Andrea Nordling 0:00
Welcome back to what I know is going to be a really helpful episode for you. If you have any sort of imposter syndrome, thoughts about your body, or your health journey and your own chronic symptoms of any sort, no, you are not alone. Many, many a very talented practitioner stands in her own way, feeling like she needs to be perfect, perfectly healed, have the perfect body be at her perfect weight, and know exactly how to help her clients do the same thing before she can get started in her business, or before she can take her business to the next level. So if any of that resonates with you, you’re going to love this episode. And you’re also going to get a heavy dose of coaching on the fact that none of that is true. It’s totally optional. And you are ready today. We are doing this episode with my dear friend Paige Bowman, who is my weight loss coach. We talked about that in the episode. I love to bring on experts to talk to you about their forte as it will help you in your journey. And also to let you know that there are resources available if this is something that you want to work on as well. So if you are on a weight loss journey yourself, you’re going to want to listen close, and I have all of the faith in the world, that page can help you if that’s something you’re working on. And if not, I think you’re still going to get a ton of value from this episode by taking the nuggets that she drops, which are aplenty in the episode, and applying it to what your clients are thinking and how you can help serve them better. Because let’s face it, we are living in a world where a lot of people want and let’s face it need to lose weight. So we cannot be too cool for helping people lose weight. And we need to help them. That’s why we got started in this business. So without further ado, I want to introduce you to my friend Paige Bowman. She’s amazing. And I know you’re going to love this episode. Enjoy. Alright, so Paige is here today with us to chat all of the things weight loss and imposter syndrome. And how those two intersect beautifully in our mind. This, I have a lot to say about this. But I know you have much more expertise than I do. So Paige Bowman. Hello, welcome. Tell us all about you.
Paige Bowman 2:23
Hi, thank you for having me on. I am Yes, I’m Paige Bowman. I am a Certified Life and weight loss coach. And I help coaches lose weight hit their weight loss goals work on their health and body image.
Andrea Nordling 2:38
Yes, and you are my personal coach. And so I work with you every single week, which I think is so fun. I’m sure we’ll talk a lot about that. But I specifically wanted to have you on and I wanted to do this episode because I happen to know from personal experience and from coaching hundreds and hundreds of other practitioners that there is a lot of undue pressure and expectations with us in our own human brains to be perfect and look perfect, and eat perfect. And have everyone think that we are perfect and be at our perfect weight and have the perfect body and be the picture of health. Or we can’t really help people. This is what it sounds like this is the this is the all the pressure that we put on ourselves in our mind. I know I have done this. And we can certainly talk about that too. But it’s like I if I’m not skinny yet. If I’m not healed yet. If I’m not blank, then I can’t really help people. Because they’ll find out that I’m not perfect. And then I’m still on a journey.
Paige Bowman 3:39
Yeah, that’s it’s I mean, everyone that I work with, whether even their coaches or not, they have the similar thoughts and opinions about the journey. And I can’t help people or I can’t give people advice unless I perfect. And it’s kind of a bummer, because I was listening to your imposter syndrome episode. And you talked about how when you’re thinking these things about yourself, you’re not able to help others. And I think that’s the bottom line. Like that’s the biggest bummer is, you’re thinking that you have to be perfect before you help people. And then people don’t get to experience all the value that you could offer the world because you’re thinking that you shouldn’t be helping them just because you have weight you want to lose or you want to improve your health.
Andrea Nordling 4:32
Yeah. And then I also think that that bleeds through to our clients and our messaging. That’s like and you have to be perfect to I think I have to be perfect and so you have to be perfect. Your timing has to be perfect. You have to have a perfectly clear schedule and have no vacations or life circumstances coming up and everything has to be perfect. Otherwise we can’t get started. That’s kind of the message that comes across.
Paige Bowman 4:56
It’s interesting because I have found that More or less that people will think that others are expecting them to be perfect. So then they will expect that out of others. So yeah, it’s exactly what you’re saying. But the best part about learning about the imposter syndrome, especially if you’re helping people with weight loss or health, and that’s your journey as well, is when you learn about it, and then you change it. Basically, you stop expecting yourself to be perfect before you go help the world, that then you’re letting others around, you know, and your clients know, hey, I’m no longer expecting this of myself or you. Let me show you what it’s like to get out there and do things imperfectly.
Andrea Nordling 5:44
Yes, yes. And then you I think that when we’re stuck in this imposter syndrome, where we think I’m not ready to do X, because I haven’t yet achieved why or because people think I haven’t achieved why, then what we’re doing is we’re saying, I’m never gonna be ready, first of all, but we’re not letting the people who, I don’t know how to articulate this. But what I’m trying to say is, there are some people that don’t want that perfect version of you, they want the messy version of you so that they can just be messy, and they like we think, oh, we need to be perfect so that people will think of me as an expert. And really, there are a lot of people that want to work with you when you’re not an expert, because you’re more relatable, and they would actually prefer that.
