Ep. 35 Grade Your Self

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Where are you going? You know, what do you want to do? What do you want to accomplish? Where? How do you want to show up? And how are you measuring that?

Hello friends. You are listening to the All Things Good 4U podcast. I'm your host, Brian Bowen, founder of.

Integrative Health, Inc. And I'm Amy Christiansen, your co host and creator of Amy Christiansen Health and Wellness Coaching.

Join us as we explore the world of health and wellness and all things that make you feel good. From ancient traditions to modern advancements and technologies that give you the tools for a life well lived.

What new paths might you discover on your health and wellness journey? Tune in each week as we deep dive into a variety of concepts and hear from other fun, passionate health and wellness experts on their experiences and philosophy.

And remember, stay open minded and integrated. Good afternoon, Amy.

Hey Ryan. How are you?

Good. I need to stop yelling. Last time I, I edited it, I had to turn me down dramatically. I get excited when you jump on, either have like my sing my sing song or that and I'm excited because I'm leaving on a trip tomorrow or.

You'Ve been jumping up and down, drinking lots of coffee.

Yeah, just hit the gym. I'm all jacked, pumped and happy birthday by the way. I heard recently, recently that you had a birthday. So happy birthday. And I had a special, a special lunch or dinner, margarita or whatever.

Yes, absolutely. I'll take you up on that. Yes, I did. It's another, another day around, another year around the sun. So we're grateful for that. And you know, a lot of people wait till New Year's to kind of reassess their, you know, where they are, what's happening. I'd like to do it on my birthday, so I love it. A lot of stuff I've been going through and reviewing and kind of contemplating and reflecting. Some really deep soul sorting and goal setting has happened in the last week.

Oh, I love it.

Yeah. And still kind of, some of it's still being sorted out but I, yeah, I in, in kind of a congruence with what we are talking about today. I think it's, you know, we have to do it all the time. You can't just do it once a year. I think it's. I think that's why people fail at New Year's resolutions, among other reasons. But it's like, if you wait a whole year and you come up with, like, all these great big plans and things like that, you're probably gonna fail at it because it's either poorly executed or you don't know your whys and all that good stuff, but. Or it's just too big of a goal. And yeah, you set yourself up to fail. I think, I think doing the yearly review is important, but if we don't break those down and do. And I know we've talked about this before a little bit, you know, your goal setting and then doing your daily or weekly, at least weekly reviews of what. Where you're at and what you're doing and what you want to accomplish. Some reflection, you know.

Yep. Totally agree. Yeah, I think that those bigger picture ones, you know, for, you know, the. Again, like, what's my five year? What's this? What's that? I think that that, you know, New Year stuff, I think, has a very important piece. I do it every year. But the weekly grading or rating of yourself is really important because really, like. And to look at it from a objective perspective, too, from somebody else. I think it's also great to have somebody in your life grade or rate you. And it's kind of like, what do you think somebody would grade or rate you in a relationship or being a friend or a parent or a coworker, a boss, whatever that whatever your categories are that you want to. To grade a rate. And then, you know, how would you look at yourself that way? And it really, I think, is really important. And I like to do weekly, but.

Yeah, weekly is really good. And I, you know, I do. I get what you're like, point about getting your family people. Well, okay, so we kind of jumped ahead. So our topic today, you know, is grading yourself, which it can be a little scary because, you know, a lot of people grew up with grades being very frightening or criticisms coming from that or, you know, we're dealing with a lot of expectations from other people to define our importance and our worth. I think those kinds of things come up when we talk about grading yourself. But I think from the perspective that we're looking at it, like you and I both doing coaching work with people, one of the very first tools that I learned to use was a life wheel and a values wheel. And so when we're talking about grading yourself, it's really just A reflection of where are you going, you know, what do you want to do, what do you want to accomplish? Where, how do you want to show up and how are you measuring them? And the life wheel that I will use with people, I always make sure that they understand that this is a fluctuating thing. We can't really live at 100%.

All.

