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107. A Rhythm of Reflection · Your Enriched Self

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I want you to think about the last project or assignment or duty or responsibility
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that you were tasked with and how you went about it, Meaning what was
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your first what was the first step in your process? Was it for you
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to write down all of the thoughts that you had about this thing? And
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I'm not talking about writing down the task that you had to accomplish. I'm
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talking about writing down the thoughts that entered your mind about this project beginning middle
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end. If I'm being honest with myself, when I jump into a project,
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I jump into a project, you know, I start looking at the
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task list, I start looking at the mini milestones so I can get to
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the major milestones. And although I'm writing things down, it's not necessarily my
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thoughts. It's all the work that has to go into that project. And
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that's what I really want us to get into is the ability for us to
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which one comes first, the chicken or the egg. And I would venture
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to believe that we need to spend more time and thought when we are given
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something, or we are thinking about where we want to be in our lives,
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what do we envision our future to be? Like? More than likely
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we are ready to start charging after that goal and that's great and okay,
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but I think what would be even better, and we got to get to
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the state of going after the even betters is to begin with the end in
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mind. Because what tends to happen is, especially as a project manager,
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we get to the end and then we're doing our reflective exercises. But at
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the beginning, we're out the gate. We were ready to go. It
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was important to get things done, and then at the end we reflect.
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And what I'm saying to you is, think about doing it in reverse.
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Think about reflection first. Hello, my friends from all across the globe,
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and welcome to the R and D Self Podcast. I'm host my le Noir.
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I am a mindset coach and your mindset advocate and all that means in
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this world, in your world right now where you are. I am sure
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you are busy. There is so much that requires that needs your attention,
2:29
and so I've created a space for you each and every week to become more
2:34
of your and werid self. And what we do here each week is we
2:36
talk about self care, soul care, mindset fusion topics, and we spend
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time thinking and I noticed something that's not popular. We live in a society
2:49
that's get up and go and do, but here we want to be intentional
2:53
about our thoughts and our actions. And if you're listening to this podcast,
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I know that you want to show up as your best self in this world,
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and so that's what we talk about. So if you are lucing this
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podcast, I want to welcome you. I thank you for being here.
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And if you are a repeat listener, we are on episode one hundred and
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seven, which means we've been doing this thing for one hundred and seven weeks.
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Now, before we get into this week's episode, if you know you
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know, I make a deposit in the bank of you, and I do
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so by way of affirmations. Affirmations are a great way to start your day
3:34
and to command your morning. And this week's affirmation is I am equipped with
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all I need. I am equipped with all I need. I am equipped
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with all I need. Now let's get ready for it this week's episode of
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the Your Enriched Self podcast. What I think we miss in all the activity
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that's required for us to get to our goals is time to think. I
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remember hearing one of my favorite podcasters talk about the importance of spending time in
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thought like spending your time thinking and challenging the audience to make time to spend
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the time in thought. How much time are you dedicated to thinking? And
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so that's what I want to talk about today. I want you to develop
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a rhythm of reflection. And I don't know if you've ever heard those words
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kind of paste or put together like that, but I want you to develop
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a rhythm of reflection. I remember having an opportunity to talk to a client,
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and this client was not where they wanted to be, and they thought
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they were doing some things wrong. And I think that's the first thing that
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we look at when we are not where we want to be. We think
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about all the things we are not doing. And I believe that is a
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common thought process that when you are not where you want to be, the
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automatic assumption is you are doing something wrong. And in fact, I had
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to point out to them, it's not that you're doing things wrong. You're
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not spending enough time doing things that are important, doing things that are right
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to help you get to the destination you want to get to. And so
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this rhythm of reflection, I just want you to think about it like this.
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Just by share definition, a rhythm is a regular repeated pattern of movement
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or sound. That's it. Rhythm is not consistent or measured. And so
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for the purposes of thinking about or bringing forward this rhythm of reflection, I
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want you to think of it as the flexibility that you need without the rigidity.
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I want to break apart this rhythm of reflection. And there are three
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components I want us to focus in on. One is reflecting, the second
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is to evaluate or evaluating, and lastly recalibrating. And so let's kind of
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dig into those for a second. One of the quotes that came forward to
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me in all of this is if you're not growing, you're dying. I
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don't know if you've ever heard of that quote before, but it is so
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true. And all of us are here to be and do things to impact
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our lives, but also those we were called here to serve. And I'm
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going to say that over and over again, because we were brought here on
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purpose for a purpose. You were brought here on purpose for a purpose,
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and part of your purpose is to consistently grow so you can get closer and
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get better at serving and doing the things that you were called to do.
