Ep #339: Owning Your Results

[00:00:08] Welcome to the Weight Loss for Busy Physicians podcast. I'm your host, master Certified life and weight loss coach, Katrina Ubell, M.D. This is the podcast where busy doctors like you come to learn how to lose weight for the last time by harnessing the power of your mind. If you're looking to overcome your stress, eating and exhaustion and move into freedom around food, you're in the right place. Well, hello there, my friend. Welcome to today's podcast. I'm so glad you're here today. I'm a little beat up over here. I found out a couple months ago that I had a little basal cell skin cancer on my scalp, so I had Mohs surgery this morning.

So I've got this really delightful and attractive bandage on the top of my head right now. And then on top of it, we've had some wildfire [00:01:00] smoke out here over the last couple of days, and I'm definitely kind of feeling it in my respiratory system. So anyway, I'm feel like my voice quality is a little a little off, but I think it's good enough. I don't think it's any reason not to record for you today. I'm really excited about today's podcast episode, talking about owning your results because this is something that a lot of people talk about and I think we think we know what it means. But I think that also like, what does it really mean and what does it not mean? And I thought this was a good opportunity for us to talk about that because this is something that actually is going to apply to your whole entire life.

[00:01:42] In fact, most of what's written about this is as it pertains to work, like professional work, but it completely applies to weight loss as well. And so I think for some people, they already have this skill in other areas of their lives. Like maybe [00:02:00] you already totally own your results in your work as a doctor, but you need to extrapolate that skill over to your body and food and weight. Or it might be that this is something that you struggle with in multiple areas of your life. And so what we can do is develop the skill around the goal of losing weight and keeping it off permanently and then extrapolate that to those other areas as well. I always love it with coaching like so often.

In fact, I would argue probably most of the time our issues are not just present in one area of our lives. It's kind of like if you've ever heard the phrase like how you do one thing is how you do everything. It's like if you work on this one issue over here, chances are it's actually going to improve a whole bunch of other areas of your life as well. And of course we see that with our clients all the time where they tell us, Oh yeah, totally, you know, wait, what? Wait at my wedding? Or when I was in high school or whatever, you know, is a number that they're really happy with.

[00:02:58] But that's not the best part. Like, the best [00:03:00] part is all these other parts of their lives that have gotten better. And, you know, it all interplays, of course, right? So all of this is a factor in all of the things in our overall life satisfaction. So I was looking around, poking around on the interwebs, kind of looking at like, how do people talk about owning your results and things like that? And I saw a bunch of things and I'm like, Yeah, that's kind of it. And didn't really totally find anything that I super loved, but I kind of just pulled some little bits here and there.

And I think this is what I've put together here. I think the best representation of what at least I mean by owning your results, particularly when it comes to weight loss, because of course, that's what we're talking about here. And so owning your results is a willingness. So like at the end of the day, after everything's done, a willingness to answer for the outcomes of your choices, behaviors and actions. So it's a willingness at [00:04:00] the end of the day to answer for the outcomes of your choices, behaviors and actions.

[00:04:06] Right? Really recognizing like this is actually up to me. And so this is something that I'm going to give you sort of some composite examples of what I hear with clients, because I see it in lots of different ways and it often can be actually kind of subtle. But I'll give you some idea of kind of what I'm talking about. There's really understanding that you're responsible for your success, like you are actually the one who creates the results in your life. If you understand the thinking cycle like I've taught before, right? Your thoughts create your feelings, feelings drive your actions, actions create your results.

So really recognizing that your results come from the way you think, feel and act. And only you can do those things right? So there's the responsibility that you take for your success. And then there, as I read in this one blog post, it was like calling it like how much you're responsible for this and how much you think that your success comes [00:05:00] from just the way the wind blows, right? So that's going to be luck or serendipity or good genes or like whatever you think it might be. And, you know, I think that definitely sometimes the way the wind blows is in our favor, right? So I'm not going to say like it's always all going to be responsibility, but if we are less responsible for our success, if we are really thinking that it's like, you know, 5050, like we're 50% responsible and 50% the way the wind blows, we're really going.

[00:05:36] A struggle or if we do create some success, some results, we're going to find that they're short lived, like we don't know how to actually keep them. And what we want to do is we want to get higher up. We want to be like maybe 85, 90%, maybe even higher responsible for our success, and then maybe 15, 10 to 15% recognizing, okay, there's going to be some other factors. You know, the way the wind blows, [00:06:00] like how things kind of work out.

