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You're Worth Fighting For · This Daring Adventure

0:03
Welcome to this Daring Adventure podcast, where we work on bridging the gap between where we are and where we want to be in order to live a bigger and bolder life.
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In this podcast, we will provide inspiration, tips, and skills you need to make your life the adventure you want it to be.
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Here's your host, mindset mentor and life coach, Trista Guertin
0:34
Trista: Hey, everybody.
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Trista: Welcome back to This Daring Adventure.
0:37
Trista: Thank you so much for joining me today.
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Trista: So today, I wanted to talk about deciding you're worth fighting for.
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Trista: Have you ever looked at your life and thought, "I don't even recognize myself anymore.
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Trista: I don't know who I am"?
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Trista: Not because you've become someone you don't like, but because so much has happened, so much has changed that you don't feel like the person you used to be.
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Trista: You don't recognize your life anymore.
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Trista: Maybe you've gone through a divorce that you never imagined would happen.
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Trista: Maybe you lost a career you spent years building, maybe a relationship, a loss, or a series of difficult experiences that left you questioning things you used to feel pretty certain about.
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Trista: And now you're standing in the middle of a life you don't quite recognize, wondering what happened to the woman you used to be, the woman who was confident, who made decisions, who knew what she wanted, who didn't spend
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Trista: so much time questioning herself.
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Trista: You miss her.
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Trista: You miss feeling capable.
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Trista: You miss your confidence.
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Trista: You miss trusting your judgment, and you miss waking up with a sense of purpose and direction and feeling excited about what you're doing with your life.
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Trista: And perhaps the hardest part is that you don't know how to get back to that place.
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Trista: You've tried telling yourself to move on.
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Trista: You've tried being positive.
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Trista: You've tried figuring out what you want, but you still feel stuck, and you're getting frustrated because you don't wanna spend another year feeling this way, which makes sense.
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Trista: It's a terrible way to feel.
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Trista: You want your confidence back.
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Trista: You want to trust yourself again.
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Trista: You want to feel strong and capable.
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Trista: You wanna feel like yourself again.
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Trista: And I think that's a very important place to begin.
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Trista: Because when you've been through something that changes your life, it's easy to believe that the goal is to get back to the person you were before it happened.
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Trista: But what if that's not actually the goal?
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Trista: What if you don't have to go backwards?
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Trista: And I, I really don't encourage you to go backwards.
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Trista: What if you can take everything you've been through, everything you've learned, everything you've experienced, and use it to build a relationship with yourself that's stronger than the one you had before?
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Trista: What if you can become the person who trusts herself to make decisions, set boundaries, handle difficult emotions, have the confidence to pursue what you want, and be genuinely excited about the future?
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Trista: Not because what happened didn't matter, but because it doesn't have to determine your future and who you become.
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Trista: And that's what I wanna talk to- about today because you have already done the hard work of getting through what happened.
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Trista: Now, it's the time to start rebuilding your life around who you want to be There's a line in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre which I love.
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Trista: It's only four words.
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Trista: It's, "I care for myself."
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Trista: Now, when you hear that, you might think, "Well, of course I care for myself.
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Trista: I eat well, I exercise, I try to get enough sleep.
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Trista: I do the things I'm supposed to do."
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Trista: But that's not really what I'm talking about here.
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Trista: In the novel, Jane is facing some incredibly difficult decision.
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Trista: She loves someone, but staying would mean compromising something fundamental to who she is.
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Trista: She knows that choosing herself is going to be painful, and that she can't be certain what happens next, and she chooses herself anyway because she understands that she matters And I think there's something very powerful about that, particularly
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Trista: when you've been through a difficult period in your life.
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Trista: Because one of the things that can happen when life knocks you sideways is that you stop trusting yourself, and you start questioning your judgment Maybe you look back at the decisions you made and wonder how you could have
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Trista: been so wrong.
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Trista: Maybe you feel embarrassed about the things you didn't see coming, or disappointed in yourself for staying in a situation longer than you wanted.
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Trista: And listen, we've all been there.
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Trista: And those thoughts begin to affect how you see yourself.
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Trista: You start wondering really if you're capable of making good decisions.
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Trista: You become hesitant.
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Trista: You second-guess yourself.
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Trista: You ask other people what they think because you're not sure you trust your own judgment.
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Trista: And even when you do make a decision, you might spend days wondering whether it was the right one and worried about regretting it.
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Trista: But listen, losing confidence in yourself after a difficult experience doesn't mean you've lost your ability to make good decisions.
