Getting Great at Prioritizing Yourself

In this episode, I’m talking about something that sounds simple… but is actually one of the most important skills you can build if you want to create what you want in your life.

Learning how to truly prioritize yourself.

I share some of the most common thoughts I see that keep women stuck, things like feeling selfish, worrying about letting people down, or believing your value comes from what you do for others.

And what I want to offer is that it’s not your schedule that’s the problem...it’s the way you’re thinking about yourself and your role in your life. 

This episode is really about shifting those patterns.

Moving from guilt and obligation… to intention and self-respect.

I also talk about why this is harder than it sounds. Because prioritizing yourself isn’t just about taking baths and slowing down, it often requires doing hard things, setting boundaries, and being willing to feel discomfort.

But when you start doing this work, everything changes.

You show up differently in your life, in your relationships, and in the way you take care of yourself.

If you’ve been feeling like you’re always last on your own list, this episode will help you start changing that in a way that feels grounded, doable, and empowering.

I currently work with women privately to achieve their health, mindset, and body goals.  I would love to offer you a consultation HERE to discuss the changes you want to make to create more joy, health, and peace in your body and life.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Bob, welcome to modern body, modern life. The podcast for women who want to feel powerful, healthy, strong and confident, inside and out at every age. On this podcast, we talk about becoming a woman who is fully in control of her eating and movement, so weight loss, strength and energy become permanent. We also talk about something bigger, becoming the woman who takes her deepest desire seriously and goes after more in every area of her life. I'm body and life coach Courtney Gray, and I believe you can get in the best shape of your life at any age, and when you do, it becomes a catalyst for everything else, your relationships, your confidence, your joy, because when you feel like you and your body, all of life gets better. Let's get started. Welcome to the podcast episode 127 getting great at prioritizing yourself. If you are going to get what you want in any area of your life, you're going to have to get better at prioritizing yourself. You're gonna have to get great at prioritizing yourself. So this podcast is going to be wonderful for you if you feel like you're just simply not good. Maybe you know in your heart you're not good at prioritizing yourself. And this podcast is going to be great if you feel like you're pretty good at it, but you'd like to get better. So often I hear this from a lot of my clients, is that they feel like it's kind of inherently selfish to put themselves first, to take more time for themselves, when they have a busy family life to do what they truly want to do, especially if it's not actually, quote, unquote, benefiting anyone else, like playing tennis, I talked about that last week, or like spending time doing yoga, when sometimes we get wrapped up in thinking like this isn't helping everyone else. So I really shouldn't be doing it. And what you're going to hear on this podcast is the way we think about ourselves, the way we think about what we want to do, what we want to prioritize is going to be deter, is going to determine what we end up prioritizing. And the beautiful thing is, is that you can decide to think something different. So I'm really hoping with this podcast, you'll recognize a few of these thoughts that like, Oh, I've had that one before, and then you can actually see how possibly it's keeping you from being great at prioritizing yourself. Because I'll just tell you right now, I really believe that putting myself first makes the world better. We all have seen the stewardess when we board a plane show us how when we put our own oxygen mask on first, it enables us to help the people around us. And we understand that conceptually. We understand that, oh yeah, if there really was a change level, a change in oxygen, in the in the cabin, if we pass out, we're no good to anybody. But so we understand why that's that's valuable. But then, when we look at our own life, and we see like us doing yoga instead of reading a book to our kids, or maybe we're making more time to go for a walk, and we're having to say no to this or that, we don't really see how, by us not doing that, how it's a negative to other people, right? We don't, we don't consider us taking a walk is us putting our oxygen mask on, because if we don't take that walk, we're not going to lose oxygen and pass out and not be able to make dinner for everyone. So we understand hypothetically the scenario, but we have a hard time applying it to ourselves. So I want to really dive into some of the most common thoughts that I hear from my clients and other ways of thinking that hopefully will help you become better or get really great at prioritizing yourself. So here are some of, I