RealPositiveGirl - Weekly Encouragement & Mental Health

Show Notes:
When we think of being productive, it’s often the picture of someone going above and beyond what is asked and sometimes making others look bad. And not on purpose, of course, because those types of thoughts are only attributed to mindsets that see and do life through their insecurities.

Having the focus of being productive is for everyone. We just need to know how to tap into it, which is what we will chat about in a bit. But first, here are a few reasons WHY productivity is important to our daily lives.

When we are more productive, we can focus on our priorities associated with accomplishing our goals & actually get to the finish line. It’s taking the time to be clear about your goals and using your time wisely while being productive that helps it all work together.

Often being productive can help reduce stress because you’ve taken the time to outline tasks & to-do's in your life, as well as allocate your time enough to not have to worry about what needs to happen.

If you’re someone that struggles with discipline, becoming better at productivity will only increase your ability to be self-disciplined because you have to take the initiative to do the work, whether you want to or not. And if you are currently working on discipline, you’ll get better at being productive along the way.

The last reason is my favorite because it aligns well with my brain. When we work on becoming more productive, we also become more creative because we find new ways to get things done. Sometimes this means done more efficiently, too. But you get the opportunity to go about things in a new way that could be more fun & enjoyable.

Let’s get into the list of tips I have for you that will help you become more productive in your everyday life:

1. Plan Out Your Day 
   1. Make lists of your tasks.
   2. Allocate time, even in a flexible way.
   3. Be careful with multitasking.
2. Create a Priority List from Your Plan 
   1. Highlight the Urgent & Important (have to get done) Tasks
   2. Consider what’s next based on how impactful getting it done will be
   3. Be realistic about how much time you have
3. Make Bigger Tasks Into Smaller Tasks
4. Create Goals 
   1. Reasonable Goals
   2. Specific Goals
5. Work on Time Management Skills 
   1. Eliminate Distractions
   2. Review how well your follow-through is going in the middle of the day to maybe readjust your plan.
6. Enforce Personal Boundaries 
   1. Say ‘No’ More Often
   2. Take Breaks
   3. Don’t Be Too Influenced By Others 
      1. Know who you should and should not listen to when creating your plans, goals & implementing those things.
7. Celebrate Your Milestones & Accomplishments

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When we feel uncertain, we are dealing with not knowing what is coming next. We are sometimes anxious about the future we don’t know & what could happen that we aren’t prepared for.

Life is so much easier to live when we know what is coming next. When we know what to expect and we can prepare for it, even if it’s bad.

Our brains are often looking for patterns and predictability, so when something is uncertain, it’s much harder for the brain to understand what’s happening, with this expectation that we SHOULD know, which can also manifest into anxiety. And when things are uncertain, it can also throw your brain into assessing whether there is a possibility of a threat or risk we need to prepare. It’s the ambiguity that presses us to feel threatened and to get so fixated on turning that uncertainty into certainty.

The best piece of advice for dealing with uncertainty is to develop a tolerance for it. You have to continue to endure it, with a mindset that knows that is what needs to happen, and it will become more tolerable over time. And maybe that is the only tip you needed for handling uncertainty. You’re welcome! LOL! But I will be sharing 5 specific tips on how to better handle uncertainty that is all part of developing that tolerance you need to no longer allow uncertainty to be a big problem in your life.
Here are the 5 tips I have for you to get a better handle on uncertainty:

1. Accept Uncertainty as Normal & Expected 
   1. Uncertainty is a part of life that we CANNOT get away from. It will ALWAYS be there & we need to accept that. Honestly, acceptance is always the first step in learning o deal with most things and it’s because we have to be on board with that thing being a reality in life before we take any heavy actions towards dealing with it.
2. Understand the Difference Between Known Unknowns & Unknown Unknowns 
   1. Known Unknowns are things you KNOW will happen, but not exactly sure how it will come about. Example: You KNOW it’s going to rain today, but you’re unsure of WHEN it’s going to rain & whether or not you will experience it.
   2. Unknown Unknowns are things you REALLY don’t know & will have to trust will work out. Example: You invest money into something, hoping it will pay off for you later, but there is no way to know it ACTUALLY will. You are going into it with blind faith.
3. Develop Coping Mechanisms to Combat Being Overly Emotional 
   1. Uncertainty can be emotionally challenging for us because it’s such a huge loss of control. Dealing with uncertainty without control over your emotions can also trigger fear, frustration & sometimes anger because you feel so out of control.
   2. Good options for Coping Mechanisms: Mindfulness, positive self-talk, spending more time problem-solving instead of worrying, practicing gratitude and leaning on your support people.
4. Focus On What You Can Control 
   1. Put all your energy into what you CAN actually control, instead of wasting time on things you can do nothing about.
5. Come Up With a Few Alternate Plans 
   1.  You can foster your own comfort & calmness by knowing you have other options to go with.

