Episode 41
Reflection and Realization: Lessons and Wins from 2023
Episode Summary
In this episode of 'A Whole Lotta Shift', host Jen Ingram heralds the start of 2024 and looks back at the year that was. She emphasizes the importance of celebrating small wins and provides insight into our brain's tendency to focus on negative outcomes. Jen talks about her journey through 2023, recounting important personal and professional milestones, emphasizing the importance of living for 'the dash' and not merely ticking boxes in life.
She also examines her own identity and goals, after having a relationship with someone who represented a life she could've easily slipped into but ultimately rejected. By the end of 2023, she recognized the tests she went through and the invaluable lessons she learned about integrity and walking her talk. She encourages listeners to reflect on their own experiences, celebrate their own wins, acknowledge their lessons and use these insights to define their goals for 2024.
About the Host:
Jen is a Dream Catalyst and Business Mentor saving hustling female solopreneurs from the chains of corporate America. Her passion lies in helping women through their self awakening so they can finally break free, turn their side hustle into the business of their dreams, and live a life full of time, location and financial freedom.
Jen is a California girl at heart, now living out her dream in the Midwest, traveling, coaching female solopreneurs and sharing her own story of triumph and empowerment across speaking platforms. When she's not traveling, she enjoys spending time with her college aged son and her rescued Pit Bull.
After 20 years of various project manager and corporate trainer roles while juggling a wide array of side gigs, she has mastered the ability to help women see what they cannot see, believe they are meant for more and take aligned action to make it happen. With an MBA in Change Management, and a Health and Life Coach Certification from the Health Coach Institute, Jen is an expert at creating both the business process changes and the personal habit changes needed to finally Break UP with corporate and go all-in on your side hustle or long standing passion project.
Connect with Jen on Facebook or Instagram!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jenelleingram/
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/wholelottashift/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejenelleingram
Free Gift: https://mailchi.mp/4f4ae02ebe45/beat-the-odds
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Transcript
as time went on, I started to realize that while all the boxes were checked,
Speaker:I don't want to just check boxes.
Speaker:I've checked the boxes.
Speaker:I did that already.
Speaker:I lived that life.
Speaker:I checked every goddamn box.
Speaker:What box do you want?
Speaker:I checked it.
Speaker:I did that.
Speaker:And one of the things that I've known for, for quite some time, and it really came to
Speaker:light for me back in 2019 with the death of, of my son's father, my co parent.
Speaker:Is that I don't like living for the boxes.
Speaker:I don't wanna live for the boxes.
Speaker:Welcome to a whole lot of shift podcast, the podcast for multi passionate women
Speaker:with an entrepreneurial spirit, where we provide inspiration, motivation, and
Speaker:education to help you shift away from all the shoulds and supposed to's to what's
Speaker:truly possible for you in your business and your life, all on your own terms.
Speaker:You ready, girl, let's make shift happen.
Speaker:Hello and welcome to another episode of A Whole Lotta Shift.
Speaker:I'm your host Jen Ingram and I am so excited that you're joining us today.
Speaker:Today marks our very first episode of the year, 2024, and I am so
Speaker:excited to get this kicked off.
Speaker:If you know anything about me, I am not a huge believer in the whole,
Speaker:like, new year, new me kind of vibe.
Speaker:It's actually Oh, I don't, I don't know what to call it, but it's a
Speaker:little bit of a pet peeve of mine.
Speaker:I guess you could say like when all these people start talking
Speaker:about new year, new me, Oh, I'm going to do this in the new year.
Speaker:And then especially this year, the new year fell on a Monday
Speaker:and everybody was out here.
Speaker:Oh my gosh, , this means that it's just meant to be, you know, January 1st , not
Speaker:only is it the first of the month, it's the first of the year and it falls.
Speaker:On a Monday, which so many people consider like the beginning of their
Speaker:week, it's the beginning of the work week.
Speaker:And so there was all this talk about how amazing and productive and you
Speaker:know, awesome this new year was going to be because it's the first
Speaker:and it falls on a Monday and I'm going to be honest, I kind of, I.
Speaker:I, I love watching all those things because I almost get to sit
Speaker:back and say, okay, let's see it.
Speaker:Let's see it because here's the truth.
Speaker:Doesn't matter if it's the first of the month.
Speaker:Doesn't matter if it's the first of the year.
Speaker:Doesn't matter that it's on a Monday.
Speaker:The truth is it's 31st.
Speaker:You didn't suddenly become a new you on January 1st.
Speaker:So, also, because it fell on a Monday, didn't really change much either.
