Hey, my friend what is up and welcome back to another episode of Do Life Big. I am so excited to have you here today. Today, we're going to dive in and we're gonna talk about how we can get just a little bit better every day because your life is a journey. And you're listening to this right now because you decided that you were going to be the type of person who works on improving themselves every day.
So today, we're going to talk about the journey in that because honestly, self-improvement isn't something that you should do just sometimes, right? It's something that you should work on every day. And it's an ongoing journey, there's really no end to it. And what's even more important in this journey of self-development is that you don't just sit here and soak it all in and be a sponge, right? The most important thing that you can do is to take some form of action after listening. So in every opportunity, there is a chance for you to learn something. And anytime that you have the opportunity to learn something, you should always take some form of action, something that you learned, and then go do something with it. Because that is really the key in growth and improving.
So working on your self-improvement, or this personal development is really just a lifestyle, right? So if you want to think about getting healthy and fit, for example, going on a diet doesn't work. And it doesn't work, because diets aren't meant to last. And then as soon as you go back to your old ways, you gain the weight back and you feel like total crap, right? But if you make eating healthy or being healthy, as often as you can a lifestyle and a lifestyle change, then it's something that you're always working on, there's no end. And so I do this, even with personal development or self-improvement as well. It's an ongoing journey. It's a lifestyle, it's part of my identity, you know, this whole idea of how can I become just a little bit better every day. And here's the thing, you aren't going to see a huge difference right away, you won't. This takes time. I mean, it takes a long time.
For example, I lived my entire life as a total people pleaser, literally walking on eggshells all the time, never really speaking up for myself saying the things that I wanted to say suggesting the ideas that I wanted to suggest because I was lacking that confidence. And I never also wanted to ruffle any feathers. And I wanted everybody to like me all the time. And so I just was kind of very Vanilla. And I was this way up until the age of 30. Now, you know, I'm almost going to be 42 years old. And I've had 12 years of continuing to work on myself a little bit every single day. And it makes a huge difference it compounds over time.
So how can I be just 1% better every day? That's the question that you should be asking yourself. And if we take a look at our life, I am, you are, we all are living a life based off of decisions that we have made in the past. You know whether you have a happy life right now, or you have a life where you're not too thrilled about, you know, at the end of the day, I am where I am, because of me, which means that if I want to be somewhere else down the road, that it is also going to come down to me, it's going to come down to my thoughts and my beliefs that I choose to have. And the decisions that I am choosing to make the responsibility always goes back to me. It always goes back to you. No one else or nothing else.
Your life that you have right now are the results of the thoughts and the decisions and the actions of your past and it's taken either six months longer for you to see those results. Now, these are the results of the thoughts that you had six months or longer ago because the results that you get are delayed. And so that's why choosing to change can be so frustrating because they don't come right away. And we want the results. And we want them like yesterday, right? So if you've want to think about going to the gym and leaving with a six pack doesn't happen. Same thing with your life, nothing happens immediately. And this goes for every single area of your life, relationships, money, health, etc. Right?
Your habits always come down. Your habits come from the stories that you're telling yourself, about yourself. And we are constantly telling yourself these stories all day long with every little thing that happens. And so if you want to change your life, you need to take a step back and ask yourself, what is the story that I'm telling myself? What's the narrative going on in my head around this. And one of the biggest lessons that I learned, since working on myself over the last 12 years, was to embrace the failures. And for so long, I would try to just avoid failing. And if I did fail, or something didn't work out the right way, in my business, or on my health and fitness journey, or whatever it was, I would make those little roadblocks and those failures mean that I was the failure. And that's where I went wrong.
I didn't understand that those failures. And those roadblocks were the lessons and the obstacles that I had to go through so that I can learn and grow from them and move on to the next level. You're never going to become the person who you want to become or run the business that you want to run or have the relationship that you want to have or the amount of income that you want to have, or whatever it is without going through failures. And so the most important thing that I can tell you from that one little story is that when you have roadblocks and failures happen in your life, where things just don't go the way that you had hoped they would. Don't make it mean, anything negative about yourself, try to keep that circumstance and whatever just happened completely neutral and always look at it as what can I learn from this lesson? You know, going around, saying things are thinking things like, you know, I'm lazy, I procrastinate, you know, being overweight just runs in my family. None of these things are going to help you live the life that you want, or become the kind of person or type of person who you want to become. It all comes down to what are you telling yourself about yourself, because your actions are going to come from your identity, right? Your actions and your habits stem from what you believe about yourself. If you think that you're overweight, because every person in your family is overweight, and it just runs in the family, then why would you ever bother trying to work out and make healthier choices, you wouldn't write, you wouldn't bother.
The first thing you need to do to change your life is to change the story that you're telling yourself about yourself. It's exactly how you can have a couple children be raised the exact same way. But one turns out one way and the other turns out another way. One child chose to tell themselves a different story about their childhood. But they have the same life story, same life, different story that they're telling themselves about their upbringing, right? True behavior change is actually a change in your identity. This is who I am will dictate what you do. So if you don't like your bank account, what are you telling yourself about your bank account? And the amount of income that you have in there don't have in there? If you don't like your body? What are you telling yourself about your body? If you don't like your business, and it's not where you want it to be? What are you telling yourself about your business? You know, if you don't like your relationship with your spouse, what are you telling yourself about your spouse and that relationship? Or if you don't like the way that you're being as a parent? What's the story behind all of that?
