Becoming a MORE Amazing Woman in 2025

In honor of International Women's Day, I whipped up this podcast to inspire you.

Here is what I am doing in 2025 to become even more amazing.

Yes, I am already amazing, and you are too.

Before we do the work to improve ourselves in any area, I suggest owning your own amazement.  It just feels good.

On to the podcast!

~Courtney

Interested in working with me? Find my website here: https://courtneygraycoaching.com/workwithme

Transcript

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Music. Welcome to Modern body, modern life, the podcast for women who want to lose weight permanently, feel in control around food and learn how to stop obsessing about their body and food, a modern way of thinking about your weight, your body and your life includes mindset. I'm body and life coach, Courtney Gray, and each week I'm going to teach you the mindset tools that are necessary for changing the way you eat forever. We will uncover why you're eating when you said you were going to stop, what to do when you're really craving something, and how important it is to decide what you want to believe is possible for you. I believe we can get in the best shape of our lives at any age, a modern body, a modern life, all starts in your mind, and when you learn how to manage that, losing weight permanently becomes so much easier. Welcome to the podcast. Episode 68 becoming a more amazing woman in 2025 today is International Women's Day. When I woke up this morning, I did not know that I woke up this morning, and I had intended to record a whole nother podcast that you'll be getting next week. But I was on Instagram, and I just saw a bunch of people posting for International Women's Day, and I thought, Oh my God, I want to do a podcast, even though it's not going to release, it's not going to release until next Tuesday. I thought, You know what? I really want, just from the energy of supporting women and celebrating women. From that energy, I created a whole new podcast for you. When I am creating a podcast, I really am thinking about you, and I'm thinking about my clients, and I'm thinking about what you're struggling with right now, and what you need to hear from me, and how you need to be inspired and and what knowledge that I have, that you might not have that I can give you, but this time, I'm doing things differently. This time I'm just sharing what I'm doing in my life, and I hope it inspires you. I'm going to talk about 10 things I'm doing to continue to become an even more amazing woman. Yes, you heard that right? An even more amazing woman I am acknowledging, like I have done in the past, that I am an amazing woman, and can you say the same for you? I hope you can. I hope you can actually constantly look at your life and you as a person and find your own fabulousness. Number one, I want to be even more intentional with my focus, with what I am allowing into my brain. Bucha said, what you think you become. And I remember the first time I heard that right away. I thought it's so true, what we become, what we give attention to, what we allow into our lives, what we allow into our head, what we allow to focus ourselves on? So what are you giving your attention to? And it really made me think to myself, What am I giving my attention to? I'm pretty aware, but I want to be even more aware and more intentional with my focus. And so let me give you an example. So last night, I was on Instagram for a moment. One of the things I've done in 2024 is I really decided I wanted to be less scrolling, less scroll. Instagram is my favorite. So less scrolling on Instagram. I just didn't want to be on it as much. And so I've done that, which is great. So I feel very controlled on Instagram. But last night, I was on it intentionally. I was taking a moment, and I was just kind of scrolling, and I saw I follow this, guy, comedian that is just hilarious, and all of a sudden he's doing this bit, and it's on Meghan Markle. I have no idea anything about this, but he's doing this bit. I guess she has a new show. I gathered from them his bit and all the 1000s of comments, and so he is basically poking fun at her show. It wasn't too bad he was. It was actually quite hilarious. I feel like I've watched the show just by him doing the bit, and it was just kind of funny. And you know how we do it's it's so interesting. I didn't used to do this, but I find the longer and longer I've been on Instagram, when I like something, I automatically go to the comments. Do you do that? I didn't used to do that years ago, but now this is another one of the reasons why I really wanted to feel more in control over my social media consumption is because not only do I watch the thing, but for some reason, I feel compelled to read random people's comments that I don't know, I don't like, I don't respect, I don't care about, in any way. But yet, I get some kind of dopamine hit just by scrolling through the comments. So maybe you're doing that as well. It didn't used to happen, but that's where I'm at. And so I did a little bit of that, and I was surprised to after about five I just said, Oh, I have to stop. Let me tell you why, because I'm being