252: Creating a Vision of Who You Want to Be in 2021

You’re listening to the Vibrant Happy Women podcast, episode number 252. We’re talking about creating a vision for who you want to be in 2021. Stay tuned.

Hi, I'm Jen Riday. This podcast is for women who want to feel more vibrant, happy, aligned, and alive. You'll gain the emotional, physical, and spiritual tools you need to get your sparkle back and ensure that depression, anxiety, and struggle don't rule your life. Welcome to the Vibrant Happy Women Podcast.

Hey there my friends. Welcome to 2021. Ooh, doesn’t that feel amazing to say that? Oh girls, you’re going to rock this year. So I have something practical for you to do today. And I encourage you to grab a notebook, if you’re driving or doing dishes you can listen, maybe do it later. Maybe you’re amazing and you can think all the thoughts and you’ll have it all figured out. But I want to be practical with you for a moment. And I want to create a vision of our 2021 together. Okay, it’s not hard. It’s not hard. I promise you’re going to like this.

So first of all is the what. What do you want in 2021? Maybe you want to vacation, sign up for the Vibrant Happy Women retreat and plan to see me. Yes please, I would love to see you. Maybe you want to go see family you haven’t seen in a while. An easy way to do this is to look at the Wheel of Happiness. And if you don’t have that already you can get it at jenriday.com/wheel.

And the Wheel of Happiness has 12 areas. Those areas are: time, self-love, emotions and mood, your environment, your home and your stuff, health, parenting, marriage or significant other, friendship and fun, finances, spirituality, career and purpose, and ultimately your growth and vision. Incidentally those are the 12 areas we will be talking about in the Vibrant Happy Women Club for the entire year. So if you want to go deep and really up-level yourself and your life, join us in the club for sure.

Now, those areas, back to our exercise, what do you want in 2021? What do you want in terms of time? What do you want in terms of self-love? What do you want in terms of your emotions? What do you want in terms of your stuff? Are you going to de-clutter your whole house or did you already do that in 2020? What do you want for health? What do you want in terms of parenting and family? What do you want for your marriage? What do you want for your friendships? What do you want for your finances? Cue that song, I want to be rich.

What do you want for your spirituality, your career, your growth? Now, if you want to go deep on this, grab that Wheel of Happiness, it’s at jenriday.com/wheel and think about it, rank yourself. And figure out what you want.

Okay, next step, it’s really quite simple but it’s so profound. Who do you need to be to achieve all of those what’s that you wrote down? Who do you need to be to achieve what you want for each of those areas, who? If you want to be a master of time management, are you going to show up as the person you were in 2020? If you want to be a health rock star, who do you need to be identity wise?

Now, I’m going to pause here and teach you something. Many of us try to approach goals and goal setting with the mindset of we have to will ourselves to do it. We have to do it through willpower. We simply have to have grit, and stick with it. But I hate to tell you this is old thinking and it doesn’t work. Here’s what does work, changing your identity, changing your thoughts about yourself, who you are in terms of time, health, family, marriage. That’s an interesting thing to journal about. Who are you? Who have you been prior to right now in terms of marriage?

Wow, you have a lot of thoughts, thousands upon thousands of thoughts that have gone on through your head over the years about your marriage, about your kids, about yourself as a mom, about your health, about your body, about your environment, your home, your clutter. You’ve had thousands upon thousands of thoughts about your time management abilities, about your career, about your purpose, about your money, about your friendships.

All of these thoughts have been built, thought, upon thought, upon thought from the moment you began to think as a child, from the things you heard from your parents, from the thoughts you heard from your friends, the friend circles you’ve had. All of these people and experiences have combined to create the person you are right now and your identity, who you think you are in each of these areas, absolutely determines your outcomes.

I know this is true. How do I know this? I used to believe I was a horrible mom, believed it, and believed it, and believed it every day. And funny enough there was always evidence. I just hadn’t figured out the chicken and the egg thing. I thought I was a horrible mom because the evidence showed me I was. I really wasn’t, in retrospect, but stay with me. I thought I was horrible. I definitely acted horrible, nothing changed through willpower.

Health, same thing, I’m still working on health. I have a lot more thoughts to unravel there, but it’s getting better every day. But I used to think I was doomed to be heavy because I was one of the Markman women. That’s my mom’s maiden name. I hope it just didn’t help someone steal her identity.

But the Markman women are heavier, they have bellies. I think they have inflammation problems. I said, “Genetically all those years and thoughts about how Markman women are sugar addicts, and Markman women are heavier, and Markman women have bellies, and Markman women have depression.” We all have thoughts for all of these areas on the Wheel of Happiness, thoughts about our time management ability, thoughts about loving ourselves, thoughts about our ability to be happy, whether we’re depressed or anxious.