Speaker:I almost, in fact, I think I saw more people who were so excited that it
Speaker:was on a Monday, but then it's like we forget for so many, especially if
Speaker:you're still in your nine to five.
Speaker:You had that Monday off as a holiday.
Speaker:Everybody considers it a holiday.
Speaker:So did you just suddenly get up and be super productive that day?
Speaker:, did you do all the New Year things?
Speaker:The out with the old, in with the new?
Speaker:Did you go to the gym?
Speaker:Did you do all the, you know?
Speaker:And I just kind of sit back and I'm like, oh man, people get so
Speaker:in their head about the new year.
Speaker:So, okay, that's my rant about the new year.
Speaker:I'll stop.
Speaker:But I'm not a huge like new year, new you kind of person.
Speaker:What I do enjoy, however, is I do enjoy the fact that the calendar has
Speaker:turned into a new year and I get to take an opportunity to reflect back.
Speaker:And so I'm taking this opportunity as our first podcast episode of the year to
Speaker:reflect back on all that occurred this year and I want to help you figure out how
Speaker:you can also reflect back on this year and figure out What lessons you learned this
Speaker:last year and how those can really bring you forward into the new year and help
Speaker:, propel you forward and help you gain that momentum that you're looking for.
Speaker:So the first thing I want to do is I want to celebrate the hell
Speaker:out of everything that we did in 2023, because there was a lot.
Speaker:And one of the things that we probably don't do often enough is celebrate.
Speaker:All that we do, all that we accomplish and I'm going to take a moment right there.
Speaker:Do you know why we always say to celebrate the small wins?
Speaker:Do you know why it is preached so much to celebrate what it is that you've
Speaker:done, whether it's big, whether it's small, even if it was just that you got
Speaker:up and you got out of bed on time today.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Like you did one little thing and there's people out here telling you celebrate it.
Speaker:And you're thinking, well, that ain't much of an accomplishment.
Speaker:Why should I celebrate it?
Speaker:If you ever wondered that, why do we celebrate?
Speaker:Why do we say to celebrate all the wins, big or small, especially the small wins?
Speaker:Well, one of the reasons that we do that is because we tend to
Speaker:always be in a mindset of thinking of negative outcomes, right?
Speaker:So, it's said that we have somewhere between, I don't know,
Speaker:I think it's like 12, bots a day.
Speaker:That's just the average person.
Speaker:Hold on, let me repeat this.
Speaker:We have an average of 12, 000 to 50, 000 thoughts a day.
Speaker:That's a lot.
Speaker:And the truth is, somewhere between 75 to 80 percent of those negative.
Speaker:The majority of those thoughts, if you think about that, so 50, 000 thoughts a
Speaker:day and 80 percent of them are negative.
Speaker:That's a lot of negative thoughts.
Speaker:Now, why is this?
Speaker:This isn't just because people are just born and they're negative
Speaker:Nelly's and they're negative people.
Speaker:It's because your brain is hardwired to try to keep you safe.
Speaker:So it's constantly looking out ahead of you and constantly thinking about,
Speaker:okay, is this going to be a problem?
Speaker:Is this a problem that I am foreseeing?
Speaker:And how am I going to keep you safe?
Speaker:Well, in order to keep you safe, I've got to think of all the
Speaker:worst case scenarios, right?
Speaker:So it's just kind of this hardwiring that we have in our brain that says,
Speaker:My primary job is to keep you safe, and in order to do that, I need
Speaker:to be looking out for problems.
Speaker:The bad thing is, if you're constantly looking out for problems, guess
Speaker:what you're gonna have a lot of?
Speaker:You're gonna have a lot of problems, and they're gonna look like, and
Speaker:the problems, you're going to perceive as being negative, and
Speaker:they may or may not be negative.
Speaker:right?
Speaker:There may be some incredible positive things out of them.
Speaker:But one of the ways to help you rewire your brain to start considering
Speaker:those thoughts as being positive to start considering, well, where can
Speaker:I find the good in this problem?
Speaker:Where can I What can I learn from this?
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:What else can I do to rewire?
Speaker:So I'm not just thinking of 40, 000 negative thoughts a day.
Speaker:Well, you can do that by celebrating the small little wins that you
Speaker:do getting up on time, doing some self care, taking a shower, right?
Speaker:What, whatever that might look like for you celebrate all
Speaker:the small wins along the way.
Speaker:So I really want to take a moment to to ask you to think back through your
Speaker:And celebrate some of those wins.
Speaker:One of the easiest ways that I do to figure out what, what have I done?
Speaker:If you know, besides going back through my journal and some of those things,
Speaker:I love to go back through my camera roll because I'm, I'm a picture taker.
