#24 What Should Success Look Like?

If you've ever felt stuck, wondering if you're the only one facing self-doubt and lack of motivation, you're not alone. On this episode of Sash and Soul, Raeanna opens up about those challenging, uninspiring moments in life when motivation seems to be lacking. We both share our personal battles with self-judgment and the constant tug-of-war between needing rest, feeling pressured to stay productive, and finding your own spark of inspiration.

Lila dives into the impact of societal pressures that shape our sense of worth. Most importantly, we're reflecting on embracing uncertainty and moving away from a productivity-obsessed culture -- comparing the hustle and bustle of American societal norms with more relaxed global cultures that prioritize leisure and spontaneity. 

Through personal experiences, we explore how to define success on your own terms, steer clear of harmful comparisons, and manage the load of stress and responsibilities without adding self-judgment to the mix. It's all about personal growth, the transformations that come with major life changes, how to find comfort in the unknown, and ultimately, what success "should" look like. 

Chapters

• 0:01 Navigating Life's Slow Moments
• 10:05 The Complexities of Self-Value
• 20:36 Embracing Uncertainty and Cultural Norms
• 32:21 Embracing Personal Growth and Change
• 41:01 Mastering Pageant Confidence and Communication

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Fearlessly Authentic Sash and Soul podcast, the show that goes beyond the stage, prioritizing a healthy mindset, overall well-being and triumphs in the pageant journey.

Speaker 2: 0:13

In each episode, we dive into the transformative power of embracing authenticity fearlessly From mindset mastery and self-care strategies to success stories that inspire. This podcast is your go-to guide for navigating the pageant world with confidence and resilience. Join us as we embark on a journey of self-discovery, empowerment and celebrate the stories of those who fearlessly embraced their authenticity on the path to pageant success. I'm Lila Sherry and I'm Rihanna Johnson. Welcome to Sash and Soul.

Speaker 1: 0:51

Hi, welcome back to Sash and Soul. Hi, lila, hi, how are you? Yep, today is one of those days, I don't know, it's just been one of those weeks, one of those months, one of those periods of time where I just kind of feel, and so that's what I want to talk about today things are slow, like it's the summer and it just feels like it should be slow, but then we're like hitting our head against the wall, thinking that it shouldn't be slow, but we know it can be.

Speaker 3: 1:32

We'll get into all that.

Speaker 1: 1:34

Yeah, so our intentions before hitting record was just like I just need a powwow. That's what I was feeling. We were talking about like all the different topics that we could talk about, all the things that are going on in the world, all the things that might be relevant to you or might not be relevant to you as listeners, and I was like look, here's what's relevant to me right now and maybe our listeners will feel something from that. And I know that we'd like to be solution focused in this podcast, but I don't know that we've got very many solutions today.

Speaker 1: 2:08

When it comes to just feeling kind of stuck, like that's where I'm at right now, I feel a little bit stuck. I'm feeling a lack of motivation, that I feel defeated because I wouldn't go as far as saying that I feel defeated but like that, that yucky in between of just not really knowing where I'm at or where I want to go next. You're just feeling like this lack of drive or inspiration. It's just, it's not a comfy feeling. And then I also have the other, like emotions and and like internal dialogue with myself of well, it's the summer, so just relax and enjoy it. But then on the other side it's like but it's the summer. This is your time to play, catch up and to prepare for next season. Then there's the other side of me that's like. I don't feel like doing any of that. I'm just in this weird space of in-between and it's really uncomfy and I feel like some of you all could relate. So that's where I'm at today.

Speaker 3: 3:09

Yeah, it's kind of this overarching idea that I keep going back to of trying to find inspiration when I feel none, and this idea that you don't go and find inspiration and that you create it, but at the same time, what happens when I feel like I'm not creating it? And again, like you said, I don't feel like I have much of a solution for that, because what can you do besides live life? Because what I find is that the more that you try and find inspiration, the more frustrated you get Then you're not finding it.

Speaker 2: 3:44

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 3:44

That you're not finding it and the You're not finding it and the more you get pushed on the opposite end of the spectrum that you didn't want to be at in the first place. So that's kind of where my head is going with. All of this is like okay, maybe. Yeah, this is a slow season, but also not really Like. I sit here and I look at my life and it's like I'm moving across the country in a month. It's not very slow.