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You can spend time seeking out all the growth tips you want, but if you don’t take the time to personalize the knowledge you find, you won’t feel like you’re winning. You won’t feel like you’re getting better and you won’t feel like it’s the right fit for you.

The idea of looking at personal growth as a journey is a more realistic way to approach growth, as opposed to viewing it as a tall mountain you have to climb. Calling it a journey also implies that there isn’t necessarily a finish line you need to feel anxious to hit. It’s a continual walk down a path that is changing over time and presenting different challenges for growth depending on the season of life you’re in. It’s kinda nice, right?

And you can easily be on multiple growth journeys simultaneously towards different outcomes for different things. One could be physical health, another could be emotional growth, another could be spiritual or even getting that dream career.

The basic points you want to hit when you’re on a journey toward personal growth is to become more observant of what’s going on in the world around you & how that affects you and how you live your life. You also want to be honest about everything that isn’t working, anything that needs to change & any help you might need. Finally, you need to commit to whatever changes and shifts you intend to make. Nothing changes if you don’t follow through with the actions associated with creating change. To be successful in your personal growth journey, you gotta focus on these things being prevalent and take the journey seriously.

Let’s get into the list of steps I want to share with you that I believe best represent the journey you go on to achieve personal growth:

1. Self-Reflect & Self-Awareness 
2. Goal Setting 
3. Move Forward With Action Toward Your Goals 
4. Don’t Cower From Challenges & Struggles 
5. Lean On Those That Support You 
6. Embrace Change & Be Flexible 
7. Take Care of Yourself On the Regular 
8. Keep Learning to Increase Growth 

I absolutely appreciate you SO MUCH for listening, downloading & sharing the show! It means the WORLD to me! Thank you!!

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Show Notes:
I definitely was the dependent one in relationships. That was my biggest toxic trait. Sometimes it still is.

I was a people pleaser, so it was easy to lose my identity to become whatever was needed in the relationship.

And that’s the best way to end a relationship really quick, be taken advantage of (if the person knows what they are doing), and get further away from understanding who you are & what you are worth and capable of.

Background & Review:

• Toxic traits are considered negative behaviors that can be harmful to one or both of the partners in a relationship.
• This can escalate to really unhealthy and unstable relationships that cause more damage for 1 or both partners.
• There are a number of toxic traits that can be engaged in and today we are going to chat about the ones I find most important.
• If you start to notice yourself or your partner exhibiting toxic traits, you need to take the extra step of getting help with this. Whether you speak with someone you trust, speak with a therapist or counselor, set personal boundaries, or end the relationship, you gotta do something. And sometimes you will end up doing all of these things.

List of Toxic Traits:

1. Possessiveness
   1. Partner tries to control who the other spends time with
   2. Jealous with outside people interactions
2. Lack of Communication
   1. Tension & resentment are created with no communication
   2. When conversations are shut down because they don’t wanna talk with no follow up time
   3. Refusal to communicate what’s going on, feelings, concerns, ect.
3. Blaming
   1. Partner refuses to take responsibility for their actions
   2. Blames everything that goes wrong on their partner
4. Verbal or Physical Abuse
   1. Used for control or intimidation
5. Disrespect
   1. Disregarding feelings, belittling them, making them feel inferior.
6. Dependent
   1. When someone struggles with their own mental health, they can cling to their partner for emotional and / or financial support. This is unbalanced.
   2. This is overwhelming & exhausting for the partner.
   3. Inability for them to function without their partner, leading to anxiety or desperation.
   4. Lack of autonomy happens when someone loses their independence & is too reliant on their partner. They lose their send of identity.
7. Emotional Manipulation
   1. Gaslighting 
      1. Trying to get your partner to think they are crazy and doubt their own thoughts, experiences & feelings. And to push them to feel like they are thinking outside of reality.
   2. Guilt-tripping 
      1. Pouring on the guilt when something doesn’t go their way or trying to make the other feel bad for standing up for themselves.
   3. Love bombing 
      1. Pouring on the love and appreciation in an attempt to get the other to do what they want and feel so overwhelmed with the attention and gestures that they are caught off guard to comply with whatever requests come up.

