Angela Gargano (00:04.236)
Welcome back to What If It All Goes Right? I'm your host, Angela Gargano, and today's episode is all about a truth that might feel a little harsh at first, but will completely change the way you approach your life, and that is that nobody is coming to save you. And before you hit the haas button and think, wow, way to bring the tough love, let me explain why this is actually the most empowering realization you can have. You are the hero of your own journey.
You have the ability to take control, make changes, and create the life you want, even if it doesn't feel like it right now. We're going to dive deep into this today. I'll share some of my own experience where I waited for someone or something to fix everything, only to realize that the power was in my hands the entire time. And more importantly, I'm going to give you actionable steps and questions you can use when you're feeling stuck.
By the end of this episode, you'll know exactly how to take back the wheel and start making a power decision to move forward. Let's get started.
Angela Gargano (01:15.308)
Okay, so when I say no one is coming to save you, I don't mean you're alone or that help isn't available. What I mean is that no one else can create your transformation for you. No one else can make you stronger, more confident, or more successful. It has to start with you. Think of it like this. You're on a road trip. Your coach...
Angela Gargano (01:39.778)
Think of it like this, you're on a road trip, your coach, your friends, or your support system can help you map out the best route and guide you along the way, but you're the one driving the car. And on that journey, you're going to hit roadblocks, detours, flat tires, maybe even a snowstorm, and a good guy will help you navigate those challenges, but you're the one who decides to keep driving.
Angela Gargano (02:11.79)
And you are the one who is in the driver's seat. You are the one who is driving, right? But they will at least be there to help guide you, to help give you grace on those bad days, right? And help navigate you and teach you how you can get around those roadblocks. But you ultimately are the one in the driver's seat of this car. And you are the one in the driver's seat of your life.
Angela Gargano (02:36.182)
And once you know that, once you realize that, the power, like I said, is completely back in your hands. And you could take it as a bad thing, being like, my goodness, like, nobody's going to come help me with this. Or you can take it as a good thing and being like, wow, I really do have control over my life.
Angela Gargano (03:00.246)
And I've been in that place where I felt like everything was falling apart. And I just wanted someone to swoop in and fix it all for me. I really wanted that savior to come in. After tearing my ACL on national television, I was physically and emotionally broken. And I remember sitting there thinking, why me? How am I ever going to come back from this? And I really wanted someone to just tell me it would be okay and literally tell me exactly what to do and how to feel and all those things. But nobody was coming to save me.
I had to make the choice to fight for my recovery, to take one step at a time and to rewrite my story. And that choice made me stronger than ever. And I want to be clear about this. And I say this in my other podcasts as well. That sounds like, okay, Angela, you just had it all together. And right away after your ACL tear, you just were like, I'm fine. No, literally I know I literally lost friendships over.
the mindset that I had because I couldn't get around the idea of feeling so stuck and being so whimy and not seeing that I had control to really shift this narrative. My friends kept saying, this is a blessing in disguise. you're going to realize that this is so much more powerful than you think later on. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, like, stop, like, leave me alone. Right. So it took a lot of time for me to understand it. And it honestly
someone maybe could have told me, like I am here on a podcast right now, that this is a blessing in disguise and that you're in the driver's seat. You have to be ready to take in that news. You have to be ready to accept that this is true, that you are in fact in control. And sometimes that takes some time. So sometimes somebody will tell you it at one portion of time, but it's not the right timing and you're mentally maybe not ready to hear it yet. And maybe that's the case right now. Maybe you're listening to this right now, like in a frustrated position.
and you're like, I don't feel like I'm ready to hear that no one's coming to save me. That's okay. But later on, you will see as you go through this experience and as you start to push past this obstacle, because you're gonna push through it, right? You will start to understand and see this more clearly. But it's so empowering to know that the control is in fact in your hands, even if it doesn't seem like it at the moment right now. I also had the same.
Angela Gargano (05:24.674)
Situation happened to me when I had to close my gym and it was one of the hardest decisions of my life. I felt lost, scared, desperate for a solution. But once again, I realized that the only way out of this was to go through it. So I took ownership of the situation. I leaned in on my skills and I went up building a six figure online business that's now helped hundreds of people around the world. And I started this in 2017 when I had zero clue about how to do anything all in line. Okay.
