Push Vs. Pull Energy

Welcome to the Design Your Dream Life Podcast where it’s all about designing your life on your terms and now your host, Natalie Bacon.

Hey there. Welcome to the podcast. Today’s episode is all about push energy versus pull energy. It’ll probably be a little bit shorter of an episode, but it was something that I’ve recently learned and discovered and have really been thinking more about. I wanted to bring it to you here.

So I was messing around on TikTok recently. By the way, if you are on TikTok, it’s the same handle as Instagram that I’m on just showing bite size video tips of mindset, confidence, relationships, money, all those things. It’s @natalierbacon.

So I was actually looking at other people’s posts on TikTok, sort of the scroll that you would do on Instagram. A 30 second segment came up from Tony Robbins. He was talking about push energy versus pull energy. I wanted to bring it to you here and share it with you. Because in that really brief description, it gave me a new way of thinking about what motivates me naturally and what I have to really work to be motivated to do, and how focusing on one over the other is really going to help you achieve your goals.

So the basic premise is that there are two types of energy, the push energy and the pull energy. Push energy is where you are having to push yourself to do something. So it doesn’t come easily to you. You often might schedule it and not follow through. You don’t really find yourself wanting to do it naturally. You may come up with excuses not to do the thing. You’re basically having to push yourself to do it.

So I think about this in my life. Cooking is the first thing that comes to mind. I like cooking when I am really in flow with it. I love to do it just for the enjoyment of it. I really don’t like to do it every day all the time, and I don’t feel pulled towards it. I feel sort of pushed to do it at certain times. So this is an example of something in my life where I’m probably not going to be the best chef ever. I’m not going to set any cooking goals because it has more of this push energy behind it.

Pull energy is the opposite. It’s where you are pulled towards something and naturally very motivated to do it. Instead of finding excuses not to do the thing, you will find excuses to do the thing. For me the most obvious one is business. And one that you might not know that’s that obvious is being a mom. From a very young age, I always knew I wanted to be a mom. So I was very pulled towards that calling. Same is true as soon as I learned about online business. Even though that was only within the last five or so years, as soon as I learned about it, I was very much pulled towards it.

So let me give you an example. Since this is coming out in the summertime where we are constantly tempted with all of the fun things to do outside and sometimes that temptation is during work and sometimes it’s just on the weekends. There’s so much life to live, right? The sun is out. Typically most people love summer, and myself is included in that.

I find that if there is something big for my business that I want to work on or a project or a launch or anything else going on in my business, that pulls me way more than any sort of outdoor enjoyment of the summer. Travel would be another one for me. It’s not going to pull me away from my business.

Contrast that with, let’s say, cooking where I have to sort of push myself to do it. If I am invited to a holiday party, like we just had the Fourth of July not that long ago. I am so much more likely to go to do that fun thing, the holiday party, and that I am to say, “No, I can’t go. I need to stay home and meal prep.” I would just say no, I don’t need to meal prep this week. I can figure something out. I can order food. Make it on the fly. Whatever the case may be.

But I would never do that for my business. If I really needed to get something done or wanted to get something done, I would choose that over the party, let’s say.

So there is no right or wrong decision with what pulls you and what pushes you, but I want you to pay attention to it. So in your own life, what do you feel pulled towards where you’re making excuses to do that very thing versus making excuses not to do the thing. I know for a lot of people they’re pulled so much towards vacationing and travelling. I’m not really pulled towards that. Do I like vacation? Do I like travel? Yes, but it’s not something that pulls me, right?

We find this a lot with entrepreneurs. Those of you who are in the Creator Program who joined this month and have been in there, you know this. We talk about this, right? It’s where you really just have this entrepreneurial mindset, and it’s pulling you. You don’t know how you’re going to do it, but one step at a time you are moving towards that pull. The opposite is true with what is pushing you.

