Working through the thoughts and habits that are getting in the way
47:14 Share

Hello, my beautiful people. Welcome back to the Moments Podcast. I'm back with another solo episode. I feel like I've missed you guys. I haven't chatted with you one-on-one in a long time. I feel like it's a new era. We've entered a new world, a new chapter of Moments, but don't

Don't worry. I'm not just going to give up on you guys. We're not going to guess only. There's nothing that brings me more happiness and joy than being able to sit down and talk to you guys one-on-one. It's so special. And that's what built this community from the start. So I'm not getting rid of that. Don't worry. You guys are my family. You are my best friends. And I want to share with you every moment that I go through very deeply. This week's episode is just going to be

I don't even know how to explain it without just really getting into it. But essentially, I woke up kind of on a weird side of the bed this morning, not the wrong side of the bed. I didn't wake up in a bad mood, but I woke up feeling kind of like that mid-20s, that early 20s, that post-grad, even though I didn't graduate, you know, that feeling.

It's kind of hitting me and I'm feeling a little bit stuck and I'm feeling a little bit slumped and I'm feeling a little bit like I don't know what direction my life is going and I'm feeling a little bit like I'm not putting the energy I want to into anything, but I'm trying, but I don't have the motivation and I just feel like bad for myself and I don't want to feel that way. And I don't want to, I don't want to say promote that kind of behavior, but I don't want us to think this way. And I thought,

I really wasn't going to record today. I don't need to record today, but I felt like it would be good to record through this feeling and good to remind you that this is going to happen. These moments, these little chapters, these little days and times, and even if it's not a day, even if it's a week, even if it's a year, these days are going to come, but they're going to go and they're going to pass. And something that's been helping me when I really get in my head about the fact that

I don't know, I'm 23 and like, yes, I have a career and I'm successful. Some people would think, and I think, and sometimes I just get in my head that I'm not where I'm supposed to be with the age that I'm at. And I think it comes, it gets in my head because I have friends who are

working in the ER who are getting their masters who have like official jobs and I've kind of got this self-employed entrepreneur type thing that I'm trying to figure out and I never know how to be good enough for my standards I never know how to be proud of myself

properly. And I know that I am not the only one that struggles with this, regardless of what you do as a career, regardless of if you do have your master's or if you do have a job, it's one of those things where no matter how much success we have, if this is a mindset that we stay in, we're always going to feel this way. The moral of this episode is just going to be, how do we get through this? And I was just feeling not good enough. And I'm walking around my kitchen and

And here's how I got to this. I'm walking around my kitchen. I'm feeling like I'm not good enough. I look at my fridge and I have this page from a book. I have no idea what book it came from. I just put it on my fridge in my old house. So I've had this for two, maybe almost three years now. But basically it's a page with a whole bunch of bullet points that say thoughts and habits not conductive to the work. And what I'm referencing, what I'm

associating the work with is our life. Like this is just a bullet point list of thoughts and habits that are not productive for us. They're not valuable to us. They don't add anything to our life. And I saw it on there. And the first bullet point is believing you're not good enough.

And I go, you know what? I'm going to read through this and I'm not just going to share this information with myself. I'm going to share it with the world because I know there's a reason that I ripped this page out of a book. And I know that's because there is some good, valuable juice on this page. And I'm thinking it's going to help me through this little moment that I'm going through in my brain. And I'm hoping and praying that it's going to be helpful to you because I know that you can only hear my voice so many times.

telling you or you can hear your parents voice or your mom's voice your friend's voice or whoever's voice it is telling you that you are good enough and you're right where you're supposed to be or God's voice you can hear that a million times but sometimes we do have to really figure out ways to believe it for ourselves I'm just going to share these with you and we're going to go one by one back through them we're going to try to break them down I'm not sure my capabilities of breaking things down right now but regardless I'm still going to share them with you and we're going to work through this together even if you're not

In one of these moments, you're not struggling right now. You're so proud of where you're at and you're confident with where you're at. One, I applaud you. That is exactly how you should feel regardless of where you are is where you're supposed to be. And we all know it, but sometimes it's harder to believe it. And for those of you who do need to hear all these, I think that no matter who you are, these are good things to remember. That being said, the first one, the first thought and habit that's not conductive to the work or to your life.