intentional with my focus. But these five comments I read were just supporting this guy's funny bit, but just. Blasting the shit out of Meghan markles new show. The show is probably already on, because these people women, it seemed like women were talking as if they had watched the show, and they were absolutely, just absolutely blasting it. And I just immediately stopped, and I said, this is what I don't want to do in my life. I don't want to be reading other people's comments, so I stopped. So this morning, when I checked Instagram, I thought it was I checked because I wanted to make a post, and I thought it was fascinating that all the sudden, because I spent a little bit of time in that reel, watching his bit and then scrolling a little bit through the comments, I now am being targeted, not only Meghan markles content, but now I'm being targeted so many people that are not just doing a bit on her show, they are hating on her show. They are saying the most horrible things about her show. And I just put my phone down and I thought, I don't want this in my life. I wish her the best. I I know that there's always going to be haters. That's part of being in a business, especially once you get any kind of following, you're going to get haters. I'm sure she understands that. I'm sure it's no problem. It doesn't surprise me, but I thought I don't want to be a part of it. I don't, and by being a part of it, it means reading through the comments, even though I would never be the type of person that would comment on something like that. I don't want to be a part of it by reading it by scrolling, because the more I give you, know this is interesting. I wasn't I wasn't going to say this, but it just occurred to me that when I'm talking about being intentional with my focus, the algorithm of Instagram shows us what we are focusing on. Right the algorithm, the algorithm of Instagram or Facebook, it tells us what we are focused on by feeding more of it back to us. It really is. When you think about you, what you think you become you. We become what we give attention to. The algorithm is actually a reflection of that, because I gave attention to that last night and today, I was fed a bunch of viciousness about this woman's show, and so I have to actively say, No, I don't want that in my life. So what that's gonna look like is re hacking the algorithm. Next time I go on tonight or tomorrow, I'm going to have to scroll past those things to tell the algorithm I don't want this in my focus. I don't want this in my life, right? If it's gonna, if it comes up to Dr Mark Hyman talking about what to eat, what not to eat, how to be healthy, I'm gonna watch that because I want that. If I'm gonna scroll into something about glass art, I'm gonna stop. I'm gonna watch that because I want that. If I'm gonna hear, if I'm going to scroll past a positive quote, I'm going to heart it, because I'm going to tell Instagram that is what I want my focus to be on. So ask yourself, What are you giving your attention to? And yeah, the Instagram and Facebook algorithm. It is a beautiful analogy for this. What are we giving our attention to? Okay, number two, I want to get better, even better at supporting myself. I feel like I'm pretty good at this. This is what I help my clients do. This is what they learn in my program. But I want to get even better at it. At and when I say supporting myself, I'm not talking about self care. I'm not talking about manicures and walks and baths, right? I'm not talking about your hashtag self care. I'm talking about coaching myself. I'm talking about how do I get better at when I'm feeling anxiety, getting myself out of anxiety when I am feeling stressed about something, can I actually calm myself if I am feeling happy? Can I double down on the happiness if I decide I want to feel more peace. Can I do that? Can I coach myself? How can you have your own back? How can you gain the skill of going from anxiety to calm? My hope is that this podcast is one of the things that helps you do that. Number three, I want to get stronger physically. This is going to help me be an even more amazing woman for the rest of my life, as we age every year, there's the science behind this that shows we get weaker every year. Unless we are actively doing something about this, we have to get stronger, and it is our job to do that. If we are not actively getting stronger, we are actively getting weaker. So to me, what that looks like is moving my body constantly in different ways than I ever thought, and really challenging myself, pushing myself farther than I ever thought was possible. And you have to remember what we think is possible is usually based on our past. If I'm going to get stronger, I have to do more than I've done in my past. So how is that possible? How can I look at as much as I've ever run and run harder or run faster or run longer? How can I continue to lift heavier weights or do more weights or or do different type of weights? It's right. So for me, getting stronger physically is a no brainer, and for you, it should be a no brainer too. Number four, I want to break the fun equals food phenomenon that we are experiencing in modern society, especially