Latest / Alignment With Jenn / (50) 5 SILENT HABITS BLOCKING YOUR DREAM LIFE ✨STOP POSTPONING YOUR DREAMS
Transcript
- 0:00On the 10 Things to quietly eliminate in Order to live your
- 0:03life with no regrets. I recently had an experience and
- 0:08within about a month I lost two people in my life who were
- 0:12really important to me. One of them was my aunt, and
- 0:14then one of them was a good friend and they both passed away
- 0:17within about two weeks. Whenever that happens, whenever
- 0:21I've been faced with death in my life, I.
- 0:24It always reminds me of the most important thing I can do to
- 0:28honor that person's life is really to just live my own life,
- 0:33love my own life. Really, really live my life
- 0:37right. Not live a shadow of a life, but
- 0:39actually genuinely be the person that I came here to be.
- 0:42Do the things that I came here to do right, Be the fullest
- 0:45expression of myself. That's really how you honor
- 0:48someone, right, is by living your purpose.
- 0:51And that's how you honor yourself.
- 0:53So I wanted to make this episode about the five regrets of the
- 0:56dying. There's this book called The
- 0:58Five Regrets of the Dying. It's by Brawny Ware, and she
- 1:03worked in a Hospice facility for a very, many, many, many years.
- 1:07And she wrote this book about these five regrets in order to
- 1:11help people understand what people that are about to die are
- 1:14most afraid of and what they most regret, right?
- 1:17What do they wish they had done differently?
- 1:19And because we all have, as we're listening to this podcast,
- 1:22the gift of life, I wanted to make this episode where we go
- 1:26into the five things, but I want to give you tools for each of
- 1:30the five things of how you can actually not have that regret
- 1:34and how to really live your life to the fullest.
- 1:37Because I believe everyone that listens to this podcast, that's
- 1:40what they really want, right? You want to really live your
- 1:42purpose. You want to have that dream
- 1:44relationship, that level of income that you want.
- 1:46You don't want to just half life.
- 1:48You want a full life, right? And so this episode, I want it
- 1:53to be an amazing tool kit for you.
- 1:55And I really, really hope that you absolutely love it.
- 1:59Regret, number one, I'm going to give you the regret and then I'm
- 2:01going to give you the tools and then we'll kind of flop through
- 2:03those. So number one is I wish I had
- 2:06the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others
- 2:10expected of me. That one I just like, feel so in
- 2:14my soul, like that is the most painful feeling.
- 2:16I've shared this before. I spent eight years in a
- 2:19corporate job where I felt that exact thing, where I felt like I
- 2:23just really didn't like it, right?
- 2:26I felt so unfulfilled, but I didn't know how to make money
- 2:29another way. I didn't know how to get out of
- 2:31it, and I used manifestation. I use the tools that I teach to
- 2:36completely change my life, right?
- 2:38I really believe right now I'm the happiest I've ever been.
- 2:41My life is the most amazing it's ever been because I have
- 2:45consistently done the tools I'm about to teach you of how to not
- 2:49do this regret. So something that happened
- 2:52during COVID, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer.
- 2:56Fortunately, she's fine. But my mom is like my person,
- 2:59like I love my mom so much. And when she was diagnosed,
- 3:02there's this period of time when you don't know what's going to
- 3:06happen, right? You don't know the prognosis.
- 3:07And so all I knew is my mom had breast cancer.
- 3:10And I like went through this dark night of the soul where I
- 3:13really had to grapple with this idea of like, I could
- 3:15potentially lose someone that was so important to me.
- 3:19And what does that actually mean for me, right?
- 3:21How do I want to live my life? And at the time, I was in my
- 3:23corporate job and I had my supplement business as well.
- 3:27And I decided like almost overnight to quit my corporate
- 3:31job and sell my supplement business because I knew neither
- 3:33of them were my true calling. Having this experience with my
- 3:36mom really like brought it to the forefront where I was like,
- 3:39I don't want to live the life that's not meant for me because
- 3:42life is not guaranteed, right? We so effortlessly live in this
- 3:46place of tomorrow of I'll do it tomorrow of tomorrow is
- 3:50guaranteed. It is not guaranteed, right?
