By Briana | January 9th 2013

Championship Game

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The other day I was watching football – not my norm, but it was a big game for Notre Dame, and when you have ND alumni in your family you are contractually obligated to root for them. It can’t be avoided Even if the only thing you know about football that the length of a football field is a useful way to explain all sorts of distances.

Anyhow, I was watching these college guys stretching on the field before the game, huge hopes in their golden helmets, but palpably nervous about the pending game. I thought to myself, “Dudes, loosen up! You’ve done so much amazing work to even get to the championship game. You should be proud!”

Wait. What was that?

“Loosen up. You should be proud.” Oh man, that is exactly what I needed to hear.

I’m going to share with you a bit about my last week. I launched my free video series, which was the culmination of tons of hard work. I thoroughly enjoyed creating them and wanted to make sure they would provide massive value. Then, almost immediately, I fell into an old routine of getting really uptight about my “results”, feeling self doubt, and stressin’ out.

I started to seek approval, comfort and confidence from outside sources. My poor husband has probably told me sixty times in the past week how wonderful and brilliant I am. But, I couldn’t hear it, or at least it wasn’t changing my state of mind. My girlfriends were cheering me on and I was receiving amazing feedback from people who had watched the videos, but it didn’t make any difference. It was like the pre-game situation – cheerleaders shaking their stuff, crowd roaring, but the players were stressed, \restless, and waiting for a touchdown to celebrate.

It became clear when I saw it mirrored back to me by a quarterback – don’t wait for the touchdown to celebrate!

All the work that went in to getting to the championship game, or making the videos and course is remarkable. It doesn’t really matter if they win, and it doesn’t really matter how many people sign up to watch my videos. I mean, of course they’d prefer to win, and I’d prefer to have thousands of people see my videos and have their lives changed. But, the tight, stressed anticipation doesn’t help get the intended results. So, I took my own advice: I loosened up and celebrated what I’d created. Getting out of my own way to loosen up wasn’t happening through my thoughts though. I kept reminding myself to let it flow, but it wasn’t happening. Sometimes our minds have a hard time releasing themselves from their own traps. So I used my body to guide my mind.

I thought all my anxious thoughts and as I did I tensed up all my muscles as tight as I could. Tighter. Tighter. Tighter. Then I released my muscles and my thoughts. I did this again and again, with each of my anxious thoughts in mind: “What if no one signs up?”, “What if people hate it?”, “What if this was a huge waste of time?” …until my mind was free and my body was relaxed.

The outcome was that I felt in service to people again, and remembering why I decided to do this in the first place. Not so that I could incessantly check how many people had opted into my course and use it as some kind of gauge of my self worth, but so that I could help people live to their full potential and have everything they want. And if I do that for just one person then I’m damn happy. Back in the flow, and super grateful for this experience.

When we have big dreams and then we put ourselves out there it’s scary. I, and the Notre Dame football team, can attest to that. But, if we do our best, keep to our practice, and continue to move forward, the only thing left to do is to let go and celebrate.

So, where are you feeling tight and constrained around your goals? And what are you going to do to release your tensionand get in the flow? Tell me in the comments below so together we can loosen up and be proud of what we have done to get where we are. After all, this is the championship game!

P.S. If you haven’t checked out my Get It, Practical Manifestation videos yet – do it! They’re awesome and free.

4 Comments

  • Sidsel Dorph-Jensen says:

    Thank you for this, Briana, I so needed to hear that too today!
    Get out of my mind, and ask my body for help. I hope tons and millions sign up for your course, you have a gift, know you stuff and so much to give. I know it’s going to be amazing!
    Sending lots of love your way xo

  • Audrey Selzer says:

    Hello lovely lady,

    I read this post and it caught my attention as I think I also needed to hear that phrase ‘loosen up, you should be proud’. I have spent over a year (really a culmination of 15 – btw I love that this has spell check) preparing to follow my dream of becoming a practitioner in the healing art of medicine. Particularly this past year has been the most intense, studying for the mcat, taking the mcat, applying and then interviewing for medical school. I was preparing myself for a second round the entire time as most all of the people I know that have gone to medical school took more than once application cycle to get in. But alas, I got in on the first try and very shortly after I applied. I should be elated.

    However, I find, that even after accomplishing one of the most laudable tasks in my life, I still have doubt and anti-climatic thoughts/feelings. It’s as though I’m afraid or embarrassed to share my joy, to embrace and honor my self worth and pride. So when I read ‘loosen up, you should be proud’ I knew it was for me. I even received a promotion today at work and still felt like, ‘cool, but I’m not sure how to react so I’ll just stay calm’. Dude, I should be fucking off my rocker; I just got into medical school, got a promotion and am about to marry the most amazing man! Why the fuck am I not relaxed and proud? So, thank you for your post. I will practice being proud and happy with the accomplishments in front of me as they are today. And stretch out more.

    Audrey

  • Briana Borten says:

    Oh sweet woman! This is so great! You should be totally proud! You’re amazing and doing great things!

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