Speaker 3: 4:09

I have my clients that are competing this weekend, that have been preparing for the last seven months. That's not a slow time. I just officially started a full-time business. That's not a slow time. But then I sit here and I'm thinking well, life feels slow, so now what?

Speaker 1: 4:31

Is life feeling slow or are we feeling sluggish?

Speaker 3: 4:36

I would say I'm not, because I finally am feeling physically better after months of not feeling good, better after like months of not feeling good. So I feel like I'm finally getting that physical side back of feeling energetic and like getting up at good times and feeling like I'm sleeping good and all of that. So I guess, from my perspective, to answer your question, not really. So what is it that feels slow? The lack of inspiration?

Speaker 1: 5:07

so what is it that feels slow, the lack of inspiration? Well, I'm struggling because I have like a lot of I have a lot of struggles with shame and self-judgment, and so a lot of the things that I say to myself in my head are things like you're being lazy, or you're failing as an entrepreneur, or you are, you're just burned out and you've lost it. You don't got the spark anymore, it's gone. These things, like these very harsh judgments of myself, rather than and I'm much better than I have been in the past but rather than having grace for myself I have better grace for myself now than I have in the past, but it's having grace for myself. I have better grace for myself now than I have in the past, but it's still a struggle, and I think that's what I want everyone to hear from me today, because I think we have these ideas of like what we see on social media. You see our posts, you see my TikToks talking about all the mindset stuff and the do's and don'ts of interview, and you see Lila and I smiling and laughing at the camera and all these things are like the stories of us doing a Get Coach Live episode with someone and we're smiling and beaming at the camera. All of that makes us look like we are just on cloud nine all the time and doing really amazing things and having just the best success every single day. But that's social media. That's not reality, and I want you all to see that, because we talk about it all the time. We talk about how social media is not real and that we just want people to be more authentic on social media. We want them to be more open about their struggles so that we can relate to them and feel like our lives are normal.

Speaker 1: 6:48

And I guess this is what I'm doing. I'm trying to be real for all of you and authentic and vulnerable and transparent, so that you understand. Like, yep, I'm an entrepreneur. Yes, I host a podcast with one of my best friends. Yes, I get to coach women every single day. I absolutely love what I do and we look beautiful on social media. But also a lot of times, I'm sitting over here like not really wanting to crawl out of bed in the morning and I'd rather go sit outside in the sunshine with my dogs than sit at my computer at my desk, or you know. I just think I've been really fatigued by having to do any kind of adulting things lately, just really not into it. So I think we all just kind of go through natural ups and downs in our life and some of us go through more drastic ups and downs than others, and right now it's not the worst experience that I've ever had in my life. I'm not in like a deep depression or anything, but I'm just not 100% right now.

Speaker 3: 7:51

Yeah, and I keep going back to this idea of social media being real versus not real. And as somebody who has done social media for work and now continues to do social media partly for work, I have to have this line of separation between my real life and then what's going up on social media. But then it's also I come back to this idea that like, well, how real does social media get when that's the only kind of interaction you're having with somebody? Like people think you know, like if the first interaction that you have with somebody is their Instagram page, well then, how real does that become then? So that's also what I keep going back to and I and I felt a lot that way during my year as Miss Wisconsin of feeling like, okay, well, this isn't my whole life, or what you're seeing on social media isn't every part of my life, absolutely. But then when there's 13,000 people on the page that follow Miss Wisconsin and only see Miss Wisconsin through this light, that's the real for them.

Speaker 3: 9:02

And even though it's subconscious, it's this weird balance of like knowing that so many interactions now are only through social media. And I keep thinking Instagram, but then again, on TikTok and things like that, things can be a lot more real and relatable and authentic. But again, like, that's still not the whole truth, like, even the most authentic things on TikTok aren't necessarily always exactly what real life is like. So then I'm like, now what? Because I sit here and I do it for my job and I have been, and it's really easy for me, I guess, to understand most of the time. I can understand that social media can just be a work thing for people like even creators that are creating on TikTok full time and showing their real life and I'm doing quotes with my hands right now because even then that's still their job and there's this separation and this line between the numbers and the whatever on social media versus my real life.

