The best advice I was ever give:

Make it as easy as possible for yourself, get comfortable with one part of the process then keep going.

I strongly believe that easy is not a cop-out!

A little context. We were about to have our first child and I wanted very much to use cloth diapers. To each their own of course and if this grosses you out, don’t worry, I won’t go into any queasy detail. 

The lovely sales lady asks if this is our first, we say, why yes, yes it is. Have you ever dealt with changing diapers before to which we say no, no, we have not.

She tells us, at the risk of losing the sale, tells us “start with just getting used to changing regular diapers with your baby and when you have that down, come back and get what you need to make the switch”. I was in shock. 

Just so you know, she did not lose the sale, we did come back maybe around 2 months after our child was born.

She knew it was going to be an adjustment, this newborn business, absolute adjustment. Get used to doing the bare minimum or the baseline and then add to it. So that’s what we did and you know what, when our second was born, we were able to transition much fast to cloth diapers.

Making it easy is not a cop-out, even in the self discovery journey to self acceptance that you are on and then end with how I’ve been using what already works for me, aka, my brain, my personality, my habits, to accelerate my wins and leave you with some questions so that you can do it too!

The main reason we make it hard on ourselves

Many of us look outside of ourselves to find what the experts say in the area of improvement we are challenged by. Sometimes, that’s asking peers, looking to mentors, etc. again, in itself, not a problem.

This behavior creates an issue for us when we either consciously or not decide that others know better than we do. We find our way to self development and self improvement and we find experts in this field or that. They then share their thoughts and ideas and we start to adopt those standards and practices.

Have you ever thought about it though? If I did what every expert says is the best way to schedule my time, do my self coaching, workout, socialize, plan my food, create the business I want, etc. I would be exhausted. It’s just not possible. If any of you has figured it out, I would love to know your secret!

Easy is not a cop-out my dear Ones, it is a valid way to support yourself in what you want to achieve, whatever that is.

So how can you find some of your quirks and habits so that you could make your journey whatever it is, easier?

I have a few questions here to help you figure out just that:

What are some habits or quirks you’ve been trying to squelch?

How might this habit be used to support yourself towards the outcomes you want?

What am I willing to experiment with even if it goes against supposed best practices?

Want to know what my quirky habits are? Look for the transcript on this page OR

Listen to full episode HERE

Resources:

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/theenneagramoneproject 

Getting on my weekly newsletter: dominiquevandal.com/links

Transcript

Welcome every One, you are listening to The Enneagram One Project Podcast, episode 8 - Easy Is Not a Cop-out

So so so happy you are here with me today.

Facebook group announcement 

Before we dive into today’s episode I want to let you know that I’ll be hosting a 4-day event in our brand new Facebook group. I will be going live each day with tips tools and techniques to help you become more sensitive to your felt experience. This is the foundation you need if you’re interested in getting out of your head and back into your body, this is the event where we take it one step at a time and like any good event, there will be a giveaway at the very end for those who participated. 

The Facebook group will open Feb 28th in preparation for the event that will start March 1st. You can get all the information you need from my weekly newsletter and you can sign up as early as today via the button for the Facebook group registration that you can find over at dominiquevandal.com/links. I will of course have this link in the show notes. The Facebook group is going to be the place to talk about any and all topics related to One and related to the podcast and there will be extra training, events and coaching available. I can’t wait to meet you in the group!

Now on to today’s topic

I think it’s only fair to say that as Enneagram type Ones, we tend to have a lot of goals and challenges that we give ourselves. We are always after that improvement. I am sharing with you the best advice I was ever given when facing a challenge and also the fun and quirky ways I have applied it in my life. Fun is not reserved for Sevens my friends, it is not!

The best advice I was ever give:

Make it as easy as possible for yourself, get comfortable with one part of the process then keep going.

I strongly believe that easy is not a cop-out!

A little context. We were about to have our first child and I wanted very much to use cloth diapers. To each their own of course and if this grosses you out, don’t worry, I won’t go into any queasy detail. 

So we’re at the store looking at all the cloth diapering options, talk about getting lost in something you think you did enough research but then maybe you can never do enough research on cloth diapers. The lovely sales lady asks if this is our first, we say, why yes, yes it is. Have you ever dealt with changing diapers before to which we say no, no, we have not. Ok, my husband had but never to the degree that we were going to have to with a newborn.

