In this episode I share my first 2021 slump and how I recovered from it. Being stuck in slumps or ruts (low points) is very normal. How long we get stuck there depends on our perception of it and the strategies we use to get up again. In this episode I share mine.
In this episode I share my first 2021 slump and how I recovered from it. Being stuck in slumps or ruts (low points) is very normal. How long we get stuck there depends on our perception of it and the strategies we use to get up again. In this episode I share mine.
Hello, and welcome to another episode of beyond the bench. My name is Mo, I'm a registered dietitian and behavior change specialist and every episode, I do my best to share with you strategies and knowledge that can help you overcome binge eating, and any other negative behavior. So you can live your best life mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. And it's been a long time since I've recorded a podcast, I think it's been around five weeks now or six weeks. And there's a reason for that, which is actually Today's topic is today we'll be talking about how to overcome low points, or slumps or ruts, or whatever you'd like to call them, because they're very normal to experience. And people think that, you know, if you work on yourself and do certain certain work and overcome a problem that it that means that you might never get stuck in low points again, and that's not that's not really true. Working on yourself and improving, you're overcoming certain problems and obstacles that you face doesn't mean that you're not over, you're not going to go through low points, everybody goes through low points, it is inevitable as human beings, it is something that's just going to happen. It's our ability to overcome the low points and get out of it. and decrease the amount of time we spend there. That can change from person to person. But in terms of experiencing low points, it's very, very difficult to not go through that. And I'm definitely not immune to that. I mean, even though I work in the in the field, I help people with overcoming certain problems I live and breathe the knowledge that I I talk about almost every day, I still get stuck in low points. And that is okay. So let me share the bag a little bit, just what happened, give you a little glimpse of the last couple of days and then share the backstory of it. So today I woke up. And I made a mistake. I opened my emails before I started my morning routine. And it's something that I preach not to do. I always say start your morning without like overwhelming your brain with information. Because sometimes like you know, you're not really your brain is not really receptive to ready to receive a lot of information. And when we overwhelm it with information, some of it which is can be negative, it can really just set the pace for the day and just kind of get us started on the wrong foot. So I say never open your emails, and in the first hour of the day, but I did that today. And first emails from someone on my list. And it was just one sentence read exactly, quote, terrible marketing skills, quote. And that was pretty much it. And as soon as I read it, I felt the negative emotions going through me, I started getting all kinds of thoughts like why do you keep doing this, maybe you suck at your job or what you do, you know, maybe just turn on the TV or go play some video games all day long. And the monster within me was stirred up and it was roaring. It was basically telling me that you know what, you're not good at what you do anyway, so why keep doing it. And maybe you do suck and all these thoughts started coming up. And the truth is, I've been going through a bit of a slump even before this happened lately. And I haven't really shared this with anyone really would not have not many people, especially more with the community out there. And I'm not quite ready to go into details. But my wife and I were going through a tough time together not against each other. But together, we were going through something health wise as I can share for now. And it made my stress soar to new limits. And I'm going to eventually share a little bit more on that. But it's just, I'm not at a point where I'm ready to share that. And thankfully, I have my stress coping routines. So it didn't cause me to binge or to relapse to smoking, again, which I struggled with in the past, or any other negative behaviors that I've struggled with. But it did prevent me from creating my best work and being creative. Such as like, you know, producing my podcasts doing certain things that I love to do that really is meant to help others but also help my help me reach my goals when it comes to my work and what I would like to do with my personal growth goals. So I find myself wasting a lot of time. Alright, so that's, that's one thing, I still consider that a negative behavior on my part because I don't really have a lot of time to waste the busy lifestyle. But I found myself wasting a lot of time, I was showing up to my clients and doing the work I promised, which by the way can be an escape. It was an escape for me when I was when I was delivering my sessions and delivering my group work and my appointments. I was in I love doing that. But to me it can also be an escape and to other people, their career can be an escape, allowing them to escape. Now their stress and escape the problems that they're facing. But the point is outside these sessions, I was not being creative at all. And I was trying to escape my present in any way I can. And this has been happening for a few weeks now. So around like maybe three to four for three to four weeks. But yesterday, I made a commitment to stop running away and I got rid of my desktop which I used to like play video games on and my TV screen. We kind of got rid of like my screen and got rid of