Hello and welcome back to the to be her now podcast
if you're one of the lucky few who got to hear
what I am lovingly referring to as the quote
directors cut in quote Of the podcast last week
in the wee hours as it eked out before I was
awake to catch what was happening I want to thank
you for returning a Raw cut of the audio made
it to the interwebs and it took a while for it
to be corrected. So Thank you for your patience.
I'm brand new to this and I'm learning as I go.
And boy did I learn a lot last week. And isn't
that the nature of learning something new? Sometimes
mistakes happen, but we learn and we move on.
So if you've returned, I just wanted to say thanks
and hopefully we'll have a smoother ride this
week. Grab your favorite beverage and settle
into a cozy spot, because this is that kind of
conversation. That quiet knowing you're meant
for more? It's not wishful thinking, but a calling
on your heart. And every soul calling deserves
an answer. Not someday, today. Right now. Together,
we'll explore what it really means to be her
now. The healing the worthiness, the work, the
becoming. Because none of us were meant to figure
this out on our own. Whatever brought you here
today, trust it. You belong here. Have you ever
wanted to start something again, like a practice,
a habit, maybe an intention, but felt almost
embarrassed to? Like you've quit and restarted
so many times that recommitting feels almost
hollow? Like, who are you to try again? I am
the queen of stopping and restarting, and I say
that not as a confession, but as a credential.
Because I've learned more about what consistency
actually is and what it isn't from falling off
and coming back than I ever could have from a
perfect streak. And here's what I can tell you
after years of living this pattern. I have genuinely
gotten better at it. Not perfect, but definitely
better. The gaps are shorter, the returns are
faster, and the shame spiral that used to accompany
falling off has gotten much quieter. And the
practices themselves have gotten sturdier, more
rooted, more resistant to the inevitable hard
weeks. That didn't happen by accident. It happened
because I started understanding consistency differently.
Not as a performance standard, I either met or
failed, but as something far more personal, far
more sacred, and far more forgiving than the
word has ever been given credit for. And today,
I want to share what I've learned with you. Because
I believe that the most sacred work you will
ever do is the work that happens when no one
is watching. The quiet, unsexy, invisible daily
practice that doesn't make for a grand Instagram
post. The showing up that nobody witnesses but
you. That is what this episode is about. Let's
talk about the word consistency for a second,
because I think it's been hijacked. Somewhere
along the way, consistency became a hustle word,
a productivity metric, the thing you either have
or you don't. And if you don't, something must
be wrong with you. It got wrapped up in the language
of grinding and discipline and showing up at
five in the morning no matter what. And it started
to feel like a standard nobody could actually
meet. Like another way to fall short. And I want
to offer you a completely different way of seeing
it. Consistency is not a performance. It is not
a productivity hack. It is not something you
do to prove yourself worthy. of the results you
want. Consistency is faith in action. It's showing
up before you can see the results. It's the most
radical form of self -respect available to you
in any given moment. It's the bridge, the actual
literal bridge between who you are right now
and who you are becoming. And at its deepest
level, the level I want to live from and I want
to invite you into today. Every consistent choice
is an act of devotion to the person God is calling
you to be. I want to say that again. Every consistent
choice, including the small ones, including the
minimum ones, including the ones that feel almost
embarrassingly tiny, is an act of devotion to
the person God is calling you to be. That changes
things, doesn't it? When the morning walk isn't
about burning calories, but about honoring a
calling. When the gratitude journal isn't a productivity
exercise, but a prayer. When showing up for your
practice, even imperfectly, even partially, even
on the days you only do the bare minimum, is
an act of faith rather than an item on a to -do
list. That is the reframe I want to carry into
this episode and into the second quarter of the
year. I want to build it out with you piece by
piece today. But first, I want to name the enemies
of consistency because they are real and they
are sneaky. And I think naming them takes away
some of their power. The first one is perfectionism.
And I say this as a recovering all or nothing
person who has lived this pattern more times
than I can count. Perfectionism sounds like if
I can't do it the way I planned, the way I envisioned
the full version, the right version, that I won't
do it at all. It disguises itself as high standards.
It tells you it's protecting you from mediocrity.
But what it's actually doing is keeping you from
showing up. It would rather you do nothing than
do something imperfectly. And nothing, I promise,
will never get you where you want to go. The
second enemy of consistency is motivation. Or
more specifically, waiting for it. Waiting to
feel ready. Waiting to feel inspired. Waiting
for the morning you wake up and everything in
you wants to lace up your shoes and get moving.
