Are You Showing Up For Yourself?

Welcome to a New life podcast with Pamela Jean, where it's all about empowering women to empower more women. Get ready, friends, to create a new life. And here is your host, Pamela Jean.

Hello, friends, and welcome to today's episode. This is episode number five. And I have this one. Are you showing up for yourself? We are going to have a conversation, a real conversation, where I want you to be honest with yourself. Be completely honest. And I'm going to ask it again. Are you showing up for yourself? Really? And you might be wondering, what exactly do you mean? Well, I'll tell you what showing up for yourself means to me. First of all, stop making excuses. Stop it. No more excuses as to why your life is not what you had envisioned. Let that sink in for just a second. No more excuses. Friends. You know, you might be in a situation where, you know, you turn a pivotal age. And for wherever you are in your life, 30, 40, 50. Say you're turning 40 years old and you didn't really expect your life to look like it does at the age of 40. And you can insert any number for that matter. It could be 25, it could be 30. It doesn't make any difference. But you look at your life and it's just not what you expected. Well, I'm here to give you just a little bit of tough love today. And honestly, you are where you are because of choices and decisions that you made. You are where you are because of choices and decisions that you made. Sometimes it's difficult for us to own our own stuff, but it's true. And here's another little tidbit I heard from Andy Stanley years ago, and it still resonates with me. So that's how much it hit me. You know, the common denominator in every bad decision that you ever made is you. You're the common denominator. It's easy for us to want to blame other people, blame our circumstances, blame our situation, but honestly, if we're honest with ourselves, you are where you are because of decisions that you have made. And the sooner you embrace that and the sooner that you take responsibility and stop making excuses, you will start to learn how to show up for yourself. So no more excuses, friends. Change your story. You know, your story is what you have told yourself and believed in for years. Really, it is. Here's an example of, I grew up poor. I will never be able to afford to go on a nice trip. Here's another. My parents divorced when I was a kid. I will never be able to be in a good Relationship. Your parents situation does not dictate and determine what your relationship status will be. Absolutely true, 1000%. Here's another example. I was bullied in school. I will never be seen as a leader. Well, let me just give you some truth here. I was bullied in high school. I was bullied to the point of wanting to leave school after my junior year. My sophomore, junior, senior year of high school, quite honestly were three of the worst years of my life. I hated school. I wanted to be done. I never felt like I would be able to lead and be good. And look at me today. I've changed that story. I did not listen to the opinions of others and I've changed that story. And I feel like I'm a really, really great leader. At least I try really hard to lead well and leave passionately with compassion. Here's another myth. Here's another story that you might be telling yourself. I could never own my own business because I don't have the money. You know what? Most people that start their own business or have their own business never had very much money to start with. You got to start somewhere. So stop telling yourself that you can't own your own business because of money. Figure it out. Go figure it out. Make the money, save the money. Find an investor. There's so many different solutions to every single problem or question or mythology that you've told yourself you can change whatever you want to change in your life. Now here's a harsh reality. Is it going to be easy? No. There is nothing in life that is worthwhile that is easy. Not one thing. Everything is hard. It's hard to own your own business. It's hard to be in good relationships. It's hard to be a leader. It is. All of those things are hard, but it's worth it. So everything worthwhile is hard. And it feels like an uphill battle sometimes. But I'm telling you, friends, it is absolutely worth it. So change your story. You have the ability and the power to change your story. So I want you to start sharpening your pencils and get writing a new story for your life. The next thing I want to share with you is showing up for yourself is get ready and be ready every single day with the changes and the chaos of 2020. I mean, it has been a year for the record books, right? I mean, not one person in this entire world has not been affected by COVID Pandemic. All of the other crazy chaos that's been happening, many people, and perhaps this is you are working from home. You're working from home where you never thought you would be working from home. And that's, that's a whole other podcast, to be honest with you, tips and tricks on being successful working at home when you're not used to doing that. And we'll maybe do that another time. But here's my tip for you. Get ready and be ready every single day. I'm going to say that again. Get ready and be ready every single day. Even if your calendar is empty. So let's say you are running a hair salon or you are working in a boutique or you are a realtor or you are an attorney and you don't have anything on your calendar today. So you decide, I'm going to work in my jammies today or I'm going to go into the office, but I'm not really going to be ready to see clients or meet with a customer because I don't