I'm Effie, a life coach who profoundly gives a fuck about
you feeling better for good. I teach people how to cut the
crap and live according to their own rules.
It's a crime we don't learn this stuff in school, but it's
simpler than you think to break the pattern and start living the
life you want. Listen on to find out how.
Hey, welcome to Feeling Better for Good.
I am so glad you're here. I'm so excited for today's
episode. This is podcast #5 in a series
I'm doing on reinvention. And today we're looking at how
it's possible to work as hard as you do, where it feels like
you're doing all the right things, but you're not getting
the traction you need to move forward in the way that you want
to and quite frankly, the way that you deserve to in your
life. So last time we talked about how
to break out of chronic burnout, AKA a toxic stress cycle, by
reorienting yourself. So I introduced you to the
concept of directing your brain by asking better questions.
And three questions in particular.
One, how do I feel honestly? Two, how do I want to feel
instead? And three, who do I want to be
and how do I want to live? And OK, I know that last 1 is
really two questions, but they're so interrelated, I tend
to ask them in the same breath. So let's just go with it.
Today we're talking about the why.
Why am I not getting the results I want even though I'm working
my ass off? The answer is quite simple, but
it has more than one layer. So we're going to take the work
that we did last time, we're going to push it even further,
and we're going to look at it on a number of different layers.
The central metaphor I'm going to be using throughout this
podcast is the diagnosis. A diagnosis, of course, is the
identification of a condition based on individual symptoms,
history, and other data like test results.
And we don't just want a diagnosis, we want the
diagnosis, right? An accurate one to be able to
move forward effectively. Because without that, we're
whistling in the dark and with an inaccurate diagnosis, we're
off on a path that takes us further from the solution and
may actually be harmful. Actively.
Not just because it's delaying your ability to feel better for
good and get the solution that's ultimately gonna work for you,
but because the treatment may be so inappropriate to the real
problem that it actually makes it worse.
I was inspired to tackle this subject on the podcast because I
have a close family member who's been going through some serious
medical stuff this year and quite recently, just in the last
couple of months, and I want to protect their privacy so I'm not
sharing specific details, but suffice it to say they had some
really disturbing symptoms crop up.
Not suddenly. They were like a gradual onset.
And they tried to manage it on their own, but it just kept
happening and seemed to be getting worse.
And they weren't necessarily getting a serious response from
their medical professionals. But finally, it was just
unavoidable. So they went in to get seen in
earnest, thinking that it was one thing, you know, they'd done
their research. They were like, I think, I think
this is probably what's going on.
But their doctor had a hunch in a completely different
direction. So the doctor ordered tests and
found out it was a serious issue with an organ system that wasn't
even on the radar for their patient.
My family member, I'll call them my person, just I know I'm using
like vague pronouns here, but we'll call them my person.
So the doctors and specialists didn't know, and my person
didn't know what the issue was yet.
And the symptoms kept really cropping up and seemingly
getting worse while they tested to be able to pinpoint exactly
what's going on. And when they finally did, when
they finally hit on the thing, my person had such relief just
from the clarity of finally knowing what was going on that
they started to feel substantially better.
Like instantly. And I'm talking 50% better or
more immediately. And this was not just mentally
and emotionally better. Physically they had more energy.
They were moving better. Their symptoms were both lower
in frequency and intensity, which is wild.
But getting an accurate diagnosis changed the game.
It didn't solve the problem, but it was obviously a big turning
point in their ability to move forward and get the right help
and then of course, to be able to adjust their thinking and
their emotional state and their expectations for receiving that
help. So what happened with my person
is they needed surgical intervention to resolve the
problem, so they took care of that and ended up having a
complication related to the surgery.
So they had a completely new set of symptoms that seriously
limited their activity. It was really different than the
first set of symptoms, which was largely resolved with this
surgery, but the new symptom set was even worse than the oldest
symptom set, and it really compromised their ability to be
active even more than before. So they went through some real
despair, thinking their body just maybe didn't take well to
the surgery and this was their new normal in life.
But then they went back in. They advocated for themselves,
insisted on getting some additional testing, and boom,
they identified the problem. It turned out to be a relatively
common complication related to this specific surgery, but they
weren't hip to it, and as soon as they were, again, it was
instant medicine in the form of clarity and validation.
My person felt 50% better right away.
Symptoms faded, not disappeared. There was a new course of
treatment, but again, they knew what was up and that made all
the difference. So the number one reason you are
not getting traction and creating the results you want,
even though you're working hard, is that you're not addressing
the real problem. There's a hidden problem
underneath what appears to be the issue.
And this, my love, is so common. I see it all the time when I'm
consulting with women in my practice.
It really is not a matter of ability or talent OR skill.
