Hello and welcome to episode 32 of the Quit Vaping Podcast. And today we're going to have a fun episode. This is going to be a concept that I teach my one on one coaching clients. Pretty much anyone who comes into my life coaching practice that wants coaching. Um, they're going to understand this concept.

But before I get into it. That's what I offer. If you haven't already, and you've been listening to this podcast for a while, um, check out the course. The course is a two and a half hours of videos, and it actually teaches you the material I have in this podcast. It teaches you how to apply it with something called the self coaching model.

And that is like the foundational tool I teach all my clients. So it's a really good thing to learn. And it's going to actually help you apply the information that you're learning. In this podcast, it's going to be a two and a half hour video course. So like literally just watch the videos. And then if you have to apply the information at the end and actually go through worksheets, there's an, or workbook, I don't think it's even necessary to do the workbook.

If you understand the model and how it works and, um, the information I teach you, I really don't think that all that's all necessary. And if it is, I do want to say this to you. I want this course to work for everybody. I really do. Like I'm not just doing this work to throw out some fun and fun little tools.

Like this is shit that I want to work for everyone everywhere. If they actually want to quit vaping and I want to make sure that it works without you having to force yourself by using low power or by lying to yourself or by any. Silly nicotine replacement or anything like that. I want the tools I teach to completely change your life.

And if for any reason they don't, or you need additional help, I'm pretty much available to help anyone who signs up for the first wave of this course. By the time this comes around in a year or six months, I would imagine I won't have that free time anymore. My coaching practice is picking up pretty well.

I'm really grateful for that. And I'm coming out with more tools and more resources and I'm going to be busy. So this is an amazing, amazing time to get. A 97 course with access to the person who made it, who charges a lot of money per hour per session. Typically who can really help you as a life coach, not just someone who's created a course like I do coaching.

Also I'm offering if somebody takes a course and they need additional help, I will help you with it. Um, I don't know the extent, I don't know if I'm gonna do like 10 free hours of coaching, but I do want to get on the phone with you and talk to you and actually support you and help you and coach you.

I'm really good at it. I love it. This is what I do and I want you to get through the course and. Again, learn these tools, not just to quit vaping, but to actually start to dream and believe in and act on a life that is really, really amazing for you based on your own definition. All right. With that said, today we're talking about readiness and this is a concept that we talk about a lot in the life coaching world.

And I just want to say that readiness is a choice. So many people, they approach readiness as if it's a feeling. And they say, Andrew, I don't feel ready. This is not feeling good to me. I'm not feeling like it's the right time. And readiness is not a feeling, uh, a feeling and emotion. You know, you can use the words interchangeably, a feeling and emotion, a craving and urge.

I use those words all interchangeably is a vibration in your body. And I would not consider readiness being an emotion. I would consider that being a decision or a thought that creates an emotion. And let me give you an example. So imagine if I want to quit vaping and I think to myself, I am ready right now.

to quit vaping. So I've made a decision and that doesn't create the feeling of readiness that creates a different emotion, right? So like an emotion that is caused by the thought I'm ready would be something like determination, maybe confidence, maybe commitment. And this might sound like wordplay and it kind of is, but it's important wordplay because when people come to me and think that readiness is something they should feel, they're waiting for something that they're never going to feel.

And what they're actually doing is giving themselves an excuse Not to make the decision to be ready, which will create the emotions that will drive you to actually commit to quitting. So readiness is a choice you make, and I want to do a test with you really fast. If I asked you to quit today, somebody walked up to behind you like right now and I said, Hey, sir, you have to put that down right now.

You're not allowed to vape anymore. What's the first emotion that comes into your body? And I would imagine when I ask this question, a lot of people say fear or like extreme discomfort. And those emotions are the reason that you're not quitting. So if you are driven by fear, you're going to avoid that emotion.

That's why I never recommend that people quit from negative emotions like shame or fear, because it's not a good way to quit. If I'm scared to quit right now, I'm not going to quit right now. And in order to understand that you have to understand a little bit about how your brain works. So pretty much your brain works on a mechanism that's kept us alive for a very long time.

It's called the motivational triad. And part of that triad is avoiding discomfort. So our brain is naturally equipped. With a mechanism that avoids discomfort. So if we put our hand on a hot stove, our brain is going to remember that causes pain, and it's going to use that discomfort or the potential discomfort to avoid doing that in the future.

So imagine if I am feeling discomfort when I have to quit vaping, my brain is going to avoid that discomfort by not quitting. Vaping. That's why on the last episode, I said that shame doesn't work because when we try to compel or force, I should say force ourselves into an action out of a negative emotion, our brain is literally designed to avoid that negative emotion.

