Angela Gargano (00:00)
Hey there and welcome back to What If It All Goes Right? The podcast where we navigate the challenges of life and uncover the tools to live with purpose, passion, and power. I'm your host Angela Gargano and today's episode comes straight from a recent heart to heart that I had with Dr. Melanie, which I'll make sure that I tag her down below in this episode. I've been asking myself some tough questions lately and my burnout. Do I still have passion for what I'm doing?
How can I even tell the difference between that and when making a huge decision? These are really heavy questions and if you've ever found yourself feeling foggy or disconnected or unsure, you know how tough it can be to get clear headed. Whether it's in business or it's in life, we often feel like we're running on empty, stuck in the fog and struggling to make those quick decisions. In episode, I want to share what Dr. Melanie taught me.
about getting curious with these feelings instead of running from them. Much like with my right framework that I use in my keynotes, this process isn't just about radical adaptability. It's about taking the time to get curious, reflecting and reconnecting with your sense of power. We'll walk through an incredible journeying exercise that Dr. Melanie shared with me to help you remember a time when you felt powerful and how you can tap back into that energy to find clarity.
and purpose again.
Anyways, welcome. Super excited to have you here. Miss Pepper Girl is laying in the corner. Still looking real little moans. But let's start with a big question. How do you know if you're just burnt out or if you've like completely lost passion for what you're doing? Because I know we've been in moments, all of us, where we're like, what am I even doing? Do I just need to stop everything I'm doing? I want to quit life, whatever. And really trying to understand like, is that
actually true? Is that really actually what you want? Are you just really tired? Do you just need a moment to like kind of take a step back from it? So for me, I've been in this weird space of questioning pretty much everything. I love what I do. But lately, I felt pretty disconnected from it. And for me personally, it's really hard to show up when I have that disconnect. And I'm not feeling this like, extra passion. And I know entrepreneurship isn't meant to be glamorous all the time, if anything.
Half of entrepreneurship is a lot of the boring work that you gotta do repeatedly over and over again that you don't even wanna do. So when that happens, our brain tends to spiral in this like all or nothing thinking, like maybe I'm done. Maybe this totally isn't for me anymore. But what Dr. Mellon reminded me is that when we're in the thick of it, our minds aren't always clear. We need to pause, reflect, and get curious before making any decisions. It may be in fact that, you know,
it's time to move on. But until you get clear and you kind of zoom out from it, you're not really going to be sure of that, right? So instead of making impulsive decisions or assuming the worst, Dr. Melanie really encouraged me to ask myself some more questions. And I think this is a really huge piece of why I love therapists, psychologists, is they really allow you and ask you to get curious. They're not going to give you a full answer because they don't even know the answer, right? And maybe we don't even know the answer yet either.
but we can get curious. So she said, when is the last time you felt powerful and what was the difference in your life then and how are you showing up? And this was such a simple yet a powerful question because when we're feeling stuck, it's easy to forget that been strong, confident and capable before, right? So by reflecting on those moments, we can reconnect with that energy and use it to guide us forward. And this is seen in so many different areas. I've read this in a book that
I was reading, can't remember the name of it right now. I think it might've been the Wolf of Wall Street, but they talk about future pacing and a lot of salespeople do this, right? Because you might be doing like cold calls all day, right? And you're maybe not in the mood to be like new in a cold call. And how do you step into that most powerful version of yourself when you're just like not feeling like great? Because you maybe had called three people for that and they haven't responded or they were like hung up on you.
So future pacing is how can you step into that version of yourself and kind of like snap yourself into it and get a reminder. So a lot of it is journaling and looking back on those moments. And I had to really sit down and remind myself when those moments work for me because this whole piece of business and entrepreneurship has been new for me. And it feels different from athletics. Like I feel like with athletics, I had this like sureness. Like I just kind of knew I was gonna do it. Like it was gonna happen.
I showed up, I put the workouts in, I did the workouts I was supposed to be doing, and I felt more clear, like I could see what was gonna happen, but with this life, it's been very tough. So I'm like, how can I utilize that and gain that power that I had? What was that feeling like and how can I get that feeling here? So Dr. Melanie shared a journaling exercise that I think everyone should listen and try, and it's two set process designed to help you reconnect with your most powerful self.
