Ep 154. Surprise Yourself

I’m Kym Showers and this is Reinvented After 40, episode number 154, Surprise Yourself.

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.

Hey, my friends out in podcast land, how are you today? I am wonderful. I would tell you I’m staring at the ocean, but I’m actually staring at the coastal fog right now because we are packed in in the mornings. And I don’t know, I think maybe this is a July and August thing. I’m not sure. It may be June, but it has been July and August, but in the mornings, coastal fog just rolls in. I am in a sweatshirt and sweatpants and my Uggs in the middle of August, which is like my dream come true. Hello. Coming from a hot town that I lived in most of my entire life to this in the summer is crazy.

So, I want to talk to you today about surprising yourself. I want it to be something that you do on a daily basis. Surprise yourself with bravery. Surprise yourself with contagious energy, with enthusiasm in the second-half of life. This is what we want. I started thinking about how it is so unusual for a 63-year-old woman to have the mindset that I have, to have the attitude that I have, and to have the enthusiasm that I have as far as like my future goes. I’m thinking about my future. I’m thinking the world is my oyster. I’m thinking like I get to keep becoming the next best version of myself, like wondering and very excited about who I am becoming and who I will become in the years ahead of me. And I want to pass all of this onto you.

I keep surprising myself, like literally, you guys, I surprise myself every day with the way that I show up, with the things that I’m willing to do, with how strong and gritty I have become, how resilient I’ve become. I didn’t even know this was possible. And I want you to know that it’s possible for you too. And before I even get further ahead, I want you to know this comes out on August 22nd. And my next group starts on September 10th. There are four, maybe five beautiful women who are willing and ready to surprise themselves, ready to take full responsibility for becoming the next best version of themselves and I want you to know how powerful it is.

When you say yes to a group of mine, you put yourself in this space with not only me but these women who are on track with you, it becomes so much easier to gain momentum in your own life. You feel so much more powerful because you realize like you can become anyone you want to be and it’s not impossible. It’s actually so possible. I think what keeps us from becoming is the people that we are surrounding ourselves with on a daily basis. So when you pop yourself in a group of mine, you realize like, oh, this is what’s possible for me. Oh, this is more normal, right? So then you become less afraid, and you’re also less afraid of your fear, you’re less embarrassed about your embarrassment, and you just take it all the feelings with you, and you become who you’re meant to become. You start changing and evolving and growing and gathering like so much more excitement and enthusiasm about your life.

So come and join my September 10th group, it is not too late. My groups are small and powerful, and if you’ve never been coached by me, I want you to imagine that it will be the best decision that you ever make. I 100% guarantee it. So surprise yourself by doing this thing for yourself. Invest in yourself. You will change your mind about everything, everything that’s important to you, everything you feel stuck in. You’re going to just shift and change and loosen everything up and get going in the momentum of the life that you’re supposed to be living, the life that you’re imagining that you could possibly live. You’re not too old, you’re just getting started no matter what age you are. So join my September 10th group.

And now I really want to encourage you to surprise yourself on a daily basis. If you have lots of intentions, I’m going to remind you intentions mean zero if you don’t have the discipline and the action to make those intentions happen. And the thing is about intentions, which I love. Yeah, so intentions are clear. Like, this is what I want to do. This is who I want to become. These are my dreams, right? Those are your intentions. You write them down, you get clear about them, but then you have to set yourself up to make it all happen.

It’s completely up to you. So that’s where I’m talking about surprising yourself is getting up every single day and doing exactly what you said you were going to do to make your intentions come true, to actually put your intentions into motion and create the reality of them. That’s the surprise. This is like, “Oh my gosh, I actually did it this time. I didn’t just talk about it, I actually did it.” And this is where Planning Tomorrow Today comes in handy. When you become a client of mine, you get the Plan Tomorrow Today planner and I teach you how to use it and I am the example of it.

Every single day, I plan exactly what I’m going to do the next day, and that is so helpful for me. So mastery of anything you want to get good at takes daily practice, right? So practice is just doing the same good things every single day. You get up every day and you do the same good things day after day after day, and pretty soon you get really good at the things you want to get good at. And when you fill your life with good things, there’s just next to nothing, like as far as there’s no room, there’s no energy for the bad things, the things that don’t serve you, the things that you want to get rid of, the habits that are making you miserable.

