Latest / Your Utmost Life / Is It True You Can't Follow Through, or Are You Starting in the Wrong Place?

Transcript

Is It True You Can't Follow Through, or Are You Starting in the Wrong Place? · Your Utmost Life

• 0:00
  Misty Celli: I've been thinking about you.
• 0:01
  Misty Celli: Specifically, I've been thinking about the woman who has tried before, maybe more than once.
• 0:06
  Misty Celli: You bought the plan or you did the 30-day thing, you had the good week, and then the good week ended, and you quietly followed it away as proof about yourself instead of proof about the plan.
• 0:16
  Misty Celli: If you have been showing up here week after week, listening in the car, folding laundry with one ear button, taking the mental notes you never quite act on, I see you.
• 0:25
  Misty Celli: That's not passive habit.
• 0:26
  Misty Celli: That's something in you that hasn't settled.
• 0:29
  Misty Celli: Have you noticed that yet?
• 0:30
  Misty Celli: So here's what I want to say to you before we go any further.
• 0:33
  Misty Celli: It wasn't you.
• 0:34
  Misty Celli: And I don't mean that the way people say it to make you feel better.
• 0:37
  Misty Celli: I mean it structurally.
• 0:38
  Misty Celli: There was a piece missing every single time.
• 0:41
  Misty Celli: And once you see what it was, you can't unsee it.
• 0:44
  Misty Celli: Here's the truth we're working with today.
• 0:46
  Misty Celli: You don't need more time.
• 0:49
  Misty Celli: You need a start line.
• 0:51
  Misty Celli: And by the end of this episode, I'm going to show you exactly why every other start line you've stood at didn't hold and what's actually different about this one.
• 0:59
  Misty Celli: If you have ever felt like you're living for everyone else, don't know who you are anymore, and you catch yourself thinking, is this all there is?
• 1:05
  Misty Celli: You're in the right place.
• 1:06
  Misty Celli: You were never meant to disappear into your roles.
• 1:09
  Misty Celli: Somewhere between everyone's needs and expectations, you became invisible, disconnected, and living on autopilot.
• 1:14
  Misty Celli: This podcast is where you learn the principles and strategic tools to reclaim who you are.
• 1:18
  Misty Celli: Design a life that is fully and intentionally yours, and show up every day as the utmost woman you've always been.
• 1:24
  Misty Celli: Not by accident, not by obligation, but by design.
• 1:27
  Misty Celli: Welcome to your utmost life podcast.
• 1:29
  Misty Celli: I'm Misty, identity and self-leadership coach for Ambitious Mothers.
• 1:32
  Misty Celli: There was a stretch of my life where I was doing everything right, showing up for everyone, meeting every need, keeping every plate spinning.
• 1:40
  Misty Celli: From the outside, nothing looked wrong, but from the inside, I was disappearing a little more every week.
• 1:45
  Misty Celli: And I couldn't have told you exactly when it started.
• 1:48
  Misty Celli: So I did what capable women do.
• 1:50
  Misty Celli: I tried to fix it.
• 1:51
  Misty Celli: I tried the early mornings, setting the alarm back an hour, told myself this was the thing that was going to change everything.
• 1:58
  Misty Celli: It worked for 11 days.
• 2:00
  Misty Celli: I tried the habit trackers, the color-coded ones, the satisfying little check marks.
• 2:05
  Misty Celli: It worked until the week got hard, and then the tracker just sat there as evidence of the days I'd missed, which somehow felt worse than not trying at all.
• 2:14
  Misty Celli: I told myself I just needed to want it more.
• 2:17
  Misty Celli: More discipline, more willpower, more grit.
• 2:20
  Misty Celli: And when that didn't hold either, I ran out of things to blame except myself.
• 2:25
  Misty Celli: I was standing in my kitchen, coffee going cold in my hand, the list had already been running in my head before my feet had even hit the floor that morning.
• 2:32
  Misty Celli: And I thought, I've done this before.
• 2:34
  Misty Celli: Not the specific list, but the pattern.
• 2:37
  Misty Celli: That good stretch, that slow slide back, that quiet little verdict I'd hand myself afterward.
