“Remember: Our thoughts ALWAYS end up as our results. Sometimes though, our results just need to catch up to our thoughts. Stay patient.”

Want to know the fastest and simplest way to see how far off you are from reaching a goal?  

Figure out what stage of belief you’re in.

I teach often your thoughts drive your feelings, your feelings then drive your actions and your actions create your results. That means your thoughts are the core of what create your results.

(If that concept is shocking to you or doesn’t make sense, this episode is not for you. This episode is especially designed for those that KNOW their thoughts create their results. Now they want help on how to maximize that universal truth.)

I’m already telling my clients this episode is a MUST LISTEN and will be one of the most important episodes they’ll listen to. If you’re a go-getter woman who wants to accomplish your goals with more ease, I suggest you listen to it too.

What I teach you today is going to help you cut out soooo much time and energy on actions that will lead you to nowhere land so you can instead focus on what will make your goals happen with ease while you’re feeling good instead.

IN THIS EPISODE, I SPECIFICALLY TEACH:

• What the 3 stages of belief are
• What each stage looks and feels like
• How to determine what stage you’re in
• Why it’s important to analyze what stage of belief you’re in monthly

…and so much more

Listen now on your favorite podcast player or via the link at the top of this page.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

→ Apply to coach with me

→ Continue the conversation in my free online community

→ SOLVE ANY PROBLEM episode

→ FIND THE RIGHT APPROACH episode

→ UNDERSTANDING TRAUMA episode

Full Transcript

Stages of Belief

This is the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast with Lindsay Preston Episode 107,
Stages of Belief.

[music]

Welcome to the Become An Unstoppable Woman podcast, the show for goal-getting,
fear-facing women for kicking ass by creating change. I’m your host, Lindsay Preston.
I’m a wife, mom of two, and a multi-certified life coach to women all over the world.
I’ve lived through enough in life to know that easier doesn’t always equate to better.
We can’t fear the fire, we must learn to become it. On this show, I’ll teach you how to
do just that. Join me as I challenge you to become even more of the strong, resilient,
and powerful woman you were meant to be. Let’s do this.

[music]

Hey, there Miss Unstoppable. So happy to have you for this episode of the show. If you
are a current client of mine, you have to listen to this episode, and I’ve already told you
that. So that’s why you’re here, because this episode is so important to your long-term
success with the work I have given you and your coaching process. In my Living the
Dream part of my coaching process, we are talking all about belief, and that may be
why you’re here.

Now if you’re not a client of mine, you’re like, “Lindsay, what are you talking about?
Living the dream, why is it so important?” Let me just briefly walk you through my
coaching process just so you get an idea of why they are at this place where they’re at.
My coaching process is nine months from start to finish. Somebody comes to me and
says, “Lindsay, I want to achieve X, Y, Z goals in the next nine months.” We sit down on
that free consult call, and I really check in with myself and say, “Can I get this person to
those goals?” During that consult, I’m asking them about their life now and where they
want to go, and I’m also asking them some questions about their work ethic.

Just having done this whole coaching thing for seven years now, I know overall what
their blocks are going to be. I can spot work ethic things that maybe I need to work
through with them. Again, I really am able to sit down and say, “Can I deliver this in
nine months?” Currently, at the time of this recording, I guarantee results, meaning they
come to me, they say they want those goals, I say we can do it and then I guarantee it.
Now I do have a coach in my ear who is like, “Lindsay, I think you need to quit
guaranteeing results,” and a lawyer too, but right now, it’s feeling in alignment. So
that’s what we do, because either way, my clients get their goals. So I’m not worried
about every guarantee or not. Many times I’m just guaranteeing it for those people who
are like, “Oh, I don’t know how I’m going to make this investment,” and that just allows
them to create comfort. That’s really the reason why I do it.

