Episode Summary

Jenna discusses how you can reinvent yourself in the new year and offers a special end-of-year gift just for listeners.

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Show Notes

Why is it so hard to change? Well, for one thing, our brains like doing things the way they already know how. They are naturally resistant to change, but resistance doesn’t lead to reinvention — which is exactly what we want for the new year. 

In this week’s episode, I discuss the mindset and tactics for showing up new in the new year. I share the number one tool for the quickest and most effective brain change and how to implement it. I also unpack the single biggest misconception about my work and the Clarity Accelerator program and give you a heads up about a special end-of-year gift for listeners.

Tune in to understand how to challenge preconceived notions about ourselves and spark evolution. Make this next year the most powerful and fulfilling one yet, and ask yourself, what waits for me?

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

• Why most people don't change and how to override this natural tendency in our brains.

• The single biggest misconception about my work and the Clarity Accelerator program.

• How old thoughts and vibrations keep us in the past.

• A single tool for the quickest and most effective brain change.

Listen to the Full Episode:

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Full Episode Transcript:

Hey, friend, what is possible for you in the next 12 months? What more confident or calmer or clearer or unbound version of yourself is waiting to emerge? And then, what new results will that create for you? It's going to be challenging to know for sure if you are too tied to the past, or if you don't have the tools to usher in the future. So, let's get into it and make this next year your most powerful and fulfilling yet.

You're listening to The Uncommon Way Business and Life Coaching Podcast, the only podcast that helps you unlock your next level in business and life by prioritizing your clarity and your own Uncommon Way. You will learn to maximize your mindset, mission, messaging, and strategy in order to create a true legacy. Here's your host, top-ranked business coach and reformed over-analyzer turned queen of clarity, Jenna Harrison.

Hello, and welcome back to The Uncommon Way. When this episode comes out, I will be either in Houston or California visiting family for the holidays. It will be so much sunnier than it has been in Pennsylvania. We have just had weeks and weeks and weeks of gray, foggy, interestingly enough, foggy, rainy, drizzly weather.

Before this, I was actually sitting with my LED light, just to kind of chase away those winter blues. Hopefully, I'll just be kicking it up when you hear this. But I know that no matter how much I've got going on in my life, even if we're racing to get planes, and we're transferring from here to there, and we're at big family holiday parties, during this time of year my mind always starts to muse about what the next year holds and how I'm going to transform in that time.

I notice it while I'm walking my dog or brushing my teeth, or in the waiting room at my doctor's office. You too? Okay, then. So, let's talk about how to actually do it, how to go from being this kind of person one month, and then just becoming someone else who shows up very differently, giving all the people around you whiplash, because whoa, you seem different. Where did this come from?

As we always do, let's talk about both the mindset and the tactics, because that's just how we do it around here. I will walk you through why most people don't change, even when they want to, exactly how to override this natural tendency in our brains, how I first noticed myself doing this and when I finally understood, like a flash of illumination, how I was doing it.

I'm going to share the single biggest misconception about my work and the Clarity Accelerator. And I'm going to give you a heads up about a special year-end gift I'll be bringing to you next week.

But first, I'd love to give a shout out to a listener who left this review. This is from BLeaWhite, titled Clarity in life and business.

“Jenna has an amazing way of simplifying the fundamental steps of gaining clarity in life and business! Every episode contains enlightening tips that spark inspiration and excitement for the future of my coaching practice. I’ve joined her Clarity Accelerator program and it has been a gift that keeps on giving! If you are looking for a business coach that operates from integrity, intelligence, and spiritual expansion then you are exactly where you need to be.”

I just feel compelled to share that she also put a little sparkle emoji right at the end, that just makes the whole thing so pretty and magical. I want to thank you so much for taking the time to do that. And of course, for joining me, putting your trust in me, and for your kind words.

When I get a new review, I feel so energized. I love knowing that it's helping more women find this podcast and through it be supported to live amazing, uncommon lives. So, if you found any of these episodes useful, and you want to spread some holiday cheer my way, and in the direction of new women who are waiting to hear these words, then please leave a review because it's the best Christmas gift that you could give me.

On Spotify it's super easy, you literally just click a button. And on Apple, you can click to rate and then just leave a few words, anything would be really helpful.

Okay, let's dive into some reinvention. I am so passionate about this subject; well, in anything mindset, of course. Because I have seen the thrill it gives women, and of course I know the thrill that I personally get when you not only cast off the shackles of patterns and ways of being that haven't been serving you, and you're really listening to that part of you that's longing to emerge.

