The things we really want in life often, ironically, prevent us from being truly happy. When we spend more time thinking about what we don’t have rather than what we do, we get impatient and often dejected.  

And always thinking about the future means we’re not living in the present moment.

This is why we need to let go of our desires. 

Yes, you read that right. And no, I’m not implying you shouldn’t desire things. I do. 

But the things we desire are part of our journey – one that takes time, effort and most of all, patience. 

And by assuring ourselves the things we desire simply haven’t materialized “yet” inspires us to keep striving toward those goals while simultaneously honouring what’s already present in our lives.

In this episode, we’re talking about:

• How to stop focusing on the future and trusting the journey
• What it’s costing you you hang on to a desire
• Why wishing for something often means missing things altogether
• Why we sometimes desire the wrong things
• Why our impatience can actually delay us even more
• What to do when feeling FOMO (fear of missing out)
• Why is important to disconnect from social media to find presence

Hope you connect with this episode, and would love to hear if you’ve had to let go of a desire, only to find it worked out better for you in the end!

REFERENCES:

Episode 314 | Being Open To Receiving, Surrendering & Accepting From Others 

Episode 315 | Manifestation Is A Sign Of Healing With Alea Lovely Of “Spiritual Sh*T”

Episode 305 | Re-Thinking Boundaries & Becoming An Energetic Match For Your Desires

Episode 221 | Your Job Is Not Who You Are: Trust The Journey 

The “RobCast” Episode 327 “Quote Yourself” with Rob Bell

CONNECT WITH EMILY

Book a private coaching call with Emily to work together.

Your FREE 15-page foundational guide Where Do We Begin.

Jump on the waitlist for Becoming YOU, my 6 week women’s group coaching program re-launching Tuesday, July 12.

Men’s group coaching program coming in August 2022 – waitlist here.

Instagram: @emilygoughcoach

info@emilygoughcoaching.com 

Emily Gough Coaching

Room to Grow Podcast

Podcast Producer: Adam Liefl

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Episode Transcript

I’m Emily Gough, a human connection coach speaker, and mental health advocate within insatiable sense of curiosity and adventure. Always asking more questions and using the power of stories to teach, learn, and grow. It’s about allowing for room to grow. And this podcast focuses on three main pillars, human connection, personal growth, and freedom. We cover topics like relationships and cultivating,

genuine, supportive connections with ourselves and others speaking your truth, shattering personal barriers, radical self-acceptance, and courageously leaning into your skillsets. Whether it’s a solo episode or bringing on highly curated guests with incredible stories, experiences, and expertise to share, we’re leaning in and taking the entire idea of growth to the next level all while still covering the uncomfortable topics that many of us like to avoid.

There’s always more room to grow. Let’s do this. Hey, welcome back to the room to grow podcasts, Emily here, and today is I’m recording this on the summer solstice and I’ve been promising my poor podcast producer that I am going to start batch recording to get farther ahead. This is how I used to operate. And then something called a pandemic happened.

My ability to batch record fell apart when the, when it felt like the world did. So I don’t usually record quite this close to actual recording or air dates, but here we are, this is the situation. And I have an entire Google doc that is absolutely full of episode ideas that I want to record and talk about. And for some reason,

the last week or so, I’ve looking at the ideas I’ve been looking at the notes. Some of them are, are just like complete. Like they’re literally just waiting for me to hit record and actually speak the words into existence. And I’ve already got everything in place for them. And something has just been stopping me from recording and I couldn’t really figure out why.

And I’ve been giving myself a hard time and, and it, it finally came to me this morning and I’ll get into the story of, of that a little bit more in a minute. But one of the things that came up is that in the last few weeks, and then this week as well, I’m wrapping up, I just wrapped up the last virtual,

the, this past VR virtual version of my women’s group coaching program becoming you and I am about to wrap up a live in person version that I’m doing of becoming you at the moment this week. So I always put a lot of energy into the closings of those containers, because I think that it’s really important to, to close a coaching container as, as much as it is to open it.

