[KATHRYN]: Imperfect Thriving is a part of the Practice of the Practice podcast network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you thrive imperfectly. To hear other podcasts like the Bomb Mom podcast, Beta Male Revolution, or Empowered and Unapologetic, go to practiceofthepractice.com/network.
Welcome to the Imperfect Thriving podcast for all of us women in midlife to discover yourself limiting beliefs, determine exactly what you want your life to look like and the imperfect actions to get you there.
Well, this is the Imperfect Thriving podcast and I’m your host, Kathryn Ely. I’m so glad that you are here with me today. I am pumped about today’s podcast. Today’s podcast episode is all about how to get what you want in 2020 but before we jump into today’s episode, if you enjoy it, please rate, review and subscribe to the podcast. This podcast is designed especially for you. Let me hear from you, what’s working, what’s not working, so I can bring you more of what you want. And if you have not already done so, head on over to my website imperfectthriving.com/course to get your very own Blueprint to Thrive. Now, this is a free email course I designed especially for you to guide you step by step to assess your satisfaction with your current life, determine exactly what you want your life to look like and how to take daily imperfect action to get there. So go to imperfectthriving.com/course and sign up for yours today. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Now let’s jump right in to today’s episode and I’ll start with a few questions for you. Have you always been a people pleaser? Are you not getting what you want out of your relationships? Do you ever have trouble standing up for yourself or do you back down often to other’s wants and needs? If so, this podcast is for you. I’m going to tell you exactly what you must do to get what you want in 2020 in three easy steps. So let’s get started. Step one, become assertive. Well, how do you become assertive? Well, to become more assertive and let’s face it, if you’re not getting what you want, a big dose of assertiveness is exactly what you need. You must become crystal clear on exactly what you want and why you want it. I mean, it’s really difficult to be assertive and stand your ground unless you are clear on what you want, why you want it, and how badly you want it.
So, if you’re not clear on the what and the why underneath it, it’s easy to waver and to lack confidence in your decision-making ability. When you lack confidence in your decision making, it’s very difficult to stand up for yourself and be assertive. Instead you put yourself in a position to be easily influenced or run over by other people. So to become assertive, become clear on what you want. It’s much easier to stand up for yourself when you are crystal clear on what is important to you and why it is important. So how to become clear on what you want and why. Well, I’ll tell you. All you have to do is go to my website and grab your Blueprint to Thrive Quick Start to assess your eight domains. Now your eight domains are those eight major areas of your life and in the Blueprint to Thrive Quick Start that you can download for free at imperfectthriving.com you can use that to assess just how important each domain is and whether you are completely satisfied in each domain. If you are less than 100% satisfied with how a domain looks in your life, then this area or domain needs some attention and care. Maybe a little, maybe more than that. So take the domain and really give it some thought. What do you want here? What would make you more satisfied? What imperfect actions can you take? This assessment will guide you to what is important to you and why.
So, before you can be more assertive, you must know what you want to be assertive about. You want to be assertive and stand up for the things that are important to you. So become really clear on exactly what these things are. So step one is find out what is important to you and why so that you may become more assertive. Step two, value yourself. That’s right. You can’t just figure out what is important to you and stop there. If you don’t think you’re important, if you don’t think you are worthy of having what you want, you will not and cannot be assertive. Now this is really getting down to the heart of the matter. I’ve heard clients in my office tell me time and time again, I’m a people pleaser. To me people pleaser is code for ‘everyone else is more important than me.’ If you tell yourself that everyone is more important than you, you will continue to do what is best for everyone else except yourself. Thinking you are important or worthy does not mean you’re selfish. It doesn’t mean that you are not a nice person and let’s face it, we women in the South put a lot of importance on being nice. We are taught to be a nice, polite lady, which is code for ‘be a people pleaser and avoid confrontation and people will like you.’ Am I right?
So many of us grow up wanting to avoid confrontation at all costs because confrontation is ugly and not ladylike. In turn, we equate assertiveness with confrontation and that is a false equation, guys. It is just not true. You can be assertive and be a likable person. You can be assertive and be non-confrontational, but to do so, you must value yourself. You don’t even have to value yourself more than you value others. You just can’t value yourself less than everyone else. So step one, what is important to you and why? You must know that to become assertive. Step two, you must also value yourself to become more assertive. Step three is teach others how to treat you. Yes, you heard me? That’s right. We teach others how to treat us. How do we do this? Well, we do this by setting firm boundaries and this is how we become assertive with our wants and our needs without being confrontational.
