So You Want to Change Your Life

In this episode of 'Even Here, Even Now,' I explore the concept of changing your life through a framework of radical self-responsibility and self-love. Fresh from a wild sales call experience where I was dumped for not being "driven" enough when I expressed a great love for my life as it is now (even as there were aspects that I'm working on), I reflect on the problematic nature of sales techniques that prey on our pain points and instead advocate for a more compassionate approach to self-improvement. 

I dive into the importance of having 'change conversations' with ourselves to identify what isn’t working and to align actions with our personal desires and capacities. Through personal anecdotes and professional insights, I aim to guide you in making meaningful changes in your life from a place of deep trust and care.

If there is one thing I know it's that you can love your life and want to change something, without beating yourself up or reverting to using shame as a motivator to get where you want to go.

00:14 The Sales Call Experience 🤭

02:20 Understanding Change Conversations

03:21 The Roost Change Framework

06:09 Personal Reflections on Change

11:20 Next up for me: Pouring more energy into my busines

19:48 Concluding Thoughts on Self-Trust and Change

You can't stay on your own side if you don't know what your needs are in the first place. Tend is a 12-week season where you'll learn to notice and name your needs, build unshakeable trust that they're legitimate, and stay by your own side, even when everything in you wants to self-abandon. 

Spring cohort starts March 27, doors close March 20—join me at maraglatz

Transcript

Mara Glatzel 1:20

Hello. Hello. Welcome back to even Here, even Now, a needy podcast with Mara Gla Zel. And today's episode is called, so You Wanna Change Your Life? And I am coming to you live fresh off of a sales call with a guy who was selling to me. I consented to be sold to, um. But it was somebody who I had, uh, been contacted by to talk to about something for my business and I was curious about it. So I hopped on the call with him and partly, and he was really good. I will say he was really good at his job and I've been in the online business world for a minute, IE 15 plus years, and I. Am very familiar with the sales technique around really nailing into and honing into somebody's pain points as a way to, um, just like get them to, to commit, to like dig deep, to commit and. I am super hip to the fact that lots of people do that. And I also know and understand from a psychological perspective that lots of people do that because it is, it works, right? It is profitable and yet, and yet, uh, it felt really grimy It felt really grimy because here I was coming to this call with like the genuine intent to change something, the genuine desire, the enthusiasm to change something. And that was a driver, that was enough of a driver for me. I'm very attentive to the uses of my precious resources. Like I don't jump in or, flounce about, I don't have the shiny object syndrome that I used to have, right? I'm really focused. And so by the time I came to this call with this guy, I was like, I had already thought about it a fair amount. I had already decided that it was worth my time, energy, and attention to get on the call with this guy. So. This month in roost, we are talking about having change conversations, which is essentially a state of the union conversation that you have with yourself about what's not working and the way that I teach, how to have a change conversation, roots that conversation, certainly in reality, certainly in truth, being honest with yourself about what you want. What's not working, why it's not working, what you wanna do differently and why. Right. You know, when we want to take some sort of action in our lives, it is really important to be sewn into, like really hooked into our why, because when times get tough, that's the thing that. We lean back on, right? That's the thing that keeps us going when our natural motivation or energy for something has run out as it so often does. And so I wanted to share the roost change framework with you and also like put it within the context of this story, of this conversation that I had with this guy, which was hilarious. The change conversation framework that we play within in roost really has to do with being in right relationship with yourself, taking radical self responsibility for your needs, for your wants, for your life, your very life, for your body, for all of the things and. Doing the work of being aligned with yourself and rebuilding your self trust, so that that can happen in a way that is nonjudgmental. And loving. I believe that we can approach ourselves and change our lives from a place of self-love. And yet what we are sold as lit, quite literally sold as these primary motivators are like breaking ourselves down. It's a teeny, tiny pieces so that we are just like so intimately. Enmeshed in our pain points, and that only then will we take action on our own behalf. And what happens when we approach change in this way is that we're always on this rollercoaster of ignoring ourselves or breaking ourselves down into teen and tiny pieces to beating ourselves up for dipping deep into the well of self-loathing. So much so that