I had to take control. When I shut down my gym, I was completely broke, like zero in my bank account and in debt from the gym. I had no idea how I was going to go from that to creating a living again on my own. And I really did want to hire the coach and hire the person to give me all the answers. But I ultimately had to go through it and I had to take action, have failures, do all those things in order to
learn how to do it on my own and really put the power back in my hands. And these experiences taught me the power to change is always within us. We just have to decide to use it and to do it.
Angela Gargano (06:37.9)
And it's so, powerful to realize that. I still can't believe sometimes that I went from literally being broke and having nothing and then crazy amount of debt into creating a successful online business about teaching women how to do pull-ups. mean, that's literally how I make my living by teaching women how to do their pull-ups online. And it's created six figures year after year after year. If anything, actually this year, we actually doubled our revenue, which is actually pretty, pretty wild. I would have never honestly pictured that that
could be possible with what we do, but it's because what we do is so much more than getting a pull-up. Yes, I'm teaching women how to get their pull-up. Yes, I am the girl and most coaches have zero clue how to teach women specifically how to get their pull-ups, but what I am helping them do is actually overcome so much more. I'm empowering them by their workouts, by working on this skill.
by helping them get their chin above the bar, by taking things one step by step, by taking control of their life again. And it's the same thing in all other areas of life. So once you can do this, once the women come to my program and they get their pull up and they feel empowered through movement and they take control and realize that they can in fact do this crazy skill they thought was impossible, it opens up doors to so much more.
And we say no one is coming to save you, like I said, when it comes to our pull-up program, we are the guides, but they are the ones showing up, right? The ladies in that program are the one putting in the work. They are showing up. They are getting humbled but continuing to show up and continue to ask questions when they need it. And again, you can use this same type of framework for so many other areas of your life, which is so, powerful. So you might be wondering,
If you're in a moment right now where you're like, want someone to save me, how can you actually take your power back? So what I want to do in this podcast is get really practical. So I want to share some steps that you can use to start taking control of your life when you are feeling stuck. So take out a pen and paper or whatever you need to do and let's teach you how to get unstuck when you're feeling like you're just.
Angela Gargano (08:51.864)
praying that someone's gonna come save and sweep you in and be your saving grace. It's so funny, one time in therapy I actually asked, I told my therapist that I really wanted a man, still don't have a man, but really wanted a man and maybe it'd be so nice to have a guy come in and save me and help me through all this hardship that I'm going through right now. And she's like, or she's like, you can save you. You can be the hero of your journey. So just a reminder.
came to mind in here. So let's go through some practical things that you can do right now to help you get unstuck and help you realize that you in fact have the answers within you.
So pick one problem. So I want you to start with one thing that's weighing you down right now, and it could be your fitness, your career, or even your mindset. And don't try and tackle everything at once. I just want you to pick one, because once you can see that you can tackle one, you can repeatedly use this framework to help, again, realize that you are in fact in control. But just pick one thing. I feel like sometimes we try and pick all the things. We're like, blah, blah. Just pick one thing, and let's work through that. Let's workshop that.
And then you can again use this for other areas of your life that you're having some challenges with. Step two, I want you to ask yourself these empowering questions, okay? And I'm gonna go through a list. So again, make sure you have a pen and paper ready to go.
Angela Gargano (10:23.98)
So once you've identified that one problem, it's time to get curious. The key to moving forward is understanding where you are at, what is holding you back, and what needs to shift. So here are some questions I want you to ask yourself that are actually gonna get you deep in this challenge right now.
Angela Gargano (10:46.094)
So number one, how are you feeling, really? I want you to be honest with yourself. Are you overwhelmed, frustrated, or maybe just stuck? Awareness is the first step. So how are you feeling, obviously particularly about this challenge? How are you really? Because I think sometimes we try and be this real strong, everything's fine type of person. But I want you to be honest with yourself right now. This is an unbiased place, especially when you're on a piece of paper.
or nobody is judging you, no matter how crazy those thoughts are, write it down. How are you really? How are you feeling?