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Trista: It means your confidence has been shaken, and those are two very different things.
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Trista: You haven't suddenly become incapable.
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Trista: You haven't lost all the experience, intelligence, and wisdom you've developed over the years.
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Trista: But you may have started telling yourself a very different story about who you are, and that story matters because if you keep telling yourself that you can't trust your judgment, you're going to approach every decision as though you're
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Trista: going to get it wrong, and that makes moving forward incredibly difficult.
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Trista: So what would it mean to begin caring for yourself again?
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Trista: To stop using what happened as evidence against yourself.
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Trista: To recognize that you made decisions with the information, understanding, and resources you had at the time, and to decide that you were going to learn from those experiences rather than spend the rest of your life punishing yourself for
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Trista: them.
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Trista: Because you can take responsibility for your choices without turning them into a verdict on your worth, and that's where rebuilding self-trust and confidence begins.
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Trista: Listen, you are not starting from zero.
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Trista: One of the things I find fascinating about women who have been through difficult experiences is how quickly they can forget how capable they are, what they're capable of, and I see this in my coaching all of the time.
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Trista: A woman will tell me everything she's been through.
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Trista: She'll describe navigating a divorce, raising children, changing countries, managing a demanding career, relocating, dealing with famil- family difficulties, caregiving, or rebuilding her life after something unexpected.
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Trista: And then almost in the same breath, she'll tell me she doesn't think she's capable of making a particular change.
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Trista: And I'll ask her why.
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Trista: And she'll tell me she's afraid she'll make the wrong decision, or that she doesn't have enough confidence, or that she doesn't think she can handle another disappointment.
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Trista: And listen, I understand those fears, but I also want her to look at the evidence, because here's a woman who's already navigated enormous challenges, figured things out when she didn't have all the answers, and kept going through situations
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Trista: she never imagined she'd have to face.
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Trista: And now she's questioning whether she can handle applying for a job, or setting a boundary, or making a decision about what she wants next.
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Trista: And I want you to think about that.
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Trista: Look at what you've already handled.
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Trista: That is the evidence.
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Trista: You're not starting from zero.
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Trista: You have years of experience, knowledge, skills, and wisdom.
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Trista: You have navigated situations you didn't know how to navigate.
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Trista: You learned things you didn't know before, and you've probably demonstrated more courage than you're giving yourself credit for.
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Trista: Now, I'm not suggesting that because you've handled difficult things in the past, everything in the future will be easy.
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Trista: Of course it won't.
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Trista: Life is hard.
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Trista: It's hard.
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Trista: But I want you to stop overlooking your own capability, because when your confidence has been shaken, your brain can become very selective about what it pays attention to.
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Trista: You remember the decisions you regret.
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Trista: You remember the things that didn't work out, and the moments when you felt foolish, rejected, or disappointed.
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Trista: And it, it won't remind you of the hundreds of decisions you've made that worked perfectly well, or the problems that you've solved, or the times you figured things out.
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Trista: And instead, you start building an identity around a very small selection of experiences So here's something I'd like you to do.
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Trista: Think about three difficult situations you've handled in your life.
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Trista: And you've got them.
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Trista: They're there.
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Trista: They don't have to be dramatic.
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Trista: They just have to be situations that required something of you.
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Trista: It might be a new skill, a difficult decision, or to navigate a situation that you hadn't faced before.
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Trista: And what did you do?
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Trista: How did you figure it out?
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Trista: What strengths did you use?
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Trista: What did you learn about yourself?
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Trista: Because that capable woman still exists.
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Trista: She's still there, not because I'm telling you, but because you can see the evidence for yourself.
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Trista: And once you begin to recognize that evidence, then you can begin to build on it.
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Trista: What you focus on, you'll create more of So we wanna stop making your past mean something about you.
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Trista: This is a hard lesson for us to learn because we're not taught this in school.
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Trista: But it's really important because when something difficult happens, our brain naturally tries to make sense of it, and we try to understand why it happened, what we could have done differently, and what it means for our future, what
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Trista: it means about who we are.
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Trista: And some reflection can be useful, but sometimes we move from reflecting on what happened to making judgments about ourselves, and those judgments are incredibly limiting.
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Trista: They're not helpful.
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Trista: Maybe you were in a relationship that ended badly, and now you're telling yourself, "I can't trust my judgment when it comes to relationships."
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Trista: Or maybe you lost a job, and now you think, "I'm not as capable as I thought I was."
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Trista: Maybe you made a decision that didn't work out, and you're thinking, "I'm terrible at making decisions."