She tells us, at the risk of losing the sale, tells us “start with just getting used to changing regular diapers with your baby and when you have that down, come back and get what you need to make the switch”. I was in shock. Just so you know, she did not lose the sale, we did come back maybe around 2 months after our child was born.

She knew it was going to be an adjustment, this newborn business, absolute adjustment. Get used to doing the bare minimum or the baseline and then add to it. So that’s what we did and you know what, when our second was born, we were able to transition much fast to cloth diapers.

This of course, is not at all about telling you which diapers to use or to use them at all. It’s about how we can have the best of intentions, ways to honor each and every single one of our values, and Ones, we have so many we want to stay in integrity with but this, this idea of meeting all of our values all at once is exhausting and is setting us up for failure.

I set myself up for success as much as possible and I offer the same to my clients.

So in today’s episode, I am going to offer that making it easy is not a cop-out, even in the self discovery journey to self acceptance that you are on and then end with how I’ve been using what already works for me, aka, my brain, my personality, my habits, to accelerate my wins and leave you with some questions so that you can do it too!

The main reason we make it hard on ourselves

Before we talk about making it easier, let’s talk about the main reason we can make this journey even harder on ourselves. Many of us look outside of ourselves to find what the experts say in the area of improvement we are challenged by. Sometimes, that’s asking peers, looking to mentors, etc. again, in itself, not a problem.

This behavior creates an issue for us when we either consciously or not decide that others know better than we do. We find our way to self development and self improvement and we find experts in this field or that. They then share their thoughts and ideas and we start to adopt those standards and practices.

Have you ever thought about it though? If I did what every expert says is the best way to schedule my time, do my self coaching, workout, socialize, plan my food, create the business I want, etc. I would be exhausted. It’s just not possible. If any of you has figured it out, I would love to know your secret!

Maybe we look to experts but then ask ourselves not how can I change to meet the standard bur rather, what am I already doing or better yet, how do I make it easy for myself to attain this new goal? That’s setting yourself up to succeed .

Easy is not a cop-out my dear Ones, it is a valid way to support yourself in what you want to achieve, whatever that is.

Here are 2 unique ways I make going after a new challenge easy for myself

They both stem from the same idea and that’s to use what comes easily and naturally to my brain and make use of it instead of fighting against it. I am sharing these not because I think they are what you should do in fact what works for me and what comes easily to me is going to be different for you but because I’d like for you to keep an open mind as to what that could be for you. It’s not the use of a particular trait we Ones have but rather the mechanics of how I figured these out for myself that I think will be most useful for all each of you. 

The 2 examples are especially important because I think they go against or are a little contrary to what you’ll normally hear in the coaching world. This is what makes these examples so good though, we want to answer the urge to improve all of the time as Enneagram type Ones and we look outside of ourselves to decide what that looks like and what that standard should be. I’m telling you that no one can decide for you what your standard should be. Ok, now on with the examples.

The area I most often see clients say that they need to do it the way the experts say and don’t tap into their own genius is in creating the mindset they need to get the job done. 

Clients will tell me they need to do this or that system of time management because that’s what this expert does. Inevitably, it doesn’t work because they are trying to force someone else’s thoughts and beliefs that they don’t feel to their core. A new belief that you don’t embody through felt sense is going to be like a bad post-it note - it’s not going to stick.

New beliefs

Sometimes, we want to change our belief because the one we currently hold is in the way of us achieving a goal, sometimes it’s because it’s in the way of a self concept that would feel so much better to hold and sometime it’s because we’re up leveling a current mindset or belief. 

Let’s use the last example. There are beautiful, useful mindset tools that you can use to up level your self concept. The one that comes to mind are ladder thoughts.

A ladder thought is a new thought that brings you closer to what you ultimately want to believe. You need to go up that ladder one step at a time otherwise the big fancy new concept won’t stick. 

An example of this is that you can’t change your mindset about your body from I hate by body l to suddenly thinking that you have a banging body. Your brain is going to be onto you and resist it completely. What does work is the move one rung up the ladder of thoughts towards the thought you want, in this case go from “I hate my body” to “there are parts of my body that I kind of like”. 

