What Do You Need To Leave Behind in 2021 To Live Your Best Life

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 this week's episode of A New Life podcast. Thank you so much for being here. So I want to dive right in today and get into we are just starting our second week of 2021. The new year has begun. We're getting into week number two. This is the second Monday of the year. I want to ask you, how are you doing on those goals? How are you doing on creating a very specific setting yourself up for success roadmap to reaching those goals? I think it's safe to say that most people start every year with great intentions, really, really intending on seeing those goals come to fruition, working hard on them and within the first week or two, have thrown in the towel, have given it up, have just thought, you know what? Okay, this is just not going to happen for me. Well, if you are that person, I want to talk a little bit today about the things to leave behind. Things that you can leave behind that perhaps have plagued you for most of your certainly has drug you through the year of 2020. And what are those things that you need to leave behind to work on your self care, to see those goals come to fruition, to truly and honestly live your very very best life. So I'm going to go through about 13 different tips and steps of things to leave behind to move forward in your life to reach all of those goals. Quite honestly, just live your very very best life. So tip number one, not being clear about your needs. I think as women and mothers and wives and significant others, we are second, third, fourth, fifth down the list of priorities and we are not very clear about what our needs are. Sometimes we sit back and life just happens around us and we don't reach out for what we need. We are not specific and we are not clear about where we might need help and support in our life. We have been taught oftentimes as little girls to be seen and not heard. This is a little harsher way to put it, but to put up and shut up that if you sit and be a good person and wait, someone will recognize what your needs are. Well, friends, I'm here to tell you that is a myth. That is a huge myth. People are not mind readers. No one in your life can read your mind. No one in your life will just be able to look at you and know what you need. You might be dropping what you think are bomb hints or on look, I need you to help me with the kids. I need help cleaning the house. I need help getting the groceries. The people in your life are not mind readers. And for you to work hard on forming good healthy communication with those in your world to support you and that love you and support you to just honestly say, look, I am struggling, I'm struggling with doing it all. I feel like I'm doing it all and I need your help. Could you on Wednesdays get the kids to bed? Could you on Saturday morning help me clean the house or Friday night or whatever. But be very specific and very clear on what your needs are. We are doing ourselves and the people in our lives that we love a disservice by expecting them to read your mind. They can't do that. They can't do that. And for you to be very specific and clear on what your needs are is not showing a sign of weakness. It's not showing weakness at all. It's just being very clear on what your needs are. And I promise you, if you are very clear and learn good communication skills in the area of your needs, the people around you are going to appreciate it so very much and they will become more aware of what your needs are. We can't expect those in our world just to look at us and know what we need. We have to be very specific and work on good communities communication skills to get those points across. Because if you don't, I promise you, you're going to end up this will erupt into a big giant rage and fight and it'll be a conflict in your life that really isn't that big of a deal. But it will become a big deal because you are bottling it up and you're internalizing what your needs are. Step number two, fear of trying new things. What is it in 2021 that you want to try, that you want to do, but you're afraid? Where do those fears come from? What are you afraid of, friends? Fear is going to keep you held hostage. It will keep you in its own tiny little prison because you are afraid to step out and do something that you've never done before. So you have got to leave behind the fear. Is it the opinions of others? Are you afraid of what someone might say about you or what someone might think of you? Are you afraid that you're not smart enough? You don't know how. I'm afraid of technology. I'm afraid of failure. Now there's one that I think most people can identify with you know, when you go after a big audacious dream, the big thing that you've always wanted to do and the fear is failure. But I want to tell you this. There really is no such thing as failure. All failure is when you try something and it doesn't work out the way you want it to work out. That's not failure. That's an opportunity to learn how to make something work. That is when you get to look at that situation and say, okay, so this didn't work. If I make these adjustments, I can make it work by doing this or that. I promise you, friends, when you stare fear straight down and you stare fear in the eyes, what you're