[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.
Hi y’all. This is the Imperfect Thriving podcast and I’m your host, Kathryn Ely. I’m so glad you are here today. I’m fired up about today’s podcast and if you are a new listener, welcome. I’m going to do everything I can to make this time well spent. So will 2020 be your best year yet? Not unless you unlearn these three important things. Today we are going to take a deeper dive into the three limiting beliefs that I see most often in my practice. These limiting beliefs can so easily keep you from your best life. By the end of today’s podcast, you will know the three things you must unlearn to make 2020 your best year yet. Yes, you heard me; unlearn, 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. So let me hear from you. What’s working? What’s not working?
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Now let’s jump right into today’s episode. Now, we all have beliefs that limit us, that get in our way of taking imperfect action toward the lot that we want to have. Through my private practice in counseling and coaching of many women and some men as well, I have found, for women especially, that there are three very common limiting beliefs that most of us share now. These beliefs are very embedded in our brains and affect us and the decisions we make every day. You must unlearn these deeply embedded limiting beliefs if you want to make 2020 your best year yet.
The first limiting belief you must unlearn is a big one and it is as women, we should spend all of our time putting others first. Who says, now you know, we have been conditioned to believe this by society, by the examples of generations of women who came before us and even by some men and maybe even some of it is instinct, especially when you first have children. If you have children, you might remember what it’s like to have a newborn. I remember feeling so much guilt anytime I left my baby that I could hardly stand it and it wasn’t as if I was going out partying every night. It would be to run to the grocery store or to take a shower. So I was riddled with guilt the entire time I was gone. Did anybody else feel that way? So I do know that it’s natural and instinctual to a certain extent at first, but as our children get older and we don’t need to be as hands-on for them to survive, it’s not helpful to us or to our loved ones, for us to believe that we must always be caring for other people over ourselves.
Now, I’m the first one to admit that I lived this way for a long time. When I quit my part-time legal career to stay home with my three children full time, I was the queen of spending all of my time caring for my family. I thought if I was quitting my job to stay at home, then my children, my husband, and my home were supposed to be my job, that I was going to care for them better and more than anyone else ever has in the history of history and that I was going to do it all and work for nothing. Nothing for myself. Well, let me just tell you how that went. I put everything into my kids, my husband, and my home, and invested absolutely no time and energy into myself. And what was the result? Well, I did too much for my children. I did things that in hindsight, I wish I had let them do themselves because they learn by doing. By doing everything for everyone, I also taught them that they were more important than me. Yep. We teach others how to treat us and if we’re always available to do for others, we teach others that we are not as important. Our time is not as important as theirs. And if I’m the only one who always does the laundry, then I’m the one always expected to do the laundry.
So, when we don’t invest time and energy into ourselves, we become shells of our former selves, helping everyone else go out into the world and live their best lives while we slowly but surely forget to ask ourselves, “What do I want? What do I need? What do I want to learn, read, do?” So to make 2020 your best year yet, you must unlearn that you should be spending all of your time caring for others. If you do, you will become a shell of who you are and not be giving your best to anyone. You know, I heard somewhere, I can’t remember where that we should give from our saucers and not our cup. And I absolutely love that, and it’s so true. Whatever time you invest in yourself, and it is an investment, will reap benefits for you and everyone in your life because you will be happier and more fulfilled. So that is the first belief that you must unlearn this year, that women as women, we must spend all of our time caring for others and doing for others.