So when you surprise yourself every day by getting up and going and working out, and then after you work out, you make your green juice. And then after you make your green juice, you eat lots of good protein. And after you eat lots of protein, you take a bath and you put on a darling outfit that you feel so energized and powerful in. And then you get to work creating more goodness and more surprises for yourself and more momentum and more good energy for yourself. And you stop making excuses as to why you’re not doing what you said you were going to do, you’re actually surprising yourself by doing the things that you said you were going to do.

And that’s also where coaching comes in so handy as you get to check in with me every single week and you go, “Kim, this is what I did this week. This is what I didn’t do this week.” And we figure out and we cheer on and we celebrate the things you did do. And we figure out why you didn’t do the things that you wanted to do, but you didn’t do. And you just keep sorting it out, sorting it out. And here’s the thing too that I’ve gotten so good at, my clients are getting so good at, is you learn how to be your own hype girl. You learn how to make quick decisions and you get super powerful at quick decisions and sticking with them because you know that you have your own back. You know that you are your own best friend and you’re not going to beat yourself up if you actually fail at it. Like failing is expected. I am like, “Yep, let’s make lots of mistakes.” I am okay with my mistakes, if that’s what we’re going to call them. If we’re going to call them failures, if we’re going to call them mistakes, if we don’t reach our goals, I’m totally fine with that.

And I don’t make myself wrong for it. I’m not like, “Oh, I made a bad decision. I’m a failure. I need to just stop doing what I’m doing. I’m worthless. I’m so embarrassed, blah, blah, blah.” Like, I don’t do any of that. I’m like, “Oh, I can feel discouraged, I can feel down, and I’m going to figure this out. I know myself, I trust myself, I’ve got this, this isn’t a problem for me. Actually, it’s teaching me so much. It’s making me more resilient, more resourceful, grittier, more determined, and that’s who I want to be.” I just refocus, reinvent, refresh, take a break, eat a sandwich, have my nap, and then I get right back up and keep on. That’s where the up level comes in. That’s where the surprise comes in for myself. I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I’m exactly who I want to be. I am so proud of myself.” And this is what my clients are learning too from me. It’s like, no, we’re going to try all kinds of new ideas. We’re going to try everything we want to try.

Even if we have people in our lives who are rolling their eyes at us. I’m going to call it rolling their eyes at us because I had a client, one of my very first clients, right when I started, her biggest problem was when she would share what she really wanted to do andher ideas, and her husband would roll his eyes at her. And that was such a problem for her. And I’m like, “Why is that a problem for you, why don’t you let him roll his eyes at you, and that’s just your clue, like, ‘Oh, I’ll show you.’ Just keep rolling your eyes, but sit back and watch me, buddy.” And that’s how I think now, I’m like, “Oh, sit back and watch me.” Anyone rolling your eyes at me, I’m like, “Oh, just sit back and watch. You’ll stop rolling your eyes pretty soon, right?”

Because I’m going to surprise you, and I’m going to surprise me on a daily basis. That’s the fun life. That’s the motivating life. That’s a woman at 63 who is so focused, so determined, and so excited about the future. I’m so excited about who I’m going to become next, what I’m going to create next. I will completely surprise myself 100%, and I keep doing it on a daily basis. I am not even kidding you guys. It’s so exciting.

You know what’s been really helpful for me too is I think about surprising myself like next chapter, reinvention, like, “Oh, okay, maybe what I’m doing now, maybe that didn’t work, maybe I need to think about a new way, like maybe take the fork in the road and go a different way.” And I look at that as new chapter, right? And I decided that this is going to be the era, this is going to be the chapter where I’m back to reading novels, I’m back to reading fiction, and I’m less pressured on myself and on my business, and I’m just going to leave myself with lots of space and imagination.

Imagination and creativity is where I keep surprising myself and where you can keep surprising yourself. Maybe get out of like who I should be and get into what I might be able to be if I open up creativity and imagination in my brain and take maybe a different route and maybe follow my lead. I literally, you guys, I used to read fiction constantly. I was just like always in the middle of a good story. In the last few years, I’ve kind of gotten out of that. And now I’ve decided, “Oh, that’s what I need more of. I want to be in the middle of a really good story.” And I asked you guys to send me any good fiction, anything new that you’ve read, like you wish so much you could be starting it over for the first time. Remember that feeling you have when you start a new book that you can’t wait to get back to?

Well, this is why I decided I want to feel about my life. And so I’m going to be this version of myself who’s always in the middle of a good story and create that feeling, that imagination, that creativity and that enthusiasm for myself in my life on a daily basis and keep surprising myself in my own imagination. I want to pass that on to you. But side note, if you do have like an amazing book that you’ve just finished, that you’re like, “Oh, I wish you could read that again for the first time.” Hey, DM me in my Instagram and tell me what that book is. I would love to explore that and maybe read it.