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Trista: But do you see what happens there?
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Trista: You're taking an experience and turning it into an identity.
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Trista: Instead, something happened, and you've decided it tells you who you are and what you're capable of.
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Trista: And I really want you to question that because a relationship ending doesn't mean you can't trust yourself.
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Trista: Losing a job doesn't mean you're not capable.
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Trista: And making a decision that doesn't work out doesn't mean you're bad at making decisions.
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Trista: It means something happened, and we can learn something from it.
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Trista: But it's-- doesn't have to be evidence that there's something wrong with you, and it doesn't have to be evidence that means something about what's possible in the future or about who you are.
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Trista: And I think this is one of the most important shifts we can make when you're rebuilding your confidence.
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Trista: You begin separating what happened from what you're making it mean about yourself.
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Trista: And when you do that, you create some space.
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Trista: You are able to look at things a little bit more objectively, and you can learn and consider different possibilities.
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Trista: And most importantly, you can begin to see yourself differently because you can't build a confident future while continually using your past as evidence that you're incapable.
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Trista: And at some point, you have to be willing to question those beliefs.
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Trista: I'm not talking about replacing them with a bunch of positive affirmations you don't believe.
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Trista: I'm talking about finding thoughts that are both believable and useful.
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Trista: Maybe you're not ready to believe, "I completely trust myself."
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Trista: And that's okay.
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Trista: But what about, "I'm learning to trust myself again," or, "I can make decisions and adjust if I need to," or, "I've handled difficult things before, and I can learn how to handle this, too"?
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Trista: These are small thoughts, but they will change how you approach your life, and they give you somewhere to begin Now, here's why I want to get practical.
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Trista: Because confidence comes from what you do next Understanding why you've lost confidence is useful, but understanding alone isn't going to rebuild it.
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Trista: And at some point, you're gonna have to start doing things differently, and that's uncomfortable.
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Trista: There's a lot of discomfort involved, especially when you're already doubting yourself.
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Trista: But this is something I teach my clients all the time.
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Trista: Confidence is built in the doing.
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Trista: You don't have to feel fully confident before you take action.
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Trista: You build confidence by taking action step by step, small micro actions, and then you learn from the experience and discover that you can handle what happens.
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Trista: Think about when you were learning how to drive.
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Trista: You didn't sit around waiting all day until you felt completely confident behind the wheel.
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Trista: I mean, most of us when we turned 16, we were like, "In the car, let's go.
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Trista: I wanna do this."
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Trista: Remember how determined you were?
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Trista: I couldn't wait.
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Trista: Like, when I started, even I think probably before I was 16, like in the car, "Teach me how to drive.
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Trista: Let me go."
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Trista: S- That afternoon, I got my license, I was like in the car by myself going to pick up my boyfriend to go for a drive.
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Trista: There was no stopping me.
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Trista: I didn't know what I was doing.
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Trista: I wasn't confident, but I had to get in the car and drive to learn.
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Trista: So confidence can be built in the doing, and you don't have to feel confident before you take action.
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Trista: Take the action.
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Trista: Keep going.
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Trista: Learn from the experience Eventually, something that once felt intimidating will become something that you can do without thinking too much about it, just like walking, running, riding a bike, and driving a car The same principle applies to making
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Trista: decisions, setting boundaries, and pursuing things you want, creating a life for yourself that you truly desire You practice.
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Trista: Start small and build from there.
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Trista: And maybe right now you're struggling to make decisions without asking everyone else what they think.
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Trista: So start with practicing smaller decisions, micro decisions.
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Trista: It's okay Choose something because you want it, not because you're trying to make everyone else happy.
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Trista: Make a decision and resist the urge to spend the next three days questioning it, and then notice what happens.
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Trista: You'll realize you can make a decision and live with it.
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Trista: Not every choice needs to be perfect, and you start bui- building evidence that you can trust yourself Or maybe you're struggling with boundaries.
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Trista: You need to say no to something, but you're worried about disappointing someone.
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Trista: So practice saying no.
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Trista: Allow the discomfort that comes with it.
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Trista: You don't immediately rush to explain yourself or make the other person feel better.
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Trista: You let them have their reaction, and you discover that you can handle it.
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Trista: That's how you begin changing your relationship with yourself.
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Trista: This is the most important relationship you will ever have, and doing this work is the foundation for everything you want to build and create in your life and for who you want to become It's not about having one
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Trista: enormous breakthrough, although those do happen from time to time.
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Trista: But most of the work is done through repeated experiences, showing yourself that you can do difficult things and keep going.
