Ep 69. Do This One Thing

I am Kym Showers, and this is Reinvented After 40, episode number 69: Do This One Thing.

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 everyone, welcome back to the podcast. Happy New Year. It’s a new year. You know it’s my very favorite thing in the world, a brand new year, a clean slate, let’s go. I love it. Okay, so I’m here to inspire you and motivate you today to do one thing, just one. Everyone can do one thing. So when I was thinking about what I want to talk to you about this morning I had so many one things that I could offer you. There’s so many ideas that I have and so many practices, so many disciplines that I do that literally each one of them standing alone has changed my life for the better.

And I know the same thing goes for you, but I kept going back to this one practice that I started five years ago when I found coaching. And I felt a little stuck. And I wanted to do big things with my life, and I didn’t really know how to start other than to hire a coach for the first time. And then I got on a waitlist that same year to get in the certification program at The Life Coach School. And then by August of that year, the certification program started, and I was in. And I was in over my head, you guys, it was so stressful. It was super challenging. I was scared to death.

I thought it was going to be easy and it wasn’t. I was very challenged with tech. And I felt like they just weren’t helping me. I had to figure out so much on my own. I was frustrated and I was just, I had a lot of resistance. I had a lot of frustration. I was scared but I was so determined to get certified as a life coach and then to get my business up and going. So I had to figure out a way to be successful, not only in the certification program, but also to be successful in being confident enough to start a life coaching business when I was 57 years old, out of thin air.

And really not understanding the tech part of it. It was all very overwhelming. But you know what I did? This one thing that I started doing and I still do it, and I promise you it is the reason that I am as successful as I am in every area of my life today. I started writing down detailed notes by the hour of what I was going to do, what I was going to accomplish the following day. I started getting up super early in the morning to get all of my curriculum accomplished that was required of me for certification. I had so many things that I had to accomplish and had to learn.

So I just started writing down the day before, this was my discipline, everything that I was committing to for the next day. So that’s when I started getting up really early between 4:00 and 5:00 every morning. And I would just work super hard, just start checking off my list. And that made all the difference, you know why? I started building this new relationship with myself were I actually did what I said I was going to do even though I didn’t know how.

A lot of the things I didn’t know how that I was writing down, I just gave myself plenty of time on my schedule for the day to figure out how to do the next thing that I had to figure out how to do. So I was a building this new relationship with myself via this notepad that I had. Every day I just committed to whatever the next day was. If it was Tuesday, it was just like I’d write at the top of my notepad, Tuesday January 5th, get up at 4:30, make my cappuccino, literally every detail. Go to the gym at 5:30, come back home, shower, it was all written down.

Make my green juice, sit down at the computer, answer my emails, get to work on whatever the curriculum was. And it was no to everything else. I followed that detailed plan every day no matter what. No one else was a priority, I didn’t care. This is what I was determined to do. The certification program ended. I got certified in December of that year. It started in August. It was in person. I was in the last in person training. We actually got to go to Dallas, and it was a very special group of women.

And we got in person training by our coach and mentor, Brooke Castillo who is kind of famous now. Probably the most famous life coach other than maybe Martha Beck. But it was really so meant to be for me to be in this group that got certified in person in Dallas. But it was actually a three month or four month process. And it’s just such a huge commitment, but I was just all in because of my future self, what I wanted to create for myself in the second half of life. So I want you to start this year with a new practice that, I promise you, will change the whole direction of your life and especially of this year.

This one thing I guarantee, if you commit to it you will get exactly what you want out of 2023. You will change your relationship with yourself. You’ll be able to grow your capacity to do very challenging things. You’ll be able to hold space for all the negative feelings that come up. And you’ll learn how to not make your negative feelings mean that you shouldn’t be doing it. It’s just more like, yeah, I’m right on track. If I’m feeling scared to death, yeah, right on track. If I’m feeling in over my head, yeah. This is exactly where I’m supposed to be.

That’s what I think now. So whatever you’re thinking you want to create for yourself in 2023, this will get you there. Starting today and my clients know this because I have them do this. And I still do this. I’m so committed to it. It works so beautifully for me. I write down when I’m ready to close up the day, I write down whatever the next day is. And starting from when I get up, I write down the time I’m going to get up. I’m committed to that time. Right now it’s between 4:00 and 5:00 in the morning, that’s what I put.

