What is Balance Anyway?

What's up, guys? Welcome back to the podcast. I'm so excited that you're here. This episode is really for me, but I think it's also for you. And we're going to be talking about what the fuck is balance anyway. Balance is something, an idea, a concept. There's imagery around it, what we think that it is, what we've tried to make it look like in our own lives. There's so much about balance that I want to kind of unpack in this episode, and I'm just going to share with you some truths that I've realized I've realized in my journey, and how redefining balance and looking at balance in a different way is helping me to become healthier, do more of the things that I say that I want to do, while also having a lot of grace and compassion for myself and still living a really fun, carefree lifestyle. So we're going to talk about balance. Before we dive into this episode, I want to remind you that From Burnout to Badass is coming back very, very soon. So if you've been wanting to be a part of this course, this is my signature life transformation course. It's coming back next week. If you've been wanting to be a part of it, make sure that your name is on the waitlist because the waitlist is always the first to know when it's available and you get an incredible discount. So we'll be talking more about this program over on my Instagram as soon as all the details are released. But this is the program where everything Started. This is all of the information that fully changed my life. It's all of the modalities, practices, and tools that I used to go from completely broke, not knowing what my purpose was in a job that I hated, to where I am now today, living a life full of purpose, working for myself, having the courage, the self-trust, the self-love, having a more healthy relationship with food and with my body. All of the things. We also talk a lot about money inside of this program. So if you've been, you've been wanting some of that money mindset, it's in there. And this is the main program where we do life coaching stuff and manifestation. So a lot of my other stuff nowadays is really about business, but From Burned Out to Badass is the OG program and it's all of the life transformation stuff that you might be needing, wanting, or desiring, especially as we move into 2023 together. So if that's you, head over to samanthadaly.com or click the link in the show notes below, and that will take you to the website where you can read all about the program and you can add your name to the waitlist so that you secure a discount and that you're the first to know when it's available. It only opens twice a year and it always sells out. So if you know that you wanna be a part of it, don't wait, add your name to the waitlist. Okay, let's dive into this week's episode all about balance. Welcome to the Makeshift Happen podcast. I'm your host, Samantha Daly, entrepreneur, life coach, and your no BS bestie, here to bring you all things mindset, manifestation, and personal development. This podcast is designed to help you expand your mind and uplevel your life.

So turn the volume up and roll the windows down if you're coming along for the ride.

Let's go make shit happen. Happen. If you are feeling out of routine lately, welcome to the club. I'm right there with you. I think the energy— I talked about this on the podcast before, but the energy between Christmas and New Year's is just very weird. I was in like a super Twilight Zone weird space. I would wake up feeling super motivated, like, oh my gosh, yes, I want to do all these things, like get myself sorted before the end of the year. But then by midday, I would feel this like weird sense of like sadness, like almost like depressed for like no reason. And even now in the first weeks of January, sometimes we can just like struggle to get those wheels moving. And if this is you, I hope that you're in the Reset Challenge with us because that's the whole idea behind this challenge is to give you a framework to be able to start off on the right foot. Even when you might be feeling overwhelmed or like, oh my gosh, I haven't set my intentions, I haven't picked my word, I haven't figured out what I'm manifesting, I haven't made a plan for how I'm gonna move my body, or I don't know, I wanna meditate but I don't know how to start. Like all of that stuff is really just taken care of for you inside of the challenge. So for all of my girlies that are joining me inside of the Reset Challenge, I hope you're going along well and that you're enjoying it so far. Um, I love starting the year this way because it can be an overwhelming time of the year. There's so much pressure and everybody else is like doing all their practices and all these things. They're doing the tarot pulls, and they pick their word for the year, and they've made their new vision boards, and they know what they want, and they've set their goals, and they've reflected on the past year. And so sometimes we can end up rocking up to the new year being like, what the fuck? Like, I already feel behind. I don't even know what I'm doing. Like, what is my plan? How am I going to make this year any