And what I mean by that is, you know, you've done all your due diligence, you've planned for things, you've done everything you can to have everything set up the way you need it, say if you're going on vacation and then it's just sometimes like one thing after the next, like doesn't work out. Like the food is spoiled. The restaurant you thought you'd go to had a kitchen fire and clothes. Like what? You know what I mean? Sometimes you're like, What is happening? You know, this is extra hard, but you can still even take responsibility for that. Like I did all these things, and this time it still didn't work out. Okay, That doesn't mean I have to go crazy and be, like, totally.

[00:06:38] Excessively, you know, obsessed about having everything my way and extra controlling in the future, but just recognizing sometimes there are factors that are out of our control. So what we want to do is get to a place where we really are very high in terms of taking responsibility for our success and relying less on [00:07:00] the way the wind blows. Right? Because when we rely too much on the way the wind blows, then we're blaming problems that we encounter.

Any failures that we have, we blame them on other people, on circumstances that are outside of our control. Or like I said, just even bad luck, you know, just didn't work out for us that day. Right. So the reason why this is important is because people will come in thinking, I'm ready to do this weight loss thing, but then when it actually comes down to doing the work.

[00:07:38] On occasion. I will see some people not owning that. And what I mean by that is with the work that we do, because it is brain based, right? The work that I do is a brain based solution. It's something that can't really be done for you. Like me. My team of coaches like we are guides. We are here to help you to facilitate your [00:08:00] journey, but the actual work has to be done by you. So an example of this is someone saying, You know what, I watched every video. I filled out every worksheet. I ticked all the boxes. I did all the things. I took the actions.

Why don't I have the results? But that's like people. They're getting confused then in thinking like watching videos creates results. Like watching videos only creates results. If you actually take in the information and apply it to your life. Like at the end of the day, you have to take responsibility for the food that you consume, for the sleep that you get for, you know, like how much alcohol you drink, whether you move your body or not, like all of those choices that you're making every day. And when you don't take responsibility for that, I know exactly why people do that. It gives them a subconscious out, right? If I do all the things and it didn't work, then it's your [00:09:00] fault program, you know, or expert or whoever book or whatever I've, you know, enlisted to help me.

[00:09:07] But if I actually do the deeper emotional work and like really tap into my thoughts and beliefs and it still doesn't work, then maybe that means something bad about me. So they're not doing this consciously understanding that that's what's going on, but that is what's going on. So when we take ownership of our results, it means that we have to be willing to be responsible for our results. We have to be willing to take the good and the bad, Right? We have to be willing to go, Hey, you know what? I really gave that a solid effort and it didn't work. So what now? Right. Typically, the what now is I'm going to have to figure something else out. I'm going to have to try something different.

I'm going to have to, you know, pivot and explore if there's something else maybe that's going on for me that I haven't yet discovered or I'm not aware [00:10:00] of yet. So those are some ways I mean, other ways that I see people not owning results is sometimes being like, you know, I just want to lose weight, but I just wish I wanted it more. Thinking like if I wanted it more, then I would be willing to do the work of it. That's kind of like a cop out, too, right? It's like you could also just own the results that you have. Like, I'm not losing weight or I'm, you know, whatever the result is, like, you know, I'm gaining weight or something like that and just owning it going, Yeah, this is the choice that I'm making right now, and maybe that's what's best for me right now.

[00:10:35] But if I don't like that result, kind of sitting and kind of complaining and like wishing it all were different, that doesn't actually change the result. That's the thing. Like if that worked or was useful in any way, I'd be like, Do it so good. Absolutely. It just doesn't it doesn't move us forward. It actually just makes us feel worse, which actually pulls us backward. [00:11:00] And I would really like to help you prevent yourself from being pulled backward. So let's talk a little bit about what owning your results looks like.

We're going to talk about what it's not and what it is, because I think talking about what it's not is really helpful. So I think you're going to recognize some of this either in yourself or maybe in the way that other people speak. So here's what it's not it is not owning your results is not judging, blaming, berating or beating yourself up because of that result. Pause inserted on purpose. Are you kind of going like, Oh, shoot. Oh my gosh. Wait, what? Yeah, It means recognizing like when I do that, when I judge myself for others, when I blame myself or others, when I berate myself, when I beat myself up.