Speaker 1: 10:05

I think what we need to ask ourselves is how are we measuring our success? So, are we measuring our success? Are we measuring ourselves and our value and our worth based off of how productive we are, based off of whether or not we think we're doing as much as somebody else, if we think that our life is as put together as somebody else, if we like? Even with clients, when we start to do mindset work, they start to measure their value and their worth and their capabilities against mindset glitches. And if they're having a lot of mindset glitches, that somehow they're not prepared for the job Like that was the trap that I fell into when I was competing was that when I was having mindset glitches, all of a sudden I was terrified that I wasn't actually prepared to do the job and wasn't going to succeed at all my goals. It's like what are you measuring yourself against? What is it that we're actually gauging our success level at? We get to decide. Nobody else gets to decide for us, but we have these pressures from society, from social groups, from family, from again, whatever it is that we're using to measure ourselves with, with None of that actually applies. We get to decide.

Speaker 3: 11:35

I think it's easier said than done too, and then it's not comparing what you decide to be successful for yourself versus what somebody else decides is successful for them.

Speaker 1: 11:41

Yes, yes, well, I think that's the project that I've been working on for a long time is trying to decide for myself what is successful for me, what is okay and what isn't okay for me. Not for somebody else, but for me, just my lifestyle right now. One of my tools that I practice learn this in therapy is to analyze and break down all the different aspects of what's going on in my life right now. So if I were to do that with you, it would be. Let's see. It is nearing the end of July. I leave for North Carolina tomorrow to visit my sister. So there already I know I'm kind of already on vacation mode and I'm just kind of excited to step away from my computer screen, get out of my own house, away from the adulting responsibilities of my own life, and get away for a little while. So that's a big aspect that I know is playing a role.

Speaker 1: 12:49

I leave for Italy with my husband for two weeks in just 32 days. I just marked it down on our dry erase board because we have a countdown going. So I'm like that's on my mind and trying to figure out what I want to wear for that, and also there's a stressful side of me of wanting to look a certain way. In Italy, I have been working on my fitness and my nutrition, so that's going on. Oh and, by the way, I also have some curious health stuff going on. I'm literally leaving right after this recording to go get an ultrasound done on my kidneys Crazy stuff happening there. The list goes on of all this stuff. Oh, and, by the way, I'm PMSing right, so it's like there's all these different things that are playing a role in how I'm feeling right now and the things that are going through my head. So I don't want to measure myself up to standards of what I would be at if all this stuff wasn't going on, cause that's not fair. It's not fair to myself. Now that doesn't make me feel any better.

Speaker 1: 13:46

I still have all this junk going on, I still have all this complexity in my mind, but at least I'm not adding to that more self-judgment and shame, and that's the kicker, I think, for me is yep, I'm in a slump right now, but if there's anything I can do about it, it's not adding judgment and shame to it, and I'm the only one that has control of that. I also keep going back to this idea of you're the only one that lives your life. Lot of trauma and tragedies in my life, and even very recent, that have shifted my perspective toward like really not caring what people in my immediate circle even think of me and the drama that they've got going on and really practicing letting that go, because that's not mine to own. But again, like that doesn't make it any easier. I think that's like I don't know, maybe that's one of my messages today.

Speaker 1: 14:58

Lila is just because I'm a mindset coach, just because I go to therapy regularly, just because I've grown so much, just because I know that I have like pretty good sense of emotional intelligence. That doesn't make it easier per se the stuff that I'm going through. It just allows me to handle it in a way that is healthier for me.

Speaker 3: 15:21

It can almost be harder when you're so aware of these things and when you're so self-aware and when you're so aware of your emotions. I don't know. I tend to think ignorance is bliss. Sometimes that is an easier way to handle things, and so it's almost like yeah, it's not just because of those things doesn't mean it's easier. I think because of these things it's harder and because you're really diving deep into certain aspects when you go to therapy or when you know that these things are happening in your life and you're very aware of these things.

Speaker 1: 15:56

I think that can make it harder because you are just more aware of what's going on versus something harder but almost less painful when I think about because I'm like processing what you're saying and back when I was more ignorant to the mental health stuff that I had going on, it was just kind of like going through the motions every day. It was painful, absolutely. It was very, very painful, but it is hard work to consistently practice strong emotional intelligence. Exactly, that's an emotional regulation. Yes, you're absolutely right.

