#150. How to Develop Your Winning Edge in 2024

JOIN THE COMMUNITY

Episode Transcription

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  00:00

Hey, it’s Marisa Lee here and I have some really exciting news to share with you. Just recently, I launched my performance mastery coaching programme, which has been designed to help a forming artists and other creatives just like you to take centre stage in their lives. Whether you’re mid career and simply feeling stuck, or you’re someone who is just about to embark on your career journey, and need help getting started, my unique coaching programme is for you. To celebrate the launch. I’m currently offering a free 30 minute discovery session, so you can learn more about the programme and how I can help you go to the next level in your life. My first intake is already seeing incredible results. So don’t miss out, go visit Dr. Marisa Lee naismith.com forward slash coaching, or just send me a direct message and let’s get chatting. Remember, there’s no time like now to take centre stage in your life.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  01:23

It’s Marisa Lee here, and I’m so excited to be sharing today solo round episode with you. Whether you’re a member of the voice, community, or beyond your voice is your unique gift. And my mission, which has been inspired by my own personal and professional journey is to empower you to share your gift with others. Now is the time for you to discover your voice in life, develop a positive mindset and become the best and most authentic version of yourself to create greater impact. Ultimately, you can take charge, and you can become the director of your own life. It’s time for you to live your best life. It’s time now for a voice and beyond. So without further ado, let’s go to today’s episode.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  02:30

It’s February. And I’m so grateful and so excited to hang out with you. Because in today’s show, I’m here to check in with how you’re going with your New Year’s resolutions. Remember, those promises you made to yourself about a month ago? Remember those goals and those dreams and those aspirations that you wrote down in your journal? Or maybe somewhere on a piece of paper? How are you going with these resolutions? Are you making the moves forward towards becoming your greatest self in 2024? Please, if you’ve hit a wall, don’t beat yourself up over it. There is still time to turn this around. And you know what, you’re not the only one here. You’re not alone in this. Some of you may know that. The stats tell us that 80% of people are not practising their New Year’s resolutions by the end of January. That’s massive. And the odds are definitely stacked against you. But I don’t want you to be one of those people. I want you to be one of the 20% who are winning. And the reason why you’re not going to be in the camp with the other 80% is because in this episode, I’m going to give you four ways you can move the needle forward and stick to the commitment you made to yourself on January 1 for this year. It’s fair to say that most of our resolutions usually come about as a reaction to what we experienced in the previous year where maybe we were eating anything and everything we wanted and drinking as much as we wanted. Anytime we wanted. Perhaps we stopped going to the gym and lost that motivation or that drive in other areas of our lives. In fact, we really At least started to lose the essence of who we wanted to become our core values, our passion and our purpose. We stopped living in alignment to the core of who we truly are. I know you’re listening to this, because you want to do better. You know, for yourself, there’s another level you can reach in some area of your life. But you’re just not getting there for whatever reason. It could be that for some reason, you struggle with self doubt. And you end up letting go of your dreams and your aspirations. Or maybe you’re an optimist, and you end up pushing yourself way too hard, and you crash and burn. I fess up to that because I do tend to drive myself so hard at times. I want you to rethink your resolutions and ask yourself, what kind of view is this going to be for you? We always want every year to be the best year. And we want it to be the biggest year ever, right? Let’s make this year, the year where we all achieve our goals. We all know, and we’ve experienced this. Nothing in life is easy, how cliche, but it’s true. And at times, to achieve what you want to achieve in life, there is going to be struggle, there’s going to be challenge and the hardship that life throws at us that are all going to make you a better person. There is ebb and flow in life. And not every year can be your title winning year. If you look at a sports team, there are years where they’re building developing players. And there’s years where these new players start outperforming their peers. Not every year is a winning year for that same team. I had the absolute privilege of going to the Grammy Awards just recently. And there are years where a singer is smashing it in the charts. And they are dominating all the awards. And then there can be years where we don’t hear from this artist because they’re working on their next album. How often do you see Taylor Swift on tour or Beyonce on tour? Not very often because they have to prepare. They have to create, they have to practice and become tour ready. So what we recognise is that each year can have a different feel. So there can be a year where you’re learning. There can be a year when you’re experimenting. There can be a year where you’re performing. And there can be a year where you’re thriving. So whatever you do, I don’t want you to shy away from the stormy seas and sit at a harbour watching life go by and think maybe just maybe one day it will be your turn. No, no, no, no. It’s time now to set sail to have that desire to reach a new destination. For a greater and more meaningful life. You can grow into the person who is ready to experience the journey of achieving all those things you desire. It’s time to reach another level of joy, significance, abundance and wealth in your life. People I know you want to improve in your lives, but perhaps you don’t know where to start. So in this episode, we are going to look at factors that impact your winning edge. We’re going to look at the building blocks of achievement and create that mindset for success. This means we are really going to dig deep. Do some soul searching and go through some of those things that happen in your day that cause you to lose focus and sabotage your winning mindset and prevent you from kicking But on your goals, so here we go

