Show Notes
This podcast is the first of 2023! In order to full maximize this new year, you must uproot victim mentality. In many cases, life has taught us not to attempt again. Listen to this pod! It will bless your life!
View Full Transcript
Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:13 Welcome to the Life Refresh podcast. My name is Ryan Robinson, and if you are looking for a podcast that is designed to uplift, encourage and revive your heart, mind, and spirit, you're in the right place. Welcome to the Journey of Becoming the version of You God designed from the foundation. Now, let's begin.
Speaker 1 00:00:55 Hello and welcome to the Life Refresh podcast. It's Ryan Robinson here with the first podcast of 2023. Y'all, I'm excited, delighted. This is a time to recalibrate, uh, and essentially refresh our vision, our goals, and all the things that we're trying to do in this calendar year. And, and I'm like many others, I'm like many others that have written goals, set goals, put goals to categories, all the things that go along with that. Are they measurable? Are they, uh, tangible? All those kinds of things. So the thing is, what what I have a a I want to help many of us when it comes to goal setting because I don't know if we have written down goals that actually,
Speaker 1 00:01:50 That actually push us, which challenge us to do some of the things that we're uncomfortable with. And, um, I think many times we go to goals that are comfortable for us. It might be a stretch goal. There might be tangible goals, something that, you know, oh, it'll be nice if I did this, but sometimes some goals are extremely, extremely daunting and require us to lose something or there's a higher cost to pay, if you will, in order to obtain them. There might be a loss of friendship, there might be a loss of money, there might be a loss of something, some kind of exchange, right? Some kind of trade off that has to be made in order to get that. Um, and I think I talked about that sometime last year about trade offs, but, uh, if so, you can check that later. But for this year, um, there are things that we have forgotten.
Speaker 1 00:02:50 And every time we make a goal, we always want the options that come with goal setting. Do I want to gain 10 pounds of muscle or do I want to lose 15 pounds of fat? Like there's options that come along with it. Okay? Now the thing is, many times, many of us look at how many options we have, like Baskin Robbins, right? 31 flavors. You can choose whatever you want, but the thing is, at the end of the day, whether you have 31 options or you have two options, you have the ability and the power to choose. You have the ability and the power to choose what you want to do. And the thing is, many of us do what we call learned helplessness when it comes to decision making, particularly when it's comes to things that are extremely difficult for us. We've might have had some challenge with it when we were younger.
Speaker 1 00:04:01 We've might have had some friction or some frustration that came along with it in a previous thing, and it caused us some kind of anxiety. It's caused us some frustration. It has almost hurt us deeply when it comes to making certain choices. Um, now the thing is learn helplessness is not a new term. It's actually a term, uh, a psychology term made by, uh, from classical work from Martin Schleman and, uh, Steve Mayer. Uh, and they stumbled really onto this concept of learn helplessness while conducting experiments on German shepherds. Okay? And, and one of the things that this particular study brought up was that, um, this research or this, uh, particular experiment was the research on animal behavior. And it was delivering electric shocks to dogs. The dogs were separated into three groups, okay? And, um, at the end of this, dogs who learned that they couldn't escape the shock, essentially stopped trying the subsequent experiments.
Speaker 1 00:05:17 And even when it became possible to avoid the shock, and in fact, there was no shock at all, they turned the shock off after these particular dogs were shocked so many times, they actually no longer attempted to even jump over the barrier due to what previous things have taught them in the experiment, they said, if I jump over this barrier, I'm gonna get shocked. So the fact is, I'm not going to get shocked anymore because I don't like getting shocked, even though what I want may be on the other side of this barrier, I refuse. These dogs were smart, right? In some cases, right? They said, I refuse to expose my body to additional pain because I have learned over a period of time that trying hard, attempting difficult things, jumping and providing some kind of effort result in a painful, and at some point, a very detrimental consequence.
Speaker 1 00:06:24 Okay? Um, so recent after that, researchers had learned that humans actually pick up on this particular behavior or this learning kind of control due to the fact that life circumstances have taught us to do something different. We humans have learned, learned helplessness. I'm gonna leave that there for a second. We humans have learned, learned helplessness in much of the same ways. Okay, let's give a give you an example. I'll give you a personal example here. Um, I, um, if a kid struggled in social studies, math or whatever the case is, if they continued to try and try and try and try stay for study tables, get tutoring, but never seems to get any better, eventually that person is gonna give up. If they don't believe they have anything it takes, they believe, and this is the key part, they believe that nothing he or she will do will matter or make a difference for them.
