Ep. 5: Don't Give Into Your B.S.

Jordan Johnson  00:05

You're listening to Live Alive podcast, a weekly dose of motivation right in your back pocket. I'm Jordan Johnson,

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Anisa Johnson  00:12

and I'm Anisa Johnson,

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Both  00:14

we're your hosts. 

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Jordan Johnson  00:15

Every week, we share thought provoking conversations created to inspire you to bring the best version of you into everything you do. Think of us as the guide as you journey towards realizing your vision of successful and fulfilling life. Whether you're climbing the corporate ladder, building a business, or dreaming of being a stay at home parent, we're here to help you cultivate passion, purpose and motivation in your everyday life. Yeah,

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Both  00:46

it isn't intended to read play on words. It's multiple, multiple meanings

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Anisa Johnson  00:53

to those. Want to just get get into it?

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Jordan Johnson  00:58

Yeah, let's,

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Anisa Johnson  00:59

let's do it. Yeah, so today, we're gonna be talking about belief systems. And we're gonna break down a little bit like what we mean by belief systems and how, in some cases, belief systems can turn out to be BS. And yeah, that doesn't just stand for belief systems. In this case, it stands for what you might think it would mean. So

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Jordan Johnson  01:27

And its double sided, right, like there is that belief system side, that is the B.S. in a traditional sense. And then there's the belief system side that is more of a building steps. A positive?

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Anisa Johnson  01:43

Yeah, and we'll talk about that, too. But before we can even talk about either of those things, you got to tell these people what belief systems are like, what does that what does that mean? Yeah, when we talk about belief system, what makes up a belief system. And then we're gonna, we're gonna talk about why all this matters, and how it plays into, you know, the results that you create for your life, or the results that you are unable to create for your life. So there's a lot of things that go into creating your belief systems. And a lot of times, we don't even recognize that we have these beliefs or these belief systems, because they've just been there. Our environment, society, our upbringing, our family, the media, our friends, our peer groups, even maybe not necessarily our friends, best people who are around us kind of talking in our ear telling us these stories. And so how you want to do this? 

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Jordan Johnson  02:42

Well, I think you can sum it up to have like, belief systems, like, you know, how you see like, seeing is believing, in a sense, right. And you can say that your belief system is how you see yourself, and also how you see the world, how you see opportunities, how you see challenges. Belief systems are kind of like a compass, I think in a way of your route into anything into the world into a challenge, a project. A scenario,

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Anisa Johnson  03:22

yeah. And they can also place limits on you as well. So I think a lot of times, when you think about, I'll just take maybe like a couple that I'm thinking of that are kind of more broader than just being personal, just so we can kind of like get into the frame of mind. When you think about maybe what society might say about group of people will will take, you know, our community black people in particular, I'm not saying only black people are listening, but hey, we're black. So we'll talk about that, like what a society is saying about us, and how many people believe what society says, and how does that have an impact on, you know, our trajectory, or success if we allow it to or if we don't, yeah, and I believe a lot of that is intentional, but that's a totally different episode for like, a totally different time. But the the belief systems, they can be communal as well. Yeah. And so kind of want to bring that in just to kind of make something a little real.

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Jordan Johnson  04:29

And so if that's environments, then you have like, your upbringing as well, that plays into belief systems. Rather, it was the way that you know, your household or your parents or your siblings, view things or help teach you to view things those can either be limiting those can or they can be expansive, in that sense, right. And oh, what the media says and you kind of hit on that too if like what you see in social reflect Did back to you, as kind of like a mirroring thing - Forms belief system

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Anisa Johnson  05:06

exactly. Like if you only see people who look like you doing a certain activity, like you only see like, you know, tall black men going and playing basketball and not like going and being engineers, then like you might think like basketball is your only career route, when in actuality there's so many other things that you that you can do. And so that's one of the things we talked about, we talked about representation matters, right? It really does, because it creates your beliefs and subconsciously or consciously, your beliefs are made up of all these things that we talked about environment, society, your upbringing, and then also what people are saying about you.