[00:11:52] I'm not actually owning my results. It's kind of a cop out. We're just going. Yeah. You know, all [00:12:00] the negative things we say about ourselves, right? Like, I'm just not the person who can do that. Like, I knew I was too weak. I'm not disciplined enough. Like, all the, you know, mean and nasty things that we can sometimes say about ourselves and sometimes others. I knew I couldn't do this because I couldn't get my partner on board. That's not owning your results. Really, really isn't. And again, like I just want to be clear. This is not a judgment of you.

If you do this or if you think this way, it's so much easier to go, You know what? I couldn't do that thing because I couldn't get my partner on board with the kind of food we were going to have in the house. Right. It actually feels better to be able to blame someone else than to really take ownership and go, You know what? I really didn't give it my all. I really was too afraid. I didn't feel ready. It felt too threatening to me. You know, whatever it is, threatening to my identity. I have too many fears about other consequences that could happen that maybe aren't so good if I lose weight. Like, that's the kind of stuff that we want to be [00:13:00] focusing on is really understanding that and then telling ourselves the truth.

[00:13:05] It absolutely is not Any any lack of results is absolutely not, because you can't do it or something's wrong with you that is not even on the table for me as a possibility. It's not that at all. Okay. Owning your results is not saying things like, I knew I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't possible for me. People like me will always struggle. I actually have a client right now whose doctor told her weight loss specialist told her, You know what? I don't know if it's possible for you to lose weight. And I was like, first of all, I'm sure that person really thinks that they're being helpful and maybe they think they're being realistic.

But like my thought for this client, this program member that we're working with right now is why on earth would you believe someone who tells you a limitation like that? Like a long time ago I did another podcast about I think it was about [00:14:00] thinking that you're the special snowflake. I think it was in the title. But talking about like just because data shows something, no data is 100%. Like if data shows it's going to be very hard for you to accomplish weight loss. I don't know why you would even let that into your brain to consider it. Yeah. So for the majority of people it's hard, but they don't have this work. They don't understand that there's so much that can be done in terms of working with your brain, your thoughts, your feelings, your beliefs, your identity.

[00:14:28] They don't understand that. But I have that in my life. So I'm going to apply that and I am determined to be the exception. I'm going to be one of the whatever percent of people that this study didn't apply to when they did this study, there were certain number of people who didn't get this result, and I'm going to be one of them. That's owning your results, not going well. You know what this person told me? It has to be this way. I'm like, Well, that person doesn't have to live in your body and you fundamentally have a desire to live in a different body. So I'm [00:15:00] really not sure how that is helpful at all, honestly. Okay.

Owning your results is not spending more than ten minutes in self-pity. I was trying to decide how many minutes do you get? Do you get 15 minutes? Do you get 20? Do you get ten? I decided on ten and I and I decided on ten on purpose. And not zero on purpose. Right. To say like, don't spend any time in self-pity. Well, self-pity is a normal human emotion. So to tell ourselves that we're not allowed to experience that emotion I don't think is helpful. But what we want to do is we want to make sure that if we're there, we're just landing there for a short bit of time and then we're popping right off.

[00:15:37] It's kind of like, you know, a frog landing on the lily pad and then leaping off again, you know, kind of right away. We don't want to be spending a lot of time there. We don't want to be wallowing. We don't want to get stuck in a pattern of self-pity thinking. Right. We can have our moments. We absolutely can have our moments of feeling sorry for ourselves and feeling so disappointed in all of it and wishing it wasn't so [00:16:00] hard and all of that. Absolutely. But we want to take our moment there. This is our moment with self-pity. Can set a timer on your phone and then now it's time to move on.

Like we're not going to keep thinking those thoughts because when you're there, you're not owning your result. So if you're owning your results, you are recognizing, okay, this is where I am right now. I'm going to create a little space for it and then I'm going to move through it and past it. Okay. The final thing that owning your results is not it is not telling yourself, well, what I did doesn't matter anyway. Like giving yourself that pass because it doesn't really matter. Or I'll start again later or it's not that big of a deal. Right. We think if we're making it a big deal, then that means that we're being mean to ourselves, right? That we're judging ourselves.

[00:16:48] You can make it a big deal and have it be an actual like a really positive experience When you tell yourself it doesn't matter anyway, you're not really telling yourself the truth. Because if you're actively trying to lose weight, it does [00:17:00] matter to you, right? At least on some level it does matter to you. So telling yourself that it doesn't matter. I mean, you're just lying to yourself. And then later, when it catches up with you or you're not getting the results that you want, then it's that much harder to keep your brain on track with thinking more positively and staying focused on moving forward.