And if anybody listens to this and can figure out or remember or has heard it for themselves and knows what book it's from, please let me know. It's page 139, but I have no clue what book I ripped it out of. The first one is Believing You're Not Good Enough. This one is pretty self-explanatory. Believing you're not good enough is not going to get you anywhere in life. We need to learn to

Appreciate ourselves, be proud of ourselves, recognize that the people around us, their success and who they are does not impede on our own. You know, the same way that nobody's beauty takes away from yours. You are good enough and you are learning and you are growing and you are figuring it out. And yes, there's probably somebody who's better at what you do than you are, but that doesn't mean you're not good enough.

It means you're different people with different paths and you're going to reach different people and share and serve a different purpose. You are good enough. You're more than good enough. Honestly, you are everything you need to be and more. Okay. But that one's, that one's pretty self-explanatory. Moving on to the next one. Feeling you don't have the energy it takes. This one kind of feels like a stab to the heart because this is what I have been struggling with. I just have felt so

Not even burnt out from anything specific. Just like, I don't even want to say burnt out from life. I don't feel completely burnt out. I just feel a little bit exhausted, a little bit pulled in a million different directions sometimes that I don't feel I've been able to pour all of my energy into any specific thing. And I think that this is something that so many of us face at so many different points in our life. I mean, balancing...

It doesn't matter where you are. It doesn't matter if you're a mother and you're trying to balance raising your kids and doing your job and, you know, having a husband or everybody's life situation is different. Okay. It is equally as taxing on somebody to be balancing their struggles as it is for somebody else to be balancing their struggles. And yes, they might look different, but it doesn't take away from somebody who has less of a struggle than another person. If that makes any sense. Like there are constantly people who don't feel like they have energy and they're

Sometimes we don't have the energy it takes. If you don't have the energy it takes, it's okay to rest until you do. It's okay to pause until you feel ready enough. But letting yourself sulk in the fact that you don't have the energy or just sitting in it and

constantly saying, oh, I'm too exhausted or I'm too tired to try it. But knowing in your heart that you want to try it, that's not going to move you forward. You need to, I believe, make the decision. Okay. Either say, I don't have the energy for this right now. I'm going to put it on pause and I'm going to put the energy that I do have into something else or say, you know what? I do have the energy and fake it till you make it and find the energy to just start because you can't know unless you start or unless you try.

So don't sit and sulk in that feeling of just feeling like you don't have the energy. Create the energy. Once you start things, you gain momentum. It's the same way that if you have to clean your room, a therapist or I don't even know where I've heard this. I've heard this in a lot of different places. Just do something for five minutes. If you do it for five minutes, you're more likely than not. You're just going to want to keep doing it. You're going to want to do more of it. So try that. Okay, this one.

I read through and I didn't really even know how to interpret it, but it is mistaking adopted rules for absolute truths. I think that you could, you know, take that, do with it what you will, think about it as you want. I'm not even exactly sure how to interpret it. I guess the way that I would interpret it is if you see somebody who's done something that you think you want to do,

They say you have to do this, this, this, and this to be able to do it. You have to get this degree. You have to do this internship. You have to meet this person. You have to have this letter of recommendation. They say you must do that to be able to get to this point. If you look at that and you say, well, I can't achieve that. That's the truth. That's the only way. That's the only way that I can get there.

But just because somebody did it one way, it doesn't mean you're incapable of doing it another way. Just because somebody says that you have to do it this way doesn't mean you have to do it that way. You know, there's always a way around it. If there's a will and there's a way, and if there's something that you dream about and you want to do, I promise you, you can find the way to do it. You just have to be open-minded and you cannot believe that just because somebody else said one thing,

You don't have to follow that route. You know, go out of the box. Do it your own way. Be different. The next one, not wanting to do the work. Laziness. Okay, well, the more I go down this list, the more it feels like a personal attack. Sometimes laziness doesn't just show up in the form of laziness. Like sometimes we feel lazy because our brains are exhausted or our bodies are tired or our minds are overwhelmed or our hormones are out of whack. There's a whole lot of different reasons that we may feel lazy.

