Tag: #bebetter

Make Today Count: Say What Needs to Be Said

This morning at 7:53 a.m., my phone dinged with a text from my sister-in-law. The information in that text was something we feared was coming; however, it still wasn’t the news I wanted to hear. My other sister-in-law her sister had passed away. Almost two weeks ago, Val had been found unconscious from a brain aneurysm and never woke up. Val is my age, in fact, slightly younger. Just 5 months ago, Val tragically had to bury her husband. These should be the best years of our lives. Empty nesters, enough years in our jobs to be making decent money, things starting to be paid off, and more time to enjoy life, but sometimes those things don’t come. Sometimes life doesn’t happen like it “should”.

I have been thinking about Val all day today. She was always the first person on any given holiday to text me, despite the time difference between Colorado and Indiana. She would always text when she was going to be flying anywhere to see if, by some chance, I would be flying through that airport. If I had known that the texts we exchanged just three short weeks ago would be the last text, I would have texted a little longer. We were both busy, and she was planning a trip here in June, so I went about my day, as did she. But today, those texts are just memories. The necklace she sent for Christmas means something different and the name plate that sits on desk will forever remind me of that gift from her.

Let me ask you: Are you putting off trips to see people you love, people you need to forgive, letters you need to write, things you want to do until tomorrow? What if tomorrow doesn’t come? I lost my dad three years ago with so much that needed to be said, and now I can’t say them. I had things I needed him to say, and I will never hear them. Why do we wait until some time in the future and think we have plenty of time?

What if we don’t have as much time as we want? You have heard me say before that I do not want to be that statistic that you so often hear that the most untapped potential lies in a graveyard. Maybe you need to write that book. Maybe you need to tell your family more often how much you love them. Maybe you need to forgive and ask for forgiveness. Maybe you need to take that chance. Maybe you need to risk your heart being broken and fall in love. Maybe you need to be a better person. Hear me today, let’s all just do that thing today and do it with urgency!

To my friends and family, I love you! I love you deeply, and I hope you all know what you mean to me. To those I have wronged, I am sorry! Please find it in your heart to forgive me! Not for me, but for you. Find peace for you! To those who cheer me on every day, support, mentor, coach, and believe in me, thank you from the bottom of my heart! To those who have played a role in my success, I hope I am making you proud, and living my purpose!

I implore you today to choose to live with more urgency. Choose today to live like it could be your last. Be your future self right now! Be proud of yourself, chase those dreams, and do those things you’re putting off for tomorrow, today! Be diligent about your calling and your work! Live with passion and purpose! Love more, hate less, and have more fun! Just start living! Just start doing those things you’re putting off. Just start saying the things you want to say! Do it and do it today because you may not have the time you think you have. There may not be a tomorrow.

With love for you all, Shauna

Are you fully committed?

My coach recently recommended that I read the book Be Your Future Self Now by Dr. Benjamin Hardy. If you have not read that book, order it now! I dried up a highlighter in the first half of the book! No joke! Guys! When I say it hit me square between the eyes this week, I am not kidding! In one of the steps, Dr. Hardy talks about eliminating lesser goals. This is the chapter that got me, and now I know one of the reasons my coach told me to read this book! It has got me doing some major reflection this week.

Listen to this statement from the book: “Anything that isn’t taking you toward your future self is a lesser goal.” I have had to admit this week that my actions are not aligning with what I say I want. My actions do not align with my goals of my future self.

You might wonder exactly what this means. Think about this. One of my goals over the past year has been to lose the 50 pounds I gained after Covid. I have been taking steps to lose weight and have lost 23 pounds, but I have used the excuse of my travel schedule to justify not working out while on the road. I have used the excuse of stress when I want to eat something that isn’t healthy or moving me toward my weight loss goals. So, have I been truly committed to the weight loss enough to uncommit from these bad habits and get healthy? I have had to question my commitment. Do I really want what I say I want for my future self? Is my commitment really to be healthy as I start this new season in my 50s?

Let me give you another example. Another goal of mine is to be financially free, meaning no debt. We have been crushing this goal for several months. How? We weren’t buying things we didn’t need! But then, we started buying anything we wanted, such as a new chair, treadmill, clothes, trips, fishing equipment, etc. I realized my commitment has been to impulsively buy things I wanted in the moment, not toward my future self of being financially free.

Are you getting the picture? I had the realization that I have been saying yes to things that are taking me away from my goals, not toward them. Maybe for you, it’s too much time on social media instead of working on something that will push you closer to your future self. Maybe it’s people who are not making you better but dragging you down. Maybe it’s a business you are trying to start, but you are allowing things to distract you from doing the work you need to do. Maybe it’s getting that degree or certification, but all you can see is the 9-5 job right now, and you think there’s no time.