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Jordan Johnson  05:41

Yeah, yeah, that mean that last one is huge. of picking whether you listen to that, or whether you take it in. I mean, obviously, you hear it what people are saying about you, and whether you want to give it credit and store it in your memory or not, you hear the same thing said about you over and over rather the man, that person super talented. And you hear that over and over, or you hear " aw man and that person's a procrastinator!' and you hear that over and over like you're going to start to buy into that is a belief about yourself

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Anisa Johnson  06:14

Or like what you say about yourself?  You know, I think a lot of times for now, for women in particular, I know men, this is might be a this is a thing as well, where inclusive here, but for women in particular, when you when you look in the mirror, like you think a certain thing about yourself, subconsciously or consciously so what are you telling yourself? When when you look in the mirror? What are you telling yourself just maybe when you're walking by the mirror, or you're not even looking in the mirror, but like, what are you telling yourself? And are you choosing to believe that is it empowering you? Or is it limiting you?

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Jordan Johnson  06:17

Ooh, yeah.  Hmm, yeah, I mean, we kind of like, get into that here, too. I think in this next section of this to have like, why did why does this matter that you started the tee that up with? Like, is it empowering you? Or is it? Is it limiting you? Yeah. So we all we all get one go around this this life thing, right? It's either, you know, every section of it, every chapter, so to speak, do we step into it's either, you know, limited by certain things, or as either the possibilities are expanded by certain things, and one of the biggest factors seemingly in those opportunities and possibilities or our beliefs. And so if you if you want to think about it this way, if you whatever scenario that you're stepping into, or possibility or challenge, or even opportunity to have in front of you, how you approach that, with what lane of thought, with what creativity, With what confidence, or skepticism and criticism is going to be rooted on your belief system,

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Anisa Johnson  07:59

for sure, for sure. And that is one of the things that kind of I want to, I want to just like take a step back. As to like how we got to this kind of episode. And because you and I, we've done a lot of work this year. At the beginning of the Q1, - I guess this will be last year 20. You guys are listening. It'll be last year in 2021. Jordan, I we did a lot of work, personal work on ourselves to just be better. At the end of 2020. I think I convinced you, Jordan to invest in this Tony Robbins program. We're gonna do a virtual conference. And we had these tapes. And we're listening to these tapes. And Tony Robbins does a lot of work on belief systems. 

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Jordan Johnson  08:53

Yeah. 

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Anisa Johnson  08:54

One of the things that he says, I don't know if he says this, or if this is a but I wrote down this quote in my notebook that has all my notes from the Tony Robbins program. So I'm gonna say this is from Tony Robbins himself. And it says "The strongest force in Human personality is the need to stay consistent in how we define ourselves." And I think that that quote, in and of itself, sums up why belief systems are so important. Because if we listen to what other people say about us, if we're listening to what we are saying about ourselves, what stories were telling ourselves or listening to what society is telling us how we're supposed to be, those are the things that we're listening to. And those are the things that we're allowing to inform who we are. 

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Jordan Johnson  09:41

Wow, 

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Anisa Johnson  09:42

then we are going to have a natural instinct to stay true to that. And that might not necessarily be serving us.

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Jordan Johnson  09:51

Oh, isn't that interesting, though, because I feel like we get you hear so many of these. I do. I hear so often of the challenges people have With consistency, yeah. Oh, it's like, oh, you know what, they're just not consistent, or they set that goal and they like they're not consistent. Actually, maybe we are pretty consistent. It's just consistently working. Because we're consistent in these negative lanes, like we're consistent to these narratives, that are beliefs that don't actually support us.

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Anisa Johnson  10:25

Well, they don't support growth, they serve our growth, right? They support what we know. And when you're in a place where you're wanting to grow, or you're wanting to expand, where you're wanting to pursue something that is different. You have to step outside of your existing beliefs, you have to step outside of the stories that you have been telling yourself, and you have to start writing a new story. And it is very difficult to write a new story if you are not aware of your existence.

