Love Your Life as a Performer

Ep 2: Why Your Thoughts Matter

August 07, 2022 Kelli Youngman Episode 2
Love Your Life as a Performer
Ep 2: Why Your Thoughts Matter
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode, you're gonna learn why your thoughts are the most valuable tool that you have and how you can start utilizing them to serve you. Starting right now.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode! And if you did, make sure to share it with a friend who is also an actor, singer or dancer. You can also help spread the word by leaving us a review, wherever you listen to podcasts in order to help people find this resource.

You can find me on Instagram @kelliyoungmanwellness and if you're interested in coaching, make sure to head to kelliyoungmanwellness.com/waitlist to join my list now.

For a full transcript, go to podcast.kelliyoungmanwellness.com.

Join us inside of Momentum with Lifetime Access at kelliyoungmanwellness.com/momentum.



In this episode, you're gonna learn why your thoughts are the most valuable tool that you have and how you can start utilizing them to serve you. Starting right now, let's do this.

Hello! You are listening to love your life as a performer podcast. I'm Kelli Youngman and I am The Life Coach for Performers. I help actors, singers, and dancers love themselves and their lives way more. So keep listening to learn how you can love your life - both on and off the stage.

Hello, and welcome to episode two of the love your life as a performer podcast. Today, we're gonna be talking about something super important, your thoughts. Okay. Your thoughts are the most powerful tool that you have in creating your life. I'm gonna say that again, your thoughts are the most important tool that you have in creating your life.

And I'm gonna tell you why this is true, your thoughts shape your entire experience. They shape how we relate to things. They shape how we feel about things. They shape how we show up and identify in the world. Now I know for a fact that sometimes when I teach my clients this, at first, it's hard to grasp. Because sometimes we don't even know that we're having certain specific thoughts.

Right. We have like 60,000 thoughts a day. So we're thinking lots of freaking things all of the time. And the reason why it's so valuable to start gaining awareness of your thoughts is because when you start listening and hearing and noticing the patterns of thoughts that are playing on loop in your brain, you start gaining insight into why you feel the way you do and why you do the things you do. Right? Our thoughts are the first moment of consciousness that translates into. Literally how we feel and the emotions that we experience. Okay. Okay. Are you still with me? So the thoughts that we think are the literal sentences being said in our brains. The thoughts are the specific words and sentences that are playing in our brains.

And when we think specific thoughts, we feel specific emotions. Okay. So for example, I want you to imagine you walk into a studio and maybe it's an audition. Maybe it's a class, but you have the thought. "I'm freaking ready. Let's do this." I want you to just imagine what feeling comes up in your body when you're thinking like I'm so ready, let's freaking do this, right?

Maybe it's excitement or eagerness. Maybe it's even confidence, right? I'm so ready versus how you feel in your body when you're thinking something like, "Oh, God, I don't know if I can do this." There might be a little bit of dread or fear or uncertainty, right? Totally different vibrations between just the simple sentence of I'm so ready versus, Ugh.

I don't know if I can do this. Right. Just notice the feelings that come up in your body. And this is one of the reasons why thoughts are so important because they influence how we feel. And when we feel certain ways throughout our day, it really influences whether we take action on something or we don't. And I want you to think about the impact of that when you're having specific feelings for weeks or months or even years.

Right. This is why your thoughts are so freaking important. Because they can literally change the trajectory of your life. You have all of the power in your brain right now to have the life that you want to live. And it comes from your thoughts.  Okay. So we've talked about how thoughts create our emotions and how they really shape our actions.

And here's the part that I think always blows my client's minds. That thoughts are optional. We get to choose whether or not we want to engage or believe or take actions from specific thoughts that we are thinking. Right. You may have heard this example before of the idea of thoughts are just floating on by, right.

We can be the observer of our thoughts. And this is one way you can start practicing awareness of what you're thinking; is just being willing to witness your thoughts floating on by. Right. Just because you think a thought does not make it true. Now here's a Truth Mirror moment. Okay. I'm gonna give you a specific example that I know comes up for me and even my clients.

