Welcome back! This is episode #021 of To Take It Or Leave It, a podcast to help you change the way you look at things, end your mental suffering and give you some motivation and inspiration to live your best life! I’m so glad you’re here! I’m Val Poirier and I’m your host. If you haven’t done so yet, please hit that subscribe button so you never miss another episode. Today’s topic is: 7 habits for growth – Part Two
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In case you missed last week’s episode, we covered the first three habits for growth which are doing healing work, self-acceptance, and personal responsibility. You can listen to last week’s episode to hear more on these.
Now let’s go through the last four habits for growth:
- Setting goals. Have you ever asked yourself where you would like to be in 5 years? 10 years? For the different areas of your life? Your career, your relationships, your physical health, your mental health, your emotional health, your spirituality. It’s important to be growing in all areas of your life, even if the growth is slow. Setting goals in these areas can help you stay focused in life and we all know how many distractions there are in the world we live in today. Why do some people set goals and never grow as a person? Because the important part of goals isn’t the goal itself, but rather who we have to become in order to achieve the goal. And if you don’t change your beliefs about who you are while you’re working towards a goal, you will go back to the person you used to be before. This happens often with people who’s weight goes up and down. Let’s say that you decide that you want to lose 50 pounds. So you do all the things you need to do, exercise and eat healthy for let’s say it takes you six months. And then once you hit your goal, you go back to your old ways and the weight starts creeping back up. This is because you never changed your belief from as an example “I’m a person who struggles with my weight.” to “I’m a person who lives a healthy lifestyle.” Both of these people have different thoughts and behaviours based on the story they tell themselves.
- Keeping promises to yourself. Let’s get real. How often do you tell yourself you’re going to do something and then don’t do it? And then you shame yourself for not doing the thing that you said you were going to do. What you probably don’t realize is that not keeping promises to yourself contributes to your self confidence. It’s time to stop that bad habit and be honest with yourself. When you start to keep those promises to yourself, big or small, you will learn to trust yourself and it will increase your confidence. You’ll know that if you commit to something then you’ll do it. It will also help your relationship with others. Chances are that if you’re not keeping those promises to yourself, you’re also not keeping the promises you make to others. Let’s say you are notorious for being late. So you tell your friend that you’re going to meet them somewhere at 3pm. You tell yourself that you will make it this time, knowing full well that you have already planned too many other things into your day. When you say something over and over again and don’t follow through, you break trust. You break trust with other people and you break trust with yourself, which damages your confidence.
- Being honest with yourself and others about how you feel. This requires you to be able to self-reflect and be aware of and able to articulate your feelings. This is not something that comes naturally to so many people. This is a valuable skill to learn. If you aren’t telling the people that matter the most to you how you feel, you will never have the opportunity to grow with them. It’s important to know that they are not causing your feelings, but rather what they are and what you need from them, if anything. Sometimes we need something to feel safe and connected and sometimes we simply want them to be an ear to listen to us. Whatever it is, say how you feel and also what you need because people aren’t mind readers. We all need different things so to put that on someone else to just know what we need is too much. It’s your job to communicate this and to be honest with people because that’s what you would want from someone. Right?
- Being selective with who you choose to surround yourself with. You will slow your growth if you surround yourself with people who hold all the same beliefs as you or people who are not pursuing growth. Take a look around and ask yourself if the people closest to you challenge you to think differently about anything in your life. Do they get curious about your thoughts and ideas or disregard them because they’re different than theirs? How can we grow if we’re not learning anything new? This is the beauty of diversity and inclusion. It forces you to learn about other people, accept that they are different from you, and find creative solutions to get along. Choose to surround yourself with positive people too. Negative people can be energy draining. What you hear all day long is what you start to tell yourself and you want your thoughts to motivate and inspire you!
Last week we covered doing healing work, self-acceptance, and personal responsibility. The last four habits are setting goals, keeping promises to yourself, being honest with yourself and others about how you feel, and being selective with who you choose to surround yourself with. If you implement these seven habits into your life, you will see yourself and your life start to transform.
If you’re having trouble implementing these habits into your life then it’s time to change your approach. The pain or void you’re feeling in your life is telling you that something isn’t working. You’re feeling it because you know things could be better or there’s something missing. You know this isn’t working so you ask yourself what you’re going to do better. It’s really important not to wallow there but instead to do something about it. The best thing you can do is look at someone who’s helping others get the outcome you want and do what they tell you to do and follow a proven system because that is one of the biggest shortcuts you can possibly have and if you don’t take advantage of that, I mean why wouldn’t you? You make your road a lot shorter and you get to that destination a lot shorter if you follow the strategy.
I can make it simple but no one can make it easy. I’ll tell you step by step how to implement these habits into your life and really tap into the life and life purpose that you want to be living! You’ll feel better physically and mentally and improve your relationships in your life as well! You’ll start chasing and achieving your life goals! But no one can make it easy. You’re going to have moments of fear and doubt and overwhelm.
The power of being in a good coaching program is that you’ll have someone who will hold your hand and walk you through it which is what I love to do. It’s my joy in life. But those moments are still going to happen because that’s the journey but if you’re willing to step forward with some courage and embrace that and dive in and take action despite your uncertainty, you’ll be shocked at how fast things can grow or evolve. You’ll look back and think it’s so amazing, you couldn’t have imagined how good it could be. It’s ten times better than struggling in the dark. If you’re not taking advantage of that shortcut, then you’re not giving yourself every advantage that you can.
If that is what you want, I’d love to see if I can help you do that. So go to totakeitorleaveit.com/coaching and reach out and book a call with me. That’s what I do everyday. I’ve accomplished all these things already that you want to accomplish, I’ve helped others accomplish them so why don’t you let me see if I can help you do some of those things too. It’s not going to be easy but it’s going to be easier with my help. I can promise you that. Go to totakeitorleaveit.com/coaching and book a call today.
That’s it for today! Please share this podcast with someone you know and help share my message. The goal is to grow the podcast and I can only do that with your help so I appreciate it. I do this for you! Remember to love yourself first. You know yourself better than anyone else and be confident that you will make the right decisions for how to live YOUR best life.
If you’re looking for more motivation to achieve YOUR goals in life, join my Facebook group! This is an amazing community of like minded people! You can find it in my profile on Instagram @valcpoirier. Also, tag me in your stories with my podcast and what you think or what you’re doing while you listen to it and I’ll share it right back in mine! You are worthy and you are beautiful and I truly appreciate you all. Keep reaching for your goals….you got this! See you next time!