Tiny Buddha

Tag: self-improvement

  • When You’re Tired of Fixing Yourself: How to Stop Treating Healing Like a Full-Time Job

    When You’re Tired of Fixing Yourself: How to Stop Treating Healing Like a Full-Time Job

    “True self-love is not about becoming someone better; it’s about softening into the truth of who you already are.” ~Yung Pueblo

    One morning, I sat at my kitchen table with my journal open, a cup of green tea steaming beside me, and a stack of self-help books spread out like an emergency toolkit.

    The sunlight was spilling across the counter, but I didn’t notice. My eyes kept darting between the dog-eared pages of a book called Becoming Your Best Self and the neatly written to-do list in my journal.

    Meditation.
    Gratitude journaling.
    Affirmations.
    Ten thousand steps.
    Hydration tracker.
    “Inner child work” … still unchecked.

    It was only 9:00 a.m., and I’d already meditated, journaled, listened to a personal development podcast, and planned my “healing workout” for later.

    By all accounts, I was doing everything right. But instead of feeling inspired or light, I felt… tired. Bone-deep tired.

    When Self-Improvement Becomes Self-Criticism

    I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had turned personal growth into a job I could never leave.

    Every podcast was a strategy meeting. Every book was an employee manual for a better me. Every quiet moment became a chance to find another flaw to address.

    And if I missed something, a day without journaling, a skipped meditation, a workout cut short, I felt like I had failed. Not failed at the task itself but failed as a person. I told myself this was dedication. That it was healthy to be committed to becoming the best version of myself.

    But underneath, there was a quieter truth I didn’t want to admit:

    I wasn’t growing from a place of self-love. I was hustling for my own worth.

    Somewhere along the way, “self-improvement” had stopped being about building a life I loved and had become about fixing a person I didn’t.

    Self-Growth Burnout Is Real

    We talk about burnout from work, parenting, and caregiving, but we don’t often talk about self-growth burnout. The kind that comes when you’ve been “working on yourself” for so long it becomes another obligation.

    It’s subtle, but you can feel it.

    It’s the heaviness you carry into your meditation practice, the quiet resentment when someone tells you about a “life-changing” book you have to read, the way even rest feels like you’re falling behind in your own healing.

    The worst part? It’s wrapped in such positive language that it’s hard to admit you’re tired of it.

    When you say you’re exhausted, people tell you to “take a self-care day,” which often just becomes another checkbox. When you say you’re feeling stuck, they hand you another podcast, another journal prompt, another morning routine to try.

    It’s exhausting to realize that even your downtime is part of a performance review you’re constantly giving yourself.

    The Moment I Stepped Off the Hamster Wheel

    My turning point wasn’t dramatic. No breakdown, no grand epiphany. Just a Tuesday night in early spring.

    I had planned to do my usual “nighttime routine” … ten minutes of breathwork, ten minutes of journaling, reading a chapter of a personal growth book before bed. But that night, I walked past my desk, grabbed a blanket, and went outside instead.

    The air was cool, and the sky was streaked with soft pink and gold. I sat down on the porch steps and just… watched it change. No phone. No agenda. No trying to make the moment “productive” by mentally drafting a gratitude list.

    For the first time in years, I let something be just what it was.

    And in that stillness, I realized how much of my life I’d been missing in the chase to become “better.” I was so focused on the next version of me that I’d been neglecting the one living my actual life right now.

    Why We Keep Fixing What Isn’t Broken

    Looking back, I can see why I got stuck there.

    We live in a culture that profits from our constant self-doubt. There’s always a “next step,” a new program, a thirty-day challenge promising to “transform” us.

    And there’s nothing inherently wrong with learning, growing, or challenging ourselves. The problem comes when growth is rooted in the belief that who we are today is inadequate.

    When every action is motivated by I’m not enough yet, we end up in an endless loop of striving without ever feeling at peace.

    How I Started Shifting from Fixing to Living

    It wasn’t an overnight change. I had to relearn how to interact with personal growth in a way that felt nourishing instead of punishing. Here’s what helped me:

    1. I checked the weight of what I was doing.

    I started asking myself: Does this feel like support, or does it feel like pressure? If it felt heavy, exhausting, or like another form of self-criticism, I paused or dropped it completely.

    2. I let rest be part of the process.

    Not “rest so I could be more productive later,” but real rest—reading a novel just because I liked it, taking a walk without tracking my steps, watching the clouds without trying to meditate.

    3. I stopped chasing every “should.”

    I let go of the belief that I had to try every method, read every book, or follow every guru to heal. I gave myself permission to choose what resonated and ignore the rest.

    4. I practiced being okay with “good enough.”

    Instead of asking, “How can I make this better?” I practiced noticing what was already working in my life, even if it wasn’t perfect.

    What I Learned

    Healing isn’t a ladder you climb to a perfect view.

    It’s more like a rhythm—one that includes rest days, quiet seasons, and moments where nothing changes except your ability to notice you’re okay right now.

    I learned that sometimes the most transformative thing you can do is stop. Stop chasing, stop fixing, stop critiquing every part of yourself like you’re a never-ending renovation project.

    Because maybe the real work isn’t fixing yourself into a future you’ll finally love. Maybe the real work is learning to live fully in the self you already are.

  • How I Claimed My Right to Belong While Dealing with Imposter Syndrome

    How I Claimed My Right to Belong While Dealing with Imposter Syndrome

    TRIGGER WARNING: This post briefly references sexual abuse.

    “Never hold yourself back from trying something new just because you’re afraid you won’t be good enough. You’ll never get the opportunity to do your best work if you’re not willing to first do your worst and then let yourself learn and grow.” ~Lori Deschene

    The year 2022 was the hardest of my life. And I survived a brain tumor before that.

    My thirtieth year started off innocently enough. I was living with my then-boyfriend in Long Beach and had a nice ring on my finger. The relationship had developed quickly, but it seemed like kismet. Unfortunately, we broke up around June. And that’s when the madness began.

    I believe it to be the extreme heat of the summer that somehow wrought this buried pain from underneath my pores to come up. Except the pain didn’t evaporate. It stayed stagnant, and I felt suffocated.

