Tracy Pleschourt is the founder of Self-Made U, a school that ends unnecessary suffering by teaching people self-control. Having struggled with overdrinking, overeating, career burnout, Tracy was living her life overwhelmed and confused. Getting to the root cause (an unmanaged brain) and learning how to intentionally manage her thoughts, feelings, and actions transformed her life. Today, I want to share her powerful insights into the neuroscience of our brain, learning to think in a different way, and accomplishing goals through self-control. 

It is often difficult for people to see the relationship between their thoughts, how they’re feeling, and the results that they have in their world. When people approach Tracy with a specific goal in mind or a problem they want to solve in some way, she starts off with the following actions: 

Decide very specifically what it is that you want.

Probably the biggest barrier to achieving goals or solving problems, is leaving exactly what it is that you want undecided. People can often become very abstract in what they want and use vague words, like ‘I just want to be healthy’ or ‘I want to feel better’.  

Working in the health and wellness space, I hear this all the time, but it’s important to ask yourself what that actually looks like for you. Sometimes it’s hard to define that because the beliefs that you have about your ability to be healthy might have even prevented you from imagining what a healthy life could look like for you.

Discover what has stood in your way.

It’s likely that whatever this goal or decision is, it’s not brand new to you. You have probably been playing around with this desire for quite some time. What is the conversation that you are unintentionally, subconsciously having because of the messaging that you’ve been exposed to? It is this that’s keeping you from achieving what it is that you want. 

These kinds of thoughts usually come from your primitive brain, which is the part of your brain that’s meant to keep you safe, but it is actually sabotaging you here because you’re not actually in any danger. Once you can understand that you’re just operating from the wrong part of your brain, it relieves a lot of blame and feelings of inadequacy.

So decide exactly what it is that you want, and then discover what has been standing in your way.

A problem to solve or a goal to achieve?

Deciphering between having a problem to solve or a goal that you want to achieve can be tricky. And so if people can’t articulate their goal or desire to be healthy to Tracy, she encourages them to go through the door of a problem that they want to solve. This is because your brain has a much easier time coming up with the things that you don’t want or the things that you don’t like. And when you get very explicit in what it is that you don’t want, you can easily come up with what it is that you do want.

When you’re looking at obstacles that come in the way of your goals,  it’s very normal for your primitive brain to be very reactive and come up with fear-based, reactive type thoughts like, ‘I have no support’, or ‘I have no money’. This is to be expected, but if you’re looking for a specific result, behaving from this negative feeling is probably not working for you, so we need to find a new approach. We need to operate from the other part of your brain.

Becoming SELF-Made

Tracy has developed a self-control operating system, which is a very simple four-part system to help you achieve goals and solve problems fast, no matter what the circumstance is.

S –  Self coach 

This is the art of asking yourself questions like ‘Is that even true?’  

This is a great one to ask, especially when you’re coming up with obstacles. 

E – Eliminating the obstacles

This involves eliminating the obstacles that you can and cannot see. The ones you cannot see are those primitive brain narratives that try to sabotage your efforts in an attempt to keep you “safe”.

L – Leveraging your prodigy brain strength. 

The other part of your brain, the juxtaposition of the primitive brain, is the prodigy brain. And you can tap into certain strengths and certain inherent qualities when you’re operating from your prodigy brain.

F – Forging intentional results

This means being mindful and intentional about all of the best practices that you’re going to take moment by moment.

SELF-MADE people create success through their own effort and taking responsibility for their results. They can also inspire others through indirect modeling and direct teaching. The best part about this framework is that it can be applied to every goal or problem that shows up for you!

Mental Fitness

A huge part of applying the S-E-L-F Control Operating System is encouraging mental fitness, which is essentially strengthening your prodigy brain. Your primitive brain has been overused by being the part of your brain that you operate by default from. Therefore those neural pathways are very well established. Through mental fitness, we want to work to replace those neural pathways with intentional thoughts and that involves strengthening the part of your brain that’s intentional. 

How do I know if I’m making a decision from my primitive brain or my prodigy brain?

Your primitive brain is an analytical brain. It’s going to think really hard about things and it’s not going to feel great when you’re making a decision from your primitive brain. For me, it often feels heavy or sticky when I’m making a decision from my primitive brain. Whereas if you’re making a decision from your prodigy brain, it is going to feel very open. It’s going  to feel like love, either for yourself or for other people. Your primitive brain is going to feel very closed off, and more like pain, or some iteration of fear. And so that’s one way that you can check where you’re making a decision from: ask your body how it feels when making a decision. 

If you are somebody that feels broken, or feel like you’re beyond repair, I really want to encourage you to consider that maybe you weren’t ever taught how to think, and it might be as simple as just learning how to think differently. Ask yourself ‘What if I’m not broken?’ when you’re faced with inertia and fear, and you will make the powerful realization that you can take responsibility for the results you’re producing in life. 

About Tracy Pleschourt

Tracy Pleschourt, the Founder of Self-Made U and the Host of Secrets of the Self-Made Podcast helps men and women achieve their goals and solve all problems FAST by developing SELF-CONTROL!

Tracy has mastered and now teaches an operating system necessary to manage your mind and eliminate any obstacles, including overeating, overdrinking, time management, career & relationship changes and professional development. Just a few years ago, Tracy was a successful advertising executive. Stifled by the rigorous, time-consuming demands of the corporate world, she traded in her 20 years of advertising to pursue her real passion: personal and professional coaching.

• Listen to her Secrets of the Self-Made podcast
• Get 50% off the Mind Over Matter course using the coupon code: THRIVE50

Learn more about her $27, 3 part series here: https://www.self-madeu.com/mind-over-matter