Ep 73. Be Inspired by Your Own Life

I am Kym Showers, and this is Reinvented After 40, episode number 73: Be Inspired by Your Own 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 well-being 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 everyone, welcome back to the show. I have a show, can you believe that? Episode number 73. Happy February the month of love. I love February. I’m super excited about February. So I want you to be inspired by your own life. I want you to live a life that you absolutely love living. I want you to be able to say to the world, “I love being me. It’s so fun being me.” Do you know that this is possible for you? It is so possible. I just am her. I am living a life that I love. Literally, you guys every day I wake up and I’m so happy to be me.

And I’m inspired by my life, especially in the last four years. I have changed before my own eyes. I’ve changed before your eyes if you’ve been following me for very long. But I have literally changed before my eyes and there has been nothing better than that. I just feel so free. I feel so alive. I feel so in love with my life and with everything that I’m doing and everything that I’m creating. And I’m just so excited about my future. And I want you to feel the same way about your life.

So I have this thought that I don’t do anything I don’t want to do, and I really do believe that that’s why I love my life so much because I don’t do anything I don’t want to do. Everything I want to do, I do. And everything that I do I want to do. It’s not how maybe so many of my clients come to me and they’re just like, “I just don’t love my life.” And it’s because they don’t like what they’re doing. And the reason that they’re doing things that they don’t like is because they feel obligated to do them.

So that’s very relatable especially as women in the second half of life, we just get so stuck in saying yes to things that we don’t want to do. And then when we say yes to things that we don’t want to do our daily calendar is full of things that we don’t want to do, that we don’t like doing, that we get up every morning and we’re just dreading doing our life every day. I mean that sounds terrible. That sounds like a terrible way to live. And it’s unnecessary. You can create a life you love living by looking at what you’re doing every day and then asking yourself why you’re doing them.

Why are you doing the things on your calendar? Is it because you genuinely want to? If it’s not because you genuinely want to then I would say stop doing them. If you don’t love your job figure out why you’re doing this job. Figure out why you don’t love it. Is there a way to love your job? Is it a mindset issue where you can just literally change your mind about it and show up differently? Or is it time to quit that job and move on to another job and change your circumstance? So remember the model, our circumstances are all neutral until we think a thought about them.

So our mindset is creating our reality our circumstances are not. So the way that we think about our life is the way that we feel about our life. So to be inspired by your everyday life you have to create a life full of things that you want to do. So everything’s kind of a tradeoff. So I love my life so much. I love every single thing on my calendar every day. I love my list I make the day before every day of things that I’m committed to. Everything is to move the needle forward.

Everything is aligned with my yearly goals, my monthly goals, my weekly goals, my daily goals. And really my overall umbrella goal is to have a life that I am obsessed with, a life that I am so inspired by, a life that inspires other people. I am so inspired by women who love their life, who genuinely love their life and genuinely love being them. It shows. It’s the energy that they show up with every single day, it’s very contagious. I want to be around people like that.

So to be able to get up every morning and love your life you have to say yes to things that you want to do and say no to things that you don’t want to do. So to say no to things that we don’t want to do is our problem. We hate saying no. We hate disappointing people. We hate disappointing our husband. We hate disappointing our friends. We hate disappointing our children. We hate disappointing our parents and we hate disappointing our boss. But I’m telling you, you’ve got to get good at disappointing people, just say no.

If you’re the yes person in someone else’s life, you’re just covering for them all the time so they don’t have to suffer at all. They don’t have to find someone else to watch their kids. They don’t have to work to pay their own bills. They don’t have to make their own food. You’re just coming in and saving the day all the time, you’ve got to stop doing that because that’s not good for them. So don’t think that that’s good for them, it isn’t. Let everyone be responsible for their own life experience.

You are just here to create a life that you’re inspired by. You’re here to create a life that you love. You’re here to do the things that you want to do. So if someone asks you to do something do not say yes right away, take a breath, take a day, take a minute. Say, “Hey, I’ll get back to you on that, let me think about it.” Get out of the habit of saying yes right away, or answering right away. That is not a good habit to be in. Just say, “Okay, let me think about that and see if that is something I really want to do.”

