The Ashlee Jaine Show

You have to prioritize because not everything that everyone requests of you, not every meeting or not, every dinner or not, every insert x, y or Z here should be a yes for you. You have to know what to say yes to and what to say no to and what's important to you and make time for that. Hey, ladies, welcome back for another episode of the Ashlee Jaine show. I am your host and guide Ashlee Jaine sharing advice and actionable tips to help you glow up and show up as the very best version of yourself in today's episode, which I'm sure you already know because I know you saw the title before you click to play, but we are going to be talking all about how to take control of your life, and there is so much satisfaction in having control over your life and having your shit together. Like I promised ladies, if you feel like your life is out of control right now, like you feel so off balance, so off kilter. This episode is going to be so valuable to you. And it's funny because like in one of my most recent episodes where I'm talking about inspired action, I talk about letting go of control a little bit. But those are two different areas of life that we're discussing so inspired actions totally separate from what we going to be talking about today. So don't think that I'm contradicting myself here. I want to be clear that there are certain aspects of your life where you most definitely should be in control.

And then there are certain aspects of your life where you should relinquish the reins. Just a little bit, ladies. All right. So with that said, have you ever felt like you have zero control over your life or over your finances or over your time or your relationships like life is just happening all around you and you cannot figure out how to make it happen for you or work with you? Ok, if you said yes to any of those things, you are going to love this episode because we are going to shake some things up and we are talking about specifically how you can regain control or maybe just gain control. Maybe you never even really felt like you had control, but how you can regain control of whatever aspect in your life you feel like is currently out of control. Now let me just be fully transparent and disclose that I am somewhat of a control freak. I love having tabs on things in my life. I find security and being in control of various aspects of my life. But like I mentioned in my inspired action episode, there are certain aspects of your life where you don't necessarily need to control the situation or the timeline. The topics that I'm talking about here today are so important to be I don't even want to say in control, but to be on top of, I don't know.

I don't know if that's any better. It's basically saying the same thing. But these are so important because in order to get anywhere in life and to reach your potential and to make an impact and to be what you want to be in this lifetime, these areas of your life, you absolutely need to have your hand on the wheel. Ok. Ooh, I like that analogy. Hand on the wheel instead of in control. Let's put our hands on the wheels, ladies. So the number one tip that I can give you for regaining control of your life all comes down to being proactive rather than reactive in every single topic that we're going to talk about today. That's the foundation that is the key. Now, each and every single topic has, you know, kind of a different way or a different approach to go about being proactive. And I'm going to throw out like some real life examples and some analogies and things like that, because we all know that I love to share real life examples, but it all comes down to being proactive. Ok, so first up, let's talk about relationships. When you feel that things are off kilter, you're out of control. Hold on. Let me back up. I don't mean you're out of control of your partner or they're controlling you because that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about the relationship itself, not one individual controlling the other or controlling a circumstance. So just to be clear, I'm talking about being in control of your relationship itself and having your hands on the wheel like we discussed in your relationship.

So maybe there's a disconnect, or maybe you haven't really been seeing eye to eye lately with your husband or your boyfriend or your partner. And the best thing that you can do to regain control and to regain traction and to get on a positive and productive path in that relationship is to be proactive. You need to get ahead of the issue. You need to communicate. You need to ask questions. If you don't know what the actual issue or what the actual cause of frustration is, you need to be a problem solver and figure out how to find out what it is. You have to find out where the disconnect is and you need to be a problem solver and think outside of the box on how you can fix it. And then when you know the issue, when you know what's really wrong and when you know the root cause of whatever turmoil you're experiencing, you have to plan accordingly. And this is where it comes. Being proactive really comes in handy. You can't be reactive back to these things. Like maybe you know that there is like a trust issue in your relationship. But rather than being proactive and expressing that, you don't trust your partner in certain situations or scenarios or with certain people or whatever. And instead of you communicating that and being proactive, maybe you just wait until that situation or that circumstance happens, or he's around those people and you just blow up and you go ballistic.

That's being reactive. You have to be proactive, you have to plan accordingly if you want to have a thriving and successful relationship. And this isn't even just like in your marriage or your partnerships. This is with family members, too. This is what people who are closest to you. This is what your friends. You have to be proactive and you have to do your part to have your hand on the wheel and to be able to clearly and effectively navigate these tricky situations that we often find ourself in when it comes to relationships. Ok, so maybe if you want to be proactive in trying to repair a relationship or you and your husband have been fighting a lot or whatever is going on, maybe being proactive to you and planning things out looks like planning out your date nights or scheduling your therapy sessions or even dedicating time to work on yourself for your partner. Maybe there's like fundamental issues with each other, and I don't ever want to encourage people to feel like they have to change for someone. But at the same time, actually, you should go back and listen to my ben. Don't break podcasts because I talk about how you really have to. There always has to be give give in a relationship, so figure out how you can bend and how you can work together and how you can meet in the middle.

And that does include changing certain things about yourself or, you know, trying to help be the person that your partner needs you to be in certain situations. So please don't take that the wrong way. I don't think that anybody ever needs to quote unquote change for their partner. But yeah, you either grow together, you grow apart in a relationship. So there has to be some changing, hopefully on both accounts for a successful relationship to work, but anyways sidetracked. Ok, let's switch gears to your career. If you feel like you're stuck in a job that you hate or you're working with people that you don't really enjoy working with. That is your career and your work environment taking control of you. Now, I completely understand not everybody has the flexibility or the opportunity to just up and quit a job. I am a realist. I fully understand that there are certain situations and circumstances at play and bills that need to be paid and things like that. But with all of that said, that doesn't mean that you are completely powerless in the matter. So there are most certainly things that you can do that are within your control that you can start working on or working towards or changing to help you put yourself in a better career situation. So depending on what you know, the overall outcome that you're wanting to achieve and taking control of your career will depend on the actions that you take to be proactive.

But just, you know, here I am throwing out real world examples. Let's say that you are wanting some sort of raise or promotion, and that's your end goal to change your situation or your your work life. So maybe ask yourself, do you need some more education or some more training to achieve or to qualify for that promotion or that raise that you can start working on now? That would be proactive. Or maybe you're wanting to, you know, do some sort of unilateral department transfer to get away from your toxic colleagues. So maybe something you can do to be proactive for that would be to start talking with people in other departments in your company and see what positions are open or maybe coming available. Maybe somebody is planning on retiring or maybe even talk to, you know, those individuals and see if there's potential for a position to be added in that department in the future as well. So another example of being productive or maybe you want to. Quit your nine to five completely because you cannot stand being somebody's employee and you want to focus on building your own business. There are always things that you can do to be proactive. For this, you can start saving extra money, set it aside to invest in your business or to put it into savings so that you have a few months worth of bills saved up so that you have that cushion for when the time comes that you do, or you are able to quit your day job and really like, I just want to hone in on the fact that there is no such thing as a glass ceiling when it comes to being proactive and when it comes to a motivated woman.

So lots of different things that you can do, it just takes thinking outside of the box and asking yourself really hard questions on how you can change or what is in your control to change a certain situation around you. All right. These last two, this is going to be a touchy subject for some of you, I'm sure, because there are a lot of people out there who like to tell themselves that time and money are the most complex aspects of their life to have control over, and they just feel so out of control in both regards. And it's actually quite the opposite, and it's very simple to have control over these things, but it all comes down to being proactive rather than reactive, like I've said. And honestly, if this is you and you can relate to this, I don't blame you because these things are not taught. These things should be taught as core curriculum in school. Financial literacy at the very basic at the very minimum should be an entire semester's worth of education. But it's not because we live in a society where a lot of people benefit off of us not having a good, solid financial foundation.

But anyways, I digress. Ok, so I don't have the time. Quote unquote, is probably one of the most common excuses that we hear for anything in life, anything. But it's really not true. Not having the time just comes down to one of two things either not wanting to or not being proactive with scheduling and time commitments. Or, I guess, even. Well, yeah, prioritization really just falls under not wanting to. I would say. But there are always things that we can cut out of our schedules to make times for, especially if those things are important to us. And again, being proactive and planning ahead, scheduling your days out. I always recommend scheduling your week out and then going through every night or at the beginning of every day and scheduling your day out so you have clear direction, you have full control over your schedule. Don't let things sneak up on you, and it really just is a way to give you like clarity with the time that you have and, you know, direction on as to maybe you have appointments all over the place, or maybe you have a time block here where you can incorporate some self-care, whatever it looks like, just gives you control and knowledge over your schedule. So like I said, don't let things sneak up on you. Make sure you are planning ahead. Don't let things pop up and have to be squeezed into your already busy schedule to make it work.

Make sure you are planning out your schedule and don't overcommit yourself. And of course, time blocking one of my favorite things to do ever because it helps so much with productivity. But time blocking and other practices can really just help you put your hands back on the wheel of your schedule. And of course, I did mention prioritizing, but you have to prioritize because not everything that everyone requests of you, not every meeting or not, every dinner or not, every insert x, y or Z here should be a yes for you. You have to know what to say yes to and what to say no to and what's important to you and make time for that. If you say you don't have time because, you know, maybe it is something really important, but you have your schedule filled with all of these other things that aren't that important to you. You do have time, you're just not prioritizing. So a good example of that would be like, don't let TV time get in the way of you achieving your goals or of you doing something that really matters to you. You spending time with your children or your husband or whatever may be. So prioritization is key as well. All right. And lastly, money is probably one of my favorite topics that I literally never talk about. And I thought that I was going to incorporate some sort of personal finance aspect to this podcast, but honestly, it is such a liability.

And I just don't believe that there's like a one size fits all when it comes to financial literacy and money management and wealth building. I can't buy into that concept because we are all very different and have very different financial situations, and so it's really hard for me to just say, Do this, try this. This works when, in reality, there's so many different avenues that you can take. But I would encourage you to do what you can to educate. Hate yourself on money management and wealth building, and there are so many resources out there, not me, but so many other resources out there that you can take and whether your goal is to pay off debt or your goal is to build a fifty thousand dollars savings account or your goal is to, you know, start working on your retirement or you want to start investing. All of the information and education that you could possibly want or need is out there already. All you have to do is go and seek it out. Ok, but anyways, getting back on the subject of money and regaining your control over your finances, you have to be proactive in order to have a solid financial foundation. You have to be proactive when you have budgeted and you know exactly what is coming in and what is going out, you are able to plan and pivot accordingly. You can take a second job if you need to to help cover the bills, or maybe your goal is to pay off debt.

You can give that second job income and put it towards paying off your credit cards or your student loans, or whatever it may be. You can cut out bills that aren't necessarily like different streaming services, or I know we all have those random monthly subscriptions that we signed up for that we either didn't realize we signed up for. We forgot we signed up for whatever it may be, you can cut that out. You can eliminate that because it's not necessary. And if you are truly sincere about wanting to get control of your finances rather than maybe living paycheck to paycheck, then these are the necessary steps to be proactive to get a full blown look at what your financial situation looks like, and then to take the steps and plan and do the things necessary to get yourself where you want to be financially. You also have to set goals. So money is so interesting to me because it's just like anything. If you don't give it a sense of direction, it will just come and go so easily and you will never realize where the money actually all goes. And I'm saying all of this now, like me and my husband, both. We were not in a good financial situation up until a few years ago and because neither one of us were really good with money. And I think we're both a little bit more spenders than we are savers.

So at the end of the month, we would look at ourselves and we would say, where did all of our money go? And we would have to go back through our statements and we would have to see like, Oh, well, that's the reason why we weren't able to put, you know, the extra, however much we wanted to put in savings or what have you, because we weren't giving our money a sense of direction. So when you set goals and you give your money a sense of direction, you are a being proactive. But also you're telling your money what to do and how to work for you so you can set up automated transactions through your bank account. Most bank accounts will let you automatically transfer from checking to savings with every paycheck or at a certain date. Or maybe if you're like me and you're focused on retirement, you can transfer, you know, so much per month to your retirement accounts or, you know, whatever that looks like for you. Just figure out what steps you need to take to be proactive, to regain control of your finances so that you can start checking off those financial goals that you've set for yourself and build up a solid savings and just really put yourself in a better financial situation so that when your kids ask to do something you don't have to say, we don't have the money which you should never, ever do.

By the way, it's actually let me go back and look at this book because this book was life changing for me. It talks about your financial blueprint and basically how our financial beliefs are instilled in us by learned behavior from our parents and things like that. So hang on, let me go. I have to go find it. Inaudible. I read it quite frequently. All right, searching it up right now. Let's see. Oh. Ok, I cannot find the title of it here. Am I audible? So now I feel silly for saying something about like millionaire, mastermind or financial blueprint. I cannot remember. But anyways, if it comes to me, I'll put it in the show notes. But it is so incredibly empowering to realize that every financial belief that you have is stemmed from a learned behavior and can also be unlearned and change. So don't ever tell your kids that we don't have enough money. You can come up with something more creative than that or redirect them or throw out a different alternative that maybe isn't as pricey instead. But I can't even remember what we were talking about or how that even came up telling your kids that you can't afford it. Oh, living paycheck to paycheck, you shouldn't be living paycheck to paycheck and telling your kids that you can't afford to do the things that they want to do. And, you know, not having the solid savings that you need to when you retire.

And all of the things, all of the financial things. My overall message to you here is just to stop letting life happen to you. You have to make it happen for you. You have to regain control. You have to gain clarity and direction. You have to set goals and you have to work towards the things that you really want in life. You have to put your hands back on the wheel, both hands, not just one or both hands back on the wheel. I'm really loving that analogy that we're going with, by the way, because the reality is is that each day that we live is one less day that we get here on Earth, and it is your responsibility to make sure that you are making the most of the days that you have left. You have to make things better for yourself. You have to reach for the stars. You have to be a positive role model and you have to leave this world in a better place than what you found it. It all starts with you. Take control of your life, put your hands back on the wheels, take control of your mind. Be proactive and do the things that you need to do to get yourself where you want to go. That is a wrap for this episode, ladies. Thank you so much for listening, so much for tuning in and working on becoming the very best version of yourself. And I will catch you on the next episode.

