Ep #154: Decade In Review

Katrina Ubell:      You are listening to the Weight Loss for Busy Physicians podcast with Katrina Ubell, MD, episode number 154.

Welcome to Weight Loss for Busy Physicians, the podcast where busy doctors like you get the practical solutions and support you need to permanently lose the weight, so you can feel better and have the life you want. If you're looking to overcome your stress eating and exhaustion and move into freedom around food, you're in the right place.

Well, hey there, welcome to the podcast, my friend. And if you are new searching for a podcast to help you to lose weight in the new year, welcome, welcome, welcome. So glad to have you here. Now this podcast is being released on the 24th, which is Christmas Eve. I'm guessing that not a lot of you will be listening to this live, but you might be. You might be, you might still have to work. You might still be listening to me on your drive, or maybe as you're getting things prepared, or traveling or something like that, you might listen. But if you listen to this a few days or weeks later, that's totally okay too.

We're going to talk about some really good things that are going to get you entering into the new year just in a really great place. But first before we get started, couple of things I want to mention to you. First of all, I am on Instagram and I want to make sure that you know that and that you follow me on there if you're on Instagram, so I don't encourage you to spend gobs and gobs of time on Instagram and it's obviously not a good use of your time if you're neglecting other things that are important to you. But I do have to tell you how I use Instagram and why I think it's actually a pretty good thing for me.

Now, I got off of Facebook on a personal level a number of years ago and I have not looked back. It's actually been really great for me. It feels so much better when I'm not on Facebook, but what I noticed on Instagram is that I could really very carefully curate, basically edit who I was following to make sure that everybody that shows up on my feed is somebody who really adds something to my life. And so I am not embarrassed to admit to you that about 95% of the people that I follow on Instagram are dogs. Okay?

They're Westies, almost all of them, which is of course the kind of dog that I have. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that these dogs seriously bring me joy and delight on a very regular basis. So there is definitely no downside to me being able to see all their cute pictures, and cute videos, and all the funny things that they do, it seriously, seriously brings me joy. And see, I think you can use Instagram in those ways. So I don't follow tons and tons of people, I don't waste time on tons of things, and I very regularly do an edit. If I'm seeing something come up, I'm like, “What is this? I don't even want this.” I immediately unfollow. I'm very aggressive with that if needed to really just protect my brain, right? To protect the input of what I'm allowing to come in.

So if you are interested in having some good coaching input into your Instagram feed, which I think you should be, then you can follow me @coachkatrinaubellmd. So it's all in one mushed up blob of coachkatrinaubellmd. So you can find me on there. The second thing I wanted to mention to you is that as I suspected my January weight loss for doctors only group completely sold out even sooner than I expected. It's completely full. But if you're kind of like, “Oh crap, I missed my chance.” I do want to let you know that we have a wait list right now. So if you want to sign up for the wait list, just get your name on there and if somebody cancels or a space opens up, we can reach out to you. Being on the wait list is a really great opportunity for you. So what we have you do is place your deposit for the waitlist and then if it doesn't work out, then your option is to either just keep your spot for the group that opened up in April or you can get that money back.

So it's up to you to decide what you want to do. But I would definitely recommend that you get yourself on the wait list because we're not actually starting the group for a couple more weeks, so you never know what happens with people and you might still get your chance, which would be awesome. So the way you can sign up for that wait list is to go to katrinaubellmd.com/deposit.

Okay. So what we're going to do on today's podcast is the following. We are going to do a bit of a decade in review. Now I do just have to tell you that this whole decade and review kind of a thing or like, “The decade's ending, a whole new decade's starting.” It's not like a huge thing for me. Even the year ending and starting fresh, I like that. I like the marker. I've told you guys before September for me, it's kind of like a mom's New Year's time, right? The school year when you kind of live with kids in school, sometimes that feels more like your year, but I do like spending a little time reflecting on the previous year and creating goals for the upcoming year around December, January time. So I think that that is nice.

