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Transcript

You're Not Weak. You're Just Deciding in the Wrong Place. · Your Utmost Life

0:00
Misty Celli: You'd already decided.
0:01
Misty Celli: You'd been decided for weeks.
0:03
Misty Celli: This year, someone else was hosting your mom's birthday dinner, not you.
0:07
Misty Celli: You've done it four years in a row and you've made yourself a promise this year.
0:10
Misty Celli: Then Tuesday afternoon, your phone lights up with your sister's name.
0:14
Misty Celli: She's barely through her second sentence when you hear yourself say, sure, of course I'll take care of it.
0:19
Misty Celli: You hang up the phone and stand in the kitchen.
0:21
Misty Celli: Phone is still in your hand, your shoulders slump, and you're wondering who on earth just answered the phone in your voice.
0:27
Misty Celli: I want you to hear this before we go any further.
0:30
Misty Celli: What happened on that phone wasn't a willpower problem, and you don't need a stronger backbone.
0:35
Misty Celli: You are missing something that the women who keep showing up as themselves always have working for them.
0:40
Misty Celli: Something that was already decided before the phone ever lit up.
0:43
Misty Celli: By the end of this episode, you'll understand why your best intentions keep losing in the moment.
0:48
Misty Celli: What changes when your identity has already made the call, and the one decision this week you can make before the moment ever gets a chance to.
0:55
Misty Celli: Stay with me to the end because I'll show you exactly where to begin.
0:58
Misty Celli: Do you ever look around your own home, your own calendar, your own day, and realize there isn't much of you in it?
1:04
Misty Celli: Or catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and barely recognize the woman looking back, the one who once dreamed big and had passion and purpose beyond meeting everyone else's needs?
1:13
Misty Celli: You keep the meals planned, the bills paid, and the whole household moving.
1:16
Misty Celli: But somewhere along the way, you left yourself off the list.
1:19
Misty Celli: If you've ever had that quiet thought, is this really all there is?
1:23
Misty Celli: And then immediately pushed it away because even thinking it felt selfish, you're in the right place.
1:28
Misty Celli: You were never meant to disappear into your roles.
1:30
Misty Celli: You are more than everyone's everything.
1:33
Misty Celli: You are someone.
1:34
Misty Celli: And somewhere inside, you already know that.
1:37
Misty Celli: This is where you remember who you are, not who you've had to be for everyone else.
1:41
Misty Celli: And you start designing a life that actually includes you, on purpose, fully alive.
1:46
Misty Celli: Welcome to the Your Utmost Life Podcast.
1:49
Misty Celli: I'm Misty, an identity and life design coach.
1:52
Misty Celli: If you haven't hit follow or subscribe yet, do it now because you deserve a life that includes you starting today.
1:59
Misty Celli: Now let's get into it.
2:01
Misty Celli: If that phone call felt a little too familiar, know there's nothing wrong with you.
2:05
Misty Celli: Maybe it wasn't your sister.
2:07
Misty Celli: Maybe it was your husband asking you to handle his mother's appointment, or a friend who needed one more favor, or your own calendar asking you to give up the one hour you'd set aside.
2:17
Misty Celli: You can probably see the moment right now if you close your eyes.
2:21
Misty Celli: Where you were standing, what you were holding, the second that you felt the yes leave your mouth before you'd even decided to say it.
2:28
Misty Celli: But here's the part that nobody sees the quiet replay in the car, the conversation you have with yourself in the shower, the one where you say what you meant to say, that heavy feeling that sits on your shoulders the rest of the day because you know you just handed away something that mattered to you and you're the one who handed it over.
2:46
Misty Celli: I know that feeling well.
2:48
Misty Celli: I've come home after a week of doing everything for everyone else, landing back in my own kitchen and felt the old pattern pull at me so hard that I started apologizing for being tired, as if rest was something I owed them an explanation for.
3:03
Misty Celli: So if you're carrying any of that right now, you can set it down for a minute.
3:06
Misty Celli: You're in good company and you're in the right place.
3:10
Misty Celli: I know better.
3:11
Misty Celli: That's what you say to yourself, isn't it?
3:14
Misty Celli: And you say it every single time.
3:16
Misty Celli: You're a grown woman.
3:17
Misty Celli: You have ran a household for decades.
3:19
Misty Celli: You've handled emergencies, hospital waiting rooms, and holiday dinners for 20.
3:24
Misty Celli: Yet you can't get that one honest sentence out of your mouth on the phone with your own sister.
3:28
Misty Celli: And somewhere underneath that, deeper, quieter, there's a worse thought.
