Latest / Midlife Glow Up: Simplifying Fitness, Nutrition and Healthy Habits for Women over 40 / 37. The Internal Work Behind Lasting Change

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37. The Internal Work Behind Lasting Change · Midlife Glow Up: Simplifying Fitness, Nutrition and Healthy Habits for Women over 40

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I want to take you back in time about 18 years.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I had three babies under the age of four.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I had a four, two, and a new.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: And somewhere in the middle of that beautiful, chaotic, exhausting season, I decided that running a business and mothering three babies just wasn't quite enough for me.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I signed up for my first figure competition.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: I know I'm a little cuckoo.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was physically exhausted.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was pushed to my limits, scared out of my mind to step up on a stage in a bikini after having three babies.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, I was on fire.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: I felt so in control and just passionate about the journey and so committed to becoming the best version of myself that I had ever been.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was waking up at four o'clock in the morning to train before my babies woke up.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: And while I was doing hours of cardio, I started listening to my first self-development book by John Maxwell, Developing the Leader Within You.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember just something cracking open inside of me.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: That season gave me something that I didn't even have language for at the time.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: But what I was doing was building self-trust, one workout at a time.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was building self-discipline with each meal.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was building self-confidence every time I pushed myself out of my comfort zone to do something that previously had seemed utterly impossible.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was literally developing the leader inside myself.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And little did I know that that was just the beginning of a journey that I am still on today.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And my self-growth journey certainly has not been linear.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: There have been seasons of leaning into personal growth and seasons of stepping back, but that thread has never fully gone away since then.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And here is what I've learned.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: When it comes to personal growth, we never really arrive.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what today's episode is all about.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: All the selves.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be clear before we dive in that this is not a vocabulary lesson about the different selves.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: It is more of an overview of the layers of internal work that makes every external goal that you have ever set either fall apart or finally stick.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm super excited to walk through this together today.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the Midlife Glow Up Podcast, where we simplify fitness, nutrition, and healthy habits for women over 40.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Joan Dandano, your midlife health and wellness coach.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are ready to feel strong, consistent, and confident in this season of life, well then you're in the right place, my friend.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Before we walk through today's episode, I want to say something to those of you who, like me, are wired to care for other people, to show up for everybody else in the room before you ever think about showing up for yourself.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: I am an Enneagram to my core.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are not familiar with the Enneagram, it's a personality framework that describes nine personality types, each defined by their core motivation that lies underneath their behavior.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And twos are called the helper.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: We want to give, we want to serve, we want to feel loved and appreciated.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And when we are in our healthiest state, all of that is a genuine gift to others.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: But oftentimes when we are running on empty, when we have been last on our own list for so long that we forget that we even exist on our own list, that same wiring becomes a thing that keeps us stuck.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't know this about myself until I found the Enneagram.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just like such a pivotal moment in my self-growth journey.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I share this because I think a lot of women listening to this podcast are some version of an Enneagram too, whether the Enneagram confirms it or not.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: But we are, as women in midlife, we are the caretakers for our children, for our parents.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: We are the ones who make sure everybody else is okay.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the deep irony there is that the women who are most skilled at taking care of others are often the ones who are the worst at turning that care inwards to themselves.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: So this episode is for us.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to hear me that building a healthy relationship with yourself is not selfish.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually what makes everything else sustainable.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: So we're going to talk about three different layers today as we go through and talk about the different selves.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I should be saying that with a V, selves, but you'll know what I mean here in just a moment.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Every habit that you have tried to build, every goal that you have ever set for yourself, every time you showed up for yourself or you did not show up for yourself, it all traces back to one place.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: What you believe about yourself at your core.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is self-worth.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Self-worth is the quiet belief underneath everything else, the belief that you deserve to feel good, that your health matters, that investing time and energy in yourself is legitimate, even when there are a hundred other things competing for your time and energy.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of women can follow a plan, they can be disciplined, they can do all the right things, and still self-sabotage at the finish line.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And when we dig into why, it's almost always because somewhere deep down, they do not fully believe they deserve that result.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot build a healthy life on a foundation that does not believe that you are worth building it for.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: So your nervous system reads self-judgment, self-criticism the way it reads an external threat.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: So your nervous system is in fight or flight mode.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And when you are in that state, you are not positioned for self-growth.