Paige Bowman 6:26
Oh, yeah. I mean, and I was thinking about, like, if you think about the people that you buy from or learn from, or work with, and that help you, aren’t you glad when you hear their blunders, and there’s experiences? And aren’t you glad to know that they’re not perfect? Like, I love knowing that my? Yeah, I love knowing that my coach is imperfect. It’s what makes her even more valuable to me, because I know kind of what we’re just talking about that she’s not expecting me to be perfect, because she’s not expecting that out of herself.
Andrea Nordling 7:08
Yeah. Oh, that’s such a good point, though, that it’s so refreshing. And it’s so relieving. When people talk about their screw ups, and their imperfections. And there’s been how they’re still struggling and what not even that you have to still be struggling. Maybe that’s like a little, a little much, but you certainly could be. You also can just like talk about your human, you’re human journey and be honest about that. That’s such a good point. Oh, my gosh, I love it. So I have a question for you. Paige, do your clients come to you feeling guilty about wanting to lose weight?
Paige Bowman 7:43
Oh, yeah, every single one.
Andrea Nordling 7:50
Talk about that, because I see this
a lot with myself, but also with my students. That it’s kind of like, like, I don’t want it like being too cool for weight loss or something like that. Like, I want to talk about being healthy. I want to talk about being strong. I want to talk about all these things. And I don’t want to talk about actually wanting to lose weight. Like we want to pretend that that’s not what we actually want.
Paige Bowman 8:10
Oh, yeah, it’s actually one of my questions to tease out any thoughts that we want to coach on in the beginning of my time with my clients is? It’s kind of a It’s not stinky question. It’s very obvious. But it’s, if you had to tell people, that you’re on this journey to lose weight, would you Why or why not like what comes up for you. And it’s a lot of times, interestingly enough, it has to do with what people will think not only about you on your weight loss journey, but what society or cultures opinions about someone who’s losing weight. And they don’t want people to think that they don’t love themselves because they want to lose weight, or that they have negative feelings about themselves. And so what they’ll tell me is, I don’t want people to know I’m on this journey, because then they’ll think that I have a problem with myself or my body, and that I’m supposed to accept myself as I am. And so it feels, there’s like this cognitive dissonance between they are working on accepting themselves as they are, but they don’t want people to know that that’s a journey they’re on. And they don’t want people to know that they’re on this journey to improve themselves, because then people will wonder or have thoughts about your journey to improve yourself.
Andrea Nordling 9:39
I’m trying to think back to when I got certified in holistic nutrition. And this was in 2015. But I had been thinking about it for a little bit before then and I if I’m going to be totally honest, I my prevailing thought was, oh my gosh, if I learn all of this stuff, I’ll finally know how to eat really well. And I will struggle with my weight anymore like this. So just in then on how to feed my kids, I’ll know how to feed my family, this struggle will be over forever, I will just like handle it in the food department and I won’t have to ever worry about this again, that’ll be so great. And that was a huge deciding factor for me to even learn about holistic nutrition. And for anyone listening to this episode that doesn’t know my story, which is probably most people because it maybe don’t talk about this enough, I didn’t get certified because I had any huge health problems, I just wanted to feel better, I wanted to look better, and I wanted to be skinny. That’s really what I wanted. And I could be totally honest about that. Now, what I learned then through that process of being certified as a holistic nutritionist was life changing. I mean, I learned so much, and I’m so glad that I did that, I did lose a little bit of weight. And I do feel like I feed my family a lot better. And all of those goals are achieved. However, the reason that I had weight to lose really, I don’t think ultimately had a ton to do with what I was eating, it was emotional eating, which I’m sure we’ll talk about. And just learning about macros, and Whole Foods and hydrogenated oils. And all of that didn’t solve the emotional eating problem. So for me, I thought that was going to be the end all be all. And it wasn’t it was very helpful and time well spent, for sure. But I know a lot of my students feel the same way. And probably a lot of people listening to this podcast feel the same way that that was gonna be the end all be all. And then it’s not necessarily. It’s like, oh my gosh, no, I can’t help people that want to want to lose weight. If I haven’t lost all the weight. I definitely felt like that, too. So what are your insights on that type of judgment that we put on ourselves? I guess it’s kind of what I’m asking.
