Ep 65. The Most Powerful Person in Your Life

I am Kym Showers, and this is Reinvented After 40, episode number 65: The Most Powerful Person in Your Life.

Hey, friends. Welcome to Reinvented After 40, a podcast for all you women in the second half of life who are ready to take responsibility for your own wellbeing and create a life you love living.

I’m your host, Kym Showers, and after spending the first 40 years of my life people-pleasing and following all the rules, I was exhausted and ready for a change. I reinvented myself. I stopped outsourcing my happiness. And I’ve been brave enough to live a different kind of life.

I’ll be here each week to help you do the same thing. It’s going to be fun. Let’s go.

Hey, friends, welcome back to the show. How are you today? I am recording this the last day of November. And you’re getting this entering the second week of December. It’s a really kind of flippy thing that happens when I’m recording a podcast because I want to talk to you in present time and yet you’re hearing this so much later. So then I tend to get a little confused on what has actually happened by the time you’re listening to this So if I keep telling you the same things over and over I know you’ll understand.

And I actually like to hear the same things over and over because I just need reminders all the time about all the things that are important to me. So just keep reminding me and keep saying the same important things over and over and I will too. And we’ll all just sit there together. So, I of course, so love December, so love Christmas, every single thing about it. And also I am the most important person in my life. Who is the most important person in your life? Who’s the most powerful person in your life? I’m the most powerful person in my life.

Who is the most powerful person in your life? There is someone who is actually the pilot of the plane of your life. And I really want it to be you. And if it’s not you this is a good time to figure out who it is and why it’s not you. So I have a couple of ideas for you today. And the reason that I’m telling you about being the most powerful person in your own life is because so many women in the second half of life have always given their power away thinking that that was the right thing to do.

Thinking that this is what a really good woman does, is just puts herself last, puts everybody else first. And if you’re married, and you’re around my age you have been programmed to believe especially if you’re a Christian, you’ve been programmed to believe that you shouldn’t be the most powerful person in your life. And I’m here to tell you that that is wrong, that that isn’t right. The best thing we can give to the world, the best thing that we can do for our spouse, the best thing that we can do for our grown kids, for our grandkids, our friends is to become the most powerful person in our own life.

So I’m going to tell you why and how and give you some really good reasons to get you going. So the first thing you have to know is that when you give your power away you become exhausted, resentful, not the best version of you ever, you feel taken advantage of. You struggle making decisions. You agree to things that you don’t really agree with just to keep the peace. You hate letting people down as if that’s completely up to you or that you have that much power to let people down. You say yes when you really want to say no.

These are just signs that you are not the most powerful person in your life. So the way that you become the most powerful person in your life is that you learn how to sit with the discomfort of saying no when you don’t want to do something. You learn to sit with the discomfort of ‘letting people down’. You sit with the discomfort of disagreeing with people. You sit with the discomfort of actually making quick decisions, saying yes when you mean yes and say no when you mean no, and deciding ahead of time what’s best for you and what you want.

When you start making those changes in your life, a lot of discomfort comes up, a lot of negative feelings come up because you have to be willing to risk relationships. This is all boundary work. You start creating boundaries for your life. And once you start doing that on a regular basis like this is just a practice, why do I feel so burnt out? Get super honest with yourself. I feel burnt out because all I ever do is a bunch of stuff for a bunch of people that I don’t really want to do. And so that gets me burnt out and that gets me resentful. And then I blame them for my negative feelings, my discomfort, my suffering.

I blame the circumstance. I blame the people outside of me for the things that I’m actually doing. Remember, it’s not their responsibility. They’re going to keep asking us. I mean if we’re the best cook in the family, of course, we’re always going to be asked to cook for all their occasions. But if you don’t like doing it, then you’ve got to start saying no. You’ve got to sit with the discomfort of saying, “No, I don’t really want to do that anymore. Why don’t you guys, why doesn’t someone else cook or why don’t we order pizza? Or why don’t we just try a different tradition?”

And then everyone’s going to be like, “No, because we love when you cook. We love when you do all the work. We love doing everything at your house.” But maybe you don’t want to do it anymore or maybe you only want to do it sometimes. You’re the one who has to decide and then speak the words to all the people who need to hear them. And then hold yourself accountable for the decision that you made. Have your own back, know that it’s better for everyone when you tell the truth, when you have boundaries in your life, when you’re the highest version of yourself.

So I have very clear boundaries in my life. And so I’ve been doing this work now for several years and I trust myself so much. I’m definitely the most powerful person in my life without a blink of an eye. And everyone in my life would agree, “Yeah, Kym does exactly what she wants.” It’s not to anybody’s detriment that I do exactly what I want. It’s actually to their benefit that I do exactly what I want. I’m a very loving, very generous, very honest, very supportive mom, wife, Pippy friend. So it’s to their benefit that I’m this way.