think, the most common thoughts. The first one is pretty basic. It's selfish to put me first. There are some women that feel that way, and sometimes it's simply because that's what they were taught from whoever raised them, usually, another woman, right? Historically, this was kind of our breeding, what we were taught to do. It's so funny. I'm watching I just love the show bridgerton. And I'm watching it again from the beginning, because I love it that and Outlander. I'm like, What do I feel like tonight? Outlander or bridgerton? I just love them both so much. And we can see throughout history how women's like, main job is to be like, of service to her family and her husband. Like, I'm watching, I rewatched episode one, and Daphne's talking to her mom, and she's like, or talking to Simon someone, and she's saying she's like, this is what my whole life is about. It's finding a good match and getting married and having children and really being of service to them. And I think this, I think one of the reasons why I love watching these, these historical shows, is it, part of it just makes me so grateful to be alive now. I don't think I would have done well back then. I don't know that I would. I would have been like, what's going on here? Right? I. So here's here are some of the thoughts. Okay, so the first one is, I It feels selfish to put myself first. Here's another one. If I say no, I'm letting people down. Ooh, that's a big one. I say yes, when I truly mean no. Here's another thought that is so common and it gets in the way of us prioritizing ourselves, they disagree with what I'm doing. They meaning your family, your friends, your kids, people in society. They disagree with what I'm doing. And because we have that thought, we don't do what we truly want to do. We don't prioritize ourself. The next one is, my value comes from what I do from others. My value comes from what I do for others. This one is more subconscious, because I don't know that this one, this one isn't one that is on top of mine. We're not walking around going my value comes from what I do for others. But it's more of a subconscious belief. It's the reason why we don't prioritize ourselves. It's why we prioritize others. Because we feel like we are a producer. We are a doer. We have to do all the things for everybody, and if we're not, we don't really feel valuable. We are getting our value from what we are doing for others, not from ourself. People will think I'm rude. That's a big one. If I do truly what I want to do, if I prioritize my wants and desires, people will think I'm rude. The next one, I don't want to be a burden. So often people think I don't want to be a burden. By saying, This is what I'm going to do, this is what I want. Can you dropped me off earlier. Hey, I'm leaving earlier. Hey, this isn't gonna work for me. It's like we are a burden by really speaking our truth, by saying what we want to do for ourselves. The next one I hear a lot is I should be able to handle this all without help. This is also one that's a little subconscious. I know that there are so many of you listening that are like, Oh yeah, that's me. I think I was this way for many years. I should be able to handle it all without help. I think I told a story a few weeks ago about when I would do the farmers market every week, and I would be I would come home after like, a nine hours at the farmers market, and depending on the weather. If the weather was 70 degrees, it wouldn't be a big deal. But if the weather was 103 and I was standing out in that weather, and then I packed my car up and I came home, I would not want to ask anyone to help me unpack my car. Not only do I have a husband that is completely capable of doing all of it, I would have three boys that once they became 11, they were completely able to do all of it, but I didn't want to ask anyone to help me. I felt inherently, subconsciously, like my value depended on me doing everything, even if my husband slept in and golfed and took a nap, I felt like, no, no, I'm not going to ask anyone to help me. It's madness. But I wasn't prioritizing myself when I got home from the farmers market, until I learned how to let go of some of the reins and realize I could ask for help and prioritize myself and say yes to me, especially after a long day of work, right? It's like here I had that evidence that I had worked. I was the only one in the family on a Saturday morning that was working my ass off, and I didn't think it was enough, until I finally decided, oh, I need to start believing something different here. I need to start believing I can come home and say yes, please. I'd love for you to unload my car. I didn't even have to ask. I just had to say, yes, thank you. Okay, the last one that gets in the way of women prioritizing themselves so often is I have to do all of these things in order to earn time or rest for myself, or in order to earn time, like to do whatever it is I want to do whatever. I want to be a priority. I have to do all of this first. And we know what this looks like. It looks like really, never getting to all of the things that is on the list that is always growing, especially if you are at that