If you want to change one of these areas, or you don't like the way that something is, the first thing to do is ask yourself, well, what am I telling myself about this thing, every action that you take is a vote for the person who you want to become. We need to start to look at it this way. So waking up early in the morning, if you decide to be the type of person who is going to wake up early in the morning, then you are casting the vote to be the person who's going to wake up early and put themselves first, you're going to pour into yourself first before you pour into everyone else. But if you decide to hit the snooze button over and over again and not get up, then that's a vote for the person who chooses to sleep in.
And so if you can stop and ask yourself, Okay, well if every action I take is a vote for the person who I want to become, where are the majority of my votes going? Now, this is never going to be 100%. We know this, right? But you want to make sure that the majority of your actions are going toward the person who you want to become. Because you will never be perfect, it just doesn't exist. And you're going to screw up a lot, it's just going to happen. It's kind of like, if someone decides to start eating healthy, right? And I've been there done this, maybe you have to, alright, I'm going to start eating healthy. And for 17 days, day in and day out, you're eating healthy, and you're like, Yes, I'm on a roll, I have gone 17 days of eating healthy, this is amazing. And then one day, you slip, and you have like a small moment of weakness. What most people do is now they beat themselves up over this, they feel this guilt, right? They say, Oh my god, I'm so stupid. Like, why bother doing this, I knew I was gonna fail, why bother, keep going, I'm such an idiot, I was dumb to even decide to do this, right. And they focus on that one, little, little itty bitty slip up, instead of focusing on the 17 days of good choices of healthy eating, right. So 17 times 17 days, you cast the vote to the person who wants to be healthier, or strong enough, and have enough energy to pick up your kids or chase them around or whatever. And you cast it only one vote to the person who loves pizza, or doughnuts or ice cream, right? You had way more votes casted toward the person you want it to become. And so that's where you need to focus. And here's the thing, you don't notice these tiny little habits right away, the little changes that you're making these little decisions that you're choosing to make every day to go toward that person who you want to become. But they compound over time. And when you fast forward time is either your best friend or your worst enemy.
Based off of those stories you thought about yourself, and the decisions that you made. So right now, you need to decide who am I? Not who have you been in the past? But who do you decide to be from this moment forward? Are you the type of person who's going to sleep in? Or are you going to the type of person who gets up early to pour into themselves first? Decide, just make the decision? Are you the type of person who puts their health and fitness as a priority? Or are you the type of person who decides it's not really a priority for them? Just aside, you've got to make the decision stop wasting time and lollygagging around and saying things like well, I mean, hopefully, I do better the next time make the decision. Who am I going to be? And when you're looking at other people, and you're looking at other people's journeys, you know, on Instagram, for example, right? You're looking at someone who's in like this impeccable shape, right? I know, you know what I'm talking about? Listen, you are seeing the end result, you aren't seeing all the hard work they put in every day to get them there, right, or you're looking at other people thinking, oh, man, like they're so lucky, they get to fly first class or they get to go get this or they're getting that or they got this boat, and then then they got this fancy car and they're going on these vacations all over the place? Well, are you willing to put in the work to get there and to get those things, because you're just seeing the end results of all the years of action they have put into place to bring them where they are now. You're seeing that end result, you aren't seeing all the hard work that they put in, day in and day out to get there. Are you willing to put in the work to build the business that you want, or have the relationship that you want or the body that you want, if you're willing to put in the work, then it will happen for you.
But remember, the journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step. And when we start something new, we are so excited, right? It's like a new energy takes over. And we're just like so pumped up and so fired up and our cup feels full. And we feel like we're on the right path. And we want the results. And we want it now we want it to happen immediately. And then we get to step 14. And we're like, hello, why haven't I built a million-dollar business yet? Why don't I have the body of my dreams yet? Patience. It's because you're only on step 14 out of 1000. That's why it takes time. Great things take a long time. All of this takes time and patience. But every single day is a single step. So don't compare yourself to other people because you're comparing your chapter 14 to their chapter 100. So who do you want to be in 10 years? What do you want your life to look like? Who do you want to be in this world? Is this just going to be some little hobby? Or is this going to be an actual lifestyle? Slightly better every day than the day before. That's all are you going to dedicate your life to being better. Or is it just something you're going to do just for a little while.
When you decide to change, and when you change is the moment that you're going to be faced with the most resistance. So just start small, pick three small habits that you can focus on that you need to change. And you won't be a completely different person tomorrow, we know that nothing happens overnight, but you will be just a little bit better, you will be slightly better than than you were yesterday. And that's what you should focus on. Fast forward years from now. And you will be a completely different person living a completely different life. And you will be so excited about it. And so excited that you took the right actions to get you there.
So thanks so much for tuning in today. I hope that you enjoyed today's episode. If you missed it, and you were listening to this in real time, don't forget, head over to Kathireuter.com/goals. Get yourself ready to get going in my goal setting masterclass. It's going to be a live five day group, I'm going to be running it also on Facebook so you can be part of a community and we are going to get you set up for 2024 We are going to get exciting goals. We're going to get them aligned with your life. We're gonna get you pumped and fired up and you are not going to want to miss it. I'm going to be kicking it off on December 4, and you'll have access to it forever. So get on in there read Kathi reuter.com/goals Thanks so much for being here. You know, I love you and I think you're awesome. And I will see you the next time. Bye.