    There were excruciating memories of being sexually abused as a child. Feelings of intense helplessness came along. I had nightmares every night, and worse, a feeling of horrendous shame when I woke up. All of this made me suicidal.

    Before I knew it, every two weeks I was being hospitalized for powerful bouts of depression, PTSD, and the most severe anxiety that riddled my bones.

    This intense, almost trance-like experience of going in and out of hospitals seemed like the only way to cope with life. I felt broken, beyond repair. I gained a lot of weight and shaved my head and then regretted it. My self-esteem plummeted.

    I felt like I didn’t belong to society anymore. I’d had superficial thoughts like this before, growing up in the punk scene, but the experience of constantly being in and out of mental hospitals was beyond being “fringe.” I felt extremely alienated.

    With many hospitalizations in 2022, I was losing myself. Conservatorship was now on the table. I was terrified and angry at the circumstances fate had bestowed upon me.

    In my final hospitalization in December, I suffered tortuously. I was taken off most of the benzos I was on, and I was withdrawing terribly, alone in a room at the psych ward. My hands and feet were constantly glazed in a cold sweat.

    I was so on-edge that every sound outside my door jerked my head up. The girl next door would sob super loud, in real “boo-hoos,” and do so for hours on end. It eroded me. I would scream at her to stop, but she would then cry louder.

    If there was a hell on earth, this was it. I told myself, with gritted teeth, staring out the window, that this would be my last time in a psych ward. No matter how miserable I was, I would just cope with it. I didn’t want to deal with this anymore.

    So I made a commitment to myself to really try to get better. Hope was hatched by that intense amount of pain. I knew I had a long journey ahead to heal, but that there was no other way but up.

    After that final hospitalization, I joined a residential program that helped me form new habits. There was a sense of healing and community there. I felt a mentorship connection with one of the workers, who was a recovered drug addict.

    I was glad I was finally doing a little better. I realized I shouldn’t have gone to the hospital so much and perhaps should have plugged into one of the residential places first.

    This year has been easier as a result of sticking to treatment and addressing some of the issues that were plaguing me. I now have better coping mechanisms to deal with symptoms of PTSD, as well as some better grounding techniques.

    As a result, I’ve been able to go back to work, despite still dealing with intense anxiety. For the first time in a while, I feel hopeful for my life. But I can’t help but getting hit with a barrage of thoughts before I go to work.

    This whole thing I’m going through is commonly known as “imposter syndrome.” Basically, it feels like I don’t belong where I’m going in order to make the quality of my life better. I feel like a fake or a phony, afraid my coworkers will understand who I really am—someone who has struggled with PTSD and depression.

    As a result, some days are more difficult than others when it comes to showing up at work. I’ll have mini panic attacks in the restroom. There’s an overwhelming feeling of surrealness.

    Although I’m glad to have gotten out of the merry-go-round of doom, putting on a happy face and attempting to appear as a healthy, well-adjusted person is too much sometimes.

    And I know it’s not just in my situation that people experience imposter syndrome. Some people that were once extremely overweight feel out of place once they’ve lost their extra pounds. Others who are the minority in race or gender where they work can also feel like they don’t belong.

    I’ve come to realize this is a universal experience, the feeling of “not belonging.” It’s also a syndrome of lack of self-worth. I try to tackle this in baby steps every day.

    Here are some things I try to live by to feel more secure where I’m trying to thrive.

    I ask myself, “Why NOT me?”

    There’s a Buddhist quote that suggests, when you’re suffering, instead of asking, “Why me?”, you’re supposed to humble yourself by asking, “Why NOT me?” But I think this is also relevant to feelings of belonging.

    When you feel like you don’t belong, ask yourself, “Why NOT me?” Why wouldn’t you deserve to belong, when everyone else does, despite their varied challenges? This sort of thinking levels the playing field.

    I remind myself of my worth.

    I could spend hours thinking about why I’m not adequate or deserving. But I try to think about why I do have a right to be there. I deserve to get a paycheck like everyone else. I deserve to work, no matter what I’ve been through, and to value the sense of belonging offered through my coworkers.

    I try to power through my inner resistance.

    Many days this is more difficult than others, but I know if my greater goal is improving my life and feeling like I belong to society again, its worth challenging all the mental resistance I feel. I also know that my feelings will change over time if I keep pushing through them.

    Cherish the times of connection.

    There are times at work where I feel really connected to my coworkers, even though I doubt we have the same psychiatric history. I try to savor those times of connection because they keep me going. Since we are social beings, it is important to us to feel connected.

    Take comfort in knowing this will fade.

    Already, having just worked a few weeks at this job, my feelings of imposter syndrome are starting to fade. If I had known this would happen in the beginning, I wouldn’t have put so much anxiety on myself. If you’re going through this too in any capacity, just remember that the feelings are only temporary and will pass as you find your footing.

    Make peace with your past.

    Everyone has a past, some that may feel more shameful than others. But don’t conflate that with your right to belong and be a contributing member of society. Sure, some things are harder to rebound from than others, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t get past them. And that doesn’t mean you need to be defined or limited by your past challenges.

    Validate your feelings of struggle.

    Although it would be nice to just use denial to move forward, that’s not possible since you know the truth. You know what you’ve been through and how it’s affected you. I validate my experience in the struggle by going to support groups after work. That way I’m not gaslighting myself, pretending I’m fine. It’s just about knowing there’s a time and place for that unheard, marginalized part of yourself.

    —

    We all put on a brave face to be accepted, but we all deserve to belong, regardless of how we’ve struggled.

    Don’t let your struggles define you. Instead, validate the fact that they have given you the strength to get where you are now.

  • Want to Change Your Life? Draw the “You” You Want to Be

    Want to Change Your Life? Draw the “You” You Want to Be

    “You are not too old and it is not too late.” ~Unknown

    In less than a month, I’ll be hitting a major “milestone” birthday. I quit my full-time job six months ago, ending a twenty-plus year career in education, and have spent time thinking about what I want the next chapter of my life to look like. I found myself thinking back to a drawing exercise I did a few years ago that has made such an impact on my being willing to make major changes in my life.