all the things They were holding me that I was using to escape when I was going through. And then today, first thing in the morning, I get hit with this with this email that made me doubt myself and triggered my insecurities. So at that moment I was at a crossroad given to these insecure and egotistical thoughts, or brushed them off and go on with my day and honor my commitment. And trust me, I felt like giving into these thoughts. But I got up and went through my morning routine anyways. And just as quickly as these terrible thoughts came over me, they disappeared, like passing clouds. And now that this stump has passed, I'm ready to rise and share my experience with it. Because I truly believe that whatever you go through in life is an opportunity for others to relate and learn. So you can also understand that everybody goes through the tough time, tough times are the low points that you go through. Again, I work in this field and I talk about everyday, and still it doesn't make me immune to it doesn't make me immune to go into low points. And that makes me often think, even if I can easily trip What about others who aren't even aware of the knowledge that I am fortunate enough to know, because there are many out there who are just don't have that awareness of what causes the slumps or ruts or what causes the low points or how to overcome them, or how the mind works. And that can sometimes feel like you're a little bit just in the dark, you're not really sure what's causing you to be there, and that can prolong the low point. So it really makes me humbles me, when I go through something like that, it makes me feel that there is a lot more do when it comes to educating others on you know how to get through that. Because then when you overcome a low point, you you learn from the experience, and you learn more about yourself. But you also want to always be operating closer to the highest or best version of yourself because that's the version that's going to lead you to the fulfillment and the goals that you have. So that's where if you could see yourself from the front and by the way, this is like I really, I really mean this from the bottom my heart but if you could see yourself from my eyes, you will see how much forgiveness and understanding you can have for yourself because when life stresses you out so much it's okay for you trip and make mistakes, it doesn't make you weak and uncertainty doesn't define your future at all in any way whatsoever. So in my slump, I was going through the motions of everyday doing the bare minimum and distracting myself in the meantime with things that I know are useless. And again, I'm not saying that the things that I was doing wrong, but they weren't in line with my goals. That's the problem. I wasn't practicing what I was preaching and I knew it and it's not that I was incapable of stopping by the way stopping wasting my time it was that I didn't want to stop there's a difference. I believe that was capable of stopping but I just something within me didn't want to stop. Luckily for me, my clients serve as reminders and watching all of them literally forced me to confront myself because it's it is inspiring to watch us do better. And that is one thing that I honestly sometimes saves me is watching others around me do better and become better inspires me to myself do better as well. And this is how when one of us rises, all of us can rise. I looked at the past few weeks and asked myself what path of my own right so this is when I confronted myself. Yesterday I said okay, what path Am I on right now? If I keep repeating what I do every day for the next year? Where would I be? Am I going to let my mind control me like that and just kind of like do whatever my mind tells me to do. So these were the kind of questions I started asking myself to confront myself. And trust me My mind was rationalizing right like crazy. Go easy on yourself. It's okay Will you do what you feel like doing? you're stressed is fine. People don't appreciate what you do anyways, things that are untrue, but that's what the mind does rationalizes why you should stay in the comfort zone and sometimes when you're stressed your comfort zone is too I've maybe been Jane maybe smoking maybe drinking too much maybe wasting time like I was doing with entertainment. Whatever way You call that that is not serving you and this is what we've learned when we're younger. It has nothing to do with you not wanting to overcome the low point but unfortunately we grew up in a society that teaches us that if you're stressed or low point, go have a drink. Go have you know maybe have a have a cake maybe have some chalk maybe like watch some TV. And while this can be good in moderation, it's okay moderation depending on where it is and where it applies to you in terms of like what you do. Are you okay with it or not in the first place. It still isn't the proper way the correct way to cope with the stress because often we can rely on it too much and it can help us and help us escape our present and not actually solve our problems and will end then it can turn into a rut or low point where we get stuck in that and that's how many in the past I will get stuck benching and smoking and just like not trying to like you know shove my stress and my problems away. So when asked me when my mind started rationalizing with all these thoughts, I knew none of it was true. And so yesterday made a commitment. I said, That's it, I'm not going to let that live my life, what life throws at me control my actions, I'm going to back, bounce back up and keep creating my best work. And then the first thing that came to mind was sharing with you what I learned. So if you're ever in a slump, you actually know how to get out of it. So I am going to share my new my six strategies of how to overcome slumps or low