In every area, every day, the whole year round. So you kind of. You kind of have to let those. Those expectations fluctuate and look back at it. Yes, you're looking at it daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly, um, and recognizing those are going to fluctuate. But how. How are you showing up over the year is kind of based off of how are you planning to set yourself up to succeed through daily, weekly, monthly goals in these different areas.

Yeah, I think with personal development, obviously, just going back to the, you know, grading yourself and how, you know, it's a challenge to step into that. But I think that, you know, to grow and to evolve and to move forward, it does take some courage to look at where you are. And sometimes you have to. You know, that kind of folds into a little bit about where you've been and your past experiences and all that stuff. But I think it's important to be courageous and to look at the different categories in your life. I did one called Lifebook was one of the first ones I did. And so it was different, you know, chapters of your life is. Or is. Each chapter is part of that book. But I think that it's really important because it helps you pivot and maintain balance, too. So sometimes, you know, in a week, there might be one you're focused a little bit more on in those categories. Or sometimes I'm like, oh, wow, I'm doing really good here. But this is one where I'm constantly getting, you know, I like to do ABCD, you know, kind of thing, versus a 1 through 10, because it's more palpable to me because of our learning, you know, growing up with grades. So I might see, oh, my God, consistently I'm getting a C in this arena. So what is that? So I like to make little notes that I'll share later on my kind of system. And then it allows me to go, okay, I can let this other piece. I can take some energy from it, and I can go ahead and shift my focus over here for the next two or three weeks. And it's important. I think it helps you give clarity and refocus and rebalance and, you know.

Yeah. And if you don't like I said if you don't like grades, it's, it's more of you can use number systems and you can also use, you know, just like the life wheel that we use doesn't even have grades. It's a wheel, it's a circle like a pie and it's divided out, you know, like it's radiating out to the, from the center to the outside of it. And you can draw dot lines or you can shade it in and color it in so you can look at areas that, you know, if the dots weigh out or weigh in, you know, you can see this pattern. So there's all different ways we can self soothe to work our way through criticism, quote, unquote. But I also think, remember we did a podcast and I think I've pointed out before, like this research about failure and how some of the most successful, determined people look at failure not as bad, but as a learning opportunity. And I think if we come into it and remind ourselves like I'm, I'm totally conditioned to, to look at grading myself and criticizing myself as a negative thing. I have to stop and go, wait, wait, wait, no, this could be a good thing. I like learning, you know, I kind of have to walk myself back through it even. I'm a very positive person. But I was raised to kind of have a lot of insecurities and self criticism. Not on purpose, not being mean to my, my family or my history is all fine, but it's just kind of a natural side effect of the way we've done things often in this, this country and probably all over the world like this. But there's different ways you can find your positioning to look at a way that encourages you, but also recognize looking back at your day, your week and your month or your year and what you may or may not have done to your personal expect to what you think should be your expectations based on social expectations or your family or what have you. Those aren't failures that, oh my gosh, you're an awful person. It's, this is just data that you're receiving to make some changes or adjustments to. And that's whether you're changing your habits and your choices or your own personal values and expectations. Like, you know, some people think that they want this big career change or a big job or some education process and they go and do it and they look back and they're not happy and they're stressed and they're not getting fulfillment and they can kind of, you got to go. You know what? Gosh, I really thought this was going to be great. And it's not really making me happy. It's not really fulfilling this purpose. I'm going to let that go.

So yours, what you're saying, what I just heard is if I don't have any expectations, then I don't have to grade myself.

Yeah, yeah. And I am so not a fan of this, this little trend that happened about not having any expectations with your life. I know you are, but there's a whole, there is a big world out there that's trying to live off of this whole if you have no expectations, you can never be disappointed nonsense because then you're just a, you know, I don't know, a leaf blowing around in the wind, in my opinion. And that's not how I choose to live. But.

Well, ultimately, ultimately a lot of this comes down to how are you showing up, like who are you showing up as in these categories? Because you know, you're interacting with everybody, right? And like who wants to be around somebody who isn't the best version of themselves? And so, you know, this helps you become a best version of yourself and helps you to refocus going backwards. So I use the abc, you know, D all that. I never give myself an F though. But I rarely give myself an A either, just to be clear. So. But I think I'm gonna, I might switch it because I've always wanted a trophy. More trophy. So what if I had like gold? Like you know, we could do the bronze, the silver, the gold, like that's kind of fun.