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  10:11

number one, desire, the very first thing we must have to achieve anything in life is the want, or an overwhelming desire. Life demands that we ourselves must decide who it is we want to be in life, our core values, what our lives stand for, what is our purpose, our passion and our mission. And design means that you have to want something and want it really, really badly. Just writing your goals down on a sticky note, putting them up on your bathroom mirror and looking at them every morning is not going to create change. It’s not enough to inspire you, to motivate you and to kick start you every morning. You must have a deep rooted desire. Are ye. So ask yourself, why is the thing that you desire, so important to you? It has to be more than a need to succeed or to feel fulfilled, it has to be something that is going to get you fired up. There’s no shame in saying that you have to be hungry, my friend. You have to have a deep rooted desire for a dream for a mission for a cause of anything that you care for so much about that you will do anything to move the needle forward to achieve it. You need your why it’s your why it’s nobody else’s. Don’t be one of those people who say that they simply don’t have any vision or a desire for their lives. Because this is the worst headspace to be in. Usually, when we arrive at that place in life, we can spiral and we can start to have those terrible negative thoughts of throwing the towel in on life and lose the desire and the why to get up out of bed every morning. My mum lived until she was 99 and a half years old. And she had it so together. She was as sharp as a tech. She lived on her own for almost 40 years after my father passed away. But the thing that my mother had was that she had purpose in her life. She had a Y, she had a reason to get up out of bed, and to leave the house and to create a great day. She had her whole week planned every week of her life, right up until she passed away. I love that she would wake up in the mornings. And she would make such an effort to groom herself so beautifully. She would be dressed all colour coordinated. And put on those little kitten heels even at that age. She paint on her eyebrows. And I must admit there were times we would laugh at her because the way that she would paint them on shape look like she was angry. So we used to say that she had her Angry Birds on then she put on her lipstick. She would tease her hair, put a little bit of hairspray in and away she’d go. And that’s what she did every day and she would either go to bingo to church, in a community group to do the grocery shopping, no matter what she had purpose. She also had a massive vegetable garden right up until she died. And she would get out there she would tend to the garden. She would water the garden. She would pick her vegetables and she’d be so proud of those vegetables that she had grown for herself. And all of this gave her purpose and a deep desire. I had to live. And she didn’t want to leave this planet. And that is how I’ve been raised. And so I have learned to get up every morning with purpose, and a reason to leave the house and get amongst it in life. So if you don’t have purpose and desire, or why this is such a terrible way to live. And if you don’t have a vision for yourself, it’s time to step out of the security of your white picket fence, you have to step away from your computer, your phone, and the television. In life, you have to experience a heap of different things, to know what really matters to you. You have to sample different things to discover what it is you truly desire. No one wakes up in the morning, magically knowing their why in life. Desire is built on experience. Desire is built on exposure to things. So you need to go and explore the world, read books, ask people what they do, see what’s out there. But whatever that looks like for you, we must all have the want, and the desire before we can take charge of our lives. If that sounds too overwhelming, you can go seek out other people who have found desire in their lives and ask or observe what they’re doing. Surely, you must know at least one person who has a vision for themselves. People Achieve what they desire, through intention and hard work. For me, I don’t worry about the goal or the desire being realistic or not how I’ve just been to the Grammy Awards. To me, if you have a goal, and your heart is in it, and your mind is in it, you can do anything in life. So don’t let people tell you what’s realistic, and achievable or not. If anyone tells you, you can’t do something, you have to run as fast as you can in the opposite direction from them. You can’t let the people you share your goals with tell you what’s realistic or not. If that was the case, I would never have become a professional singer. I would never have attended that very first audition at the age of 15. That led me to the career path that I’m on to this day. I got the whole Who do you think you are? You’re a kid, and you’re wanting to go to an audition for a professional band. And I got this from close family members, including my parents. Can you imagine when I was in my 50s and I told people, I am going to do a PhD? Can you imagine? The reaction when I told people I wanted to write a book following my PhD, and that I was after a publishing deal? Can you imagine? And when I told people in 2020 that I was going to start my own podcast, the reactions that I’ve had over the years. And when I’ve told people that I’m going to the Grammy Awards, they didn’t even believe me. No one believed that I could do any of these things. And I proved everybody wrong. Whether it was because of defiance or not, I still did it. I let my results speak for themselves. So if someone tells me that I can’t do something that multiplies my desire by a hundredfold. I will do everything I can do to prove someone wrong. I’ve always worked at what I desire. I have clarity about what I want. And I have always said about developing the skills and the knowledge I need to achieve my goals. So whatever you do, learn to stay true to what it is that you desire. Set the intention and go. Determination will only come if you have the why you must desire something thing, you must want it, you must get excited about it, you must have a deep desire.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  20:10