3:34
Misty Celli: Maybe this is just who I am now.
3:36
Misty Celli: Maybe the woman who wanted something different isn't really there anymore.
3:40
Misty Celli: Maybe I'm just not strong enough now.
3:42
Misty Celli: This is my role.
3:44
Misty Celli: This is who I'm supposed to be for everyone else.
3:46
Misty Celli: But maybe so you make a deal with yourself.
3:50
Misty Celli: Next time you'll be ready.
3:51
Misty Celli: Next time you'll say it.
3:53
Misty Celli: And the next time comes, and you answer the same way you always have.
3:57
Misty Celli: That deal is the belief that I want to talk about today.
4:00
Misty Celli: Next time I'll make the right call in the moment.
4:03
Misty Celli: It makes complete sense that you believe it because you're very good in the moment.
4:08
Misty Celli: You've been the one who handles things for years.
4:11
Misty Celli: When your daughter called in tears from her dorm, you knew what to say.
4:14
Misty Celli: When your dad fell, you were the first to get there and knew who to call.
4:18
Misty Celli: Your whole life has taught you that you rise to the moment.
4:21
Misty Celli: You always do.
4:22
Misty Celli: You rise to it for everybody else out of real love, and it costs you.
4:27
Misty Celli: This week it costs you a Saturday.
4:29
Misty Celli: It's the grocery run, the cleaning, the cooking, the dishes at 10 o'clock, and the resentment you'll swallow with a smile while everyone tells you how nice it was.
4:36
Misty Celli: You'll say thank you and mean it and not say the other thing.
4:40
Misty Celli: Underneath that, it costs you something harder to see.
4:42
Misty Celli: Every time you promise yourself one thing and then the moment decides something else, you teach yourself that your word to yourself can be renegotiated by whoever calls first.
4:52
Misty Celli: After enough of those, you stop trusting your own promises.
4:56
Misty Celli: That's how the erased woman happens.
4:58
Misty Celli: Nobody takes her away all at once.
5:01
Misty Celli: She gets outvoted one phone call at a time.
5:04
Misty Celli: And if nothing changes, 10 years from now, your kids are fully grown, your parents need more from you than they do today, and you look back and realize the biggest decisions of your life were made by whoever happened to need you at the time.
5:16
Misty Celli: Is that the life that you choose if somebody actually asked you?
5:20
Misty Celli: The moment is the worst possible place to decide who you are.
5:24
Misty Celli: Think about what's already in the room by the time that request reaches you.
5:28
Misty Celli: Guilt gets there first.
5:30
Misty Celli: Right behind it is habit, the answer that you've given a hundred times, the one your role says out of muscle memory.
5:37
Misty Celli: And then there's the person on the other end of the line who you love.
5:40
Misty Celli: Your identity, the woman you actually are, shows up last if she shows up at all, because nobody invited her in to decide early.
5:48
Misty Celli: Three voices against one every single time.
5:51
Misty Celli: Of course you keep caving.
5:53
Misty Celli: Anybody would.
5:54
Misty Celli: Here's what the research actually says about this, and it surprised me.
5:57
Misty Celli: There's two researchers who published a study in the Journal of Consumer Research, looking at how the words people used who turned something down affect whether they actually stick to their goals.
6:07
Misty Celli: People who framed the refusal as I don't held to their goals better than those who said I can't.
6:13
Misty Celli: And the effect was strongest when the goal came from inside them rather than from someone else's rules.
6:18
Misty Celli: They traced it to a feeling of empowerment.
6:21
Misty Celli: Think about why.
6:22
Misty Celli: I can't is a rule, and rules can be argued with, especially by the people who love you.
6:27
Misty Celli: I don't is a statement about who you are, and you can't argue with a woman about who she is.
6:33
Misty Celli: An identity-aligned decision filter works on the same principle, except it doesn't wait for the phone to light up.
6:39
Misty Celli: It decides before the call comes.
6:42
Misty Celli: You make the decision once ahead of time from who you are, so the moment doesn't decide for you.
6:47
Misty Celli: It doesn't mean you'll never be tempted to cave again.
6:50
Misty Celli: It means that when the phone lights up, there's already a fourth voice in the room and she happens to be the one who knows you best.
6:57
Misty Celli: You've loved, you've provided, you've shown up for everyone, but you can't keep asking guilt and habit to make decisions about a woman they've never actually met.
7:05
Misty Celli: That filter is built from your own words.
7:08
Misty Celli: If you don't have them yet, I'll tell you exactly where to start at the end of this episode.