You could give, you could create a whole trophy about your F's.

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And be like my, my, my data bank trophy. I've got so Much good data and feedback for productivity and growth.

Yeah, totally, totally.

And I think, too, like, there are some people who are not, like, they're just fine. They get. They get up, they do their thing, they get to work, they do their work, they go out and they have fun. And they don't really. They're just. They're doing it. And I, I would like for those. If you're totally happy with your life and there is no need for leveling up or changing or reflection, I would like to interview you. Please call us and set up an interview for one of our podcasts, because we need to know you, some of your perspectives on things. But if. If you feel like you have this place where you want to achieve more or do something more or have a little bit more intention and purpose with your day and your year, then I think you have to have a way of measuring those things, like setting a goal, clarifying a goal, setting a goal and measuring a goal so that you know when you've reached that goal. If you're not doing that, how are you? How do you know what you're doing?

Yeah, no, totally. Well, I think the goal part, the wanting to get from one place to another is important. And I think another observation, because sometimes this is hard to. For some people to really see where some of these things are at. But if you're. Where are the voids? Where are the empty spots in your life? Right. So, you know, it's good for the goal stuff. But if you're also, if you're like, you know, I just. I never feel whole in this area or I feel sadness or I feel a void in these areas, how can you kick it up a notch? Right.

Yeah. If you can't even sit with those feelings, if you can't even look at your life because it's uncomfortable, then there's. There's probably a few things that, you know, I mean, if we're avoiding even analyzing our life, there's probably some things that need to be worked through.

Yeah. So, you know, Brendon Bouchard likes to talk about a charged life, and I think that that's a good goal to have when you're looking at these things. Is my life charged? Do I have that aliveness and that vitality and excitement? You know, am I missing something somewhere? Do I need to shift focus and hit this area of my life harder? And I know, you know, you talked about the life wheel, and instead of putting this at the end, I wouldn't mind sharing. This is actually a real grading of myself. That I have a little sticky note thing that's on my computer. And what I just do is I change the date, clone my last one, change the date. And my categories that way are all there so I don't have to keep retyping. And then I just change the grained in the notes.

So wait, so you're using that app on the computer? That's a sticky note app? Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, I love that. And okay, tell me how you're using this because I'm liking it.

Okay, so I got my. My. My per. It's. It's titled personal development. And then I have this, the grade A through F, even though I never give myself an F. And then after, under that I have the date range. And so I always grade myself on a Sunday. So I haven't done today yet. So I'm going to do today. Usually I do it at night. And then I have my different categories. So I have 12 different ones. But again, you can make up, you can put. You can change these, right? You can have whatever categories you want. And mine, you'll. When I go over them, they're. They're obviously life stuff, but we. It could even be more stuff. Like how. How am I with my courage these days?

Right?

How am I as, you know, as in. As being inspirational? How am I as being a leader? So you could go that direction right now mine that I have is husband. So that's the first one. And I gave myself last week a B. And then I just put a little note. I was kind. I spent a lot of time. We spent a lot of time together. We had two dates. Good communication. And I cleaned the house. So like it could be clean.

Wait, wait, wait. Clean? Wait, Brian.

I should say cleaned. I didn't clean the house, but I did clean.

Oh, you cleaned an area.

So okay, yeah, I cleaned the things that bother her. That bothers her that sometimes she says I don't clean even I really do. But I don't disagree. I just. So now it's funny because don't tell her this, but. So one of the areas is. Is, you know, our kids put dishes in the sink, but in the morning there's dishes in there, but it always somehow seems like they're my dirty dishes. So I've been making more effort to clean the dishes that are in the sink before I leave. But sometimes I feel like it goes unobserved. So what I purposely been doing is turning on the garbage disposal at some point while I'm cleaning it because I just want there to be that like really loud, like, oh, he's doing it, right? I want there to be like, no, he is doing it. He is on. Is on it. So I'll do like little things like that. Or like, oh, is this glass over here a water glass you're drinking out of? Just to point, bring attention to, hey, look what I'm doing.