That’s how you do it. So I look at it like this too. I love getting up early in the morning, you know that about me. But I had to kind of train myself. I had to have a good reason to want to go to bed early and get up early because that’s not what everybody else is doing. Most people stay up and most people sleep in. But that didn’t align with who I was becoming and that didn’t align with an inspired life, a life that I love, a life that I’m inspired to live every day, a life that feels fun living it.

So every night I go to bed and go to sleep at seven o’clock. I know that probably sounds crazy to you guys, but I sleep nine hours. I sleep until four o’clock in the morning, a dead sleep. It’s such a good sleep. And it’s because of the rest of the day the way that I treat myself the rest of the day. I’m in this habit that feels so good and so happy and so right. And then I get up. And then I make my cappuccino and I have one beautiful, lovely cappuccino, that’s it, one.

And then I drink a ton of water and I have been drinking some Gatorade every day. My body has just been needing electrolytes, and I don’t know if Gatorade’s really good for me or not but it tastes so good to me and it feels so good in my body. And as far as I can tell it has been so beneficial for me to drink it. So that’s what I’m going by how I feel. So was just coaching a client and she goes, “Well, how are you so good at being the authority in your life?” And I said, “You know what, I just have been practicing for so long.”

I didn’t know how to be the authority in my life before I got this thought work. It really was in my 50s that I just decided, gosh, how do I know what’s good for me? How do I make decisions about things? Do I need to consult everybody? Because I was so in the habit of consulting all the people for their opinions. And then whoever had the strongest opinion, I would go with that opinion. But you know who I consult now? I consult no one but me. I’m the authority in my life.

My opinion is the most honorable opinion. I’m going to believe me. And so Gatorade tastes good to me. I really do feel so good after I drink it, so I drink a big thing of Gatorade every day. And it’s probably because I work out so hard and I eat so well. But I just want you to know, I make my decisions. I decide what’s good for me. I’m so in tune with my mind and my body and my routines that I know if I feel bad and I know the reason I feel bad. But I know when I feel good, and I know the reasons that I feel good. I adjust accordingly.

So I just keep making my own decisions and keep inspiring myself when things are working. So then after I go work out I have already drank my cappuccino, I have already drank my water, I have already drank my Gatorade and I go work out super hard at Orangetheory. So many of my clients have joined Orangetheory now. So you’re welcome, Orangetheory. But it’s made such a difference in my life, and I love it so much. And I’m just like, “Yeah, every day I’m going to Orangetheory.” And I love it and so why wouldn’t I?

So it doesn’t matter what anyone else’s opinion of that is, “Kym, shouldn’t you take a break?” I’m like, “No, I shouldn’t because I love it so much. My body loves it.” I count every day as special, and I live every day as if it were my last day. I really truly do. I’m just all in and very inspired by my own life and I really want you to do the same thing. I want you to have the experience of being inspired by your own life. It is such a fun way of living.

So then after I get back, I’m just going to give you a little bit of my daily habits every day. And I know if you’ve been following me for a while, you know my daily habits, but I think you need to hear them over and over and over so that you can be inspired to create your own daily habits that you love, that are serving you so well, that are getting you the results in your life that you want that are helping you reach your goals. They matter so much, it’s just all the little habits. And habits are my jam.

Habits are fun. It’s not even the goals that’s fun. It’s the habits that I create to reach the goal that are my jam, that are super fun, that are very inspiring. Good habits are the juice of life, it’s super fun. So then I get back, I make my green juice. So you see, I drink a lot of liquids. I stay super hydrated which I don’t know if this is a thing but I do think it’s a thing, for 61-year-old women to stay hydrated. We have to be very conscious about staying hydrated. So I make my green juice, my kale, my celery, my carrots, my lemons. So I make that when I get home.

And then I also while I’m drinking that, I make my protein shake which is my collagen protein, my bulletproof protein, my banana, my strawberries, my blueberries, my Greek yogurt and ice and water and then a big handful of power greens. It’s so delicious so I drink a couple of little cups of that. And then I keep that in my fridge all day and then I just go, when I get hungry I pour – walnuts I put in there too because I’m obsessed with walnuts. But I pour a few cups of that throughout the day so I’m getting plenty of protein.