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: The voice you use when you talk to yourself about yourself is either building you up or it's breaking you down.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: There is no neutral.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: So self-compassion sounds like I had a hard week and I didn't eat the way I wanted to.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's information.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: So what do I need to do now?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: What do I do next to take care of myself tomorrow?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that's layer number one, the self-worth as the foundation.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And if your self-worth is in the toilet, let's practice the self-awareness, trying to see yourself clearly.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then self-compassion and self-criticism are both two voices that are fighting for you to hear them.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the goal of this foundation is to get honest about what you believe about yourself, and then start choosing a kinder, clearer way of giving that message to your brain through self-compassion.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, the second layer is about the daily practice.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: So here's where the internal work meets the real world.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because it is one thing to believe that you're worth showing up for, and it's another thing entirely to actually show up day after day in the small, unglamorous, seemingly insignificant moments where no one's watching and no one's gonna congratulate you.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: This layer, the daily practice, is built on two things: self-trust and self-discipline.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: I told you this episode is all about the selves.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk about how self-trust and self-discipline are similar, but also different.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people have this one backwards.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we tend to think that discipline comes first, that in order to do hard things, you have to summon all this willpower and make yourself force yourself to do the hard thing.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually you'll trust yourself as a result of that.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: But in my experience, both personally and with the women that I've coached, it actually works the other way.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Self-trust is what makes discipline possible.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And self-trust is not built through grand gestures, but through these little tiny promises that you keep to yourself over and over again.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: So when you tell yourself you're going to take a walk after dinner and then you do it, you make a small deposit in your little self-trust account.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: But when you skip it without acknowledging why or adjusting the plan, then you make a withdrawal.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And over time, the balance of that account determines whether you believe yourself when you set a goal.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: It determines whether you show up when things are hard.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: It determines whether you keep going when your motivation fades.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why I'm such a strong advocate for starting smaller than you think you need to.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because I want you to build a track record with yourself.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: The woman who walks for 15 minutes every day builds more self-trust than the woman who commits to an hour-long workout and makes it three times before she stops completely.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Start where you can actually keep the promise to yourself and build from there.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Self-discipline follows naturally from that track record that you start with your self-trust.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: When you have kept enough small promises to yourself, showing up for the harder one stops feeling like a battle of willpower.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it starts feeling like an expression of who you are: a woman who does what she says she's going to do, a woman who shows up and doesn't quit.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to take a moment here to talk about self-care because I think the definition of self-care has gotten a little muddied with bubble babs and pedicures and face masks.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: But self-care, real self-care, is just the daily unglamorous act of keeping promises to your body.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Eating in a way that actually fuels your body, moving in a way that help makes you feel strong, sleeping in a way that restores you.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: These are not luxuries.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: These are the foundation of your self-trust account.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And every time you take care of yourself in a small, intentional way, you are telling yourself, I matter enough to do this.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Self-care is not what you do when you finally have time.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's what you do because you have decided you are worth the time.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: So layer two is this daily practice, following through on the promises that you make to yourself day after day, until showing up for your own health stops feeling like something you have to convince yourself to do and start simply being who you are.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: A woman who values herself enough to show up for her health for the long haul.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: The final layer is the becoming, confidence, acceptance, growth.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: These are not goals.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: We can't actually chase these.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: These are outcomes.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: They show up as the result of doing the work in the first two layers.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And when they do show up, they feel completely different than anything you have manufactured through just willpower or through external validation.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Self-confidence is the one I want to start with because I think this is the most misunderstood word in the wellness space.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: We treat it like a personality trait, like it's something you either have or you don't have.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's something that you need to feel before you can start on your journey.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: But confidence is not a feeling that you wait for, it is a result that you build step by step.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And specifically, it is the result of self-trust accumulated over time.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: When you have shown up for yourself enough times, when you have built enough evidence that you are someone who follows through, then confidence is what naturally grows from that evidence.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Confidence is not something that you could feel before you start something that you are not good at.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: It is something that appears because you started and you didn't quit.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: I see this with my clients over and over again.