here in America. One of the biggest problems we have here in America is the food system is just a mess. And I don't say that. I don't want to be negative on America. I love living in America, but I it is. It is a mess. And so how can we break the food equals fun phenomenon for everyone in the whole world, living in 2025 I want to get better, even though I feel like I'm already good, I've already done a good job of breaking this food equals fun phenomenon, but I want to get even better at it, at being able to be sad and just either processing through sad or coaching myself out of sad without turning to food, right, going to a party and having a the best time ever at a party, because the people that are there I Love, or maybe I don't love them. Maybe I don't know them yet, and I want to, I want to be curious, and I want to meet them and get to know them and build new friendships. But I want to be able to go and not worry about the dessert table. That's not the point. In our society, in 2025 we are so wrapped up in food equaling, fun, food equaling nurturing, food equaling everything. We turn to it for everything. How can we break that? Can we be anxious and identify why and then decide, do I want to change this? Do I like my reasons for being anxious is it? Does it make sense? Do I want to change it, or do I just want to accept it and feel it without eating. So look at your life and think to yourself, do I have a lot of fun tied up in food? And how can we break that a little bit? We don't have to break it all the way. Food is fun. Food is delicious. But right now, it is a phenomenon. I really think that it is significant in our society. It is a part of our problem of why we are all at the weight and at the health we don't want to be is because we think that food equals fun, but there's so many other ways to have fun, and life is so much more fun when you're in a body that you feel good and you're healthy and You feel proud of, I think oftentimes about when I was a kid. I'm almost 48 years old. When I was a kid, food was fun. Back then, we had barbecues and went on vacation and did all the things, but it was not a phenomenon like it is now. Food equals fun. That's not how it was growing up. We didn't eat all day. We didn't when I think about even the youth, like when I was 13 years old, I wasn't going to Dutch Brothers two times a day in between classes, drinking milkshakes. I wasn't eating all the time. I wasn't eating out. It just it wasn't when I thought about a Friday night, it didn't have anything to do with food. It had to do with Rodney, Craig, Chris, John, and I could go on and on. It had to do with hanging out with my friends. And it's so funny, because in this moment, I'm thinking of me at 13, and notice that I said, all the boys. I loved boys. I was obsessed. I loved my girlfriends. Autumn misdeed, you know, I had all my girlfriends too, but I was wanting to hang out with my friends. It wasn't about food as a society. It was different back then. So we need to get back to breaking up a little bit about this. Fun equals food. How can fun be fun and food just be a little bit of the plan. Every once in a while, number five think bigger and better about all areas of my life. Like massively bigger and massively better for what is possible. Again, we oftentimes, when we are looking about what we think is possible for our future, we look and we base it on the past. Like, for example, many of my clients, they'll tell me, Well, I want to lose, you know, 15 to 20 pounds, but in the past, I've only done that when I went on a diet and then so they automatically go to the past. This is so normal. This is so normal. I do it as well. But if we are going to think bigger and better for areas of our life massively bigger and better, we have to not look to the past. We have to be willing to think that something is massively possible for us, and maybe we don't even know how to do it. Maybe we're nervous we're not going to be able to do it. I'm reading a really good book right now, actually, for like, the fourth time, it is called 10x is easier than 2x it's more of a business book, but it is just really helping me think massively bigger about all areas of my life. The concept is that they say, in this book, it's kind of two authors, they say that, like most people do, 2x meaning that they think, Okay, can I, like, double my salary, that I'm. In every year. Or you might think, Okay, I think I'm gonna I want to lose 15 pounds. This happens a lot. Women will come to work with me and they'll say they want to lose 15 pounds, and then when they get to 15 pounds, they're like, I actually would like to lose five to 10 more pounds right in the beginning. The reason why they say 15 pounds is because they really don't believe it's possible that, because they don't believe that they can do that without dieting. So they're thinking smaller, and then when they get there, then they start thinking bigger. And so they realize, Wow, I could actually lose even more. It's an amazing thing. And so this book is helping me, if you have a business, it's an amazing it's more of an entrepreneur book, but it is an awesome book, and it is helping me to think