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But in order to do that, in order to stay on a growth pattern,
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it is important to have reflection or a rhythm of reflection. The first
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component talks about reflecting, and that's pretty simple activity. I don't want you
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to think of reflection as passive activity because I think a lot of people think,
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oh, reflection, I'm not really doing anything, there's no action taking
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place, when in fact, it is a very purposeful engagement. It is
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a very intentional way to take the experiences that you have and evolve them through
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your thoughts and your emotions and ultimately your actions, right because that's gonna impact
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again your actions, your decision and it's going to help you with greater understanding.
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And so what you're going to get from spending time reflecting and if you
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haven't done this, honestly, I want to challenge you right now as listeners,
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I want to challenge you in this week to spend a week just do
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this for one week, work on your embracing the rhythm of reflection. And
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here are the benefits you're going to get from this. We're gonna walk through
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how you do this, but let's talk about the benefits because everybody wants to
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know the wifum, what's in it for me wii FM. So here's the
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whum for you self awareness. When you are reflecting, you're going to create
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an opportunity to bring forward self awareness. You're going to be able to examine
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your actions and your thoughts, and that's going to help you with insights.
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It's going to help you know where am I strong, where am I week?
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Where are my areas to improve? So that's the first thing. The
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other thing you're gonna get. The other what's in it for me if is
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going to be clarity. Clarity is helping you to clear out your mental clutter.
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There are so many things right now in your life, in your world,
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in your space that require your attention. There are a lot of things
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that are coming at you that you really don't need to be paying attention to,
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but it's also vying for your attention. So when you spend time reflecting,
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you can start moving out the things that no longer serve you or don't
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serve where you want to go next. In this process of reflecting, another
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benefit is you are going to learn from your mistakes. I saw a post
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recently and it was a quick snapshot view of the master and the beginner,
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and it showed that the beginner had about five or seven attempts, and they
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succeeded at two, and it showed the master had triple those attempts, and
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they succeeded at more. Right, they exceeded at maybe eight or nine.
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And the moral of this is the master will have more failed attempts than the
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beginner has even tried. That's how we learn is all of those tries.
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Some of those will be mistakes, some of those will be missteps, but
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you can extract the lessons and you're going to get the value because you're going
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to need to apply that to get your future success. You also get improved
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decision making. Think about it like this. When you spend time in your
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reflective process, you come away with the opportunity to make better choices because what
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you do is you start to pull away to biases and all the patterns of
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thinking, all the patterns of belief that I've kept you in your own way.
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Because that's essentially what happens. We just keep going, going, going,
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because we're in a society that values motion movement. Keep going when do
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you spend time reflecting? And that's what this is all about. And then
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the last with them, what's in it for me is goal alignment. It
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helps you to recalibrate the strategies that you need when you realign when you when
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you spend time reflecting, you can identify by looking back, how do I
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need to tweak it, What do I need to recalibrate, what do I
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need to rethink possible about? That's what you need. Now let's talk about
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how do we create or cultivate a rhythm of reflection. Now that we know
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what's in it for me, not that you know what's in it for you,
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how do you cultivate that? Well, you got to be intentional about
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your time because there's no one that's going to remind you to spend time reflecting.
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You're gonna have to be very intentional to set time aside, to dedicate
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time in your calendar, to dedicate time in your week in your schedule,
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whether it's five minutes, ten minutes. Listen, this is a challenge this
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week when we talk about creating this, I want you to do this.
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I want you to write this down right now. I'm gonna give you a
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moment to go get a pen and a paper or grab your cell phone and
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open up your notes app and write this down. This is important. No
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one's really talking about the rhythm of reflection the art. This is an art,
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this is a science. This is what you need to move forward.
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And this is the thing we don't do. We don't do it in schools,
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we don't do it in business, we don't do it in our homes.
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We just keep moving. Everybody wants to do. What's the next thing?
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So let's start off with this. How do we create that rhythm?