Sometimes they are called for other times, not to tough love you, but more to tough love myself. It is just laziness or it's the confusion of not knowing where to start or not knowing what to do or how to do it. You just let yourself sit in that instead of.

looking it up okay well if you don't know how to do it and it's making you not want to do it like we have google for free we have so much education and so much knowledge right at our fingertips that we can just look up if we want to if we need to listen to your body and listen to your heart and listen to your mind most of the time we're intuitive enough to know where the laziness is coming from you know in your heart when you're being lazy and you know in your heart when you're

Something is out of whack that is causing you to need this rest or to need this time or to need this quote unquote laziness. But when there's no reason for it, sometimes you just got to put your big girl pants on, your tough love on, and relax.

Just stop being lazy. Again, this goes back to what I was just saying. Do it for five minutes. The laziness will diminish. I promise it fades away pretty quickly. Once you just start doing something, especially if you're doing something that you love. And this, this is a struggle for me as somebody who's ADHD. I'm not medicated. I love that about myself. It's a drawback sometimes because when I feel incapable of

I don't even want to try. And I've been this way with a lot of different things in my life. When I don't feel good enough, why try? I'd rather just not do it. But that's something that I'm trying to really break through and power through at this point in my life, because I think you can get away with that a lot as a kid. But as I come into adulthood and I'm working towards being a better version of myself, I no longer want to be somebody who lives in that mindset, who thinks, well, if it's difficult, I'm going to find a different way or I'm going to find the easy way or I'm going to

Just not do it if I'm bad at it. No, I want to do things even when I'm bad at them because that's how we get good at them. You have to embarrass yourself a little bit. Now, how that tied into the laziness I'm trying to figure out right now. Oh, I remember now. Here's the ADHD acting up. She's having her moment. When I'm too overwhelmed about all the steps it's going to take to achieve something, I don't start, which settles me into this laziness where I'm like, okay, I'm

Well, how can I procrastinate it? What can I do? And I just get lazy and I don't want to do anything. And that is no way to be. So we're going to work through that together. Okay. We're not going to be lazy. Give your body rest if you need it. I'm not saying not to give yourself grace because that is the number one thing that I preach, but recognize the difference between giving your body what it needs and giving your body time to heal and just being lazy and using an excuse to justify it. You know the difference. Okay. Okay.

Not taking the work to its highest expression. Settling. This one for me, I feel iffy about because I think that you should give everything that you do, everything that you have.

That being said, sometimes we don't have everything to give. Sometimes what we have to give is different than what we have to give another time. You know, there's certain projects that you're more passionate about that you can genuinely give more to. There's certain homework assignments that you can give it your all. You can do your best, but that is not going to be the best work you've ever done. You know, it's the same way that sometimes when you wake up, they always say, give your day 100%.

I encourage you to do the best that you can, whatever that might look like. Okay. But don't meet yourself with this perfectionism that makes you not even want to try your goals, not even want to accomplish anything because you know that you can't make it perfect. 99% of the time we cannot make our life perfect. It will not be perfect because it's all in God's hand. It's all in his cards. It's what he hands us is what we're going to be able to work with. And a lot of times that's not perfect.

So choose to work with what you have and let that be perfect enough for you and still pour everything that you can into that.

Quick little intermission. You guys know how much I love Thrive Cosmetics. I really don't even need to explain it to you because those of you who know me know me, know I've been using their liquid lash extensions mascara for the past three years of my life, and I use it religiously. Even if I'm getting my makeup done, I bring it with me. Not only are their products high performance, but they also give back to the community. And...

They're good for you. They're the best things in the whole entire world. And lately I've been using their Empower Matte Precision Lipstick Crayon. I didn't know what to expect when I tried this, but it is like long lasting and it stays on forever. And there's no dry flaky feeling. I also love to use their Brilliant Eye Brightener. It's like a combo of a highlight and an eyeshadow and it works perfectly on my inner corner. Sometimes I put a little dollop on my nose.

But everything that Thrive has to offer is an absolute 10 out of 10. And I don't say this lightly. I say it from the bottom of my heart. I love everything about this brand. And honestly, being able to tell you about them is such an honor for me.

So refresh your everyday look with Thrive Cosmetics, beauty that gives back. Right now, you can get an exclusive 10% off your first order at thrivecosmetics.com slash moments. That's Thrive Cosmetics, C-A-U-S-E-M-E-T-I-C-S.com slash moments for 10% off your first order. You're going to absolutely love it. I pinky promise you. Have a beautiful day. Back to the pod. This episode of the Moments podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp.com.