Speaker:I love taking pictures.
Speaker:I love going through looking at other people's pictures.
Speaker:So like, if you're one of those people, that's like, I'm going to put
Speaker:a photo dump on my Facebook today.
Speaker:I am your friend who looked at all 150 pictures that you dumped onto Facebook.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:So one of the ways that I go back to reflect is I just use my camera roll.
Speaker:Yes, I sometimes do use like my journal or, or someplace else where I maybe
Speaker:have some writing because sometimes that'll include some of my thoughts.
Speaker:But I love, love.
Speaker:Going back through my camera roll and seeing all the incredible places that
Speaker:I went, the things that I was doing, who I was with, what I was experiencing
Speaker:if you know me, you also know I'm a little bit of a foodie and I love
Speaker:taking pictures of all my food, wherever I'm at, the camera eats first, right?
Speaker:And so I love to go back through that and and yeah, and, and kind of
Speaker:relive the experience for a moment and they go, Oh yeah, I did that.
Speaker:And I had such a great time and celebrate the hell out of that.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So that's one of the ways that you can go back.
Speaker:So as I was thinking back through this year, of course, one of the.
Speaker:Amazing and incredible celebrations that I have is that back in February
Speaker:of 2023 was the launch of this podcast.
Speaker:So looking back in January of 2023, I was really busy recording my, I, I
Speaker:needed four episodes plus a trailer.
Speaker:So back in January of 2023, I was very busy recording my trailer getting
Speaker:my episodes recorded with my guests and having those outlined and yeah.
Speaker:And I remember at the last minute, I couldn't get my audio the way that I
Speaker:wanted it and I switched microphones.
Speaker:So I was super busy in January, but it was so exciting.
Speaker:Like I had been working on this podcast for so long and for whatever
Speaker:reason, January for me last year, actually it was December and January
Speaker:was a really big turning point for me.
Speaker:I've shared in previous episodes how the name of this podcast changed.
Speaker:In the, in the months and weeks leading up to the launch and it changed from being
Speaker:fuck this shit to a whole lot of shift, which is a pretty significant change.
Speaker:And so it would have been in December and January of 2023 that I had
Speaker:that that I, I finally made the decision that, okay, the name that
Speaker:I want just is not going to work.
Speaker:And I need to move on with something else.
Speaker:And so that just kind of kicked everything else off.
Speaker:And then.
Speaker:February on 2, 22, 23 was the launch of the podcast.
Speaker:And that was so exciting.
Speaker:That was such an incredibly exciting week for me.
Speaker:Um, it, it meant, it meant so many things.
Speaker:It meant I needed to.
Speaker:Step out of my comfort zone, which was super exciting because one of the things
Speaker:that you want to do when you're launching a podcast is it's really important
Speaker:that you get those early reviews out on Apple because Apple does like to
Speaker:help push new creators and new content.
Speaker:And on Apple podcasts, but to do that, you need to get those ratings
Speaker:and those reviews in immediately, which is why I needed to have
Speaker:four or five episodes in the bank.
Speaker:They're all launched as part of my launch and my launch week.
Speaker:So across four days, I had four episodes released giving giving my listeners the
Speaker:opportunity to have a lot to listen to and leave lots of reviews and, and so that
Speaker:was super exciting, but that meant I had to reach out to people, Hey, you know,
Speaker:have you given the show a listen yet?
Speaker:Would you mind leaving me a review?
Speaker:It also meant reaching back out to all my guests and asking them to
Speaker:please share on their platforms.
Speaker:And there was just a, there was a lot of hustle, but it was like, I
Speaker:was celebrating so much every day.
Speaker:The, the month of February was just huge for me.
Speaker:Huge.
Speaker:And then at the very end of February, that last weekend in February, I
Speaker:celebrated going to one of my coaches.
Speaker:I went on a retreat for a mastermind that I was in.
Speaker:We have a mini retreat a couple of times a year as part of that mastermind.
Speaker:It is included.
Speaker:And so we spent that last weekend in February at her lake house in
Speaker:North Carolina, and it was amazing.
Speaker:The connections that I made were incredible.
Speaker:And we made some good progress in our, in our business and our mindset.
Speaker:And again, I got to celebrate what had just happened the week prior,
Speaker:which was the launch of this.
Speaker:And it was so exciting.
Speaker:And so I started going through all of these celebrations, right?
Speaker:Again, I used my, I used my camera roll.
Speaker:And I just went month by month thinking about what I was doing and really
Speaker:taking it all in and celebrating the hell out of the fact that I had set out
Speaker:to really create this life for myself where I traveled and I got to experience
Speaker:new things and make new connections and learn more about myself while
Speaker:connecting with others and experiencing.