points. So you can rise up and be more resilient and continue on the path that's going to give you fulfillment. So let's go into it. The first one is actually not something that is something that you can immediately implement, it might take some time. But I but it is something that I must share is the first first point because it is important, it can prevent future slumps and can have you not even just prevent, but you can prevent unnecessary, slumps are shortened that amount of time you stand in a low point or slump. And at that point is finding a safety if you've ever watched American football, and I know that it's an you know, it's an example, many people haven't watched American football, but bear with me for a second, if you ever watch American football, you will see that every defensive team has a safety, it's like that person that is designated as the last line of defense. Their purpose is to help when all other lines of Defense's have failed, we can all use the safety in our life. Think about it also as a safety net. So you know, let's say you're doing your you know, jumping on a trampoline, there's always a safety net below. So if you fall from the trampoline, you get caught in the safety net, or if you're doing mountain rock climbing, is always the ropes that are attached to you. So if you fall, then the ropes would keep us at keep you hanging and you don't, you know, fall on your back and hurt yourself. So that's the safety. So we can all use that safety in our life. Now this safety will ideally be a person who can help you. By being your eyes when you when your own aren't really seeing beyond the slump, you're stuck. And when we're low points, think about being stuck in a valley we can really see outside, and that's normal, we can see really beyond what we're in. And that is okay to be in. But having that safety person can help be our eyes in that time. So while this person could be a family member, or even a friend, ideally, it will be someone who does that professionally. And I'll share with you why your spouse could easily be in a slump with you or your other family members might not really know how they can help you because they're not really educated in that field. Or they could be in slumps as well, with friends or family members, you also run the risk of depending on their well being. So if they're doing well, then they can help potentially depending on who they are, but maybe they're not doing so well. They're absorbed in their own stress, and they can't help. Sometimes also, we worried that they might judge us for what we're going through. So we're unable to share fully. This risk is minimized when you have someone who does it professionally, who you know for sure is not going to judge you and who you feel safe with. Now, if you can't afford that it is totally understandable, you're not screwed, because that safety can still be your family or friends, in this case, make minimize the risk by increasing the number of people who serve as your safety two, three, maybe, and make sure they're people who have known you for a while and genuinely care about people that you can trust. So make them three people so that way, if one of them is not at their best, or isn't really at a moment, a point where they can help you, then the others good, hopefully. So that's minimizing the risk by not having all your eggs in one basket. Now for me personally, these people are my therapist and my coach who I talk to once a month. They're my main safety and they also serve as a mirror to me because whatever I'm avoiding internally, cannot be cannot be avoided with them. How many times do you go through a stressful time and you're stressed and you just kind of like your first instinct is to avoid talking about it. So your spouse or your you know, whoever you're with, or your parents or your siblings or friends trying to get you to talk but just don't talk about it. When you're when you have at some time dedicated booked to talking to a coach or a therapist, you're forced to talk about it. And I know you might not sometimes you might not be ready to talk about it, which is completely okay. But when that readiness is there, you feel like on the spot like you feel like you should like need to share because that's what what that's what the whole purpose of them is. So even when I'm on a great path, by the way, these people serve as a strong purpose. Because if I ever found a slump, they're always there to help me see better. Most people think that you should be seeing a therapist or a coach if you're struggling and I believe in that you should for sure, definitely. But I also believe you should keep seeing them even when you're not struggling just maybe not as often you'd love to see them weekly or bi weekly, maybe once a month or two months, because they can play a preventative role and allow you to overcome struggles before they get out of hand. This is why I call them safety. And honestly, if it wasn't for my coach or my therapist, I might have been stuck in this slump longer. This is just reality of it. So I highly recommend you do you have somebody who's designated who you can trust who can do that with you or for you? And if not, if not, then then make sure you have people you can trust like three people that you can share with who know you pretty well share same values with you, you think are intelligent and good listeners, and share with them when you're going through a tough time. Maybe they can be your eyes, and they can help you see further than where you're at. The second point is to listen to your body, not your mind, your mind is a powerful tool that can work for you or against you. Alright, so this is something that I teach in my program is really, really like share is that the mind is a tool that can work for you or against you, your identity does not come in your