How to Live a Life You Love Pt One

The transcription is about living the life you want as a single woman and how to figure out what you want and how to get there. It emphasizes the freedom and opportunities that single women have to create the life they desire. It suggests tools such as visualizing your current self and future self, and doing a brain dump of things that make you happy. The goal is to find clarity and direction in order to work towards a better life. Imagine being excited to get out of bed in the morning. Imagine having day after day full of things that fill your soul up. Imagine defining and creating a life you don't want to run and hide from. You can live the life that you want. It is so, so very possible. Today, let's talk about how to figure that life out and how to get there. Welcome to Coaching Your Inner Self. I am Amy Mallory and I am your coach. Life is hard. Life is scary. Life is messy, especially when you lack a sense of direction in where you want to go and who you want to be. I have good news, though. You don't have to be lost. You don't have to feel empty. You don't ever have to settle. Everyone deserves the life they dream about. I can help you find it. I can help you find your path and embrace it with happiness and with gratitude. Let's go do the work, guys. Hello and welcome back. This is Amy Mallory with Coaching Your Inner Self and today we are talking about how to live the life you want. This is a two-part series only because I was really going to town with this subject and the podcast notes became very long, so in an effort to not lose people's attention, I decided to split it up into two parts. On this episode, we will be talking about how to know what you want, what your dreams are, where you want to go, and who exactly or maybe not necessarily exactly, but at least some sort of framework on who you want to be in the future. The next episode will be dedicated to mapping out that dream so you can start to move toward it. For me, figuring out what I wanted out of my life was the hardest part of my journey so far, I should say. As a single child-free woman, we are granted a freedom that mothers and wives don't have and there's nothing against creating a family and having a home. This episode is just specifically related to single women like myself who can embrace the freedoms that their life can provide. It took me a very, very long time to realize that I could do anything I wanted to do with my life. I'm talking about what, you know, I'm in my early 40s now, so maybe 20-plus years. So many wasted minutes, hours, days, years. You know, there are so many possibilities for me that once I finally realized I could do anything, it was almost overwhelming. But that took forever to really, truly understand. I could do and be anything I wanted. I could go and see and experience anything that I wanted. I had the freedom and the power to live every single one of my dreams out. And the best news ever is so do you single ladies out there. I wasted years and years of my life in dead-end jobs and dead-end relationships before I finally became so miserable that I forced myself to change. And that was when I figured out that I could do anything. I have a level of freedom and opportunity that other women and other people don't have. So if you can take anything from this podcast episode, take away the true understanding that you can do anything and go anywhere. Yes, I understand it's a little bit bumper sticker-ish. You know, we see a lot of positive social media posts about you can go anything, you can go anywhere, you can be anything. It's so fucking true and it's like we're almost overly inundated with it that we kind of are writing it off. But it's not a lie. It's not some bullshit line. You can literally, as a single woman, do anything. So sit with that actual concept for a little while and really see it. Really, really think it over in your mind. Feel it. Believe it. Because it is true. It may seem like you're stuck in the life that you're living. Whatever situation is keeping you down or keeping you sad or keeping you depressed, it may seem like you're stuck there. But things can always change. And because we're single and because we don't have children or a family, it's easier. You know, change is not easy. Okay, so we're not going to sugarcoat that. We're not going to say, you know, oh, it's okay. You can change your entire life in the blink of a fucking eye. No, it's going to be crazy hard. But we don't have the commitments that other women have that make it that much more difficult. You just have to find the power and the confidence in yourself to choose yourself. Put yourself first. Put your happiness first and live the life that you want to lead. So let me give you a couple of tools to help you start on the way to figuring out what your best life looks like. The first one that I usually recommend is a tool called You 1.0 versus You 2.0. Take a piece of paper, write a line straight down the middle of it and put me 1.0 on the left side and me 2.0 on the right side. See the person you are. So this is the 1.0 person. This is the you right now. This is the you listening to this podcast episode in hopes that your life can change. This is you lost. This is you sad, misunderstood, depressed. Whatever you are in your current life, in your current mental mind frame, in your current financial situation, in your current job situation, relationship situation, this is you. This is you. 1.0 is you right now. And then envision the person that you want to be. So this is you 2.0. This is you a year down the road. This is you six months down the road. This is you in the future when you decide that you're going to work towards a better life. I brought my first ever 1.0 versus 2.0 out so I could read some examples for you because it really did help. And I think the most important part of this for me personally was