it ricochets us right out into a change that is rooted more in fear of how bad we are or how bad our life could be without that thing, then it is from a place of. Genuine, mature self love and self responsibility, like my life is mine to take care of. And if I wanna see certain things change or certain things be different, what am I ready, able, and willing to do to that end? Like genuinely, I. What am I ready, able, and willing to do differently? Because for sure nothing's gonna change or very little's gonna change if I am not willing to do something different in order to have that thing. So that's the framework, right? What do I want? Why do I want it? And what am I ready, able, and willing to do differently? In order to have it, in order to create it, and this is like really fun, really fun in there that what am I really ready, able and willing to do differently in order to have it. So as I was teaching the Roost workshop this past week, I was looking through my curriculum and I happened upon my notes from last year, and something that was really fun and extremely heartwarming to behold was that last year I had written extensively about something that I have taken a lot of responsibility for, and affected a lot of change around in my own life in this past year. And I hadn't remembered writing those things and I hadn't remembered having that conversation with myself. But as I, as I sat down with it I really felt so deeply the why of it both what wasn't working, what was so hard about the circumstances that I was in, and also. The why, like the hope, the dream for the future of my life, which I feel incredibly grateful to say many of these things have come to pass over the course of this last year, and I feel incredibly freaking grateful. Like it is as good as I hope that it would be. And wow, what a feeling that is. And. What's so interesting about this process is that at some point, like I must have written that was May, and then at some point in the summer, I remember having a conversation with my sister that was like, well, I have done absolutely everything to change this thing, and nothing has happened. I'm very upset, very dramatic. Nothing has happened, and. I had to laugh at myself because when I really sat down to think about it, it was like I had talked about it a lot. I had cried about it a bunch. I had written about it in my journal. I had written about it in this changed conversation. I had wanted it, I had flirted with some things to the end, but I had not been willing to pursue it with any amount of grit or consistency. What I had been unwilling to do was like, let it be really freaking boring and take time and be devoted to it day after day for, you know, many days, right? Even when I was well and good past the dopamine hit of the excitement of starting a new thing. So that's the first piece. It's like when we wanna change. When we really wanna change, what is it specifically? And no, we cannot change everything all at one time. You're just one human being. You're not like a magician. You're just one human being. So the first piece is what do you wanna change? The second piece is why genuinely, why both. What is sucking about this? If you feel like delving into the pain points, you are welcome to. But I do not believe, please hear me say, I do not believe it is necessary to press your own pain points, to break yourself down, to dip into that sea of self-loathing in order to affect. Really positive and profound change in your life, but as you're answering that why question, some of that might show up like, Hey, I want this to be different. I want this to feel different and not because, and have the change come from not because I hate myself, or I feel shame, or I feel bad, but because I love myself and I want more for myself. Than what I have been offering myself previously. Right? I'm willing to take action on my own behalf out of genuine care for affection, for love for myself, and I know, you know, like self-love as a whole thing. Some people find self that concept of self-love to be really inaccessible and I totally get it. I have been there. I am personally. All in on self-love, and I want you to love yourself. That's my top secret agenda of all of my work. I want you to love yourself so much. You are so lovable, you are so easy to love. But if self-love feels really difficult to get to or to dig into at this time, totally fine. I think that we can get pretty far. In and around the neutrality of it's my responsibility to take care of my life like it is my, I am the tender steward of this operation. I am the benevolent leader of this operation. By operation, I do mean like the ecosystem. If you see me, I'm doing a kind of like a large swooping hand gesture. The ecosystem that is my life, that is my body, it has, is my relationships. That is all of my many competing needs, it's my job to be responsible for those things. And out of the desire to show up for myself well, and from a place of respect and care there's, we can get pretty far in that too. Um, if love feels like a bridge, a bridge too far for you right now. So back to this year's change conversation. So this year's change conversation that I had with myself was around. Changing some things in my business and over the course of the last couple of years, if you've been here for a