372: How to Choose What You Really Want

I'm trying my best to not focus on what could go wrong, but everything that could go right. Welcome to the Earn your happy podcast. I'm Lori Harder, founder of The Bliss Project, 3 Time Fitness World champion, fitness expert and cover model turned self love junkie, lifestyle entrepreneur and author. Each week I'll bring you a guest or a thought that will help you bust through your fears, connect to your soul and get focused and clear so you can elevate your life, business and relationships. We don't wait until we're ready for someone to tell us we're good enough. We take what we want and we anoint ourselves, get ready to earn, own and unapologetically rock your happiness every single day. Are you with me? Here we go. Welcome back to the earn your happy podcast and it's time for another quickie because there's always time to fit in inspiration. And I just want to say a quick thank you per usual to everyone who is still tuning in and takes me with you on your walks, on your drives, to work, wherever you're going. It's so much fun to see where I get to chat with you. You. It's so awesome. I was watching a woman who was listening to one of my questionably awesome episodes, which is with Evans, and I'm telling you, you either love those or you hate them. I personally find them to be one of the most fun things that I get to do all week long is to sit and laugh and just talk about life with my amazing friend Evans. And I was watching her on these stories and she's listening to this podcast where we're being ridiculous and she's like truly doing some crazy workouts and I'm like, how is she doing? Or is that like an extra ab workout, like watching your laughter lifting weights? So I love seeing where you're at. And you guys today, what I want to chat about is the choice to feel a certain way. And with that saying, the choice to love and to have a deep friendship or to feel self doubt or to feel courageous is truly a choice. And some of you are like, okay, Lori, it's not a choice for me to feel this anxiety. It's not a choice for me to feel this fear. And there is a point where no, it's not a choice. It's a wave of emotion that you are going to get because you're a human and we dance in every single emotion. But it is a choice if you want to stay there, it is a choice if you want to feed that. So a couple weeks ago I was doing a podcast, talking about how we have the two wolves inside of us, talking about that old Native American tale, how we have two wolves inside of us and the one that is is going to be what we live by and the one that takes over is the one that we feed the most. And I've really been trying to look at what I'm feeding and I'll tell you guys, by the time this comes out, my talk will be done. But I have another talk in front of a lot of people. I'm not sure if it's 3,000 or 5,000 people that are going to be there. It doesn't matter. If it was 10 people, I would still feel this way. And for some reason on this journey, I am blessed. Like the words I use. I am blessed with never feeling confident with my talks. I am blessed with never feeling completely at ease or in flow or super excited. I feel anxious, I feel nerves, I have self doubt, I feel afraid. But I keep on choosing to picture the good stuff. I keep on choosing to say what a blessing it is to have the stage, to be chosen, to speak, to be chosen to be heard, to be chosen to tell a story. And I keep on going into faith and I keep on saying, you know, if I just open myself up, this is not about me. I'm the channel and, you know, I get to share my story. I get to hopefully help transform these people. I'm trying my best to not focus on what could go wrong, but everything that could go right. And really talking about how no matter what emotional state we're in, it truly is a choice. And I was thinking about how this relates to love and how this relates to friendship, friendship in our lives. Because I think so many of us don't necessarily have the relationships that we want. I know that I'm always working on my female friendships. And even though I have the marriage that I want, it's because I intentionally work on that every single day. It's because I choose love. I choose to stay in love because there are many moments throughout the day where we could fall out of it, or I could take things personal or I could be upset over something, but I'm choosing to choose staying in love. And I know that this is something that Chris and I are always talking about is we do things to make sure we are choosing each other and choosing the relationship over everything else. Because there are many choices that could pull us apart. There are many choices that I could. Or there are many thoughts that I could focus on and take things personal or Maybe things that I'm resentful about that maybe I don't share and I just keep it locked away. But every single day we make room and we make space. Space to choose our love again, to choose our relationship. And we do that through different walks. We do that through our morning coffee. We do that through asking questions like, hey, where are we at right now? Like, is there anything that I can do to be a better partner for you today, to support you more? I know that you're in a stressful time. Like, conversation is so important in everything. And this was making me think about my talk this week or tomorrow actually. What's today? Thursday? Yeah, tomorrow. And I was thinking about how friendship and relationships are always a