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Dr. Julia Bowlin: [00:00:00] A life that is not designed with intention will default to imitation.
Let's start with something no one tells you When you're high functioning, responsible and doing all the things, confidence isn't just about believing in yourself. It's about believing in a version of your future that you consciously choose and not that's one that's silently scripting itself behind your back.
I'm Dr. Julia Bowlin, physician, author, hypnotherapist, and the founder of Personal Awareness Medicine, and today we're taking a revealing look at a truth that most people miss. You can feel capable, you can look accomplished, but you can still be quietly building a future that doesn't fit you at all. This episode isn't about low self-esteem or some kind of confidence defect.
It's about something that I call the hidden confidence gap. It's that quiet [00:01:00] disconnection between your outside momentum and your inner alignment, and it often starts with something really, really subtle. You don't even notice it. It might be a decision you made just to keep the peace or a rule taken out of obligation.
A habit might turn into an identity and suddenly you've built an entire life on what was expected, not what was true. Years ago, I was wearing all the right hats, physician, mother, wife, high performer. From the outside I looked really put together, but on the inside I was living a future. I hadn't really chosen.
I remember standing in the kitchen one day and just thinking, how did I get here? This wasn't the vision I had, but I can't remember what the vision was. And that's what a default future does. It doesn't slam into you. It seeps in through unspoken beliefs, [00:02:00] old patterns, cultural expectations, and emotional survival tactics.
And the scariest part, we don't even know we're in it until we start waking up and feeling like, what's missing here? I wanna tap into why this matters for confidence. 'cause when we're living from old programming, we won't feel confident no matter how many degrees, titles, to-do lists that we've mastered.
Because confidence doesn't grow in compliance, it grows in congruence. When your choices match your truth and anxiety happens for the opposite reason. So here's a reflection moment. I want you to think about this. Take a deep breath and just ask yourself this question. What part of my current life feels like it was built by default, not by design.
No shame. No blame. Just awareness. Because the moment that you see it, that's the [00:03:00] moment you can start shifting it. And I'd like to unpack exactly how those unspoken beliefs shape your choices and how to spot invisible patterns that might be steering your life off course. I'm speaking about invisible decisions, the kinds you don't even know you're making.
You don't remember saying yes to this, but you're doing it. You might not recall signing a contract, but somehow your schedule, your relationships, your careers, and even your inner dialogue are following rules you never even meant to agree to. And here's the truth. Most of our decisions aren't made in a moment.
They're made in margins by beliefs that we inherited, absorbed, or assumed. Let me give you a few examples here. Think about this. Have you ever thought, if I slow down, I'm gonna fall behind? Or maybe I'm not the kind of person who speaks up. Or success means always [00:04:00] being in control. Or if I disappoint people, I'm going to lose love.
Now, none of these are true, but they feel true because they were installed early, often during survival moments when your nervous system chose safety over sovereignty. All right. I'd like to do a little hypnotherapy moment at this time. I call this hearts therapy. First of all, I wanna explain what hypnotherapy really is.
Hypnotherapy is just a tool that accesses your subconscious mind, the part of you that's running 90% of your thoughts, habits, and emotional responses. It accesses the subconscious mind so that you can shift what's automatic and realign with what's. Authentic. Today, I'm gonna use a technique called parts therapy, and here's how it works.
You imagine different parts of yourself, maybe your inner pleaser, your inner rebel, your inner perfectionist, maybe the [00:05:00] inner protector or the critic, and you give them a voice. If any of those sounded like parts of you, pick one. And then you ask, what do you need me to know right now? What are you trying to protect me from?
Are you open to doing things differently? This process works because so many of these unspoken beliefs are toxic. They're outdated. They were built for a version of you who didn't have your current tools, your current insights and your current strengths. Parts therapy lets you negotiate with old rules instead of being ruled by them.
So try this now. It's a small practice. Just take a breath, close your eyes and picture a part of yourself that's been running the show. Maybe it's the one who's always saying yes, even when you're drained and now say imminently. Hey. [00:06:00] I see you. You've been trying to keep me safe, but I'm ready to co-create a whole new way.
You might feel some emotions when you say this. You might feel resistance or even tenderness. That's good. That's the door. Because when you bring these unconscious parts into light, confidence starts to reboot itself in wholeness, not performance. This isn't about bulldozing the past. It's about updating the contract with the parts of you that have been quietly shaping your future.
