Latest / Many Things with Steph Libby / Breaking the Summer Guilt Cycle

Transcript

Breaking the Summer Guilt Cycle · Many Things with Steph Libby

0:02
Welcome back to Many Things.
0:03
I'm Steph, I'm multi-passionate, and I'm building my dream life one step at a time, and this is the podcast where I talk about all of it.
0:10
Today is July 5th.
0:12
There's six months left in the year.
0:14
There's 179 days left in the year, as many of you probably know, I'm huge on setting resolutions.
0:20
I set resolutions every January.
0:23
Most of the time I do not complete them.
I...
Sometimes I feel like I barely scratch the surface of them.
And this year, for 2026, I really wanted to change that.
I really wanted to have a different experience for myself.
I wanted to feel like I was achieving things that I've put my mind to and haven't been able to achieve yet, and I also wanted to try a different approach.
I did a life audit at the beginning of the year, and usually by this time of year, and when I get to the beginning of summer, I'm usually in, like, a very guilty feeling kind of head space because I'm looking back at, like, what I've accomplished the last six months, and usually I don't feel great about it.
Usually I'm just really hung up on the things that I haven't done or, for rightfully so, have not actually really completed much of anything, and it's just been a lot of business as usual.
But I feel different this year.
Um, there's still a lot on my plate.
There's still a lot on my mind.
1:22
I think I've become so used to this negative mindset cause of my past experience I just assume whenever I get to the summer that I'm gonna have this feeling of not enough, didn't do enough, feeling lazy, feeling guilty, this kind of shame spiral that happens at the beginning of summer, and then I feel this immense pressure to complete an enormous amount of things by the end of summer.
It's been like that my whole life.
I've talked about this before on the podcast.
It's not, it's not something that's, like, unique to my adulthood.
Um, it's definitely something I've felt my entire life.
Even when I was a kid just heading into summer with, like, the summer reading list and knowing that I have to complete whatever reading I'm doing by the end of summer, When I was in high school feeling like I needed to save up money by the end of the summer for whatever I was doing in the fall, The summer's just always been tied to a lot of goals for myself, and what I wanted to do this year, because I feel like I have been making a lot of changes this year, and I feel like there's been a lot of growth.
And so what I wanted to do this year, I was already starting to feel like really overwhelmed.
I was feeling...
I was starting to get in my head a lot this past week.
Um, and part of that might have just been because it was a really busy week at work, but I think part of it was just falling into that same old cycle that I've fallen into a million times before of it's summertime, I'm reevaluating.
Obviously, I know going into it, it's not gonna be good enough, just like that as- that negative assumption.
So I thought what would maybe be better this year is to get ahead of some of those negative feelings.
Once I felt like that wave of negativity kinda coming to the surface, I thought, well, like, why don't I sit down today and really think about what I've accomplished so far in this past six months and what I've learned so far on this journey and, and also, like, still look ahead to what's left in twenty twenty-six and how can I make the best use of that time.
so I felt that that's maybe just what I would do today because I really don't take enough time to stop and think about the good that I'm doing and the lessons that I'm learning it's easy to fall into a negative rut, but it's also easy to kind of fall into like a positive rut and not really take stock of the different things that you've done to help move yourself in the right direction 'cause it can feel like you're making little small changes every single day.
They don't necessarily show up in like really big substantial ways.
A lot of it is just how I think and move and feel throughout my day-to-day life.
There's also something about, you know, next month will have been, um, about a year from when I started this podcast, which has been a big part of this transformation that I'm feeling this year, and I feel like the podcast has provided a lot of opportunities for me to actually be truly consistent for one of the first times in my life, even though I will say I am not good.
Once I switched to a two-week posting schedule for this podcast, the consistency has been spotty.
But from my perspective, and less from a listener's perspective and the audience's perspective, it has felt very consistent for me because this is the most consistent I've ever been with something in my life that That didn't have like a huge external force pushing the consistency for myself.
