These Three Things Might Be Holding You Back From Your Best Self

Today's episode is all about THREE things I believe might be holding you (and me) back from your BEST SELF. Tune in for some tips on how we can catch ourselves doing these things so that we can MOVE FORWARD intentionally into whatever AMBITIOUS PURSUITS feel ALIGNED for us.
1. Using CONDITIONAL statements to describe ourselves
2. Putting DESTINATION before JOURNEY
3. Not building SUPPORT or COMMUNITY directly tied to our values/goals

As always, thank you for listening and if you loved this episode, please share with a loved one! LOVE YOU!

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Transcript

0:40

Hello. Welcome back to another episode of the Pod. I'm so glad that you're here. For me, it's morning right now, so I'm kind of vibing, like we're at a coffee shop. I feel like I've got a chai and you've got a latte or whatever it is you drink at the coffee shop. But I just feel like we're sitting down having a conversation and these are some things that have been on my mind that I've been tossing around that I feel like would be really helpful. Going into the new year if you are an ambitious person, and even if you are not like you're not a big resolution person or you didn't set a bunch of big goals, these are some things that I feel like kind of hold us back when we're trying to become the new us, you know, new Year, new me, or just like the better version of ourselves. Because if you listen into a podcast called Rise and Energize, then you are probably interested in personal development. You probably. Want to continue becoming a better version of yourself, whether it's the new year or at any time of year. And I feel like there are a couple of things that I've been thinking about that tend to hold me back. And as I've been processing and reflecting on these, I thought it would be fun to share on the podcast with you. So thank you for tuning in. Hopefully after this episode you have a few tangible things that you can pay attention to in the future, and as you're working toward whatever goals that you have or just that better, most favorite version of yourself that you are working toward you feel like you walk away with something beneficial, so the first biggest thing that I am working on right now is self-talk, and I feel like sometimes self-talk is very wooey and very, you know, we talk a lot about self-talk and being kind to yourself and, but I wanna talk about something very specific with self-talk and that is using conditional. Statements to describe ourselves. So what I mean by this is when you are using a statement that is defining you as a person or almost an identity statement like I am this, This is what I am. And when you use a conditional statement like that, like I am this, then that is telling your brain, oh, this is what I am. And then I talk about this on the podcast all the time, but your brain looks for evidence to support the things that you already believe to be true. So if you believe that I am statement about yourself, then your brain is going to look for evidence to support that to be true. And then you're just gonna continue going, oh, yep, knew it. I'm lazy. I'm a people pleaser. I'm bad at this. That sort of thing. So. An example of this for me would be like instead of saying, I'm a people pleaser. Oh, I'm such a people pleaser. Oh, I'm such a people pleaser. Instead of saying that, how about saying that I have people pleasing tendencies and I'm working on that? Or one that I feel like my husband Jared says sometimes is that, oh, well, I'm just lazy, and instead of saying I'm just lazy, maybe you could say like, I have some patterns of procrastination, but I'm working on that. Or one I feel like I get at work a lot is when people say. Oh, I'm just so disorganized, or I'm so technically challenged, or things like that. And maybe instead of saying that, because guess what, again, your brain is gonna look for evidence to support that. So whenever you say I'm disorganized, and then it comes up that you forgot to follow up on an email, your brain's gonna go, yep. See, I'm disorganized and I can't get outta this habit. And. Or out of this cycle with myself, and that's just a part of my personality and nothing I can change or work on or move forward in, then that that's not gonna benefit you. Right? If that's something that you actually wanna work on. If you don't love that you're technically challenged or that you're di disorganized or something like that, stop saying that you are and just say, yeah, I'm just a little bit slower, or, I tend to be a little bit slower with picking up technology, but I. Taking it a little by little at a time or, yeah, I have some tendencies to let my work life be a little chaotic, but I'm developing routines and skills and habits to start changing that. And then every time that you do something that helps you, like every time that you follow up with an email or every time that you put something on your calendar and you follow through with it and you. See that, then your brain will go, oh, see, like I'm getting better at organizing myself. I'm getting better at keeping up with my tasks and being better at being organized. Something that I really think about with this people pleaser thing is that for me, I could say like, oh, I'm such a people pleaser. I just have to. I have to make sure that everybody's comfortable with themselves and I put everybody's needs a above my own and then it builds. Sometimes it can build resentment or it can like wear me down a lot or it can make me feel like I'm not doing enough and tell me that some more. I am statements that psych it, that kind of spiral where I'm like, oh, I'm a