different if I'm already just still stuck in the same patterns doing all the same stuff? Nothing has really changed, right? So if you feel out of routine, if you feel like you haven't gotten that like jumpstart kickstart that you wanted, it's okay. And part of this episode is going to be normalizing that, but then also offering some perspective on how we can shift that or change that. So, you know, struggling to find the balance between having fun and enjoying your life, but also taking care of yourself and really wanting to be like this health and wellness-focused person. Is something that I've experienced for years because I care a lot about health and wellness. But I'm also not the person that can be so strict and so obsessed and so committed and never deviate from the health and wellness practices because I also love fun. That's the Sag energy coming out. I want to have a good time. I want to enjoy. I want to go to a restaurant and be able to order whatever I want. Like, I'm not following restrictive things when I'm going out to eat. Sorry, absolutely not, right? I want to enjoy and have a good time. So this struggle, like, back and forth for me has been in existence for a while. So I feel like I can speak to it. I mean, that's the point. That's what I'm going to do today. I'm not going to try to fix any of your problems or, you know, teach you anything super crazy, but I'm going to share my experience and it might motivate you in some way or inspire a shift or a change that you want to make within yourself. Even just within your own mindset around balance. So when, you know, maybe this time of year you've been like traveling or you went home for the holidays or you've just been going out more often or prioritizing, prioritizing like the fun stuff, all the joy, maybe you haven't been working out or moving your body or you've been eating a bunch of like cookies and champagne and all the fun stuff, like same, right? And so some of these like normal life healthy routines or habits or wellness practices have kind of fallen by the wayside, or we've just gotten off track with them in a sense. And so I'm definitely feeling that. But my, my question that I've asked myself is, why do we make wellness in air quotes, whatever that means to you? Why do we make wellness so all or nothing? Because I think this is actually where we— most of us get tripped up and where we make it harder for ourselves than it has to be by making the idea of being a healthy person, quote unquote, or being someone who cares about health and fitness or someone who cares about like health and wellness, by making that seem like it's this identity that you have to adhere to all of the time. Then that is what creates the guilt when we deviate from that, or the feeling of like, oh, I'm not doing well, or I've done something wrong if you deviate from that. And so what if we looked at, is that actually true? Does the wellness identity need to be an all-or-nothing sort of thing, or can we dip in and out of it as we move through life and let that be our own definition of wellness? Is being someone who dips into those practices and also then dips into the enjoyment and the free-flowing of living life. Right. And so if we skip a workout, let's say, or we abandon our meditation practice or we drink too much alcohol or we eat a bunch of food that we know is not good for us.

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Oftentimes we then view that as an excuse to continue to go down, down that path further, to continue with the indulgences or to continue abandoning our routines or habits or the things that we know help us on a physical and mental level, right? As if one 2 or 3 or 7 even, quote unquote, cheats. We're using that in air quotes because I hate that word. It goes against everything that we're talking about in this episode anyway, but we'll call them cheats because it's just shorter and you know what I mean. As if 1 or 2 or 3 or 5 or 7 or 12 cheats is enough to just throw in the towel and then completely give up that goal of wellness or some of those little tiny micro wellness practices that we could be implementing while also indulging or enjoying life in some way. Right. So this took me a long time to fully grasp because the— an old version of me after a night out of drinking and leftover pizza and then like donuts in the morning or brunch or whatever, watching Netflix all day, the idea of jumping right back into quote unquote healthy living or routines or self-care practices seemed like a waste. Right. It's that mentality of like, oh, well, I've already done this. I've already ruined it in this way. I've already eaten X, Y, or Z, or I've already skipped X amount of days. So why would I start again now? Today's Thursday. Why wouldn't I just wait until next week? Or it's almost the end of the month. I'll start again next month, right? Might as well enjoy myself. I'm just going to continue down this path of like abandoning the version of myself that I want to be because it's somehow not perfect. If I were to just do one simple wellness practice today in the midst of all the other quote unquote indulgences or