- 3:53And recently, the reason I'm doing this episode is because
- 3:55recently I was reminded of that, right?
- 3:57It's so easy to forget, but one of the greatest gifts we can
- 4:01give to honor someone's life is to live our own lives in our
- 4:04most authentic way. Something that Carl Jung talks
- 4:07about is the concept of the unlived life, and he describes
- 4:11it as the aspects of the personality that never get fully
- 4:14developed. They're the pieces of you that
- 4:16hide, right? Your childhood dreams that you
- 4:19want to go after, but you don't because you're afraid of what
- 4:22people will think. It's the path you haven't taken.
- 4:24It's the deeper parts of ourselves that live just
- 4:28completely hidden from other people.
- 4:30It's the things that we want to share with our partner but we
- 4:33never do or share with our friends, but we're too afraid to
- 4:36share them. We're too afraid of what they'll
- 4:38think, right these pieces. And what happens is it shrinks
- 4:42and shrinks and shrinks our life.
- 4:44My goal is I want you to like bust through all of those things
- 4:48so you're no longer shrinking your life, right?
- 4:51You're genuinely going after the things that you want.
- 4:53You're taking the risks that you want to take.
- 4:56Your betting on yourself. Another part of this unlived
- 4:59life too, is the desires that you never go after, right?
- 5:02I think most people have dreams that just live in a little box
- 5:06inside of them and they never, ever open up that box to
- 5:10actually express it to the world because they're so afraid.
- 5:13But I also believe that nowadays, today, it's the
- 5:16easiest it's ever been to achieve your dreams with social
- 5:19media, with AI, we literally have this massive support system
- 5:23to create anything we want. I created 50 songs this week
- 5:27using AI. I've never created a song in my
- 5:30life. And I learned how to create a
- 5:31song. And like, that's so cool.
- 5:35You know, never before in history was that possible.
- 5:37So for you to not have this experience of not having the
- 5:42courage to live the life that you want, what's that going to
- 5:45take? So let's talk about the three
- 5:48pieces. So number one is stop tolerating
- 5:51the things that you know or that are meant for you.
- 5:53The relationships, the jobs, the habits, right?
- 5:58If you're like, I want to have the best possible body I can
- 6:01have, then start giving that to yourself, right?
- 6:03That's an act of self love. I recently had a client and I
- 6:08was so inspired by this. She had a client that wasn't
- 6:12serving her right and she let this client go so she could
- 6:15focus on her own business. She's literally living
- 6:19completely in the opposite of this regret.
- 6:21She's not going to have that regret of even though I was
- 6:24making a lot of money from this client, I trust myself enough to
- 6:27let it go and know that I'll be OK.
- 6:30It takes self trust, right? It takes courage #2 is let your
- 6:35freak flag fly. So have you seen the movie The
- 6:37Family Stone? It's super cute.
- 6:39It has, like, so many great actors and actresses in it.
- 6:42And there's this cute scene where Sarah Jessica Parker is
- 6:45like, kind of uptight and like, businessy.
- 6:48I can't remember the actor that she's dating, but they're like,
- 6:50they're hanging out at this bar and they're so cute.
- 6:53And she's like, starting to get a little bit more drunk.
- 6:55And he says to her, he's like, you just need to like, let your
- 6:57freak flag fly. Basically, you need to like, let
- 7:00yourself be seen. You need to let go of these
- 7:03fears. You need to just be your
- 7:04yourself, be your genuine self. Eliminate being so concerned
- 7:08about what other people think, right?
- 7:10That is the most liberating thing you could ever do because
- 7:13#1 they're probably not really thinking about you.
- 7:15Everyone's so obsessed with thinking about themselves,
- 7:18they're not really thinking about you.
- 7:19And #2 the people who you actually would want to like you,
- 7:25right, are not the people who are sitting there in harsh
- 7:28judgement of you. Those people that are judging
- 7:31you so harshly, they've got some inner work to do on themselves,
- 7:35right? And it doesn't mean they're bad
- 7:36people. It just means that those people
- 7:39who are judging you, that's about them.