Speaker:a new way of life along the way.
Speaker:And the second piece of that, that I had really wanted to be intentional about was
Speaker:when I had decided to to take the, the job that I have now, you know, I had to,
Speaker:I basically promised this organization two years when I when I accepted this.
Speaker:And so I was very adamant that.
Speaker:I didn't want this to look or feel too much like a full
Speaker:time corporate America job.
Speaker:Like, I just didn't want that.
Speaker:And so in order for me to do that, I wanted to make sure I was
Speaker:really embracing the fact that I.
Speaker:I'm 100 percent remote.
Speaker:You know, I'm, I'm in this, I was brought on for some specific projects and and two
Speaker:years is a long time and yet it's not.
Speaker:So it's, you know, it's just one of those things.
Speaker:And so I got to celebrate in 2023 that I crossed that one year mark doing that.
Speaker:And I crossed the one year mark while Making sure I was still
Speaker:living the lifestyle that I wanted to create for myself, and that was
Speaker:extremely important to me and I was celebrating the hell out of that.
Speaker:So those are some of the things that I want you to be thinking about.
Speaker:What were you doing?
Speaker:Who were you with?
Speaker:Were you being intentional?
Speaker:Celebrate every bit of the way, even if there were months, and because there
Speaker:were months for me as well, where I, I stayed home, you know, I think the
Speaker:last trip that I took, I want to say it ended like the first weekend in
Speaker:October, or maybe that was the first week of October, I can't recall.
Speaker:So then I said, okay, I'm going to go a couple of months.
Speaker:I'm going to hunker down at home for a little bit.
Speaker:And I'm so freaking celebrating that because I get to do that as well.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I get to have that option and I think it's so important to be able to do that.
Speaker:So those are some of the ways that you can go back and you can look at.
Speaker:What you were doing, who you were with, use your journals, use your camera roll.
Speaker:I would say, I'm going to be real guys, I would say be careful going
Speaker:back through your social media.
Speaker:Not that there's anything wrong with it, but I also think that we
Speaker:You know, we don't always share on social media, all the things.
Speaker:It's filtered.
Speaker:It's, it's filtered quite a bit.
Speaker:So that's why I say, go, go through your camera roll, go through, go
Speaker:through some of your unfiltered shit, go through your journals.
Speaker:It's exciting.
Speaker:So the other thing that I like to do when when I'm trying to reflect back on
Speaker:something is I really also really want to think about the lessons that I learned or.
Speaker:Um, what I, what I would like to bring more of into the new year,
Speaker:what I want to let go of and really kind of think about that.
Speaker:And it was interesting for me because I kept, as we were approaching the end of
Speaker:the year, you know, one of the things that people start doing is, man, they start.
Speaker:Celebrating their year and talking about the new year in like November,
Speaker:early December and I always feel like that's shorting ourselves.
Speaker:It's almost like, I don't know, I, I feel like when, when we do that,
Speaker:then it's almost like we're saying.
Speaker:December doesn't count because we're already, we're already looking so
Speaker:forward to the new year that are we really even being present for
Speaker:the last few weeks of the year?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:But one of the things that I kept reading over and over from so many
Speaker:people was how hard 2023 was for them and what a struggle that was.
Speaker:And it kind of made me sad, first of all, obviously, look, nobody, nobody
Speaker:wants to see their friends or, or people that they know in any kind of pain or
Speaker:struggle or anything of that nature.
Speaker:But it also made me sad when I looked at the number of people that shared
Speaker:that information because it made me think, well, how many others also had a
Speaker:really rough year and didn't share that.
Speaker:And so it kind of, it kind of got me a little bit.
Speaker:And initially I thought, man, I just don't look at my 2023 in that, in that light.
Speaker:And my initial thought was you know, 2023 for me was really.
Speaker:At first, and here's what's funny, was at first I remember thinking, well,
Speaker:2023 was just a year that just kind of was like, it was just kind of there.
Speaker:I don't want to say it was chill, but because I definitely did a lot.
Speaker:But I wouldn't, I initially, I thought, well, I wouldn't say
Speaker:this was a rough year for me.
Speaker:And so I kind of sat with that.
Speaker:And I kind of thought, okay, so what, what did I learn this year?
Speaker:You know, what was, is there any lessons learned that I want to take away and
Speaker:look, maybe there's not, and, and then it hit me like just a ton of bricks.
Speaker:It hit me this week so hard that.
Speaker:What 2023 showed me and taught me was a test, and I hadn't
Speaker:really thought about that.