cheats, that would somehow not count towards being a positive thing because there's too many negatives that outweigh it, right? We sort of like measure things in our head like this, like, is it worth putting a notch on the positive side if we have so many notches on the negative side already? And we think about things in that way, that this one positive notch, this one self-care practice, this one way for me to take care of myself, this one way for me to act as my highest self or eat healthy or do something that contributes to my wellness is not big enough. It's not good enough. It's not perfect enough to outweigh everything else that I have done or have been doing in the past few days, weeks, months. So why would I bother anyway? Right? And I know that a lot of you have felt this because I think it's so normal. It's so normal. But this is what actually creates that roller coaster of I'm so on with my routines and my wellness and who I want to be, and then I'm so off of it. I'm all in and I'm all out, and then just consistently going up and down those peaks and valleys of that roller coaster and feeling really amazing about yourself when you're on the up and up, when you're on the high of it, and then feeling really shitty about yourself when you're on the downward spiral and then picking it back up and going, okay, here we go, we're back on track, we're going again. Yes, this feels good. I love myself. I feel great. I feel amazing. I'm strong. I'm healthy. I'm fit. I'm all the things. I'm the total vibe. Like, yes, I'm living my best life. And then, oh my God, I totally fell off. I'm hitting snooze. I'm not doing my practices. I'm not doing my self-care. I haven't done anything. I'm not working out. I'm not moving my body. Like, I'm a piece of shit. I totally ruined it all. I have to start from zero. This idea that wellness is all or nothing, and that the identity of being a person who cares about health and fitness or health and wellness means that you have to be in it all the time is what creates that toxic rollercoaster effect. So what if we could create the belief, the story, the identity that being someone who cares about health and fitness and wellness means doing as much of those things as possible and as we are able at the time, but also prioritizing joy and fun and indulgences and pleasure. Like, what if that became the definition of your version of what it means to be well or to be fit or to be healthy? Right. And so the truth— here's the hard truth that I've realized is that the longer that you go without your healthy habits, the harder it is to incorporate them back into your daily life. Right. I'm assuming a lot of you have experienced this. If you go— if you go 2 days, 3 days without moving your body, let's say working out is something that's part of your normal routine. You do it quite often. If you go 2 or 3 days without doing it, the 4th or 5th day, you might be like, oh, okay, I really got to get back into that routine of moving. But you can do it. You, you figure out a way to do it. If you go 2 to 3 weeks without moving your body when exercise used to be a really integral part of your daily routine, now suddenly it's much harder for you to go back to that old identity. And so we want to try and shorten the gap. And the way that we can shorten the gap between, you know, taking a sidestep away from health and wellness practices to getting back on the train is by not believing that the positive and negative notches have to equally, like, balance each other out in order for it to be worth it for us to do it. Is that making sense? I hope that's making sense. We have to cultivate the idea that wellness can include both sides of that coin and not have the idea that wellness is 100% all or nothing in order for us to actually shorten the gap between, you know, going off track and then getting back on track. And so some examples of this is like, okay, supplements. I have a bunch of supplements. I have worked with a nutritionist for a full year. I worked with a nutritionist and so I learned a lot. I got my own like kind of personal guidance supplement routine. It was really helpful. I'm trying to still follow that guidance and stick with it as much as possible while living my life and having a good time and enjoying things. But I have a bunch of supplements. I have a supplement routine. And so there's several times throughout the day that I'm meant to take these supplements. I take one right when I wake up before I eat anything. I take a couple of them with my breakfast. I take another couple of them with my dinner, and then I take another couple before I go to sleep. And so it is kind of challenging to remember to take supplements at all these different times of the day. So there's a lot of times where I miss it. And there's been even full days, multiple days and weeks where I've like totally forgotten about the supplements. And then I'm like, oh shit, I need to do that again. Like, I don't even know why I wasn't doing it right. So here's the thing. And if you have supplements, you'll know this. Sometimes you're really on it and then sometimes you're totally just not in the zone and