- 7:41It's not about you letting go of those judgments.
- 7:44Where in your life are you not doing something because you're
- 7:48afraid of what people will think?
- 7:50I feel like a lot of people listening are like, oh, IA lot
- 7:54of areas, right? That's one of the biggest things
- 7:56that stops us. I really think if I could like
- 7:59reach into the brains of everyone I work with and remove
- 8:01that so that way they could take action in spite of what people
- 8:04think of them. I wouldn't need to do anything.
- 8:06Like I could just chill forever because that's the biggest thing
- 8:10I think that holds people back. And so the antidote I have to
- 8:13this is do one thing every single day that scares you.
- 8:17I think that was an Eleanor Roosevelt quote.
- 8:19Do one thing every single day that scares you and what will
- 8:22happen is your comfort zone will become the size of the world
- 8:25because you will constantly be stretching your comfort zone,
- 8:28right? Talk to a stranger.
- 8:30Let go of something that you no longer need.
- 8:33Wear something that is a little bit edgy, right?
- 8:37Change your hair. Do these things because what
- 8:39happens is you become more and more comfortable with you.
- 8:42And when you become more comfortable with you, you stop
- 8:45caring as much what other people think of you.
- 8:47So I want to give you a couple of mantras to counteract this
- 8:52regret. So my favorite one is I release
- 8:56the need to be accepted by everyone and return to the
- 8:59sacred work of being myself. I love that.
- 9:02The sacred work of being myself. That's why you're here is to be
- 9:05you. You're not here to be anybody
- 9:07else. I choose the life that is true
- 9:09to my soul, not the life that makes me easiest to understand.
- 9:14I choose the life that is true to my soul.
- 9:17Like, write these down, make them the background on your
- 9:20phone, put them on your mirror. Remind yourself of these things,
- 9:24right? So you don't have those regrets
- 9:26when you're sitting on your deathbed because we're all going
- 9:29to be there one day. As morbid as that is.
- 9:32The regret number 2 is I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
- 9:36I had this amazing call with this woman and she is a
- 9:41journalist and she shared with me that she has stage 4 cancer.
- 9:46And she, we were talking about her joining my program and she
- 9:49ended up joining the program. And what she shared is that
- 9:52she's like, you know, I'm OK with dying, but she's like, I
- 9:55have worked so hard my whole life and I've worked for
- 9:58everyone else. And she's like, I don't want to
- 10:00die without finishing my own projects, right?
- 10:03She has a book that she wants to write.
- 10:04She has all these projects that she wants to do.
- 10:06She didn't want to die without doing those things.
- 10:08And it moved me like, and this was maybe a week after I had
- 10:12just lost two people that were really important to me.
- 10:15It just really moved me because we in society are so focused on
- 10:20working right, especially in the United States, on achieving that
- 10:23next level, right, reaching to that next level.
- 10:26When I get there, I'll be happy. When I get there, I'll be happy.
- 10:29The problem is that tomorrow is not guaranteed.
- 10:32How can you re prioritize what what actually matters to you and
- 10:37how can you make your time reflect that?
- 10:39How can you make your life reflect that?
- 10:41And this regret is really about postponing your life, postponing
- 10:45your life until you achieve something certain.
- 10:48When I achieve this, then I can look for a relationship, right?
- 10:51I have a lot of people who will tell me like, oh, you know, I
- 10:54have this great friend actually, and she is extremely successful
- 10:58and she spent all of her 30s working on her career, right?
- 11:01And now she's in her 40s and she really wants to meet someone.
- 11:04And she's like, I just never prioritized it, you know, and I
- 11:06wish I had. We want that connection, right?
