You Don't Need a Guru

Madeline is an amazing Virtual Assistant who primarily works with spiritual coaches. She manages social media, writes content, creates graphics, and is all around incredible. 

 

She shares how she’s always been interested in the power of our thoughts, specifically positive thoughts! Her parents gave her a copy of The Secret in high school, and she dove right in! 

 

Looking back, she realizes that had a bit of a misunderstanding - she had felt she needed to use positive thinking to cover over “bad” situations or circumstances - when in reality, she’s come to find that any circumstance is neutral in and of itself, while her own responses and reactions are really up to her.

 

Madeline explains that toxic positivity is when you ignore reality and put a “happy face” on everything. I resonate so much! I think I’ve created a plethora of issues for myself in the past by faking positivity and then feeling that I had to protect what was, essentially, a lie. Having a positive mindset is NOT meant to be a band aid solution that sinks you into denial and deception.

 

She suggests looking for cues in your thinking. When you experience an emotion, you can start by NAMING that emotion. Just noticing, naming, and speaking over what you feel can help you start to interact with yourself in a healthier manner.

 

Be honest, and allow yourself to feel what you’re feeling. 

 

Once you’ve named it and felt it, you can ask yourself what stories you have about the situation or feeling. 

 

The reality is, there are stories who serve us and stories who don’t. Nothing to feel guilty about, nothing to label as good/bad, positive/negative. You’ll experience all sorts of things, and the way you choose to process them and weave them into your narrative will change the way you live your life.

 

Another way to release some of the stress around this topic? Understand that you are human, and you should be experiencing ALL the things life has to offer. So feeling sad, angry, upset, disappointed - those aren’t signs that you’re failing or “less than”. They are signs that everything is perfectly normal. You don’t need to pretend they don’t exist, or put a “happy face” on any of it!

 

This interview was so fun, and I’m not doing it justice here - be sure to listen in!

You can find Madeline on her website, https://adamsonmadeline.wixsite.com/designer. All her social links are available on her site!

Rebecca is a dietician joining us from Salt Lake, Utah. She is a podcast host, and also curates a blog all about Cooking for One!

 

She shares about the chance conversation she had with a convenience store clerk that put her on to the field of dietetics, and a bit about the journey she’s taken to get to where she is now.

 

Her thesis was on body image, and I loved her thoughts on how our preoccupation with body image and appearance can take over our head space and zap our energy and confidence. Even when you get to a point of personally loving your body, there are so many messages from society that bombard you with other messaging - sadly, our modern lives are not always that conducive to maintaining self-love and body confidence!

 

Sometimes even the medical system creates insecurities and doubts about your own body. Our perceptions of ourselves, our weight, and our health can be so difficult to sort through, and one-size-fits-all answers (which Western medicine tends to prefer) don’t always fit us very well. As someone with PCOS, I definitely resonate with this!

 

Also: ideal body weight? That’s based off a terrible measurement system that doesn’t really take your actually body into account either. The problem seems to be systemic, and the system needs to change!

 

(The book I recommended was Physical Disobedience, and you can find it here: https://amzn.to/31m1E2Z.The dietician Rebecca mentioned is Julie Duffy Dillon - you can find a really neat interview she recently did with my friend Caitlin here.)

 

Rebecca’s podcast is called Cooking for One, and she shares that cooking for yourself is something small, but profound, that you can provide self-care and nurturing for yourself. My favorite tip? Make it fun!

 

She talks about how you can make cooking for yourself an experience - play your favorite music, find a new podcast, enjoy some wine, experiment with new flavors or textures, light candles - make it something you look forward to. I realized that one of my favorite years in my “food life” was the year I lived alone in my own apartment. I was able to eat so intuitively - everything from what I ate, when I ate, and how often I ate was based on my own needs and desires. It was kind of amazing!

You can find Rebecca blogging at the Nourish Nutrition Blog , or on IG @nnc_tableforone.

Cristina brings so much energy to this interview!

 

She shares about her “now or never” chance to commit to becoming an entrepreneur, and the opening of a new book in her life (not a new chapter...a whole new book!). As someone transitioning from a corporate career, Cristina knows what it’s like to go from the stability and expectations of a traditional job to the freedom and responsibility of running your own business.

 

She talks about the necessary commitment to your journey, as well as the balance tha

 

One of her tips: sit down once a week (she uses Sunday) and plan out your next week. I love the visual of using Post-It notes to help yourself visualize where your time is going. 

 

“Your mindset is the most important thing when you’re an entrepreneur.”

 

When you’re an entrepreneur, you need to be extremely clear with yourself about you’re trying to achieve. The results you want to achieve are going to be your guide - once you know what you want, you need to determine HOW it’s going to happen.

 

The key to actually implementing your how and claiming your what?

 

MINDSET!

 

Working with a coach to improve your mindset and develop your business goals is a little like having a personal trainer. They’ll push you to your limits, encourage you, and keep you accountable for showing up and making it happen!