Quick little intermission, you guys. We all know how important it is to prioritize the right things in our life. And maybe for you, that's prioritizing doing leg day at the gym or making sure you go for your hot girl walk. But how often are you prioritizing your mental health and making sure that therapy is a part of your weekly routine? If it's something that you've been open to, if it's something that you've been considering, I highly recommend BetterHelp. And thank you so much to BetterHelp for sponsoring this episode. And I'll see you in the next one.

I absolutely love BetterHelp. I love therapy. I have talked about it over and over and over again. And that is for a reason. It is the greatest thing ever. Having an outlet and a person to talk to about what you're going through and getting unbiased opinions and advice is so, so beneficial.

So if you're thinking about starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. You just have to fill out a brief questionnaire and you'll get matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash moments today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash moments.

These are this is a bullet point of thoughts and habits that are not conducted to the work. And the next one is having goals so ambitious that you can't begin. And I agree with this one. And I think this is a lot of our problems. We you might know that you want to cure cancer. OK, let's look at something like that. Maybe that's what your interest is. Maybe maybe that's what you want to do to change the world.

Yes, you can have cure cancer as your goal, but what are the steps going to be to get there? What miniature steps can you set before that big one? Setting small steps and setting baby steps and little goals are going to help you feel so much more accomplished in what it is that you do and who you are and who you're becoming. Because when you knock off

little goals, you feel more empowered to keep accomplishing them. When you set your goals so big and you don't reach them right away, it only lets you down. It only makes you feel disappointed in yourself because you are not achieving everything that you want to be achieving. So when you give yourself small goals to achieve daily, to achieve weekly, to achieve monthly, it keeps you motivated. It keeps you empowered. It keeps you proud of yourself because you're like, you know what?

I can do it. I am capable. Like look at me smashing all these goals. I'm knocking them out every single day. Give yourself that. Give yourself that win. Let yourself accomplish all the baby goals instead of just setting these crazy major ones. And I'm not saying to get rid of those. Keep those. But give yourself something to be proud of. We all unfortunately work off of

not even necessarily validation from other people, but validation in general. And when you can validate yourself and recognize that you are capable, even in the little things, even if your little goals or even if your big goals or somebody else's little goals, give yourself goals that are personalized to you that you can be proud of when you achieve them. So for me, something like that might be waking up at 6 a.m. every day to somebody else. That might be their normal. They might do that without blinking an eye or thinking twice about it. But for me personally,

That's huge. And those little goals are going to look different for everybody. So set them and personalize them to you, but set little goals so that you can feel accomplished every single day because you deserve to. Next, thinking you can only do your best work in certain conditions. I could tell you right now, we all probably fall victim to this. And you know, actually, I don't want to say all of us because I'm sure some of us don't. I personally, and some of you probably like to think, well, I'm

I can't get this done because I can only work in this setting. I can't edit this video and I can't become an influencer because it's too loud and there's too much going on and there's too much chaos. Or I can't go back to school because I don't have the proper time and energy to go to the library and study. Or I can't study for that exam because I can't go to the library. So I'm just not going to do it at all. We tend to get really stuck in that in so many different situations. We're like, well,

I can't do it if I don't have this. It's the same way some days I wake up and I'm like, well, I'm going to have a hard time getting things done today because it's raining. Now, truthfully, I can do things in the rain, but I choose to accept that I can't for whatever reason that that may be. So recognize that you can do your best work in any condition. And again, your best might not look the same as it does another day or in a different condition, but you could still just give it your best. You're picking up what I'm putting down.

I would like to also remind you that this is a valuable list, but it is also a personal attack list. And that's the reason that I put it on my fridge because as somebody who struggles with a lot of these things, I needed to look at them every single day. And I'm glad I'm rereading it now so that I can look at it every single day again. And I'll post a picture of this on my Instagram story when this episode comes out so that you can maybe make it your lock screen or something because it's some good reminders. The next one is requiring...

Specific tools or equipment to do the work. Now, the way that I think about this one is a lot of people will come to me and they'll say, "I want to be an influencer," or "I want to make videos," or "I want to be a YouTuber, podcaster," whatever it may be, but I don't have the money or the means to buy all the cameras and the content creation pieces and the microphones and whatever it is. And to that I say, if you have a phone that you're listening to this on, you have everything you need and more.