Paige Bowman 11:40
Well, it’s one of those things where you thought that was gonna be it, for example, and then you went through the certification and realized it wasn’t it. And that right there, you get to decide the way you’re going to tell that story? Are you going to tell that story that you’re a failure, and that you are wrong, and that you have so many things to figure out, which means that there’s something fundamentally wrong with you, that’s one of the ones I’ve had to work on. Or you could tell the story that you’re so glad you figured out, it wasn’t just about the food, and that it had more to do with mindset and emotions. And if you hadn’t gone through the nutritionist, the certification or the training, you would have learned that there’s so much more to it, and then you get to share that with others. So it’s one of those things where be conscious of how you’re telling the story on your journey. Are you loving that you keep going that you keep learning new things that the other part of this and we kind of alluded it to her to earlier, but it’s accepting yourself? And if you’re saying that it’s not just about nutrition, but there’s mindset, and there’s emotional work here too. Can you accept that you have some changes you want to make in how you deal with your feelings? And how you make yourself feel better? Can you make that okay? Can you love yourself where you’re at on your journey, and then keep going?
Andrea Nordling 13:11
Yeah, and I think this, this is such a good conversation to be having also, because my people and people that are listening to this are going to be thinking about hopefully how they talk to their clients, on their clients journey, and how the expectations for our clients usually are not even remotely the same as the expectations we have for ourselves, their clients, we are so compassionate, and we expect them not to be perfect. And we expect them to struggle with making new changes in their life. And we have all of the compassion for that. And then for ourselves, we have none and all the judgment. It’s just crazy.
Paige Bowman 13:47
Well, and I actually have a podcast on a Why have titled The Love paradox. And it’s this idea or podcast episode. It’s this idea that you can love where you’re at, just like I was saying, and accept where you’re at. And you can make a change, you can continue evolving, you can continue going after your goals. And in fact, loving where you’re at and accepting that this is where I’m at in my journey. I have weight I want to lose. I’m also helping people lose weight. So I’m not there yet. And I’m helping people and I can love that. And I don’t have to make that mean anything negative about myself. And that is an amazing fuel to continue going on your journey. So sometimes I think that we have to judge ourselves, be discontent with ourselves, right? be upset that we’re not perfect. And we have to do that to motivate ourselves to get into action to make those changes. It’s almost like we’ve taught ourselves it’s that necessary fuel for motivation. And it’s not in fact it’s not as productive energy source or a fuel source. And so once we recognize that, that it’s actually not helping you or your clients to look down upon yourself, it might be even more, it definitely is even more productive, to lift yourself up to change the way you’re telling your story for you and for your clients.
Andrea Nordling 15:24
Yeah, that’s so good. I don’t consider myself to be so proficient on the feelings. Phase just gets a laugh about that, every coach about that. So I want you to talk a little bit more or a lot more about this, I think this is the best part about I know from working with you and from doing this work myself is that we very rarely coach on food, we very rarely talk about the type of food to eat, the what to eat, what I’m eating, what like that’s very rarely enters into the conversation. And most of the time, we’re talking about the underlying pressure or judgment that is fueling, like eating anything that you don’t want to be eating. I love this so much. So what made me think of that is when you said like, we feel that we need that pressure, or we need I don’t pressure is definitely my word. We need that pressure to motivate us. Otherwise, we won’t do the thing that we said we’re going to do, which is the total opposite. So can you talk more about, like, feeling those feelings? And change it? Like how to know I guess here’s what I’m asking how do you know if you’re like how to be onto yourself, if you’re trying to pressure yourself into making any of these types of changes in your health? Hmm,
Paige Bowman 16:31
so I hear two questions from you. And I’ll answer both. So one is, what do we do about like, understanding more about feelings in this work? And my bottom line? Answer is feelings are the reason why we do anything. It’s either to push an emotion away like this actual physical sensation in your body, or acting on it. So that chemical reactions that happen in your body when you’re feeling anxious, you can either try to push it away. And if you’re anything like us, you go to food to do that.
Andrea Nordling 17:03
Not usually carrots either.
Paige Bowman 17:08
Oreos are chips.
Andrea Nordling 17:10
Yep, yep, those are the Go twos for
Paige Bowman 17:13
or we act on the emotion. Right. So anxiety for me will make me make a bunch of lists or stress about a bunch of things, or I’m in my hamster wheel in my head. Or we can allow the emotion to breathe it, it’s almost like we breathe it out of our bodies, we think our brain for creating it, right? It makes sense, all of us have emotions. And then we feel it in our body. And then we let it go. And those are the options that we have. And a lot of us were taught to use food and not to process those emotions in that way. And so what you were just saying is we don’t coach a lot on food, it’s because for most of us, especially the people that you’re talking to, they know about food and nutrition, and they know what the best options are. But what they may not realize is that they’re using food as a tool, because that’s what they’ve been taught by either people around them or society to feel better, right to make the emotion go away. Or to find joy and desire and pleasure. So that’s why I think this conversation is so important. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with you that you go to the Oreos and the chips to feel better make the pressure go away, make the overwhelm go away, or because you want to feel joy today, and that’s the only way you can think to do it. It’s a learned behavior is all it is. So that’s why I think this is so important. Because when you realize that, then you know that the actual root is not understanding how to in a loving way, process my emotions, and I’ve just been using food. So the emotional work is so important here. And to your second question, which is how do I know I am making these changes? Not out of pressure? Because I think I have to but because it is best for me or because it’s what I want? Is that what I’m understanding? That was the question.
