The only person keeping you exactly as you are is yourself.
You live your life through the stories that you are telling yourself in your head.
One's beauty does not take away from the other.
One's abundance does not take away from the other.
This is also an excellent way to build confidence.
Because when you do things that you haven't done before and you do things that you're scared
of, you're teaching your body that you can handle anything that comes your way, which
is true.
Welcome back to yourself.
My name is Shear and I'm so happy you are here.
I just had my birthday, so we are going to talk about 28 things that I learned by the
time I turned 28.
These life lessons are split up into four categories.
We have mental and physical health, career and money, relationships and self-image.
So we're going to start with mental and physical health.
Number one, don't sweat the small stuff.
If the way you feel about the situation doesn't change the situation, choose the happier path.
The small stuff is just noise.
My boyfriend talks about having three buckets that situations can fall into.
The first bucket is a situation in your control that you can change.
The second bucket is a situation out of your control that you can influence.
And the third is a situation that is out of your control that you cannot influence.
Notice which bucket the situation falls into and act accordingly because otherwise you're
just wasting your energy and your time and energy are the most precious resources that
you have.
Next is avoid the news.
I heard on a podcast they called CNN Constant Negative News.
I agree.
It's not even about staying in the know of what's going on in the world.
If something big enough is going on, you will hear about it.
I guarantee it.
Otherwise, it's all about where you are choosing to place your energy because as we've said,
your energy is one of the most valuable resources you have.
So why spend it in a negative cycle on a very low frequency watching the news and staying
in the know about all the horrible things going on in the world?
Because there are many horrible things going on in the world.
But there's also a lot of really good things going on in the world.
Just notice which buckets these two fall into for you.
The timer is imaginary.
You do not need to get anywhere by a certain time.
You don't need to have a certain career, a certain relationship, a certain financial
status.
That timer is imaginary.
Recognize that, release yourself from it, and feel the relief and freedom that you have
to choose whatever you want to do and let yourself get to where you want to be at your
own time.
Because there is not one single path to happiness.
You don't need to be married by 30.
You don't need to follow these self-imposed timelines.
It makes life less enjoyable.
Let yourself be where you are, enjoy where you are, because one day when you do reach
your goals and get exactly where you want to be, you'll look back on this time in your
life and wish that you had appreciated it more.
Work hard, rest harder.
Do not optimize your downtime.
Be productive when you work and rest when you plan to rest.
I know especially in our current society, people love to hustle and people hate to rest.
And you may know some people who have such a hard time resting that when they do finally
get some time to rest, they choose to do something else like a lot of chores, pick up a second
project, and they may even tell you things like, I don't know how to rest, so I'm always
doing something.
Learn how to rest, nobody benefits from that, but you, and that is very important, that
you benefit from the rest that you deserve, so that you can continue to show up in other
aspects of your life and enjoy it more.
It's not a bad thing to rest.
It's actually a very good thing.
Physical fitness is mental fitness, and fitness principles apply to many aspects of life.
For example, Jess Sims, a trainer from Peloton, likes to say, how you do anything is how you
do everything.
I could not agree more.
If you are always delaying something, if you're always saying, oh, I'll go do that
workout tomorrow, where else are you saying that in your life?
Do you have projects at work that you're ready to do tomorrow?
Do you have friends that you're ready to show up for tomorrow?
What about showing up for them right now?
What about showing up for yourself right now?
What about getting things done right now so that you can be productive in this moment
and then rest?
And then when you do rest, you rest in this moment.
Robin Arzon, another trainer from Peloton, says, you did not come this far to only come
this far.
This concept reminds me of the true challenge being at the top of the hill.
Most of the workout is climbing that hill, but the true challenge is at the top of the
hill.
So once you're tired from climbing the hill, you're not just going to leave.
You just got to the challenge.
You just got to the work.
You put in all this work to do.
You just got to the sweet spot.
It's also similar to beating a boss in a video game.
You have to beat all these different levels to get to the big boss.
And then you're not going to stop playing just because you've reached the big boss.
You're going to beat the boss because you did all the work to get to that boss.
Now it's the time.
Now you really get to practice.
Now you really get to show up for yourself.
And this can translate into other areas.
This can translate into careers, relationships, side projects, art, really any other aspect
of life that applies to you.
Listen to your body.
Your body is always communicating with you.
Your body will tell you when to rest, when to stop, when to move, when to change what
you're doing.
Your body is always communicating with you.
So fitness taught me to listen to my body.
And this transcends fitness.
This applies to absolutely every area of my life every single day.
Small changes yield big results.
In fitness, this is referring to progressive overload where you continually increase your
weight or reps or endurance by a little bit so you continue to improve your strength and
endurance.
This is also mentioned by James Clear in Atomic Habits regarding building and breaking habits.
