(00:00):
Hey guys, this is Cori from Redefining Strength. Welcome to the Fitness Hacks Podcast. This is the show where I share all my free work, workout, and nutrition tips. I’m not going to ever fill this episode with sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a review or leave a five star rating or even better share it with somebody you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone. So let’s jump right in. Is your goal weight actually sabotaging your fat loss results, your body recomp success? The simple answer is maybe, and it’s something we don’t often think about, but seeking to see faster results on the scale is often what leads to us doing unsustainable habits and us not seeing the recomp we want and ultimately regaining the weight very quickly.

(00:54):
We also have to recognize where this goal weight is really coming from because it’s not only the fluctuations on the scale, but truly our goal weight that can hold us back. Because when you have that specific number you really want to drive towards, you are staring at the scoreboard versus focusing on the habits that you need to be doing or the play on the field that you need to have in order to get that scoreboard to change. And in staring at that, a lot of times we aren’t implementing a lot of the practices. We don’t realize what needs to change. And we get caught up so much in that that we ultimately either don’t make changes, get overwhelmed, stop, don’t keep doing the habits that we need or actually accurately adjust based on what’s going on. So we need to stop staring at the scoreboard.

(01:33):
We also need to recognize that that goal weight might not actually be what we really want and understand the whole ramification of that. Not to mention the fact that trying to see that happen faster often leads to us creating those unsustainable habits losing weight very quickly. But we’re not a controlling for whether or not we’re losing fat versus muscle. It’s why we don’t necessarily look leaner or achieve our full body recomp that we want. And it’s also why we end up regaining the weight very quickly or feeling like we can’t eat anything without the scale jumping 20 pounds. So I want to break down why it’s potentially important that we reassess what our goal weight should be and even let go of our goal weight and also the reason why the scale can change so often and how we can really change how we even use this device to our advantage.

(02:18):
So going to the goal weight, is it really that number that you want? And I say this because a lot of times we’ll say, I want X weight. This is the weight I should be at. Well, Y is that number so important to you, and I think this is a really key reflection we need to do because often that number really doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all. The reason we have that number stuck in our head is because that was the number we were at at our wedding when we felt like our most fabulous and we loved the way the pictures look. It was the number we were at when we PRD in that race. It was the number we were at when we felt amazing, when we loved the way we looked, when we loved the photos, but it’s the feeling we’re after not the number.

(03:01):
And we need to separate that out because if you had all the things you had at that point, if you fit back into the clothes, if you loved how you looked in photos, if you had all the energy to PR in a race, would you really care if you hit that number? And the answer is truly no. That number has no relevance outside of it is a marker of that time. And in noticing that and in assessing that, we need to find all the other ways we can measure success to get back to that lifestyle, to own the habits that we had then and all the things we were doing to feel our most fabulous. Because a lot of times we’ve let those habits slide. We’ve let that lifestyle slide, those mindset slide. And so even now looking at photos as we’re in our journey forward, we don’t see the success of snowball because we don’t have the mindsets we had at that time.

(03:44):
We don’t have that feeling of confidence that we had built at that time. And so we need to assess what does that number represent in terms of these other factors to strive to act as if and also to measure progress in all these different ways to help us truly assess if we are or aren’t moving forward because the scale simply isn’t going to change quickly. And the more we try to, the more we sabotage our success from creating those unsustainable habits to creating metabolic adaptations to not really seeing recomp happen. Because we often say, oh, my results are slow. Well true fat loss is slow and it should be slow. You can’t out exercise around diet time as much as you want to. You got to put in the daily work and you got to put it in day after day after day for a lot longer than you want.

(04:26):
And a lot of what leads to the speed of our results is all the things we’ve done prior from the mindsets. We’re willing to embrace the discomfort we’re willing to embrace to even how long we’ve had the weight on because the longer you have it on, the longer it’s going to take to get it off. That’s why if you just gain it recently, it’s a lot easier sometimes. So it’s why you can’t judge someone else’s six week transformation to your own because we’re all starting at different points and everything we’ve done prior in our life really has an impact. But so in assessing how to navigate the scale, how to judge progress in other ways, you do want to track performance. You do want to track measurements, you do want to track progress pictures. All these things can help try on that outfit that you felt really fabulous in at that time.

(05:05):
How are you making progress towards that? But assess all the different lifestyle factors that you were even doing, not just your goal weight. And I say this too because even if you do want to drive towards a goal weight, it’s going to fluctuate daily and you’ve got to understand why it’s going to fluctuate daily. It’s going to fluctuate because of inflammation. If you’re stressed, if you’re not sleeping well, if you have more muscle tissue damage from tough workouts, yes, if you have a tough workout Friday night and you weigh in Saturday morning and there’s muscle tissue damage from that, guess what? You might see the scale increase. And it’s not from doing anything wrong. You did do everything right that week, but you see it go up because of that inflammation, that muscle tissue damage, potentially even storing more glycogen if you had carbs later at night.

(05:45):
And also because you need that to repair and with the glycogen storage. So if you have more carbs, you’re going to bring with that water weight and see the increase. So the scale is going to fluctuate, not for negative reasons all the time. It’s for recovery and repair. It’s potentially a negative reason that we’re stressed and inflamed from that, or lack of sleep. Maybe you didn’t poop yet. You can have a full bowel. But it’s a lot of different reasons that aren’t really fat loss. The scale is showing your weight in time on that moment. And so if you’ve even eaten food, if you’ve consumed water, that is going to increase your weight on the scale. If you go away right now, go eat some stuff or even go sweat out some stuff and dehydrate yourself and then go away again, your weight is going to change.

(06:26):
And that’s why we can’t base things only on this. And that’s why you have to understand the nuance to the scale and what it’s really telling you, which is just your weight, not muscle versus fat. And that’s why there’s other forms of measurement with the progress photos, the measurements, the using the clothing is so key, but then also recognizing the reasons why it fluctuates. And I even like to, when I’m deciding how to use the scale, because I do understand, and I even use goal weights to help set macros sometimes to get an estimate if we don’t know where someone’s starting from or even if someone’s maintenance is right now lower because they’re undereating and we want to boost it or just to give that estimation, you can use goal weight to do some different calorie calculations. However, I don’t like to get so focused on that, and I like to make sure that clients know how they can really use a pursuit of that to their advantage, whether it’s weighing once a week, whether maybe it’s not really weighing at all, and just using that check-in once in a while, whether or not it’s weighing daily.

(07:19):
But you have to understand then the fluctuations and the impact they have. So if you’re weighing once a week, you want to run through potentially the checklist of, Hey, hey, am I sore? Did I work out later at night? Did I have more sodium or eat out? Is there some other change? Did I sleep well? And you might want to track those things in a journal before you step on the scale to even see the impact, because that way if you don’t get the result you were thinking that you should have gotten, you can go back and assess was my consistency there and my macros was my consistency there and my workouts, and I also see that I was sore. I started a new progression. That might be why, but you can at least put it in its place. And if you are really impacted by that one fluctuation each week, you might have to weigh daily.

(07:54):
So we often say don’t weigh at all, which again, the scale is not the best indicator of body recomp. And if you are struggling with really being attached, that’s a goal weight. You might need to step off the scale and put it away for a while and only use measurements and again, those other things that represent that lifestyle. So you can get back to that feel that you had at that goal weight. But if you are really sensitive to those fluctuations, it can help you desensitize yourself by a little immersion therapy and actually weighing every single day, even multiple times a day to start just to see all the fluctuations and all the reasons why we don’t want to get so conditioned to want to do it or need to do it to watch, but at the same time, sometimes doing a little bit more to see how much it really varies can help us mentally separate from it as well.

(08:36):
But even with that too, if you know did the habits and you do that little journal and you celebrate, Hey, I have all these habits wins, maybe trying on the clothing to say, Hey, I have these clothing winds. I know the inches are going off. What does this weight then relate to all these different factors. You can then step on the scale. So I also do like to put it in its place like that. And what I mean by that is you celebrate all the different wins. You’re doing all the different habits. And so then you get the estimate of, Hey, what weight now represents this fabulousness? Because that’s how we can even find a way to use our weight for maintenance. When you reach your goal, when you’re feeling like you’re looking good, when you’re seeing those inches come off, assess what that weight is now for you at my most fabulous, what weight is that?