So it ends up. Backfiring, and we typically do more of the behavior we're trying to drop or avoid. And one of the examples I always use because it's so universally understood by people is overeating. When I shame myself, when I beat myself up and hate myself for the weight I'm at, or for the food I've just put in my body, I'm much more likely to do that action again in the future because it's the very negative emotion of shame or fear that drives us to get out of it.

And the way that we train ourselves to get away from negative emotion is typically by trying to numb it with substances like food or nicotine. Alright, so understanding a little bit about your brain, now we can take this back to readiness. Your brain is designed to make you not want to believe that you're ready, when readiness means you're going to have to get uncomfortable.

That makes sense, right? If I have to decide right now that I'm ready to quit vaping, and that brings up negative emotion, my brain is going to do everything it possibly can to make me not want to believe that I'm ready. And one of the creative ways that we do this that I've seen a lot of people do with a lot of different things, not just nicotine is by thinking we trick ourselves into thinking that readiness is something that we feel like it's just a feeling that we have no control over.

We will feel ready one day and the problem with thinking that readiness is a emotion your body is one readiness isn't an emotion that is outside of you and two it's an, it's an ever moving target. So when I think that readiness will just happen to me one day, like it's going to be easier in the future.

What I'm actually doing is I'm saying, I don't want to feel uncomfortable right now. So I'm going to tell myself that in the future. I won't feel uncomfortable, but remember this is a never ending target. So I want to tell you about a story from a client I have right now, and I'm not going to use any details that would ever give the person away.

I do coaching on a lot of people in their dreams. So I don't even know if the person that I'm talking about would know I'm talking about them, but obviously no personal details. Uh, I have a client that. Excuse me. They want to live their dream and they are trying to get a lot of education. This is pretty common scenario actually with clients.

They're trying to get education so they feel ready to go and do the scary stuff. And this is what you should know about the school system is when you go to school. And they teach you how to do things. You're not actually learning the skill set you need to learn to live your dreams. Because if you want to live your dreams, the entire point is that you have to step into the uncomfortable emotions and potentially risk failure and rejection.

Now, somebody like a client who already has a four year degree, who has been through the school system, who knows that they're much more. Intelligent than they need to be to pass the school system. What they're actually doing is they're saying to me, Andrew, I don't want to get uncomfortable right now to live my dream.

Instead, I'm going to go to school for four more years. I'm going to pass another four years of school. I'm going to do exactly what they say so I don't have to get uncomfortable. I don't have to risk any failure. I can literally fill in the blanks and get A's in all my classes, and then I'm going to feel more ready to go do the scary things to live my dreams.

So this is the funny part about that is that if you spend four years of your life, not stepping into fear and discomfort, you're going to be really crappy at stepping into fear and discomfort in four years. All right. And I do want to throw a caveat in here. I'm not saying that college isn't scary or uncomfortable at all, but with this particular client and with a lot of my clients, They have a temptation to go back into the familiar and the known.

They already have 40 degrees or they know the school system. They know what the path looks like. And really it's having to go and create your own path that will allow you to fulfill your dream in the way that you want. So as a coach, I'm always looking out for this, um, in the best interest of my client and what they want.

And it's not my job to make decisions for them, but just let them know the reason they're making decisions and what emotions are driving those actions. And if you want to quit vaping, it's going to be slightly uncomfortable. It doesn't have to be miserable. It doesn't have to be shameful. You don't have to be driven by fear, but it's going to be slightly uncomfortable.

So if you are saying that you want to be ready later, what you're actually saying to me with my life coach ears is I don't want to get uncomfortable. Well, that's what's going to have to happen if you want to quit vaping. So what you're really saying is, right now, I don't want to quit, I'm choosing not to.

It's not that I don't feel ready, I'm deciding not to be. Now let me remind you again, really fast, that is okay. There is no judgment on anybody for not choosing to be ready to do something uncomfortable right now. If you want to live your dreams, this is the fun saying that my coach always says, discomfort is the currency of your dreams.

If you want to be someone who doesn't vape, if that's your dream, and you really do want to be in that life, you're going to have to, I don't want to say admit, but you're going to have to accept at some point, that there's going to be some discomfort there, and that your brain is designed to avoid it. So you can't just wait until your brain doesn't work for you to feel ready.

You have to decide in the moment, this is it, I'm making a decision, I'm ready. Let's do this. It's going to be uncomfortable. I'm going to have my own back. I'm not going to beat myself up. If I fail, I will learn why from curiosity, not from shame. I will love myself. I can do this. I can do hard things. So whether or not you're ready today, it's a choice that you make.

It's not something that just happens to you. I would like to offer that you can make that choice right now. You can click the link in the bio. You can go check out the quit vaping course. If for any reason, at the end of it, you still need additional help or you're still struggling with something. I put my contact, my direct contact on the course sales page.

And at the end of the course for you to reach out to me directly. I want this to work for you. I genuinely care about you. You is smart, you is kind, and you is important. I will see you in the course.