Speaker 1: Sam, what do you get asked about most when it
Speaker 1: comes to getting in shape. The answer isn't pushups. The
Speaker 1: answer isn't how do I get a six pack? The
Speaker 1: answer isn't should I shouldn't eat this? It's how do
Speaker 1: I get motivated? So I've brought together to awesome episodes
Speaker 1: that I've absolutely loved doing this year where motivation has
Speaker 1: been the focus. I had the absolute pleasure through the
Speaker 1: course of this year of speaking with two very very
Speaker 1: strong minded, independent, motivating women, Jana Pittman and Sabrina Fredrick.
Speaker 1: So Yana many of you will know her, she's a
Speaker 1: jewel Olympian. She gave me this great little trick on
Speaker 1: combating self doubt and how she managed to conquer so
Speaker 1: many huge life goals in such a short amount of time.
Speaker 1: And I'm talking about huge goals. Nothing this woman cannot do.
Speaker 1: And then Sabrina Frederick, who's a professional footballer from Collingwood.
Speaker 1: She has some non negotiable routines and mindset habits that
Speaker 1: she does before every single game. It's probably the most
Speaker 1: likely reason that she completed the grueling SAS Australia test.
Speaker 1: Jana also was an SAS. We could call this the
Speaker 1: SAS episode. Anyway, lots to learn, lots of motivation from
Speaker 1: these two incredible women that's coming up on the Good Life.
Speaker 1: Really excited to chat to our guests now, which is
Speaker 1: none other than the incredible athlete duel Olympian across winter
Speaker 1: and Summer Olympics Supermum Janna Pittman. Welcome to the wood
Speaker 1: Life and thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: Oh thanks Sam, that was a lovely intro.
Speaker 1: I am genuinely inspired by you, and it's interesting I
Speaker 1: thought back to when I first was thinking of you,
Speaker 1: and you were famous for your incredible athletics career, and
Speaker 1: you know, you're a fairly polarizing figureback then, and it
Speaker 1: never seemed to wavery you. You know, you were so
Speaker 1: tough and determined, and I'm sure you had your moments
Speaker 1: behind closed doors, but of course, you know, I always
Speaker 1: used to think, God, this woman is just as tough
Speaker 1: as nails. And you know I've read before that you
Speaker 1: said your father was sort of the inspiration or the
Speaker 1: driving force perhaps behind this motivating mindset that you have.
Speaker 1: But can you share a little bit more, perhaps to
Speaker 1: our listeners that are thinking, God, I wish I had
Speaker 1: just five percent of Janna's mindset, and perhaps I'd be
Speaker 1: kicking a bit more ass.
Speaker 3: I like it, Sam, Look, yes, I think I think
Speaker 3: I have to preface that by saying that my resilience
Speaker 3: and my mindset has changed and wavered over the years.
Speaker 3: I am absolutely human, and I've had multiple times where
Speaker 3: I struggled to get out of bed in the morning
Speaker 3: just because I've taken on too much or I've lost
Speaker 3: faith in myself. So I think for me, yes, my
Speaker 3: father was an absolute role model for me in life.
Speaker 3: He was a gunner right from the beginning. You know,
Speaker 3: he always worked hard. He worked Christmas Day, for example,
Speaker 3: we regularly not even have a Christmas lunch with him
Speaker 3: because the guy was a builder out on the building
Speaker 3: side and he would be actually constructing houses. And he
Speaker 3: was just so focused on success. And I think in
Speaker 3: some ways it's a positive and a negative, Sam, because
Speaker 3: I think you grow up with the idea of what
Speaker 3: you want to achieve in your life, and then sometimes
Speaker 3: when you fall short of that, it can be quite debilitating.
Speaker 3: So for me, the greatest I think, the most success
Speaker 3: I've had in my career has actually been after athletics,
Speaker 3: So sport was great. I think A lot of that
Speaker 3: comes back to genetics and luck, but it's the things
Speaker 3: I've pursued subsequently, you know, trying to be a doctor,
Speaker 3: having babies by myself through sperm donation at one point,
Speaker 3: and then obviously now clocking over to six kids this.
Speaker 2: Year will be an extraordinary challenge.