phase in your life, if you do have children, especially if you're on that at that phase in your life. When you have kids at home, the list never ends. And if you don't have children, you're trying to build a business, the business list never ends. So if you have to do all of it in order to earn time or rest or priority, prioritizing yourself, that's a losing battle. I remember I was coaching years ago. I was coaching a woman who was a lawyer, and we really worked on time management and prioritizing herself. And one of the things I'm not a lawyer, but one of the things I learned about lawyers is they have a rolling to do list constantly. It never you never get to the end of that list. And I bet there's a lot of you that feel that that same way as well. There's a lot of women. In that are in positions this way, or careers where there's always a to do list. You never check the last one off and say complete. It's always just like a rolling list. If you don't prioritize yourself on that list, it's you're never going to be able to you're the only one that can do it. You're the only one that can do it. And if we understand, and we go back to the thought model, if we understand that our thoughts are creating the results in our lives, we can say we might have a thought like, if I say no, I'm letting people down. And what does that thought make us feel? It makes us feel guilty. It makes us feel shame, especially if we have really listened to the messages throughout history of women's job to be to do everything, do all the things. And so if we feel like we're going to be letting people down, we feel guilty. And when we feel guilty, do we prioritize ourselves? Hell no. If we feel guilty, the feeling of guilt has a saying yes, when we feel like we want to say no, when we've been telling ourselves we want to say no or we say no when we really want to say yes, the feeling of guilt has us not putting our own need first. It's having us negate our needs. It's having us tell ourself it's not the right time. You'll get to it this summer, you'll get to it when the kids go back to school. You'll get to it when you get a raise or get a promotion or start working from home. There's always a reason why you're going to prioritize yourself at a different time, and that's comes from this guilt, this this idea that if I say no, I'm letting people down, and then it also creates a relationship where you're not living an authentic life. If we are saying yes to people when we truly mean no, we're lying. We're lying to them. We're lying to ourself. We're not living in an authentic life all because we're feeling an emotion of guilt, all because we're telling ourself a story that if we say no, we're letting people down. And we could plug all of these different thoughts into the model. If you have the thought, my value comes from what I do for others. What is the feeling there? I think the feeling for me when I have, if I have that thought, it feels like pressure, especially when it comes at the cost of me not doing what I want for myself. It feels pressure, it feels sad, it feels unattainable, and that's going to affect the way I show up in my life if I feel that way. So what can we do here, if you resonated with any of those, hopefully not all of them, but if you resonated with any of those thoughts, we need to change those thoughts. This doesn't necessarily happen overnight. It's a practice. But let me tell you the kind of thoughts that will really help you start getting really great at prioritizing yourself. If you have the old thought or belief it's selfish to put myself first, the thought you can try to really work on is taking care of myself allows me to show up better for others. I already told you I believe this is so true. I believe and I've seen this in my own life. The more I love myself, the more I prioritize myself, the more I say no, when I truly mean? No, I'm just a better person. I'm living a better life. I'm being a better example of what's possible. I'm happier. I'm experiencing more joy, and that ripples out to everyone in my life. I'm a better mom when I'm prioritizing myself. I'm a better mom. When I say no to my kids, say yes to myself, and then when I'm saying yes to my kids, I'm showing up more powerfully. Okay, the next thinking switch I want for you is, if I say no, I'm letting people down. That's the original thought that is not serving us, and the better thought is saying no is a normal and necessary part of having boundaries. I also love the thought is like saying no or being authentic is teaching people how to treat us. I think Maya Angelou said that, and I have a great example for this. So right now, one of my boys cars just died on us, so we are in the process of, we're actually going to, I'm going to give him my car and get another car. And so this, for the last two weeks, we've been really just being accommodating for him. On a day like today, I just gave him my car, and I said, I'll be home all day. I don't need a car today. And so we've been really accommodating him. And in the end, we're gonna be giving him a much better, much more fun car to drive. And so yesterday, the car was here for him, and I called him and