Right. Because now we're stuck in this. I wish I hadn't done that. Why did I let myself do that? So sometimes we need to have just like a hard no on certain trains of thought. Like, sometimes we just have to be like, Yeah, I do not tolerate these types of sentences in my mind. You know, these thoughts like ones like those are not welcome here. If I notice them popping up like you can just think about like hitting the delete button on a keyboard, like wiping that one away, you know, like, it's just no, that's just a no. I'm not tolerating that kind of thinking in my mind. Because it does not move me forward at all. Okay. [00:18:00] So let's talk about what owning your results is.

[00:18:02] It is approaching yourself with tenderness, curiosity and interest. And I put tenderness on purpose here because I'd love to say love and compassion, but that is sometimes a big ask for a lot of people. And you don't have to be in a place of true love and compassion for yourself yet to be owning your results. That's something that you can be working for. But if you can offer yourself just a little tenderness, a little warmth, a little softness, that's what we're talking about here, not being so hard hearted and judgmental, right?

So we want to approach ourselves with some tenderness, some curiosity and interest where the curiosity and interest come in is in helping you to actually problem solve. Because remember, owning your results means a willingness to answer for the outcomes of your choices, behaviors and actions. So when you get the outcomes of that, if it's not what you want, it's not what you're trying to create, [00:19:00] then it would benefit us to be curious about what happened, to be interested in understanding how it all played out, that we got this result that we didn't want so that we can avoid repeating that so we can figure out something different. So we can work on finding a different solution that will give us the results that we want. So for many people, this is something that we're really not used to doing. But here's what I think is really great.

[00:19:28] Approaching yourself with tenderness, curiosity and interest is probably how you actually approach your patients. If you're in clinical care, there's a level of warmth that you bring, a level of tenderness, a level of curiosity and of interest in what's going on for them. So you already know how to do this for others. You're going to practice turning that toward yourself. Okay. Your results. Is applying your intellect to the problem. Sometimes I see this a lot. Like something doesn't go the way we want.

We just throw up our hands. We're like, I give [00:20:00] up. I can't figure this out. It's too hard. Someone just tell me what to do. That does not create what we want. I wish it did. It does not. Okay. So if it doesn't, then what we need to do is recognize that we are intelligent human beings. Who know how to problem solve. So when we can get into that place of being a problem solver and applying our intellect, our intelligence to the problem, we can come up with solutions, things to try, things that we can experiment with because it is an experimentation. Nobody and I mean that not one person on this earth is going to know exactly how to help you to lose weight and keep it off. It's going to be an explorative process that requires some experimentation. And part of experimentation is that it doesn't always work the first time.

[00:20:54] In fact, it often doesn't work the first time. And we have to learn and grow and try something different. And when we can [00:21:00] leverage the intelligence that we have, it just makes it go so much more smoothly than telling ourselves that we don't know what to do. All right. What it is, it's staying grounded in reality. It's telling ourselves the truth of what's really going on. It's not getting all, you know, super dramatic spinning stories and then believing them about things that aren't true at all. Like what is the actual truth here? What is the actual reality? What really happened? Like, what are the actual facts? What am I thinking about them? And do I want to continue thinking that way about them?

Will those thoughts move me forward toward creating those results that I want or not? And if not, then let's pick something different. Owning a results is refusing to engage in what it's not behaviors. Those things that I just told you about, right when you notice yourself blaming or beating yourself up or telling yourself you knew it wasn't possible for you and that you [00:22:00] couldn't do this. All of those things when you notice that, you go, Nope, that's not welcome here. I will not think this way about myself. I will not approach it this way anymore. Very often those patterns of thinking are just well-worn neurological ruts. We have to consciously decide with awareness to think differently so we can leverage neuroplasticity so those old neural networks can start to break down and we can build new ones so it becomes more automatic for us to think in a more positive and supportive way.

[00:22:37] Owning a results is staying in that mature version of you as much as you can. You know, recognizing the more childlike thoughts, feelings and actions that you may have and then gently redirecting yourself. So when you are like, I deserve this, I had a hard day, I deserve to feel good, you know, like [00:23:00] things like that, like just more of those childlike, less mature kinds of thoughts, recognizing them and gently bringing ourselves back to thinking about the future, about what's really in our best interest so that we can be proud of those results.