Here's what I know about motivation after years
of coaching women and living this myself. Motivation
follows action. It does not precede it. You do
not wait for motivation to show up and then begin.
You begin and motivation eventually, not always
immediately, but eventually follows. The third
enemy is distraction. And in our world, distraction
is not just available, it is engineered. Social
media is designed to pull you in. The scroll
is designed to feel productive while producing
nothing. And I say this as someone who struggles
with this genuinely and regularly. The gap between
the life I want to be living and the time I spend
on my phone is something I'm actively working
on. So I'm not just speaking from a place of
having conquered this. I'm speaking from a place
of knowing it's real and knowing it costs us
more than we realize. And then there's the sneaky
one. The one I don't think gets talked about
enough. Visibility. or the lack of it. It is
genuinely hard to keep doing things when there
are no visible results yet, when the scale hasn't
moved, when the creative project hasn't gained
traction, when the practice you've been faithful
to hasn't produced the breakthrough you were
hoping for. When you look in the mirror and see
the same thing you saw three weeks ago, the absence
of visible confirmation is one of the most quietly
demoralizing experiences there is. And I think
a lot of us abandon our practices not because
we've given up on the goal, but because we can't
see any evidence that what we're doing is working.
I want to speak directly into that. Because something
is working. And I'll tell you why in just a moment.
Here's the image I keep coming back to when I
think about consistency and invisible progress.
Seeds. When you plant a seed in the ground, nothing
happens. At least nothing you can see. The ground
looks exactly the same the day after you plant
it as it did before and the week after and sometimes
the week after that and If you didn't know better
if you hadn't done this before or watch someone
else do it You might reasonably conclude that
nothing is happening That the seed isn't working
that you should dig it up and try something else
But something is happening underground out of
sight in the dark The seed is doing the most
important work of its entire existence. It is
putting down roots. It's establishing the foundation
that will eventually support everything visible.
And if you dig it up to check on it, you interrupt
the very process you're trying to encourage.
Consistency is the watering. Every single day.
Even when the ground looks exactly the same as
it did yesterday. Even when you can't see any
evidence of growth. Even when you're tired of
watering something that doesn't seem to be responding.
The roots are forming. The foundation is being
laid. And one day, not on a schedule you can
predict or control, something will break the
surface. And it will be because of every quiet,
unsexy, invisible day of watering that came before
it. You are planting seeds in the ground you
can't see yet. Keep watering. Now as always I
want to talk about something practical. Something
I've found to be one of the most genuinely useful
concepts in my own life, especially in this season.
I call it the irreducible minimum and it has
saved my consistency more times than I can count.
Now hang with me. Here's what I mean. I want
to work out six days a week. I want a program
that includes cardio and lifting and all of it.
I want a three -hour morning routine with meditation
and journaling and breath work and all the beautiful
things. I have a vision of what the full ideal
version of my practice looks like and it's expansive
and nourishing and wonderful. And right now,
in this season, with this body and this energy,
with perimenopause doing what it does, that full
version is not always available to me. Some weeks
it's not available to me at all. So here's what
I asked myself. What is the very minimum I can
do and still honor the intention? What is the
thing I can do almost always, even on the hardest
days, even when everything in me wants to do
nothing? For movement, it's walking. I know I
can walk. Not always as far as I'd like, not
always as often as I'd planned, but I can almost
always take a walk. And so walking has become
my anchor. my irreducible minimum for movement.
For my morning practice, it's three things, my
gratitude journal, prayer, and a devotion. And
that's it. I want journaling and meditation and
so much more, but those three things, I can almost
always do those three things. And when I do,
I have shown up. I have kept the practice alive.
I have watered the seed. Now I want you to notice
something. The irreducible starts with an I.
Minimum starts with an M. The I am abbreviated.
The I am. I do not believe that it's a coincidence
I'm willing to ignore. Because when you strip
everything away, when the full version isn't
available and all that remains is the most faithful
essential version of your showing up, what you're
left with is exactly that. I am. Present. Here.
still in it. The most sacred name there is, hidden
inside the most humble act there is. Showing
up with what you have, as you are, in this moment.
That is enough. That's always been enough. Here's
what I want you to hear about the Irreducible
Minimum, the IM, because this is important. The
minimum is not the failure version of the ideal.
The minimum is the practice. Consistency is not
about doing everything. It's about never doing
nothing. Showing up small is still showing up.
And showing up small consistently over time compounds
into something that showing up big occasionally
never will. The woman who walks three times a
week every week for a year will always outpace
the woman who does an intense program for two
weeks and burns out and starts over. Always.