Speaker 3: 16:34

It's more work, it's harder in that way where you're absolutely right what we want to do when we want to do it, whatever that looks like. That's an awesome freedom to have and that, to me, is so important in my life. But then, at the same time, I just think back to if I was still working at the news station, going in every day, getting the stuff done that I needed to get done every day. Then it's almost like, well, I'm still doing all of these things, so I'm not that bad off, like I could still be dealing with all of these things. But there's no room for me to not go into work or there's no room for me to not do the things that I need to do when I'm at work, when you're going to quote unquote, nine to five, even though the news isn't nine to five, but you know what I mean. So it's like I think about what that would be like if I was still dealing with all these things. But then it's like, oh, but everything's, it's still fine, because I'm still going into work and doing this like clocking in, clocking out thing, and on paper I'm still doing everything that I needed to get done. But that's what I kept thinking about when I was Miss Wisconsin and when I was working at the news station. It's like, well, things can't be that bad because I'm still. I still went to every single appearance. I was only sick for one appearance that whole year, but I went to every single other appearance, did everything that I needed to do at these appearances, went to work when I needed to work during the news shifts, did all the prep that I needed to do for Miss America, showed up to all of the coaching calls, did all the prep that I needed to do for Miss America, showed up to all of the coaching calls, did all the things that I needed to do on the coaching calls.

Speaker 3: 18:23

And now I think this definition of what we think we should be doing, or this idea of what we're checking off the list, looks different now, at least to me as an entrepreneur.

Speaker 3: 18:29

It's so different and I think that's also this like it feels like we're stuck because we're not given a list of things to do and to check off the list and almost in a way, forced to. When you're going into a job, you don't really have the choice to like sit in the sick room all day, but now that we have this freedom to do what we want to do when we want to do it. There also comes this freedom of not having this list of things that people are giving you, and that comes with a whole nother set of feeling a certain way, feeling unproductive, feeling like we're not getting things checked off the list or not working to the standard that we want to work at, because we're now the ones setting that. So I guess my whole point of all of this is that, with freedoms, with this extra time or with this extra kind of I don't want to say power, but power over our own lives frankly comes with its own total set of problems too Well.

Speaker 1: 19:28

It sounds like one of the things that you measure yourself, like your worth and your value and your success on, is how much you get done, and I think that's so relatable. I was just talking with somebody about that too, about checklists. I used to be such a checklist person that at the end of the day like that was when I was leaving work at five o'clock and I looked at my checklist and I had almost everything, if not all of them, checked off. That's when I felt like I had a very successful day. And it's really crazy and weird because now, less than a decade later, I don't really care about checklists as much. I do them so that I don't forget to do things.

Speaker 1: 20:12

But if I walk away from my desk at any given point in the day and I don't have things checked off, it's just a different mindset for me now. It's a different functionality. You don't have those to-do lists that other people are tasking with. Like you said, you have to come up with your own, and so it's even that much more scary when you don't have the inspiration and when you don't feel like you have the insight to know what to do moving forward.

Speaker 1: 20:36

But I think what I have gained in the last few years is this comfort within the unknowing, because time and time and time and time again, things have just worked out. If you take anything away from this conversation, I hope that it's that that eventually you will feel much more comfortable outside of the world of checklists and inside the world of really recognizing and understanding that life will just continue to move and everything is going to fall into place exactly how it's supposed to. And that doesn't mean that it's always going to feel good and that doesn't mean that it's always going to be what you want it to be or what you think it should be, but that eventually the universe has its way of setting everything right again. And I find so much comfort in that that, even though I'm in this really uncomfy place right now, I'm still okay and I'm really grateful for that.

Speaker 3: 21:33

Yeah, it is the unknown. That's weird. This is a topic that we're going to dive into eventually too, but this idea of and I'm using this as an example, but this can be when you switch careers, when you graduate from college, when you move to a different state, like kind of an identity crisis in a lot of different ways. So all of that is examples of unknown. And then a specific request we got was like the unknown post pageant title holder life or just post competition life, and sometimes women are in their early twenties when that happens. Sometimes women are in their late twenties when that happens, but what that feels like and that's also a whole early 20s when that happens. Sometimes women are in their late 20s when that happens, but what that feels like, and that's also a whole unknown to me right now too. So, yeah, this big idea of sitting in the unknown and being okay with that We've been born and bred, and here's kind of where I was going with this or this is what I thought of when you were talking too is that especially in the United States? And this is why I really want to travel and get out of the States for a second soon, because we have created this culture of checking things off, the to-do list, like when you're a kid. You get given at least this was my experience You're given like an assignment notebook and you are forced to write all of your assignments down. Always do your homework, kids. That's not what I'm saying, but this, this, like, this framework of like no, write your assignments down. That is very important in staying productive. Having a planner that's not what I'm saying, but the framework of it, of you're literally checking it off the list. I remember at one point we had to have our parents sign our assignment notebooks. They had seen that we had done everything and checked it off of our list. And this idea of lists getting done has been born and bred into our culture.