Keep searching for more ideas and inspiration, always be open to trying something new or having fun with different self care ideas, so don't just limit yourself if you found something that works for you, that's great, but don't just limit yourself to that for all of eternity. Hey, ladies, welcome back for another episode of the Ashlee Jaine show. I am your host and guide Ashlee Jaine sharing all things advice and actionable tips on how you can glow up and show up as the very best version of yourself. Now, today's episode will be a little brief, I would imagine. I really just want to put this out there because self-care is so important. And if you are someone who is not already incorporating self-care into your daily or weekly routine, this episode is for you because self-care is another one of those life changing habits to create and to live your life by now, you've all heard the saying I'm sure you can't pour from an empty cup, and that is essentially where self-care comes into play. You need to take care of yourself. There is a reason why when you're in the airplane and the flight attendant tells you to always grab your mask before helping others because you have to help yourself before you can help others. It's as simple as that in every aspect of life doesn't matter if it's because you're hopefully you're not in an airplane crash or anything like that, but this holds true in work and family and relationships in everything.

So self care, self self-care, ladies. I cannot stress it enough. The importance of it is so critical to just your overall health and happiness and life. All right. So if you are not doing it weekly or daily, I would highly recommend figuring out where you can squeeze it in. And I'm actually going to share some self-care tips before I share some self-care ideas. But to avoid feeling burnout and fatigue and negative, and just all of the things lacking clarity and direction in life, all of the things overall unhappiness, and in order to show up as our best self, we need to incorporate self-care and whatever self-care practices you choose from my list, I just recommend that you find ones that are sustainable to you and to your lifestyle. If it's something that is way out of reach for you and that you don't feel like you can do consistently, then move on to the other idea or try implementing a different self-care action, or maybe even a different variation of that self-care action itself. So whatever it is, make sure that it's sustainable and that you can be consistent with it, and you can even switch things up from time to time if there is something that you enjoy doing and of course, that you can be consistent with. All right. Another tip when it comes to self-care and incorporating self-care is that you want to make sure that you are making routine of it.

So that's where the consistency comes in, whether it's in the morning or whether it's at night. Those two usually are the ones that work best, whether in order to stay on top of things. And by the way, just having a solid morning routine and a solid night routine in general is so satisfying. So if you don't have those already, then I would definitely highly recommend hopping on board to create a very productive and nurturing morning and night routine. Ok, so this also gives you the timing so you can, like block out time to not let other things get in the way of you practicing self-care. If you try to just wing it or play it by ear or insert it in the day whenever you have a free chance, chances are that free time is not going to pop up and you won't actually be able to practice your self-care actions. So by inserting it into some sort of routine, whether that's morning or night, you're not only creating habit, you're not only being consistent, but you are also ensuring that nothing else will get in the way of it. And the last tip that I will share when it comes to self-care is just keep searching for more ideas and inspiration. Always be open to trying something new or having fun with different self-care ideas.

So don't just limit yourself if you found something that works for you, that's great. But don't just let. Commit yourself to that for all of eternity. Feel free to switch it up and just do insert or take away whatever you feel you need to do. Whatever suits your soul best. Ok, so I'm going to share some free self-care ideas, and I'm also going to share some paid self-care ideas now, starting with the free. This is my favorite, and that's why I named it first. It's taking a bath, especially in the wintertime. There's just something about baths and warming my body up that is so magical. But those few minutes or however long your baths are to yourself, are so peaceful. They're so enjoyable. And who can be upset or anxious or stressed or angry when you're soaking in a tub of warm water and maybe even spice it up a little bit, maybe even throw in some bath salts or some essential oils or some bubble bath, whatever it looks like for you. Some rose petals you can get real fancy if you want to, but baths are such an easy and attainable self-care idea, so I love that one. Going for a walk any time you have the opportunity to get outside, get in nature that is always going to be relieving and is always going to help provide clarity to you, whether you are overwhelmed with work or maybe there's something going on in your personal life.

Walk it out. Walking and even running if you're a runner is an excellent option for a self-care idea. Gratitude journals. I just did a podcast on gratitude. You can go back and listen to it if you would like. It is parked on whatever podcast app you are listening to this on, but get yourself a gratitude journal or start the practice of writing down things that you are grateful for. So it doesn't necessarily have to be in a journal. And I actually throw out some other ideas in that podcast, but saying or writing what you're thankful for and what you have gratitude towards is always going to be a good self-care practice to put yourself in a positive mindset. And speaking of positive mindsets, this is another one of my personal favorites and that is creating a favorite song playlist. I literally have a playlist, actually have two different playlists of songs that just make me so happy. The first playlist is one that just kind of makes me want to dance and like, move to, and the other playlist is songs that just make me happy but are more of like a chill kind of positive happy vibes playlist. So get yourself and this is free like any sort of YouTube channel or any sort of music app that you have, you can just create playlists on and whether it is dancing or whether it is just like sitting in your car.

This, honestly, I should have added this because sitting in my car and listening to happy music is one of my favorites for self-care. Like who would have ever thought that there would be so much peace and calming and just sitting in your car in the driveway? I never would have dreamt it, but I found that after I had kids and you know, dogs, it's like any time I'm in the house, someone usually needs something. And when I'm in my car and nobody necessarily knows that I'm here yet, I can just, like, sit there and have a moment to myself. So maybe you can relate to that as well. And speaking of listening to things, you can also watch or listen to some sort of inspiring content, whether that's podcasts like these. Or maybe it's YouTube videos that you find inspiring where people are giving motivational speeches. Or maybe it's like a Ted X does not matter. Just find that inspiring content and consume it however you see fit, whether it's watch, listen, whatever it may be. This is always going to be a good sure way to make sure that you have a positive mindset to make sure that you are being inspired. There's so much to be said for staying inspired because when we feel uninspired, we feel unhappy and unmotivated.

So do whatever you can to incorporate inspirational content into your day to day life. It will change your mindset completely, I promise. You can also try reading If you are a reader, I like to be read too. So I like Audible and I like podcasts, and that's how I consume my inspirational content. But if you like to read, take some time. Maybe it's that night before you go to sleep and read a few pages of your favorite book. Hopefully it's an inspiring one or happy one, and not some sort of dramatic or traumatizing type. Book maybe about serial killers or murder. Or whatever, but it takes some time for yourself to read and organizing or decluttering. Not too many people realize the association between stress and anxiety and the clutter that they have in their world. So if you can eliminate clutter? Think of it as decluttering equals clarity. It really just opens up that mental space for you to kind of operate at a different level than you do when you live in a house or an office or have a desk full of clutter. And I know that you can relate to this because I know that if you have a million things on your desk at work, it's hard for you to operate. Imagine having like a million piles of paper and just like things all over the place, it's so hard for you to concentrate.

And same with your home. So any of your personal space? Just make sure it's organized and cluttered. And it's really, honestly, it's satisfying to organize and declutter. At least for me, it is. So it is one of my go to methods any time I'm feeling stressed or anxious, and I need that moment of self-care and I need that moment of mental clarity. I tend to just look around, look at my space that I'm operating out of and figure out what needs to be cluttered. Exercise is so underrated. Exercise releases endorphins which make you happy. So why would you not incorporate exercise to your self-care routine? And this is actually killing two birds with one stone because you're taking care of your mind and you're taking care of your body, so exercise any opportunity that you get. I already mentioned the walking and the running aspect, but maybe it's, you know, you have your favorite gym that you like to go to. Maybe it's a yoga studio. Maybe you just want to stretch that day. Maybe you have. Like, I left the Pilates class. She has an entire online platform where she teaches different variations of pilates classes. So I actually go into the Bellotti studio and I do the plots class at home as well. So maybe you find a free service like that, or there's tons of YouTube videos out there that are free for you to watch and to do so.

There's no reason not to exercise. And if you're like me and really lack motivation to work out from home, then I would definitely figure out how you can either do some sort of hybrid where you do home workouts and go somewhere. Or maybe you are just hiring a trainer and going to the gym or whatever that looks like. Just make sure that you're actually having an effective workout instead of trying to work out from home and then letting your phone distract you like me. Most of the time, although I will say that I'm getting better and I try to keep my phone out of the room that I'm working out in so that I don't have that distraction. All right, anyways, moving on stargazing, that's one of my favorites as well, and I feel like I just don't do it enough. But going out and looking at the big, beautiful sky. Maybe it's even watching the sunset or the sunrise, like whatever time you're incorporating this. It is so peaceful and there is so much calmness and clarity that will come with it. Your mind can start to wonder. It's almost like a form of meditation because you are able to clear out so much of all of the stuff that you have going through your mind when you are out and looking up at that big, beautiful sky or those gorgeous sparkling stars.

Now, another form of self-care and this is not me because I am not creative at all, but some sort of artistic type of activity, whether that's painting or coloring or drawing. I guess you could even really throw journaling in here as well, which I actually do like to do any time that I feel angry. I write it out and it helps so much. It's so relieving and you find so much clarity and the questions that you have in your head are now coming out in the forms of answers. On paper, it's very empowering, but any sort of like artistic just kind of like take your mind off of things, relax self-care type situation, you can try incorporating that as well. Social media detox is completely free, and I would encourage everybody to do it. It can look so different for each and every single individual. Maybe it's taking time off of social media for a day a week, whatever a month, maybe it's going through and unfollowing people who don't inspire you or make you feel some sort of negative way. Maybe it is going through and following new people or new pages that fill your feed with inspiration and positivity. So there are a few different variations for that one, but I would definitely recommend doing one or maybe even all of the above to help with your mindset and to help give you clarity and eliminate that negativity from your social feeds.

All right. So I already sort of mentioned meditate, but this is a good one. I, for one, am not a good meditator. I don't know what it is about my mind. And I guess, you know, like, maybe I just gave up before I should have when it comes to meditation, but I've tried meditating. I've tried guided meditations. It doesn't work for me. And that's not to say that it won't work for you. It's just not how I operate. I guess my brain just does other things I don't know. Maybe I'll get back into at least attempting to meditate again. But I went through probably a two year phase where I tried meditating and it just wasn't for me. It was not for me in the least. But if it works for you, then definitely incorporate that into your self-care routines and sleeping. This does work for me there. I don't take naps too often anymore unless I'm feeling like icky or sick or something like that, but sleeping in or going to bed early is probably one of my favorites. And any time that I'm having like a rough day, you better believe I'm going to call for like an eight p.m. bedtime because I just want to get that out of the way I want to get into bed. Bed also brings me a lot of peace, one of my favorite places to be, so that could have something to do with it.

But it's almost for me. It's like washing away the the negative or the bad things that have happened. I don't even want to say bad things, but the negativity that I have going on in my mind due to outside circumstances. So that's also an option as well. And those are, of course, different variations of how sleep can also be self-care. And I mentioned journaling, but you can also try writing out positive affirmations and post them all over your house. So I have really gotten into like esthetic stationery like my brand, colors are all like gorgeous neutral colors I love, you know, splashes of like beiges and tans and browns and blacks and whites and creams and things like that. And so that's pretty much all that I have on my stationery, and I found these gorgeous, transparent post-it notes because I hated the neon color of Post-it Notes. And I know that that sounds so silly. But when I found those, I was so happy. I took my silver and my gold sharpie and I was writing positive affirmations all over them and posting them up. You can post them on your mirrors, you can post them, you know, maybe in your car, on your steering wheel somewhere where you're going to take a look and see it every single day and just affirm how amazing you are, how the world is working in your favor, how you have so much to be thankful for and just all of the good things.

So I really love that one as well. Now, when it comes to paid self-care ideas, these obviously come with a price tag but are still effective. And so maybe you can incorporate these every week or every day, but maybe you make it your goal to incorporate one sort of paid self-care concept or action or activity throughout the month. And maybe that is like a spa day. Maybe you get your hair or your nails, or maybe even like just sit in a sauna somewhere. If your gym has a sauna, that is not only great, that's another one that's like killing two birds with one stone. It's not only great for your mind, but it's also a physical detox as well. I can't remember if I just said facial or not, facials are another good one or massage. I actually used to be a massage therapist and I was specialized in deep tissue, so I saw a lot of people with chronic injuries and things like that. But there is something to be said for a relaxing massage as well. Or maybe you need that deep tissue and you're going for like the hurt so good type of massage. Either way, massages are so powerful on so many levels, like emotionally, mentally, physically. I love massages.

I don't get them enough. It's funny because like, I know that I should be getting a massage at least once or twice a month, but because I was a massage therapist, but I don't. But when I do treat myself, they're so wonderful. So if you love getting massages, then definitely add that to your self-care activity or your self-care actions that you can do. Once a quarter, once a month, whatever that looks like for you, you can also take yourself out to dinner or for a movie. I've never sat in a movie theater alone. That's just never been something that felt like would be therapeutic to me. But. One of my good friends, and she may even still do this. She always took herself to the movies. It's like when she was upset she would go to a movie and I loved that idea. I was like, Wow, it's like, you can just be alone with yourself, with your thoughts, but also have like, you know, slight entertainment on the screen. So it's a really good idea, especially if you're a big movie lover. Taking yourself out to dinner is good. I have done that. I've actually taken myself out on a date. There was one time when I was so irritated with my husband, and I don't even remember what it was about something to do with like going on a date. I don't know if we had one planned and then it didn't work out, but anyways, I was so upset with him, so I ended up getting myself all dressed up and I took myself out on a date and it was wonderful.