I said, Hey, do you want to come? Me to come pick you up. I have, I had, like, a three hour break in between clients. I said, Do you want me to come pick you up at 430 and bring you back here so then you can have the car? And he goes, Oh, well, I, you know, I'm not really ready. I'm not gonna be ready at 430 and, you know, can you come now? And remember, I've been giving my car up. I've been staying at home and just kind of working out at home, not going to the gym. I've been really accommodating this child a lot. I'm very proud of how I've been showing up for him, and I'm still prioritizing myself, because I'm getting my workouts here at home. But that three hour break, I had plans for myself. I had plans to go on a long walk. I had some stuff I wanted to listen to, a book, a podcast, I wanted to listen to, and probably me, 10 years ago, I would have been like, Yes, I'll drop anything, and I'll come right now, if now is a better time for you, but now wasn't a better time for me. I wanted to wait, you know, till 430 to go and pick him up. And so I said, No. I said, Hey, I can come at 430 but that's all I got for you. Kid, I love you. That's all I got for you. I said you can also pay for an Uber, if you want to pay for an Uber. And I will say, I'm getting really, really good. I've been doing this work for a long time, but there also is that little part of me, and it's my primitive brain, that's like, you should give up whatever you're doing, drop everything to go get him when he wants to be picked up. So the thoughts still there. I don't want you to think that these these old thoughts are ever going away. I'm just choosing not to listen, and I'm choosing to think a better thought. And the thought for me in that moment was I am being willing to go pick him up, but I've got my own plans today for the day too. I'm not letting his plans of napping and doing whatever he's doing get in the way of my plans. There's just no reason for it. I love my son more than anything, my children more than anything. But that doesn't mean that their schedule takes precedence over mine. Now this has been a practice that I've been practicing for years and years, and so the thoughts are still there. You should just go pick them up. You can go on a walk later, but I know myself really well. I wouldn't have gone on a walk later. My I didn't end my coaching day till seven. I wasn't going to walk at 720, at night. I just knew that. So I'm really proud of myself, that I prioritize myself, and I also set a boundary in a way, right? I said no, no, if you I'll pick you up and give you my car. But this is when we're doing it. Love, this is when we're doing it. Okay. Next one, they disagree with what I'm doing. That's the old thought, they disagree with what I'm doing. And the new thought is, it's okay if not everyone agrees with me and my choices. This might be a hard one for you, because sometimes I think what we try to do is we try to convince ourselves that people do agree. We try to convince ourselves. You know that one? That one, what is that one? I always laugh about it, that one kind of quote or like inspirational thing, dance like no one's watching. I love that. Totally. Dance like no one's watching. But people are watching people. If you're at a wedding and you're out there in the middle, people are watching you. We've been we've all been at weddings. We see that there's 1/4 of the population dancing and everyone else is sitting around watching them. And so like, we don't have to convince ourselves that everyone is watching us with loving thoughts. I'm sure there are a few people that are having loving thoughts like, oh, good for her. Wow, she's a great dancer, great. I try to have loving thoughts when I'm at weddings and I'm seeing people dance like, I try to go, Oh my God, they're having so much fun. Oh my God, they are hilarious. Or, oh my gosh, she looks so great. Oh, I love that dress. Oh, good for her. I really do try to guide my mind to the positive, but the reality is, not everyone is going to agree with us. Not everyone is going to think our choices are good choices. When I stopped drinking, I had a lot of people that had thoughts about it, and they weren't hateful thoughts. It was just kind of like, like a little bit of a wow, you're not that fun. You're a bit of a weirdo. I don't understand that. I would never do that. A lot of thoughts. And my thought was, I get it. This isn't for everyone. I get it. You disagree. I get it. I go to bed really early at night. And for a long time, I was going to bed early, but I was telling myself, Oh, my God. People think I'm a weirdo. People think I'm a weirdo, you know? And I remember years ago, we had some house guests come over with their kids, and I remember like, being up till 10 o'clock at night on the couch, like I was dying inside because I thought, like, I can't go to bed before my house guests. But here's the problem with that, my house we have house guests all the time, a lot. I love it. We have so many friends come and stay with us all the time. But now I look at my friends and I say, I love you. It's 830 and my bed is calling to me, and here's what I'll tell you, what I know for