The Habits I Quit That Made Me Happier, Healthier, and More Confident

In today's episode, I'm sharing the simple things I stopped doing that have had the biggest impact on my life. From saying yes to everything and waiting for motivation to comparing myself to others and constantly chasing the next wellness trend, these are the habits and mindsets I let go of to feel healthier, happier, and more at peace.

We'll talk about why the basics often work best, how being more intentional with food changed my perspective, and why some of my favorite social plans no longer revolve around eating and drinking. If you've been feeling overwhelmed, stuck, or like you're always chasing the next thing, this episode is your reminder that sometimes growth comes from letting go—not adding more.

Grab your coffee, go for a walk, and let's chat. ✨🎙️

Transcript

0:14

Hi everyone and welcome back to the Lucky Girls Podcast. It's your host, Sophia, and I just want to say happy June. Today is June 2nd, and June is actually my birthday month, so a very exciting month for me. I feel like it's starting to finally feel like summer. I've been going to the pool a lot. I've had a couple of beach days. We went day camping. So yeah, I'm just ready for all of the summer vibes and summer activities. I feel like I can't think of any life updates right now to tell you guys. You know, when someone asks you, like, oh, what have you been up to? What have you been doing lately? And you kind of freeze. I feel like that's me every single time, or like if I think about what did I do last month, I have no idea. It literally takes me like a second, or I have to look back through my photo album to remember everything I did. Not too many crazy things have happened lately, but I've just been working non-stop. If you have been following me on TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube, you know I have been pushing out the content. I have been posting multiple times a day on multiple platforms, and I'm also a social media manager for a couple of other business accounts. So I post so much throughout the day, it's actually insane. I've been focusing a lot on wellness, my relationship content, and then also LTK content. I've been so happy with creating and editing this LTK type of content where I'm mainly focusing on like what I wear throughout the day, throughout the week. I wouldn't say like I'm a fashion girly. I feel like I dress very comfortable, but I love to be cutesy. I love all of the colors, I love patterns. So I don't consider myself a fashion girly, but I just really love cute pieces. I love active wear pieces. So yeah, if you're kind of in that same boat, you love like athleisure and comfy casual outfits, definitely follow me on my LTK. I just hit a hundred followers on LTK. I'm so so grateful for that. I've just been really enjoying creating that content, and that's also the type of content that I like to watch. I just love to see what they're wearing, what sales are going on. I feel like I never find a sale through like a brand's actual marketing. I find it through an influencer now. When a girl is like, oh hey, there's a sale at American Eagle, I'm like, okay, need to go ASAP. That's what I've been enjoying creating lately, and it's so fun to connect with a whole different type of audience. I've gained so many new followers that are really into the fashion LTK type of content. So yeah, it's just fun to explore new things that I like creating because with content creation, you can kind of get stuck in a niche, and I feel like I've been doing such a good job of not getting stuck. I mean, if you guys followed me way back when I started, I was a pink girl aesthetic content creator. I would love to have any of you guys reach out to me if you followed me back then. I was only pink. I would get everything pink, like my makeup, my skincare, my bedsheets. Literally everything in my room was pink girl aesthetic. And yeah, that was a fun time, but that couldn't last forever. I had to evolve. I am definitely so much more lifestyle and wellness, and a big, big part of my life is my fiance. So a lot of my content is actually relationship content now, which is so fun because he is kind of diving into the creator space as well as like a fitness and wellness creator. So he loves cooking and he loves to work out and all those things. Gage's Instagram is the Jacoby table. It's so fun to create together now that he has so much more time. He has a remote job. We're both home a lot, and it's so fun to document our daily life because our content is like actually what we do and it's our reality. So it's so fun to have these videos to look back on, and even my like YouTube videos from a while back. I'm like, oh my gosh, it's so cute to look back on those. So yeah, I've just been loving what I'm doing lately in my content creation journey. Okay, so today's episode is going to be about things I stopped doing that improved my life. I have been posting so much about my wellness journey, eating healthy, prioritizing physical activity, biohacking, and all those things. So I'm going to dive a little bit deeper into all of the things that I stopped doing that genuinely improved my life. We spend so much time talking about habits and starting habits, but really so many changes has come along within the past couple of months when I let go of things. So these are things that I stopped doing, and a lot of people don't talk about the things that they took out of their routines. So we're gonna dive into that. Okay, first up is I stopped saying yes to everything. This could be a friend asking you to go out for dinner or for drinks. This could be your job asking you to come in on the weekend for an