Or maybe you prefer to think of it as the ways of being that your soul wishes to return to. Personally, I believe it's a combination of the two. While there are, of course, natural parts of us that get covered up by years of conditioning or hard knocks or societal norms, our souls are also here to evolve. And so, we are never where we're going. And we are creating ourselves as we go. It's one and both.

I started playing with reinvention at a really young age, because I grew up in the military and we would move every few years. It just gave me the perfect opportunity to start fresh anywhere we'd go. We all know how kids love to judge and categorize, I remember being at one school and I was the shy girl. When we moved, I decided I didn't want to be the shy girl anymore.

Then, I remember at other points in my life, I didn't want to be the smart girl either. I wanted to be the completely average girl that wouldn't be intimidating to any boy; I cringe looking back on it. But I went through several of these reinventions, and it became really fun for me.

Of course, as I got older and older, I found that I kind of converged on the feeling of who I really was. But like I said, there were always some next thing calling to me. I've watched myself change and grow so much over the years, even more so since I became an entrepreneur, of course. Because entrepreneurship is the single greatest personal development journey for any woman.

Anyway, I had no clue how I was actually doing it. I couldn't help anyone else do it. But now I do, and I'm going to break it down for you in a second. But first of all, there's this important point, did you know that you can just decide to be different? You can.

So many of us have adopted a fixed mindset and we tell ourselves, “That's just how I am.” Or we've listened to other people telling us that's just how we are. But if you could switch up that one belief, you will be probably 75% of the way to where you're going. Just that one toxic thought holds so many of us back.

Now, I know some of you might be feeling the hairs on the back of your neck prick up right about now and you're saying, “But Jenna, what about neurodiversity? The way you're wired, you can't change that. And trauma responses that are just kicking in?” Etc., etc.

I do think it's interesting and curious that we have a tendency to really focus on what we perceive is unchangeable, rather than what can be changed. Our brain will hear something and will immediately scout for the 1% where that may not be true, rather than focusing on the 99% where it is. I'll also say, that even within, for instance, those two topics in particular, there is so much room for change and growth. Even within that.

I say this as someone who has been in EMDR therapy for over a year now, and has really drastically changed my own trauma responses. I've seen the shifts that are absolutely possible. I do have some neurodivergent points, probably undiagnosed ADHD, which I'm learning more and more about as I study it on behalf of my son.

It's so funny because my husband is too, and every once in a while, he'll be looking over at me, he'll be scratching his head, and he’ll be like, “Um, Jen, listen to what it says here. Listen to the symptoms, these characteristics.” Many of the points hit very close to home.

But again, I've seen how my experience of those symptoms change based on things that I'm doing, things that I'm thinking, and patterns of behavior and belief.

Just to address one other objection that might be coming up, none of this talk of becoming somebody else or reinventing yourself is meant to spark shame, or to further entrench an idea of ‘not good enough.’ But instead, it's to allow our beautiful evolution, to challenge perceived limitations, and any minute of any day can be the moment of beginning again.

But of course, the start of a new year is such a natural time for thinking about this. I just had to bring it up and talk about it now. But whenever you are listening, this is a great time.

So, you know how a lot of us will select a word of the year? If you are believing that only certain things about you can change, you will be limiting your possibilities without even realizing it.

But what if you could choose anything, if you open to it, if you listen and are honest with yourself? This is the fluttering of something new, and your attempt to give it form through a word. It's your potential and your future knocking on your door, you just have to heed the call and then be courageous enough to do the work to bring it into reality.

Which, of course, is exactly the work that we do in the Clarity Accelerator, for ourselves and our business. So, if you've been feeling like you are moving into reinvention, or some uplevel for yourself or your business, you should join us and create the space for yourself. Declare that you deserve the space for yourself to explore that, and then to create that.

Because why hang out in the energy of 2023 any longer? Why live in the past when you've got big things to do? That reminds me of the single biggest misconception about my work and about the work we do in the Clarity Accelerator.

Some people assume that clarity is something for new entrepreneurs that haven't yet figured out their niche, or their best aligned way of creating profit. But your soul and your business' soul couldn't give a flying fuck about the stage you're at in business. When you hear that knock, meaning you've evolved out of your current business or current way of being in that business, it's for a reason and it is time to evolve, even if it's scary.

We all feel the desire to get clear on what exactly is going to emerge and what that means for us. Can we really even do it? How are we going to support ourselves through it? What are the steps we're going to take? How are we going to create it? This happens to all of us. I have worked on this with seven-figure business owners, with multiple-six figure business owners, with business owners bringing in $50,000 a year, and with women that are just starting out.