Andrea Nordling 19:12
Yes. Yes. I have all the questions. But yes, that’s
Paige Bowman 19:18
so it can This is one of those times where you could just ask yourself your hard why, if I could love myself and my life in my situation, no matter what if I could build that skill? What would I do? And that kind of goes back to what I was talking about with the love paradox. You can love where you’re at and still want to make a change. And so see that kind
Andrea Nordling 19:45
of that breaks my brain a little bit when you say that I know it intellectually but we I feel like we have to spend a little time on that. Let’s let’s riff on that a little bit.
Paige Bowman 19:53
Yeah, it’s I think it’s an idea baby. I’ve created I say I think because because it’s kind of come from working with other coaches and being taught multiple things and then putting it together in my own way. And of course, I didn’t say this, but I’ve lost 25 pounds in the last two years. And I did it while I was building my business. So I was learning these things on how to make money as a coach, and losing weight. And so I would use a lot of what I was being taught by my business coaches or my regular one on one coaches, and infusing that in my weight loss journey. And what I realized I
Andrea Nordling 20:29
can’t wait a second. So you mean you didn’t lose 25 pounds first and then go help people lose weight? Well, such a good example, such a good example. I like well,
Paige Bowman 20:43
and this is why I was so glad to come on here and have this conversation with you and for your audience, because I found that it’s just so much more enjoyable. If you don’t hold yourself to this perfectionistic expectation or idea and just get going on your journeys. I mean, it’s way more fun that way to be blunt.
Andrea Nordling 21:04
Yes. Oh, that’s so true. And
Paige Bowman 21:09
something you said earlier, had me thinking about my clients love when I share my own wonders on my calls. And I’ve done that the entire time. Because the entire time, for the most part, I have been coaching on weight loss, since I started my business and losing weight myself. And I just kind of hit maintenance mode last year, at the end of the year. And I still tell my clients that I forgot to pick up my food journal, and I teach that to play in your food head of time. I forget to pick it up. It’s the thing that I continue to forget to do. And I teach it, or I’ll have overeats. And I’ll talk to them about, you know, what was I what was going on? What was I struggling with? And this is what I did about it. Or I knew in the moment that I was using food to feel better, and I kept going, and then using that as just being relatable so that they know that I’m not perfect. And I don’t expect you to be perfect. And but then they can learn from it too. Yeah. So it’s been really fun to do both at the same time. I’m not gonna say that I didn’t in the beginning. wish I hadn’t been further along on the journey. But when I realized it was way more fun to just let myself be where I’m at, then I just let myself be where I’m at.
Andrea Nordling 22:25
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, so many directions that kind of want to go with that. Here’s what’s coming up the most. And the question I really want to ask because I feel like I hear this a lot from my students. And I had this thought, as well. So no judgement, if this is what you’re thinking, but I see you, if you have the thought. A lot of holistic nutritionist and wellness practitioners feel like they shouldn’t talk about weight loss. Like there’s this almost like this stigma about offering to help people lose weight, or telling people that they’ll likely lose weight as a result of the work that we do together. And just like not even wanting to touch that not wanting to advertise it not wanting, like any part of it. And I feel like this is my perspective. But I feel like that comes from our own insecurities about losing weight ourselves, or maintaining our weight ourselves, or just like all of the expectations around this whole topic. And what you have really helped me with is just separating like, there’s a goal, you want to lose 10 pounds, you’re happy where you are, but you still want to lose 10 pounds, and that’s totally okay. And I feel like that approaching it in that much more clean way, then the judgment of like, no, but you are fine. It’s fine if you don’t and you shouldn’t even talk about this, and but it’s really all about the food quality. And are you how, like all the other story around it gets so cloudy. And I know that a lot of other practitioners feel this way too. So I’m wondering what your thoughts are, from your clients that you work with? About, like how their thoughts about their own weight loss journey prohibit them? This is a very leading question, but how it prohibits them from helping other people lose weight, because I see this a lot.