extra shift or something like that. I always used to say yes to everything because I was scared of what people would think or say or if it would ruin my reputation in a certain area. But saying no has so much power and I feel like it takes a lot of respect for yourself to be able to be like, no, I actually don't want to do that. And that was so hard for me to even say to like my best friend to like tell her, like, oh sorry, like I don't want to go there or I don't want to do that. Can we do something else? But I feel like if you always come from a good place and you're just honest, I don't think there's anything that anybody could say. I mean, at the end of the day, you're trying to better your life in one way or another. Sometimes Gage and I will have to say no to going out to dinner or for drinks because really our routine after 5 p.m. is going to the gym, going on a walk, um, at a park nearby, and then cooking dinner at home. One time we really wanted to go hang out with our friends and they were watching the fights at a bar. So what we did was we finished work, cooked really quickly at home, ate our healthy meal, and then we went out with them. We got to watch the fights, we ordered no food, and we just had some water. So that was one of the ways where we were still able to hang out with friends and do all of the fun things, but keep our routine. It's honestly really hard to do that. Like, it's hard to be somewhere where there's a lot of yummy food and yummy drinks when you're not eating that way. So I completely understand if you're the type of person to just be like, no, I can't go. And honestly, if you have good friends, good people around you, they should understand that. Um, I feel like it's so hard to be disciplined with routines. It's definitely not as easy as it looks online. So props to you if you're prioritizing your routine, your morning routine, your night routine, anything that's making you a better person, being healthy. It really is a lifestyle, and you're going to have to say no to plans or just trying to be more intentional with your time. You're gonna have to say no to some people's. Just try to find balance and prioritize things that make you happy, and you'll feel so much better. Remember, protecting your time isn't selfish. Sometimes it's just what you have to do. Really, your happiness and your health is what truly matters. Okay, the second thing that I stopped doing that improved my life is I stopped waiting for motivation. So for so many years, like I lacked discipline, and it took me a long time to learn how to be disciplined. Don't beat yourself up if you're not as disciplined as you'd like to be. It does take time and it takes a lot of effort. I used to be a huge procrastinator, and once I started just doing things right then and there, when I thought of doing it, my life got so much better. I would procrastinate on deep cleaning the kitchen, on doing laundry, on doing whatever work I needed to get done, and it would make me so anxious and overwhelmed, and it would just pile up and it would cloud my mind. I couldn't think properly or figure out what to accomplish first. So if you have to do something and you have the time to do it within five to ten minutes, just go ahead and finish that task, check it off of your list, and you're going to feel 10 times better, I promise you. When I have to clean the kitchen, I just go ahead and do it because I know it's going to be piling up if I don't. And there's nothing worse than waking up in the morning to the sunshine, getting out of bed, walking into the kitchen, and then there's dirty dishes everywhere, the sink is disgusting, and there's crumbs all over the counter. It's just not a good way to wake up in the morning if you're procrastinating on cleaning your environment that you live in. That's going to also cloud your mind. So definitely prioritize cleaning up after yourself and even the little things like the little corner of random things that you have to go through and maybe give away to goodwill or organize or mail piling up. Just clean what you can in the moment, and it won't feel like a huge task at the end of the week. And other than being clean and organized, another way that I stopped waiting for motivation was in my work. As a content creator, I'm able to make my own schedule, and part of that is so amazing. And I love having the freedom that I have now compared to when I had a nine to five. But on the other hand, there is so much discipline that you need to have while being your own boss. And it took me quite a few months to learn how to be disciplined in my own way and to be able to get up when I didn't want to to go film or go edit or whatever I had to do. So that was also another way that I learned how to be disciplined, and it just took me a lot further than I ever thought I could go. Okay, guys, so number three, by the way, these are a mix of like wellness and life tips. So the third one is more in the wellness category. It's I stopped eating empty calories. So this doesn't mean that I don't enjoy a yummy dessert or don't go out with friends sometimes, but I am just more intentional with what I choose to eat on a daily basis. And if I do go out, I know how to eat earlier in the day, so I am not going above and beyond my caloric intake for that day. Empty calories means like I'm just eating something for the fun of it and it's not nourishing my body, it's not nutrient dense, and it's maybe 200 calories for a little taste and basically for nothing. Now I'll ask myself if something is worth it. If I'm going to have a dessert, I want it to be spectacular. And if I want to spend calories on something, I want it to contribute to like my nourishment, my