Why Willpower Isn’t Working: The 95% of You Running on Autopilot

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Welcome to Imperfectly Courageous Podcast.
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I'm Miriam.
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This is a place we stop trying to think our way out of feeling stuck and start coming home to who we already are.
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Let's get into it.
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You are smart.
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You've read the books, taken the courses, made the vision board, done the therapy, maybe, listened to all the podcasts, including this one.
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So why do you keep ending up in the same place?
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Here's the answer.
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And I promise you it's going to take the blame off you.
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It's not a discipline problem.
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It's not a willpower problem.
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It's a math problem.
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And the number is 95%.
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Here's what I mean: 95% of your life, your choices, your reactions, the way you talk to yourself, the habits you swear you'll break on Monday is not run by the thinking, planning, goal setting part of you.
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It's run by the part underneath, the subconscious, that part that was programmed long before you had any say in it.
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Picture an iceberg.
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That little tip above the water, that part you can see, that's your conscious mind.
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That's the 5%.
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That's the part making the vision board and setting the alarm for 5 a.m.
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And everything below the water line, the enormous quiet mass holding the whole thing up, that's the 95.
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That's where the real operating system lives.
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So sit with that for a second.
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Every time you've tried to change your life from the top 5% with a new planner, a stricter routine, more willpower, more trying, you've been using the smallest, weakest part of yourself to push against the largest.
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You weren't failing.
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You were bringing a teaspoon to the ocean.
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And then you blamed yourself for not emptying it.
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No wonder you're tired.
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So here's the part, nobody tells you.
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Most of the 95% was written before you were seven years old, before you could think critically, before you could say, wait, that's not true about me.
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You just absorbed it from the rooms you grew up in, from those who from what got praised and got what and what got punished, from the thousands of tiny moments that taught you what you had to do to be safe, to be loved, to be enough.
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And for so many of us, the program that got written was some version of this.
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You are worthy when you achieve.
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The 95%.
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It's not strong enough, and it was never supposed to be.
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You can know consciously, completely, that you are worthy exactly as you are.
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You can say the affirmations in the mirror, and five minutes later the old program runs away.
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Because knowing lives in the 5%, and the pattern lives in the 95%.
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Insight isn't the same as change.
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You've had the insight for years.
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That was never the missing piece.
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So what does reach it?
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Not more thinking.
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The body, the nervous system, the quiet, repeatable practices that speak the language the subconscious actually understands.
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This is the work I do, and the work this whole show is built around.
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Somatic work, tapping, going underneath the busy, arguing mind and speaking directly to a part that's been running the show.
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Not to force it, to gently show it that the old rule was written for a younger you in a different time, and it's safe to write a new one now.
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That's the missing piece.
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Not the top 5% working harder, the 95% finally being spoken to.
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And I want you to feel the relief in this before we go.
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If 95% of the problem was never in your control the way you thought, then 95% of the shame you've been carrying was never yours to carry either.
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You're not broken, you're not lazy, and you're not behind.
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You've just been working on the wrong 5%, and now you know where the real work is.
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So here, what I'll leave you with today, not to solve, but just to carry.
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What's one rule my 95% is still living by that I never actually agreed to?
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Don't force the answer, just ask it and let it float up on its own time.
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Sometimes just naming the rule is the beginning of loosening it.
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And here's the invitation.
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The same thread running through launch week.
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That old program, the rule that says you're only worthy when you're producing, that's a skin you're ready to shed.
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You don't have to tear it off right away.
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You just have to see it for what it is.
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Old code, not the truth about you.
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This week, we're not adding one more thing to your plate, we're letting something go and coming home to the woman who was underneath it the whole time.
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I'm so glad you're walking this with me.
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And before I go, if hearing about the 95% made something click and you're tired of white knuckling the five, that is exactly the work I do with the woman I coach.
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My door is open.
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Email me at hello at connectwithmiriam.com, or you can reach me and DM me on Instagram at ConnectWithMariam.
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I read everyone myself.
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Thank you for spending the time with me.
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If something landed, take it with you into your day.
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The next episode, we talk about why you're not behind, but you're becoming and why the timeline you've been beating yourself against was never real.
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Launch week, we're here every day.
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After that, new episodes every Monday and Thursday.
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Until then, being perfectly courageous.