Angela Gargano (11:26.062)
Okay, now I want you to shift into writing what you are most proud of. So sometimes we can get caught up in what's wrong that we forget to celebrate what is right and acknowledge your wins. They do matter. And this doesn't have to maybe go hand in hand with this challenge that you're having right now, but what are some things that you are doing really, really well? What are you most proud of right now? Our mind can circulate around these negative things and...
the situations that are not going well for us, but what if we took the moment to say, okay, what are some things that I am truly proud of right now that I have accomplished that I am doing? And it could be simple things. It could just be like, I'm just proud of myself or getting up in the morning because a couple of weeks ago, maybe you had a hard time getting up in the morning and you weren't feeling so great. It could be minimal things, but what are you most proud of?
It's interesting because I feel like this question sometimes is the most overlooked, number one, and it's also the hardest. It's kind of hard to compliment yourself, right? And say the things that you've done good.
Angela Gargano (12:35.81)
Third question here, are you aligned with your peaceful self? So does your life feel chaotic or are you moving in a way that feels true to your values and your priorities? I'm gonna say that again. Does your life feel chaotic or are you moving in a way that feels true to your values and your priority? So we think about this challenge, what we're most proud of, and let's go back to alignment.
Angela Gargano (13:10.09)
Is it aligned with your most peaceful self and that version of yourself that you really want to get to?
Maybe you haven't even had an opportunity to sit down and ask yourself what your most peaceful self would even be doing or feel like. Maybe you're so mixed up in the chaos you don't even know what that is. So if you haven't, you can take a moment right here and close your eyes and say to yourself and just feel how it feels on the inside, what it would feel like to be with your most peaceful self.
And it's really helpful to do that when you can kind of get rid of any other outside things that are maybe feeling like they're blocking you from being able to have that peaceful self. So if money wasn't an object, if a certain relationship was an object, what it might be, what is your most peaceful self? How does that feel like? And are you moving in a way each day that fully represents that?
Again, super important, ingrain this awareness. Where are you in terms of trust on a scale from one to 10? Where are you in terms of trust on a scale from one to 10? How much do you trust yourself to handle challenges and make the right decisions? Do you trust yourself or are you constantly looking around for someone else to give you the answer? Are you help for something or you're saying something and kind of always asking it with a question mark?
Instead of being sure of yourself, knowing again that you have that trust within you to come up with a solution on your own.
Angela Gargano (14:54.658)
Where are you in terms of resistance on a scale from one to 10? So are you holding back or resisting change? And if so, why?
Where are you in terms of resistance on a scale from 1 to 10?
Are you holding back a resisting change of so why it's so interesting. feel like a lot of times we already know what changes we pretty much need to make, but we have been constantly pushing them aside or not doing them for some reason. I'll keep giving you a super basic example there. If you know you don't drink a lot of water and pretty much half of your problem is that you're dehydrated half the time, but you still can't get up for some reason and have that glass of water in the morning. What's, what's holding you back? Why are you?
Resisting, changing and knowing what you have to do. Why? Sometimes resistance comes from fear of failure. Sometimes resistance comes from fear of success. Maybe you're scared of what that next version of you is going to look like that powerful version that shows up who is like, I'm going to drink the water because you're going to show up like that in other areas of your life. And maybe you're nervous about that. What is the resistance?
Is it fear of failure, being like, I'm gonna do it once, I'm never gonna be do it again. For some reason, drinking water is too hard.
Angela Gargano (16:11.47)
is that you're just stuck in your head and you're paralyzed. A lot of times we've got paralysis on some of these situations, right?
Is there a challenge you are facing in your life right now? Again, we are talking about our challenge right now here, but I want you to again, name it, get specific, get clear. The clearer you are, the easier it will be to find the solution. So let's revisit that challenge that we are facing right now. Get even more specific into it. The clearer you are, the easier it's gonna be to find a solution. If you don't actually know what the challenge is and you're just like constantly feeling challenged and feeling challenged, but you don't sit down for a second to look at it and be like, what?
is my challenge, you're never going to be able to find a solution. And at the end of the day, us as humans, we are master problem solvers.