    Entering my mid-forties, I had come to a point where something just felt “off.” I wasn’t sleeping well, often waking at 3am with anxiety about real or imagined catastrophes. I was often stressed and short-tempered. I was gaining weight and my health wasn’t in the top-notch condition the way it had always been. I felt directionless and unmotivated, but wasn’t sure what I would rather be doing.

    I recalled a TED talk I had seen in which Patti Dobrowolski discussed the power of “drawing your future.” While the concept seemed a little silly to me at first, I decided to give it a go one evening while journaling.

    The end result is a poorly drawn stick figure of myself in lotus position (which I can’t actually do) and a few notes in the margins. My goal was to draw and describe myself nine years in the future. What kind of “older woman” did I want to be? What were my activities? Had I conquered anything that currently plagued me?

    The stick figure I drew has salt-and-pepper hair, as she no longer feels any need to waste her time and money trying to look younger. She instead proudly wears her silvers as a testament to her experience.

    She is a vegetarian…maybe even vegan. She practices yoga and meditation daily…possibly is a yoga instructor. She rarely, if ever, drinks alcohol. She owns her own business, makes a six-figure salary, and has a healthy nest egg for retirement.

    Most importantly, she is completely at peace with herself and her place in the world.

    That fifty-five-year-old stick figure was so far removed from the forty-six-year-old me who drew her.

    I was still spending exorbitant amounts of money every eight weeks coloring my hair. I was an omnivore though eating meat disgusted me more than I cared to admit. I practiced yoga every now and then, but not seriously, and I never meditated. While I never identified as an “alcoholic,” my drinking went far beyond the recommended single four-ounce glass of wine per day. I did not own my own business, but rather was in a job that wasn’t going anywhere.

    Here’s what I found amazing. Within weeks of drawing that picture, I stopped eating meat. Within just a few months, I had cut out dairy and eggs as well. Six months later, I dyed my hair for the last time. I do at least a few sun salutations every morning. Most recently, I stopped drinking alcohol and said “good-bye” to that dead-end job.

    The biggest change was the confidence to make all of these decisions and to realize there is a thrilling and fulfilling future awaiting me.

    I still haven’t accomplished everything that stick figure has. My nest egg is growing, but I still have a way to go before I consider myself comfortably “financially independent.” I don’t yet own my own business, and I’m still working on trying to meditate more regularly. But having this vision of the future has helped me to set manageable goals about what’s important to me.

    None of this has been done easily. It has required vast amounts of reading, educating myself, learning new recipes, and discovering that kombucha or a shrub in a fancy glass makes me just as happy (actually more so) than a glass of champagne.

    I’m blown away by how inspiring that little stick figure has been and how the simple exercise of drawing my future helped me to get clarity about what I want out of life.

    Research shows that the odds of anyone making a change in their life are nine to one. If you want to beat those odds, according to Dobrowolski, you need to see your ideal future, believe it’s possible, and then ask and train your brain to help you bring it to life.

    That’s why a picture can be so powerful. When we draw, we utilize our creativity and imagination. This gets us away from our inner critic which often runs the show and tries to keep us safe from harm.

    Once we have our picture, we’re able to close our eyes and connect the dots from the present to the future, factoring in all our life experiences and imagining the steps that would help us get from A to B.

    If you’re struggling to picture your next steps in life, consider watching Dobrowolski’s video. She encourages you to first draw your current state—with complete honesty— and your desired new reality. Add color to the new vision to make it pop. Make it something that draws you in and gets you excited. Then outline steps to take that will make your new reality possible. You may be surprised at the clarity that transpires! Draw the “you” you want to be.

  • My New Approach to Setting Goals and Why It Works Better for Me

    My New Approach to Setting Goals and Why It Works Better for Me

    “The journey is long, but the goal is in each step.” ~Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

    I have a daughter, she is nine.

    A few months ago, I started to feel like we weren’t as close as we used to. I felt like we weren’t spending enough time together, and honestly, when we were I almost didn’t know what to do with her. It felt like our emotional connection was falling apart, like we didn’t have enough topics to discuss or enough games to play.

    Moreover, I was getting stressed and annoyed with her easily, and it definitely wasn’t helping. I could raise my voice and then would immediately feel terrible, and of course she would get frustrated too.

    I knew it was my fault. I’d been too focused on my work, and I just hadn’t been leaving enough time and energy to our interaction. I hadn’t been prioritizing it.

    I realized that I needed to fix it.

    And as I am very much into goal setting, I sat down and started writing down a goal to improve my relationship with my daughter.

    There are many different techniques people use while creating their goals. One of the famous and commonly used ones is called SMART, which stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based. I used to apply this technique a lot in the past. So I thought I’d use it again.

    But as soon as I started, I immediately got in trouble.

    I was saying to myself, “Okay, it’s definitely relevant to me. And I guess it’s also time-based (ummm, really?). But how am I supposed to measure it? And how do I make something like ‘relationship’ specific enough?”

    And here is the biggest problem. The whole purpose of my goal was not just to get to some specific point in the future when my relationship with my daughter would be perfect. The purpose was to have continuous (this word really matters here), daily improvement in our relationship so that we could enjoy our time together today, tomorrow. and every day!

    And suddenly the following realization hit me like a strike of lightning:

    “My goal is not a result of some process—my goal is the process!”

    The issue with SMART goals is that they make us focus purely on the end result rather than pay attention to the process!

    Please get me right, there is nothing wrong with focusing on the end result. But I do believe that it is wrong to not focus on the journey that gets us there.

    As I was thinking about it further, I discovered more limitations of the SMART technique:

    We miss out on the important goals that don’t fit into the framework.

    The goal about my relationship with my daughter is the perfect example of this limitation. It’s obviously very important to me, but it can hardly be measured or timeboxed.

    Missing the deadline means failure.

    Whenever we deal with deadlines, we automatically tend to believe that missing this deadline is a failure. And our goals are no exception. But the truth is, there are many factors outside of our control that can affect our ability to meet the deadline.

    So instead of focusing too much on the deadline, I prefer to measure success by how consistently I make progress, regardless of how fast it goes.

    Missing the start date means failure.