And I always feel this, this such joy, but almost a little bit of grief when I end some of these containers, because they’re so beautiful and the connections that have been developed and the relationships that the women develop with, with each other and with themselves, and the way that I watched them shift and grow in such a short period of time. And it,

that just keeps happening and it is so cool to see. And, and it’s really, it’s so special. And it also is then like a transitionary period. So I’m actually getting ready to, to reopen the doors again for the next round of becoming you, but between that, and then the transition of the season, we are, we, as humans are so much more tied to nature than we like to think that we are.

And I don’t know if it’s just me in particular. I, I tend to feel extremely sensitive to seasons changing and, and the cyclical nature of it all. And so I’ve been looking forward to summer because I mean, I always look forward to summer because hello, sunshine, but it’s, I, I F when I look back, there seems to be a lot that happens in summer months.

And so I really wanted to honor that today. And, and I’ve, I’ve been taking note of really making an effort to honor the changing of the seasons, especially in the last year or so. So this morning I got up at four 30 in the morning. I went down to the beach. I’m really lucky to, to live near the beach right now and welcomed in the summer solstice and just really honoring this shifting of seasons and,

and shifting of energy and all of these different things. And it got me thinking about something that’s been on my mind a lot lately, and it’s come up with clients, it’s come up with myself, it’s come up with friends and, and, and in all kinds of conversations lately about letting go, letting go in a variety of senses. So we can get into this in a whole bunch of different ways,

but more specifically letting go of desire. And you might be thinking, well, what the fuck am I not allowed to have desires? Yes, you absolutely are. Have the desires, have them express them, tell someone, journal about it, whatever you want to do, have the desire, because those are so beautiful to progress us forward to where we’re going.

Even if we don’t know exactly where that is yet, but when we just follow even one desire at a time, it’s like following the breadcrumbs of life and we follow one, and then it opens the door to the next breadcrumb. And then we follow that. And then it, we end up looking back and going like, holy shit, look at this incredible journey that has unfolded that I never could have predicted for myself.

If I’d been the one planning, this, this is not the route that I would have necessarily taken, but I’m so proud of myself for getting here and look at the look at the amazing things that have happened as a direct result. So have the desire, but then let it go release the plans, release the expectations, release the timelines, trust this journey,

trust this journey. And I know how hard that is. I have spent the last two and a half years not trusting my journey, like, like yes, in some ways, and, and developing deeper trust along the way. But recently it came to a head where I was like, no, I have to go deeper into this. I have to go deeper into trust.

I can’t just have this like surface level version of trust because I would, I would convince myself that I was trusting the journey. And I was sometimes, and I have gotten so much better over the years, but I, I needed to fully surrender because here’s the thing. When we express a desire, a desire can still signify in a lot of ways,

a lack, because it’s something that you’re wanting, meaning that it’s something that you don’t have. And when we put something out into the universe like that, this doesn’t mean that we like, you know, then sit back and sit on the couch and wait for it to magically appear. We, we still have to take action. We have to, to move towards whatever it is that we’re working towards.

And in one in one way or another, even really, really tiny ways, but some sort of progressive movement, right? Even if we don’t know really what we’re doing, but when it comes to trusting the journey and letting go of the thing that you’re desiring, whatever that is, or the things plural, you, don’t put it out into the universe and then ask 200 more times if it’s here yet.

Because if there’s a class I’m taking right now that they were the, the particular slide that I’m picturing right now, they were talking about it in terms of happiness. But it’s, it’s very similar because a lot of times our desires are very closely tied to our happiness, where it’s like planting a seedling in the ground and then ripping it out of the ground every single day to be like,

have you grown yet? Are we there yet? Right. This isn’t how it works. We know this intuitively, and this is again like a very tied to, to nature, which is what made me think of it. We have to let the desire go. And this is tricky because a lot of times the letting go of the desire feels like giving up.