Because here's the thing. You still can be very proud of yourself if you did everything that you possibly could and you still failed, right? Meaning like you went on vacation and you had your whole plan set out on exactly how you're going to do things. And then, you know, there were just a whole bunch of things you hadn't anticipated. Okay, cool. And you maybe you tried to problem solve in the moment and some things worked and some didn't so good. You absolutely can be so proud of that. That's amazing. You're owning that supposed quote unquote failure. But it doesn't mean you have to feel bad about it.

[00:23:47] You can go, cool. I learned some really good stuff and that's going to help me to approach the next vacation even more prepared and in a better place to be able to make adjustments in the moment. Owning [00:24:00] your results is taking responsibility. It's up to you to show up for yourself because no one else really can. Like I said, nobody can do this for you. If I could do it for you, I totally would. Absolutely. It just doesn't work that way. It requires a commitment to the growth. And exploration that's required of oneself to be able to get to this place.

And I totally understand if somebody doesn't want to do that, that's just not something they're interested in. Okay, cool. You don't have to you don't have to do anything. But if any part of this podcast, this episode, and even just all of the episodes resonates with you, if there's any part of you that's curious about that, that is intrigued, is wondering what this could do for you. There is probably at least that seed of growth within you. You know, like a lot of people believe [00:25:00] that part of what we're here on this earth to do is to grow, is to evolve, is to transform ourselves into that best version of ourselves that we can. And this is a huge way that we can fulfill that. We can take part in that. But ultimately, it's owning that idea that no one can do this for me.

[00:25:23] I have to do this for me. And really understanding your reasons why and feeling connected to that positive, encouraging part of you that really wants you to do this. If you really struggle with negative thinking, this is something that we really work on a lot, right? Like some people are like, I would love to do that and I just have all these intrusive negative thoughts and that's something that coaching can really help with so that you can get to that place so you can take responsibility and own your results. And then finally, owning your results is recognizing that ultimately [00:26:00] it is your job to get what you need.

So it is your job to get what you need and you do not have to ask permission to get it. Okay. A lot of us are waiting for someone to tell us it's okay for us to do this and want to let you know you do not need that at all. Like that's not required. If it's our job, each as individuals to get what we need. Right. Like. Then off we go. That's a part of owning our results. No one else can tell me what I need. I need to figure it out. Now, of course, like I said, there can be guides. There can be more information we need to learn. There's definitely several parts to this, but the constant is each individual person's commitment to integrating all that knowledge.

[00:26:50] Moving forward, actually applying it to your life, being willing for it to be kind of maybe messy, a little sloppy at times, right? A little messed up. Little [00:27:00] two steps forward, three steps back, sometimes knowing that you're going to keep moving forward until you figure it out. If you want it to be like a plus right from the get go, never have any slip ups. I wish you the best because that's just not how this works. I just have not seen that as a possibility. So that is how you own your results. And I want to really encourage you to think about in what areas you are owning your results and in what areas.

There's some room to improve because I've been coaching now for seven years and across the board, those who really own their results right from the get go keep showing up for themselves, like keep coming back, asking questions, moving forward, creating the time and space to be able to explore this for themselves. It is absolutely incredible what they create for themselves in their lives. I mean, incredible. Like [00:28:00] your heart would sing. It's so amazing, so amazing. And it's not because they're just super lucky or they hit the genetic lottery jackpot, whatever. It's not that. It's because they were willing to show up for themselves and own their results. And if you would like some help learning how to do this, you know, we're going to have a lot more information for you coming up on how you can join our September cohort of the weight loss for doctors only group.

[00:28:28] So that's going to be coming up here very soon. Of course, I have some new trainings that I'm offering and I'll be letting you know on those as well how you can secure your spot, how you can hold your spot and place a deposit for that group, because this is the stuff that we work on, right? When you're like, That's amazing. That's exactly what I need to do. And how do I do it? How you do it is you get some help, some guidance. So I'm going to show you how to do it.

And that's exactly what we can do for you if you want to look ahead, if you're like, I'm interested now, I want to know, go to katrinaubellmd.com/info and you can see more about what we do in our program. All right. Well, I wish you the best. I hope your week goes amazingly well. And I look forward to seeing you own your results even more. It's going to be amazing. So happy for you. Have a great rest of your week and I'll talk to you soon. Bye bye. Ready to start making progress on your weight loss goals. For lots of free help, go to katrinaubellmd.com and click on Free Resources.