718. Success Is Just Being Aware of How We Feel

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24:28

In part one of the Regulation Series, Lesley Logan reframes a belief many high achievers cling to: that success comes from more discipline. She explains why feeling stuck is often a biological state rather than a character flaw, and how learning your regulated and dysregulated patterns can affect your decisions. Drawing on perimenopause, late-diagnosed ADHD, and her own overachiever tendencies, she shows how guarding what you let in, from your feed to other people's chaos, keeps you steady.

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In this episode you will learn about:

  • Why chasing more discipline can keep you stuck in the shame cycle.
  • The real challenges with ADHD and how it affects your regulation.
  • The importance of self-awareness and the need to redefine success.
  • The gateway effect and why a racing brain blocks creativity and confidence.
  • A simple daily noticing practice that shortens your recovery time.


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Episode Transcript:

Lesley Logan 0:00  

What if success isn't about discipline? What if we didn't actually need to get more discipline and buckle down and get everything right? What if that wasn't what we needed? What if actually what we needed is just some more regulation? 


Lesley Logan 0:17  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.  


Lesley Logan 1:00  

Hey, Be It babe. What if success isn't about discipline? What if we didn't actually need to get more discipline and just buckle down and get everything right? What if that wasn't what we needed? What if actually what we needed is just some more regulation?


Lesley Logan 1:21  

Hi, I'm Lesley Logan. Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast. I am doing a solo episode this week, and it's about regulation. And this comes actually because we've got some great episodes coming out where we're talking about midlife, perimenopause, just all the things that make life life. But I'm increasingly aware of all the podcasts I've done where people ask me what success means to me, and it's really funny because whenever I answer, I'm like, "Oh, I'm doing that right now. Success is being in control of my own schedule." And really, if we think about it, success is just being aware of how we feel, right? And so, look, I will say I was a hustler. I've been someone who's been busy my whole life. As a kid, I remember when my speech therapist met with me, and they were like, "Okay, we want to work with you." I was like, "Oh, I couldn't possibly work with you. I have sewing classes on these days. I have dance class on these days. I have gymnastics on these days. I have softball on these days, I have church." All the things, right? This was the second grade. What are you, about eight years old? And I was so in control of my schedule. And then in high school, I had a job as soon as they let me have a work permit. So I was in sports, I had a job, and I was taking AP classes. Always been a busy person. And what happens is you go through your life, and then systems don't work anymore. The thing is that what we know is that after 36, you're probably in some perimenopausal state. So my lovelies who are younger, yes, it's coming. Those of you who are on the other side, hey, way to go! But things change, and we have an episode on astrologically about how things change, too. And the thing that's so weird about being at a certain age is that you can have achieved so much, and then you can still blame yourself for having not enough discipline, or lacking discipline, or lacking organization, willpower, or motivation when you feel stuck, or hit a wall, or feel overwhelmed. And then what happens is we want to go buy another planner, or we sign up for another course, or we think we just need to wake up earlier, or we go into this weird shame cycle. And then that kind of feels good. I remember someone showed me a meme: "I'm amazing," and then it goes, "I suck. This sucks. I can't do this. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm amazing," right? It's like this creative's cycle. And the reality is sometimes we do that. "Okay, all this stuff is going wrong. I just lack discipline. I'm gonna get another planner. I'm going to sign up for these things.


Lesley Logan 4:02  

I'm going to do this," and, "Okay, now I feel better," because we took some action, and action always brings clarity, so it does make things feel better. But it doesn't actually, it just becomes part of this cycle that will just keep repeating itself because it's not about the discipline, right? This is not a character flaw you have. When we go into these spirals, it's often just a biological state. It's a dysregulated state, right? And I wanted to say, we will talk about this more, but I am not suggesting that I am regulated all the time. I would not say that, but I do want to acknowledge that awareness is key, and being aware of when these things are happening is the first thing you can do, right? So I'm teaching people how to teach Pilates for the first time, and some people already have been teaching a little bit, but now they're going through comprehensive training with me, and you can't know all that stuff, I mean, I can talk to you about it, but first you just have to be aware that that is the sidekicks and what you're seeing happen. You have to start there, right? So that's where we're gonna start. 