If you do prioritize making small changes over time, they will compound into big results.
And a lot of people think that you need to make big changes right away to get big results,
but the small changes are actually more maintainable and thus get you big results in a shorter
amount of time than you may expect.
Get conscious about and prioritize your habits.
Notice which habits you want to improve and which habits you want to break.
And you can improve your habits by making them easy, obvious, habit stacking, which
is just adding it on to a habit that you've already established, and you can break habits
by making them difficult, invisible, and separate them from already established habits.
Be who you are, not who they want you to be.
Even the people who want the best for you in your life will pass their bias on to you.
Subconsciously, I don't think they're doing that on purpose, but everybody comes with
their own bias, and if you're not careful to discern what you believe versus what they
believe, you might absorb their limiting beliefs and their bias.
So back to listening to your body, listen to your gut.
Trust your gut.
Your gut will help you recognize good opportunities before anyone else.
There will also be people who want you to fail, and your gut will be able to recognize
them as well.
Forgiveness is not for the other person.
Forgiveness is for you.
Forgiveness gives you peace of mind and lets you focus the grudge, the anger, all those
intense feelings about that situation on to other things.
You can come back into a higher vibration because you let it go, and you can shift that
story however you want.
The story you tell yourself is how you live your life.
You live your life through the stories that you are telling yourself in your head.
So recognize the story that you're telling yourself about this current situation and
see if you can shift it into a nicer feeling story, a more neutral one, one that is just
as true but makes you feel better.
Get comfortable being uncomfortable.
Growth begins at the outside of our comfort zone.
If we constantly stay in our comfort zone, nothing's going to change.
This is also an excellent way to build confidence because when you do things that you haven't
done before and you do things that you're scared of, you're teaching your body that
you can handle anything that comes your way, which is true.
And for difficult tasks and projects, 85%, that's good, that's great.
Don't focus on perfectionism.
It's a waste of time.
You will never get there.
That is okay.
It does not have to be perfect.
It just has to be done.
85% is great.
And that 85% can be improved over time, and the goal post is always moving, right?
So the 85% that you had at the beginning of that project is going to be different than
the 85% that you have a year into that project.
And both 85% can be great for where you are at that point in time.
85% is good enough.
It doesn't have to be perfect.
It has to be done.
Ego is loud and chaotic, and intuition is calm and quiet.
If you are ever questioning if your reaction is coming from ego or from your intuition,
check if it feels urgent.
If it feels urgent, like, oh, my friend said that they have a question to ask me and that
I haven't heard from them in a few hours.
I'm going to text them and call them until they answer so that we can get this question
answered.
That sounds more like ego versus intuition, which can say, okay, I asked them what their
question is, and they will respond when they're ready.
Ego is loud and urgent, and intuition is calm and quiet.
Moving on to career and money.
Figure out what you're good at, and then see if you can make that your career.
If you build a career off of something that you're good at and bonus something that you
like, you're going to enjoy that time so much more than if you do something that you don't
like and that you're not good at that sounds really hard and draining.
Make a list of things that you're good at and see which of those you like enough to
pursue as a career.
You can always change your mind and change your path.
Nothing is set in stone.
You can even decide right now not to be the same person that you were five minutes ago.
You can always change your mind, change your mindset, change your path, change how much
money you make, change the career you have, change your interests.
You can change everything.
The only person keeping you exactly as you are is yourself.
You can get lucky.
You have the capacity to get lucky.
And you can put yourself in situations that provide more opportunities.
This also loops back into listening to your intuition.
Your intuition will give you really quiet random nudges to do certain things like go
to this school over this one or go to this class over that one, visit your coffee shop
downstairs today.
Your intuition will give you subtle nudges that will get you into certain places and
situations that can provide opportunities.
And then it's on you to notice those opportunities.
Evolve at your own pace.
There is no finish line.
There is no timeline.
There are no checkpoints.
Evolve at your own pace.
Personally, socially, romantically, financially, spiritually, however you want to evolve, give
yourself the time and grace to evolve at your own pace.
Learn the value of money and the game of credit.
When you learn how to manage your finances and play the game of credit, especially in
the United States, you become so much more powerful.
Managing your finances and having financial intelligence is one of the most empowering
skills that you can have and you can build it.
If you don't have it right now, that's okay.
If you do have it right now, that's great.
You can always build it and improve it.
And money is energy just like everything else.
You can always get more of it.
They print more every day.
There is an abundance of money and it's on you to recognize that.
And since you have money, spend your money.
Enjoy your life.
Don't spend it frivolously just to spend it, but also don't save just to save.
If you have food, shelter, bills paid for and you're saving and investing, let yourself
spend some money.
That's what it's there for.
Money is there to improve your life.
