Ep 61. No Complaints and No Excuses

I am Kym Showers, and this is Reinvented After 40, episode number 61: No Complaints and No Excuses.

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 gonna be fun. Let’s go.

Hey, everyone, welcome back to the show. How are you today? We’re already in November which is month 11 in a 12 month series. We’re only given 12 months, and this is our 11th month. What are you guys doing with your life? Pay attention. Let’s go. We’re almost finishing up this beautiful, awesome year 2022. And I have big plans for the next few weeks. I think we’re about six weeks left, seven weeks left in this very powerful, transformative year of 2022, it has been for me, and I am just going to assume that it has been for you.

And if you don’t think it has been, I want you to look for evidence that maybe you’re wrong about that. Maybe it has been a very useful beautiful, transformative year for you even if it has been challenging. So I titled this episode number 61, no complaints are no excuses because I challenged all of you on my Instagram at the beginning of November that we’re going to call this no complaining November. Complaining is a problem for us.

Complaining is what our brains loves to do. And if we’re not really attuned to it, and if we’re not intentional about it we will find ourselves being complainers about everything all day long every day. This is not a useful way to be. This is not a life that we’re going to love living because when we follow our brains’ lead and look at the things that are going wrong, because our brain is always looking for problems, it’s a problem solver. So it’s looking for something to solve.

I am telling you, when you are intentional about looking at the things that are going right in your life instead of the things that are going wrong, you will feel so much better about everything. And when you feel so much better about everything you will take massive action to do the things you really want to accomplish.

But when you are complaining about everything that’s when you feel stuck, that’s when you feel like you’re not moving the needle forward. That’s when you’re not taking action to get up and eat right and to exercise, and to build healthy relationships, and to create more money in your life and to create more value in the world. So that’s what our goals are. This is the kind of woman that we want to be in the second half of life. So no more complaining. Actually November 1st is when I decided no complaining November.

And you know what I did? The very first thing I did was complain. And I was so glad that I noticed that. I just had a really subtle kind of whispery complaint that didn’t good like a complaint, but it was just kind of a sneaky little complaint. And I noticed it after I said it. And I was like, “That’s so interesting, look at me complaining right away when I just said I’m not going to.” So I want you to notice that you do the exact same thing. There’s nothing wrong with us at all. It’s just part of the human experience.

But if we want to get a little bit better at life, we want to get a little bit stronger, we want to become our best selves, we want to start paying attention to how much we complain out loud or even silently in our head. So let’s just pay attention. I just want you to starting being curious and start noticing when you’re complaining and then just stop it. When you notice it, it’s just like, that’s interesting that I said that out loud. I didn’t even realize that I was thinking it, but I said it out loud and I heard myself and now I’m like, okay, I’m going to stop doing that.

I’m going to think of something that feels better to me to say. So I like to think about what’s going right. I like to pay attention to what is in my lane, what is my business for the day. And I know I’ve been talking to a lot about how I really have stopped worrying. And this has been just this ongoing practice of mine for years now. And I’ve gotten so much better at it. So don’t believe anybody that tells you, you are just prone to worry and that you can’t stop worrying. Because I am here as evidence to prove to you that you can stop worrying.

You can just train your brain to focus on the few things that are within your control today, that you really want to do. You just stay focused, stay focused, stay focused, it works. You’re just slowly and surely day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year retraining your brain to stop thinking about things that might happen that could go wrong. Stop thinking about things that your kids are doing that you think are wrong, that could lead them down the wrong road. We’re not thinking about that anymore.

We’re thinking about the things we have control over, the things that we love doing, the things that are going right, our goals, the things that we can take action on today to get us one step closer to making our dream come true. That’s what our goals are. Our goals are our dreams. So no complaining and no excuses. So listen to the excuses that your brain offers you that keep you from taking action like I am too tired, or I’m not feeling well. I’m going to take a day off, or I’m too old, or I’ll never do it, or I am not good enough, or he will get mad at me, or this sounds selfish.

There are so many excuses that our brain maybe even quietly, subconsciously offers us on repeat that we’re so practiced at. This is why we feel stuck. We’re so used to worrying about what other people are going to think if we take the action on something new in our life if we hire a life coach. I know a lot of you don’t hire me because you’re worried that you’re going to be criticized by someone else or they are going to think something about you that’s negative if you hire me as a life coach.