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Trista: And I want you to understand something about self-trust.
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Trista: Self-trust doesn't mean knowing that everything will work out.
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Trista: It doesn't mean that you'll never make a mistake or decide that maybe you shouldn't have made that decision.
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Trista: But it means knowing that you'll stay on your own side even when things don't work out, and you can experience those emotions.
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Trista: You'll learn from the experience, make adjustments, take care of yourself, but you'll keep moving.
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Trista: And once you know that, you don't need to be quite so afraid of making the wrong decision.
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Trista: You can start making decisions based on what you want rather than what you're afraid might happen.
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Trista: And that's a very different way to live.
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Trista: It's a very powerful way to live So I want to be clear here.
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Trista: You don't have to return to who you were before.
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Trista: I know it seems like that is the answer And it seems like when you've been through a major life change The default setting is that you just wanna feel like yourself again.
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Trista: It's understandable.
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Trista: You're thinking back to a time when you feel confident, you trusted your judgment, when you knew when you won it, and you miss that version of yourself.
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Trista: But I wanna offer you a different way of looking at it.
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Trista: What if the goal isn't to get back to who you were?
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Trista: What if you can become someone who knows herself even better than she did before?
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Trista: Someone who has learned how to manage her emotions and become emotionally resilient.
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Trista: Someone who trusts herself to make decisions, knows how to set boundaries and follow through on what matters to her.
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Trista: Someone who doesn't automatically interpret every setback as evidence that she's not good enough, and someone who is genuinely excited about her future.
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Trista: Because you've changed.
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Trista: Of course you have.
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Trista: You've had experiences you didn't have before.
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Trista: You learned things about yourself and about life that you didn't know, and some of those lessons may have been incredibly difficult But you don't have to spend the rest of your life trying to recreate the person you were
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Trista: before those experiences.
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Trista: You get to decide who you wanna become now, and I think that's an exciting possibility.
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Trista: So let me ask you something.
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Trista: If you could fast-forward a year from now and see yourself feeling confident, capable, and excited about your life, what would be different?
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Trista: How would you be spending your time?
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Trista: What decisions would you have made?
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Trista: What would you have stopped worrying about?
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Trista: What would you have stopped doing?
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Trista: And what would you be doing that you're not doing now How would you feel about yourself?
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Trista: I want you to really think about that.
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Trista: Because when you've spent a long time focused on what's wrong, it can be really difficult to imagine something different.
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Trista: But I want you to start allowing yourself to consider what's possible.
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Trista: Not because you're g- guaranteed to get everything you want, but because you have a say in what happens next.
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Trista: You have so much more power than you know.
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Trista: And you can begin creating evidence that you're capable of moving forward So to go back to those four words from Jane Eyre, "I care for myself."
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Trista: I think there's a moment when those words become more than an idea.
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Trista: They become a decision, a decision to stop treating yourself as though you're permanently damaged by what happened, a decision to stop waiting until you feel completely confident before you start living life again, a decision to take responsibility for
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Trista: what happens next, even though you didn't choose everything that brought you here.
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Trista: And I think that's a very powerful place to be because it means you're no longer waiting for your circumstances to change before you begin changing your relationship with yourself and changing who you are and what's possible for your
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Trista: future.
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Trista: You're willing to do the work.
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Trista: You're willing to question the beliefs that are keeping you stuck.
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Trista: You're willing to practice making decisions, setting boundaries, and taking action, and feel the discomfort along the way.
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Trista: Not because we enjoy discomfort, but because we understand that growth often involves doing things that feel unfamiliar, and we choose that flavor of discomfort on purpose.
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Trista: And I want you to imagine what that could mean for your life.
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Trista: Imagine being able to make a decision without spending days second-guessing yourself.
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Trista: Imagine setting a boundary and feeling good about respecting your own needs.
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Trista: Imagine applying for a job, starting something new, or pursuing a goal without automatically assuming you're going to fail.
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Trista: Imagine waking up in the morning with something you're excited about.
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Trista: Imagine feeling like you again, only this time with a deeper understanding of yourself and a stronger sense of what you're capable of And that's what I want for you.
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Trista: And I want you to know you don't have to figure out everything today.
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Trista: You don't need a perfect plan.
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Trista: You don't need to know exactly what your life is gonna look like one year from now.
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Trista: But you do need to be willing to begin.
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Trista: So after listening to this episode, ask yourself these three questions.
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Trista: First, what have I been tolerating that I no longer want to tolerate?