So two other paid ideas right there. And you can also do something like a weekend getaway, a vacation, maybe even go to some sort of retreat, whether it's a day retreat or a week retreat, whatever that looks like in your world. These are definitely good ones to add, I would say at least once a year just to give yourself some time to just not have to be in the day to day and not have to worry about all of the things that we have to worry about in life, right? So you don't have to worry about, you know, going to the grocery store when you're at this retreat or when you're on your weekend getaway, you don't have to worry about taking out the trash or, you know, just the day to day things that can really just kind of bring us down and not let us be our true or best selves. You can also do something along the lines of taking a class to learn something new. Maybe you want to learn from me. For example, I don't have any desire to learn how to do anything artistic, but if I did, I could take a painting class or maybe a sculpture class or something along those lines.

Maybe you want to learn how to speak a new language or play an instrument. This is just not only going to improve your skill set, but it also is an investment back in yourself, and it also gives you an opportunity to just kind of clear your mind of everything that you have going on around you and focus on that subject that you're working on learning, redecorating your favorite space. This is probably one of my faves for paid self care ideas because I love a good trip to home goods. I am always changing things and swapping things out and moving things around in my house because I want my home to feel welcoming to me. I want it to feel supportive and inspiring to me. It's very important that I have that, so I love redecorating, not even just my favorite space, all of my house. So you can do that. Maybe if you have like an office and you really just want to kind of make it your own and make it like a good, positive and inspiring space, you can consider redecorating or maybe even just decorating if you haven't already. And another one of my favorites is investing in some good, healthy food or some sort of diet or pantry makeover. This is another two for one option, because not only are you improving your health and your diet and changing your lifestyle for the better, but it also makes you your mind.

You feel so much better. I don't think people realize the association between eating like shit and feeling like shit, both mentally and physically. It literally clouds your mind when all you do is consume things that are not good for your body. In order for your brain to operate at its highest level, you need to provide it with the fuel that it needs. And I hate to break it to you, ladies, but this fuel is not found in cookies. It's not found in chips. It's not found in any of the yummy things. It's found in actual food food from the Earth. So this is a really good one, especially if you're kind of looking for like an overall lifestyle makeover. And the last one, I guess I already sort of hinted to this when I mentioned home goods, but retail therapy. Now I may get some slack for this because I think that there's like a negative connotation around shopping or retail or buying things, especially right now. Everybody seems to be hating on, I don't know, like fast fashion and all of this stuff. So yeah, maybe you feel some sort of way about that. But for someone like me going and finding a new outfit that makes me look and feel absolutely amazing, it makes me feel like I am showing up as the best version of myself when I have that outfit on and it hugs me in all the right places and looks perfectly and fits perfectly.

I feel so good, it's almost like a confident boost, and I think that we really shouldn't eliminate retail therapy, and I think most women out there would agree because most women know what retail therapy is and most women actually partake in retail therapy. Whether they realize it or not. Going shopping and buying things that make us feel good is a way to elevate our mood, to clear our mind, and it really does all of the things that self-care is supposed to do. So I'm adding retail therapy to my paid self-care ideas list, and you can take it or leave it completely up to you. But this episode was not as brief as what I was intending it to be. I'm looking at the timer right now. We're going on 30 minutes, so I'm going to wrap it up here and just reiterate again the importance of self care and making sure that you create a habit and routine around it, and that you choose self-care activities and actions that are sustainable to you and to your lifestyle that you can be consistent with. Thank you so much for tuning in today, ladies. I really appreciate you being here. I am so proud of you for working on becoming the best version of yourself. And I will catch you on the next episode.

If you are waiting until the right moment of inspiration to plan your wedding or start your business or change your career path, or hire an assistant so you can grow and expand your business, et cetera, et cetera, you are living your life by inspired action. Hey, ladies, welcome back to the Ashlee Jaine show. I am your host and guide Ashlee Jaine sharing advice and actionable tips on how you can show up and glow up to become the very best version of yourself. In today's episode, we are talking about a long awaited and highly anticipated topic. I think I have been teasing or mentioning doing this topic pretty much ever since I started this podcast channel, and I'm not sure even if that's the right word to call it. Is it a podcast channel? I'm not really sure. I think I might be getting it confused with YouTube because I have a YouTube channel, and I know that it's called the channel there. Maybe it is a podcast channel. Either way, I've been talking about doing this topic for quite a while, and the topic is inspired action, and it's another one of those like golden nuggets like Live Your Life by this principle. Game changing, life changing type of topics. So bear with me because I know that I have, like, overwhelmed you recently with all of these life changing topics. But hey, you know what? We're on this growth journey together. We're working on becoming the best version of ourselves so we can handle all of these changes that we're incorporating into our life at once.

We've got this. So anyways inspired action, I basically consider this to be law that I live my life by not even lying like one hundred percent. And I give all of the credit to everything that I've accomplished in life, into everything that I have and the person that I am to living my life by inspired action. I don't think that I would be where I am today if it weren't for me doing that and if it weren't for me, allowing myself the space and the time to make these important life decisions to make these shifts where I need to based on my feelings of inspired action. So inspired action. What is inspired action, you're probably wondering, right? Inspired action is essentially just allowing yourself to make moves and decisions in your life based on the timing. When the inspiration hits, it's literally just as it sounds, and I know that some people are like, Well, duh, actually, I do this already. But a lot of people, especially people who are like me and struggle with releasing control of situations and things, struggle with this. So I'm talking to you right now, that's who I'm talking to in this episode. I'm talking to people who are mild control freaks or maybe even extreme control freaks. There's no hate here because I am totally someone who I feel security and being in control of things.

So this one was a hard lesson for me to grasp. But when I did, it completely changed my world. So anyways, if that is, you continue listening, I promise. If you implement this into your life, you are going to start seeing some really amazing things. Those of you who are definitely more in tune with your intuition and your inspiration, then you've already got this under wraps and you can probably just go on and listen to the next episode or the previous episode, or if you want to tune in and see if you can learn something new that that works for me too. So let me just throw out a few examples of inspired action, because really, it shows up so differently in so many different ways and circumstances in your life. But here are a few, and not all of these are from my own personal life, but they're just examples that I'm hoping you ladies can relate to on some level. So inspired action. Sometimes it comes at three o'clock in the morning when you're dead asleep and you wake up and you have the best business idea ever that you feel like you just absolutely need to execute and put into motion right away. So you write it down, you write all of your ideas down at three o'clock in the morning and then you get started and you start working on everything the very next morning.

Or I guess it would be the same morning just when you wake up. Because obviously, or maybe I don't know, maybe you want to stay awake at three a.m. and start working on things. If that works for you, then hey, as long as you're in that moment of inspiration and you feel strongly compelled to put those things into action, then go for it, sister. Another example of inspired action would be Maybe you are sitting there eating your pickles and ice cream when you're nine months pregnant and you've struggled to come up with a name for your baby, and all of a sudden the name just hits and it's like, it seems so perfect. And you should have had this thought all along. Where was it when you first found out you were pregnant or during each and every single argument that your husband and you had over what you were going to name you? Were beautiful unborn child, that is another great example. And they're just seeds of inspiration, ideas and basically decisions or actions that you really feel so strongly compelled to carry out in your life and that resonate with you and with who you are. And they just feel so right in every single. Since I've already mentioned that it can really look different and be very different all throughout the different aspects of life or whatever it is that you have going on.

But if you are waiting until the right moment of inspiration to plan your wedding or start your business or change your career path or hire an assistant so you can grow and expand your business, et cetera, et cetera, you are living your life by inspired action. And just a real life story for me personally, and this is actually I really feel like I need to share this because this is happening in real time. Like, I'm literally in the throes of living my life by inspired action as we speak right now. All right. So my recent large inspired action revolves around creating my clothing brand. And this was a concept that came to me probably early. Twenty twenty one. So it was right around a year ago, maybe a little bit less. I loved the idea, but the timing to actually put everything into motion, it just didn't feel right. I was never strongly compelled to order my samples of clothing and go ahead and get my inventory ordered or set up my store. It's actually everything's going to be sold on Amazon because I love Amazon, and I just assume that every other woman out there loves Amazon because it is so convenient. So I never felt compelled to set up my Amazon store, my Amazon listing, or, you know, just start getting product. Just anything that had to do with actually putting everything into motion to create this clothing brand.

There were like a few, you know, behind the scenes things that I knew that I would have to do, and I would have to get my ducks in a row in order to get this clothing brand started and launched. So I started kind of chiseling away at those things just here and there. Not, nothing intensely because I knew that when the timing was right, I would feel that inspired action. I knew that when the time came for me to have all of my product samples order my inventory and actually launch, I knew that it would come to me. So I just gave myself the time and the space to really just let my mind think about it and envision what it was going to become while waiting for that moment of inspired action to hit and right around the end of twenty twenty one, that moment of inspired action hit. So I actually selected my products, ordered my inventory. I have everything. It was just delivered here and I wanted to inspect everything before I sent it off to Amazon. Because Amazon has warehouses where they hold all of the Amazon inventory and then ship it out to you or whoever is purchasing. But I wanted to make sure that everything quality was really important to me on this one, so I wanted to make sure that the quality was there for all of my inventory. So anyways, that is what I am doing now, and everything just feels right.

It feels so aligned. I feel like everything. I feel like the world is working in my favor and I really think that it is. I think that when we live our life by inspired action and we wait for those moments, we wait for that feeling. We really just start to glide seamlessly through the steps or through the words or the thoughts or creativity or whatever it may be. There is no friction. We feel like we're doing exactly what we should be doing, and we are exactly where we are meant to be, and we are working towards exactly what we should be or marrying the exact person we are meant to be with or naming our beautiful baby boy or girl exactly what it should be named. It's like all of the things just come together and are working for us and with us. Whether you believe in God or the universe or some sort of higher power, or maybe your own self intuition, maybe that is what you into. There's definitely something at play, and I would never want to label what it is for each and every single individual because I've mentioned before spirituality and things like that that is such a personal journey. And I just don't think that you can really apply some sort of bulk insert higher power here. So whatever that looks like for you personally, just know that that is at play when you allow yourself to live your life by inspired action, whether you feel like you're living by, you know, divine intervention from the higher power that you believe in, whether you feel that you are one with Mother Earth and you are allowing your intuition, your own personal intuition to guide you, whatever that looks like, just know that there is something stronger than you.

Then your mind happening when you live your life by inspired action. And if you're wise enough to be patient and to let these things come to you when the timing is meant to be when the idea is meant to be born, when the insert x, y or Z. I really like I don't even know what other examples I can give you at this point, but apply whatever you can from your own personal life, allowing that to be driven by inspired action. Your life will be working in your favor. The moral of the story is that you should never try to push things. Don't try to control situations or timelines, especially when your life and your destiny are at stake. If you are somewhat of a control freak, I know, I know, I know this is going to be so hard. I mentioned before I am like, I wouldn't even call myself a recovering control freak. I just realize that there are certain aspects of my life where I am in control and I can be in control, and it works out beautifully.

And then there's other aspects of my life where I am not in control and should not try to control anything that is happening out there. So let's say that is you. Let's say you are a fellow control freak like me. Try starting with something small because I know that it can be really hard to let go of the reins. But honestly, if you just start implementing this and a very small scale, I promise that it will get easier over time. So maybe, for example, real life examples here, because you know that I like to give you some real life examples. Maybe it let inspired action guide you the next time that you plan a girls night out or have a spontaneous date night, maybe you give yourself some time and some space that you need to make the most out of those memorable moments and those meaningful relationships. It can be literally something as small as picking out your outfits. Or maybe if you're somebody who plans your outfits for the week, just don't. Although I do love the concept of planning out your outfits and having everything lined up because I do believe in planning, but maybe you don't, especially on the days where you're not in a hurry to get up and get out the door. Maybe you let it inspired action guide you on what to wear. Maybe you let inspired action guide you on what to eat.

It can be something so small in your life. Just ask yourself and give yourself the patience and the time for that inspiration to come. So just as easy as you can apply this to small things, you can apply this to large things as well. Like I mentioned, marriage or even the naming of your child, which is a really big deal. I feel like not a lot of people put in the thought process, maybe that they should for naming their child because that name is going to literally be with that child or that adult all throughout their life. All right. So just try to allow inspired action to come to you in whatever capacity that you can. This is going to be so life changing, especially if you are somebody who feels like you are trucking along or living your life on an uphill slope. I think you're probably one of the people who need to do this most, so relieve yourself of the resistance and really just do what you can to embrace inspired action and let your life work for you. Let life be in your favor and work in your favor and let these things come to you in that moment of inspiration. Ok, that is all for this episode, ladies. Thank you so much for listening in and of course, working on becoming the best version of yourself, and I will catch you ladies on the next episode.

Hi, ladies, and welcome back to the Ashlee Jaine show. I am your host and guide Ashlee Jaine sharing advice and actionable tips on how to become the very best version of yourself. And because that is literally the theme of this entire podcast channel, I am going to be talking about just that in this very episode with you here today, we are going to be discussing how you are showing up in this world because honestly, it is so important, and I think it's something that not a lot of people realize or take inventory of. But when you start to become aware of how you're showing up in various capacities of your life, you realize where you're living up to your potential and where you're just kind of dropping the ball, maybe just floundering a little bit treading water, if you will. Or maybe you just have like some really extreme fatigue or burnout in some areas, too. So I'm going to walk you through some legitimate reasons why you need to be doing this and also just kind of bringing some questions and some self-reflection to the forefront so that you can really just get a good feel for where you're at, how you're showing up, what areas of your life do you need to improve on and things like that so that you can become the very best version of you because that is what the Ashlee Jaine show is all about. Life is just way too short to not be showing up as the best version of ourselves, to not be working towards our potential and to not be living it to the fullest of our capabilities.

So with all of that said, and out of the way, let's go ahead and just dove into today's episode. I think that as a society are exceptionally busy people. I feel that sometimes we just get caught up and we have so much going on that we really forget to take a step back and look at how we are doing it, how we are handling all of it, all of the things that we're responsible for. In fact, I actually took inventory the other day of I was just running through my head. All of the things that I had to like that I was responsible for that. I had to make sure happened and that I had to carry out. And it was a lot. It was very overwhelming. And I think a lot of you ladies can probably relate to this list, but I literally took the time to type it out because because I wanted to make sure that I was truly capturing it all. And of course, each and every single one of these subjects has multiple different umbrellas of areas and things like that underneath it that were also responsible for taking care of and remembering to do as well. So let me know if you ladies can relate to this, but these are the things that I came up with that I really have to take responsibility for.