All of these pieces have come together to form an identity. We have programmed our brains much the same way you program a computer to tell ourselves that this is how we show up. Our brain is like a computer. It will absolutely spit back out to you what you’ve programmed into it. This is not just mumbo jumbo. There is so much research showing this is true.

So if you want different results in terms of time management, showing up for your morning ritual, loving yourself, being healthy, having a good marriage, loving your spouse, having friends, having money in the bank, having a career you love. You can’t just will it to happen. Willpower fails, there’s only so much of it. You must start at the identity level, and that comes back to our question, who do you need to be to have what you want in each of these areas?

Alright, let’s take it another level. We know the who, she’s different than how the who you were in 2020. You need a new who in 2021. Now, let’s take it deeper. What would you be feeling and thinking if you already were that person that you needed to be? If you already were the new who, the new you, you want to be, the who that would achieve the what, how would she think and how would she feel? I know, juicy.

Now, let’s think of it in each area. If you were already a master of time management, you were the who, how does she think and how does she feel about time? Same thing, self-love, how would she think and feel about herself? What would she think and feel about her emotions and her mood? What would she think and feel about her home, and her environment, and stuff? What would that who you’d like to be think about her health and her body, her kids and her parenting, her marriage, her relationships, her friendships?

What would she think and feel about finances, spirituality, career and purpose, and goal setting? I’ve taken you all the way around that Wheel of Happiness again and I hope you’re starting to see this picture. If you want a new result in 2021 you must commit and have a firm intention, a dedication to changing your identity for each of these areas, new thoughts, new feelings will give you those new results.

How do we do that? There’s so many awesome tools, Thought Tables, the Feel it to Heal It method, EFT tapping, just to name a few. All these tools we use weekly, if not daily, in the Vibrant Happy Women Club. Ultimately the Vibrant Happy Women Club is the place where we reprogram our thoughts, and our feelings, and our identities so we can get those new results.

How does it work? Well, it’s working. I have seen so many women up-level their time management skills, and their morning rituals in a way that they absolutely stick with it, in a way they never could before, self-love, same thing, totally up-leveled. The ability to identify as happy rather than depressed or anxious, changing thoughts about emotions and mood, health, parenting, showing up with conscious parenting, loving a spouse that seemed unlovable, raising my hand. I changed my thoughts, and feelings, and identity and my marriage changed right along with it.

The point of this exercise is this, you are not stuck. You can change everything simply by changing your thoughts. The old way might have been hoping your spouse would change, hoping your kids would change, bemoaning the fact that it’s just harder for you because of genetics, or how you were raised. That’s not true. All of that was simply an identity you formed through repeated thoughts.

You can reprogram all of that if you’re willing to do the work and use the tools available that help your brain know that hey, we’re ready for a new result. Here is the new identity. Here is the new me for 2021. Here is the way I’m going to think and feel. So I guarantee new results in all of these areas, time, self-love, emotions, environment, stuff, health, family, marriage, friendship, finances, spirituality, career, purpose and ultimately, goal setting and vision. All of these areas you can be the new you. Are you willing to do the work?

If you want to dive in with support and with the right tools to get you to the finish line, join us today in the Vibrant Happy Women Club. Doors will not be open forever. Women are coming in, in droves, joining their Soul Circles, getting their weekly content. I’m giving you a video every week, a short 10 minute video with a new tool every week of 2021. This will help you up-level your thoughts, and your feelings, and your identity in all these areas I just talked about.

And as you do this with other women who are also up-leveling, it’s easier, you see what’s possible. You see women who have overhauled the way they parent and really believe they’re excellent moms now. You see women who have changed their marriage, who have lost weight, who have overhauled their finances, who love themselves, who rock at their morning ritual and managing their calendar, feeling and showing up in a whole new way. That is my wish for you for 2021.

If you want to be a part of this movement, the Vibrant Happy Women movement to up-level your life and your identity in 2021, join us today at jenriday.com/join. That’s jenriday.com/join. You deserve to have a whole new you and a whole new life in 2021. All you need are the tools that will help you get there.

Thank you so much for listening, my friends, Happy New Year. I will see you again next time. Until then make it a vibrant, and happy week, and 2021. Take care.

If you enjoy this podcast, you have to check out the Vibrant Happy Women Club. It’s my monthly group coaching program where we take all this material to the next level and to get you the results that will blow your mind. Join me in the Vibrant Happy Women Club at jenriday.com/join.