So don’t second guess yourself, don’t quit. And don’t delay and don’t get distracted. Just go for it

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  20:29

number two, direction. I believe the second element of empowerment and having that winning edge in your life is direction, you may have discovered your desire, whether it’s a big ticket item, or a small one, you may even have set an intention around it. But then it’s like, now what some may desire to lose weight or to quit smoking, or to learn a new skill, or have a desire to build a business or to make a load of money. But whatever their desire is, or that ultimate ambition, purpose, goal or mission, no matter what you want to call it, it’s not enough, you have to have a plan to back it up. Some people fail because they have absolutely no direction, they have no plan. And they don’t have any inclination of where to start. They don’t know how to arrive at their destination, they have no idea of the hard work that may demand or they’re not keen on learning to stretch their competency. You need to have direction. And if you don’t know where to start, work backwards, write down your ultimate desire, and identify the skills and the tools that you need to achieve a successful outcome. And then maybe you may need to go and find a class that you can take to help you along the way. Or is there a book you can read? Is there a webinar you can attend? Is there a course you can take online? Is there somebody, anybody who can mentor you? Is there somebody perhaps who’s achieved this very thing that you want to go and do? And maybe they’ve written their biography. So go and check that out. When I set the desire to start this podcast, I did not have direction. I had no clue what I was doing. So I went and I did all those things. I started listening to other people’s podcast first and foremost, and I did that for about 12 months. I attended free webinars on podcasting. Until I found a training programme that was the right fit for me. It was taught by a successful podcast, and I got everything I needed. From that training programme. I attended online training, or what some may call pod school. For a number of months, I read articles, I joined forums, I did three day live training events with the most successful influences globally. And all the while I engaged a high performance coach to make sure that I was accountable to someone. And you know what, for some of you, you may think that’s a lot. But what did I know about podcasting? So by doing all those things, it gave me direction, I’d never started a podcast before. And there is so so much involved, and there was no way I was ever going to fail. I’m way too proud for that. If that’s too much for you, you can start by simply chasing down other people who have done what you want to achieve. You can use them as your role model, you can mimic the steps and the strategies they followed. You must become a lifelong learner. So as your goals grow up, you have the skills and the knowledge to grow with them. You need to have that roadmap to your destination. You don’t just jump into your car and start driving to someplace you’ve never been to before. Right. You wouldn’t dream of doing that you wouldn’t dream of driving to a new destination without setting up your sat nav, or at the very least, looking up the directions on your Google Maps and planning how far it is, how much time it’s going to take to get there. And do you have enough fuel in the tank to arrive at your destination without running out of petrol, you cannot arrive at your destination in live without knowledge, without information, or wisdom gathering. So once you have set your desire, your goals, step back and plan, how are you going to achieve by working backwards. If the goal is too big, work in small steps by stepping it up. So if your vision is too big, just break it down into smaller, more achievable chunks, so that you’re not setting yourself up for failure. Work from the end goal and think about working out your five major moves, you must give them and I must achieve this by this date. Or this whole thing’s not going to work for you. break these down into five moves into steps, tasks, activities, with deadlines. And be sure to make each component movable. And once that goal is achieved, step up to that next level of difficulty, then continue to step up until you arrive at your destination. Remember, when you set that bigger goal, don’t think you have to take the bull by the horns, work at those smaller steps. One at a time, stick with it and go for it.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  27:11