 

Cristina shares she is NOT a “victim of second guessing” - she is willing to just JUMP! As someone who does tend to struggle with that myself, I find that my strategy has been to make decisions and move on. Don’t obsess, don’t circle back, just make the decision and move forward to the next thing. In other words - trusting myself to take imperfect action.

 

Finally, Cristina reminds us to celebrate our successes! By noticing your achievements and having a mindset of continual encouragement towards yourself, you can create confidence and build excitement about continuing to achieve your goals. (I loved her version of self talk when she says, “Oh look at you!” and names her accomplishments.)

 

Not every moment is forever.

 

Don’t be too hard on yourself, and celebrate everything you’re doing because it’s getting you somewhere!

You can find connect with Cristina on IG @cristinafrosello.

Barbara transitioned from a career as a scientist into a career as a teacher after seeing the academic language needs of English Language Learners. 

 

We talk about growth mindset, perseverance, and the need to stay open to learning new things, even when it’s hard. Barbara’s ideas about accommodating student needs in order to enable them to be successful are applicable to anyone - we’ve all known what it’s like to be overwhelmed by something that feels difficult, “too hard”, or beyond our reach.

 

Breaking difficult work into chunks, and working towards goals one step at at time, enable students (or anyone!) to work towards what they want to achieve in a manageable way.

 

You probably can’t run a marathon tomorrow...but if you started by running a mile today and training every day for the next year...you could do it! Succeeding in school, business, or life is the same thing.

 

Whatever you WANT to be able to achieve - stop telling yourself that you can’t and figure out something that you CAN do right now, today, to start moving towards what you want.

 

Time, organization, and planning are essential to the process!

 

Set aside the time you need to make an initial plan, and then schedule in time you’ll need to actually pursue your plan, one small step at a time.

 

Get organized by determining what tools you need, who you need to connect with, and what kind of scheduling barriers might come up. Order any resources you may need, or apply to a training or educational program.

 

Plan to succeed - when will you work on your goal, why does your goal to matter to you, how will you know you’ve achieved your goal?

 

Also - you are much more likely to passionately pursue your goal (even when the initial fun wears off!) if you actually CARE about your goals. If you aren’t personally invested, you’re not going to be able to stick with it yourself!

“We were not put on this earth to just exist and do what we are told to do.”

 

Today I was joined by Margarita Price, a Life and Career Change coach who is dedicated to helping women live life on their own terms.

 

We discussed signs that you’re ready for change, as well as some of the stress that can come from choosing to break the mold and do things differently than your family or friends. Margarita suggests taking an honest look at your life and answering this question:

 

If my life looks this way in 5 years, will I be satisfied?

 

If the answer is no, start taking steps to change it!

 

Speaking of taking steps...it’s not enough to be dissatisfied and envision living some sort of “different” life. If all you do is think about (or mentally plan for how amazing it could be), you’ll never realize it! You absolutely have to start taking action. Margarita suggests planning for (and then TAKING) small steps that can fit into your current life. You don’t have to suddenly dedicate 5 hours a day - we’re all busy, and that isn’t realistic. You do have to DO something though; action is what makes change real.

 

Stuck on exactly WHAT actions to take?

 

Margarita starts her clients with exercises to determine core beliefs and values. Once you know what your values are, you can make decisions from a place of confidence in who you are and what you are all about.

Interested in learning more? Register for Margarita’s free master class, all about creating a vision for the life of your dreams. You can connect with her on Instagram as well, @thehappymillennialentrepreneur.

Carly joined us today to share about her journey of becoming a VA and going fully remote. As a fellow member of the Laptop Freedom Program, Carly shares how her own self-confidence and belief in herself have been transformed in the last year.

She had been working two minimum wage jobs and didn’t see her dreams (starting a blog and launching her own YouTube channel) as being attainable. And when we have limiting beliefs about ourselves and our abilities, it’s so easy to slip into the trap of just doing what we see everyone else doing.

An encounter with her uncle made her realize she had nothing she was really working towards. His encouragement to make a plan (and be flexible about the idea that things can always change), really got Carly thinking about what she was moving towards. Since then, she invested in the Laptop Freedom Program, moved to a new house, started a temporary part time job, and is about to go full time as a remote VA!

She credits support from both her fiancee and the group of women from the Laptop Freedom Program as being the reasons she was able to step out, take a leap of faith, and begin the first steps towards whole new realities.

As exciting as working for yourself from home can be, we also discuss its inherent challenges: staying motivated, not getting sucked into the black hole of the internet, and prioritizing “billable hours” over all the other stuff we can so easily get distracted by. Carly shares that getting up early, getting dressed and ready for the day, and getting a solid chunk of work done in the morning helps her make progress and stay on track with her online clients.

Join us to learn more about the power of investing in yourself, believing in your dreams, and taking action steps towards actually achieving them.  

Find Carly on IG @misscarlyita or on Pinterest @carlyita.