massively bigger about all areas of my life and what is possible, and at the same time, can I enjoy now even more that it's the balance of both. You know, we don't want to sit here and say, I'm going to love my body so much more when I've lost all the weight and then just wait until we've lost all the weight. No, we want to think. I am going to believe that I can get in the best shape at the age I am right now. I'm going to believe that, and I'm going to enjoy now while I am on the journey to it is the balance of both. It's beautiful. Number six, keep figuring out what I want and can this be a fun adventure. So often, I think sometimes we feel like we don't know exactly what we want, and it's more of like a frustration, like I don't really know what I want, and it's loaded with this frustration and this I don't believe what I want is possible, and even if I do think of what I really want, and if I'm honest with myself, and I'm not looking to my past, and if I'm thinking about my future, then I just think I don't even know how to do it and how it's possible we get really it's a little bit torturous. And so what I'm trying to do is keep figuring out what I want with joy and with a sense of adventure. I was talking to one of my girlfriends, Claire, the other day, and I was she and I were messaging back and forth, and I said, I because her husband just retired, and she's working. I think she's working, like one day less a week this year. I think, if I'm remembering that correctly, and I said, let's get on a zoom call. I want to hear what you are filling your days with. I want to hear what you and your husband are doing. I want to be inspired. I want to I want to think more about what I want from my life, from women that I think are amazing. And that's the key too, right? It's like we can look online or hear other people go, Oh, I don't know, whatever. But if we can find people that we think are amazing and people that inspire us and people that we want to be a little bit more like them, I'm like, What are you doing? You know, how can I set myself up to win by following someone else's path, that I think they're living a great life. So I'm really excited. She and I are going to do a zoom call and just talk about, like, what we want to do with our time, where we want to grow. And this time, we're really focused on outside of work, right? We've got worked out. We're doing all the work things, but how can we figure out what we want and have it be fun and adventurous while we're figuring it out. Number seven, I want to be an example of how to think differently. I think I already am an example, but I want to be even more an example of how to think differently, how to do life differently. I want everyone who listens to this podcast to own a thought that I have been thinking for a long time. I'm just getting started. It's such an awesome thought at any age. I want to have this thought someday when I'm very old and I don't do as much moving around, because my body is really starting to maybe limit me. I want to think I'm just getting started. How might that be true? This is available to us at any moment. How would your life be impacted if you allowed yourself to have that thought? I want to be an example to you of how to think differently, and that is one of the reasons why I love this podcast. I love hearing from you. I have so many people tell me that they love the podcast that they're enjoying listening, and they feel like it's changing their life. It means so much to me, and so that is something I want to continue to do. How can I make sure I am like, like, help women light a fire on how to think differently so they can live differently. Number eight, embrace aging. It is a fucking privilege to age. I know that you, just like me, have loss in your life. There are people around you that have passed away. I know there are people around you that have circumstances in their life that are far worse than any hard circumstances that you are going through. And so can we embrace aging and realize it is a privilege to age. It is a privilege to be able to age. Well, aging is happening. I'm all in. I'm not fighting it. It is a privilege, and I'm here for it, and I want to do it well. I want to continue the balance. Of looking in the mirror and seeing that I am aging seeing like specifically for me. Let's break it down. My face is getting more wrinkly. My neck definitely more wrinkly. I see my skin, especially when I do things like downward dog and I look at the tops of my thighs. I see my skin getting crepey. I see myself aging. I'm getting more injured than I ever did when I was playing sports in high school. I see it's happening, right? My eyes are getting I feel like my eyes are getting worse all the time. It's just happening. And you might be a lot older than me, and so you might be like, buckle up buttercup. I get it, I get it right. I'm only I'm almost 48 years old, but it's happening to me. And I want to be like it is a privilege the whole way through. I want to be able to do my best to age well, and at the same time look at myself in the mirror and say, I see the wrinkles, I see the gray hairs. Sometimes I'm going to choose to do something