Be aware of or do on a day to day basis and starting with grocery shopping, household supplies, meal planning, cooking, cleaning, picking up the kids, dropping them off at school, homework help. Of course, the after school events practices extracurriculars for the kids, staying on top of the bills, the car maintenance, the house maintenance birthdays, social events and social gatherings. Make sure that the dogs are fed and cared for, spending quality time and reconnecting with my husband. Skincare haircare routine. Throw in self-care and exercise every once in a while and none of this that I've mentioned so far includes everything that we're responsible for in the role of our jobs or our businesses. And the list literally goes on and on and on. So I was a bit overwhelmed as I was thinking about everything that I actually have to be responsible for on a day to day basis. And it really made me wonder how I have made it this far in life. But I have. I'm here, and so are you. So clearly we're doing, you know, somewhat of a decent job staying on top of all of our adult responsibilities. But my point being that we wear a lot of hats, we play a lot of roles and we do a lot of things and we are responsible for a lot of things on a very consistent basis, whether that's daily or weekly, whatever that looks like, it's fairly consistent for you, sometimes monthly, because like bills and things like that, that's obviously usually a monthly thing.

But we are responsible for doing so much. And it's like if you are like a single parent on top of that, I cannot even imagine. I don't know what I would do if it was just me flying solo. Actually, I do know what I would do because there are times when Nick goes out of town and it's just me and the kids, and it's a lot. It's a lot to take care of. It's I mean, it's so convenient having that partner to help with the practice drop offs and the practice pickups and things like that and helping you get dinner ready and things like that. So I can't even imagine for you, single moms out there like my heart is with you and you are my hero. Ok, so listing out everything that we do, maybe you have more. I'm sure that we all have, you know, different things going on in our lives. But how are we showing up for those things? That's the question. That's the concern. That's what we're here to really think about, to take inventory on and to figure out how we can better ourselves in these roles and in these responsibilities. Are we showing up as fatigued or disengaged or unenthusiastic or careless or sloppy? Probably, yes.

And that's OK. If you answered yes to one of these things, I want to emphasize that that is A-OK because I think we can all relate. We have all been there at some point or another, and it's OK. It's OK to feel that way. It's OK to have that burnout. And I want you to take a minute to reflect on everything that you do and everything that you have going on and how you are showing up, whether that is positively or negatively impacting those things. It's a harsh reality to grasp, but we need to do it for the sake of bettering ourselves and being a better wife, mother, employee, business owner, Inter X, Y or Z here. So and one of my previous podcasts, I actually talked about the myth that is balance between life and work because I don't think that that exists. I think that is some sort of unicorn that maybe somebody somewhere started and gave women like us hope that it existed and that it was out there and it was possible to achieve. But I can tell you from my personal experience being a business owner for years and the mother for years, I've never been able to find the balance between work and life. It's just a matter of seasons and flow and fluidity with your schedule. And really just being adaptable and rolling with the punches. So balance of work in life is nonexistent, but that doesn't mean that you can't show up as the best version of yourself in work and in life.

So it's a matter of just eliminating the stresses around it. It's a matter of just eliminating the anxiety around it. Well, anyways, I talk about this in the episode. You can go back and listen to it. It is parked on my podcast on whichever app it is that you are tuning in on. You can go back and find it. I think it's literally just called like work and life balance or something along those lines so you can go back and check that out. But I don't want you to let the the stress and the anxiety and everything that you have on your plate, all the balls that you have in your ear to stop you from showing up as the best version of yourself on a day to day basis. So it's unrealistic to think that we all operate at the same capacity, at the same efficiency, and that we can individually do everything at the same capacity and efficiency every single day. And I want you to understand that. So while you may see someone who is like training for a marathon while you're struggling to get on the treadmill for 30 minutes a day, understand that we all operate at very different speeds in life. And you can embrace your speed as long as you're showing up, as long as you're doing your part to be the best version of yourself in that capacity on that treadmill or whatever the analogy that you have in your head might be, I really try to throw out examples here because I want you to like grasp the idea and the concept of what I'm sharing with you because it's so important.

This is such a life changing opportunity, and once we start really focusing and being intentional on showing up as our best selves and all of the capacities and all of the roles, and with all of our responsibilities, things really start to shift and bend in our favor. So it's very important that we do that and most importantly, our quality of life, right? Because if we're showing up burnt out, if we're showing up as very disengaged or unenthusiastic, or maybe even just downright negative and dreadful about the things that we have going on in our life, it is lessening the quality of our life. It is lessening our relationships. It is lessening the time that we spend with the people that we love most. It is lessening the weight that we carry in impact that we can make. So what does it look like for you to show up as the best version of yourself? Are you present? Are you involved? Are you attentive? Are you being productive? How is your mood? Is it positive? Is it gracious to people? Enjoy being around you. That is what you need to be striving for and all of the roles and all of the responsibilities that you have in life.

And some days it might look different than others. Remember, I talked about different capacities and different efficiencies on different days. That's totally fine. There are some days when I feel like I'm operating at about a four instead of my desired 10, but I am doing what I can with what I've got going on. So maybe instead of, you know, getting dressed, doing my hair or my makeup and, you know, recording all of the outfits for my YouTube video that day, I feel like absolute garbage. Maybe I'm bloated, maybe I'm cramping, and I just cannot get into the swing of things. But do you know what I'm going to do? I may be wearing sweats. I may be sitting on my couch, but I am still going to do something in my business that can be productive and that can move the needle forward. I'm still going to. Maybe that's editing. Maybe that's responding to emails. Maybe that is, you know, communicating with my V.A. on projects that we have coming up. Maybe that's recording podcasts just like this. Instead of putting my face on the camera, I can sit here and I can record these podcasts in my sweats. I'm not wearing sweats right now, by the way. I am wearing workout leggings because I got my pilates in this morning and I just still haven't changed.

But I am wearing a. Quite sure if that counts for something, but I want you to understand that there are definitely things in ways that you can still show up as your best self, even when you're feeling crummy, even when you're feeling unmotivated or uninspired. Another great example would be like maybe you had plans to take the kids out to dinner and you wanted to go spend quality time with them out there. But maybe you're feeling under the weather, you're not feeling great. So you decide to do an at home movie night instead, and you're still getting that quality time with your kids. You're still being able to spend time with them, connect with them, communicate with them. And so you're still getting the same effect. You're still getting that connection and the intention behind what you are doing is there. You're just maybe not doing it as you had planned if you were operating at like a 10 out of ten. So my point here is that there's always something that can be done. There's always tweaks that can be made on those days when you don't feel 100 percent, but you still want to show up to the best of your ability. You still want to show up as the very best version of yourself in whatever it is that you are doing. You want to be productive with work. You want to spend quality time with your kids or your husband or your partner.

You want to just do the things that need to get done. Maybe instead of going to the grocery store that looks like ordering groceries online, which I'm actually going to talk about here in a second. So now let's go ahead and shift gears. Since I talked about grocery shopping and I hate grocery shopping, but it is a role. It is a responsibility that usually comes back on me. So if there is something in your life that you truly don't enjoy, it doesn't make you happy. Maybe it even bogs you down or tracks you down and takes you to a negative space. If you have to do it, give it up all you have to do. We live in this amazing world where you can outsource pretty much anything and whether that is grocery shopping or cleaning or doing the laundry. There's literally someone that you can hire for everything. And maybe if that's not in your financial budget, that's totally OK. You can work with your kids or your husband or whoever to maybe do a swap. So one week you clean, the next week your husband cleans, or one week you do the laundry. The next week your kids do the laundry, or maybe they start doing their own laundry. There's always things that can be done around a situation, especially if it's something that just really brings you down because it is not worth doing at that point.

In my opinion, that is time that you can fill with doing something that is more joyful, that is more impactful, and that can contribute in a positive way. So you can show up as the best version of you. You can feel like the best version of you. So try to be a problem solver and figure out how to eliminate those areas in your life, those roles or those responsibilities that you absolutely despise doing and how you can get out of doing that. Whether it's automated bill pay or hiring Instacart person to do your grocery shopping, or maybe even like taking your laundry to a drop off laundry cleaner or laundry mat or something like that, there's lots of different options out there. And actually, surprisingly, I think the laundry thing is fairly cheap for them to like, wash and dry it if you want to pick it up and drop it off. And I've even heard of people coming to your house and picking it up from your house and then taking it, washing it, folding it and bringing it back. So point being, there's plenty of ways to get around you not having to do the things that just are not for you, that just are essentially draining you and taking away opportunities for you to be doing something else that can help you be the best you. That can help you be the best mom, that can help you be the best business owner that you can be.

All right. So relieve yourself of the things that are holding you back from being as present and being as productive as possible in all areas of your life, especially the ones that matter most to you. Your friends will thank you. And most importantly, I promise you will thank yourself because you have given yourself the freedom to start showing up as the best version of yourself in every single role and responsibility that you have in life. And you will feel a weight lifted because you no longer have those things that you hated doing before dragging you down. So really, try to get creative, think outside the box and figure out how you can eliminate those line items in your life, those roles and those responsibilities that just are no longer serving you, or that take you to a negative space or keep you from showing up as the best version of yourself in any other capacity in your life. All right, that is it for my episode on how you are showing up and how important it is, I hope that you got the gist of this, but how important it is. For you to show up as the very best version of yourself. Thank you so much for being here with me, ladies. I really appreciate you tuning in and listening and of course, working on becoming the best version of yourself. And I will catch you on the next episode.

Hey, ladies, welcome back for another episode of the Ashlee Jaine show, if you are new here, you are absolutely in the right place. If you are looking for a mindset, inspiration and motivation on how to become the very best version of yourself, that is all that I cover here on my podcast. I would love it if you are new and that really resonates with you. If you would hit that subscribe button so that we can stay connected for all of my future and upcoming podcast episodes. In today's episode, I'm going to be talking about gratitude, and I feel like this is such a game changer in life. If you are not already incorporating practicing gratitude into your day to day ritual a you are seriously missing out girlfriend, but b your life is about to change. As soon as you start this, I promise you your world is going to be flipped upside down. So practicing gratitude started for me. Probably. Oh my gosh, you know, I think I've been on this personal development journey for years now since, I don't know, 2013 ish is when I started, and it was probably closer to twenty fifteen when I really started to implement a lot of the things that I had been learning. Because let's face it, when you're on your personal growth or your personal development journey at the very beginning of it, you are always fighting yourself. There are always so many blocks and so many thoughts that you have to overcome that you have to literally battle yourself in your mind.

With that, it's hard. It's really hard to start implementing everything that you're learning. When you're still you still have half your brain telling you, Oh my god, this is so stupid. Why are you even listening to this? Like, do you really even believe that like, you're going off the deep end, what's happening here? Because our tendencies and our thought process is fear, right? Because that's what we're programed to do. We are programed to be safe. We are programed to not do things that are risky, not do things that are different. And you know, that's in our genetic DNA. So it's almost like you really have to rewire your brain to think positively and to think, you know, and practice gratitude and do all of these things that we learn along the way as we work on becoming the very best version of ourselves. So with all of that out of the way, if that's where you are right now, I feel for you because that is tough. It is so hard, especially when you don't have supporting family members or spouses or people around you who really get it. Yet like my husband was really late to the game. And still, even now when I say things, sometimes he looks at me like, I'm crazy and I'm like, You know what? Just trust me because we know that it works. Look at the success that I've created in my life.

Look at all of these amazing things that we have and that we can do because of this journey that I've been on. It's truly been life changing and practicing gratitude is one of the main components and the key factors of causing all of these things in our lives that we have and that we can do, and all of the greatness that I'm sure is to come. So with all of that said, I feel for you if that's the place that you're at in life and really, honestly, don't even hesitate to reach out to me. I'm happy to sit there and have a damn convo with you about this because I know those struggles. I know them all too well. But with all of that set and out of the way, we're going to start talking about gratitude because that's what this podcast episode is, and that is what we are here for. So before I dove into some actionable tips on how you can implement practicing gratitude in your day to day life, I really just want to throw out some very common quotes that you may or may not have heard before and really just emphasize the fact that this is all around you. This message of practicing gratitude is all around you. It has been present your entire life. It shows up in different shapes and forms. And really, the sooner that we recognize that and the sooner that we start rolling this out in our life, the better off we're going to be.

But you may or may not have heard things like, like, attracts like or what you think about you bring about or count your blessings, not your curses. Literally everything from like religion to just your day to day life and your interactions with other people. I know that you've heard the message of something along the lines of practicing gratitude, and the reason is because a it works and b it's one of the best practices that you can. Have in life to have a positive mindset and a positive outlook on life. So in the sense of if we're talking about the like attracts like and we relate it back to the power of gratitude, when you are saying what you're thankful for, saying what you're grateful for, whether you're saying it out loud or writing it down, which we'll get into here and a little bit. You are essentially going to be bringing that back to you. It's almost like a boomerang effect. So as you're putting that happiness and that gratitude and that thankfulness out into the world that is going to ricochet right off the universe or right off God's ears, whatever it is that you may believe in and that is going to come back to you two fold, maybe you're talking about how grateful you are for your health and how grateful you are for your family's health. And then next thing you know you're on this amazing fitness journey and you're reaching all of your fitness goals, whatever it may be, whatever it may look like for you, we all have different things that we're thankful for.