(09:17):
Instead of saying, oh, well, it’s not my goal weight, who cares? It’s what you weigh right now when you feel really fabulous, and that’s what your goal weight was based off of, and your goal weight is going to change as you gain more muscle as potentially you’re not in a deficit. So when you lose the weight, you might hit a little low and actually gain a couple pounds, but ultimately look leaner in that maintenance process a couple pounds up because you’re not deficient in anything. When you are depleted in a deficit, you’re not storing anything extra. And so just by storing so that you’re not depleted, you’re going to gain a couple pounds, but use that then that weight and the scale to help you understand, okay, this is what I weigh when I look the way I want to look now. So that’s another way to use it of I did the habits, I did the journal, what weight now represents how I want to look and feel.

(10:03):
So you can use then to set a new goal weight that way. But I think it’s really key just breaking down all the different nuance of things that we do understand what our goal rate really means, which again, it just relates back to getting back to a feeling we had. That is what we are ultimately searching for, the feeling of fabulousness that we had. And our goal weight is just the number that we might’ve weighed at that time. So we’ve got to assess the lifestyle, assess all the other components of it, all the other measurements of success that led to us feeling fabulous and that represented the fabulousness of that time. Used those not only as measurements of success, so the clothing that we wore that we’ll know when we fit back into that, we feel our best, the performance goals that we had, but also again, assessing the lifestyle habits and the mindsets we had to help us implement them.

(10:46):
Now, to act as if, to get back to that feeling of fabulousness, but then stepping either off the scale or knowing how to use the scale to our advantage, whether it’s weighing once a week, again, not using it, and using progress, pictures, measurements, all those things. Or even weighing daily and understanding the fluctuations. Even using that journaling of all the different reasons why the scale can change. And going through that list before we step onto it to understand what the number is really telling us while assessing our consistency and habit. And I think celebrating those wins before you step on the scale is so important because then you have that accurate reflection like, Hey, if you weren’t consistent with your macros, okay, that’s going to have an impact potentially when you step on the scale and you’ll own that. But the more, hey, these are the habit wins, or here are my areas for improvement, here’s my journaling on why the scale might be impacted or how I can interpret that number.

(11:31):
And then you step on it, that can give you information. And then as you feel fabulous seeing progress in the other forms of measurement, jumping into that lifestyle where you know, feel your best, you can then weigh on the scale to help you understand what weight will help you maintain all that fabulous then, and that will change over time. But I really hope this helps you get some perspective on the scale and not allow the scale to sabotage you. Because wanting to see it change faster, going after those fad diets where we’re trying to lose 10 pounds overnight, is ultimately what leads to us creating unsustainable habits, regaining the weight and repeating this yo-yo dieting cycle, and not losing fat any faster, but losing muscle, which then leads to metabolic adaptations, thus blaming our hormones more, even hormonal imbalances, which then make it harder to lose the weight later.

(12:16):
Make us blame our age, make us blame menopause, make us blame all these other things when really it’s poopy dieting practices and poopy training practices that have added up that we haven’t owned because we’re so caught up in the scale. So let go of the scale. And again, that doesn’t always mean not using it at all, but let go of the power the scale has and start to assess these outside factors and really understand what this tool is telling you. Thanks for listening to the Fitness Hack Podcast. Again, this is the place where I share all my free work, workout, nutrition tips. I’m never going to run sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a rating, review or share it with someone you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and it would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone I.

*Please Note: this transcript is auto-generated and there may be some errors in the transcript

Cori (00:00):
Hey guys, this is Cori from Redefining Strength. Welcome to the Fitness Hacks Podcast. This is the show where I share all my free workout and nutrition tips. I’m not going to ever fill this episode with sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a review or leave a five star rating, or even better share it with somebody you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone. So let’s jump right in. Super excited to be joined by Jessica. She’s a fabulous coach and part of my leadership team and just an all around amazing person. So Jessica, thank you so much for joining me today.

Jessica (00:38):
I am so excited to be here. Literally, I’ve got goosebumps because this is one of my absolute favorite topics, is truly helping women live the life of their dreams. And it starts with taking care of you. It really does. So thank you so much for having me. I love it.

Cori (00:52):
Well, when you think about taking care of you, it seems like a selfish act, and I would say a lot of us are about taking care of everybody else in our life and deprioritizing ourselves. How can we get out of that mindset and what does it really mean to take care of ourselves?

Jessica (01:09):
Yeah, it’s such a really good question because I think it’s so deep rooted in just who we are. Typically as women, we are givers. We like to take care of others, and I want you to think about if you’re a mom, I’m a mom, I’ve got three kids, two of them are married. So yes, that ages me a little bit. Holy crap. But it is, it’s like you take care of your kids, you take care of at work, you’re taking care of other people. That’s typically what we do. But if you can look at those people that you take care of and put yourself in their shoes, would I want my daughter undervaluing herself? Absolutely not. I would tell her the exact opposite. If my son was not taking care of himself and he was constantly school work, all of the things, I’d be like, hold up buddy. What are you doing for you? And so if we cannot actually flip that script just a little bit about what would we tell other people to do for themselves and reflect it back on us, I think it helps us change that mindset.

Cori (02:15):
It really is sort of taking that practice what you preach, lead by example attitude with things. Because if we’re not doing it, how can we expect other people to do it? And we do want to be that great role model, and we’ve all heard that expression. You can’t pour from an empty cup, but I don’t think we really take that to heart. How can we even start to recognize that maybe we aren’t doing the things we need to take care of ourselves?

Jessica (02:40):
Yeah. I would ask you actually some really important questions because they’re the little things in your life. Are you sleeping well? That’s one of the biggest ones. In fact, Corey and I, okay, we were literally chatting before and we’re like, okay, do we ever sleep? Yes and no. It’s a loaded question because there are times, but is your sleep affected? Do you have motivation to do the things that you love to do? I love to mountain bike, I love to ski. There’s things like that, and it’s times when you’re like, oh, I don’t even want to do that. I don’t even have the energy. So I’d ask you to take a look at the little itty bitty things in life, whether it’s you’re snacking and you’re just constantly looking for little things to fill yourself with energy because that’s what it is. Food is calories. Calories or energy. It’s like are you filling those little voids with other things or do you just not have the motivation to do it? So it’s really taking a deep look at ourselves and what we’re doing to say, am I actually filling my own cup or is my cup kind of empty? And it’s the little things that are the biggest triggers.

Cori (03:50):
And I think that’s a theme that I see popping up in any aspect of life. Anytime we want to make a change, anytime we want to reach a goal, it’s that pause and self-reflection. This thing we at least want to do and we want to find something new to take action on. But if we don’t truly assess what’s going on, we can’t make accurate changes that add up. And that’s where we even see ourselves stressing ourselves out by adding on more that doesn’t really match what we need. So in diving into that, what are some really good questions we can start to ask ourselves to build that self-awareness and see where we can make adjustments?

Jessica (04:25):
There’s two questions that always come to my mind. Always, always, always. And so if you can actually take a little notebook, I always have a notebook with me. So grab yourself a little notebook, draw a line right down the center of it, and on one side of it, put what do I want more of in my life? And on the other side, what do I want less of in my life? And start listing those things out because that’s going to give you, I think, some of the first indications of maybe what do you need to take out of your life? And then what do you want to add into your life? And again, it starts with this simple little thing. So some of the things that a lot of even myself included is I want less idle TV time in the evenings. That’s an easy one.

(05:10):
So that’s something that I’m going to cut out. I don’t have to do more of it. I can actually cut it out. One of the things that I want more of in my life is I actually want more music in my life. Sometimes you get finished working whatever, and I’m cooking dinner and I just don’t throw music on. I’m like, why don’t I do that? It’s those little things that actually fill your cup. So I would really look at those two columns. What do you want more of in your life? What do you really enjoy? What makes your body happy? What makes your soul happy? Is it sunshine? Whatever it is. And then what do you want less of in your life? The little things that you’re tolerating that maybe you don’t want to tolerate anymore.