I think that's fair. That's fair. A little signal, a little bells going off.

Oh, yeah.

Just so you know. Good, good communications, I'm sure. Yeah.

So I gave myself a B there. A father I had given myself a B because I made some of the little moments count more. So, like, I would make extra effort to, you know, put down what I was doing. And if one of my kids were sitting on their bed, I'd go sit down and talk to them or, you know, if somebody's at the kitchen table or everybody else is talking, even though I was in the middle of something, I would just like, even if it was five or 10 minutes. So I just tried to make those little moments count a little bit more. Then nutrition, I gave myself a C. I had plenty of smoothies and veggies, but maybe had a little too much beer that week. So just being, being vulnerable with everybody here. So the Bronco, it's football season is in the swing here. Fitness B. I won't go through all of them, but you can see what I'm saying. So fitness B, I put in there, I did a lot of running and lifting. And then you could also put like, I would like to do more hiit classes. So maybe next, maybe for this week, my fitness was a B. I did running and lifting, but I want to do more hit classes. So maybe I put that as my goal for the week. Happiness, a B. And then I wrote, you know, about my areas of that work, goals. I put a C and I wrote, you know, down some reasons and then maybe some things I wanted to put focus on spirituality, a B, self time, be financial, a C. And then I put on there spending too much money. I need to, you know, streamline this or whatever I put on there as a son because it's important for me to have that connection with my parents. So I'm going on this trip with my dad and it's our first father son trip. So I'm going to get an A for sure next week. And also, like on my notes that I made for there, I put lots of talking and some breakthrough conversations. And then as a friend, I got a B. And as a personal development, just working on all this Stuff I gave myself a B. So, you know, there's some areas like, okay, I have a C in this area we don't want to see.

Right.

So if you're hitting Bs, if you're hitting A's, that's awesome. But I really do have a hard time giving myself an A, just as I do an F. So. But you get the idea. And so then I just clone this and then I change the date. So for tonight I just clone this one or make a copy of it, whatever. Change the dates and then I'll go. And the categories stay the same. Change the grades, change the notes, and then they're all stacked on each other. So if I drag this one to the right a little bit, you'll see last week's underneath of it. If I drag that one. So I keep them all and they're all stacked so I can go back and look if I choose to.

I like it. So basically like creating a weekly or even daily reflection on some general areas and, and they can be all different kinds of areas. So I mean, like you had mentioned, you can have finances, money, self development, growth, friendships, love, romance, home environment, health, fitness, your work and career, education, fun, leisure, family connection, community, spirituality, you know, any of these things. And then you can even break it down. Like I know when I did some courses with coactive training, you know, that was very. Through career driven. So how are you feeling with your career and breaking that down in some different aspects of fulfillment, purpose, sharing, growth, guidance, leadership that, you know, you can have it in anything. So you can break that down to your family, your romance, your home environment. So looking back, but you've gotta, you've gotta kind of start with what's important to you. Obviously what's important and to one person isn't always important to the same to another person. Like you know, and, and different time of your life. When my kids were young, my focus was my children and my home, you know, healthy, cooking for them, time with them. And it's different now. You know, my whole life isn't revolving around my children, although they're still a big part of it. Now a lot of my wheel is taken up by health and fitness, which that's always been a big part, but a different aspect now and, and my career goals, so, and spending time with meaningfulness with my, my friends. And then what I'm. What am I doing to do out like an outside, like for me a big processes some sort of service outside of my immediate space. Right. Like I want to, I want to start Reaching out even bigger. Like I try to find what can I do to just be a good. A good human in this world that's outside of my little box. And those are kind of like what I would assess on how am I doing. And there. So I like. There's a book and I like Brendan Bouchard stuff. I think his stuff. He's got that productivity planner, the high performance planner. Is that what his is called or something? Yeah, he's great. I love him. I mean whether it's you use that or Stephen Covey or Michael Hyatt or. I like the Monk manual. It's a 90 day planner. And I'm not. We're not getting promoted by this or anything. But it's called. It's monk monkmanual.com I like them because their daily process and I feel like it's probably a lot like Brendan Bouchard's because it kind of has your top. Be prepared, take your action and then do reflection. And then, you know, it's more of like, okay, here are my top three priorities and here's my to do. What am I grateful for? What am I looking forward to? But I also like that it's like what ways can I give? What are highlights from the day? What was I being in my best with? What was I having unrest or conflict with? And what's one thing I can do to make an improvement for tomorrow? I like looking at it in those. In that aspect. So if you don't have some really hard line specific goals. I think looking at things like what am I thankful for, when am I at my best? What can. What am I looking forward to, what's making me feel unrest and what's something I can do for tomorrow. That's a real good general just self. What do you like?