• 2:43
  Misty Celli: Guess that wasn't the one either.
• 2:45
  Misty Celli: I wasn't lazy.
• 2:46
  Misty Celli: I wasn't confused about what I wanted.
• 2:49
  Misty Celli: I was doing everything the plans told me to do.
• 2:52
  Misty Celli: What I didn't have was a plan that started in the right place.
• 2:56
  Misty Celli: Have you ever caught yourself thinking that same thing?
• 2:58
  Misty Celli: That you're just someone who starts things and doesn't finish them?
• 3:01
  Misty Celli: Sit with that question for a second before you answer it because I don't think it's true, and I'm about to tell you why.
• 3:07
  Misty Celli: What I was actually chasing underneath every early morning and every tracker was proof that the woman I used to recognize in the mirror was still real.
• 3:16
  Misty Celli: She was.
• 3:17
  Misty Celli: She had been there the whole time.
• 3:19
  Misty Celli: That restlessness that kept sending me back to try again, that wasn't failure repeating itself.
• 3:25
  Misty Celli: That was my own utmost self, still whispering, even when I didn't have a name for her yet.
• 3:30
  Misty Celli: There was this belief that was actually running the whole time, underneath every single attempt.
• 3:35
  Misty Celli: And I want to say it out loud because it loses power the moment it's named.
• 3:39
  Misty Celli: I've tried things before and nothing creates lasting change, not for someone like me.
• 3:45
  Misty Celli: If that sentence just landed a little too close, you're not alone and you're not broken.
• 3:50
  Misty Celli: So many of the women I talk to say some version of that same thing.
• 3:54
  Misty Celli: I don't recognize myself anymore.
• 3:56
  Misty Celli: I look in the mirror and I don't quite know who's looking back.
• 4:00
  Misty Celli: If that's you, I want you to hear this clearly.
• 4:03
  Misty Celli: You haven't disappeared.
• 4:05
  Misty Celli: You haven't waited too long.
• 4:08
  Misty Celli: You didn't leave.
• 4:09
  Misty Celli: You just got quieter as everything else got louder.
• 4:12
  Misty Celli: Here's what you've actually been collecting evidence of.
• 4:15
  Misty Celli: Not that you can't change, but that you couldn't out will a plan that started in the wrong place.
• 4:22
  Misty Celli: Those are two completely different conclusions, and only one of them is true.
• 4:27
  Misty Celli: Every plan you've ever tried started at behavior.
• 4:31
  Misty Celli: Wake up early, track it, push through, want it more.
• 4:33
  Misty Celli: Behavior built on top of an identity that hasn't shifted will hold for exactly as long as your willpower does, and not one day longer.
• 4:41
  Misty Celli: That is not a character flaw.
• 4:43
  Misty Celli: That's just how the mechanism works for every woman every time.
• 4:47
  Misty Celli: The moment you decide who you are first, the behavior stops requiring willpower because it simply becomes what that woman does.
• 4:55
  Misty Celli: Not because you gritted your teeth through it, because it's true of her.
• 4:59
  Misty Celli: This is the real method, not a hack, not a hustle.
• 5:02
  Misty Celli: Four moves always in this order.
• 5:05
  Misty Celli: Survey her truth, engineer her foundation, architect her life, inhabit her identity.
• 5:10
  Misty Celli: You survey what's actually true about who you are right now, no performing, no polishing it up for anyone.
• 5:17
  Misty Celli: You engineer the internal belief strong enough to hold real weight, examining whether the ground you've been standing on was ever true to begin with.
• 5:25
  Misty Celli: You architect the specific woman you're designing your life around, what she believes, what she protects, what her week actually looks like, and then you inhabit her.
• 5:35
  Misty Celli: You live as her before it feels fully earned because that is how identity has always worked.
• 5:41
  Misty Celli: It was never evidence first, it's decision first.
• 5:44
  Misty Celli: If your last 10 attempts all started with a habit tracker, that's not a discipline problem.
• 5:49
  Misty Celli: That's a sequencing problem.
• 5:51
  Misty Celli: This time we start one level down at the foundation, not the behavior sitting on top of it.