This is the first time that I've done something of my own, of my own passions and have committed to it, In a cons- in a manner for me that is more consistent than what I'm, what I'm used to doing.
So like I started out this year by doing a life audit.
That was to help me sort of figure out what direction I was moving in, where I really needed to feel the most headway, and where I felt like I could make some progress and have it trickle into other parts of my life and help me feel like I was moving forward in a productive way.
A big part of that was doing something that I hadn't really done in a long time, which was to be primarily concerned and driven by my passions, and be driven by the things that kind of fuel me and give me energy, and make time for them.
Um, part of that is because I would love to one day have financial freedom with those things versus, you know, clocking in and having a nine-to-five.
But some of it was also about finding passion in the work that I do day to day, and also making time for relationships and for myself, and trying to manage my stress and everything at the same time.
But a big focus of my life audit at the beginning of the year was to really add a little bit more purpose to my life by focusing in on my creativity and recreation and fun and things I do for hobbies.
And so for me, that included a lot of trying different things Making time for the things that I love, like gardening, reading, writing.
Learning, I've realized, is a big passion of mine, and so making time for learning.
This podcast has been a big passion of mine, so making time for that, and content creation.
And I think part of what I'm coming to terms with six months in is the idea that I'm allowing myself to dream a little bit more than I have in the past in real, tangible ways.
Something that's shifted for me in the last six months on this journey is You know, I've always had big dreams, but they've always felt slightly out of reach, and I've never been able to create a path forward with them that has felt sustainable and that has felt, Allowed, I guess.
I've held myself back from pursuing a lot of passions because at times I felt like they were frivolous and that they mattered less than what I do day to day to get a paycheck, and being judgmental, honestly, of other people who pursue passions of theirs and are able to make it work, and feeling resentment and judginess and frustration and anger that that person is pursuing something that, and getting what they want from it and finding, you know, success and happiness and financial freedom from some of those things, and then not feeling like, um, I'm doing...
And feeling like I'm not allowed to dream those same things.
In order to reflect on the last six months, I really do have to take a step back and think about where I was this time last year.
My relationship was a dumpster fire.
My life, I was feeling very burnt out on.
I felt like I had lost my spark.
I think I'm still trying to get my spark back, but, um, my finances felt like they were a mess.
I was really anxious.
Um, mentally and physically, I didn't feel very well.
It wasn't like there was anything wrong with me, but it just felt like my body felt very tight, and I felt tightly wound.
My mind felt chaotic.
I really didn't know what the future was gonna look like, I was in such a state that I really couldn't even let myself really think about what that future looked like.
And so I leaned into this podcast, and that's where some of this came from.
And it started off as just sort of a catharsis, um, a place where I could come and vent and feel like I was getting all those thoughts out of my body, and it has slowly morphed into this thing that I really look forward to doing.
And it became less about my relationship and all of that, and I realized that it was more about myself and my own self-discovery and Moving through a devastating and hard period in my life towards something that would be more positive and something That felt a little bit more authentic I have really spent a lot of time in the last year thinking about what my dream life really looks like.
And I've noticed that one of the reassuring things, I guess, that I've noticed is that what I think of as big dreams are really not crazy dreams.
They're not wild dreams.
They're not even dreams that cost a lot of money.
They're actually very reasonable dreams, and I think in some ways that's what makes them even scarier and even more frustrating, is that the things that would make me happy are, are so close within reach, To get the life that I want really would only take some small adjustments to get there, and but they are critical adjustments that have to be made.
Part of, part of what I've been doing these last, um, the last year and especially in the last six months, is trying to really continue to make small adjustments in my life.
And it's painstaking for sure because we develop habits over a long period of time and That starts to feel like the norm, and even a small adjustment can feel like a huge change for someone who's not used to making a lot of consistent changes in their life.
But I'm shocked when I look back at where I was a year ago, six months ago, and where I'm at now, because career-wise, I was chasing something that was so completely different from what I'm chasing now in some ways.
But then in other ways, it has felt...
it hasn't felt like a dramatic shift, you know? Um, a year ago, I was pursuing my PMP certification, and then around October, November of last year, I decided that that wasn't a good move for me.