We're master problem solvers. You've got a challenge. Okay, cool. We're going to continue to have challenges. Let's sit down, look at it. What kind of solutions can we make? How can we problem solve this? How can we create, make a puzzle from this and figure out how to connect all the dots? We can do that. If we take that moment to be free. mean, we breathe and we just think about it on a scale of one to 10. How does it feel to struggle with this challenge? So I you to acknowledge the emotional weight it carries.
Are you waking up every single day super, super anxious about this challenge that you're having?
Angela Gargano (17:35.65)
Are you in paralysis? How does it feel like you have a huge weight on your shoulders?
And this one I love so much. How would you feel if this challenge did not exist? So visualize your life without this obstacles and what emotions come up. How does it feel to not have that challenge, to not have to worry?
Does it feel freeing? Does it feel relaxed? Does it feel empowering? Are you showing up in a different way? It's important to understand how it would feel to no longer have this challenge. Because when we think about wanting to change, it's great to have like a tangible thing you've written down, but when you know the feelings that are going to come with that change, oof, makes you want to change even more. Makes you want to make that change right now, right?
And what can you do instead? If the current approach isn't working, what's one alternative action that you can take? Not 20, not 100. What's one alternative action that you can take today to help you with this challenge that you doing? What's the step one? And we talk about this a lot in my Pull Up Revolution program when it comes to getting your first pull up. And I love relating it back to pull ups. think it's...
It's interesting because you might have a problem. The problem you have right now, you may not understand it until you hear it in a different scenario, right?
Angela Gargano (19:08.856)
So what can you do instead if your approach isn't working? What's one action you can take right now? So for a lot of the women, they're working on their pull-up and they're frustrated, obviously, because they've always wanted this pull-up and they feel like when they get off the assisted band, they literally can go nowhere. So they keep doing that. They keep going on the assisted band, coming off the assisted band, going on the assisted band, off the assisted band. All right, guess what? It's not working. The assisted band is not helping you.
It's not working. You can keep doing the same thing over and over again and get frustrated about it, but you're not trying anything else. So when ladies come into my pull-up program and they're like, we're not going to use the assisted band? You're going to teach me how to do mobility drills and help me connect my central nervous system to my lat? this is different. But what they all agree on when they come in, there's like, whatever they're doing right now is not working. So they need to make a change. And so do you. So is there something like the assisted band right now that you're doing over and over again that you're just beating your
beating yourself up every day from doing it and it's not clearly working. So what kind of change can you make? And again, becoming that master problem solver. What's one thing you can solve for and do differently to see if it even works? Just to create it like an experiment.
What are you doing now that needs to go? This kind of goes hand in hand with what you can do instead. So sometimes we can hold onto our habits, our routine, our mindsets that are keeping us stuck. What needs to change?
What changes do you need to make to overcome these challenges? So again, thinking about the tangible steps you can take to create a shift.
Angela Gargano (20:47.98)
Why haven't you made those challenges yet? We talked about maybe it's fear of failure, fear of success, fear of something new. Be honest, is it fear, doubt or something else? What if I told you that if you got what you wanted, you still might not feel better? Oof, oof, let's take a moment. What if I told you that if you got what you wanted, you still might not feel better? This question helps you dig into your deeper why. What are you really seeking?
peace, confidence, joy. You hear these stories all the time where these movie stars, finally get the role they wanted or they finally make a million dollars or whatever it might be and they're still miserable. They're just literally miserable. It's the whole, think I'm gonna be happy when X, Y, and Z happens. But will you be?
Angela Gargano (21:41.41)
What if you don't feel better after you do get this one thing? How can we start showing up today already feeling those feelings that we were saying that we wanted to feel from this change? What if we...
started to feel some of that peace right now.
Angela Gargano (22:03.832)
that confidence right now. For a lot of women, they're like, I'm going to be happy when I have abs. Are you? Because a lot of times what happens is these women get their abs, they're just ready for the next thing. They're not even happier yet.
Can you accept and love your body right now? And find those feelings right now as you are going through this process.
It's so important to understand that now.