Or if you try something new, you have a thought like I’m going to look stupid. These are all just normal thoughts that all of our brains offer us, but they’re not good excuses. They’re just un-useful thoughts that our brain offers us that we do not use as excuses to get what we want. To get what we want we have to take these excuses and go do the thing anyways. We have to make our dreams come true. So that means we have to be aware of these kinds of negative thoughts that are not useful, and we have to overcome them and go do the thing and start practicing.

No complaining, no excuses, be aware of how often your brain offers you those kinds of thoughts, name them and question them, and go, “That’s an excuse or that’s a complaint and that is not useful thought for me. What’s a more useful thought for me is I can do it anyway. This will be good for me. I’ll be so glad I did this.” I think that all of the time because I have the same brain that you do, it’s just a little more practiced at more useful thoughts. Because I just have more awareness, I’ve been doing the work a little longer.

And this work has given me this incredible, expansive, beautiful, awesome life that I love to get up every morning and live. I am so not stuck in worry. I am so not stuck in confusion, and overwhelm because my life is expansive, and spacious, and pretty simple. And it’s taken me a while to get there, and I want to help you do the same thing. And it starts with deciding on purpose, no more complaining, no more excuses, let’s get to work, let’s get busy, let’s put our dreams on paper, and let’s start taking action to make our dreams come true.

You can accomplish so much from this day to January 1st of 2023, which is just a few weeks away. We have the holidays in front of us which can be absolutely something different than you’ve ever had before if you stop worrying about them, if you set yourself up ahead of time starting today to create the holidays that you will absolutely enjoy so much. You can simplify everything if you decide to do the things that you really want to do and stop worrying about what everybody else wants and you do what you want.

And I promise you will absolutely set yourself up to enjoy your holidays. Do not worry about them ahead of time. Decide how you want them to go, decide what you want, control the things that you can control. You cannot control anybody else’s experience, but you can control your own experience. Notice your thought, feel, act cycle, think thoughts that are useful for you to give you the feelings you want so that you show up with the energy that will give you the best holidays ever.

Don’t worry about what you anybody else is thinking or doing. Think about, realize, pay attention to what you’re thinking and doing, how you’re showing up. Stop resisting what everyone else is doing and stop trying to control how they show up. Stop complaining about how they show up. They get to do whatever they want, it’s not a problem. You decide how you want to show up and the energy you want to show up in. It just takes a little bit of practice, it takes a lot of awareness. Every single day what am I thinking, how am I feeling and what am I doing?

And then I keep making the shifts. If I want to feel good then I need to think some useful thoughts. Everything is exactly how it should be. That’s a very useful thought. Whatever he is saying, whatever he is doing is exactly what he should be saying, and it’s exactly what he should be doing. It doesn’t need to be different. It’s so frustrating for us when we are resisting what is, when we think someone is doing it wrong, when we’re waiting on someone to be something that we want them to be so we can feel better.

That creates so much frustration in us, when we let everything be as it is, when we let all of our people be as they are and not think that they should be doing anything differently than what they are choosing, then we feel so relieved. Then we can get into own life, and our own body and create the energy that we want, be the person, be the woman that we want to be. Feel the pride of showing up in the world exactly the way we want to show up. Be the example of what’s possible for everybody else. We can totally enjoy our lives every single day.

We can be inspired and be an inspiration to the people we love the most when we get out of their business and stay in our own. No excuses, no complaining. This is the way. This is the path. This is the road to the life we have always wanted in the second half of life. It’s so exciting and I am practicing it and I want you to practice it as well. Be committed to it, stay consistent with it. You’ll get so confident in this way of being in the world in your life.

You have this one amazing, awesome, precious life. Get to work being who you want to be in it and creating what you want to create in it. It’s all very possible for you. So that’s very exciting news. I just got home from working out, can you tell? I decided, I’m going to talk to you this morning right when I get home. Because there is going to be, every morning you might wake up not wanting to work out, not wanting to make your green juice, not wanting to feel good, not wanting to be an inspiration. Every morning you might wake up feeling like that, but you do not have to stay in that energy.

You get to pay attention to what you’re thinking that’s creating that negative energy in you. And you get to shift it if you want to. And you know what shifts it for me is taking massive action, is doing the thing I don’t want to do, doing it anyway. And then I get so much of the juice that makes me feel so inspired and so motivated to create the energy in my day that I really want to live in. So many good things are going on in my life right now and I am paying attention to the good stuff. And I want you to learn how to do that.