I don’t know what it is for you, but maybe you can relate to what I’m sharing here, and this will be your wake-up call to evaluate what you want and what is stopping you. I hope this will be your wake-up call to admit that you are allowing lesser goals to take precedence. Maybe, like me, you need to get better at saying no to things! If you have read Valorie Burton’s book entitled It’s About Time, you read about the urgent versus the meaningful, and that is what I am trying to avoid being stuck in. I want to spend my time doing the meaningful things that bring me joy, that serve my purpose, and lead me toward my future self, not away. I don’t want to be the statistic that says that the most untapped potential lies in a graveyard.

Let me challenge you in closing to evaluate your time. Are you letting commitment to lesser goals keep you from living what you want and deserve? If so, be strong, be disciplined, and be focused on activities that will move you toward who you want to be, and what you want to accomplish!

With love for you all,

Shauna

The Outside Doesn’t Match the Inside

It’s been so long since I have written. So much has changed in life. So much has changed within me. If you have followed anything I have written before, you know that this growth journey, although I didn’t even know what that meant, began on my birthday in 2018. This began a long five year journey on myself. A hard journey. A long journey. A sad journey. A journey where I had to remove my blind spots and dig deep within. I had to realize some things about myself. I am a desperate, and recovering, people pleaser. I always had this innate desire deep within to fit in and felt it necessary to seek acceptance and love from everyone else. What I realized however; was this wasn’t actually something I was born with, this was due to something I was lacking in my life. What I was lacking really isn’t the theme of this blog, but for you to understand the why in what I am about to share with you, that gives you a backdrop.

I found an old picture the other day from my 20’s. Let me first tell you how I felt. I felt fat and overweight. I felt ugly and unloveable. Now let me tell you what I saw in the picture. I was far from that obese young woman that I felt I was. What I saw was a very thin girl who was in an extremely unhappy time in her life. I was actually taken back by how thin I was and yet, I felt obese. I was far from obese so why did I feel that way? One reason is I was trying to please and find love with someone who I now know dumped their own insecurities on me, and I bought into that view of myself. I bought into that so deeply that became my self image.

In the next chapter of my life, I would deal with infertility and the drugs made me gain massive weight. Ironically, at this point I really was overweight, but I felt exactly like I did as that thin girl in my 20’s. So how can that be? A good 30-40 pound difference and I saw myself the exact same way.

In 2016 as my dream of ever becoming a mother would come to an end forever, I decided to go back to my friend and trainer and get my health back. I lost 30 pounds of pure fat. My body fat was the lowest it had ever been. I found a picture during this time frame as well, and I looked pretty freaking good. Guess what…you guessed it… the way I viewed myself never changed. Those same insecurities were still screaming in my head.

In Covid, I gained it all back, and then some. I was laid off from my job, scared of finances crumbling, scared of getting sick, fear of the future, feeling rejected and food was my best friend. It seemed overnight, it all came back. Now I am dealing with a whole new season, menopause. Lord help me! Clearly throughout my entire adult life, I have had a clear unhealthy relationship with food and my appearance and self-worth.

Are you starting to get the picture here? No matter what size I was, my self image was flawed. I didn’t love myself on the inside and looked for it in all the wrong places, in everybody else’s acceptance or lack thereof. In other people’s words. In other people’s treatment of me. Whether I was 117 pounds or 180 pounds, I saw myself the exact same way when I looked in the mirror. That’s the aha moment I have recently had. I was never going to change my outside health until I changed my inside mindset! With so much hard work, I finally accept myself. I finally love MY self! I realize that my outside was never going to permanently change until I got to this point! Now I am in the right place to make that change and get my body back to health. Now for the first time ever, my outside can match how great I feel on the inside.

In closing, I want to speak to somebody today who might find themselves in the same place. Your physical health has always been a challenge for you, you’re an emotional eater, other people’s words or treatment have caused you to neglect yourself, and played a role in where you’re at. Please hear me loud and clear today, start by working on your inside. Work on your head, work on your heart, work on your mindset. When you finally feel good about yourself, you can start working toward that overall health, which is what we all deserve! Find a coach or a mentor, or a friend or family member who loves you and will help you take back your mind, body and soul! Today is day one on my journey back to overall health. I invite you to join this journey with me! Are you in? Let’s positively change our lives forever!

With love for you all,

Shauna

Who is in your inner circle?

