CHANGE ONE: STOP FEELING GUILTY
One thing I have realized is that women specifically generally have a problem with guilt. Not all women, and not just women, but a lot of women have a problem with feeling guilty. This leads to people-pleasing style actions, which really can cause a lot of women not to go after what they want in life because they’re so busy either feeling guilty for what they want or trying to please everybody else.
Now, we don’t have time today to go into where this has come from and why we generally as women are like this, but what I do know is that it’s an extremely common trait and one that I suffer from myself. I often feel guilty when people try to help me with things, I even once apologized to my cleaning lady for asking her to clean something. I honestly have such a problem with guilt and that is something I really want to work on this year.
Now that doesn’t mean that you need to go out and be the most egotistical person and just not care about what anybody else thinks or not try to help anybody else. I still think that you should focus on trying to be the best and most decent human being that you can be, the most considerate human being you can be, whilst also realizing that you do not have to feel guilty for going after your goals and dreams. You do not have to feel guilty for loving your life. You definitely don’t need to feel guilty for loving yourself.
I’ve just realized that so many women, as I said, Just don’t go after what they want in life because they feel like they don’t deserve it. Or they’re afraid of feeling guilty if they actually get that. I’m no stranger to this, I have so many times felt guilty for the success that I have built here on YouTube and with my business, I feel guilty for how much money I make, I feel guilty for so many different things. And I really want to work on that this year.
The thing that I’m really going to do to be working on my guilt is just reminding myself each and every single day, how worthy I actually am, you know, worth has nothing to do with our outward achievements or necessarily anything that is tangible, we are just worthy because we are here. And when we remind ourselves of that each and every single day, it can mitigate some of that guilt that we are feeling.
So if you’re someone who generally feels a lot of guilt for any of those reasons that I mentioned, that will hold you back from having an epic 2021. And it’s definitely something that you need to work on.
CHANGE TWO: SHOW UP IN THE AREAS I FEEL THE LEAST CONFIDENT
What I mean by that is I’m challenging myself to really show up and just pursue the things that I want to do but maybe I’m a little afraid of. For me in particular, that’s things like some areas of my business, like doing events, I still have some fears around that. But also things like riding my motorbike on the road and going into a Muay Thai fight. These are things that I would love to do, there’s this part of my heart that desires to do these things, but of course, my fear mind comes in and tells me, it’s not safe, I’m not good enough, I’m not worthy enough. And so what I’m really going to do is I’m going to try as much as possible by taking itty bitty baby steps towards doing those things.
I actually got this wrong was a talk from Will Smith, where he talks about, he hates the feeling of fear, he hates being afraid to do something. And that really resonated with me. I hate that fear holds myself and so many other people back. But the reality is there’s no better cure to overcoming fear than going through it.
A lot of people think that they can sit around and read all the personal development books and listen to all of the personal development videos and somehow that’s going to flick a switch inside of you to the point where you just be like, right, I have no fear now, let me go do that thing. It doesn’t work like that. The only way to stop yourself feeling fear around something is to prove to yourself that it’s not as bad as you think. Whether that’s starting a business going live or starting a YouTube channel, no amount of personal development work is going to get you to the point where you realize that there was no need for that fear in the first place. The only thing is to do the thing.
And so that’s what I’m going to do. Even though I feel the fear, I’m going to do it anyway, I’m going to put myself in situations where maybe I’ll just fight in like an interclub or ride my bike on the road with the safety of maybe my dad riding with me. So I’m not just going to dive straight in, I’ll definitely take baby steps there. But I’m definitely going to follow my fear so that I can prove to myself that I can do anything.
CHANGE THREE: WORK ON FOCUSING
Now, I consider myself to be someone who is productive and organized. And I have great output, I do a lot of things. But I have a tendency to get distracted. And what I realized is that when you are trying to achieve any particular goal in life, having focus allows you to reduce so much of the unnecessary time wasted around the pursuit of that goal. Whether you get shiny object syndrome, and that’s a form of self-sabotage, pulling you away from that goal, or whether it is that you are genuinely interested in multiple different things. I’m someone who is multi-passionate, and I’m generally interested in multiple different things. However, I know that with the goals that I’m trying to achieve, I know that if I’m actually going to get there, I really need to focus my time and energy into those things.
So what this is going to involve is just making sure I’ve actually blocked out time each and every single day to work on my goals in my calendar. And the most important thing is that as much as possible when I’m working on these goals, so either fighting or writing or making money, I am really just in there and focused on that one individual task. So I’m getting into flow.