really afraid of is about your own insecurities. So number two, you need to leave that fear behind and take that leap of faith. Believe in yourself, trust in yourself and try that new thing, whatever that new thing is for you. Tip number three, Wasting emotional energy on things that don't matter. Wow, I feel like this hits the nail on the head. Wasting emotional energy on things that don't matter. Now, we all have been affected by what's happening in our country, what's happening in our world. There is so much polarization and so much negativity. And I'm not saying that what's happening in our country does not matter because of course it matters greatly. But when we get so engulfed and intertwined in what is going on, we end up focusing on the things that really don't even matter. We're focusing on the chaos, but we're really not putting good, positive energy into figuring out solutions. You're wasting emotional energy in areas that instead of working, wasting energy on the strife and on the sadness and the bitterness and the anger, we need to be focusing on solutions, not the problems. So re channeling your energy from something negative and pointing all of that energy into something positive. Positivity will make the difference. I've always said gratitude changes the attitude. And I feel the same thing about positivity. Positivity has so much power over negativity. We need to flip that switch in our mind and stop wasting emotional energy on things that really don't matter. Tip number four, prioritizing people that don't prioritize you. Wow, I'm going to say that one more time. Prioritizing people that don't prioritize you. If we are honest, every single one of us has been in that situation where you are always the one to connect with that friend. That friend never connects with you. But anytime something bad happens and you know something bad has happened in the world. You are always the one connecting with them and reaching out to them and make sure they're okay. And they don't have that same priority for you. They don't reach out to you just to check in and say, hey friend, how are you? How are you doing today? So prioritizing people that don't prioritize. You write a list of who those people are, make great note of who you're prioritizing, that do not reciprocate the priority in you and start creating good healthy boundaries around those people and separate yourself from those people. Now I'm not saying that you have to delete them from your life. Perhaps, perhaps you should delete them from your life. But what I want to have you consider is to have a good healthy balance on where they fit into your world. That's number four. Number five, letting things bother me that are not in my control. This is a big one for a lot of people. I think it is so easy for us to get wrapped up in things that really, really bother us, that hurt our heart, but yet they in our control. I can't control what other people do. I can't. I can't control people who do bad things. I can't control people who see things differently than I do. I can't control those people. But what I can control is my reaction to all of them and all of those issues. I can control me. I can control my mind, my attitude, my thoughts, my heart, my belief system. Those things are in my control. I cannot control other people. I can love and support those people that don't see the world the way I do, that don't think the way I do. You might see someone on a destructive, self destructive path. And friends, you are not in control of a person hitting the bottom in their life. You can be there to support them and to love them and to pray over them and to be there for them. But you cannot make them do the right thing. You cannot love someone enough to do the right thing. But what you can do is you have control over your actions. You can, as I said, pray over them. You can be a witness to them, you can be a good example to them. You can perhaps give them a great book to read or resources. You can try to help them, but at the end of the day you are not in control of them. But to love them unconditionally, that you can do. That's a hard one for a lot of people because when we try to control circumstances and situations, oftentimes it's out of love. It's out of our love for another person. You see someone that is self destructive, that is going down a very, very bad path, they are on a slippery slope. You want to help them, you don't want to see them hurting, you don't want to see them hitting their bottom. But at the end of the day, you are not in control of other people's actions and other people's minds. You are only in control of yours. The more you focus on what you are in control of, the better example you will become for those people around you that need you. They need your example more than they need you to fix their life more than they need you to fix the chaos in their world. So spend your energy on the things that are in your control and let the Lord, let God pray over the things that are not in your control. Number six. I'm going to lump number six and seven together because they kind of are the same. Forcing friendships and forcing relationships. We've all been there, whether it be a friendship or a relationship, that you literally are the one putting everything into the friendship or the relationship. You're