All right, but anyways, it’s a nine month process. They come in with those goals, and
then they go through my step-by-step proven process. Not only is it proven because of
what I’ve done with my clients, it is backed by neuroscience, a lot of it. These are the
things that science has shown of what our brains need in order to create long lasting
change in a way that feels good to us, because we can go out there and create all kinds
of change, but a lot of times we’re in hustle mentality. We’re in a frantic action. It
creates anxiety. Nobody wants any of that in their life. They want to be able to achieve
in a way where there’s peaceful success, so during those nine months, I’m teaching
them how to do that.
The first three months we’re digging in deep into their past and all the things that have
happened to create the present that they have today. We’re doing things like bullet
holes. Bullet holes are really just these beliefs that they’ve built about themselves and

others in the world, and they were looking at that inner mean girl voice, which is that
voice that is whispering in their ear over and over again all these negative things. Then
from there, they’re learning how to feel, deal and heal. After those first three months,
they’re in a space where the primary feeling that they’re feeling is at least neutral.
They’re not feeling as much anger, sadness, anxiety, shame, guilt, all those “negative
things.”

Then from there, from that neutral place, I’m starting to regulate their nervous system. I
know it sounds kind of scientific, but really just taking the abundance because then
what happens the next three months is they start to really make their goals and dreams
happen. Typically, the first three months the goals we’re setting there are some internal
goals like, “Let’s improve your confidence. Let’s decrease your anxiety.” If you’re
working on follow through, let’s look at that. Those kinds of goals.

Then from there, as I said, the next three months the external stuff starts to happen.
Like for one client, she just got engaged. Before that, we were working on a lot of
relationship stuff that was blocking her from really accepting her now fiancé and being
able to lean into that vulnerability of that life and to fully love him instead of push him
away as many of us like to do. For a lot, it’s getting new jobs at this point or making
more money, and so they’ve got to be at a place where their nervous system is
regulated enough to take in that abundance.

Then from there too, to really build who they are authentically. So making sure that
when they’re making decisions moving forward, it’s not out of fear. It’s not out of
people pleasing. It’s instead of, “This is who I am. This is what I truly want in my life,”
because they’re building their life vision and some 10-year plans and all that stuff.
Then again, that just starts coming true because their brain finally has the clarity it
needs to go out there and make their dreams and goals happen, and they’re feeling
better than ever too, and it just seems very effortless. That’s the next three months of
my coaching process. That’s called Become Authentically Awesome.

I think I forgot to mention the first three months is called Become An Unstoppable
Woman, just like this podcast so then Become Authentically Awesome the next three
months. Last three months, Living the Dream. This is a three-ish month process. Really,
the first six months is kind of meaty in regards to content and change, and then the last
three months it’s just taking what they learned those first six months and making sure
they can implement it over and over and over and over and over again, because again,
that process I teach them those first six months is what I think is like the secret to the
universe kind of thing. If you have that, you’re pretty much good to go. You just need to
keep implementing it over and over and over again.

I teach them a couple things: one, how to keep going after goals. I teach them a
process I actually taught on one of the podcasts. I think it was Find the Right Approach.
I’ll link it in the show notes. It’s a process of dreaming what you want to go after, which
they do in my Authentically Awesome Program, deciding then what they want to focus
on which can be hard for a lot of women making that decision. We’ve been working on
decision making, so they can usually decide by then. Then doing it, going after it and
learning how to go all in on their goals and massive action instead of frantic action and
then decoding them, and after the month is over, decoding what has happened and why
and what needs to change for the next month.

Then two part of that decoding process is looking at the stages of belief. If they didn’t
get what they set out to do that month, like say they are starting a business or probably
establishing a business and they’re saying, “Okay, I want to make 10k this month.” I say
establish because a lot of people start a business and think it will start there. It won’t. It
will take time.

Maybe they have an established business and they’re like, “I want to make 10K a
month.” Maybe they didn’t make it that month. Maybe they made 5K. Part of the decode
process, it’s, “Let’s look at your stages of belief.” Because what they learned in the
coaching process, and you have learned on this podcast too if you’ve been listening
well and intently, is that whatever we think is what drives our feelings, which then our
feelings drive our actions. Our actions create our results. What happens is our thoughts
eventually become our results.

Now if this is over your head, you’ve never heard me say this before, you need to go
start with another podcast episode called Solve Any Problem. I’ll link in the show notes,
and start there so that concept makes sense because today, what I’m going to teach
you is going to build upon that. Everybody on the same page. We all know our thoughts
create our results, yes?