Let's break that down on here and feel free to come back and do this later or pause and do this as we go. So step one is to reflect on when the most powerful. So take that quiet time, grab your journal and reflect on moments where you believed in yourself and when your belief in yourself was the strongest. What was happening in your life at the time? What habits did you have? What were your relationships like? How did you approach the challenges when they came up? And the goal here is to really get detailed.
Think about the mindset, the actions, and the energy you had during that time. So for me, like I said, I think back to when I was training for American Ninja Warrior or preparing for Miss Fitness America, my habits were super dialed. I had a very clear purpose. I knew exactly what I wanted to accomplish, who I wanted to be. I had that vision. I was looking at those people and I want to be like that. And I was really surrounded myself by the most supportive people who were all literally doing that. Like everybody I was surrounded by when I was doing Ninja.
I was surrounding myself by the best ninja. means I was waking up at like super early in the morning to go to the gym to train with some of the best of the best or going in really late at night. For Fitness Fitness America, was surrounded. My mentor was literally like the three or four time Fitness America champion. I was surrounded by that energy. All right. And right now I'm surrounded by Epic Energy as well with my friends who are crushing it in their business, crushing it in other areas of their life. So I have that, but it's interesting because this time
I feel like more powerless, whereas then it kind of like lifted me up, whereas this time I'm feeling like I just don't know what I'm doing. then I approach challenges really head on and I really use them as fuel. So how can I channel that person? Because she's in there, right? Step number two, imagine your life if you held that belief now. So journal about how your life would look like if you actually carried that same belief in yourself today.
What would you do on a daily basis? What habits would you have? Who would you spend your time with? How would you approach work, free time, relationships, money, and the challenges? This step is about visualizing what is actually possible. So if you show up as your most powerful self, how would your life be different? For me, this exercise opened up my eyes to what's been missing right now. And I realized I've let some...
I've lost touch of some clarity that I once had. But the good news is that version of me isn't gone. It's still in there. And it's waiting for me to tap back in. It's like, hey, I'm in there.
So this journaling exercise it isn't just about reflecting. It's about creating a roadmap to move forward. When you remember what it feels like to be powerful, when you remember that you have been powerful before, you can start to recreate that energy in your current life at an instant. And when you reconnect with your power, clears that fog, it grounds you, it helps you make decisions for a place of strength instead of fear, okay?
So if you're feeling foggy, here's some additional things that you can do to help you get clear headed and just reconnect with yourself.
and realize that you have that power in you. Number one is pause before you make decisions. Take a step back and give yourself some time to reflect. That pause is super important. I recently was like in not, like I was in a very vulnerable state and it was just in my head and I got on a sales call with somebody and I shouldn't have and I shouldn't have made any kind of big financial decisions at that moment. And luckily I was able to get out of it, but.
Cause, you want me to make any crazy decisions right now? You need to take some time to reflect and really understand and zoom out. What do you want? How do you want to feel? Get curious, not critical. Ask yourself the questions, why am I feeling this way? And what do I need right now? Revisit your wins, reflect on past achievements and habits that got you there. And simplify your focus. When you're overwhelmed, focus on one small actual step to regain that momentum.
When you're trying to focus on it all, it's going to be really, really tough. But I really have found, and what I know so much from the women that work for me, Alita, she's absolutely incredible, is that she always tells you to come back to stillness. And I think that's such a Powerful reminder. So I know this was a short episode today, but I know that you can step back into your power, OK? And I want you to have this takeaway from today. So when you're feeling stuck, when you're feeling foggy, when you're feeling disconnected, it doesn't mean you've lost your power, OK?
It means it's time to pause. It's time to reflect and it's time to reconnect with yourself again. And take some time this week to try the journaling exercise I shared right about when you felt the most powerful and imagine how your life could change if you carried that belief into today. And remember when you are built, you're literally built to handle anything that comes your way, okay? The universe is gonna throw stuff at you and it knows that you can handle it.
And that power is already inside of you. You just need to tap back into it. So if this episode resonated with you, I want you to share it with someone who might be feeling stuck. Maybe it was just yourself. And as always, I want you to keep asking yourself, what if it all goes right? What if it's already going right? Until next time, get curious, reconnect with your power, and keep showing up as the strongest version of yourself. You got this.