Speaker:So one of the things that I haven't really talked a lot about on, on the show is that
Speaker:in 2023, I had started dating someone.
Speaker:And we had been we'd been dating for, for a little while and, and
Speaker:things were going really well.
Speaker:And and this was something that originally, you know, when I kind of made
Speaker:the decision that I was going to pursue any kind of a relationship, I knew I
Speaker:wanted to be very intentional about it.
Speaker:And I, I really.
Speaker:I just really got serious about it because I really had to ask myself,
Speaker:okay, why is it that I'm wanting this?
Speaker:What is my expectation?
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:And one of the things that I did is I, you know, I sat down and I wrote out all
Speaker:the things that I was needing at that time, all the things that I wanted and
Speaker:really tried to manifest what, what kind of partner I wanted, what, you know,
Speaker:what I wanted this person to look like.
Speaker:And
Speaker:the amazing thing.
Speaker:You know, I initially I thought, Oh my gosh, I am not going
Speaker:on one of these dating apps.
Speaker:Like I don't know if you've ever been on a dating app in
Speaker:the past, but they're horrible.
Speaker:They're just horrible.
Speaker:It's not a good time.
Speaker:Straight up.
Speaker:Do not recommend.
Speaker:Not a good time.
Speaker:Like zero out of five stars.
Speaker:There's just nothing great about it.
Speaker:And at first I was like, I just don't want to do this.
Speaker:But I reluctantly kind of put myself out there and I got a couple messages and
Speaker:then I immediately, like I immediately, you know, removed my profile again.
Speaker:Cause I was like, I, I could already see now.
Speaker:I remember why I said I would never do this again.
Speaker:And but I had already had a couple of messages and I thought, okay.
Speaker:I'm not going to be rude, right?
Speaker:Like I'm going to respond.
Speaker:And very long story short, I met somebody and it was like, they checked
Speaker:all the boxes, like whatever the boxes are or whatever the boxes were, they
Speaker:checked them all, you know, consider if you want to consider the American
Speaker:dream, for example, if you want to say, Oh, you know, a good, a good
Speaker:career, a good education homeownership.
Speaker:a family you know, just go down the list, every box, every
Speaker:box was checked, all of them.
Speaker:And I remember thinking, wow, how did this just land at my feet?
Speaker:This is wow.
Speaker:Where did this come from?
Speaker:And, and as I got, as I got to know this person a little bit better and got
Speaker:further into the relationship, like I really realized, oh my gosh, all these
Speaker:things that I wrote about are in this person, all these things that I said.
Speaker:Here's, here are the ways in which I want to feel safe and heard and every
Speaker:single thing and I'm just using those as examples, but like every single thing that
Speaker:I wrote out, it appeared, you know, it was there and I was like, Okay, this is crazy.
Speaker:This is crazy.
Speaker:Like literally the universe said, I am going to set this right at your feet.
Speaker:Here you go.
Speaker:You've been, you know, you, you really put a lot of thought and intentionality in it.
Speaker:You, you've been trying to become what you would want in a partner.
Speaker:You've been writing about it.
Speaker:You've been manifesting this.
Speaker:Here it is.
Speaker:And I was like, this, this is wild.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And when I tell you that I was soaking it all in, I like every ounce of it.
Speaker:I remember just thinking, I, I want every piece of this.
Speaker:And so very long story short there was something extremely
Speaker:comforting about it all.
Speaker:You know, when it, when it just kind of showed up and I remember thinking, you
Speaker:know, I've always heard that it's easy.
Speaker:And this just, this just fell right out of the sky and this is so easy.
Speaker:It is so comforting.
Speaker:It is so peaceful.
Speaker:It is calm.
Speaker:It is yeah, very, very different for me.
Speaker:And I've just immediately, like I said, I just, it was so easy, so easy for me to
Speaker:just fall right into this relationship.
Speaker:Long story short, as time went on, I started to realize that
Speaker:while all the boxes were checked,
Speaker:I don't want to just check boxes.
Speaker:I've checked the boxes.
Speaker:I did that already.
Speaker:I lived that life.
Speaker:I checked every goddamn box.
Speaker:What box do you want?
Speaker:You want a bachelor's degree?
Speaker:I did it.
Speaker:You want a master's degree?
Speaker:I did it.
Speaker:You want homeownership?
Speaker:I did it.
Speaker:You want a good health and fitness journey?
Speaker:I did it.
Speaker:You want, you know, what you want, you want to make six figures.
Speaker:I did it.
Speaker:Oh, you want to have a side hustle too and have some sort of passion project.