Paige Bowman 24:04
Well, when you have this idea that you shouldn’t talk about weight loss, it will 100% affect how you talk to your people. So you might beat around the bush a lot in your marketing. And you might just beat around the bush because you have thoughts about yourself, like separate from weight loss. So you might not be showing up as your most authentic self or maybe not putting yourself on video because you have thoughts about yourself. That’s a lot of the things my clients struggle with is I shouldn’t want to lose weight like I was saying earlier, because of what people will make that mean about me and the way I think about myself, but also I want to lose weight and I feel ashamed about that. I have thoughts about my body and I don’t want to be on camera and I don’t want to I get pictures taken of myself and people to see that. So it’s affecting not only what they talk about in their marketing and how they tell people, they’ll solve their problems and what solutions they talk about or don’t, but also how they themselves show up in their marketing, because of all these thoughts that they don’t, that they have about where they’re at right now and their journey. And I’ve had people struggle with this. I’ve had doctors, I’ve had business coaches, I’ve had just entrepreneurs and weight loss coaches, and they all experienced this holding themselves back from telling people, they can really help them for this very reason.
Andrea Nordling 25:47
Yeah, that’s what I see, too. So often, my students are like, it’ll present like this, like, well, the people that are coming to me, they just want weight loss, and I do so much more than that. And I’m like, but okay, like, I’m, I’ll reserve my thoughts, what are your thoughts on that?
Paige Bowman 26:02
So I, this is where I get a little controversial. I had, I had a friend tell me that she’s gonna take weight loss, actually out of her program title, because she wants people to not feel ashamed when they tell people they’re doing that program or sign up for it. And I hear you, and I think that is brilliant for your people, and for your business. But here’s my thoughts. There are a lot of stereotypes around the idea of losing weight. And I think that they’re all confused. And I have this a mission in my mind to change, even what we make it mean, when someone says they’re losing weight, or they have a weight loss goal. And it’s kind of what you said earlier about having a goal and just letting it be a clean goal and not make it mean anything about you. And that’s my goal. Because I think that we do live in a world or culture that the words weight loss or losing weight it there’s so much tied to it so charged. And so when you were saying that people aren’t wanting to talk about losing weight, it’s because of what they think losing weight means. So they have some opinions about someone who wants to lose weight, like those, those clients that they have coming to them. And I would say those are unquestioned ideas. Yeah.
Andrea Nordling 27:28
Yeah. So how would we question them? Let’s like, let’s give examples of how we would question that.
Paige Bowman 27:33
Well, the basic one is, what do you make it mean that someone says they want to lose weight? Like you could just do a five minute brain dump? What are all the things I’ve been taught when I hear the words weight loss or losing weight? So if my friend, your Becky, or Courtney,
Andrea Nordling 27:52
Courtney,
Paige Bowman 27:55
Courtney calls me up, and she’s like, Hey, I joined this weight loss program, I’m gonna lose 20 pounds? What are all the things that come up? In your head? Those first few automatic thoughts, write those down, and then we start questioning them, where they come from? Do I like that I have this idea, this thought tied to losing weight. So that that’s an example of how to see what your current thoughts are. And I coach on this as well, because my clients are surrounded, uh, we all are right, by diet, culture, or weight loss. And we’ll coach on their stuff. And then we’ll coach on their opinions about weight loss as well, not just third journey, because, right, it’s the same thing where, you know, you’re on a journey to stop emotionally overeating to stop using food to feel better. But if we’re still not questioning our thoughts about weight loss in general, then we’re going to keep these judgments and these stereotypes that just aren’t helping anyone.
Andrea Nordling 28:56
Yeah. Oh, that’s so good. I feel like I should be taking notes for my own.
Fun this I love it so much.
I’m imagining that my people listening to this because I know you guys I talk to you every single week on coaching calls my program, I know you, and I am you and I have the same brain to you. There’s like this subtle judgment of people that not everyone, obviously, some people are just like, Yes, I’m gonna help you lose weight, and there’s very clean and we get to work. Others that want to shy away from that. I feel like a lot of time that there’s some subtle judgment on Oh, but you don’t understand. I’m going to help you do so much more. But there’s like this little underlying subtext that’s like, you just don’t get it. Like you don’t get what I can really do or like you don’t get what’s really at stake here. Or you don’t get what the real issue is. It’s not about losing weight. And there’s like this little argument happening almost between you and your clients when you’re thinking that and having the judgment about them wanting to lose weight. They are asking about losing weight, or that being their first priority, like maybe they have a whole bunch of health problems. But what they really want is to lose weight. And then you’re having this thought, like, oh, but we really should be much more worried about XYZ. So those are the type of thoughts I’m imagining pages, you say that that you want to pull up to the surface, like, what are those things that I’m thinking about the people that talk to me about losing weight? I think that’s so good.
