Hey, my friend, what is up and welcome back to another episode of Do Life Big. I hope that you are having a fantastic day today. And we're going to be spending today talking about how we can go about avoiding living a life with regrets because, honestly, that’s the last thing that I want for myself personally. And the last thing I want for you is to get to the end of your life and then look back with regrets. It's, honestly, one of the reasons why I actually created this podcast in the first place.
You know, I don't get paid to do this. I don't make money at all off of this podcast. It's truly just me trying to give as much value as possible, wanting to help you live your best life possible. A life that really and truly fulfills you, a life that excites you, and a life that you go all out on. So that way, when you do get to the end of your life, you don't look back with regrets. And so I hope that these episodes really inspire you to grow into the best version of yourself.
Even though I know sometimes the journey is bumpy. And it's not easy, I still hope that you are inspired to grow into your best version of yourself. And I'm trying to truly help you realize that sometimes we are the ones holding ourselves back from the things that we really want in life. And so, just inspiring you to get out of your own way and go after whatever it is that you truly want in life.
So let's dive into today's episode because I heard something a long time ago about one of the most common things that older people say when they get to the end of their life. One of their top regrets is that they wished that they had lived a life that was true to them. And not based on how everyone else said they should live it or how other people expected them to live it.
So let's talk about you know how this happens. Why this happens to a lot of people is because we have this need for acceptance, right? And we all have this need for acceptance. And this is one of the things that could hold you back from living a life that is true to you. Because instead of doing what you really want or what you know you should do, you make your decisions and live your life based on what others are going to say or think about you instead because of this need for acceptance. Right.
I'll give you an example here. I went to college, I got my degree in Elementary Education. I got a Master's Degree in Special Education. And I went on to teach for ten years before I had kids. But once I had kids, I knew I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. And so I became a stay-at-home mom, and shortly after, within the first two years, realized that, well, this isn't going to work out. I'm gonna actually have to make some money here. And I did not want to go back to teaching. I wanted to be able to be home with my kids.
And so luckily, I was able to find the very first business about nine years ago, an online health and fitness business that I was able to actually do from home from my countertops when the kids were napping or at night when they were sleeping. So I could be with them during the day. And I could do my business at night. And it was great. It was the best of both worlds, right? And as time went on, and I started doing this new business, which was completely not the norm. It was really thinking outside of the box. I had people constantly say things like, “So you just basically wasted your teaching degree.” Or, you know, “You went to school to become a teacher. And you're never going to teach again. Like that's kind of stupid.” But that's not what I really wanted to do. Right.
I didn't want to continue teaching. Teaching was great when I did it, and it served its purpose during the time in my life when I did it, but then I needed to shift when I needed to pivot, and the last thing that I was going to do, was going to be like, “Yeah, this online business thing, even though it was making quadruple the amount of what I was earning as a teacher, and kept me home with my kids. Yeah, I'm just going to just stop that and go back to teaching because that's what everybody says I should do. Like on paper, that's what I should do. I went to college for that degree.” So I need to use my degree, right? No, screw that.
But sometimes, we just get so wrapped up in building ourselves into who we think we should be for other people that, at the end of the day, we end up losing who we truly are as a person. And then that makes us move further away from ourselves of who we're really meant to be. Sometimes we can get so caught up in who do our parents want us to be. Who does society say I should be that we completely lose ourselves and that a lot of times, that's why people go into this midlife crisis is because they wake up one day, and they're like, Who the hell even am I? What the hell am I even doing with my life? I didn't even want this job. I don't even like this job. I didn't even want this degree. I don't even know if this was really the person that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. And we have all these questions. And it's because of this need for acceptance that causes this.
Here's the thing, your need for acceptance will make you invisible to this world. Because you weren't born to blend in and be like everyone else, you were meant to be you. And every single one of us is unique in our own way.
Now, listen, I totally get it. Of course. And this is for all of us. Of course, we all want to be loved. We all want to be liked. We all want to be accepted. And we also want to be around people who love us, who like us who accept us for who we are. But the question to ask yourself, is this? Am I changing myself? For other people? Am I changing myself for other people? That's the question that we need to ask ourselves every day.