We all have different things that we're grateful for. But the point is this is something that you need to be doing, and that is just one example. Same with what you think about you bring about, because if you're putting out those happy thoughts, those thankful thoughts or even saying it out loud, you are bringing in more happiness, more gratitude into your life, more things to be thankful for. And so this is what I'm talking about. When I say that it's life changing, it's literally going to flip your world upside down. I see so many people and you probably know people like this that spend their entire life complaining. Making excuses like nothing is ever right. Nothing is ever good. Nothing is ever good enough for them. Therefore, they never experience true happiness. True gratitude. True thankfulness because they're not seeing the good and the things that they already have. So why on earth would God or the universe or whatever it is that you believe in? I really just want to be very inclusive with this because I know that we all have very different beliefs. Spirituality is a very personal journey, so trying to be all inclusive here. But why on earth would God or the universe then turn around and provide them with more things to be thankful or grateful for if they're not already thankful or grateful for the things that they have? It just doesn't make sense.

It's like they're expecting amazing things to come like they're going to win the lottery, but they're not happy or grateful or thankful for all of the monetary things that they already have in their life. So don't be that person if that person is you. Please send me a DM. Let's talk because we really need to flip the script here. You really need to focus on all of the things in life that you have going on, that you have not just tangibly, not just monetary assets, but literally you have so much. Just by being able to wake up and to breathe and to exercise and to spend time with your family, you have an abundance of reasons to be happy. You have an abundance of reasons to be grateful. So if that's you, I would just challenge you to really not focus so much on the negative and really just start focusing on the positive. This is a great way to really turn any day around. And actually, with that said, we'll just go ahead and start talking about the actionable tips that you can take away to really start implementing this practice into your life. And hopefully you are not like me and you don't wait like a good two three years to start rolling this out, because the sooner that you do it, the more amazing your life is going to get.

Ok, so speaking of the bad day, let's say you are having a bad day. Let's say it could be the worst day you could say you got fired from work or you've stubbed your toe three times and you know your day has completely went to shit. Whatever it may be, however extreme it may be, there is always something to be grateful for. Whether you got fired, let's say let's use that as an example. So think to yourself, Wow, yes, of course this sucks. What am I going to do? But then also explore the opportunities. I'm grateful for all of the lessons that I learned, you know, during my time here, I am going to take all of the skills that I have acquired and go out and find a better position that better suits me, that better suits my lifestyle, that pays more. Yada yada yada. You can always turn it around. You can always take that negative thing and turn it into a positive thing and express gratitude for that. Let's say you and your partner split. Ok, yes, that always sucks. It's always hard and it always hurts. You should definitely feel those feelings, but also be grateful for all of the lessons learned. I had a horrible relationship when I was younger, literally so bad, and I'm so thankful for it, and I would never take it back for anything because I learned so much. I learned everything that I didn't.

Want in a partner? And at the end of the day, as hard as it was to go through all of those things at the time, in the moment, the life lessons that came from that are worth so much to me because now I know I am wiser because of it. But these are just a few examples. And even if it's something small, let's say you just don't feel motivated. Let's say you just kind of have like a blood day. You can still find things throughout your day to be thankful for, even if it is something as small as going on a walk and being thankful for the sunshine and your time in nature. There are literally countless things that happen to you or that happen within you throughout the day to show gratitude for. And here's where the actionable tips come in. Now you need to set aside time, ideally daily, but you know, if not just periodically throughout the week, maybe at first, until you create a solid habit where you express this gratitude, where you either stop and think to yourself, Wow, I am so grateful for this opportunity. I am so thankful to be having this experience. I am so happy that I get to spend my life with this man or woman. Something as simple as just even having those thoughts really does something powerful within your subconscious that you may or may not even realize. But stopping to have that thought to yourself is powerful in and of itself.

But if you say it out loud or you write it down, that magnifies it tenfold. So I would encourage you. Maybe you're just thinking these things to yourself at first, but I would encourage you to really get in the habit of start saying those things out loud or setting a time aside to write them down. There are times when things happen to me, and I'm in the moment of something. Maybe it's taking my kids to Disney World and I will say out loud to my children and to my husband. I'm so grateful we had the opportunity to be here. I'm so thankful that we get to experience this together, and that's just an example of doing something in the moment. But each and every single day. I also set aside time where I will actually write down what I'm thankful for as well. And then every single night that we have dinner, we have a family dinner, usually Monday night through Thursday night, and we will sit down at dinner and we will all take turns saying what we're thankful for. Sometimes it's the very basics of family happiness, health, things like that. Other times it's more, you know, extravagant things. Or maybe we have a relative coming to visit us, whatever it may be, something that's going to happen in the future or the next day or that happen to us that specific day. But we take that time to say it out loud then.

But I also have a routine for myself that I like to do in the morning time. Sometimes I don't get to it in the mornings and I'll just do it in the evenings, but I actually have on my notes app, on my phone. Nothing fancy. I don't have a gratitude journal, although you can definitely get one if you want to go that route. But I literally just have an ongoing list in my notes of things that I am thankful for. And again, sometimes it's things that happen to me in the moment. Sometimes it's things that happened to me earlier that day. Sometimes it's things that are going to be happening the following day or the following week, but I keep track of all of the things that I'm thankful for, and I actually write it down because again, it's more powerful. It's more magnetic, if you will. It's going to bring in more goodness and more things to be grateful for. If this is like a foreign concept to you right now, you probably think that I'm crazy, but I promise if you try this and you incorporate this into your life, you will see the results. Like, I don't know what science there is behind it, but it literally is life changing. You will start to see and have more experiences and opportunities and things to be thankful for, and you will just start to see so much positivity unfold in front of you and feel like such a different person.

So with all of that said, whether you are going big and you are writing it down, saying it out loud, things you were thankful for each and every single day, or whether you are going to start small and just think to yourself of things that you're thankful for, maybe three or four times a week, or maybe just in the moment as they happen, whatever it may be, just I would encourage you to just start, just start doing this. And again, if you're that person who can't think of anything to be thankful for, who only focuses on negative rather than all of the amazing things happening in their life. Please reach out to me because we need to fix that. We need to make sure that you have the right mindset because you have so much potential and there is a gap between the person that you are and the person that you want to become in order to bridge that gap. This is so critical. This is so crucial to start incorporating into your life. But with all of that said and out of the way, ladies, I just want to thank you for being here. Thank you for hanging out with me. Whether you're driving to work, whether you're in the shower, whatever it may be. Thank you so much for showing up and being one step closer to becoming the very best version of yourself. I will see you, ladies on the next episode.

Hey, ladies, welcome back to the Ashlee Jaine show. You are in the right place if you are looking for mindset and motivational tips to help inspire you to glow up and show up as the very best version of yourself. I am your host and guide Ashlee Jaine, and today we are tackling the beast that is productivity. Now I want to share some of my top tips to help you be productive in twenty twenty two. I know we all have things that we are working towards. We all have things that we want to accomplish, and these tips that I'm sharing with you have helped me not only have one successful business, but also start another business and also be an elected official on our city council in the city that I live in and be first and foremost, a present wife and mother to my husband and children. So I implement these tips. I swear by them they are like a religion to me to help me tackle and stay on top of everything that I have going on in the day to day, week to week, month to month, and yes, even year to year. So the very first tip that I want to share with you is when it comes to productivity, you really have to figure out what your priorities are, what are your goals, what are those large things that you're actually working towards? Otherwise, you're going to fail to have a sense of direction and you're never going to feel like you're accomplishing anything, and it'll probably feel like a hamster in a wheel type of cycle.

So make sure that you have those large goals, those large things that you're working towards, whether it is in your personal or your professional life, it could be anything from fitness goals to maybe you're looking to get a promotion at work, or maybe you just want to spend some more time with your family and your husband, whatever it may be, get that large goal identified. And then once you have it identified, the most important thing that you can do when it comes to goal setting, by the way, is this step right here, which is breaking it down into actions. These can be daily actions. These can be semi daily actions. These can be weekly actions. Doesn't matter. Just break it down into small bites so you know exactly what it is going to take to help you achieve that goal. And once you have done this, it makes accomplishing anything so much easier. You feel like a weight has been lifted because you don't have this gigantic goal that you're working towards anymore. It's actually broken down for you and bite size pieces so that you feel like in your day to day life, you can actually do those things to accomplish what you're trying to accomplish.

It is so amazing. So if you haven't already been incorporating breaking down your large goals and a small goals, I would highly, highly recommend it. It is just going to not only help give you those bite size and manageable actions that you know you can do, but it's also just really going to help you get a sense of clarity and a sense of direction so you know exactly what you're working towards and how to work towards that goal. Now, the second step on being super productive in twenty twenty two is to schedule your work week or your week out, and then you also want to go back every night or every morning and make sure that you preplan your day. This always reminds me of the saying if you fail to plan, you plan to fail because again, you need that clarity, you need that direction, you need to know exactly what you have going on and when, which is our next step. But I really want to hone in on that. I want you to know how important it is, how critical it is to have just a broad overview of what your week looks like. And then either at night or very early in the morning, you can kind of fine comb through the things that you have going on and really get a more magnified sense of hour to hour and just kind of like everything that you have for that specific day.

All right. So with that said, the third step that I'm going to share with you and this is one that I've talked about and this is actually why I'm even doing this podcast is because I mentioned this in my previous podcast. Quite a few episodes, actually, but I am such a huge fan of time blocking. So as you're fine combing your daily details and really just getting a good, solid sense on a very small scale of what you have going on for that day or the following day, you need to give yourself some time blocks. And what I mean by this is little. Early blocking out time for certain tasks. Now, obviously, everybody has different flexibility when it comes to time and things like that, you may have obligations that you're required to do like, for example, work between 9:00 to 5:00, where you can't really focus on doing any of the other things that you're trying to accomplish. So make sure that you're mindful of that and also prioritize what you are doing. I would highly encourage you to do whatever is most critical and helping you reach your goals and make shit happen in 2020 to do that as the best productive time of your day. Maybe that means you have to wake up an hour earlier, two hours early to get that job done or get that test done.

Or maybe you are most productive right after you've had your morning coffee. And so that's when you sit down and you do X, Y or Z. That is absolutely key and critical for you achieving your goals and for you being productive. So definitely identify the time in your day when you are the most productive, that you are sharp, that you are mentally present and awake and sharp and ready to do or tackle whatever the task at hand may be. So prioritize that. And then maybe that's something that you don't like to do, by the way. Sometimes the hardest things that we have to do, the most critical things, the things that actually move the needle are things that we don't necessarily want to do. But you still need to do it first to guarantee it gets done and then follow that up with easier things or things that you enjoy doing and things that are kind of just like maybe moving the needle a little bit, but not necessarily doing like a full 180 or anything like that. So definitely be strategic with how you time block and prioritize what you do. And when you do it and when you time block, you really need to protect the time that you've dedicated to that task. If you time block for, let's say you want to do sixty five sit-ups, I have no idea where I just pulled that out of a hat right there, but let's say you want to do sixty five sit-ups and this is going to help you achieve your personal fitness goal.

So you wake up every morning and you time lock that time in your schedule right after you wake up for those sixty five sit-ups. That means you are not going to say yes, you are not going to let anything else infiltrate on that time block. You're not going to say, Oh, well, this morning, I'm going to meet my friend for coffee so I can't do my sixty five sit-ups. That's not how it works. Everything else fits in between those time blocks or outside of those time blocks. Don't jeopardize your time blocks that you have dedicated to helping you achieve whatever it is that you're trying to achieve in life. And since we're already talking about it, the fourth step is eliminating distractions and staying focused. Ladies, I know we live in such a distracted world. Believe me, I fall victim to it all the time. I do a lot of work on social media and it is so easy for me to just start scrolling rather than getting back to what I was supposed to be doing. And sometimes, honestly, if I'm being honest, I even forget what I was supposed to be doing.

I'll literally be on TicTok and next thing I know 30 minutes has went by and I forgot what I even set out to do. As embarrassing as that is, I am guilty of it all the same, but really try to bring awareness to it and be cognitive of your distractions, whether it is via technology or maybe people around you. Maybe you have somebody who's disruptive in the office or at home, or maybe you just let your dogs out too many times a day like me because you're looking for those little mental breaks throughout your day. But whatever it is, just make sure that you eliminate those distractions. You can almost actually even plan for them in your schedule, which is great if you know you have consistent distractions. Or maybe you just even want to give yourself like 30 minutes of social media time. Schedule it while you're on your lunch break, or schedule it at a time where you don't need all of that mental capacity to be as productive as possible. That's just another little tip right there, but definitely make sure that you eliminate them as much as possible. And when you catch yourself being distracted, just bring awareness to it. And the more you do that, the easier it will be for you to correct that habit or that thought within a shorter amount of time of being distracted.

Ok, so now for the last tip that I'm going to share with you, and this one is so important and that is creating habits and routine around all of these tips that I've shared with you. We are nothing if we are. Not consistent. I mean that with every fiber of my being, because I have learned that throughout trying to grow multiple businesses, you absolutely have to be consistent in order to achieve any sort of success or see any sort of results in your business or whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish here. So once you have nailed down these steps that I'm here with you, make sure that you're not just implementing it for next week or the following week, but make sure that you're actually creating a habit and a routine around it for all of the weeks, all of the months and hopefully all of the years to come. And I promised once you start doing it, by the way, I don't know if you're aware of this, but once you create a habit, once you have really narrowed down or kind of trained your brain on that habit, it takes up less mental space to accomplish it, which means you can almost kind of do it on autopilot and it doesn't require so much time and energy. Once the habit is created as it does either before or when you're in the process of creating that habit.

So this is like long term key success tip right here. Always, always, always anything that you want to accomplish, anything that you want to incorporate in your life, to be honest. Make it a habit, and that's going to be a game changer for you. But those are my key productivity tips for twenty twenty two, and I hope that you ladies enjoyed this episode. I hope that you got some good productivity inspiration, and I really hope that you are incorporating all of these in your planner, in your schedule, in your life, in whatever capacity it is that you are trying to accomplish these goals or work towards these amazing things that you are setting out to do. Because at the end of the day, we all need to be working on achieving our full potential in life if we are not trying to achieve our full potential. If we are not trying to better ourselves and become the best version of ourselves, then we are wasting time here. We all have a purpose. We all have a reason for being on this lovely planet at this particular time. And so we really need to embrace and embody that and do our part to live up to that potential and to live up to that purpose. All right, ladies, thank you so much for being here and I will see you on my next episode.