you're totally off of it. But if you— if so, if I like didn't take my supplements for 3 days, let's say the past 3 days I haven't done anything. I haven't remembered any single one of them. And then suddenly today I remember at dinnertime, oh my God, I haven't taken my supplements in 3 days. I might look at that set of pills that I'm supposed to take at dinnertime and go, okay, why am I going to just take the dinner ones when I didn't do the pre-breakfast, breakfast and whatever else ones that I'm supposed to do today or any other day. Like, maybe I should just start fresh tomorrow. Like, tomorrow I'll just wake up and I'll do my whole supplements for the day. Like, why would I just take these randomly as I remember? Just take these ones at dinner. But that is an example of where we can switch it instead of thinking like it needs to be perfect and I'll just start fresh tomorrow. It's like, just take the fucking supplements. If you remembered and it's dinnertime and you have a dinnertime set of supplements, just frickin take them. Even if you forget to take the bedtime ones tonight, even if you forget all day tomorrow. Like, we really have to adapt to this mentality in order to cultivate true balance in our lives, that something is better than nothing. And that progress is better than perfection. That's really— and it's so much easier said than done. But really catching yourself and what this looks like for you and what are the small nuanced examples of how this shows up for you. So I'm just giving you some examples from my life, like the supplement one. Also, You know, like with exercise, sometimes I'll feel like it's not quote unquote worth it to go for a walk because I only have 10 or 15 minutes and it's like, well, that's not really— I'm not going to get very far in the neighborhood. That's not a very good walk. Like I should just wait until later in the day or later in the week when I have more time and actually I can actually go for a longer, fuller walk and I can listen to a podcast. And it's this idea of perfection, of wanting to make everything perfect that actually postpones our progress. So I have 15 minutes and I'm choosing to sit on my ass instead of go for the walk because I think that later today or tomorrow I'm gonna cut out 45 minutes to actually go for a walk that will be better and it will be bigger and it will be more perfect in some way. And the idealization of how things should be is so often what stops us from doing anything at all. The same thing happens to me with like the gym, and there's a gym in our building, and it's so perplexing to me of why I do not utilize this more often. And I have a lot of theories. Okay, it's not the biggest gym, it's not the most aesthetically pleasing gym, which actually is important to me and a lot of people, like going to a place that you feel like it has a certain aesthetic that you want to go there, that will make you show up for sure. But anyway, I'm like, this is so bizarre. I literally go to the gym less now that I have a gym in my building. And here's why: because it's easier to tell yourself that you'll do it later. It's easy. The lie of perfection is easier when things are more convenient and they're closer in your reach. It's easier to convince yourself that you could make it better or more perfect later that day or later that week and do it at another time. But what we end up doing is we just keep doing that and then we postpone all of the progress altogether, right? So it's easier for me to convince myself, like, thinking that this is actually real, like, oh, I only have like 20 minutes, so it's not enough time for like a full workout. So I'm not going to go down there and just walk on the treadmill for 20 minutes, which I easily could, right? I'll just— I'll do a workout tomorrow. But then tomorrow comes and life happens and I'm still me and I still work and everything is still busy and there's still not a lot of time and I'm still a procrastinator and I'm still making excuses. So then I do nothing, right? And this is where we have to like catch ourselves out, right? So I need to remind myself like, that's not actually true. It's— it definitely is worth it to go for the 20-minute walk on the treadmill instead of doing nothing at all, because you're lying to yourself by saying that tomorrow it will be better, or you'll make more time, or it will be perfect. And so we discount these micro opportunities for progress because it's not perfect, or it's not how we ideally would like it to be, or how ideally we'd like to be showing up. And so if it's not exactly the perfect morning routine of how our best self would do it, then we don't do any part of it. We wait until we think that we can do it in the way that our best self would do it. But that day is not coming. And that is the, the, the main point that I want to get across in today's episode is that that day is not coming. Your life is not a Pinterest board and it's never going to be perfect and it's never going to look like one. This is the tough love that a lot of us need to hear right now in order to just hit the start button and start doing small micro things for our