It feels like complacency. It feels like if we detach from that thing that we want that, then we’re never going to get it. It’s not how it works. It’s not how it works. And I’m literally recording this episode as always for me, as much as it is for you, because I have had to work through this a lot lately. And ultimately what this comes down to is presence.

Because if we’re spending our lives in a constant state of desiring the relationship, desiring the, the certain amount of money, desiring the job, desiring the sense of purpose, desiring the vacation, whatever it is, whatever it is that you want, it means that we’re always living in a future state rather than the state that we are currently in the present moment,

because that is all we have. That is all we have. And when I really started to think about this, I started looking back. This was, this was a few weeks ago. I started looking back on the past couple of summers, which were both in the pandemic. And I realized that I had spent my time wishing away the summers both times hoping to be somewhere else,

both years, both years. So two summers ago, the summer of 2020, I spent my time wishing the summer away for wide variety of reasons, hoping to be almost anywhere else in the world. But there are a couple specific places that I had in mind and I did eventually get there. And that, that was, that was fine. And then the following summer,

I spent the first part of the summer, wishing my summer away, hoping to be somewhere else. Then when I got to that place, then I spent all of my time wishing to be somewhere different, again, for a variety of, of reasons and, and a relationship that was involved in all these things that came in to my life, rather unexpectedly.

And I’m looking back at it now going, oh my God, like I spent the last two summers wishing away my days. That’s bullshit. That is not okay. I’m not down with this. So this summer I had actually made plans to travel quite imminently. Actually I was, I was going to be leaving very soon and I pulled the plug on throttling because for a variety of reasons,

but intuitively it just, I was getting this hit of like, this isn’t the right time yet. This isn’t the right time. And I’m going to get more into the word yet in a minute, but this isn’t the right time. And for both a number of logical and intuitive reasons, it just timing circumstance. Essentially. I was trying to force something as opposed to just allowing something to unfold.

And initially when I came to the decision, which I knew was the right decision that I was going to let it go. I was sad. I was sad because I was really looking forward to this trip. It’s somewhere that I haven’t been in a really long time. I was really looking forward to it. And I, I was, I was disappointed.

And then I realized this about the last couple of summers. And I’m like, no, I’m not doing this again. I am going to appreciate the shit out of every single moment I have this summer and the beautiful season and the beautiful place that I am and everything about it and enjoy it to the fullest because I want to be present. I want to be present.

And I want to gift you with, with this word yet. It is a tiny but powerful three letter word that can completely change your outlook on things, because you can add it to the end of any sentence. And I’m going to challenge you to do that. This is your challenge from this episode is to use the word yet, insert the word yet at the end of any sentence,

where you’re expressing a desire that hasn’t materialized yet. And then, and then we’re letting the desire go. So that that’s part two, but part one is I don’t have the relationship yet. I haven’t made it to that place yet, or I can’t take that trip yet. It doesn’t make sense for me to make that trip yet. Any, anything you can think of?

Just add the word yet, because if we’re going to come out this from a growth perspective as well, this is the future determinator determinator. Is that a word that is definitely not a word. I’m just kidding. I’m just going to leave that one alone. Maybe we should just make up a dictionary of words that I accidentally say on this podcast that are not actual words and that we can just create a whole new dictionary.