What's it.

It's broken down not by. What's it called off the. Look at my. There's one way where you're developing habits and you're looking at very specific tasks and one that you're developing habits where it's more of like your personal identity.

I just want to talk about the Monk Mandel real quick because I love that name so much. But anytime when there's a monk involved, I always just picture this like you know, the monk in their environment and the bell rings like every hour and they stop and meditate and then they rake some gravel or you know, all that stuff. And I'm like, all right, come live it. Come live in my world for a bit. I want to see how well balanced you are. And see if some of this, like, you might need monk manual 2.0. You know, it's gonna look, it's gonna look a little different, you know, A little different. I love it. I love it when we talk about the monks, but.

Well, what's funny is the guy that created the monk's manual, Monk Manual, isn't a monk. And he talks about that on his page and stuff like that, but he's not a monk. That's funny.

Yeah, yeah.

I. Speaking of what. I wonder if Jay Shetty has. You know who Jay Shetty is?

Yeah, I wonder if he has like one of his books.

Well, the only book that's out at the moment, I think is how to Think Like a Monk.

That's the one I read.

But the eight Rules of Love is coming out. I'm very much. Oh, no, he's got a couple other books. I guess he's got Life Changing Gratitude or something. But eight Rules of Love is coming out and I'm very excited about. I've already pre ordered it. Thanks, Jay Shetty.

All right, Jay Shetty.

He's great. I love them.

Plug us. You got a plug? No, I do agree. Yeah, right. I do agree that like every, all of this is a. Is always evolving, right? You're depending on where you're at in your life, what situations. You know, even you just had a birthday. Even different decades. Like each decade I've had, my, My focus has changed. Right. Or, or every five years or whatever. But I will say I do encourage, like, the biggest thing is simplicity. Whatever you're doing, however, you can make it as simple as possible to actually do it. So, like, this works for me because I made it as simple as possible for me. You know, I'm not as good with. I have lots of journals and stuff, and that's my weak area. I, I like when there's prompted questions, for sure. But just to keep it simple, like if I say husband, I close my eyes, I reflect on the week. It takes me, you know, only a couple minutes and I. And so forth, so forth. And you can go through it, but to create different ones because I still like to dig a little bit deeper. And again I mentioned, like, how was I, how is my clarity? Right? Do I give myself an A this week on clarity? Do I give myself a baby? Like, and then if I give myself a C or D, it's like, okay, what am I not clear about?

Right?

How's my courage? You know, how's. So those deeper things I think are really important. So you can have multiple little, you know, evaluation forms, if you will.

Yeah. And I think, yeah, even to just to start off the whole process, like, you've got to be able to look at who, like, who are you? What, what do you actually want to do and be? What's the point and purpose of you being here on this earth right now?

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And you know, if you don't, if you don't have that as a clarity and that can evolve and change, of course, which is why we look at it all the time. But you've got to start from there because that's going to define where you put your intention and where you're living from. If you're not clear on who you are and what you want, you might be living for somebody else's purpose or not. Like we said in the beginning, nothing. You're just bouncing around. And I like, I heard a quote, I don't even remember where I had this written down from, but it was the least asked question is why? What is the purpose? What is the end game? If you don't know why everything else is pointless? I don't remember where I wrote that down from, but it's. That is like if every. Why are you here? Why does your career matter? Why does your amount of money matter? Why is being a husband matter to you? Why is being a parent? Why does you know, what is this ache inside your gut telling you or this anxiousness or this interest and intrigue and excitement? What is all that telling you that is pulling you towards something and then start making your how do I get there? Steps. Right?