progress instead of waiting for things to be perfect. You are never going to completely nail the morning routine. That might just be true for you. And what if we, instead of trying to fix that or continue with this lie that someday we're gonna have the perfect morning routine, what if we just accepted that? And instead of trying to do the perfect morning routine, we just did something. The clean girl aesthetic that's all over Pinterest and Instagram, it's a lie. It's a lie because no one's morning and outfit and workout looks like that every day ever. It's fake. It's social media. Stop trying to be like the internet. You are never going to achieve this level of no days off motivation. That's not who you are. It's not gonna happen. If it hasn't happened for you already, it's not coming. You are not going to suddenly become a different person. Who is not forgetful or tired sometimes or bad at time management or who requires some external motivation or who snoozes the alarm 3 times in the morning or forgets to drink water half the time. You are not going to be different. And we keep telling ourselves that we are. You are who you are. So stop waiting to be someone else and just accept the flaws and the quirks and keep trying your best anyway. And instead of lying to yourself that it's going to be perfect tomorrow or the next day or next week or next month, just do the thing that you have the time for right now with who you are and how you are and where you are right now and the resources that you have around you. That is the way that we actually start to build a healthy lifestyle and routine that is balanced. And I'm air quoting balanced because balance is such a weird concept. Balance is not like being healthy and being like super healthy and then being like kind of healthy, which is sometimes the vision of balance that we've been sold. At least I definitely noticed this within myself, right? When you see people talking about balance or trying to showcase or portray or create content about their balance or what balance looks like in their life, it still looks really aesthetic. It's even like the, the, the negative or the bad or the unhealthy parts of the quote unquote balance. It still is elevated. It still is aesthetic. It still is kind of sort of healthy. And so we create this skewed idea of balance in our head that having a balanced lifestyle is being 100% healthy all the time. And then having some days where we're like kind of sort of micro healthy-ish, but like we're disguising it as a cheat, right? So a version of this could be like someone who like eats really healthy all the time, or at least says that they do or shows that they do on social media. And then they talk about balance and they share how they're like having a cheat meal or something, or they're having like a day off. Day off from movement, and their day off from movement is still a 45-minute walk. When for somebody else like you or I, I'm like, that's my movement for the day. Like, that would be so amazing. That's like a goal for me to do a 45-minute walk, right? And maybe their quote-unquote cheat meal is like this gluten-free, dairy-free pizza. And you're like, well, that's— that would be my version of like healthy for me. That would be my goal. So then the idea, the picture of balance becomes so skewed because what other people are sharing as their version of balance really just looks like totally healthy lifestyle all the time. So this is my shtick with the social media kind of internet age of what we've come to understand balance to be. And this is my experience, so I'm owning that. You may have a different vision, version, idea of balance, but for anybody else that resonates with this, I thought that it would be valuable to share because if you felt this or you've noticed this or you've seen this or you didn't even have any idea about it. But now that I'm saying it, you're like, holy shit, that's so true. This could hopefully help some people shift their own idea of what they're actually striving towards when they say they want to cultivate balance in their life. Because if we say we want to cultivate balance, but then we're shown this picture of, quote unquote, balance that isn't actually balanced at all, it's just a completely healthy lifestyle, then when we're actually living in balance, meaning we are enjoying our lives, we're having fun, we're eating the things that we want to eat, even if they're not 100% healthy for us. But then we also have practices that serve us and that are good for our well-being and things like that. When we're actually living in a version of balance, it still doesn't feel like balance to us because we're comparing it to that vision of balance, which is really just like wellness all the time, right? And that's like social media balance. That's not real-life balance. Yeah. So it's okay to not be healthy all the time. And I think some people really need to hear that it is okay to not be healthy all the time. And sometimes being so fearful of the things that are quote unquote unhealthy, whether it's like junk food or fast food or alcohol or coffee or whatever it is, creating fear around those