Number three is discipline, discipline my friend. Once you’ve identified what it is that you want, and you’ve mapped out your direction, you then need to have that third component of all achievement, which is discipline, you’re going to have to work and you’re going to be more consistent than you ever imagined possible. You must be disciplined if you’re going to make your ultimate desires come true. I understand. It’s not so easy to be disciplined. But when you decide to knock at that door of opportunity, it’s going to take work. You need a high level of discipline each and every single day. You need to set up repeated habits and practices in your life that you need over and over and over again, to move you towards your desire. We need to make sure that you have cultivated a real disciplined mindset that will move your needle forward. People who want to get fit, they have to be disciplined to work out every day, or every other day. It’s vital for them. It’s a real discipline. If you want mastery in any area of your life, you need to work at it constantly doing things once in a while it’s not good enough. Not only do you risk becoming someone who faps around in life, but you are absolutely ensuring your inability to accomplish mastery, long term growth, success and achievement. You don’t see any high level achieving person in any profession who doesn’t have an extraordinary amount of self discipline. You might look at others who are successful and think to yourself. They’re so lucky. Hey, I don’t believe in luck. There’s no such thing as luck. Life doesn’t work like that. You have to make your own way in life. And there’s a price to be paid for that. What people don’t realise is that successful people continue working at their dreams, goals, aspirations every day. They are students of life. and work on self improvement. They don’t see their failures. They’re not held back by their failures. They look at failures as an opportunity for growth. You have to be discipline. And you also have to have the discipline to say no to distractions and detach yourself from every opportunity that comes up, that’s not aligned with your heart, your mission, your purpose, and your goals. If you get easily distracted, and you say yes to everyone, and everything that comes along comes your way. Especially you creatives, I know that you do this. It’s time for you to drown in your sorrow, of over commitment, and the negative thoughts of overwhelm this creates, you must become disciplined in managing distraction, because everything and everyone will get in the way of what you desire. Other people will give you their agendas, their emergencies, and their needs. The world is going to throw you 300 new emails every day. And there’s going to be 1000 new social media posts a week that come up all those notifications, there’s so much that can distract you. And your job is to have that desire, that discipline, know that direction of how you’re going to get there and work towards it. Stay focused. So much of commitment today requires minimising and removing distractions, getting rid of all those TV shows you watch. Did you know that the average American watches four hours of TV a day, four hours of TV a day over the course of the average adult lifespan in America that ends up being somewhere around 13 years of their lives? Now, be honest here does that sounds like you, you may have lost over a decade of your life. Think about it. And that translates to almost a million dollars of potential earning power. And it’s not even about the money. Think about the reality of the last 13 years of your life that you could have spent exploring new places, learning new skills, spending time with loved ones. So it’s time to stop. Do you really need all those distractions in your life? Or for what? It’s okay. I promise you, you are not going to suffer a horrible withdrawal, you will survive. Then there are the distractions caused by your inability to say no to others. Oh my gosh. Let’s start with people pleasers hands up here. Now you might think this is not me. But by saying yes to everyone, you are allowing others to take charge of your life. Please, it’s time for you to start saying no more often. Like all of us, I receive emails all the time from people asking me to action something. And what I’ve realised is that usually when someone sends me an email that says urgent in inverted commas, it’s because they’re disorganised and have left something to the last minute. And it’s not my problem. So why should I have to pay the price? For someone else being a shambles? It’s time to stop saying no to others, and start saying yes to yourself. Demanding people are no longer my priority. I will not allow my happiness to suffer just to please someone else. learning to say no has allowed me to attract all the things in life that I want and I desire. So next time someone asks you to do something that’s not aligned with your purpose. Just say no, thank you. You may feel this is brazen and takes audacity but the message here is if you want people to start more and More on your plates. Keep saying yes, knock yourself out. I’ve been that person that was at everybody else’s beck and call. And I didn’t have time for those things that mattered to me. I was raised to be a people pleaser. And I know that for many of you creatives, you want to please others, it’s in our DNA. And trust me, when you start saying no, people are still going to love and care for you. But what will change is that they are going to have more respect for you, they are going to value you and your time, far more. But this needs to start with you. You have to learn to say no. Learn to say good riddance. It’s time for you to focus on your own purpose, your own passion, your own mission, your own goals. By pleasing everybody. You can’t focus on what matters to you. Don’t compromise in your life. You need to establish strict boundaries and protect your goals for dear life.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  36:30