7:12
Misty Celli: And if you do, this is where you learn how to put them to work before the moment ever arrives.
7:16
Misty Celli: Let me tell you about the week after we helped family, because the trip itself wasn't the hard part.
7:21
Misty Celli: Coming home was.
7:22
Misty Celli: We packed up the truck and drove 18 hours to help a family member who needed us.
7:27
Misty Celli: The week was one of doing, taking care of, and getting things in order.
7:30
Misty Celli: There was no downtime, no massage, no wine, no watching the sun set across the lake, just my husband working, me organizing, and both of us getting things handled for people we love.
7:40
Misty Celli: 18 hours back, one day to rest before the work week started again.
7:45
Misty Celli: You probably know the feeling of re-entry.
7:47
Misty Celli: The suitcase still half unpacked in the corner, the fridge empty, a stack of mail on the counter, and everyone ready for normal life to start back up.
7:54
Misty Celli: For me, that's always been the week the old pattern starts pulling hardest.
7:58
Misty Celli: It sounds like a voice telling me that I've had time away from real life.
8:01
Misty Celli: I've taken too much time off, and now it's time to make up for it.
8:04
Misty Celli: What I wanted underneath all of it was simple.
8:07
Misty Celli: I wanted to come home as myself, to pick back up my own work and my own rhythm and still take good care of the people I love.
8:13
Misty Celli: I didn't want to come home as the woman who owed everybody for having been gone.
8:17
Misty Celli: But there it was, that voice.
8:20
Misty Celli: They worked hard, they gave up their time, they showed up for family.
8:23
Misty Celli: The least I could do was take care of them.
8:26
Misty Celli: And so for the next couple of days, I did what I always do.
8:29
Misty Celli: I answered every request with whatever felt most urgent, and every answer came straight from the role.
8:35
Misty Celli: The wife, the daughter, the one who handles it all.
8:38
Misty Celli: None of them was wrong exactly, but by the second evening, I'd done a dozen good things for other people and nothing that included me.
8:45
Misty Celli: And I was calling myself lazy for being tired.
8:48
Misty Celli: I want to be honest about what happened there.
8:50
Misty Celli: My tools didn't fail me.
8:52
Misty Celli: I'd stopped using them.
8:53
Misty Celli: I walked straight back into my life without bringing my own words.
8:57
Misty Celli: Thursday morning came and I woke up to a list already running before my feet hit the floor.
9:02
Misty Celli: I was behind before the day even started.
9:05
Misty Celli: I could feel it, the weight of everything I hadn't done, everything the house still needed, everything that had piled up while I was away being useful somewhere else.
9:14
Misty Celli: I lay back down, pulled the covers over my head, and took a deep breath.
9:18
Misty Celli: And that voice came, the one that sounds like responsibility but isn't.
9:22
Misty Celli: Don't be lazy.
9:24
Misty Celli: There's too much to do.
9:25
Misty Celli: Get up.
9:26
Misty Celli: I got up.
9:27
Misty Celli: I made my way to the bathroom.
9:28
Misty Celli: And standing there, looking at my own face in the mirror, the tired eyes, the hair that hadn't decided what it was doing yet, and I said the words out loud, all of a sudden, I am capable, I am loved, and I am worthy.
9:40
Misty Celli: Something shifted, not dramatically, but quietly, kind of like a window opening in the room that had been closed too long.
9:47
Misty Celli: Because the mind remembers what the heart wrote down.
9:50
Misty Celli: It remembered who I was, and it reminded me.
9:53
Misty Celli: The question in front of me stopped being, what does everyone need from me right now?
9:57
Misty Celli: And it became, what would the woman I actually am do with this?
10:00
Misty Celli: She didn't have to argue with every request as it came in.
10:03
Misty Celli: She'd already decided what she protects.
10:05
Misty Celli: And that meant she could say yes to the people she loves without leaving herself out of it.
10:10
Misty Celli: The rest of that week looked completely ordinary from the outside.
10:13
Misty Celli: The laundry got done, the groceries got bought, my husband still had dinner on the table, but I was back in focused action, the kind that takes care of everyone else and still includes me.
10:24
Misty Celli: And I was back on track with my own goals.
10:26
Misty Celli: Nothing about my circumstances had changed.
10:29
Misty Celli: Only one thing had changed.
10:31
Misty Celli: Who was making the decisions?
10:33
Misty Celli: That's when it really settled in for me.
10:35
Misty Celli: She hadn't gone anywhere during that trip or during all those years before.
10:40
Misty Celli: She'd been there the whole time.
10:42
Misty Celli: She just stopped getting a voice.