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Show Notes:
It’s important that you know how important personal boundaries are & how integral it is for every single person in the entire world to have & enforce personal boundaries. And I think we really lack the second part of that statement. We can have all the intentions in the world and set boundaries in our minds & share those with others, but if we never enforce said boundaries, it’s all for nothing. But we will get into that a bit later.

There are 2 things I want to accomplish in today’s episode:

1. Why having personal boundaries is REALLY important
2. How you can start setting personal boundaries for yourself, even if you’ve never done it in the past.

When we set personal boundaries, we are creating limits for ourselves with others AND with ourselves that help us feel safe & achieve enough balance for us to live our lives in our best way. Having personal boundaries benefits our mindset, our emotions & our physical wellbeing.

Let me share with you a few specific reasons why personal boundaries are so important:

1. Keeps Self-Respect in Tact
2. Keeps Relationships Healthy
3. Reduces Stress & Anxiety
4. Increases Self-Awareness

Now, getting into setting personal boundaries for yourself, it’s not always easy. Especially if you have never done it before. But it’s worth the effort & an important part of increasing personal growth, fostering healthy relationships and even engaging in self-care.

Here are 5 Tips on How to Set Personal Boundaries for Yourself:

1. Figure Out What YOU Need & What’s Important to You
   1. Think about what your values are & what you hold in the highest regard 
   2. Prioritize what is most important to you in life and consider boundaries in these areas first.
   3. Do you have any limits? 
2. Determine Where/When You’ll Need Boundaries
   1. Consider past experiences when you felt uncomfortable & whether having personal boundaries enforced would have helped.
   2. This could be with anyone & be anywhere. 
3. Choose Your Personal Boundaries
   1. Be specific on what your boundaries are
   2. It will help to determine what you are and aren’t willing to tolerate from others & even yourself.
4. Communicate & Enforce Your Boundaries
   1. You gotta tell people that you have boundaries if you expect them to respect them.
   2. Make sure you use ‘I’ statements when you share & don’t blame or criticize others for why you have your boundaries. Own your boundaries.
   3. Practice saying, “No,” to people that try to overstep your boundaries. You have the HUMAN RIGHT to say, “No,” if you are uncomfortable.
5. Don’t Give In
   1. You gotta stay consistent in enforcing your boundaries. 
   2. Be firm & know that you are WORTHY of being respected and having your boundaries respected.
   3. You’ll get better at enforcing your boundaries the more you do it 

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Show Notes:
I used to have this weird mindset where I didn’t want to think about the week ahead too much because I was afraid of jinxing it or manifesting something bad happening. But I had no idea what manifesting was, so it wasn’t thought about like that. But it was just so odd to fear looking at the week ahead. I think it was because I was enduring so much pain & trauma on the regular that I didn’t want to know what was coming.

And maybe you haven’t endured any pain or trauma that relates to fearing what is coming next or have to deal with anxiety, but if you find it difficult at all to prepare your mindset for the week ahead, I am here to share with you why it’s important & integral to your week & how you can do it in the most beneficial way.

Taking a little bit of time to preview the week ahead will help you make any decisions on what needs to change based on last week, what you want to do differently to have a different type of week and to make sure you feel prepared, mentally & physically, for what you need to accomplish and work on. We can only do what we have control over, which is ourselves, but we can still make a difference on our week with ourselves. Also, you need to prepare your mind for ways to pump yourself up when the days get tough and feel unbearable.

In the last episode, we chatted about the best way to review and reflect on the past week to gain more clarity and direction in what needs to improve and what HAS been improving but we didn’t notice in the moment. Check out that episode if you haven’t already listened to it. It will help you learn to review, which will couple well with today’s episode on how to preview and then you’ll be able to put those together for a great practice of self-awareness & mindset flexibility.