- 11:10And So what are you pushing off that you should be doing now so
- 11:15you don't regret this? That's the really the first
- 11:18piece, right is eliminate prioritizing work over
- 11:21everything else. I have been guilty of that many
- 11:24times in my life and do one thing every single day that is
- 11:28joy maxing. So something every single day
- 11:31that is purely for your joy. And it could be for a project
- 11:35you want to work on. It could be going to the beach
- 11:38with your friends. It could be going, you know,
- 11:40taking an extra long shower. It could be jamming out in your
- 11:44car. But how can you appreciate this
- 11:47amazing life that we already have, this amazing world that we
- 11:49already live in? And I think that's kind of the
- 11:51essence of all of this. This whole episode could be
- 11:54distilled down into one word, and that's gratitude.
- 11:58The way that you really live a life that you love is being
- 12:01grateful for the life that you currently have.
- 12:04Being grateful every single day for all of the opportunities
- 12:07that you have, for everything that you have, even if you're
- 12:10not where you want to be, right? Stop focusing on what's wrong
- 12:13and start focusing on what's right.
- 12:15And you're going to expand and you're going to get more of
- 12:17what's right, right? Let me give you a mantra.
- 12:19So for regret #2 it's I create from overflow, not depletion.
- 12:24I let my joy become part of my strategy.
- 12:27So with that, how can you make your work that you do more
- 12:31enjoyable, right? How can you love it a little bit
- 12:33more? How can you be more playful?
- 12:35When I used to work in corporate, there was this guy I
- 12:37worked with and he was just straight up fun.
- 12:40Like no matter what we were doing, he was having a good time
- 12:43and he was enjoying himself. He was cracking jokes.
- 12:46He'd be in the presentation in front of the entire company, and
- 12:48he'd be cracking jokes, right? He was such a fun person and so
- 12:53enjoyable, and he made everything fun, right?
- 12:56How can you make everything fun for yourself and the people
- 12:58around you? Because that's really magnetic.
- 13:04Hey, regret three. I wish I had the courage to
- 13:06express my feelings when I first heard about these regrets of the
- 13:10dying. It was like many years ago and I
- 13:12was dating. This is like in my early 20s.
- 13:14I was dating my one of my longer term relationships and I was in
- 13:18love with him and I wanted to tell him and I heard this
- 13:20regret. And so I told him I loved him
- 13:22first and I was so proud of myself.
- 13:25And even to this day, I'm like proud of myself for that, even
- 13:27though we're not together anymore.
- 13:29So where can you express your feelings, right?
- 13:32Where can you tell people, man, I really love you or I really
- 13:35appreciate you instead of keeping it in, even just
- 13:37complimenting someone, Wow, I love your shirt.
- 13:41Where can you express how you're actually feeling or the things
- 13:44that you're struggling with, right?
- 13:45We connect with people not because they're perfect.
- 13:49I, I fall in love with people's vulnerabilities and I think we
- 13:52all do. Where can you express your
- 13:54authenticity, who you really, really are?
- 13:57Because that's going to create such deeper connection for you.
- 14:00So it's expressing the good things as well as the
- 14:02challenges. And this is really important in
- 14:05our relationships because if we are constantly keeping things
- 14:09bottled up, A, that's not healthy, but B, we don't give
- 14:12the other person a chance to meet us where we need to be met
- 14:15if we're never expressing anything.
- 14:17And I know for my clients, and I think for a lot of women, this
- 14:21is a challenge, right? We're very easy at being like,
- 14:24oh, it's not that big of a deal. It's not maybe a big deal in
- 14:27that moment, but over time it becomes a big deal, right?
- 14:30And this is not unloading everything on someone.
- 14:34You can even make it fun. You can make it enjoyable.
- 14:37The one thing that I would love for you to do today with this
- 14:39one is tell one person today how you really feel until it becomes
- 14:44normal. So every single day, tell
- 14:46someone how you feel until it becomes normal.
- 14:49And it can be, it can start off really, really small if this is
- 14:52very uncomfortable for you. I got this e-mail from one of my
- 14:55clients today and it was her sharing with me that she needed
- 14:58support on something in my program.
- 15:00And I'd never gotten that feedback before, but I was so
- 15:03proud of her because it's A, it's not easy to give feedback
- 15:07on something, right? She doesn't know how I'm going
- 15:09to respond, but B, the fact that she expressed what she needed,
- 15:14you know, I need this support. Can you help me with this?