When we’re looking at the decode process every month of, “I made a goal or didn’t
make a goal happen.” Again, if you’re not a client of mine, you can still be doing this.
Every month, whatever goals you set for that month, you then decode at the end of the
month: what went well, what didn’t go well, what needs to go differently next month.
That’s part of your decode process. When you’re looking at what didn’t go well, you
need to start to analyze, what were my thoughts that led to my results this month?
Those are your beliefs.

All right. Let’s say again, we have the example of, “I want to make a 10K a month,” but
you only make 7K. What didn’t go well? “I didn’t hit my 10K goal.” If we’re looking at
the self-coaching model of the circumstance is made 7K when I wanted to make 10.
What are your thoughts? Start writing all those thoughts down on paper. Start looking
at those because again, those are your beliefs. They somehow have contributed to your
results. All right?

Once you have that, then what you need to do is you need to analyze, “What stage of
belief am I in?” Now if you are an ongoing client of mine in my Living the Dream Group
Program, which is my ongoing monthly coaching program– Again, just to back it up for
you, if you’re new around here, I have one-on-one clients for nine months. Those last
three months I said is Living the Dream, but those are the basic trainings, and then
from there they can decide, “Do I want to keep coaching with Lindsay?” If so, they go
into my Living the Dream group. Then if you’re in the Living the Dream Group Program,
every month you and I sit down, and we analyze this together. We start to look at,
where were your beliefs at on what didn’t go well so that we can change them for next
month. I really sit there, and I make sure you’re really looking at all your beliefs. Yes,
we could look at your actions and your feelings and all of that, but remember, it all
goes back to your thoughts. The thoughts is where the money is at, and for this person,
with this specific goal it’s true.

Then what are we looking at with the stages of belief? They’re going to be in one of
three stages. When you write down those thoughts or those beliefs on paper of
whatever goal you didn’t hit, ask yourself, are these kinds of thoughts an impossibility?
Meaning I’m looking at the goal and my brain is saying, “There’s just no way. This isn’t
realistic. I can’t do this.”

The second stage is possibility. If you’re writing down thoughts of things like, “I didn’t
hit a 10 K month this month, but I hit 7K. I’m only 3K month. It’s possible I will hit it
next month.” Or, “I’m getting closer.” Those are thoughts that are saying, it’s not that
it’s impossible anymore, and it’s possible for me.

That’s the second stage, and then we have the third stage of belief called probability. If
you’re having thoughts like, “Yes, I didn’t hit it this month, but next month it’s
inevitable.” Or, “I’ve done in my mind. I’m getting closer every day. I’ve hit it. It just
needs to come to fruition.” Those kind of thoughts you’re writing on paper, that is
probability. So you maybe ask yourself, “Why is that important, Lindsay?” Let’s go back
one more time. Remember, our thoughts always end up on our result line. Always.
Always, always, always. Sometimes our results just need to catch up to our thoughts.
In my mind, I have an income goal for this year. I know we keep talking about income. I
promise I’m going to talk about other goals. But I have an income goal for this year, and
I haven’t hit it yet. It’s only March, but in my mind it is done. It is probable I will hit that
goal. When I’m writing down every month when I haven’t hit that overall goal, and even
though I haven’t really hit my monthly goals, to be honest, in my mind it’s like, it will
happen later. It didn’t happen this month, but it is going to happen.

Of course, I have a couple thoughts in there sometimes of like, “Ooh, Lindsay, can you
really do it? It seems like it’s going to be harder now.” It doesn’t mean that all your
thoughts are in one stage. Just look at all the thoughts and analyze what stage they’re
in because then you start to know what are the thoughts that I need to change to
evolve them all to probability, because if you’re in impossibility and you’ve set a goal,
that’s where your work is. You’ve got to get your brain to at least exploring that it’s
possible.

So maybe the goal that you have it’s too big right now, and it needs to be fine-tuned
into something else, because if you’re just going to go around setting the same goal
over and over and over again when in your brain it feels impossible, that’s like a
definition of crazy to a lot of people. I think even that’s was an Einstein quote. I’ve used
it many times on the show of doing the same thing over and over again expecting
different results is crazy. You’ve got to start to analyze what are my impossible
thoughts.