Hey, ladies. You are in the right place if you are looking for mindset inspiration to help you glow up and show up as the very best version of yourself. This is the Ashlee Jaine show and I am your host and guide Ashlee Jaine sharing advice and actionable tips on how to help you become the very best version of yourself. Now, in today's episode, we are going to be discussing things that I know each and every single one of you ladies can relate to on a very personal level. And this is probably one of the most important podcast episodes that I have recorded this far because there are so many truth bombs that I'm about to drop and hopefully so many golden nuggets and takeaways that you can really just apply to your life to have this amazing paradigm and perspective shift, if you will, to help you show up and be the very best you that you can be and each and every single situation you experience in life. Ok, so we are going to be talking about self image, self-worth, insecurities and self-doubt. I know those last two are things that you ladies are all too familiar with. Believe me, I've been there. In fact, I'm still there. I think we would be lying to ourselves if we said that we didn't experience self-doubt and insecurities on a semi consistent basis. But as often as we experience them, it is our job to figure out how to overcome them, to figure out how to not let it paralyze us from accomplishing the things that we want to accomplish in life and being the person that we want to be.

So with all of that said, we are going to be discussing the correlation between self-image and self-worth when it comes to us and our lives and our potential and all of the greatness that we can and should be working to become. Now there are a few aspects to this because of course, we always have internal and external self image, right? We always worry about our physical appearance just as much as we worry about what's going on in our mind, what we did, what we said, how we could have done differently, yada yada yada. I think women are like notorious for overanalyzing. I don't know about you, ladies, but I know that there have definitely been times in my life where I have taken the teeniest, tiniest of situations or conversations and overanalyze them to death, broken them down, trying to figure out how I could have been more confident, how I could have been more clear, whatever it may be, insert x, y or Z of your feelings here, because I know that we can all relate to that. We've all done that. It's like one of our curses as being a woman. So anyways, what we're going to be discussing is our self image and how it correlates and how it equates to our self-worth.

Now, coming from a woman who really used to have a lot of insecurities, a lot of self-doubt, a lot of just negative questioning, I guess, if you will. In my mind, there were a lot of roadblocks and things that I had to overcome and to get past to get to where I'm at today and to really see my potential and see me for the person that I can be rather than the person that I was in that moment. And so I'm bringing this to you. From my previous life experience, from being in a place that was dark, that was negative, that was definitely not anything that helped me reach my potential. It hindered me in a lot of ways, actually. But we are going to be talking about this on a very personal level. This is not me just giving advice. This is me sharing what I've been through and how it can really affect you if you resonate with this at all. So the way that we perceive our self, our self image is really impactful in the person that we want to become. And I'm even going to share some insightful, actionable tips at the end, because you all know that I love giving some sort of actionable takeaway that you can start implementing into your life to become the best version of yourself.

But with that said, back to what I was sharing. So whether it is our self-image as it pertains to our outer appearance or our self doubts as it pertains to our personality or our actions or whatever it may be, the way that we perceive ourselves is really can have a positive or negative. Impact on our self-worth. So let me give you an example. Have you ever been in a situation? Maybe you're just having a really off day, maybe you're on your period, you're bloated and you just feel so ugly, you just feel so blessed. You are like feeling very unsexy, but of course, your husband's like, Oh my gosh, you're beautiful and hugging and kissing you and and being like, super nice and super genuine and you're like, No, get off of me. I'm disgusting. Like that interaction, right? There is a great example of how your self-image is affecting your self-worth. In that scenario, in your marriage, you are pushing your husband away. You are telling him, No, you were wrong. I am not beautiful. Why would you ever want to love me? I'm just being dramatic here. This is just for show. But you were sending all of these signals to your husband, therefore diminishing any sort of affection that he is wanting to give you. And in that exchange, in that interaction, you are lessening the relationship, the positive interaction and the positive relationship in that moment.

So think about how you can apply that example, that scenario to every single aspect of your life, because I guarantee you will come up with so many times, so many examples of when that has happened to you. Or maybe you're wearing this outfit and you absolutely hate it, but people are complimenting you on it and you're like, No, this doesn't really work for me. This doesn't look good on me. I feel like I don't, you know, I just don't wear this. Well, whatever it may be, when somebody is trying to compliment you rather than thinking you, you are diminishing their compliment, you are diminishing that positive experience in that interaction or in that relationship or friendship or whatever it may be. So there is that aspect of it, but there is also the self-doubt and the insecurities that stem from within, from things that we say and things that we do as well. If you are spending all of your time questioning how you could have or should have or would have said something differently in a conversation, maybe it was an argument with your husband, or maybe you had a conversation with a coworker, or you felt like you came across as maybe really petty or really selfish or whatever it may be. If you're sitting there and you're spending those moments and minutes probably thinking about how you could have and should have and would have done things differently, rather than showing up as the confident human being that you are in future interactions.

You are essentially diminishing your self-worth because you, how you see yourself is how the world is going to see you. And you can't work towards becoming the best version of yourself. You can't work towards reaching your potential if you are too busy overanalyzing, doubting or having some sort of negative self-image. So even on the days when you feel like maybe you slipped up, maybe you said something you shouldn't have. Maybe you don't look your best. Even on those days. I would invite you to change that thought process or that thought pattern, because again, we all have these self-doubts in these insecurities, but it is our job to change them. So I would invite you to think the opposite of yourself like, oh, I, you know, came across this really bitchy in that conversation and you tell yourself, You know what? You are a genuine person. You may or may not have said something that was offhanded and moving forward, you are going to show whoever that was with the utmost respect and conversation does not matter. You can apply this to any example in your life, but doing this is really going to impact how people perceive you as well. So if you're showing up and you are feeling so sexy, you're feeling so beautiful and your husband's like, Oh my gosh, I love you, you're so beautiful.

You are going to be like, Thank you so much, babe. Like, I really appreciate you saying that, you know, I love the way this dress fits me or whatever it may be, and you are actually helping and nurturing that relationship and that interaction. So think about it in all regards of life, whether it is with friends, whether it is with coworkers, whether it is with your husband, whether it is just something that doesn't involve anybody else at all. And it solely involves you think about how you think about yourself, think about how you think about yourself. That's kind of funny, but really just sit there and think about how you think about yourself in that situation. Do you think of yourself as showing up as confident? Do you think of yourself as showing up as bold? Maybe you're in a new social interaction and you are trying to meet new friends? Are you showing up as receptive to, you know, their conversations? Are you being engaging? Are you asking questions, are you going to learn them all of these things you need to think about and realize within yourself first before you can show up in the way that you want to show up in that situation and that scenario in that conversation and whatever it may be in life.

So your self-image, how you perceive yourself really does impact everything around you. It impacts so much more than I could ever even go into detail on here in this podcast episode. But I would encourage you to really just analyze and maybe even jot down like how you think about yourself now. But with that said, here's your actionable tip, and this is your homework and your takeaway. For this podcast episode, I would really encourage you and challenge you to think about the person that you want to be. This is one of the best exercises that I have incorporated in my life on this personal development journey, and I think every woman should do the same. So any time that I feel like I've kind of plateaued in life, or maybe I'm just not showing up as the best version of myself on a consistent basis, we all have off days. That's OK. But if I'm not doing it consistently, I stop and I think about the person that I want to be. What does the next version of Ashley look like? What does she wear? What does she say? How does she make others feel? All of these questions, and I write down in detail that person, that version of Ashley, because this gives me a very clear direction, clear image of the person that I want to be and helps me work on becoming her.

It helps guide me in the direction that I already know I want to head. So that is your homework. That is your takeaway from this podcast episode, because I really want you to see yourself as not who you are right now, or maybe not even who you were in the past, but who you are and who you are going to be. We are ever changing. We are ever evolving, and we should be always working on becoming the best version of ourselves. So I would love, love, love to see you ladies do this little exercise and really just focus on all of the great things about you, rather than letting those insecurities and self-doubt creep in and get the best of you. Don't let them hinder your potential anymore, because we all know they have in the past. It is time to embrace who you are and who you are going to be and start working your way towards her. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast episode. Ladies, I really appreciate you being here, and I would really love it if you would take a moment to give this show a five star rating. It really just helps me get the word out to other women just like you to help them glow up and show up to become the very best version of themselves. I will see you, ladies, on my next episode.

Hey, ladies, you are absolutely in the right place if you are looking for mindset, inspiration and motivation to help you glow up and show up as the very best version of yourself. You are listening to the Ashlee Jaine show and I am your host and guide Ashlee Jaine sharing advice and actionable tips on basically everything you need to know to become the very best version of yourself. In today's episode, we are going to be discussing work and life balance. This is something that has been highly requested. I have been a business owner or self-employed for. I don't even know how long four years ever since my son was born. So he's almost 10. So you do the math. But there are so many things that I want to share with you in this podcast episode, and I just think that it's going to be so helpful for you to listen. And for you to really take away what I'm sharing with you. Because let me just start by saying that there is no such thing as balance when it comes to life and work. Whether your work is some sort of corporate office or whether your work is running your own business, whether your life is managing your social calendar with your friends or taking care of your little ones, there literally is no such thing as balance. And I really want you to soak that in because that is the theme around this entire podcast episode and is really going to relieve a lot of stress for you when it comes to figuring out how to navigate your friends and your family and your work calendar as well.

Because in all honesty, the truth is that there are always going to be times in your life where your time and your attention and your energy are going to be split between work, between family, between friends and extracurricular obligations. And that's never going to end. That is never going to change. And so the sooner that we can embrace the mentality of, there is no such thing as balance and really focus on how we can make it work from there. The better off we will be because of it, because I spent years looking for balance and striving for that. Some I don't even know what it was that I was looking for. I was just hoping that I would find some sort of common ground or some sort of like flow, if you will, where I felt like I gave my time, my attention, my energy, my love, my affection, all of the things equally in all departments across the board. But that never happened. And when I realized that that was never going to happen, I figured out a way to make my work life and my family life or my home life. I wouldn't say balanced, but it was fluid and it flowed and it worked.

So that's what we're striving for here. We're not striving for balance, we're not striving for some sort of invisible scale that is teeter tottering, one side to the other. And you're just trying to make it be a flat line all the way across. That doesn't exist. And I'm sorry if you were really hanging your hat on that I hate to burst your bubble, but that expectation of balancing your work and your home life, that is bullshit. So with that said, we are going to focus on what you can do and kind of how you can embrace the imbalance, if you will, of your work and your life and your home life. Anyways, that's what we're talking about in this episode here today, ladies. And if you are new and this is our first episode together, I would love it if you would hit that subscribe button and you can feel free to leave a review at any time. If any of this really resonates with you or helps you in any sort of way, that just helps me get the word out to other ladies, just like you to stay inspired and motivated and help them on becoming the very best version of themselves. All right, so here is what we are going to be talking about. Since we're not talking about balance, we are going to be focusing on embracing the imbalance and the number one thing that you can do in your life across the board, every single department of life, whether it's friends, whether it's family, whether it is volunteer, work, extracurriculars or work itself, is figuring out and finding and searching for the things.

That flow with the lifestyle that you want with the lifestyle that you have. There has to be fluidity in all of these things for you to feel at peace and for you to have some sort of harmony over everything that you have going on in life. Because let's face it, we all have a million balls in the air that we are juggling each and every single day, and we need to figure out how to not balance it. But how do we make it fluid? How do we make it work? And a lot of people, really, they fall back on the crutch of saying, Oh, I don't have time or I can't make time or I'm not in control of my time, and we need to really move away from that thought process because in reality, yes, you are 100 percent in control of your time. You are choosing what your career is, how many hours you're putting in at the office. You are choosing, you know, your children and you are choosing your husband and you are choosing your friends and you were saying yes to your volunteer work.

And so yes, we are in control of our time. We need to really I keep I keep falling back on embrace that. But we need to really embrace that. You need to be in control of your time and you need to figure out what you want your date today to look like so that you can find those things and piece together those things that are fluid within that day. Now I'm just going to give you an example of like my day today because this is everything that I have going on, but please feel free to take it and apply it to whatever aspect of your life that you're trying to find this imbalance, if you will. So everything that I have going on in life consists of, I have my children and my husband, of course my dogs. All of those are top priority and I have my business, which is also top priority. And I also have my city council role where I have to really focus on spending time and energy there to accomplish the things that I want to accomplish. And in that aspect, I am also very active, so I do pilates. I'm starting to do it daily, which has really taken up a lot more time, obviously, but it's very important to me. So fitness is very important to me. That's another hat that I wear as well.

And then volunteering and doing things outside of that, I volunteer for my children's PTA at their schools and I help out, you know, within my community as much as I can. So I really do do a lot, and I really do try to fit it into my schedule by a prioritizing like I just shared and be figuring out what I can say yes to. That is fluid and that I can move about and place strategically as far as time goes within my schedule. So the very first thing that I would ask you to do if you are somebody who's really struggling with the stress of trying to balance your work in your life is figure out what your priorities are, what is at the top of your list. What are non-negotiables? Is it your family? I would certainly hope it's your family. Is it your family? Is it your friends and your social life? Is it your fitness? And you absolutely are not willing to give up two hours at the gym every day? Is it your nine to five because you're really trying to push for that raise or that promotion? What is it that's at the top of your list? Those are your non-negotiables and then really look into and start applying some sort of time blocking strategy. Ok, so I love time blocking. And honestly, I'll probably do an entire episode on how to do all of my productivity tips, really, because there are so many of them, and I could do an entire episode just on that.