Speaker 3: But they come about because many years ago I had
Speaker 3: to actually stop and look at my mindset and realize
Speaker 3: that it was offskew, and a lot of that negative
Speaker 3: media you're talking about, and some of the things that
Speaker 3: I'd done wrong in my life, I think really humbled
Speaker 3: me to realize I needed to find some self acceptance,
Speaker 3: and once I found that, I was able to grow
Speaker 3: from that. So we often you know, I do a
Speaker 3: lot of public speaking these days, and we talk about
Speaker 3: growth mindsets and things like that. But for me, it
Speaker 3: was actually breaking down who I was as a person
Speaker 3: and rebuilding from there and accepting that some of the
Speaker 3: things that other people don't like are actually my strengths
Speaker 3: and the reason why I'm successful. So for those people
Speaker 3: out there who might be thinking, wow, she's taken on
Speaker 3: the world, and you know, I can't be her because
Speaker 3: she does all these amazing things, it was actually realizing
Speaker 3: that I love being busy, accepting that I'm not always
Speaker 3: around with family and kids, and being comfortable with that,
Speaker 3: but also accepting that I'm going to fail. And it's
Speaker 3: almost like once once you get over that fact and
Speaker 3: you realize it's going to happen whether you like it
Speaker 3: or not, you then don't get as fixated on those
Speaker 3: results that.
Speaker 1: I love that I think. I think that's something that
Speaker 1: will relate to so many of our listeners. I'd love
Speaker 1: you to share perhaps your thoughts on goal setting.
Speaker 3: Well. I reckon we we should debate this one a
Speaker 3: little bit, because I'm sure you've got lots of great
Speaker 3: ideas around this. And it's funny because if I put
Speaker 3: the athlete hat on, so for many years, and so
Speaker 3: many of the young athletes out there, or anyone, as
Speaker 3: you say, with a five kilo goal or whatever it
Speaker 3: is that they're trying to pursue in life often gets
Speaker 3: so fixated. I think you mentioned that a little bit
Speaker 3: before too with the blinkers on when I was a
Speaker 3: younger athlete. But you get so strongly fixated on a
Speaker 3: goal that therefore, when things go astray, you have the
Speaker 3: tendency to fall off the wagon. And maybe you know,
Speaker 3: eat that mass bar rather than sticking to the goal
Speaker 3: of little bits incremental you know, changes make the difference.
Speaker 3: So I makes it completely different from the average person
Speaker 3: when it comes to goal setting. I am someone who
Speaker 3: believes in having five or six goals all at once,
Speaker 3: and I figure, if one of them fails, I'll just
Speaker 3: lean on the next one. So it's that whole one
Speaker 3: door closes, the next one open. So that's actually how
Speaker 3: I've got through all the failures in my life, failed marriages, miscarriages,
Speaker 3: lost the Olympics, all that kind of stuff, because I
Speaker 3: always had a concurrent love running alongside my main goal.
Speaker 3: And so I would simply and maybe this is a
Speaker 3: skill I don't know, I would just simply skip focus.
Speaker 3: So I change from focus on sport to focus on medicine,
Speaker 3: or if medicine is not going too well and I'm
Speaker 3: being yelled at by the bosses at work, focus on
Speaker 3: the children and a goal we have there. So I
Speaker 3: think it's it does make a busy life, but I
Speaker 3: think just throwing yourself into multiple eggs, you know, having
Speaker 3: multiple eggs in one basket, which a lot of people
Speaker 3: who say goal setting is not a good thing they
Speaker 3: say you have to be focused and committed to that
Speaker 3: one goal. Well, I tell them, well, I don't agree
Speaker 3: with you. So what do you think? Are you a single,
Speaker 3: sole focused goal setter or a let's have multiple balls
Speaker 3: in the wagon and protect yourself a little bit.
Speaker 1: I'm okay with having one or two horses in the race,
Speaker 1: but I'm probably I like things to stay simple from
Speaker 1: a process perspective, I think people complicate things, not necessarily
Speaker 1: with having too many goals, but having too many processes
Speaker 1: for them to focus on at once, and therefore getting
Speaker 1: a little bit overwhelmed or lost along the way. That
Speaker 1: I'm a big believer with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense, but.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be frank with you, I've never heard
Speaker 1: that theory before. That's quite That's a revelation. It is,
Speaker 1: and I'm giving myself sixty seconds to digest it and
Speaker 1: actually get my head around it, because what a fascinating outlook.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people I agree with you would
Speaker 1: argue if you're spreading yourself too thin and you've got
Speaker 1: too many balls in the air at once, that's going
Speaker 1: to be it's going to be detrimental to any of
Speaker 1: them potentially landing. But someone like you, who's obviously.
Speaker 2: That's just something we've been told.