And then I felt really aimless and driftless, and I felt confused, and I felt a bit like, "Well, what is-- what am I working towards?" I didn't feel like I had much of a purpose.
And I've slowly kind of realized what it is that I wanna work for in my professional life, but then I've also realized that there are things that I want to create and advance in my creative personal life, and that eventually I would like my creative personal projects to flourish and become something, and become my professional life, and become my day-to-day life, and not live in a world where these two sides of myself are completely separated, where I clock in and do a job for a big chunk of the day, and then I clock out, and then I have to go transition into this other part of myself.
I would like to get to a point where one day, you know, I'm doing this podcast full-time, and maybe I'm doing content creation, and I'm writing full-time, and my multi-passionate-ness is where I'm earning my income, and all of that is my day-to-day living instead of feeling like I'm living two separate parts of my life every single day.
I think that's where a lot of my anxiety comes from.
But I also know that if I continue to work consistently at those goals, that eventually, and maybe not even, I say eventually like it's this 10 years down the road plan, but it, it honestly doesn't have to be that long if I really commit to it, and I really, if it's something that actually feels very natural to me, and it feels like I'm building on itself, it actually really wouldn't be that, I don't think it would actually be that difficult and that long.
Um, but I'm so used to thinking that everything is 10 years down the road rather than thinking to myself like, "This is something I could do now."
There's something in my brain, and maybe this is like when I'm creating new resolutions and stuff like that, it feels like you're looking so far down the road as opposed to like, like here's the person I'll be a year from now rather than going like, okay, but to get to there, these are the things I have to do every single day.
These are the things I have to do every week.
These are the things I have to do every month to make sure that like I'm in that spot a year from now.
And I see so many people accomplishing so many great things, big things, small things, and what comes down to it is just consistency.
And that's not...
That is definitely not like a new concept, and it's not e- even a new concept for this podcast, but it has...
The more and more I talk about it, the more I realize how much of it is a recurring theme, and how critical it is to long-term success and to achieve the things that you're wanting to achieve for yourself.
Part of what has also been happening over the last year or six months is I've really been starting to think and visualize and put into words the life that I actually want.
For a long time, I've been sort of coasting on the feeling of the life that I want, how I wanna feel day to day, how I want to...
You know, I talk about things like, well, I want financial freedom, and I want independence, and I want autonomy, and, you know, I wanna feel happy.
And it's like, but what...
Okay, but what makes me happy? What are the...
What actions make me happy? What things would I be able to do that would make me feel happier than other things? Having to really sit with myself and define some of those emotions and the actions and visualize what I would need to be doing day to day to feel that way, like what cultivates happiness in my life? What things do I do bring happiness? And so it's been a lot of trial and error the last six months, which was something that I hadn't expected at the beginning of the year.
But it's been a lot of like, what's my best version of a Sunday? What's my best version of a weekend? What's, what things do I like about my job that I could lean harder into in the meantime? What are some skills that I need to reach further in the future and achieve what I want to? It's been really hard to define what makes me feel happy and how I define financial freedom.
I'm sure there are millions of people out there whose idea of financial freedom is very different from mine.
I've read a lot of, like, manifestation books, and I think the thing that I always get hung up on is there have been people who write about manifestation, and they always say, like, "Dream bigger, dream bigger, dream bigger, dream bigger."
And it's like, I don't want a big, huge life.
I don't necessarily want a gajillion dollars.
I just want a small, cozy, quiet life.
I'm...
The financial freedom that I'm looking for, and, and maybe this would change over time b- as I...
Maybe I- as I earn more money, I'm gonna...
my idea of financial freedom changes.
Maybe.
But for now, my idea of financial freedom is, like, it would be nice to go to the store and not have to think about what I'm spending.
It would be nice to, not in a crazy way, but, like, if you've ever been someone who's held their breath while paying for groceries, hoping that your debit card goes through, uh, not having that would be a great start.