But time blocking essentially just allows you to block out certain hours or an hour, however long for specific tasks. So if your fitness is important to you like it is to me, I would time block that time throughout my day. I would make sure that it gets done. Maybe its first thing in the morning, maybe I'm waking up at six o'clock and from six o'clock to seven o'clock I'm working out. My kids obviously are top priority. So at seven o'clock I wake them up. I helped them get ready for school and see them out the door and then move on to whatever it is that my next task is and whatever it is, that is my priority for that day. All of these things, it's almost like a puzzle. I really feel as I'm explaining this, it is really like. A puzzle. So then from there, after you time blocked and I would recommend doing this not just day to day, but also for your entire week, like get a rough draft for the week and then you can fine comb it through from the day to day throughout the week. So do that and really just figure out where you can plug and play with things. And also don't be the type of person to say yes to everything.

I used to be this type of person, and actually I did a podcast episode on this. It's called The Power of No. You can always go back and listen to any of my older episodes on whichever podcast app you are listening to this on right now. But it just talks about essentially how incredibly powerful it is to say no to things, because any time you say yes to something, you are without a doubt without even realizing it, saying no to other things that may come your way as well. So it's all about prioritization, and it's all about just figuring out where you can plug and play and what falls where. Ok, so on the topic of saying no and yes, and whatever it is, your answer may be to things I would really encourage you. I know how hard it is. A friend asks you if you want to go out for drinks, or maybe they want to go shopping, whatever it may be. I would really encourage you to really prioritize. There is that word again. We're just going to prioritize our life throughout this podcast episode. That should be the theme of the podcast episode, not work and life balance, but prioritize what you say yes to in the sense that if you say yes to something, think about what you are getting out of it. What impacts you are making what you are giving others out of it and really just be cognitive of that because you don't need to say yes to every invitation that you get.

You don't need to say yes to every time your church asks you to volunteer, you don't have to be the person who always says yes. Just for the sake of saying yes and not saying no, don't be afraid to say no. Saying no. It's a very powerful thing, as I've already covered. But when I say yes to things, I make sure that a it's bringing me joy. B, It is making some sort of positive impact on those around me. And see, it is fluid in the sense that I can dictate the time I can dictate the location. I can dictate everything about it to make it fit in with my schedule. Sometimes the last part is not always an option. Sometimes if you are being asked to volunteer for a specific situation or if you're being invited to some sort of social gathering at a certain place and time, obviously you have to be a little flexible and you have to bend a little bit in that regard. But if it's an ongoing commitment, just try to make sure that you do have that say in the matter of time and place and location and things like that. So just keep all of the stuff in mind.

And remember, you don't have to say yes to everything. Prioritization is key. Your happiness and your top priorities fall way before anything that you're saying yes to that you haven't already committed yourself to. So speaking of flexibility, you really need to embrace some sort of flex time. So don't book yourself so full that you don't have any opportunity to say yes to anything new or you don't have an opportunity to just relax and hang out and spend time with your family. For example, if you are like me, don't fill your week with work, fitness, gymnastics for the kids, baseball practice and all of these things don't fill up every single hour of your schedule when your time blocking. You really want to leave that flex time or that space for you to, I don't know, maybe just be creative and focus on, you know, big picture things in your life. Or maybe you just want to completely tune out and sit down and watch a movie with your family, whatever it may be. Maybe there's a great invitation that comes your way and you get to catch up with a friend who you haven't seen in forever. Whatever it is, make sure you have that flex time in your schedule and in your calendar because life happens and you may be feeling extremely burnt out that week, and that gives you something to look forward to.

You know that you have that flex time to sit down and do absolutely nothing. Or maybe you're feeling extremely inspired and you know that you have that time to sit down and plan out your next project or, you know, just do a vision board, whatever it may be. So give yourself some flex time. All right, I just want to recap some of these tips that I've shared with you now that we have embraced the fact that work and life balance is bullshit and we are embracing the imbalance of work and life. I just want to cover again what you can do to help be more fluid, more flexible and really just have a life flow that is the goal. Life flow and I love flow like that is one of my key words that I always use and that I always fall to. Because if there is like a flow in my life, I feel so good it doesn't have to be balanced. It doesn't mean that I'm dedicating X amount of hours in the same x amount of hours in every single department of my life. But it flows and that is what works for me. So I'm hoping that these tips that I'm sharing work for you as well. Ok, so prioritize course time block. And when you say yes, make sure that you're saying yes to things that are important to you, that are impactful, that bring you joy.

Embrace the know if you need to. The power of note is very powerful and give yourself some flex time. Give yourself some flex time. To say yes to new things, to catch up on old things, to decompress, to do whatever you need to do in your downtime. All right. So hopefully these tips that I have shared with you, ladies really help you. And I know that there's other podcasts, and I know that there's other things out there that kind of build hope for the work and life balance. And believe me, I have searched for it for years. Like I said, I've been a business owner for almost 10 years, so I've been there have been times when I felt like I was pulled in a million different directions at once and I have all of the balls that I'm juggling in the air and there are about to all come crashing down on me. And I've definitely had those times where I've had extreme mom guilt because I feel like I'm putting too much time or energy or whatever it may be into my business and not giving enough to my family. So I've kind of been on the extreme and I know exactly if you can relate to that. I know exactly how you feel, and I'm hoping that with these tips, you feel some sort of peace and you can relieve yourself of any of the stress or the tension or the anxiety around being pulled into a million different directions.

At the end of the day, life is always happening. It's always going to happen. There's always going to be things that we want to do or that we are doing. And it's not up to us to figure out, you know, some sort of mathematical equation as to how many hours to dedicate to certain tasks throughout the day or make sure that, you know, 12 hours is dedicated to family and 12 hours is dedicated to work or business. It is up to us to figure out how to make it flow, how to make it work in our day to day lives. And that is the secret sauce for having that piece and having that harmony around work and life and really embracing that imbalance, if you will. All right, ladies, I will leave you with that. And I just want to thank you so much for being here. Thank you for hanging out with me. Whether you're driving to work, driving to drop the kiddos off at school or practice, or maybe you're even in the shower listening to me and getting your mindset and your inspiration, whatever it may be, I want to thank you so much for being here. You are one step closer to becoming the very best version of yourself. I love you so much, and I will see you on my next episode.

Everything else that maybe you have an idea that you want to work on, but you're not really like super excited about set those to the side because what's going to happen is you're going to set the goals that really light you up and you're going to achieve those goals. And then once you achieve those goals, maybe the other goals that you have set to the side, maybe those will be the ones that really light you up at that time and then you just keep going. You never stop goals. Don't stop, don't ever stop working on yourself. Don't ever stop trying to better yourself. Don't ever stop trying to become the best version of yourself. Hey, ladies, and happy New Year's Eve! This show is coming out live on New Year's Eve. How exciting is that? This is the first New Year's Eve show that I've ever released, actually. But first, let me just welcome you back to the Ashlee Jaine show you are absolutely in the right place if you are looking for mindset inspiration to help you glow up and show up as the very best version of yourself. And we are going to be discussing New Year's Eve goals and resolutions, and I have no notes for this episode. I'm just going to wing it and play it by ear and wear my heart on my sleeve. And hopefully I make sense and help you gain some perspective on New Year's Eve resolutions and goal settings. I haven't quite figured out what I want to name this show yet.

I guess that'll just depend on the golden nuggets that I share as we talk about our New Year's Eve resolutions and goals. But I know that there are a few things that I do want to mention and that I feel like they need to be addressed when it comes to New Year's Eve resolutions or New Year's resolutions. So I think a lot of people view New Year's as a fresh start, as a great time to start something new, as kind of like a rebirth, if you will. And I think that it really just, I don't know, I would challenge you if that's you, I would challenge you to change your perspective about New Year's because at the end of the day, New Year's falls on. Actually, let me look at let me look at my calendar really quick. New Year's Eve falls on a Friday, so New Year's Day falls on a Saturday. Nothing resets or starts on a Saturday, and the day of the week changes every single year. New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are never on this. Well, I mean, every so often they are, but they're rarely on the same day of the week and the first of the month. If it falls on a Saturday, is it really like a rebirth or a good time to reset? I don't know. To me, it just doesn't make sense. I think that people should be working on themselves and challenging themselves and setting resolutions and setting goals all throughout the year.

Because the people who wait for, Oh, I'll start my diet next Monday or I'll start exercising on the 1st of next month, those people, it's almost like it's a crutch. Some it's like, OK, I'm going to take these last few days to do whatever I want to do to eat whatever I want to eat, to not realize the importance of working out and not challenge myself or push myself in any way. That's really what it's like. I'm not trying to say this in an insulting way because I've done it like I've totally been there and I've been that person I can remember. Honestly, like back in the day, I used to smoke cigarets and I am so embarrassed that I did because I'm so health conscious. But I did. And I can remember back in the day saying, Yeah, I think I'm just going to quit smoking as soon as this pack of cigarets runs out. While it seems practical because you know it's not a waste of money, it's still so silly. Like if I wanted to quit, I should have just quit. Like, I should have just thrown the rest of the cigarets away. But I was using it as a crutch because I wanted to finish that pack of cigarets or whatever. And now I'm glad to say, like, if I want to stop doing something, I just stopped doing it like cold turkey, no ifs, ands or buts, no grace periods.

It's out of my life. I'm done. And same with starting things. If I want to start things, I do it like. I rely heavily on inspired action and I'll do a separate episode about that because I firmly believe that everybody should live their life by inspired action. But what I'm trying to say is that if you are somebody who waits until New Years to start a goal or to set a resolution, I would challenge you to not. And I would challenge you to start right now. Or, you know, just stop relying on the beginning of the week or the beginning of the year or the beginning of. The month, if you want to do something, just do it. Don't tie it to a day. Don't tie it to a date. Don't tie it to a holiday. Just do it. Ok, so that's bullet point number one that I want to make. And number two, when it comes to resolutions and goal setting, you need to write them down. I can't remember the actual statistic. I probably could look it up really quick, but you are so much more likely to achieve your goals when you write them down. Then when you just keep them in your head and I don't know the science behind it, I don't grasp it, but I do know this. I've been writing down my goals for years, probably at least six or seven years, and I have marked off and achieved so many of my goals.

Whether that's coincidence or correlation, I don't know, but data proves that you're much more likely to achieve your goals if you actually write them down. So if you are setting goals and I'm not going to say New Year's Eve, New Year's resolutions or New Year's goals, I'm not saying that anymore. But if you have goals that you want to achieve, if you have resolutions you want to achieve, write them down. You can get an entire notebook and dedicate it to your goals and your resolutions. Or if you're like me and you want to look at those suckers every single day you write them down, I have them written down on my agenda. But I also used to write them down on Post-it Notes and stick them to the mirror. So every morning, when I brush my teeth or I put my makeup on or whatever and I looked at the mirror, I saw my goals written down. I saw them every single day, and I would say that that's probably more impactful in terms of achieving your goals than how I have it right now. I should probably honestly put them back on Post-it Notes and put them back up, but write them down and try to figure out a way. So this is, I guess, we're rolling into bullet point number three, but try to figure out a way to reverse engineer your goals. You have this big goal whether it's losing weight, getting fit, achieving a work related goal, spending more time with your family, investing more in yourself, which I just did a podcast episode, by the way.

On, you can go back and check it out. I will link it down on the show notes, and you can always go back and check out any of my older podcasts that are parked on whichever app you are listening to this podcast on. There are so many anymore, but you can always go back and check out my older ones. And if you want to stay connected and get updated on my future podcasts, then I would love it if you would subscribe if you haven't already. But back to my point. Moving on to bullet point number three. So first, don't tie it to a date or a day or whatever. And bullet point number two, right? Those bad boys down and three reverse engineer figure out what actions need to be taken. It's almost like you take your big goal and then you work backwards. What actions need to be taken to make your goal attainable? What do you need to do to achieve your resolution? Maybe that's spending X amount of minutes at the gym. Maybe that is, you know, if you're wanting to, like, have a certain amount in savings, maybe that's cutting out going out to dinner with the exception of twice a month or something along those lines? I don't know. Maybe that is having some more one on one time with you and your husband because you really want to reconnect.

Maybe that is setting aside family days because your goal is to spend more time with your family. Maybe that's drinking celery juice every day because you want to be healthier. Find the little actions, the micro actions that it takes to achieve your overall goal. And you really just have to kind of take the big thing that you're after and work backwards from there to figure out those small daily actions or semi daily actions that you can take to work towards that goal. That is one of the best ways to guarantee that you will actually make that shit happen. And if you just take my advice and set a goal, or maybe even go as far as to write it down, but then you don't figure out the daily actions that it takes to make it happen, you're either going to take a longer time to achieve that goal or you're not going to achieve it at all. So just keep that in mind, and I don't know if I really have a bullet point number four. Like I said, I'm just winging this episode, but I do want you to take all of those things into consideration. And I guess maybe bullet point number four would just be to really want it, because if you don't really want it, then what the hell are you even saying it for? Like, what are you doing? Is this a goal that somebody else wants for you? Because if so, that's not going to work.

You will never have the motivation or the intention or invest the time or the energy to make it happen. Then if it's not something that you truly want in your core, you have to want it enough to work for it if that desire isn't there, if there is a void or even if there is a small, maybe like a small little inkling that you want it, but you're not really sure it's not time to set that goal. Your goals need to be the things that light you up that set your soul on fire. Your goals need to be the things that are most important in your life that you cannot wait to work towards, that you are absolutely going to love the results of those are what your goals need to be, and you really just need to identify what those are. Everything else that maybe you have an idea that you want to work on, but you're not really like super excited about set those to the side because what's going to happen is you're going to set the goals that really light you up and you're going to achieve those goals. And then once you achieve those goals, maybe the other goals that you have set to the side, maybe those will be the ones that really light you up at that time and then you just keep going. You never stop goals. Don't stop, don't ever stop working on yourself. Don't ever stop trying to better yourself.