Speaker 1: Yeah it is, yeah, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Don't think it's just me, sdam I reckon, it's something
Speaker 3: we've been grown up and told that don't take on
Speaker 3: too much. Now I'm not saying take on killer goals
Speaker 3: five or six of them at one time, but I
Speaker 3: just feel like I need my emotional energy to shift
Speaker 3: in different areas. So I can sit down for four
Speaker 3: or five hours and study, but then I need to
Speaker 3: shift to my fitness goal, and then I need to
Speaker 3: shift to my parental goal, because if I then't have areas,
Speaker 3: it's almost like you're rebooting your system every time you
Speaker 3: change to the next goal. But the biggest time is
Speaker 3: when it's protective when something fails. So it's funny because
Speaker 3: my vivid memory of the twenty fourteen qualifications for the
Speaker 3: Winter Olympic Games, and I'd put my total ass on
Speaker 3: the line by announcing to the public, you know that
Speaker 3: I wanted to be the first female summer Winter Olympian
Speaker 3: double and it came down to this one race. I
Speaker 3: had to push off the top of this ice hill,
Speaker 3: and if I didn't push, well, that was it. I
Speaker 3: could go home with tail between my legs, and I
Speaker 3: remember getting so nervous standing at the top, going I
Speaker 3: can't do this, I can't do this.
Speaker 2: What if I fail? What if I bugger it?
Speaker 3: Da all that, you know, that little mental chatter that
Speaker 3: can happen in anybody's life. And then I had that
Speaker 3: split moment where I said, but it doesn't matter because
Speaker 3: you're in second year of medical school, so you'll go
Speaker 3: home and become a doctor. And I thought, oh yeah, sweet,
Speaker 3: and all the nerves just flew out of the way
Speaker 3: because I realized it's not my only goal. It's a huge,
Speaker 3: important thing that I want to achieve, but it's not
Speaker 3: the end of the world.
Speaker 1: So what about from a motivation mindset perspective, you seem
Speaker 1: to be this person who you know, I can't isn't
Speaker 1: in your vocabulary? Where does that come from? And if
Speaker 1: there are people out there who that's not just in
Speaker 1: their vocabulary, it's probably the most often term that they use,
Speaker 1: how do they get that out of their system? And
Speaker 1: what's your advice to them.
Speaker 2: I've got a few things yet.
Speaker 3: Firstly, for the first time I reckon in my life recently,
Speaker 3: I've been sitting there going I don't know how I'm going.
Speaker 1: To cope my car, So that's nice, and.
Speaker 2: It was vivid. The other day.
Speaker 3: I was lying on the bed. I'm not coping with
Speaker 3: this twin pregnancy as well as I hope. So my
Speaker 3: superhuman motherhood powers are debilitating at times, and I'm in
Speaker 3: eight tired fatigue with saw legs and a saw tummy
Speaker 3: and thinking how on earth am I going to cope
Speaker 3: with twins and an eighteen month old and my kids
Speaker 3: and my career and realizing that something's got to give.
Speaker 3: So I am a big believer that you can have
Speaker 3: it all. You just can't have it all the time
Speaker 3: at the same time. So it's prioritizing what things are
Speaker 3: most important. So where are you going to throw your motivation?
Speaker 3: And certainly I do agree with you. The word I
Speaker 3: can't is something I've worked very strongly since I was
Speaker 3: young person to not have as part of my vocabulary.
Speaker 3: And it's funny you say that because my children say
Speaker 3: I can't, And the first thing I said to them is, sweety,
Speaker 3: let's change that I can do this, but I need
Speaker 3: mummies help, or I can do this. And we'd have
Speaker 3: that conversation two or three times a day. So it's
Speaker 3: something I've had ingrained in me as a young person
Speaker 3: for a very long time, and I do it with
Speaker 3: my children now. So I guess for your listeners, it
Speaker 3: is something you can encourage in your children to change
Speaker 3: that mindset. Before the age of seven, they say, is
Speaker 3: when you can really put those inroads to sort of
Speaker 3: form those neural patterns in the brain. But one how
Speaker 3: I actually learned about it, because it wasn't something my
Speaker 3: mum and dad taught me, was when I was in
Speaker 3: my early twenties. I was working with this fantastic coach
Speaker 3: that talked about how your brain is like a filing
Speaker 3: cabinet and whatever you saw at the front of it
Speaker 3: is the thing you draw out first.
Speaker 2: You know, whatever at the front drawer is the thing
Speaker 2: you find first.
Speaker 3: So when you have those conversations I can't or i'm
Speaker 3: fat today, or I'm not able to cope with this,
Speaker 3: if you keep reiterating that to yourself, it's going to
Speaker 3: be the file that you take out every time you're
Speaker 3: faced with any challenge.