Now, what I'd like to do next is break down what a default future actually is and how to spot warning sides that you might be stuck in one. Even if everything looks successful on the outside, because I wanna get honest, this concept comes from the book of the Three Laws of Performance by Steve Zin and Dave Logan.
And here's how they explain it. And I'm gonna be paraphrasing here, your default future. [00:07:00] What's likely to happen if nothing changes? It's the future that you're on track for based on your current habits, your stories, your fears, your beliefs, and your environment. And here's the kicker. It doesn't require your permission, it just runs.
This is the real stuff. Your default future is predictable. It's safe, it's familiar, and for many people it's suffocating. You look at your schedule and you realize it's full of things you don't even remember saying yes to. You wake up feeling behind before the day you even get. Starts, or you might even look successful, but inside you're feeling invisible.
That was me for years achieving, performing, proving. I was checking all the boxes, but a lot of those boxes weren't mine. The craziness with the charting, the over extension of hours, and here's what I learned. A life that is not designed with intention will default [00:08:00] to imitation. I'm gonna say that one again.
A life that's not designed with intention will default to imitation. All right, it's time for another hypnotherapy moment. I call this one pattern disruption with somatic queuing. Here's a quick refresher. Hypnotherapy works by helping you interrupt your unconscious pattern that feels automatic, so you can make room for aligned action in this tool called pattern interruption with somatic queuing.
Sounds fancy, but it's really quite simple, powerful, and fast. Here we go. When you notice yourself falling into a default behavior such as overcommitting, people pleasing, second guessing, or just spiraling. You interrupt it now with the physical cue, A physical movement, and this might look like tapping your collarbone and saying, Nope, not this time.
Or pressing your thumb to your palm and breathing deeply and pausing. [00:09:00] Maybe you stretch your arms over your head and you say to yourself, I am choosing something new. So the key here is combining a physical movement with verbal speaking out, out, loud awareness to jolt the subconscious pattern. And this works because your nervous system memorizes behavior through repetition, and you could rewire it through intentional disruption.
I want you to try it now. I want you to think some common confidence draining moments that you might have. Maybe it's avoiding a tough conversation, shrinking in meetings or procrastinating, something really big. Now, physically shift. I want you to stand up, stretch, shake your hands and say aloud, that's the old me.
I'm designing something new. Do you feel that that's neuroplasticity in motion? Here's a quick reframe because maybe you just need to tell yourself that you're not behind or you're not broken, or you've just [00:10:00] done living in a default future that doesn't reflect your deepest truth. That is where confidence begins, because it's intention over inertia.
Now, now that we've exposed the trap of a default future, the next question becomes, how do you actually start designing a life that fits you? One that's honest, aligned, and congruent with who you really are. I wanna tell you a quick story. I was sitting on my porch one morning. My coffee's in my hand. The birds are doing their thing, singing up a storm, and I had this moment of quiet panic, not about work, not about family, about something I couldn't even name.
It just felt like my life was happening. I hadn't intentionally chosen what it was becoming. That's when I was reintroduced to Lifebook. It gave me language and structure for something my soul was really craving. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a life coach, a certified professional, a physician. I know what these categories are and I'm gonna go [00:11:00] over those with you.
But what I hadn't been doing was the deep dive and the intention behind it. So what is Lifebook? Lifebook is a transformational lifestyle design system that empowers people to envision, plan, and achieve their very best life on their own terms and nobody else's. It was created by John and Missy Butcher, a couple who decided that the normal quote life.
Wasn't enough. They were artists, entrepreneurs, adventurers who built a life most people might call impossible, and now they're on a mission to help 1 million people worldwide break free from expectations of others and become their most authentic self through the Lifebook process. You can learn more about their work at mindvalley.com/lifebook.
I will put the link in the show notes below, so no worries. So what are these 12 categories? Lifebook helps you explore and design these areas. These are foundational categories in [00:12:00] health and fitness, intellectual life, your emotional life, your character, your spiritual life, your love and relationships, parenting, social life, financial life, career.
Quality of life and your life vision. Each one of these categories invites you to get really radically clear on what you believe, what you want, why it matters, which is important, and how are you gonna get there. So. As we move into this next section, I just wanna give you a little mini exercise.
If stress and overwhelm or that relentless inner critic has been running the show, it's time to take back control. You don't need another motivational quote or a feel good pep talk. You need a system, a tool, something that actually works when life gets messy. That's exactly why I created mindset medicine worksheets, no fluff, no filler, just proven strategies that are powerfully designed to help you [00:13:00] rewire your thoughts for clarity and confidence.