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Jordan Johnson  10:57

Hmm, yeah. Yeah, being aware of it. If that's step one out, almost see, step two is like me, you've got to challenge that story absolute to make the new story, you've got to challenge the old story. Yeah. What of what the current beliefs and belief systems are, if they're, if they're not supportive, and not empowering? How do we challenge those? Cool. So I mean, if, if we have all these opportunities to, you know, examine, become aware of like, the beliefs that aren't empowering, supporting us and challenge those. I mean, that's obviously really important to give the right foundation to attack the possibilities in scenarios in our lives.

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Anisa Johnson  11:42

Right. So with that, we could get into a couple of examples, I mentioned that you and I have done some work over the past year or a year and some change. So I thought it'd be cool to bring in some examples. If you're done with that.

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Jordan Johnson  11:57

Yeah, let's for sure. Let's do it. I mean, one of the one of the piece of work we were looking at earlier this year 2021. I'm not sure when people will listen to this, is this examining ourselves, I think you hit on that earlier of like becoming aware of what those negative beliefs are about, about ourselves. And me, one of the ones that I had to just lean into, and kind of face head on was just kind of how I view myself personally, from like, a weight perspective, like you talked about it from, you know, a woman a woman's perspective of like walking in front of the mirror, or being in front of the mirror, and I certainly can attest to if I can, if I can just be vulnerable for a second, that it's a thing for guys too. And I've had a belief system created about my weight that has not been supportive and empowering for most of my, you know, adolescent to adulthood life. You know, I was a kid that grew up is you know, an asthmatic child so I was challenged with with breathing, breathing smoothly if anybody's familiar with asthma is it's not fun, but you know, you steroids, you know, help asthma. Right? And so, you know, I was put on steroids as a as a kid, and it just forced me to gain a lot of unintended weight. So quick sidebar, I was really disappointed because I'm thinking like, dang, my mom, if you were to just put me on the weights, as a seven year old while I was taking these steroids, it could have been yoked but the unintentional side effects of that is you can gain some weight right? So I became a heavy child, heavy adolescent child and man i'll probably not tell this story to like a lot of people but you know, especially going into like a middle school type of timeframe. And growth period. I was I was chubby. I was I was a fat kid. And you know, I think a lot of the stories I began to tell or be be told about myself started there if either being just having jokes told about or talked about in a negative way, a lot of that stuff sticks, you start to challenge it yourself. And as hard as I wanted to challenge those things they were they were always there like giving either would drive me as becoming a late teen to a young adult to like living in the gym wanting to almost attach my value to those things where maybe I'd feel more confident if I had been to the gym. Seven days this week, or less confident if I only got a chance to work out two days this week or feel less happy if I was heavier or more happy if I was lighter or my body fat percentage was lower. And I think it just all came from the belief system created about me that my value was attached to my fitness or my health.

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Anisa Johnson  15:10

I think this is interesting. And I want to like, go a little bit deeper with you if you will come with me.

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Jordan Johnson  15:18

I'm a little scared. But I'm I'm gonna go though,

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Anisa Johnson  15:21

because I want to illustrate to you guys listening, how a belief can create certain results. Yeah. So you said that there might be times where if you were in the gym like seven days a week, you might feel more confident? Yeah. Now, what might happen if you were not in? If you didn't? Maybe you didn't have time for the gym? In a certain week? How would that maybe show up in other areas of your life? Like, would you still be eating on 100%? On Track? Or like, Would you like how would that manifest itself? In other ways? Do you think?

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Jordan Johnson  15:58

Yeah, long story short, I feel like it was it's, it became an all or nothing type of scenario, right? Where if I miss a day in the gym, or if I couldn't go seven days a week, I was a complete and utter failure. Right? And if I was if I felt like I was a complete and utter failure, then there was this, this thought process to creep up into my mind. That was, well, nothing matters, like, Well

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Anisa Johnson  16:25

How did you start treating? I'm going to interrupt you, yes. How did you start treating yourself with those thoughts?