have anything on my calendar. Well, what happens if you're sitting in your jammies and you get an email from a client that you have been trying to land for the longest time that says, hey Susie, I've got an opening at noon today. Can we get together? Can we do a zoom? Can I meet you for lunch? Can we go have coffee this afternoon? And you haven't gotten yourself ready for the day. That is self sabotaging yourself. It is better to be ready for an opportunity and not have one than it is to have an opportunity and not be ready. I'm going to say that one more time. It's better to be ready for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be ready. And quite honestly friends, when you get yourself ready for the day, whether you are just working at home or whether you're a stay home mother or whatever that looks like for you, when you get yourself up and ready, you will have a much more productive day. Show up for yourself, get up and be ready every single day. Take care of your body. You are going to get tired of hearing me say this, but I will be the one that will be your biggest champion. And on taking care of your body. You know not everyone is meant to be a size 8 and that is okay. But you have to take care of your body. It's not rocket science. Do little things like drinking water instead of soda, replacing a handful of M and Ms. To a handful of carrots. I know that doesn't sound as much fun, but friends, you have to take care of your body. You know that too much wine or alcohol is not good for you, you know that too much sugar is not good for you. You know, too many carbs are not good for you. But I'm here to tell you, when you start taking care of your body, that overflows into other areas of your life. It's about loving yourself enough to take care of yourself. So showing up for yourself, that tip is taking care of your body. And I know that not everyone wants to have a workout regimen. That's okay. You don't have to. If that's not in your wheelhouse, if that just doesn't feel like the right thing for you to do right now, that is totally okay. But you can feed your body with good, positive, positive things. So take care of your body. My next tip for you, my next show up for yourself element is self care. If you don't take care of you, you will not be able to take care of those that you love. It's as simple as that. It starts with you. When you practice self care. And let me just say this, it doesn't mean that you're being selfish by practicing self care. That doesn't make you selfish. It actually puts you in a position to take care of others in your life that you love even better than what you're able to without nurturing and taking care of yourself. And it not only teaches you to be better to you, it shares with your friends and your family what it looks like to be a healthy individual and hopefully encourage other people to have good self care habits. My last thing that I want to talk to you about are boundaries. And I know if you've listened to the other podcasts that I've released so far, you're going to hear boundaries as being a common denominator. You have to have boundaries in your life. Have you ever thought to yourself that certain people in your life take advantage of you every time you see them? It's true. It happens. There are those people in your world that will take advantage of you if you allow them to do that. No one takes advantage of you unless you allow them to. Period. Boundaries are a good thing. And if you're thinking, I don't even know where to start with boundaries, how do I do that without feeling, you know, like I'm rude or being a jerk about something? How do I say no when they're used to me always saying yes? You know, here's a little trick about that. Saying no sometimes, when you almost always say yes before giving an answer. If someone asks you to volunteer for something or to do something, ask them if you can Think about it and can I call you tomorrow? Let me think about it. I will get back to you tomorrow. That's not that hard to do. What that allows you to do is to take a step back from that situation. It allows you to look at your calendar honestly and simply say, do I actually have time to volunteer for this particular thing? Is my heart passionate about this particular thing for me to give my time to? We all have so many things to do. We're being pulled in so many directions and I don't want you to allow those yeses to things because that you should be saying no to suck the life out of you. And having those boundaries are really, really important. And just simply say, give me a chance to think about that. I will get back to you tomorrow. Let me check my calendar and then check your calendar and make sure that you have a nice little boundary about your time and about your schedule. So seriously, I have only scratched the surface with showing up for yourself. I can go into so, so many more different elements of this and I want you to ask yourself, honestly, am I showing up for myself? Am I setting myself up for success? If you are wavering as to whether or not you are actually doing that, then I want you to reassess what's going on in your life. Start writing a list of all of the things that are filling up your schedule and look at those things and see what is serving you and what is sucking the life out of you. And then make an action plan to eliminate and delete those things from your life that are not serving you. Friends, I hope you make this a great day. Have a good one. Show up for yourself and move the mountains today that need to be moved in your life. Have a great day, friends.

Thank you for joining us today on a New Life podcast. We will see you next time.