Cori (05:53):
And I think there’s a key word that you put into both of those want, because it’s not, don’t want, it’s not have to do, it’s not should do. It’s what do you want more of and what do you want less of? Because I think so often when we cut things out, we are thinking restriction, we’re thinking, I shouldn’t be doing this, but really assess what don’t you want? What doesn’t serve your ultimate goal? What doesn’t sort of benefit your why? And the more we do that, the more we’re in a positive mindset to reflect further and even see other areas that we might’ve let slide that we didn’t even recognize we’d sort of let go of that were very important to us.

Jessica (06:34):
Yeah, it is. And that’s what self-care is. It’s like verbalizing our wants and our desires. It’s getting to the root of who we are. Think about it, how were you when you were eight years old? How were you when you were 12 years old? What did you want in life? And kind of get back to that little kid mentality and actually verbalizing it. If you think about a baby, a baby cries when they want something or need something, right? Well, what do we do as adults? We may not cry. Sometimes we do, but I mean, we act out in other ways. And again, it’s those little things. So self-care really is verbalizing and self-reflecting on it, and it makes it a healthy environment for you to kind of get back to what does my soul really want? What do I want?

Cori (07:23):
And it’s stepping back, not just in the moment of what we want, but really to the core of who and what we are and the life that we want to lead, which I think we can sometimes lose. How can we reconnect with those core values, really understand our why a little bit better when there are so many immediate little, I’ll say paper cuts that we’re getting, but we even treat like they’re knife wounds when they’re really not. How can we refocus on the values that truly matter to us and doing more of the things align with that.

Jessica (07:50):
Yeah, I think it is. It’s the self-reflection piece. And it’s hard because when you’re first getting into this and you start reflecting on it, you’re like, well, crap, I suck, man. I didn’t do good at this. You start beating yourself up. And so, okay, let go of that. And actually, I want you to start thinking about dreaming and what are your dreams? Because a lot of times as adults and especially as women, we stop dreaming and we stop thinking about what do we want in life? Where are we headed? You’ve heard of the bucket list and all the things put in your bucket list, but what do you want your life to be like? If you could design your life, what would that be like? Another thing that is a really interesting thought is who are you jealous of? Now, I know that sounds really odd, but if you think about, okay, Corey, for you, oh my gosh, I’m so jealous of your shoulders and biceps. Okay, well yeah, see, but what did you have to do to get there? You had to put work and effort in. And so instead of being jealous of it, I want to be inspired by that. And so you can flip that emotion of jealousy to, well, maybe it’s because that’s what I want in my life and I’m going to be inspired by it.

Cori (09:15):
I love that flipping that comparison to something that is motivational, aspirational. And I think you hit on something so key that I see every day, honestly online is, oh, I can’t achieve that because I’m X age or I can’t do that because of this other priority. And if we don’t own our priorities, they do become our excuses. But excuses can also be busted if we have a strong enough reason, we want to achieve something and we look to meet ourselves where we’re at. But so often we just hold ourselves back and we do set these boundaries that we’ve never tested or question in years, and we look at somebody else having something and instead of saying, well, how did they get there? How can I follow in their footsteps? We just say, I can’t have that. And it’s something of, or I always take the sort of perspective or outlook of, well, what can I at least do to improve? Yeah, sure. Maybe I won’t get to that goal in the exact way. I see it in my mind right now, but what can I do to improve? Because there’s always a way to move forward and what’s the point of not at least trying? Right,

Jessica (10:15):
Exactly. What’s going to be the worst case scenario if you try nothing, there’s no worst case scenario. I mean, even if you don’t meet that super high goal, are you going to be one step closer? Absolutely. Are you going to learn something about yourself along the way? Absolutely. Are you going to see what’s working? Yes. Are you going to see what’s not working? Yes. Are you going to, there’s no risk, so go for it. Give it a shot.

Cori (10:48):
Everything ultimately moves you forward. And in shooting for the stars, maybe you don’t hit the stars, but you’re going to get a lot further than you would if you didn’t shoot for ’em. And so the more we can see it as opportunity in always seeking growth and always wanting more while celebrating all that we’ve accomplished, all that we are, the more we will be taking care of ourselves. Because I think there’s nothing that holds us back more than not believing we can achieve more, but in believing we are capable of more in questioning our own boundaries. That is almost the best thing we can do to take care of ourself. But it’s a challenge to do that. And it’s all well and good that we say that, but how do you keep that comparison from becoming a negative, from becoming envy? How do you get yourself taking steps that are in line with what you truly want for you in your life?

Jessica (11:36):
Yeah, I call it a roadmap because it is. It’s actually prioritizing your feelings and saying, yeah, these are my wants and my desires, and yeah, I’m going to go for it. And even if I don’t, like you said, if I’m not going to hit the moon, at least I’m going to hit the stars. You’re going to get somewhere up in that solar system. But it’s having that roadmap. And so that’s where, again, if you know, okay, here’s what my goal is. Okay, here’s the things that I need more of in my life to be able to reach that goal. Here’s the things that I want less of. And then what are the steps that you’re going to take along the way? But then also how are you celebrating yourself as you meet those little goals? So you have to set out a roadmap. Again, like I said, I keep little journals.

(12:21):
You have no idea how many of these little books I literally keep planning around because it helps me to roadmap for myself constantly to achieve those things. And so if it’s a journal for you, do that. If it’s, I’m trying to, the vision boards, putting things together and you have it in your closet or whatever it may be, but finding something that you can actually visually see where you want to go because then you can again take those little steps towards it. And if you start getting way off track, it’s assessing it, assessing yourself, reflecting on it and then coming back to it and saying, well, yeah, I got pulled off to the left side because of this. Maybe I need to switch gears just a little bit.

Cori (13:09):
I think you touch on so many key components there of it’s the self-reflection because we learn so much more in reflection than even in doing the action. And it helps us see the things we’re doing that are serving us and not serving us. It also reminds us of why we started the things we want more of, the things we want less of. But even in writing that down and that reflection and how much that helps us, I think even having the notebooks around like you do or having that vision board, it’s not only a vision of what we want to remind us of or why, but it changes the environment. And I bring this up too because I think so often in the habit changes, we don’t recognize that it’s not that we’re just doing the habit, it’s all the things that prepare us to do the habit.

(13:45):
So going to the gym, if we put our clothes out the first time, we don’t put our clothes out, we might not go to the gym because it’s not just the habit of going to the gym, it’s the habit of putting the clothes out, which then remind the other habit. So it’s like in having those notebooks around, you are reminding yourself to constantly reflect. You’re reminding yourself of even what you wrote down in that book or to even reassess am I in line with that? And I think that’s such a key component because that’s really what spurs the action.

Jessica (14:11):
Yeah, it is. It is. Those visual reminders. So quick story. So this is many, many years ago, my two oldest kids were really young. So when my daughter was born, she’s more two months premature, and my son was 16 months old when she was born, and my husband traveled for work, which meant I was pretty much a single mom for most of the time. I went through postpartum depression, the whole thing. A couple of years later, I had my third baby and he still traveled for work. And so I felt like my life was so out of balance. And that’s where for me, I went back to this of, I had to reflect on why was I feeling this way? What did I value as myself? I had given up all my hobbies because I was giving everything to my babies. And so I had to have those visual reminders.

(15:03):
I actually went to a craft show where they have the 10 by 10 boos up everywhere and all the homemade goods. This lady was selling pottery. And with her pottery at the stand, she had these necklaces and it was a little piece of pottery, just really little. And it had the Japanese symbol for balance on it. And then on the backside of it, she’d engraved the word balance in English. And I was like, balance. That’s what I need more of in my life. And so I bought that necklace and I wore it until it broke. And every single time I felt like I was out of balance. I was out of whack. I wasn’t valuing myself. I would actually touch right here. And you’ve probably seen me do that multiple times today. It’s because it’s ingrained in me now because when I touch here, it reminds me that I matter and that there’s balance.