Paige Bowman 30:26
Yeah. And I mean, here’s the thing, like, what if they do just want to lose weight, and that can be the most amazing thing that you help them with. And you know, there’s so many other benefits to that. But what if you are so clean about this idea of weight loss, and you you’ve done your brain dump, and you’ve questioned those stereotypes, those those opinions, you have to weight loss, and you’ve cleaned those up, and then someone comes to you and says, they want to lose weight. And you’re like, This is the most amazing thing in the world. Let’s do it, I’m going to help you lose weight. And then you add on to the bonus, we’re also going to help you with your cholesterol levels, and we’re going to get you off of that medication or, you know, we’re going to help you no longer have PCOS, for example, or get more sleep rested, sleep. And think about from the client’s point of view, you think that their goal is amazing, because you’ve cleaned up your thoughts around weight loss, and you’re giving them that bonus? That’s just so fun to have their back on all their journeys, and then they’re gonna feel that energy from you.
Andrea Nordling 31:38
Yeah. And instead of feeling like they’re slightly being argued with about what their priorities are, or should be, they’re like, Oh, she gets exactly what I want. And she’s gonna help me with all of it. This is yes.
Paige Bowman 31:51
And then they’re probably more on board with the other stuff, because you are exuding this. I’m all in for everything that you want help with. And then we’re on board with all the things.
Andrea Nordling 32:05
You are. Yeah. Okay, so I’m imagining people that are listening to this so far, like, Okay, I’m kind of intrigued about my thoughts about my clients weight loss, my thoughts about my own weight loss. Hopefully, you’re making lots of brainstorming lists about just what these thoughts are in general, and then starting to question them. That’s my hope. But I’m imagining that someone listening to this is also thinking, but I still do want to lose weight. And I don’t know how. So what do we do about that problem? If we’re being real honest with ourselves, because I solved this problem by hiring you. And I think everyone should do that. So voters have action steps before that happens.
Paige Bowman 32:43
I would say the first thing is to accept yourself as someone who wants to lose weight and doesn’t know how. Because no matter how you move forward on this journey, if you’re having your own back along the way, it’s going to be so much easier to experiment with, say, a program or a coach, and see what they can offer you and learn everything that you can from that because you are loving that you have this goal and not making it mean anything negative about yourself. So instead of getting into action, have that chat with yourself that yes, this is a goal of mine. No, I’m not making it mean anything about me. I’m practicing loving myself where I’m at right now. Alright. Are we good? We’re good. Okay, let’s go.
Andrea Nordling 33:37
That’s so fantastic. I’m sure everyone listening was expecting you to be like, first thing we’re gonna do is start writing down your food. And you’re like, No. First thing we’re gonna do is accept this, the fact that you have a goal for yourself, and you have your own back and you love it. And it’s fine.
Paige Bowman 33:53
Yes. Listen, I am a scientist at heart. I experiment with everything. I mean, like I’m experimenting, oh, you all will love this. I’m experimenting with adding broccoli and cauliflower back into my diet, because those kinds of vegetables and cabbage to bother my stomach. And so I’m experimenting with how much can I add to my salad every day. And I don’t get a stomachache. And I was wrong about the measurements today. So when I say I’m an experimenter, and the scientists are I mean it and the reason I’m bringing this up is because if you’re if you have a goal to lose weight, that’s the that’s the mindset you want to have. You want to put on your white scientists lab coat, grab your clipboard, pick a program or a, you know, action steps like mine that I share on Instagram all the time are the three super simple steps. Like you said, playing your food, write it down and do it. But whatever you choose, do it from that angle. experiment mindset. I’m going to try this out, see what I’m going to learn and evaluate, celebrate and keep going it. It’s exactly what you said with the nutritionist, the certification training that you did, where you learned. It’s not just about the food, you kept going. And now you’re experimenting with coaching and mindset and the emotion work. And it’s so much easier to be that scientist be the experimenter on your journey, when you started with having your own back and accepting that this is where you are, this is the goal you have. Let’s go.
Andrea Nordling 35:36
Yeah. And I think I don’t actively do nutrition coaching anymore. But if I was still doing that, if I was taking clients right now, I know I would be such a better practitioner because of the work that I’ve done on looking at my own brain. And that is the goal. I guess that’s the big takeaway. And another reason I wanted to do this episode is to shine some light on the fact that it’s okay, if you, it first of all, is completely normal to have these imposter thoughts. We all have them. On some level, this is a big area where I see our people have it as if they’re not completely healed of their health condition, or they still have weight to lose and don’t look like their idea of what a perfect healthy health coach would look like. Which is just a thought that you have, by the way, that’s just like an idea in your brain. There’s no mayor of the internet that decided what a health coach needs to look like, physically, that doesn’t exist. But anyway, those expectations that we have on ourselves, is a huge reason why people shy away from this work, even though they want to do it so much. So I really wanted to talk about this. But also, because when you do explore these ideas, in your own mind, you’re so much more open to your clients. And think you think about their problems in a different way you think about how to talk to them in a different way. And you have new ideas forming and new solutions and new processes in your own mind that you get to share with them because of your openness to be doing this work yourself. So I’m a huge proponent of you have any goal to go for it. And be very curious and loving to yourself along the way. But be that like put on your scientist lab code and be curious and experiment with lots of different things. I think that it’s commendable that you’re trying to incorporate more broccoli, and that that wasn’t like I like your example, that will be very relatable to everyone listening. But I just want to I guess I don’t know, that’s my point is saying, I’m glad we’re having this conversation to normalize these thoughts that we have about ourselves. And then the judgments that we have about other people who want to lose weight really looking at it questioning are these thoughts, I want to keep thinking and realizing they’re totally optional. And we don’t have to that makes us better practitioners. This is what I’m trying to say. Yeah.
