Welcome to Up and Not Crying. This is your host, Beth Repp, a physician and certified life coach. Up and not crying is a Norwegian phrase that you would use in response to someone asking you, "Hey, how are you today?" It's a very honest way to describe your average day. "Hey, I'm up and not crying. So far so good." In this podcast, you will learn self-improvement and coaching tools to engineer your mindset, your mood, and your schedule. We make your real life feel better. In this episode, episode seven, we're gonna imagine your ideal day and work towards your ideal life. This is a really fun one, you guys. So this is one of my favorite life coaching tools, and this comes from, I believe, Martha Beck was the first one to describe this. I love Martha. Um, she talks about really imagining, really in detail, imagining your ideal Tuesday. Okay, and this has to be an average workday, middle-of-the-week day. I don't want you to imagine a weekend. I don't want you to imagine your ideal vacation. This has to be your average boring Tuesday. Okay? And you can imagine this by kinda going through your day chronologically when you first wake up, and going through every detail. Or you can imagine it by the main categories of what, where, who, when, that kinda thing. So let's go through, and I'm gonna intentionally do this in a really annoying, detailed, granular fashion. And at the time of listening to this, you're gonna be like, "Yes, yes, yes, Beth, I get it." But as you're thinking about this later, I think you're gonna realize, like, those details matter. They really matter. Okay, so when you first wake up in your ideal life on your ideal Tuesday in your life, your actual life, your ideal Tuesday, where are you waking up? When you first open your eyes, what does the room look like that you're waking up in? Who is laying next to you? What do you hear? Do you have a pet in the bed with you? Do you hear your dog needing to be let out? Do you hear birds? Do you hear traffic? What does that room look like? Okay, when you first wake up, what do you do? Do you go make yourself a cup of coffee, or do you do a little reading and writing? Do you do some exercise? Do you go straight to your computer? Do you go straight outside and go for a walk? What do you do up first thing upon wa- waking up? What are you wearing? What outfit do you put on? What do you make yourself for breakfast? What's your ideal in your perfect life where you're feeling great, you're your best self, what do you drink? What do you eat? What do you listen to? What do you read? Are you picking up your phone and reading the news? Are you reading a paper book? Are you putting on the radio and hopping in your car and driving somewhere? What do you... What are you doing next? What are you surrounding yourself with? What information, what people, what noises, what are you surrounding yourself with? Where do you go and how do you get there? So what, what's your mode of transportation? In your ideal healthy life where you are your best self, do you walk to work? Do you bike? What kind of car do you drive? Do you take the subway? What does that look like for you? Are you walking along the beach? What does this look like? And now where do you go? Are you working? Do you have your own business? Are you running your own day? Are you going to an office setting? Do you work outside? How long do you work each day? Do you like to work four hours a day and then have the rest of the day to do what you like to do with it? Do you like to really work hard and put in a full 10 hours each day? How do you divide that up? What are you gonna eat for lunch? And who are you gonna eat with? What does your work setting look like? When you look around the room, imagine in detail, are you in a vehicle working? Are you outside? Are you in an office? Are you in a hospital? What does your office look like? Do you have windows? I want you to imagine every single little detail. Okay? Who are your coworkers? Who do you like to meet up with after work? What is your... What's your family unit look like? What are your very best friend? Who are your very best friends? What do they do? What do they talk about? What activities do you do with them What are your hobbies? What do you do after work? What kinds of things do you like to watch, listen to, read after work? What's your favorite restaurant to go to? What's your favorite, um, activity to go do? Do you like to go golf? Do you like to go play pickleball? Do you like to go, uh, to a poetry reading? What activities are you gonna do in your evenings? What do you eat for dinner? What time are you gonna go to bed? In your ideal, perfect, healthy, living your best self life, what time do you go to bed and how long do you sleep? And then start the whole thing the next day. So really get annoyingly granular with this, okay? Imagine the tiny little details. And after you've got a really good idea of what your ideal Tuesday looks like, then I want to- you to imagine what last Tuesday actually looked like, okay? What was every detail of last Tuesday When did you wake up? What was the very first thing you did? What did you eat for breakfast? What did you do after that? Did you go to work? Did you take your kids somewhere? What, what did you do for every detail of your day? And then I want you to really line those two up. What did last Tuesday actually look like, and what does my ideal Tuesday look like? Okay? Now, you might be pleasantly surprised that a lot of things already line up. Isn't that amazing? Wouldn't that be absolutely amazing? So if that's the case for you, what I want you to do is not take that for granted. Okay? Have a lot of gratitude for being able to live a life that you actually thoroughly enjoy, that you imagine, and that you are grateful for. So just be... Don't take that for granted. Recognize how amazing that is. And also recognize there's probably still just even a little bit more you could do to squeeze a little bit more joy out of each day. There might be one tiny detail you could change. Now, if things are quite different, I do not want you to despair. That's actually really fun. That's where the good stuff starts. Okay? So if your days are quite