the me 1.0 because it made me, you know, be very honest with myself about who I am and what my personal situation, my mental situation was when I started this process for myself. It really helped me see who I was because sometimes we don't like to admit that to ourselves. Sometimes it's easier to just not think about where we are in our lives and unfortunately the road to developing a better life for yourself and a better future for yourself starts at the honesty that you can give yourself at the beginning. So for me, for example, 1.0 me is scared. And that took me a while to write down and honestly like it even makes me choke up now because there was so much truth in that. It's three words. Me, you know, 1.0 me is scared. I guess maybe it's not three words but you know what I'm saying. I am scared. That was my current emotional status in life. And then I wrote down on the 2.0 me side I'm adventurous and it's almost painful to like write down where you are and admit like how low you know we can get sometimes. It's just sad. It's sad because we often stay there and we don't realize how bad things get for ourselves until we start thinking about it and being honest with ourselves about it and really you know writing these things down and saying like yes I'm scared. I'm scared of everything. You know and that's exactly what I had to do for myself and that is the important part of this tool that you know we use is that you have to really understand where you're at if you're going to move away from that person. 1.0 me was scared. 2.0 me is adventurous. 1.0 me is a people pleaser. 2.0 me has boundaries and puts myself first. 1.0 me lacks confidence. That was huge. 2.0 me knows I can do anything I set my mind to. 1.0 me hates being single. I hate myself for being single. That was another painful one. Sorry, apparently this is going to be very emotional for me. But 1.0 me hates being single and hates myself for being single. 2.0 me flourishes in my freedom to answer to no one but myself. Let me take a deep breath. I wrote this down years ago. We're talking years ago. It still hits home so hard because I spent so long in that 1.0 me. I hated myself for being single. I blamed myself for being single. Maybe we should have a podcast episode on that. But anyways, 2.0 me flourishes in my freedom to answer to no one but myself. 1.0 me has no focus. 2.0 me knows what I want out of life. Using this tool, taking this down on a piece of paper lets you see your starting point. So if we are chasing the life that we want, we have to know where we're at mentally, physically, emotionally. And then maybe the 2.0 portion of this tool will give us some sort of, you know, this is where I want to go. This is the direction that I need to start bringing myself. Using this tool helps to find your future self a bit more clearly so you're able to work in that direction. So if we're chasing the life that we love, the 2.0 version of ourselves is that person. It is that life. And it helps to know where we're starting. Maybe you'll get a little bit emotional when you do it. But it's really, it's really a great tool to see where you are both physically and mentally. And then, you know, a pushing off point from there where we're going. The second tool that I recommend doing is a brain dump. So I'm a big journaler. I love journaling. I like writing everything down. It's like almost like memory retention for me and I can always circle back and read. I mean I have hundreds of notebooks on, you know, bettering myself and tools that I've used myself. And it just helps a lot with, you know, figuring out what I'm doing and where I'm going and who I am and who I want to be and who I'm becoming. So brain dump. Take your notebook. Grab a piece of paper again. Do it on the back of the 1.0, 2.0 you and do a brain dump. 50 things that make you happy. So if we're working towards a life that makes us happy and a freedom to do anything, where are we going? What are we doing? What makes us happy? This can be anything from, you know, having coffee in the morning in silence while reading a book. What makes me happy is, you know, having coffee while walking through my garden that I work so hard for. What makes me happy is going on walks and hikes. What makes me happy is seeing new places and traveling and experiencing new things and eating new foods and seeing new destinations. What makes me happy is writing and journaling and, you know, spending time listening to my friends and trying to help them with their problems. You know, keep writing down any little teeny tiny thing that makes you happy. 50 of them. You never know what might pop up. You never know what might turn into a bigger passion or maybe down the road a career. You never know what might drive you out of bed in the morning, give you purpose, and then end up making you some money at the same time. But part of living the life that you want to live is doing things every day that make you happy. So you need to write down every little teeny tiny thing that makes you happy. Write down as many random thoughts as possible. Some of your answers may surprise you, but I promise you they're all going to give you a little bit of direction to the life that you want to lead. And the final tool on how to figure out what kind of life it is that you want to lead is questions, right? Okay, so write these questions down and then ponder them. Think about them while you're driving. Think about them while you're working or in the shower or brushing your teeth. Journaling and constantly questioning yourself and giving yourself questions to ask only helps broaden the horizon of what your life can become. It only helps push you towards a life that makes you excited to get out of bed in the morning. So ask yourself more questions. Be more and more honest with yourself and the more honest with yourself that you are, the more opportunity will present