doing all the hard work, every last bit of it. You might be in a relationship right now that if you're honest with yourself, you know it is dysfunctional, you know that it is not fulfilling. You might be looking at that relationship and think, gosh, I have four years invested in this relationship with a boyfriend, a spouse, or whatever that is. I have four years invested in this relationship. I know it's not a good, healthy relationship, but I'm just going to stick with it because I don't want to feel like I wasted four years. Friends forcing a relationship will never, ever, ever make the relationship healthy, fulfilling, loving and unconditional. This is hard. It's very hard when you've been working on forcing friendships and forcing relationships. But the sooner you take a step back and let that relationship go where it really is meant to go, the better off you will be. That's hard. It's probably one of the hardest things that you'll ever do. But it is part of leaving behind the things that are keeping you from living your best life, from reaching all of those 20, 21 goals and advancing your life forward. So 6 and 7 are forcing friendships and forcing relationships with or if. And again, we're being honest, we all have been there or you're there right now. Number eight, comparing myself to others. Comparison is the biggest mental trap you could possibly ever be in. I know you have that person on your instagram feed or on your Facebook feed. And all they post are beautiful portraits of their family at the beach, their family skiing, they and their spouse or significant other doing awesome things where their kids are perfect and their house is perfect and their closets organized perfectly and the kitchen is perfect and everything's perfect. You know as well as I do that's a smokescreen. You know as well as I do nobody's world is perfect. But when you start comparing your world yourself to other people, you will always have an inferior complex. Comparison is the biggest trap of staying stuck that I can even think of right now is comparing yourself to other people. If you learn to stay in your lane, focus on you, your goals, what you can control, and take your mindset off of what other people are doing and comparing your life to their life, you will advance to your goals so much faster than if you stay stuck in the game of comparison. Keeping up with the Joneses, keeping up with the Smiths. You all have heard those sayings. You know exactly what I'm talking about. But comparison is a huge, huge trap. And please do not compare yourself to other people. All right, number nine. Playing small because of my own insecurities. This is a biggie. All of these are biggies, but this is a really biggie. Playing small because of my own insecurities. What are you wanting to do in your life but you're not doing it because you're afraid, you are insecure, your self esteem is too low, your level of confidence isn't there. Your self talk is talking you out of doing it. What is that for you? Playing small because of my own insecurities. What are you worth? What are you worth at your job? What are you worth at home as a wife and a mother? What are you worth in your career? Friends? Playing small because of your own insecurity is coupled with low self esteem, low confidence, no self love, no care for you. It's time that you create a new relationship with yourself and believe in yourself. One of the first things that you have to do in playing small because of your own insecurities is understand where those insecurities have come from. To begin with, you weren't born insecure, you weren't born inferior. That is taught and learned behavior, whether it be from trauma or your parents or siblings or peers, whatever that is. Why are you playing small because of your own insecurities? If you can get to the root of how that insecurity started, why it is there, and repurpose that information in your brain, you will move mountains. You will not see anything as too big for you. You will raise the bar on what you can do, and you will begin to do big things because you will believe in yourself enough and leave all of those insecurities behind. I hope that you do that. I really hope that you do that. All right, my next One is number 10, feeling guilty. Wow. Guilt is like shackles. Guilt. And I'm going to bring shame into that too. Because I think guilt and shame are like best friends that don't have your best interest at heart. Guilt and shame. Shame. I think everyone can say there's areas of their life that they have been made to feel guilty and to feel shame. But what I want you to think about is this. No one can make you feel guilty or ashamed unless you allow it to happen. You are in control of your emotions. You are in control of your feelings. No one can make you feel guilt or shame unless you allow them to. No one can make you feel guilt or shame unless you allow them to. I cannot say that firmly enough. Guilt and shame literally are like shackles with a giant weight attached to them. And I just. The visual I get with that is being tossed into a lake with shackles and a weight at the bottom of it. And it holds you down and it suppresses you and it suffocates you. That is guilt and shame. But here is the good news about guilt and shame, my friends. You are in control of the feelings of guilt and