Now I heard a couple of months ago people started saying like, “Oh my gosh, can you believe it that there's only so many days left in the decade? We're going to have a whole new decade.” And I was kind of like, “Okay. I mean, I don't know if that's really that big of a deal, but maybe it is.” So I ended up actually just spending a little time thinking, “Well, what was happening in my life 10 years ago?” And it was actually a really interesting experience and I wanted to share that with you and kind of tied into what I typically do. Then a couple of weeks from now usually where I will do kind of my own personal year interview, like what I've learned in the last year.

So in January this podcast will have been in existence for three years. And so I thought rather than doing it then, how about we kind of do a decade interview where I also share with you what I've learned, not only just over the last year, but what I've learned over the last decade and we'll just kind of lump them together. So if you've been a listener from the beginning, I am so glad you've been with me for three years. How fun is that? Right? So I was thinking though about the decades. So I was thinking, “Okay, well, so it's almost the end of 2019 here. So that would be the very end of 2009.” And I was thinking about that like, “Beginning of 2010 what was happening in my life?” And what was happening, the big thing in my life then was I was pregnant with my baby that ended up passing away. And I was like, “Whoa. Oh my gosh.”

So that did get my attention. Right? Because like I said, I'm like, “Whatever, a decade.” I'm like, “Whoa, Oh my gosh. So much has changed in my life since that time.” And that's when I started thinking, “Maybe there's something to this decade review kind of a thing. This might actually be something that's useful.” So if you aren't familiar with the story of what happened with my daughter who passed away and you're interested in that, I tell the whole story in episode 12, so I tell that. It was a long time ago that I told that story, but if you're interested in, you can go back to episode 12 and get all that information. But we'd had just a really hard time getting pregnant and finally through a whole bunch of odds that we defied, we were pregnant.

So I was about halfway through my pregnancy when the new decade began in 2010. And so I was thinking about what has happened in my life between then and now and it has been so many things, so many things. I've lost all my weight and ended my weight problem. What? How is that even possible? Right? I stopped practicing as a pediatrician and now I have a thriving business helping women physicians to lose weight and create a life that they love. I mean, if you had told me that this would be my life back at the beginning of 2010, I mean I would have thought you were on drugs. I mean, it was not even anything that I could have ever wrap my brain around, or fathomed, or it just wasn't even in my conscious awareness at all that anything like this could be happening.

I think about all of the amazing people that have come into my life in the last decade that I didn't know back then. Right? And there's been hard times too, but what I can really see when I review back is the growth that has come from that, how I've matured as a human being, right? So I'm 43 now, I was 33 at the time. A lot has really changed in my life. I have really grown as a human being, as a friend, as a wife, as a mother, hugely have I grown. And I can really look back and be proud of that. Right? Then I started thinking, “Well, is it just that decade where there was a lot of bass of change? Maybe not every decade has that much change.”

So I went back and thought, “Well, in 1999 what was happening?” And then right? Starting the year 2000 I was 23. Right around now I was getting ready to drive all the way from Ann Arbor, Michigan to Miami for a big New Year's Eve party that we were going to for the transition from 1999 to 2000, which was super fun. But I was in medical school, the early years of medical school. I hadn't even gotten onto the warrants or anything yet. And so when I think about what happened between 23 and 33 years old, so much happened, right? I was at the very beginning of my journey into becoming a doctor when the decade started and by the end I was totally in this amazing practice. I'm doing exactly what I love doing and so much had changed. I had gotten married, I had just met my husband. We had been on just a couple of dates as 1999 was kind of coming to a to an end. It's so fun to think about how much has changed.

I got married, I had my first child, I became a doctor, I did my whole residency, so much change. I 100% changed as a human being during that time as well. And so I think it's so fun to also think ahead like in 10 more years like we think about what our plans are or what our goals are and we're like, “Yeah, I'd like to do this, I'd like to do that.” But we can't even begin to wrap our brains around how much will change over the next 10 years if we really think about it. And what I started thinking was, isn't it so exciting to think about all the amazing things that are to come that we can't even dream about yet? What's going to be the next amazing thing? Think about how our phones have completely changed our lives for better and worse, right?