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Jordan Johnson  16:32

So I think I just lean into those thoughts of like, Yeah, well, I'm just a complete and utter failure. And so I'm gonna, I'm gonna be that I'm gonna, I'm gonna take my normal healthy lifestyle of eating and treating my body well, and I'm just going to be this failure, I'm going to go get this pizza. And I'm talking, again, let me put the put the framework for these people, because I don't want to think I'm still talking adolescent days. I'm an adult at this point, right? This is me in my mid to late 20s. I'm going to go get this whole little caesars, you know, 598? Oh, geez, I think it was like, six $6.35, after taxes, I had my fair share of like, large pizza, and I'm gonna eat the whole thing by myself, right? Because I'm just gonna be that that failure. Right?

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Anisa Johnson  17:19

Right. That's like an illustration of how those limiting beliefs how tying your worth and your worthiness to a particular output can become very destructive, because the story that you're telling yourself is that, oh, if I don't go to the gym a certain amount of days this week, then like, I'm not worthy. I don't I don't have Yeah, I'm nothing. And so then you start to treat yourself like nothing. And then what you produce is the very result that you that you said was attached to if you went to the gym, seven days a week, when in actuality, you could of course, corrected. Right. And I think that we do that. And so that's kind of why I wanted to like go down that yellow brick road view. And thank you for indulging me. Because our thoughts and our feelings produce our results. And that's pretty much what this entire episode is about. But yeah, thank you. 

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Jordan Johnson  18:13

And that was beautiful. I mean, that was That was beautiful. And I will bandage my feelings later after this podcast. No, I think I think that's I think that's the case for all of us. And I think that's what vulnerability is like I'm I'm still healing that now. Like I'm 31 years old, about to be 32 in a very long time from now. But, but But that's something I continuously have to have to heal and in, deconstruct, I know we're going to kind of get into that a little bit to just that's not where my worth is. That's not where my value is. That's not what I have to make consistent. That's not something that I have to try to be consistent to. necessarily, but as man that self fulfilling prophecy I hadn't necessarily broken it down that well for my myself in, like this whole this episode was some healing for me, for sure.

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Anisa Johnson  19:09

Awesome. Well, I guess since you are vulnerable. Is it my turn? Do I have to tell myself a story?

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Jordan Johnson  19:18

I mean, if you are compelled

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Anisa Johnson  19:21

I got a lot. I like broke up my notebook. You guys listen. I'm like, there's a lot here. Um, I think the one that I Oh, like the one that I leaned into is like I'm a procrastinator. I even now say I'm a recovering procrastinator. Yes. I'm a recovering procrastinator. Um, yeah, I think I'm a procrastinator. That belief is something that came probably like in my school age years I think. I that can sum up a lot of things but like a lot of people told me this. So whether it was my teachers saying that like, oh, you know, Anisa was really smart, she's just not dedicated or something is like, friggin in elementary school, like, I don't think it was a lack of dedication, but there's probably something else if we're not getting elementary work done. Um, and so I think that that that procrastination kind of manifests itself particularly in schoolwork. But I continued to tell myself that story. Probably until a couple years ago, um, and one of the things one of the things that I did once I realized that I was having this belief was take myself down a yellow brick road of what, what do I do, when I'm telling myself that I'm a procrastinator, and anything like whether it was my blog that I started some years ago, whether it was whatever it was, like anything new, anything old, anything that I was required to do anything that I chose to do, if I began with the thought that I was a procrastinator, there was always going to be a hesitation to take action, there was going to be a lack of desire to take action. And so like, waiting to the last minute to take action, or waiting until my back is up against the wall to take action, basically forced me into a place where I wasn't able to learn, I didn't have time to learn from my mistakes, if that makes sense. I didn't have time to just kind of like, take messy action. And so one of the things that I did with that was just like going through all of the things that my limiting belief of I'm a procrastinator, what does it cost me? Hmm. And so if you have the opportunity to identify a limiting belief, you have to explore. And I want to encourage you to explore without shame, what that belief is costing you. If me, believing that I'm a procrastinator is "just the way that I am." And it's the way that I'm always going to be because a lot of times when we identify negative traits in ourselves, we sit in them and we say, well, that's just the way that I am. And I'm always going to be like that. And I've always been like this, not realizing that you can literally wake up tomorrow and decide to no longer be that. No, is it just going to work like that? No. But you can be part of it. It is it is it's it's the very first step is deciding that you are not you are no longer that you're going to start writing a new story. But taking a good look at what that was costing me. Very much sparked me into action I started to we'll talk about we could talk about this, like, this is one of the ways that you deconstruct those beliefs. This is one of the ways that you deconstruct this is by looking at what does it cost you feeling? A slight bit of pain of what it's costing you what those limiting beliefs are costing you. And deciding is it worth sitting in. Being this person sitting in for me it was being a procrastinator, just for my own comfort? because that's what it was at the end of the day.