It's that my ambitious, amazing, highly competent Superwoman are
caught up in unwinnable games, and we've touched on this in
recent episodes. So again, if you are taking bold
action and pushing and showing up big, the result is not
finding you and you don't know why.
The reason it's not working is not an indictment on you, it's
that you're simply solving the wrong problem and it's not your
fault. It is not your fault.
We all have blind spots and our brains are trained habitually on
things that aren't really relevant or helpful if what
we're interested in is innovating and creating
solutions that produce real results.
By the way, even if you are really good at producing results
in one area of your life, but you're finding you feel really
stuck in this other area that you're trying to create some
real traction and create some real momentum in.
It is a matter of focus and it's a matter of perspective.
High level problems require high level solutions, and we have to
change our context to be able to access them.
We have to be looking at things from a different angle,
literally coming from a different place to be able to
see the problem more clearly. We're just standing in the wrong
spot. So to do this, to be able to see
the problem more clearly and come from this different angle,
we must train our brain to ask more helpful questions.
And the great Ani DiFranco, the lyricist and songwriter,
singer-songwriter, has a song called Hell Yeah.
One of the lyrics that I absolutely love in this song is
that if you don't ask the right questions, every answer feels
wrong. When I first heard that in the
90s, I was like, oh shit. And I've taken it with me.
If you don't ask the right questions, every answer feels
wrong. So no wonder you're stuck.
No wonder it feels like you can't move forward.
Because the way you get into this pickle, spinning your
wheels, working so hard to try to solve a problem that's not
the real problem, is by asking the wrong questions.
You can literally be doing all the right things and failing
miserably. When this is the case.
I'm gonna give you an example from my own life.
It's actually the pivotal moment in my own history that changed
everything. When with the help of a single
coaching tool, I was able to see the part I had been playing in
my own anxiety and depression for decades.
The light switched on for me, and I have never been the same
in the best way possible. And here's the best way I can
describe it, or the best way I know how to describe it.
For as long as I can remember, I'd struggled with mood issues
and what clinicians characterized as feeling
disorders or mood disorders, namely depression and anxiety.
These are issues of emotional regulation.
And what I've learned not from counseling but from coaching, is
that emotional regulation is a skill.
It is learned, and if you learn how to regulate your emotions
early on in life, you are exceptional.
This is not a value of Western society and tragically is just
not something that's taught to us.
I want to be really clear here that when I say emotional
regulation, I mean knowing how to process emotional energy
through your nervous system simply and effectively without
shame, resistance or indulgence or without getting stuck in any
of those areas. Not something that's ingrained
in US, right? Anyway, I always struggled to
manage my moods. And as a result, I thought of
myself in a certain way as a bit of a ticking time bomb or, you
know, my, I was also treated in this way, which is, you know,
she's kind of just erratic or an unreliable person.
And I thought of myself that way.
And I thought of myself as a depressive.
And since I was very little, I felt things very deeply.
It was hard living in my body 'cause I didn't know how to move
this energy, and I didn't understand that it was totally
OK to have these big emotions and to work with those.
And that I could, in finding out how to work with them, access a
new kind of power. Not in spite of my emotional
difficulties, but fueled by them.
And in that place of disempowerment, where my big
emotions were the problem, I frequently felt wronged and
like, you know, things weren't working out for me or they
weren't going to work out for me.
So these were the kind of questions that occupied my mind.
And just notice if you see yourself in these questions.
What's wrong with me? Why do I feel so bad?
Why is it that nothing I do makes a difference?
What's wrong with people? What's wrong with the world?
Listen carefully and you will hear an embedded command in each
of these questions, and none of them, I promise you, will ever
have satisfying answers because the premise is fucked in each of
them. OK, what's wrong with me assumes
that there is in fact something wrong with you, that you are the
problem. You keep asking that question
and you will keep finding things wrong with you, I guarantee it.
I did that racket for decades. The question why do I feel so
bad unconsciously reinforces your bad feeling baseline.
Hey, remember we feel bad, that's who we are.
Again, look for reasons to feel bad and you will always find
more, I guarantee it. But that's not going to help you
feel better, it's just going to entrench those neural pathways
even more. Same with nothing I do makes a
difference and what's wrong with people and what's wrong with the
world based on fundamental errors in thinking.
And all of these thoughts are 100% self fulfilling.
What I am not suggesting is that you deny the reality of how you
feel. But we are orienting toward
different questions and therefore different solutions.
Your brain will happily provide answers to any question you ask
it. I promise lots and lots of
answers, but answers to questions based on faulty
thinking is never going to be productive.
So when it wants to spin up in the same old deteriorating line
of questions, which it's going to want to do, it is in the
habit of this and it's going to want to go there.