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm specifically imagining a client who could not imagine herself doing a push-up when we first started working together.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: And now years later, she does them without even thinking about it.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: That is a confidence shift.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Her body finally caught up with the identity that she built through consistency.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the beautiful part is that that kind of confidence is yours in a way that no compliment or external approval could ever be.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: No one can ever take away your confidence because nobody ever gave it to you in the first place.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: You earned it fair and square.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Self-acceptance sits right next to self-confidence.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Self-acceptance is simple, even though it's not easy, but it is the decision to stop pretending and stop performing.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: You can stop earning and stop proving yourself.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And you just look at yourself honestly and say, This is me.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not the me I used to be.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not the me that I'm working towards.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just me.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is my body.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I this is the season I'm in.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is the version of myself right now.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that is enough.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's enough to start from.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Self-acceptance is not the same as self-compassion.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Self-compassion is the tone that you use with yourself.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Self-acceptance is the premise that you operate from.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: It is the willingness to be where you are right now, who you are right now.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: And for women in midlife specifically, this is profound because so many of us are quietly grieving a version of our past self.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: The body that we had in our 20s, the energy that we had before our hormones went crazy, the metabolism that used to respond without a lot of effort, that sharp mind that didn't have to fight through brain fog just to finish a thought.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Self-acceptance does not mean you stop wanting to grow and improve.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: It just means that you stop making your growth conditional on first becoming someone different than you already are.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: You are allowed to want more for yourself and at the same time fully accept where you are right now.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Those two things can coexist.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, there is self-growth, which is where everything opens up.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: When your self-worth is intact, when your self-awareness is sharp, when your self-talk is kind, when you build self-trust, when your confidence is rooted in evidence and your self-acceptance is genuine, then growth stops being something that you have to force.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it just becomes the natural direction of your life.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think about my own journey from those 4 a.m.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: gym sessions with John Maxwell in my ear to the COVID era where I embraced the Enneagram and had a bit of an awakening.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Personal development has become less of a season for me and more of a way of living.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: There was a time when self-growth felt like extra, like one more thing in a season where I had very little margin left.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: But now it is something that I crave.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited to keep growing, to keep learning about myself, to keep becoming the best version of me.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that shift from it being extra to it being essential is what I want for every single woman listening to this.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing that I want you to take most from this episode.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: We never fully arrive.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: The woman who has it all figured out doesn't exist.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: But the woman who is doing the inside work, who is tending to her self-worth and her self-awareness, who is choosing self-compassion over self-criticism, and who is keeping small promises to herself every day, that woman is growing, whether she can see it yet or not.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're all on a journey.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: You are not behind and you're not broken, but you are in the middle of becoming.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly where you're supposed to be.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: If what we talked about today is resonating with you and you find yourself thinking, I really want to do more of this work, but I want someone in my corner who gets it, that's exactly what my one-on-one coaching is built for.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we work on fitness.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we work on nutrition, but the bigger piece underneath it, we work on you, your identity, the self-trust, the habits that stick because they are rooted in who you are becoming.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: My one-on-one coaching is customized fitness and nutrition coaching for women over 40 who are ready to stop feeling frustrated and stuck and start feeling in control and confident and consistent in their health for the long haul.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Inside, you get a real plan built specifically around your goals, your stage of life, your schedule, your history.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: We start out with a 60-minute onboarding call where I really get to know you and your goals.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: You get a personalized workout and nutrition plan built for you.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: We hop on Zoom every other week.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: And in between those calls, you get direct access to me Monday through Friday.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: So you're never stuck, never guessing, never waiting.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you get full access to all of my programs while you're inside coaching, including unlimited FitZone workouts and Jones Kitchen Food Prep membership.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you're curious about this, you just want to learn more, head to the link in my show notes to submit an application, or feel free to send me a message on Instagram at Jones FitZone and I'll share all the details with you.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: I only work with a small number of coaching clients at a time.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are ready to embrace all of yourselves, I would love for one of those spots to be yours.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening, my friend.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Remember progress over perfection and consistency over intensity.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, keep growing, keep glowing, and bye for now.