Yep. Also, like, if you aim at nothing, you hit nothing. So I think it's important. It's like, okay, what am I aiming at? Like, what is, you know, what is my focus? Where does it need to be be. Yeah, and listen to other people. The, you know, you're getting messages all the time from your environment. And so paying attention to the people in your environment are, you know what some of the consistencies that you're getting from other people in your different relationships and stuff like that. Obviously this isn't all relationship focus. Sometimes it's just even your yourself, your own mind, you know, but the big question I would just say, you know, tying into that again is, you know, how would somebody grade you in different aspects of your life? And. And then how would you grade yourself? Like, what is your true grade? How do you know it? You know, how are you doing?

Yeah. And only let people. And what I. I think for me, it's a little bit of. I hate to say trigger, but it's a little bit of a stickler where when you say, how would somebody else grade you? Be make sure it's somebody that matters. Like, you know, you have. We have to be careful. I think a lot of people today are so outwardly focused on what other people think of them and decide for their life is important, and we have so much comparison problems in the social media world that it. If somebody's going to be grading you, it needs to be somebody who already loves and respects you for who you are, not somebody who you think you have to live up to.

Yeah. And most likely I would think, at least from my personal experience, when I ask somebody this question, it's because I feel comfortable with asking them in the first place. So I have some depth in that relationship. But it is. Can be shocking a little bit. But I love, and I don't even, like, necessarily say constructive criticism, but I like feedback. And so I'll ask, you know, Melissa or Amy at the office, you know, hey, how am I doing? What do I need to work on? How are things going? You know? But the other day I did ask. Well, I wasn't the other day. It was in the past. I did ask my wife. I'm like, hey, how would you grade me right now from A to an F? Or whatever. And I had put that for that week, a B. And she gave me a C. And I was like, oh, okay. And so I'm like, okay, so C. Like, what could I have done to get to a B?

Right.

What could I have done to get to A? So it's cool because, you know, we have our. We see life through our little filters that we've developed ourselves or have been built from our life's conditioning. And she sees it through her filter. So it's kind of cool to like, oh, that's actually interesting that you see this that way, or, you know, what I needed to do. And so you take that in, you think about it. You're like, okay, yeah, that's. That's pretty cool.

So I love that. And, you know, I think I just. I just jotted this down in our notes section, but I think we should do I think it's beautiful that you guys have a safe relationship where you can say that to each other, where she can give you a C grade and then you can honestly have an open conversation. And you have done enough self development and self worth and you guys obviously have enough deep connection and love for each other and trust that you can have that conversation and you're open to hearing it. And you look again at it like, this is a way I can improve and get better. Not as a defensive mechanism, you know, trigger mechanism, where you're going to go on into anger and deflection.

So you just have to be careful because if you do it so much, pretty soon she'll feel so comfortable she might just scream out at me, you're getting an F. You're getting an F.

That's all. Yeah. All right, so let's. So things like, okay, call to action for our folks today. Call to action is that you don't have to do anything fancy. Get some clarity and think about how you want to show up in a couple of areas, you know, four or five areas of your life. Maybe download a life wheel, you can get them super easy online or whatever. Or you can just use sticky notes like Brian does, which I think is fabulous, and. Or you just write it in a book. I'm a. I'm a journal junkie as well, by the way. I have so many calendar journal books and planners and I use them for like a week or two and then I don't. And then I just start writing free notes in them and I don't pay any attention to the lines or anything or any. I just like free writing in them, what I want on them. So I have to stop myself from buying them all the time. But anyway, get what you can, what you need to inspire you to think out. And what I teach my folks when I do with the coaching, I ask them to set just a reminder on their phone in the morning within that realm of time of waking up. If you don't have a specific hard line, but just give yourself like 10 minutes over coffee or smoothies or whatever it is you do for your morning routine, give yourself 10 minutes to just reflect, make a plan, do some visualization work, do some breath work, work, and kind of set your day with good intention. If you only have five minutes, take five minutes. But a little bit of action at the beginning of your day ensures that you're going to set yourself up better for the rest of your day. And whether that again, you know, however that works for you, start making a Little bit of a note and see how you're doing every day or at the end of the week and set some grading scores and see where you might need to make some improvement or some sprinkle your attention around throughout your week.