But what we need to do is start getting in a new habit, the
habit of directing it to higher quality questions based on
problems you actually have power over, based on problems you can
actually do something about. What I want to offer you are a
few questions to seed you. These are what to direct your
brain to when you're in a place where you feel stuck or like
your efforts aren't working, especially when you're putting
out a lot of effort. So write these down for when you
need them. You can also tweak them, massage
them, make them yours. All right, here you go.
Where might I be misaligned? Where am I not taking
responsibility for myself? Where am I assuming
responsibility for things that actually aren't mine?
What am I thinking? This is the most powerful one.
What am I thinking, 'cause we tend to really over identify
with our thoughts. But what I'm suggesting that you
do, and this is a practice that I have every single one of my
clients learn in the beginning of our work, is to do a brain
dump. Just get out all of the thoughts
that are in your head onto paper where you can actually deal with
them. And so in addition to what am I
thinking and then just getting them out of your head onto
paper. When you're looking at those
thoughts, you ask yourself now, am I willing to question every
one of these thoughts? Am I willing to evaluate how
each of them make me feel and whether or not I want to keep
choosing them? This is one of the most powerful
questions you can ask yourself, but it only comes after you
really, truly understand what you are thinking and feeling.
And answering the question why I feel this way can always be
traced back to your thoughts. Thoughts create your emotions,
your emotions create your patterns of action, and your
patterns of action create your results.
So we cannot ignore the fuel. Even if you're doing everything
right, you're doing all the right things.
So your pattern of action is squeaky clean.
If you're not putting the right fuel into it, if you're not
putting the right thoughts and feelings into it, you're going
to come up short in your outcomes and your results.
So play with those. See how far you get with those.
I want to give you 4 that are really the the simplest ones and
really everything that you need to start reprogramming the
system. First one is how can I get the
insight I need to assess the situation more clearly right
now? Next is what's the next smallest
step I can take to move forward? Then who can I reach out to for
help? And finally, am I willing to
trust the process? Directing your brain is tough in
the beginning. It's going to want to wrestle
the reins right out of your hands and pony off on its own.
Boy, does it love doing that. But keep trying, it will pay
off. These questions will start to
become habitual with repetition, and they will change not only
how you see life, but how you perceive yourself.
Developing this practice is so vital because your brain will
naturally start answering whatever questions you offer it
and it will start to accept the underlying commands.
And each time you repeat this, it will accept them on a deeper
level. So in those questions, the
underlying commands are I can take responsibility, I can
choose my thoughts, I can get the insight I need, I can move
forward, reach out for help, trust the process.
We forget that that's the case when we are in the stock zone.
So these questions are absolutely transformative.
Please let me know how they're working for you if you're coming
up against roadblocks. I always love hearing from my
people. You can DM me at Effie Levore on
Instagram or Facebook. You can also just e-mail me
effie@effielevore.com. The last thing I want to say
about this, and this is super important, is just how valuable
it is to have expert guidance when we're seeking a better way
of being. And that's what I define
reinvention as, simply a better way of being.
And most of us are going to want to guide as we cultivate that
discernment and the ability to manage our minds and our
emotions, because this is not something it's taught to us and
modeled for us generally. We need a trusted servant or a
sole friend, a guide who's further down the path than we
are to help us light our own way forward.
I cannot overstate the value of consulting an expert here.
Just like when you go into the doctor, you are relying on their
expertise to help you make the best decisions you can, but they
are not the authority on you, your body or your life.
You are. And a good coach, a good life
coach, just like a good doctor, is going to help you get the
data and insight you need to make the most informed choices
on the stuff that really matters, the stuff that can
change the course of your life. If you know you're ripe for
reinvention in 2026 and suspect that I'm the guide for you,
let's find out. On December 2nd, that's next
Tuesday, I am opening applications for my exclusive
one-on-one coaching program. This is a high touch experience
where you get direct access to me as you reinvent yourself and
reinvent your life from the inside out to create the highest
impact. Whether it's a big level up in
your work, in your relationships.
Maybe you're wanting to create a new relationship, maybe it's
your health, your finances, you name it, I got you.
This program is called Your Year of Reinvention.
And look, I want you to know it's not for everybody.
But if the idea of doing a 2025 repeat gives you the shivers and
you know you're ready for this kind of support, you're going to
want to apply. I'll be accepting 3 women into
this container. I have spots for just three, so
make sure you stay tuned for details.
Check in here on December 2nd or hop on my e-mail list now by
going to afilavore.com and click Get high on my emails.
All right, that's the podcast. Thank you for spending this time
with me. You are such a fucking boss.
Don't forget it and I'll see you soon.
Bye. If you're ready to do the work
to move forward on what you want and actually get it, I can help
you. I'm offering my podcast
listeners a free consultation with me to talk about what
coaching can do for you this year.
Just visit effielavor.com to get started.