Not holding my breath every time I hear a weird noise in my car because how the hell am I gonna afford this $1,200, mechanic bill? Not getting worried every time one of my pets gets sick, or I need a new dress for some event that I'm going to or a party or an occasion, and then being stressed because, like, that $100 dress that I wanna buy is gonna completely blow up my budget for the next two months.
Like, things like that.
Like, that's the financial freedom I'm talking about.
A couple weeks ago, I talked about someone at my work who Found a new better house on a whim and was able to put in an offer, move, you know, sign the paperwork while als- and then, and then worry about selling her house.
So things like that, like I would love to be able to make those kind of moves.
Financial freedom to me means having enough money that like when the right opportunity for my forever home pops up, I can jump on it without having to feel like I'm beholden to this house that I currently live in.
Things like that.
Um, that's my idea of financial freedom.
Not feeling like I'm a slave to my credit cards.
Not feeling like I have to be so anxious about my day-to-day job because I don't have enough of an emergency fund if anything were to happen.
Tho- those are my ideas of financial freedom right now.
Feeling like I have a chance at retiring some point in my life as opposed to feeling like I'm gonna be working till the day I die.
Those are like my ideas of financial freedom.
And ultimately that is the thing that hangs heavy the most in the back of my mind, and like with most people, you know? When I think about, okay, well how are you going to get there? How are you gonna get this financial freedom? Ideally I would love for it to come from...
I would love to be able to pursue my passions as part of that.
I would love to make money off of the things I love doing.
I would love to be able to help people in the process.
And part of why I s- I transitioned this podcast out of like the doom and gloom of, of a relationship and dealing with a, a partner's drinking and all these really dark, dark subject matters is I wanted to pull myself into something more positive, I guess, into a p- more positive head space.
And part of it was also that I wanted to focus more on myself, and feeling stuck, and wanting to help other people who may also feel as stuck as I do.
And knowing that you want something better for yourself, but not knowing quite how to get it, and having to take all these baby steps to get there, to have clarity.
And maybe you're someone who knows what they want but has a harder time acting on it.
Like, that's sort of, that's my sweet spot.
And this podcast was a way to kind of hold me accountable to, to doing all of that in the same way that, like Writing in the past has also been a way to help hold me accountable for some of that.
Something that I've wanted to do with this podcast, that I've tried doing with this podcast, and I think I'm still, like, finding my way with this, is wanting to help share like my experiences of sort of the messiness of life that I find myself in right now being this millennial late 30s woman who for the first time is really coming to terms with the things that really make her happy and really trying to take a gamble on herself and really trying to pull herself out of, out of this messy m- middle that she's found herself in, that, you know, I'm well-educated, but I'm not necessarily using my degrees, and I don't necessarily feel particularly confident.
And knowing that I have expertise somewhere inside my mind and not feeling confident to bring it up, not feeling confident like it could provide the means to a different career path or allow some sort of pivot, And, you know, and feeling like I'm someone who I've accomplished some things in my life, but I've spent too long chasing what feels like all the wrong things.
And wrong might be a, a strong word because, you know, the, chasing the wrong things can provide clarity and provide information for yourself to make better decisions in the future, and everything is a lesson learned, right? But, but it does feel like sometimes I've fallen down a rabbit hole that I can't quite get myself out of.
When I've been thinking a lot about, okay, well, what is this, what's this life that I'm looking for? What does that really look like? And again, it comes down to, like, these vague ideas that I'm trying really, really hard to define.
So I want these, like, slow, intentional days.
I want slower living.
I'm multi-passionate, and I want to have days where I feel like I can breathe and take time for those different projects and not beat myself up over it, but also at the same time feel like it's adding something to the greater whole.
I wanna start acting like the person I want to become, and I think the last six months have been a lot of figuring out who I, who...
a lot of the last six months has been me sort of thinking about who that person is that I wanna become.
What drives them, what motivates them, are kind of questions that I'm figuring out now.