- 15:18That's it. It's expressing what we need.
- 15:19It's expressing what we feel. Your life will be a million
- 15:23times better when you start sharing those things.
- 15:26Maybe you text someone. I miss you.
- 15:28Can we catch up right that you haven't talked to in a while?
- 15:31And this is a big one. Stop putting others needs above
- 15:35your own. Squash people pleasing and over
- 15:37giving. I really think one of the
- 15:39biggest reasons that we don't create the lives that we want is
- 15:43because we are too afraid of what people think and we
- 15:46prioritize other people's needs over our own.
- 15:49And this can be in microwaves in a conversation of, well, I don't
- 15:52want him to not like me, so I'm not going to share how I'm
- 15:55really feeling or I don't want to make him upset, so I'm not
- 15:58going to share how I'm really feeling.
- 16:00But what you're doing is you're negotiating away your own sense
- 16:03of safety and security and how you feel, and you're negotiating
- 16:08away the potential of that relationship.
- 16:10So same with work. One of my friends told me this
- 16:15years ago. She used to work at Google and
- 16:17she said that she's like, I never got a promotion.
- 16:19And I was like, why do you think you never got a promotion?
- 16:21And she's like, because I was always over giving.
- 16:23And I was like, what do you mean?
- 16:25And she said, she's like, you know, I would always go above
- 16:29and beyond, like I would do everything.
- 16:31And she's like, and there was other people on the team who
- 16:34didn't do that, you know? And she's like, they got
- 16:36promoted. And she's like, they didn't need
- 16:37to promote me because I was already over giving everything.
- 16:40I was like, that's an interesting way to think about
- 16:42it, right? And so where are you over
- 16:45giving, right? Where are you giving so much of
- 16:47yourself that it depletes you and it doesn't allow you to feel
- 16:51like your best self? So the mantras for this regret
- 16:54are every time I express myself honestly, I return home to
- 16:58myself. So cute.
- 17:00I can be loving and honest at the same time, right?
- 17:04Something that kind of blew my mind is I learned kind of
- 17:08recently actually, that you can bring something up with somebody
- 17:11and it can be fun and playful. Instead of like this heavy
- 17:14weighted thing. You can share it in a fun,
- 17:16light, playful way. 4 I wish I had stayed in touch with my
- 17:21friends. Oh my gosh, that's a big one.
- 17:24This is something I'm not great AT.
- 17:26And my best friend is so good at it.
- 17:28She's always, she sends Christmas cards to everyone and
- 17:32she's extremely busy and she handwrites these Christmas
- 17:34cards. She messages people all the time
- 17:37to stay connected with them. She's so good at this, right?
- 17:41But it's not everyone that you have to do it with.
- 17:43Who are the people that you really care about, you know, and
- 17:46who do you want to stay connected to in your life?
- 17:49It's interesting to think about this like these people at the
- 17:51end of their life. They don't regret not working
- 17:54harder, not working more. They regret not calling their
- 17:58friend. They regret not making a trip to
- 18:01see someone, not having a dinner with someone.
- 18:03They regret letting the connection fall.
- 18:06Not not, you know, doing one more sit up.
- 18:09It's interesting to think about one tool for you about this is
- 18:12eliminate the myth of tomorrow. Stop saying you'll reach out to
- 18:16someone tomorrow or stop saying I'll do it tomorrow.
- 18:19I'll make a plan tomorrow. Do it today, right?
- 18:23Do these things today. So the mantra for number 4 is my
- 18:27relationships are treasures and I tend to what I treasure.
- 18:33These mantras are so yummy. Five.
- 18:35I wish that I had let myself be happier.
- 18:38That's what they regret. They wish that they had let
- 18:40themselves be happier. So instead of delaying joy for
- 18:43another day, joy maxing now, right?
- 18:46Allowing yourself to feel joy, appreciating each moment,
- 18:49cultivating fun. I shared this in a few episodes
- 18:52of just doing things for the fun of it, right?