Lesley Logan 5:09  

There are two versions of you, my love. There is a regulated you, and that you, you know that you, that's the you that is calm and decisive, that does take the messy action or the first next step. And it's almost like people are throwing tennis balls at you and you're whacking them back, right? Whacking them back. I love a regulated me. I'm like, "Woo! My inbox is at zero. You need that? I'll get that to you, no problem." I don't go, "Oh my god, I need that thing right now." I'm like, "Oh yeah, no problem. Here you go. Here's this. How about I get you these things?" The regulated me is not delulu, but definitely at ease, able to take on hard things, excited by what I'm saying yes to, not annoyed by requests from people that are last fucking minute. The regulated me is like, "Oh, you want this? I can take this on. Oh yeah, no, I'll go do that. Oh, I'll do seven more new things." The regulated me just feels at ease with things and doesn't have this like "what the fuck," right? It's so funny when my husband freaks out about the internet in his office, and I'm like, "Oh my god, can you calm down? I can hear it across the house." And then of course there's the other side, right? There's a dysregulated you. There's a dysregulated me. The one that gets overwhelmed, trapped in task paralysis, mindlessly scrolling, or oversnacking, or doing seven other things besides the thing you need to do, or I'm the one yelling, "Why is this computer not working?" And so, can you think about a time like that? I'll just say, when I get dysregulated, a few things happen all at the same time: my sleep goes bad, and then because my sleep goes bad, I don't really feel good in my movement, and so I tell myself, "Oh, I don't need to move because I didn't sleep very well." That's probably true, but then I'll just start work early. Wrong, wrong, always the wrong answer. I should not do that. I should do something else that is for me to regulate myself so that when I do go to work at the normal time, I would actually see all the things as the regulated version of me, right? But of course, now we're tired. Now we didn't fill our cup, and now we're seeing things and it's like, "Why doesn't this person understand that? Why is this why it's gone?" When you feel yourself like, "Why are they? Why is that person? Why is this person?" When you're upset in the car in traffic, it's a dysregulated you, babe, right? And it's not that you need more discipline.


Lesley Logan 7:30  

No, it's a biological state, and what we need is to figure out what our regulated and dysregulated states look like, feel like, sound like, smell like, just noting the things, right, so that we can be aware. Because until we are aware, we can't change anything, right? And I just want to also add, my loves who are getting late diagnosed ADHD: hello, I see you. Late diagnosed auDHD. The reality is I thought I was going crazy. I was like, "Why all of a sudden so frustrated by all these things? Why am I getting irritated about this thing? Is this perimenopause? Because this sucks." And when I found out, it's like, "No, this is my brain's operating system." My ADHD people, you will just go buy another journal. That is not the next thing you should do because you've got a stack of them you don't use, but you're like, "Oh, what a pretty journal that is." I have pretty journals that are just for decor, I don't even try to write in them anymore. I am aware that I'm buying them just for the look of it. But our nervous system is functioning differently and it does things outside of what we often desire, like a dopamine high. I will tell you right now, there's a lot of things that I do just for the dopamine of it all, and having awareness around that really does help. But our brain is also three steps ahead of everyone, right? Like my psychiatrist said, "I can help you focus, but I can't keep you from saying yes to things you don't have time for." And so, really understanding yourself is one of the most important things I could say you need to do in order to feel successful, right? Because again, we could define success as whatever it is. But if you are dysregulated, you're always going to feel like you're not successful, right? If you're unaware of how you operate and what you need, right? So systems really, really work, my ADHD people. I know you don't want them, but they really, really work.


Lesley Logan 9:24  

But also, even if you don't have ADHD, if you are balancing perimenopause with kids and your aging parents, and you run your own business, or you work for a high-stress business, or all of us in this life, there's a lot of life going on. And I just want to say, I don't have children, and my parents are independent right now, so I have more time than my friends who are older than me who don't have kids, but their parents are aging and have more needs. My friends are in a different place in their life about what they're thinking about and planning for versus me. They are getting ready for retirement; I am still building that. So we often compare ourselves to other people in our life, and we have to be really mindful of that, right? I also don't get to blame myself, "Well, you don't have kids, so you should have time for this." That's not healthy either, my loves who don't have children. We have to be honest, all of us have so many different responsibilities, and if we are operating from a regulated state when we're answering questions or answering requests, we will actually give a better answer to those things so that we actually can stay regulated. But when we are in dysregulation and trying to do all these things, one, we're not doing it out of a place of love. That is for sure not happening. There is no love in a dysregulated state, and we start to just get overwhelmed by the mundane, the things that we have to do every day anyway, right? So I just want to say that because I know that there's a lot of people who just have a lot, and they're like, "Okay, I just need one more thing that will make this easier." There probably isn't, but if you can be aware of what you need to do to feel like you're coming from a regulated state, then you are going to be able to make decisions from a better place. And sometimes those decisions are to say no, right?