choice. How some of us are like, it's, you know, it's too hard for me to make friendships or I'm incapable of it or whatever that looks like. But are we actually making room and choosing it every day? Is it a top priority for us? Because until it's a top priority, it's never going to happen, especially as an adult. So Brene Brown defines a connection like this. She says, I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard and valued, when they can give and receive without judgment, and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship. So are we showing up in a way that actually helps people or actually makes our friends feel seen, heard and valued? And have we asked them recently what would make you feel valued? Like, what is really important to you in a friendship? And how can I schedule that into my schedule so that it is important? Or if it's something that we feel we can't quite keep up with, can we actually have the tough conversation around? Hey, I don't necessarily have time to see you every single week, but I really value this friendship. So what would this look like on my end if I wanted to, you know, really stay in your life and keep up with this friendship? Could we maybe plan something once a month for a catch up? Does this work for you? I really, really value who you are. But this is where I'm at with, you know, being able to maintain this friendship. And a lot of people are like, oh my God, that's a weird conversation, you guys. If you don't have the weird conversations, if you're not willing to get uncomfortable, then you don't get the reward. And that's with everything. Like if you're not willing to get uncomfortable and tell your partner that something is lacking or you need to talk about something or maybe you need to have a, a really rough conversation about how maybe you feel jealous or about how maybe you want to talk about your sex life or about how maybe you want to talk about something that's coming up, you know, financially that you're really resenting. You don't get to have that relationship that you're craving. You don't get to have that, that best friend if you are not willing to tell her that you're upset about something or how it made you feel from a loving, loving place. So writing down these tough conversations, because honestly, it's that Tim Ferriss quote that I always go back to talking about, how if you are not willing to have those tough conversations that you are not going to get the reward right. Your level of success is reliant upon the number of tough conversations you're willing to have. And it's just been true for me every single day of my life, like learning how to navigate the awkward, learning how to navigate all of these different emotions that are trying to tear us apart every single day. And I don't want you to look at it like that, like, oh my God, everything's trying to tear us apart. But I want you to look at it as the more you navigate these things that come up, the more reward and closeness you are getting. It's why you ask people who've been through tough stuff in their relationship, relationships, and they say it makes them so much closer. And the more that I do, you know, podcasts with different women and I ask about their strong female friendships in their life and their strong tribes and they talk about how they're like, you know, we went through rough patches, sometimes we'll travel together and we'll get in fights. Sometimes we, you know, have these fallouts where we're like, hey, I need to talk about this. This really hurt me. Or this is something that's not going to work for me. Or this is something that we need to talk about. Every single tight knit group of friends that I have gotten the opportunity to talk to have fallouts. The difference is they don't view it as a deal breaker. They don't view it as a deal breaker. Some of you in your mind are like, oh, if she does this, she's out. And it's so easy to cut people off, right? If he does this, he's out. We have these checklists and we have these things where if people screw up, they're just out of our lives. And of course we have conversations around, what does that look like? Of course you have certain boundaries if people do certain things, but at the same time, the, the length in which you are willing to give someone grace and forgive is only the length that you will get, right? It's only the length that you'll get in that relationship. So if you want room to be a human, then you need to give them just as much room to be a human. Or maybe you need to look at the relationship with yourself and say, am I giving myself room to be a human? Am I accepting myself? Do I love myself? Because if you don't, there is no way in a relationship they can love you. Because it's really about how much can you love your. What's the capacity of acceptance within yourself? And that's how much you can accept a person, and that's how much they can accept you. So I'm always working on giving myself grace. To this day, you guys, within one of my masterminds where I have these incredible best friends, I still show up every other week and I'm like, am I valuable? Do I add enough value to this? I do they still like me? Am I, are they going to abandon me? And I sit there and I'm like, only how much you can accept yourself and love yourself is how much they can love you. And I just sit and I let go and I let go and I let go and I stop trying to think those thoughts and I just be and I listen and I hold space because it's enough for you to just be.