shame. In my self mastery, self care course called Learning to love Yourself from the Inside out, we talk about leaving that behind and retraining your brain, how you think, how you see yourself, what you think of yourself. I teach you how to leave all of that behind and retrain your brain to think about yourself differently, to see yourself differently. But the good news about guilt and shame, friends, is that you are in control of that feeling. You are in control of your feelings. So if you are feeling guilt and shame, you can change that. In fact, you are the only one who can change that. So 11 and 12, I'm going to lump a little bit together as well. And they are pride and ego. So when I think about pride and ego, what I think about is a defense mechanism. Oftentimes our pride creeps into our decisions. Our pride creeps into our daily life as well as our ego. Because the pride and the ego protect you from the things that you're afraid of. They protect you from being hurt by people or situations. That's pride and ego. Nothing positive truly comes from pride and ego, friends. Pride and ego will destroy you, they will destroy friendships, they will destroy relationships. There is nothing good that comes out of pride and ego. There's a reason why they say, swallow your pride and move forward. You cannot let your ego get in the way because you're afraid of what people will think of you or what people will say about you or how you look, look to other people. That's pride and ego, friends. So nothing positive comes from inflated ego or inflated pride. And I always want you to remember that pride and ego are really defense mechanisms. If you know of someone in your life that has a huge ego, I want you to stop and think about who that is, that has a big ego, that they always have to be number one. They always have to brag about how successful they are, how much money they have or how great their business is or how awesome their marriage is or the relationship or whatever. That is the only reason they are like that. And they are braggadocious about everything and they're arrogant and all of those things. It is a smokescreen. It is a mix mask because truly, at the core of who they are, they are incredibly insecure and they do not have a lot of self love. So pride and ego are a big sign, not of necessarily someone being super successful, but pride and ego is a huge sign of someone who is highly insecure and does not love who they are. So I want you to look at yourself because this is about you, loving you and understanding you better. What are some areas in your life that you need to get your pride and ego in check? That you need to step out from behind the smokescreen and unmask your own pride and ego? Where do you need to be honest? Where do you need to be vulnerable? You will be able to move forward quicker by allowing yourself to be vulnerable. And you will have to step out from behind the screen of pride and ego and allow yourself to be vulnerable to move forward. All right, friends, number 13. Tip number 13 is counting on external validation. I want you to leave that behind so you can move forward in 2021. Counting on external validation. You are elevating your worth, your value of yourself by the validation of other people. Learning to love yourself exactly as you are in the place that you are today is more important than what someone else is going to say to you. You losing weight and getting healthy. We're not even talking about diets here because in my opinion, diets are ridiculous. Diets are setting yourself up for failure. A health plan. Now, now we're onto something. But if you get on this health plan and you are Losing the weight, you're losing the inches. But the only way this health plan feels real to you is by what other people are telling you. Then, friends, we need to retrain your brain to think it differently. You shouldn't have to have the other people at the gym and say, oh, Susie, you look so up awesome today. For you to believe that you look awesome today, you need to love you first. Number one, you need to love you. And you cannot rely on the source of love and validation from other people. You have to do that yourself. So this is hard work, friends. I'm not going to lie. This is hard work and it takes time and it's a commitment for you to get through this process. But you cannot count on external value validation for you to understand your worth and how beautiful and intelligent and important that you are in this world. And the very Last one, number 14. I think I told you there were 13. Well, there's 14. The very last one is not loving myself. Leave that behind. Leave that behind and start today. Start today. Friends, in planning a strategic self love commitment and roadmap to loving yourself, loving yourself has to be number one. I'm in a private group on Facebook that talks about. It's about people that are healing from narcissistic abuse. And one of the questions one of the other members had today was, how long do I wait to start dating after being in a narcissistic relationship? And my response to that is this. The only person that you need to be dating right now is you. You are the only person that you need to be dating. You need to learn how to date yourself and be comfortable with yourself. Pamper yourself, Buy yourself flowers every week. I