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First, set time aside. You can spend five minutes, ten minutes,
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twenty minutes of your day, twenty four hours in a day. You can
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spend time doing this and start small. I'm a big, huge believer in
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starting small. You don't have to do an hour of reflecting. Start with
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five minutes. That if you adopt it in small increments over time, you're
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going to find yourself in longer sessions of reflection. And that's a good thing,
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right, But you got to start somewhere and start small. The other
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thing is how are you going to do this? Choose the medium, Choose
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the outlet in which you will cultivate this time of reflection. You can journal.
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A lot of people love to journal. I'm a journaler. You can
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spend time simply meditating and maybe even having a self talk. And yes,
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I self talk to I walk every morning and one of the things that I
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do is I talk to myself. I pray, but I also talk to
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myself. I need that time because it is my opportunity to reflect, to
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get to a point where I'm calibrating. I'm recalibrating how things went. What
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do I need to do? You gotta ask yourself to tough questions. It's
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the third thing you got to do. So we talked about setting time aside.
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We talked about choosing your medium, asking thoughtful questions of yourself. Challenge
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yourself, ask yourself thoughtful questions, and it doesn't have to be anything deep.
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What do I want to accomplish today? What was the learning? What
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do you want to learn? Ask yourself these questions and start getting into that,
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start creating that reflection. Number four, focus on your growth, not
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perfection. Can Remember when I said start small. Remember when I said that
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that can grow, But you got to start. What a lot of people
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do is they want to hit the bull's eye on the first drive. You're
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not going to be perfect at first. At this it's all about progression,
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not perfection as you explore this, because this is going to be new for
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you, new territory. Be kind to yourself, Be kind to your feelings
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and your thoughts because things are going to come up and you're going to need
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those things to come up. Don't worry about being perfect, focus on your
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progress. And then, finally, I will say this over and over again
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till the end of time. Celebrate your winds. Celebrate the small winds,
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Celebrate the big wins, Celebrate the success. The success might mean that you've
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spent more time in reflection than you ever had. It may not necessarily mean
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a lesson emerged or whatever, but the fact that you started doing something and
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you were able to commit to it, that in itself can be the success.
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Celebrate that. Celebrate that because what you're doing is you're acknowledging your success
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and all that's going to do is boost your confidence. I know that people
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will give you affirmations on externally. I know they will feed it to you
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in your group circles and your coaching programs. I know that you'll get people
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in your circle that love you, that care about you, in your home
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that will give you affirmations. But you've got to build internal affirmations through your
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activity and your actions, and that's going to come from these small winds.
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You celebrate yourself, you build your confidence, you boost the motivation that you
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need to keep going forward. All right, So we've talked about the four
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ways that we can recalibrate. I'm going to repeat them again. You set
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time aside. Okay, you choose your medium, how do you want to
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outlet this thing? Journaling? What have you? You ask yourself those questions
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because those horsemens are going to help you understand what it is that you want
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to guide your reflection around. Focus on the progress, the progression, not
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the perfection, and finally, celebrate your successes. So those are the four
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things that I want you to work on this week. This is the week,
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in the next one hundred and sixty eight hours, this is what you're
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gonna do to become more of your in risk self. So the question is
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how do you do it? How do you create an integrate reflection into your
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daily life? As I mentioned before, I like to take walks. When
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I take walks, that's my reflection time. It can be whatever time you
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want for me. I love to walk in a morning, so morning intension
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time. Morning. Reflection time is how I start my day. What a
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reflection? Okay, yesterday, this is what went well? This is the
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things I need to work on these under my goals. All right, girl,
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you got this. Be positive and stay focused ahead. That's it.
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It doesn't have to be anything deep. It's a moment to reflect. Like
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I said, it could be five minutes. I walk for twenty thirty minutes
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a morning. In that time, I can spend a fraction that time to
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get this moment of reflection out in the morning, okay, morning or evening.
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You choose your time right, how you start your day or how you
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end your day. Some people there was a time in my life where I
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would journal at night or I would set my intentions for the next day the
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night before. That's something you can do too, right, You can review
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your day ahead before you go to bed. It might be a nighttime routine,
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it might be something you want to start doing again. It doesn't have
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to take a lot of your time. This can be a five minute exercise.
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What went well today and what could I have done better? What could
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I have handled differently? How could I have shown up in a better way?
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Which way did I show up that I liked all of those things.