And as far as like if somebody wants to start a podcast, I still and you guys know we've been going strong in this podcast for two and a half years now. Don't have any fancy mics. Don't have any expensive equipment. I don't even have a room that I record in. I don't have a studio. Do I record in a studio now? Occasionally. Super cool. Super dope. But I just started doing that.

90% of the time I record in my room, on my bed with a little recorder, no fancy mic. I think this recorder was maybe 25 bucks on Amazon, if not cheaper. There is always a way. And I emphasize this one so heavily because this is something that I feel I'm always chasing the next camera, the next thing. What can I buy that's going to make my content better? Truthfully, there's nothing I can buy that's going to make my content better. But what can make my content better is me being a better person.

Like the more that you are grateful for what you have and you work with what you have, the more likely you are to find success and to find opportunities where you will eventually level up from a camera or from a phone to a camera or a camera to a better camera or get a tripod or whatever it may be. And this applies to so much more than content creation. The reason I emphasize content creation is because that's what I do. That's where I can speak from personal experience and personal questions that people have asked me.

But in any realm of work that you work in, letting that be something that rotates around in your mind is not going to help you move forward. Is it true? It's possible. Does having like a nice camera and nice footage help you grow? It can, I'm sure. But overall, what's going to help you grow is having a mindset that you not a lack mindset, having a mindset that you already have everything you need and more.

That is the kind of mindset that is going to help you grow in any venture of your life. If you're constantly paying attention to what you don't have that somebody else has, you're never going to get to what they have. It's the same thing as if you can't clap for others, you're never going to get your turn. And it's very, very, very true. Work with what you got. Make the best out of what you have. Recognize that

Even considering these things is a gift. And as I sit here and I record this, I'm recording on my new little camera that I got and looking around in my room, that's a disaster. Thinking about the fact that, well, if I had a podcast studio in my house that somebody built out for me where I could just have guests, like if I just sit here and think like that, where is that going to get me in life?

Rather than if I sit here, recognize that I have a roof over my head and a place to record a podcast where I can communicate and reach so many different people in the world and I can have conversations and build relationships. The second I remind myself that that is what is important and that's what I'm here to do and that's what I've always wanted to do is the moment that you feel re-inspired. And that goes for everybody. Recognize why it is you want to do what you want to do, not what you have to have to do what you want to do.

Moving on. Mic drop. The next one. Oh, see more personal attacks. Abandoning a project as soon as it gets difficult. Well, of course, this is not going to be conducted to our work, but it's easier said than done. Especially my ADHD people. There's a lot of people listening to this who might not relate at all. There's many people I know in my life that the second they say that they're going to start something, they absolutely are going to finish it. And they do it and they show it and they prove it. And there's certain people in my life who would maybe say that about me.

Very few, but I tend to do. No, I don't finish most things that I start. I don't necessarily give up on them because they get difficult. I just kind of get overwhelmed by things. So I guess essentially in different words, yes, I tend to push things to the back burner when they get difficult. You and I need to both stop doing that. We need to recognize that things are going to be hard. We have to push through the hard times. We have to push through what hurts us to get to the point where we can reach that success that we want.

regardless of what that success may look like to you, there's going to be hard times to get to that point. Feeling like you need permission to start or move forward. This one I look at from the validation route or outlet, I guess. I don't know. Whatever the word I'm looking for is. You don't need anybody to tell you that you can do it. You don't need somebody to say, okay, I believe in you. You need to believe in yourself. You need to say, okay, I don't need you to say yes to me.

I know that I can do this. I know that I want to do this and I'm going to do this. The second that you start waiting for people to give you the okay or to give you the validation, you will recognize really quickly that you're not going to get it from a lot of people. And that's not necessarily because you can't do it. A lot of people don't want to support your dreams and goals because it makes them jealous. So they want to tear you down before you even get the chance to start.

So do things without waiting for approval, without asking for approval, without needing validation. Do it because you validated for yourself and you know that you're capable and that you can do it. Letting a perceived need for funding, equipment, or support get in the way. So this kind of sums up the last three that we just talked about. Find a way to start without the funding, without the support, without the team. Start with a dream. Start with a purpose and start with a why.