I repeatedly go through the process, too. I'll tell ya; it keeps happening, we keep growing. A couple of years ago, I couldn't even imagine that I'd be sharing some of the things that I'm sharing in my Uncommon Story series. Or that I'd let my social media team put out a picture of me in my bathing suit, let alone to be talking about energetics and energy. Oh my gosh, that was the thing that I kept under wraps the most.

Yet, here I am now heeding the call within to be exactly who I am, to express all different sides of me, and to stretch and to express. It's been a wild ride.

If you're not doing that, and I don't mean posting pictures of yourself in your bathing suit on Instagram. I mean, if you are not leaning into your evolution, whatever that might look like... If it's been a couple of years or several years since you've thought about burning everything to the ground and recreating everything from your current vantage point... Not that you will need to burn everything to the ground, but as a thought experiment, to really help you get clean as you consider your future.

If it's been a while since your last evolution, I’d get curious about that. Because we know what we want our endstate. We're so in the state of who we're becoming that we just act from there all the time, and in a seemingly effortless way attract whatever we desire.

But how do we get there? What I tend to see, is this anchor effect that holds us back. That is, that we get tied to our past, or we get tied to the status quo, and it can become like our comfy security blanket. And so, it becomes really challenging to successfully evolve.

This is the same reason that so many people don't change, even when they say they want to. Why so many New Year's resolutions go unfulfilled. We say we want change, but all of our brain power is going towards the same fears, the same old thoughts, the same old complaints that keep us in the vibration of our past, rather than calling in what we desire.

We've got to cut ties with the past. It's like a snake shedding skin, it no longer fits or serves. Even if we wanted to hang on to it, which so many of us try valiantly to do, we're really just carrying these layers, these dead layers, on top of us. It's not the shiny, alive, living, breathing entity that we could be seeing.

There is no shame, because we all do this. We are literally wired to maintain the status quo and to only evolve when we're forced to. But we don't want that for ourselves, do we?

So, let me paint a picture for you. Imagine a triangle is called the “motivational triad.” It depicts what motivates us. At one vertex of the triangle, you have ‘the avoidance of pain.’ That's very motivating, right? On the other, you have ‘the pursuit of pleasure.’ That shiny, dangly carrot out in front of us. It's motivating too, because you want that carrot.

But then, why is it, even when you have both of these… For instance, maybe you know that overworking is completely stressing you out, it's affecting your health, and you're not even being all that productive.

You know that if you could create more space in your life, it would be so much better; you'd be so much healthier, you'd have better relationships, on and on and on. Why is it still so hard to change? Same with weight loss, exercise goals, and any New Year's resolution things.

You definitely don't want to be where you are, you definitely do want to be in your future, and yet, it's so hard. Well, it's because there is a third vertex on this triangle we're talking about, and it is called “the efficiency factor.” All that means is, that your brain is actually motivated to not change, to conserve energy, and to be its most efficient.

Which means it keeps doing things in the ways that it's already learned to do. It's not going to spend time creating new neural pathways, because our brains consume so much energy, such a large percentage of our energy, that doing that would require even more energy. And we need that energy just in case, for survival. What if a tiger jumps out?

Again, we're carrying around brains from hundreds of thousands of years ago, essentially. No matter how much your inner visionary sees the Garden of Eden on the other side, part of your brain’s like, “Not so sure, you’ve got to sell me on it.” And because that part is unconvinced, it can be really sneaky.

I think of this as having a really amazing executive assistant; I call her Miss Peterkins. She's this person, this powerhouse, that has really been running the show behind the scenes for so long. Everyone knows it. Every once in a while, her boss, the CEO, comes up with some great idea. But Miss Peterkins knows that that will only throw a wrench in things, and it's actually a terrible idea.

And so, even though she nods diligently and takes notes on her steno pad, she walks right back into her office and keeps doing business as usual. In her mind, for the best interest of the company, she's protecting the CEO from herself.

Now, luckily, Miss Peterkins is wildly efficient, as we've said, and so once she is actually bought in on your vision, once she's actually on your side, she is going to be doing so many things in the background for you, making this all once again run very, very fluidly and effortlessly.

So, that's the good news. But getting there means that you've got to create a ton of desire if you want to escape the status quo, really get clear on what it's costing you to be where you are, and then have the tools to deal with the efficiency factor in real time.

Now, we don't get taught any of the stuff. When we try to start, so frequently, when we start making this change, it really activates our nervous system. Even if it's a “good change,” because it feels different and therefore unsafe.