itself. And maybe one or two of those opportunities might really really spur you and give you a direction and a passion in your life to focus on. Because we can literally do anything. So what we're doing here is we're making lists of all of the possibilities that are open to us. And then, as I said in our second episode of this podcast subject, then we'll start zeroing in on a couple of these things and figuring out how to actually get there. So journaling, right? Asking questions for yourself. These ones are good so hopefully we'll grab a pen and write them down. What would you do if you knew you could succeed? What would you do if you knew that nothing was going to stop you? You were never going to make any mistakes. You knew that you were going to walk exactly toward that goal and you're going to get it. What would you do if you knew that you would succeed at it? What would you do if no one else would ever know about it or have any thoughts or opinions about it? What would you do? What would make you excited to go to bed only because you were going to get up in the morning and do this thing? If no one else ever knew about it and wanted to give you their opinion about it, what would you do? Write them all down. What would you do if you thought everyone in your life would approve? Okay, so we're not keeping this dream a secret anymore. We're not keeping this job a secret anymore or this income stream. What would you do if everyone in your life would approve? Then, okay, fast forward your life 10 years. Imagine your relationships are beautiful and your work is fulfilling. You love getting out of bed in the morning. What does that look like? What are you doing that drives you? What is that thing? So try to picture yourself 10 years down the road. What are you doing? If you have given yourself permission to live the life that you've wanted to live and you have pushed yourself to doing that life and dedicating yourself to finding that path, what are you doing? So these questions, these little, you know, journaling prompts that I'm giving you, they'll give you little clues as to what your body and soul and mind are wanting and needing. What you truly want to be doing with your life. We get clues often when we daydream and allowing yourself to dream big when asking yourself these questions. Maybe something exciting will pop up. Maybe you'll see something that's recurring in every tool that you're using and it drives you to something new. Maybe it'll say, hey, I've been listing this on every question you've been asking me and every tool that you've been using, so maybe let's let's do this. Let's try this as a hobby. Let's try this as something that I can earn money at. Keep in mind the options of other people are irrelevant in this process because in the long run, the only person that you're answering to is you and most oftentimes they'll try to talk you out of whatever change you'd like to take on. It's strange and it's frustrating, but I find other people like to keep us small. Especially a single gal for some reason. I don't get it. I always hear, oh, don't do that. You'll never meet a guy that way. You'll never meet a guy traveling. You'll never meet a guy writing books or, you know, gardening in your garden. That's dangerous. What if you fail? What if you get in trouble? What if you don't make any money? What if? What if? What if? So when you're going through these tools that I'm providing, other people's input is left out on purpose because none of that matters. It's important for you to allow yourself to dream of all of your possibilities. For me, that got me out of some pretty dark spots in my life. That 1.0 me was a bad, she was a mess. She was a sad girl. She was in a bad way. But then allowing myself these journaling prompts and all of this brainstorming, it kind of helped me see the light at the end of this dark tunnel that I was in. You know, it's easy to settle and it's easy to be sad in your life and to never do anything that drives you or makes you happy. But it doesn't have to be that way. Us single ladies have so much opportunity ahead of us. I know I said that in the beginning and I'm going to circle back and I'm going to say it again. We can literally do fucking anything. With a little focus and a lot of honesty with ourselves, we can lead a fulfilling, happy life that we don't need to run and hide from. You just have to do the work. So get the pen, get the notebook, listen back to all these tools and all these questions that I've asked you and start doing the work. Part two of this podcast conversation will be posted next week where we zero in on all of that vision that you saw for yourself. All those potential things, all that possibility. And how do we start picking apart all of that and heading in a better direction for ourselves? Where do we go and how do we get there? It's exciting. I hope everybody listening feels excited. I'm sorry I got a little emotional, but this is emotional work. And you know, we go through a lot of painful things when we're starting to be honest with ourselves. So it's part of the healing process and it's part of us becoming the person that we want to be. So if you dedicate yourself to this work, answer these questions about yourself, your life is about to get so much better. I hope you enjoyed this episode. As always, leaving a review, shooting me an email, going on to my website and sending me a message, coachingyourinnerself.com. I do love to know that at least somebody out there is listening. I have a Facebook page now. It's Amy Mallory. Also with a page, coachingyourinnerself.com on Facebook. There's a bunch of different ways to get a hold of me. So just give me a shout out if you're listening and you know, if this is helping you at all. Because I would love to know that, you know, I'm helping somebody out out there. That's the whole point. Talk to you next week. Have a great week.