The last six months have been a lot of having this very kind of blurry, hazy image of the life that I want, or having these disparate visuals and These separate identities and trying to find, like, the connective tissue between all of it, and I feel like I'm kind of there now.
I'm sort of seeing how all these different facets add to the whole and kind of help shape and round me out to be, the person that I am today and the person, you know, and lays the foundation of the person that I wanna be tomorrow and in the future.
So I've, I've kind of figured out that haziness now.
I have a better sense of who I wanna be.
I have this visual of this person I wanna be and, and this is where the hard work kind of comes in now because now I'm at this point it's like, okay, well, I have this idea of who I wanna become.
I have a better idea of the life that I want, and it's feels very reachable.
It feels very doable.
It feels very within reach.
So now how do I start acting and living like a person who wants those things? Or how do I...
Not even how do I start acting like the person who wants those things.
How do I act like a person who has those things? How-- what does that person look like? What does that version of myself look like, and how do I stop thinking of it as a version of myself and just start thinking of it as I am that person so I'm gonna do this today? Instead of living in this world of aspiration and future looking, how do I just start looking moment to moment? How do I start enacting these things day to day in the small little decisions we make every single day? And I think, I know I've talked a lot about Atomic Habits.
I talk about it every week, but it's very much at the forefront of my mind of that idea of how can you make these little one percent improvements every single day so that you feel like you're making progress towards something, and you feel like that vision of yourself is actually starting to feel very real and noticeable and livable and tangible and realistic.
And it becomes more about you're actually living the principles of this person slowly day by day, inch by inch, decision by decision, rather than it feeling like I'm this person way over here far at the other end, and I'm looking out at the horizon very, very far down the line into the future of this other version of myself.
And how do I just say, "Fuck it," and, like, bring the two versions right together? And start thinking of them as me, as just like this one person rather than it being these two separate ends of who I am.
So that's where I am at the six-month mark.
And as to someone on the outside it, it probably feels like, okay, well, you're saying that this feels very different from how you've approached things any other July, reflecting back at your New Year's resolutions, reflecting back at what you wanted to accomplish for that year.
And I'm...
So I'm sure to like...
And people are probably thinking like, "But this all sounds like the same thing that you were just describing you do every year.
How is this actually any different?" And I think it's so nuanced, but I...
And so it's a little hard to explain the difference, but I think a lot of it is the attitude, honestly.
By this time last year, I probably would've been super depressed, I would've felt like everything was hopeless, I would've felt like the last six months have been a total waste.
And this year I'm still...
It's July, but I'm still hopeful, I'm still thankful.
I am appreciative of all the little sacrifices and little changes I've made over the last year, and especially in the last six months A lot of the things that I talk about when I do, when I did my, um...
A lot of the things that were top of mind when I did my life audit at the beginning of the year and when I set goals for myself, and back in March when I kind of looked like, "Okay," like, "this is what I've achieved so far, this is what I wanna achieve in this next quarter," I've really...
Have I accomplished every single one of those things? No.
Have I accomplished them at the pace that I wanted to? No.
But just the fact that I am still working on them and haven't thrown everything to the back burner and put my hands up in the air and said, "I can't," the fact that I'm still trying without making myself feel bad is the big difference.
And it only makes me wanna work harder for the next six months.
It only makes me want to do more and work through the bumps instead of feeling like the bumps in the road are making me give up, and make me push through obstacles rather than, you know, succumb to them.
All of that are All that combined are just really, really big differences to me.
And I totally understand that they may- maybe don't feel that great or that mighty or that impactful to someone that's listening, but I can feel it, like, within myself.
And I feel like every day I get a little bit more clarity.
It doesn't mean I don't have moments where I'm feeling overwhelmed.
I feel really, really overwhelmed this week, but the idea that I'm still positive while wrestling with feeling overwhelmed is a different feeling for me.
The fact that I feel Empowered is very different for me.
The fact that I feel like I'm inch...
I really do feel like I'm inching towards a crossroad, and I feel like I'm really starting to be gentler with myself, which is helping me be o- more open to some of the changes I need to make and some of the things that I know I'm gonna need to invest my time in more.