(15:54):
And so for you, it may be bracelets, these little bracelets that I actually make these bracelets, it’s just like one of those little hobbies because I wanted not idle time in my life in the evenings. So it might be a little visual reminder, a piece of jewelry, something special that you wear. Maybe it’s a picture on your wall that’s that visual reminder of what your goals are, what your dreams are. Because when you start achieving those things, you’re going to feel better about yourself. And that is true. It’s not a massage, it’s not a pedicure. It’s like living your life.

Cori (16:34):
It’s what I’ve heard you call those out of the box ideas of how we can do that self-care. Because we do think of habits as this is the habit. This is what you do, self-care. You go get a mani-pedi, you get a massage, you do these things. But self-care really is about doing something that matters to you. That’s it. And it might be even saying no to something that you don’t want to do and feeling confident in saying no. And I bring this up because I really want you to touch on the power of no, because I know that you really advocate for that too. Because I think so often we do just think about adding more, doing more, wanting more, not about what we want to do, less of, not about the things that might be detracting from our self-care that don’t need to be done by us, but we’re prioritizing other things. So can you talk a little bit about the power of saying no to things?

Jessica (17:26):
Okay. I am going to tell you another story. You guys, I’m so full of ’em because with age, it comes a lot of stinking experience. So when my kids were little in kindergarten, they used to ask for parent volunteers, and I’m like, I’m going to be the best mom ever. I am going to go volunteer in the class once a week. And so I would literally carve out this amount of time. I would go and I would volunteer, and I’m pulling my hair out because I love children, but I am not meant to be a teacher. My youngest daughter, she is a born teacher. I am not. And it just didn’t serve me well, and I would feel so drained. It came to the point where I literally had to say, no, I’m not going to do that, but I can serve my kids and my kids’ teacher and their class in different ways.

(18:24):
I was asked so many times to also run the concession stands for different sporting events. So what is in the concession stands? Hot dogs with chili out of a bag and cheese out of a bag that is full of all of the crap. And like, oh my gosh, literally it makes me cringe. And I would go in there and I’m like, here’s these athletes. They’re out there performing their little hearts out and I’m giving them just not the best foods. And again, I ended up saying no to those opportunities because it didn’t fill me up. It made me feel worse. And so I had to say no. And I think if you can look at your life too, there’s probably a lot of things that you’re doing that you’re, again, I’m going to use the word tolerating. You’re tolerating it. You’re like, I’m doing it, but I don’t like it. What are those things? And can you actually start saying no to those and start saying yes to some other things that are going to serve you better because you’re going to be a better person because of it.

Cori (19:30):
You’re going to play to your strengths and ultimately probably serve everybody even besides yourself a lot better. And I think we don’t recognize that so often when we are doing things outside of our strengths, we’re not doubling down on the things we’re really good at. We end up spending more time, more energy, not doing things as well, which then even drags us down more because we don’t feel successful with those things. Instead of saying, again, that self-awareness, that reflection, what am I really good at and how can I use that to my advantage to not only fill my own cup, but help others a little bit more? And it does come back to saying no. And the more we get opportunities, the better the opportunity we’re going to be saying no to. And I know I struggle with this where I’m like, I want to make sure that everybody feels supported, that they know I’m doing enough, that I’m there for them, that I’m not relying on other people.

(20:17):
But in doing that, we often just end up making the situation a lot worse and making everybody else’s experience even a lot worse. So it is very important that we do take that time to self-reflect and say, what can I say no to that will give me more of doing more of what I want and also eliminating the things that I know I don’t want to do that don’t fill my cup, but really playing to my power and owning my power because in that we are so much stronger and everything does function so much better. It’s like a hard thing to do.

Jessica (20:52):
It’s, it’s really hard to do because we want to be good at everything. We want to be seen as that person that no matter what I can be counted on. But again, if you can switch that language that they can count on me to do my best at what I do best. And if I know that somebody else is going to do it better, then they know that I’m going to tell them that somebody else is going to be better at that. And so I want to kind of finish the story about the concession stance because seriously, it was awful for me. Just great. When you see some of that food, you’re just, and knowing what these kids were doing. So what I ended up doing is I would actually buy fruit and I would get protein bars, and I would take them to the coach and say, here you go.

(21:43):
And those things were always gone first. And I actually felt empowered by that, and I actually got energy from doing that, especially seeing those kids eating better foods for themselves instead of running to the concession stand. And so it’s the same thing when you start saying no to something and saying yes to something that actually gives you the energy and also leaning on other people. It was really cool because other parents started to catch on and other people did it too. And you can actually create, Corey, you talk about a snowball a lot. We snowball our results well. We can also snowball, snowball the results of our self care when we play into our strengths.

Cori (22:25):
Not only that, but I think you hit on something that’s really key when it comes to self-care. A, it’s not selfish, but B, it doesn’t have to be even about doing something for you directly. And while changing the food they were eating was for you because you didn’t want to be feeding them that food. So it was, I guess, drawn from what you wanted. It was for other people. And sometimes doing for other people in the way we want to be taking care of them is that self-care we need. And the more we do, the more we do, which means sometimes putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations. But I do think it’s really key to note that everything you want to do won’t be about, again, things you want to do just for yourself alone. It might be things you want to do because the impact they will have on other people’s lives as well.

Jessica (23:12):
Oh my gosh. So many times we do things for selfish reasons, but there’s this really cool byproduct. I really think one of the biggest ways to get yourself out of a funk is serving somebody else. Because you look around and the things that people go through, and Corey, you and I and the rest of the coaches, we see some of the challenges that our clients have and the things that they have to go through. And we’re like, man, that’s a tough thing. And in that area of life, maybe I’m a little bit more blessed. And so by helping them, it’s selfish because we also get the rewards back.

Cori (23:50):
I always like to say that you can be selfish and selfless at the same time because a lot of times in wanting to take care of somebody else, you are getting good feelings back and it’s not bad to own that. But I think there can be that balance and we can really take care of ourselves through taking care of others. It’s just, again, really reflecting on what we want more of, what we want less of, where our priorities lie. Now in this, I want to ask you if someone’s looking to do more self-care, struggling with some comparison, they’re struggling with figuring out what might fill their cup. How would you go about recommending they find ideas to take better care of themselves, build that self-awareness if they’re struggling to ask those harder questions or really find their deeper rooted why?

Jessica (24:35):
Yeah. One of the things that I love to do, and this is Corey, I think you’ve seen this with me over the years. I love reading books, listening to podcasts, really doing personal development and professional development. I think that’s one way that you can start to learn a little bit. But one of my favorites is it’s called the five love languages. So if you are not familiar with it, the five love languages are words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, acts of service and receiving gifts. And if you want to, there’s a quiz like go take the quiz, just Google it, whatever. Because what that tells you is how you actually feel loved. And so for me, my top love language is quality time. And so for you, it may be something different. It might be words of affirmation. And if it’s words of affirmation for you, you can actually ask somebody, tell me something that you enjoy about me, or what have I done? Well, and you can ask friends, spouses, coworkers, whoever. But if you can play into how you feel loved the very, very most and understand that about yourself, then you can start asking for those things. That’s probably one of the biggest and best ways that I could say to start understanding yourself a little bit better.

Cori (26:04):
And even understanding how you like to receive love or you feel love. You can see the things that might be detracting from that. If you do like positive words of affirmation, if you do like some of these different things, you might notice that, hey, by going on social media and seeing certain accounts, they don’t really suit you because they sort of drag you down. They don’t affirm what you want to hear, good things about yourself. They make you start to think negative things about yourself. So maybe you unfollow some of those. There’s lots of ways that you not only find to ask for that positivity in your life, but also ways you see are detracting from it that you might not have realized before.

Jessica (26:42):
Oh my gosh. So true. I am a true believer in social media cleanses. I just am. And I’ve had, it’s called my zero tolerance policy. See, again, there’s that word tolerant or tolerate. Because when I see a post from somebody that makes me feel less about myself, that pulls me down even in it that I have a hard time reframing my mind around it. I’m like, yeah, you’re out. I’m like, I just don’t need that. But on the flip side of it, I really do seek for who are some positive influences. People again, that I’m inspired by, follow more of those. And that’s a simple way because let’s face it, social media, it’s a beautiful part of our world, and you can either choose to engage in some of the more negative aspects of it, or you can choose to be engaged in the amazingly positive aspects of it, and you can learn so much. So again, even there, it’s about reframing your mind, but think about your social media. How are you feeling your brain?