I think that this can be really helpful if you are trying to figure out what your purpose is in this season of life. If you are not really passionate about anything. Like what do you find yourself making excuses to do versus not to do? Is there an opportunity there for you to turn that into a hobby or a side project or even a side business or something else? Because when you live your life from a place of being pulled, it allows you to focus and constrain.

So if I know that two of my main pulls are my business and motherhood, those end up being my top two priorities. Now, do I have other priorities? Absolutely. Like the most obvious other priority that I like to share is health. So my mental and emotional health, super high priorities. I’m still going to be showering, going to the gym, self-coaching, doing all of those things. But those don’t take up all of my time, just like you know this, right? You shower in the morning, you get ready. Maybe you journal, maybe you work out. Your whole self-care routine may take, who knows, anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours a day if you count showering and all of that.

Outside of that, what are we spending our time doing? We want to make sure we’re spending it on our priorities. Your career can be a priority, money can be a priority, whatever you sort of feel pulled to do can be a priority. You just want to make sure that you are pulled to do it.

I love the example with moms because I find that there’s such variety in terms of whether moms stay home and feel really pulled to stay home or go back to work and feel really pulled to do both, work and be a mom. I always find it so fascinating that it’s never really what you thought it was going to be before you had kids. So that will be fun for me to explore as well as I go into this next season of motherhood.

As I’ve coached my clients in Grow You, we talk about this a lot where you become a mom, and it’s so different than you thought. I’m thinking of one of my dear friends and Grow You members. She has a little one, a 10 month old. She always thought she wanted to work full time. She’s very career oriented, and then she had her little one. It’s so interesting to see her pulled now towards motherhood in a much more full time capacity, or at least part time. She knows she doesn’t want to do full time career anymore.

So what pulls you and what pushes you may change over time. I think being open to that is going to serve you so much. Because it’s one thing to say, “I want to get married and have kids,” and it’s another thing to go and do it and how that shapes you and changes you. So giving yourself space to say, “Yeah, I thought I wanted to work full time. Now that I’m a mom, I see it differently. I want to work part time and try that. Maybe I’ll end up being a stay at home mom. Maybe I’ll do that.”

Sort of being open to trial and error and being wrong about it. Like maybe you work full time and you’re pulled to be a mom, and you become a mom. Then you realize you’re not pulled to work full time anymore, so you decide to become a stay at home mom. Then you realize that that’s not exactly it either. You’re pulled back to work a little bit. So you find this balance with I want to work part time and I want to mom part time.

So how this relates to the push pull energy is being aware that it exists and being open to seeing what naturally pulls you and what naturally pushes you. Instead of looking to sort of society to tell us what should push us and what should pull us.

I love the example of travel because it doesn’t really pull me. Like I like travel. I want to travel. Especially after the COVID year we had, I’m itching to travel a little bit more than I have. But generally speaking, travel is not one of my top priorities that pulls me. Now if I sort of listen to society and sort of the media and maybe even my peers, I might think there’s something wrong with me or that I should be pulled to travel more.

So if you have this awareness that everyone’s different, and that if you’re pulled towards your career, that’s a gift. Most people are pulled to travel because they don’t love the work that they do, right. Not always. Some people genuinely love exploring different cultures. But what I’ve studied and found is that a lot of people really want to vacation to escape their lives, right? It’s the over pleasuring, overdrinking, overeating, over just getting that external pleasure because they don’t really love the day to day. Not always true. So if you genuinely love travel, like I get it in the way that I feel pulled to do business and motherhood.

So we’re all different in that way, but I just want you to be aware that you get to decide what you’re pulled towards and what you push towards and being really open to that changing. So ask yourself like in this season of life, what is pulling me? What do I find excuses to do? Then also notice if something is pushing you. You’ll know this because you’re finding excuses not to do the thing, and don’t beat yourself up about it. Just be really curious about this.

This is why I’m more selective with who I coach in business because if you’re not pulled towards business, it’s really hard to get results. It’s kind of like anything. If you’re not pulled towards that particular thing, it’s hard to be the best.