Lesley Logan 11:11  

And then those of you who love Pilates, I do want to bring a little Pilates analogy here. When we do our Pilates, if we are just doing choreography, that will be like a dysregulated state. For example, you're doing the 100 and the carriage is bouncing everywhere, or you're on the mat and your head is bouncing everywhere. That is not regulated. That is not connected. But you're doing the 100 and the carriage doesn't move, or you're doing the 100 and everything feels strong. It's hard. Life is hard, but it feels possible, and I think that that is where I'm hoping we can all wrap our brains around. Life isn't going to feel easy and then hard and then easy and hard. It can actually feel hard all the time, but possible, like you're in control of how you feel and how you operate in that, right? So I've been mentioning regulate and dysregulate, but maybe we need to talk about what it looks like. A lot of people might think dysregulated is just a temper tantrum, and I have those. Sometimes I'm like, "I just want to have a temper tantrum like a three-year-old. There's something that feels really good about screaming right now." But it also can be hyperarousal, like fight or flight, right? Compulsively overworking or micromanaging people, or having this invisible clock of anxiety, you're feeling rushed to do things, but you made up the deadline, or there is no deadline. I will also say, if you read The Big Leap, we talk about that book a lot on this podcast, Episode 400 is the author, when I am dysregulated, I will tend to worry about things I have no control over, and then I will also look for all the things that haven't been done. These are all bad, by the way: "That's all going to happen, and none of this is done." None of those things are done, but that doesn't have anything to do with what could go wrong here, and has nothing to do with the thing we need to work on, right? But I will just pile it on. You could have hypoarousal, though, that's a freeze or fawn state. Procrastination disguised as researching, or people-pleasing to avoid conflict, or taking up a couch state, right, and going, "Oh, I'm just percolating." So you can be dysregulated and look calm, but really you're not working on the thing you want to be doing, right? Does that make sense?


Lesley Logan 13:31  

So I sometimes will play a video game when I am feeling out of sorts because there's something about moving these colors around that helps bring my heart rate down and bring me into a different place, and then I can go, "Okay, hold on. What am I avoiding?" So I just want to say it's okay to end up doing those things, but being aware that what you're doing is what you're doing is really, really important. I think a lot of times we go through life very unaware, right? In Pilates, if I tell someone to pull their shoulders back and they're as far back as they can go, that person is unaware that their shoulders are very much forward, and they don't have the ability to pull them back. So I have to first make them aware of what back means because they think back is what they're doing, but it's not. And then I have to help them, right? And there's a perfectionist shutdown cycle that also happens, right? You set some impossible standard, hi, I see you, it's this all-or-nothing mindset, then you can't meet it, then you panic, and then you just shut down and give up. And you often don't tell anybody about that thing that you're going to do, because then you can go through the cycle and you don't have to let anyone know. Yeah, I see you. I've been there. I understand. "I'm gonna go to the gym every single day." Then the first day you hit traffic, there's a new construction site, you get there and you forgot your pants, so now you can't do anything, and you're like, "This didn't work at all."


Lesley Logan 15:11  

And then you shame and blame yourself, then you have a shit day, and you didn't do enough reflection on how to solve the problem for tomorrow. So then tomorrow comes, and you're like, "I can't do it. It's not fun." So here's what we have to do: we actually have to redefine the goal of what we're trying to achieve in regulation, and also probably what success is for us, right? So I wanted to say that being regulated does not mean that we are a monk who never gets upset, that is crazy and unattainable. It's unattainable. Come on, unattainable, right? I have seen monks, and I am impressed by them, but you guys, they have nothing else to do but be regulated and calm as fuck. They have nothing else to do. Someone else makes sure that they are fed. Someone makes sure that they have clothing. Someone makes sure that they have a roof overhead. They have nothing to do but pray and meditate. You, my love, are not a monk. You have so many things to do on top of it. So it's not about being someone who never gets upset. 


Lesley Logan 16:14  

And it's also important that we talk about success and being regulated as not the absence of triggers. I don't like when people say, "You triggered me," because that's not real unless someone actually knows what your triggers are and does it on purpose. But yes, you can be activated. That's how my therapist would call it:, activated over triggered. But you can be activated by something I say or do, and that doesn't mean you are unsuccessful or that you're not a regulated person. No, it's actually the speed at which you acknowledge it and then recover, right? Today I had some bad news that came before I hit record on this, and it really sent me into a state, and I saw myself wanting to spiral worse than the thing that I was made aware of, right? And I was like, "Hold on, hold on, we don't have to go there. That has nothing to do with the thing that's making us sad right now, and we can feel those feelings, take a moment, and think of all the things we can do to maybe be part of solving that problem." And also, it wasn't my problem to solve, so I really actually just have to feel my feelings and send some good hope, and then I have to go back to the thing, right? Because if I let this thing derail my whole day, then I'm even more behind. And then what am I going to do? Probably go through that shame perfectionist cycle, right? Now, if, what was going on, I had control of taking action and taking action would be the step to take. And I might still be behind, but I actually can acknowledge that was because I was taking action to solve the problem. But it's the speed at which you actually acknowledge the difference, right? I have somebody in my mentorship program who's like, "I want to stop negative self-talk." You're probably not going to stop that, but what you can do is get faster at catching that you are doing it, right? So how long does it take you? Right now, is it taking you 20 minutes, 10 minutes to realize you're doing some negative self-talk? Okay, can we get that to be a little shorter, and then a little shorter, and then eventually you say the first line and you're like, "Shut up!" Right, that kind of thing. How quickly can you recover if you know what your activators are? What boundaries can you put in place? Can't put boundaries in place? That person or that thing is going to activate you. Okay, how quickly can you acknowledge that and go through recovery so that it doesn't derail you, so it doesn't put you in a dysregulated state? It can still upset you, can still frustrate you, you can still feel your feelings. But to literally take you off your course, my love, that's such a bummer, right? That'd be such a bummer because then the things that you're here on this planet to do, you won't be able to do, right? 