Speaker 1 00:07:51 Okay? So I would gather that many of us have made goals around the things that we are comfortable in because we can see ourselves doing it because there is a belief system behind what we believe we're capable of doing. We see ourselves, we can visualize it, but if it has a high cost of pain beside it or along with it, it gets a lot harder. Because if there has been any kind of life experiences, particularly any kind of young experiences that you've had, whether it was, uh, being nervous or getting embarrassed to speak in, in public in front of the classroom, I know most people have had, uh, was the fear of public speaking is like one of the biggest fears that many people have. There might have been an embarrassing situation, <laugh>, that someone might have experienced in front of the classroom, in front of a small group maybe. And that particular situation has scarred from even looking at the option of speaking in public to anyone. They might have a beautiful voice, they might sound eloquent, they're very, uh, articulate and know how to enunciate and all the great things that come along with great speakers. But if they have had a painful experience, any kind of attempt that they've experienced will trigger a previous trauma that will keep them from being all that they can be.
Speaker 1 00:09:25 We can even put it to work here, like people have learned learn helplessness at work, because there might be some situations that, uh, just like the mathematically challenged or social studies challenged children, they have had a, they've been shut down, so they won't even attempt to do it. But there's also another situation that we've come into is that sometimes many people become hyperactive. They accept every opportunity presented to them, and they throw themselves and they think they can literally do it all. So even though this behavior doesn't look like learned helplessness, it actually tries to, this level of compulsion actually activates an individual to prove <laugh> that they don't have a choice in the matter. So essentially, just like we talked about earlier, because they're doing everything, they have essentially not exercised the ability to choose what they can, what they should, and what they will not do. So if they get caught with a whole handful of things, not exercising the gift to choose and are in this situation, where're like, oh my God, it's too much. And then they believe that they have to do it all. So, learned helplessness. Learned helplessness occurs when an individual continuously, and we're just gonna give this as the definition, learn helplessness occurs when an individual continuously faces an uncontrollable situation and stops trying to change their circumstance, even when they have the ability to do so. Boom, I'm gonna drop the mic right there.
Speaker 1 00:11:32 Even here's the key. Even when they have the ability to change their circumstances, they stop trying to do it because they believe that they are not in control. They essentially give up. And again, this doesn't look like giving up on tv. Everyone throws their things down. It's not that dramatic. Many of us quiet quit our circumstances and situations.
Speaker 2 00:12:13 Ooh,
Speaker 1 00:12:15 We have quiet quitters when it comes to fulfilling goals, purpose, we quit on it because we find that it's too hard for us to do something. So guess what? We just say, you know what? They wouldn't let me do it. I couldn't do it because they didn't give me. And then we end up blaming and creating other excuses and circumstances that say, because someone else didn't do something for me, I wasn't able to do it for myself. They hindered me. So essentially what we are saying is that we gave away our power to other people, or in many cases, we might have forgotten that we had it. And to begin with, we gave away or forgot our ability to change our own circumstances due to the pain that we experienced in previous circumstances that we did not take a chance to learn from, but we allowed ourselves to be defined by them and no longer attempted to make any additional changes.
Speaker 2 00:13:30 Good God.
Speaker 1 00:13:31 So if we're looking at our goals, and I, I challenge you, if you did look at some goals, and I did before I got on this podcast, by the way, so I'm, I'm talking to myself too, we're on this journey together in 2023. Are any of those goals that you have set going to push you past circumstances? Are any of those goals ones that you chose in the sense that you're not going to allow yourself to be deterred from other, from previous experiences that you've had? If you're trying to lose weight where you made fun of when you were young and didn't think, oh, you know what, this is just always gonna be this way, so I'm just gonna give up. No. Is there, is there some kind of emotional thing? Usually we get tired of something and then we choose to do something about it. If you're tired of being overweight, you will choose to lose it. If you're tired of being broke, you'll figure out a way to start building a business and building something. If you're tired of something, you will begin to exercise the ability to choose for yourself what that looks like.