Think about how social media has changed everything. Think about how our relationships have changed. In 10 more years, I'll have one child who's fully, fully launched and I'll have two that are nearing leaving the home, finishing high school. That is a big change in life, right? A lot's going to happen. Basically my time of having children at home is going to be almost complete when the next decade rolls around. So that is a really good thing to think about. Like, “What are all the things that I want to do? How can I be intentional in doing this and creating the next 10 years that I want?” Because here's the thing, for those of you who are around the same age as I am, you may recall a brilliant movie titled Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Remember this one? But here's the quote that's so good, right? “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile you could miss it.” Right? Ferris Bueller's so wise. So seriously, we're just taking a moment to stop and look around for a little bit so that we make sure that we don't miss our lives. Because literally, right? When you think about it, you think like, “Oh my gosh, this time was just a blur. The first couple of years of my children's life was just a blur. Going through residency was just a blur.” Well, it's because we don't make it memorable for ourselves. We don't actually take time to reflect on what's going on and create permanent memories. So I want to ask you to just take a moment and think about the last 10 years, because we'll just focus on the last 10 years. You could really do this for any 10 year period in your life, but just think about what are you proud of?

What's happened in the last 10 years that you're proud of? What did you learn? There's probably so many things that you learned and you aren't even really able to access them if you don't spend the time identifying what they are. What happened over those 10 years that you could never have anticipated 10 years ago? I mean, when I was pregnant with my daughter, I never was thinking like, “I think my baby's going to die and then my whole life's going to change.” I could have never anticipated that. Right? But I also could never have anticipated that I would decide to leave my practice, or anticipated how many children I'd have, or anticipated where we'd be living or any of that. Right? All of it is something that was so hard to anticipate.

And think about what you would consider to be the good things and maybe the not so good things. The things that you couldn't have anticipated happening. Maybe there was a death, or some sort of disappointment, or sadness or something like that. What I want you to do as you're thinking about those things, is to notice how everything happens for you. Okay? And what I mean by that is your brain will tell the story of how those things happened because everything in the past, anything that's not happening right now in this moment is a thought that you have in your brain. It's a story that you tell yourself about what happened in the past. It's all made up of your thoughts. So if everything happens for you, then how do you tell that story? It's very different than when you tell the story version of how the world is against you, and how you have terrible luck, and your life is a mess, right? And you're so disappointed in yourself or things like that.

So it's available to you to show yourself how everything happens for you and that's what we want to spend some time looking at. Now, notice how much you have changed over these 10 years and how much your life has changed. Just spend a little moment in the awe of that because when you really think about it, right? Your childhood is kind of about two decades and then how many decades do you have of your working life before you end up being in the end stages of your life. You don't have that many decades, so it makes sense for you to spend time learning from your past experiences and then getting really intentional with what you want to do moving forward.

So for myself, what I'm really proud of, I'm proud of so many things. I'm proud of myself for taking the leap of faith to try life coaching as a way of losing weight, and then the even bigger leap of faith that there might be some other doctors who might be interested in this. I mean that was literally the way I thought about this and I'm so proud of myself for showing up. I did not have to do this business. This was not something that was like, “It's do or die time. I have to do it.” I really just thought, “Wow, this has inspired me so much. It changed my life so much. I love this work so much. I think there might be a few other doctors out there who might want this information and then I might be able to help.” And it's turned into so much more. And then I'm proud of myself for sticking through it when it's been incredibly challenging, when all I've wanted to do is just go climb in my bed and go to sleep and not talk to anybody.