I want you to see that for yourself. If there’s an area of your life that you know you’re giving your power away, that you are not the most important person in your life, and the most powerful person in your life. You have got to stop doing that. You have to stop doing that. You have to take back your power and you’ve got to be honest with yourself and honest with the world. It is never the world’s job, it is not your husband’s job, it is not your kids’ job, it is not your friends’ job to take care of you and to make sure that you feel okay about your life. To make sure that you feel important, to make sure that you feel loved, to make sure that you feel powerful.

It is not their job. It is your job, you get to have the privilege of having that job in your life. And let me tell you the benefits. You get to create slowly but surely day after day, practicing the tools of setting your boundaries in your life, practicing, sitting with negative emotions and being okay with that. You get the results of creating a life that you absolutely love living, I promise you. I have been doing it and my life is extraordinary. It’s better than anything I could have ever imagined before I even knew it was possible for me.

And at 61 I truly am just getting started with the amount of authority and the amount of powerful decisions that I make, the very clear boundaries I have in my life, what I allow in my life, I’m so clear about that. And sometimes I need to tell people like, “You know what? That used to work for me and maybe it works for you. And maybe everybody in your life’s okay with it, but I’m not okay with that anymore. I don’t want that in my life.” I’m living on a different level now. So I’d love you to be a part of my life. I’d love for you to be here with me. But if you’re going to act like that, no, you can’t be here. You can’t be here and act like that.

So you have to decide what you’re available for. You have to decide where you’re headed, what it looks like to be your most powerful self, to be your most upleveled self in the second half of life. Stop laying on the ground and then complaining that everybody walks all over you. Get up off the ground, sister, get up off the ground and start making some very clear, direct, honest decisions in your life. What do you want? What do you expect from yourself? You can learn to expect so much from yourself.

I expect so much from myself and I keep showing up for me. Every year I get stronger. I get stronger mentally. I get stronger emotionally. And I get stronger physically and it’s because I’m the most powerful person in my life. I am not waiting on anyone to do anything for me. I decide every day that it’s going to be an incredibly powerful day for me and I’m going to have the exact experience I want. I want you to learn how to do the exact same things and it starts with creating boundaries.

I actually have a podcast episode, you’ll have to look for it. I don’t know exactly what number it is, but it is on boundaries. I think it’s just called boundaries. So go find that one and go back and listen to that one. But for now I just want you to settle this question with yourself. Who is the most powerful person in your life? Get super honest. Is it your daughter? Is it your son? Is it your spouse? Is it your boyfriend? Is it your boss? Is it your friend? Do you have a best friend that you just let kind of be in charge of you and you’re afraid to say no to her because she’ll get mad at you?

It’s whoever has control over you. No one has control over me because I’m not afraid of letting anyone down. I’m just like, “Yeah, I love you enough to tell the truth.” And I love myself even more. I just love myself the most. And that makes me the best wife, it makes me the best mom, it makes me the best Pippy, which aka grandma. It makes me the best friend, it makes me the best coach.

So I don’t jump into the pool with my clients. That’s why I’m such a good coach because I just tell them the truth. I’m not going to go along with them when they’re struggling. I’m going to help them get unstuck and that requires the truth. They have to become the most powerful person in their life, that’s why they get such good results. If there’s somebody, if you feel like you need somebody in your life before you can even move forward, you’re not the most powerful person in your life.

If you know for sure you can handle anything, you can figure anything out, you trust yourself, you do what you say you’re going to do, then you’re absolutely the most powerful person in your life and you’re just going to keep getting stronger and stronger in that area. So if you need help with boundaries which every woman does, come work with me. I have a spot for you. Come work with me, we’ll get started this month, but you’ll have Christmas holiday off. And we’ll really dig in the second week of January and work together every week for six months.

So don’t make the holidays an excuse for not coming today, signing up, committing to yourself to become the most powerful woman in your life in 2023. Don’t let the holidays, don’t let your brain tell you that the holidays are a good reason for you not to commit to yourself, not to become the most powerful person in your life. Do it today, come, get on a coaching call with me and we’ll figure out where we start, what you need. If you’re afraid, if you’re nervous, that’s exactly how you should feel, everybody feels that way.

And then once you get going with me, it’s going to become the best part of your week. You’re going to look forward to it. You’re going to have things to practice every week. You’re going to start seeing changes in the way that you think and feel about yourself, the way that you show up for yourself, the way that you start trusting yourself in a different way. You’re going to have so many aha moments every single week. And you are for sure, by the end of six months going to be the most powerful woman, the most powerful person, the most powerful human in your own life and that changes everything.

Alright, well, I love you so much for showing up today. Remember to follow, rate, and review this podcast, it’s so helpful for me. I read all the reviews and oh my gosh, you guys are so just incredible. Thank you for taking the time to do that. I know there’s so many of you listening to this and I know it’s helping you and it’s helping me. And that’s what I’m all about. I just want to be here and let’s just all help each other to become the best most powerful people in our own life. Okay, that’s it, that’s what I have for you this week. Have a really good one and I will talk to you next Thursday.

Thanks for listening to Reinvented After 40. If you want more information or resources from the podcast, please visit KymShowersLifeCoach.com.