sure. Some of them think it's great. Some of them don't care, and some of them probably think maybe it's a little rude or maybe I'm a little weird. It's okay if not everyone agrees with me. The most important person that agrees with me is me, and ideally, I love to have my husband and my kids agree with me. That is ideal. But even that. That isn't always the case. Even that isn't always the case. Can it be okay that you're the only one that truly gets it and truly agrees with you? It's a beautiful thing to work towards. Okay? Next one, the old thought, my value comes from what I do for others. Again, that's more of a subconscious thought. But here's the better thought, my value isn't earned. I am worthy regardless of what I do. It doesn't matter what I do. I am worthy and amazing and lovely. I can lay here on the couch all day. I'm good. I can make my kids dinner tonight, or I can order in I can clean up my kitchen or I can leave it a mess. I'm worthy either way. And let me tell you why this is fun. Then you get to a point where you say, Do I want to do this right now? Do I want to clean my kitchen? Then I'll wake up in the morning and it'll be clean. That might be really awesome. Maybe I'll spend 10 minutes and and get it done. Awesome, but I'm worthy. Either way, do I want to pay my taxes on time? I can pay them on time, or I can pay them late. But I'm worthy. Either way, I can pick my son up when it the schedule is good for him, or I can tell him, here's what I'm offering. If you don't like it, you can walk or you can Uber, and I love you, and the keys will be in my purse, and I'm a good mom and I'm worthy either way. Next one, this is the next old thought that might be getting in the way of you prioritizing yourself. If I prioritize myself, people will think I'm rude. Now, before I tell you my beautiful thought that I came up with, my first thought is, some people might back to like, it's okay if not everyone agrees with me, some people might think you're rude. But here's what I want to tell you, some people are going to think you're rude, either way. People are going to have thoughts of us either way, so we might as well do what we want to do. I love to think that the most important person's thoughts that matter are my own. And then the second level is the people that I love if, and this includes my clients, like when I think about, Okay, I'm going to do this program, I want to put this podcast out there. I think about the people I love. I think about my clients. After that, I don't care as much. And that doesn't mean if someone says something online that's really rude. It doesn't take my breath away for a moment, yeah. But in the end, I go, Yeah, it doesn't matter. With, with, with some person that has, like, a teddy bear picture in their profile, thinks that I'm never going to meet. So if I prioritize myself, people will think I'm rude. There might be some truth in that. It might be true, and can that be okay? And here's the better thought, the more beautiful, curated thought that I had planned for you, the right people will respect me for having boundaries. The right people will respect me for having boundaries. And so there's going to be some people that maybe, if I told this story to 1000 people, that my son, I my son was, you know, at his apartment, and I was going to pick him up. And I said, Hey, I can pick you up, and I've got plans. So 430 is when I can pick you up. And then he says, oh, you know, I just woke up from a nap. Can you pick me up in five minutes? I really don't want to wait till 430 to wait till 430 and I said no, because I had self care plans for myself. The plans I had was not for anyone. It's not like I said, Oh, I can't do that because I'm making you a bunch of food. It was all selfish. I was going for a walk. I was listening to my favorite podcast. I was listening to my audiobook. It was time I had set aside to prioritize myself so someone might hear that story and go, Oh, Jesus, she should have really just gone and picked up her son. That's okay. That's okay that someone thinks that the right person is going to hear this story and go, I want to be more like that, because I know I'm an amazing mom. Like, seriously, I think I'm one of the best and I think that helps me say, Oh no, that's not going to work for me. Here's one's good for me. The right people will respect me for having boundaries. And another thought you might want to have is, like, the right people will be inspired by me. Okay, the next thought, the next thought that you might want to change is, I don't want to be a burden. And the better thought is, it's okay to have needs. Everyone does have needs, or even just to say I'm not a burden, my needs does not make me a burden. Needs and burden not the same thing. It's okay to have needs. You thinking that you're a burden is a thought that is an option for you. You might think, I don't want to be a burden. How many times do we see this? We see this in movies and TV shows all the time, especially for some reason, we see it with older people. They're like, I don't want to be a burden. And then the younger people are like, Dude, we love you. You're not a burden. So what if we just