people pleaser. And then I think, oh, well I'm not doing enough and I'm not enough. And this is why I feel like just in general, we need to start paying attention to these I Am statements or I or these definitive, conditional statements because nothing is conditional. Nothing is definitive in life. You can change at any given point. You have the opportunity to do so. And that's something that I'm working on this year is being. Putting less pressure on myself to please others because here's the other thing. I heard someone say this, and this is kind of a tangent, but I heard someone say this on social media and I really, really liked it. And they said, if you're worrying about people pleasing, they're probably people you don't wanna be around, right? So if you feel a lot of stress and pressure to be a certain way around somebody, then maybe their goals or their values or whatever it is, doesn't align with you. She was using it in the example of around the holidays that sometimes she's like, oh yeah, I'm gonna skip the wine today, or she is still working out the day after Christmas, or something like that. And thinking about. Oh, well, I just wanna be a people pleaser and say yes to the wine because this person wants me to or skip the gym because this person wants me to. And truth is those people, if you're trying to please someone because you're moving more toward a goal that is important to you or a life that's important to you, or a habit that you appreciate and want to incorporate, if you are minimizing that for someone else to please them because you wanna make them feel more comfortable or yeah, please them, then that's probably not a person that you wanna be around or just at least that you want to please in that way, right? Like maybe. Your grandma's always the one that's like, oh, you have to have dessert. I feel like that's such a grandma thing and I love them for it, but if you don't want dessert, that's okay. You don't have to please grandma. Grandma is probably not working on the same health goals that you are. Right? You guys are at very different stages of life. That's totally fine, but you don't need to allow outside voices to have an opinion on what you're doing and to even affect or influence what you're doing just because you wanna make them feel more comfortable or be a people pleaser. So that's one thing I would say. The self-talk, the conditional statements pay a lot of attention in the next week or two of what kind of statements you're using about yourself. Like. I'm a bad mom or, oh, I'm just bad at this, or, oh, I'm just not very organized, or I'm just not good at, fill in the blank. I feel like this is one thing that as teenagers, we could have benefited from being, like, instead of saying, oh, I'm just not really good at math saying I, I don't pick up on math as I, as easy as I do on English, but I'm working toward it, you know what I mean? You don't need to be using these conditional statements. I am this, I am not this. Instead, these all can be fluid things. Yes. Maybe you have more tendencies. Some people don't have any people pleasing tendencies. I think that's amazing. Some people are either completely unaware or they just don't care, and I think that's amazing. But everything has its extremes, and we probably don't wanna be super extreme at any particular thing. So when you're saying to yourself, oh, I'm just not motivated, I'm just not disciplined, or I'm just not organized, or I'm just not strong enough, or I'm just not mentally capable, or whatever the thing is for you. Pay attention to those words that you're using for yourself, and especially when they are con, conditional, or definitive statements, because that's not true, but your brain believes it's true, and so it's gonna find evidence to support that. So that's the first thing that I feel like could hold you back from your new self. And this is one thing that I'm paying attention a lot for myself because I can tend to get into a spiral. Whenever I'm thinking that I'm not doing well at something and I'm like, oh, I'm a failure, or, oh, I'm just not good at this, or, oh, I'm just feeling really, really negatively about something and that's not helpful for anybody that's working on being a better person. The second thing, and if my husband listens to this episode, I will know it because this came from a series that we read together, which it's totally fantasy fiction, not romantic in any way. I can't remember if I've talked about it on the podcast or not, but it's a Brandon Sanderson. Fantasy series. And one of the things that they say a lot in this in Stormlight archives is what it's called is journey before Destination. And this has been spinning around again in my head, not specifically journey before destination, but when I think about things that hold you back. From getting to where you want to be or like becoming the person that you want to become is focusing too much on where you want to go instead of how you're gonna get there. Focusing too much on the end goal or end result, rather than the process that it takes to get there. Feel like this is one of those things that people say a lot whenever it comes to health routines. They say like, trust the process, and you see their videos from January. All the way to the end of the year and you're like, oh my gosh, look at those glutes. That's amazing. You know, so it's true. But most things that we are working toward that we want are going to take a while. And the bulk of the like successful feeling that you feel like when you get to the other side of something or that satisfaction is from all of that journey that you went on in the process, right. This could be in any sort of process, so maybe