A lot of people what they’ll do is, and we see this a lot especially in the
entrepreneurship space of somebody who doesn’t hit a goal of something smaller, and
then all of a sudden they’re hitting or setting even bigger goals. It’s like, “What are you
doing? You haven’t even hit the first goal yet. Why are you setting even bigger goals?”
Because they think the bigger goal is going to motivate them and likely, what it’s
coming down to is they just get into more and more impossibility to a point when then
they’re just spinning in it and they’re making no money.

Same with weight. It’s like, “Oh–” I had a client recently who’s like, “I want to lose 100
pounds in the next year.” I was like, “Whoa, slow down. There’s no way we’re going to
do that. Let’s be realistic here. You could go do that but not with me, and so let’s really
make this a more realistic idea.” Something I have been working with her now for
months is she does this a lot. She’ll go into one extreme to another, of impossibility to
this huge airy-fairy kind of dream, and that too is telling you that your brain isn’t fully
in the possibility stage because it’s setting such vast goals or these big lofty goals that
aren’t rooted in something that is truly possible.

You may be thinking, oh, I’m really helping myself here by setting continually
impossible goals over and over and over again, but the reality is, is then you’re likely
just staying in this tornado of impossibility. Now I’m generalizing there. I know some
other people in the coaching industry they like setting impossible goals. They like
doing that kind of work, and for some people that works. Some people it’s setting this
huge, huge, big goal and going after that, and I do think it’s not a black or white thing.
It can work in some instances, and again, this is where the coaching piece comes in
with this content I’m giving you today of it depends on who it is, of how to customize
this for somebody who it’s going to work better for and not.

Really, what I’m wanting you to just see today is to analyze your beliefs every single
month when you don’t hit a goal. Also, I really want you to analyze your beliefs when
you do hit a goal too, because for whatever reason, those beliefs are working for you. I
had a client recently who is starting to really kill it in her business. She messaged me,
and she’s like, “Oh, and this happened, and this happened, and this happened and this
happened.” I’m like, “Great. That’s so awesome. What are the thoughts that you’re
thinking to generate those actions to get those results?” Then she went silent.
I’m like, “Okay. No, you can’t go silent on me. You really need to analyze what those
thoughts are because those thoughts are working for you, and you need to generate
more of those. You need to double, triple, quadruple down on those because those
things are really working for you.”

That’s why when people coach with me typically,
they just start creating massive results because they– Again, it’s like they’re
understanding the way the brain works and the universe works, if you even believe in
that stuff. It just becomes this really cool synergy of, how am I creating all of this stuff?
It’s like, well, because now your thoughts create your results. You know your thoughts
generate your feelings. When you’re generating good feelings, you’re taking the right
action, and when you’re taking the right action, you’re going to get the results. It just is
inevitable. Let’s backtrack. Again, goal happens. You analyze it. I encourage you at least
every single month. I hear from people sometimes, “Oh, I don’t know if I want to do that
every month.” I think, “What? Why would you not spend the time to do that?” Maybe it
will take 30 minutes to do it, and that is such valuable time.

It’s going to set you up for the whole next month because you’re going to be able to sit
there and think, what are the thoughts that are coming in my brain? Say you have some
thoughts that you know aren’t serving you. You know you want to change. You can start
to do the work to change that. If you have a goal that, say, you want to meet your ideal
partner, and that month it didn’t happen. You did not meet anybody and, say, you didn’t
even take action toward that. You didn’t go on any dates.

Then you need to sit down and say, “I didn’t hit my goal of meeting my ideal partner.”
Then what are the thoughts? I don’t like this. I don’t want to do this. This is going to be
hard. I’m going to get hurt. That’s a lot of thoughts that are an impossibility. That’s
where you need to look at those and say, “Okay, I know that I don’t want to stay here.
What do I need to do to change these?” Some of those thoughts they may be pretty
easy to start to change. You may write a thought on paper and immediately be like, “Oh,
I don’t want to believe that.” The thought, this is going to be hard. “I don’t want to
believe that.”