This works AND here’s what else I discovered I can make that transition from one mindset to another much easier on myself by using habits that are already automatic to me.

When I think of what I do naturally, what comes to mind is that I burst out in song…all the time. So I started using that quirk to stop the beliefs I don’t want and simply refocus myself to the now.

I have an ease in remembering song lyrics and the moment someone says something that reminds me of a lyric, I am likely to go full on into song. It’s one of my quirks and I don’t intend on changing that but I have found a new use for it! I don’t have to force my better feeling, life altering new thought when an old one comes in, what I really need to do is to get present again and I can do that with a song.

For example, I was having a hard time changing my mindset about greying hair. Clearly, if you’ve seen any recent photo of me, you know I’ve worked this through and one of my secrets was to go into song.

Let me set the stage. Every time I’d look at myself in the mirror and an old belief would creep in, for me that was “greying hair looks unprofessional” we know that’s complete hogwash, but at the time the belief would still pop up even though I was determined to love my greying hair and not by force but by true change in mindset. 

I have 2 go-to songs when I hear an old belief I don’t want anymore. “Stop in the name of love” by the Supremes and “Stop” by the Spice Girls. I will spare you my singing. I’m not a singer. This is something my brain does whether I want it to or not AND it takes zero effort on my part. I’ve made changing my beliefs easy and it’s not a cop-out. 

Picture it with me. I’m looking in the mirror and I see my greying hair. My habitual thought used to be “that looks unprofessional” and instead of trying to convince myself in that moment that greying hair is beautiful, I would look in the mirror and sing one of my songs. I start laughing, full belly, laugh and now there’s room for “I actually look pretty good” and look at that smile!.

Shake the energy

The other quirk that’s come in handy, also related to music, is to use music to move my energy and change my emotional state when I feel stuck or out of ideas. Hear me out. 

The mental body, the headspace is not the only tool nor is it your most important tool for going about your day, respecting your schedule and achieving big goals. You could use mindset and reframe your thinking from “I’m stuck” to “I know the next step to take” notice how they feel different in your body. I’m stuck is a closed emotion and fuels inaction bringing you farther away from your goal of creating that thing, say a workshop whereas “I know the next step to take” is more expansive in nature and will fuel action that will get you closer to your goal of creating that workshop. 

What if something else comes even more easily to you? For me, that’s moving my body and shaking that energy.

If I’m just starring at a computer screen and I can’t bring myself to believing that I know the next step and this may come as a shock but I don’t self coach for hours on end. I do prepare myself for the possibility that my brain will offer me this thought, I’ve talked about that in episode 3 - How to Support Ourselves Daily As Ones but beyond that, I make it easy for myself.

If, after 10-15 minutes, I’m still stuck, I put on some music that I know helps to move the energy from stuck to open. I’m likely to sing and move with that music. This allows my body to liberate the tension and reset so to speak. Just like the brain can change your felt experience, the opposite also works. Use what comes easily to you.

It’s in your hands now

So how can you find some of your quirks and habits so that you could make your journey whatever it is, easier?

I have a few questions here to help you figure out just that:

What are some habits or quirks you’ve been trying to squelch?

How might this habit be used to support yourself towards the outcomes you want?

What am I willing to experiment with even if it goes against supposed best practices?

I’m not suggesting that my habits will make it easy for each of you but I know that when I got into self development I put aside some of the things that came easily to me in favor of following best practices set by others. Turns out, it’s easy to go into song and get present in my body instead of forcing a thought. Turns out, it’s easy for me to change my emotional state by putting on music and letting my body do what it knows to do instead of forcing a mindset.

So go ahead, find how you can make reaching that next level or improved self easy for yourself. Until next time, love to each and every One.

Thank you so much for listening to The Enneagram One Project podcast, your go-to podcast for all things One.

If you’re wanting to integrate what you’re learning here and be supported by your very own personal Enneagram One life coach then I invite you to head over to my website dominiquevandal.com look at the top of the page for the work with me tab. Let’s make your Oneness your greatest gift! Can’t wait to meet you!