- 18:54Just because energy, I am going to do something just because
- 18:59it's fun for me instead of delaying it for tomorrow, right?
- 19:03Let yourself actually be happy now.
- 19:06Instead of saying I get to be happy when you know, I lose 10
- 19:10lbs and I have this much money and La La La La, la, la, like
- 19:13why can't you be happy now? Why not?
- 19:16It's going to help you with everything.
- 19:18The manifestation rule that I've given in other episodes is if
- 19:21you just focus on how you feel and you focus on being happy,
- 19:24you will attract everything you want.
- 19:26It's true. Stop delaying your happiness.
- 19:28One way that you can do this is to eliminate needing everything
- 19:32to make sense before you bet on yourself.
- 19:36One of the reasons that people, I think don't feel happier is
- 19:39because they settle for OK. This job is OK.
- 19:43This relationship is OK, right? My health is OK, but they don't
- 19:48allow themselves to want or push for more.
- 19:51And So what happens is they stop betting on themselves, right?
- 19:55They stop taking those risks. And so where in your life can
- 19:58you bet on yourself, right? It makes you really happy,
- 20:02right? Happiness and fulfillment are
- 20:04very, very connected. So maybe it's starting that
- 20:07business, maybe it's taking that trip, maybe it's striking up
- 20:10with a conversation with somebody who looks cute at the
- 20:12cafe. And another way to allow
- 20:15yourself to be happier is, again, gratitude.
- 20:18But it's also choosing long term fulfillment over short term
- 20:22pleasure, right? What are the things like
- 20:24scrolling is such short term pleasure.
- 20:27The people on their deathbeds are not like, Dang, I wish I had
- 20:30scrolled more or I wish I had spent more time on my computer.
- 20:34No, nobody's going to say that, right?
- 20:37I wish I had been more connected to the people I care about.
- 20:39I wish that I had let myself be happier.
- 20:41I wish I had let myself laugh more.
- 20:43One of my really good friends, I saw this like transition in her
- 20:48and it was really cool because she basically kind of decided
- 20:51that she was going to. This was before she met her.
- 20:54She wanted to show up how she would show up with her soul
- 20:56mate. And she was like, I just let
- 20:58myself be really happy. And she's like, I let myself
- 21:00laugh freely instead of like stifling my laugh.
- 21:03I just let myself laugh and enjoy myself and enjoy my life,
- 21:08you know? And I was like, it's so true.
- 21:09It's in these tiny moments that happiness is created.
- 21:12And so where can you allow yourself to be more happy,
- 21:15right? Maybe you pick up and drive your
- 21:17kids to school every day, right? Maybe you play some fun music
- 21:21like Spice Girls or something during those times to make it
- 21:24more fun, to make it more enjoyable, to cultivate that
- 21:27happiness. There was this quote that I feel
- 21:30like was really big on Instagram in like 2012.
- 21:32And it was like choose happy, choose happy.
- 21:35And it really is a choice. You get to choose if you want to
- 21:38be happy because you get to choose how you filter every
- 21:41circumstance. It always brings me back to
- 21:44Viktor Frankel and the book A Man Search for Meaning and he
- 21:47talks about how in every circumstance, the last of a
- 21:51person's rights is the ability to choose how you perceive that
- 21:55situation. You get to choose if a situation
- 21:57makes you happy or not. I know some people don't believe
- 22:00that, but I think the people listening to this do.
- 22:04So 5th mantra is I trust the desires that make my soul come
- 22:07alive. Going after your desires.
- 22:11So I hope that you have loved this.
- 22:13If you want help pursuing those dreams, pursuing those goals
- 22:17that you have for yourself, send me the Word Podcast.
- 22:21That's what I do in my community.
- 22:22It's all these amazing women going after their goals and
- 22:25their dreams and their visions. Send me the Word Podcast on
- 22:29Instagram at alignment with Jen and I will send you a 5 minute
- 22:33video about that. Also, please subscribe to this
- 22:36podcast. It helps it get pushed out which
- 22:38is always so fun and I appreciate you all for being
- 22:41here. Bye bye.