Speaker 3: 23:33

Where we were just talking to Ashlyn Powers yesterday during our Get Coached Live episode and she's saying like everybody's late in Italy, nobody cares if you show up on time, everybody's on their own time, you do like whatever it is, blah, blah, blah. And then in a lot of like other countries, spanish speaking countries, you literally have three hours a day in the afternoon where all anybody does is sleep. That's part of their culture. I was just talking to one of my mom's coworkers whose husband is from Mexico. She was saying when she would go and travel to Mexico with her husband to visit his family.

Speaker 3: 24:08

It's just not about the money, it's just not about how much money you have or the things that you have. Everything is very family oriented. The money is simply to just put the food on the table, but then the fun part then is having the food with the family. That's the part that people then care about, and I just am so sick I think this is the big thing that I'm getting down to is I'm just so sick of the way that the United States has bred us and this culture to be so list, task, productivity, money, career focused, that it's like this is not how it is everywhere else in the world.

Speaker 1: 24:50

But just because that's the way it is here, lila, is that the way you have to be? No, absolutely not, and so that's the identity shift right now of you recognizing it. That's the identity shift.

Speaker 3: 25:01

Yes, that's where I'm getting frustrated of like. This is how it's been my whole life. I was talking to my friend so many examples of this now that I'm thinking about it my friend who had just came back from a trip, like literally traveling the world. She has family in Israel and she went to go visit them in this really heightened time right now and we were kind of talking about that. And then she went to go visit Europe and literally like didn't know where she was staying until the night before and then would decide on which country she wanted to go to next in like 24 hours of when she was going to be leaving, like just a really really spontaneous by herself trip. And I was just like vicariously living through her and we were chatting and she was just like, yeah, all of a sudden I come back and she now has this like four hour lecture that she has to go to for this new job that she's starting in the hospital and she loves it, like she's really excited about it.

Speaker 3: 25:59

But just the differences between life and the way that life is, versus here, versus another place, and so, yeah, no, that we don't have to be that way, but it can be really difficult, and I want to acknowledge this and that it can be really difficult to say be your own boss and pick your own hours and pick your own goals when you're not in a world and by world I mean the United States when you're not in a country or in a culture that is prioritizing those things and saying that those things are successful. So you're like constantly battling this like overarching culture that other people have created and live by, and then now you're just kind of the outlier ones sitting out here, like doing what we love to do, picking what we want to pick, but like then you're looking from the outside in, from this this whole, like it's like looking at a snow globe, like it's a really weird thing?

Speaker 1: 26:53

Well, it's reinforced because when you're an outlier like this, other people are uncomfortable, so then they impose and project their discomfort about that type of lifestyle and how scary that lifestyle is on you, which then makes you feel some sort of way about it. And that's that's where we get to protect our own peace and block that kind of rhetoric. When we are the outliers and we are living our own lives the way that we want to live them. I mean, it's just like anything you say you want to go off and be an entrepreneur. Or like me when I was little, saying that I wanted to be a prima ballerina someday, and then getting told you're not going to make any money that way. Like all of a sudden my dream was shot down and like why does it have to be that way? Yeah, that may be true, but if I'm doing what I love, isn't that an abundant lifestyle?

Speaker 3: 27:46

I was just talking to Logan about this and I remember how many people, when you know when you're picking your major and all of like the adults and the family members in your life are like well, what do you want to do with that? Okay, I was just talking to Logan about this the other day, where journalism like, okay, so the smart thing quote to do would have been to do like a pre-law track and then go to law school and then basically and obviously this is not exactly how it works but basically be guaranteed this certain income If you get this certain job because you went to this certain school. That would have been like the smart thing to do.

Speaker 1: 28:25

Okay, I love when your voice changes to emphasize.

Speaker 3: 28:29

I have to, I'm a, I'm a former reporter, I have to. But that would have been like, that would have been the smart thing to do. And then when I decided I wanted to do journalism because I just loved it and I loved that course and that class that I took and we talked about this all in the last episode too of my journey to getting into journalism then all of a sudden I'm getting all these questions of like, well, what are you going to do with that? And I always thought then, throughout college, throughout my short young adult life, in my career, that it would somehow be difficult to find a job. Guys, it was not difficult, at least for me, to find a job in journalism, sorry to say it.