different, your actual day compared to your ideal day, if that's quite different, I want you to pick one small thing. Okay? Now, it doesn't seem like it, but one tiny thing that you can shift in your actual day to bring it more in alignment with your ideal day will give your day a huge happiness boost. Okay? So even if it's just changing part of your breakfast, okay? Or maybe cleaning out your car because you, in your ideal day, you drive to work in a beautifully clean car. Okay? So if you just take, you know, 15 minutes and really clean out your car or think about, "Okay, what kind of breakfast do I really want to eat?" And shop for those couple things, it can make a huge boost in your whole week. Okay? So change one tiny thing first. And then f- and then find the thing or one of the things that is the most divergent. So what is the biggest difference between your actual life and your ideal life? Where are you really off on things? And then kinda ask yourself, "How difficult would this be to change? Or is it actually an easier change than what I'm i- imagining?" If it's a huge change, do not discount it. Okay? So it's easy to say, "That's not feasible for me. I, I can't do that right now. I might not ever be able to do it." Don't discount it. Really imagine what that ideal scenario is. Write it down. Even the act of writing it down and putting some- it somewhere where, you know, you can see it every day or, or maybe even where only you see it can make a huge difference. Put it in your, um, planner, a notebook, a journal, next to your bed, or maybe you tack it up in the kitchen where everybody can see it. But just writing it down is the first step to manifesting a change. Okay? So what can you do right now to get a taste of that change? And I wanna give you just a couple of examples. Okay? So imagine your ideal life is living in Hawaii. You go for a walk, um, a- on a beautiful trail along the waterfront every single morning, year-round, as the sun is coming up. Okay? But at this moment right now, you are listening to Beth Rapp talk to you in your car as you're driving to your average job in Iowa. Okay? Do not discount this. What can you do to fan the flame of this ideal dream? Find a picture. I already talked about writing it down. Save that picture. Save that picture to your phone, print out that picture, hang up a picture somewhere. And then ask yourself, "Okay, so I'm living in Wailea, uh, Maui. Okay? What do I eat for breakfast every morning in Wailea, in that ideal life in Hawaii?" Well, I imagine that I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna have this like very healthy breakfast of fresh fruit and fresh yogurt. You can do that right now. Okay? So get your butt to Aldi and get yourself some fresh fruit and some fresh yogurt. Okay? Start eating that every morning for breakfast. What would I wear in that ideal day? Okay? Buy that running outfit right now. Buy that one outfit that you would wear in your mornings in Hawaii. Okay? Maybe decorate just one or two little things. You know, you could buy a couple pineapples. You could buy something kinda tropical and Hawaiian to set around to remind you. What music would I listen to living in Wailea? Make a playlist and put that on your, on your phone. Listen to podcasts, watch movies, listen to music that reminds you of that area. So there are, I am sure, thousands of podcasts that talk about Hawaii or moving to Hawaii or something set in Hawaii, you know, products that come from Hawaii. Listen to everything you can about Hawaii. Next, just start to plan a vacation there. Set a date. Maybe that's three years from now. Set your date. Write it down. Then set a date for when you're start to- you're gonna start to go there every year for two weeks. Okay, so what year is that gonna be? I'd say, uh, maybe that'll be the year 2035 when I start to go there for two weeks every single year. Okay? Remember, nothing is impossible. Every little, tiny shift starts to move you towards that ideal life Let's go through a second, second example. So maybe you're in a job that you don't get much joy out of, and the, and in the back of your mind, you've got a much bigger life imagined for yourself. You're imagining a much bigger job, and what I mean by that is something that really lights you up, that gives you purpose, that's more in alignment with your best, most essential self. Okay? So I want you to get clear on what that bigger job looks like. What does that really look like? So say you're selling insurance every day, but what you've always kinda had in the back of your mind was you'd love to be a small animal vet. You'd love to take care, care of people's dogs, and you think, "Well, that ship has sailed. I've got three kids. You know, I'm stuck in the middle of paying bills and, you know, getting the kids to where they need to go, and I'm just doing everything I can do to work my 9:00 to 5:00 kinda joyless job." That ship has not sailed. Okay? So take 15 minutes a day, read everything you can get your hands on. So read, read, read. Listen to podcasts. Listen to audiobooks. Just really start to educate yourself on that topic and on that area of work. Map out a plan. So, um, uh, at least you can even shift to a slightly different job so you don't have to go straight from your insurance job to applying to vet school. Okay? So maybe what you'd wanna do is just think about working in a veterinary office, working with animals to some degree. So instead of flying by the seat of your pants and letting life just happen to you, you're gonna get really intentional here. You're gonna start to set time aside to work towards your goals, even if that's only 15 minutes a day. So you're gonna start to learn everything you can about it. You're gonna start to Google, "What's the map towards becoming a small animal vet? What's the map towards becoming a small animal vet as a non-traditional student? What resources are available to me? What resources are available to me right now? Could I take an online class?" And you're gonna get really focused about this, and this is the really fun part, you guys, when you start to have a goal, and maybe no one else even knows about it. Maybe only your spouse knows about