They say flow is one of the most productive states that you can actually be in, you can get a week’s worth of work done in a few hours if you are in that flow focused state, you know, you’re not checking your Instagram, you’re not thinking about all of the other things that you need to do, you’re not stressed out about tomorrow’s tasks. So for me, in particular, to get the most out of the work I do on my goals, what I really want to do is train my focus and try to get into flow as much as possible.
I definitely recommend reading the book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, if you want to learn a little bit more about flow, but for me, one thing, I really want to do this yet to make it amazing and to just feel so proud of myself by the end of the year, is to make sure that I’m just working on being ultra-focused at the moment.
CHANGE FOUR: WASTE TIME TIME MORE PRODUCTIVELY
The fourth thing that I’m going to be doing it to make this year amazing is I’m going to waste my time on the things I’ve always wanted to do. Now what I mean by that is, let’s just be real, let’s just get real with one another, we waste time, we all waste time.
Now, I say waste of time loosely because I absolutely believe in chilling and relaxing. However, I spend a lot of time doing these things, as I’m sure you do as well, then I have this big laundry list of things that I also want to do, like learn Italian and get better at playing my ukulele and shuffling. And so what I really am going to be conscious of doing this year is trying to take those moments where I’m unnecessarily scrolling and replacing them with one of those things that I’ve always wanted to do.
Here’s the thing, if you find yourself always procrastinating on that task, then maybe it’s time to admit to yourself that you don’t really actually want to do that thing. Maybe you like the idea of it. But really what I’m trying to say is “productive time-wasting”. I don’t want to be a professional ukulele player, but these things are adding to my life rather than taking away from it, like social media generally does most of the time. And so what I’m going to do is just try to waste my time more productively than just scrolling.
So what I would recommend for you, if this interests you, is just make a list of all those things that you’d love to learn, or you’d love to try out as a hobby, something that you can just do sitting at home. And maybe next time you find yourself scrolling, even unconsciously, you’ve got to try to remember it, then you can go to that list and look at it and say what can I do instead.
CHANGE FIVE: STAND UP FOR MYSELF
What I really want to do is work on setting better boundaries, and actually making sure that I’m spending my time doing things that I genuinely really want to do not just because again, I feel guilty, or I feel bad, or I feel like I should do it to please somebody else. I think again, a lot of women generally have a problem with helping everybody else before they help themselves or for doing things they generally don’t want to do just because of the way that it looks. And that really comes in the form of not having boundaries and not knowing how to say no.
As I said, I am no expert in this field but this is definitely something I’m going to work a lot more on. I still want to be a generous, kind, caring friend. And absolutely I would do anything for the people in my life that I care about, however, when that’s taking over the time that I should be working on myself, for myself, on my dreams. That’s when it is encroaching on the boundaries that should be there.
And so I really want you to think about how often you are putting other people before yourself, how often you are putting other people’s goals and dreams before your own goals and dreams. You need to start standing up for yourself, you need to start learning how to say no. The right people aren’t going to completely abandon you just because you don’t do one thing for them. And the people in your life generally should care about you living your best life as well and so they’re not going to take advantage of that. And this could be a really good filtration system for you to look at the people in your life.
CHANGE SIX: HEALING NEGATIVE BELIEFS AND PATTERNS
Now, I generally have been doing this for the past four or five years. I mean, that is the general basis behind personal development work. But even still, I know and maybe you know this as well, is that I operate solely on the surface. I know that I have healed some of my money stories, some of my confidence issues, some of my limiting beliefs around self-worth and self-belief. But I know that I could absolutely go deeper, there is always another level to personal development and to healing the traumas and the stories that we tell ourselves or that have been embedded in us since childhood.
A lot of the things that you’re holding back are probably deeper than you’re currently working on. And so, for me, I know that I just want to spend my time really becoming the very best version of myself, I want to do whatever I can both physically, mentally, spiritually, I want to really just dive deep and to spend each and every single day in the pursuit of, like I said, becoming the very best version of me. So putting in the work, even though I know it’s going to be difficult, even though there’s going to be some fears that I absolutely don’t want to face, but going really deep with my personal development work. And I’m excited to share that with you.
I have been working with women for years and I just see so many women holding themselves back, putting other people first, not going after what they truly want, not having the time or the patience or putting in the effort to work on themselves, to move past their fears and move past their limitations so that they can actually start taking action towards their dreams. And I’ve just had enough of it. I’ve had enough of seeing so many women not living up to their potential. And that is really what I want to be focusing on in 2021.
