Ep 134. Permission to Be Happy

I am Kym Showers and this is Reinvented After 40, episode number 134, Permission to Be Happy.

Welcome to the Reinvented After 40 podcast. I am your host, Kym Showers, and I’m a certified life coach for women in the second half of life. Each week I’ll bring you direct advice and inspiring, practical wisdom to help you live your very best life and create a future you’re absolutely obsessed with. It’s going to be fun, let’s get started.

Hello my friends out in the podcast world. How are you today? Coming from my darling white little, baby bungalow that is extremely happy, the happiest little bungalow in the world because I’m here and I’m extremely happy. And I want you to be extremely happy too. I just got off of a coaching call, my very last call for my October group. We just wound up the six months of coaching with this amazing group of women.

And for the last session I have the girls talk about how they’ve grown and it is so fun, so encouraging just to see the progress, the growth, the expansion, the aha moments. And one of my darling clients in the group said, “I just have been given, in the last six months, permission to be happy.” And she just lit up and I mean it has been such a joy to coach all of these women, all of my clients forever. It is such a great joy of mine. And then just to hear those words that she has given herself permission to be happy.

And this group gave her an example of what it looks like to set yourself free, to be a very happy woman in the second half of life. Because I don’t think that we’ve ever really been continually taught and been encouraged to live a really happy life. And I want to tell you today my beautiful friend, that I believe at 63 years old that that is my job. My job every day is to figure out how to be the happiest version of me I can possibly be and grow in that direction, figure out how to be happy and do more of that and it works, and I am.

And I was telling the girls today, I would never go back to any other time of my life because this is the happiest time in my life at 63, doing what I do every day. And being this version of myself, the one that is no longer a people pleaser but the woman who is absolutely 100% in charge of her life, which feels so happy to me.

It is so much happiness because I’m so much more productive. I’m not waiting on anyone’s opinion of me. I’m not trying to get anyone’s attention. I’m not looking for anything outside of me, especially not validation or any kind of permission or agreement.

I’m not deferring to my husband any longer. I’m not deferring to anybody. I am just doing what I want to do 100% of the time, which feels so happy to me. And I encourage myself every day, be so happy, there is no reason not to be. Everything that I do every single day, you guys, is for my happiness, is for my benefit. And when I’m the happiest version of me, I just am the best person in this world. I’m the funnest one to be around. I am the most helpful. I am the most loving. I am the most kind. I am the most generous because I am the most happy.

This is why our job is to be happy, this is why this episode 134 for you today is permission to be happy because it’s to everyone’s benefit that you’re happy. So you’ve just got to figure out how to be happy. Figure out what you want, what sounds happy, what sounds like it’s going to bring you the most joy, the most lightness, the most excitement every day.

So I was telling my clients this week in my coaching groups that when I was driving home from Orangetheory on Monday morning and I was thinking about why I’m so happy. I’m always extremely happy at Orangetheory and afterwards, and I know that’s all because of the physiological effects of that exercise and this commitment I have to myself and my body. And how influenced my days are because of it. But as I was driving home I was thinking, oh my gosh, I am for sure the happiest woman on the planet, genuinely the happiest woman on the planet.

I don’t know anyone happier than me. And it’s not because my life is without challenges. My life has so many challenges in it, but actually I enjoy my challenges. And I was thinking, I pick them, I choose them, some I don’t, but some I do because of who I’m becoming, because of the fact that I love building muscle. I love getting strong. And I love being mentally strong, emotionally strong and physically strong. And the only way we get strong is to have some resistance in our life and those are challenges.

So that’s how we build our physical muscle is to lift heavy weights metaphorically speaking, in our everyday life. Lifting heavy weights, sometimes in our relationships, sometimes in our work, sometimes in just the mundane things that we’re committed to doing every single day. But I want you to know, on that drive home I was thinking, the way that I would choose to describe my life, that I would pick to feel every day. I have and want and I actually live a super cute, a super fun and a super enjoyable life. That’s how I would describe it to anyone who asked me about my life.

My life is super cute because I like cute stuff. I like to feel cute. I like to look cute. I like to wear cute clothes. I like to live in a cute house. I like to drive a cute car. My life is super fun. I have so much fun. I have fun working. I have fun resting.

Generally all of my days are fun because everything on my planner every single day. My plan tomorrow today planner is fun to me. Are things that I am choosing to do for a reason. I like my reasons for every single thing on my planner. There is nothing on my planner that I don’t want to do.

So I choose it all, sometimes it’s something maybe that someone has asked me to do that I really want to do. But most of the time it’s just all the stuff that I really enjoy doing every day. So what a super cute, fun and enjoyable life looks like. So for me, if you just followed me around with a camera every day, you would witness a super cute, fun and enjoyable life and I would say it’s super easy. Though I do hard things, for me, I don’t make it hard. I make it super easy. I feel like I create even more time in my day the more productive I am. I’m so productive.

And I have this enormous amount of time, of leisure time, of spaciousness. I don’t feel rushed because I stick to my planner and everything’s thought out specifically ahead of time. And then I just get up the next morning and I do everything that’s on my planner. I don’t think about it, I just do it. So I don’t feel worn out by my brain. So I’m not overthinking things and I’m planning ahead of time. So that is a very fun and enjoyable life. All my days feel like that because all my days are planned ahead of time.