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And by the way, I have a journal where there's an opportunity for you
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to do this. So check out the journal in my show notes. You
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know what's great about doing it at night. I've talked to people that have
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mentioned how difficult it is for them to fall asleep, and I would venture
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to say if we looked at those people's stress levels, those stress levels were
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high. What's good about doing it at night is that if you do it
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consistently and you have the intention, you can literally put that stress to bed
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because you would have already exercised in your mind and said, you know what,
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this is why I could have done differently. What happens is we don't
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reflect, and we go to bed and we have all that mental clutter,
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and it's hard for you to get that RESTful sleep or even fall asleep because
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all those things are racing through your mind. Give them a place to pause,
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give them a place to sit and reflect. That's what you're doing.
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You're giving your thoughts a place to sit and reflect. You're giving them a
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beat or by doing this exercise at night. So these are the ways you
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can do it. Here's a bonus way do a weekly check in with yourself.
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Now, I love that practice. I also want on Saturday mornings or
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run when I'm on the pavement. I have so many mental conversations with myself.
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But it's a great way at the end of the week to say,
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how did this week go? This was a fast week, this was a
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slow week. Here's the things that happen in this week, and you can
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identify, Okay, I could have done this better this week. You know
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what I'm going to try this next week. And this is what I want
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you to do with this exercise is try work a plan to begin the art
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the embracing of this rhythm of reflection. It will provide you several benefits,
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which we talked about earlier, one of which is getting clarity. That is
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probably the most important because it allows you to prioritize and it removes the mental
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clutter. Just think about all the thoughts that are racing through your mind throughout
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the day, and they're racing through your mind by the time you get home
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and when you try to go to bed. Getting that clarity puts all that
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aside. And so it's so important to develop, to cultivate, to embrace
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this rhythm of reflection, dedicating time, dedicating energies to this activity. You
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know, we live in a world and it's a fast paced world. And
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not only does it encourage us to keep moving, it gives great value or
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greater value to people who are constantly moving. You know, I've talked to
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people who have had surgeries and their most important next step is how can I
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get back on my feet faster. They miss the whole process of relaxing,
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they missed the whole process of getting rest, They missed the process of reflection,
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and they want to go straight over without pausing, without freshing themselves.
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They want to go right back at it. They want to get right back
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in the game. And that is a fatal error. That is a fatal
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error in our plans to grow. It's gonna be hard to grow if you're
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damaged. It's going to be hard to grow if you have no clarity.
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It's going to be hard to grow if you haven't learned from the mistakes you
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made. So it's important to incorporate this practice into your life. It's a
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valuable gift. It's an invaluable gift. You can't put a value on this
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because you get like I said, self, awareness, you get clarity,
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and you get growth, and that's what you need. So today and every
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day, I want you to begin to embark on this journey of introspection because
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it's going to hold the key to not just your life today, but your
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future life that's going to be purposeful and fulfilled. I hope you enjoyed this
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week's episode of the Urine Ritzeb podcast. And the way I'm gonna know this
23:00
is if you leave me some feedback. Feedback is a gift and it is
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free to give, and I would like to hear from you. I would
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like to know what resonated with you regarding this week's episode. Now, here's
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how you leave feedback on the platform in which you listen to this podcast.
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Follow the stars when you get there, leave a five star rating. But
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in all seriousness, when you get there, you can share your feedback on
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this podcast and that helps us and when you share your feedback on this podcast
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and helps others find us in these podcast streets. So we would definitely appreciate
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that you can also share this episode with your friends and family right from the
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podcast. So, right from the podcast platform in which you're listening to this
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episode, hit the share button, and send it to the last three to
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five people that you spoke with today. Also, you can share this on
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your socials. You can find me primarily on Instagram because that's my jam,
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that's where I am. You can find me at my Enriched Self that's M
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Y E N R I C h E D S E LF and you can
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hashtag this episode. You can tag me. I would love to hear from
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you so you can showcase your friends and families and those in the social streets
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what you're listening to and what's feeding you mind, body and spirit. I
24:19
also want you to check out the show notes. In the show notes,
24:22
we have the affirmation of the Week, the quote of the Week, and
24:26
there you can also find my Amazon shop. The Your Rich Self shop has
24:32
two items right now, a journal which is the show Up Everyday Journal,
24:37
as well as they show Up Everyday notebook. So check those out in my
24:41
Amazon shops. And finally, take what you can from this episode and do
24:47
what you must in the next one hundred and sixty eight hours so that you
24:52
can become more of your enriched self until we meet again.