Now, I wasn't always like this. Trust me, I have grown a lot over the years, especially over the last ten years of being an entrepreneur myself, which was when I started to truly change. Because I lived a life where I just wanted to be accepted and liked by everyone too. And I was very vanilla, I was very just blend in. Of course, I was always positive, I was always happy. I was always laughing and smiling and fun to be around. But I would always shy away from saying certain things that I want to say in situations or speaking up. Because I didn't want to ruffle any feathers, I didn't want to cause any problems. I didn't want people to like me less or think any less of me by me just kind of speaking up and saying the things that I wanted to say. So I just kind of blend in with everybody else, right?
But at the end of the day, and this is how we should all be, I don't care if you like me. I want you to like me, but I will not change myself in order for you to like me, right? Write that down on a sticky note and read that every day. Right? I don't care if you like me. Of course, I want you to like me, but, um, I will not change myself in order for you to like me. That's how you end up being your true authentic self.
And really being who you're meant to be, you know, we get really good at just staying in things for a long time and not wanting to leave or change the situation because of the amount of time we've invested into it. But that's no way to live life, right? Why continue to let yourself be miserable and just go through the motions and waste life which is so precious and goes so fast, when you can do something right now to change it? And you can have more alignment in your life and more happiness in your life, and more fulfillment in your life. Instead of counting down the days until it's over. Like, I can't wait. It's only a few more years, and then I'm out of this job. So only a few more years, and then I can retire or only have to deal with this for x amount of more time. Right? So you've got to just wake up one day and say, What makes me happy? What do I want to do? Have you ever asked yourself that? Have you ever really sat there alone?
Without that, I mean, it's hard to get a long time if you're a parent like me with three little kids, trust me. Have you ever sat there alone? For just a couple of minutes? And just close your eyes for a second? And ask yourself? What makes me happy? What is it that makes me happy? What do I want?
So the first reason why people have that regret at the end of their life that they didn't truly live a life that was true to themselves was because of this need for acceptance, right? They just want to be accepted. And so they live a life based off of what everybody else expects them to live. And we don't want that. And then the second reason why people have this regret of not living a life true to themselves, is because people don't know who they truly are. And so they don't know what they truly want?
You know, this goes back to the question I just said, What do you want? Do you know what you want? What do you want from life? And if you know what you don't want, then you know exactly what it is that you do want. That's how you can figure that one out really quickly. You know, and I always think back to these different experiences in my life, where I had big shifts that seemed so nerve-wracking and so scary. And I was nervous to make these moves and these decisions because it was me walking away from comfort, and things that I had known for so long, or things that I had been really good at, or things that people even knew me for. And it's hard to make that shift.
But when you're not in alignment anymore, you know, because things just feel off. And I can think back to a couple of different situations in my life where I just knew that this wasn't the path I was supposed to go down anymore. You know, the first one was when we moved from Massachusetts down to Florida. That was a big deal. I mean, every single person in my family, aunts, uncles, cousins, brother, sister, nieces, nephews, all my friends, all my, everybody lived up in Massachusetts, in Rhode Island, forever. I was born in Rhode Island, I grew up in Massachusetts, and I lived there for 35 years of my life. And then all of a sudden, one day, I realized six years ago now, I realized, you know, this just isn't where I want to be, you know, I just don't see myself here anymore. I don't see myself raising my family here; I just don't see myself going down this path, I really want to be someplace where it's sunny and it's warm. And there's an ocean like right around the corner. It's hard to make that those decisions when it's all you know, because again, your brain doesn't want you to change.
Your brain will do whatever it can to keep you in your comfort zone, continuing to do the same thing that you've been doing, even if you're freakin miserable. But I fought against it. And we moved. And it's been absolutely incredible for the past six years, the good that's come out of that.
The next thing was when I had been running, I talked about how when I wanted to be able to stay home with the kids nine years ago was when I started my online health and fitness business. This was my first business that I got into, I knew nothing about business. But I knew that this would be something that could keep me home with the kids. And that's all that I cared about. I didn't care about the money, I needed to make obviously just a little bit of money. But I just wanted to do something that could keep me home with the kids. And this was my solution to my problem. And so I got into it, I fell completely in love with it. I mean, it was a life-changing for us. I mean, we wouldn't be in the situation that we are right now if it weren't for that business.