mind, although it does live in your mind. But when you're caught in a slump, your mind isn't actually working for you, it's working against you. It's the one keeping you there in the first place, and controlling you through thoughts and feelings. As a rule, any feeling you have is the result of a thought that you had. So, this is pretty much most of the time, any feeling you have is a result of a thought that you had anxiety, depression, sadness, yes, sometimes obviously, it is biochemical, it is clinical depression or anxiety when things are out of out of hand, internally, biochemically, but often, it is also a result of our thoughts. Our thoughts is what causes the depression, the sadness, the regret, the guilt, the anxiety. And this is how it is the thoughts trigger feelings. Some thoughts or some thoughts are so quick, you don't even see them, but they trigger feelings anyways, your body is different. Your body can tell you much more about what you need because it holds on to the tension and distress. Some chronic conditions are physical pains are a result of tension built up over years tension that hasn't been realized or released, instead has been held on and suppressed and it shows up manifests as points of pain or chronic conditions. My therapist shares something with me that I was too stressed to be aware of when I was in my slump. She said Mo Rezk. You're a very top down person, you'd like to think your way out of things. And while this is good at times, sometimes you just need to listen to your body. And she was right after doing a 10 minute body scan meditation with her I was able to get more answers about what I needed for my body than my mind couldn't give me in one month, I felt the stress and tension my back while going through like guided meditation. And when asked when when asking my back what it needs. So my therapist had me asked, you know, she's like, where do you feel the tension was okay, my back. So ask your back what it needs. And also okay, I don't know what I'm talking about back talk to me, but I still did anyways. But when I did that, and I observed for a bit I saw started to see images copied my mind, not thought it was images, it was actually pretty interesting experience. And the images were sort of words such as acceptance, people hugging me kindness, and my back was telling me it needs me to accept that it is stressed. I then got an image of my cat, which by the way, currently lives with my brother, she doesn't live with me. And again, my back was telling me that it needs lover connection because I know she probably haven't shared that much. But I would love to share more on my cat on my cat is very strong connection with my cat. And I get a lot of love. feel out of love from from that. And so that's what I started thinking about. I realized all of a sudden that was struggling with a problem, the stress that that I was going through my wife and I were going through, I was trying to put on the brave face pretending to be okay in front of my wife. And the reality was I wasn't but I wanted to be strong for her. I wanted to be okay when I wasn't and that by the way, is totally okay. It is okay to not be okay. Unfortunately for men in society, you're taught to like, Okay, well, you need to be like the strong one and complete bullshit that its strength, by the way does not correlate with going through low points, or feeling off or feeling like you need time for yourself. That is not weakness at all. And there's no correlation. But unfortunately, we're taught differently and that was what took over me when I was kind of like retracting when I was stressed out and putting on the brave face pretending everything was okay when in reality it wasn't. And that created something within me that wanted me that just was like this tension buildup of tension that remain in my back. And I could feel and it made me want to escape that and I wanted to like escape whatever I was going through by wasting certain time or like entertaining myself or play playing video games more than usual, all these things. So my bag gave me that my bag told me when I would like did that guided scan, I realized that I needed to tell myself that I was going through something that I am not okay. And that I needed to feel connection as well ready to feel some love and acceptance myself. And I needed somebody to know that I wasn't fine. And that was really important. That was a big revelation for me. And my mind could never tell me that but your body could so listen to your body. Do guided meditations, body scans that allow you to dive into your body and see what's happening there is many of them aligned by the way. It holds so keep in mind the body holds a host of information on what you need. And sometimes your mind can never tell you so you get like if you this if you feel like this could you could benefit from this search body scan meditations online you'll find plenty that can work for you. The third point this is Very, very powerful is to give yourself permission for all that you have done. And allow it to be part of your journey. So whatever you have done when you are in your low point your rut, some people break their values, some people do things, they didn't want to do some benja lot or mess up a lot of things that they've done. So let's say you know, you've been doing really well with your nutrition for like a month, and then you like bench for two weeks, and you just do things that you didn't want to do. So you lose control. Right, that's what happened to me is I lost control over what I was doing with my time, right. So losing control. When you lose control, give yourself when that is when you're ready to get out of the slump. When you're at a point where getting out of it. Give yourself permission for all that you have done and allowed to be part of your journey. Often