• 5:56
  Misty Celli: I want to be honest about who this actually is built for, because fit matters more than motivation.
• 6:02
  Misty Celli: And I'd rather tell you the truth now than have you spend energy on something that isn't the right match.
• 6:07
  Misty Celli: This is for you if you're an ambitious mother who has been feeling invisible and disconnected, living somewhere between everyone else's needs and your own.
• 6:16
  Misty Celli: If you know that you were made for more and haven't been living like it, if you've tried things before and watched them fall apart, not because you're broken, but because nothing you tried was ever built starting at identity.
• 6:27
  Misty Celli: This is for you if you're done circling and genuinely are ready to move, ready to start with what you actually have this week, instead of waiting for the schedule to open up or the fear to pass.
• 6:37
  Misty Celli: And I'll be honest about who this isn't for.
• 6:40
  Misty Celli: This isn't a quick fix and it isn't a place to get validated for staying exactly where you are.
• 6:45
  Misty Celli: This is honest identity level work.
• 6:47
  Misty Celli: It's asking something of you, and if that's not what you're looking for right now, that's okay.
• 6:51
  Misty Celli: I'll still be here every week to walk with you right where you are now.
• 6:55
  Misty Celli: I want you to picture an ordinary Tuesday.
• 6:58
  Misty Celli: Not someday, not eventually.
• 7:00
  Misty Celli: A regular Tuesday, sometime down the road, once this has time to settle in.
• 7:04
  Misty Celli: You wake up and there's no argument running in your head about whether you're the kind of woman who follows through.
• 7:09
  Misty Celli: You already decided that a while back.
• 7:11
  Misty Celli: And now it's just true the way your own name is true.
• 7:14
  Misty Celli: You hear yourself answer a hard question in a voice that's steadier than the one you used to have.
• 7:19
  Misty Celli: You catch a reflection in the hallway mirror on the way out, the door, and for once you don't look away from it.
• 7:25
  Misty Celli: That is not a stranger you've built from nothing.
• 7:27
  Misty Celli: That's the woman whose rhythm got drowned out by everyone else's noise for a while.
• 7:31
  Misty Celli: This is just you finding your own beat again.
• 7:34
  Misty Celli: Surveyed, engineered, architect, and now finely inhabited, living with intention and visible integrity in the plainest, most ordinary parts of an ordinary week.
• 7:44
  Misty Celli: Every week you start at behavior instead of identity.
• 7:47
  Misty Celli: Watch it fall apart and file it away as more proof about yourself.
• 7:50
  Misty Celli: You're not standing still.
• 7:52
  Misty Celli: You're practicing a belief.
• 7:54
  Misty Celli: The belief that you're someone who can't.
• 7:56
  Misty Celli: And like anything practiced, that belief gets stronger the more you reinforce it.
• 8:00
  Misty Celli: One more attempt started in the same wrong place.
• 8:03
  Misty Celli: The good news is the reverse compounds too.
• 8:06
  Misty Celli: The moment you start at identity instead of behavior, you begin practicing the opposite belief, the one that builds just as fast.
• 8:14
  Misty Celli: So, where have you been waiting for circumstances to change instead of simply deciding who you are first?
• 8:20
  Misty Celli: You don't have to answer that out loud.
• 8:22
  Misty Celli: Just let yourself hear the question.
• 8:24
  Misty Celli: Let's do the first real move together right now while you're listening.
• 8:28
  Misty Celli: Not a tracker, not a system, just true.
• 8:32
  Misty Celli: Finish this sentence out loud if you can, or quietly if that's what today is calling for.
• 8:37
  Misty Celli: The truth about who I am underneath all my roles is fill in the blank.
• 8:42
  Misty Celli: That's it.
• 8:43
  Misty Celli: That's the surveyor's first job.
• 8:45
  Misty Celli: And you just did it.
• 8:46
  Misty Celli: You looked at the truth without flinching from it.
• 8:49
  Misty Celli: Whatever came up, that's the actual ground we build on, not the polished version, the true one.