Like, so like a good example would be, I've spent a year really trying to find my voice in this podcast, and I'm at a point now where I would really like to I'd really like to be more intentional with my time with this podcast, and more intentional with promoting it, and more intentional with I really want more listeners, and I want it to feel like something that is real, something that's real and doable and something that feels successful beyond just having a handful of listeners.
And I really want it to be something, even if it's not necessarily to make money off it, but just so that I feel like I can do it.
I wanna show that I can make something of my own and have it be a success.
And I know a big part of that will be promoting it, which I've notoriously been bad at in the past, and it's gonna force me to, like, learn new skills and get comfortable with social media, which is not the easiest thing for me, and it's gonna require me putting myself out there more, which is always uncomfortable.
And it's gonna take valuing myself and valuing that I have a voice that's worth listening to.
So all these different things, but...
And I'm getting to a point where I'm feeling a little bit more okay with that, and I know some of it's gonna be a little cringey, and that's okay.
And I know it's gonna require me to learn new skills and be horrible at them at first, and that's okay, and get comfortable with being a beginner because that's also okay, and know that it's not gonna be an overnight success and it's gonna require patience and some trial and error, and that being okay.
Those are just different approaches to things.
Um, that's just a different approach and different mindset than what I've had in the past when it- especially when it's come to creative endeavors.
And I'm becoming a little bit more realistic as I get older, and I'm becoming more open to the idea that it's better to do tiny little actions that add up over time than feeling like I need to make big, huge, grand gestures and, um, have big, huge, lofty commitments that I know are probably not realistic.
I've just accepted who I am a bit more and have accepted how my brain works and has acce- Like, I'm, I'm really listening to myself and listening to my body, and I'm understanding some of my limits.
And instead of trying to work against those limits, just trying to find Like, I know I get overwhelmed easily.
I know I get stressed out easily.
I judge myself incessantly.
So instead of jumping headfirst into the deep end with everything and then cringing and, and lurching backwards and then taking a step back and then maybe not doing that thing ever again Instead of pushing myself so far past my comfort zone, working with myself a little bit more.
I still have to, like, eventually get out of my comfort zone, I know that, but it's so much easier when you're just trying to, like, nudge yourself out a little bit rather than, like, push yourself off of the diving board into, and plunging into uncomfortability and knowing...
'Cause I know myself, right? Like, at this point, it's like, I know how I'm gonna react to that.
It's madness to keep forcing myself to do things the same way that I've done it a million times before, and Part of what I'm realizing that's really helpful for me is how to make the best use of my time, not in, like, an overbearing way, not in a doing this to make myself feel better kind of way, but Doing it in a realistic way.
I only have so many hours in my day.
I can't create these long, long to-do lists knowing that, like, I'm not going to be able to accomplish all of those things because then I'm not gonna accomplish anything.
I'm gonna feel really overwhelmed by this huge list.
I know that about myself.
So instead of forcing myself to be a different person, why don't I lean into knowing what I know about myself and find a way to use that to my advantage? Why don't I cut myself some slack and give myself a little bit of grace and accept where I am right now and what, how much I can take on, and just go like, "Well, that's better than nothing."
You know? Like giving myself, like, a little bit of generosity and instead of berating myself for not being able to be in a position where I can take on more emotionally or more to-dos or things like that.
Just going like, you know, I can accomplish maybe two or three things in my evening, small bite-sized tasks, and that's all I can really ask of myself, and that is better than saying, I'm gonna go balls to the wall for six hours straight right after I get off of work, and if I don't accomplish this big major milestone by the end of the week, then I'm You know, it was all for naught.
Like- Just being realistic with myself I think has been one of the greatest improvements I've made, and it has helped me out substantially.
Um, and I think that that also plays into the whole idea of leaning into being multi-passionate and accepting that is just part of who I am and accepting that I'm always gonna be drawn in a lot of different directions.
