S9E8: Discipline, habits & confidence

0:00 Hello beautiful survivors. This is Karina, the host and creator of this top 2 podcast. I'm not only sharing my story here, but my tricks, hacks, and how to I got to survive this world as a survivor. It's all about moving forward. The show is about moving forward past the events of the stroke. And here in the show, I empower, inspire and give you hope that there's so much more life to live after stroke.

0:28 Grab yourself a drink, a pen and paper. The faintest of ink is better than the best memory. Come and join me here as we record today's show. Before we do that, I would like to do a little bit of clean house. Make sure that you like and follow on all platforms where you listen to your podcast, which is Spotify, iTunes, Apple. I'm all over the place.

0:52 Thank you, Jesus, and make sure that you check out my subscription for $4.99 only. You get my top 41 episodes. Those are the episodes that helped me move, really move my ass over the last 27 years. These are topics that are heartfelt and some of them are a little bit hard, but you know what? I practice tough love for a reason. That's how I do it with myself.

1:25 So if it works for me, there is no reason why it will not work for you. In the description. I am going to leave you all the different ways that you can reach me and make sure you say hi. Let me know if there's a topic of episode that you would like to particularly have. So therefore I could do a shout out just for you. So what do you think We get today's show on the road. We're talking about self-discipline, efficiency and confidence and a lot more.

1:57 See you soon. Did you know that the way you speak, you stand and you look, it changes the way you view the whole world, especially yourself? It doesn't depend on how affected or impaired you might be, but it depends on are you a victim or are you a survivor? How is your mindset? The way we think has a lot to do with discipline. Did you know that?

2:27 So let me ask you, is the glass half full or half empty? How do you view that glass? And another question, what two things would make you that much better, that much more confident? Because you know what? Discipline and confidence are directly linked. Yep, To gain confidence you need to do the thing that makes you uncomfortable, and that in itself takes discipline.

3:01 So what is discipline? What is the real definition? Well, the real definition is that discipline is a practice of training people to obey rules and behaviors using punishment and reward. Let me clarify this. OK, Training people or things, I'm going to use my dog as an example because right now I am training it to not bark.

3:33 So I use treats. So the minute he barks, the minute you do something that is not right, your punishment is not taking out the whip, your punishment is going on the chair, your punishment is not eating when you want to eat. Your punishment is not doing something that is meaningful to you. And the reward that I use when I'm training Einstein, I punish him.

4:11 I stop his behaviour, but I give him his treats. So your reward is your treat. What is it that you want more than anything else that is going to become your reward? To cultivate self-discipline, There's a few things that you can do. You know what a lot of stroke survivors get up in the morning and just are?

4:45 They are not living as per SE. But those of you who are not victims, those of you who are really strivers and are kicking your asses every day, you get dressed, you put your running shoes, you brush your teeth in any way that you possibly can. This is really for you guys. How to cultivate self-discipline First, you need to set a clear goal.

5:14 What is your intention? Is your intention to walk again? Is your intention to talk again? Tie your shirt, Tie your shoelaces? Cut your steak, Go back to work. Drive. What is the goal now? You might need to ask. And that's where discipline comes in. What am I going to have to do? What habits am I going to have to practice and have discipline on and do day in, day out that are going to help me get to my goal? You know, Tiger Woods, I'm not a big sporty or anything like that, but Tiger Woods dad would make him hit. I think it's something like almost 1000 balls every day. That takes discipline.

6:20 No wonder he became one of the greatest golfers out there, if not the greatest because he had the discipline of doing it. At first. I'm sure that his father would say, let's go hit the mall. I need be honest game I'm playing his video game or something. Oh dad, I don't want to I'm I'm doing I'm doing something right now. Can we go after it and the dad would say no, it has to be now you gotta go now that is discipline, not using reasons, not using excuses and develop very good and healthy habits. If somebody, example, is wanting to lose weight and goes to the gym and they kind of let go once in a while, a little too often once in a while, are they going to get to the goal? I'm watching Netflix, It's a

7:20 good movie. You know my dog needs my dog needs company or any excuse in the book doesn't help to develop good habits. Discipline is all about habits. Habits are not just in actions that we take, but habits are also in the thoughts we think and in the words we use. What kind of mental habits do you have?

7:54 Are you more of a negative before the positive or are you more positive? I'll give you an example. It's raining today in Montreal and I was in the elevator and the neighbors said oh it's raining again. You know, we can't do XY and ZI agreed. Yes, it's raining, but my grass likes it. My garden is happy. Developing good mental and verbal practices take habit and discipline and when you have this, you become more confident. You see how everything is interlinked. Another third one that is huge and I found that stroke survivors have a hard time only because most of us are cognitively hurt, damaged.

8:59 Call it whatever you want, but there is a way to remedy that. OK, Managing your time efficiently. Most stroke survivors struggle with that. That's why I talk often about time blocking. I have videos on time blocking on my on my Facebook group and I also have episodes here on the podcast about time blocking.

9:30 Using your time efficiently might mean using a paper calendar. I don't do anything on the net other than go on Google. I like to write everything down. That helps me process the information. Plus I'm old fashioned. Maybe you're someone that is going to go on the Internet and you're amazing at doing your schedule. Color blocking each and everything. So your color blocking your physio and PT should be the same color.