Speaker 3: 29:11

And then now I look like, even if I were to look up examples of jobs in Dallas, which is where I'm moving to, there's a plethora of things that you can do with a journalism and communications degree that isn't even directly journalism Like, why were people like telling me that I wasn't going to be able to get a job? You were all wrong, by the way, you were all wrong. You were all wrong, by the way. You were all wrong. You were all like totally did not even know what the job outcome would look like for somebody with a journalism degree. Because now I'm sitting here like I could go and get whatever full-time job, part-time job, whatever benefits I wanted, wherever I wanted, with a journalism degree, communications degree, and so like this weird thing of like oh, somebody's studying this and this, what are you going to do with that?

Speaker 1: 30:00

It's my pet peeve. It's fine. Call us dreamers, call me a dreamer. Say that I'm, you know, out of my mind, not realistic. That's fine. Call me all of those things, but think about it this way Are there any beliefs that you have in your own mind that were not put there by an outside?

Speaker 3: 30:23

influence. Now we're diving into psychology Nature versus nurture. Now this is where I'm going with this. Now, this is where I'm going with this. I think, like there's a lot of things that I think are my own thinking, but I can always relate those, for the most part, back to something that I saw or heard or talked to somebody about. So, yeah, actually, like, probably not, I don't think there's one original thought.

Speaker 1: 30:57

Honestly, I think most of our beliefs are influenced by some type of external source. Now we may add to that from our own lived experience, absolutely, and there may be catastrophic lived experiences that deeply influence our own fears, our own beliefs. So there absolutely is that. Let's look at it as a spectrum of what percentage of your belief is influenced by yourself and your own experiences and your own individual, unique thoughts, versus some external factor, some other person, society, your culture, your religion. So if we break it down to the limiting beliefs work that we do in Fearlessly Authentic, we talk about having our core limiting beliefs. Everyone develops their core limiting beliefs, their core belief system, by the time they're like seven. This happens before you're even 10 years old.

Speaker 1: 31:50

And then life happens that adds to those core beliefs, that changes them, that influences them, that, you know, adds to them that, um, then all of a sudden you get to 20, 30, 40 years old and some of these beliefs are so deeply ingrained in you. And then what do you do when you have kids? You got these strong, deeply ingrained beliefs and what do you do to those kids? You start to influence those kids with your beliefs that are so deeply ingrained. So back to my point. Call me a dreamer if you want to, but gosh, it's so much fun to start challenging my own belief systems and seeing what I can actually do in this world if I wasn't holding myself back by these beliefs that were so strongly influenced by other people.

Speaker 3: 32:40

Wow.

Speaker 1: 32:42

Which I think is why I'm really leaning into the weird space that I'm in this summer and just living it and being okay with it, because I don't have to be doing anything else, I don't have to be being anyone else. It's okay for me to just be whatever I am, whatever this is right now.

Speaker 1: 33:11

And it doesn't feel great, but it doesn't mean it's bad. Man, I feel like a little bit of a pessimist right now and I don't mean to sound that way. My true intention was just to be real, so that I don't want to bring anybody down or make you feel like, oh my gosh, life is just hard. I hate that, by the way, I hate when people say life is hard, life is just hard. I hate it. It's so cringy to me because there are circumstances in my life that are hard, but life is beautiful, life is wonderful, and so I guess my point and my intention for all of you listening is to like, whatever space you're in right now, if you are on cloud nine or if you are somewhere in a hole curled up in a ball, because you've got a million horrible things going on in your life right now that you're facing, no matter where you are, it's okay. And selfishly, I wanted to do this topic today because I wanted to process out loud with Lila and with all of you, like where I'm at, and remind myself that it's okay right where I'm at too.

Speaker 1: 34:24

Life is going to constantly be changing, and I don't think we realize how much is changing so quickly when we're little. But then it's like all of a sudden, when we start to realize and we can connect the dots and we're like living it on our own in adulthood and early adulthood, go to college, your early 20s, your mid 20s things really start to shift. There's a weird stage between 25 and 30. And then all of a sudden you hit your 30s and you've got like all these other influences that like it's just like this weird constant everything is always changing. Your identity is always shifting.