    We already talked about the deadlines, but as soon as timelines are involved, we also happen to have a start date. And we start to face the same problem here—if we don’t start on the date that we defined for ourselves as a “start date,” we feel like losers.

    I actually think that this is one of the biggest reasons why we give up on our New Year’s resolutions so often. We just seem to believe that if we didn’t start working on our goal on January 1, then it automatically means that we failed. But that’s just not true—it’s never too late to start working on your goals!

    We often roll back to where we started.

    When we focus on the end result too much, it’s too easy to stop paying attention and therefore roll back to the previous state once we achieve that result.

    Raise your hand if you ever worked on the goal to “lose ten/twenty/fifty (choose your variant) pounds before the summer.” Okay, and how soon did those pounds come back?

    I myself struggled with losing weight for many years. I was always a little bit overweight. Not enough to make me do something about it, but definitely enough to make me feel uncomfortable. I tried to lose weight multiple times, I was even able to make progress for a few months in a row, but then I would stop. And again, and again.

    About three years ago I got to my highest weight ever, and it is when I finally said to myself, “Okay, now you really gotta do something about it.” But I approached it differently this time—I decided to make it part of my lifestyle.

    I started working out regularly with a personal trainer (hello accountability!). I started paying attention to what I was eating and drinking. But the most important mental shift that I had to make was that I wasn’t doing it as a temporary thing anymore, or wasn’t trying to achieve a particular “result.” My goal was to learn to appreciate the journey!

    Now, three years later, I am forty pounds lighter than when I started. I am stronger, happier, and more confident than ever before. I still exercise at least four times a week, and I enjoy it! I truly do! I even workout when I travel, and I would’ve never expected that from myself.

    —

    I feel like I am at the point in my personal growth journey when I don’t need the boundaries of specific frameworks anymore.

    So, from now on, whenever I create a new goal, I make sure it’s all about the continuous, consistent, sustainable improvement in one particular area of my life.

    I make sure it’s all about the process, because I strongly believe that the process is where the true success and happiness reside.

    And if you are curious whether I was able to improve my relationship with my daughter… Well, I am still working on it. There is always room for improvement, but I have been able to almost completely stop raising my voice at her, we are definitely spending more time together these days, and I am appreciating this time so much more. Which I am extremely grateful for!

  • Why We Often Fail When We Set Big Goals and What Actually Works

    Why We Often Fail When We Set Big Goals and What Actually Works

    “You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.” ~James Clear

    If you pull up any popular motivational video today, you’ll probably hear things like “Set big goals!” and “Aim high and don’t stop until you get there!”

    After watching a video like this, you may get inspired and start mapping out your plan to leave the 99% in the dust.

    And typically, because you’re riding a wave of motivation, you’ll write out these monstrous, Mount-Everest-like goals. These goals paint a picture of your life that is so exciting that you can’t wait to wake up and get to work the next morning. But when you roll out of bed and take a look at the goals you set the day before, reality hits you like a truck.

    Instead of being motivated to take action, you feel a massive wall of internal resistance. You want to take action. You know you need to take action. But for some reason you just can’t force yourself to muster up the discipline necessary to make progress.

    So instead, you choose the path of least resistance. You retreat to the comfortable and the familiar, and then decide that you’re going to wait “just one more day.” One day turns into two, two days turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months.

    But luckily, time heals all wounds, and six months later you get another surge of motivation and try it all over again. This is where most people find themselves in life—stuck on the self-improvement hamster wheel.

    How do you stop this vicious cycle? What’s the best way to facilitate lifestyle changes that you actually stick to?

    How Big Goals Ruined My Life

    When I was a sophomore in high school, I had ambitions to become an NBA basketball player. Despite the fact that I was 5 feet 6 inches tall, had below average quickness, and could barely jump over a stack of books, I was determined to prove everyone wrong.

    At this point, I didn’t have my driver’s license yet, so my wonderful mother would get up at 4:30 a.m. and drive me to my school gym early enough to get up shots before class. To make a long story short, I was cut from the team a few months into my sophomore year, and my NBA aspirations died right then and there.

    When I was a freshman in college, my focus had shifted to day trading the stock market. Once again, I had complete confidence that I was going to turn day trading into a full-time income. And once again, I was wrong. The $1,000 I had deposited into my Robinhood account disappeared in about two months, leaving me with no financial flexibility to invest into my dream of becoming a full-time day trader.

    During my sophomore year of college, I made the biggest decision I had ever made in my life up to that point. Despite having good grades, I decided to drop out of school and start my own marketing agency. Let me tell you, that phone call with my parents is undoubtedly the most emotional conversation I’ve ever had in my life.

    I even distinctly remember my own cousin telling me, “I think that you’re going to regret this decision for the rest of your life.” Still, I was unbothered, because I knew in my heart that I needed to give this a shot. A month after telling my parents I wanted to drop out of school, I was on a flight back home to California.

    Yet again, I found myself in a familiar spot—just a kid following his heart with some colossal goals.

    Filled with passion and drive, I set myself a goal to build the agency to $50,000/month in revenue by the following year. To reach that goal, I committed to at least two hours per day of prospecting, and another two hours of educating myself on the real estate marketing industry.

    By now, I think you can see where this is going. For fifteen months, I worked at trying to achieve my goals, but the highest monthly revenue target I was able to achieve was a measly $6,000/month. Despite desperately wanting to taste wealth and success, I had failed yet again.

    It was at this point in my life where I really took a step back and engaged in deep reflection. After all, I had just been following the wisdom that successful people had been preaching for decades—set big goals and don’t stop working until you accomplish them.

    Was it me that was a failure or was it my system? Why is it that so many people including me continually set big goals that they never accomplish? Pondering these questions drove me to explore the world of self-development.

    The Power of Identity

    I had always been passionate about self-improvement, but I had never really delved into the science and research behind what actually facilitates true behavior change. My research eventually led me to reach two life-changing conclusions:

    • Setting big goals does more harm than good for people who want to change their lives.
    • True behavior change occurs when you commit to small, seemingly insignificant shifts in your daily behavior.

    After spending hundreds of hours combing through research on habits, behavior change, and neuroscience, I finally had the “aha” moment that shifted my entire perspective on life. The fatal problem with setting big goals is that they focus on the outcomes we want to achieve as opposed to the type of person we want to become.