There is a subject that I have been struggling with, no, not struggling, wrestling with for almost a year now. I have discussed it several times with my mom and she’s always good to give me her opinion on the matter from an “outsider view” who is very much obviously in my inner circle. I heard this saying from Jim Rohn a year ago and it says “You’re the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.” I’ve also heard “Show me your friends and I will show you your future.” Not sure who said that. Tony Robbins says “Your friends influence your life more than you think.” Are you getting the picture here? This topic has been burning in my soul for awhile now. In Jen Hatfield’s new book Fierce Free and Full of Fire, she says it like this “In general, am I becoming kinder, wiser, stronger, and more joyful around this person or group? Or meaner, critical, fragile, and unhappy? Do I like myself more or less in this space? Does she call forth my best or bring out my worst?” I don’t think I can even add anything to that. Just wow! I bet that got your brain thinking!

About a year and a half ago, I started out on this journey to really work on myself, discover who I am, what I want, where am I going. Nobody ever told me about growth and about personal reflection and about trying to be a better person. Obviously I was raised in a family that believed in God, the Bible and right and wrong, but I literally just woke up one morning and felt this desire in the pit of my stomach to be different, to be better, to learn new things, to find out what God had desired for me to do. I have set through seminars, read books, prayed more than I have ever prayed in my life, listened to podcasts, talked to people, really started learning more about what the Bible says and trying to find my calling. In fact, this blog was born out of this entire experience. I remember sitting on the swing at my friend Allyson’s house and telling her I couldn’t put it into words but something was stirring in my stomach for more or different. I couldn’t even describe it to her. She looked at me and said she wasn’t anywhere in that space, she was content in her life at this point. She was happy and fulfilled. I could see on her face she was being honest. It’s not that I was searching for more or not content, but something was calling me. It was hard at times and situations popped up that made me question my journey and could I do this. My friend Joey showed up at my house more Saturday mornings than I can remember and just said I love you, you’ve got this and don’t stop.

You’re probably thinking at this point that I got off on a tangent, but let me bring this all back around. What does that journey have to do with my circle you may ask. Well, actually a whole lot! I started to realize two things. First, it’s going to be really important at this point the people I surround myself with, and second, it’s going to be really important the kind of person I am in that circle as well. If I am really honest and want growth in my life and I am surrounding myself with people who gossip, are complacent with life, aren’t kind, don’t give back, don’t support my journey, are selfish or self-centered and life is just drama, what good will that bring out in me? In turn, if I am the friend who gossips, brings drama, doesn’t love, give back or bring anything positive to the table, what does that say about me? Listen, we’ve all been that friend we hate at some point in our lives! We all have seasons of life. We all have times when we go through hard things and we’re not being our best selves, everybody does, but do you or do they live there at all times? One tough thing that’s come out of this growth path I have been on, is I have had to deal with some ugly things about myself and it hasn’t always been fun, but I knew to be the kind of person I would want to be around, I had to do the work! I had to make some changes myself. The people we surround ourselves with and we let have opinions and judgments in our lives can literally shape the people we are or are becoming. The advice they give can literally make or break us! Let that sink in!

Let me put it a different way. Your circle isn’t just your friends. Who do you hang out with at work? Are they the complainers, gossipers, always down and never productive? Or are they the go getters who take a vested interested in the company and it’s growth regardless if they have ownership? I think it’s pretty clear here whether you will succeed or fail at work based on who you partner with and your actions and words. Again, we have all been on both sides of this coin here! I just want us to wake up and see that how we are and the people we surround ourselves with, have a great impact on our futures! If you find yourself here in this very spot right now on your job and you’re this person, then decide today to change and go find different people to hang around with. Maybe the drama starts at the top, but you can still decide not to partake and be different. You reap what you sow so if you’re sowing hard work and good attitudes, I promise some day, you will be rewarded for that, and while the others are still stuck back there gossiping and complaining, you’re rising through the ranks of success! Will this be easy to remove yourself from this type of person? No, but worth it and you will see an instant change!

I urge you, if you got nothing else out of this today, just do me one favor. Take a long hard look at the people you most surround yourself with. Take a long hard look at the people you’re following on social media and trying to be like. Take a long hard look at the people you are following and mentoring and trying to emulate. You know what? It’s okay if you wake up and realize you need to make some changes. Just be honest, not mean, just honest about where you’re at and what you want. We have one life to live and we don’t get do overs. If you are being called to do something that lights your soul on fire, it’s going to be worth it in the end to look at your circle because that will tell you where you’re going or not going. As I looked at my circle, I do have some amazing people God has placed in my life. My ride or die. My thick or thin. My tell it to me straight how it is. They will have my back to the end. They want me to go somewhere great. I want us all to go somewhere great! And, to my circle, I am striving to be better, and make you better by being in your life!

With love for you all,

Shauna