unless you're drowning in a cesspool of crazy, get out of that first. Change the atmosphere, lay on the shore for a while and work on what changes you need to make mentally, emotionally, spiritually, so that you don't jump into another cesspool of crazy, just a little further downstream. Sometimes all you can do is surrender to change and just fucking let it rain.
Speaker 1:So how much of your motivation is driven by the pursuit of new opportunity versus escaping your current situation, and that's really important to be able to distinguish those two. There are days when everyone dreads putting on work clothes and heading to the office, or whatever the situation might be. It might be the work itself, the people you work for, or a combination of those things, and some jobs can completely drain the joy out of working, and I'll use jobs, but it implies everything in life, whether it's the relationship, the job, whatever situation. So you have to think about does my current situation drain the joy out? When you start considering a change, you need to determine if you are running towards something new or running away from your current situation. And the downside of running from something is if your primary motivation is to leave your current situation, nearly everything else is going to look appealing and you'll be in such a hurry to leave that you might overlook significant aspects of whatever new thing you're leaning towards. And because that can sour over time, then you'll find yourself thinking about leaving that situation as well.
Speaker 1:But have you taken the time to specifically, and sometimes unemotionally? It's hard to kind of separate those two things to identify what maybe frustrates you in your current situation. I think that a lot of times it's a good idea to create a clear list, pinpointing exactly, maybe, what is causing your dissatisfaction, and then also taking an opportunity and identifying which items in your life you can control, which you can influence and which are beyond your control or influence, and start to create a list of what a new opportunity would provide you. And I think that there's the opportunity that you can take action to alleviate some frustrations when you address them directly and, at the very least, when you're creating that list, you have kind of a clearer idea of areas to investigate, to understand the new opportunity and ensuring that you're not going to be running into issues that might present themselves down the road. That's when you're running from a situation.
Speaker 1:Now, the difference, the upside, when you're running to this, is where you can really start to develop a list of, I would say, anywhere between 12 to 20 clear and measurable criteria in how it will change your life, how it will better your situation, how it allows you to live fully and honestly, whether it's considering compensation, culture, commute benefits, who you might be working for, what your situation is going to be. I think you have to research to create a complete picture of your ideal situation and this list will become your standard for measuring specific opportunities. And then you can compare each opportunity against your criteria. And it requires, I think, thorough investigation. To objectively compare each new opportunity point by point.
Speaker 1:To your list, you have to include your current situation for comparison and I think that if you answer specific questions about each new opportunity, it really can paint a complete picture of what this new situation will be. So how does the new opportunity compare to both your criteria what you've written out and your current situation? What specifically will you be giving up to take that new opportunity? What specifically will you gain by taking this new opportunity? And I think that you can only consider making a change when the new opportunity offers clear advantages. If the comparison is roughly equal, then I would say you kind of tough it out until you find a situation where the benefits and the criteria I mean it meets everything that you're looking for and you know it's the right move, when the new opportunity is measurably better than your current situation and you can easily envision yourself being passionate about it five years from now and your running to side tells you it's time for a move.
Speaker 1:And my one final piece of advice is to leave well, leave things in better shape than when you inherited them or started them or started your job or whatever the situation is, because you never know when you might need the support of all of those people. And the bottom line is don't be the person who is always searching for the next thing, constantly changing but never being satisfied. So, if you're really looking to make a big change, be calculated, deliberate, make your lists, comparison, ensure that if you don't make this change, ensure that if you don't make this change, are you living your life fully? Are you living your truth in the way with your secret sauce that you're providing to the world Thoughts? Change doesn't always have to be scary of health and happiness and always much respect.