while, you'll know that my business was going gangbusters for quite some time. I've been in business for, you know, many years. Um, and I really had to pull back and slow down on many aspects of my business in and around. At the time of taking care of my partner's best friend, uh, who was terminally ill with cancer and for whom we were the primary caregivers. And part of the, for much of the year cookie was not living with us. I was taking care of the kids by myself. The kids were little. We also had a puppy also. My book was coming out. I was doing the final edits. It was a very. Thin time and burnout was very available to me and I, it required me utilizing every tool in my toolkit to, to hold myself together during that time. And part of that was being really honest with myself about what had to give and what had to give was pouring all of my energy into my business. Because when my kids were sick or they didn't go to school or all of these things, there was no childcare and there was no, no ability to do things differently. So, you know, because of that, my business naturally got a lot smaller for a period of time, and I have over the course of this last year really been starting the process again, of building it back up and. What I will say about that is it's really humbling to do, it's really humbling to have had what you perceive of as some amount of success in an area of your life and then have to forfeit it for whatever reason, and thank God because of this work, I feel. So solid. In those reasons, I feel zero self-loathing, zero self-judgment around the decisions that I made. To that end, they were right and good and like just spot on in terms of what I needed. I. But it can be totally in alignment and there can be grief there, there can be big feelings there. There can be like, oh man, I had this whole thing figured out and now here I am again. Back at the beginning. Raise your hand if that feels familiar. I know so many of us have that experience. And yet we're not back at the beginning. In those moments, we carry with us everything that we have known and achieved and lived through and made happen over the course of our entire life until up until that moment, even though the moment itself might feel really familiar. So as I was doing my change conversation with myself this year in May. I was having a real state of the union conversation with myself about my business and about how it is totally okay that it has been what it is for this period of time and also I need to grow it and breathe life back into it. Part of that's bringing back my podcast. Part of that is showing up more frequently in emails showing up more frequently on social media offering different kinds of things at different levels and just like breathing life back into my business. So zoom forward to this conversation that I have with this guy and god love him. He was doing his darndest. Like I, I just, I didn't need to do the whole thing. I didn't need to do the whole thing where I did my whole sob story and, you know, I talked about how hard it is and how much how rebuilding my business would make such an impact on my life and on my, like I, I. Am very familiar with those things and the absolute truth of the matter is that my life and my business are really awesome. I'm not starting from a point of, this is so sad. This is so terrible. I feel. Incredibly proud that I had built a business to the point where it could sustain me through such a thin time and come out on the other side as anything at all. Right? There were multiple years where I didn't have the capacity to, I. Do any kind of organic marketing, any kind of outreach, like I just didn't have it in me to do more than be an awesome coach and teacher to my clients, which like is the game, right? That's the job, that's the gig. But I didn't have it in me to do anything above and beyond that and. You know, of course without that particular kind of attention, that organic reach withers, because you're not feeding it, you're not nourishing it. I feel really proud that business, that my business has withstood all of that and inattention from me because. I just didn't have it available to give, so it's not a sob story. I didn't show up to that call with a sob story. I showed up to that call with an interest, with an excitement, with a desire, it is my absolute belief that is enough to change everything. That you don't have to prove that you are willing by excavating all of your wounds. I just politically, personally, professionally, don't believe in hammering hard into people's pain points to sell your work. That's just never gonna be my thing. I am. Uh, incredibly, incredibly aware that that is a powerful, converter. That is a powerful sales technique. And also it is just against my personal ethics to. Do that. Not that I'm not willing to have a conversation about what isn't working. Like that's, that's a part of it. Absolutely. But, you know, I don't think that we have to press into what hurts and break ourselves down into little bits in order to say yes. So I was on the, the line with this guy and he was basically like. What's horrible about your life right now as it relates to the fact that your business is not as flourishing as it could be. And I was like, well, you know, I mean, like, uh, to be honest, my life is really great. Like