Don't ever stop trying to become the best version of yourself. And that's what this podcast is all about, because I absolutely love the journey that I'm on. I love showing up and trying to become the very best version of myself in all aspects each and every single day. I love showing up to the best of my ability, and sometimes honestly, if I'm being serious, sometimes that's in sweatpants and sitting in my office and recording podcasts because I can't muster up the motivation to get dressed and put my face on camera to record a YouTube video because that's literally what's happening right now, just being completely transparent, but show up as the best version of yourself, and it doesn't have to be 100 percent every day. Sometimes it's eighty seven percent, but as long as you're trying and as long as the intention is there, you're going to make it, sister, you're going to achieve all of your goals, you're going to hit all of those resolutions. You were going to attract everything in this life that you want because you are showing up every day and you are working towards it. Ok. That's the last bullet point that I have for you in regards to New Year's. Oh, I said I wasn't going to call them that anymore to goals and resolutions. So hopefully this kind of helps shift your perspective about setting goals and setting resolutions. They should be ongoing. They should be not tied to a date.

They should be written down and figure out how to reverse engineer them. What actions do you need to take to even get there? And do you have the drive in the motivation to take the actions to achieve that goal? So thank you so much, ladies. I hope that you have an amazing New Year's Eve and an amazing new year. Although it is not a fresh start, it is just a made up date. It is just time is man made, ladies. That's all I'm going to say. It is man made. You can make any day what you want to make it. You don't need to tie it to a date. You don't need to tie it to a holiday. You don't need to tie it to a Monday or a Sunday or a next week. Every day is what you make it, all right. I will leave you with that, thank you so much for taking the time to tune in with me today, ladies, and really just investing in yourself to help yourself glow up and show up as the very best version of yourself. I honor you and I love you for doing that, and I would really appreciate it if you would take a moment to give this show a five star review. It really just helps me get the word out and help other women just like you on this amazing journey to glow up and show up as the very best version of themselves, I will catch you ladies on the next episode.

I don't think that people live their lives, some people do, but I don't think that people live their lives to hurt others or make others mad. I don't think that it's malicious. Most of the time, but sometimes it is. And whether it is or it isn't, the elephant in the room needs to be addressed because you honestly can't go through life just letting people treat you like shit, whether it is intentional or it's not intentional. Welcome to the Ashlee Jaine show, ladies. You are absolutely in the right spot if you are looking for mindset inspiration to help you glow up and show up as the very best version of yourself. Today we are going to be talking about tolerance and not in the good way either, because I do love the word tolerate because I think that it really ties into having compassion and trying to have a deeper understanding of others. But that is not what we are talking about today. Ladies, today we are going to be using the word tolerate in the negative sense, and I'm going to be sharing with you how important it is to recognize and realize that you get what you tolerate in this life. And I guess I should look up the word, tolerate and share the exact definition as to how I mean it. Let me pull it up really quick. Actually, I will get it pulled up on my phone. Ok, so let's use this example, and this is just from I don't even know what website it's from, it's like not even from a website, just my Google search allow the existence, occurrence or practice of.

But think about it in a negative way. And it also says without interference. So, yes, tolerate can be good or bad. But today we are talking about toleration as in tolerating the bad. And this is really important because I think a lot of us ladies, we're we can be really comfortable settling. Sometimes we can be very passive and a people pleaser, too, like these are three characteristics of us ladies that I think a lot of people, a lot of it can really just turn into a situation where we're being taken advantage of. And so these three characteristics really what I want to speak to and I want you to understand the importance of everything that's happening in your life and in your relationships and realizing that you deserve better. You deserve better than settling. You deserve better than being passive and being walked all over. You deserve better than trying to make everybody else happy with sacrificing your own happiness. And that is what we are going to be talking about today. So buckle up, ladies, if any of this sounds familiar. This episode is for you and I love you, and I hope that you take all of the goodness away from it and start applying it in your life ASAP.

Because honestly, it's true and it can be life changing once you implement this practice. And once you realize and recognize that you absolutely deserve better, you will start getting better. So I don't even know what sort of scenario or situation I could throw out here, but the easiest one that comes to mind is like maybe a boss or coworker being a total asshole to you and you just, you know, biting your tongue, not wanting to be confrontational, not thinking, maybe that you're reading into it too much or not wanting to make a big deal out of it overall. Maybe it's your boss's favorite, you know, whatever colleague or whatever, and you don't want to upset your boss or I don't know. It's hard for me to come up with these scenarios and like a corporate type setting because I've been out of the corporate world for so long. But I'm trying. I'm trying to come up with something that is relatable here. So maybe you're in a situation like that and you just you don't really know how to handle it, so you haven't handled it and you just kind of tolerate the treatment that you're getting. What's happening to you? And I'll say with that, if that is you and that sounds familiar, you are going to continue allowing this to happen and it's going to continue to happen. It's like a bully. It's like a kid on the playground who is bullying the other kids.

If the other kids let it happen, that bully will just continue. Once they realize that they can do it, that behavior will continue. This is applicable in a bully example at recess. This is applicable with a colleague at work. This is applicable with a relationship that you're in and your significant other not treating you the way that you deserve to be treated, or it's really something that you can apply across the board. You can even relate this back to family members. So what do you do in these scenarios? Do you just sit back and let it continue to happen? Do you sit back and tolerate it? The answer to that is no. You do not want to do that because you are better than that. You deserve better than that, and you should want to change the behavior that is so upsetting to you. You should get the respect that you deserve. You should get the treatment that you deserve as a colleague, as a partner, as a wife, as a girlfriend, as a sister or a daughter, or whatever it may be. So you need to learn how to address these things. And it's a delicate right because you're likely stepping into the lion's den where it's going to be a big blow up issue because this person has been treating you this way or the situation has been going on for long enough that these people are comfortable with repeating their behaviors.

They feel that it is acceptable at this point, and they will likely continue to feel that it is acceptable and that they have done nothing wrong because it is very hard for us humans to admit that we are at fault, that we have done something wrong, that we have wronged someone else. It's like, I don't know what it is. It must be like in our genetics that we can't admit our own faults and take responsibility for our actions. I don't know. It drives me crazy because I'm usually the first to admit when I'm wrong and when I've done something wrong, and I will apologize and I will learn and grow and move on from there. And I just wish everybody else in this world had the emotional intelligence to do so. We. So it would make our interactions with each other as humans a lot easier. But off my soapbox about that, if you are in this situation, you have to address it and you have to address it in the most respectful yet firm way possible. Because if you don't, you are risking everything. You're not going to ever find the love, the job, the relationship with your family member that you deserve if you don't stand up for yourself. If you don't learn this and I really try to teach my kids this, I'm struggling because it's still an ongoing issue. But they're young, so I have hope.

But if you don't learn to stick up for yourself, nobody else will. And don't count on anybody else to stick up for you. I think that's what's wrong with this world is that we're all like hoping that somebody else will stand up for us because we are too scared to stand up for ourselves. I don't expect anybody to fight my battles. I fight my battles and I will gladly take it on. I really honestly like, I know it sounds crazy, like with me saying that, but I don't like confrontation. I really don't. And I definitely don't like being argumentative. But I'm also not going to be someone who can be walked all over, either. So it's really an art of finding the balance of how to work with others in a way that you are being treated fairly and respectfully. And so the best way to go about doing this is just to come at it from a place of sincerity and from a place of trying to understand where this behavior is coming from. Now, if someone's just being a total asshole to you, then just, yeah, you can call them out on their shit and just be like, This is not OK. You're not going to treat me like this. But if you are, let's say in more of like a passive aggressive type of situation, this happens a lot with women because I think that we all can agree that we don't really like confrontation.

And so it's easier to just kind of be catty and be bitchy towards each other and make snide remarks than it is to actually address whatever the underlying issue is. So in those situations and in those conversations, especially if it's, you know, lady to lady, try to come at it from a place of understanding, try to come at it with, you know, gaining some perspective as to what the real issue is like, what's really causing this behavior? Hey, I noticed that you have kind of been distant from me and we used to have a pretty good relationship. Did I do something wrong? Is there something that I can do differently and really take ownership for any part or any role that you've played in this situation and try to help them understand that you would like for them to do the same and moving forward for the behavior to stop and go back to having that mutual relationship, that respectful relationship, that professional relationship, or that if it's your husband, your go back to that loving relationship and not be at odds anymore or whatever it is, but you have to show up and you have to address it. And that's the hardest part because nobody else is going to do it for you. And a lot of times I think that, you know, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt.

And I think that a lot of times what upsets us or behavior that irritates us or hurts us isn't even intentional. I don't think that people live their lives. Some people do, but I don't think that people live their lives to hurt others or make others mad. I don't think that it's malicious. Most of the time, but sometimes it is. And whether it is or it isn't, the elephant in the room needs to be addressed because you honestly can't go through life just letting people treat you like shit, whether it is intentional or it's not intentional. You have to love yourself enough to understand that you deserve respect that you deserve, love, that you deserve whatever it is in life. And as long as you're doing your part to work towards those things, to obtain those things, you need to figure out that delicate balance of how to get others on board with doing the same. So maybe I don't even know if I want to throw out that situation, but let's say you're in a marriage. This has been an ongoing issue. This is a behavior that you've never corrected because you really didn't ever want to stir the pot. Maybe it wasn't a big deal, but now you're like to your breaking point. How do you delicately address that with your husband or your spouse? How do you go about that? You know, these are really hard questions, and I think it comes back and it falls back to that emotional intelligence because that's really where you need to be.

That's really the area that you need to improve on to figure out how to navigate these conversations and how to navigate these. Scenarios in these relationships, I don't ever want you to think that it's OK for somebody to disrespect you or to walk all over you. Now there is something to be said for something that is continuous versus something that is maybe a once in a rare moon type of situation. I typically take the route of just trying not to let things get to me personally, because at the end of the day, like it has to be something really serious and significant in my life for me to let it like mess with my energy and mess with my mind, like if it's going to bring me down, you better believe it's a big issue so you can let the little things slide. You can let the once in a lifetime disrespectful moment slide if you want. It's up to you. It really is. The continuous thing is that that's what I want to focus on. That's where you get what you tolerate comes into play because it really is all about what you're continuously allowing to happen in your life. And those things absolutely do need to be addressed and they need to be addressed carefully. I like to use the same with kid gloves because it's like you handle it so delicately, like a balloon that you don't want to pop.

Kind of. And that's what I refer to when I'm talking about these conversations in these situations and things like that. And there's nothing wrong with taking a moment to address it because we all know in the heat of the moment we can say things that we don't necessarily mean, or maybe we do mean, but we don't necessarily want to say out loud. Maybe they're hurtful. Maybe they're just going to make the situation worse, whatever it is. So take some time back up, you know, try to separate yourself from the instance and maybe the anger or the sadness around the behavior and look at it for more of an objective angle for more of a problem solving or resolution space or mental space emotional space and figure out the best possible solution to address it and to move forward because I'm notorious for cutting people out of my life. But I'm at the point in my life where I'm realizing that that's not always possible. I really don't do second chances and I don't do forgiveness. Once you have wronged me, you are wrong and you have shown me your true colors, and I'm not interested in carrying on a relationship or a friendship with that person. But if it's a colleague or maybe even a family member, those aren't necessarily people. And I actually did an entire podcast episode about that how to handle toxic relationships.

You can go back and check that out. I will also link it down in the show notes as well, because it's a good lesson for everybody to hear. But I realized, and I acknowledge that not everybody can just be cut out of your life as much as I would love for that to happen after people have wronged me, it's just not always possible. So it's up to us to figure out how to address it and how to move forward from there. And maybe moving forward means no resolution. It means quitting your job or it means leaving that relationship. That's your call. You have to trust your intuition. Once you know that you've done your part and you've acknowledged your role in the scenario or in the situation as to how things got to where they are. And you've tried to have the conversation in a respectable way as to how to move forward and there is no possible resolution on the other end. Then you kind of have your answer right there. Do you want to stay in this situation or don't you do you want to continue tolerating this behavior or this scenario or don't you? And that's a question that only you can answer. But I'm here to help you identify those relationships in those scenarios, in your life as to where you're not being treated, the way that you should be treated.

And I'm here to encourage you to stand up on your own behalf in a mature and respectable way. Coming from a place of resolution and problem solving and to realize that if you don't your happiness, your self-respect and your self-worth, they're all at risk. They're all being jeopardized by staying in this situation or by staying in the relationship that you're in. So I'll leave you with that, ladies. I just want you to know that you are loved and you do deserve happiness. You deserve the love, the job, the relationship, whatever it is that you are seeking in this lifetime and in this world, you absolutely deserve that. But it's up to you to make sure that you get it because nobody else cares about you as much as you. That is so important. Don't expect handouts. Don't expect anybody to stand up and make it happen on your behalf because. Is there looking out for themselves as they should every man for himself? We can't go on with this whole victim entitled mentality in this world anymore. But you have to do it. It has to come from you. And once you do it, and once you master the skill of standing up for yourself, having those resolution based conversations, I promise life is going to get so much easier. And you will find so many opportunities opening up for you, whether that's new partners, whether that's new job opportunities, whether that is promotions, whether that is just I don't even know.

I don't even know what other example I can throw into the mix, but I like to throw out examples. If you haven't noticed, I really like to throw out examples to give you because I realized that we're not all in the same place in life, and I want it to be something that you can relate to on a personal level so that you understand the importance and what's at risk and what you're jeopardizing by not taking action and allowing or tolerating these behaviors in these situations to continue anyways. You are loved. You've got this. I believe in you. You need to believe in you. And I just want to thank you so much for tuning in and taking the time to listen to this podcast and hang out with me today. I honestly honor you for just investing in yourself and being committed to growing up and showing up as the very best version of you. I would really, really appreciate it. If you would take a moment to give this show a five star review, this really just helps me get the good word out to other ladies. Just like you who are on their journey of self-improvement, self-discovery and glowing up and showing up as the best version of themselves in this world. Thank you so much, ladies, and I will catch you on the next episode.