You Don't Find Love, You Build It

My boyfriend cooks, cleans, and writes gratitude journals with me – and we’ve never once had a fight in the almost 5 years we’ve been together.

People sometimes ask me “where did you find him?!”

And I joke that I didn’t find him – I built him.

But I don’t really mean that, of course. What I mean is that together, we built the relationship we wanted.

Right from the start, we consciously chose to build a relationship with intention. We had conversations in our first few weeks together about how we would communicate, what we would put up with and what we wouldn’t stand for in our relationship, and that conversation has never stopped.

Early on, we set an three intentions that I believe are a huge factor to our happiness:

1. Always put the other person first. How can you fight when there’s always someone putting your needs first? When you put the other person first, and they put you first, everyone gets cared for, 100% of the time, and there’s never any selfishness.

2. Communicate – not some of the time, all of the time. Don’t just say what you’re thinking, say what the deeper root of the issue is. Voice your fear, not your anger.

3. Have a shared vision for how you want your life to be, and how you want to contribute to the world.

You might be waiting for the part where I say "But don’t worry, we occasionally fight, and that’s healthy.”

But it’s not coming, because the thing is, I don’t fight with anyone in any of my relationships. As a society, we act like shouting and slamming doors is a healthy part of a relationship, but let’s face it, Ross and Rachel were not happy.

So why do we feel the need to qualify a happy relationship with a statement about how sometimes things are negative? Girl, I’m not here to apologize for having a fantastic relationship! We need MORE people in the world showing what a happy relationship looks like (it’s not Monica and Chandler either).

But this isn’t about romance, it’s about human connection. I’m here to unapologetically shout from the rooftops that ALL my relationships are filled with genuine love. With my mum, my sister, my boyfriend, my grandparents, my cousins, my friends and my clients. Together, we built them that way.

I believe everyone can have deeply fulfilling, happy, peaceful relationships.

The first step is choosing to build one.

My Manifesto

If I could sum up my brain and beliefs for you in one bite-sized chunk, this is it.

1) Nobody ever changed the world with a realistic idea. If you want an extraordinary life, set impossible goals.

2) Your identity controls your actions, and your actions control your results. If you want to change your results, you have to first change your identity.

3) If you want to get from A to B, you have to BE the person at B. Take action from the version of you who has already achieved the thing you want.

4) If it matters, do it every day. Consistent action will change your life.

Why Cool is an Emotional Straightjacket

Brené Brown once said “Cool is an emotional straightjacket.”

I spent the majority of my teenage years trying to be cool.
I spent way too much trying to MAKE myself enjoy snowboarding 🏂surfing 🏄‍♀️ drinking 🍷and yoga.
But it’s just not me.

I’m not cool.

And I don’t care. I’m tearing up my cool card.

🌸I’d rather drink decaf tea than alcohol.
🌸I’d rather stay in on a Saturday night than go out.
🌸I’d rather tap dance than pole dance.
🌸I’d rather watch Tony Robbins than Love Island.
🌸I’d rather go to a café than a bar.
🌸I’d rather wear no makeup than get made up every morning.
🌸I’d rather start my own coaching business than get a corporate job.

What’s cool for you may not be cool for other people.
And what’s cool for other people may not be cool for you.

Don't let someone else’s definition of cool define how YOU want to live YOUR life.

STOP TRYING TO BE COOL. BE YOU. 

Stay at home. Drink tea. Start your business. Do what YOU want.

Why You Should Stop Trying & Start Being

The only way to get to Point B from Point A is to BE the person from Point B. – Jim Fortin

Everyone once in a while you come across a quote that blows all the other quotes out of the water. This is one of them.

There’s a damaging idea that I’ve lived with for 23 years: that trying hard is a good way to achieve your goals. It makes sense, doesn’t it? If you want something, shouldn’t you try to get it?

Nope. This entire idea is wrong, and I can’t believe I didn’t see it until Jim’s quote literally stopped me in my tracks.

Trying to get somewhere just keeps you in the space of not being where you want to be. Trying to be a morning person, trying to get a job, trying to be more loving.

Trying is toxic.

If you want to be somewhere, you have to take action from the mindset you would be in if you were already there.

How do I know this works? Because this is what helped me over come 10 years of being afraid of flying. I’m telling you, this works.