I, I really like it. And he was like if your life was just like this for 18 months down the line how terrible would it be? I'm like, I mean, I genuinely. Genuinely would be so lucky to be living this life 18 months down the line. That is my genuine feeling. And you know, if for some reason this business no longer works or no longer meets my needs, like I have such, I have developed such trust in myself that I will would figure it out. I've been working for myself since 2012, so I full time so. I can't imagine that I would work somewhere else, but I certainly could. I have plenty of skills. I have a degree. But the self-trust piece, it's like I just don't need to hammer in to how bleak it would be if I didn't take action. That is not what genuinely motivates me as a person. And so he got all like, you know, whatever and decided we were not a good fit because I, he only likes to work with people who really have it in them. And then brought up an fat phobic, weight loss example. And I just. Was further evidence that it wasn't a good fit. But I got off the call thinking, I have to hop on and record a podcast right now because you can change your life. You can change your life. I believe that absolutely. I believe in your capacity to change. Absolutely. And I don't think that we need to plunge ourselves into that well of self-loathing in order to affect change and learning a new way, learning a new way of being in relationship with ourselves that is built on deep trust, deep responsibility, deep stewardship of what is ours to tend to. It is such a game changer unto itself, and it, the feeling is so different inside of it. It's like I can make decisions. I can tell myself the truth without fearing retribution or without fearing that I'm gonna get beaten up for it later or without fearing that I am an unsafe person. To tell the truth to just me and myself, right? That I can't hold that truth with kindness, that I can't respect that vulnerability. With kindness, we can develop that sort of relationship with ourselves, and when we have that self-trust rebuilt, we are able to engage in these change conversations that allow us to get really honest, Hey, what's not working? What's not working, you know, and in some ways that that dude bro was right, like when I have that changed conversation with myself about my business, what was abundantly clear is that there have been things that I have been unwilling to do to grow my business. One of the things that I'm unwilling to do to grow my business is to make you feel like shit in order to buy my stuff. That's ethically a line that I will not cross. But there are other things that are just like cringey that I just. Have thoughts and feelings about, and I'm in the process of negotiating with myself what I am ready, able, and willing to do to the end of growing my business again, and what that might look like, genuinely look like. To put effort into that, to do that consistently, to show up for what I say that I want. Otherwise, I have no business saying that I want it. Right. That is how self-trust works. That when I say, Hey, this is what I want to put my energy into. If I am also saying, but I'm not gonna do anything, I'm not actually gonna change anything to have it. Are you kidding me? No. I just wanna sit here, wait till it comes to me. I know we all know that's not gonna happen. I mean, I know we all have done that. I've done that as I've just said multiple times. Um, but, uh, building a relationship with yourself where you can be honest, where that self-trust is so evident is the piece, is the game changing piece because then you are able to affect change from a place of genuinely wanting. Better or different for yourself, not because you think you should, not because somebody else said that it was right and good, not because it matches somebody else's standard of success or ideal of beauty, but because it is something that you want for yourself, that you have defined on your own terms, that you are intimately hooked into understanding why you want it, and that most importantly. You are already able and willing to do something differently in order to have it. So thank you for hanging with me while I shake loose from the spell of that sales call. You all will be proud of me. At the end I was like, you know what, it's not a good fit. Gotta get off. Gotta get off the line. And that was hard too, right? That was hard too because what he was offering. Was something that was really seductive for me, for the part of me that just wants it to be easier, wants it to be out of my hands, wants somebody else to take care of it, and it was such a good reminder that, um, abdicating my own self responsibility to that end, never works. It has never one time worked in my life and I am willing to bet that it has never worked in yours either. But what does work? What does work? Is staying low, staying close to the ground, staying open, staying connected to yourself, really operating from a place of self love, of rebuilding self trust and making change in your life that you genuinely desire for your own reasons. That looks, however it looks, you know, in a way that would be. Success as defined by you and that you are ready, able, and willing to do something differently finally, in order to have it. All right, I'll see you next time. Bye.