You can then change it to something like this is going to be fun. That may feel like a
natural transition for you, but there may be other thoughts that you write down of like
the one I’m going to get hurt, and that feels really, really true to you. You know it’s a
thought that doesn’t serve. You know that it’s not going to allow you to move forward
with ease and to move forward in a way that feels good, but your brain just can’t let it
go. That’s where you get to a place that I call, it’s no longer just a limiting thought or
belief. It’s now become a bullet hole. A bullet hole, in case you don’t know, is
something that’s rooted in some sort of likely trauma. If haven’t heard my
Understanding Trauma episode, you may be like, “Whoa, Lindsey, trauma?” It sounds
like I was fighting for my life in the instance I’m thinking of. Trauma is so much more
than that. Trauma is any time you’re really diminishing your lights, any time that you
just felt even a little bit unsafe, your body and your brain can really wrap around that
and view it as trauma.

With a client I’m working with recently, she has this goal of finding her ideal mate. As
we’re working through this month after month after month, something that was
brought up recently is a past engagement that got called off and how she was with
somebody and then all of a sudden, he just changed his mind and was like, “Nevermind,
I’m going to call off the engagement.” That was a trauma to her of her body of reacting
like, “I thought I was going to be with this person forever, and then all of a sudden, he
just changed his mind.”

We have had to look at that bullet hole and then go in and process the deeper
emotions to that for her to feel, deal, and heal to let that go.
Now, if you’re not a client of mine, you don’t know what this is. All I can say is I wish I
could teach it to you right now, but it’s a process. It’s something that takes time. This is
one of the benefits of coaching with me is to be able to go in there and to look at those
bullet holes and feel, deal, and heal in a way where it doesn’t feel like therapy, where
you’re just rehashing the same thing over and over again. You’re just analyzing the
situation and then feeling through it and then moving on.

Going back to stages of belief, looking at those beliefs, what level would you give it? Is
it impossible? Is it in the possibility phase, or is it in the probability phase? We’ve got to
get our beliefs as close to probability as possible for it to finally happen. Now what
happens sometimes is sometimes our results come before our thoughts come meaning,
like I have a client recently who was offered basically her ideal job, making the money
she wanted. She thought she was going to go down a different path to make this kind
of money and get this job.

When she got offered the job, it was like, “I can’t believe this. Oh my gosh, I can’t
believe this is happening.” That’s a telltale sign too if you’re starting to say that to
yourself, “I can’t believe this.” I did this to myself too. I’m in this boat with you if this
happens to you. So many times I hit a new level of abundance and my brain goes into,
“I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.” That’s telling you, your brain is
saying, “I can’t believe that this happened even though I wasn’t fully on board with
you.”

What can happen is that your brain then can self-sabotage it because your brain doesn’t
fully believe that it’s possible. Then your brain will go into making it impossible and
will do things like you’ll make mistakes on the job, or you’ll start to sabotage in other
areas of your life. Then you’ll blame the job for it. Your nervous system will just be all
over the place. Recently, this happened with another client of mine. I finally helped her
get in alignment with her business, and she started making money. Then all of a
sudden, her nervous system just went crazy. I kept calling her out on it because she was
in my long-term program. I’m like, “Hey, I’m seeing this in you. We need to coach
through this, coach through this.” She just kept pulling away, kept pulling away to a
point where she then decided she wanted to end the coaching relationship. That’s
really unfortunate because her brain just wasn’t on board with it.

It’s crazy too because this girl’s a coach. You think she would know better, but the brain
is so tricky. That’s why it’s so important that we’re doing things like a monthly decode
because what happens is our brain can take over. It can take over too quickly, and then
all of a sudden, we’re in this Twilight Zone with our brain when this abundance
happens. I hope I’m not freaking anybody out, but this is what happens a lot of times
when a lot of abundance starts coming your way. It just seems too easy. You feel too
good. You just can’t believe it.