in a relationship, for example, like I think about people who are dating or single or something like that and just really wanna be married and are really focused on wanting to get married. Okay. Well, if you met your partner, You got married the next day that probably you, you guys probably wouldn't have developed All the things that you need to develop before you can have a successful marriage or I, this is a silly example, but I just started doing sourdough and it's cool, it's the process, but if you took your sourdough starter, which if you've ever made sourdough, you know, it's like, it's almost like a two day process and there's all these little steps that you have to do and finicky things about it, like having specific. Water and having specific flour and making sure the temperature is okay and. You can give yourself a lot of grace. Sourdough is very forgiving, but at the same time, there's this process that you have to follow and I just made my like first loaf and I'm already excited to make another one because I'm like, Ooh, I feel like I can just get better at the process and the little bit of skills that I developed in that first loaf I could just continue to work on. But if you took your starter and you just tried to bake it right from. From there. Anybody that has baked sourdough knows that that would, that would not work out. Like you could not bake something, bake from a starter 30 minutes after you, or immediately after opening a starter from someone. That just wouldn't work. So. Why I'm saying this is because I feel like we focus so much on the end result. Like, oh, I really want just a really nice loaf of sourdough bread. But if I didn't work on the process in between, then that result would not be as satisfying. That re that result would not be as good and I probably wouldn't be able to maintain it since we're using a sourdough example, I probably wouldn't be able to eat it but in all of the other examples, if you are working on your relationship or, or if you are wanting to get married and you find someone and you were to marry them the next day, that you have nothing that you can maintain at that point. You don't have any communication skills you've built up. You don't have any tough things that you've gone through together, that you've worked through, so it just wouldn't be a maintainable relationship at that point. You'd still be starting new, yes, you would be married, you'd be quote unquote at your goal, but you wouldn't actually be in a relationship that you could continue forward really. So journey before destination. You wanna focus more on the journey and who you're becoming in the process of getting to your goal rather than the goal itself. Because you are developing so many different skills and habits and. Personality traits, not conditional personality traits, but personality traits that you are using to get to your goal. And that's, that's what makes it satisfying at the end when you get to your goal. And that also is what makes it. Something that you can sustain moving forward and maintain moving forward because you've built that muscle that you need in order to continue doing reps in the future. The third thing that I would say could keep you from being like new you, best you, whatever it is going into the new year or any season of life, is not having the people around you that you need in order to support what you're moving toward. So for instance, I was talking about. New Year's goals and I, I honestly didn't make a ton of goals or resolutions. I have like a book goal number of books that I wanna read, but outside of that, I'm just kind of trying to be a softer version of myself this year. It's kind of funny having like a personal growth podcast because I feel like it's very motivational and whatnot, and I, I still want to be motivated toward my goals and everything. And have an energetic life and be obsessed with the life that I'm living. But one of the things that I've noticed that I want, especially as people in my life are bringing kids into the world and whatnot, is I wanna be an example of someone who's gentle with themselves, gentle with other people, just kind of a softer version of myself, you know? And just very open to what the world can. Bring me and what my life can bring me and being, yeah, just leaving myself open and having space for myself and for others, and allowing that to shape my year. So openness or spaciousness is kind of what I've been thinking for the new year. But if I'm only around people who are constantly jam packing their calendars and not leaving space for things, or I'm only around people who are really high intensity or really go, go, go all the time, then I might not do the best because I'm gonna be feeling like, oh, I need to be in a race with them, or I need to be doing what they're doing and whatnot. And it's okay to have some people like that, but you need to have some people in your circle That they have a similar drive to do the thing that you wanna do. So for example, if you are really working on your health goals this year and you're only around friends who like to drink, and when they get together, we, you always seem to like be eating junk food around them or they criticize you whenever you decide not to eat something, something like that. This goes back to the people pleasing thing I was talking about, but. In those cases, that's okay. You can still be friends with those people, but you need some friends who care about health goals. You need a gym buddy. You need someone who is also interested in doing like a health challenge with you. You know, maybe you could find one of those 30 day Facebook challenge groups. My sister and I are actually doing a 