This movie doesn't have to fully relate to this, but I remember someone saying, especially when it comes to business, right, I always said that I wanna give back. I always wanna donate to a great foundation. And I always say, I'm gonna donate when I have more money, when I have more money. Or I'm gonna give back in some way. It doesn't have to be money, right? Maybe it's like time. When I have more time and I have more money. But the truth is, if that's something that you really desire to do and you do wanna give back, you're not doing it in some way right now. When you do...
make the money, you're probably not gonna do with that either. Sad truth, maybe not always the truth, but it's just a way to think about it. Okay, how can you start to feel good now? And again, no one is coming to save you, but you can save you. You have all the power, the power is in your hands of how you feel right now, even in the worst situations. And that's empowering, not negative.
Angela Gargano (23:31.0)
So step through here is now that we've gone through all those questions and feel free to, if you were going through this, pause it, go back, write out all these, write it all out. It's the way that this is right now. And I can't take credit for these questions. I went to an event and my friend Nick Pags, he went through these questions with me and it really got me thinking and it was really hard. I did have some resistance to some of the questions and I kept saying things like, I don't know, I don't know. And then I realized as I kept...
digging into it more and he kept digging into more to me that I did in fact know exactly and I came up with the answers. He did not give me the answers. He just kept asking me questions in order to help me find the answer within myself. So number three is now we're going to create a roadmap. So now that you've gained clarity, it's time to create a plan. So break your goals into small actionable steps and schedule them into your week. Remember, progress does not have to be perfect. It just has to be consistent.
and sometimes consistency is messy.
So what's something, some small action you can do this entire week. I'm going to have another podcast about this, but someone had told me once, you know, just pick one small thing and just do it for seven days. Don't even in your brain, don't even think about doing it forever. Just be like, I'm going to do this for seven days. Cause once you do do that small actionable step, even for a short period of time like that, it's a game changer. Now I want to talk about how a coaching plays a role in this journey, right? A coach or mentor can be a total game changer.
But I want you to think of your coach that you've had as your navigator. Like we talked about before, they're not gonna drive the car for you, but they're gonna help you stay on course, avoid unnecessary detours, and remind you of how far you've come when you feel like giving up. And one of my clients recently shared her story of going from zero to multiple pull-ups. She stayed consistent even on the days when it felt impossible. And during tough moments, she leaned in on our coaches, not to save her.
Angela Gargano (25:29.262)
but to guide her or remind her of her strength. Your coaches are not the ones who are going to, again, be doing it for you. They don't have all the answers. You have the answers. But they're going to help you make empowering decisions. That's how you know you have an amazing coach, by the way. The coaches that are just like, here is a mail plan. See you later. Have fun. Those aren't the coaches that you want. You want the coaches that are going to help to empower you to help you make decisions and teach it to you on your own, because
Just like that saying, you teach a man – if you give a man a fish, he'll be able to eat for a day. But if you teach a man a fish, he'll be able to eat for a lifetime. That's exactly what your coaches or a great coach does.
Angela Gargano (26:14.786)
So again, just really important to dive into those things. So I wanted to talk about some common blocks that people have, and I just want to tackle a few common excuses that might be holding you back from whatever it is that your challenge is right now, okay? Some of these may not relate to you, but they may in fact relate to you. the most common one I hear, obviously, as someone who is a coach and who brings people into coaching is that I don't have the money. I don't have the money.
And some people really don't have the money. They don't have the money and their life's been getting a little bit crazy. And I totally understand that. So that can totally be justified. But I just want to remind you that when you invest in yourself, it's priceless. This year, scary, I almost threw up in my mouth. I spent 20K, I'm saying this on the podcast, like, my God, I'm scared to say this, 20K on an inventor. And I felt
terrified because I honestly had no idea how I was gonna give her 20k like I Didn't have 20k in my pocket by any means. I got really freaking creative. I was like using after pay over here I was like putting on this credit card And it was super scary
Part of me was like, am I gonna make this money back? But I knew that I needed a guide. I also trusted this person as a guide because she had helped several other people that I knew. So I saw what she did in action. It wasn't her pitching me. was more of me being like, know that you have, that you can help guide me in where I'm trying to go. But I tell you what, it gave me years back in my life and my business. It truly did.