Paige Bowman 37:40
And I think like the only other thing I wanted to add was this idea. And it goes right along side with what you just said, is this idea that you make your place in life, where you’re at, what journey you’re on what goals you have, make it means anything about other people’s goals or desires, I think that’s something that is really important to consider. So for example, could I coach people on being more organized in their household while believing or, I mean, I could say I’m not organized, but then you might just say that’s a thought. So why are believing I’m not great at organizing, I could 100% Help them because I’ve detached me my place in life, my place, and my journey from anyone else’s goals or desires or journey. And so it’s very powerful to see that you’ve attached your idea of where you’re at what you make it mean, whether you have lost the weight, you want to whether you have a weight loss goal or not. And see that you have attached that to what other people want, and their goals and their desires, ie people will come to you who want to lose weight, and you haven’t hit your weight loss goal yet. And then you can I’m giving you permission, totally detach those two things. You can be someone who is struggling with adrenal fatigue, and that’s you and your place on your journey. And someone can come to you and have a goal to solve for that. And that has nothing to do with you and your journey and where you’re at. And it’s possible that they have nothing to do with each other.
Andrea Nordling 39:31
Right? I love that you use that example because I coached on adrenal fatigue specifically when I was practicing nutrition, and I’m the poster child for adrenal fatigue so I understood it very, very well. I understood the struggles I understood the patterns. I could speak to it like crazy and I have still not handled all of my hormonal adrenal issues. Not even a little bit, but I never I guess in that situation, it was very easy for me to detach. I felt like this is a work in progress, but I I felt really clean about like, No, I’m the person that needs to help you. Because I know all about this, believe me
know all about this.
And this, it just is like a really interesting example that you say that because I never had any of those thoughts about being an imposter. I felt like no, I’m for sure that want to teach you because I am still doing all of this myself.
Paige Bowman 40:18
This is some powerful thoughts right there that powerful thoughts
Andrea Nordling 40:21
to bring towards helping people with their weight loss? Yeah.
Paige Bowman 40:26
And like, ask yourself, like, what results will my clients get by working with me no matter where I am on my journey that they wouldn’t get or create as fast? If they’re not able to work with me, because I’m holding back. And I’m not marketing. And I’m not telling them, I can help them. I mean, that’s the bottom line, right? That’s what we’re wanting to do is help people. And if we’re holding back, what do people not get solved? Because we’re telling ourselves, we shouldn’t help them.
Andrea Nordling 40:59
That’s such a good point, I kind of want to have a tangent moment on that, that I think we some sometimes in this, some people will, but we sometimes have this expectation that if we don’t help someone, they’ll find someone else that will. And that’s not true. Most of the time, I think for a lot of people, if you don’t help them, they will just keep struggling, it’s they may not be introduced to someone else that can help them they may not seek that out. And they may just keep struggling unnecessarily, it’s not like if it’s not you that there’s just someone down the street that they’ll find that will magically heal them, they may just live in a lot of pain and anguish for forever.
Paige Bowman 41:37
And, to your point, if they come to you and they’re interested in you, it’s because they like you. So you’re right, like they may not go find help elsewhere, because you’re telling them you can help them or making that offer, I can help you lose weight and all these things and sell them on that. But they liked you. And so you’re not offering to help them or you’re holding back, they may not go find help elsewhere because they like you.
Andrea Nordling 42:05
Yeah, exactly. And maybe weight loss isn’t something that you’re specifically struggling with. But I know for a lot of practitioners, there’s something that’s like this Achilles heel of, if my clients knew that I still had X problem, or I still was worried about x thing they wouldn’t like they wouldn’t believe in me, or they would think I was not credible or like whatever that sentence is for you. You can enter it in here and would apply for sure.
Paige Bowman 42:31
And you could also ask yourself, if I’m hiring someone, I want to work with someone and I found out they were on this journey too. So for example, I have a business coach who’s still has goals to make money. And so do I. What are my thoughts about her being on this journey? Do I make that a problem? Am I okay with it? Like checking in with what your thoughts are when you’re the client? And you’re the person wanting help? And consider that your people are thinking the same thing? Of course, I don’t care. Help me.