Cori (27:57):
I want to go back to, I mean, I think those are really great tips to cleanse your social media. Of course not of redefining strength because we’re fat. Amen. You want to hear everything from We’re inspiring. Yeah, we’re inspiring. But off of that, and I totally get that because there are definitely accounts that I’m like, I can’t watch this account because there’s just things that it puts me into a negative mindset or even frustrates me as a coach where I’m like, don’t say that to their own clients. But that’s a whole other story. But going back to a word that you brought up a couple of times that I really want to touch on because I think it’s so important, tolerance tolerating, because I think this is something that we don’t recognize our choice in the matter of as much. We just tolerate it. We just let it go. But we have to recognize that we have a choice what we tolerate, how can we recognize even when we’re tolerating something we shouldn’t and go about changing that because our tolerance level has to go down if we want more out of our life.

Jessica (28:57):
It is something that I’ve had to learn over the years. And so I think one of the best ways to do is if you can even just again, put some type of physical reminder, if it’s the word tolerate is your screensaver on your phone or your desktop or whatever it may be, just so that it’s like in the forefront of your mind. Mind. We feel emotions in our body in different ways. Some of us will feel it here in our chest. Some of us will feel it in our gut. Sometimes. For me, it is the tip tops of my ears. They feel like they’re so hot, they’re going to explode. But it’s weird things. It could be a lump in your throat, whatever it may be, but for maybe a day, two days, three days, you really think about going through your life. Where are you feeling those emotions?

(29:44):
What is triggering to you? And start recognizing it and paying attention to it. And as you start paying attention to it, I think that gives you a little bit of an instance of like, man, I’m tolerating this. It may be like you open up the cabinet and you’re like, dude, I have got so many expired foods in here that I’m just hollering. I am just not getting rid of them. Or maybe it’s foods in there that are not going to serve your body and your goals the way that you want them now. Feel that in your body. Start recognizing when you’re like, ick, that doesn’t feel good. Or, oh, I should really get that done. Listen to those feelings, listen to them.

Cori (30:32):
And then in listening to them take action on them. I think that’s something that we don’t give ourselves permission to do a lot, where if there is a food there that you really don’t want there, throw it away. And recognize too, that strength is built through what we overcome. We just think strength is given to us a lot of times, and it’s not. It’s something that we do build. We get comfortable being uncomfortable in a lot of different ways, and that is that strength being built. But if you think about the workout, you didn’t want to do the meal prep, you didn’t want to eat that, you did all these different things. That’s where we really feel our best on the days you do something you didn’t want to do. So if you have that feeling and you throw that food away, you’ll be surprised by how much that small action can really lift you up, because it’s the act of taking care of yourself and showing yourself how much more is really possible even.

Jessica (31:20):
Okay, let’s go back to what do you want more of in your life and what do you want less of in your life? You want more of those happy feelings of like, dude, I accomplished that, or Man, that has been bugging me for a while and I just took care of it. You took action on it. You feel proud about yourself. Isn’t that what ultimately you want more of? Yeah. Yes,

Cori (31:42):
It’s exactly. You want those actions that allow you to have that feeling. And I think even recognizing that that feeling is what you’re seeking and what really correlates with that in terms of the actions you can take. And it makes me all think about the fact that we can’t a lot of times control the thought we have, the emotion we have in the moment. It is natural, it is innate. It’s built on patterns that we haven’t even necessarily revealed sometimes. But even in having that thought, that feeling, we can always control our action or reaction to it. And so with all of this and building that self-awareness, starting to bring to light all those thoughts that you have, all those feelings that you have that maybe you can’t stop, but you can stop the next thing that happens from ’em. And I think that power of choice, that decision we all have, that taking agency and ownership is so key. So in that, Jessica, if someone is looking to take care of themselves, wanting to make this change, what would be some closing thoughts, recommendations to help them take what they’re feeling and really turn it into those actions that move them forward?

Jessica (32:43):
Yeah. Self-reflection, period, end of story. It’s really assessing who you are, what you want, what your desires are, what your goals are, what are you tolerating, what do you want? More of the list of questions that we’ve talked about. And I think as you’ve been listening to this today, you’ve probably been like, oh, that sparked something in me. Oh, I felt that in my core. Those things are telling you. Those are the reflections. So pause for a moment, pull out a piece of paper, jot those things down, reflect and from those reflections, draw a stinking arrow. You’ll see this with so many things that I do. I’m like, okay, here’s the thing. Draw an arrow. Write the word action. What is the action that you’re going to take because of it? And then start putting them on your calendar. Start telling people about the actions because it’s going to help hold you more accountable to those things. I mean, doesn’t that sound better than going and getting a pedicure that’s going to last for two weeks to really change your life? Doesn’t that sound better, you guys?

Cori (33:49):
Well, I got to say my feet are ticklish. So I’m not the biggest fan of pedicures. Manicures are another thing, but I love that you first said, when I even said action, you said reflection. Because I think we so often don’t think of the thinking about it as an action, but it is. And if we don’t take that action first, we can’t set other actions in place that will truly move us forward and make us make a change because we’re going to repeat the same things we’ve always done. We’re going to search for a new macro ratio, a new workout, a new place to go get a manicure, a new massage place. But none of these things are actually going to address what do we want more of? What do we want less of? So that reflection first to start is just so key. Thanks for listening to the Fitness Hack Podcast. Again, this is the place where I share all my free work, workout, nutrition tips. I’m never going to run sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a rating, review or share it with someone you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes, and it would mean the world to me and possibly change life with someone.

*Please Note: this transcript is auto-generated and there may be some errors in the transcript

Cori (00:00):
Hey guys, this is Cori from Redefining Strength. Welcome to the Fitness Hacks Podcast. This is the show where I share all my free workout and nutrition tips. I’m not going to ever fill this episode with sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a review or leave a five star rating, or even better share it with somebody you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone. So let’s jump right in. Super excited to be joined by Jessica. She’s a fabulous coach and part of my leadership team and just an all around amazing person. So Jessica, thank you so much for joining me today.

Jessica (00:38):
I am so excited to be here. Literally, I’ve got goosebumps because this is one of my absolute favorite topics, is truly helping women live the life of their dreams. And it starts with taking care of you. It really does. So thank you so much for having me. I love it.

Cori (00:52):
Well, when you think about taking care of you, it seems like a selfish act, and I would say a lot of us are about taking care of everybody else in our life and deprioritizing ourselves. How can we get out of that mindset and what does it really mean to take care of ourselves?

Jessica (01:09):
Yeah, it’s such a really good question because I think it’s so deep rooted in just who we are. Typically as women, we are givers. We like to take care of others, and I want you to think about if you’re a mom, I’m a mom, I’ve got three kids, two of them are married. So yes, that ages me a little bit. Holy crap. But it is, it’s like you take care of your kids, you take care of at work, you’re taking care of other people. That’s typically what we do. But if you can look at those people that you take care of and put yourself in their shoes, would I want my daughter undervaluing herself? Absolutely not. I would tell her the exact opposite. If my son was not taking care of himself and he was constantly school work, all of the things, I’d be like, hold up buddy. What are you doing for you? And so if we cannot actually flip that script just a little bit about what would we tell other people to do for themselves and reflect it back on us, I think it helps us change that mindset.

Cori (02:15):
It really is sort of taking that practice what you preach, lead by example attitude with things. Because if we’re not doing it, how can we expect other people to do it? And we do want to be that great role model, and we’ve all heard that expression. You can’t pour from an empty cup, but I don’t think we really take that to heart. How can we even start to recognize that maybe we aren’t doing the things we need to take care of ourselves?