And I do eat either a couple of hard-boiled eggs or a couple of scrambled eggs every day. Yesterday I bought an organic rotisserie chicken that I munched on all day, so what else? And my walnuts, I eat other raw nuts as well. Also, I’m really into organic carrots and hummus. That is a snack I’ll eat. And then I’ll either record like I’m doing right now. I have it on my schedule to record a podcast right now. So I sat down to record this podcast. So then by four o’clock I’m done, I’m tired, I’m done.

So depending on the day, whether I’ve coached or whether I’m doing household chores and then I actually have, and you guys know this, we have a bungalow, a beach bungalow that I rent out, so I’m in charge of that. So I had guests coming this weekend, so I had to make sure all the beds were made, and I go get flowers and I make sure everything’s ready for them and all the communication’s said. And so that’s on my mind as well.

And then when they check out I go and collect all the laundry and I take it all to the laundromat, this laundry service and they do all the linens for me and all the towels for me. And then I go pick it up. And then I take it back and then I make all the beds. And then my housekeeper goes over and cleans. And I’m just always doing something. I have something to do. And so it just depends on the day but for sure by four o’clock I’m done. I don’t think about anything. My brain has shut off.

And this is why I told you this week as well is, I have my morning brain and my afternoon brain. And my afternoon brain is done. I don’t think about work. I don’t think about thinking. I don’t think at all. I usually just chill the rest of the day, I either most of the time I just lie on my couch and watch a fun show or do some organizing or something like that. But I’m not thinking about anything. And I really don’t think about work afterwards on purpose. So I really don’t overthink anything anymore. I just think about things that I’ve written down to think about and I just stay very present.

And it really works for me. And then at seven o’clock usually I’m watching TV. I turn off my TV and I go to bed. I kiss my husband, I go to bed and I go directly to sleep and I sleep till four o’clock in the morning. That’s my day. That’s my routine. Those are my great habits. They’re very inspiring. I love my life so much. I feel so good and energetic and vibrant and alive every single day. And I want the same for you and it isn’t really that hard, it truly isn’t.

So I just really wanted to tell you that today. I want you to be inspired by your own life, more than anyone else’s life. It’s so possible for you, you’re so worthy of it and it’s so much fun. I hope you’re doing it already but if you need some help, if you have set a big goal like I have this year and you need some help with your thoughts, your beliefs about yourself and really truly if you can do it I am your coach. I would love for you to hire me to coach you for the next six months to help you create a very inspired life for you and for you alone.

And let me tell you when you do that you add so much value to the world, you inspire all of us without even meaning to, without even trying to. It’s all kind of accidental when you create a life you love living. And you do the things you truly want to do. We want to pay PG&E for our bill because we’re exchanging it for good staff. So that’s what I’m talking about. You have an intention, you know why you’re doing the things you’re doing. and just make sure you like your reasons.

If you babysit your grandbabies once or twice a week and that’s the kind of mom and grandma you want to be absolutely for sure. So just like your reason and know you’re going to be a little tired and that’s okay. But if it’s too much for you and you have to say, “Well, I can’t do two, but I can do one day a week,” say the words to your kids, “I can’t do two, but I can do one day a week.” Let them be disappointed, let them figure out how they’re going to cover the second day, it’s all okay, I promise you it will be okay. It’ll be better for them when you tell them the truth.

This is what I’m talking about, have your own back, say yes to the things you really want to do and like your reasons. So important, so healthy, it’s a step-by-step way of creating a life you absolutely love without any resentment whatsoever. I promise you guys, I can’t even remember the last time I had that feeling of resentment I really can’t. And I used to feel resentful all the time because I said yes to everything and I didn’t want to do everything, just was so afraid to say no and so afraid people were going to be mad at me and so afraid that I’d be left out. I don’t care about any of that anymore.

Alright, so it’s possible, it’s just a work that you practice day by day by day by day and then all of a sudden you’re living a totally different life, a life that you are incredibly inspired by and it’s so worth the work, you are so worth the work.

Alright, it’s not too late to join my February group. I don’t think it is too late, it might be, but come and get on a call with me anyways and let’s get you in my next group. Alright, I love you, have the best week and I will see you next Thursday.

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