Lesley Logan 18:44  

There's another way to redefine the goal. It's called the gateway effect. You cannot access creativity, strategic decision making, or genuine confidence when your body thinks a tiger is chasing it. Our lizard brain goes into flight or fight, or is searching out for a tiger that's gonna eat it. When that's where your brain is at, you can't be creative. Impossible! You're trying to survive, trying to survive. So I see this a lot. At the time that I'm recording this, there's a lot of people who are upset in my industry about something that was posted that I know nothing about, nor did I seek out because I do not care, because going and seeking that out would just dysregulate me. Of course I would get upset by what I saw, and then it would make me sad about people, and then it would make me worry about how this could negatively affect my business, and then it would make me worry about my financials, and then it would make me worry about my future, and then it would make me go, "Why am I even trying this new thing when people could be so shitty about it?" So I don't go look at that stuff, but I was made aware. And the thing that I found was that so many people were fighting me on seeing the thing because I wrote this post about being in a state of practice and not judgment, knowing why you teach and not caring who is the person who trained you. And I noticed how many people wanted to fight me on how it needs to be louder for those people who need to hear it. I'm like, "Well, they don't want to hear it. They're in a state the don't want to hear. Why would they listen to me? They don't want to be there. They want to be in their awful world." And it's interesting that you want to be in that awful world with them. You're letting them do that to you when you could just put blinders on and go, "That's for those people over there." That seems so crazy. Why would I even give them any attention when I have an impact to make over here?


Lesley Logan 20:32  

So if you keep opening up your socials and the things that you see are causing your brain to go into "a tiger is chasing me," you've got to change your algorithm, my love. That world is shit, right? I get that, and you know what? I really struggled in the last couple of years with promoting things that will help people because there are people dying, there's genocides happening all the time, and so every time I open my phone, "This person fucking did this. These people died." It's not that I don't care about that stuff; it's that I have to make sure I only see that stuff after I've done the things that I can do, because I actually don't get to decide who the leaders are in those cases, because I voted as hard as I could, you know, and I have to go, "What can I do?" So I walk dogs for a shelter. I stay informed in politics, but before and after work only, so that I do not feel like a tiger is chasing me, right? I think it's just really important to understand, babe: I don't think you need more discipline. I think you need to be aware of when you're being dysregulated and what's dysregulating you, so that you can do the things you want to do. 


Lesley Logan 21:46  

So on our next episode, we are going to do some practical regulation and some self-trust. You know I always like to do information and then strategy, so that's what I'm gonna do. So my love, until Thursday, can you do me a favor and just notice your states throughout the day? Notice when you feel it's so easy to tackle that inbox, and when it feels so hard. Just notice. Don't do anything about it, just notice. My love, that's your practice on being a recovering overachiever. All right. Please do me a huge favor: if our episodes are helping you in any way, can you please share them with a friend who needs to hear it?


Lesley Logan 22:23  

Leave a review, tag me in sharing it so I can see what you loved about it. Whatever it is, it would really mean the world to me. And if you want to support this podcast in any way aside from leaving a review or sharing with a friend, you can be an OPC member. Yep, that's one of the best things you could do, because at OPC, we are a place where you get to practice moving your body, pouring into yourself, listening to it, understanding when you feel great, and just getting to know yourself so much, being curious, being in community, having some accountability, not more discipline, having fun, finishing optional. So go to onlinepilatesclasses.com to check out our membership options. And if that doesn't work for you, then thanks for being here. Thanks for being you. Thanks for downloading this episode. Thanks for listening all the way through. You're amazing. Until next time, Be It Till You See It. 


Lesley Logan 23:13  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.


Brad Crowell 23:55  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.


Lesley Logan 24:00  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.


Brad Crowell 24:05  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.


Lesley Logan 24:12  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals. 


Brad Crowell 24:15  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.



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