Episode 173: Complacency & Entitlement: Reigniting Motivation
Becoming too comfortable can slow down your progress and disconnect you from your inner drive to reach your most important life goals. In this episode, I dive into strategies to overcome these obstacles, reignite motivation, and propel yourself towards your biggest dreams. Tune in to learn how acknowledging and addressing these periods of stagnation can lead to transformative growth and fulfillment.
Topics
Marie's journey of scaling back and rediscovering motivation
Seeking comfort after tough experiences
Feelings of discouragement and powerlessness
Reigniting Motivation
Creating an "all in" model based on confident and driven actions
Connect with specific feelings to take action
Links
👉 Make the second half of 2024 your best year yet! join us at selfgrowthnerds.com/school to learn more 👈
Check out these other episodes from the podcast:
Transcript
[AUTO-GENERATED]
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:00:06]:
Welcome to the Self Growth Nerds podcast. I'm your host Marie, a courage coach, creative soul and adventure seeker. Since thru hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in 2019, I'm on a mission to help you embrace your most confident self so you can achieve your dreams too. If you're eager for deep conversations, big questions and meaningful connections, join me on the quest to discovering how we can create a more magical and memorable life.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:00:38]:
Hello Nerds. How are you? I'm doing really good. So much is happening in my life right now. I just moved in with my partner a few days ago, which is a big milestone that we're excited about. We're going to live together in his place while we renovate my place and then move back in there at the end of the summer. I'm also organizing talks to give in creative companies. I'm looking into creating a breakup book because one of the most helpful episodes of the Self growth nerds podcast is the one where I talk about my decision to break up. So many people have listened to that one and told me they got a lot of clarity about what to do next in their relationship because of that episode.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:01:31]:
So I'm looking into creating a book to help with that important decision. And I'm also feeling the call to put together a workshop about procrastination, especially creative procrastination because I talk with a lot of you, who are multi passionate, who have lots of ideas for projects that you would like to to do, but you keep putting them off to a day in the future, and that day never comes. You either don't have the time or the energy. You can't just decide and commit. So I want to to do something for you. Let me know if that if that resonates. Just reach out on Instagram at self Growth nerds and let me know if that's something that you would need. I think it's gonna happen towards the end of June.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:02:23]:
Now in today's podcast, we're talking about complacency and entitlement. It's really funny because I recorded the podcast a month ago, and I was listening earlier today to the intro. And I was laughing because I was grumpy when I recorded that episode. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I was just in the I was just coming out of a slump. I was getting the ball rolling again. I was gaining momentum, but I was not quite there yet. And I considered removing the grumpy introduction altogether, but I think there's something in there for you.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:03:01]:
Like, I don't want to I want to be authentic, and I don't wanna hide those moments when it's harder. I want you to see that they come. They come and go. So I'm gonna leave it in there, and we can all just Self, like, a virtual hug to this past version of me. She needed it. Now in the last month since I recorded this episode, I kept following the advice I give you in the episode, and it works. I've been gaining more and more momentum, feeling more and more alive and coming up with lots of ideas and more is happening in my day to day life. So I definitely recommend trying it out if you have been feeling a lack of motivation in the past few weeks or months.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:03:50]:
Now the last thing I want to share before we jump into today's topic is about my new coaching program, the confident nerd school. So it was going to be a group program that works in cohorts, but I decided to do things a little different. I'm going to offer 7 beta spots. And as beta participants, what's gonna happen is you will get personalized 1 on 1 coaching from me and tailored assignments as I work closely with you to make sure that the program meets your needs. You're also gonna have access to a significantly reduced rate that's only available during this phase. So basically you're gonna pay what you would to be part of a group but you're gonna get tons of dedicated one on one attention. This is for you if you're at a crossroad in life and you feel ready for change. You don't feel at home in your life anymore.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:04:48]:
You feel bored. You feel unmotivated. You wanna feel more purposeful. You wanna feel fulfilled. You're worried about wasting time not doing the work that's meant for you, not living in alignment with your values. And you either know what you want, but you can't get yourself to take action because you're not sure, you're scared, or you don't know what's next and you need to figure it out as soon as possible so you can start taking action and making progress instead of running in circles, feeling feeling okay. You know, you're feeling okay, but you want to live like a meaningful life that you feel proud of. This is who it's for.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:05:39]:
So if this resonates I want to invite you to book a free assessment call with me. We're gonna have a conversation and see if you would be a good fit for 1 of these 7 beta spots. The call itself is worth it. No matter what you decide to do moving forward, the call is going to bring you so much clarity about what's going on for you deep down and what needs to be done next in order for you to get unstuck. I'm going to ask you a series of powerful questions to access some of the truths about yourself that you may have been ignoring for a long time. The goal is to get to the root of what you really really want that you haven't been honest with yourself about. And then we're gonna talk about how you could get there. This is not something that you can do easily with the people in your life, because sometimes that their insecurities are gonna rise to the surface.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:06:38]:
And so this is gonna be a a space for you to talk about the possibilities without freaking anyone out. And then if I think it can help you reach your goals, I'm gonna tell you about the confident Nerds school. But only if I think it's a good fit, and then you'll be able to walk away with all the information necessary to make an aligned decision about what you wanna do moving forward. So just go to selfgrowthnurse.com/school, and you'll be able to click the button book a call. This will lead you straight to my calendar with all the available time slots that I have. You just book 1, you show up, we have a conversation and that's pretty simple. So selfgoatnerds.com/school. And now we are ready to jump into today's episode.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:07:28]:
So let's give it up for Marie from the past. I'm doing okay. To be honest, I woke up grumpy for no reason. It just happens sometimes. And I didn't feel like recording a podcast, but I told myself, you know what? Just do what's on the calendar just move through the day allow the inner grumpiness to be there to sit next to you and eventually you're gonna feel better. Actually this makes me think about a conversation I had with a client yesterday who's about to start their own Podcast, and they said recording a podcast every week feels like too much to commit to. And what I was telling them is it's too much if your expectations of yourself are too high. So in order for me to show up for more than 3 years now, every week, I had to be okay with not giving the same level of quality every time? Meaning that some episodes I put hours into.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:08:41]:
The content is gonna be more researched, more developed, and then some other episodes, it they they just, I'm gonna write, like, 3 or 4 bullet points and I'm gonna jump in. They're more personal, they're more reflective, And they require a lot less of me. If your standards are super high, it requires more effort to show up every week. And it kind of ignores the fact that sometimes life gets hard, and you need to have a plan when it does if you care about remaining consistent. I have a few clients who are writing a book, and I'd rather they write 200 crappy words than 0 words. If they've chosen to write every day, they've they've committed to writing every day, I'd rather they sit down and, like, write one crappy sentence than 0. Because that keeps the momentum going and that strengthens your relationship of trust with yourself. You start knowing that you can rely on Self.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:09:48]:
That when you say you're going to do something, you actually show up and do it no matter what. So let's talk about today's topic, which is complacency and entitlement. I'm gonna start with a personal story. When I started my coaching business almost three and a half years ago, I hit the ground running. I started this podcast. I was hosting a free workshop every Friday. I started 1 on 1 coaching, then I opened up a group program. I kept going to a bunch of different trainings.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:10:24]:
I was giving talks. I was watching hours and hours and hours of master coaches coaching to improve my skills. And, oh, yeah. I also hosted a bunch of different one off workshops and opened up a a program, a side business program with my friend Allison. There was so much going on in the 1st 2 years. I was throwing spaghetti at the wall. I was building my muscles. I was getting better and better at what I was doing.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:10:55]:
I was in discovery mode. And then I kind of hit a wall a year ago when I left my relationship, which is totally normal. I scaled back down, took a a bit of a pause. And then I I said, you know what? I'm just gonna focus on 1 on 1. I'm just gonna get better at coaching and go deeper with each client. And I was super happy with this decision. This is what I needed in the moment. And it's been a year now, and I miss, I've noticed recently, I miss the, effervescence of the 1st year.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:11:38]:
Last week, I was thinking if my life, my professional life was a drink, I would want it to feel like champagne. Ask yourself that question too. See what comes up. I want it to feel like champagne because there's bubbles, it's sparkling, and when you drink it, you slow down and you pay attention to the moment. To me, there's an aura of both excitement and sacredness and gratefulness around champagne. And that's what I'm looking to recreate in my day to day work life. Now I had to realize that in the last few months, I was in a slump of complacency with a little bit of entitlement. What does that mean? Well according to the Cambridge dictionary, complacency is quote a feeling of calm satisfaction with your own abilities or situation that prevents you from trying harder.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:12:38]:
In my own words, it's a mix of comfort and passivity. The image that comes to mind is someone that says, let me just sit down on the sofa for 5 minutes and they're still there 2 hours later and they haven't really seen time go by. It's when we feel fine about everything, when our routine is no longer intentional, when we're on autopilot, We might fall into complaining more easily. We kinda forget what matters most to us. We might have said, like, at the start of the year, I'm gonna move my body. I'm gonna organize dates with my partner. I'm going to improve those skills. I'm gonna get into gardening, and we we forget that.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:13:23]:
We stop moving. We stop paying attention to our friends, to our romantic partners as much as we would want to. We stop improving. We we kinda just go with the flow. We're not motivated to strive for any improvement or change. And it can be okay for a while, but eventually what happens is like a garden. If you stop tending to your garden, there's gonna be more and more weeds taking over. Or actually, an another analogy that comes to mind that I think is better is if you've seen the movie Naiad in which this woman swims from Key West to Cuba, actually from Cuba to Key West, they talk about how because of the current, you have to constantly adjust your direction.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:14:15]:
You feel like you're going in a straight line, but if you don't adjust, you're going to end up far from where you wanted to be. So that's what happens with complacency is you stop noticing but you get further and further away from the person that you wanna be and where you want to go with your life when you get too comfortable. That's what happened to me in the last year, and it started out very intentional. I needed to slow down, to re center, to deepen, but then eventually it turned into a bit of complacency. And I'm recording this episode for those of you who recognize that maybe it's the case for you too. Now why does that happen? I think there's different reasons for falling into complacency. If I take my example, I think it's after going through something tough, like a burnout or a breakup, you experience so much pain that you seek a lot of comfort as a way to to to cope. And then eventually, you start feeling better, and it turns into complacency.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:15:23]:
Sometimes also, I I think we take a drop in self esteem when we go through something hard and we forget how amazing we are, and as a result of that we lower our goals. We adapt our goals to our current vision of ourselves. Versus when we're feeling strong, when we're feeling capable, we're going to dream much bigger. We're going to aim much higher as well. But I don't think we necessarily have to go through something tough in order to fall into complacency. I think most of the time it just comes from your life going well. You being comfortable and having a lack of challenge. If you feel super secure in your job or in your relationship, it's wonderful, but the downside is that you stop trying to improve.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:16:19]:
Nothing in our modern world really forces us to evolve the same way that we were forced to evolve when we lived in a cave. There was so much discomfort embedded in our day to day life that we evolved quickly. But now we can be so comfortable that we just stop growing without really realizing it. And what I notice is that sometimes complacency is gonna come with entitlement. I was noticing myself having thoughts like, ugh, nothing's happening. I'm bored, no one's reaching out to ask me to give talks anymore. It's hard. And let me just read one of the definitions of entitlement in the Cambridge dictionary.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:17:06]:
It says, quote, the feeling that you have the right to do or have what you want without having to work for it or deserve it. So the mix of complacency and entitlement is not the ideal recipe for feeling fulfilled in your life. Because with the first one you stop trying and with the second one, you don't take responsibility for the consequences of your lack of effort. So you end up feeling pretty discouraged and powerless, but that's because you've given your power away and it's time to take it back into your own hands. So let's talk about the solution. First thing to do is checking in with yourself and being honest. Like tough love honesty. I remember a few years ago I was with a friend of mine who has started their business at the same time as I did, and they were telling me, actually, I think I'm gonna get a full time job.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:18:08]:
I'm gonna go back to, the job I had before because it's not working out for me financially. And I said to them wait, you say it's not working but are you working it? Are you all in? I bet if you give yourself a few months and you go all in, you're going to meet your financial goals. And guess what they did? Exactly that. In that moment, they told me you're right. I'm not giving it all I got. If you're moving forward with your foot on the brake, but expecting full speed results, it's never gonna work. Make a list of the actions that you're taking and see if they match up with the results that you want. If you wanna meet your life partner and you're talking about how tired you are of looking for them, but in reality you just went on 2 dates.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:19:05]:
So you go on 2 dates a month. Just doesn't add up. You go on 2 dates a month and you complain about not having met your person yet, it's time for you to take ownership. If you're looking for a job and you complain about not having found a job yet, but you've sent 3 job applications, we have another case of complacency and entitlement. And I say that with love, doesn't mean you're a bad person, I think it happens to all of us. It has happened for me multiple times in my life. It's just an opportunity to realize that, oh, okay, I've given my power away. I've forgotten how creative and resourceful I actually am and how I can move mountains when I'm all in.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:19:57]:
So that's the first thing to do. Check-in with Self. Be radically honest. Stop complaining. Stop blaming. Stop talking about all the ways it's too hard. And make a list of the actions you are taking versus what you are expecting and see if they add up. Then when you probably see that they don't, you're going to create an all in model.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:20:24]:
At the bottom of your page you're gonna write down the result that you want. Then above that result you're gonna ask yourself what would I do if I was all in? Okay? Think of someone you know who's or you don't know, maybe it's, someone in a podcast, maybe it's me. Someone who's super confident, who has a lot of conviction, someone who's really driven. What would they do in this situation? What are the actions that need to be taken in order to get to this result? What are the actions that you're avoiding? Because they're scary or because they require a lot of work. Write them all down. Okay? And then you're gonna move up and ab above those actions, you're gonna write, okay, how would I need to feel in order to take these actions myself? Maybe the answer is bold. Maybe it's focused. Maybe it's determined.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:21:20]:
Just one Nerds, okay? A feeling in your body, a physical sensation that you would need to experience in order to show up and take these actions. And then you're gonna go one line above the feeling, and you're gonna write down how you would need to think. What is a belief that you would need to cultivate in order to feel this way and to take these actions. For example, when I was thru hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, there were many moments where I needed to connect to determination, to a feeling of determination in order to keep going. Cause I didn't feel like it. Okay? It was not natural, I was tired of walking and so I needed a lot of determination and the thoughts in my mind that made me feel determined, are things like yes this is tough, but you're tough enough, Quitting is not an option. And we're not done until we're done. Another example: Right now the feeling I'm trying to tap into is playfulness.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:22:27]:
Because I wanna try a bunch of different new things. So in order to feel playful, I need to de dramatize my fear of failure. I need to stop taking my journey so seriously. So the belief that I go back to again and again is just try things out, see what works. If it doesn't work, try something else. And also the faster you fail the quicker you're gonna figure it out. And I just like to think of one of the authors and coaches I admire the most, Martha Beck. She's just she's so playful.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:23:06]:
She's like, just try something, see what happens. You know, have fun. And then if it doesn't work, that doesn't matter, that doesn't mean anything about you, just try something else. And that's what I want to embody. And that here is your all in model. You start at the bottom of the page with the result you wanna create, then you write down all the actions that you would do if you were all in. If you trusted yourself completely, then you write down how you would need to feel in order to take those actions. A feeling is one word.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:23:43]:
You could have maybe 2 or 3 feelings. I will allow it. And then on top, the the beliefs that you need to practice reminding yourself of. And if you wanna add a little a little bonus, you can think of someone whose energy you want to emulate. And it doesn't have to be a person, it can also be like a character or an animal. I remember one of my clients, she said it was she wanted to be more like an otter. So I told you I wanna be a little bit more like, Martha Beck. Who is it for you whose energy you wanna step into? By the way, I think energy is something that we overlook too often.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:24:26]:
Energy is just as important as your mindset and your actions. All 3 have to be in alignment for you to get to where you want to go. So once you've written down your all in model, or before if you're feeling stuck you can do this first. You need to go on a re inspiration journey or a reenchantment process. Call it however you want, the goal is to reawaken your inner flame. And there are multiple ways to do that. Think of moments in your past where you felt super excited, connected to yourself, feeling strong, feeling capable, feeling like you can do anything. For me, it happens when I listen to podcasts with inspiring entrepreneurs, especially women because it feels relatable.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:25:20]:
It happens when I read some books, like some of the ones that come to mind is: Thec Perfaction by, James Victory, The Practice by Seth Godin, The Calling by Raw Goddess, You're a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero Due Purpose by David Hayat And these are just the ones that are on top of my head, but you can download my list of favorite 30 self growth books and they're all in there. I also experience re enchantment after conversations with some of my most ambitious friends or after a backpacking trip in a beautiful place where I've shown myself, reminded myself how strong I am, and I've been in a state of wonder. Another thing that re inspires me is going to a retreat or like a conference. Basically being in a room with other people who have a similar vision than I do, and there's this buzz that we all share before going back home. So these are just a few of my personal examples. Think about what's going to reawaken your flame and intentionally plan that in your schedule. And then as you start feeling the fire light up again, you're also going to have to plan the actions from your all in model into your schedule as well. And if you need help with time management and keeping it playful, go to my episode, Playful Time Management.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:27:08]:
It's gonna help you with that. Now sometimes it's gonna be okay to just start small with one little action every week and then build from there. And that there will be other times where you need to do the opposite, where you need to double down and work harder. Kind of like a a plane that's trying to get off the ground needs a maximum amount of energy. Actually, this makes me think of an analogy shared by, Leonie Dawson on the podcast last year. She's a Australian businesswoman. She said that starting a business is kinda like turn trying to turn like a big heavy disc on a stick. It requires a lot of strength at the beginning, and eventually, it's just spinning easily and all you have to do is giving it a give giving it a low push every now and then to keep it moving.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:28:00]:
But it requires more strength at first. So it's normal sometimes to to need to put in double the effort when you're trying to get out of a slump. So you you know best what you need right now. Do you need to start small, take it easy? Or do you need to give a big push while still making sure that you take care of yourself and take the time to rest. Okay. That's it for this week. If this resonated deeply with you, you can also go listen to episode 154 called End the Pity Party and episode 164 passive versus active take back control of your life. All of them are quite related and they're gonna give you, I believe a big boost.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:28:56]:
Or like a bit of a slap in the face. A little shake. Tough, but loving shake. Okay. Have a beautiful rest of your week everyone. I will talk to you soon. Okay. Before we leave, just a quick reminder of what I was telling you at the start of the episode.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:29:17]:
I have 7 beta spots open for my new coaching program, Confident Nerd School. So if you're curious about this, if you wanna check if you would be a good fit, schedule a call with me. It's free at selfgirlnerds.com/ Nerds. We're gonna have a conversation about where you are in your life, about where you want to go, what's been getting in your way so that I can tell you if the confident Nerds school program could help you get there. And don't forget that as a beta participant you have access to a reduced rate that's not gonna be available in the future and tons of personalized 1 on 1 coaching to make sure that the program is designed to meet your needs. So don't miss out if you have been curious about coaching. This is the time to check it out. It's a great opportunity to get started.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:30:14]:
So Nerds, and I cannot wait to meet you. Have a beautiful rest of your week, everyone.
Marie-Pier Tremblay [00:30:28]:
Bye. Hey. If you love what you're hearing on the Self growth Nerds podcast and you want individual help finding a new direction for your life and developing the courage to make your dreams a reality, you have to check out how we can work together on self Growth Nerds or message me on Instagram at self growth nerds. My clients say they would have needed that support years ago. So if you're tired of feeling like you're wasting your life, don't wait. Get in touch now, and I cannot wait to meet you.