    The most powerful force in the human body is the desire to be consistent with who we’ve been in the past. Behavior that is incongruent with the self will not last, which is why big goals are often so hard to accomplish.

    You may have a goal to build a million-dollar business, but if your identity is that of someone who procrastinates on important work, it’s unlikely you’re ever going to hit that goal. You may have a goal to lose weight, but if your identity is consistent with someone who eats fast food regularly and lives a sedentary lifestyle, you’ll continue to be pulled toward actions that sabotage your weight-loss goals.

    You may have some new goals, but you still haven’t changed who you are. I wanted to build a marketing agency even though I was the type of person who procrastinated and refused to get out of my comfort zone. It was the inability to change those underlying beliefs that ultimately led to my failure.

    How to Achieve Your Biggest Goals by Thinking Small

    If big goals aren’t the answer, then what is? The key is to focus on who you want to be as opposed to the outcomes you want to achieve. You need to become the type of person who can reach the standards you have set for yourself.

    Your identity emerges out of your daily habits. You don’t come out of the womb with a preset identity. Whoever you are right now is a direct result of the daily habits that you’ve developed up to this point.

    In order to start forming new beliefs about yourself, you need to start building new habits. The formula for changing your identity is a simple two-step process:

    • Figure out the type of person that you want to become
    • Commit to small changes that align with your ideal self

    First off, you have to decide what kind of person you want to be. When setting goals, most people are guided by the question “What do I want to achieve?” Instead, try asking yourself, “Who is the type of person that can get the kind of outcomes I want?”

    Instead of setting a goal to lose fifty pounds, ask yourself, “Who is the type of person that can lose fifty pounds?” Instead of setting a goal to build a million-dollar business, ask yourself, “Who is the type of person that can build a million-dollar business?”

    The beauty of focusing on identity change is that your success is no longer tied to arbitrary targets. Let’s say that you set a goal to lose fifty pounds in six months. As you pursue this goal, you start walking every day and improve your diet. At the end of six months, you step on the scale and you’ve lost thirty-seven pounds.

    Did you achieve your goal? Nope, you’re thirteen pounds short. However, what if your goal was simply to become a healthy individual? Did you achieve that goal? Absolutely!

    Once you’ve figured out what kind of person you want to become, the next step is to commit to small shifts in your daily behavior. Too often we convince ourselves that massive success requires massive action. This is the principle that guided my life for nineteen years.

    Through constant trial and error, I’ve realized that true behavior change is the product of small, incremental changes compounded over time. We tend to dismiss the effectiveness of small actions because they don’t make an immediate impact.

    If you walk for two minutes per day for a week, you’re not going to see the number on the scale move much. If you meditate for sixty seconds for a few days in a row, you’re not going to turn into the Dalai Lama. However, what you will do is to give your brain concrete evidence that you’re a different person.

    James Clear puts this beautifully when he says, “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you want to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does evidence of your new identity.”

    Once you’ve nailed down your desired identity, come up with a daily habit that you can perform no matter how you feel. When you set big goals, your brain tricks you into thinking that the present level of motivation you feel will carry over to when it’s time to take action. By focusing on shrinking your daily targets, you’re taking motivation and willpower out of the equation.

    Here’s a few practical examples of this concept in action:

    • Meditating for ten minutes per day becomes meditating for sixty seconds per day
    • Walking for thirty minutes per day becomes walking for two minutes per day
    • Reading for thirty minutes per day becomes reading one page
    • Journaling for fifteen minutes every night becomes writing one sentence
    • Writing 1,000 words per day becomes writing fifty words per day

    It really doesn’t matter how successful you are right now, all that matters is that you’re on the right path. Once these small habits are solidified into your daily life, you’ll have mastered the art of showing up and acting in alignment with your desired identity.

    Since your brain now has some new evidence, you’ll be able to stretch yourself and gradually aim higher. That’s the true power of small habits. The same way that money multiplies through compound interest, the positive effects of your habits multiply as they become a part of who you are.

    So, the next time you get motivated to change your life, forget setting huge goals. If you do this, the power of your identity will loom large over you and prevent you from taking action. Harness the power of small, incremental change.

    Have the courage to set the bar low enough and aim at targets that you can actually hit on a daily basis. Solidify this small habit into your life, and then do the same thing with another habit. And then another. And then another.

    Soon enough, you’ll become someone unrecognizable.

  • So What If You’re Alone Right Now

    So What If You’re Alone Right Now

  • Why I’ve Decided to Accept Myself Instead of Trying to ‘Fix’ Myself

    Why I’ve Decided to Accept Myself Instead of Trying to ‘Fix’ Myself

    “No amount of self-improvement can make up for any lack of self-acceptance.” ~Robert Holden

    In our culture, we are constantly bombarded with the newest and best things to improve ourselves and/or our quality of life. Unfortunately, this leads to the belief that we need to obtain some sort of thing before we could accept ourselves as we are.

    When I was a child, I constantly battled with my weight. By the age of fourteen, I was 225 pounds (mind you, I am 5’2,” on a good day).

    Fortunately for me, a doctor pointed out the concern of childhood obesity. She kindly let me know that I was at the perfect time to lose weight before it began to have significant health complications. I was able to quickly learn how to eat better and engage in physical activity. I dropped about eighty pounds within a year, and the attention I received was overwhelming.

    I quickly developed a conditioned response of self-improvement, attention, and ultimately, love—meaning I began to see that altering myself would gain me recognition. But come on, who doesn’t want to be loved and accepted by others? Well, this attention introduced a whole different concept.

    I realized I was not receiving that positive attention before, as people usually chose to pick me apart for my weight. Therefore, as I grew older, I became addicted to this notion of self-improvement because it brought upon the positive attention and affirmation I had lacked. Furthermore, I had a hard time just being me without trying to change something about myself.

    For me, self-acceptance is hard to conceptualize on a good day. On a bad day, it can be in shards of glass on the floor. Through my trials and errors, I have learned that self-acceptance is a skill we can practice. It is not an innate trait that we either have or don’t. It is something that can be nourished and nurtured.