10:44
Misty Celli: And the filter is what gives her the voice back.
10:47
Misty Celli: Deciding ahead of time doesn't make you rigid and it doesn't make you cold.
10:50
Misty Celli: The filter decides who's doing the choosing, and it frees her to say yes when yes is right, and no when no is right, without guilt running either answer.
10:59
Misty Celli: Sometimes the woman in your words says yes, and she means it all the way down.
11:03
Misty Celli: Last week I told you about the night my husband asked for tacos.
11:06
Misty Celli: I didn't refuse him and I didn't give up on my evening.
11:09
Misty Celli: I found an answer that honored both of us, and nobody walked away feeling unimportant.
11:13
Misty Celli: That's what it looks like when she decides.
11:15
Misty Celli: People still get loved.
11:17
Misty Celli: They just get loved by the real you, not the worn-out version.
11:21
Misty Celli: If you try to hold a line before encaved, that history isn't evidence about you.
11:26
Misty Celli: Those attempts started with behavior, trying to say the right thing at the right moment, but behavior without identity underneath it doesn't hold.
11:33
Misty Celli: You were building a house on ground nobody ever had surveyed.
11:37
Misty Celli: This time you start with who you are, and that's the part that holds.
11:40
Misty Celli: And if your family feels too complicated for any of this, with a parent who needs more every year, a sister who only knows the version of you who has always said yes, and a husband who's used to you handling everything, I hear you.
11:52
Misty Celli: The complexity is real, but it's your circumstance.
11:56
Misty Celli: It isn't the deciding factor.
11:58
Misty Celli: The deciding factor is whether you go into those moments already knowing who you are.
12:03
Misty Celli: And here's what the science actually confirms, because it matters that it isn't just a feeling.
12:08
Misty Celli: Good evidence shows that deciding in advance works.
12:11
Misty Celli: A large review pulled together 94 studies on people who decided ahead of time when and how they'd act on a goal and found a medium to large boost in how often they follow through.
12:22
Misty Celli: Willpower in the moment is unreliable to everyone.
12:25
Misty Celli: That's not a character flaw.
12:27
Misty Celli: That's just how moments work.
12:28
Misty Celli: A decision you've already made is much harder to argue with, especially when the person trying to argue with is someone you love.
12:36
Misty Celli: So why this week?
12:37
Misty Celli: Because the next request is already on its way.
12:40
Misty Celli: It's sitting on somebody's to-do list right now with your name next to it.
12:44
Misty Celli: You can meet it in the way you always have, surprised on the spot with guilt already in the room, or you can meet it already knowing who you are.
12:52
Misty Celli: Picture this Tuesday the way it usually goes.
12:55
Misty Celli: Your phone lights up with your sister's name.
12:57
Misty Celli: Your stomach drops before you even answer.
12:59
Misty Celli: You already know how this ends.
13:01
Misty Celli: You've known since Sunday.
13:02
Misty Celli: Now picture another Tuesday.
13:04
Misty Celli: It's a little after three.
13:05
Misty Celli: You're at the kitchen table with your coffee going lukewarm and the house is quiet.
13:09
Misty Celli: Your phone lights up with the same name.
13:11
Misty Celli: You still feel that old flicker, but it passes because you decided this days ago, back on Sunday night.
13:16
Misty Celli: You pick up and your voice sounds like yours.
13:19
Misty Celli: It's warm and easy with no rush in it.
13:21
Misty Celli: You hear yourself tell her that you're not hosting this year, and then you offer something you'd actually love, and you mean every word.
13:28
Misty Celli: There's a short pause on the other end.
13:30
Misty Celli: Then she says okay, and the two of you move on talking about mom's gift.
13:34
Misty Celli: You set the phone down and feel your shoulders drop.
13:36
Misty Celli: The same shoulders that slumped in the kitchen three weeks ago, they drop now, but differently.
13:41
Misty Celli: It's relief, not defeat.
13:43
Misty Celli: There's no replay in the car, no conversation in the shower later, nothing heavy follows you into the evening.
13:48
Misty Celli: That night your husband asks how the call went and you tell him it went fine, and you realize it really did.
13:54
Misty Celli: Your daughter, who's grown and has a sister of her own, is watching how you handle your family.
13:58
Misty Celli: Without a single lecture, she's learning that a woman can love her people well and still keep her own word to herself.
14:04
Misty Celli: She's learning that when it's her turn, when someone wants to celebrate her or seat her at the head of the holiday table, it's okay to honor both herself and the people she loves.
14:13
Misty Celli: And she'll know without having to wonder that you won't be disappointed in her, that you won't take it as proof she doesn't love you, because you love her enough to want her whole, not erased in the name of loving someone else.