Speaker:Like, I don't know, a podcast did it, did it check the box.
Speaker:I checked it.
Speaker:I did that.
Speaker:And one of the things that I've known for, for quite some time, and it really came to
Speaker:light for me back in 2019 with the death of, of my son's father, my co parent.
Speaker:Is that I don't like living for the boxes.
Speaker:I don't wanna live for the boxes.
Speaker:Don't get me wrong, the boxes are awesome.
Speaker:Sometimes you need the boxes to kind of get to the next place,
Speaker:but I'm not living to check a box.
Speaker:I'm living for the dash.
Speaker:I'm living for the dash that after my date on my tombstone.
Speaker:I don't, I don't want to live for the birth date and then the end date and say,
Speaker:well, here's all the boxes I checked.
Speaker:I want to truly live for the dash.
Speaker:Fuck the boxes.
Speaker:I don't even like them.
Speaker:I don't even like them.
Speaker:I don't like anything about them.
Speaker:That's, that's the irony, right?
Speaker:Is like, it's so ingrained in us.
Speaker:What the definition of success is supposed to be according to society
Speaker:standards, according to the standards of family, according to all these
Speaker:things that, and it's so ingrained in us that we just keep doing it.
Speaker:Like we just keep going and we're searching and searching and
Speaker:searching for some sort of level of happiness or success or achievement.
Speaker:And we're trying to tie our, our value and our worth and our, our love to
Speaker:some sort of, Achievement of a bar.
Speaker:I don't want the fucking bar.
Speaker:And as I was sitting here reflecting back on 2023, and I really got to
Speaker:thinking about that, that relationship in mid 2023 came to an end.
Speaker:And it really had to do with the fact that.
Speaker:When I sat down and I tried to picture myself long-term with this individual, I
Speaker:knew that one of the things that separated us was that I don't wanna live in the box.
Speaker:I don't wanna live in the subdivision in the suburbs.
Speaker:I don't, I don't wanna do any of it.
Speaker:That's not it.
Speaker:For me.
Speaker:My future vision is spontaneous, is adventurous, is about making an impact.
Speaker:It is changing my life so that I can change others.
Speaker:It's about
Speaker:influencing others to learn how to change their lives.
Speaker:It's about, it's about so much more than the fucking box.
Speaker:And, and by the way, as I'm saying this, I want to make this perfectly clear.
Speaker:There's nothing wrong with him as an individual.
Speaker:He's a great person.
Speaker:This was a great guy.
Speaker:This was a great man.
Speaker:I was treated.
Speaker:Extremely well, there was nothing wrong with this relationship,
Speaker:but it became obvious for me, especially now that I've reflected back that several
Speaker:months have passed and I can reflect back.
Speaker:This was a test.
Speaker:The universe has been testing me.
Speaker:I have sat here for I don't know how many years I have fought.
Speaker:I have fought getting out of corporate America.
Speaker:I, I've been out of corporate America for many years and three different
Speaker:times I've ended up going back into a 95, nine to five job and back into
Speaker:corporate America to earn income.
Speaker:By the way, not there's anything wrong with that.
Speaker:I've just always known that ultimately isn't what I want.
Speaker:And I keep ending.
Speaker:Back up there and this goes back to what I was saying in the
Speaker:very beginning of this podcast.
Speaker:Why do we need to celebrate the small things?
Speaker:Because our brain is constantly looking for problems because it
Speaker:constantly wants to keep you safe.
Speaker:What does it know is something is safe?
Speaker:Something it has experienced before, something that fits the story.
Speaker:That we have always known something that fits the story that we've
Speaker:always been told the story.
Speaker:We were taught the story that we saw played out by our parents,
Speaker:by all the role models that we've had in our lives up to this point.
Speaker:Those things are safe.
Speaker:Those things are safe.
Speaker:And so you know what happens when we see them.
Speaker:They're comfortable.
Speaker:They're soothing.
Speaker:They feel good.
Speaker:Until, until you stop to think about what you ultimately want.
Speaker:What you really, really want.
Speaker:You can continue to have a lot more of what you know.
Speaker:It's easy.
Speaker:You know it's easy because you've done it.
Speaker:And those before you have done it.
Speaker:You're likely, everyone in your family, all the naysayers about
Speaker:you and your side hustle, all the naysayers about you and your business
Speaker:have done it before, it's easy.
Speaker:Clocking in and out of a job is easy.
Speaker:It might be a toxic environment, you might hate it, don't get me wrong,
Speaker:but clocking in and out is easy.
Speaker:Showing up to a job is easy.
Speaker:I hate to say that.