Like I’m never going to be the best cook. That’s okay. I don’t want to be. If I wanted to be then I would be pulled towards it. I’m open to that changing. Maybe there will be a season of my life where that changes, but right now not going to happen because I don’t prioritize it. I don’t spend a lot of time and energy. It’s not taking up a lot of space in my brain. I’m not curious about different seasonings and flavors and recipes and how things go together. Like it doesn’t light me up inside, but I’m always thinking about those things with respect to business and motherhood.

So one of my deepest desires has always been to be a mom. I think that’s why I was willing to wait so long for it and really wait forever for it. I think that when you’re pulled towards something, there’s no ‘is it too late to’. Like there’s always a way because you’re always feeling pulled towards it.

I remember when I was nervous about whether we’d be able to get pregnant, and what helped calm me down a little bit or just ease my nerves was knowing that I was going to be a mom no matter what. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know when. I didn’t know if it was going to be through natural ways or other ways, and that was okay with me. I knew in my bones that I was going to be a mom one day. That’s the pull. It’s when you believe that you have this deepest desire. So you’re totally willing to wait for it.

Notice if you are in a rush to achieve your goals. Give yourself some space to allow for the belief without time constraints. So if I would have been 25 saying, “Yes, I’m going to be a mom one day, and that needs to happen by the end of the year.” That would have felt very frantic and pressure and would have put me into a lot of scarcity action.

But instead I could just put that belief in sort of this idea cloud out there where I could just believe it and decide that there was no rush. I could still be pulled towards that. Like I still dated. I dated for 10 more years before I was going to become a mom. Of course it was a little less than that if you count the time it took to get engaged and get married and all of that. But 10 years before becoming a mom if I would have just focused on that belief and that desire at 25. I never did that, and I’m so glad.

So sometimes I have to do this in other areas of my life. If I ever feel like I’m rushing, it’s like okay. Reminder, there is no rush. I can love this desire and have this desire forever, and I can keep trying. Because I’m pulled towards it, and the fun is in moving towards what you’re pulled towards too. You will feel delighted to work on what you’re feeling pulled towards too.

Contrast that with what’s pushing you, you don’t always feel as delighted to work on it. So if you really want something, if you really are pulled towards it, give yourself permission to just deeply desire it no matter what it is. Particularly if it’s something that might not be what society, or the media traditionally would think is what you should want. Like it’s somewhat easier to desire things that everyone else understands and gets.

I can relate to this because sort of the congratulations and the praise for getting married and expecting is definitely greater than anything else I’ve ever had or done in my life. It reminds me of Shonda Rhimes and The Year of Yes. I know I already talked about this. But she said in all of her accomplishments when she was going to get married—and she didn’t end up getting married—but when she was going to, that was something that she received more praise for than anything, any accomplishment in her life.

I think you know that goes to sort of how we’re socialized as women and the social norms, some of which are useful and great and some of which we all sort of follow others of which we don’t. Individually, we’re all sort of choosing differently based on our own desires. So for you if there is any desire that you have that you’re being pulled towards that isn’t something that follows the societal norm, like quitting your job as a lawyer and starting your business, right? I can relate to that.

It’s allowing yourself to be pulled towards that and not letting it bother you that the people around you don’t get it and being okay with that. Sort of just allowing for that. Like they don’t need to get it. They have their results in their life, and they get to do what they want to do, and I get to do what I want to do. I love what I’m doing because it’s pulling me.

All right. Short and sweet today my friends. That’s what I have for you. Spend some time thinking about what pulls you and do more of that. I will talk with you next week.

If you loved this podcast, you’re going to love Grow You. Grow You is my virtual life coaching program where I take everything on the podcast to the next level. I invite you to join our amazing community of women and moms and deepen your own personal development. Head on over to nataliebacon.com/coaching to learn more.  

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