Today, we are going to chat about how to preview the week ahead to be as prepared as you can for what you know is going to happen. But it’s still all about being flexible in our mindset and knowing we can do our best to prepare for everything (which shouldn’t be the goal, really) but still have to deal with unexpected difficulties.  But as always, we can only control what we can control.

Here are 5 Ways to Preview the Week Ahead:

1. Review Anything You Know Will be Difficult or Anxiety Inducing
2. Prioritize What Needs the Most Attention
3. List at Least 3 Things You Will Do to Practice Self-Care
4. List 3 Ways to Stay Energized & 3 Ways to Stay Focused This Week
5. Practice Self-Awareness By Knowing When You’re Taking On Too Much or Could Do More

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Show Notes:
I didn’t start doing this well until I got into college. I was doing this as early as childhood because it’s necessary when your life is filled with trauma. You gotta see what YOU need to change to survive a little better.

But outside of doing it for the sake of survival & people pleasing, it has been so helpful for me to review what I did to prepare for whatever was coming up and how I faired with it. Also, to determine if I needed to do more or less, depending on the work load. And, as unhealthy as it is, I was determining how I could do more in the next week than I had the past week to somehow increase my self-worth. Eye roll, I KNOW.

But, I am more aware now and understand that it’s not about out doing myself every single week or focusing so hard only on what went wrong or self-shaming as a way to get myself to do better. It’s about learning from the past week and using that knowledge to be better mentally, emotionally & in a practical sense, physically in everything I need to do moving forward.

Do you happen to practice journaling?

It’s something I am working on becoming a habit because I know taking the time to reflect on what happened each day at the end of the day will be really helpful for me to spot patterns and not hold onto emotions, reactions & responses from others and my own. It’s something I put on my vision board, so it’s really important to me.

But, if you already journal on the regular, then adding in a reflection for the week won’t be too much more for you. And don’t think you don’t need to do this BECAUSE you already journal every single day. When you put it all together, again you can see patterns & where some missteps may have happened and where you recovered & progressed.

So, let’s get into it! Also, the next episode that comes out will be all about how to preview the week ahead. That way you will get both: Review the week past, preview the week coming up.

Here are 5 Ways to Review the Past Week to Determine What You Learned, Loved & Lacked:

1. Point Out What Went Well & What Wasted Your Time
2. Describe How You Felt This Week (make sure to note is your emotions were very opposite from one day to the next.)
3. Call Out What Didn’t Go Well & Why
4. Be Honest About Any Excuses Made This Week
5. Be Honest About How Well You Prioritized Yourself This Week

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Show Notes:
Emotion, emotion, emotion. That was my whole thing when I had to deal with a sucky situation. It’s because I never learned how to properly regulate my emotions. So, whether it was someone going after my family (despite the hot mess it was), my friends or me, I was ready to fight. And I could fight really well with my emotions. It was my stronger weapon. I used to (proudly, sadly) tell a story on how I made a boy cry in elementary school, on purpose, because he was saying rude things to others. I had a low tolerance for that stuff back then.

I feel like I have a low tolerance now, but I don’t just jump for the throat right away. It’s a slow dance, sometimes, when you need to confront someone or deal with a situation. Not as energy surging as when I was younger & living high on adrenalin and rage emotions. But, it’s better.

The processing questions we are going to chat about today will help you get through your problems & struggles in a way that doesn’t avoid anything, doesn’t find us running to our comfort zone and helps us keep our mindset right. It’s going to be really clutch in those times when all we want to do is spiral.

And spiraling isn’t what we want to do. We want to better understand why we are having the emotions and reactions/responses to the situation that we are and consciously decide to shift our mindset to a better place. The better place is where you feel like you are winning and making progress over no longer allowing your emotions to control the situation and having a better balance of embracing your feelings and making the best decision on how to move forward.

Let’s get into the questions you can ask yourself when you are really going through it. When it feels like everything sucks and you’re not sure what to do and honestly just want to run away.

Here are 5 Questions to Ask Yourself to Work Through Your Struggles & Problems:

1. Should I invest deeply in this situation or just walk away?
2. What do I need to take responsibility for?
3. What can I actually do that is within my control that will benefit this situation?
4. What can I learn from this experience?
5. What do I need to do to make sure my mindset is right & I’m confident to move forward?

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Show Notes:
Growing up I fell asleep to the radio. Really any kind of music because my whole childhood was filled with music constantly and it’s why it’s such an important part of my life. So much that I fell asleep to smooth jazz in a sleeping bag on the floor of my dad’s radio station. And that habit continued through my entire life, up until I got married.