Jessica (02:40):
Yeah. I would ask you actually some really important questions because they’re the little things in your life. Are you sleeping well? That’s one of the biggest ones. In fact, Corey and I, okay, we were literally chatting before and we’re like, okay, do we ever sleep? Yes and no. It’s a loaded question because there are times, but is your sleep affected? Do you have motivation to do the things that you love to do? I love to mountain bike, I love to ski. There’s things like that, and it’s times when you’re like, oh, I don’t even want to do that. I don’t even have the energy. So I’d ask you to take a look at the little itty bitty things in life, whether it’s you’re snacking and you’re just constantly looking for little things to fill yourself with energy because that’s what it is. Food is calories. Calories or energy. It’s like are you filling those little voids with other things or do you just not have the motivation to do it? So it’s really taking a deep look at ourselves and what we’re doing to say, am I actually filling my own cup or is my cup kind of empty? And it’s the little things that are the biggest triggers.

Cori (03:50):
And I think that’s a theme that I see popping up in any aspect of life. Anytime we want to make a change, anytime we want to reach a goal, it’s that pause and self-reflection. This thing we at least want to do and we want to find something new to take action on. But if we don’t truly assess what’s going on, we can’t make accurate changes that add up. And that’s where we even see ourselves stressing ourselves out by adding on more that doesn’t really match what we need. So in diving into that, what are some really good questions we can start to ask ourselves to build that self-awareness and see where we can make adjustments?

Jessica (04:25):
There’s two questions that always come to my mind. Always, always, always. And so if you can actually take a little notebook, I always have a notebook with me. So grab yourself a little notebook, draw a line right down the center of it, and on one side of it, put what do I want more of in my life? And on the other side, what do I want less of in my life? And start listing those things out because that’s going to give you, I think, some of the first indications of maybe what do you need to take out of your life? And then what do you want to add into your life? And again, it starts with this simple little thing. So some of the things that a lot of even myself included is I want less idle TV time in the evenings. That’s an easy one.

(05:10):
So that’s something that I’m going to cut out. I don’t have to do more of it. I can actually cut it out. One of the things that I want more of in my life is I actually want more music in my life. Sometimes you get finished working whatever, and I’m cooking dinner and I just don’t throw music on. I’m like, why don’t I do that? It’s those little things that actually fill your cup. So I would really look at those two columns. What do you want more of in your life? What do you really enjoy? What makes your body happy? What makes your soul happy? Is it sunshine? Whatever it is. And then what do you want less of in your life? The little things that you’re tolerating that maybe you don’t want to tolerate anymore.

Cori (05:53):
And I think there’s a key word that you put into both of those want, because it’s not, don’t want, it’s not have to do, it’s not should do. It’s what do you want more of and what do you want less of? Because I think so often when we cut things out, we are thinking restriction, we’re thinking, I shouldn’t be doing this, but really assess what don’t you want? What doesn’t serve your ultimate goal? What doesn’t sort of benefit your why? And the more we do that, the more we’re in a positive mindset to reflect further and even see other areas that we might’ve let slide that we didn’t even recognize we’d sort of let go of that were very important to us.

Jessica (06:34):
Yeah, it is. And that’s what self-care is. It’s like verbalizing our wants and our desires. It’s getting to the root of who we are. Think about it, how were you when you were eight years old? How were you when you were 12 years old? What did you want in life? And kind of get back to that little kid mentality and actually verbalizing it. If you think about a baby, a baby cries when they want something or need something, right? Well, what do we do as adults? We may not cry. Sometimes we do, but I mean, we act out in other ways. And again, it’s those little things. So self-care really is verbalizing and self-reflecting on it, and it makes it a healthy environment for you to kind of get back to what does my soul really want? What do I want?

Cori (07:23):
And it’s stepping back, not just in the moment of what we want, but really to the core of who and what we are and the life that we want to lead, which I think we can sometimes lose. How can we reconnect with those core values, really understand our why a little bit better when there are so many immediate little, I’ll say paper cuts that we’re getting, but we even treat like they’re knife wounds when they’re really not. How can we refocus on the values that truly matter to us and doing more of the things align with that.

Jessica (07:50):
Yeah, I think it is. It’s the self-reflection piece. And it’s hard because when you’re first getting into this and you start reflecting on it, you’re like, well, crap, I suck, man. I didn’t do good at this. You start beating yourself up. And so, okay, let go of that. And actually, I want you to start thinking about dreaming and what are your dreams? Because a lot of times as adults and especially as women, we stop dreaming and we stop thinking about what do we want in life? Where are we headed? You’ve heard of the bucket list and all the things put in your bucket list, but what do you want your life to be like? If you could design your life, what would that be like? Another thing that is a really interesting thought is who are you jealous of? Now, I know that sounds really odd, but if you think about, okay, Corey, for you, oh my gosh, I’m so jealous of your shoulders and biceps. Okay, well yeah, see, but what did you have to do to get there? You had to put work and effort in. And so instead of being jealous of it, I want to be inspired by that. And so you can flip that emotion of jealousy to, well, maybe it’s because that’s what I want in my life and I’m going to be inspired by it.

Cori (09:15):
I love that flipping that comparison to something that is motivational, aspirational. And I think you hit on something so key that I see every day, honestly online is, oh, I can’t achieve that because I’m X age or I can’t do that because of this other priority. And if we don’t own our priorities, they do become our excuses. But excuses can also be busted if we have a strong enough reason, we want to achieve something and we look to meet ourselves where we’re at. But so often we just hold ourselves back and we do set these boundaries that we’ve never tested or question in years, and we look at somebody else having something and instead of saying, well, how did they get there? How can I follow in their footsteps? We just say, I can’t have that. And it’s something of, or I always take the sort of perspective or outlook of, well, what can I at least do to improve? Yeah, sure. Maybe I won’t get to that goal in the exact way. I see it in my mind right now, but what can I do to improve? Because there’s always a way to move forward and what’s the point of not at least trying? Right,

Jessica (10:15):
Exactly. What’s going to be the worst case scenario if you try nothing, there’s no worst case scenario. I mean, even if you don’t meet that super high goal, are you going to be one step closer? Absolutely. Are you going to learn something about yourself along the way? Absolutely. Are you going to see what’s working? Yes. Are you going to see what’s not working? Yes. Are you going to, there’s no risk, so go for it. Give it a shot.

Cori (10:48):
Everything ultimately moves you forward. And in shooting for the stars, maybe you don’t hit the stars, but you’re going to get a lot further than you would if you didn’t shoot for ’em. And so the more we can see it as opportunity in always seeking growth and always wanting more while celebrating all that we’ve accomplished, all that we are, the more we will be taking care of ourselves. Because I think there’s nothing that holds us back more than not believing we can achieve more, but in believing we are capable of more in questioning our own boundaries. That is almost the best thing we can do to take care of ourself. But it’s a challenge to do that. And it’s all well and good that we say that, but how do you keep that comparison from becoming a negative, from becoming envy? How do you get yourself taking steps that are in line with what you truly want for you in your life?

Jessica (11:36):
Yeah, I call it a roadmap because it is. It’s actually prioritizing your feelings and saying, yeah, these are my wants and my desires, and yeah, I’m going to go for it. And even if I don’t, like you said, if I’m not going to hit the moon, at least I’m going to hit the stars. You’re going to get somewhere up in that solar system. But it’s having that roadmap. And so that’s where, again, if you know, okay, here’s what my goal is. Okay, here’s the things that I need more of in my life to be able to reach that goal. Here’s the things that I want less of. And then what are the steps that you’re going to take along the way? But then also how are you celebrating yourself as you meet those little goals? So you have to set out a roadmap. Again, like I said, I keep little journals.

(12:21):
You have no idea how many of these little books I literally keep planning around because it helps me to roadmap for myself constantly to achieve those things. And so if it’s a journal for you, do that. If it’s, I’m trying to, the vision boards, putting things together and you have it in your closet or whatever it may be, but finding something that you can actually visually see where you want to go because then you can again take those little steps towards it. And if you start getting way off track, it’s assessing it, assessing yourself, reflecting on it and then coming back to it and saying, well, yeah, I got pulled off to the left side because of this. Maybe I need to switch gears just a little bit.