Number four, destructive self talk. Are you guilty of destructive self talk? How do you speak to yourself? Are you self sabotaging your future life by the way you speak to yourself? We can all spend so much time telling ourselves that we’re not good enough. We’re not smart enough. We’re not talented enough, thin enough. Pretty enough lab lab lattes, all this stuff that we tell ourselves, we may even tell ourselves that good things will never happen to us. They only happen to other people, because we’re not deserving. But guess what? Our thoughts are not always the truth. They are the stories we make up in our minds. Some of us are so good at telling ourselves all these untruths, that we become pathological liars, and our brains don’t know the difference. But we can change our thought patterns. So we don’t destroy our potential in life. Researchers estimate that we think about 50 to 70,000 thoughts a day, and that about 80% of those thoughts are negative. Wow. That’s a ridiculous amount of negative self talk. And much of that self talk comes from our past and stops us from moving forward in life. And that self talk will impact on your blood pressure, your muscle tension, your body temperature, your heart rate, your breathing rate, and even how much your hands sweat. Those are some pretty significant physical reactions to our thoughts. It’s a vicious cycle. It’s a shame really, because our negative self talk affects us in so many powerful ways. If we think something is possible, we’re more likely to make the effort to go for it. However, if we think something is impossible, we don’t even bother trying. We don’t even get off the starting blocks. If we think we are a good person who deserves to live the best life we can, we will create that life. But if we think we are not deserving or not capable enough, we will sabotage our own efforts without even realising we’re doing that. So firstly, we have to stop talking badly about ourselves to ourselves and stop doubting ourselves to ourselves also. You must stop and catch yourself out in those moments of the day because this self talk does manifest Just as negativity, and it’s going to follow you everywhere, it will filter into your energy levels, your daily routines, and those all important relationships. And they’re going to drag you down by filling you with self doubt, and resentment. That’s not a good thing. You don’t want to live life like that. I have met some incredible people in my life, who are so talented. They’re amazingly talented, but they’re broke. They’re alone. They’re miserable. And they’re simply not winning at life. And they wonder why. The problem is that no one wants to be around their bad energy. They constantly and I mean, constantly complaining, because all they see is the bad in their world. And they spread this negativity in every conversation in their lives. They have this woe is me mentality. And they over shared their negative self talk. I’m sure there are people that you know, in your life that bemoan life exactly like that. And I can’t deal with those people. Remember, that self talk is a reflection of who you want to become in the future. You may not know that, what you say to yourself will manifest. So when you speak negatively about yourself, whether it’s to you or to others. Negativity attracts more negativity. So be careful what you wish for, you will attract all those things that you’re speaking about. Just recently, my husband didn’t come to a family Christmas with us in Bali. Very early on in the year last year, when we were talking about this idea of going away. And we brought up that we were thinking about Bali. He said, There’s no way I am going to Bali, there’s not a hope in hell, that you’re getting me to Bali. And as the months went on, and we were planning this amazing family Christmas, he couldn’t come because he had a staff shortage in his business and had to be here to step into his business. So he missed out on that incredible Christmas with 22 family members where we had a massive celebration in Bali. Because he said very early on, there is no way you’re getting me to Bali, and it manifested. So be careful what you wish for, because it will come true. And this is something that I’ve had to learn the hard way in my life. Okay, I grew up in a family where I didn’t feel that I was good enough. I didn’t feel I was smart enough that I was useless. And I was lazy. So talking badly about myself came really easily. But then one day, I realised that this was not going to serve me that I needed to get out of this mindset. And I started to tell myself, you know what, I am way better than this. And then I started kicking goals in life. And it’s a shame in my life, that it took loss, including the loss of loved ones for me to realise that I was deserving of a better life. And my new positive self talk completely changed my life around. Hey, look at all the stuff I’ve achieved. I know that I’m capable of anything and everything I put my mind to. My mind is so powerful and nothing to me is unachievable. And I truly believe that. The lesson here is that it’s hard to accomplish good things in your life with a negative mindset, that inner dialogue. It has to be kind and we must learn to treat ourselves better in life. Those thoughts inform what you believe to be true and will directly influence your levels of success. It’s time for you to treat yourself as your best friend. Not to your worst enemy