And part of my journey in this life is going to be to figure out how to balance all of that, how to not how to be okay with sometimes I'm gonna dedicate a little bit more time towards one area of my life, and this other thing is maybe gonna see a little bit less focus while I'm focusing on that other area.
Learning that about myself has helped force me to be a little bit more realistic and understanding in other parts of my life and in different ways with myself.
And so all of that has been a huge revelation this year.
And, um, you know, so I'm six months in now.
I have half a year ahead of me.
There's still so much summer ahead of me.
There's still so much that I wanna accomplish ahead of me, and I'm excited for maybe the first time in my life to be looking ahead at something, and instead of berating myself and feeling like I'm a failure and telling myself the same old story that I've told myself a million times about how I'm not good enough, I'm never gonna get it, I'm a dumb-dumb, I'm stupid, I'm can't commit to anything, I'm letting myself down.
Instead of all these horrible, horrible negative thoughts that have been consuming me, I'm finally finding a way forward where, you know, I'm still keeping my eyes on the future.
I'm still looking ahead a little bit, but I'm also giving myself the credit for the work that I am doing now, even if it's not perfect, even if it's not exactly where I wanted to be six months ago.
I'm definitely better off now than I was six months ago, and being okay with that and knowing myself better because of it.
And all of that's just really, really exciting for me, and it's making me feel like things are so much more possible than what I've given myself credit for in the past.
And I'm feeling excited, and I feel like I'm really seriously committed to building...
You know, when I open the show with this, you know, intro of, you know, I'm multi-passionate and building my dream life, and this is the podcast where I talk about all of it- And some days I feel like I'm not really...
Some day- there have been days where I've definitely felt like, am I building my dream life? Do I really know what I want? But I think what's so great about this podcast is, like, it's provided such an outlet.
To really think aloud at what building my dream life looks like, and talking aloud, and I'm hoping that there are other people who are in those stages of figuring out what that life looks like.
'Cause, you know, building a dream life starts with figuring out what you want that dream life to look like, and what it's gonna take to get there.
And as I've talked about several times on this podcast, I'm great at planning a future.
I'm great at thinking, and ruminating, and living in this dream world.
But actually putting my energy and time into the plan and executing on that vision has always been really difficult for me.
And I feel like this year I've really turned a corner with all of that.
And I don't know, I guess I just thought it was really important To take a moment to pause and think about that and reflect on how big of a change that is for myself.
And if you're listening to this podcast, I'm assuming that you are someone who probably has also felt like that in their past.
And so much of this podcast still remains very aspirational, and so I didn't want it to feel like it's always do better, do better, do better.
Let's berate ourselves.
Let's talk about all the things we did wrong.
I really wanted to make sure that I'm taking time to think about, well, what Instead of thinking about what I could be doing better, why don't I think about what I have done better already and use that to motivate myself and give myself a little bit of credit? Because all this work is really hard, and I think it's hard to notice it day in and day out.
It mostly is visible in moments where I'm making bigger decisions for myself.
so I don't know, I just felt like it was important to take a minute and think about that with you all and just reflect on some of that Positivity.
'Cause I think we do live in a world where we're always onto the next bigger, bolder, move faster, move smarter, make better decisions, do more, optimize, that we don't take a minute to think, gosh, you know, like this actually has been a transformative six months.
And six months in the grand scheme of things is not a lot of time.
And I'm sure that there are people out there who have accomplished way, way more than I have in six months.
I know there have been.
But that's okay.
Like, we're all on our different journeys, and for me, keeping my eyes on my own paper in some ways has been really helpful in just trying to move myself forward as best I can in a way that I respond to, in a way that my body and mind respond to, has been so important.
I think knowing yourself is a really underrated skill that, um, I think as a society we've sort of moved away from.
I don't know.
It, it has just been nice to feel like I'm...
I feel like I'm connected to myself and my mind in ways that I haven't really been connected to it in the past.
so I'm really excited about all of that, and I'm excited to see what the next six months brings me.
I'm excited to see how this podcast grows in the next six months.
I'm excited to see what I learn and how I shift.