drop. It? What if we just drop this whole idea of being a burden? Because I really think it is just an idea. It's just a thought, and it's okay for us to say, you know, what I have needs. I'm going to ask in a loving way for what I need, and I'm going to prioritize myself. The next thought that is possibly getting the way of you prioritizing yourself is I should be able to handle all of this without help. I'm going to just let that one I'm going to say it again and let it sit because I think most women listening to this are going to resonate with this. I should be able to handle all of this without help. Or a lot of times we even just say it as I should be able to handle all of this, and we don't even consider asking for help. We like innately think it's our job to do all of it. It's insane. I think back to long ago when women's only job was to take care of their family and to take care of their children and make make children all of that. Right? That was our, really, our only job. And then all of a sudden it became more and more possible for us to work outside the home doing at first we could just be teachers and nurses, and then we could be more secretaries, then we could do do more and more and more amazing. But what did we do? We started saying, I've got all of it. I've got all of it. I'm going to work, and I'm going to do the laundry, and I'm going to do all the cooking and the mothering, go to all the field trips, and then I'm going to do all these things, and in the end, taking care of our health and our bodies, it got really hard, and then we shame ourselves for not being able to do that. So here is another way to think about this, instead of I should be able to handle all of this without help. Asking for help is a strength, not a weakness. And then here's another beautiful thought, I don't have to do all of this. This is a beautiful thought to have overall, but also in the moment, the other day, I had this moment where, like it's we're getting our taxes ready, and we have a few other things, like one of my kids got a parking ticket that's kind of sitting there, and I'm trying to remind him to get it done, trying to let him do it on his own, knowing that he might not get it done and he'll have to suffer the penalties. And then I have some checks I have to put in, and then I have to do this and this and all these different things. I got to cover my chairs because it's going to rain and all of this on top of everything else I want to do for my own prior my own self care and my clients all these things. And I finally, the other day, my husband goes, Hey, are you taking the taxes in? Because how much money do we need? Do you have the checks all that? And I just said to him, I go, You know what? I'm not going to do any more of this right now. I said, I have a full day tomorrow where I only have two coaching calls and I'm going to do a podcast. I think I'm going to put this stuff off and I'm just going to do it tomorrow. Does that work for you? Now, I was asking permission in that moment only because I had told him I was going to do a lot of these things. And my husband and I are very much partners. So I know it sounds like I was asking permission, but that was a decision, and I just wanted to make sure he got it. And he's like, oh, yeah, yeah, you're Yeah, whatever you need to do. But I had to decide before I said to him, hey, does this sound good? My decision was, my thought was, I don't need to do all of this right now. So telling ourselves we should be handling all of it is making us feel overwhelmed, and then we're actually because we're overwhelmed, we're actually not handling a lot of it. Isn't that the irony, if we think about the thought model we have a thought, I should be able to handle all of this. I have so much to do. I don't have enough time. We have all these thoughts. We feel overwhelmed, and what do we do? We end up scrolling, we end up eating. We end up doing like we're not doing the things that are going to actually help us because of the overwhelm. So one thing you can say is, asking for help is a strength, not a weakness. The second thing you could do is say, I don't have to do all of this so often throughout my day. All of a sudden, even at the end of the day, I'll be like, Wait a minute. I don't have to cook dinner. I could order in a healthy dinner, or we could have leftovers, or I could ask my husband to make dinner. All the things we're telling ourselves that have to get done before we prioritize our own rest and wellness and self development and goals. It's just a lot of it's just not true. Asking for help is a strength, not a weakness. And I don't have to do all of this. At the very least, I don't have to do all this right now. Okay, next thought that we want to change up is I have to do all of this in order to earn time for myself or to rest this thoughts a little bit more of an extension of the last thought. I have to do all of these things in order to earn time for rest or time for myself. I went to a Tony Robbins event like years ago, and he did live coaching with people in the audience. It was amazing. And this one woman stood up, and as she's telling this story, she starts