Right. You see another person's post on Instagram and you might even have the thought like, Ugh, they're so lucky. Everything is so easy for them. Like, I don't even know. They just book work without even trying, like it's so much easier to be them. I wish I was them. Right. And these are a string of thoughts that can happen very quickly.

And the feeling that's created from that might be frustration, disappointment. There's that comparison and that feeling of lack in your career. And I want you to consider that even though those are the sentences that you're saying in your head, That might not actually be true. Right. We don't know what is happening in someone else's life all of the time.

So in this specific example, just consider that it may be doing you a disservice to believe the first thoughts that are popping into your brain about this person when you see their post. Does that make sense?  Because just notice what happens when you do believe that's true versus who you would be without those thoughts.

Is it starting to make sense? Now here's the fun thing, right? Thoughts are optional. So you get to choose what thoughts you want to think when you see another person's success. For example, you could choose to think, Wow! That's incredible. I would love an opportunity like that. That is exactly what I wanna be doing. I cannot freaking wait until it happens.

Okay.  I know that might not feel super comfortable to sit with and just know that it is available to you. You could choose to feel inspired by someone else's success when you are willing to think higher quality thoughts about the circumstance, right? The circumstance in this example, being that other person's picture or post.

Now I also just wanna emphasize the reason that we know thoughts are optional is because people can look at the same post and have very different thoughts about it. Sometimes it's gonna be super easy to go to the place of feeling inspired and other times our brains are gonna wanna lean towards envy and jealousy.

Right. It's not good, bad, right or wrong. And remember that you get to choose how you utilize your thoughts to be most in service of you. So I want you to imagine the impact of what it would feel like if every time you saw another person succeeding, you genuinely chose to feel inspired by that. We're not here to blame, shame, or criticize or judge ourselves for the human reactions we're having.

And it's totally in your power to choose to practice thinking higher quality thoughts and creating higher quality emotions to things that are happening in our lives. Right. It's choosing intentionally how you want to relate to any person, place, thing, literally any circumstance. You get to decide how you want to feel about it. And you genuinely get to think thoughts that help support those feelings, right? It is in your power.

And again, I want you to think about this in the context of your career. Imagine what it will feel like when you are thinking thoughts that keep you in the space of motivated full of purpose, excited, and like really joyous about being an actor, singer or dancer. Versus feeling super frustrated or discouraged or sort of, even in this vibration of like struggle, right?

Depending on which one you're spending more of your time in, it's going to impact the thoughts you're thinking. And also which thoughts are becoming your core beliefs about yourself and your career.

Because here's the thing: the thoughts are the sentences that we say in our heads. And our most practiced thoughts become our beliefs and beliefs are like shortcuts for our brain, right? They're the thoughts that are most rehearsed. They feel accurate, they feel true. And then we start taking our actions from that place. And this is why, again, thoughts are so important. Based on the thoughts that you are thinking most and the things that you are believing most -it's going to shape what comes next.

It's going to literally create what comes next. So if you are thinking and believing on a regular basis that: the industry is so saturated. There are no opportunities, people aren't hiring and you know, it's just been taking way too long to finally have the career you wanna have. You're just gonna keep creating more of the same, because you're not gonna feel inspired.

You're not gonna wanna go do that tape. You're not gonna wanna take that class because you're not believing that anything good is about to happen for you. Right? All of the beliefs you're creating, go against the thing you actually want in your life. And we also know that just because you are thinking those thoughts, just because they have become your most practiced beliefs does not make it true.

Now, listen, I know the examples that I'm giving are pretty bleak and you might not even be in this head space.  And, there are gonna be moments throughout our careers, especially when we're experiencing growth, that our brains will want to go to these negative unwanted places. Right. And knowing that thoughts are optional, we get to just choose to believe what we want to believe.