about it, and maybe I won't, but either way, I'm going to look in the mirror and I'm going to be proud of what I'm saying, and I'm going to work on that, and it's a skill set. It doesn't happen overnight. I don't want to hate myself as I age. I don't want to stop looking at myself in the mirror. I've talked to a lot of women, beautiful women, that don't look at themselves in the mirror. They avoid the mirror. I'm not doing that. I refuse because it's a privilege. So can we do both? Can we embrace it and just be like, You know what? I'm not going to worry about this. I'm going to try not to worry about this, but at the same time, do my best to become stronger and healthier. We can do both. And I think that there's so many women that are doing a good job, trying to eat good, moving their bodies all that, and then sometimes they're the ones not looking in the mirror. That's not fair to you. If that's you, that's not fair to you. How can we get better at looking in the mirror and going, I see you? And you know, I sometimes I wish I looked 20, but I don't. And can that be okay? What do I like about myself? Can I see myself the way the people love me see me. Can I realize that it matters to me, but at the same time, it doesn't matter? Can we hold space for both? And there's no right or wrong way to do aging right? You can. You can see people talking about Aging Gracefully. You should do this. You shouldn't do that. I know Pamela Anderson been in the media a lot lately. She's she's not making wearing makeup anymore. And I mean, again, on Instagram, I took a look at some of the comments. And my goodness. I mean, some people are like, you're amazing. Other people are like, she looks disgusting. It's just like, Oh, my goodness. So for me, I want to focus on me. I want to focus on what I'm looking at in the mirror and what the what I'm saying to myself as I'm looking Pamela Anderson, can do whatever she wants. She's a, probably a beautiful human being. If I met her, I'd probably think she's beautiful. And then I could look at someone who has all the things, all is doing all the things. Demi Moore, who is, clearly is doing the makeup in the and probably the Botox and probably the surgeries. And you know what? She's a beautiful human being too, right? There's no right or wrong way to do it. You get to embrace it the way you want to embrace it. Number nine, creating and finding evidence that I'm already amazing on the way to becoming more amazing. Can we just acknowledge that we already are we really are already good enough. We already are worthy enough. We are great as is and but can we get more amazing just for the fun of it, just because it is exciting and it's a challenge, we don't need to be to be more valued. This is all just about having more fun. You're good right now, but what could you do to become even more amazing, just for the fun of it? Okay, that was a quick one. I'm going into number 10. My Word of the Year is connect. And when I say connect, it really is to me, connecting to me and to universal energy. For you, you might say, connect to God. You might say to you, whatever. Who do you want to connect to? What do you want to connect to in order to feel the way you want to feel, in order for me to become even more amazing, in order for me to live an even more amazing life, I have to be connected. I have to be connected to myself. I have to be connected emotionally to my children and my husband. I have to be connected to my clients. I have to be connected to you listening to the podcast, to my purpose of what I'm trying to put out there in the world. I want to just feel like I'm proud of what I am doing with my life. And if I am, if I am connected, if I am feeling proud, it makes everything better. So I am always looking at how to be more connected. I do this through meditation. I do this through journaling. I do this through really being intentional, like number one, being intentional with what I focus on and what I let into my life. And I find that when I feel connected, I make. Better choices. I push myself farther than I normally would push myself. I allowed myself to be scared, and I do it anyways. I allow myself to be worried, and I still make decisions. So ask yourself, do you feel connected? First of all, I guess, decide who you want to be connected to. Is it yourself? Is it God? Is it universal energy? Is it is it your future self? Who do you want to be connected to? What do you want to be connected to? And how can you do that on a daily, day, daily basis? Maybe you want to connect to love, the universal energy of love. And how would your life change if you spent more time there? So it might be fun for you to make your own list of things you're going to do to become an even more amazing woman in 2025 Happy International Women's Day. I think women are amazing, and I celebrate you. Have a great Tuesday. If you are ready to lose weight and keep it off permanently and feel confident and at peace around food. I invite you to head to Courtney Gray coaching.com to learn about how to work with me. I work with women privately, one on one, and I also offer small group coaching. There is a link to my website in the show notes you.