Speaker:I know there's a lot of you going, Oh God, it's miserable.
Speaker:It's miserable because that's not who the fuck you are.
Speaker:It's miserable because that's not ultimately what you want with your life.
Speaker:It's miserable for a million other reasons, but the truth is
Speaker:that clocking in and out is easy.
Speaker:It, it just is.
Speaker:So when the universe said, Okay, you've said this for years.
Speaker:And the last couple years you've really been pushing it.
Speaker:You've been pushing hard.
Speaker:So let's see how bad you want it.
Speaker:Let's see.
Speaker:Here you go.
Speaker:We're gonna give you something so fucking comfortable and easy.
Speaker:We're gonna give you something that matches more or less
Speaker:your The life you already did.
Speaker:More or less the life you had already tried to live at one point
Speaker:and absolutely hated and despised.
Speaker:We're gonna show you that again.
Speaker:But on What so many people would consider a higher level, if you will,
Speaker:a higher level, meaning done in a way that you know, okay, so let's just,
Speaker:let, let's talk about the boxes.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Education.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Well.
Speaker:Well, this life had even more education.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Career.
Speaker:Well, this one had an even bigger career.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Homeownership.
Speaker:Well, this one, he had an even bigger house.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Finances.
Speaker:Well, this one had a little more, you know, financial independence, right?
Speaker:Like take all the boxes, check them all, but check them a little bit higher.
Speaker:And the universe said, we're going to plop this right down in front of you.
Speaker:You're going to take it.
Speaker:And for the first five months of the year, I did.
Speaker:I did.
Speaker:I'm going to say I, I'm not going to say I didn't enjoy it.
Speaker:Like again, I don't think this there's nothing, there was nothing
Speaker:bad about this relationship.
Speaker:I obviously needed to do it because this was a test.
Speaker:This year was a test.
Speaker:This was a test in so many freaking ways because that ended what the end of May,
Speaker:beginning of June, somewhere around, it must've been beginning of June.
Speaker:bEcause one of the ways in which I.
Speaker:I finally figured out, oh, this really isn't, it was we had taken
Speaker:a, a really quick weekend trip out of town for Memorial Day.
Speaker:And Memorial Day is what that last weekend in May.
Speaker:So in so it must have been towards the beginning of June
Speaker:that things kind of ended.
Speaker:So then, so it became clear to me then, so that ends.
Speaker:And again, the other piece that I've been saying that I knew when I accepted
Speaker:this job that I'm taking on right now, and I agreed to two years, one of
Speaker:the things that I promised myself is, okay, you're agreeing to two years in
Speaker:doing that though, how are you going to make sure that you're still living
Speaker:the life that you want, that you don't go down that rut, that spiral that you.
Speaker:Absolutely hate that doesn't allow you to, to get your message out.
Speaker:That doesn't allow you to be helping others the way that you want to do that.
Speaker:That doesn't allow you to continue to build your business all while experiencing
Speaker:life and living for the fucking dash.
Speaker:What are you going to do?
Speaker:And so I very intentionally had to force myself to do that.
Speaker:I had gone on a couple trips in, in May.
Speaker:Those are covered back in some prior podcast episodes where I
Speaker:talked about the retreats that I went on in the month of May.
Speaker:I went to North Carolina and the Outer Banks and I went to the Key West.
Speaker:Those were amazing retreats celebrating so much of that.
Speaker:And then I turned around in the month of July and I had an opportunity to
Speaker:continue and do more travel because I do work remote and I had an opportunity to
Speaker:figure out how to do both those things.
Speaker:And I did, but that was a test.
Speaker:It was such a test because let me tell you, there was a part of me that was like,
Speaker:no, no, you know, I took time off in May.
Speaker:I can't, I can't take more time off.
Speaker:And then I was like, well, okay, but you said that you were not
Speaker:going to agree to something.
Speaker:I was not going to agree to something that was going to force me to change this
Speaker:lifestyle I had already started creating.
Speaker:So what am I going to do about that?
Speaker:Well, it's going to mean I'm going to have to get a little
Speaker:freaking uncomfortable, right?
Speaker:I'm going to have to figure out, well, if I'm always saying I'm 100
Speaker:percent remote, then use it, then do it, do something with that.
Speaker:And so that was what I had to do.
Speaker:But it was interesting to me as I was reflecting back on 2023, the way
Speaker:the universe said, let's See, you said you don't like all the boxes.
Speaker:You said this is not the life that you want.
Speaker:Let's see.
Speaker:We're going to plop it right the fuck down in front of you.
Speaker:It's going to look great.
Speaker:It's on paper.