So I listed some of the things that just kind of create my life, that create my days, all strung together, which makes this super cute, fun and enjoyable life of mine, which creates in me a gigantic, enormous amount of happy every single day.

Number one I put I love fashion. Fashion is really important to me. I can’t press enough how important when you’re a woman over 40 and I’m 63, how important fashion is. And fashion’s always been important to me. But I never gave myself permission to love fashion and to talk about fashion and to make fashion a priority and to be brave with fashion. And to find my own fashion and to be able to stand out in a crowd with fashion and to invest in fashion. And to not follow all the rules of what a 63 year old woman should look like or how she should dress. I don’t follow any of those things because I get to decide.

I have decided what fashion suits me and what I feel beautiful, cute, fun, enjoyable in, what’s comfortable for me. So every day, fashion is a very big part of my day. And I’m going to give you permission to let fashion be an important part of your day too, to not be embarrassed about it, to not shy away from it, to not hide it from yourself or from others. Let it be important because it is. Women love fashion.

Maybe you’ve never even thought about it that much or you’ve maybe even been basically not giving yourself permission because of what other people’s opinions have always been about it. I would never spend that much money on fashion or fashion is shallow or whatever the blah, blah, blah people talk about fashion. But I’m just telling you, give yourself permission to be fashionable and have fun with it. Fashion is so fun and important when you’re a woman in the second half of life.

And here’s a good reason, there’s nothing better in the mornings when you walk into your closet and you love everything in your closet and everything fits you and everything is cute and you feel cute in everything. And I’m not talking maybe have a capsule wardrobe. I don’t care how much is in your closet other than I want everything in your closet to be something you’re madly in love with because that’s possible and that’s what I curated for myself. That’s what’s fun for me. And this is a dream for me, to have found this and it keeps evolving and changing.

And I mean I don’t know what maybe I’ll wear in a year from now, but right now I love what I’m wearing. A year from now it might look different, but I know I’m going to be obsessed with it too. So I want to give you permission, this equals a very happy life, is to set yourself free with fashion and enjoy it and have fun with it and clean up your closet.

Clean up your wardrobe so that when you get up and when you walk in your closet, you have so many cute things to put on that you feel good in and you feel strong in, and you feel confident in and you feel colorful and you’re the best version of you all day long. That’s how I feel. My fashion brings me so much good energy. So when I go to pack for a trip, no stress at all, I can’t wait to pack because I have so many cute outfits to take. And I can’t wait to get dressed for whatever events there are because I have so many cute dresses to wear.

Even planning for this retreat that’s coming up in a month, well gosh, when you’re listening to this, it will be exactly a month away. I already have all my outfits all planned for the retreat, which is so fun. Instead of stressful, fashion is super fun for me. So don’t squeeze it into your life, make it an important chunk of your life. Make it an important part of your life. That will bring you so much happiness, so much freedom, so much ease.

It’ll take up so much less time and energy in your life when you actually curate a beautiful, fashionable wardrobe. And just enjoy it for what it is. It’s so fun.

And then number two I put what makes a super cute, fun and enjoyable life, number two, I put work. Oh my gosh, I love to work. Work brings me so much happiness. I love this business I have built. I love putting out these podcasts. I love Instagram every single morning. I love coaching my clients. I love throwing retreats. This is my work and my work brings me so much happiness. I love it. I can’t imagine ever giving it up. So work is a huge chunk of my life that I choose. I choose for my benefit, I choose for my growth.

I choose for the goodness of the world and women who are 63 years old and working at a job that they’re totally fulfilled in and feel driven by and so happy in and feel like they’re doing something super valuable for the world. Oh my gosh, I mean can you imagine anything greater than that? So I feel so productive in my life because I love to work. And I just think of work as everything positive. It’s just all positive and good. And when you find something that you love doing you will be so happy working. So I think that is the key too, find what makes you the happiest and then figure out a way to monetize that. I promise you, you can because I did.

And then number three, I put down what makes my life super cute, fun and enjoyable is green juice. I’m not just squeezing my green juice habit into my life. It’s a big part of my happy life. I love coming home from Orangetheory Fitness every morning, pulling out my super greens, pulling out my celery, pulling out my carrots, pulling out my lemon, and just going to town with my juicer. And then oh, my gosh, just filling my beautiful body up with that green goodness. It energizes me. It gives me everything I need for the happiest day.

So I’m not squeezing that in. I’m not rushing through it. It is a practice, almost like meditation. It is a practice that I have carved out a chunk of my morning for, that matters so much. And that is so beneficial. That really fills in, is a big piece of my happiness puzzle. So my green juice, that makes my life super cute, super fun and super enjoyable.

And then number four I put OTF which means Orangetheory Fitness. And I just celebrated with them in San Luis, Obispo, this Orangetheory Fitness in San Luis, Obispo is so cute and fun and enjoyable. I love all the coaches. I love all the people I work out with, mostly they’re all women who I work out with and it’s just been a blast. So I joined a year and a half ago. And I celebrated my 400th workout with them, but that was 10 or 20 days ago. So I don’t keep really good track, but just to give you an idea, I’m over 400 workouts with them.