    With practice, I began feeling at peace with who I am—with all my strengths and my weaknesses. However, this didn’t just happen overnight.

    I had struggled with a lack of self-acceptance for many years. I felt like I needed to be a certain way or look a certain way to be accepted. Immediate access to media and social media fed right into this concept. I fell into the comparison trap, and I fixated on what I didn’t have by putting my attention on what everyone else seemed to have.

    I’d think, “Well, she looks a lot better than me,” “Man, their family seems perfect,” or “My career doesn’t seem to be that successful.” These thoughts would consume me, and have a negative impact on my mood and self-esteem.

    Let me be clear, I have to be mindful of this trap every single day, multiple times a day, as self-acceptance, love, and compassion issues are deeply ingrained.

    When I was a little girl, I consistently received the message that I needed to change parts of who I was to fit the mold of society. Peers would consistently comment on my weight and appearance. Teachers would constantly criticize my work. Coaches would often compare to the “better, more capable” players. I am sure some of these messages came with good intention, but they had a destructive impact on my self-worth and value.

    As I have gotten older, I have learned that having a good relationship with myself is one of the most important things I will achieve in my life. However, because I didn’t want others to see my bad stuff, I tended to project an outward image of having it together, or striving to get it together.

    I was not as open about my consistent struggle with depression, anxiety, and body image. I would deny some of those internal battles, and in doing so was never being who I truly was. More so, I struggled in knowing who I was and I developed a conditional relationship with myself.

    For a long time, I also struggled with self-forgiveness, which was a huge barrier to self-acceptance. I struggled because I was ashamed of my choices and wished I had done things differently. By twenty-six years old, I had a failed marriage, filed for bankruptcy, and was facing some legal consequences due to my irresponsible behaviors.

    I began trying to perfect myself in any way possible. I was constantly looking for a new health fad to follow. I purchased several self-help books, always looking for what was wrong with me and finding a way to fix it. Clearly, I had no concept of self-acceptance. I just believed who I was at my core was bad and I needed to change it. I was never comfortable with just being with me; I needed to be improving something.

    Soon I began to see that true self-acceptance has absolutely nothing to do with self-improvement. I was always trying to achieve things, which may have helped temporarily, but it was a poor substitute for true intimacy with myself, which is what I needed.

    When I set out to improve myself, I attempted to fix something about myself. I couldn’t possibly feel secure or good enough if my worth depended on constantly bettering myself.

    I struggled with what I like to call the “destination happiness” illness. It implies “I’ll be okay when…” or “as soon as I accomplish this one thing, I’ll be happy…” With that mindset, I was never happy because I was always looking forward to the future, missing the present. I was also just checking off the boxes in life, never fully embracing the moment.

    A turning point in my life was when a friend of mine said, “I feel you are always looking for something wrong with you. What would it take to just accept yourself for who you are?” This was a true epiphany for me. I was always finding fault in myself. So, I began to reflect on this statement and started to make some active changes toward self-acceptance.

    I began to celebrate my many strengths.

    I started to make time to honor what I brought to the table.

    I worked hard to take in praise from others without doubting their statements.

    I cultivated a positive support system. I knew I naturally become similar to the people I chose to be around. So, I built a support system that is inspiring and fulfilling, not discouraging and depleting.

    I made a commitment to stop comparing myself to others. I could acknowledge others’ strengths without disregarding or belittling my own.

    I began to understand and quiet the inner-critic. I didn’t shut this voice out completely, but I worked on it being constructive as opposed to hurtful.

    I made a conscious effort to forgive myself. I let go of the regret and began to learn from my past.

    Finally, I began to practice self-compassion and kindness. If I wouldn’t say it to someone I love, I didn’t say it to myself.

    With all of these steps, I began to understand who I am and know what I want, while being comfortable in my own skin. I value myself and have gained respect from others. I am able to face challenges in my life head-on. I embrace all parts of who I am, not just the good stuff. I recognize my limitations and weaknesses.

    I must say, though, that it is possible to accept and love ourselves and still be committed to personal growth. Accepting ourselves as we are does not mean we won’t have the motivation to change or improve. It implies that self-acceptance is not correlated with alterations of who we are at our core.

    Nathaniel Branden stated, “Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship with myself.” Many of us live our lives resisting ourselves—comparing ourselves to others, pushing ourselves to be perfect, and trying to fit a certain mold of who we think we are supposed to be. I hope that by shedding some light on the notion of acceptance, I have helped you find courage to let that all go.

    We will never know who we are unless we discard who we pretend to be. And it would be a shame not to find out, because we are beautiful and worth knowing, just as we are.

  • Loving Yourself When You’ve Become Addicted to Self-Improvement

    Loving Yourself When You’ve Become Addicted to Self-Improvement

    “Whatever purifies you is the right path.” ~Rumi  

    I’m tired of being good. It’s time to be deliciously free.

    How I wish I could say that without rushing in to assure you that I promise I’ll still be good.

    The truth is, I worry. Less than I used to, but still, I do.

    I’ve probably had every kind of worry you could imagine. There’s the kind about things that haven’t happened yet, things that didn’t but very nearly could have, things that are highly unlikely if not impossible, things that are commonplace; I’ve worried about the things I want and the things I don’t, the purpose and the impermanence of life.

    Underneath, they all seem to stem from the same big fear that I am not good enough.

    This worry manifests itself as indecision, overthinking, holding grudges, and comparison. My expectations and criticisms originate there.

    Peek inside my head in my most afraid moments and you’re sure to find a motivational poster gone horribly wrong:

    We all have the same twenty-four hours, so what’s your excuse? Hustle! No pain, no gain! Stop playing small. Take massive action, go all-in. They’re crushing it, why aren’t you? The steps to success are quick, easy, and proven. Do whatever it takes. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. The universe loves speed. #YOLO. 

    I’ve spent a lot of time and mental energy on what I thought was self-improvement. Now, I’m seeing it for what it really was: self-medicating. The pressure to always be moving, always be achieving, faster, faster, hurry up and keep up was an addiction.

    This addiction was a symptom of losing trust in my own worth.