There's been so many times where things have gotten messed up and so hard, and I made mistake after mistake after mistake, and I just kept going and I'm so incredibly proud of that. I'm so proud not only of the work and coaching quality that is offered in my Weight Loss for Doctors Only program, how much we're all changing everyone's lives who are in that program, but I'm also proud of the master's continuation program and how incredible that has turned out to be. I'm really proud of the employer and boss and leader in my business that I'm turning out to be, that I'm developing. I'm becoming more and more proud of the company culture that we have, creating a business where everyone who works for me loves being there, is absolutely delighted to be there, and it's just their dream job. That is something that I feel so proud of that I could create that because that was not ever an experience that I had as an employee.

So many things that I'm proud of. I'm proud of being willing to really work on my opinion of myself, to work very hard on stopping being so negative in my thinking all the time. The constant negative judgment that my brain assigned to things all the time, really being willing to dig in and work on that, even when it was hard, even when the feedback that I got was that it wasn't any different or I wasn't making any changes. I'm proud of myself for continuing on even when I've had times where I feel like I was backsliding, when I felt like I was kind of back at the beginning again, when my brain is telling me that I hadn't learned anything and, “See, you're never going to really change.” All those negative things. Being willing to ask for coaching, being willing to show up for myself, and just being all in on the whole process. I'm so, so, so proud of all of that.

I'm so proud of being willing to share in a public forum like this podcast some of my kind of biggest secrets in my life. Really being willing to be vulnerable, that was something that I was nervous about. I have told you guys on this podcast that literally nobody outside of my very, very, very close circle, knew and sometimes not even my husband knew. I think there's things that he's learned about me just from listening to this podcast, so I'm really proud of myself for showing up in that way.

And what did I learn? I just learned that when you keep going, things get better. I've learned that even in the times of your life that are just the darkest, darkest days when it feels like there's no possible way of the heaviness, and sadness, and emotional pain for that to ever lift, it really does get better over time. And the skill of being with yourself during that time and not rushing it away, not trying to buffer it away with food, or alcohol, or shopping or things like that, is truly the path out of that. I've learned how to actually feel my emotions, which sounds kind of crazy, but I for sure didn't know how to do that before. I've just learned so much.

I've learned how to be the mom that I always wanted to be. I've learned that relationships are challenging. There's ups and downs, but all I have to worry about is being the person that I want to be. Like Marianne Williamson says, “It only takes one sane person to create a good relationship.” I've really learned how to be that sane person. It doesn't mean I'm always that sane person, but I know how to do it. So, so much has happened, right? And I'm sure the same has happened for you.

Now what I want you to do is to think a little bit more about the decade to come. Okay? So first of all, we're going to spend a moment in awe of all the great things to come that we can't even dream of or anticipate right now, right? Just find that place of excitement in your life of what's to come, like so many great things are to come. I truly feel excitement in my body right now thinking about all the amazing things that are going to happen that I don't even know about yet that I get to experience, but because I'm all in for feeling all of the emotions then I'm also all in for feeling the sadness, the disappointment that's going to come. Because here's the thing, there's going to be less desirable things that happen in the next 10 years as well, right?

There might be things like deaths of people who are close to us, losses of other kinds, illness, health problems, injuries, things like that. It's possible that somebody might lose a job or there might be some major financial changes. There could be relationship changes or ending of relationships that are very important to you right now. I want you to think about how old your children will be in 10 years. Maybe you'll become a grandparent in these next 10 years. Maybe you will have your dream job. Will you have your dream job? What is your dream job? How can you make sure that you get it within the next 10 years? What's going to happen with your surroundings? Are you going to renovate your house? Are you going to move? Are you going to move cross country? Are you going to move closer to family? What are you going to be doing in terms of your physical location?

Will you solve your weight problem for good? How many years will you be in maintenance in 10 years, right? Will you be still struggling with this weight problem? You will be, I promise you, if you don't start taking some active steps forward, just start changing it. This is not something that's just going to solve itself, just FYI in case you were hoping for that, right? Fingers crossed. So if you're going to solve your weight problem the next 10 years, what are you going to be doing to make sure that that happens? Right? What bucket list experiences will you check off your list in the next 10 years? Right? What are those things that you're like, “Yes, someday I'd love to do that. Someday I really want to go hike the Inca trail.” Right? Someday I want to go see the great wall of China. Someday I want to go to Antarctica. Someday I want to go to Alaska.