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Jordan Johnson  23:44

Yeah, it to that magnetic pool of trying to be consistent with what this belief was.

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Anisa Johnson  23:53

Right? And it's just like, for me, I think it was a lot of on a lot of things left undone. And we've talked about this in past episodes of just how when there is a vision on your heart, when there I have a I have a lot of really big visions in my mind of the impact that I will make that we will make on people on human beings on literal lives. And so by sitting in being a procrastinator by telling myself I'll do it tomorrow by telling myself I'll wait till next year by telling myself I'll wait till I have money. I'll wait till this or whatever signal it is that I was waiting for. I was that's one less life that I was impacting. And when I realized that I was like, oh, shoot, the time is now. And that's right. Now the time is now.

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Jordan Johnson  24:53

Yeah, this is an opportunity costs to when you're deconstructing that negative belief With that limiting belief, there's an opportunity cost that you're leaving on the table to your truest self.

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Anisa Johnson  25:05

Yeah. Yeah,

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Jordan Johnson  25:09

yeah, that man, that's, that's huge.

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Anisa Johnson  25:11

And you have to recognize the cost, I think you really truly have to recognize the cost before you even make a change wanting it. Wanting the result is not enough if you don't realize what's what it's actually costing you like, what it's actually costing you. And I think that sometimes we look at the end result and we say, Oh, well, it's costing this version of success, or it's costing this change or this transformation. But we're not thinking about the fact that it's costing other people something too

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Jordan Johnson  25:43

Yeah. Other people around us, right or, or further around us.

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Anisa Johnson  25:48

Yeah. And people don't get to experience you the best version of you, because you've decided to show up as this, like, former limiting belief version of yourself.

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Jordan Johnson  26:02

Wow. Wow. Was there anything that you felt like during on those throughout those process and those experiences of being consistent to this limiting belief that you're a procrastinator? Was there anything that you felt like became a self fulfilling prophecy about that? Before you able to kind of turn that page on that?

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Anisa Johnson  26:26

Yeah, I mean, I think for me, in procrastination, like one of the beliefs that was also tied to that belief, a lie there a web of beliefs. One of the beliefs that was also tied to that belief was that I could do it later like that I had the talent to do it later. Yeah, I had the talent to do it. At the last minute, I had the talent to do my homework at the very last minute and get a decent grade and pass. Not decent. I passed. But that continued throughout pretty much anything that I was doing, where it was like, Oh, I can I can do it later. And it'll be good enough. But that's not good enough.