    I’d wear the way I treated myself like a badge of honor as if it somehow made me more worthwhile. Yet, I criticized myself about it, too. “Don’t be so rigid,” I’d command myself, followed up quickly by, “But be more disciplined.”

    I thought for a while that my worries were about control, but now I’m seeing that control was never the problem. I thought maybe it was perfection I sought. That wasn’t it, either.

    This was never really about success or approval, and certainly not improvement. What I’ve been seeking all along is freedom, and that’s what scared me the most.

    My indecision wasn’t about the decision itself, it was about doubting my ability to decide freely. Staying in relationships even though they hurt me wasn’t about the love or the loss, it was about doubting my right to choose myself, freely.

    Underneath every fear, every worry, every grudge and comparison was doubt in who I am, what I’m worth, and what right I had to take up the time and space to figure this out.  

    And now that I see things more clearly, I am clear about what I truly want. I want liberation.

    I want to free myself from the ghosts of the past and fears of the future. I long to be free from shame and the barriers I’ve built against my own peace. I want to use my voice freely and heal my steadfast heart. I want to freely and lovingly inhabit this body that’s stood by me no matter how much I’ve abused it.

    I want to rise up, thank the day, and carry on. Freely.

    Even as I’m writing these words to you, I’m learning what I need to do to stop the cycle.

    I need to practice making different choices and voicing different beliefs: Time is not money, it’s medicine. I need not be so disciplined but discerning. Not productive but perceptive.

    I’m learning the difference between moving quickly and moving honestly, and I’m replacing “should” with “I can if I so desire.”

    Oh, and I feel the resistance to this. The resistance is withdrawal, and it’s a natural part of the recovery process.

    But even with this insight, the fear of the unknown and the craving of familiarity are still there.

    Who will I become if I were truly free?  
    What value will I have?
    What if I fail?
    What if I disappoint? 

    Each time I set myself free, I will fly back to my cage until I trust the process of healing and love myself unconditionally.

    This is the painful part about finding and expressing yourself that no one really talks about. Loving yourself and trusting fully in your inherent worth is risky.

    You will surely fail at your previous rules and fall short of your old expectations as you explore new, more open ways of being. Someone is bound to be disappointed when you start existing as yourself, for yourself. The people who thought they knew you when you were only a fraction of yourself will say you’ve changed. They may not know what to do with you anymore.

    There may be judgment and misunderstanding. There may be rejection. You may feel lost. You may get less done, things may take longer, your work may be less popular or less profitable.

    And there will be the trappings of who you said you were everywhere. I still have a drawer full of makeup and hair products, perfume, and high heels that I will never use again. Maybe it’s time to let that version of me go.

    As you move closer to freedom, the ghost of who you tried to be will linger, haunting you. It will show up as a craving for likes and shares, for affirmation from someone else of your worth.

    Little by little, as you shed the security blankets put down over the years, you will move away from the conditions of your worth. Through forgiveness, setting and enforcing boundaries, more authentic yes’s and no’s, and growing more clear in what you want and where your true priorities lie, you will find new depths of freedom and space. It will be empowering and terrifying.

    What I’m discovering now is that you need to meet these challenges with grace and compassion.

    Letting go gives you space, but it needs space, too. Space brings solace and allows expansion. If you need to, stabilize. There’s no need to feel like a complete stranger in your own skin. Seek comfort and familiarity, but do it consciously. If you fall into old patterns, treat yourself with kindness, not judgment.  And then carry on, consciously.

    Have the courage to ride the cravings out. Resist the habit of proving your worth and earning your freedom. The doubts will try to convince you that they’re making you better, more worthy. Remember that it never worked that way before.

    I’m seeing now that what I do or don’t do, how far I do or don’t go, what I do or don’t achieve has never been the question. The question is, what frees me?

    I may not know what my freedom holds, and I may still face that uncertainty with some degree of fear, but I’m learning to trust that the pins and needles of waking up are the cure to what’s really ailing me.

    The greatest opportunities are not found in safety or certainty. Just as in facing any fear, the old beliefs about your worth need to be threatened in order to be changed.

    Each time we practice asking ourselves what will set us free, we’ll learn to speak the language of our intuition that much more fluently.

    Each time we practice validating our own perspective, we’ll learn to distinguish between wisdom and sound bites that much more naturally.

    One layer at a time, we will build a foundation of trust in ourselves and our inherent worth, and I have to believe that this will set us free.

  • Why Self-Compassion Is the Key to Living the Life You Want

    Why Self-Compassion Is the Key to Living the Life You Want

    “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” ~Carl Rogers

    When was the last time you stopped trying to improve something about yourself or your life?

    I’ve spent a lot of my life chasing goals. I guess it goes with the territory as a cancer survivor who always felt like she had something to prove, even twenty years later.

    For everything the doctors told me I could not do because of my Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (or as a result of the chemotherapy that healed me), I gave my all to accomplish and strive until I’d shown them they were wrong.

    Can’t run a marathon because you’ve incurred lung damage? “You can do anything you set your mind to” was my mantra to run not just one, but five marathons.

    Except that guess what? I was not just a goal setter. I was a perpetually unsatisfied goal setter. No matter what I did, or how much I told myself I was engaging in “healthy striving” as Brené Brown writes, it was never enough.

    I thought that I’d put my goal-setting ways behind me when I found my yoga practice and tried learning to surf.

    These adventures propelled me into a level of inquiry and a journey to find clarity and purpose with determination instead of expectation. It was about the big and little moments, I told myself. The learning, the feedback, the process—dropping attachments to live with more intention.

    In many ways it made sense. I spent eighteen months trying to rid myself of cancer. I was so supremely focused on the final destination of going into remission and then being cured that it seemed superfluous to notice anything that happened along the way. It finally occurred to me that I’d lived most of my life in denial instead of in acceptance—always trying to forge ahead instead of face the present moment.

    But guess what? As much as I tried to walk the walk, there was still a subtle, underlying thread of needing to improve that ran through my veins.

    Even my yoga—the practice that I equate to the ultimate masterclass in acceptance—was driven by subliminal expectations.