This is why lottery winners will win all of this money, but pretty much return to their old standard of living within a few years. That way of being, that level of income, is more known, and therefore much safer than being wealthy. In fact, acknowledging and pursuing our desires has been downright dangerous for women. So, even considering it can trigger our nervous systems.

But… But the good news, we are so fortunate to be living in this day and age, where we have so much understanding of the human brain. Yay for us, upending hundreds of thousands of years of evolution.

So, here's what I recommend for you if you want to create the life you want, which will require radically different ways of being to drive the results, given what you're capable of; and I know you're capable of a lot. First, you’ve got to open yourself to the possibility and establish some baseline belief that it's possible.

If it doesn't seem possible, then go out and create the evidence that your brain is not naturally going to bring you because of confirmation bias. So, go out of your way to find stories of how women have actually changed and transformed, sometimes, seemingly overnight.

And then, sometimes there's a really subtle distinction, which is, “Well, I do believe it's possible for other people, but not for me.” We all think we're special snowflakes, but we're really not. And so, think through ways in which you have done things you didn't think you could do at first; walking, talking, hooking a bra behind your back.

I used to watch my son, who is the consummate perfectionist, so competitive and so hard on himself, telling himself that he would never be able to ride a bike, and getting really upset with us for not buying into his story that he wasn't going to be able to ride a bike. We just knew he was going to be able to ride a bike. You have created so many new things in your life, and you can do this too.

Alright, the second thing is, you have to decide. Which requires you being willing to leave behind some things. So, maybe you're thinking, “Oh, yes, I want to show up more boldly.” But there's this other programming, this other voice that’s saying, “But you need to be a lady.”

Those two might be in conflict. In fact, they probably are in conflict, because so often, being a lady, or in a more modern way of speaking, just being a good woman, would mean that you're willing to put others before yourself and be humble and let others take the stage.

If you really want to move into a different way of working, for instance, with fewer hours, then you have to be willing to leave behind the part that says, “But then maybe I won't get anything done at all.” You have to be willing to let things go and then be willing to do the work. You have to be willing to move through that discomfort we were talking about.

You have to be willing for things to feel a little weird and unsettling, and have some vulnerability hangovers, or whatever it is based on what you're trying to move towards. So, open to it being possible, and then decide to go through with it.

Finally, you need a process for actually creating change, and hopefully drawing on teachings from modern neuroscience in order to expedite your results. Now, what we've learned from modern neuroscience easily surpasses the scope of one episode. It's the subject of entire advanced coaching and therapy certifications. It could easily be its own podcast. But I'll try to break it down into a bite-sized blurb for the sake of simplicity, in just a second.

We are seeing that the brain is so, so much more plastic, meaning it can change and it can rewire itself. And it's so much more plastic than we realized 20 or even 10 years ago; which is fantastic for us. We have more information about how to interrupt and how to reroute current thought patterns, which of course are just signals firing in our brain.

And so, on a practical level, we don't need to spend 20 years in therapy to work through each and every hurt feeling we ever experienced, thank God. I love me some therapy. It feels great to get things off your chest, but I don't want that to be the key to my success because it feels never-ending. Are you with me?

The beauty is, all we have to do is work on the core stimulus response pattern and install a new one well enough that it becomes the default. Now, this can sound rather unromantic. I remember I was speaking with a potential client who said, “You really like to talk about the brain, don't you?”

And yeah, I do. I love to talk about the brain. Remember, my secret sauce is being able to move back and forth between the left and the right; although that's not really a thing. But that concept of the left brain and the right brain, or the masculine and feminine, however you choose to look at it. That, of course, and an uncanny knack for seeing the gifts of my clients and what that means for their future business.

Anyway, if you are new here and tuning into this, then you're always going to get both; just fair warning. One minute at science and the next I'll be talking about being in the vibration of your future self more of the time, to then attract what you desire to have and experience. But it's really just two ways of thinking about the process.

And so, all of this science, that's what was going on for me, as a girl who was practicing reinvention. I was getting very clear on the pain vertex of that motivational triad triangle. I was very clear on the possible pleasure. And I was willing to go for it. I was willing to go after it actively.

Meaning, I'd plan ahead for what I was going to do in that situation. I’d say the thing or do the thing, and then I’d observe it as was happening. I’d tune into how it felt, and I'd reflect on it and I’d journal about it. I’d reward myself for stretching. And then I was naturally relaxing my nervous system afterwards. I loved to read and dance and play in the waves, I'd do those things, which opened me to my highest levels of thinking and being.

Knowing what I know now, I can see that what I was doing corresponds to what we now understand from modern neuroscience. I remember the exact moment when this all clicked for me. Here's the simplified blurb that I promised you, ready?