I love it. I love it. I'm gonna go grade myself right now. Yeah. Get real with yourself. Dig deep. Be courageous. Yeah. Add some layers.

Be real with yourself. I'm gonna read this long quote just to wrap it up because on top of everything, I don't know why I feel this, and maybe this is my own personal stuff happening right now, but this, this type of message keeps coming up for me in so many ways. And I'm just going to read it off though, in the spirit of always wanting to better ourselves and improve and get to the next level and do all the things good for ourselves. I think it's important to also remember that. And I'm going to say this quote by Mike George. Embedded it. Embedded in our society is an assumption that who we are is not enough. We are constantly exhorted to improve ourselves in some way to become more beautiful, wealthy, successful or spiritually involved. A common response to this, these messages is to drive ourselves relentlessly in our efforts to become better people. But what if who we are in our essential nature is in fact enough? What if we all, what all we need to is to allow our true, our true beauty to unfold rather than heroically trying to change ourselves. Think of yourself as complete, like a seed or a bulb. All you seek lies within qualities, ideas, states of mind. To live a life of peace. You need nothing more. That's a lot.

But yeah, now you just gotta let it go, right? And let all that other stuff go and just let it shine through.

Well, and I think, yeah, but like he said, if he's. You're a seed or a bulb, it doesn't mean that you're not going to grow. It means that we don't have to always fight and force something. And that's where, like doing the grading thing, if you just look at, okay, why are you not happy and why are you not succeeding in some area. Maybe you're pushing something that is really not ultimately who you are inside yourself and making you truly happy. So we're not just looking at the grading thing as you need to get better here. It's. What is this data telling you and how can you make an improvement that actually makes your life better? And that is again, it's, it's, it's not that you're not enough, is it Are you really allowing yourself to truly flourish?

Yep. And removing some layers that don't need to be there. Some things that again, through some, some conditioning or just habits and behaviors and, you know, all that stuff. So it, it all shows up when you look at this, if you really look at it. So.

Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Well, thank you, Amy, for taking the time to look at this today.

Well, thank you for bringing it up and letting me go on and on. So. But you're taking off to a fun little place for 10 days, so you're going to go on a little vacay?

Yes, I'm going to England with my pops and our first father son trip and so I'm looking forward to it. So we leave tomorrow morning. So after this I'm gonna grade myself and then I'm gonna go finish packing, so.

Fantastic. Well, have a wonderful trip. Have a good time. I want to hear about how you got a grade A on beer drinking, by the way, in London.

Yeah, that might happen.

And some pub, some pub visits might be in your future.

I'm just going to have to change my little checklist here. So I'm going to get rid of fitness and I'm going to put pub, old pubs. Okay, got it. Good.

And lots of walking. We can balance it out with walking. Well, have a wonderful trip and thank everybody for listening and give us a shout out at what we might be able to talk about next.

Share this with as many people as you can and give us some reviews, preferably five stars with some amazing comments in your Apple podcast or Spotify.

Yep. All righty. Have fun. Have a good day.

Thanks.

Bye Bye. Hey friends, thank you for tuning in to the All Things good for you podcast. Please note any information, experiences, ideas or opinions discussed today are for educational and thought provoking purposes only and not intended as medical advice. If anything piqued your curiosity, please consult with your doctor or personal medical professional. And if you're enjoying all things good for your podcast, hop on over and leave us a five star review so we can continue delving in and providing great content. Thanks again and we hope you are inspired to stay informed and responsible along your health and wellness journey.

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