So we’ve got to get your brain on board with this stuff. Otherwise, you’ll just go back to
the average life that you’ve typically had where maybe there’s some sort of drama or
you’re feeling sort of good and sort of not good because to your brain, that’s what feels
safe and what feels normal. It’s so important then that we start to, as I keep saying,
look at the beliefs and then start to regulate your nervous system around that.
With my clients, I teach them something called an upper limit problem that they learn
from the book called The Big Leap, which is a book that I give all of my clients. They
learn about this, of any time we’re growing, the author Gay Hendricks says, then our
brain is like, “Whoa, this is too uncomfortable. Even if it’s good stuff, let’s bring it back
down.” The way that I found to really combat this is something called joy integration.
It’s so interesting because Gay doesn’t talk about that in his book directly, but it’s just
something that I’ve learned as I’ve gone through my own life and seeing other clients
of like, “Hey, we really need this time to integrate joy.” Then I see it everywhere. Even a
client sent me a post that somebody else did. It said something like– Here, I have it
right in front of me. Let me pull it up right now. Where is it? Let’s see.

Oh, here it is. It says, “Note to self. Along with all the growth and healing, remember to
give yourself time for integration, which is a fancy word for allowing shit to settle. It
looks like doing nothing. This nothing is necessary.” That was by Emily McDowell, and
my client sent it to me. She’s like, “This is just like joy integration.” I’m like, “Yes,
exactly.” This is what happens is like we grow and then we have to integrate, and then
we grow and we have to integrate. Really, what we’re doing there is we’re growing, and
then we’re getting our brain on board for the growth if it wasn’t already on board to
begin with.

Again, for my goal, this year of my money goal, I’m telling you in my brain, it’s in that
third stage of probability like, “This is just a done deal.” It’s no big deal. It’s already
done in my mind. When it’s happening, I’m not in this phase of, “I can’t believe it. I can’t
believe I’m doing this.” Instead, it’s in this phase of, “Yes. Yes. Yes, I knew this was
going to happen. Yes. Yes. Yes.” Then I’m not having to do this thing called joy
integration because my body is not freaking out. My brain’s already on board with it.
Again, for a client right now, you’re probably all up on those podcasts right now and
like, “Yes, Lindsey, it all makes sense,” but if not, this is something we need to coach
through.

If you’re somebody who’s not a client of mine, hopefully, you’re just getting enough
nuggets of wisdom here to open your mind and expand the way that you’re viewing
your goals and your world to start to understand how important beliefs are and what
can happen when we don’t fully believe something and what needs to change so that
we can make a goal and then get to that place of probability and just make something
and then make it happen in a way that just feels really fun.

I feel like for one of the first times in my life, I’ve made a goal, and I’m probable that
it’s going to happen before the goals happened. I will tell you, it just makes for a really,
really fun experience of just like, “I know it’s going to happen.” It’s not like, “Oh, I know
it’s going to happen. Let me sit on the couch and eat Cheetos,” because then really
that’s a sign you’re actually in impossibility. Another little trick for you. Instead, I’m like,
“Okay, how am I going to show up? What am I going to do? What outlet am I going to
take?” I’m not fully getting attached to anyone how of how that’s going to happen.

Again, if you’re a client of mine, you know this from our manifesting talks. If you’re not
a client of mine, this may be over your head. Again, it’s so important that if you’re in
that probability stage, you’re not attached to one certain ally. You’re really just focusing
on that one goal of that amount of money and then you get to work with it. All right.
I hope I covered everything that you feel like you needed from this. Again, if you are a
client of mine, this is something we can absolutely coach through and make sure you’re
fully understanding this. It may be something that just takes a couple of months as you
continue to implement the Living the Dream content that you’re consuming by me.
Regardless, I hope I opened your mind today and showed you new things about the
world. I promise you this belief stuff makes sense once you get it. Then once you get it,
woo wee, you are on fire, baby. You are making those goals happen, and you’re feeling
better than freaking ever. Thanks again for tuning in today, and I’ll see you next week.
Bye.

[music]

Hey there, Miss Unstoppable. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. If you
enjoyed it, share it with a friend. Send them a picture of this episode via text, via email,
share it on social media, I’m sure they would be so appreciative to know these
strategies and tips on how to accomplish your dreams. If you are ready to guarantee
you’re going to accomplish your goals and dreams, then it’s time to start coaching with
me. In my nine-month simple success coaching system, I am going to walk you every
single step of the way to ensure that you get the goals and dreams that you want. The
first step is to apply for a free 60-minute consult call. Just go to
LindsayEpreston.com/apply to get started. As always, my friend, remember, you’re only
as unstoppable as you believe you can be, so believe in yourself. You got this