things also contributes to sickness. It also contributes to illness. It is also not beneficial to your overall well-being to be scared of things that are, quote unquote, unhealthy. Being constantly fearmongered about the quality of your tap water or the quality of the meat at the supermarket or dairy or whatever else it is. The fear is also bad for us. And I'm not saying that none of that stuff is true. Of course, we have to look out for our own health in a new way in this day and age because our governments, they don't really have that at the forefront of their mind, right? Money is the most important thing to these organizations. And so that is what allows things to, you know, there's chemicals in our food, there's hormone disruptors. All that stuff is real. Yes, totally. 100%. We have to look out for ourselves and we have to be our own advocate. For our health. But being scared of everything is also bad for you. Being scared of eating certain things, or being scared of enjoying yourself, or being scared of taking time off of movement— that's bad for you. That's not actually healthy. So it is okay to indulge, to have fun, to dabble in those things that, that you maybe used to do or that you want to do or that you are still consistently doing, but some— for some reason you feel guilty about doing them. It is okay. I want that to be very clear. It is okay to live fully, to have fun, to take breaks, to not be on top of everything all the freaking time. And after that, after that sidestep, we get to ask ourselves this question of how quickly can I return to my highest self? Right? How quickly can I return to my highest self? I've had fun, I've enjoyed myself. I've gone out, I've done the things, I've eaten the things, I've drank the things without fear, I've taken time off, I've rested without the fear, without the guilt. And now how quickly can I return to my highest self? Because no matter what side of this, like spectrum you're on, you will get tired of it. If you are so far into like the health and the precision and the rigidity of being a health and wellness queen, you're going to get burnt out from that. And then you're going to want to go over to the other side. And the other side is indulgence and it's eating whatever and it's having fun and it's not moving and it's being on the couch all day or whatever. But then you're also going to get sick of that and that's not going to feel good anymore and you're going to want to come back. So the, the goal that we're always kind of striving for is how do we create that like middle ground so that we don't go so far from one extreme to the other, that we don't go from being health obsessed to like, what's the word I'm looking for, to being like in a rebellion against the health practices. The way that we do that is by allowing both of those parts of ourselves and both of those parts of life and the human experience to be okay. And not labeling one or other as bad or wrong or scary or bad for us, and actually viewing both of them as good for us in moderation, in combination, in coexistence, right? How quickly can I return to my highest self?

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Love you guys. And thanks for supporting Makeshift Happen. And finding balance is so much of a mind game because half of the time the excuses that we make are not even real, right? Like I've shared some of mine, they're not even real. Like I don't have time for a proper workout, so I just won't do anything today. I'll do it tomorrow. Bitch, you had 15 minutes. Go for a walk. Right? I don't have time to eat something healthy. I'll just order Uber Eats tonight. Bitch, it would be just as easy for you and faster for you to throw some frozen fruit and spinach and milk in a blender and add some protein powder and make a smoothie. Right? Like sometimes we really have to call ourselves out. Oh my God, I haven't meditated in 3 months. So it would be weird to just like randomly start today. I'll set a goal to do it for 20 minutes a day and create this whole new morning routine to implement and I'll start next week. Yay, amazing. It's going to be perfect. Bitch, no, it's literally not. You're not going to do that. So stop. Call yourself out. This is the invitation to call yourself out. Where are the lies that you've been telling yourself for months or years or decades at this point about who you are, or the, the new type of person that you think you're suddenly going to become. Where are the lies? Where are the excuses? Where are you choosing this idea, this image of perfection, over true balance and actually just doing something and letting that be better than nothing? That's the tough love of the day. And that's how I feel. And I'm not going to apologize. So that's what it is. The reminder here is that social media is not real life. Pinterest aesthetics are not real life. You are a human being, you are not broken. It is okay. It is okay that you drink coffee and that you like to go out and that you get drunk or that you smoke weed or that you party sometimes or that you go weeks without doing exercise, like it is okay. You do not need to villainize, demonize