enjoyment, and feeling truly full. I feel like when I eat snacks and processed food, junk food, I am satisfied for two seconds and then I'm still hungry afterwards, I'm still craving something. So my trick is eating fruit as dessert. It's so delicious. Gage and I we go on different fruit kicks. So right now we're obsessed with oranges and kiwis. We literally buy so many within a week. It's insane. But the calories are so low, it's nutrient dense and it's filling and satisfying. I do not crave sweets after I have fruits. We even put honey on it sometimes, but even then, like we don't need a lot of sweetener. It's so delicious and it's actually fueling our bodies and it's satisfying. I don't need a Cinnabon every single day. Um I'm just craving Cinnabon right now, I think that's why I said that. But yeah, so we've been eating so much more fruit, and it honestly makes me feel so much more full than chips or processed food. It doesn't make me feel yucky afterwards, and my stomach doesn't hurt. So I just stopped eating empty calories that were useless and not working towards my fitness goals, my health goals, and I feel like everyone should take a look at their diet because it's so easy to just eat something while you're watching a movie or while you're working. It's so easy to mindlessly snack throughout the day just because the food is available and it's right in front of you, or someone caters to your office and you have a bunch of free food. It's so hard to not want to eat it. Trust me, I know. Every time I go to the grocery store, I still am looking at the yummy snacks, but I just know it's not fueling me and it's not going to help me in any way, and they're essentially empty calories. I'm definitely in probably the best place I've been in in terms of my relationship with food right now, but it took a lot to get here, and it took a lot of help from my fiance as well, just like reminding me that I don't need to eat chips after dinner every single day. When that was kind of just what I used to do, I would come home from my nine to five, eat my dinner, and then have chips and watch Grey's Anatomy on the couch. That was like my little ritual. But now with my diet, it's not even a diet, it's just I'm eating whole foods and real ingredients. I feel so much more energized, healthy. I feel like my mind is clear, my skin has cleared up. I used to have so much texture and acne. I never struggled with acne when I was a kid, and for some reason, once I turned like 22, I started to get acne, and all of that has cleared now. So yeah, there's just been so much improvement. I just started listening to my body, and that's helped me tremendously. Okay, the next thing kind of ties into the last point, but I stopped trying every new thing. When there was a trend or a new supplement, a new workout, I really focused on what works for me. I know there's so many new things out there and so many different ways of feeling your body or working out. I just stick to what works for me. I love doing Pilates. I've seen so much strength in my core and in my arms just from being consistent with Pilates. So I love doing that. I still do some weight training, which I want to do more of, but yeah, right now my split is like Pilates and weights and cardio. So getting like 10k steps a day. Stop trying every new thing that you see on the internet. And if you know that something works for your body, just stick to it. Don't feel the need to hop on every new trend. I mean, if you want to, definitely go for it. But I feel like walking, making sure your sleep is prioritized, drinking enough water, eating your protein, a high protein diet is key. Um, some strength training and just going outside and getting some sun. I feel like if you have all of those things, you're set. Like the basics do work. And once you focus on just the basics, you'll realize how much outside noise there is, and that you don't need to even think about because once I honed in on that little list right there, that is when I saw the biggest difference. It really is about consistency, and you'll see results when you're consistent, not when you're constantly changing your routine and trying out new things. So if there's something that you really want to try, maybe add it slowly into your routine and try it that way instead of just ditching your whole entire routine and making a new one. You have to have a good foundation in order to try a new thing and incorporate that into your routine. I feel like once you have your foundation down, then you'll be set. But if you're constantly switching things around, that's when you're gonna have the most trouble. Okay, so the fifth thing that I stopped doing that improved my life is I stopped comparing myself to other people. It's so cliche, but it's so true. And once I stopped comparing myself to other content creators, to other fiancés, to other sisters, to other daughters, that's when I truly felt like I understood myself and where I was going. Everyone is living a completely different life, everyone has different priorities, different timelines, and you just can't think about everyone else's situation when you're thinking about your own because you're just always gonna find yourself in a rut. There's always going to be someone out there who has something that maybe you want or that you're striving for, and that's okay. That's how life is, that's their path. They've already completed so many things in their life to get there, and you're on your way. Instead of comparing yourself to others, compare yourself to who you were last year. Compare yourself to who you were maybe five years, ten years ago, and you're going to feel so good and so proud of yourself. I mean, I feel like