But then I remembered about two and a half years ago, I started to have this weird feeling, this just uneasy feeling of, you know, I feel like I'm meant to do something else now. And I kept having this idea pop into my head about creating a course and creating a program for entrepreneurs, about mindset and helping entrepreneurs with their mindset. So they could reach their full potential. And it kept popping up, and it kept popping up. And I kept ignoring it. And I kept ignoring it for two and a half years.
Meanwhile, I'm still building my other business. And I'm just going through the motions on autopilot, I had lost the joy with it. I didn't feel fulfilled with it anymore. It didn't excite me like it did in the past. Because I kept ignoring that nudge in that feeling, which was Kathi, it's time to pivot and shift like you're growing to another level now. And you need to listen to it. And the thing is, is that when you ignore these feelings, and these nudges and these little voices that are trying to guide you to move in the right direction, it will like eat you up inside because it's all you can think about because that's really what you're supposed to be doing.
And it wasn't until two and a half years of me pushing that thought down and pushing that thought down, just going through the motions in that first business. We're finally last summer, I drew the line in the sand and said, I'm not doing this. I am not going on autopilot anymore. I'm not just going to keep going through the motions. Because I've been doing this business for nine years. And everybody knows me now as the health and wellness person for help. And now, all of a sudden, I'm going to shift. I'm not doing this anymore. I've got to just go for this feeling that I have I cannot ignore it anymore. And that was nerve-racking. Because I was making really good money doing that. And I knew it so well. And everybody has known me as this health and wellness person for the last nine years, and now is going to be shifting to something completely different an online program, creating a podcast. But I had to do it. I had to do it.
So what is it that you want from your life, and I truly believe that we should live a life with courage, love, and laughter. Those are the three things right there, you've got to have the courage to go after the things that you really want in life, you need to be surrounded by people who love you, you need to have love in your life, and you need to love and you need to do a lot of laughing, okay? Because that is a big secret of living such a happy life, right?
So, stop and think for a second here. You know, what makes your soul smile? You know what it is. And as soon as you know what it is, follow that thing. Follow that feeling. And listen, if you aren't really sure, what really makes your soul smile on what it is that you want, then spend some time just searching for it. And you'll find it. Trust me, you definitely will.
You know, like, you might not know what your true purpose is. You know, some people like get so wrapped up. I remember hearing this a long time ago, on another podcast episode years ago, and they were talking about how people get so wrapped up in like, what's my life's purpose, like, what's the purpose of life and some people think it needs to be this like big huge ordeal is big thing is big to do thing. But that's not true.
Like sometimes, your life purpose is to help other people navigate through that very, very hard time that you already navigated through so that they don't struggle through it as much as you did when you went through it. Sometimes it can be just as simple as that, that really hard time that you went through helping others get through that time now because you've already been there, and you've come out on the other side. So you know, you know exactly what they're going through, you know, all their feelings, all their emotions, because you've been there, done that, but you've got to figure it out. Because we all have a purpose.
And when you find your purpose in life if you don't follow your purpose. Like I said earlier, it's going to eventually destroy you. Because you won't be able to stop thinking about it, you will not be able to stop thinking about it, it will be on your mind, it will continue to creep up just like it did for me for two and a half years, right until I finally drew the line in the sand last year and made that shift in that pivot.
Have the courage, live a life with the courage, love, and laughter to go after the things that you truly want in life that make you happy and that fulfill you. And it doesn't matter your age. It doesn't matter your age when you want to make these changes, right? Even if you're like 45 years old or 50 years old, you still got a lot of life left, it's not too late for you to shift and pivot and to go after what it is that truly sets your soul on fire and makes you happy.
We don't want to have that regret at the end of our life. The one most common regret that most people have, which is I wish that I had just lived a life true to me, and not one based off of others expected of me. And the only reason why that happens is because of our need for acceptance. And because we're not really sure who we truly are, what we truly want. And so these are things that we need to work on. And we need to ask ourselves these things all the time. It's definitely a journey, for sure it is a journey, but figure out who you truly are, what you truly want. And then spend your time and your energy on that and it will make all the difference in the world.
So I hope that you got a lot out of this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I think you're awesome. You know I love you. And I will see you the next time on the next episode of Do Life Big. Keep crushing life, and I believe in you. Alright, bye.