Even now, it’s something I do when I need an extra step of calmness before bed because that’s what it was to me growing up: calm. But my husband trained me out of it for the most part, but has trained us back into it. It’s hilarious. But I know many people would say it’s not the most healthy sleep habit to have because it keeps your mind awake. But not mine. And that’s just another example of how different things work for different people.

Maybe falling asleep to music isn’t your thing, maybe it’s the tv. Or maybe it’s a sound machine. Or maybe it’s nothing. I say do whatever works best for you & helps you fall asleep fast and wake up refreshed. But maybe your problem isn’t choosing what to fall asleep to, but actually getting to sleep. A lot of times we can have trouble sleeping when we are dealing with a lot of stress and feeling overwhelmed. And whether or not it’s true insomnia, you often feel like a wreck in the morning.

Alright, let’s get into it and chat about 5 Tips to Help You Sleep Better When You’re Dealing With Stress & Feeling Overwhelmed:

1. Practice Stress Management Techniques (doing this throughout the day will have such a big impact on your sleep because you aren’t bringing as much stress to bedtime as you would without doing something helpful during the day. Try yoga, stretching, journaling, chatting with someone you trust, meditation/prayer, and planning out your time.)
2. Create a Bedtime Routine (Figure out what you need to do to wind down for bed & feel as calm as you can. Maybe it’s taking a bath/hot shower, writing down all worries & stressors and to do’s on a pad/in your phone, reading a book that is encouraging & affirming, deep breathing, listen to calming music.)
3. Get Your Room Right (Cut back on bright screens and bright lights that will keep your brain awake, manage the perfect temp for you/the right amount of pillows and blankets/jammies situation/pets, decide on ear plugs/soft music/sleep mask)
4. Try Out Some Relaxation Techniques (Visualization - imagine the scene, the smells, the sounds - Self Massage with a foam roller or massage device or tennis ball, guided meditation, grounding.)
5. Consider What You’re Eating & Taking to Supplement Your Body (My doc suggested I eat a snack before bed because it would help me stay asleep, something with healthy fats & carbs. I also started taking magnesium glycinate &a tincture that has oats, hops, skullcap, and other stuff to help to stay asleep. Caffeine is also something to be avoided before bed. And consider becoming aware of whether you’re eating things that upset your digestive system, because you don’t need something else to stress about.)

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As someone that grew up using manipulation as a way to survive my abusive life, I knew how best to use judgments. The best way to use judgments was to use those against the judger. 

It was simple. Befriend them to know who & what they were judging, then turn around & passive aggressively judge them for those same things. (Judgment: They live in a poor neighborhood. Manipulation: “Yeah, not everyone can be defined by money. Some people are just defined by hard work and respect.”) It was the way to keep people in line. How? Because people judge others based on their own insecurities, biases & prejudices.

Have you ever thought about how your judgments of others can have a reflection of who YOU are? And not just identifying you as someone that judges others & gives unsolicited opinions. No, as someone that decides to sling their own insecurities & fears at others in the hopes of fostering uncomfortable feelings, personal shame and self-consciousness in them. 

Yep, it can identify you as that.

But we don’t THINK that when we are judging other people.

We think we are just thinking something (and sometimes saying something, which usually doesn’t need to happen) about that person and having an opinion about it. But really, we are pointing out what leads to us feeling uncomfortable, uncertain, the things we are prejudice about, where our biases lie, what we have allowed to influence us the most and the importance of our own beliefs and values.

Us judging others can REALLY reveal a lot about who we are. And you might feel like that’s a bad thing, but it’s actually a good thing because it allows us figure out what needs to change & shift. When we can’t see all the breadcrumbs, we have no idea where to start or even what could be wrong. And I’m not saying that because we judge someone for something that we are a bad person. Not all judgments are even conscious judgments. We might not even realize we are judging someone because the basis for our opinion is what we were taught & how we live our life.

Let’s just jump in and go over 5 Things Our Judgments Reveal About Our True Selves:

1. Our Biases & Prejudices 
2. Our Insecurities & Fears
3. Our Personal Values & Beliefs 
4. Our Abilities in Empathy
5. Our Abilities in Self-Awareness 

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