And simply just start. And I strongly believe that the rest falls into play. Again, it's going to get difficult on the way. It's not going to be easy every step of the way. There's going to be hardships. There's going to be moments where you do need to save up for certain equipment or certain research or certain studies or courses or whatever it is.

But don't let that stop you from even starting. Don't let the fear that you won't be able to get the funds or you won't be able to sell the product be the reason that you don't even start. Because how are you going to know if you don't even try? You don't even start if you don't take the first step. You get me? Having too many ideas and not knowing where to start. You know, I really feel like I should just end this right here because this is where it gets really personal for me. This is where it hits all the hard parts of my heart. I have a lot of ideas and it's my superpower.

But realistically, it can also be kind of my weakness. And that's why I'm just going to cross this one off the list because I don't completely agree with it. I do agree with like not knowing where to start, letting all of these ideas stop me from starting one of them. I think that we should all have a gazillion ideas. We should always keep them in our notes. We should keep them in the back of our mind. But that being said, not every idea that we have needs to be started at the same time.

Pick one thing, start with that, focus on that, prioritize that. The rest falls into play. One thing that I've always said, especially when it comes to my ADD, my ADHD, and just constantly having ideas and

I don't know if anybody listening to this does follow me on TikTok or Instagram. On TikTok and Instagram, I get really real with like most of the things that I go through in my life. I talk a lot about the different ideas that I have, the different hobbies that I want to start, the different things that I want to challenge myself with. And a lot of them, I don't finish. And there's a lot of haters out there. A lot of people who...

And find it to be very a very valuable way to spend their time by being obsessed with what I do with my time who sit there and tell me like, oh, you're incapable of finishing anything. You're not good enough. Like you're never going to be able to do anything with your life because you don't finish what you start. And like, it's really easy to let that get in your head. If somebody has ever said those kind of things to you or you let yourself believe those things about you.

It's really easy to just get, get knocked down and to not want to start anything because you don't, you get to a point where you don't even believe you can finish anything because you've, you've let yourself down so many times. And it feels even heavier when, you know, there's other people in the world who are emphasizing that or telling you that. But what I like to say to that and what I'd like to remind myself and what I would like to remind you is that God is

is going to give you a lot of ideas. He's going to send you down a lot of different paths. He's going to send you on a million different ventures because each of those ventures is going to make, is going to be a reason for why you end up doing what you're doing and what you're going to do. Every single thing that you have to fail and you have to start is going to teach you something towards your deeper purpose, your bigger purpose, or towards the venture that you're going to hold onto. And I also like to remind myself that

The ones that are God's plans for me versus the ones that are the world's plans for me are the ones that I've made up for myself. Those are the things that are going to fall through. The things that God has in store for me, the things that God has planned for me, those are not going to fail. I'm going to reach those goals and I'm going to get to that point no matter how long it takes, no matter how long it sits on the back burner, you are going to achieve and you cannot let people come interfere and get in the way of that. The next one.

That's my that on that. Never finishing projects. Again, this kind of goes into everything that I just said, but we'll leave it at that. I'm just going to, I'm trying to like justify each and every one of the things on this list, but sometimes reading it straight through is a little bit harsh. We need to kind of deep dive in and understand them a little bit better.

I love this one. And this is one that I remember when I read this bullet point. I think this is what made me actually rip the page out of the book and put it on my fridge because I fall victim to this constantly. Blaming circumstances or other people for interfering with your process. We love to blame the outside world for the reason that we haven't found success or we haven't reached our goals or we haven't done things right.

we will find any excuse in the book and this goes back to the one that i just talked about before where people have the proper equipment or they have the proper team behind them or they have advantages that you don't have that is not their fault people having advantages in their life in their career in their whatever it may be does not make it their fault that you can't do what you want to do or you don't do what you think that you should do does that make sense

Do not blame other people. You are capable. You will have advantages that other people won't have. And you wouldn't want people to blame you for having that. I just I tend to do that one a lot. I'm always like, well, this person has that and that's why they were able to do that. And I'll just justify why I'm not even trying because of what they have. That's no way to live. Nobody wants to live that way. We deserve to live better than that and in a different mindset than that.