The more we do for others, the more they will let us do, the less we value ourselves, the less others will value us. Let me give you an example to try to hit this point home. How we do for our children and our spouses; if we do everything around the house, all the laundry, all the picking up after everyone, they will not take pride in how they keep their things and how they keep their clothes and how they keep their rooms and how they keep your house. They will leave things on the floor. They will always expect you to spend your time coming around behind them. They aren’t going to all of a sudden change this behavior. Same thing in the office. If everyone in your office can lean on you to take on the projects that no one else wants, they will always do so and in turn you will always be stuck doing those projects.
If you’re in a dating relationship and you’re dating someone who is always late or cancels at the last minute, if you don’t give this person a strong boundary and firm consequences, he or she will continue to treat you this way. You must set boundaries to teach these people to value you and treat you how you want to be treated. Now let’s look at this a little more carefully. If you want more time for self-care, to exercise, then the other people in your house will have to start taking on some responsibilities. Give each person a laundry basket for their room. Tell them what day the laundry needs to be in the laundry room for you to wash or even better for them to wash. Either way, make sure after the clothes are dry, that their laundry makes it to their basket back in their room to be folded and put up. This will free up your time and teach them responsibility that they will be proud of.
So, here’s another kicker. You must know exactly what consequences you’re going to enforce if this task or tasks are not completed in the way that you have explained. If there’s no consequence, the boundary means nothing and it will not help you in any way. The consequence might be no phone for a week or whatever you think is powerful enough to change the behavior. I mean, no kid wants to be without his or her phone. So if it’s not wanting all, if it’s not taking on all the worst projects at work that nobody wants, the next time a project comes up, you must speak up and in a non-emotional way, let everybody know, “I’ve taken all these projects on recently and my plate is full. Someone else is going to have to step up and handle this one.” Then don’t back down when they try to talk you out of it. It may take some time, but coworkers will begin to see that you’re not going to be a pushover anymore.
And with a date who cancels or is always late, you can say, “Look, if you have plans, if you and I have plans for a certain time, I’ll give you five or 10 extra minutes and if you’re not there, I’m leaving. My time is as important as yours and you are showing me that you don’t value my time by showing up late. I’m not allowing that to happen anymore.” And you can believe if you’re at all important to that person, he or she will begin showing up on time. And if they don’t, you know you weren’t important enough to them to begin with and it needed to be over anyway. Even though these approaches are non-confrontational, there will be some pushback from others because you were making it so easy for them to get exactly what they wanted before. So there will be some pushback. It may take a little bit of time, but it will work if you stay in your ground.
So, let’s recap to get exactly what you want in 2020 you’re going to have to become more assertive and to become more assertive, this is how you do it. Step one, be clear on exactly what you want. Go to imperfectthriving.com and pick up your Blueprint to Thrive Quick Start and it will guide you through this. Step number two, value yourself. No one can do it for you. It has to start with you. When you value yourself, others will pay your price and they will value you as well. Step three, set clear boundaries and know exactly what the consequences are for others breaching those boundaries. That is very important because a set boundary is no good whatsoever. It’s just a big fat waste of time if you don’t know exactly how you’re going to enforce it, when someone steps on your boundary. This teaches others exactly how to treat you and like I said earlier, if you have been a people pleaser, your whole life and all of your relationships, it’s going to take some time to reprogram how others think of you, but it can be done. It absolutely can be done.
I am so glad that you’ve joined me here today for this episode. So if there’s one imperfect action I would encourage you to do today, it’s go to imperfectthriving.com and download your Blueprint to Thrive Quick Start to evaluate in what parts of your life you are fully satisfied and in what parts of your life you need some love and care and attention paid to. By doing that, you can begin to have a very clear picture as to exactly what’s important to you and why. This is the first step into standing up for yourself, being more assertive so that 2020 is the year that you have the life that you want and after you do that, pat yourself on the back. Celebrate the fact that you took action toward the life that you want and until we meet back here next week, go out and find a friend or a loved one to add to our community, striving towards our best lives, supporting and nudging each other along the way. Share the website and the podcast with them and take imperfect action towards your best life.
If you love this podcast, will you rate and review it on iTunes or your favorite podcast player? Also, I have a free nine-part Blueprint to Thrive email course. It’s a step by step guide to find out what you want your life to look like, exactly what’s holding you back and how to get to that life you want. Head on over to www.imperfectthriving.com/course to get the course today.

This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, Practice of the Practice, or the guests are providing legal, mental health or other professional information. If you need a professional, you should find one.