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You'll be glad you did it.

You're enough if you're just being. You don't have to always be adding value. It's enough if you just listen and hold space. You are enough if you just show up. And you have to believe that. You have to believe that because you have to believe. You have to look at yourself as you look at your best friend, right? It's enough for her to just show up. If it's enough for her to just say, you know what, I'm having an off day. I'm. I'm questioning myself. I'm having self doubt. How would you speak to her? And I know that this is something we hear all the time. But really speaking yourself like it's enough to just be here. You just showed up. It's enough to just have courage and not feel like you're going to nail this. It's enough to be afraid, but also just say, I'm showing up, right? So this weekend or tomorrow, I'm telling myself that I'm so proud of myself for being courageous and just saying yes and doing this and following through. It's enough to just show up and have the courage and share my heart, no matter how it comes out or how it looks. And that is the story that you always have to tell yourself. It is enough. You are enough. You are courageous. Instead of, oh, my God, you're so nervous. Oh, my God, did you do all the right things? Oh, my God, are you gonna fail? Oh, my God, are you gonna add value? It's enough for you to show up, and that is courageous. So I'm going in with, I'm courageous. I follow through. I show up. I'm so proud of myself. It's just important that I show up and show them what it looks like to be courageous and do this with fear. Because that's all people really want to see is, can you really do it with fear? I mean, isn't that the question that you have? Wherever you're at right now, like, isn't that the question, like, can I do this? Yes. If you're scared shitless right now, if you're nervous, if you're anxious, if you don't feel ready, if you don't feel smart enough, guess what? You can still do it, and you can do it with fear. And all people want to see is that you're doing it. All they want is permission. All they want is to see an example of who they are. They don't want to see the perfect thing. They don't want to see an example of what they think they can't be. While that's awesome and that's inspiring and that's something to strive towards, they actually sometimes don't want to see that. They want to see both. They want to see the mix. So be the person who is the one for them that they actually can resonate with and say, oh, my God, if she can do it, I can do it. That's all we're looking for.

We're.

We're looking every day through a lens of is who's giving me permission, who's telling me this is possible. I need to find a story that says this is possible, be that story. Which means you can't be perfect. You can't be this perfect, flawless, like, image of what someone thinks that they can't even strive to be. So show them. Show them what is possible. Show them that you're doing it with fear. Show them that you're doing it with nerve. Show them that you have screwed up so royally bad. And you are afraid of being accepted. You're afraid of not being loved, because we all are. We are all afraid of not being loved. And it is a choice to keep loving yourself so that other people can love you. So, you guys, I am sending you so much love. I see you. I fully, fully accept you because I am fully stepping into accepting me. And it just is. Every story, everything that everyone is going through just is. They are on their own path. They are here to share something. Do not judge them. Don't compare yourself. Because every time we do that, we're actually doing it to ourselves. So the less that you do that, the more freedom you feel in your life. And I'll tell you, when I stopped judging and comparing is when I truly started to feel free to be me. And what comes through you guys is something pretty cool. Like you're really freaking cool. And I'll tell you why. Because you are made from what God is made from, or whatever you believe. You are made from the universe. You are made from something so magical. And when you stop worrying about comparing or judging, God can actually come through that magical thing or whatever you believe can actually come through. So stop clouding it and let your radical, miraculous part of you start coming through. Because you're going to fall in love. You're going to fall in love and you're going to realize what a miracle you are and what a miracle this life is. Is so easy to go to bed and forget. And we have to remember this every day. Just put this on repeat. You are a miracle. Take off those layers of crap that the world has put on you and just remember what you're made of. Remember what you're made of. Remember what you're made of. You are not here alone. You're not doing this alone. Say a prayer. Tap in. Be the channel. Be the vessel. Even if that's just holding space, just let it come through by releasing all of the crap and the lies and the judgment and the comparison. Because whatever form you are in is so perfectly perfect for why you're here and the lesson that you need to teach. Right? And the lesson that you also need to learn. So I'm sending you so much love, and thank you guys always for sharing this podcast. Because you share it. That's how it gets out. It's the only way. Because there is no other way besides you guys. And it means the world to me. If you would stop what you're doing right now as long as you're not driving and go put a review into itunes. And if you want, leave a comment. Because we also do review the week and we send you an awesome, epic prize on our questionably awesome podcast. So you have to do the review from a computer. Everybody always asks me. They're like, I tried to leave a review, but I was on my phone. You have to do it from your computer and go into itunes. But those do actually help the podcast more than I can tell you. So if this podcast has ever moved you or transformed you, sharing it and rating and reviewing it is how you give the podcast some love. It means the world to us as podcasters. So sending you so much love today. And until next time, everyone earn your happy. Bye Bye. Thank you guys so much for spending this time with me on the earn your happy podcast. I am so glad that you stopped by. If you could take one second to share this episode with someone you think would love it, that would be absolutely, absolutely amazing and we would be forever grateful. Also, please leave us a review if you feel so moved by going to itunes and leaving us an honest thought, an honest comment. Tell us what you think, tell us what you want to hear more of. It would really help us out on our journey to helping thousands and thousands of people. Until then, don't forget to earn your happy. Thanks again, guys. Bye Bye.