yourself for those things. Is that how we want to be all the time? No. But by creating these stories about how we're so bad or we're so off track or it's so hard or I'm not that type of person or it's not worth it, I could do a 15-minute walk, but it's, it's not worth it. I'll just start Monday with a whole new routine. The lies need to stop because the lies are what is keeping you stuck. You are a human being. You are not broken. It is okay. Just stop thinking that it should be different or that you're going to somehow be different and work with what you have. Work with what you have and what you know about yourself and what you know about your level of motivation and what you need, what you require in order to get yourself to do If you need external motivation, just fucking own it. If you need an accountability buddy, get one. Stop thinking that you need to be different, that you need to find a different or better way to be motivated. Just be motivated the way that you're motivated and work with what you have. So the idea of asking ourselves this question of how, how quickly could I get back to my highest self? Is not to always be thinking about, I need to be in health 100% of the time, right? I think I've made that abundantly clear in this episode, but it's a valuable question. Once we've taken a sidestep— I'm calling them sidesteps because I don't really like calling it an indulgence or a cheat, because again, that goes along with the narrative that those things are bad and they're not really bad. They're actually part of life and they're part of fun and they're part of enjoyment and for you, they could be part of like your mental health, like being in a fun state or connecting with friends or doing these types of things in some level, in some way is good for us. Being carefree is beneficial to your health, right? So we're calling it a sidestep, but you get what I mean. So the point of that is it's not like, oh, you take a sidestep and now you're bad or wrong for having done that. So you should get back to your highest self as soon as possible. But rather it's just a technique for when you feel that you are ready to get back to your quote unquote highest self, which is your version of like health, wellness, taking care of yourself, finding your, your center point back and meeting yourself in that middle ground of balance where you're living life and also taking care of yourself in the ways that are possible with the time that you have, the resources, your personality, how you know yourself to be. All of that. Okay, so that's the purpose of asking yourself that question. It is not in order to be perfect all the time. It is not in order to shame yourself for having taken the sidestep. It is not to feel bad or guilty about having a sidestep and needing to get back. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But when we've taken the sidestep, sometimes we feel naturally like we want to go back to those healthy routines, or we want to implement something that day because it's good for our mental health, it's good for our physical health. It actually gives us energy. It makes us feel alive. It makes us feel creative. It makes us feel good. It makes us feel focused. So that's a question to ask that will support you in bringing yourself back when you feel from a healthy place that you want to be brought back. Okay, so how soon after the sidestep could you choose one healthy ingredient or one healthy meal? How could you literally stretch your body for like 5 minutes. So the point of it is not like, oh, how could I return to my highest self? Let's make a whole new routine and set unrealistic goals. And starting on Monday, I'm going to do this, that, and the other thing for morning routines. No, that's the thing that keeps us stuck. So instead of thinking big picture, these big ideas of perfectionism with the routine, it's the micro. What could I do right now, super quickly at my desk chair I could take 5 deep belly breaths. Awesome. I've just returned to my highest self right now. So I don't need to create this whole unrealistic vision of a routine or something. It's just a simple, simple thing that has brought me back into my highest self. Maybe it's taking a sip of water or going to refill your water bottle and reminding yourself, oh yeah, I need to hydrate today, right? Maybe it's like you've been scrolling on social media a lot that day and you're like, okay, I'm going to put my phone in airplane mode for a while. Bang! You just returned to your highest self that quickly, that simply. Maybe you're like, okay, I have an hour lunch break. I usually only take 30 minutes anyway. So instead of scrolling on my phone for the other 30 minutes, I'm going to go take a quick walk outside. Maybe it's only 10 minutes, but it's better than nothing, right? Bam! You've just returned to your highest self very quickly. So just choose one thing and do it as quickly as possible. Because that's how we shorten that gap, right? Letting the gap of time between the sidestep and the returning to your version of balance grow larger and larger is only going to make it harder and harder to be— feel like you're in