crying, and she goes, I'm the one that does everything in my family, and I, you know, all the kids and the business and all this and all this. And every once in a while, I just get like, really sick to where I literally can't function, and I have to go to my bed for like, a full week and and it's just. Really hard on the family, because then everyone else has to pick up where I've left off, and they don't know what they're doing and all this. And I can't remember exactly what he said and how he coached her, but he really helped her come to the realization that she was telling herself a story. I can't rest unless I really get sick. I can't ever rest? I have to do everything. I have to keep going. I can't slow down. And so then she would get sick, and it was almost like, it was almost like, in a subconscious level, her body was like, Well, if you are not choosing to rest because of your thinking, we're going to actually make you sick. And then when she finally got sick, she allowed herself to rest. It was the only reason she allowed herself to rest, and so one of the things Tony Robbins told her is you need to recognize this in you first right understanding is always the first step, and what you need to start doing is scheduling in rest, delegating to your family, stop associating productivity with your own value. You are worthy, even when you're not doing all the things. Take a night off, take a weekend off. It was really powerful for me to hear. So when we have this thought, I have to do all of this in order to earn time for myself, or in order to enjoy my life, or in order to play tennis, or in order to do these things, we are. First of all, we're just not living the life that we really want to, where we're feeling joy and we're loving every moment and every butterfly flying by, and every you know, feeling that we get to feel. We're not, we're not really enjoying our experience as a human but we're also doing too much. So here's the better thought. Instead of I have to do all of this in order to earn time for myself or to rest, the better thought is, rest is a basic need, not a reward. Rest is a basic need, not a reward. And then here's another one for you, putting myself first is more important than a lot of these other things. A lot of these other things can wait. I truly believe that putting yourself first makes the world better when we are a more elevated human being. The world in total is more elevated, right? If you imagine more and more people being loving instead of hate, more and more people being really aware of their emotions and thinking intentionally and speaking intentionally and doing intentionally would make a more beautiful world. So if you can do that for yourself, you're going to show up to your life and show up to your family and the world as a better human being. How beautiful. Here's one little thing I want to talk about while we're on the subject of really getting great at prioritizing yourself. I want to make sure you recognize that putting yourself first, prioritizing yourself, it sounds very empowering and very loving. But let me ask you, why is it so hard, if it sounds so empowering and so loving. Why is it so hard? A few reasons. The first reason, I think we can all agree on it, you've just made it a habit to not you probably saw your mom not prioritizing herself herself, and that's why you don't prioritize yourself. For sure, it's also a habit that you have conditioned everyone around you that this is what you do so they're expecting of it, and when everyone around you expect you to act a certain way, it's can be challenging to change. And so we have these habits set in place. That's one of the main reasons. But I think one of the other reasons, I want to just say, is it's hard to prioritize yourself. It sounds empowering, it sounds lovely, but to get your ass up and going to the gym every day can be hard to all of a sudden be making a big dinner for your family and you not eating some of it because you would like to lose weight and so you want to be on a calorie deficit. Is hard to be willing to feel some negative emotions, and instead of turning to food or alcohol, actually sitting and processing through those emotions is hard, and so yes, it sounds so empowering and loving to put yourself first, but if you're doing more than just taking baths and resting, if you're actually saying, I'm going to take baths and rest, because that's important, for sure, but I'm going to actually put myself First, prioritize myself by actually going towards my goals and like living better a better life with better habits, it's hard, and so it sounds lovely to prioritize yourself. It sounds so lovely to say I put everyone else's needs first. Part of the reason is because it's hard, but it's the hard work that is so powerful. It's the hard work that you're worthy of doing. Your life is worthy of doing. And I'll tell you when you're willing to do this hard work, the hard work gets easier when you're willing to say, I'm only having one glass of wine tonight, and you sit with the disc. Comfort of wanting another glass, the discomfort of your brain going, just have another glass. It doesn't matter, the discomfort