Because consistency beats intensity every single
time when the measurement is long enough. So
I want to invite you to find your irreducible
minimum. Your I .M. Not as a consolation prize,
not as the lesser version of what you really
want, but as the sacred, faithful, sustainable
floor of your practice. The thing you can almost
always do. The thing that keeps the thread alive
even when life pulls hard in every other direction.
What is your I am? This is not a new concept
and it's found in lots of places by lots of different
names. But let me share a few things that have
actually worked for me in building and maintaining
consistency because I think it helps to be specific.
The first is from one of my favorite books called
Atomic Habits and is called Habit Stacking. This
is the practice of attaching a new habit to an
existing one so it doesn't require a separate
decision. Decisions are expensive. They take
energy and willpower that you may not have available.
But if something is attached to something you
already do automatically, it gets carried along
in the current of the existing habit. My morning
practice is built this way. Coffee is definitely
already happening. So my gratitude journal, Prayer
and devotion happen right along with it. The
habits are stacked onto existing anchors, so
they don't require me to decide to do them. They
just happen in sequence. The second is shrinking
the practice. When I don't have the energy or
the time or the full version, I do less rather
than nothing. Five minutes of movement instead
of 30. One page of journaling instead of three.
One gratitude instead of five. The point is not
the quantity. The point is the showing up. The
point is to keep the relationship with the practice
alive rather than abandoning it entirely and
having to rebuild from scratch. The third is
committing to the bare minimum and letting that
be enough for today. Not forever, just today.
Today, this is enough. And tomorrow, I will ask
the same question again. And finally, tracking
in my habit tracker. not as a performance for
anyone else, not to prove anything, but as a
way of witnessing myself, of creating a visible
record of the invisible work. There's something
deeply meaningful about being able to look back
at a week, a month, a year, and see the days
you showed up. Because it builds evidence, and
evidence builds trust, which brings me to the
most important part of this whole episode. I
want to talk to someone specific right now. I
want to talk to the woman who is listening to
this and thinking, this all sounds beautiful,
but I've fallen so far off track that it almost
feels embarrassing to start over again. I've
had too many false starts. I've made too many
promises to myself that I didn't keep. I've been
here before and I've let myself down before,
and I'm not sure I trust myself anymore. I want
to speak directly to her, to you. if that's you.
We do not repair trust in any relationship, including
the one we have with ourselves, by disappearing.
We repair it by naming where we've gone wrong
and taking steps to course correct. That's it.
That's the entire process. You do not need a
perfect record going forward. You don't need
to make up for the time you've lost and you don't
need to earn your way back through some extended
period of punishment or restriction or overcompensation.
You just need to name it and take one step. Not
a dramatic recommitment. Not a new plan with
a new start date and a new set of rules. Just,
I got off track. I see it. I'm coming back and
here is the one small step in that direction.
That is what coming back looks like. It usually
starts with the smallest thing. Picking up the
gratitude journal. Taking the walk. Reading the
devotion. one act, one choice, one seed planted
in the direction you want to grow. And that one
choice, that small, quiet, unseen choice, is
an act of devotion to the person God is calling
you to be. It counts. It always, always counts.
We're officially in the second quarter of the
year. April is here, and I think April is one
of the most underrated opportunities for recalibration
that exists. We talk so much about January, the
new year, the fresh start, the big intentions,
and then life happens and February arrives and
March gets away from us and then suddenly we're
here three months in and some of those intentions
have gotten quiet. But here's what I want you
to know. Those intentions did not expire. The
ones that are still on your heart, the ones you
set back in January with real hope and real desire,
They are still waiting for you. They have not
moved on. They have not given up. They are still
there in the ground waiting to be watered. Some
of them may need to shift. Some may need to be
released entirely because you've learned something
about yourself or your season that changes what's
right for you right now. And that's okay. That's
wisdom, not failure. But the ones that still
belong to you, go back to them. Not with shame,
not with a lengthy explanation about where you
went wrong, just with willingness to return.
Here's your invitation for this week and for
the second quarter. Identify one practice you've
let go of that still belongs to you. Just one.
Name where you've gone off track, honestly and
without judgment, without drama, and take one
small step back toward it today. Not the full
version, not the ideal version, the I AM version,
the version you can almost always do. Water the
seed. Show up for the person God is calling you
to be. Do it today, not someday. Do it quietly
without waiting for applause or results or confirmation
that it's been working. Because the roots are
forming, even now, even when you can't see them.
And one day, You'll look back at this quiet,
faithful, ordinary season and you'll understand
exactly what was being built here. I'll be back
next week with a new episode. Until then, be
her now, not someday, today.