It is, it is. It’s helping you to gain perspective in a moment where you might be feeling really defeated. You might be feeling like, because something hasn’t come in yet that it’s not going to, but when you remind yourself of the, yet it gives you the necessary hope. In some cases, to keep going to take the steps that are actually going to get you there,

to allow things to unfold, to trust what is coming to you. Because otherwise we always end up running around in a rush, impatient, like, why isn’t it here yet? What if your impatience is exactly what is delaying? The thing you seek? What if your growth is in the waiting? We, we know that to usually be true. Whenever we look back on past situations,

we’re like, wow, if that, if that thing I wanted had come in so much earlier, I actually wouldn’t have been ready to receive it. I can’t tell you the number of times that I have had that experience, especially in the past two or three years of looking back and going, wow, if that thing I wanted had come in exactly when I said I wanted it,

I would not only would I not have been open to receive it, I probably would have actually pushed it away because I wasn’t ready to receive it. And if you’re having, you know, if you’re having FOMO or if you find that you’re constantly looking outside of yourself for answers as well about why the thing hasn’t come yet, or why this thing hasn’t unfolded yet,

or why your journey looks the way it does hit pause for a minute. I teach my clients about this too. Like practice the pause. I teach that in terms of communication with other people. And I teach that in terms of sometimes stopping the rumination patterns that we can have in our own heads, hit pause for a minute, hit pause. Sometimes we need to just fully unsubscribed to whatever’s going on in our head,

but we, we need to at least hit pause and take stock of what you’re consuming. This can often be about a media and information diet. This can be about spending a lot of time on social media diet. I had a coach years ago, who my very first business coach, she taught us, you know, creator over consumer and creators are the ones who are actually creating the stuff.

Consumers. We’re the ones that are then just scrolling through everything. And you know, that can be consumer can be, that term can be thought of in a variety of different contexts. But if we’re thinking about this in terms of digitally, that’s when we get sucked in, because we all do. It’s sometimes to the social media scroll. And if you notice,

and if you haven’t noticed yet, I strongly recommend that you do this when you spend more time offline than on your happiness will increase. There is research to back that up. And I have personally experienced that many, many times over, and sometimes it, you know, the conversation, I caught myself a few times in the past couple months, like getting a little too into the scroll and noticing a lot of feelings coming up as a result.

And, you know, I love looking for inspiration or learning more about topics I’m interested in, but how often am I choosing to not trust myself? And instead looking at a side of myself for answers in those moments, how often is it that I’m, that my consumption is actually clouding my own sense of self and my own. Self-trust ask yourself these questions because there it’s real.

It is so real when we train ourselves, when we train our brains to constantly be looking outside of ourselves, for answers that we’re seeking, let’s say actually, something like astrology is, is a great example of this because I do actually believe in some astrology stuff. I think, I think it’s super fascinating. I am not an expert. I did not know nearly enough about it.

And I’m also someone who is very grounded and rooted in science too. But I see a lot of value in like all these different topics and like bringing everything together. And, but I can tell that I’m like seeking something outside of myself. If I start looking at like all this astrology stuff and, and just constantly looking for answers in that, as opposed to actually sitting with myself and going inward and asking myself what I think,

what do I feel in this moment? What is it that, that I want all of these types of things it’s related. Like we have to, we talk about relationships on this podcast all the time. And this, this is tying into, you know, your relationship to self, your relationship to the media, your relationship, to, to consumption in every sense of the word,

your relationship to the stories you repeat to yourself over and over and over again, the relationship you have to, the people you surround yourself with, what are you feeding yourself in every sense of the word? What are you tolerating? What are you willingly giving your power away to? This is a really good opportunity, especially with this, this seasonal shift to get grounded,

to really truly ground yourself and within yourself as well. If we’re talking more literal practices here, practice, you know, like walking around on the grass barefoot, that is huge. That is actually huge or in the sand or whatever. Anything involving water is really beautiful. You can even do visualizations of, of the water, like washing away other people’s energy that you may have picked up.

Like those types of things. It’s, there’s so many different ways to get grounded and to immerse yourself in nature more and, and other ways of like, just be still, listen, get uncomfortable. There’s a lot of discomfort in the sitting in silence. And I say this all the time, you heard me say this before on the bike guys, you need to be spending a minimum of five minutes a day in silence with no screens and no distractions minimum.