of your girlfriend saying, Why are you only having one? Life is too short when you get when you sit with that discomfort, you get better and better and better at sitting with that discomfort. And it becomes you. It becomes comfortable. It isn't so hard anymore because you've done it over and over and over again. You get really good at being the woman that only has one glass of wine, and it gets easier. So can we let it be hard in the beginning for that hard to get easier? Oh my gosh, it's so worth it. So how can we do this? I suggest making a plan of how you will prioritize yourself, just saying, You know what? That was a really great podcast. I'm going to start prioritizing myself. Is not good enough. We need to get specific. How are you going to prioritize yourself? And if you have to start small, go for it. Start small. And I would choose something that maybe would really be powerful for you, journaling 10 minutes in the morning. So good if you journal today for the rest of the year, even just 90% of the time, most days, it will change your life, because you are going to understand yourself at a deeper level. So make a plan of how you're going to prioritize yourself, and then when you try to work this plan. There's going to be times where you abandon this plan. And first of all, can you not shit on yourself? Can you not talk horribly to yourself? But can you get curious what happened? Oh, I said I wasn't going to eat two cookies, but yet I just had to what happened? And don't say something like, my husband shouldn't have bought the damn girl scout cookies. No, no. What really happened? Like, Why did you abandon that plan from a loving understanding curious place? And how can you do better next time, figuring out what thoughts got in our way, what emotions felt too heavy to feel, is so powerful, it's how we get good at prioritizing ourselves. A few other questions I will offer to you is, what do you need to believe next time to not abandon yourself? I'll tell you one of the things I've told myself a lot over the years is this isn't important. In the morning, I tell myself it's important. But then in the moment, I tell myself, it's not important. My brain just told me that at the gym today, leg day is tough. Leg day used to be no big deal, but now that I'm lifting really heavy weights, I don't love leg day. In fact, the other day, I told my husband, I go, Oh my god, leg day. I'm trying to be positive, babe. You know, I'm a positive person, but leg day kind of sucks. And he looked at me and goes, leg day sucks. And I'm like, right? And I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna manage my mind around it. And when I go to do leg day, I'm going to say, No, this is powerful. I'm excited to have the opportunity. I'm excited to have legs. I'm excited my legs work. I'm excited that we I'm grateful that we have money that affords me to go to this gym. I'm going to flood myself with the positive thoughts, but there is a little sneaky thought that is like, Oh, my God, armed upper body is so much easier. Can I just go on a walk? But what do I need to believe in order to not abandon myself? And the belief with leg day is I'm really loving the way my legs are looking. I'm getting so much stronger. This is going to help me age so much better if I wasn't doing a strong, heavy lifting leg day. So what do you need to believe next time, to not abandon yourself? Here's another one for you. What negative emotion do you need to be willing to feel next time? So it's two things. On the one hand, I want to generate all these positive emotions about leg day. I want to have all these positive thoughts and all these positive emotions when I go to do leg day because I want to have a good time with it. But at the same time, at the same like equal measure, I know there's going to be a part of me that goes, Uh, right in the middle of my workout, my brain's going to go, you've done enough. This doesn't matter. Like that happened to me three times today. In the middle of when I was lifting, my brain was like, you've done six, it's enough. But I kept saying, Nah, we're going to eight. We're going to 10, whatever the lift was. So I needed in that moment to generate the positive thought, No, we're doing this, the thought and emotion, no, we're doing this. And feel proud and powerful. But at the same time, I had to allow the thought of, oh, this doesn't matter, and a little bit of a this is hard. Can both be there? Yes, they can, and that's the magic. You really can get great at prioritizing yourself, like everything. It's hard if you haven't been doing it, but if you start to allow it to be hard think better thoughts, you will get better and better, and then it becomes easy. It just becomes who you are. You hear me say all the time on this podcast, who do you want to become? What woman do you want to become? I am becoming the woman who I am becoming, the woman who is great at prioritizing myself. It is possible. For you have a great Tuesday for information on how we can work together. Head to modern body, modern life.com. To schedule a consultation with me. I'm currently coaching women privately, and I offer group coaching programs you.