Now, the second thing you must unlearn to make 2020 your best year yet is, and it goes hand in hand with number one, self-care is not selfish. Not only should we not spend all of our time caring for others, but it also is not selfish to spend time on your own self-care. Now, I talk about domains a lot, and remember a domain is just a fancy word for an area of your life. Now, mental and physical wellbeing and self-care, in my opinion, is the domain that we should all pay attention to first. If this domain is where you need it to be, meaning you’re putting effort and energy towards your own physical and mental health in every other aspect of your life will be better off. Every relationship will be better and you will be a much better caregiver to others. Skip this domain, thinking you are selfish for caring for yourself and every other area of your life will suffer. What do you need to do in your life to take care of yourself? Go to doctor checkups? Yes. Get out and connect with friends? Absolutely. Spend time planning and preparing good food? Yes, yes, yes. Exercise, get moving? Absolutely. Yes to all of what you need to do to recharge and take care of you. It is not selfish to spend time caring for yourself. It is necessary. So right now, decide that you are going to unlearn that self-care is selfish. So, the first two are you do not have to spend all of your time caring for others, and second, self-care is not selfish.
Now, the third one is huge, bigger than big and it is, I must be perfect or I must do something perfectly the first time I do it. You might not even be aware that you are even limiting yourself by this rule, but I bet to a certain extent you are. How often do you think of something that you want to do or try in your life but stop short of actually trying it even one time? If you have thoughts of trying new things but never try them, I can assure you that perfection is the problem. Now our brains are very tricky that way. Our brains are designed to protect and keep us from harm. They’re designed to look for trouble lurking around every corner, which back in our cavewoman days when there was an animal that could kill us lurking around every corner, this was a very helpful thing that our brain did. But now trouble does not lurk around every corner, yet our brains have not caught up to this change. And when I say our brains protect us from trouble, it’s not just physical danger. Our brains protect us from mental and emotional danger too. So our brains also protect us from failure by telling us we are not ready to try to do something new because if we try and we fail, this feeling of failure hurts. This potential feeling of failure keeps us from trying.
So, I’ll give you an example. Your brain may have the idea, I want to start a new business in 2020 but then your brain will tell you all of the reasons why you are not ready to do this. It might be you haven’t learned enough about marketing. Even if you have, it might be you haven’t looked at enough locations, even though you’ve looked at 20. Your brain thinks that it’s being helpful in keeping you safe, but it isn’t. It is keeping you stuck, keeping you from acting on what you want because of the chance of failure. If I could, I would personally remove the word failure from the human language. We learn by doing. If you never try, you can’t learn all you need to learn by thinking. You must actually do and you must do things time and time again to get better at doing them. You can think all day long about how to ride a bike and how to talk to your child about riding a bike, but until your child gets on that bike and falls over on that bike, he or she will not be able to ride a bike.
So, the way you learn to ride a bike is the same way you learn to do everything. It’s by doing and by not doing it perfectly. By doing it better next time and the next. To make 2020 the year of the best you, you must help your brain get past the thoughts that you must be perfect, that you must wait to do something until every single thing is in place for you to succeed with flying colors the very first time you try something. If this is the case, you will never try anything new or scary or wonderful. So if you want to make 2020 the year of the very best you, you must unlearn these three things that have been holding you back.
Number one, as women, we must always put ourselves first. Go ahead and get this out of your head. Number two, self-care is selfish. Number three, “I must do everything perfectly the first time.” If you can unlearn these three self-limiting thoughts, you will set yourself up for 2020 being the best year of your life so far. Really, if you stop telling yourself these incredibly limiting beliefs, the sky’s the limit. Well, really the sky isn’t even the limit. There is absolutely no limit to what you can do in 2020 if you let go of these beliefs once and for all.
I am so glad you have joined me today for this episode. Today you have learned the three most important things you must unlearn to make 2020 your best year yet. So the one imperfect action I encourage you to do today examines how these three things you have learned have been holding you back. How often did these beliefs get in your way and stop you from acting toward what you want your life to look like? Decide that you are no longer going to listen and be led by these beliefs. And when you do that, pat yourself on the back, hear those trumpets, see the confetti falling from the sky, celebrate the fact that you took action toward the life you want. And if you want more help with this, go to imperfectthriving.com/course and sign up for your Blueprint to Thrive. Until we meet back here next week, go out and find a friend or a loved one to add to our community of women striving toward 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 finding 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 regard 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.