a place of like really taking care of yourself and being in that rhythm of living life, but also living well. Plus, once you do one positive thing, for your health or your well-being, or, you know, that like idea of returning to your highest self, you're so much more likely to do another thing because it's just how it works, right? It's a snowball effect, which is why there's that famous talk from the Marine guy about like making your bed first thing in the morning, because it's psychological. Once you do like one positive thing, you naturally want to do another positive thing. It like builds like momentum and motivation. So once you ask yourself that question, how can I return to my highest self right now where I am with what I have, with the amount of time, with the resources in front of me? It doesn't need to be grandiose. It doesn't need to be dramatic. It doesn't need to be perfect. It doesn't need to be this whole new morning routine, this whole new life, this whole new lifestyle, this whole new anything. It's just, I'm at my desk, I'm at work, I want to return to my highest self. What could I do? Drink water, take deep breaths, like go for a walk on your break, something, right? But making that decision quickly so that it can start to create that domino effect for you, right? So in my opinion, when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle and also not restricting yourself too much. I think it's entirely possible to have your cake and eat it too. And I actually think that's what balance really is. It's not this like beautiful aesthetic, fluffy, super healthy, and then kind of healthy mix that we've been given, that we've been, you know, given from social media that is supposed to be balance, but it's true balance, right? It's having your cake and eating it too. It's taking care of yourself and also having fun and doing the other things that maybe the world or society or social media or the health gurus have deemed bad for you or toxic or whatever, but they fulfill you in some way. And just being okay with holding both of those and letting that be your definition of balance. You don't need to identify yourself as being 100% committed to health or 100% committed to having a good time and YOLOing, right? You can be both. You can do both. You can hold both if you just stopped trying to fit a label or a version of what you think health or wellness or balance looks like on other people. You released the self-judgment and you just accepted what balance looks like on you, in your life, with your habits and patterns, with the things that you enjoy, with your preferred indulgences. If you just stopped trying to fit the box of what it looks like health or wellness or balance is supposed to be, and you actually just allowed balance to be what it is in your real human life and didn't judge yourself for it, you would be in balance. There's a quote that I wanted to share with you, which is, balance is simply being better at boundary management. And for most of us, the boundaries that are at play when it comes to health and wellness and balance is boundaries with ourselves and understanding what am I choosing to believe What are the narratives that I've been fed that I no longer want to participate in? What are the lies that I tell myself? What are the fake excuses that I keep making? How am I postponing my own progress by believing that I'm going to somehow be different someday instead of just starting where I am with who I am and how I am right now? And being able to recognize those things and set the boundaries of this is what I do for myself when it comes to health and wellness, and this is what I do for myself when it comes to life and fun and enjoyment and indulgence and pleasure. And that is my balance. And just being able to hold the boundaries of how much and how deep we go in both of those realms and kind of like maintaining that energy of dipping in and dipping out and dipping in, dipping out instead of the all or nothing, 100%. I was so in my health era and now I'm not. That's— we don't want to be on that roller coaster anymore, right? So balance is simply being better at boundary management. And for most of us, that is going to mean the boundaries with ourselves. All right, you guys, I hope this episode was helpful. I hope it was valuable. If this resonated with you, please take a screenshot, share it to your Instagram stories, tag me at Samantha Daily and at Makeshift Happen Podcast. If you haven't gotten your merch yet, there's still hoodies available, the manifestation hoodies that we're selling. So they're super cute. If you haven't seen them yet, head over to my Instagram. And there's a saved highlight all about the merch, you can check them out. There's white hoodies, there's black hoodies, they say co-creating with the universe on the back. Super cute. Go grab yourself some podcast merch. It helps support the show. I love you guys. Thank you so much for being here. And don't forget, From Burnt Out to Badass is coming back very soon. So if you want to be in the know, click the link in the show notes, Add your name to the waitlist, and I will see you next week. Bye!