Speaker 1 00:14:56 So the thing is, goals aren't goals unless they're ch unless you are being pushed past the current version of you. Okay? Okay. Unless you are getting pushed past the current version of you, it's not a goal. I recognize that we live in a world and in a day where it is difficult to make choices with social media, commercials, all those things. Anytime you walk into a store, a restaurant, anyone or any place that is selling everything is designed to make it hard for you to say no to it. But the thing is, we cannot forget the ability to choose the power to say no to something. The Bible says, let your yes mean yes and your no mean no mean you got to, you have the ability. God gave us that ability in our relationships to make it to, to mean what we mean. And, and believe it or not, many people don't believe they have this choice in the opportunities, the assignments, the challenges, and the goals to, that they choose to take on, because they've essentially given them away. Okay? There, this was a critical piece for me. Uh, this year, uh, in 2022, there are currently, there were some circumstances with my, um, with family,
Speaker 1 00:16:43 With my, with ministry, for me, with the way I was thinking about life for me, that I essentially gave up my ability to say, I can make this circumstance better. I literally just gave up. And then I was listening. I forgot what I was listening to. Um, <laugh>. My favorite phrase is, I was listening to a podcast, <laugh>, but, um, no, I, I might have been. But
Speaker 1 00:17:20 One of the things that I had listened to was saying that I have more agency and responsibility over my life than I really chose to take on. God has given everything and everyone the ability to do what has been created to do inside of itself. Every fruit has a seed. The seed is a, is actually in the fruit. So when you look at a seed, you don't just need to look at a tree, you need to look at a forest, because in one seed, the potential of a forest is in one seed thinking generationally. With, with Abraham, he says, I will bless you and your descendants will be as numerous as the stars, as the, as numerous as the sands in the sea or sands in the beach. So the thing is, out of one man came a multi, came a nation from one man's choice, one man's choice to leave what was familiar to him and follow God on a place that he said he would show him. Abram, also known as Abraham, had no vision, no g p s, no map, no land, no nothing. All he had was a word from God. And all he did was start walking.
Speaker 1 00:18:55 I realized at that moment in time that I have the ability to choose and make my circumstances better than what they were. Because I have the ability to choose whether or not I'm going to do something or become something or stand for something or not stand for something. I've found out that people will respect boundaries. But the thing is, it's not about the people. It's about loving yourself enough to not be subjected to the previous circumstances and painful situations that you were experiencing or have experienced in your life. If you haven't gotten better after a painful experience, that experience has power over you. Still, if you can't speak in front of people in public, that situation that embarrassed you when you were five years old still has power over you. That five year old is still paying. That five year old in you is still getting embarrassed. Every time you step foot on a podium, every time you see a group of people gather to hear what you've got to say. So every time we revert back to that previous trauma, until we heal that particular area. So when we do goal setting, y'all, before we even do anything, let's take a look at the goals that we have before we go into 2023
Speaker 1 00:20:49 And not activate on what we've believed we are going to be working on and believe what God has told us about us, that we believe that we need to start that business. That we believe we need to start that ministry, that we believe that we need to do some of the things that we've been called and feel internally that we should be doing. Look at the goals, look at them and ask, am I, do I, do I and ask yourself, does a better version of me need to show up in order for this to happen? I'm gonna say that again. Look at your goals and ask yourself, does a better version of me need to show up to accomplish these goals? If so, I think you've got great goals then, but if not, I think you need to go back and rewire them, reframe them, rewrite them, get rid of them, and do something different. We don't have time to hope that things get better. We have to choose that things get better, and then after we choose, we act.
Speaker 1 00:22:10 And those actions will result hopefully in you getting somewhere close, if not exceeding what you've set out for yourself in 2023. All right, y'all, this concludes today's podcast. Let's get this whole month of, of January. We're gonna be talking about vision, all the things that go along with the first month of the year, how we, how we have written goals, things that I have written out for myself, um, just to share some of my vision and things that I've done over the years when it comes to goal setting. But also, how do we incorporate God in our goal setting? Are these just ambitious things for us, or are they actually God ordained things that, uh, have purpose behind them? Because I guarantee if you start walking in purpose, if you begin to do the things that are in your heart by what God has put in place inside of you based on skillset, excuse me, natural ability, acquired skill, or any kind of spiritual gift that you have, if you're a believer in Jesus, those things are clues and indicators as to what you should and what you shouldn't do.
Speaker 1 00:23:27 Um, like again, again, I don't have any business being anybody, a singer. I cannot sing. I can't help anybody in the background. I'm good in the car, can't do it on stage. But that is not a gift set that I have. I have gifts in other things. So many of us haven't taken the time to even analyze the gifts that we have. Are the goals that we have, do they even make sense for what we've been gifted with? We're gonna talk about that later on in the month. But, uh, keep it locked here. Tell a friend, subscribe, seriously, share on all your social media. We are really going to be living a refreshed life in 2023. If you hadn't started, you could start now. I'm telling you, I believe it for you. I have faith for you, even if you don't have it for yourself, that the best is yet to come for you. All right, talk to you soon. Thank you for tuning into the Life Refresh podcast. There are three things I'll need you to do before you go. One, subscribe to this podcast, whether it be through Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts. Make sure that you subscribe to get the latest episode in your feed. Two, rank the podcast. If you like what you heard today, make sure you give it a great rating on those platforms. It'll help get us the exposure we need to make our message much broader and reach different audience.
Speaker 0 00:25:04 And
Speaker 1 00:25:05 Three, make sure you share this episode. I guarantee you found value in it. Someone you're connected to find value.