we stay in a slump, because we give ourselves a hard time being there in the first place. And all that does is keep us trapped there longer. It's like your mind will say things such as how how can you mess up after all, that you've done all the hard work your work that you've done, or see you're bound to fail or fall, or you're never gonna overcome this problem, or you know what you've just wasted all the good work that you've done. Or you can even like do like a couple of months, a couple of weeks or a couple of months or be consistent or something you have to mess up. And we can be often very cruel to ourselves when it comes to the narrative that we use. allowing ourselves to make mistakes. And giving ourselves permission to fail is one of the most powerful things we can do. Yes, you're a mistake maker. But you're also a mistake breaker. When getting out of a slump, what are the best and most crucial things you can do is make peace with your past and bring acceptance to it. When you do that you're one step closer to letting it go and moving on. But when you resist it and fear it in your past, you maintain your attention on it, which only brings you closer and keeps it alive in your life. Whatever you put your attention on you will give life to so if you're putting your attention on how you like making mistakes and how like you messed up and how like you've been stuck in your rut or stumped for so long, you're just going to maintain your attention there. And that's where you're going to end up doing more of, but if you bring your attention to your present of how you can do better, and start changing the narrative, which we're going to go into second. And at the same time, make sure you accept your past and not resist it. And that means you let it go and you start to be free to put your attention elsewhere. And that is the beginning of the end of your slump. So try saying things such as whatever I was going through, I'm okay with it. It was meant to happen. It was meant to be part of my journey. It was meant to be an experience for me. You can also try more pulseless made statements such as I allowed that to happen so I can learn more about myself. Whatever happened is only increasing my self awareness and my self control. It is completely okay. I was fine with that happening. But give yourself a late permission like a late pass almost. You know, I've ever been in school and you'd like given like a late pass kind of thing like wait like this. It's it's I don't know if it's the same as you're not maybe I'm remembering school different. I went to school Egypt, by the way, so it's not the same. But it's like giving yourself a late permission to do something that you've done that you have regretted or felt bad about. And you can't seem to forgive yourself, you'd be like, you know what I meant for that to happen because it's an experience for me. Be careful not to rationalize future negative behaviors. Using this technique, though, this is only meant to make peace with your past. Because the past cannot be changed, the future hasn't happened yet. And just like the past cannot be changed, the future cannot be predicted your power truly lies in the present moment. What you choose to do now is all that you have, and when you let go of the past, you're able to make better decisions right now. So don't let that don't let your mind fool you into rationalizing the future or being like okay, you know, it's going to be okay that I remain the slump or in this rut for the next two weeks, because that's what I need right now. Right. So that could be rationalizing behavior, do not attempt to predict the future only attempt to let go of the past. So allow yourself mistakes and extensors to accept your slump as part of your journey to not allow to define you. And the fourth point is to change the this is a very important strategy. By the way, I cannot stress enough how this one important this, how important this one is this this chart, start to change the questions you ask yourself. Some say the quality of your life is dependent on the quality of your thoughts. Right. I don't know if you agree with that or not? If you agree, let me know. I personally agree with that. But I'd like to think that the quality of your thoughts depend on the questions you ask yourself. When in Islam, we often ask or find ourselves asking disempowering questions such as Why do I always mess up? Or why does this always happen to me? Or why am I such a mess? Or who is to blame with why I'm feeling this way? So if you look at these questions, the reason why they're disempowering is because they pretty much come to the conclusion that you always mess up or this negative things always happen to you or you're always a mess, or somebody else has to be past a blame for how you're feeling or where you're at right now. So that's why they disempower you, because they take away your power, they come to conclusions that are incorrect. So they ask and the questions they ask is basically to find evidence of why this is true. The reality of it is that it is not true. And I call these victim questions. And while it's okay to experience this, we all know that victims don't save themselves or help themselves. They're constantly Waiting for a hero to save them. And unfortunately, in the real world, not everyone finds the hero when they're stuck. You might Your mind will answer whatever questions you ask it as a rule, your mind is equipped to answer any question. It doesn't care if your questions are empowering or disempowering, good for you not good for you. It doesn't really care, it will answer the question you ask it. But you can choose to change your questions by asking once that can empower you questions like How can I overcome this? What can I learn from this experience? How can I make better decisions? How can I start