Speaker 2: So I guess we retrain that.
Speaker 3: So I wore a little elastic band for about a year,
Speaker 3: and every time I said I can't or I you
Speaker 3: know I'm going to fail at this. I would actually
Speaker 3: snap that elastic band on my wrist and it would
Speaker 3: have like a little bit I know it's ridiculous, but
Speaker 3: it would short circuit that process in my brain and
Speaker 3: I would try then to automatically replace it with something positive.
Speaker 2: I will do this.
Speaker 3: I will try to do this the sort of the
Speaker 3: reverse of my current feeling, and to be honest, Sam,
Speaker 3: over time it just became natural, so you know that
Speaker 3: thought process is always still there. And don't get me
Speaker 3: wrong on SAS Australia, there were multiple times where I'm like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, I can't do that, but then it
Speaker 3: wasn't an option.
Speaker 1: I just did.
Speaker 3: So it's almost it's a reprogramming and a retraining to
Speaker 3: make you believe that nothing that's important will come easily,
Speaker 3: but that you're just sabotaging yourself if you don't give
Speaker 3: it a shot.
Speaker 1: Now, usually when I have a guest in the studio,
Speaker 1: I know exactly what we're going to talk about. But
Speaker 1: my next guest we could honestly have an enthralling conversation
Speaker 1: about a number of topics. I want to ask this
Speaker 1: person about being a role model to so many young
Speaker 1: Girls and AFLW Superstar sas Superstar Now podcast host Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Woodlife, Sabrina Frederick. How are you?
Speaker 4: I'm very well and what an intro.
Speaker 1: You're obviously a big mindset person. I also know you're
Speaker 1: a big visualization person and I wanted to just go
Speaker 1: there for a little minute because you're a big, big
Speaker 1: believer in it. Can you talk us through a little
Speaker 1: bit what you do from a visualization perspective, first of all,
Speaker 1: from an AFLW standpoint, and then I'd love to know
Speaker 1: does it transition into other areas of your life. There's
Speaker 1: a two prong question for you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it is a big one.
Speaker 5: I think more and more people are getting into it
Speaker 5: and realizing the power of it. I think it visualization
Speaker 5: for me personally, is more about seeing yourself somewhere, which
Speaker 5: then instills belief that you can actually be in that environment.
Speaker 5: I don't necessarily think that it's painting an exact picture
Speaker 5: of what you want to happen, because things change all
Speaker 5: the time. For me, it's more about what am I feeling,
Speaker 5: what am I doing when I'm my best? So in
Speaker 5: terms of a football game, it's being around my teammates,
Speaker 5: and if I can envision getting around them and goals
Speaker 5: being scored and me being in the middle of it
Speaker 5: and them being around me. It's that feeling that I
Speaker 5: get from the sport that I visualize and the passages
Speaker 5: of play that sort of get me there. I think
Speaker 5: sometimes people mistake visualization for playing out a game in
Speaker 5: your head a thousand times over in different scenarios. That's
Speaker 5: completely different, and to be honest, so that would probably
Speaker 5: really exhaust met a game a thousand times before I've
Speaker 5: even played it, or just visualizing those moments. I guess
Speaker 5: going back to your why why you do things is
Speaker 5: for me, the reason why I play football is the
Speaker 5: love of the sport, but also the connection to my teammates.
Speaker 5: So me playing at my best is me in those environments.
Speaker 5: And when I go out onto the ground before games,
Speaker 5: I really do try and envision myself in certain parts
Speaker 5: of the ground in those moments, and then it's crazy
Speaker 5: when it unfolds in some circumstances and you just think, wow,
Speaker 5: like a couple hours ago, I was really thinking that,
Speaker 5: and that really unfolded, and it instills that belief that
Speaker 5: it's in you to get to that point. In terms
Speaker 5: of translating that out of football into the rest of
Speaker 5: my life. I'm a huge believer in visualizing what you
Speaker 5: want for your life. I think that football is just
Speaker 5: a part of me. It doesn't define me. It's just
Speaker 5: something that I do and it makes me a better person.
Speaker 5: But even coming back to, you know, being a parent.
Speaker 5: More recently, I've been visualizing my first moments with her
Speaker 5: when she's born, or my first moments of when she
Speaker 5: can run around? What am I going to be doing?
Speaker 5: Am I going to be out there and full of energy?
Speaker 5: And sort of living out those moments as well. So
Speaker 5: I think it can. It definitely can translate into different
Speaker 5: parts of your life. And I know a lot of
Speaker 5: people sort of like, is this magic or.