Speaker 1: 34:56

I mean, I'm looking at myself, for example, like my identity is shifting so quickly in my early to mid thirties right now, because I went from girlfriend to fiance, to wife and entrepreneur within that realm at some point, unemployed at some point to now I'm looking at fertility stuff. That's changing my identity Eventually expecting mother, eventually mother. My identity is shifting so much right now. There's so much change happening and I think that makes it all the more important for us to just be okay with whatever stage we're in within that growth, because between now and whenever our final day on this earth is, we will always be experiencing change, always, and we're always going to be going through the ebbs and flows and the ups and downs of that change, and so it's hard work, but it's less painful if you can just start to be okay and make peace with the change.

Speaker 3: 36:04

And I think it's scarier as you get older because you have more freedom and control over your surroundings and your environment, like at some point you relinquish the idea that your parents are deciding what you're eating for dinner, what you're wearing for school, you know like what, when and what activities are going to or whatever it is to an extent, and then all of a sudden, almost overnight, like pretty quickly, you don't have that sort of handholding anymore, and I think that's what I think makes the change so scary. Because you're right, I would even argue that I think more change happened in the first 18 years of my life, like, if you think about it, like boom, boom, boom, this, that, this, that than in these last few years. But it feels scarier because now I'm the one that's in control. So what if we taught our kids more of how to be in control of themselves and picking their own lives than checking things off a list?

Speaker 1: 37:13

More in control of regulating their emotions and trusting themselves. I think, yeah, you're absolutely right. There's no safety net anymore when you become an adult. So we can actually create kind of our own safety net, and that net looks like what feels healthy to us, what feels good to us, what feels beneficial to us I'm talking the most basic type of self-care hygiene, nutrition, fitness, things for our own physical being but then also like what makes up our net when it comes to our mental wellness and emotional safety. Right, like like we, we create our own nets when our parents are no longer.

Speaker 1: 37:57

Our parents created the nets for us to begin with, but they also had to create their own nets. So it's just like we're now in that stage of creating and building our own safety nets and trusting and relying on that and patching it up when there's holes in it and all that work that goes into that goes into it. But just because our parents don't offer us the safety net anymore at this point doesn't mean we don't have one, doesn't mean we can't lean on ourselves and trust ourselves. So, as we wrap up, I mean my takeaway is just definitely leaning into the clear understanding that change is always happening, that my identity is always shifting and that I'm okay right where I'm at and that there's nothing that I have to be doing and that I get to determine how I measure myself, my value, my worth, my success Easier said than done. I'm very well aware of that. But I'm also willing to put in the hard work, because I'd rather work that hard than feel the pain of not doing those things.

Speaker 3: 39:04

One of my biggest takeaways is this idea of feeling different than the culture around you or what society has built around you and being okay with that. And I'm saying that even then thinking about how many entrepreneurs there are in this world and how we accept them when they're up on cloud nine and doing all the big things and we look up to them, but nobody talks about the entrepreneurial aspects of when it's low and down and weird and feeling yucky and like we just see the beautiful parts of it. It's not all of that all the time and it's a whole different set of issues. When you choose something different, it's never the grass is greener on the other side. That's also my biggest takeaway.

Speaker 3: 39:55

It's cliche, but it's green where you water it. It's green where you decide that you want it to be good. So I think that is also my biggest takeaway is like you're allowed to not find the fulfillment and success where other people are. Finding it Like that is okay and being okay with feeling out of the majority in any sort of sense. Right when it comes to anything like it's uncomfortable to not be in the majority, but if that's the way that you want to live your life, please, so be it because nobody else is living your life With that everyone be well, take care of yourselves, Because nobody else is living your life With that everyone.

Speaker 1: 40:35

Be well, take care of yourselves, lean into your own safety net, decide what you want to measure your success with and be okay with just being. And that's all I got for you. Same, all right, we'll talk to you next time. Bye, bye, bye. Hey you guys, if you love what you're hearing on Sash and Soul and you're preparing for a pageant competition, you have to check out our free online training Three Keys to Winning the Crown. In this game-changing workshop, you'll discover the secrets to owning the interview and the stage with a winning mindset and humble confidence. This transformative session will empower you to cultivate a fearlessly authentic mindset and learn how to embrace your unique strengths, conquer limiting beliefs and radiate confidence on and off the stage. You'll master the art of communication and discover powerful strategies to captivate judges and audiences with your unique voice and message. Click the link in the episode summary or visit fearlesslyauthenticoachcom to claim your spot in this complimentary training. Your journey to greatness starts here.