it, okay? And you're starting to carve out just this little bit of time for only you, where you are feeding your interest. You're feeding your s- future self. You're investing in yourself. So you're reading. You're writing. You're researching. You're actively doing something to work towards that next goal. The other thing that is really fun to do is start googling all the really successful people who have done this exact thing, who have worked their day jobs, perhaps soulless to them day jobs, and they have gritted it out before work, after work, doing the things they need to do to get to where they are now. So many famous writers, I'm gonna give you a list, Kurt Vonnegut, Toni Morrison, J.K. Rowling, Freida McFadden, all had day jobs, and they carved out this extra time either before in the really early morning hours or late night to sit down and write, and they just kept working at it, kept working at it until eventually their dream ideal Tuesday came true. Many entrepreneurs are the same way. So they would have their kind of soul-sucking nine-to-five job, and in the after hours, they are working to make their dream come to life. The Spanx founder is one of those. I believe her name is Sara Blakely. Um, she had a nine-to-five job. She had a vision, and she just worked like crazy after hours to make that vision come to life. Um, okay, so this feels so good when you decide on a, on a direction, when you set a goal, and you start working on things that that's only for you, that only you or a couple other people know about. It gives your whole day, your whole life, this little light of purpose. It gives your schedule greater purpose. It gives your decision-making greater purpose. You start to say no to things that you really don't want to do but you don't know how to say no to because you're not gonna have time anymore for crap, okay? You're not gonna have time anymore for the stuff that doesn't light you up. You're now gonna have great constraint on what you need to do right now for you and your family and also what you want to do for your future self Now, what if you do all of this and down the road y- this does- y- nothing happens with it? Okay, so down the road, you actually don't go to vet school. Okay, so you put in all this work where before hours and after hours you're reading about this, you're researching it, you're applying, um, maybe even you st- you start to take classes, but something gets in the way and you do not end up becoming a small animal vet. I would still argue it was so worth it, okay? Because your own education and your own investments, your investments in yourself, are never wasted. Okay? You will become a better person just by doing the work to even start towards this goal. You're gonna learn, you're gonna grow, you're gonna start to be able to set boundaries against things that aren't really serving you, that you're just kinda doing because you've always done, or maybe you do them just to kinda please other people, but they're not really giving you anything in return. All of this is gonna be so beneficial to you to help you grow, learn, have better constraint on your own schedule, on your own time, and really take control Okay? And maybe after you start this process, you decide this really isn't for you. You know, you kind of have sat for years maybe with a little bit of, you know, regret or a little bit of resentment or a little bit of bitterness that you never got to do this thing, and then once you really take ownership and you really take action and you start towards it, you might realize, "You know what? I really thought that was gonna be the thing, but it's not." How beneficial is that to let go of all the what-ifs, let go of all the guilt or resentment or whatever it could be that you're hanging on to for a life that you imagined would have been better for you, but you somehow felt like you didn't get the chance? Go for it now, and what if you find out it's really not all that in your mind you had it cracked up to be? Isn't that wonderful to let go of all those negative emotions? None of this is ever wasted. Okay, so to review, I want you to take time to really imagine in detail your ideal average middle-of-the-week day. I think a Tuesday is a great one, okay? And by default then, you're imagining your ideal life. You can do this by g- by going through every minute, every hour of your day in order or you can do, uh, what, where, why, how, whatever. So what does my life look, look like? Where am I? Who am I with? How am I doing this? How am I getting to work? How am I dressing? You get the idea. So ask yourself the, the basic five questions, okay? And then you're gonna think back on last Tuesday. What did my actual life look like last Tuesday? And see how that's similar and how that's different from your ideal Tuesday. I want you to identify one tiny shift that you can do today to bring those two into better alignment, and then you are gonna notice a surprisingly huge boost in how you feel with one tiny shift, okay? And then I want you to identify the biggest shift that it would take to make your actual life now- be your ideal life and start to break that down into tiny, tiny little turtle steps towards that goal, towards making that shift. If all you do today is write that down, that's your first turtle step. Your next turtle step might be looking something up. So you're gonna make little, tiny turtle steps towards that goal. If you take one thing from this episode, it is this: you absolutely can live your ideal life. It is not too late. You can start today. Even making one tiny adjustment can give you a huge happiness and fulfillment boost. All right, friends, until next week, stay upright, find the good, and if you can't find the good, at least make it funny. You can find me at bethrepp.com, hello@bethrepp.com, or Beth Repp Coaching on Facebook. And finally, the legal disclaimer: the content presented in this podcast is for your general information only. Reliance on the information provided is done at your own risk. That's what we've got for this week, everybody. Go out there and start living your ideal Tuesday, and I will see you back here next Tuesday for episode eight of Up And Not Crying.