But back when I was really just starting to build this trust relationship with myself I would literally write down the exact time I’m going to get up. At 4:15 I’m going to get up tomorrow. And then I set my alarm on my phone. I set my alarm on my phone for the next day. I set it at 4:15 so I get up then. And if I’m committed to a workout at 6:00, I set it at 5:45. So I know that’s the time I have to leave. And then if I am done with working out at let’s say 7:00, that’s the time I’m going to be home and take my shower, I set my alarm at 7:00, take my shower at 7:00.

Literally all day long my alarm goes off for the next thing that I’m committed to that’s on my schedule. So what happens when you do this and you commit to it the day before, you start showing up for yourself for the things that you really want to change in your life, for the things you really want to accomplish. The alarm goes off, you do it ahead of time and then that day it’s already decided for you from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed. You’ve already decided what you’ve accomplished for that day.

And you can say almost with certainty when you go to bed the night before that you will accomplish every single thing that is written on your magical notepaper. That is the picture of your day. You do not spend any time in indecision during the day because it’s already been decided for you. This is the trust that you’re building with yourself. This is the training of your brain that your brain just stays so focused on what you’ve already decided ahead of time. Do you see how that could work for you?

100%, I’m telling you my friend this is the one thing you must do right now starting off 2023 that will literally change your life forever. Maybe you just add one new thing in January to this list, maybe like the rest of the world you’re committing to working out every day or working out five days a week. And you just decide, that’s the new one thing you’re going to add. Nothing else is a priority. That is your number one priority because you have to train your brain to know this is what you’re going to do no matter what. And then it resists it so much less.

So remember when I told you I was going to Orangetheory every day in December? I had already decided I was going to do that, and I did, every single day. The only day I couldn’t go was Christmas because it was closed down on Christmas. But every single day, so 30 straight days. I had zero drama about it because it was already decided. And I have this really amazing relationship with myself. I just do what I say I’m going to do.

Remember on a podcast episode I told you that new line from that Tom Cruise movie that I just was obsessed with, and the rest of the world was obsessed with this year? But I can’t remember the name of it right now, but that’s okay, I know you know the one, the fighter pilot one with the great soundtrack. You remember his line from that movie? Don’t think, just do. So don’t think, just do. So I don’t think in the morning about what I’m going to do because I’d already thought about it the day before, you see how that works? I just do it. So there’s no drama from my brain.

I did not have any drama about Orangetheory, going every single day to Orangetheory. There was no fighting, there was no resisting because my brain’s just like, okay, this is what we do. It’s not a big deal anymore. But you know what it did for me? My body is just getting stronger, and stronger, and stronger by the day. I feel I can pretty much do anything I set my mind to, anything that goes down on my calendar for the day I know I’m going to do it, 100%. There is no wrestling. There is no, should I or shouldn’t I, or I don’t feel like it, or I’ll put it off till tomorrow, none of that.

I just do it. I reached all of my goals in 2022 with this one thing, this one habit, this one practice. I made over $100,000 in 2022. It was by far my best year, working two half days a week on a business that I started out of thin air four years ago. This will be my fifth year in business. I put myself in over my head in so many situations so that I could grow my capacity, to challenge myself, and to trust myself, and to do hard things. This is how you do it. I am an example of what’s possible for a woman that is almost 62 years old and living absolutely by far her very best life.

All of my relationships are so healthy. I trust myself in every single one of my relationships. I completely trust myself. I have my own back. I know I’m not in charge of other people’s feelings. I am not afraid for other people to feel bad. I do not need to fix that for them. It’s such a different way of living. It’s such a different way of relating to people, of seeing them as their highest best self and treating them that way. Of trusting myself and seeing myself as my highest best self and showing up that way every single day. This is how you do it.

You start building this loving, compassionate, trust in yourself by showing up and doing exactly what you told yourself you were going to do. Then you trust yourself, then you love yourself, then you have fun with yourself, then you don’t doubt yourself, then you know you’re fabulous. You do not need to people please anymore, trying to get people to feel a certain way about you, and to give you what you can only give yourself. It doesn’t matter if you or anyone else in my life thinks I’m fabulous. I have to know I’m fabulous.