Cori (13:09):
I think you touch on so many key components there of it’s the self-reflection because we learn so much more in reflection than even in doing the action. And it helps us see the things we’re doing that are serving us and not serving us. It also reminds us of why we started the things we want more of, the things we want less of. But even in writing that down and that reflection and how much that helps us, I think even having the notebooks around like you do or having that vision board, it’s not only a vision of what we want to remind us of or why, but it changes the environment. And I bring this up too because I think so often in the habit changes, we don’t recognize that it’s not that we’re just doing the habit, it’s all the things that prepare us to do the habit.

(13:45):
So going to the gym, if we put our clothes out the first time, we don’t put our clothes out, we might not go to the gym because it’s not just the habit of going to the gym, it’s the habit of putting the clothes out, which then remind the other habit. So it’s like in having those notebooks around, you are reminding yourself to constantly reflect. You’re reminding yourself of even what you wrote down in that book or to even reassess am I in line with that? And I think that’s such a key component because that’s really what spurs the action.

Jessica (14:11):
Yeah, it is. It is. Those visual reminders. So quick story. So this is many, many years ago, my two oldest kids were really young. So when my daughter was born, she’s more two months premature, and my son was 16 months old when she was born, and my husband traveled for work, which meant I was pretty much a single mom for most of the time. I went through postpartum depression, the whole thing. A couple of years later, I had my third baby and he still traveled for work. And so I felt like my life was so out of balance. And that’s where for me, I went back to this of, I had to reflect on why was I feeling this way? What did I value as myself? I had given up all my hobbies because I was giving everything to my babies. And so I had to have those visual reminders.

(15:03):
I actually went to a craft show where they have the 10 by 10 boos up everywhere and all the homemade goods. This lady was selling pottery. And with her pottery at the stand, she had these necklaces and it was a little piece of pottery, just really little. And it had the Japanese symbol for balance on it. And then on the backside of it, she’d engraved the word balance in English. And I was like, balance. That’s what I need more of in my life. And so I bought that necklace and I wore it until it broke. And every single time I felt like I was out of balance. I was out of whack. I wasn’t valuing myself. I would actually touch right here. And you’ve probably seen me do that multiple times today. It’s because it’s ingrained in me now because when I touch here, it reminds me that I matter and that there’s balance.

(15:54):
And so for you, it may be bracelets, these little bracelets that I actually make these bracelets, it’s just like one of those little hobbies because I wanted not idle time in my life in the evenings. So it might be a little visual reminder, a piece of jewelry, something special that you wear. Maybe it’s a picture on your wall that’s that visual reminder of what your goals are, what your dreams are. Because when you start achieving those things, you’re going to feel better about yourself. And that is true. It’s not a massage, it’s not a pedicure. It’s like living your life.

Cori (16:34):
It’s what I’ve heard you call those out of the box ideas of how we can do that self-care. Because we do think of habits as this is the habit. This is what you do, self-care. You go get a mani-pedi, you get a massage, you do these things. But self-care really is about doing something that matters to you. That’s it. And it might be even saying no to something that you don’t want to do and feeling confident in saying no. And I bring this up because I really want you to touch on the power of no, because I know that you really advocate for that too. Because I think so often we do just think about adding more, doing more, wanting more, not about what we want to do, less of, not about the things that might be detracting from our self-care that don’t need to be done by us, but we’re prioritizing other things. So can you talk a little bit about the power of saying no to things?

Jessica (17:26):
Okay. I am going to tell you another story. You guys, I’m so full of ’em because with age, it comes a lot of stinking experience. So when my kids were little in kindergarten, they used to ask for parent volunteers, and I’m like, I’m going to be the best mom ever. I am going to go volunteer in the class once a week. And so I would literally carve out this amount of time. I would go and I would volunteer, and I’m pulling my hair out because I love children, but I am not meant to be a teacher. My youngest daughter, she is a born teacher. I am not. And it just didn’t serve me well, and I would feel so drained. It came to the point where I literally had to say, no, I’m not going to do that, but I can serve my kids and my kids’ teacher and their class in different ways.

(18:24):
I was asked so many times to also run the concession stands for different sporting events. So what is in the concession stands? Hot dogs with chili out of a bag and cheese out of a bag that is full of all of the crap. And like, oh my gosh, literally it makes me cringe. And I would go in there and I’m like, here’s these athletes. They’re out there performing their little hearts out and I’m giving them just not the best foods. And again, I ended up saying no to those opportunities because it didn’t fill me up. It made me feel worse. And so I had to say no. And I think if you can look at your life too, there’s probably a lot of things that you’re doing that you’re, again, I’m going to use the word tolerating. You’re tolerating it. You’re like, I’m doing it, but I don’t like it. What are those things? And can you actually start saying no to those and start saying yes to some other things that are going to serve you better because you’re going to be a better person because of it.

Cori (19:30):
You’re going to play to your strengths and ultimately probably serve everybody even besides yourself a lot better. And I think we don’t recognize that so often when we are doing things outside of our strengths, we’re not doubling down on the things we’re really good at. We end up spending more time, more energy, not doing things as well, which then even drags us down more because we don’t feel successful with those things. Instead of saying, again, that self-awareness, that reflection, what am I really good at and how can I use that to my advantage to not only fill my own cup, but help others a little bit more? And it does come back to saying no. And the more we get opportunities, the better the opportunity we’re going to be saying no to. And I know I struggle with this where I’m like, I want to make sure that everybody feels supported, that they know I’m doing enough, that I’m there for them, that I’m not relying on other people.

(20:17):
But in doing that, we often just end up making the situation a lot worse and making everybody else’s experience even a lot worse. So it is very important that we do take that time to self-reflect and say, what can I say no to that will give me more of doing more of what I want and also eliminating the things that I know I don’t want to do that don’t fill my cup, but really playing to my power and owning my power because in that we are so much stronger and everything does function so much better. It’s like a hard thing to do.

Jessica (20:52):
It’s, it’s really hard to do because we want to be good at everything. We want to be seen as that person that no matter what I can be counted on. But again, if you can switch that language that they can count on me to do my best at what I do best. And if I know that somebody else is going to do it better, then they know that I’m going to tell them that somebody else is going to be better at that. And so I want to kind of finish the story about the concession stance because seriously, it was awful for me. Just great. When you see some of that food, you’re just, and knowing what these kids were doing. So what I ended up doing is I would actually buy fruit and I would get protein bars, and I would take them to the coach and say, here you go.

(21:43):
And those things were always gone first. And I actually felt empowered by that, and I actually got energy from doing that, especially seeing those kids eating better foods for themselves instead of running to the concession stand. And so it’s the same thing when you start saying no to something and saying yes to something that actually gives you the energy and also leaning on other people. It was really cool because other parents started to catch on and other people did it too. And you can actually create, Corey, you talk about a snowball a lot. We snowball our results well. We can also snowball, snowball the results of our self care when we play into our strengths.

Cori (22:25):
Not only that, but I think you hit on something that’s really key when it comes to self-care. A, it’s not selfish, but B, it doesn’t have to be even about doing something for you directly. And while changing the food they were eating was for you because you didn’t want to be feeding them that food. So it was, I guess, drawn from what you wanted. It was for other people. And sometimes doing for other people in the way we want to be taking care of them is that self-care we need. And the more we do, the more we do, which means sometimes putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations. But I do think it’s really key to note that everything you want to do won’t be about, again, things you want to do just for yourself alone. It might be things you want to do because the impact they will have on other people’s lives as well.

Jessica (23:12):
Oh my gosh. So many times we do things for selfish reasons, but there’s this really cool byproduct. I really think one of the biggest ways to get yourself out of a funk is serving somebody else. Because you look around and the things that people go through, and Corey, you and I and the rest of the coaches, we see some of the challenges that our clients have and the things that they have to go through. And we’re like, man, that’s a tough thing. And in that area of life, maybe I’m a little bit more blessed. And so by helping them, it’s selfish because we also get the rewards back.