• 8:55
  Misty Celli: From there, the engineer's work is examining that truth, asking whether the old story you've been carrying around with you has ever actually been accurate, or whether it was just repeated enough times to feel like fact.
• 9:06
  Misty Celli: The architect's work is deciding specifically who you're designing your life around from here.
• 9:12
  Misty Celli: And the builder's work is smaller than people expect.
• 9:15
  Misty Celli: A builder doesn't start with 12 promises, she starts with one.
• 9:18
  Misty Celli: So here's yours if you want it.
• 9:20
  Misty Celli: Pick one specific, true promise you can keep to yourself tomorrow.
• 9:24
  Misty Celli: Five minutes phone down before anyone else's day starts.
• 9:28
  Misty Celli: That's the whole assignment.
• 9:29
  Misty Celli: Not a system, not a scoreboard.
• 9:31
  Misty Celli: Just a promise kept because keeping it is what a builder does.
• 9:35
  Misty Celli: Now, I want to be honest with you about something because I think you deserve honesty more than you deserve motivation.
• 9:40
  Misty Celli: Doing this alone is hard.
• 9:42
  Misty Celli: Not impossible, but hard.
• 9:44
  Misty Celli: Most women who try to carry this forward on their own do it for a few days with the best intentions.
• 9:49
  Misty Celli: And then a hard week happens and there's no one there to reset with, no one who notices the drift before it turns into disappearance again.
• 9:56
  Misty Celli: That's not a disciplined failure.
• 9:57
  Misty Celli: That's just what happens when identity work has no structure holding it.
• 10:01
  Misty Celli: That one sentence you just wrote is real, but it's one sentence.
• 10:05
  Misty Celli: The workshop is where we take it to the rest of the way, naming the goal it's pointing to, designing the rhythm that protects it, and putting the actual tools in your hands that keep it standing after the first hard week hits, not just the first good day.
• 10:19
  Misty Celli: That's the gap the workshop closes.
• 10:21
  Misty Celli: Not company for the work, the rest of the work and what makes it stick.
• 10:24
  Misty Celli: That one sentence is real and it deserves more than a good intention behind it.
• 10:29
  Misty Celli: The workshop is where we take it the rest of the way, live together.
• 10:32
  Misty Celli: You'll leave with a plan that names who you are beyond your roles, locks in the one goal you're actually going after next, name what's been draining you and stops it, and puts protected time on your calendar so it doesn't just live on paper.
• 10:45
  Misty Celli: The workshop is held on Wednesdays, and you can find the details and grab your spot with the link in the show notes.
• 10:50
  Misty Celli: If you're not ready for that yet, that's completely fine.
• 10:53
  Misty Celli: Keep listening, I'll be here.
• 10:54
  Misty Celli: Before you go, say this with me out loud if you can.
• 10:57
  Misty Celli: I am and always have been an utmost woman.
• 11:00
  Misty Celli: Today I survey my truth, engineer my foundation, architect my life, and inhabit the identity I'm building with intention and visible integrity.
• 11:08
  Misty Celli: One more thing before I let you go.
• 11:10
  Misty Celli: At some point today, maybe in an hour, maybe tonight, a voice is going to show up and tell you this isn't going to be different either.
• 11:17
  Misty Celli: That voice is the identity eraser effect trying to reassert itself.
• 11:21
  Misty Celli: Here's what I want you to say back.
• 11:22
  Misty Celli: I am a woman who chose herself today, and I will choose her again tomorrow.
• 11:26
  Misty Celli: Today we named the real reason past attempts didn't hold.
• 11:29
  Misty Celli: They started at behavior instead of identity and walked through the four-part sequence survey, engineer, architect, and habit.
• 11:36
  Misty Celli: And you took the first real step of it right here in one honest sentence.
• 11:41
  Misty Celli: If this one landed for you, I'd love if you'd leave a review.
• 11:44
  Misty Celli: It's the main way other women who need this find this show.
• 11:47
  Misty Celli: And if there's someone in your life who's been trying and trying and quietly blaming herself for it, send her this episode.
• 11:53
  Misty Celli: You are more than everyone's everything.
• 11:55
  Misty Celli: You are someone.