14:25
Misty Celli: That's what it feels like to move to your own beat again, to have your own rhythm under your feet instead of everybody else's tempo polling at you.
14:32
Misty Celli: The more often your words decide before the moment does, the quieter guilt gets until one day you notice it has hardly anything left to say.
14:40
Misty Celli: And I want you to hear me on this.
14:42
Misty Celli: You're allowed to want this fully.
14:45
Misty Celli: The whole version, not some safer, smaller one.
14:48
Misty Celli: You don't have to earn it first.
14:49
Misty Celli: Your utmost self isn't someone you have to go out and find.
14:53
Misty Celli: She's the woman who was ready to answer that phone call all along, and she's ready for the next one too.
14:59
Misty Celli: Here's what I want you to take with you.
15:00
Misty Celli: You've believed that you'd make the right call in the moment, and you've been carrying the blame every time the moment won.
15:06
Misty Celli: But the moment was never a fair fight.
15:08
Misty Celli: Guilt and habit and the people you love all get there before you do.
15:11
Misty Celli: The women who keep showing up as themselves aren't stronger in the moment than you are.
15:15
Misty Celli: They decided earlier from who they are.
15:17
Misty Celli: So here's the question I want to leave you with.
15:19
Misty Celli: The erased woman waits for the moment and to hope that she'll be ready this time.
15:22
Misty Celli: The utmost woman walks into the moment already knowing which one is answering your phone this week.
15:28
Misty Celli: Here's what you do.
15:29
Misty Celli: Look at your week right now and find one real choice that's already headed your way.
15:33
Misty Celli: It might be a request you know is coming, an obligation everyone assumes you'll handle again, or the hour on your own calendar that keeps getting moved.
15:40
Misty Celli: Decide that one from who you are before it ever reaches you.
15:44
Misty Celli: To do that, you need your words, and that's your first step.
15:47
Misty Celli: In 15 minutes, you'll have your three words that are entirely yours.
15:51
Misty Celli: Tested against what's already true about you.
15:54
Misty Celli: So the next time your phone lights up, your identity is already in the room.
15:57
Misty Celli: It's free and it's waiting for you.
16:00
Misty Celli: This is phase one of three.
16:01
Misty Celli: Discover, design, do.
16:03
Misty Celli: The words you find here are the foundation.
16:05
Misty Celli: Everything that comes next, your decisions, your daily rhythms, your whole week gets built on them.
16:10
Misty Celli: Head to yourutmost.com forward slash starter or grab the link in the show notes.
16:15
Misty Celli: Sir, your words are already in place before that choice shows up.
16:18
Misty Celli: And here's something I want you to prepare for, because it matters.
16:22
Misty Celli: Within an hour of deciding, you'll probably hear a voice asking, Who do you think you are?
16:27
Misty Celli: Or calling you selfish or warning you that somebody's going to be upset.
16:31
Misty Celli: That voice is the identity eraser effect trying to take its seat back at the table.
16:36
Misty Celli: You can answer it like this.
16:38
Misty Celli: I am a woman who chose herself today, and I will choose her again tomorrow.
16:43
Misty Celli: Say this one with me.
16:44
Misty Celli: I don't wait for the moment to tell me who I am.
16:48
Misty Celli: I already know.
16:49
Misty Celli: If you've heard your own phone call somewhere in this episode, I want to ask you something.
16:53
Misty Celli: Would you leave a review?
16:54
Misty Celli: It helps the next woman who keeps promising herself next time realize she doesn't have to wait for one.
17:00
Misty Celli: And if you know a woman who says yes on the phone and replays it in the car afterward, send her this episode before her next phone call.
17:06
Misty Celli: She isn't weak.
17:07
Misty Celli: She's just been deciding at the worst possible moment.
17:10
Misty Celli: Next week, you'll understand why the boundaries you've tried before keep falling apart.
17:14
Misty Celli: What makes the kind hold so differently?
17:17
Misty Celli: And the one boundary you can set today that doesn't need anybody's cooperation to work.
17:22
Misty Celli: You don't want to find it in three months from now when the damage is already done.
17:25
Misty Celli: And if you haven't hit follow yet, do it before you go.
17:28
Misty Celli: Next week's episode is one you'll want already waiting for you.
17:32
Misty Celli: Go decide one thing this week before it has a chance to decide for you.
17:36
Misty Celli: Until next week, remember you are more than everyone's everything.
17:41
Misty Celli: You are someone, and you are worth living your utmost life as your utmost self.