feeling better? Who can help me overcome this? How can this experience Help me Help others in the future? How can I get out of this low point? How can I let go the past? These are powerful questions because they don't lead to a negative conclusion. They allow your mind to search for thought for thoughts or conclusion or certain strategies that will or information that will help you get to a better place. And I call these hero questions, superhero questions, because they empower the hero within you. They activate the hero self that everyone has and needs to help themselves. Everybody has a hero within them. Nobody doesn't have that. You just need to activate with the questions. I truly believe we all have a victim and enemy and a hero within us, by the way we haven't discussed the enemy is something I discuss in my programs. But the enemy is basically the monster that will say certain negative things about you, that's the enemy. And there's strategies that we use to kind of overcome that. But we all have an enemy, victim and a superhero within us. And they're activated by the type of questions we choose to ask ourselves. So when stuck in a slump, shifting to hero questions will help you activate the hero within And trust me, the hero knows what to do to get you to a better place. The fifth strategy that I use is to make a commitment and a plan. Knowledge is 10% of the equation. And action is 90% of the rest. And that is why like in my programs, it is impossible to promise anybody Oh, you know, can you guarantee me results, I can't guarantee that anybody will take action. But the process I design in my programs is is carefully designed to get you to take step by step action. And there is accountability elements, educating you on your knowledge, things that help you empower yourself to take action. So I do my best to make sure that taking action for you is easy and simple, straightforward. That's really all that I can do. But the action taking itself is 100% on the people going through their problem is not anybody else, unfortunately. And knowledge is only 10% it's not enough to know something. And I'm living proof of this, it's not enough to know something you must act on it for you to see changes in your life. And but actions don't just start with doing By the way, they start with having a clear and concise follow a plan followed by commitment to that plan. So you can't be like, okay, you know, tomorrow I'm going to start doing things differently. You have to have a plan, how you gonna do things differently, right, because then if you don't, then you rise up and you just keep going through the loops, the habits, the patterns, and it's difficult to start to make any changes. Unfortunately, we can also sometimes often have missing or incorrect knowledge that can lead to actions in the wrong direction. So not all action is equal. Not being aware of that can create more frustration because now you're trying hard, but nothing is getting better. And this is what typically happens when going on a diet we often restrict thinking we're trying while the diet is setting us up to fail so like to die to be like no carbs, cut the carbs out this is you trying to lose weight and it's not actually something I teach my programs cutting out carbs are completely is not very realistic. We all know that we end up failing and not making it past two weeks, three weeks maybe and blame ourselves while in reality we just had the wrong knowledge all along. But let's not go into like what's wrong knowledge is right and wrong because that could be a whole podcast on its own. actually might do that let me know if you would want to know what the podcasts on how to recognize false information from correct information. But let's assume you have knowledge that you know is correct and you believe in it. Making a plan and a commitment to it will take you for I sat down and wrote in my journal realistic plan i can i can accomplish for the next day. You don't even have to write a weekly pad to start with a daily plan. You can also take little or big steps depending on how ready or how you feel. I highly recommend little wins instead of going all in and setting up huge expectations. So something like you know what I'm going to clean my environment. I'm going to go for a walk every time I feel like wasting time or bingeing can be a great plan. I'm going to committing to it as a matter of saying to yourself, I'm going to do it no matter what I'm making a commitment to myself and just making that commitment. And the more clear and concise the planet is by the way, the better you're going to be able to do it when I say clear concise and we teach habit design in my program. Habit design is all about knowing exactly when you go to do it. So after I do this, I will do this and I will reward myself with this for example and it will take a while to discuss what this is all in my in my program but being clear and concise with the plan will help you implemented better when you have a vague plans such as like tomorrow exercise, it might be difficult because you didn't really specify when you're going to exercise. And so if your mind might take over start to rationalize again be like okay, maybe later after your work or maybe like in the evening And then you get tired, you don't do it, and it keeps going on and on. So, and for the record, by the way you can achieve a win. And this is something really important I want you to and if you if, specifically if you're a client who goes through this, but even for everybody else, you can achieve a win and make a mistake in the same day, the mistake or undesired behavior doesn't negate the wind don't believe that it ever does. Let's say your plan, your plan includes going for walks and having a nutritious lunch. But you end up having a mini binge later, the bench doesn't take away