10:01 Then your doctor's appointment, one color. Then important things, groceries, getting the kids at the PTA after school or at the PTA meeting. Things that you cannot change that you have to do. Having good time management is also not necessarily multitasking, but I'll give you a trick that I developed in my earlier years when I was a survivor.

10:32 We used to live in a bungalow and we had the family room in the basement and a staircase and then we had the main floor. I would never go from one place to the next with empty hands. If I brought 1 cup one dishes. But there was always something in my hand going up, going down. That's how I stayed on top of things. That's how I got to take care of my house, take care of my daughter.

11:04 My house wasn't speaking span. You licked the floors, but my house was very tidy. Why? Because I developed habits. It takes OK, They say it takes 21 days. For some of us, less, For some of us, more. Don't kick yourself in the ass if it takes more than three weeks. A habit is not developed right away, especially if you're new at this. If you're new at changing your speech pattern, of using different words to perhaps describe positive things, it's something completely, completely new. So give yourself the time.

11:50 Being a stroke survivor is no easy task. We don't go to school and learn how to be a stroke survivor, and our caregivers don't go to school to learn how to be a caregiver of a stroke survivor. We learn as we go. Kind of like when we go to the doctor, it's trial and error. We never know if the medication is going to work or not.

12:15 Right? Sorry, that was my my little doggy growling in the back. And last but not least, I think that practicing mindfulness. At 38, I was diagnosed having bipolar traits and double personality traits, and I had my 15 minutes of crying in the doctor's office. I was embarrassed and I was like, Oh my God, no fucking way.

12:55 But I also ask right away to the doctor, OK, what do I do next? I'm the type of person that grabs the bull by the horns. I like to get it over with. That's just my personality. And he enrolled me in the next following week to start a cognitive behavioral therapy, which is CBT and that was a nine month long therapy. Well, in that therapy, the number one thing that we learned many, many, many, many things, but it was to control our minds and control our reaction.

13:43 Because as stroke survivors, I just told you before, we're all affected cognitively in a different way. We might have similar names for our stroke, ischemic hemorrhagic, brain stem dissection, but we all live our stroke very different, unique to each and everyone of us. So that being said, we also know that being a stroke survivor, our emotions are all over the place.

14:15 And usually when there's something said, there's I, I, I often use an action causes a reaction. Therefore something is said or something is done and I would blow up. Does that sound familiar to you? I'm sure it does. I I would really blow up and for me blowing up is expressing myself almost as screaming because I I can't speak anymore and I'm afraid to not being hurt. So that was the way and I would not be physical harmful to other people, but I've thrown a couple of pillows and a couple of pillows, OK.

15:06 I was reactive when I went to that therapy, it changed my life. It made me realize that I was in control of what I thought was uncontrollable and I was in control of myself. So what is practicing mindfulness? Well, you guys hear me saying, you guys hear everybody say do meditation. People say, Karina, I don't know how to meditate.

15:45 When I'm quiet, I can't stop thinking or I just can't. The brain doesn't shut up. That's exactly what meditation is, allowing your brain to be charged, allowing your brain to silence itself. I remember my first few sessions of meditation, they weren't long. That was in the office with about 10 or 12 other people, and I cried. It was so loud in my head that I cried because not because I was saying I'm not doing it right, because that loudness was almost like, you know, when you go to the party, to a party and you'll hear in the background everybody, everybody's talking and it becomes almost like a that's how my head was. And because that's how my head was, my body was more, I was not hunched over, but my body was

17:08 more flask, if you will. But the more comfortable I got being uncomfortable, the more I practiced, the straighter I became, the more confident I became. Does that make sense guys? When I talked about time management before, I also said that it was going to be about efficiency. I guarantee that if you manage your time properly, you give yourself enough time.

17:43 If you know it takes 5 minutes to tie your shoes, don't wait at the last minute to put your shoes on. Please put them on at the very beginning. I would rather that then you sit at the table and you eat and then when it comes down to put your running shoes, your caregiver is giving you shit because I've had my share of shit and it didn't feel too good.

18:06 And I don't wish that on you guys. So when I tell you to manage your time properly is to give yourself sufficient time. And I always say tomorrow starts tonight. Therefore, if you know your appointments tomorrow, get ready tonight. Your clothes, your running shoes, your pills, your list, your glasses, your keys, your purses by the door.

18:36 So tomorrow morning you could pick it up and you're gonna have less stress. There's always stress, but you're gonna have less. Last but not least, that reward I was talking about. What is your reward? What do you love? Is it going in a Botanical Garden? Is it going for ice cream? Is it going for a ride to nowhere?

19:03 What is your reward that you want? So when you think at the beginning of your goal and you think at the beginning of your reward, it's like my dog wanting his treat. I'm not comparing you to my dog now, but I'm comparing the training to the way we train our pets. That being said, I love you immensely. I am going to leave you in my description all of the different ways you can reach me.

19:38 And I hope that you do join my group on Facebook. That way we can find a way to have that that law of rhythm I was talking about before. That being said, I love you immensely and I'll talk to you soon.