For the quickest, most effective brain change, we need to involve as many parts of the brain as possible. We have such amazingly intricate, interconnected brains and bodies. When you connect different parts, and when different parts are used to activating in conjunction with others, then as soon as one fires, it connects to the others.

Have you ever seen those Christmas lights on the trees where all the red lights will blink, and then all the blue lights will blink? Well, those are all connected on a circuit. We just have a pattern where typically our red lights blink. But our brain is plastic enough that we can get it so that actually, with the exact same circumstance triggering this response, instead of the red lights flashing on, the blue lights flash on.

Of course, the blue lights are strung all over your tree, which represents your brain, so they're all firing in different parts of the brain. Now, it's not as uniform as that, as a tree, but I think this is a good example. It’s the one that came to my head right now, so we're rolling with it.

When you can do that, then you start being like, “Shit, the old me would have reacted and acted completely differently just now. But I just thought of it this way. I just acted this way.” You start surprising the people around you as well, who can't believe that in such a short time you've changed.

I remember once, I've told the story before, about how I applied for a mastermind, didn't get in, and I felt down about it. Then I realized it was because I had had the thought that, “If I were to join that, then I'll be one of those elite coaches.” Well, by then I was already ranking on the first page of Google. But I didn't believe that I deserved to be there. I thought it was a fluke.

And so, when I uncovered what was going on, I determined to reinvent myself in that way to coach at that level, to be the woman who believes she is the coach who deserves to be on the first page of Google. I created that within a month. It was wild how differently I started showing up and actually believing it.

The beauty is, that you can do this new experiencing. You can create this new pattern in your brain with both real and imagined circumstances. I feel like I need to say that again, because it's a trip. You don't just have to go out there and practice in real life, you can also imagine the scenarios that you're practicing with.

Yes, the subconscious part of the brain, where so much behavior and emotion are initiated anyway, doesn't know the difference between the thing happening right now versus your imagination. Recreating that “if” now, if you're really into it and really feeling it, then it will feel real to your body, to your brain. Which is so exciting that we can practice so much of this from the comfort of our own home.

This is essentially what people are doing with visualizations. Again, that can be a whole brain experience when it's done correctly. Which is why they can be so effective, and they can create change in a short amount of time. Not necessarily by themselves, but as a very powerful tool.

Luckily, you don't have to know all the ins and outs of the brain yourself. If you are working with a good coach who understands this, she is constantly prompting you in different ways to engage different parts of your brain and help you create the strongest network and the most direct paths to change.

Plus, if you're working with someone who has personally experienced not just one, but several reinventions, and has helped others do it, then it's going to be such a no-brainer to that coach. Just like when you watch a child who's upset that they can't ride the bicycle but you just know they're going to be able to ride the bicycle.

Through that level of belief, it helps you engage with the work in a different way. It becomes a natural consequence for you too. And of course, that person's energy transmits to you too.

Have you ever listened to someone speak and then you felt different afterwards? You felt energized? It wasn't just because of the inspirational words; it was something about the way they talk. They're at a frequency where it's activating yours. It's so good. It's such a shortcut.

I could go on and on about how great all of this is. And we could continue to geek out on neuroscience for hours and hours, but I know you all are in the holiday period and you have things going on. So, we're going to end it here.

Okay, who is ready for a New Year's gift? This is a tradition that I started long ago. At this time of year, I would always give a special gift to everyone on my email list. This year, I'm doing it on the podcast. But it's coming out in the next episode.

It's going to help you experience everything that I've been talking about for yourself. I have created a short, relaxing meditation for you to listen to, for you to engage with, that will help you not only get your brain on board with where you want to go, and not only get you into that future self high-vibe state, but will also help you activate different parts of your brain and create more rapid and lasting transformation.

Are you ready for this? I am so excited for you. Okay, my friend. That's it for today. Remember, deep down you know who you are, and each day you're stepping further into what you're here to create.

Hey, if you want true clarity about your secret sauce, your people, your best way of doing business, and how you talk about your offer, then I invite you to join us in the Clarity Accelerator. I'll teach you to connect all the dots, the dots that have always been there for you, so that you can show up like you were born for exactly this.

Come join us and supercharge every other tool or tactic you'll ever learn, from Facebook ads to manifestation. Just go to TheUncommonWay.com/schedule and set up a time to talk. I can't wait to be your coach.

Thanks for joining us here at The Uncommon Way. If you want more tips and resources for developing clarity in your business and life, including the Clarity First strategy for growing and scaling your business, visit TheUncommonWay.com. See you next time.

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