26: Manifesting Your Best Life in Your 40s & Beyond with Sarah Centrella
Ep. 26
Have you ever noticed how easy it is to get caught in the same mental loops? Maybe you wake up already criticizing your body, worrying about your energy, or feeling anxious about the future. It can seem like no matter how hard you try, those thoughts keep circling back.
There’s a reason for that. Research suggests we think around 70,000 thoughts a day, and about 90 percent are the same ones we had yesterday. That means most of us are unintentionally reinforcing the very patterns we want to escape.
The good news is, it doesn’t have to stay that way. With a few simple practices, you can actually rewire your thought patterns and shift the way you experience your life. In this post, we’ll explore powerful mindset tools from Sarah Centrella, bestselling author, master life coach, and creator of the Centrella Method, including how to flip a negative thought in seconds, use affirmations to guide your growth, and create “future boards” that help bring your goals to life.
Listen to the full episode:
The Mental Tennis Technique: Your Instant Thought-Flipper
Sarah's signature "mental tennis" method offers a simple way to interrupt negative thought cycles in real time. Picture yourself on a tennis court with an automatic ball launcher firing thoughts at you all day long. Most people just stand there and let every negative thought hit them, absorbing beliefs like "I'm not good enough" or "I can't change how I feel."
Instead of absorbing these thoughts, you can return the serve. When you catch yourself thinking "I'm not ready for this," immediately flip it to "I'm ready" or "I'm getting better every day." If the thought is "I feel terrible," counter with "I feel fantastic" or "My body is responding quickly."
The key is making it the exact opposite of whatever negative thought just hit you. This does two important things: it stops the negative pattern from growing deeper roots, and it gives your brain a new option that wasn't there before. You'll notice an immediate shift in how you feel physically—less tension, better energy, more optimism.
Daily Affirmations: Your Becoming Roadmap
Rather than using affirmations to describe who you are now, Sarah suggests treating them as a list of who you're becoming. These should feel aspirational, even if they seem like "lies" at first—that's actually the point.
Choose 10-20 positive "I am" statements and say them twice daily, ideally while brushing your teeth or during another established routine. Examples might include "I am vibrant and full of energy," "I am successful," "I am beautiful," or "People love being around me."
After about three weeks, something interesting happens: you'll start hearing both voices—the old negative one and this new empowered one. For the first time, you get to choose which voice to follow. This choice changes how you make decisions, which naturally changes your outcomes.
Future Boards: Vision with Intention
Traditional vision boards often fail because they're just random magazine cutouts. Sarah's future boards are different—they're architectural blueprints for your life based on a detailed "life plan story" you write first.
Start by imagining your ideal life across five categories: relationships, career and wealth, mind and body, and passions and joys. Write out what each area would look like if everything were exactly as you wanted. Then use Pinterest (the largest photography library online) to find images that represent these specific scenarios.
The power lies in seeing hundreds of examples of people already living your "impossible" dreams. It makes your goals feel real and achievable while helping you identify exactly what matters to you and why.
The Five Life Categories That Matter
Sarah's method focuses on balancing energy across five core areas. Most people put all their energy into career, some into relationships, and maybe 20% into physical health—then wonder why they feel stressed and unfulfilled.
When you intentionally nurture relationships, career ambitions, wealth building, mind-body wellness, and genuine passions, life feels more balanced and satisfying. The key is recognizing that you don't have to choose just one area to work on—you can make small improvements across all five simultaneously.
Why Your Thoughts Create Your Reality
Whether you believe in manifestation or not, the practical impact is undeniable: what you focus on consistently shapes your actions, which determine your results. If you spend all day thinking about what's wrong, you'll make decisions from that mindset. If you train your thoughts toward what you want to create, you'll start making choices that move you in that direction.
The goal isn't toxic positivity or pretending problems don't exist. It's about consciously directing your mental energy toward solutions and possibilities rather than getting stuck in repetitive worry cycles that don't serve you.
These techniques work because they interrupt automatic patterns and give you new options. With consistent practice, you can literally rewire how your brain approaches challenges and opportunities—creating space for the changes you actually want to see in your life.
Want to dive deeper into the techniques that can rewire your thought patterns? Listen to the full podcast episode for more detailed insights and if you're interested in personalized guidance for navigating perimenopause, menopause, and metabolic health, I'd love to help. Visit eastsidemm.com to book a consultation and learn about upcoming programs designed specifically for women like you.