have fresh flowers in my home every single week because, number one, I love them. But why would I wait to get flowers from someone when I can go and get them for myself? Because I love me and I love fresh flowers. Why do I need to wait for a spouse or a friend or someone to give them to me to validate my worth through the gift of flowers? I'm going to validate my worth by buying flowers to myself or buying that box of chocolate or that bottle of wine or scheduling myself a massage? Because I love me and I'm going to take care of me. So dating yourself, pampering yourself, creating a self care strategy, a self care plan to learn to love yourself, friends. So not loving myself, kick that can back throw that into the abyss. Because, friends, you cannot move forward and live your very best life not only for yourself, but for those that you love. If you don't love yourself first, you can't allow another human being to love you 110% if you don't allow yourself to love you first. So where do you begin? How do you do that? How do you get on that path of self love? Well, I'm going to be really honest with you. It's hard because in order to love yourself 110%, you have to do the hard work and you have to reverse engineer how it happened in the first place. How you got to the point of self destruction and self sabotage and self loathing. How did you get there? There are many, many layers. You peel back a layer and oh my goodness, you will be shocked at what you learn. And then you're going to peel back another layer and you're going to gasp and say, holy crap, is that my life? No wonder I don't love myself today. I've been through a lot. No wonder I feel the way I do. I've been through a lot. We've all been through a lot. And reality is, we'll always have those challenges ahead of us. But when you love yourself 110% from the inside out, you are truly unstoppable. You will not be held back because of your own insecurities, because you won't have any. You won't have any insecurities. Imagine going through life without any insecurities, not being worried about what other people think of you. Wear whatever you want to wear because you feel good. Imagine the freedom you are going to get from this. Friends. Oh my gosh, it's unbelievable. So friends, Those are just 14 tips that I wanted to share with you today about leaving behind. I know that some of you may have already ditched your New Year's resolutions and I'm going to be honest with you. I am not doing real great in the food department. I'm just not. And I could tell you a bunch of excuses, but none of them matter. And those are my issues and I'll figure it out. I wanted to eat with better intention this year and even after this first week, I really have not done that. But I'm going to give myself grace and I'm going to hit the reset button. And come Monday, I'm going to start again because I can do that. And I'm not going to beat myself up and I'm not going to hold myself hostage through guilt and shame. I'm going to pick myself up and move forward and refocus and hit my reset button. I could give you a bunch of Excuses as to why, but that's all they will be are excuses. So if you find yourself a little frustrated with yourself for not doing what you said you were going to do with the beginning of this new year, you can hit the reset button. It's okay to do that. You can start your Self love journey at any time. There's no time frame. You don't have to start it at a certain time. The most important thing is that you make the commitment to start and you make the commitment to finish. You have to finish what you started. So friends, in a few weeks my Self Care Mastery course begins. I want you on that journey with me. I invite you to join me on that journey. It is a beautiful thing. You will never regret committing to yourself. This will set you up to a whole new level of success in life. Financially, emotionally, spiritually. It will set you up for so much success I can't even begin to tell you. So I'm inviting you to be part of the founding members club. I have a limited spots available to become a founding member in this Self Care Mastery course and I want you to be on that with me. So I'm going to share in the comments a link for you to join the founding members club and I look forward to being on this journey with you. I have so much to share with you. I cannot wait to to see you after the 12 week commitment and the transformation that you have already begun in 12 short weeks. Friends, thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting this podcast and being here for me. You inspire me. You all inspire me so much. I don't go a day without thinking of this audience and this community and appreciating all that I've been through in my life because that has prepared me in ways to help all of you. This podcast, reaching people all over the world has given me a platform to impact women all over the world in 12 different countries. That is amazing and beautiful. So thank you so much for supporting me. Thank you so much for listening. I love you all. Have an awesome week. Let's slay those goals. Let's get them mapped out and start working on the Self Care roadmap to love yourself from the inside out. Thank you friends. Have a great week. Thank you for joining us today on a New Life podcast. We will see you next time. Sa.