Someday I want to really become the role model for the trainees below me that I always wish I had. I want to get to a place where I feel like I really have something positive to contribute, right? So many things that you can be focusing on. So when you start thinking about your next decade, what do you want to do? What do you want to create? It could be solving your weight problem and overeating problem for good. Maybe you want to stop over drinking. Maybe you find that really it's more alcohol than you need, right? It really is a buffer for you. Maybe you'll find that you'll be launching your kids or they'll be older, or if they're older already and already launched, maybe you'll be more connected with them than you are right now.

Again, you might have that dream job, whatever that is. In 10 years, will your marriage be fixed or will you have decided that you don't want to be married anymore? What are you going to create? How are you going to make sure that you have the close personal relationships that you want? So I want you to think, as you're thinking about this decade in the future, how are you setting yourself up now to make sure that you create what you want? You want to become the person who is resilient when the hardships come. You want to set yourself up to be the person who has kept their weight off for years and years and years, who no longer worries that they might gain all their weight back. So if that's who you want to become, what are you doing today to set yourself up for that? So here's the thing that's important to realize, right?

I think sometimes we look ahead at our goals for the new year. We just want to think about the positive and I totally understand that. It completely makes sense. We want to focus on the positive, but I think it's also really powerful to just recognize that there's going to be hard and painful times ahead as well. Okay? But you'll have lived your life with an open mind and heart, you'll be focusing on what truly matters to you. You'll have the confidence that whatever it is, you can get through it because you're always working on yourself. You know you've got your back. You know that no matter what, if everything falls apart, you've got you and that's all you need to be able to have an amazing life, right? You already know how to take care of yourself, so you don't really need to worry about those hardships that are to come.

But recognizing that they are to come, there's going to be times that are amazing and times that are much harder, but out of the hard times comes so much amazingness as well. I for sure can see that out of 100% the last decade for me as well. So many amazing things happened in my life directly or indirectly because of my daughter passing away. And so again, it doesn't mean that I ever will look at that like, “I'm so glad it happened.” But I can look at it and be like, “You know what? No matter what happens, I can make it through.” There's going to be more hard times to come. I'm totally going to be able to get through it because of this work that I've done on myself and I want to offer that to you as well.

I want to offer you the opportunity to get really clear on what it is that you want to create in your life moving forward and then coming up with a solution, an actual action plan to make sure that that happens so that when it's 2029 and we're looking back on the past decade, we aren't going, “You know what? I don't even know what happened to that decade. How am I still sitting here, but 20 pounds heavier, and more back pain than ever, and my knees hurting me, and my relationships aren't good and all of that.” That's how most people will live their lives, very passively and not intentionally creating what they want. And I want you to know that there's another way, there's another possibility for you. All you have to do is take advantage of the opportunity that is being offered to you.

So on that note, I want to let you know again that if you want to do work on this and make sure that the next decade of your life is the best one yet, I would love to work with you on that. So put yourself on the wait list for the January group by going to katrinaubellmd.com/deposit. And if some spots open up, we will get you on there and get yourself working with us in January. It's going to be amazing.

All right, I can't wait. Happy, happy, happy New Year. I'm going to have one more episode before the end of the year, but I just want to make sure that I wish you just the best of the holiday season. I hope that you have some meaningful time with those that you love, and maybe that even means meaningful time with yourself. Right? It doesn't always have to be with other people. Introverts unite, you know what I mean, right? All right. Have a wonderful, wonderful day and I will talk to you very soon. Take care. Bye bye.

Did you know that you can find a lot more help from me on my website? Go to katrinaubellmd.com and click on free resources.