even me six months ago was so different to who I am now. So just take a look and remind yourself of your journey and what it took for you to get to where you are now. That's who you should be comparing yourself with because you should always want to level up from who you were last year. Once you compare yourself to only you, that's when you're gonna find the most improvement and the most happiness. I feel like looking back on your journey is also so important because it makes you feel so grateful and appreciative of everything you've done. It reminds you to be proud of yourself. I feel like we have to be a little bit more intentional with looking back on our journeys because we forget that we've accomplished so much and we're still on a path, yes, but we have done so many things to get to where we are now. So just don't forget about all of the things that you should be proud of yourself for. Okay, I feel like the next one may be controversial or not, I'm not sure. But I stopped using food as my only way to socialize. I feel like so many events and activities revolve around eating or drinking, and of course, I love a good coffee date, a matcha date, and things like that. But when it comes to going out just for drinks and things like that, that is not making me a better person, and that is not adding to the goals that I want in the future. I want to live a long, healthy life. I want to feel energized when I wake up in the morning, I don't want to feel hungover, and I want to be the best version of myself that I can be. I want to have healthy babies and I want to live a long life with my future husband. So those are just my goals, and that's what I choose to focus on. And there's nothing wrong with going up and drinking, going out for dinner. I obviously still do those things. I just am more balanced and intentional about it. But I do say no to a lot of those things now, and I ask myself, what can we do instead? If someone wants to hang out, I'll ask them, do you want to go on a walk? Do you want to go to a farmer's market? Let's have a beach day. We actually just had a beach day with our friends who are also a couple, so we double date with them a lot and we actually used to go out to dinners and drinks with them so much. Um, I would say like last year or maybe like a year and a half ago, and now when we hang out, we go for hikes, we go on walks, we go to the beach. Oh, yeah, that's what I was gonna say. We just had a beach day with them where we went to um a new beach for Gage and I, but they've been there so many times, so they were excited to show us this new beach, and we brought sandwiches and we just had a day in the sun. We ran around in the waves, and it was such a good time. And then we also went day camping with another group of friends where we grilled burgers and we hiked and then we enjoyed the day just on the sand. We had a tent set up, and it was just a really fun outdoor way to bond with our friends and not have loud music and not have it revolve around food or drinks. So yeah, I feel like I've just been prioritizing suggesting going on walks and maybe like doing more outdoor activities if someone wants to hang out, or if my bestie hits me up and she's like, Okay, I'm free, what can we do? Literally last week we just sat by the pool because both of us didn't want to go out to eat. We were both going home afterwards to cook dinner and have our you know usual night routine because it was during the work week. So we literally just hung up by the pool, talked, and caught up on our lives, and it was so much fun. So I highly recommend doing something just like outdoors and something healthy. You don't always have to go out with friends to a bar or have it revolve around food. I feel like it's also more therapeutic to go on a walk or hang out at the beach or by a pool with a friend and talk. It's more intimate and you actually get to really conversate with one another. I highly recommend doing something like that if you're having trouble socializing with people while keeping your routine consistent. Okay, guys, so those are all of the things that I stopped doing that helped me improve my life, whether it be improvement in my health or relationships, friendships, or just my lifestyle. A lot of my episodes have talked about things that I started doing to improve my life in one way or another. So these were the opposite and fun to talk about. It's also just a reminder that taking things out of your life isn't always negative, and saying no to things like events or hanging out with friends could be beneficial for you and could improve your life if you do it in the right way and if you're balanced about it and you know you're honest with your friends and your family. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, and you might even motivate someone in your life to do the same thing or to become healthier in one way or another. Small changes repeated consistently can actually change the way you feel about your life and your outlook on life. So that's truly what being a lucky girl is all about. Don't be afraid to remove the things in your life that aren't serving you anymore. That was it for today's podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening. I hope you were able to maybe take some advice from this episode, or maybe you were reminded of something that you forgot and you can now incorporate that into your life. Don't forget to give this podcast a like and leave a comment. Follow us on social media at the lucky girls podcast and follow me, your host, Sophia Jacoby, at Sophia Jacoby on all social media platforms. I think that's it. I'll see you guys in the next episode. And always remember that you're a lucky girl.