Okay, the next one is romanticizing negative behaviors or addictions. Yeah, this one I agree with completely. If you choose to continue doing things that you know aren't good for you, that you know are holding you back in some way, shape, or form in any aspect of your life, don't continue to do them. Don't continue to justify them. I think this is part of the reason I finally was like, okay,

I'm done drinking alcohol for a while. I'm going to take a break from drinking alcohol because even though it wasn't even drinking every weekend, it wasn't even drinking a lot. I know what alcohol does in my mind and I know what it does in my body and I know how it makes me feel. And I know that it makes me less motivated. I know that it makes me a version of myself that I don't love as much. I know that it makes me a little bit sad, a little bit angry, but I would justify it and I would just keep doing it. And I would look back and be like,

Why? If I know that this isn't pushing me in the right direction in my life, I know that this doesn't make me feel good inside or out. I know that it's not helping me be who I want to be in this world. I'm not going to keep doing it and I'm not going to keep justifying it. And this isn't alcohol in everybody's situation. Like some people can drink and still take over the world. And I applaud those people. Maybe for you, it's smoking or it's vaping or it's hanging out around the wrong people or it's staying up late or it's sleeping in until noon, whatever it is.

Stop justifying it and romanticizing it if you want to evolve as a person. And this is so much easier said than done. I am telling you, I've had this battle with drinking for years of my life, like not even joking. Since college, I felt this way and I knew alcohol made me feel this way. And it wasn't until now, what, six, five, five years later where I'm like, OK, now I'm going to make a change. Now I'm going to actually stick to

to what I know and like not participate in this behavior anymore. So give yourself grace, but I promise you'll feel a whole lot better once you actually take the step to just stop doing the thing that's creating negative patterns or negative behaviors in you. The next one.

believing a certain mood or state is necessary to do your best work. I'm just going to pretend I didn't even read this one because this is the same, the same way that I said, like, sometimes I wake up and it's raining and I don't feel like I can accomplish anything. This is the same way. Like a lot of times, even when it comes to recording podcast episodes or write a poem or something or journal, I tell myself that I have to be in a certain headspace because if I'm not as like creatively turned on, I'm not going to be able to create or share the work that I want to share.

Sometimes it's not about creating the best work that you can do or doing things perfectly. Sometimes it's just about doing them and creating that discipline for yourself. And that's something that I'm working on. It's something that we all should work on. It doesn't have to be perfect. You don't have to be in the right mindset, but you just have to do it. Next, prioritizing other activities and responsibilities over your commitment to making art. I'm going to say that one more time.

prioritizing other activities and responsibilities over your commitment to making art. Who is it that you want to be? What is it that you want to do? What is helping you become that person and what is holding you back from it? What is taking up your time that is valuable to this of evolvement and growth of the person that you want to be and what is literally just wasting your time or moving you backwards? You know the difference.

A lot of the times we know what's good for us and we know what's bad for us, but we just try to just pretend we don't be like, no, but this is good. Like I'm having fun. Okay. Maybe you're having fun, but are you, are you becoming who you want to be as a person? Maybe not. And that's not to say that you shouldn't, not everything that you do in your life needs to be making you smarter, more successful, stronger, more wealthy, whatever it is better. Not everything that you do in your life has to make you better.

But overall, the things that you do in your life should be pushing you forward rather than pushing you backwards or keeping you in one spot. You should want to be constantly evolving, learning, growing as a person, moving in the direction of your life path and your life purpose. You know what I'm saying? Okay, there's only three more. Distractibility and procrastination. You know, you know...

I'm not one who could speak on this, so I'm just going to leave it at that because I am the queen of being distracted and procrastinating, but I'm working on it. It's my, it's my brain. It's not my fault. The next one in patience, recognize and remember that the things in life, the best things in life take time. My favorite quote, not my favorite, but one of my favorites for sure is the day that you plant the seed is not the day that you eat the fruit.

The day that you have the idea isn't the day that it comes true and it takes over the world. The day that you decide you want to sell a product is not the day that you see it in your favorite big retail store. Everything in life takes time. And usually the things that are bigger to us, the things that are more valuable to us, the things that are more important to us take a lot longer. So let yourself be patient. Let yourself be.