I just am interested in you telling me like one book or maybe two books, but I used to read so often that I probably read all the good ones from the past. I don’t like anything dark, I’m not really into that, but I love a good rom-com, I love a good romance. I’ve read, and I’m in the middle right now, of an author, her name’s Catherine Senter. She’s just a very light-hearted writer, and she tells these just very romantic stories. I love the language she uses, and I really do get lost in her books. It’s very lighthearted and very romantic and very fun to read. And so her latest book out that I hadn’t read is called *The Rom-Commers*. And I’m right in the middle of it or maybe three quarters of the way finished with it. I’m planning on finishing it today after I record this. I can’t wait to get back to it.

But I was thinking, what if we thought about being in the middle of a good book? What if we thought about our life that way? And I decided, I want to think about my life that way. I can’t wait to get up every morning and get into my life that I’ve created for myself with the same enthusiasm that I think about getting back to a great book that I’m in the middle of. And I want to pass this idea onto you in a surprising yourself kind of way. And just know like, hey, people are going to notice you changing, but you’re going to notice it the most. I want you to pay attention to when you are surprising yourself.

I was going to title this episode Surprise Everyone, but I don’t even care about that. I want you to surprise you. I want you to be the reason that you do everything that you do. Do it for your sake. And your sake alone. And this will actually surprise you. This will take you next level. This is when you become the next version of yourself, when we stop doing it for everyone else, and we start doing it for us.

Everything I do, you guys, I do it for my sake alone. And that’s what changes me the most. I’m not looking for any kind of surprise from anybody outside of me, though I know I get it. I want to do it for me. I want to surprise me. I want you to do it for you. I want you to surprise you because you are the one that matters the most in your own life. I am the one that matters the most in my own life.

When you develop good habits, you’re doing it for your sake to improve you, to improve your life, to improve your idea of yourself, right? To surprise yourself with all this goodness and the action that you take every single day, not just the intentions anymore. You’re not just talking about it anymore, but you’re actually doing it every day and surprising yourself and filling your life with good habits, which is actually creating the momentum that creates the dream life for you, for your sake. It’s your one and only life, right?

I just want to offer you these good thoughts today. You are becoming someone amazing if that’s who you want to become. You can start a whole new career right now at whatever age you are. I want you to know that. I just got this flyer. So, I don’t know if you’ve heard of Hudson Grace, but Hudson Grace is one of my favorite home stores. Oh my gosh, I would love my whole home to be filled with Hudson Grace, but they’re collaborating right now with Diane Keaton. They have a whole new line coming out with Diane Keaton, and Diane Keaton, of course, the iconic actress, she’s also become very well known with her home designs, right?

She didn’t have to do that, but she surprised herself in becoming this iconic home designer now, and now she’s created this whole home design line with this amazing store called Hudson Grace, and I would love to purchase every single thing that they have collaborated on together. I don’t think it’s come out yet. I think I just got a heads up in the mail because I’m a Hudson Grace lover, but I’m on their email. But look them up and oh my gosh, everything that she has collaborated with them on is just gorgeous, stunning, so cool.

So Diane Keaton, I don’t know how old Diane Keaton is. I could look it up right now, but I’m sure she’s in her 70s. And look at her, surprising herself with this whole new avenue of excitement. She’s still like top billing on any acting job she gets and also she’s now an iconic home designer and doing the thing that she loves and I can guarantee this is very enthusiastic for her. She’s so motivated in doing something new, creating this new chapter for herself and look how it inspires all of us. Look at the trickle down effect of women in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and beyond starting new chapters and becoming the next best version of themselves and creating so much beauty and enthusiasm and inspiration and motivation for the rest of us in the world, this is what we do, this is what I’m talking about.

I think this is the best part of life right now. I think the world is our oyster, my friends, when we’re women in the second-half of life to become anybody we want to become. And I’m just going to go first. I’m going to be the example of that for you. You never know with me. I’m going to keep surprising you because I long to keep surprising myself. That is my intention every day, to surprise myself. That is my discipline every day, to surprise myself. That is my action that I take every day, to surprise myself.

Okay, so I’m offering that to you today. If you want to surprise yourself, join my September 10th group. It will be every single Tuesday at noon, California time for one hour. You will keep surprising yourself every single week. Surprise yourself by joining the group, taking this investment in yourself and changing your life forever. I love you. Happy Thursday, and I will talk to you next week.

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.