21 day here soon because even though I am, I don't have any like major health. Schools this year, I'm kind of in a maintenance mode of maintaining the good health that I have, which I had worked on for years and years previously. But in that 21 day group, we're gonna be surrounded by other people who are paying attention to their nutrition, paying attention to their water intake, paying at attention to their activity levels and their energy levels, and making sure to put good things into their bodies so that their bodies can do amazing things for them. So. All that to say that if you are working on a specific thing, you need to surround yourself with other people that care about that too, because otherwise it's just such a quick way to fall off the wagon, I guess is what you would call it. But especially like if you haven't had your first like true weekend of 2026 or. Whenever you're setting these goals, if you haven't had your first true weekend, that's like the easiest time to fall off the wagon with any kind of routine that you're establishing, whether that's a reading routine or a health routine or some kind of relationship habit that you're building or anything. It's the easiest time to fall off the wagon. And if the people that you choose to spend your time with, like your friends or family who come over on the weekends or anybody that you spend your free time with. As soon as you get together with those people, you are more likely to fall into whatever it is that those people. Also want. So if you have friends that you can lean on for support and community that matches what you're working toward and who you're becoming and that best self, new self, whatever, for 2026, then you're much more likely to follow through because you've all decided this is important to you. You're moving towards something similar and you're much less likely to. Give up on other people when other people are holding you accountable and know that this is what you want for yourself and they want that for themselves too, you're a lot less likely to give up on them than if you were to just give up on yourself among a bunch of people that don't really care about the goals that you have and don't really care about whatever it is that you're working toward. Full transparency. This is something that I want to do here soon. I had joined a podcast community a while back, but it, it wasn't a super thriving community. It was like kind of just getting off the ground and it didn't. It didn't thrive very much, but I definitely wanna do this with the podcasts, surround myself with other podcasters because I don't have other podcasters in my life, but it's something that I care about and something that I really want to continue to grow and work on. And so knowing that Putting my money where my mouth is sort of thing. I definitely want to find some sort of community, whether it's online or in person, to be able to join so that I can surround myself with other people who also care about podcasting and their podcast because. You also get so many ideas and inspiration and motivation from other people. And when someone is a little bit further than you in whatever goal it is that you're trying to achieve, they, you can borrow belief from'em. So, like I said before, your brain looks for evidence to support what it already believes to be true. Well, if you've never grown a podcast to a million down downloads or whatever your big goal is, if you've never lost 20 pounds and kept it off, or you've never read 30 books in a year or whatever your goal is for you, then you can borrow belief by, by surrounding yourself with other people who care about that thing and maybe are just a step ahead of you or a couple steps ahead of you. You can borrow belief from them and go, oh, they did it. I could do it too. So these are three things that I think. Could hold you back as you move toward your new self or your best self, whatever that is for you, and things to keep in mind. So I want you to keep in mind as you go through the next week, what kind of conditional statements and definitive statements are you saying about yourself, whether that's to other people or even on a loop inside your head.'cause sometimes I do that and I don't realize that Once I say it out loud, I'm like, oh, that's kind of dumb. I had to do that with Jared this week. My husband, Jared, I was telling him, I think I just need to get this thing outta my head because I keep saying it. And the more that I don't like, the more that I don't bring it up, the more power I'm giving it inside my brain. And then once I said it, I was like, okay, I'm. Already feeling better. Second thing that could hold you back is focusing on the destination instead of the journey or the end result instead of the process. So focus more on journey before destination. And then the third thing is not having the people in your life that are also working towards the same thing as you. So having an accountability group, having some sort of support in the pursuit that you are. And those are the three things. So hopefully this is super helpful for you. I'd be curious if one out of the three things or two out of the three things speaks more to you if these are things that you also deal with because these are. These are the things, like I said, that I've been thinking about a lot recently that can tend to keep me from achieving the things that I wanna achieve or becoming more of the person that I want to become. And so I wanted to share them with you because I figured you might be thinking about these things too. Or if you're not, it might be a good thing for you to be thinking about as you're moving into the this next phase of life. So love you. Thank you.