She was really great with what we talked about before with really empowering me to make the decisions on my own. She saved me a lot of time with different areas. And I just want to remind you that you are worth the investment. It doesn't have to be 20K. It could be something else that you're trying to look into. But if anything is worth investing in, it is yourself. I would rather see people instead of investing in just like a cute pair of pants or an expensive bag.
Angela Gargano (28:29.112)
to invest within themselves because you're gonna be able to take that with you forever. And the lessons I learned with her are so, valuable and more importantly, same with the coaching that I got from her. So, but I've also had it other ways too. I'm just gonna be honest. I've also had other coaches where I paid not that much too and they literally were not good coaches. And unfortunately that does wind up happening, but a good coach will save you years, times so much.
another, another common block. I don't have the time. And I hate when people say this, but I'm going to say it. We all have the same 24 hours in a day. We do. And I know again, this is going to sound. Cause I know we all have different situations, but the key is making sure your actions align with your priorities and even focusing hours in the week, even if you focus hours a week can lead to massive change.
So when people say we all have the same 24 hours in the day, that doesn't mean that you need to have like the perfect morning routine. You're doing all these things. mean, again, may not be realistic. You have kids running around, you have a super demanding job. We worked with a lot of surgeons and things along those lines and they just didn't really have the luxury of fully having that 24 hours, right? So we did teach them is that you can make a few focused hours and key changes that fit into your lifestyle and not the other way around.
Okay, for your health or whatever goals that you might have. You can find ways to fit it in. It just might look way different than somebody else's. It might only be 10 minutes. And I think what happens sometimes when we say I don't have time, it's that maybe you have time to be perfect, to have, let's say, an hour workout. So what about 10 minutes? Let's get 10 minutes in instead. So it might look a little different for you, and that is okay. You can make the time, especially for the things that you really do want to.
see yourself grow in, but you have to remind yourself that it's gonna be imperfect and it might be a little bit different looking than somebody else's. I'll start when the time is right. Spoiler, there's no such thing as the perfect time. Life will always be chaotic. There's always gonna be something. The best time to start is now because real growth happens when you learn to integrate change in your current life. I'm gonna say that again. Real life happens when you learn to integrate change into a current life.
Angela Gargano (30:47.606)
You can start to have change and do these little things for yourself in order to push past your challenges that you're looking to push past right now if you're talking about above.
Do it when life's chaotic, because if you can do it when life's chaotic, you're gonna be able to do it forever. I used to always tell my clients, it's easy to show up when life is easy, duh. Duh. It's easy to show up when things are, but can you show up when they're not, when they're chaotic? If you can do that, boom, you're set. You're set for life, which is so, so, so important. So.
I'm going to give you some more action tips on how you can again take some more control today. And those is like a longer episode. So again, if you need to pause it, come back to it. can definitely tell me if this resonated with you as you went through, you really started to learn more about what could really help empower you to make change for the challenges you're having. So like I said, what I want you to do is pick the one problem you want to tackle. So the problem I went over above answer the empowering questions I shared earlier.
and take one small action step today, just one, not 20, not a million, just one simple step. And if you ever need extra guidance or reminder that you don't have to figure it all out alone. I also do have, and you might have heard from past episodes, a vision boarding workshop that you can download in a workbook. This is gonna help you just to get really clear in your vision of your life, of your core values, of what it is that you actually want. So you could go feel free, I'll put the link down here to upload that and do that whole entire.
situations, you can learn a little bit more about what you really do want in your life. But if not, just start with the challenges, the challenge that we set up, have above and those questions. So thanks so much for joining me on this episode of What If It All Goes Right. Remember, no one's coming to save you, but that's a good thing because you are the hero of your story. Take back your power, make one small change today and see what happens when you step into the driver's seat.
Angela Gargano (32:50.956)
If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend, tag me on social media. I'd love to hear what steps you're taking to live your life by design. And until next time, keep asking yourself, what if it all goes right? What if it's already going right? Even when it feels like