Cori (23:50):
I always like to say that you can be selfish and selfless at the same time because a lot of times in wanting to take care of somebody else, you are getting good feelings back and it’s not bad to own that. But I think there can be that balance and we can really take care of ourselves through taking care of others. It’s just, again, really reflecting on what we want more of, what we want less of, where our priorities lie. Now in this, I want to ask you if someone’s looking to do more self-care, struggling with some comparison, they’re struggling with figuring out what might fill their cup. How would you go about recommending they find ideas to take better care of themselves, build that self-awareness if they’re struggling to ask those harder questions or really find their deeper rooted why?

Jessica (24:35):
Yeah. One of the things that I love to do, and this is Corey, I think you’ve seen this with me over the years. I love reading books, listening to podcasts, really doing personal development and professional development. I think that’s one way that you can start to learn a little bit. But one of my favorites is it’s called the five love languages. So if you are not familiar with it, the five love languages are words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, acts of service and receiving gifts. And if you want to, there’s a quiz like go take the quiz, just Google it, whatever. Because what that tells you is how you actually feel loved. And so for me, my top love language is quality time. And so for you, it may be something different. It might be words of affirmation. And if it’s words of affirmation for you, you can actually ask somebody, tell me something that you enjoy about me, or what have I done? Well, and you can ask friends, spouses, coworkers, whoever. But if you can play into how you feel loved the very, very most and understand that about yourself, then you can start asking for those things. That’s probably one of the biggest and best ways that I could say to start understanding yourself a little bit better.

Cori (26:04):
And even understanding how you like to receive love or you feel love. You can see the things that might be detracting from that. If you do like positive words of affirmation, if you do like some of these different things, you might notice that, hey, by going on social media and seeing certain accounts, they don’t really suit you because they sort of drag you down. They don’t affirm what you want to hear, good things about yourself. They make you start to think negative things about yourself. So maybe you unfollow some of those. There’s lots of ways that you not only find to ask for that positivity in your life, but also ways you see are detracting from it that you might not have realized before.

Jessica (26:42):
Oh my gosh. So true. I am a true believer in social media cleanses. I just am. And I’ve had, it’s called my zero tolerance policy. See, again, there’s that word tolerant or tolerate. Because when I see a post from somebody that makes me feel less about myself, that pulls me down even in it that I have a hard time reframing my mind around it. I’m like, yeah, you’re out. I’m like, I just don’t need that. But on the flip side of it, I really do seek for who are some positive influences. People again, that I’m inspired by, follow more of those. And that’s a simple way because let’s face it, social media, it’s a beautiful part of our world, and you can either choose to engage in some of the more negative aspects of it, or you can choose to be engaged in the amazingly positive aspects of it, and you can learn so much. So again, even there, it’s about reframing your mind, but think about your social media. How are you feeling your brain?

Cori (27:57):
I want to go back to, I mean, I think those are really great tips to cleanse your social media. Of course not of redefining strength because we’re fat. Amen. You want to hear everything from We’re inspiring. Yeah, we’re inspiring. But off of that, and I totally get that because there are definitely accounts that I’m like, I can’t watch this account because there’s just things that it puts me into a negative mindset or even frustrates me as a coach where I’m like, don’t say that to their own clients. But that’s a whole other story. But going back to a word that you brought up a couple of times that I really want to touch on because I think it’s so important, tolerance tolerating, because I think this is something that we don’t recognize our choice in the matter of as much. We just tolerate it. We just let it go. But we have to recognize that we have a choice what we tolerate, how can we recognize even when we’re tolerating something we shouldn’t and go about changing that because our tolerance level has to go down if we want more out of our life.

Jessica (28:57):
It is something that I’ve had to learn over the years. And so I think one of the best ways to do is if you can even just again, put some type of physical reminder, if it’s the word tolerate is your screensaver on your phone or your desktop or whatever it may be, just so that it’s like in the forefront of your mind. Mind. We feel emotions in our body in different ways. Some of us will feel it here in our chest. Some of us will feel it in our gut. Sometimes. For me, it is the tip tops of my ears. They feel like they’re so hot, they’re going to explode. But it’s weird things. It could be a lump in your throat, whatever it may be, but for maybe a day, two days, three days, you really think about going through your life. Where are you feeling those emotions?

(29:44):
What is triggering to you? And start recognizing it and paying attention to it. And as you start paying attention to it, I think that gives you a little bit of an instance of like, man, I’m tolerating this. It may be like you open up the cabinet and you’re like, dude, I have got so many expired foods in here that I’m just hollering. I am just not getting rid of them. Or maybe it’s foods in there that are not going to serve your body and your goals the way that you want them now. Feel that in your body. Start recognizing when you’re like, ick, that doesn’t feel good. Or, oh, I should really get that done. Listen to those feelings, listen to them.

Cori (30:32):
And then in listening to them take action on them. I think that’s something that we don’t give ourselves permission to do a lot, where if there is a food there that you really don’t want there, throw it away. And recognize too, that strength is built through what we overcome. We just think strength is given to us a lot of times, and it’s not. It’s something that we do build. We get comfortable being uncomfortable in a lot of different ways, and that is that strength being built. But if you think about the workout, you didn’t want to do the meal prep, you didn’t want to eat that, you did all these different things. That’s where we really feel our best on the days you do something you didn’t want to do. So if you have that feeling and you throw that food away, you’ll be surprised by how much that small action can really lift you up, because it’s the act of taking care of yourself and showing yourself how much more is really possible even.

Jessica (31:20):
Okay, let’s go back to what do you want more of in your life and what do you want less of in your life? You want more of those happy feelings of like, dude, I accomplished that, or Man, that has been bugging me for a while and I just took care of it. You took action on it. You feel proud about yourself. Isn’t that what ultimately you want more of? Yeah. Yes,

Cori (31:42):
It’s exactly. You want those actions that allow you to have that feeling. And I think even recognizing that that feeling is what you’re seeking and what really correlates with that in terms of the actions you can take. And it makes me all think about the fact that we can’t a lot of times control the thought we have, the emotion we have in the moment. It is natural, it is innate. It’s built on patterns that we haven’t even necessarily revealed sometimes. But even in having that thought, that feeling, we can always control our action or reaction to it. And so with all of this and building that self-awareness, starting to bring to light all those thoughts that you have, all those feelings that you have that maybe you can’t stop, but you can stop the next thing that happens from ’em. And I think that power of choice, that decision we all have, that taking agency and ownership is so key. So in that, Jessica, if someone is looking to take care of themselves, wanting to make this change, what would be some closing thoughts, recommendations to help them take what they’re feeling and really turn it into those actions that move them forward?

Jessica (32:43):
Yeah. Self-reflection, period, end of story. It’s really assessing who you are, what you want, what your desires are, what your goals are, what are you tolerating, what do you want? More of the list of questions that we’ve talked about. And I think as you’ve been listening to this today, you’ve probably been like, oh, that sparked something in me. Oh, I felt that in my core. Those things are telling you. Those are the reflections. So pause for a moment, pull out a piece of paper, jot those things down, reflect and from those reflections, draw a stinking arrow. You’ll see this with so many things that I do. I’m like, okay, here’s the thing. Draw an arrow. Write the word action. What is the action that you’re going to take because of it? And then start putting them on your calendar. Start telling people about the actions because it’s going to help hold you more accountable to those things. I mean, doesn’t that sound better than going and getting a pedicure that’s going to last for two weeks to really change your life? Doesn’t that sound better, you guys?

Cori (33:49):
Well, I got to say my feet are ticklish. So I’m not the biggest fan of pedicures. Manicures are another thing, but I love that you first said, when I even said action, you said reflection. Because I think we so often don’t think of the thinking about it as an action, but it is. And if we don’t take that action first, we can’t set other actions in place that will truly move us forward and make us make a change because we’re going to repeat the same things we’ve always done. We’re going to search for a new macro ratio, a new workout, a new place to go get a manicure, a new massage place. But none of these things are actually going to address what do we want more of? What do we want less of? So that reflection first to start is just so key. Thanks for listening to the Fitness Hack Podcast. Again, this is the place where I share all my free work, workout, nutrition tips. I’m never going to run sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a rating, review or share it with someone you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes, and it would mean the world to me and possibly change life with someone.

*Please Note: this transcript is auto-generated and there may be some errors in the transcript