The best way to be the person you want to become is to ask yourself:

“Now that I am (insert desired outcome), what do I believe about this situation?”
“Now that I am (insert desired outcome), what do I do?”

Then live it.

These Are The Good Old Days

I listened to Brooke Castillo’s Life Coach School Podcast today, and she shared this beautiful clip by Ryan Moran. Instead of digging up my own thoughts, today I want to share what he said, so I transcribed it. Here it is, one massive quote, an ode by Ryan Moran.

When I was a kid, all I wanted to be was a millionaire. Now that I am a millionaire, all I want is to be a carefree kid.

There was a time in my life where I lost a lot of weight, and I had abs for the first time in my life, but I felt too skinny, and all I wanted was to add some muscle. Now that I've added some muscle, all I think about is how much I miss my abs.

Before I was a father all I wanted was kids. I wouldn't trade my daughter for anything, but I sometimes miss the days when I was alone. When she was a baby, and she was crying in the middle of the night, all I wanted was for her to be older. Now that she's older we have such a stronger connection but sometimes I miss the days when she was a baby.

When I was growing a small business, all I thought about was growing a big business. Now that I'm growing a big business a successful business I sometimes miss the days when it was small, or simpler. Growing up in a small town near Cleveland, Ohio, all I thought about was getting out. Now that I live in a big booming city, I miss home.

I realized the other day that there are two sides to everything. There are the problems that we feel in the moment, and there are the positives that we think about in the rearview mirror.

We feel the problems, and we long for the positives.

We rarely ever pause to appreciate the positives, while we're still in them and instead, we just experienced them later, and we experienced them in the sense of missing the times that used to be. A friend of mine lost her brother, recently, and my heart just broke for her because I knew that all she thought about, all she wanted was to have her baby brother back. I knew that she thought that if she had her baby brother back that she would appreciate him so much more and love him so much harder than she ever had. Now, I have a brother, and I don't spend 24 hours a day, thinking about how much I love and appreciate my brother but if anything ever happened to him, all I would think about was having my brother back.

It made me realize that there are things in my life that I overlook that if they were taken away from me, it would be the thing that I longed for the most. The times when my daughter is screaming, if anything ever happened to her, all I would want would be to come for a screaming baby. If my business went under and I was working for someone else, I would long for the grind of starting something new, spending long hours building something.

If I was going hungry, the extra flab covering up my abs? I would gladly trade my hunger for a little bit of fat if I had food to eat. The beautiful curse about being human is that we are wired to find problems. That does not make us happy, it actually makes us miserable, but it also makes us grow and create and solve those problems. We rarely ever pause to appreciate things that are in our life that we could be grateful for until it is too late. But you get to control what you focus on. You get to control whether you consciously appreciate the things that are in your life, or if you focus on the problems, and you wait until later when you feel that sense of longing for how things used to be.

No matter who you are, where you are, what you have or don't have, I can promise you there is someone else, looking at your life longing to be in your situation – even in the situation that right now, you see as a problem. There is someone who looks at your life and longs to be in that situation, even though, once they got it, they would probably long for something else.

No matter who you are or where you are, you have so much to be thankful for, and to appreciate.

These are the good old days.

Provide for Your Creativity

Over the last few days, I’ve been listening to conversations with Liz Gilbert (the author of Eat Pray Love) and Oprah exclusively, and I thought I’d share one of Liz’s brilliant ideas from her book Big Magic.

Liz said that when she was a young girl (16 or 17) she made a promise to her writing that she would never make it provide for her, she would always make money another way so that she could pursue her passion without any pressure. And she did until Eat Pray Love became a massive international bestseller (15 million copies, I think?), and she finally became a full-time writer. But she never expected it to happen. She was perfectly happy working a bunch of different side jobs. Is that not the most lovely thing?

The overall message is: provide for your goals and dreams, don’t make them provide for you.

Deciding on Impossible

Impossible

1. Adjective: something that cannot be done.

Can’t be done? Challenge accepted.

Because nobody ever changed the world with a realistic idea.

We didn’t go to the moon or climb Mount Everest or run a 4-minute mile because it was realistic. We did it because it was impossible.