 And when we're practicing higher quality thoughts that create really high quality, engaging, energizing feelings, we get to create beliefs that serve us. So let's go to the other end of the spectrum. Okay. I want you to be willing to think thoughts about yourself that feel incredible because why not?

Right? What would it look like to really give yourself permission to think? I am amazing. I am talented. People wanna hire me. I am perfect for this part, right. You can give yourself permission to start practicing thoughts like this, that start creating beliefs that are in support of the career you wanna have. Because listen, if you're here listening to this podcast, I know that you're serious about being an actor, singer or dancer.

I know that you want to have a wildly successful career. Whatever that looks like for you, right. And it all starts with the quality of your thoughts. It starts with the sentences that you are saying in your brain over and over and over. You have the power to give yourself exactly the experience that you want to have. Okay. And it comes from your thoughts.

So the homework I wanna give you from this episode is to really start paying attention. Start listening to your thoughts. Start being willing to observe them and be willing to not make it mean anything about you. Because yes, absolutely. When we slow down to hear our thoughts, you might find some things that don't feel super great.

Okay. And it's not a problem. But that is where we need to start. I actually always celebrate my clients when they say something that feels a little hard and scary and a little revealing, maybe even confronting because I'm just like, yes, we found the thought! We found that less than amazing thought that's been driving your actions and your results, right?

It's not a problem to find the thoughts that are less than ideal. It's actually freaking gold. Because from that place, you get to be really intentional about what you want to think instead. Okay. So your homework is to really listen to your thoughts. You can also do an exercise that I like to call a thought download where you just sit down and journal and just write out whatever's coming to your mind about something.

Could be thoughts about money, a person, this specific audition, right? Just write out all your thoughts. Your thoughts about yourself... and you get to just decide, are these the thoughts I want to stick with?  Question mark? Are these thoughts serving me? Are these thoughts, making me feel emotions that keep me engaged with my life and career?

Like, are these actually working in support of me or are they actually taking more energy away from the things that I wanna accomplish? Right? This is so freaking powerful. When you start really gaining awareness of this and being willing to see the truth of what you're thinking and where it's going. If it's heading more towards what you do want or more focused on what you don't want, this is where all the power.

Because then you get to start actively consciously creating your thoughts, which end up resulting in consciously creating your life. What you are thinking today right now directly impacts what happens in your life tomorrow. Do not forget it. You are a freaking powerful creator and the thoughts that you are thinking right now, creating and authoring the next chapter of your life.

If your life is a book, every single page is being created right now from your thoughts, from your most practice beliefs about yourself. So if you don't like the story you're telling you get to choose, you get to create whatever thoughts you wanna think about you and your life and your career.

So make it good. Make it juicy. Okay. So what are the three main takeaways from this episode?

One, your thoughts are the sentences in your brain and they directly create your emotions. That you're feeling. Two, thoughts are optional, right? You get to choose what you want to think and believe. Three, your thoughts become your beliefs over time.

You get to choose what you believe to be true about you. You get to decide. So if you wanna believe you're the most amazing, talented performer on this planet, you go ahead and you freaking start thinking and practicing that right now. Permission granted. Okay. Your thoughts are the most powerful tool that you have in the process of creation.

Do not take them lightly. Utilize them in a way that serves you and in a way that adds energy to the outcome of what you want to be experiencing. It is not hypothetical. It is not wishful thinking. It is literally the number one thing you can do to start living the life you wanna have: gaining awareness of your thoughts and then intentionally choosing them.

Okay. Let that sink in and then we're gonna keep going.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode! And if you did, make sure to share it with a friend who is also an actor, singer or dancer. You can also help spread the word by leaving us a review, wherever you listen to podcasts in order to help people find this resource.

You can find me on Instagram @kelliyoungmanwellness and if you're interested in coaching, make sure to head to kelliyoungmanwellness.com/waitlist to join my list now. See you soon.