from what you did earlier at all. So do not believe your mind when it starts to say, you know what, like, you messed up anyways, it doesn't count, that win doesn't count, it does count, focus on your wins, always having the kindness towards yourself and focusing on your wins will help you get more wins in the future. Because you're training your attention to put to focus on the things you're doing correct, which means you're going to do better of that. But if you focus your attention on things we're not doing correctly, or your things you're doing wrong, you might end up getting more of that, forgive yourself and let go of the things, the little mistakes or the mistakes that you've done, and start to put your attention on the wins and the things that you're doing. And make sure that you have a plan for how to achieve these wins. And the sixth and final strategy. And this is very important one, and it's going to actually tie to how I started in the beginning is to expect tests to come up when rising and getting out of a slump. Life has a funny way of testing you it is super normal, when it coming out of the slump. Keep in mind that you will be tested in ways you expect or don't even expect, the thing is to expect the tests without worrying about it. So expect the test to be coming up. My test was waking up and seeing a negative email from someone who doesn't even know me, but took the time to write me some criticism. And that is fine. They actually could have meant it in a nice and constructive way, by the way. But because I'm coming out of a slump, I potentially took it in a negative way. My perception of the comment was a reflection of myself, these tests come in the form of obstacles that can sometimes allow trip you and make you fall back in a slump pretty quickly. So let's say you want you want to overcome your slump or your your the low point. And then the moment you start doing good things a test or an obstacle comes up and you trip and fall back in your low point again, you're like, Oh, I'm stuck again, and then stay stuck for another few weeks. So these tests, this is what they do, they can either trip you or you can start learning more about yourself and you can overcome them, the more you overcome these obstacles and not avoid them, and learn what to do with them and how to still continue on your plan despite obstacles, the better you become at implementing strategies of overcoming a slump, the more hero like you start acting like an associating with and the more resilient you become. So it is very normal to see tests coming up, expect them to come up. Having that x like anytime coming of a slump expected test to be there something that will want to trigger you to fall back into that slump expected and have a strategy for how you can overcome it. My strategy was like, you know what I can, I could be very mad at this email I received and just like you know, like, try to like, like, ignore it and just like, think about like, you know, like, I distract myself through whatever, you know, going playing some video games or something. But I was like, You know what? I'm going to think about that after my morning routine. And I did my morning routine. Anyways. And after my morning routine, I was feeling great. So I started getting these thoughts were like, you know what, maybe this person is upset. Maybe this person just was hurt by somebody who, who worked in as needed for somebody, maybe maybe somebody who tried to help them? Or maybe they maybe that's something that that annoyed them. Or maybe I said something that wasn't correct. It's like it came up. But then I started saying in the end, I was like, it's okay, it doesn't really matter is completely fine. Whatever it you cannot read another person's mind, specifically from email, but you can read in general, and whatever others say by you, is not a reflection of the truth about you. And still, even if they're talking about about marketing skills, they're still talking about about about about a skill and a skill can be improved, right? And by no means am I saying I'm a marketing expert. So what you weren't hurt anyways, nothing really was upsetting. It's completely okay. And you overcome that. Now, obviously other tests, I anticipate other tests coming up, looking forward to that I will share with you as my tests come up how I deal with them. But I have strategies when I go through these tests, and one of the best trades you can do is start to respond differently to whatever let's say an obstacle comes up, you hear bad news or somebody criticizes your work and you know, you want to bench you start to respond differently than perhaps telling yourself you know what, you're good, you're good enough, you're fine. Whatever they said doesn't really matter. You are good enough, you are doing much, much better and being kind to yourself and this is how you can overcome tests. But this is one simple strategy. The main strategy is to expect the task to come up and not Avoid Them or try to not think of them because it tests will do come up. This is a fact. So I hope this is it. I hope that you are doing well. I look forward to doing more of these podcasts, I really do miss doing them. I appreciate all the feedback I get from from from all of you by the way, thank you so much for all who have emailed me to check on me and see how I'm doing and thank you again for listening to my podcast. As always be on the bench is currently 25% of if you ever want to apply to it, you can go to www.morezk.com and I'm happy to have a conversation w th you to see if we can help or not. Anyways, hope you're oing great. Take care of y urself. Hopefully the end is ear when it comes to COVID and I hope you are doing really well Please let me know if you ha e any questions below and I m happy to see you in the next p dcast. Have a wonderful week nd.