Speaker 4: Oh yes, spookyrself, spiritual, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 5: But I think it's more just that stuff that makes
Speaker 5: you feel good. Why would you not want to feel
Speaker 5: that before it's happened. So I think it's more just
Speaker 5: living out those moments that make you feel good, instilling
Speaker 5: belief that you can achieve those things, and then you know,
Speaker 5: if it happens, it happens.
Speaker 1: But for me, it's worked, So it's similar to what
Speaker 1: is happening to the contemporary version of meditation, like people
Speaker 1: who have now worked out you can meditate in a
Speaker 1: myriad of ways. You've got to find the right form
Speaker 1: of meditation to you. And you know, you see visualization
Speaker 1: and it absolutely works, but it'd be different for every person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everyone has their own in repretation of it, and it
Speaker 1: has to feel right. If you're cynical about it or
Speaker 1: you're skeptical about it, it's never going to break through.
Speaker 5: Well, no, because then it's becoming a force thing, and
Speaker 5: you never want it to be forced, especially visualization, because
Speaker 5: that whole process is filled with emotion and I guess
Speaker 5: passion and that feeling of what success means for you.
Speaker 5: And I think if it becomes a chore, then you're
Speaker 5: almost doing the complete opposite of what that feeling is
Speaker 5: trying to achieve. So yeah, like you said, it is
Speaker 5: basically a form of meditation because you're taking time away
Speaker 5: from reality and giving time to yourself. And I think
Speaker 5: every single person has a right to mess with it
Speaker 5: and sort of figure out what is the best for them,
Speaker 5: because in end the day, that's the person that you
Speaker 5: want it to work for. So no, everyone can sit
Speaker 5: cross legged for you know, twenty minutes and meditate, no
Speaker 5: noise or whatever.
Speaker 4: You know, I don't even think I could do that.
Speaker 5: I think for me, I've tried different practices and over time,
Speaker 5: and trying is the big key thing here is you
Speaker 5: don't know until you try. So even for you, like
Speaker 5: you said, you've never really gotten into visualization.
Speaker 1: But you know what I have, I just haven't realized.
Speaker 1: It hasn't been a conscious practice. Yeah it's been. I
Speaker 1: do it with business and I do it with family. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and perhaps not. You know, we don't have a game everything.
Speaker 1: It's your life. I don't have a game with my
Speaker 1: family game every weekend, so I perhaps don't do it
Speaker 1: on those that. When you do it for footy, is
Speaker 1: it the same amount of time? Is it? Do you
Speaker 1: have a particular like do you have to give yourself
Speaker 1: in a particular state? Do you do it just pregame?
Speaker 1: Do you do it the night before?
Speaker 5: In terms of pregame, I do do it normally when
Speaker 5: I walk out onto the ground because we will get
Speaker 5: there a couple of hours before the game, So my
Speaker 5: initial period of walking out into a ground, I will
Speaker 5: always have a moment to myself. So I do that
Speaker 5: every single game. But then it's sort of free flowing.
Speaker 5: Like the night before this sometimes where I really can't
Speaker 5: sleep or whatever, and I'll just tap into that. I'll
Speaker 5: just sit there, eyes closed and just visualize something, or
Speaker 5: you know, there might just be something that triggers you,
Speaker 5: and like I might be watching a game and a
Speaker 5: moment might happen and I'm thinking, I just want.
Speaker 1: To in another game, yeah, and.
Speaker 5: I'm no, no, no, that was last week. I'll be
Speaker 5: watching a game and I will see something happen in
Speaker 5: the game, and I'll think, like it's just triggered me
Speaker 5: and the feeling of playing, and I just think, I
Speaker 5: just want to harness that for a moment. I just
Speaker 5: want to take that moment, how I'm feeling watching that
Speaker 5: and translate that into how I'm playing. To be honest,
Speaker 5: so I turn up to a game and I didn't
Speaker 5: feel like doing it, I wouldn't do it, like coming
Speaker 5: back to that chore thing. I'd never want it to
Speaker 5: feel like I have to do something to achieve something,
Speaker 5: because for me, that's the whole point.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining me on this bonus episode
Speaker 1: of motivation. If you have any tips to share on
Speaker 1: how to stay motivated, i'd love to hear from you. You
Speaker 1: can always leave me a little voice message in the
Speaker 1: show notes. And if you love today's episode and you
Speaker 1: want to listen to the full episode of Janna or Sabrina,
Speaker 1: make sure you head back into your podcast feed the
Speaker 1: full episode and many many more in there. Great thing
Speaker 1: to listen to over your holiday break. I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you soon.