Andrea Nordling 43:03
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
I love doing these imposter syndrome episodes and coming at the same, the same issue from lots of different angles, because it’s just ultimately it’s just our thoughts. We keep coming all roads lead to Rome, we keep coming back to the back. That’s just our thoughts. There really is no such thing as an imposter. You’re ready right now. You could do it. And that’s just my thoughts.
Paige Bowman 43:30
News, if it’s your thoughts, you get to do something about that.
Andrea Nordling 43:33
Totally. And you can do it right away without any more certifications, and letters behind your name, without any of it just ready right now. Okay, what else didn’t we cover today that people need to know about when it comes to imposter syndrome, and particularly in the weight loss department?
Paige Bowman 43:52
I think we covered everything I wanted to cover because the main thing was your people, practitioners, coaches, nutritionists that got into this, especially if they’re starting a business or have a business to help people. And it’s really important to realize that this idea that you’re not good enough just to keep it basic, is limiting your ability to help people. And for me that is compelling enough to dig into my thoughts to dig into my beliefs about myself my journey, right, that topic, whether it’s weight loss or something else, what are my thoughts about that? So I can clean that up. So I can help more people.
Andrea Nordling 44:37
That’s so good. Like such a good reminder, for sure. You can help more people as well. So why don’t you tell everybody where they can find you and about your podcast and about working with you and all that jazz?
Paige Bowman 44:48
Yeah, I have a podcast. I just started this year. I was right after you. Yeah. It’s so fun podcasting. It’s called weight loss for life. coaches, and it’s on Apple, Google Spotify, probably wherever you’re listening. And I put out an episode weekly. And I talked about a lot of what we talked about today, right? Not just the food stuff. But how do you lose weight while you have a business. And it’s helpful for anyone, even if you don’t call yourself a coach, if you’re doing this work, where you’re helping people, and you’re building your business or growing your business, and you have a health or weight loss journey yourself. So go check that out. And I have a website where I post articles page by men calm, and I’m an Instagram, I know are people sometimes their social media, sometimes not. But it’s a life coach page be on Instagram, and you can check out, I put out lots of posts about weight loss, I have this tagline that I help people lose weight with simplicity and ease. And that’s part of the change I’m making around weight loss, not only dropping the stereotypes we have around it, and any of the drama that our brain offers us when it comes to losing weight, but also making it simple so that you can go on that journey if you want to while you’re building your business, living your life. All the things.
Andrea Nordling 46:17
Yeah. Okay, so all of that is linked up in the show notes for this episode, of course. But I also like how you say that like to do it while you’re building a business. I guess we didn’t talk about that specifically. But there is another thought error that comes up in our human brains, I have had this one many, many times, that tells me I should just have one goal at a time. So if I’m working on my business, I should like everything else should just stop while I do that. Or if I’m working on weight loss, everything else should stop. If I’m working on fill in the blank, whatever it is that everything else around me needs to stop all other goals cease to exist. And my friend that is just a thought error. That’s actually not true. It turns out this just in, you can do multiple things at one time, because you still have your same brain in all of these endeavors. And when you get better at recognizing your own thought patterns in one area, so we’re going to think but it transfers over to the other goals to
Paige Bowman 47:09
100%. In fact, my second episode of my podcast, I made, why it’s okay to have a big business goal and lose weight. Because I was told, just like you were saying to have one goal at a time, and I decided to become a coach go through certification and start my business while working full time and lose 25 pounds. And I said, I hear you. But no, I’m going to big goals. And I did. And I mean, it took learning and experimenting, right? Learning what worked, what didn’t while I was building my business and working and having a life. And then I took that and I simplified the things that I had learned about weight loss. And also, which is exactly what you just said, learned how to take what I’m learning in one area and apply it and that in itself is a skill and it’s a powerful skill. So I am all for losing weight while you build your business, especially because you can do it in a simple way. Yeah.
Andrea Nordling 48:15
And then you teach your clients for those of us that are practitioners helping people at the same thing you teach your clients how to do it simply to Yes, yeah, in my program, we do a lot of this work where we take the business strategy, and then we apply it directly to and how do you help your clients use this exact same tactic for their health journey? Because it’s our same brains and our same thought patterns showing up everywhere. I love that so good. Yeah. Okay, Paige, thank you for coming and chatting with us. Can we have you back in the future is this one. And I know there could be a lot of questions that come forth that people are gonna want more deep dives into this. And I want you to do it with us.
Paige Bowman 48:50
Yes, I would love to thank you for having me.
Andrea Nordling 48:54
All right, everybody, go check out pages stuff. She’s amazing. Truly amazing. And when you hire page, you’re not gonna talk about food very much, which is kind of kind of the weirdest thing ever. You might end up talking about business more than you talk about food because all roads lead to Rome, you know, right. That’s right. Oh, good. All right, Paige. Have a good day. Thanks.