Break the cycle of overwhelm in minutes. Set boundaries that stick without guilt and turn stress into focus and action. This isn't about theory, it's about real transformation, and the best part is each episode of this podcast comes with a worksheet designed specifically for what you're learning today.
No more wondering how to apply this. It's all mapped out for you, and if you're ready to stop spitting your wheels and start making real shifts, grab today's worksheet below because life's too short to stay stuck. Check out the episode specific worksheet in today's podcast. Show notes below. The link is right there for you.
I just want you to pick one of those 12 areas. It could be health, it could be intellectual, it could be emotional character, spiritual love, parenting, social, financial, career, quality of life, or life vision. Just pick one. Don't make this hard. I want it to be one that might be pulling [00:14:00] your heart a little bit, and I want you to ask yourself, am I living this by design?
Or default, what belief is shaping this area right now and what would it look like if I designed it on purpose? Pause, breathe. Let the truth rise without judgment. Pause this if you need to. That's how transformation begins. Recognizing it, one brave moment of clarity at a time. And here's a reminder.
Confidence is not a trait you're born with. It is a byproduct of living in alignment with the future that you choose, not the one you inherited, absorbed, or fell into by accident. And you, my friend, were not born to be an autopilot. You were born for authorship. All right, so let's land this plane because I wanna talk about a little confidence reset, and then we're gonna go into the [00:15:00] closing of this, uh, incredible episode.
You've heard the term default future. I've said it a couple times and maybe you've heard it the first time. But hopefully you're realizing that confidence isn't something that you're missing. It's something that might be misaligned. Confidence doesn't grow through perfection. It grows in giving permission for yourself to see clearly, to choose differently, and to design something for yourself that might be new.
Today in this episode, you had a hypnotherapy technique, number one called parts therapy. You met the part of you that you might still be running the old belief. You gave it a voice, you gave it some compassion and some love, and maybe a new way to operate. You did hypnotherapy. Technique number two. Which was a pattern interruption with somatic queuing, learning how to break a subconscious loop with a physical action.
You were tapping your collarbone, pinching your fingers, and you did this with micro movements, macro shifts, and intentional words. Not [00:16:00] anymore. For example, I sometimes put my hand up and go, Uhuh, not again. Both of these tools, these hypnotherapy tools work because they are interrupting your autopilot.
They help your subconscious recognize, Hey, I'm not living by default anymore. I'm here. I'm awake and I'm ready. So before I wrap up, I want you to ask yourself this. It's not a test, it's just a reflection. If I believe I could design a life that truly fit me, what would I do differently this week? Not forever, not for the entire future.
Just this week, would you speak up? Would you rest more like me? I've taught myself I needed to do 20 minutes down after I work. Totally turn me into a nicer person at nighttime. Would you walk away from something as draining you or lean into something that excites you? Whatever the answer is, start there.
You don't need a 12 month plan. You need one conscious choice that says. [00:17:00] This life. Yeah, it's mine to create. All right. Let's go into the finale here. You haven't done anything wrong, and there's no shame in waking up and realizing that parts of your life were built outta survival, maybe even outta responsibility or old expectations.
In fact, that's realization. It's a sign of growth, of strength, and maybe even a deeper inner wisdom that's coming up and bubbling up and rising. It's not too late. It's not that we're lost, maybe we're just ready for a more intentional chapter in our lives, and that's what I'm hoping to push you towards.
And confidence. It doesn't come from pushing harder. It comes from coming home to yourself, from making choices that fit you and not just at a function. You're already doing the work just by listening here today and reflecting today, and I think that's enough for now to help you go deeper. I have created a [00:18:00] free worksheet to help you reflect on your own default patterns so that you can start designing your future intentionally.
You'll find the downloadable link in the show notes down below. All right, let's also stay connected. I don't want you to keep this stuff to yourself too, so if this episode sparked clarity. Please share it with someone you love. Post it on your socials. Help me reach a hundred people in a hundred days.
You can be the very nudge. That someone else might need to wake up from their default future. And you can connect me on all the socials and remember, be happy, be healthy, and may you be fulfilled. Until next time, take care.
Outro: Thank you for listening to Mindset Medicine with your host. Dr. Julia Bowlin. To learn more about mindset medicine, go to www.juliabowlinmd.com and connect with Dr. Julia to find out how our team [00:19:00] can help you today. Join us again next week for more expert tips, tools, and strategies to become healthier, wealthier, and wiser in your personal and professional life.