And I'm, I really feel like it'll be interesting in December to look back at where I was today and to see what has really changed and how have I really grown and what have I really learned.
because even if I don't have things to show for it in terms of accomplishments or accolades or, you know, don't have that financial freedom or anything yet, but none of that is gonna be possible without having a better sense of who I am, and sometimes I think just loving yourself and being okay with yourself, is the biggest challenge of all.
I don't, I don't know that you can have long-term success without appreciating who you are and why you want those things, and taking the time to appreciate the effort and the sacrifice and the changes that you've had to make along the way to get there.
I know that over the next six months, I'm probably gonna a- be asking myself to do more, to work a little harder, to work a little faster.
I know that that's probably gonna happen.
I know that there are some things that I feel ready to really make some moves on, and there's gonna be a lot of hard work, personally, professionally, financially, creatively in the next six months.
You know, and I, I do feel overwhelmed, but not in a defeating way, but in a optimistic, I-can't-wait-to-see-what-I-can-achieve kind of way.
so anyway, I do have a recommendation corner before we leave.
Um, you know, it's 4th of July weekend, so there have been a couple of things that I've been watching and reading that I think would be so interesting, uh, to recommend to you all.
There's this docu- great docuseries on Netflix called The American Experiment, and it's about five episodes.
It's been really eye-opening.
I'm not a history buff by any means, but I've always been interested in history, but I feel like I've never quite grasped it.
It's always felt so timeline, date driven that it was hard for me to really wrap my head around why these different events mattered, why these different battles mattered, why What was the d- like, how did all these different historical documents kind of build on each other to get where, you know, to get to the Revolution, and then how they drove the revolution forward.
As I've gotten older and I've watched more history and read more history, it's just come alive a lot more, and I thought that this docuseries did a really great job So it's definitely not dumbed down.
It feels very much like if you've ever watched, like, a PBS style documentary, it definitely feels in that kind of vein.
But it is especially eye-opening on, 4th of July weekend to be spending a lot of time with this documentary.
There was also, um, couple months ago, the Ken Burns documentary about the American Revolution came out on PBS, and that was also very interesting.
And so between those two docuseries, I just have been learning a lot about American history, the good, the bad, the ugly, so it's just...
it's made me a little bit more appreciative of things.
Some of the stories are so inspiring.
Some of them are confusing because it's like the hypocrisy is still very rampant.
and I think it has also given me a lot of hope Knowing some of the obstacles that people have had to overcome and the fight for freedoms and the fight for democracy and the values that America was truly founded on, given all the chaos and nonsense and hypocrisy and lying and deceitfulness and corruption that we're dealing with currently, it is very-- it was something I did not expect to feel watching these documentaries is that it just has reinvigorated a sense of like true American patriotism and spirit and what the values that America was really founded on and what it took for America to be America.
And you really do forget that like American democracy was truly an experiment and that it really had not been done before and that it was a gamble and that it was a fresh new take on government and it was a fresh new take on living.
And there were still tons of people being oppressed, millions of people being oppressed and disenfranchised in the midst of granting freedom to others.
And so there's that hypocrisy.
And, but I think the biggest takeaway for me is you're reminded how much America has evolved in the last two hundred and fifty years and how much opinions have changed over two hundred and fifty years.
And in some ways how some opinions have persisted and not really evolved.
Um, but I don't know, there was something uplifting about it and something that made me feel more positive and made me feel like it's possible for America to heal itself and to get back on a better path together.
It just felt like our country has been through a lot of changes, and it's possible that we're just living through another cycle of change and that we will course correct.
So, so anyway, for the Fourth of July weekend, that was, um...
I can't recommend those two documentaries enough.
Um, but that is it for this episode.
Thank you guys for hanging out for so long with me and listening to me chat.
I- as always, you can find me on Instagram and TikTok, manythings_steph.
Would love to connect and know how your six months have been going and what things you're working on, and what have you learned and what are you looking forward to, so find me on social, and I will see you back here for the next episode.
Thanks.
Bye.