That is the absolute bare minimum that you should be spending every single day, because we’re always looking for answers outside of ourselves, but you already have so many of the answers within you, but you might not trust yourself enough or have enough space left to be able to hear the answers coming through. And I know that this can be hard right now. You know,

this is a little bit of a weird, a weird season that we’re in. And I, I don’t mean the summer exactly, but I mean, in the sense that we’re coming out of like these two long years of, of everything that, that the world has undergone in the last couple of years, and a lot of people are starting to travel a huge amount and all these things.

And, you know, you might be looking around at the lives of others and wishing for something other than what you already possess. But as soon as you step into that space, you completely lose your sense of, of empowerment and it’s time to reclaim your power. And again, I have to remind myself of that sometimes. And I literally have that written on my website as one of my taglines to reclaim your power,

because there’s so much power in that because when we can figure out for ourselves that we don’t need to look outside of ourselves for everything that, that we don’t have to constantly be desiring all these things, and then focusing on what we don’t have as opposed to what we do. And like you are so much more powerful than you think you are so much more powerful than you think there was a really great podcast I listened to by Rob bell,

I’d never listened. I don’t even know really who he is, to be honest. And, and I, I had never listened to his podcast before, but there was a particular episode. Now I can’t remember who told me to listen to this episode, but he had an episode called quote yourself and I listened to it. And it was all about just like literally quoting yourself as opposed to quoting others.

And there are lots of times where I’ve shared really fantastic quotes from incredible humans on, on this podcast. And, and that’s, that’s beautiful. That’s wonderful. And he is also making the point that we’re often looking outside of ourselves. And if somebody has, if somebody states a quote or says something that resonates so deeply with you, it means that,

that you have a shared experience like that, that you, you recognize parts of yourself in those words. And if you recognize those parts of yourself in those words, then you can actually probably talk about it yourself, a lot more than you, you potentially give yourself credit for. And that’s just one example here, but, but that’s one example of like reclaiming your power in some ways.

So this is not the episode that I had intended for today. I wanted to record there. There’s, there’s so many. And, and a lot of them, you know, relate very specifically to like some romantic relationship stuff and all of that. But I felt that this was really important because it is a new season. You may be kind of like looking at where you’re at.

It’s also halfway through the year too. So I know that that can also be a big moment for people where they’re looking at, where, how far they’ve maybe come this year, how much more they want to do this year and potentially feeling a little bit overwhelmed or feeling like, well, this thing hasn’t materialized yet, or this thing hasn’t come in yet.

It’s okay. It’s okay. And I know that that’s hard. I do trust me. I know, I know that that’s hard and sometimes it does not feel okay, but when we can accept where we’re at, when we can have compassion for where we’re at, when we can appreciate how much we already have and all of the beautiful abundance that already is overflowing in our lives.

And when we can live in the present moment, as we express a desire, and then we release it, we let it go. There’s such a deep sense of peace that can come from that. And ultimately, when I peel back the layers of what most people are searching for in this life, and you can do this for yourself, a lot of times it comes down to things like peace,

ease, calm, love, acceptance, right? Like all of these things, these are kind of the core things that there’s nothing wrong with having desires. You can, you can desire to have the biggest mansion in Hollywood Hills. I dunno. I’m literally making that up off the top of my head, but, and that’s great. And I want that for you too.

If you want that, then I, then I want that for you too. And you can have that and have the peace, ease, calm, and love and all those beautiful things. You can have it all, but if you’re constantly reaching for something that you don’t have, and you know, back to the metaphor for before, like ripping the seedling out of the ground going,

are we there yet? Have you grown? Yes. Have you materialized in my life that why haven’t you grown? We’re not going to get very far. Right. And, and again, you know, it’s really interesting. And some of the research or unhappiness and stuff, people who, who constantly check in with themselves, like, am I happier yet?