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  45:09

Okay, people, let’s make 2020 for the year that you’ve been waiting for. Let’s make it the year that you live your passion and your purpose. Let’s make it the year you learn that skill you’ve been wanting to learn for years now. Let’s make it the year that you are in a loving relationship. Let’s make the year that you launched that dream. Let’s make it the year that you level up your habits. Let’s make it the year you let go of anything that doesn’t serve you. And most importantly, let’s make it the year that you are a little kinder to yourself, not just towards others, especially when it’s really hard. Be kind to you. Let’s all become a little less judgmental of ourselves and of others. Let’s become more compassionate to ourselves more kinder to ourselves. Let’s value ourselves more. Let’s take better care of ourselves every day, so we can be there for others. If we can’t love ourselves, we can’t love others. Come on together. Let’s make 2024 the best year ever. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of a voice and beyond. I hope you enjoyed it as now is an important time for you to invest in your own self care, personal growth and education. Use every day as an opportunity to learn and to grow so you can show up feeling empowered and ready to live your best life. If you know someone who will also be inspired by this episode, please be sure to copy and paste the link and share it with them. Or share it on social media and use the hashtag a voice and beyond. I promise you I am committed to bringing you more inspiration and conversations just like this one every week. And if you’d like to help me please rate and to review this podcast and cheer me on by clicking the subscribe button on Apple podcast right now. I would also love to know what it is that you most enjoyed about this episode and what was your biggest takeaway? Please take care and I look forward to your company next time on the next episode of a voice and beyond.