I want you to learn how to pay attention to all the good things that are going on in your life, remember, not the gaps, but the gains, everything that is working. Stop noticing what’s not working and start paying attention to all the things that are working. Then everything is going to start working because you’re not thinking about what’s not working. It’s a very useful way of being and I want you to experience what I am experiencing. There’s so much goodness in it. There’s so much connection with the people that we love the most because of it. It’s a palpable, contagious energy.

So last night we went to an open house, a grand opening, my nephew who is a realtor in San Luis Obispo County where we live. They moved to a bigger office, a big, beautiful office in downtown San Luis Obispo, they’re called the Eighty20 Group. It’s just fabulous. And so I felt like at this party last night that we were definitely with the hippest people in town. So it felt like such a privilege to be there. It was so fun. I had so many really amazing conversations with really hip and cool people, businesspeople in town.

And so I made a lot of connections and that was a blast. And so it was just fun to be in that energy and see and meet people who are doing really big things in their life. And just the connections that I made were inspiring for me and motivating for me. So I like to be around that kind of energy. And that’s the energy I want you to receive from me today, that good things are happening in this world if you choose to look for them and to be a part of it.

So every time I hear the gloom and doom of the world I switch the channel. I just feel like that voice is super loud all of the time. And I just don’t want to be a part of that. I want to be a part of the voices that are like, no, there’s great energy in the world. Let’s be a part of all of that. I am definitely committed to that. I want you to be committed to it too. It takes so much more than just a wanting. It takes a literal commitment. I am not going to make excuses, I am not going to complain about it.

I’m going to align myself up with the energy that serves me, with the conversations that are positive and useful for me. I do not want to be part of the complaining, and the gloom and doom, and the excuses, all these bad things are happening. So how can I even talk about the good things? For some reason, the gloom and doom talk makes us feel like well, who am I to talk about the good stuff? We have to acknowledge all the bad stuff. No, I don’t think we have to acknowledge the bad stuff. I think we have to acknowledge the good stuff.

There is enough people acknowledging the bad stuff. That’s okay if that’s what they’re committed to. But I’m going to be committed to what’s good because there is so much, you guys. There’s so many young 30s and 40 year old’s in the world creating amazing lives for themselves and I like to be around that. There are so many 50s and 60s women like I am a part of this kind of revolution of second half of lifers who are like, we’re committed to creating a second half of life that’s even better than our first half of life. I’m a part of that ship that’s already sailing. Come jump onboard with me.

No more complaining, no more excuses for the rest of the year. Just notice how often your brain goes there. Don’t make yourself wrong for it, don’t be mean to yourself about it. Just go, “This is curious.” That’s what I like to think, this is curious that my brain is doing that, and this is what I quietly kind of behind my back went along with. And that’s okay, it’s just so good to be aware of. And now I’m going to be very aware and very committed to consistently thinking more useful thoughts that are not complainy.

Definitely I don’t want to make excuses about anything that’s on my calendar to do. I’m going to do it if I feel like it or not, no excuses. It doesn’t matter if I’m tired, doesn’t matter if I’m cranky, doesn’t matter if I got get enough sleep, doesn’t matter if other people want me to do something else, doesn’t matter. I’m going to put my agenda first, get done what I’m committed to, to reach my goals and then everything else comes second. I want you to start practicing the same thing.

Alright, that’s what I have for you today. I wanted to read to you because I still have my contest going on. So do not give up on winning my new AirPod Pros, second generation. You still have time to get in a rating and a review on this podcast. I’m going to read to you this one. She’s Awesome RN, she’s actually launching a life coaching business for nurses which I am so proud of her. And I’ve been coaching her through that. Her latest review from October 27th.

She says, “Perfect. Kym is awesome, so much good information that I can start using right this minute. Kym is your champion and shows us what life can be like in the second half. She’s helping me so much.” So thank you, Awesome RN 2000 for that five star rating and this very helpful review. We want more women to find my podcast and you guys, I’m on the verge of 50,000 downloads. I probably will reach there by the time you guys are listening to this. But I’m so proud of all of us.

I know that this has been so inspiring and motivating for me, just doing this podcast week after week, staying consistent with it, changing my thoughts, coming up with new ideas, coaching you guys week after week. I’m almost at 50,000 downloads, that’s incredible. I’m 61 years old. I started this when I was 60, so yay, all of us, something to celebrate. I’m always celebrating. It’s giving me the life I love, and I want you to always be celebrating too, giving you the life you love.

Okay, I love all of you. Have the most incredible week of no excuses, no complaining, getting to work, being committed, being consistent. It is all that matters. Pay attention to you and your awesome life. Have the best week. 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.