They actually end up being less happy than the ones who simply accept where they’re at. They still take active steps every day to work towards their happiness, but they’re not always constantly going inward asking themselves if they’re happier yet. And this is part of the unfolding. This is part of the trust of, of self, the trust of the journey, the trust of,

of the universe, or however you want to phrase that we have to let go. We have to be present and we have to trust. So I hope that this is maybe something that somebody needed to hear. Cause I, I needed to hear this and, and this can be because it is a changing of the, it can be a really great time to set intentions,

not goals. Exactly, but just intentions on how you’re going to show up for this beautiful new season. And if you have things that you would like to express a desire for fantastic, do that and then release them, let it go, and then continue to live your life, continue to follow the breadcrumbs of life and see where they lead you. But letting it go is going to give you so much more peace on that journey.

Imagine, imagine that the future version of you is who already has everything you could possibly desire right now that you’re expressing desire for your future self already has all those things. And they’re just like chilling on a lounge chair going, what are you so stressed about? Like, everything’s coming just calm down. Like when we look back on our journeys, sometimes we can look at moments where we were maybe in such a tizzy and so stressed.

And we’re like, wow, I didn’t actually need to be that stressed in that moment. And what would life have looked like if I had been able to just relax in that moment instead, and I’m not saying that everything is about, you know, putting our feet up and relaxing because that’s, that’s, that’s just not life where there’s going to be really,

really hard moments. There’s going to be times where we, where we have to put in a ton of work to get us to where we’re going, all of those things that is so real, but can we also infuse a degree of presence into what we’re doing to actually appreciate the journey, instead of always wishing to be somewhere that we’re not either literally or metaphorically,

right. So let me know how this lands, I’d love to hear how this goes for you. How are you feeling about the new season? Do you also feel like you’re really cyclical in nature as well? Like I just, I really, I feel so closely tied to the seasons, especially the past year or two. I’m really noticing that within myself.

And this is just such a beautiful, beautiful season to welcome it and fresh and abundant and, and all of that. So I love it. I’m so excited for an incredible summer. So let me know how this goes before we part ways for today. I wanted to let you know that the doors are reopening for my six week women’s group coaching program becoming you and I just wrapping up a couple different containers of it.

And it has truly just been magical. These women have started having so much more compassion for themselves than they did before and showing themselves so much more kindness that it is just incredible. They’re having conversations with their spouses or with other really important people in their lives that they didn’t even know how to navigate before. And they’re realizing how much courage they have shown in ways that they weren’t even noticing before.

And it’s just been so incredible to witness. I wasn’t sure exactly when I was going to watch this again. And after having done these last two containers, I’m like I have to do this again. I, I very much run my business in terms of what I feel most pulled to do in the moment. So I don’t have some huge launch calendar planned out months in advance,

because if I can’t, if I’m not super, super excited about launching something, I won’t launch it. And I am so excited about being able to offer this again, because I’m just watching absolute magic unfold in this container. And it is so beautiful. The connections that these women are making with each other two has been amazing to witness. It’s incredibly powerful.

So the next one is going to start on Tuesday, July 12th of this year, 2022, obviously. So assuming that you’re listening to this in real time, and if you want VIP pricing, if you want extra bonuses, I will not be offering elsewhere. Make sure to go sign up now. So go check out the link. And when you send it for the interest list,

you’re not committed to purchasing, but you’ll just get all the information before it gets released to the public. So go check out the show notes or jump over to room, to grow podcast.com. All of the information will be over there. And I can’t wait to see you. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. It means the absolute world to me.

And I’m so grateful for any references in the episode and all show notes. Be sure to jump over to room, to grow podcast.com. And if this episode touched your heart, it would mean so much. If you would take a quick second to hit subscribe, write a review and share on social media, over someone who really needs to hear today’s message.

It makes such a difference to keep this podcast going so I can continue to bring you amazing content and absolutely incredible guests. Be sure to tag me over on Instagram at Emily golf coach, that I can thank you in real time for listening and connect with you. We’re back every Tuesday and Thursday with new episodes, and I’m looking forward to growing with you.