    Take, for instance, my heart-centered intention to strengthen my (non-existent) inversion practice. I told myself that flying upside down symbolized me being able to support myself. I’d labeled it as an intention, but the more I worked on it, the more I realized my focus that was cloaked by a belief that my core was too weak to magically levitate into a headstand or a “simple” arm balance. One goal (hidden in an intention costume), had veered stealthily into a scarcity mindset.

    And once that mindset takes hold, it spreads quickly and without discrimination into a constant echo of pervasive thoughts.

    I’d tried (many times) to use the mantra “I am exactly where I need to be in this moment.” On my yoga mat, in my work, and in my relationships. But nothing worked to help me flip the switch away from the gaps in my success and towards the celebration of the present moment and progress.

    And then summer happened.

    I had time in my schedule and I started to wonder, maybe I am supposed to use this season of my life to practice acceptance. Maybe all of my free-time isn’t a judgment or an indicator of lack of progress but is an opportunity to nourish and nourish myself.

    What if instead of wanting to be something that I wasn’t, I actually needed to nurture my practice (and life) with more tenderness? Could I be grateful and give myself permission to find nourishment instead of judgment?

    A friend encapsulated my thinking. She remarked simply: It sounds as if you are noticing self-compassion instead of self-improvement.

    Wow. Yes. That was it!

    What if acceptance, transformation, and progress have nothing to do with self-improvement?

    What if true acceptance of the present moment and long-term transformation were actually powered by the process of nurturing myself with the nourishment of love and kindness?

    “Build inner strength instead of outer dependencies.” ~Danielle LaPorte

    Suddenly these words and ideas started to appear everywhere. Each of these messages or examples reminded me of what happens when you nurture the parts of you that matter most and nourish my your spirit with what feels delicious. The universe was sending me nudge after nudge—it was up to me to notice and pay attention.

    Yes, I meditated daily. Yes, I was writing my morning pages each day. Yes, I was starting each work day thinking about how I wanted to feel when I went to sleep at night. But was I actively and intentionally nurturing the deeper layers of me with nourishment that was aligned to my values and dharma?

    So often we think about compassion as something we need to have for others, but what about ourselves? I’m good at taking care of everyone else, but somewhere along the way, I’d forgotten that my heart and soul needed the same gift of understanding and compassion—and that I was the only one that could supply the unique medicine it needed.

    What if the magic to creating the change you want in your life is less about self-improvement and more about self-compassion?

    Now, don’t get me wrong. We all have desires. Those are not going away (nor should they).

    But desire should not be our compass for daily life. Our values and life’s purpose are vastly more powerful navigational tools.

    So if not desire or self-improvement, then what?

    Imagine for a moment what it would feel like to go to bed tonight believing that you’d nourished and nurtured your mind, body, and spirit with the simple acknowledgment that you are exactly where you need to be in this moment.

    How would your day be different if you gave yourself permission to be as you are, replacing judgment or labels with awareness and presence?

    A funny thing happened when I started to make nurturing and nourishment my focus.

    I made food choices with intention and then noticed how I felt afterward.

    I chose tender yoga practices instead of heat-building ones.

    I trusted that I was actively planting seeds each day to cultivate connection and relationships rather than waiting for opportunities to present themselves.

    I considered the open times in my schedule as opportunities to play with my daughter and puppy instead of criticizing myself.

    I chose to read instead of watch television. My to-do lists became less cluttered and more aligned with my values.

    Ideas started to flow more freely. My stillness practice felt deeper. I noticed sounds, colors, and scents with more boldness.

    And most importantly? I felt hope inside of me and remembered that everything I’ve ever thought I “needed” was already inside me, just waiting to be revealed.

    4 Steps to Practice Nurturing and Nourishing Yourself with Self-Compassion

    1. Tune into your awareness. 

    No, I’m not going to add to the number of articles that you’ve read that says you need to meditate. But deepening your connection to yourself means becoming aware of the physical sensations and emotions that you feel each day instead of letting the millions of thoughts that travel through your mind each day take over.

    It can be as simple as pausing at the end of a task or activity. Notice how your body feels without rushing to label what you are sensing as good or bad. This might take practice, and it might be subtle at first. Invite your body to be a benevolent messenger of information even for sensations that feel less than delicious.

    2. Ask yourself: What is going right in this moment? 

    This gratitude practice helps you move from noticing the gaps toward the celebration of wins big and small.

    When I went surfing recently, our instructor encouraged us to make a big first pump after every wave we “caught” regardless of how long we rode the wave of energy or whether we stayed on our belly or popped up. Noticing the victories—no matter the size or magnitude—sends a message that the journey is more important than the final destination.

    3. Check in with your truth: Is your day full of “have to’s” or “want to’s”?

    This is a big one. Making a list of priorities and things to do can be a great tool to stay focused, except when everything on that list is out of alignment with your values.

    Sure, there are some things in life that just have to get done. Maybe you can ask for help with tasks that bring up intuitive flags, or maybe you can find some aspect of the task to get excited about and change the perspective. Or maybe, you can simply let that task go.

    Recently, a friend asked me if I’d be at one of our favorite power vinyasa classes. As much as I wanted to see my friend, I noticed a gentle tug in my heart and I took a moment to get quiet and check in with my truth.

    That class felt like a should, based on a belief that I needed to keep up with the practice that I’d depended on to build physical and mental strength. But what I was really craving was something quieter. Something that would nourish that which was hidden. A yin practice. So I said no and cherished a nurturing and nourishing home practice, knowing that I could make plans to see my friend another time.

    4. Make a list of what feels delicious to your heart, mind, and body and then let yourself PLAY. 

    Do you love coffee? Find a lovely new cafe for a midday treat.

    Does paddleboarding light you up? Rent one or take a class.

    Play—even quiet activities like going for an evening walk, taking a bath, or spending an evening reading—nourishes the heart and mind. In fact, play helps inspire creativity and often makes us more productive, even when we’ve taken time off to engage in the activity.

    —

    Can it really be that easy? Four steps to cultivate self-compassion as the ultimate tool for living the life you really crave?

    Well, no. These practices are never easy. It is a practice for a reason, mainly that it takes daily effort. But believing that you have everything you need already inside you offers a transformational opportunity to nurture, nourish, and accept the reflection that you see in the mirror as this moment’s best version of you.