Accept the journey instead of just waiting and waiting and waiting for the destination. I really love to bring back in some kind of cliche quote every freaking three minutes of this episode, but it's true. The journey is what makes it. And you become more impatient when you're just waiting for the destination. Every single day of our life is the destination of that day.

So just be patient in that day and appreciate that day and just recognize that the best things in life are going to continue to take time. The last one, thinking anything that's out of your control is in your way. I'm going to say it again. Thinking anything that's out of your control is in your way. Something that my therapist says, 10% of life is what happens to you. The other 90% is how you make meaning of it. Something could really, really throw you off of your life.

routine or your path. Life is going to hand you things that aren't going to make any sense to you. It can be good things. It can be bad things. You're going to be thrown off schedule. You can let these things happen to you in life and you can be like, well, I guess I'm just not going to keep going. Or you can let things happen to you in life and you can find a way to

to give them meaning, to give them purpose. You know, you might buy, and I'm going to use this one because it's a personal example. I bought a van three years ago. Actually, anybody who's been listening to this podcast all the way through since 2021 knows when I bought this van because I used to record episodes in there, but I bought a van from a mutual friend and

I spent all of my savings on it at the time. This was three years ago. I had like just started social media. I was just making my own money for the first time in my life. And I really wanted to buy this. My parents told me, no, they're like, that's a waste of money. It's a busted old van. You're not going to use it. You're not buying it. But I was like, you know what? It's my money. I'm going to do it. And I learned my lesson very quickly.

Because I bought this van and it broke down the day that we bought it and I could not get my money back and the van still sits in my parents' yard. So a lot of people could look at that and be like, what a shitty waste of money. What a horrible, horrible, horrible thing to do. You know, that money could have been a down payment on who knows what. Okay.

The way that I choose to look at it, the way that I chose to make meaning of that scenario that I went through in my life was that because I bought that van, because I flew to California with my mom to pick up that van is the only reason that I scheduled a meeting with my now managers, my team that has made this career possible for me, my team that has opened up.

so many doors and so many opportunities and helped me truly become who I am today and keeps me motivated to continue becoming who I'm going to be. If I didn't go to that meeting, I would not have signed with them. I would have signed with a different company because that's just what I had the plan of in my head. And the only reason I did was because I got to meet my now team in person and really get to know them. And that was all because I flew to California to buy this van. So basically,

You can choose to make meaning of things, even if to somebody else, it may not make any sense, but being able to make meaning of anything and find the good in any bad situation, find the lesson in any bad situation is going to be your superpower. It is going to be the reason that you just keep having good things happen to you. I remember being in high school and everybody was like, you're so lucky. Like everything good happens to you. And I'm like, okay,

One, I feel very blessed, but two, that was because I found, I found good things to happen to me. I made good things happen to me because of the way that I chose to see the world. And when bad things would happen to me, I would find something good to make out of it. I would make a story out of it. I would take a lesson from it. I would take something and apply it to the next situation that I go through. Recognize that you have the power to make meaning of your life.

And you have the power to stay on your path, even when humongous things get thrown your way. That's not to say we're not going to have tragedy strike us. We're not going to have horrible things that are unexpected, that are going to cause us grief and pain and hurt that nobody else could understand. That's not to say those things aren't going to happen. I'm not telling you to make a horrible situation like the most positive and happy thing in the world.

But I do encourage you to try to find a meaning, try to find an understanding in whatever it is that you're going through in this moment, in the next moment, next year, the year after that, whatever it may be. And I just want to say, you're right where you're supposed to be. All of this is beautiful things to keep in mind. It's a list of great things and great reminders. But most importantly, and I think the most important thing to remember when it comes to all of this is

Is that you got to take control of your mindset and you've got to understand that you are exactly where you're supposed to be, even when it doesn't feel like it. And trust me, I was right there with you this morning, but I do think that going through that and thinking about all these things helped because I don't want to sit here and preach to you that you're right where you're supposed to be. Everything's fine. It's all God's plan. And then end this episode and sit back to myself and feel like I'm doing nothing and I'm nowhere. We're in this together. Okay. So yeah,

Remember that you're valuable, you're loved, you're perfect. And I'm so grateful that you tuned in to the Moments podcast this week. And next week, we're going to have a really exciting guest. So I hope you're excited for that. But I will talk to you guys soon. And I love you so much. See you next Monday.