Stacey shares about living in a state of victimhood, where everything that happened was being done “to” her, and she had no control. This included her personal finances, her health, her deteriorating marriage, and her work; it left her feeling frustrated and disempowered.

 

After being assigned the book Loving What Is (by Byron Katie), she realized that she had so much more agency and power in her own life than she had ever realized! As a result, she started asking herself these two questions:

 

• “How’s that working for me?” 
• “What else could be true?”

 

By genuinely reflecting on the answers to these questions, she finds that there are often pathways that she hadn’t noticed or been aware of when initially facing the issue or problem. In that same vein, she realized that a lot of her initial thoughts and reactions weren’t coming from any inward process, but were actually external - maybe the pressure of what everyone else wanted, or even just the understanding of what you’re “supposed” to think, do, or feel.

 

If she had to offer a single piece of advice, it would be this:

 

To thine own self be true.

 

You CAN do the uncomfortable things, no matter how hard they seem, because choosing to summon the bravery and courage to be true to yourself will change everything.

 

To learn more about Stacey, check out her website, www.staceyandon.com, find her on Instagram, or join her free, private FB group, Love is Everywhere.

You can directly contact her via email as well at [email protected] .

Belle Jenings is a Mindset coach and the leader of Rise Into Purpose: A Program for Finding and Achieving Your Entrepreneurial Calling. She does all this while being a digital nomad, and has already enjoyed three countries in 2019 (with more in the works!).

She joined me on the podcast to discuss what it means to invest in yourself with joy, which she connects to self-worth and our ability to truly love ourselves.

Belle Jenings is a Mindset coach and the leader of Rise Into Purpose: A Program for Finding and Achieving Your Entrepreneurial Calling. She does all this while being a digital nomad, and has already enjoyed three countries in 2019 (with more in the works!).

 

She joined me on the podcast to discuss what it means to invest in yourself with joy, which she connects to self-worth and our ability to truly love ourselves.

 

We both found that some of the earliest investments we made in ourselves were massage and counseling - those smaller monthly costs opened the door to understanding that money spent on self-care and mental health are positive, worthwhile investments, and likely made it easier to embrace spending much larger amounts of money for coaching and support for our businesses down the road.

 

Belle also shares about making the mental shift from “It’s possible” to “I’m going to make my dreams come true”. She wrote:

“I would get so hung up on practicalities and the “normal” heights that others had reached, and I would limit my visions to that. How in the world could I expect to live a fabulous life if I wasn’t a lawyer or banker, or stunningly beautiful, or born with a trust fund? I didn’t see how that was possible, until I started to see that others were doing it. Others are literally making livings by traveling the world, in a van, with their rescue dogs. 

As soon as I saw just a few examples of that, I started thinking “Why not me?” I started dreaming without limits--other than gravity and physics and such. I asked myself “What do I want my life to look like? How do I want to live?” and then started figuring out what would fit within that dream in terms of hours, independence, values, freedom, and opportunity. And that’s how I pieced together being a mindset and entrepreneurial coach while traveling the world out of a suitcase! “

 

If you’ve been contemplating an investment or life change for awhile, I’d encourage you to ask that very question:

 

Why NOT me?

 

As a former teacher, content curator, and now coach, Belle invites us to invest in ourselves while understanding that every career or experience isn’t something we need to hold on to forever - in the same way you purchase a winter coat that you’ll only wear for a few months out of the year (but still value, need, and be willing to invest in), coaches, programs, and courses may be perfect for you (and worth investing in) without having to be the “forever” plan.

 

Her final words of advice: be courageous, and do it fearful.

 

It’s 100% okay (and normal) to be scared of growth and change, but that doesn’t mean you have to stop. Commit to making your dreams a reality and follow them courageously!

 

If you’d like to connect with Belle, you can find her here:

 

+Instagram: @belle.jenings

+Website: www.bellejenings.com

+Send me an email! [email protected]

 

 

Karissa shares about her experiences with mindset growth over the past few years. She’s found that her journey has been a series of progressive changes and discoveries: her marriage, community, and business have all been areas impacted by her exploration into personal development.

 

As someone who tends towards logic and analysis, Karissa initially found the online space to be bit “woo woo”, an idea she connected to spirituality as well as to mindfulness and personal development. After being very closed off to these avenues, she eventually became more open to the idea of expanding her perspective, which led to various shifts in how she views herself and the world.

 

One thing that was impactful: personal connections.

 

She recognized that her perceptions of others had created a “box of what I thought ‘these’ people were like”....and that making real connections broke those barriers down and opened the door to a variety of new relationships and ideas.

 

She also came to realize that so many reactions we have to the world (and the people in it) are based on internalized conflicts that have remained unresolved. By acknowledging and processing these areas, she’s found healing and growth, a lot of which was tied to releasing control and letting go of things she has no power to change.

 

Her parting advice:Be open to different perspectives, and make connections with people who think differently from you.

If you want to connect with Karissa, you can find her online at https://www.kjbusinessservices.com/