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Jordan Johnson  27:07

Yeah. Well, that takes examining itself to take your toolbox your assessment kit out in in look at that, and see of, of the value from doing it one way versus versus the other. Which makes us think a lot whole a whole lot about if that's, if that's the view, if that's the experience, down how negative limiting belief row, then what are empowering beliefs? And how do we, you know, take a look at the way we see ourselves the way we see the world? And have it be more expansive, to the possibilities in the positive aspects of who we are, and what what can be. You know, so if we, if we think about that, and just kind of, you know, press forward, right, I think, you know, I use myself as an example of just even the situation that I laid out earlier about viewing, you know, my value my worth to my, you know, weight, and what that what that was, you know, there's, there's opportunity for us to, especially like me, for example, to look at that and say, Well, I can set my intentions on this to to live a healthy lifestyle and focus on the things that I can do and the things that I am doing well, with my health, the way that I am able to show up for my relationships, for my family, for my work for my passion projects, because of my health, and give those 100% and attach my worth to more truth, truthful things about me, versus these things that are frankly, just not true. And I think we can take a view like that on so many other things, either about ourselves or about the world that if it's a project, if it's a challenge, or something that we want to do want to clean up or want to fix, you know, what are the things about ourselves that we can completely do a 180? Where if the world or the media or environments are telling us that we can't because of x? Well, maybe that x is the slight, unique perspective that we can bring to this to look at the problem or attack the problem from a different way.

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Anisa Johnson  29:36

Yeah, that's thing that's, that's, that's good. I also think like one of the ways that we can kind of build these empowering beliefs that kind of catapult us into, into the doing or the being or the becoming of the transformation is bridging, I have talked about bridge, I talk about bridging affirmations. Right. And I will say affirmations, you can call it an empowering belief, whatever you want to call it. I call them affirmations. So, if we talk about my, I'm a procrastinator limiting belief, right? If I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna now I'm gonna think about an empowering belief. And I'm like, "I make the most of my time." It's a lie. That is a lie. Because I cannot go from a procrastinator. I just I literally cannot go to somebody who waits till the very last second to somebody who makes the most of it. You will feel it in your soul that that is false. False. Yeah. And so when you feel like you, that's not going to give you anything. So that's where I think that bridge affirmations are super helpful. And that is when you start to look at what else could be true. If I okay, if I'm a procrastinator, what else could be true? Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, I get things done really quickly when I am under pressure. Let's call it pressure. Okay. So it's possible that I could apply pressure before the deadline and get better results. Yeah. It's possible. One of my one of my empowering beliefs is, I am living a life worthy of my calling. That is something that I tell myself very often, in direct response to being a recovering procrastinator, I'm going to stop affirming that previous limiting belief. Because I've done a lot of work, yeah, to kill it. I am living a life worthy of my calling. And so if I'm saying, Okay, I'm living a life worthy of my calling, that is affirming that every day, I am taking steps towards building towards growing the vision that God put on my heart. And for me, attaching that affirmation to my faith in my relationship with God was like, it was like, putting all my I don't bet, but like putting all your chips in, like, if

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Jordan Johnson  32:15

If you were a betting lady

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Anisa Johnson  32:18

Leave me alone, if I were a betting lady, but that's what it was, for me when I attached it to something. When I attached it to something that was deeper, my identity in Christ is deeper than my identity to procrastination. And so when I attached what I, what I was doing on this earth, closer to my relationship with God, then to what the world was saying about me and what I had been taught, what I've been told, and what I had continued to create for myself, I was able to break that limiting belief because I connected my true identity to something that is just like, rooted in me. Like you can't tell me anything, if I relate it to my relationship with Christ

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Jordan Johnson  33:04

Yeah, that's huge. I mean, it really, to kind of wrap it up here. I mean, we encourage everybody to you know, take some time figure out you know, what's what's holding you back? Examine, whether, the belief systems you have are are they BS? Or are they building steps? Steps that I don't know build you towards the the friend, the brother, the sister, employee, employer, parent, that you know is possible for you to be. So it's of the utmost importance to examine yourself and your beliefs and figure out if they're BS. Are they building towards something greater?

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Anisa Johnson  33:53

Thanks for listening to today's episode, we hope that it leaves you feeling inspired to actively pursue your goals and live a life, whatever that means to you. If you enjoy today's episode, tell us what you think by leaving a review. Reviews help more people like you discover the podcast. I'm Anisa Johnson.

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Jordan Johnson  34:16

And I'm Jordan Johnson.

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Anisa Johnson  34:17

We'll see you next time on live a live podcast

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