It’s been so fun watching my body transform, pushing myself every day. I love pushing myself at Orangetheory. I love competing with myself. I love, every time we do a benchmark race, I love beating my time beforehand. And I keep getting stronger and faster and I keep blowing my own mind. It is such a huge part of my happiness and I will never go without it, ever. I mean I will shout to the rooftops, Orangetheory Fitness forever because of how beneficial it has been for me, mind, body and soul. Literally helped transform my body to the next level.

My body is insane right now, so, so, so strong, so fit. So Orangetheory Fitness, super cute, fun, enjoyable part of my life and a huge piece of the puzzle of my true happiness on the inside.

And then number five, I put my nourishing food. So I always talk about my 80:20 diet, 20% cocktail here and there, a glass of wine here and there, bowl of ice-cream or a piece of pie or a cookie or some chips 20%. But the 80%, my green juice, my sauteed fresh vegetables every day, my clean protein. I just have doubled down on all my protein. I eat tons of eggs, raw almonds. I always have a rotisserie chicken, I’m chopping off big chunks of it every day.

So I really am intentionally eating nourishing food and it’s such a super cute, fun and enjoyable part of my life. And it makes me so happy to have a food plan and to know I can trust myself with that. I love shopping for all my dark green vegetables and all my leafy greens and that’s such a happy part of my life. So I’m not just rushing around, just eating willy nilly. I love my nourishing food plan. I love that part of me that believes in herself and loves herself enough to put good things in her body. So that makes me extremely happy and I think it’s just such a fun part of my life. It’s such an enjoyable part of my life.

And then number six, I’m going to end with this. What’s super cute, fun and enjoyable about my life is how disciplined I am. I blow my own mind with how disciplined I am. I want to pass that on to you. All of the things that I do every day, everything that’s on my planner, when I get up every morning, I’m so excited to do it because I’m so disciplined. I don’t wrestle with it. I don’t push against it. I’m just like, “Yeah, let’s go.” So I set my timer on my phone every day. This might be a little hack for you, a little trick for you.

So I give myself, for this podcast I give myself 30 minutes to sit down at this time during the day. It’s on my planner to sit down and record episode number 134 after I finished my October group session. So every hour is planned and whether it’s a break, I might have three hours where I just rest, relax, do what you feel like doing. I plan that. And then on my work days I pretty much have every hour planned. And I’m working and I’m coaching and I’m writing and I am recording videos. So I’m always doing something that’s feeding the machine of my happy life.

There is a good reason for every single thing that I do. I give my body what I need, lots of good nourishing food, lots of really good, strenuous exercise, lots of really deep sleep and rest. I take really good care of myself. I do a lot of fun things with the people that I love the most. I don’t do anything that I don’t want to do. I do not do things just so that other people won’t be disappointed. I don’t do that at all. I just do what I want to do. And the people that I love the most figure out a way to be in my life, and that is so fun and cute and enjoyable.

But I love being a disciplined woman at 63, it is never a problem for me, it’s a joy and happiness of my life. And I would love for you to be a disciplined woman too and stop wrestling with the things you don’t want to do. Stop saying yes to the things you don’t want to do. And first of all, figure out what makes you happy, and then figure out how to do more of those things. So you are supposed to be happy, it’s why we’re here and I’m giving you full permission. It feels so good to be a happy woman.

There’s no one better to be around than a happy woman. And so you really are giving everybody the best gift, the ones that you love the most the best gift by making yourself happy. And it’s a work worth doing. And working with me will definitely help more than you can even imagine right now. So I’m inviting you to join my very last group of this half of the year. I’m not offering another group until the middle of summer. And it starts Wednesday, April 10th. And it is a powerhouse group.

It is filled with women that are absolutely amazing, that you will be up-leveled just by being in the group. You will also get a chance, kind of a last minute chance to come to my retreat, that is May 2nd, 3rd and 4th in Avila Beach, California. That will also blow your mind, so worth going to. It’ll be so much fun. So go to my website kymshowerslifecoach.com and join that April 10th group, that starts at noon on April 10th. We will go for six months.

You will change your life forever, I promise you. It’s so much more than you can even imagine. You will feel happier. You will be more clear about what you truly want in the second half of life.

You will get really good at boundaries. You will get really good at saying no to the things you don’t want to do and yes to the things you want to do. You’ll build your self-confidence, which is the best feeling in the world. And you’ll up-level your fashion too. You can’t help it. You’ll get a healthier body. You won’t be able to help it because of the way I coach. And I’m just an example of it.

So I know how to give you permission to be the happiest version of you. You are so worth it. Life is so worth it. And 100%, my friend, we are here to be happy. It is so fun to be a happy woman. Alright, I love you so much. Thanks for showing up today and I will talk to you next Thursday.

If you love this podcast, I invite you to come work with me. Go to kymshowerslifecoach.com, sign up for my next group and retreat, and let’s create your dream life together.