Hi guys! Welcome to episode 223 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! Does it seem like time is flying by to you guys? It does to me, they say time flies when you’re having fun…so I must be having a ball!
I gave a speech this last week to my toastmasters club called “Showing up as your best”.
And when you hear that sometimes you might think “oh that’s tiring because how am I always supposed to be my best?” No one is always at their best.
But you see that’s a thought that doesn’t serve us. That’s a comparative thought. Because it’s only tiring if you’re comparing yourself to someone else’s best.
Your best is your best and you are the only one that truly knows what that is. You’re the only one that knows if you’re giving it your all in that HIT class at the gym. You’re the only one that truly knows if you’re giving it your best when you show up at work when you’re doing anything.
The reason I say that is this. Sometimes…Your best is gonna be simply showing up. During my toastmasters speech..I asked everyone to raise their hand if they ever showed up to one of our club meetings even though they didn’t feel like it.. these meetings are at 7 am every Friday and you’re going to be put on the spot, by design. The goal is to be able to speak on the fly when you need to and to speak well when you do. As you can probably guess everyone raised their hand. Maybe they showed up even though they hadn’t slept well or had tons going on or maybe they were giving a speech and didn’t feel as prepared as they wanted. But they still showed up. On any given week, our best might be just showing up to that meeting. And because we showed up we are better for it. Even though we didn’t knock it out of the ballpark with a speech that day, we got to watch someone else that did and maybe that speech inspired us and lifted us. Our best was simply showing up and because we simply showed up we got better.
Think about the times in your life when you didn’t feel like doing something and you did it anyway and you are so glad you did.
Sometimes simply showing up to the gym inspires you to show up again. Maybe your workout wasn’t that great but you showed up, you were around other like minded people, you saw that girl that was working her butt off and because you showed up you were inspired by her.
We often think if we didn’t have a good workout then it doesn’t count, but it’s the consistency of showing up that counts more than anything because it keeps that habit in tact.
Same thing for our nutrition. We think because we ate a bad one meal that means we failed and we’re just going to give it all up. No, you’re human, just get right back on track. That’s showing up for yourself. You keep doing that and you’re going to be fine.
Maybe it’s not physical for you, maybe you need to be showing up for yourself mentally. Showing up for yourself might mean you set boundaries in your relationships and keep them. You tell your teenager if they speak to you that way, they don’t get to use the car, and you mean it. That’s showing up for yourself. You tell your sister or mom if they speak to you like that again you will hang up the phone and you’ll talk when they are calm. That’s a boundary that you get to set. Maybe religion or politics are a cause for problems in your relationships so you decide for yourself that’s not a topic you discuss with them. That’s a boundary. Maybe it’s not them, maybe you don’t like yourself when you talk about that stuff because you identify too strongly with one side or another and so you can’t be open. Showing up for yourself may be setting a boundary to not talk about it until you don’t feel so strongly about it. For me, I notice I have pretty strong feelings about vaccines and it’s such a contentious topic anymore that I’ve decided until I can be open to every opinion without getting upset, It’s not going to be a topic I engage on. That’s showing up for myself. That’s what I’ve decided is best for me. It doesn’t have to make sense to someone else.
We are realizing more and more that this life, this journey we are on even though we are all connected, we have to be responsible for ourselves first. For those of us with big dreams of making the world a better place, That’s starts with us. We make the world a better place when we make ourselves better.
Society would like to tell you that’s a selfish thing. To worry about yourself and to focus on improving yourself first. When Gandhi said to be the change you wish to see in the world. That’s what he meant. When you show up for yourself and you set boundaries for yourself and you work on making yourself better..you’re inspiring others to do the same and that’s the way one person can change the world simply by showing up for yourself.
And when you show up even though you’re not feeling it, you’ll often find you leave feeling it simply because you showed up. It’s happened to me time and time again. At Toastmasters, at the gym, at work events.
Sometimes I’m the one doing my best to simply show up and other times I’m the one knocking it out of the park with my speech, inspiring others to be their best. And if I had to guess that’s you too. That’s life.
You aren’t always going to be the one knocking it out of the park but when you commit to at least showing up, you give yourself the chance to be that person the next time.
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I love you guys and I’ll talk to you in a few days.