Speaker:It looks like the best goddamn thing.
Speaker:Like you are an idiot, an absolute moron.
Speaker:If you don't say yes to this, we're going to see.
Speaker:We're going to see what if you recognize this.
Speaker:And or if you understand, you're always, you know, I'm over here coaching other
Speaker:people on how to set boundaries and how to know how to walk away from the
Speaker:table when it no longer serves you.
Speaker:So can I do it?
Speaker:Am I going to do it?
Speaker:And then the universe turned around and said, okay, okay,
Speaker:so you rejected that one.
Speaker:Good job.
Speaker:Good job.
Speaker:But you also said you were going to make.
Speaker:You were going to make sure that if you were not working your business full time
Speaker:this year, and that you had agreed to spend a couple of years in corporate
Speaker:America, that you were still going to make sure you maintain your, your lifestyle.
Speaker:Well, now you've got an opportunity for the month of July.
Speaker:What are you going to do?
Speaker:The opportunity showed up.
Speaker:And when I sat here and I thought about all of that, and I thought
Speaker:about the lessons that I learned this year, and I reflected not just
Speaker:on what was in my camera roll, not just on the thoughts that I had, but.
Speaker:The intentionality that I had really taken the tests that I was given, and
Speaker:this is again, this is a good way that you can learn how to take, you know,
Speaker:our brains always looking for problems.
Speaker:thIs was a test.
Speaker:This was a test.
Speaker:One of my biggest values, my number One core value is centered around integrity.
Speaker:I will never ask one of my clients to do something that I wouldn't do myself.
Speaker:I truly believe that very strongly.
Speaker:Like, I'm going to walk the walk and this was another test for me and I took it.
Speaker:And so when I went deeper beyond, you know, all the, the little
Speaker:wins going month by month, well, what did I accomplish that month?
Speaker:What did I do?
Speaker:And I, I looked back this year at the.
Speaker:Bigger achievement the way in which I was tested.
Speaker:Holy fuck.
Speaker:What a year what a year and that My friends is where you get to take
Speaker:everything that you celebrate in if you did go through your camera roll if you did
Speaker:take a step back and take a deeper dive of What what were the things that I said?
Speaker:No to what were the things I said?
Speaker:Yes to what did I say?
Speaker:No to what did I say?
Speaker:Hell no to What did I let go of and what did I learn from doing
Speaker:all of that and what am I going to do with that lesson this year?
Speaker:That's the bigger question.
Speaker:What am I going to do with it?
Speaker:Because we can sit here all day and we can talk about your celebrations and
Speaker:we can talk about your lessons learned.
Speaker:And I'm going to tell you the universe is going to keep letting
Speaker:those lessons come through and it'll even Keep bringing the same exact
Speaker:lesson over and over and over again.
Speaker:It's up to you to decide you're going to do different
Speaker:in 2024 years gets to be that year.
Speaker:I'm so fucking excited.
Speaker:You guys, there is so much to come this year.
Speaker:I am so stoked.
Speaker:I hope that a little bit of this story of my year has helped you maybe reflect
Speaker:back on some of the things that you did this year, the little things, the little
Speaker:things in your camera roll, maybe those small moments and to the bigger things.
Speaker:What were some more of the impactful things that you did this year?
Speaker:What really changed for you?
Speaker:What were your thoughts that that changed for you this year?
Speaker:And what are you going to do with that?
Speaker:In 2024, I would love if you are not already a member for you to come on over
Speaker:to the whole lot of shift Facebook group and tell me what it is that you're going
Speaker:to do for 2024 and how you're going to use all of these celebrations and lessons
Speaker:learned for the new year, because I cannot wait to follow along in your journey.
Speaker:I hope that you will join me.
Speaker:As I venture into this new year with all of you, I cannot wait.
Speaker:There are so many incredible things to come because yes, all of these lessons
Speaker:have helped me figure out exactly what I'm going to do with a whole lot of
Speaker:shift in the new year, and I cannot wait.
Speaker:All right, everybody.
Speaker:I wish you all a fabulous week and until next time, keep making shift happen.
Speaker:Hey shifters, thank you so much for tuning in to another
Speaker:episode of A Whole Lotta Shift.
Speaker:If you heard something today that inspired you or resonated with you,
Speaker:please head over to iTunes and leave us a review to help others as well.
Speaker:Your review helps me give as much motivation and
Speaker:inspiration as I possibly can.
Speaker:And don't forget, you can catch all the outtakes, bonuses, special live
Speaker:stream interviews, and much more over at A Whole Lotta Shift Facebook group.
Speaker:Until next time, keep making shift happen.