When I know I’m fabulous, I show up to my life as a fabulous woman. And I don’t have to convince anybody else that I am fabulous. Can you see it? I know you can, and this is the practice. This is the habit of just committing to yourself and consistently staying with it. Don’t be like, “Yes, I’m going to start a business. I’m going to exercise every day. I’m going to change all of my relationships. I am going to stop people pleasing.” Yes, that can be your goal, your long-term goal. But right now here’s what I really am going to challenge you with. I want you to constrain it all down to one thing.

I want you for the month of January and then for the month of February, we’re just going to take it a day at a time, a week at a time, a month at a time. You are going to write down today what your day will look like tomorrow. And then you’re going to follow that, that day, that plan, that protocol, write down what you’re going to eat. That’s what I did. I just wrote down everything I was going to eat and drink. And don’t be so rigid about it that it’s not fun for you. If you want to cut back on alcohol like I did, I have such a great amazing, robust, trustworthy relationship with alcohol.

Alcohol is so far down on my list of pleasures. I have so many other pleasures in my life that matter so much more to me than that. But hey, I love myself a glass of Veuve champagne. I just love that experience. So I’ll plan that ahead of time. On a Friday night I’m like, “Yeah, that’s my two glasses of Veuve night on a Friday night.” Or my one, I love a vodka, OG, just Grey Goose Martini with extra olives, extra dirty, just straight up. I’ll have one of those maybe once a month.

And I have a restaurant here that just, I’ll sit at the bar with Jeff. And we have this bartender, and he knows how to make my Grey Goose Martini and I’ll have one. That’s all I’ll ever have. That’s all I want. I love that experience. I never drink to get drunk. I have not had a hangover in well over a year. I haven’t had a headache because of alcohol. I have such an intentional beautiful safe relationship with alcohol. That’s not all or nothing for me because I’ve built this relationship with myself. I’d love to help you do the same thing same thing.

The same thing with food. I know what my body loves. I know what’s going to get me to where I want to go. Food is super important. I look at food as fuel. I look at food as like even medicine, exactly what my body needs to get me where I want to go, to make the next year my very best year. To be able to get up every single morning full of bright, robust energy at 61, almost 62. So do not use your age as an excuse.

So this one thing is to calendar, to write on your notepad. Just go buy yourself a notepad. And this is your daily schedule. Make it a big notepad. You can just be as detailed as you need to be. so that you carry it around with you all day like a grocery list. And then this is what I do next. This is what I plan to eat today. This is all I’m going to eat today. And then if you plan to have a treat, plan your treat. Have a treat, enjoy it. Don’t be mad at yourself for having a treat. Plan what you want. Plan what you want to stick with.

Plan what you enjoy and then also plan a couple of hard things that you would like to add into your life, something that you would like to get good at. It’s going to be hard if you’ve never done it before, let it be hard. Learn how to be frustrated and let that frustration be okay. Feel that frustration, know that you’re right on time. If you’re afraid, if you think you’re going to fail, totally fine. You should be feeling those feelings. That’s part of growing. So I’ve just gotten really good at all of those feelings. And I’m going to keep telling you that because they keep coming up because I keep growing.

So this one bright, beautiful new practice for you, I am 100% certain it will change your life this year. It has changed the course of my life in the last five years. When I started it, when I really needed a new practice, a new habit, that was going to create the success for the certification which it did. And then to launch my new business which it did. And I jot everything that I want to create for myself on my big goal when I am 70 years old. I just keep chunking it out every single year and every year it gets better, and better, and better because of it.

Alright, my friends, my new group is full. And I can’t wait to get started on it next week, if you’re in my new group get ready. I know you’ve gotten your workbooks in the mail. And I know that you’re going to have so much success. We’re going to have so much fun together. If you are thinking about working with me I will let you know when my next group will start. And I would love for you to get a seat in it. We will be having our first ever very exciting in person retreat at my home in the spring in just a few months at my home in Shell Beach, California. We’ll get together and it will be the best two days of your life, I promise.

Okay, I love, love, love you all for showing up today. Share this episode with your best girls that you know really want to make a change in their lives. I know you can make the change in your life, I have 100% faith in you. And I know that we all can do exactly what we want to do when we change our thoughts and we create the feelings that we need to drive the actions, to show up for ourselves in the most powerful, beautiful way, no matter our age. Our age is our superpower. Alright, my friends, I love you. Happy New Year 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.