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Trista: Maybe it's the constant second-guessing, the way you speak to yourself, the boundaries you haven't been setting, or the opportunities you keep talking yourself out of.
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Trista: What are you tired of accepting in your life?
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Trista: And more importantly, what are you ready to do differently?
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Trista: Second, ask yourself, what are you currently believing about yourself that's making it difficult to move forward?
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Trista: Maybe it's that you can't trust your decisions, or that you feel too old to start again, or that you've missed your chance.
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Trista: Write it down and really question it.
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Trista: What else could be true?
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Trista: And third, what's one thing you can do this week to help you begin rebuilding trust in yourself?
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Trista: It doesn't have to be enormous.
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Trista: It could be dec- a decision you're putting off, maybe having a conversation, applying for something, setting a boundary, or taking a first step towards a goal.
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Trista: But choose something that really matters to you and then do it.
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Trista: Because every time you follow through on something you've decided matters, you're strengthening your relationship with yourself, and you're showing yourself that you can make decisions, take action, and handle what happens.
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Trista: And over time, that begins to change how you see yourself.
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Trista: You start recognizing the capable woman who's always been there, And you begin becoming the woman you want to be and creating the future that you want Listen, you have more life to live And I want to leave you
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Trista: with one final thought.
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Trista: I know that some of you listening have been through an enormous amount, and maybe the last few years have looked nothing like you expected.
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Trista: Maybe you've lost things you thought you'd always have.
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Trista: Maybe you've made decisions you wish you'd made differently.
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Trista: And maybe you've spent so much time trying to understand what happened that you really haven't considered what you want to happen next.
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Trista: And I want you to know there's still so much life available to you.
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Trista: There are experiences you haven't had yet, people you haven't met, places you haven't been, and things you haven't learned.
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Trista: There may be opportunities you haven't considered and parts of yourself you haven't discovered.
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Trista: And I think it's really exciting to imagine that some of the best experiences of your life are still ahead of you But I also want you to recognize those possibilities require your active participation.
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Trista: You have to be willing to consider them.
27:15
Trista: You have to be willing to make the decisions.
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Trista: You have to be willing to take action even when you don't feel completely confident.
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Trista: Because you can spend years waiting to feel like yourself again, or you can begin doing the things that will help you rebuild that relationship with yourself.
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Trista: And I really want you to choose the second option, not because it's gonna be easy, but because you're worth the effort, and because you've already demonstrated that you're capable of navigating difficult things.
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Trista: Look at what you've already handled.
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Trista: That is the evidence.
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Trista: Now, imagine what you could create if you started putting that same courage, determination, and energy toward building something you really want.
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Trista: Imagine where you could be a year from now, Not because everything magically worked out, but because you began making decisions, taking committed action, and learning to trust yourself again.
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Trista: And I think that's worth getting excited about, because you are worth the effort it takes to create a life you love, but you have to fight for it You have to decide.
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Trista: You can't wait until you feel completely ready.
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Trista: You can begin now And if you've been listening to this and thinking, "Yes, this is exactly where I am," I want you to know that this is the work I do with women in my private coaching.
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Trista: I work with women who have been through significant changes in their lives and are ready to move forward, Women who have lost confidence in themselves, who are questioning their decisions, and who don't feel like the person they used
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Trista: to be.
29:07
Trista: And we work on changing all that.
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Trista: We look at the thoughts and the beliefs that are keeping you stuck, and develop the skills to manage difficult emotions, so you're not at the mercy of them all the time.
29:21
Trista: And re- rebuild your confidence and self-trust so you know who you are and you feel like yourself again.
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Trista: But most importantly, we put those skills to work in your actual life.
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Trista: I want you making decisions you feel good about, setting boundaries, pursuing opportunities, and creating things you're genuinely excited about.
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Trista: I want you to get to the point where you trust yourself to handle whatever comes along, rather than constantly worrying about making the wrong move.
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Trista: If this is where you are, book a consultation with me.
29:56
Trista: Come ready to tell me what you're done tolerating and what you're ready to fight for You'll find the booking link in the show notes.
30:07
Trista: And I'll leave you with this.
30:08
Trista: You've already spent a lot of your life dealing with difficult things, figuring things out, and doing what needed to be done.
30:16
Trista: Now I want you to think about what you could create if you started putting that same determination, courage, and energy towards something you really want.
30:26
Trista: Because you've spent enough of your life fighting to get through it, it's time to fight for what you want.
30:34
Trista: I'll see you next week.
30:35
Trista: Thanks for listening, everybody.
30:36
Trista: Bye-bye.