The world’s highest performers are setting – and achieving – impossible goals, because they know the only way to live into your full potential is to push your limits far beyond what you think you’re capable of.

Impossible is a mindset. Whether you choose to believe something is impossible for you or you choose to accept the challenge, it’s the decision itself that sets your destiny.

What decision are you making about your impossible dreams?

Your Mind is a Superbaby

If Tony Robbins, Brendon Burchard, Brooke Castillo, Gary Vee, Oprah Winfrey, Derek Sivers, and The Minimalists had baby, it would be me.

Not because I’m spectacular in any way, but because my mind is a product of their ways of thinking. When I create content, I think I’m sharing my ideas – or am I? Is my content even my own original content, or is it just a Tony/Brendon/Oprah superbaby that my brain believes is my own? Just because I had the thought doesn’t mean I grew the thought, it may have been planted there. (Inception vibes, anyone?)

No idea is new. Everyone is influenced by other people and their thinking. Even though I believe I came up with this blog post idea myself, it stems from a web of influence I’ve had from all of those people’s thinking (and many others).

Our mindsets, beliefs, and content are actually a compilation of other people’s influence. This is a beautiful thing because that means that Tony Robbins had his own web of people who influenced his thinking, and his mentors had their own web and so on. We are a product of the people we spend our time with (or in my case, watching on YouTube!).

Your mindset is a web of other people’s influence, then your mindset is a superbaby. A baby that has the ability to evolve and take on new information and beliefs. Who’s mindset are you choosing to let shape your reality?

Strive to be Authentic – Not Unique

When I was 13 years old, there were two girls in my class that I thought were so incredibly cool. I would secretly try to come up with ways to impress them and get them to like me. One day, I ran into them on the weekend, and they were both wearing beautiful new strappy sandals. When I asked where they got them from, they told me it was from a shop that was “their” shop, and they wouldn’t tell me. They didn’t want me to have them too, because then the shoes wouldn’t be special.

Trying to be unique twists us in strange ways. It makes us waste time trying to be special or different and try do things differently that were perfectly good enough the way they were in the first place.

Being unique is totally overrated.

You don’t need to come up with the next big idea, you just need to do the same old ideas – but as you.

Most songs on the top of the charts right now are the same. There’s nothing unique about 4 chords. But the artists bring their own authenticity to the songs, and thats what makes us love them.

The world doesn’t need a new invention from you. It needs a blog written – by you. It needs a house built – by you. It needs the same old pair of jeans sewn – by you.

All the world really needs from us is our authentic selves.

Isn’t that a relief? To free ourselves from the need to do or be something special and different? I’m not doing anything unique and my content isn’t revolutionary: other people have written blogs and created membership sites before. Other people are High Performance Coaches. Other people talk about achieving impossible goals. 

Tony Robbins is credited with inventing life coaching. If you’re reading this, you could just be on Tony’s website instead. I’m not saying anything unique or different from him. It’s the same stuff. But you’re still reading this, because I’m just doing it as me, because you resonate with the same old concepts coming out of my mouth.

Don’t be different, just be you.

Yin & Yang

With my own coach yesterday, I discovered something that is blindingly obvious but I hadn’t noticed about myself: For the last year I’ve been functioning at about 95% masculine energy in my life.

I’m all about DOING. Go. Pushing. Impossible. Breaking limits. Taking action. Making decisions. Committing. Hustling. Working. 24/7. Planning. Doing.

I love that about myself – don’t get me wrong. I think that my masculine energy is what has got me to where I am in my life with my relationships and my business and my health. I’m all about making things happen. But I know that what got me here won’t get me there, so now it’s time to allow things to happen.

Now is time to bring back the BEING. Letting go. Allowing. Ease. Expansiveness. Wholeness. Patience. Tenderness. Acceptance. Softness.

Yin and yang (feminine and masculine) are two parts of the same whole. They are a balance.

And I’ve been so far off balance I think I forgot what yin was.

This is my challenge to myself (notice that masculine language!) to go to the next level with my goals, and bring back the balance of yin and feminine: Learn to just be.

I removed some of my daily habits from my habit tracker (My motto is still: If it matters, do it daily – but now I’m being more considerate about what actually matters!), and I’m practicing letting things be.

I look forward to giving you an update and seeing if this girl can bring some balance back into her life.