Money is freedom.
Money is opportunities.
So use them.
Have fun.
If you really want a new camera and you have the extra funds to get it, don't save it just
to save it, especially if you've already set aside savings for the month and you've invested
for the month.
You might as well.
That can be part of your guilt-free spending money.
And if you are still working on the basics of food, shelter, saving, investing and all
of your necessary expenses, you can also incorporate guilt-free spending money in your monthly
budget.
Because it's not realistic to tell people that are still working on the basics to only
spend money on the basics.
As humans, we want to get things that we like.
We want to go out to eat sometimes, maybe go to a concert.
There are many things that you rightfully want to do and you can do them even if you're
still focusing on the basics.
So spend your guilt-free spending money.
Have you heard, Winners Never Quit?
I disagree wholeheartedly.
Winners know when to quit.
Don't stick out a sinking situation just for the sake of being stubborn.
Know when it's not working and know when to leave.
That's how you can also make room for more things that are working.
So Winners Know When To Quit.
On to relationships.
People can only meet you as deeply as they've met themselves.
So if you are a very intuitive, introspective person that likes to talk about how you feel,
that you're talking with somebody who doesn't like to talk about feelings, doesn't like
to sit with their thoughts, and doesn't like having difficult conversations, you may not
get very far in the conversations that you have with that person.
And that's okay.
They might even be doing their best to meet you there, but if they haven't met themselves
there, they're not going to meet you there.
And that's just the way it is.
But when you do find people that have sat with their thoughts, that have gone inward and
they are also introspective, they also are curious about the world like you and they
ask themselves similar questions that you might ask yourself, you'll find that those
conversations flow much better and they go much deeper because that person has already
met themselves at that level.
You don't need 100 pennies.
You need four quarters or $1 coin.
You don't need a lot of friends.
You just need the right friends.
You need people that are uplifting, that are bucket-filling, that make you feel better
about yourself and about life.
Those are the people that you need as friends.
And if that's one person, if that's four people, that's excellent.
You don't need 100 friends to be happy.
You just need the right people around you.
You are the sum of the closest people to you and the content you consume.
We spend so much time online these days that now the content we consume can even rack up
more time in our days than the people that we spend time with.
The content we consume has such an impact on our mental health and state of mind and
how we can treat people, how we see the world.
You are the sum of those closest to you and the content you consume.
So consume content consciously and recognize which of your friends are quarters.
Moving on to the final segment, self-image.
Your time is your most valuable resource.
Take some time and ask yourself what your values are.
Find your values and what matters to you and consciously decide how you want to spend your
time, whether that be with people, alone, with hobbies, at work.
Recognize that your time is your most valuable resource.
Find a new hobby and then find many.
There's no cap on hobbies and they are so fun.
They also let you focus back on yourself and things you like.
And when people are bored, I think they don't have enough hobbies.
I think they could benefit from sitting with themselves and learning about things they
like and then spending their time doing things they like.
It can bring a lot of happiness and not all hobbies should be monetized.
I would say at least one, keep at least one hobby that is just for you that you are not
monetizing and will never monetize.
For me it's crocheting.
I will never sell crochet anything.
I might give it away as gifts, but I'm not going to sell it.
I'm not going to start a business with it.
Crocheting is just for me so that I can keep doing it on my time when I want to do it with
no pressure and pure enjoyment.
You do you.
If the things you do when you're being your authentic self scare someone away, they are
not meant for you.
Alternatively, if you put on a mask and somebody likes you, they like that masked version of
you.
They don't like you.
They don't like your authentic self.
So do yourself a favor, recognize what is authentic to you and continue to show up as
your authentic self so that you can scare away the wrong people and attract the right
people who will really love you for who you are.
You also can't keep up a mask so it is completely redundant to have one and it feels so much
better to be appreciated and valued for who you are.
And finally, don't compare yourself to others.
Don't compare yourself career wise, financially, regarding relationships, regarding your looks.
Don't ever compare yourself to someone else because everyone has their own experience.
They have their own value.
And flowers don't compare themselves to other flowers.
Flowers don't compare themselves to sunsets.
Each flower is beautiful.
Each sunset is beautiful and they can coexist.
One's beauty does not take away from the other.
One's abundance does not take away from the other.
There is so much abundance in this world that you can have abundance in beauty, finances,
relationships, peace.
You can have it all and so can they.
They can have it all and so can you.
There is so much abundance in this world that there is more than enough to go around.
Scarcity mindset is just a mindset and you can shift that mindset into abundance.
Thank you for listening to Back to Yourself.
I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did.
Reach out to me on Instagram or TikTok at Back to Yourself pod and let me know what
you thought of this episode and what you would like to see in the next one.
Go do something fun for yourself today.
Bye.